No confidence

Deluge in Dubai. Extreme heat in SE Asia. January to March, the warmest months on record and in the UK. the wettest. Day after we receive more evidence of the effects of global warming. Meanwhile a report in New Scientist says that plans for carbon capture and storage while continuing to burn oil and gas are wildly optimistic with targets impossible to achieve. The only answer really is to stop burning fossil fuels. Yet governments and corporations are announcing slowdowns in their movement to carbon neutral futures. Last year it was Sunak and the Tory government ditching their pledges on climate change. Now it is the Scottish Government. As a result, the deal between the SNP and the Scottish Greens has been broken (the Greens were pushed before they jumped). The SNP is now a minority government so the Scottish Conservatives have moved a motion of no confidence. It seems that a former SNP leadership candidate, Ash Regan, now a member of Salmond’s rebel Alba Party, holds the balance of power. What is she basing the promise of her vote for the SNP on? The climate change policies that have been ditched? No. The state of NHS Scotland? No. It is in fact the Scottish government’s adoption of the Cass report on care of trans-children. What a farce? When did being trans become the most important issue in present-day politics? While there are probably a few hundred trans-kids in Scotland who will be left without sympathetic care or treatment if the Cass report is accepted, there are hundreds of thousands of patients awaiting treatment for all sorts of ailments. Which is the bigger scandal? And all the time the climate crisis grows more deadly. I have no confidence is governments to tackle it.

…………………

This week we attended a live broadcast of the National Theatre/Welsh Millennium Centre production of Nye, the story of Aneurin Bevan. Michael Sheen was in the starring role and as usual was superb, completely taking on the persona of Bevan (not that I know much about the Welsh labour politician). Bevan was Minister of Health in the postwar, Labour Government and in 1948 drove through the formation of the NHS. He faced virulent opposition from the Tories, the BMA and some in his own party. Amongst others, one lesson Nye learned for defeating powerful opposition (initially in his Tredegar home) was, make sure you know and understand the issues, including the rules of engagement, better than your opponents.

This is vital for left and centre politicians today. US Republicans manipulate democratic procedures in state legislatures to undermine the the rights of women and black, gay and trans people. In Spain, right wing minorities are using obscure judicial procedures to harass and hinder members of the elected government and the same is no doubt happening elsewhere. In the UK, Sunak and the Tories have found a new way to undermine the NHS. They are cutting National Insurance rates. On the face of it, this looks like a tax cut putting more cash in workers’ pockets. Except that as NI is a straight percentage of pay, high earners contribute more than low wage staff, while everyone has the same right to health treatment, social care and state pensions. NI payments were supposed to be ring fenced for the NHS, benefits and pensions (I’m not sure it still is). When more people are requiring treatment, more need care at home and people are living longer in retirement, it is illogical to cut the payments unless the aim is to dismantle the welfare state.

April 2023 – a sunny but not very warm day like some this week.

This week’s topic for writing group was agents/agency. This was because last week we had a special meeting with a top literary agent. She was charming, answered all our questions and revealed a caring attitude to her stable of 40 authors. I didn’t really learn anything new but had it confirmed that there is about a 2 in 5,000 chance of being taken on by any single agent in one year. After the meeting I wrote the story below, The No.1 Bestseller Literary Agency. It is a satire and may be considered a cynical appraisal of the profession. It was in no way inspired by the character or practices of our guest agent and the character bears no resemblance to her. I have no idea whether my story is true – it just feels like it sometimes.

The No.1 Bestseller Literary Agency

Trudy Hennesy reclined in her contoured, ergonomic, executive chair. She stared at the screen of her smart phone, impatiently tapping the rim with a sharp, glistening red fingernail. Where were the emails from eager publishers; the WhatsApp messages from her fellow literary agents, friend and foe; the tik-toks of keen young readers; or Facebook posts from the senior citizens and their book clubs? There was nothing to point her in the direction of the next big seller, the trend of the moment.

Never slow to clamber onto any wagon with a band or grasp the tails of any coat, Trudy recalled the past successes of the No.1 Bestseller Literary Agency speeding in the wake of the giant cruiseliners of publishing.

                Who could forget the rapturous response to Barry Hopper and the Dried Plum Stone, the story of a poor, bullied boy at a decrepit state high school who discovered magic in his lunchbox. Then there were the tears of joy resulting from Midnight, the tale of a young woman’s desire for a werewolf’s love regardless of the scratching claws, sharp teeth, bad breath and thick, stinking fur.

                For more adult readers, there was Fifty Flavours of Ice, explicitlyrecounting the erotic pleasures of ice-cream beyond vanilla. Most recently was the huge success in cosy crime of the series of cases solved by The Monday Morning Toddler Club with its cast of exhausted mums solving the crimes of their neighbourhood over a mug of instant coffee and a digestive biscuit.

                Now, the well was dry, the tottering virtual slush pile bereft of any inspired, though vaguely plagiarised, shoe-ins for a bestseller. Every day, hundreds of publications joined the overcrowded marketplace, but which was the one, the golden ticket to royalties and profit beyond the dreams of the average author and their agent. That one would be the flag bearer, the one that others would follow. She had to pick it out first so that her authors would be the leaders of the chasing pack. What was it to be? Which mash-up of genres would be the next big thing?

                Trudy was disturbed from her maudlin recollections by a tap on her study door.

                “The post has come,” her husband said poking his head around the door, “You have a parcel.” He stepped into her holy of holies, placed a package into her arms and withdrew.

                Trudy ripped off the brown paper then stopped to stare. It was a long time since she had seen an actual printed manuscript. Usually, they were consigned to the rubbish bin before reaching her hands. Who knew what germs adhered to the paper. Only submissions that negotiated her strict and idiosyncratic guidelines ever earned screen time. This neat bundle however, had evaded all her defences and made it to her lap. Perhaps she might, just might, glance at the title, scan the opening paragraph, read the first page.

                An hour later, Trudy was enraptured, carried off into a world that was unfamiliar and original yet revealed to all the senses, populated by a variety of characters that lived, doing things that surprised and excited her. She turned each page, reading every word, exhilarated by every sentence, longing for the next paragraph.

                She ignored her husband’s call to lunch (he dared not disturb her again) and it was approaching teatime when she reached the last page. She read the final words, The End, with a feeling of wonder tinged with regret. The story was finished but she felt she wanted to know more. Trudy could not recall when she had last read a novel that gave such pure enjoyment, that hadn’t triggered her critical or pedantic senses, a story which just had to be read.

                For moment or two she just sat and reflected, the scenes from the story repeating in her memory. She felt again the emotions the words had generated.

                Then she picked up the great pile of single sided, double-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman printed A4 paper and dumped it in the waste bin.

                It was no use to her. What publisher would take on such a unique novel, one without any to compare with, in no acknowledged genre. What shelf would bookshops place it on? The work of which famous authors could the marketing people say it surpassed? Sadly, Trudy resumed her search for the next guaranteed, sure-fire, money-spinner.

…………………………..

Exploitation ignored

Kemi Badenoch, part of the megalomaniac tendency of the Tory party, says that the wealth of Britain and other western countries is not a result of slavery and colonialism. I beg to differ. I am not an historian or economist but I think I have enough knowledge of British history to see that exploitation of the poor has very much contributed to the wealth of the richest here and abroad.

Exploitation at home certainly contributed to the growth in power of the UK. Agricultural workers, miners and factory workers lived on or about the poverty line trapped in working for landowners, coal and iron barons, and factory owners. But those businesses that grew through the agricultural and industrial revolutions depended on investment from the already rich. Those were the aristocracy who had jumped on the triangular trade system of the C17th and C18th. Trinkets and weapons exported to West Africa in exchange for slaves carried to the Caribbean and Americas to work the plantations (sugar, cotton, tobacco, and later, rubber, etc) with the much higher value products brought back to the UK for further work and wealth creation.

Why do so many of the National Trust’s stately homes date from the C18th and C19th if it is not the wealth created by the slave trade and exploitation of resources in the colonies? I think every successful business set up during the Industrial Revolution, every canal dug and railway built had investment from people who had made at least some of their cash from slavery and colonialism. It means all of us Britons are descended from people who gained more or less from exploitation of slaves and the colonies

So what? What is to be done about past exploitation of poor people here and abroad? I do not think government apologies are worth a thing. It’s like telling children not to mouth the word “sorry” unless they mean it. Past bad behaviour can only be redeemed by action to mitigate the results. Huge one off payments matching the sum extracted from colonies with inflation taken into account, would bankrupt the guilty nations and prevent any further acts of alleviation. What can be done is to make sure that trade is fair today, that coffee growers in South America are paid a decent price for their beans, etc. Also we should be offering help to relieve the effects of climate change, largely caused by the wealthy countries overuse of fossil fuels.

None of this will happen of course, because Britain and other first world nations have frittered away the wealth they gained over the previous three centuries and our now morally moribund. Britain, perhaps more than the others, has also disposed of its manufacturing base, sold off its corporations to foreign buyers and has little left to trade. 25 years ago a senior executive in a high tech company told me that the future of the British economy was in intelligence. Trading our knack for innovation for the goods we want. That’s all well and good if there is the infrastructure to encourage the innovators – a well-resourced and staffed education system (schools and universities), resources for the innovators to develop their ideas before they are ready to sell, a system of getting remuneration out of the sale of ideas. None of that happened. Of course, innovation does not just apply to science, technology and medicine, it also includes culture and the arts. For years our musicians, artists, actors, film makers, games designers etc received some encouragement. That too has been ditched, largely because of Brexit, but now also because of Tory party austerity which has resulted in arts grants being cut or stopped altogether. Really, the people in government haven’t a clue.

Another view of Rhossili

This week’s theme for writing group was the phrase “time to go”. Of course, my thoughts turned to time travel. The idea that came along turned out to be parody or pastiche and satire. The group loved it, tittering in all the right places. Here is Endurance.

Endurance

“Time, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the timeship, Endurance. Its continuing mission to boldly go when no-one has been before.”

“It’s nae good, Captain. I cannae do anymore; the engines won’t take it.”

                None of the crew of the Timeship Endeavour understood why Chief Engineer “Lotty” Lott spoke in a Scottish accent. He’d never been near the country devastated by the great timestorm of 2356 which left it in the 1950s. Every city was covered in a film of coal fire soot and people rejoiced to the music of Kenneth McKellar and Moira Anderson while, male and female alike wore their kilts long.

                Tim Shirk gripped the arms of his captain’s chair and rocked from side to side like the rest of the ship’s company as it was buffeted by the time typhoon. No one had thought to fit seatbelts. “Take us out of timewarp, Mr Tock,” he ordered.

                First Officer Tock, a member of the race of Anachrons, only distinguishable from a white human male by the pink hair that grew from his nostrils, pressed the big red button marked Timewarp Emergency Cutoff.

                The shaking and rattling of the timeship ceased. The big screen on the wall showed a perfect picture of the whole Earth hanging in a starry space.

                Dr Temperance McJoy, staggered from the lift doors. “What’s going on, Tim?” she said to the Captain, “I’ve got a sickbay full of injured crew.”

                Shirk refrained from telling “Pills”, as McJoy was known, that perhaps she should get back there and do her job. Instead, he replied, “Explain it for everyone, Mr Tock.”

                Tock’s thick eyebrows rose as they did from time to time. “We dropped out of timewarp just before we were hit by the time typhoon. We are now orbiting Earth in the 2020s, a turbulent period in Earth’s time continuum.”

                “The twentytwenties?” MacJoy screeched, “We can’t stay here.”

                “Why not?” Shirk replied, “There’s life down there.”

                “Life?” MacJoy sneered, “It may be life, but not as we know it, Tim.”

                “What do you mean,” Shirk said looking appealingly at Mr Tock.

                “Captain, I think the Doctor is suggesting that it would not be appropriate for us to appear to the humans that are living at this time.”

                “Why not?” Shirk said.

                Tock explained, “The planet is about to undergo runaway global warming that will devastate the biodiversity and end the lives of most of the population,”

                “Don’t they know what’s happening?” the Captain asked.

                “Of course they know,” Pills snorted, “half of them are living in an anxiety-caused refusal to accept what will happen to them and the other half think they can make something out of it.”

                “What are they doing?” Shirk said.

                The Doctor went on, “Some are fighting over tickets to Taylor Swift concerts, some are churning out ten second videos called tik-toks and the rest are just, fighting.”

                “We’ll have to get out of this time,” Shirk said, “Lotty how are the engines?”

                “In a bad way, Captain,” the engineer said, “It’ll take ten hours to get the timewarp drives up and running.”

                “You’ve got five,” was Shirk’s reply, habitually halving any period that the Engineer suggested. “Mr Tock, Pills, join me down on the surface whereby we leave the ship without senior officers and put ourselves in danger.  Oh, and bring one of those expendable security guys we have standing around doing nothing.”

The four members of the crew went down to the transport room, for some reason located a long way from the control deck. They were reconstituted on the planet’s surface just outside a branch of Greggs.

                “What is this place?” Captain Shirk said peering through the window at the queue of humans.

                Tock peered into his handheld plot device. “It appears to be a purveyor of baked goods, Captain.”

                “Great, I could kill a sausage roll,” Shirk said.

                “You may have to,” Pills said, “Heaven knows what deadly organisms are alive in this period.”

                “I don’t think it would be wise to enter the establishment,” Tock said.

                “Why not?” Shirk asked about to walk inside.

                Tock replied, “At this time vendors required payment for goods. We don’t have any money.”

                A burly man grasping a large lump of greasy pastry came out of the doorway and pushed passed the intrepid crew.

                “Ger outatheway will yer,” he mumbled as he stumbled past, “Bloody clowns. Are you from some cult or sum’thin?”

                “No, but are you sure you should be eating that,” commented Pills, “it’s not good for your health.”

                “You bloody, woke, vegan, health freaks,” the man shouted before going on his way.

                “Not a warm response to some well-intentioned advice,” Shirk said.

                Tock replied, “I think that we will find that is typical of the era, Captain. Opinions on all issues have become polarised. Many protagonists argue from positions lacking any evidence base whatsoever. It is illogical.”

                Shirk looked up and down the street lined with similar establishments to the branch of Greggs. Vehicles passed slowly belching noxious fumes and people walked on oblivious to the dangers. “I think we’ve seen enough,” he said.

                “I agree, Tim,” Pills replied, “Stay here any longer and we could catch a deadly disease.”

                Shirk spoke into his communicator. “Stream us on board, Lotty.”

Back on the control deck, the captain settled himself into his chair. “Has power to the engines been restored?”

                “Aye cap’n. They’re as good as new,” Lotty replied, grinning with satisfaction.

                “Right, Mr Tock. Time to go home. Timewarp factor 8. Engage.”

……….

Cancelling Trans

I am sorry if returning to the subject of transgender is a bore for readers. I can quite understand that it is uninteresting for people who are not transgender or have no questions of their gender. It is, however, an important topic for me and there are things I have to say.

This week a major item in the news was the Cass Report on four years of “investigation” of the provision of care to children expressing questions about their gender.  The reporting by the BBC was vague and muddled and gave a less than balanced comment on the report.

Unfortunately, it is my favourite newspaper, The Guardian, which has angered and inspired me most. I have been a reader and supporter of the Guardian for over fifty years. Its political stance (neither too right or too left) has matched mine and I have enjoyed its articles and opinions on all sorts of subjects. The problem is that in recent years it has editorially sided with the “gender critics” who wish to eliminate transpeople from society by denying they exist. In particular, it has repeatedly reported on the investigation by Dr Hilary Cass into provision of gender identity care for children, particularly the former service based at the Tavistock Clinic in London.  As a result of Cass’ report, the Tavistock has been closed down. Regional centres are supposed to have been set up to replace it, but they are “delayed” and have been criticised for a lack of preparedness. The Tavistock was overwhelmed and inadequate for the need but the result is that 5,000 children with gender issues have been left with no specialist care or treatment whatsoever.

The Guardian’s reporting of all this is comparable to rubbishing the work of Alan Bates and the 900+ subpostmasters and mistresses who were wronged by the Post Office in the Horizon Scandal. It is as if the Guardian writers went along with the government line (until recently) that all those sub-post-people were thieves.  The reporting of Cass’ report is amazingly one-sided, unscientific and takes little account of the experience of transpeople.

Cass’ report fits nicely with the views of the “gender critics” which include many people in the Conservative government. It draws on the opinions of a few “whistleblowers” at the Tavistock who were in disagreement over the treatment provided by the Clinic and relies heavily on the testimony of a few people who de-transitioned (i.e. they reverted to their gender assigned at birth having gone through various degrees of gender reassignment as children and adults).

In none of the reporting can I see any evidence provided by the medical staff who actually supported the practices at the Tavistock (many have been driven into private practice) and there are few comments from transpeople who relied solely on the NHS for their treatment.  The report goes on about the people who have detransitioned without giving any figures, suggesting that it is a large proportion of the total number of patients. To my knowledge, it is not.

The report also places a lot of emphasis on the “large number” (again, no percentages) of the children treated at the Tavistock being neurodivergent (i.e. diagnosed with autism, ADHD etc.) It makes the assumption that these children cannot possibly have a sensible idea about their own gender and hence should not be listened to. Being neurodivergent is not a disease and does not stop people being full and contributing members of society. It is probably the case that neurodivergent people do not accept gender stereotypes, along with other social mores, forced on everyone from birth. Hence they have a greater inclination to explore their own feelings and reach their own conclusions about their gender which may differ from that of their parents and others.

No children (i.e. aged under 18) have ever undergone gender reassignment surgery nor have they been prescribed hormones that cause a permanent change in sexual development. The only treatment that children with gender dysphoria have received is counselling, assistance with social transitioning and in rare cases, puberty blockers. The last are used to slow down the rate of puberty so that transchildren have time to consider their need to eventually undergo gender reassignment. When they become adults they can transition fully and more successfully if puberty has been delayed. Puberty blockers have a temporary effect though it is true that more research is needed into their side effects and effectiveness in treatment of child gender dysphoria. The facts are that the majority of children given puberty blockers do go on to transition fully. This isn’t a sign that the treatment is misguided, it is proof that the will to transition is strong and the decision to delay puberty for those children was correct.

Cass’ whole attitude to transgender and children is blinkered. She assigns the very large increase in the number of children being referred to the Tavistock (about one hundredfold in 15 years) to the influence of social media. No other factor seems to have been considered nor is the influence of social media in other areas. The ready availability of information via the internet and the ease of communication afforded by Facebook, Instagram, Tik-Tok etc  has undoubtedly enlightened a great number of people, child and adult. It has encouraged discussion of gender and other personal characteristics. However, I fail to see that this has caused an epidemic of gender dysphoria. Many of the children questioning their gender are very young indeed, under 10. Studies of the influence of media on people have often shown that the effects are less radical than feared. I don’t believe that children are making up their feelings of gender queerness.  What social media has uncovered, I believe, is the existence of gender questioning in a small percentage (less than 1%) of the population that has always existed.

Prior to 2004 it was difficult for anyone to come out as trans. Up to the 1980s police would arrest men in dresses for “impersonating a woman” and disturbing the peace.  Until 1999, an employer could sack an employee who wanted to transition. The extremely patriarchal and sexist nature of society made transitioning for transmen as well as transwomen a dangerous and difficult process. Before the internet, it was difficult to find out about other people like oneself. Peer pressure forced young people to conform with the stereotypes of the time. Nevertheless, for 100 years the medical community have been coming to an acceptance that transpeople exist and require treatment. Surgical techniques have improved and hormone treatments have become safer and more effective.

Cass has admitted that a distant relative is trans. She doesn’t mention having discussed the matter with that relative but dismissed them as having “transitioned late in life” and therefore not relevant to her investigation. There are many, many people who left transitioning to their 40s, 50 and post-retirement, despite having had the desire to do so from an early age (even childhood).  The pressures from parents, family, friends, colleagues, and society generally, to stick to the status quo, not rock the boat, not cause a scandal, and instead adopt stereotypical behaviour of one’s birth sex, mean many transpeople lead “normal” lives while being deeply unhappy with the gender they were forced to present.

The result of Cass’ report is that children will no longer be listened to by parents, schools or medical authorities. Their gender questioning will be dismissed as “a phase” which they will grow out of if their desire to transition is ignored. It will also weaponise the gender critics’ cry that transpeople don’t exist (it is they that talk about a war against transpeople), that transwomen are not women (despite the 2004 Gender Recognition Act). It will increase attacks, verbal and physical, on transpeople who are trying to live their lives out in public.

People living in a gender different to that assigned at birth make up less than 0.5% of the population according to the 2021 census, yet the virulence of the opposition to their existence and the reporting on it by papers such as The Guardian makes it a much more important and pressing issue.  I have one request – please listen to and report on the experiences and opinions of actual trans and gender questioning people. Let people speak for themselves.

The wreck on Rhossili beach

The prompt for this week’s writing group exercise was “frame”, for reasons too boring to report. It was suggested that this was an open invitation for me to do a piece involving Jasmine Frame, the transwoman detective that is the “heroine” of my five crime novels starting with Painted Ladies. I completed and published the planned fifth novel, Impersonator, in 2021 and then “rested” the character. A few people have asked me when the next novel will be published and as a result I have been giving the matter a little thought.

I started writing stories about Jasmine in 2001. An attempt at a first novel which introduced Jasmine and her nemesis DCI Sloane ground to a halt because the case (the murder of a drug dealer) was boring and not close enough to Jasmine emotionally. It was in 2004 that I began Painted Ladies, planning the whole novel and sketching out the four sequels that saw Jasmine through her transition. Those novels cover a period from approx 2011 to 2015 and are set in the Newbury area where I lived until 2009. I also wrote a lot of short stories and novellas as prequels which appeared in this blog and some of which have been published as three extra novellas on Kindle.

I have decided that any new stories featuring Jasmine need to be up to date, should stand alone and deal with current issues. I haven’t started to plan a new novel yet but I have sketched out the basic plot and the background. It is eight or nine years after the end of Impersonator when Jasmine was invited to rejoin the police force. She is that much older, and has now spent almost fifteen years living as a woman. However in today’s society (see above) that implies that she still meets problems associated with being trans.

For writing group, I knocked out the first chapter of the novel without a plan, working title Framed. I am delighted that it was received very well and everyone said they wanted to read on. I am not going to post it here as it is in its early draft stage and if the novel does get written (perhaps in the next year or so) I will try to find a publisher rather than pay for it myself. So, to all of you looking forward to reading the new cases of Jasmine Frame please have patience (quite a lot of it).

……………………………

Author, question yourself

Back after a brief break that included dangling from cables in trees (GoApe), meeting a former pupil starring in a West End musical (Frozen), and spectating a Premiership Rugby match (Harlequins vs Bath), all with the grandkids. Now, to crack on…

Charles Dickens was a womaniser; Jane Austen’s family may have profited from slavery (most wealthy families did in the C18th and C19th); Eric Blair (George Orwell) treated his wife as a servant; Capt W. E Johns (of Biggles fame) was a racist and SF authors Robert Heinlein and Orson Scott Card have been accused of being fascists. Many authors have variously been described as racist, misogynist, antisemitic, homophobic, etc. Should authors of the past be held to the ethical standards of the C21st? If we knew more about William Shakespeare, the man, would we think so much of his writings? I think it would be very dangerous if we ditched works by people whose personality and behaviour now bring disapproval. We would lose the authentic view of the past (and the past’s view of the future) as witnessed and described by these authors. I have tended to see books, particularly novels, as independent of the author. When I belonged to a book group, other members often researched the writer in depth while I concentrated on their ideas as expressed in their works. The author’s personal views are important but separate from their works.

Which brings us to the works of J K Rowling. Whatever you may think of the quality of the writing in the Potter books (and some reviewers have been critical) the influence of the seven book series has been immense and maybe has encouraged many children, boys as well as girls, to become readers. The stories may be derivative but I think the key to their success was that the character grows with the reader. When they were being published one a year the fans aged as fast as Harry. That’s less true now but still it takes quite a while to get through all seven books from the somewhat twee Philosopher’s Stone to the darker last book.

The question is how the books treat diversity. Harry is an odd one out, something of a loner despite his group of friends because of his strange upbringing. The Potter world is divided into two races – wizards and muggles. The latter are somewhat looked down on by most of the former and the halfbloods like Harry who have a wizard father and muggle mother are particularly bullied. All the principal characters are white and the majority are male – Harry himself, Voldemort, Dumbledore, Snape, Hagrid. So perhaps not the most diverse character list and maybe an accusation of racism and sexism could stand up. Nevertheless I think such faults are relatively minor.

On the other hand the character of J K Rowling has been shown to be divisive and she is discriminatory towards transgender people particularly transwomen, despite adopting a male persona for her crime thrillers. It began some years ago as derogatory Tweets brushed off as unintended or of little importance. Rowling has now emerged as a leader amongst the “gender critical” crowd wishing to remove the right of transwomen to live their lives as normal women. Apparently she has funded, to the tune of £70,000, a case in the Scottish courts seeking to prevent transwomen calling themselves women. She has been prominent in the opposition to the new Scottish hate-crime law and set out to provoke a police response by circulating intimidatory tweets. The police refused to act. However, I have heard that Rowling also outed several women as former transwomen. Now to my knowledge that breaks the laws included in the 2004 Gender Recognition Act. It is against the law to reveal the previous gender of a holder of a Gender Recognition Certificate. Stating that someone, who says they are a woman, is a transwoman does exactly that.

With the financial support of people like Rowling and the media response that she attracts, the gender-critical brigade can hardly argue that they are unable to express their opinions, or are the weaker party in their perceived “war” with transpeople. There are trans activist groups of course, but they don’t have rich backers and struggle to get their opinions reported in depth or even accurately.

So, read your Potter books and watch the films if you like but don’t think that the author is a sweet, good -natured lady who accepts and respects everyone who is a little, bit different.

It was also back to writing group this week. The theme set was not surprisingly “April Fool”. I had an idea for a story where well known April Fools are actually true such as spaghetti trees, and the tropical paradise of San Serif, etc. The only problem was that I found I’d done it before, in 2019 when we had the same prompt. Back at the drawing board I came up with another simpler story. Many April Fools are good fun such as the two I have mentioned but sometimes practical jokes are only funny to the perpetrator. Here is Washing the Lions.

Washing the Lions

It was a family tradition. I think it was my father who started it when my brother and I were children, but it was Bernard, my elder by almost two years who maintained it. No, persisted with it to the level of OCD. We’re talking about what we as a family called “washing the lions”. Late in the seventeenth century someone put up posters and sent invitations inviting people to attend the washing of the lions at the menagerie in the Tower of London, entry via the White Gate. Many of the wealthy citizens of London responded, causing a traffic jam with their carriages as they tried to find the non-existent White Gate. Then the anonymous hoaxer revealed that it was an April Fool. It was one of the earliest recorded.

                Every year my father, and later my brother would engage in some complex ruse to fool me, my mother, each other, or anyone else who foolishly was in the vicinity. There was the time that all the clocks and watches in the house were changed to fool me into thinking it was time to get up for school, when in fact it was an hour earlier than all the timepieces said. The tricks weren’t always original sometimes piggybacking other fools, like the time my father sent me as a seven-year-old to the hardware store to buy a round tuit. The shopkeeper enjoyed that one. The fact that I got soaked in a rain shower made my brother laugh even louder.

                There was the time, shortly after I started work, that I got a message to say that my mother had been taken seriously ill and needed to see me. I dropped everything and drove a hundred miles to be at her bed side only to find her fit and well and surprised to see me. My brother laughed aloud. I didn’t.           

                The pranks continued year after year, long after my father died. I had of course developed something of a nose for April Fools. I avoided all contact with Bernard on the day and spent it in nervous anticipation of some scam or other. He still got me from time to time, such as when a parcel arrived which spurted out black ink when I attempted to open it. How Bernard knew I was expecting a parcel that day of all days, I will never know.

                Why did I put up with it, you are no doubt wondering. Well, he was my one and only brother and for the other 364 or 5 days in the year, Bernard was kind and considerate. However, it did get so that I dreaded the arrival of April 1^st. Sometimes I made sure I was away and didn’t tell Bernard where I was but when that wasn’t possible, I knew that something weird would happen, curated by him.

                At last, I had enough and decided to do something to get him back. Why hadn’t I done it years before my 50^th birthday, you ask, and put an end to the farce? Well, I was just no good at planning practical jokes and I was his junior, his little bro.

                Anyway, I finally had a plan. On April 1^st, my brother received a letter saying that an anomaly had been noted on his recent medical checkup. He was quite a fitness fanatic, and I knew he had a medical MOT every couple of years. All the letter did was tell him to contact the medical centre via a particular email address. That was an address I had set up myself and I expected to be able to reply “April Fool” when he sent the message.

                I was, however, unaware quite how much of a hypochondriac Bernard was. He missed the email address I had provided and immediately rang his GP. How was I to know that some results had just come in. The doctor was surprised at Bernard’s call since the letter he had written had not yet been posted. It was to say that my brother had a heart condition that needed treatment.

                No one laughed, I certainly didn’t, and Bernard was far too worried by his diagnosis to see the joke. That was the last mention of washing of lions.

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