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Nunky B

November 5, 2023November 5, 2023saigonsays4 Comments

At the end of my uncle’s funeral service in September, the final music played was the “Ying Tong Song”, written by Spike Milligan and performed by The Goons. Here’s a link for anyone unfamiliar with this seminal piece.

I doubt any crematorium in the UK would, prior to that, have received a request for a song whose refrain includes the lines: “Ying tong ying tong, Ying tong iddle I po.” However, our congregation replaced shedding tears of sadness with wiping away tears of laughter as the song continued.

Shuffling past my uncle’s coffin, we each picked up a packet of digestive biscuits, his favourite, and held our gaze one last time in his direction.

Outside, we gathered by the bouquets of flowers, proudly wearing our paper rose buttonholes, fashioned out of Goon Show scripts, before coalescing at the nearby golf club, to stand in the early autumn sunshine staring up, as our cigarette smoke calmly spiraled into the sky.

Brian Edwin Copleston, ‘Nunky B’ to us all, was my mother’s eldest brother.

Their middle sibling, my uncle John, passed away almost 15 years ago, at too young an age of 68, and just five years after his parents, my Nana and Grandad, had also left us. Nunky B would have been 87 years old today.

Born on Guy Fawkes night, a few years before the outbreak of World War II, Nunky B was first and foremost an entertainer. Drawing on Goon Show humour during his funeral was the perfect send-off.

The Ying Tong Song that day came on the heels of my cousin Pip’s heart-warming eulogy for her Dad, a man who was never short of a one-liner himself (typically followed by prolonged, stifled giggles) all the way into his final days.

I wonder, now, what harnessed Brian’s constant energy to create fun and laughter?

Going through adolescence at the beginning of the 1960’s (my uncle’s formative years were spent growing up initially with the backdrop of war, and then through the austerity of 1950s Britain, followed by a period of National Service in the RAF spent in part in Cyprus) it is possible he was one of the last generations of young people to experience “civic” societal norms – the type where children, it was felt, “should be seen and not heard.”

My own grandparents were very definitely brought up during sterner times, and probably regurgitated what they had been taught back to their kids, albeit with softening delivery.

Fortunately, my baby-boomer parents modelled a new style of parenting that seemed to take hold in the early 70s, a pivot away from dictatorial etiquette towards, instead, allowing youngsters more of a voice. My brother and I were spoilt, compared to how we would have fared had we been born twenty years earlier.

Whether the various shifting societal changes that were underway, as my uncle reached adulthood and beyond, helped inspire and shape his humour, is perhaps less important now. It’s possible the “roaring ’60s,” with its new wave of music, fashion, art, anarchy, and general substance experimentations, whet the appetite of a whole generation – a welcome distraction from the challenges of the previous decade.

Certainly, in response more generally to the often-impossible bleakness and pain that many people endure, comedy has, generations over, proven to be a worthy antidote.

Nunky B at Chestnut Farmhouse, circa 1993

The Goon Show itself ran throughout much of the 1950s, amassing some two million radio listeners at its peak, with episodes airing across the globe. Cult-like in the end, the absurdity of Goon humour, with its free-falling satirical sketches ridiculing all aspects of British society had, until then, never been experienced in that format. The Goons established a unique genre of comedy, reprised in 1972 as part of the BBC’s 50^th anniversary, when fans got to tune in one last time to The Last Goon Show of All.

Whatever lit the touch paper and sparked Nunky B’s wit when he was younger, it stuck for the rest of his life. As he and his wife, Angela, started their family, they ran a hotel for a number of years down in Porlock, Somerset, hosting weekends of jocularity with my parents, akin to Fawlty Towers episodes with Nunky B playing the role of consummate host.

One Christmas, my parents were roped in to help out in the dining room, relying mostly on the art of improvisation. If a diner requested, say, a ham and cheese sandwich or a pasty, someone would be dispatched to the local shop to buy the necessary ingredients, before muddling a plate, some cutlery and a sprig of parsley together, and serving it up with aplomb.

My Dad once received a request from a patron for a glass of “medium” white wine (because apparently the Sauterne the night before was “too sweet.”) On enquiring whether they had any medium white available in the bar, Nunky B immediately set to and mixed half a glass of dry into half a glass of sweet wine and declared “that’s yer medium”. The resulting beverage was delivered to the guest, who swished a small mouthful of the concoction like a true sommelier, before declaring himself totally satisfied.

My uncle himself hadn’t drunk alcohol for a long time. I recall clearly his disdain, during the earlier days of his abstinence, about how he’d woken up, the morning after drinking non-alcoholic Kaliber lager the night before and complained at having the “worst hangover ever”.

As kids, we were always excited when we knew Nunky B might be coming to visit. Whether it was for a Boxing Day gathering, with Brian wearing the infamous orange tights (traditionally passed on each year to unsuspecting family members) or him cracking jokes about “catching her teeth” as my Nana blew out her birthday candles one year – my uncle’s quick-wittedness is ingrained in my memory of those occasions, under the canopy of his cigarillo smoke and infused with his contagious chuckling.

Matt and Brian, at The Willows, summer 2019

He truly was a humble man, taking genuine interest in me and my brother’s upbringing – asking about our school subjects, our sports achievements and, in later years, the places we’d visited, and our own families.

He doted on his own children, Pippa and Nick, and he and my aunt celebrated their 60^th wedding anniversary in 2020.

In more recent times, during the protracted months of lockdown, we would organize weekly family quizzes on Zoom. Brian’s health was sliding a bit during this period, however he was always on camera, and we’d usually have to halt proceedings periodically due to more bouts of laughing.

Encountering his own ups and downs, over his many years, Nunky B’s sense of humour, coupled with his simple adoration of our family – we are small, but perfectly formed – was an inspiration to us all.

As a lifelong smoker, Nunky B was somewhat of a walking miracle when I saw him this summer. Although not in the best of health, and reluctantly “off the darts”, he was in good spirits and still managed to crease us all up, openly sharing, shall we say, a bit too much about some of his more intimate medical issues.

We exchanged our last words and hugged it out that day. Whilst, physically, his movement was compromised, Brian somehow managed to make it to the front door to wave us off, as our car pulled away.

At the time, waving back, I wasn’t sure how he’d managed to get all the way from his armchair to the front porch so quickly. But, there he was, framed in the doorway, wearing his crumpled brown pullover and moccasins, his arm aloft, beaming.

Homage to my hombre

October 28, 2023October 28, 2023saigonsays1 Comment

Brighton Beach, Sept 2023 – a long way to go for a bacon sandwich, but worth it

When I applied for our Australian residencies over five years ago, at one stage of the process I had to log every trip made over the previous ten years (for my daughters also). Quite the task, it turned out, given the privileged nature of how I have spent my time living overseas.

In spite of all the hours I’ve notched up sat in musty metal tubes, soaring over countries and continents before being spat out the other end, I’m always be-dazzled by the experience.

Inhaling Saigon’s humid fumes on a Tuesday evening one minute, buzzing through a throng of scooter traffic enroute to Tan Son Nhat airport, you are just two to three plastic trays of food (washed down with gulps of industrial strength gin and tonic) away from squinting down at the London Eye the following morning, the white glare off the city’s skyscrapers winking back at you.

Home from home.

Last month, I flew back to England briefly, a short touchdown in Doha between Saigon and London Gatwick, before I trundled off through customs and boarded a train to Brighton. Half an hour later and I’m walking out of the station and onto Western Avenue, down a small laneway and onto the pebbled beach, bacon sandwich and coffee in hand.

The sea was murky, and the waves were heavy, but the feeling of salt water on the skin and the cold clumpy sand between my toes was spectacular. Like it was worth travelling over twenty hours just for that.

Staring across to the end of Brighton’s famous pier, I spotted the Helter Skelter ride, calmly battered over the years by gales and the slow erosion of the ratan mats that slip-slide around it, before flopping onto the cushioned base.

Florence and Martha have swooshed down that Helter Skelter, in the summer of 2018, and in their pre-teens. They did so with the son of one of my oldest friends, Quinten, aka “Q”. We met at the beginning of secondary school in 1986. Alphabetically organised, our single wooden-top desks were set out in lines: Ahn, Ali, Babcock, Baura, Bishop and Bullock – we were the first row from the classroom door.

Back then, Q (Babcock) had a shock of blond hair and ruby red lips. I use that last description poignantly because, only last night, Q and his family were sat here in our apartment in Saigon, and his children were joking about how red his lips still are. One of the school dinner ladies, Q recalls, once asked him very loudly if he was “wearing lipstick” as she dolloped a ladle of mashed potato onto his plate. The accusation has made it into family folklore ever since.

In any case, Q and Alex and their kids are, as these words are being typed out, about six hours into their flight back to London. They safely completed a two-week romp around the south of Vietnam, book-ending the visit in Saigon, and indulging with us in some of our favorite past-times – eating, drinking and playing games.

The added bonus for me, these past couple of weeks, was to see how smoothly all our kids connected with each other.

Akin to when Flo and Martha meet up with their UK or their Australian cousins, they simply dive in and have fun. Second-hand clothes markets were frequented (thanks to Issy), cocktails and mocktails at our local Japanese bar were sampled, Vietnamese spring rolls were ordered, and re-ordered, nails were painted, balls were thrown in the pool. It was all so very easy. New surrounds for them, new visitors for us to show around. A win-win.

As we turn our sights to a transition to Melbourne in 2024, it’s times like those we’ve just had with special friends that makes long-distance relationships bind even deeper. You find yourself taking off from where you last left things, as if the time in between has evaporated. There is a clarity of purpose, a steady flow of stories and sharing. Even the simple past-time of playing a game of cards is attributed an extra sprinkle of pleasure.

These moments are treasured, and these lifelong connections are everything.

Thank you Babcocks!

Happy hour and happy days at Kanpai, Saigon, Oct 2023

Anger Management

October 23, 2023October 23, 2023saigonsaysLeave a comment

There is this re-frame I heard the other day, about anger, which I quite like. It goes something along the lines of: when someone does something that makes you angry, it’s not that person who has made you angry, it’s you.

Sure, you think, it’s my anger. I’m the reason it exists in the first place, and I am the only one who can control it. Others around me, or the surrounding environment, can influence the extent to which I amplify up the feeling of anger, or dial down that feeling. However, it really is all on me, I suppose, when it comes to why the anger is even there in the first place.

Right, says the other side of this coin. But, if you followed that approach ALL THE TIME, then you run the risk of encouraging, or incentivizing even, people to behave in a way that could very well be poorly judged. Rather than suppress your anger, you should challenge what they have said or done, and seek to influence that, in what you perceive to be a positive way.

OK, but then we’re relying on everyone agreeing on certain morals, behaviours, ethics and perspectives, and across numerous topics, aren’t we? If we are to assume that confronting one another, with reasoned argument, to pacify a situation, is the best solution, we will surely go round in circles trying to agree, and likely infuriate each other, only to then, ironically, exacerbate and increase anger amongst more rather than less people?

And so on.

At this point, of course, we could digress about freedom of speech, about a country’s laws which lay down “right” and “wrong” as well as further tangents (which could even take us into discussions about how folklore, and now our modern day “Marvel” adventure-stereotypes, teach us about “right” and “wrong”, and about “good” and “evil”.)

Instead, something on cultural norms…

Here in Vietnam, as I may have mentioned a few times in the past 13 years, it is frowned upon to display anger, especially in public. Of course, it is not illegal to be angry but it is rarer than in other cultures to see people displaying anger. I have witnessed some heated rows in the street, and I’ve openly argued with many people here. I’ve been angry, they’ve been angry. It hasn’t been pretty.

Generally, though, once you raise your voice to another person in Vietnam, you have lost any argument you might be legitimately trying to make (in which case, and at last count, I am down about 25-0 in terms of losing arguments.)

So, let’s hear from the poet David Whyte, who describes anger in his book, Consolations, as follows:

ANGER is the deepest form of compassion, for another, for the world, for the self, for a life, for the body, for a family and for all our ideals, all vulnerable and all, possibly about to be hurt. Stripped of physical imprisonment and violent reaction, anger is the purest form of care, the internal living flame of anger always illuminates what we belong to, what we wish to protect and what we are willing to hazard ourselves for. What we usually call anger is only what is left of its essence when we are overwhelmed by its accompanying vulnerability, when it reaches the lost surface of our mind or our body’s incapacity to hold it, or when it touches the limits of our understanding. What we name as anger is actually only the incoherent physical incapacity to sustain this deep form of care in our outer daily life; the unwillingness to be large enough and generous enough to hold what we love helplessly in our bodies or our mind with the clarity and breadth of our whole being.

When I first read Whyte’s book in 2017, and he referred to anger as an ‘incoherent physical incapacity to sustain this deep form of care’, I hadn’t read any description about anger like that, prior to that. It was mesmerizing (the whole book is the same). The writer Brené Brown, similarly, also claimed anger to be “the violent outer response to our own inner powerlessness”. I like this, too. Brown’s idea being that, when we are angry, we are acknowledging this powerlessness, and our own sense of there being something deeply wrong and vulnerable about being so powerless.

It’s of no coincidence, perhaps, that I find myself back here after 5 months, talking about anger, given the visceral and constant nature of how we receive information 24/7. The many stories, quotes, videos and pictures – harrowing and uplifting – shared by so many people around the world, plastered across global and social media channels, is both overwhelming and awe-inspiring. And so much of it is, particularly these past two weeks since news broke of the conflict in Gaza and Israel, anger-inducing.

It can be of little surprise, too, that, like many of you I’d wager, my attention span for new content and dopamine inducing click-baitable fixes, is forever reaching new and bleaker low-levels.

How much content and communication is too much?

Many people reminisce about the happier times, prior to the internet, and before the rise of social media. Anger was around then, also. But was it tempered at all, compared to today? I don’t think we can really know, nor that it would make any difference, when looking at how to manage our emotional responses to things in the future.

I do believe that that phrase – “it won’t make any difference” – also happens to be one of the scourges of, at the very least, my generation (GEN X, in case that is significant at all) when it comes to numerous societal issues: politics, climate change, equality etc.

Now, I vote, and I’ve marched for causes. I sign petitions, I blog about some of these topics. I feel that all actions have an impact of sorts, however minor.

Do I think my contributions will make any actual difference? Not really. But that would never be a reason not to write again, or to vote, march, campaign, argue, debate, influence, and so on. In my estimations, it is the combination of having purpose and responsibility in one’s life which can be palpably important to the way one feels each night, when closing your eyes and trying to find sleep. So, “keep on keeping on” then? Even if it’s for your own sustenance? Maybe.

I do believe, though, that there is a healthy correlation with that particular combination (responsibility and purpose) along with one’s tendency to allow kindness to guide your decisions. Whether this is the form of kindness that, as the phrase goes, requires you to be “cruel to be kind” or, alternatively, is kindness deployed in order to offset your anger, through acts of kindness, isn’t perhaps strictly important.

Like the cadence one finds in any pursuit that necessitates repetition and deploys a form of physicality (internally or externally) it is perhaps the practice which does, in the end, make perfect.

So, I think we need decent amounts of time to practice how to feel and to competently manage these emotions – kindness and anger, for starters – and that takes longer than anyone is prepared to admit. A lifetime even (although I think you can target at least ‘middle-age’ for decent enough proficiency.)

To close out, I’ll finish back where this started, a simple re-framing exercise. Can it work?

When you read tomorrow’s headlines, recounting the day’s horrors unfolding in the Middle East, how does one find a way forward, emotionally? How do you perform your own triaging service to yourself, in a way that caters to both your anger and your anguish? Being angry in that moment, and sustaining that anger is arguably more appropriate – surely – than allowing it to dissipate? Or, instead, turning that energy towards something else, something which gives you purpose and responsibility – even just in the tiniest of moments – could be said to be much more ‘impactful’ and worth making happen.

Do these formulas work for when, later the same day, someone cuts in line in front of you, and you feel the red mist enveloping? Arguably, as we are often reminded, it’s important to put perspective on things. To be “thankful for what we have” in that moment, when we want to kick out at someone, or at something.

Anger is a primary emotion, you can dilute it, and you can embolden it but, mechanically, it is simply one thing, one feeling.

So, the question should be: how do we learn to manage our anger?

And the answer to that is, I would argue, up to you, and no one else.

Auspicious Times in Sri Lanka

May 15, 2023saigonsaysLeave a comment

Touching down at Bandaranaike airport in Colombo, Sri Lanka, late last Saturday, for the first time in over three years, my uber driver cruised down the highway and straight into the country’s annual Vesak celebrations.

It was after midnight, and my hotel was just a few kilometers away, but we weren’t moving anywhere.

Children with their heads stuck out of car sunroofs, beaming in glitter masks, young men and women excitedly hopping between the traffic on their scooters, lines of people queuing up to sample free cardamon tea and pastry snacks, prepared by this proud local urban community – united, in finally hosting a festival that had been de-railed for the previous four years in a row.

2023 Vesak was jump starting a country that has faced some of the worst crises since peace broke out in 2009: the Easter terrorist attacks in 2019; the protracted fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic; the country’s subsequent economic downturn and fuel crisis. Sri Lanka has endured all of these things and yet, into the early hours of Sunday morning, its citizens were resolute in their celebrations, bringing the traffic to a joyful standstill.

I was simply delighted to be once more back on the island. Readers of this blog will know a little about my mini obsession with the country and in spite of the recent turmoil in Sri Lanka, I’ve kept my ties these past few years mainly through my commitment as a Board Member to Chrysalis, and to their immaculate work in support of women and youth. Time with their team last week reinvigorated me, their ongoing innovation and commitment to social change is second to none.

UN Sri Lanka’s and UNDESA’s Partnerships Week, May 2023, Colombo

On Monday, the Chrysalis CEO, Ashika Gunasena, and I attended a high-level Forum hosted by UN Sri Lanka and UNDESA (the United Nation’s department for Environment and Social Affairs).

The event kicked off a week of training events and discussions, on the part of the UN’s various agencies in the country, about the power of partnerships.

One hundred guests attended the opening Forum and heard a rallying call to action from a range of groups, representing not just the UN but civil society, the private sector and academia.

The central tenet was simple: it is imperative to embrace multi-stakeholder partnerships as a means to address the country’s societal issues. Speaker after speaker echoed this sentiment. Each taking turns to amplify the reality that it can only be in working together, and across all sectors, that the country might overcome its current social and environmental crises.

Like Vesak, it felt like an auspicious time to be back in Sri Lanka. A turning point, perhaps, for a country grappling with how best to move its economy and its society forward.

Audience members voiced concerns about trust and transparency between sectors seeking to collaborate and, at times, the Forum struck a more somber tone. However, overall, there was a sense optimism and a shared determination that the country simply cannot risk falling further behind economically.

Dr Darian Stibbe from The Partnering Initiative taking to the stage at the UN Forum in Colombo

As an Associate of The Partnering Initiative, I attended the full ‘Partnerships Week’ in a training capacity, joining TPI’s Founder, Darian Stibbe, in the facilitation of a 4-day set of modules on partnering, in collaboration with UNDESA.

The course is known as the Partnership Accelerator, and is designed to offer training on partnership fundamentals, as well as share learning about more complex partnering issues and troubleshooting for when things go awry, as they can often do.

The first half of our week was spent with almost 50 participants, drawn predominantly from across UN and Government departments. This was followed by a second two days of “Training of the Trainers” where we worked with 15 colleagues assigned to take forward the partnership curriculum to their teams, and to their partners.

The concept of creating both the momentum for partnering, as well as strengthening the requisite skills for organisations using this approach, means that, over time, an exponential number of colleagues become empowered to better leverage partnerships to the best effect.

Designing multi-sector partnerships to tackle food waste issues in the country

This is the second TPI Partnership Accelerator I’ve delivered, and the course is highly effective.

The content is finely tuned from TPI’s 20 years of experience in designing and managing capacity building courses like this one. We offer theory, we share frameworks. There are case studies to dissect, and TPI tools to utilise. All as you would expect.

The extra ingredient, that makes the sessions so rewarding, are the participants themselves.

Unlike some training courses, the participants do not get a lot of time sat listening to power-point slides. Instead, they are up on their feet designing role plays, performing sketches in front of their colleagues, creating real life scenarios where they can experiment with such things as ‘how to build trust’, or ‘how to overcome power imbalances’ – two typical characteristics that many multi-stakeholder partnerships face.

These group performances are fun and energetic, and this helps create solid conditions for learning.

With emails piling up in participants’ in-boxes, and some being summoned to urgent, last minute government meetings, it was a testament to our teams last week that so much of their energy to learn, and to collaborate with one another, were still at high levels by the closing sessions on Friday.

Their curiosities for how to transfer new knowledge into their work was piqued throughout the 4 days and it was a true privilege to work alongside so many committed and creative colleagues.

If these are, indeed, auspicious times for the country, then I returned home feeling more than just a flicker of excitement about how these times might yet be positively shaped, by some of those in the room with us last week.

Sunsetting on another memorable week in Sri Lanka

Some Might Say

October 12, 2022October 12, 2022saigonsaysLeave a comment

I was on a kibbutz in August 1996, milking cows at four in the morning and hiding out in our bomb-shelter-turned-bar of an evening, drinking vodka and smoking ‘noblesse’ cigarettes, that constituted the sum total of our weekly purchases, with the 50 shekels we volunteers earnt each month.

Over at Knebworth, not that far away from where I’d grown up in the UK, the most famous band in the world at the time, Oasis, kicked off a two-day concert, attended by 250,000 people.

I watched the documentary, about this historical spectacle, earlier this week, and have spent all morning, so far, transfixed by the album produced from that weekend.

There is a mesmerizing nature to the documentary itself. Not least because it re-kindled, for me, many teenage memories. From the hours sat in my bedroom, live taping off the radio, to the ordeal of dialing up for concert tickets (in an era pre-internet, pre-social media), to the songs themselves – enduring anthems that followed me from school to university, and which give me goosebumps even now.

A year after this concert, Tony Blair’s ‘New Labour’ administration took office, to a euphoric fanfare of support from huge swathes of the country, speaking out against the long bout of Conservative rule.

Regardless of your political or musical persuasions (Tony Blair’s tenure was fairly topsy turvy, and Blur were a pretty decent band in the 1990s, too) it feels, 26 years on, that the UK is in need of a seminal moment, similar to Oasis‘ Knebworth weekend.

A 2022 version of what that Knebworth concert encapsulated, would do everyone very well at the moment: the regaining of dignity it might kindle, perhaps; the coming together of people, collectively exhausted from another long stretch of Tory reign.

Bring it on.

I’m yet to read anything that points to anything positive that has come from the 2016 Brexit referendum. I do alter my news feeds as much as possible and so, of course, I could find positive commentaries about Brexit out there easily enough.

Thing is, I am not convinced by any of them.

It is from that particular moment, back in the summer of 2016, that I believe today’s current crises have manifested.

A “complete disaster” are the words a dear friend of mine used, only yesterday, when reflecting on the trials and tribulations of living in the UK these last 6 years, as someone originally born in Europe.

Where are the economic gains promised by the Leave Campaign? Where is the accountability, for any of what went down during Brexit, from those politicians responsible, and still in power?

Across today’s glut of online perspectives, it’s not difficult to pluck out reliable data about the UK’s diminishing trade exports last year, or the 1.2 million UK jobs currently not filled. The Government’s recent tax cuts, that led to an ugly fall in the UK’s already compromised and weak currency, and which have hoicked up borrowing costs and will inevitably result in inflation, seem to me to have been well and truly poorly orchestrated. A bit like Cameron’s decision to let the country vote on Brexit.

The stark chasm that exists the UK Government and the UK public is stretched, once again, to breaking point.

In the first episode of the TV show “This England”, recently launched, we see a Prime Minister (Boris Johnson) well and truly out of touch with reality. Johnson is not alone in this, although he’s very often a convenient, and highly plausible, scapegoat.

Personally, I’ve no sense of excitement, no hope, that any of the current UK political parties are anywhere close to the pulse of the mood of the country. Nor do they want to be. Which is, perhaps, part of the issue.

All of which doesn’t mean a change isn’t desperately needed on the part of British politics. The tidal swings between Labour and Tory governments in power is a hopeless prospect, in my opinion. Nor would a decent music concert suddenly iron out all the UK’s economic troubles.

What a music concert, or a movement, or some kind of people’s ‘moment’ in time, would achieve, would be to try and replace the unique identity – for a long time now smothered in a stew of economic and political mush (curated by self-centred politicians who have lost their sense of duty to the public they serve) – of what it means to be British.

Sounds cliched maybe, but that’s exactly what Oasis managed to do that weekend.

Queen Elizabeth II

September 9, 2022September 9, 2022saigonsaysLeave a comment

I was almost 7 when my Dad woke me up for school one morning and, as he drew open the curtains, uttered the words: “we’re at war”.

Later, I recall sitting cross-legged on the classroom floor – beige carpet – staring up at our teacher as she explained to us where the Falklands were. I don’t recall anything else about why Britain was at war. It felt so distant, so unreal.

My daughters may reflect back, when they are older, on eating toast this morning with me as we discussed the life of Queen Elizabeth II.

Nowhere close to being an oracle on the history of the monarchy, nor someone who has ever felt at ease with the lavish pomp and ceremony aspect of the Royal Family, I have ingrained respect for the role the Queen has played over so many years in helping define my culture.

And when I say “over so many years” this lady’s first Prime Minister was born in 1874, and her most recent, 1975.

I wonder, now, and in the years to come, how significantly the role of the monarchy will change in the UK?

It feels, intuitively, like a good idea to examine how and why this one family should continue to play a part in society, over the next 70 years. I think that would be welcomed by many, and could prove to be a healthy exercise.

We live in a world where just a handful of powerful people can make decisions that directly impact the rest of us. It strikes me, too, that many of these people are men, and most of them aren’t representative of the rest of us. But, hey, isn’t that last point always going to be the case?

Assuming this form of inequity won’t change any time soon, and that King Charles III will require some time yet before anything too radical is tabled which might challenge his own power and decision-making abilities, what sits with me this morning, sparked by the Queen’s passing, is a deep sense of regard for those others committed in their pursuit of service and of the common good.

I have written here of my dear Aunt Myra, and the sacrifices she made in her life to support her community and various charitable causes.

My own parents have kept tireless vigil over their neighbours and friends for as long as I can recall. From actual counseling and comforting those going through hard times, to coordinating a pooled driving service in their village for people no longer able to drive themselves, through to ensuring the church flowers are suitably buffed each week, that community events run smoothly, and much more beyond that.

When he is not giving up his time Chairing a Board of School Governors, my brother’s professional commitment at Solent University for over 20 years now, to his fellow sportsmen and women, is unprecedented – endless chauffeuring of teams to matches up and down the country, dedicated mentoring of Paralympian athletes, as well as the odd Buck Palace invite in his role as ambassador of the Wooden Spoon charity.

My list could continue. Friends I know who volunteer for local causes, acquaintances I’ve heard tell their own stories about the difference made to them by the generosity of others.

If, at times, the pandemic helped shine light on the importance of giving service to one another, I think it probably also helped many people realise that showing up for others doesn’t always need to be a one-way street, either. What drives one person to give to another can often result in a win-win outcome.

That need to give, that desire to make a positive connection, somehow, and for many people, is exactly what they require in their lives to give them the type of responsibility and purpose that they need themselves.

In a reasonably unrelated segue, and to finish, here is Stephen Fry (not always in the favour of Palace folk, given some of his misdemeanors on their turf) with 60 seconds on the Queen and the art of decency.

Stephen Fry on the Queen

My Balinese Monday

June 20, 2022saigonsaysLeave a comment

Tinsel-flecked emerald water
Simmers in the baking midday sun,
The sway and bob of the local fishing fleet
In teal red yellow and green
Salt-crusted bows, and paint flakes,
Tumbles of clove-scented breeze
Part the arcs of banana leaves 
Outside the temple,
Coursing down the lanes
That claw between the crumbling
Coastal trails - astride the Wallace line - 
A family of frangipani arms splay their 
Flowerheads 
Towards the white rays that
Enshroud my Monday island - 
Nusa Lembongan.

The Best Time…Ever

June 1, 2022June 1, 2022saigonsaysLeave a comment

*Photo credit https://lamleygroup.com/2015/05/21/the-last-golden-age-of-matchbox-porsche-911-gt3/*

‘Carpe diem’ often crops up in my writing, and surfaces on social media daily, in different guises.

Living for the moment, or living in the moment – as you wish – can be a powerful mantra, to re-balance a frustrating moment in one’s day or, perhaps, even course correct on a more significant scale.

For many people undergoing moments of sheer crisis, using carpe diem to help consciously place value on things that are often overlooked (time with loved ones, being typically high up the list) can carry with it much deeper rooted sway, and offer up a slice of mental salvation, even if just temporarily.

Jordon Peterson emphasizes the importance of trying hard with the ‘everyday moments’ – breakfast chatter with family members, preparing a meal together, holding hands in the park. Peterson’s advice seems to match that of Annie Dillard, when she famously said: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

All of this we’ve heard before. And, maybe, the art of drawing from these sentiments, when required, is one of those past-times we will never quite fully master.

Last Boxing Day, during a brief staycation in the city, I met an 80 year old Chinese-born-American-raised, ex-financier, named Frank. “Another day above ground,” was his greeting to me, as we locked gazes in the hotel’s swimming pool.

Frank, it transpired, had retired at my age, and appears to have spent the last 35 years trying to help encourage aspiring professionals to do the opposite to what he managed to achieve.

Slow down, would be Frank’s counsel, appreciate not the materialistic assets for which you might strive but, instead, savour the smaller things in life.

“You can’t take the Porsche with you when you’ve gone,” he advised me (this was prior to him learning that I was in development and that, not only do I not know a Porsche from a Peugeot, but that I’ll never be in the market for one, unless it came in a matchbox set).

Of course, Frank is right – arguably, he is also well placed to share this wisdom with hindsight, having already made squillions of dollars working for the Qatari Royal Family as a stock broker in the 1980s.

Nonetheless, he’s right and, if we wind forward to the last week, day, or even the last hour of our own life, then 99% of the things that we spend time thinking about now (work, finances, relationships, assets, the future etc) do certainly become redundant, as we clear our minds, instead, to reflect, appreciate and to resolve.

True, some people will only be at peace, when they are at an end of life stage, if their reflections on what they have accomplished are measured by career achievements. In which case, work, assets and money are worthy and mutually reinforcing targets.

For others, measurement using these types of criteria are less critical. Oscar Wilde himself believed it to be a “curse” if someone had a predefined career path, as that would mean they weren’t afforded the luxury of waking up each day with “wings of independence”.

I’m a huge fan of Wilde, always ready to ingest his colourful observations: tasty mind-candy to momentarily sweeten my day.

However. I think “seizing the day” can be bigger than this, I think there’s more to it, and more required, than the short-term sugar rush of that particular attribute of carpe diem.

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I had surgery on Valentine’s Day this year. My first time going into an operating theatre on a gurney, luminous bug-eyed lights craning over me, and four pairs of masked faces jostling around my feet with clipboards, as the plastic tube into my hand administered a calming anesthetic.

For 20 seconds, lying there, waiting to be knocked out, all of a sudden I decided to hastily reflect on my life, the brain whirring through all possible options, as fast as a 5G search engine.

I panicked. The anesthetic was circulating in my veins. I breathed. Within only a few seconds of manic emotional wrenching, I then paused and simply pictured Issy and the girls, held their warm smiles in freeze-frame and concluded (rather pathetically, but with as much profoundness as my soon to be sleeping brain could muster) that “I’d had a good life, and done quite well.”

Awake a few hours later, my Achilles tendon stitched back together, I felt a bit embarrassed at this rather botched attempt at spiritual reconciliation.

Who was I projecting my “last” thoughts to? Also, if, rationally, I actually thought there might be a chance I’d not ever wake from the surgery, why was I even undergoing this procedure in the first place?

All fruitless questions to pursue. The more important dilemma to untangle (I should have realised at the time) was, logistically, how was I going to stop to buy valentine’s flowers for my wife on the way home from the hospital, whilst on crutches, and feeling sleepy? A purchase which, for the archives, let it be recorded, I did manage to successfully accomplish.

A few day’s passed and I thought over the experience again, and became quite moved by my resolve at searching, in those seconds on the gurney, for an ultimate answer (particularly, given I’d no idea what the question was I was posing myself).

In that moment before the drugs kicked in, what I had felt was all of my senses in tune with this one active effort: to make sense of it all. The seconds that passed, as I was running a scan over my life, trying to spit out a suitable summary, were super intense, and had felt visceral and unfamiliar.

Three and a half months later and, on the verge of leaving Vietnam’s borders once more this month, and spending time with family and friends we’ve not seen since we were married in Galle in January 2020, what carpe diem feels like for me, today, is a much more rounded appreciation of the meaning of ‘awesome’.

As a colloquialism, awesome has been sold on the cheap. It dawned on me that “being inspired by an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration or fear” (the actual meaning of the word ‘awesome’) could be attributed to every second of one’s life.

For each second that passes, we change, we morph, we learn, we evolve. Only very, very slightly, each second, but change is happening, whether we like it or not.

And, yet, the only second that counts, the only second that can illicit awe, is the one that is happening at that moment.

Now, with what I’m about to finish on, I may, simply and idly, be lumping Peterson, Dillard and Wilde all into one mash-up, attempting to craft an ultimate carpe diem medley – having my cake and eating it, if you will. However, given I’m hopelessly devoted to some kind of pursuit in life that enjoys mixing different flavours of philosophy together, in order to make the most delicious bite (although I’m never satisfied with the final taste) then these last lines may well be nonsense, or just plain obvious…

Isn’t the truth of the matter this: when someone uses the phrase “the best is yet to come,” that should be called out as hogwash?

The “best” anything we’ve ever done, or experienced, is happening to us right now.

The best meal we’ve ever eaten is the one in our mouths when we are eating it. The best discussion we’ve ever had is the one in full flow right now (whether we’re having it with someone else, or with ourselves).

With each fresh breath of oxygen into our lungs, and flush of blood round our hearts, we are experiencing the awe of existence, the miracle of life.

Whether on our own, or in the company of others, whether feeling elated or feeling remorseful, or out of kilter in some way – the awe remains, it doesn’t ever go anywhere but lies, instead, under the surface of our lives, intuitively hidden away most of the time. Until it is needed.

The best isn’t yet to come, the best is right now. And it always will be.

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