Enjoying a national failure

Spreading the word- today's headline from the newspaper seller at a London station

It's one of those strange and sometimes frustrating aspects of the British character that news is spread no faster and more enthusiastically than when reporting a national failure.

Today was a perfect example. Terminal 5, the new terminal at London's Heathrow airport opened for business and the baggage handling system broke down. Heathrow is one of Britain's least loved institutions due to its delays and cramped and uncomfortable conditions. When the Queen opened the new terminal recently it appeared a new dawn for British airports had arrived.

When the failure occurred today there did seem to be an element of glee as media outlets competed to collect horror stories from irrate passengers. ( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=547050&in_page_id=1770&ct=5) There was almost pleasure in the fact that London does not appear able to build and operate an airport up to the same standards as the rest of the advanced world.

Hidden at the bottom of a BBC report was the paragraph:

"Aviation analyst Jamie Bowden told the BBC teething problems were to be expected on the opening of a terminal, with new airports in Japan and Hong Kong also suffering difficulties in their first days. "


However to focus too much on such comparisons would dampen the enjoyment of a national failure.

So for now the media give wall to wall coverage to a bad day at the airport.

We seem to love nothing better than a good failure as if to put everyone in their place who wanted anything too grand and sophisticated in Britain. This of course can be frustating and must be very much so for those who worked on the new terminal.

This love of failures somewhat contradicts another aspect of Britain that everything sort of works in the end. This week Britain was highlighted as the 7th most prosperoous and stable nation in the world http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3613926.ece. In essence we have a lot to be proud of.

However we do not believe public buildings like airports should be too stylish but rather functional and economical. Although not stylish on a global spectrum the new Terminal 5 is very stylish by the standards of all other British airports. Maybe this is why the failure is secretly greeted with enthusiasm. A great chunk of the British public hope they will be more sensible next time and stick to functional cheap portacabin like buildings like the rest of the airports.

Terminal 5 should definitely start working soon but not before we've been treated to a few more tales of failure. Of course, the media is now suitably sensitised to terminal 5 failure now so the next time something happens it will be reported even quicker.

I suspect in many other countries they would have attempted a cover up. However in Britain the opposite is true- we seem only eager to shout this failure from the roof tops !!

Love or loathe this tendency, it has been around in Britain a long time and I suspect is here to stay.

Timid Britain to be the first home of Two species humans ?

Two different stories have caught my eye in the past week and I wonder if there could be a connection.

First a survey out shows Britons are the least likely "Europeans" (the question of whether Britons are really Europeans can wait for another day :-)) to "correct" or intervene against vandalising youths.

The Institute for Public Policy Research found that of Europeans, Britons would be the least likely to step in if they saw a group of 14-year-old boys vandalising a bus shelter. Only 34 per cent said they would intervene, compared with 65 per cent of Germans ("Vot do you think you are doing ?"), 52 per cent of Spanish and 50 per cent of Italians. Those who said that they would turn a blind eye feared being attacked or verbally abused.

See also http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-2417126,00.html

This is a shocking statistic but one borne out by anecdotal evidence from friends and colleagues. The general attitude is that it is foolish to intervene against youths for fear of being attacked, stabbed or generally abused. This is the pervasive view in London but not one that would have been shared in rural areas at least when I was growing up in the country 20 years ago.

I feel,media horror stories of "have-a-go" Dads ending up stabbed to death over-state the real risk. In my own case as a home-owner I have had to ask for music to be turned down, fires to be put out or given a stern stare out of the window to prevent noise. I do not consider myself intimidating but have never had any problems from adopting a polite but firm approach.

However the trend of people to be too afraid to intervene is likely to continue in the current climate.

The second story is apparently unrelated but raises a grim prospect at some point in the future.

This is that current human development will eventually lead to 2 distinct "species" of human in around 10,000 years. Racial differences are likely to have been largely eliminated by then but selective breeding is likely to have resulted in one species of tall, intelligent and timid humans and a second species of short, stocky, stupid but wild humans.

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6057734.stm

The two groups are likely to be in conflict. This story has strong echoes of HG Wells' 1895 novel, the Time Machine when two sub-species Eloi and Morlocks inhabit the earth.

The Eloi are intelligent but timid while the ignorant Morlocks use their strenght to intimidate the Eloi. In suburbs of London it sometimes feels this situation has already arrived.

The fear of "middle England" to tick off its errant youngsters is a warning sign that the time of Eloi and Morlock is coming sooner than we expected.

We have been warned. We should not be intimidated and we should stand up to both vandalising youths or local Morlocks !