A BRACING five-mile walk from Derry to Newbuildings on Friday morning, the broad Foyle flat and calm to Squinter’s right, frosty winter fields to his left. There’s not much in the village, truth to tell. There’s a petrol station about a mile out from the ‘main street’ (Victoria Road) and there’s what looks like a chippy on the corner at the set of lights which marks what seems closest to the ‘village centre’.
What the village does have is flags, Oh, and paint. Everything that stood still long enough has been painted red, white and blue, while there are two big flags acting as a ‘Welcome to Newbuildings’ sign just before the village and two more at the lights.
Para flags, of course, this being January. For one of the charming ‘new’ additions to the loyalist cultural canon is the sudden emergence of the Para flag as a celebration of Britishness. Or, at least, that’s what those in favour of flying the flag will tell you. The truth is that it’s nothing more than a flagrant and cruel celebration of the murder of 14 people on Bloody Sunday – the 47th anniversary of which takes place at the end of the month. And in this case that macabre celebration is taking place in a village that’s a five-minute drive from where the massacre took place.
It’s not the only celebration of the notorious regiment taking place this month. A new three-part fly-on-the-wall documentary started on ITV last week – The Paras: Men of War (the final episode will air on the week of the anniversary events). The film tracks the progress of young British army recruits arriving at Catterick Barracks on Yorkshire to undertake the gruelling/daunting/
challenging/character-forming/arduous (delete as appropriate) Parachute Regiment training.
The first episode was a free hour-long ad for the British army, for while there were scenes of young men (and boys) under extreme physical and mental pressure, they were just one thread in a narrative that wove a tapestry of macho camaraderie that would be well-nigh irresistible to a certain cohort of pubescent and post-pubescent males. The publicity stills, meanwhile, could well have been handpicked by the British army press office.
ITV’s a private company, of course, and it’s based in England, and so much as many may disagree with the Paras being held up as a paragon of English pluck and fighting spirit, it’s hardly surprising that they would make a programme like this for an audience that has an overwhelmingly positive view of the British armed forces. And neither is it suprising that the company would be unaware of the anniversary or not be particularly concerned about it.
UTV, though. Now there’s a horse of a different colour. UTV’s a franchise of ITV, for want of a better word, which makes its own programmes and takes content beamed from the London mothership. And, being a local station, UTV knows that there is far from overwhelming support for the British army – and in particular the Paras – among its audience; indeed, it would be fair to say that UTV viewers are split down the middle on the subject. And local staff and management, unlike London, are perfectly aware of the sensitivities surrounding the Paras and the significance of January in the calendar of remembrance. Which kind of makes you wonder what went wrong at Havelock House, sorry... Clarendon Dock.
UTV situation room.
– Right, that’s it, I reckon, unless there’s anything else...
– Yeah, just one thing.
– (Inaudible.) Yeah, okay, right, fine, go ahead.
– We’re showing a programme in the New Year about the British army, is that right?
– The one with one of our journalists putting on a uniform and having a bit of craic with Our Lads in Afghanistan?
– No, that was last year.
– The one about the squaddie from Portadown who grew a carrot shaped like a todger?
– No, that’s part of our RIR Tribute Night in the spring.
– The Paras film?
– That’s the one.
– What’s up?
– Mightn’t go down well with some of our viewers.
– Why’s that?
– You know, that Derry thing.
– Derry? Where’s that?
– Londonderry, that Londonderry thing.
– Oh, that.
– Yes, that.
– Well, we can’t not show it.
– Maybe put it off for a while?
– Why?
– It’s January.
– What happened in January?
– Never mind.

Clearing up that little bit of confusion

QUESTION: do you clear your table in a fast-food joint when you’ve finished your grub?
Seems a strange one, and because people are generally very nice, Squinter’s fairly sure there’s going to be a high percentage of people who answer in the positive. The truth is, though, that Squinter doesn’t. And let’s, as a TV panellist might put it, dig down into that a little.
Squinter’s not a big fan of any of the food court leviathans, but when he finds himself there on occasion he doesn’t load his tray with empty wrappers and tip it into a bin like most people – he gets up and walks out. Why does he do that? Well, very simply, because it’s somebody’s job to do that. And if a multi-billion pound corporation has multi-millions of people cleaning up after themselves then it’s not going to bother employing people to do it. Fairly simple. Or maybe not.
During a Twitter debate it was pointed out that it’s somehow unfair or disrespectful to hard-working staff. That’s an argument that’s always going to resonate, well-disposed as we all are towards restaurant workers (strike that – well-disposed as most of us are towards restaurant workers). For it’s true: there always seems to be nobody clearing tables, or if there is someone they are on their own and looking fairly hard-worked. Add to that the fact that we’ve all had to clear and wipe somebody else’s table in one of those plastic-tray places, and it’s not a very pleasant thing to have to do; so you can see why Jo Soap being an unpaid worker for a Fortune 10 corporation might seem the right thing to do at first blush. Add to that the fact that the cafés in some large supermarket chains have ‘self-clearing table’ signs up and it’s clear that this practice is an attractive one to big companies.
Consider this, though. You have a favourite café or coffee shop, don’t you? We all do. It’s maybe a wee locally-owned and -staffed place, employing a handful of people on a living wage. The food’s great, the coffee’s outstanding, the ambience convivial, the staff top-notch. When you sit down what’s the table like? Is it full of crumbs, marked with grease and coffee rings? No, it’s not. It’s wiped down, it’s laid out, it’s spick and span (because if it isn’t it’s not your favourite gaff). When you finish your fry or your sandwich and you’ve had your coffee or tea, maybe going for a cheeky traybake to finish off, what happens? Do you lift your (real) plates and cups and cutlery and bring them up to the counter? No, you don’t, because that would cause chaos. Do you empty the used dishes into a large plastic bin with a swinging lid? No, you don’t, because everything would smash, and anyway, there isn’t one. What happens is a smiling human being comes over and clears your table, all the while inquiring about your food/coffee experience, maybe having a wee chat about this or that. And then, when you’re ready, you get up and leave, dropping a pound or two on the table and calling a cheery goodbye as you leave.
We all enjoy this interchange; it’s called being a human being. But the thing about this interchange is, it’s part of what you pay for because that person is being paid to clear your table. And clearing someone’s table is what we call a job and Squinter kind of likes people having jobs.
And consider this, too. Why do we like our tables spick and span when we sit down to eat? Why don’t we like coffee/soft drink rings and bits of chicken and burger on the table when we sit down? Well, we like it because it looks nice, but mostly we like it because it’s clean. And clean means healthy. Squinter’s an old fashioned guy. He likes a table to have been cleaned with a spray and a wipe before he eats food off it. How often do you eat at a plastic-tray place and the table has just been wiped down? Occasionally, perhaps, but only if you’re lucky. The truth is that, even if the previous occupant has cleared the table, it’s still not been wiped down and it’s still a bit manky. And, while it may be an old-fashioned position, Squinter still cleaves to the view that a restaurant should clean every table before letting its customers eat off it.
And while you’re here, when’s the last time you tipped that harassed person with the cleaning trolley in the big fast-food places who’s clearing the tables that the public haven’t cleared? Be honest: the answer is that you never have because they’re too busy to smile or say hello because they’re on their own.
And the circle continues. And the big companies to continue to, well... clean up.