Not only Bristol

Apparently it's not only Bristol which is full of urban art. My own city has been praised for its graffiti and now the city hall of Lisbon just launched a book with the best of its urban art. Next time I go there, I certainly must take a tour...

A new social Scotland?

I love to debate politics and in Scotland I particularly love to debate the coming referendum. As such I do it quite often with anyone who is willing to do it (surprisingly, many people aren't). Now, as I wrote before, most people here do not give the nationalist arguments one in more hot-blooded countries might expect.

I came to realize that the most common argument is that of a “social Scotland”. So, people look at what they grew up knowing was the reality in the Nordic countries and they want the same for Scotland. The reality as they perceive it is a good welfare system, with great free education, good free public health system, etc.. This is actually a great objective in my humble opinion. The question is how to do that?

Nordic countries adopted a welfare state in a time in which the economy in the Western world was growing rapidly. That was also a time when the population was growing so it was expected that the then babies would contribute in the future for the maintenance of the welfare state and would have more babies doing the same… World without end, amen! 

Problem is... That's not reality in Scotland nowadays. Nor is it in those countries anymore. It's an economic joy if the economic growth gets to 2% in one year. And as for babies: where are they?

Now, the money to finance this new social state will need to come from somewhere and it's not merely the savings of not having a nuclear armed country that will do it. Petrol is not the solution, like in Norway, because not only it was never as abundant here as there, it's becoming even more scarce now. There might be a huge raise of taxes but that would bankrupt the economy... 

Basically the Scottish social state is the new Panama. It's generally a good idea (as at the time it was generally a good idea for every European nation to have its own colonies). The Scottish want it as much as they wanted Panama. And now, like then, they prefer to ignore the obvious consequences of their actions and that will bankrupt their economy. That could be OK but... What they have to think is that the rest of the UK is not living a golden era of colonial expansion and world trade as it was three centuries ago. Like most countries in Europe, the rest of the UK is also just making ends meet. As such if by pursuing this new Panama the Scots bankrupt their country, the rest of the UK will not welcome them back open-armed as the prodigal son of the Union.

British v Mediterraneans

This weekend I went to Argyll, in the West of Scotland with a very nice group of British people. Yes, I was the only foreigner in more than twenty in the group. A quite unique experience for me, who am always in groups with a majority of foreigners and one or two natives of theses islands.
Now, one thing about the West of Scotland, to which anyone who has been there can testify, is that, unlike in the East Coast, it rains almost continuously. Exactly what people everywhere else in the world would classify as "very British weather". Besides, there are these wee flies, the midges, that bite you all over. Very annoying!
Now, for a Mediterranean this would have been enough reason to stay home all day long complaining about the weather of these islands and longing for the dryer Summer from back home. This would even constitute a perfect reason (like many other million of perfect reasons) to call the mother, the brother, the cousin and the parish priest back home to complain about it. Not for a British, though. The amazing thing about the natives here is that they couldn't care less for what the weather is like (except to talk about it in detail). If they set their minds on doing something, they do it. And these group of British I was with had planned to use the game lawn in the very nice estate we were at to play games such as a sort of baseball for beginners (forgot the name) and football. They had also set their minds in going to the closest river to swim. And that was exactly what we all did.
I don't know if they felt any discomfort in playing games in the rain. I didn't hear them complaining about being chewed alive by midges. At last, to swim in a river in Argyll seemed to be as pleasurable as to do the same in the Caribbean Islands. It's easy to imagine these people during WWII, with their houses destroyed by the Luftwaffe, brewing a nice cup of tea at 5pm to relax a bit.

More of Bristol

And to finish this series of posts about Bristol, I present to you:

View of the canal.

A nice old pub.

The Cathedral.

High Street.

The famous Clifton suspended bridge. On the other side there are some very nice forests, perfect for a bit of walking in the middle of nature. But beware if you need to catch a plane. If you go to the left and then cross the bridge to the right, then there is no short way to return and you'll need to do the same way back. I had to hurry back fearing I could loose my flight back to Edinburgh.

Recommended article

I know I'm nor Scottish nor British, but I do like this country very much and care about its future. For this reason, I recommend this article in The Economist (press the link) on Scottish independence.

Bristol on a Sunny day

On a Sunny day in Bristol you can either choose to watch a match in Wimbledon in the square...

Or just lay in the park under the blessing of the Cathedral.

Bristol and its graffiti

More on Bristol and its graffiti. All of these were not Bansky's work. I think... So there's more to Bristol's graffiti than Bansky.

This one with the elephant I found particularly funny: the elephant afraid of the mouse. It can have a certain anarchist idea behind it if you think of us, individuals, as the mouse and the state as the elephant. And given that graffiti painters mostly do their work against the law, this would not be an absurd idea. But I prefer to think of it as how we face our anxieties and fears: they may be due to a tinny think, but we give them so much importance...

I liked this one because it reminded me of my bedroom. A home element away from home...

This one kind of reminds me the great wave of Kanagawa...

Bristol: Bansky's city

This weekend I went south of the border, quite south actually, to Bristol. I had been told how beautiful the city is from the moment I was accepted at a conference there. For that reason, I decided to stay two more days after the weekend and I certainly did not regretted it: people who praised Bristol were quite fair to its charm.

And now it's time to reveal my ignorance: I had no idea who Bansky was before I went to his hometown. Besides, I always disliked graffiti and considered it an imposition on the public space. I know that Bansky is not a graffiti painter, stencil, I learned, but it still fits the concept for this purpose. I have to admit I changed my ideas on the matter. I'll show some examples of why with some photos I took.

This one, for example, is funny. One could even say kind of cute because of the teddy bear if it wasn't for the fact that the said bear is about to throw a Molotov cocktail at policemen. Still, I found it funny precisely because of this dichotomy: teddy bear and Molotov...

This other one is even funnier, especially when you know that it was painted in the wall of a sex health clinic. Unfortunately not everyone thought the same and the thing was vandalized. 

This other one shows another dichotomy: the girl who looks straight at you looks irreverent as if she is a hurry to grow up. However, the hearts and the fact that she is on a swing shows a certain childishness.

This last one was painted to celebrate HM's Diamond Jubilee. The fact that the (young) Queen has a Ziggy Stardust on her face shows to me that during her reign the UK changed a lot but the Monarchy stays almost the same, as bridge between past, present and future. And I like this idea...

Like the one of the lover outside the window, this one has also been vandalized. Now, as I wrote above, I changed my mind on mural paintings. Besides Bansky, Bristol is full of graffiti by other artists and many of them quite good. However, I do draw a line in this tagging thing. Signatures (tags) on walls are not art. They are closer to dogs pissing on many places do mark territory or just tell other dogs "I was here".