We are not serious

Thanks to clicking, out of idle curiosity, on a chance link to a vaguely familiar name that came up in a computer search this week I had a vision of what might have been.
As I've mentioned once or twice, in a former life – over 30 years ago – I was involved in the world's unlikeliest clown troupe. In Belfast, at the height of “the troubles”. But in 1983, due to several devastating incidents which happened within weeks of each other, I just had to escape. It was meant to be temporary, but on the very morning I was supposed to take a plane back there to discuss a new project I had a severe panic attack of a kind I have never experienced before or since, and could not board the plane.
I later recovered the confidence to fly to visit a friend in the UK, during the year of the Miners Strike and Battle of the Beanfield, and saw a country I no longer recognised and no longer wanted to be a citizen of. To cut the story short, it was 1988 before I ventured off-island again, and then only to travel to Israel at the start of the Intifada, a two month adventure which (for reasons totally unconnected to the political situation in Israel) finally gave me the impetus to break back into a satisfying profession and life.
From the odd thing I saw on TV, I knew the Belfast projects were doing marvellous things, but never managed to get back into contact with old colleagues, even when in Belfast for a weekend of atheist subversion in 2005 and my hosts tried to help. So all these years I have wondered what happened, especially to my co-founder of the world's unlikeliest clown troupe.
Then, this week, that chance click on a vaguely familiar name revealed an astonishing story. My co-founder (then a startlingly individualistic 18 year old who, like me, left school unqualified at 16 having been told by teachers she would never amount to anything) carried on clowning, and other remarkable things. This should have been no surprise because, as I may have also mentioned, the whole point behind the clown troupe was that if you are in a hell-hole where conventional wisdom says you cannot do anything, you may as well go all out doing what you love, because even if you fail you will have had far more fun than conforming.
Then, in the late 1990's, she decided to take a B.A. in Archaeology, graduated with a first, went on to gain her Ph.D. in 2005 and to contribute to academic journals on a topic on which she is now almost Ireland's only authority. Remember again – written off as a no-hoper at school, living in a city where most of her generation were condemned to unemployment anyway according to the conventional wisdom. She's now, as far as I can gather, living happily in Galway, surrounded by other interesting and unique people and in every way defying the false logic of those who run these septic isles and think we should shut up and accept our place in their scheme of things.
It's odd enough running away to join a circus. Being one of only two people so individual they ran away from a circus is even rarer. Knowing the other one then, and knowing now that she went on to defy the odds (the norms?) for over 30 years, is an absolutely unique pleasure.

Licence to mug?

Following in the same spirit as the last post, Paul Stott, a Hackney libertarian I briefly corresponded with a few years back, suggests that where laws are being routinely broken then this is evidence of bad law, not bad behaviour.
He made this observation recently on his excellent blog (see http://paulstott.typepad.com/i_intend_to_escape_and_co/2014/02/scrap-the-licence-fee.html) and by example notes that: “If you fail to pay your subscription to Virgin or Sky, Richard Branson or Rupert Murdoch will cut you off. Fail to pay your subscription to the BBC, and you can be fined up to £1,000, and ultimately go to prison.”
And it gets worse, because 107 people have been jailed for non-payment in the last two years. In fact, this nonsense takes up an astonishing ONE IN TEN UK court cases, and is responsible for 12% of all court prosecutions.
As a recently closed petition to the Department for Culture, Media & Sport argues, the TV Licence Fee hits poorer people disproportionately, and makes all of us pay for 'free' services already funded by advertising. The petition (see http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/54120 ) suggests replacing TV licences with a voluntary subscription. The commercial element of the BBC could then be scrambled for non-subscribers, leaving public service content free to air.
As of yet, this has not spread to the island, but mostly because threats by the local agents were enough to make us pay up, and certainly not because any of our spineless politicos have pointed out that the whole mugging exercise is a disgrace or even that the money could be better spent locally instead of being meekly handed over to the Brits. A few half-hearted mutterings have been heard to the effect that Manx residents pay for UK services which anyone in the Irish Republic can also receive for free, also that when less and less people watch TV directly via traditional means the whole thing is a bit of a joke.
From my time in Northern Ireland, I remember that during the 'troubles' absolutely nobody in nationalist areas paid what they regarded as a tax imposed by an occupying government. I also remember that while the armoured cars were everywhere available for the job, not one TV was seized and not one person went to court. In the face of refusal to pay by some 40-50% of the population, a quasi-governmental broadcasting organisation simply stopped making an unreasonable demand.
So, will we sign up for an all-island boycott of the 'TV tax'? Will we lobby our political unrepresentatives to tell Westminster the deal is off? Or will we continue to put up with bad law from another country?
Hmm, thought so.