Torch in Tibet

Earlier this year, I became very interested in the issue of Tibetan freedom, thrown into the spotlight by the 2008 Olympics being held in Beijing.

There were protests in London (which in my own small way I was involved in), Paris, San Francisco and elsewhere to varying but generally lesser extents.

What I did learn from following this story closely was that many Chinese appeared strongly behind their government on the issue of Tibet and in a way the external criticism, valid though it was, may have served to strengthen the Chinese government rather than weaken it.

Bombastic internet posts and comments proclaimed "Tibet was and is and always will be part of China" as if this was an almost religious doctrine.

Then the earthquake hit China killing tens of thousands and creating millions in need of a home. Floods have in turn ravaged parts of China making this a pretty bad year for that country.

Due to the earthquake, the floods and many more significant events in the world, the torch has ceased to mean too much to anyone apart from possibly those sinister guards that have travelled with it round the world.

Nonetheless, this weekend the thing that all the protestors didn't want to happen, did happen- the torch went through Tibet.

I don't suppose this changes much for ordinary Tibetans but when the Olympics start in about 6 weeks time, I will be thinking of the rather dismal journey that the torch has taken before it arrived in Beijing.

This BBC blog includes an account of the short torch ceremony in Lhasa this weekend.

Running on Empty

Maybe it is not representative but our local petrol station has no fuel today. Yesterday it struggled down to one pump (out of twelve) of unleaded while having diesel fully available.

Today it put up a notice proclaiming "no fuel". Apparently this is not the only garage having such problems. The cause of this is the Shell tanker drivers dispute resulting in a four day drivers' strike (for more pay) but somehow, presumably through people topping up "just in case", it is resulting in shortages at other garages.

It highlights how precarious fuel supplies are in this country and a reminder that in a few days in 2000 a blockade of fuel depots emptied the roads of the whole country.

Things should be back to normal on Tuesday (for a few days at least) but it goes to show that "normal life" hangs by a thread when fuel supplies are disrupted on our crowded island.

Hurray for Ireland !

At last, out of the seemingly endless desert of dispiriting news stories, we arrive in a rare oasis where something in the wider world brings us cheer.

The people of Ireland, the only country in the EU to offer its people a free vote on the Lisbon Treaty have clearly rejected it in the referendum result that was announced today.

Where Denmark, France and Holland have gone before (to name just three) Ireland has followed today and shown that the ordinary people in European countries stand against their leaders who seem broadly wedded to the concept of "ever closer Union" in the EU.

This vote is not about leaving the EU which has offered Ireland especially many benefits. It is however about calling a halt to the march towards an ever more united Europe. Free trade, ease of travel and greater understanding have brought Europe much. However endless interference in national issues, continued corruption in Brussels and Strasbourg and a incredibly conceited attitude amongst most European leaders have united the people of Europe against many aspects of the EU.

The people of Ireland were given what the people of Britain should have been given: a chance to express their views. The way the people of Ireland have voted puts them in the debt of all those who have concerns about the ever growing power of the EU.

Thank you Ireland ! Now all that needs to happen if for Gordon Brown to recognise that the Treaty of Lisbon is dead.

Petrol use falls 20 %

Apparently people like me really are driving less and using less petrol. Either that or they are very successfully hypermiling ! Basic economics is correct I suppose....

"I love the world"

A bit cheesy but rather well done (it's only a minute long). At least a break from the current "doom and gloom" :-) Thanks to Three Beautiful Things for sharing this.

Towards $150 a barrel- should Brits learn to "hypermile" ?

I am sure many are aware that the oil price hit two new records on Friday.

First it exceeded $139 a barrel for the first time and second it recorded its biggest ever one day increase (around $11 or a 9% rise in one day).(FT story here ).

There seems no end in sight to the increases. Aside from the underlying factors of growing demand and the threat of dwindling supplies, a steady stream of alarming geo-political stories keep it bubbling ever higher. The latest was the suggestion from an Israeli minister that an attack on Iran is now "inevitable" due to the fact that it's nuclear programme is apparently continuing unabated*.

The effect at the petrol pump is seen each day. Today I paid £1.17 a litre. I am slightly afraid to convert that in into gallons but it is definitely well above the £5 a gallon level.

The result for me has been to largely stop using the car. In fact I drove today for the first time in 3 weeks since I drove back from Heathrow airport.

This has been relatively easy for me for two reasons:

1) I live in outer London, commute to work by train and most other facilities are in walking distance.

2) My wife and son have been visiting family in Ukraine so there has only been me to think about. I wanted to see if I could manage without a car and found I could. This would be much more difficult with a baby and I probably won't try when he returns !

The only times I would have definitely used a car and haven't were in visiting my Mother in Kent. I took the train instead and found quite a civilised group of weekend train users. From my experience this wasn't the case 10 years ago when weekend trains always felt slightly dodgy and full of those too poor to own a car. That is a gross generalisation and certainly unfair to some. However now the weekend trains are full of those too poor (or stingy !) to buy fuel but possibly having a car sitting outside their house.

Anyway today I returned to the car as I needed to take some rubbish to our local tip. As I was using the car I carried on to visit my family and then had my painful price experience at the petrol station.

I recently heard a story on the BBC about the US phenomenon of "hypermiling". Despite the name, it is actually a very simple concept of driving your car in a way that maximises fuel efficiency. Like anything a minority become rather obsessive about it but the basics are very straight forward and include:

a) Stop as little as posssible as stopping and starting uses the most fuel. So when you see a red light ahead slow down and aim to reach the red light when it changes to green. This is much more efficient than racing to the red light, stopping and then starting again when it changes to green.

b) Inflate your tyres to the maximum recommended level. Soft tyres are severely fuel inefficient.

c) Avoid excessive speed. The most fuel efficient speed is supposed to be about 55 mph. Car manufacturers always quote the maximum fuel efficiency of the vehicles at a constant 56 mph.

d) Avoid carrying around unnecessary junk in the car. Anything that makes the car heavier will reduce fuel efficiency.

See this site if you are interested in more.

If fuel keeps rising further I can see hypermiling gaining more followers, out of necessity rather than fun. Today I tried driving at a constant 55 mph on the motorway and was surprised that rather than being honked at to go faster, I looked in my mirror to see a top of the range BMW and a Porsche Cayenne happily following me at the same speed ! The oil price rise is really causing some changes ! My only doubt is that I am not sure if I can convince my wife on her return that it is best to drive at 55 mph on the motorway !

*(It is probably a question for a much a bigger article but doesn't the fact that the US, the UK and others now appear to have lost their appetite for any further military action of a "policing" kind now free middle ranking powers to take "the law" into their own hands ? The world policeman has had enough so prepare for some local vigilates? As history shows the world is much less stable without a globally recognised superpower. There was no globally recognised superpower in 1939, 1914 or 1870 to name just three years that heralded major wars.)

When they banned alcohol on the London Underground

It may not have been the wisest decision of the new London mayor Boris Johnson to choose to ban alcohol on all London transport starting from midnight on a Saturday night. However that is what he did do which lead to a "rebellious" party on the London underground on Saturday night.

I wasn't there (much too old and respectable !) but I understand from those that were that it is was mainly a good natured event, albeit with some sprinkling of trouble. The irony is that not many people drunk alcohol on the underground anyway but lots of people drunk alcohol when told they couldn't.

Overall not having alcohol on buses and trains sounds a good idea, particularly underground. However Saturday's party is a reminder that the flip side to that is that not many Londoners like being told what not to do.

"Free" rather than "Uncontacted": Leave the Amazon Tribe Alone

There is something inspiring about the Amazon tribe who are described as "uncontacted". "Uncontacted" I understand to mean that they have had no contact with anyone in the "modern world". This probably needs a bit of context as if they are homo sapiens (which they certainly look like) they must by definition have a common ancestor with someone living in Croydon or indeed Tokyo. Therefore it is probably more accurate to say they have over time lost contact rather than being eternally uncontacted.

That said I hope, possibly vainly, that they can be left as they are. To be forced into contact with "modern civilisation" will quite possibly kill them as their immune systems would be unable to cope with modern diseases. If that doesn't the thought of them being exposed to all the drivel of the modern world such as reality TV or being signed up for advertising is too horrific to imagine. Fancy one of them be hauled before Richard and Judy in a few years' time !

They look physically stronger than many of us on this planet and as they are completely self-sufficient they have a state of independence from oil companies, banks and the other shackles of modernity that the rest of us can only dream about.

Leave them to be free. The rest of us can only wonder at such a state of freedom and independence.

Ukrainian Orthodox procession

Below is a clip from my recent trip to Ukraine. The scene is an orthodox procession in the town of Vinnitsa. It's a pity they didn't stop the traffic but I guess that adds to the sense of contrast between the stoical procession and the hustle and bustle of buses and trams going past as the rest of the town goes about its normal business.

"Respect"

From Peter Brookes in the Times (of London)

What is particularly depressing about the latest wave of youth murders in London and beyond is the trivial subject matter they start over.

Not that murder over a "big issue" can be justified. However there is at least some rationale, however twisted, over a gang murder than for example seeks to protect a multi-million pound drug business. The mafia and their criminal like tend to kill for a reason, albeit their own distorted reasons.

The youth killings that this weekend reached just two miles from where we live saw the death of an aspiring 18 year old actor who had made it into the latest Harry Potter movie, seem utterly pointless. At most this murder was over a mobile phone. Others apparently occur over a "look".

It comes down to the notion of "respect". A strange notion almost completely divorced from the original definition of the word whereby those willing to use violence expect utter subservience from those around them. To act otherwise is to show "disrepect" and leads to a "punishment". Respect was once a voluntary act showing admiration to those we looked up to. Now it is some fear induced inaction towards those who use violence by those who do not.

It is a sad state of affairs and I am struggling to understand anything more at the moment.

For now, I remember a local family who have lost a son and a brother to senseless violence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7419185.stm

Back home

I have now been back in England for a few days. I am living a "bachelor" life for a few weeks as my wife and son are with her family in Ukraine.

It is actual rather dull and the house needs a good clean ! I am feeling much less creative than I was hoping.

Maybe this will change. If you hear nothing, then it probably hasn't !

The meaning of work

Below I reproduce an excellent essay from Lucy Kellaway, sometimes known as "agony Aunt of the FT" ! She was talking about the perceptions over work needing to have purpose on BBC radio 4's "A Point of View". I found it incredibly insightful and I am sure many in work especially in offices will find it so too. Lucy Kellaway is nearly always this perceptive and it would be good to hear more from her in future.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/views/a_point_of_view/



It pays the mortgage and gets you up in the morning, but these days workers want more from a job - they want meaning. Just don't go looking for it, says Lucy Kellaway.

Not long ago a man came to our house to unblock the drain. He peered into the stinking manhole, stirred the sewage with a stick and gleefully pronounced that there were several months of back-up in there. He then got to work with a rod and a plunger, and finally with a high-pressure hose - which sent the filthy, stinking mess flying into his face and all over the garden.

While he toiled he cracked jokes, gave me a lesson in the engineering of Victorian drains, and eventually, having cleared the blockage and tidied up as best he could, he got into his van, whistling to himself as he drove away.


We start to demand that our work has a larger meaning. This almost always ends badly, meaning is a bit like happiness - the more you go out looking for it the less you find


Since then I've kept thinking of this contented sewage man, and wondering what exactly it was that he got from his job that so many people doing grander and cleaner ones don't seem to get from theirs.

It strikes me that we are in the middle of an epidemic of meaninglessness at work. Bankers, lawyers, and senior managers are increasingly asking themselves what on earth their jobs mean, and finding it hard to come up with an answer. As the agony aunt on the Financial Times I get asked all the time by successful professionals - what is it all about?

The Austrian psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl wouldn't have been in the least surprised by this. In 1946 he wrote Man's Search for Meaning in which he argued that that our deepest hankerings are not - as Freud thought - of a sexual nature, but are a lust for purpose in life. Frankl spent five years in Nazi prison camps and during that time he worked out that there are three paths to meaning - work, love and suffering.

Gordon Brown, a man who has been doing a certain amount of suffering of late, seems to think that the answer is to strive harder. In a speech last week he said "I aspire for everyone to reach for the light - their ambition. Very simply, I aspire to create an opportunity-rich country where everyone can get on and get up in the lives we live. Never to level down, always to lift up."

Stamp of approval

This doesn't sound much more profound than James Brown's song Sex Machine - Fellas, I'm ready to get up and do my thing - get on up.

It's also dreadfully bad advice, as Brown should know from personal experience. For all those years when Tony Blair was at Number 10, Brown reached for his ambition - but now that he has got on and got up, has he found the light? No, it seems to me that the poor man is floundering around in the dark.

This doesn't mean that ambition is a mistake; it is just that there is no magic to advancement per se. The status and the money go up, but that's it. And then, beset by affluence and by introspection we start to demand that our work has a larger meaning. This almost always ends badly: meaning is a bit like happiness - the more you go out looking for it the less you find.

So where is the real meaning at work? Last week I put the question to various people - starting with our postman. Do you think your job has meaning, I asked him, as he stuffed a fistful of junk mail through our tiny letter box. He looked at me and shrugged. "I'm trying to pay the bills".

Getting paid to do a job is surely the most important sort of meaning there is. Earning enough money to feed and house one's family might be at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but the rest of the edifice depends on having this solid base.

Is the job sick?

As for the work itself, the postman said: "It's not the best job in the world, but I try to keep cheerful. I've always said that if you are unhappy at work, there must be something wrong somewhere else in your life."

He may have been on to something here. In the last few months three people with grand jobs have been involved in three horrible, violent ends. Mark Saunders, a successful barrister, was killed in a police shoot out; Mike Todd the chief constable of Greater Manchester police force was found dead on a hill, gin bottle by his side. And last summer the insurance millionaire Alberto Izaga, suffered a shocking breakdown and ended up beating his two-year-old daughter to death.

It is tempting to conclude - as many columnists have - that there is something about the intolerable stress and emptiness of these top positions that lead people to breaking point. The jobs are sick and they are making us sick too.

Possibly; but overall, I'm with the postman, in thinking that such problems come from us. I don't believe that these jobs are terribly sick. Instead, these were three unrelated personal tragedies that tell us nothing about work at all.

My search for meaning - and for a pint of milk - then took me to the Turkish corner shop where I asked my question to the man behind the counter. He was looking tired: his shop is open fifteen hours a day so one might think he had no time for meaning. But he said there was a lot of meaning in what he did. "I make a living and I like the people who come to my shop." he said.

Parenting craft

A good point, too. According to a recent survey of work place satisfaction, liking one's work-mates is as important as money in persuading people not to quit. Simply by being friendly and chatting by the coffee machine one is creating meaning... of a sort, which, given how much chatting I do, is quite a comforting thought.

When you have spent a couple of days changing nappies and grilling fish fingers, to be surrounded by adults who don't want their bottoms wiped seems pretty meaningful

The shopkeeper also said he liked the work itself - he takes pleasure in stacking his tiny premises so high with goods that he has just the thing you want when you find the cupboard is bare at 10pm. It's hard running a successful corner shop, and he's good at it.

According to Richard Sennett's new book, The Craftsman, this ability to master a skill and then practice it well satisfies a basic human need. For Sennett, a craftsman doesn't have to make beautiful inlaid cabinets or chisel stone. He could be a software programmer, a cook or even a parent.

This satisfaction in the job itself seems to me the best sort of meaning there is. As a journalist, I survive on those rare jolts of pleasure that come when you find just the right words and get them together in just the right order.

Yet this sort of "craft" meaning isn't open to everyone. Shoving junk mail though letter boxes isn't a craft. Neither, at the other end of the spectrum, is being prime minister. Indeed no jobs that involve managing or leading are crafts, which is one of the things that makes it so particularly hard for managers to find meaning in what they do.

Peace with pointlessness

In fact managing is one of the most thankless jobs in the world. What managers are mainly trying to do is to get other people to do things that they don't want to. To work harder, for a start. Their other primary function is to carry the can, and to get blamed for all sorts of things that probably aren't their fault. Not only are they creating little meaning for themselves, they get blamed for destroying meaning for people below them.

Sennett describes how the craft of doctors and nurses is spoilt by NHS managers and their punishing targets. Teachers bleat endlessly that government guidelines are taking all the joy out of teaching. The other day an RAC man changed my tyre, which he accomplished in about three minutes, and spent the next 10 jabbing data into a hand held computer. He told me that this new bureaucracy had destroyed his pleasure in the job - a complaint echoed by most workers in most jobs. The meetings, the second guessing, the pointless duplication, the politics, we all moan. Just let us do the damned job.

In some ways I'm with the managers, or I would be if they didn't so often make such a hash of it. Hospitals and schools both need targets. Businesses, including the RAC, need to be run efficiently. People hate change, we naturally suspect all new ways of doing things, we scream that the purpose in the job is going, but that's too bad.

Maybe the best way of dealing with pointlessness at work is not to worry too much about it. An acquaintance in advertising tells me how one day he and his colleagues were agonizing over a tiny nuance in a script for a radio commercial. Suddenly he had a jolt of realisation: this was utterly pointless. Since then he has made his peace with the meaninglessness of what he does, and enjoys the job rather more as a result.

Another way of finding work more meaningful is to do less of it. Last week the government extended its plans for flexible working to make it easier for parents to work part time. When I worked a three day week I found the meaning of work was complimented by the meaning of looking after children. Or rather, that each provided a refuge from the meaninglessness of the other. When you have spent a couple of days changing nappies and grilling fish fingers, to be surrounded by adults who don't want their bottoms wiped seems pretty meaningful. And by contrast, having half of one's identity tied up in the rearing of children means that one places fewer impossible demands on the job itself.

A final way of gaining meaning at work is also on the rise: and that is the threat of redundancy. As a result of the credit crunch 55,000 financial sector jobs have already been lost, and more loses are to come. While being fired is the ultimate sign that one's job was meaningless, the relief of escaping the axe could make one so grateful to have work, that one stops asking oneself such awkward questions.

Real Power

I have today removed my "No torch in Tibet" logo from my blog as a mark of respect to all those Chinese who died in Monday's earthquake.

As the Olympic torch relay is now being scaled back this seems yesterday's argument. The Olympics will go ahead in Beijing but no doubt when at least 15,000 people have died in a single event this week, things Olympic must have rather less importance than they once seemed to.

The events in China are terrible and a reminder that even superpowers such as that which China is turning into can suffer at the hands of nature in a scale that is unimaginable. A population of 1.3 billion, a vast army and navy and GDP growing at 10 % is all irrelvant in the face of real power.

Such is humanity's true power in this world, let alone this universe.

May the people of Burma also enjoy the same relief as the people of China. This seems a bit of a vain hope.

Tibet is still oppressed and people in China do not have free speech. However in the face of the earthquake this for now seems a small issue.

May some good yet come out of these tragic events.

Burma

Being in Ukraine, it is a little difficult to follow the news, but it is with sadness that I note that events in Burma are every bit as bad as I feared.

The story seems to be slipping down the news agenda but the military junta is continuing to deny free and proper access to aid agencies.

The is as tragic as it is obvious and thousands more Burmese will die (in addition to the unknown toll already)

As for the military junta's powerful ally, China, they have been silent as far as I can see. Worse still, the mainstream media seems to be missing the fact that China is alone in a position to exert real influence on the Burmese (or Myamese ?) government.

What started as a natural disaster is turning into a manmade catastrophe, aided and abetted by the Burmese government keen to keep a restive population weak and quiet. This in turn is tacitly approved by those Olympic lovers in the Chinese government.

Kiev

I will be a bit quiet for the coming week or so as I am currently in Ukraine visiting my wife's family.

We are currently in Kiev but heading out into the regions tomorrow.

Kiev is in the midst of election fever as they prepare to elect a mayor. In contrast the recent London mayoral election it is a very lively affair with an improbable 97 candidates ranging from Agrarians to communists (and plenty in between!) Nearly every street corner seems to have a tent erected with representatives from various candidates handing out leaflets and balloons to try and woo voters.

It is a bit difficult to judge whether all that is going on is particularly useful but it is certainly democratic and there is freedom of expression for the vast range of candidates, This is in sharp contrast to neighbouring Russia and their recent "coronation" of a presidential election.

Kiev is changing rapidly with a lot of construction, inflation and the usual flash cars of recently acquired wealth (Mercedes, BMW and Range Rover to name a few). That said it is still a calmer gentler version of its Russian sister, Moscow, although it sometimes feels like it is heading that way.

More important than the Olympics ?

As news begins to gather about the mounting death toll from the cyclone to hit Burma, it will be interesting to see what China's reaction is.

Burma is a country tightly controlled by a military junta that despite various mass protests, most recently in 2007 when buddhist monks lead demonstrations, still clings to power.

Burma's closest ally is China and it seems unlikely the country would remain such a harsh dictatorship without Chinese government support.

It is notable that Burma (also known as Myanmar) has so far not formally requested international aid. This is very unusual but highlights the isolated nature of the country and the reluctance of dictatorships to admit any weakness.

China, as a bordering powerful country, has a duty to step in and help quickly. The death toll could very well already be in the tens of thousands.

Never mind the Olympics, never mind the nationalist bombasts about Tibet being eternally part of China, this should be far more important. It is also an opportunity for China to show that despite how many feel about it, it can also be a force for good in this world.

Whether China does help in a tangible way or focuses more on its GDP and its flame tour (sponsored by Coca Cola, Samsung and Lenovo of course) will be an interesting test of character for the emerging superpower.

For the people of Burma, it may be far more than that- a matter of life and death.

Not a new dawn but some fresh air at least.

Untamed: Boris in his pre-haircut days

I welcome Boris's victory as Mayor of London. While the role of Mayor is not as powerful as in some other major cities (in truth largely limited to transport) it is still a significant role and one of great status as a figurehead for the city.

Boris Johnson presents a new face of London, one that has always been here but one largely hidden for many years. Boris is as much part of London as Ken Livingstone his predecessor, but was elected by the outer London suburbs fed up of years of neglect from the centre by Ken who lavished time and money on politically trendy projects in the "inner city" areas of London.

No one says, especially Boris, that everything Ken Livingstone did was awful. He was a genuine leader especially in London's darkest hour of the decade on July 7th 2005 when over 50 people were killed by suicide bombers on the underground and a bus. This, of course, came just one day after London had been awarded the 2012 Olympics. Although I feel unethused about all things Olympian this too was a great achievement.

However he did descend to cronyism and after 8 years in the job can hardly not be said to have had a chance.

There were no other really serious candidates in my opinion so Boris was the obvious choice.

Boris is eccentric and unpredictable. I think there is a certain weariness over politics these days and few are predicting massive change. However if he can achieve something especially in his stated priority of reducing crime that will be welcomed by all.

No one is calling this a new dawn for London. Such hyperbole in best left in 1997. Nonetheless eccentric, intelligent, funny, charming and unpredictable Boris Johnson does represent a breath of fresh air in the leadership of London.

The way of America ?

A key stage was reached in the housing market this week. Nationwide, the largest building society is now recording year on year falls in house prices.

Of course this does not apply everywhere and to everyone but it is the first time since 1996 that on average a house was worth less today than it was a year ago. Previously all the talking was of a slowing rate of increase.

Whether this is the start of something bigger remains to be seen.

Elections

There are elections for the London mayor and London assembly today.

For those unfamiliar, having a mayor in London is a modern creation as it has traditionally been a city comprised of strong boroughs (currently 33).

The mayor has limited power but a significant budget for transport and various pet projects.

The first and only London mayor to date, Ken Livingstone who is running again had his fair share of pet projects.

From my experience commuting to work today the sense of excitement was non-existent ! No one mentioned the elections at work and there was no real evidence apart from the signs outside polling stations.

I have voted and it wasn't for "Ken". Enough said....

Despite this sense of apathy I saw today, I suppose we should be thankful for the choice (if limited !) in free elections.

Approaching Journey's end for the "flame of shame"

The Olympic flame is nearing the end of its world tour. It will shortly be in Hong Kong and start a tour of China that will no doubt be tightly controlled and presumably incident free.

Since the large protests in London, Paris and San Francisco, it has attracted much less attention mainly due to the fact that the authorities in each country it visited have imposed maximum security on the relays. In some cases this meant running it round a stadium in front of invited guests. In others cases, most notably India, it meant shutting down the host city with massive security and running it along a significantly shortened route.

The other feature has been that in countries with significant Chinese communities, many of Chinese descent have turned out to "defend" the flame out of national pride. Quite why all those living in Australia and elsewhere feel so strongly about Chinese pride but choose to remain living outside China is perhaps an issue for another day.

Nonetheless it should not go unsaid that many Chinese appear to feel strongly in favour of the Olympics and whatever the recent history do not take kindly to foreign criticism of their country. This is not unnatural and should be taken into account by all those who hope for greater freedom in China.

Criticism of China should not unwittingly serve to bolster nationalist sentiment and support for the Chinese government.

However this may be unavoidable as some things still need saying. There is something quite disturbing about the more zealous pro-China protestors. As the flame toured Seoul, South Korea, today some chaotic street scenes not really seen since the start of the journey occurred. However the difference was that pro-Chinese demonstrators were out in massive force. Anyone who shouted "Free Tibet" in Seoul was probably therefore being a thousand times braver than someone who shouted the same in London and Paris.

Here is a rather unsettling clip of a group of pro-China protestors descending on someone who dared speak out against the "orthodoxy" that the Chinese government is absolutely wonderful. I am not sure if they are Tibetan or otherwise opposed to the Chinese government. Their bravery is certainly great. It shows that China is not a dictatorship on the verge of collapse. It is is one supported by many with apparent nationalist fervour as seen by the flag wielding olympic supporters who corner someone with a different view in a Seoul hotel lobby:



I hope the meeting between a representative of China and a representative of the Dalai Lama can achieve something but one would have to be pretty sceptical at this stage. Many of the pro-China protestors really seem to believe the Beijing line that the Dalai Lama is a "wolf in monk's clothing" and while the Chinese economy continues to boom seem quite happy with the status quo. This is a disappointment for the cause of freedom in China. Nonetheless the struggle will continue. Maybe when the economy ceases to grow at 10 % per annum and the Olympic roadshow has passed on, a few more in China will start to question the lack of freedom to speak even if there is freedom to make money.

For now, I honour all those with the courage to speak out especially when they face serious intimidation or worse for doing so.