Lemurs and other animals

I'm ambivalent about zoos, because I don't like to see animals confined. But a recent visit to Drusillas Park in East Sussex gave me a welcome opportunity to see some of my favourite species, and to take many photographs, especially of the photogenic lemurs! The sociable ring-tails, which seem to spend a lot of time huddled together and grooming each other, are incredibly striking with their inordinately long, striped tails, subtly coloured backs, endearing, wet black muzzles and expressive faces. As with many lemur species, their brilliant orange eyes are extraordinary. Also in the enclosure were a couple of male and female black lemurs (the females, confusingly, aren't black at all). As I watched and photographed these beautiful animals, I kept reminding myself that they are primates, as their grasping hands make immediately obvious. That means that, although their evolutionary line diverged from ours a lot earlier than that of the great apes, they are still close relatives of ours. And since their only home in the wild is Madagascar, it's always a privilege to be able to get so close to them. Having had an emotional time lately, it was great to get out on a sunny day and see some wonderful creatures from all over the planet. So despite being on my feet for far too long and experiencing a pain flare-up afterwards, I enjoyed every minute.

Some of the lemur photos as well as of other animals - otters, prairie dogs, meerkats, fennec foxes - have been added to the Animals gallery on my photography website. You can see them at www.michaelbentleyphotography.co.uk. More to come soon! :)

Friends and Islamophobes

Recently I came across Islamophobia on Facebook. Not for the first time; ever since 9/11 and 7/7 it’s been everywhere. But this time it was in a discussion under someone’s status update. It was expressed by friends, and for that reason I wish I could be diplomatic, in case they may be reading it. But it was distressing reading, and in a way I found it more disturbing because it was expressed by friends – not close ones, but friends. They are nice people.

The discussion was in reaction to an incident in London, where ‘Islamic extremists’ ceremonially burned red poppies. As I said in the discussion, the action was not something I agreed with, even though I sympathise with the feeling that presumably motivated it: that Muslim countries, towns and villages have been bombed to smithereens by Western forces, and the red poppy symbolism was seen as a kind of glorification of British wars. The reasons I don’t agree with it are, firstly, that it causes unnecessary distress and offence to the families of soldiers killed in war, who feel that their sacrifice is being mocked. And secondly, because there are other ways to protest. If they don’t like red poppies, why don’t they wear white ones instead?

The comments in the discussion came from friends who have loved ones in the armed forces, and who understandably have strong views and feelings on the issue. In fact, I could see and sympathise with both sides. But the actual comments themselves were unpleasant and disturbing. And the comments of other people in the thread were even worse – along the lines of ‘shoot them all’. One said that the offenders should be sent back to wherever they came from, and if they were born in Britain, then to wherever their ultimate roots were. This last one was both disturbing and illogical. Disturbing because it is all too reminiscent of what nice, normal Germans were saying about the Jews in the 1930s. And illogical because, if any one of us were to take a DNA test, we might be surprised as to where our roots lie. Many English people have roots in Britain that only go back a few hundred years or less, and only some of us go back beyond Neolithic times. A recent study in Germany concluded that the first farmers in the region had roots in what is now Iraq. Can there be a greater irony than that?

In response to my attempt to introduce more reason and less emotion to the discussion, my friends urged me not to forget 9/11 and 7/7, and argued that our forces wouldn’t be in ‘their countries’ if they didn’t keep blowing themselves up. I agree that 9/11 was a terrible crime, but the suicide bombers and fighters in Afghanistan do actually have a legal right to defend their country against invaders; they are doing what our own Home Guard would have done if the Nazis had invaded Britain. I am, broadly, a pacifist so I don’t like what they are doing, but as long as they don’t target civilians their actions are within international law, however much politicians and the media portray they as terrorists rather than freedom fighters. Even the 7/7 bombers were motivated in defence of Iraq and Afghanistan, but their actions were far from legal as they did target civilians – some of whom, ironically, were Muslims. It is hard to see how occupying and bombing Muslim countries can stop similar atrocities, when those atrocities are motivated by Western military actions in the first place.

In fact, it was hard to tell in this discussion, whether the participants were referring to the Taliban, the 7/7 bombers, the poppy-burners or just Muslims generally. With regard to the ‘peaceful Muslims’, they ‘only had their own to thank’. But who are ‘their own’? The important distinction is between people who commit acts of terrorism and those who don’t; the 7/7 bombers had more in common with pilots who bomb Afghan villages than they did with the vast majority of Muslims. The language suggests a dangerous generalisation and stereotyping of people as a group – and a group, moreover, of a billion people. And it suggests a further confusion. Did some of the commenters want just the poppy-burners out of the UK, or all Muslims? What about Muslims who are white, whose roots in this country go back as far or further into the past than the commenters? I’m not sure whether the possibility of there being white Muslims had occurred to them, which would mean that Muslims were first stereotyped as violent (or at least as sympathising with violence), and second as ‘brown’ or ‘black’. In which case the commenters were displaying covert racism – something which, unless they were members of the BNP or EDL, they probably wouldn’t regard as acceptable in any other situation.

It’s possible that I’m assuming too much here. But what certainly was apparent was a perception of Muslims as ‘other’. They all come from ‘somewhere else’, somewhere outside the UK and in the Middle East. They don’t really belong; they’re not the same as us. What I tried to get across in my own fairly lengthy comment was that they are the same as us. I have lots of Muslim friends and I know for a fact that they have the same feelings, problems, joys and sadnesses as the rest of us. And why wouldn’t they have? Islam is less than two thousand years old; Homo sapiens sapiens is two hundred thousand years old. Many of my Muslim friends love much of British culture, and they live British lives in almost every respect. It’s the current British wars they don’t like – and with good reason. My ‘English’ friends decried the crimes of 9/11 and 7/7, but made no mention of the torture, the massacres, the imprisonments without trial, and the bombings of towns and villages committed by Western forces. If we don’t try to understand the point of view of the poppy-burners as well as the points of view of many other Muslims (and non-Muslim peace activists, come to that!), and if instead we generalise from the more sensational actions of the few that reach the mainstream media, then what we are doing is widening the gulf between communities. We are separating certain people off as ‘other’, and projecting all our fears and prejudices onto them. Far from recognising that we are all human, and that all sides in war commit crimes just as the majority of all people do good, we are decreasing understanding and increasing the potential for anger, misunderstanding and hate. We are wasting an opportunity to help us grow as a species, and decrease the amount of conflict and destruction in the world. What a loss! What a tragic mistake!

Taking part in this discussion thread was distressing for me because some of the participants were friends. It was difficult to hear such disturbing views uttered by friends, who I know to be good people, living quiet lives and doing harm to no one. It’s a worrying thought, really. If ordinary, decent people are capable of stereotyping and generalising a cultural or religious group in such negative ways, then it’s not just the EDL and the British Nazi Party we have to worry about. And history shows us this. Hitler probably couldn’t have committed the worst atrocities of Nazism – or at least, not so easily – had it not been for the prejudices of ordinary, decent Germans that were just waiting to be exploited. He manipulated his own people through clever use of the media; and this too we can see today, if in a more subtle and gradual fashion. No country is immune from racism and fascism. There are so many parallels between Islamophobia and 1930s anti-Semitism, that we have good reason to be worried.

And there’s another aspect. If ordinary, decent Brits are capable of such confused prejudices, what about their relatives in the armed forces, who are trained to kill the enemy? If they too have the same conscious or unconscious generalisations about who the enemy is (are they only people with guns and bombs, or are they Muslims generally?), then it’s no wonder that massacres happen, that killing is sometimes indiscriminate, that civilians are inadequately protected and sometimes actually targeted. I’m not accusing my friends’ kids of committing war crimes. But why do war crimes happen? And it may be that I’ve read too much into the whole discussion, and that the participants’ prejudices only referred to the poppy-burners, or actual terrorists. But if that’s the case, then why do they so fervently support the actions of the military, who have - far too often for it to be an occasional fluke tragedy - reduced men, women and children to ashes and scattered body parts?

I am, thankfully, still friends with my friends – I hope. But the episode left a nasty taste in my mouth. How many people in this country agree with them? If it’s a large proportion, then the potential for understanding and bridge-building between communities, and for recognising what unites us rather than what separates us, doesn’t look very hopeful.

Belonging

This is a very different subject from the ones I usually write about - and a longer entry too. My sense of belonging and not belonging has shifted many times throughout my life, and so it feels easiest to tell it chronologically, like a story. I dunno, maybe it's the therapy! Either way, you can take it or leave it, but it helps me sometimes to get these things down.

My earliest clear memory is of my first day at school. I felt abandoned and unsafe, and cried the whole day. All the other little kids seemed to be taking the day much better, so I guess I could say that my earliest memory is of not belonging in the social group I found myself in.

My sense of the rest of my early childhood, however, is of feeling fairly happy and secure. I was always a bit shy, and tended to play sometimes by myself in a little fantasy world. But I still had friends, and birthday parties, and don’t remember feeling very different from the other kids. And I think I felt fairly secure within my family as well. How much of that may be due to remembering the past in a rose-coloured way I’m not sure.

My last really happy memory of childhood is when I was about nine years of age. The days were hot and sunny, and I’d be playing in the street with my sister and a girl who lived down the road, who I really liked. I’d like to think that if my childhood had continued like that, then eventually she might have become my first girlfriend. But in fact my childhood got sort of hijacked.

When I was nine we moved to a different county, as my dad got a new job. We moved to a smaller house in a less pleasant street, and of course my sister and I had to start a new school. I was very nervous, but it was okay and I ended up with a few friends there. Starting secondary school two years later was more scary, but although I was shy I still had some friends. I still sort of belonged. But soon after that my parents got divorced, which of course shook us all up somewhat. And a year after that my mum got remarried, so we moved again, back to where we lived originally! This posed new problems for me, as I found the ‘new’ family difficult to settle into and there were various strifes and frictions at home. I didn’t have the same sense of belonging and security that I remember from just a few years earlier. To make matters worse, I was very shy on entering yet another new school, and for the next two years was bullied quite a bit. I went to school every day in fear. This was, I think, my first really deep experience of not belonging.

To protect myself I spent as much time on my own as I could. I retreated into a kind of fantasy world where I imagined being a very different person. Later I found a retreat in books, especially science fiction books, whose stories were so very different from my own reality. I was nervous of boys because they might be a threat, and kind of idealised girls who came to my rescue when I was given a hard time. By the time I was sixteen things eased off quite a bit, but I think the previous few years had traumatised me and I was still pretty shy. I had one or two close friends though.

In the sixth form I suddenly found myself beginning to fit in more. The classes were smaller, and my fellow pupils more accepting of me. In my last year at school I actually enjoyed myself! I became very fond of some of my peers, and they seemed fond of me too. I no longer felt judged as a wimp, was no longer laughed at and certainly not punched or kicked. The bullying was well and truly over, I enjoyed being with people, got invited to parties and socialised outside of school. I felt I really did almost belong, and this happy feeling of being more accepted into the human race continued into the following years at college.

This change, however, was too late for the romantic feelings I had at the time. I still tended to idealise women, but I couldn’t convince myself that anyone would be interested in a relationship with me. I fell in love with a girl at school – we were both seventeen – but despite my passion I could never bring myself either to ask her out or tell her how I felt. The irony is that she definitely knew, because friends told me she did. I don’t know if she would have gone out with me, had I asked. If she had, then my sense of belonging in adult life might have been very different.

I remained ‘in love’ with this girl for years, long after I last saw her. My relations with work colleagues, housemates, etc were okay in some ways, but I remained shy and in my late twenties, I felt I ‘belonged’ less than in my final year at school. Although I shared a house with others, I tended to be isolated, keeping to myself in my room. I was very unhappy at work. But health problems forced me into redundancy, and I needed a change of career from the office job I’d been in for so long. So I took up studying counselling, and also did voluntary work on a crisis helpline. The preparation course for this was a joy, and was I think the first time I really, really felt part of a group. The voluntary work gave me a sense of purpose and also opportunities to socialise when, due to unemployment, it might otherwise have been difficult. The counselling course was great too, but here I felt I didn’t fit into the group as well. I also lost confidence in my counselling abilities, and didn’t pursue it to diploma level. Instead I started working in mental health, in residential homes. Here, as in every work situation I’ve been in, there was internal strife and politics, which spoiled the experience a lot. But I was pretty happy there on the whole, and I did make friends. The work was fulfilling and varied, and in my own slightly insecure way I felt I did belong there. In fact, especially as I did regular sleep-ins at the residential home, I often felt more at home at work than I did at home!

My sense of never quite fitting in remained however. I always felt a bit ‘different’ from other people. Looking back, I know that this was due to my inexperience of sexual relationships. The couple of relationships I’d had were brief and very unsatisfying, both emotionally and physically. As the 1990s wore on I felt increasingly lonely. Everyone else seemed to be having fun, having sex, sometimes getting married and having kids. I still believed no one could really want me in the way I needed them to, and its effect on my self confidence and self esteem was quite severe. At the beginning of 2000, when a close friend embarked on a blissful relationship, I became very depressed. I was so desperate, and yet happiness seemed further away than ever.

After about three weeks of feeling like this, fate kind of stepped in! I met a beautiful American woman at a party, who came up to me and simply stated that she wanted to kiss me! I wasn't going to turn that offer down, and although she was in a relationship and her life was pretty complicated, we agreed to have one night together. After how I’d been feeling only hours before, this was pretty overwhelming for me.

The trouble was, that night was too good! I don’t quite understand even now why this woman who was already in a relationship and only intended one night with me, behaved so passionately and lovingly. We talked about it a few times afterwards, but I never completely got me head round it. But for me, that night was the deepest experience of belonging, of being accepted, that I’d ever had. It was as if I’d been shut in a cell since childhood, while everyone outside was having fun, and then suddenly being let out and realising what I’d been missing. All my dreams coming true all at once. But only for one night. The following day, despite the experience’s beneficial effect on my self-confidence, I felt I had to crawl back into the cell, and that was hard too.

I did have a bit more confidence now, though. I felt I’d begun to join the human race. I had a couple of brief relationships that year, and though neither of them were really what I wanted, they helped my confidence too. Things were definitely getting better.

A year after I met the American woman, I said an emotional goodbye to her as she left for a new life in California. I actually met her only four times. A month later, however, I met my present partner, who I’ve been with now for nearly ten years. My feelings for Angie didn't bloom so suddenly, but now I love her deeply and she loves me too, very much. I moved in with her after six months, and although it was a struggle compromising for a long time, with both of us inexperienced at living with someone, I was happier now than I’d ever been before.

In terms of belonging, what I had now was a sense of being part of a ‘normal’ couple – a family, almost. We had our life at home together, had sex regularly, went out socially as a couple, mixed with other couples, and went on holiday together. I hadn’t been on holiday properly for decades, as I felt I had no one to go with. Twenty four hours in Cornwall in 1999 to see the total solar eclipse had been a lonely experience, as I was surrounded on the campsite by tents with couples and families – a reminder of the sense of belonging I’d had on family holidays as a child, compared with my solitary life now. In my new life with my partner, we went abroad and saw many wonderful places. It was fantastic!

I also had a new job at a day centre – just as fulfilling as the last one, but less stressful and more fun. It was the best job I’d ever had, and I felt I belonged and was accepted there too. I was very happy most of the time.

Then fate stepped in again – or it would have done if I believed in those things!

………….

Out of the blue, in 2004, I developed a chronic nerve pain condition which meant that I had to give up work. I became anxious and depressed, and started on anti-depressants and sundry prescribed pain killers. The pain was disabling: it limited how far I could walk, how long I could sit for – really almost all aspects of my life. It was difficult for my partner too, who since then has had the responsibility for bread winning and for doing all the other things I struggle with. I found a sense of purpose for a while through getting involved in the peace movement and setting up a local group with my partner. But this became an emotional strain and I had a nervous breakdown in 2008, spending much of that year recovering from severe anxiety. I did get better, with support from helplines and a lot of self help, but my life remains very limited compared to what it used to be, and all sorts of basic activities that I used to take for granted are now much harder for me and sometimes, when the pain is very bad, almost impossible.

Looked at in one way, the depression and anxiety I’ve had since the pain started six years ago are a kind of response to not belonging. I spend much of my time at home, and quite a bit of that time resting. My partner lives and works away from home three days a week, so I’m quite isolated. Often I feel that the world is going by without me. The worst feelings were when my anxiety was at its worst, in 2008. Besides being frightened I felt as if I was trapped in a kind of bubble, breathing my own stale air and kind of watching everyone outside without being able to feel a part of it. It’s very hard to describe, but certainly it was the worst experience of not belonging I’ve ever had. I really felt as if I was trapped in my own tiny, frightened world and no longer a part of the real one.

Things have got a lot better since then, if gradually so. My life still feels very limited, but I am less disturbed by it now and am gradually taking charge of my situation, learning how to manage my pain and my mood. I’m beginning to find things I can do that I get satisfaction from: writing, art and photography, enjoying the countryside even though I can’t walk very far… I’ve recently started writing a book! So I feel as though I’m gradually rebuilding my life, reinventing it almost. And as a result, slowly increasing my sense of belonging in the world once more.

This entry may seem a bit maudlin to some readers, but I'm glad I wrote it. Sometimes putting these things into written words can help to clarify or crystallise things in my mind. I’m grateful that the opportunity sort of fell out of my mind and into my laptop!

I hope something of all this is interesting or helpful to other people, too.

Summers long since passed...

I’m a chronic nostalgiac (is that a word?) about family holidays. This is partly because I don’t live in a real family (with children) anymore: it’s just my partner Angie, my cat and me. I also find it very difficult to travel far, due to the chronic health problems which I’ve had since 2004. But it’s also because, in my childhood, I enjoyed many family holidays and they provide many wonderful memories which I still retain. I firmly believe that the lives of children who are unable to have holidays are impoverished. Family holidays give kids experiences and memories which, if happy ones, will give them pleasure for the rest of their lives.

My life as a child was split into two halves: before my parents’ divorce, and after. The holidays I had afterwards differed in some ways in character, although one theme remained and that was the destination. Most of our holidays, before and after the break-up, were in France or Cornwall (as in the picture above, from the mid 1970s).

I don’t remember our earliest holidays in much detail, but I do remember the beauty of them. Setting out in the car in the middle of the night to avoid traffic was so exciting! The arriving at what was often a campsite in Cornwall, moving into a big tent with separate compartments, sleeping sometimes with the distinctive sound of rain drumming on canvas, emerging in the morning in the pinky-blue, muted dawn light… And many of the places we visited – Tintagel, Boscastle, St Ives - remained in my memory and finally drew me back decades later, when I met Angie and started sharing holidays once more. The only thing I disliked was that family relationships, and chores, remained. I hated the physical chores of camping, and as for relationships, my sister and I often argued and my parents were not happy together. But I think they made a real effort to give us kids a good time and provide memorable experiences for us. In my case, they definitely succeeded.

When I was about 11, my mother divorced my father. A couple of years later she remarried, and I have to say that the following years were difficult for me. But we still made an effort to go on holiday, and often to Cornwall again. Our family was about 50% different, but the places were the same! Cornwall is still perhaps my favourite county in England, and I think nostalgia for those early holidays is a big part of that.

With my father, meanwhile, the holidays were usually in France. In about 1980 I went with him, my sister and her friend to Brittany (which I remembered from earlier holidays when the family were still together) and L’Ile d’Oleron further down the coast. In some ways this was a difficult holiday. My sister got homesick (probably for Mum as much as home) and very moody, so her friend spent a lot of time with me instead. This I think caused a lot of tension between the three of us. I got on very well with the friend, but looking back I sense that we felt we were almost ganging up on my sister, or at least that my sister was jealous of the change in relationship. I don’t feel very good about it, looking back. Also at about this time my Dad got a job in Paris, so although we saw him very little in term-time we would cross the channel for a while in the school holidays. I loved Paris. Sometimes my sister was with us, sometimes not, and on the latter occasions while my Dad was working I would explore the streets and art galleries of the city by myself. At that time I knew Paris far better than I did London. And these holidays were a blessed relief from the rest of my life: struggling to settle in with my new step-family, being bullied at school. Paris was exciting, and I remember it very vividly. I haven’t been there since the mid-1980s.

Another holiday I remember from this time was a week in Austria with my Dad (I can’t remember why, but my sister was absent). It was a good opportunity to bond with him (we have never been close), and we stayed in a beautiful village in the Tyrol, in summer. It was a gorgeous, verdant landscape. Halfway through the week we took a day trip to Venice by coach, and that was memorable too – the only time I’ve visited that city. Decades later I saw Venice from the air on a flight to Greece, and thought back to my visit as a child, to that city which from such a height appeared so small.

Through the first fifteen of my adult years I was alone, so hardly went on any holidays. Twenty-four hours in Cornwall to see the total solar eclipse in 1999 was a lonely time, as I slept in an old caravan that was full of moths and spiders, looking out with envy at the family tents scattered around. I felt very sad, really; the contrast between that and my childhood holidays in the area was very great. The eclipse, however, made it more than worthwhile. Even though it was clouded over, the eerie darkness was indescribable, and I’ll never forget it.

My partner and I have had some wonderful holidays together, including my first on another continent, in Canada in 2003. That was awesome; I’ve never seen anywhere like the Rockies, before or since. But these trips were not what I think of as family holidays. They belong as memories. We don’t plan to have children, so for me a family holiday means a distant but sometimes vivid memory of often quite magical times. I’m very, very grateful to my parents that they provided us with these wonderful experiences. I’m lucky, because I think a lot of children even today very rarely leave the city they grow up in.

I guess the only advice I’d give a family, based on my own experience, is to make a holiday as different as possible from the rest of their lives. That way it’s a true break, even if it’s a busy one. Camping is a wonderful way of doing this. And taking your kids to interesting places, as well as the beach, helps to stimulate an interest in culture and history too. But the most important thing about holidays is also the most obvious. Just HAVE THEM!

Altruism v selfishness on 'Question Time'

I can’t help being a Darwinist, because the theory of evolution by natural selection, besides its great explanatory power and beauty, is so obviously true. The evidence for it, in myriad branches of science, is overwhelming. But crude social Darwinism is repellent. It seems to assume that because, in the natural world, organisms which are best adapted to their environments tend to survive, while those which are poorly adapted become extinct, therefore it’s morally okay to live only for oneself and behave selfishly to the highest degree, trampling on everyone in order to get to ‘the top’. Unfortunately, Social Darwinism is everywhere in our society, both on a personal and political level, and with a new Conservative government in place its apologists seem to be coming transparently to the fore.

This was brought home to me by last week’s ‘Question Time’ on BBC1, which I have been mulling over ever since. The line-up of panellists was typical: a government minister and his opposite number, both instantly forgettable and saying exactly what you’d expect; a ‘journalist’ called Toby Young, who writes for the Telegraph; and a horrific horsey Sloane ranger/minor royalty/Margaret Thatcher hybrid called Katie something (forgotten her name completely). And one of my three favourite politicians, the leader of Respect Party Salma Yacoob.

Forget the two MPs (I have). Everything Katie said was so monstrous it was almost funny, like a cartoon of Thatcherism - which I suppose makes her an obvious Social Darwinist. And everything Salma said was passionately but clearly expressed, while speaking up at all times for the suffering and disadvantaged in society. She was the only panellist talking sense, and listening to her was like a breath of cool mountain air wafting through a dank and smelly cellar.

But in terms of personalities and what they revealed about themselves and each other, the most interesting thing was the contrast between Salma and Toby. Toby revealed himself as an arch Social Darwinist, a transparent selfish Conservative, as opposed to the minister’s (what was his name?) presentation of a new ‘caring’ Conservative government (we do hate to make these enormous cuts to public services, but we’ll try and protect the weak and vulnerable, and our hearts bleed for all of you as we all suffer together). At one point he was incredibly self-revealing, saying that he never joined the Labour Party because he assumed he would ‘never be able to climb the ranks’. And everything he said was with an air of macho smugness. Interesting if depressing to watch.

He couldn’t stand Salma! Her whole argument, her whole politics, was about protecting the vulnerable in society from the predations of unfettered capitalism (that includes war, although she didn’t get a chance to talk about that). And despite the fact that she is personally likeable and said nothing offensive to anyone – and the audience applauded her comments enthusiastically – Toby transparently (I know, I keep using that word, but it’s so appropriate) took a strong dislike to her. The next day he even wrote an article in the Torygraph, slagging her off. Perhaps it’s just because she seemed popular with the audience, perhaps it’s because their politics are so different. But I felt there was a deeper, more personal, emotional reason as well.

The self-absorbed and self-serving are terribly upset when faced with someone genuinely and passionately caring and altruistic. It holds a mirror up to their own selfishness. Of course, it works the other way round too. But Salma had logic on her side, while Toby had only selfishness. (She made arguments, for instance - and not only against Toby - with which it would be impossible for any sane person to disagree, such as when she self-disclosed about her earlier life. She said simply that had it not been for student grants, the further education that led to her career as a psychotherapist would not have been a priority for her working class family - and there was the case against tuition fees et al, right there.) So Salma was able to remain calm, at least outwardly (perhaps her therapy training putting her in good stead!) But Toby was quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, seething.

It was fascinating viewing, on a certain level. The contrast between altruism and its opposite couldn’t have been clearer. But it was also quite upsetting, and my own emotional reactions to the programme were pretty strong - hence the need to write all this!

I started this blog by mentioning my love of Darwin’s great theory, but it obviously hasn’t been about that at all. The crudest form of Social Darwinism – and its altruistic opposite – is my theme. And it’s such an important one. As Richard Dawkins has said many times in his books and elsewhere, our own evolution as a species has progressed so far that we no longer need to be dominated entirely by our ‘selfish genes’. We can put other people first, even to the extent of sacrificing our individual comforts or even lives. We can decide not to perpetuate our own genes, we can decide not to have children. We can resist the urge to claim more and more for ourselves, whether it’s money or privileges or territory. And we’ve reached the point in our history where if we don’t think and behave altruistically, then we and perhaps millions of other species are lost. With the world’s population expanding like mad, the most powerful weapons imaginable, and the climate heating up, the issue of altruism versus short-term selfishness couldn’t be more urgent.

Hearing Salma speak does a lot to rebuild my shaky faith in politicians as a species. Hearing the Tobys and Katies of this world reminds me depressingly of what we’re up against.

Democracy: hung, but not dead yet

I should have sat up in bed reading my new treat, ‘Brightness Falls from the Air’ by James Tiptree Jr, instead. It would have been more relaxing, more enjoyable and far more edifying. But there were at least some results in this bizarre and undemocratic General Election that brought a smile to my face.

After 18 years with a tomato-faced lawyer who lives in Kent, Eastbourne went yellow. I’m happy about it, of course, and Stephen Lloyd is a good guy. I just hope the Lib Dems don’t go and do a deal with the dark side; if they do, I won’t support them again.

The British Nazi Party didn’t win a single seat, and the Fuhrer came third in Barking. As Russell Howard memorably commented, “who’d want to preserve this genome? – he looks like luncheon meat stretched over a toad.” I’m very happy for all my black, Asian, European, Muslim, Jewish and gay friends – everyone who doesn’t correspond to the Nazis’ laughable definition of ‘Britishness’. We are all England, we are all Britain. We are all human. Strange that one should have to state something so obvious in the 21st Century, but then again, the Third Millennium hasn’t exactly begun in an enlightened and civilised manner, has it?

Jacqui Smith lost her seat, ha ha! I don’t give a poo about her expenses scandal and I don’t blame her husband for watching porn when he’s married to her, the poor sod. I’m just happy because she’s an evil cow, and whilst home secretary was an arch-enemy of liberty and democracy. Same with Charles Clarke – good riddance and fuck off.

A few Labour MPs who I actually quite like got re-elected, such as Diane Abbott, Glenda Jackson, Frank Dobson and the incorruptible Jeremy Corbyn.

I got a glimpse of Neil Hughes, the Lib Dem candidate for Carlisle! In the groundbreaking documentary ‘Up’ series, he was the one who at seven years old wanted to be an astronaut, and if not that then a coach driver. Since then he has been shuttling around all the corners of the British Isles every few years, although not, I think, at the helm of a shuttle or a coach.

Salma Yaqoob, the leader of Respect, did massively better than in 2005. She achieved a huge 13% swing from labour to Respect, coming in at a very Respectable second place and not that far behind. I would have absolutely loved her to win, partly because the Respect manifesto is so close to my own views, partly because she seems so refreshingly honest and down-to-earth, and partly because she looks wonderful in a hijab. In the post 9/11 and 7/7 climate, seeing a Muslim woman in a hijab standing up for equality and human rights would have been a fantastic thing to see in the House of Commons. I haven’t checked George Galloway’s result, but with the other Respect candidate Abjol Miah failing to get in it looks to have been a bad night for one of my favourite two parties. But Salma will do it next time!!!

The most exciting result for me, however, was the triumph of Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion. In many European countries with a less antiquated and unfair system of democracy, Green MPs have been in Parliament for years, but we’ve never had one in Britain before. It was, as Caroline said afterwards, a historic event. A party with a far bigger share of the popular vote than you might think, committed to values of justice, equality, human rights and environmental protection – no, a party that’s really committed to those things – can finally represent us nationally in Parliament. And in a hung Parliament even one vote can sometimes carry a lot of weight. In an era, when a public hungry for change and fairness has been repeatedly sold down the line by those whose duty is to represent them, Caroline is one of the few politicians I actually trust, and I am hugely looking forward to seeing her on the benches and watching her, in that quiet but determined way she has, demonstrating her integrity amongst a group of people who, by and large, possess little of that quality. Seeing the quiet emotion on her face when the result was declared was a joy, and almost made up for my disappointment at Salma’s result. I wish, I wish I lived twenty miles further to the west…

As for the prospects for the country over the next few years or more, I guess that depends partly on what the Lib Dems decide to do. I suspect, however, that while things may continue to get worse, that should hardly be surprising because they were pretty bad already. Blair was a monstrous and fanatical leader, and Brown too led a criminal government, eroding fundamental rights, colluding in torture and pursuing a barbaric and unjust war with scant regard for the lives of civilians who bear a terrible cost in terms of casualties. Could things perhaps actually get a bit better, in a Parliament so truly hung? I don’t know enough to say, but I’m not holding my breath.

The best hope lies with us, as it always did, and with the possibility of radical electoral reform. Go to http://www.takebackparliament.com/. Without public protest and direct action, they will probably still need a good kick up their arses.

Rocks and a Sheep Place

It's been a while since I updated my website; partly due to health problems and partly the dark and dreary winter days we've had. But I'm feeling better and so has the weather, so I've been getting out and as a result have some new photos on the site. Go to www.michaelbentleyphotography.co.uk, click on the Gallery page, then on the 'Animals', 'Flowers' and 'East Sussex' galleries and scroll to the bottom to see the new images.

I've lived in Eastbourne with Angie for nearly seven years now, and despite driving past it on countless occasions we have never visited the Seven Sisters Sheep Centre before. Sadly this too was just a flying visit and I wasn't able to spend as much time with the animals as I wanted in order to get enough good photos. Sheep are easy to photograph while grazing as they're pretty slow on their feet, but up close it's not so easy. They practically fall over each other trying to reach you; perhaps they're hoping for food, but it's very endearing. So the best shots I got of them were of lambs and their mothers. Pigs are just the opposite: they rarely take their snouts out of the trough! I got a few good images out of the visit, but I'd like more - so I'll be back there before long.

Meanwhile the side of me that loves to photograph cliff faces and rock formations has a new lease of life, thanks to a book on Ansel Adams that Angie got me as an anniversary present. I love Adams' pictures - who doesn't? - but I notice more now about his use of composition and also of texture. Even his portraits of Navajo people in New Mexico, as well as their deep humanity, have the abstract quality and detail of his close-up images of leaves or his Rocky Mountain panoramas. The closest things to mountains where I live are the South Downs (now a national park), and their truncated edges along the coastal white cliffs. My interest in the cliffs especially has been re-invigorated, so I hope I'll have more photos of them on this site very soon. Possibly including some close-ups - we'll see.

The image shown here is of one of the flint layers that run through the chalk cliffs, mined here during Neolithic times. I read somewhere that these layers match up exactly with those on the opposite coast of the English Channel; just one part of the evidence that millions of years ago the chalk stretched all the way across to France, until the sea finally eroded it to break through and form the Channel. These facts thrill me almost as much as the visual power of the cliffs themselves. Angie and I are very, very lucky to live in such an amazing part of the country.

I've waffled on enough for now. More images coming soon!