fuck sarkozy

It's pleasing to note that, over in France, Segolene Royal is beginning to catch up with Nicolas Sarkozy in the polls. This is partly because, where Royal seemed flappable and Sarkozy assured in the early stages, he's been slipping up a little recently too. Most damningly, he made a complete fool of himself on French TV by exposing his ignorance of the Middle East and Islam in much the same way that Silverstre Reyes did in the States.

Sarkozy was asked a straightforward and unambiguous question and got the answer entirely wrong, just as Royal did in similar circumstances when asked about France's nuclear submarines. But Sarkozy's mistake is less forgivable given the importance of the Middle East in global politcs - especially for a man who recently sent a letter of support to the French paper accused of insulting Muslims by printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.

Asked whether Al-Quaida was Sunni or Shia, Sarkozy nervously expounded that "We cannot qualify al-Qaida like that!", protesting that one mustn't restrict membership of a terrorist organisation to that of "an ethnicity". Quite apart from the fact that there is no ethnic divide between Sunnis and Shias, it's almost impossible to believe that a major politician could be unaware of the fact that Al-Quaida is Sunni. Scrabbling to justify his ignorance, Sarkosy used the fact that the Algerian Groupe Salafiste pour la Pradication et le Combat recently joined Al-Qaida to back up his erroneous belief that both Sunnis and Shias were part of the terrorrist group. Yet both, as Sean over at the Human Province points out, are "virulently Sunni".

Back on more familiar ground for Sarko, it's very little surprise to find that, with trouble once more brewing on the streets of Northern Paris, he has waded back in to confirm his hardline credentials. With mixed reports circulating over the origins of a riot near the Gard Du Nord, he's denounced the rioters as being on the side of "fraudsters, cheats and dishonest people". It's hard to resist speculating that while the fighting may have begun because a 32 year old man punched a ticket agent who asked to see his metro pass, or may have started because police assaulted the man and broke his hand, it almost certainly got out of hand because the young blacks and Arabs of the suburbs are sick of racist police and arsehole politicians calling them "racaille".

It would be foolish to say that Royal or Bayrou (who is running by far the best campaign of the three, and yet who is looking increasingly like a Nader candidate) represent the suburbs much better, yet Royal, unlike Sarkozy, visits Clichy sous Bois and her fellow socialists denounced the riots as a legacy of Sarkozy's "provocative habits and language". Bayrou, for his part, has indicated that the blame should be shared, and insisted that "it is very important to end this climate of perpetual confrontation between police and some citizens.".

One good thing that rose from the ashes left behind in last year's riots is the fact that many involved, previously disenchanted with the political system, have this time registered to vote and their message will mirror the grafitti plastered over their decaying estates: "Fuck Sarkozy".

no more gauloises

Interesting to see that France is the lastest country to introduce a smoking ban - as of today it is prohibited to smoke in airports, railway stations, hospitals, schools, shops and offices . Smokers can continue puffing away and pretending to be Serge Gainsbourg in restaurants and bars until December, but that's it - smuggles of smokers on the streets of Paris will be a strange sight, but obviously it's a good move. Funny how momentum is really picking up on this now. We've got 'til July in the UK, of course.

segolene royal's gaffes

Just what exactly is happening to Segolene Royal's campaign over in France? Over in the UK we seem to have got so used to perfectly managed political campaigns that it's rather shocking to see how everything seems to be going so terribly wrong for her. It just seems to be a succession of small errors, but if she's not careful they'll really start adding up.

Two gaffes in a week on independence were followed today by another problem - Peter Beaumont, in today's Observer, explains:

"The racial composition of France's national football team burst back into the country's troubled politics yesterday when the Socialist Party expelled one of its leading members for saying there were 'too many black players' in the side.

Adding fresh woes to the presidential ambitions of party leader Segolene Royal, Georges Freche, president of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, a founding member of the party and a Royal supporter, was thrown out for comments made in November."

Gah!

Going back to the previous errors, the mistakes on Quebec and Corsica were just embarrasing: first Royal got into trouble with the Canadian PM, Stephen Harper after offering her sympathies to those, like Jean Charest, who would like Quebec to secede from Canada. Harper's rebuke was stinging:

"Experience teaches that it is highly inappropriate for a foreign leader to interfere in the democratic affairs of another country."

On Corsica, another error quickly followed, although in fairness it did come courtesy of a prankster. All the same, she walked into it, choosing not to demur when Gérald Dahan, an imitator known for his phone hoaxes of public figures, suggested that independece for Corsica might be next. Of course, Sarkozy was quick to condemn her, saying her comments were "in bad taste". "For me", he said, "Corsica isn't a joke ... It is the Republic".

These errors are hardly that serious, but Royal is showing a slightly concerning propensity for diplomatic blunders. Far worse was her recent slip in Beijing, where she chose not to condemn Chinese human rights violations but praised the speed of the Chinese justice system. What?

On Iran, Royal was quick to suggest that the country should be prevented from developing a civilian nuclear energy programme, demonstrating that she misunderstood the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which concerns only military uses. Having signed up to the NPT, Iran has the sovereign right to civil nuclear power - something Royal did not seem to realise.

Then was the meeting with a senior Hizbullah politician. Simon Tisdall sums up:

"When Ségolène Royal met a Hizbullah MP in Beirut last month, her relatively limited experience of foreign affairs almost caused an international incident. Ali Ammar told the French Socialists' presidential candidate that the Bush administration suffered from "unlimited dementia". He also attacked what he called modern-day "nazism" in Israel. According to the Jerusalem Post, Ms Royal was unfazed. "I agree with a lot of things you have said, notably your analysis of the United States," she replied."

Of course, not all the gaffes are Royal's fault - one of her key aides had to resign recently after calling her partner, François Hollande, a liability, "the only defect in her campaign". Some advisor. Jasper Gerard, on the other hand, is minded to agree, suggesting problems are rooted not so much in her advisors as her personal support:

"We hear men are bored of 'trophy wives' as they prefer intellectual stimulation. And I'm sure that's right. But is it time ambitious women bagged trophy husbands? Take Segolene Royal. She was looking good to be next President of France. Then her partner, a rival socialist politico, announced his amour would raise taxes. So brilliantly did this obliterate her poll lead, she could now be spending more time with her family than she might wish. 'Men!' she must scream.

A trophy husband would confine himself to saving the orang-utan. Reporters would coo over his designer suits: 'So cute, he must do Botox.' This is what Cherie thought she had, but turned round to find the little man was PM and being sized up for war crimes.

Though no beauty, Denis Thatcher was a model trophy husband. Once, Maggie's lecturing of a president was interrupted by strange noises. They peered behind a sofa and found Denis snoring. He had a dictionary for drink (snifter, sharpener, snorter, snortorino) but never uttered a word, possibly because he was too pissed. Segolene needs a Denis.

But then perhaps in France you don't need a Denis if you've got a Johnny Hallyday, as Sarkozy does - Royal was recently caught saying that she prefers friends who don't live in tax havens; a cutting remark, although Sarkosy got the press for his comeback, unfortunately:

Sarkozy snapped back that Hallyday was only forced to leave by left-wing laws that meant France welcomed only those who have 'no papers, no training... and no desire to succeed'.

Ouch.

Segolene Royal, let's face it, needs a pretty sharp advisor - a Malcolm Tucker - to keep her on the straight and narrow. And fast. Europe - and France - really doesn't need a Sarkozy presidency, but if Royal keeps going like this that's exactly what it'll have to face up to...

royal lines up against sarkosy

It's got to be good news that Segolene Royal has been nominated as the Socialist Party candidate for the Presidency of France, if only because the balance of power in Europe, with Merkel in power in Germany, looks to be slowly shifting away from the macho stereotype and because, most imporantly, she's easily the best placed person to pose a serious threat to Nicolas Sarkosy. She has some decent political instincts, too. On the other hand, like David Cameron, she's pretty reluctant to actually let us know what they are. It seems to be increasingly the case that the default approach for a leadership bid in the twenty first century is a kind of studied blankness, so while Royal makes encouraging noises about, say, renewable energy (she advocates a reduction of nuclear in the French electricity mix), local government, housing and gay marriage, she's very difficult to pin down elsewhere. We know that she's an ardent admirer of the Blair/Clinton approach and will surely be much more pro-American than her rivals (not very hard), we know she has less sympathy for Trade Unions and the public sector and has criticised the notion of a 35 hour week.

We know, most crucially, that she has a strong populist instinct. Her policy on Turkish entry to the EU, for example, is baffling. "My policy is that of the French people." What if they are wrong? A promise to govern according to the will of the people is democratically sound, but it's the same argument that Bush has used to drive voters to the booths by manipulating them over gay rights and abortion. Clearly Ms. Royal is much more liberal than Bush, but comparisons with Blair or the unpleasent populism of John Reid are bound to cause the French a twinge of alarm.

Marcel Berlins, worried that the left would derail her bid, noted that

"Against her is that she has not yet explained her specific, thought-out policies on anything. Her speeches, and answers to media questioning, are rarely more than well- expressed platitudes. She has a book coming out soon which may (or may not) reveal her deeper thoughts on issues of public concern. All this may not matter too much to French voters next year. They may prefer to elect someone who will exhibit style and some administrative competence rather than political weight. And many women will be voting for Royal just because she's a woman."

What is difficult to reconcile is the fact that the same party members who have voted for Royal have also just formalised their manifesto for the next French election and gone for a very traditional French brand of Socialism, quite at odds with her perspective. Will this mean trouble in the future? Or is it just that the French socialists are sensibly backing the horse most likely to win? Shades of Blair and Cameron abound. Regardless, it's good news for Europe's left, generally, as Sarkosy would be a nightmare, and as long Royal does not start marching to a neoconservative beat on the Middle East or encourage further discrimination against her country's Muslim population, I'll be delighted to see her defeat him.

Given that France, Italy and Germany are pressing on in their search for a Palestinian roadmap, and given Royal's more Atlanticist instincts, who's to say that in a few years time global politics won't be dominated by three women - Royal, Merkel and Hilary Clinton?

France to crack iTunes' DRM

Interesting news from the French contingent of Assistant. Anne-So passes on information that reveals that:

"The French Parliament is on its way to passing a law that would force Apple's iTunes to open its online music store and enable consumers to download songs onto devices other than the iPod: like mobile phones, for example. The draft law makes it legal to crack digital rights management (DRM) security software and encourages consumers to use software that converts digital content into any format. The French government said the law aims to fight piracy and encourage the development of the online digital music market in France."

Good work!

Course, you could just use bleep!

more on paris

A few more links to stuff on the Paris riots, hope this isn't getting boring...

- Police have started, erm, rounding up bloggers who have been encouraging the unrest. I'd better watch my back.
"A 16-year-old French teenager and an 18-year-old of Ghanaian nationality are being questioned by Paris prosecutors, according to reports.

One of the blogs was called "sarkodead", a reference to the interior minister and presidential contender, Nicholas Sarkozy, who referred to the rioters in disparaging terms and has been singled out for criticism by many French bloggers.

The pair have been placed under investigation, which is a step short of formal charges under French law, for "inciting harm to people and property over the internet".
One of the blogs was here, but as you can see, it isn't anymore.

- Elsewhere, John West, a British blogger and journalist living in Paris, makes the following observation:
"Speaking of the rioters here, it is very instructive.The astonishing thing about them is just howpolitical they are. The interviews on the TV show the immigrant youth(whether first, second or third generation) to be eloquent and angry. Theylive in total shitholes. One Morrocan young man held up his French ID cardand said "I've had this three years, three years - but it means nothing.They only see my name and I never get the job." Much of the graffititargets Nicholas Sarkozy specifically, who called trouble makers "rabble"and insisted that the areas had to be industrially cleaned of thesepeople. It is stated fact that he opens his gob and the rioting massivelygets worse. His stoking the fire with hard-line rhetoric will eitherimplode his vile run for the presidency by linking him with division andviolence or will boost his standing with average-Joes who think it's hightime to bring back the guillotine."

- Doug Ireland, meanwhile, draws deserved attention to the disgusting behaviour of Sarkozy in recent days:
"Sarko" made headlines with his declarations that he would "karcherise" the ghettos of "la racaille" - words the U.S. press, with glaring inadequacy, has translated to mean "clean" the ghettos of "scum." But these two words have an infinitely harsher and insulting flavor in French.

"Karcher" is the well-known brand name of a system of cleaning surfaces by super-high-pressure sand-blasting or water-blasting that very violently peels away the outer skin of encrusted dirt - like pigeon-shit - even at the risk of damaging what's underneath.

To apply this term to young human beings and proffer it as a strategy is a verbally fascist insult and, as a policy proposed by an Interior Minister, is about as close as one can get to hollering "ethnic cleansing" without actually saying so.

And "Racaille" is infinitely more pejorative than "scum" to French-speakers - it has the flavor of characterizing an entire group of people as subhuman, inherently evil and criminal, worthless, and is, in other words, one of the most serious insults one could launch at the rebellious ghetto youth."

Back to more conventional media:
- Jonathan Freedland argues that what has happened in France was inevitable:
"The riots themselves are not hard to fathom; several French commentators have said the only mystery is why they didn't break out 15 years earlier. If you corral hundreds of thousands of the poor and disadvantaged into sink estates and suburbs in a misery doughnut around the city, expose them to unemployment rates of up to 40%, and then subject them to daily racial discrimination at the hands of employers and the police, you can hardly expect peace and tranquillity. Cut public spending on social programmes by 20% and you will guarantee an explosion. All you have to do is light the fuse."

- French youths spit invective in Jon Henley's latest round-up from Paris:
"We hate France and France hates us," he spat, refusing to give even his first name. "I don't know what I am. Here's not home; my gran's in Algeria. But in any case France is just fucking with us. We're like mad dogs, you know? We bite everything we see. Go back to Paris, man."
Another states:
"We burn because it's the only way to make ourselves heard, because it's solidarity with the rest of the non-citizens in this country, with this whole underclass. Because it feels good to do something with your rage."

- Agnès Poirier sticks up for the French model, but admits that:
"Some commentators, especially across the Channel or the Atlantic, think the response is self-evident: the Republican model has failed. Intégration à la Française doesn't work. France's grands mots - liberté, égalité, fraternité - are hot air; racial discrimination is the fundamental problem. France must be blind not to see its 6 million Muslims suffer from endemic racism every day.

Those critics are right - but only in part. What do we see when we look at the "burning suburbs"? Dissatisfied youth with little education, hardly any job prospects, from poor and often broken families. Their misery is first of all social and economic. They are white, black, "beurs" (second- and third-generation north African migrants); they are from Muslim, Christian and secular backgrounds. They are the French people who feel they are not represented by any political party, and especially not by the French left. And this is more dangerous than any ethnic minority riot - it constitutes a revolutionary ferment."

burning cars and dodging cops

Interesting that the papers have finally pushed the French riots onto the front pages today; The Independent leads with an aticle entitled 'Libertie? Egalite? Fraternite?'. As a question it barely needs answering but the Indy provides answers anyway:

"LIBERTÉ? French Muslims banned from wearing headscarves in school.
ÉGALITÉ? France's non-whites twice as likely to be unemployed.
FRATERNITÉ? French government admits integration policies have failed.
RÉALITÉ: Riots erupt for eleventh night."

The Guardian travels the half mile from the Cite des 3000 to central Paris, where, in Aulney-sous-Bois, Jon Henley encounters little sympathy for the rioters: "how dare they mock the police?" asks one man. "They should send in the fucking army", says another – conveniently missing the point that the reason all this is still going eleven days on is because of the absurd and provactive reaction of Sarkozy (not the one where he called the inhabitants of the suburbs 'vermin', but the one where he sent in what Naima Bouteldja calls 'a massively disproportionate police presence in the first few days of the riots'). That, after four days – when the riots were calming down – the French authorities took the opportunity to tear-gas a mosque is another indication that sending in the army is, um, unlikely to make the situation any better. In an environment where police brutality is an everyday experience, they mightn't even notice the difference.

Amnesty International reported as recently as April of the "generalised impunity" with which 'the French police operated when it came to violent treatment of young men from African backgrounds during identity checks'. The report states that:

"The French government ministers, judges and senior police officers are allowing members of the police force to use excessive and sometimes lethal force against suspects of Arab and African origin without fear of serious repercussions".

It's naturally very important - and not just because it's tragic watching people tear up their own community - that the French government find a way of stopping these riots as soon as possible. As Hugues Lagrange points out,

"If such attacks are not brought under control, the population of these poor neighbourhoods, initially supportive of the 'kids' in their confrontation with the police, will turn against all rioters. That would again give the upper hand to heavy-handed repression"

John Snow, over on Snowmail, raises some interesting questions. I'm not sure whether they're supposed to be rhetorical or not:

"Watching the ongoing riots in France raises three questions for me: Are the French where Britain was in 1985, when policing and a central government, blind to social reality, lay at the heart of race riots here? And if, as some say post July 7, multi-culturalism in Britain has been deemed a failure, what about French "integration"? Remember it's only a year or so since France pushed through the hijab ban in schools to reinforce the secular foundation of the Republic and the primacy of citizenship over religion. And where are the young women in all of this?"

Melanie Phillips, of course, has something to say on the matter too, although it shouldn't come as any surprise that she's talking absolute shit.

"In line with routine contemporary moral inversion, in which the perpetrators of violence are excused and their victims blamed instead by an alliance of Muslims and western decadents (Britain was blamed for the July bombings of its citizens because of Iraq) the French authorities are being blamed for fanning the flames of discontent by discriminating against the country's Muslims… Is every country to be held responsible for the jihad being waged against it - despite the fact that in every case the alleged provocation is different — rather then responsibility being properly assigned to those who have declared war upon the free world?"

So she gets bonus points for the first ludicrous mention of the word 'jihad' in connection with this protest. Mad woman. To clarify, the Union of Islamic Organisations in France has indicated in the strongest terms that "It is strictly forbidden for any Muslim... to take part in any action that strikes blindly at private or public property or that could threaten the lives of others".

In the meantime, an Interior Ministry statement states that 839 more vehicles were torched overnight. Thirty-four police were injured in clashes and 186 rioters detained. Rioters are now shooting at the police. Chirac, who clearly has no ideas whatsoever when it comes to resolving the situation, is – remarkably - standing by Sarkozy. Christ.

68-2005

Watching with mounting horror all the stuff that's going on in France - what's most worrying about it is that it's hard to see an end in sight; the event which precipitated it can have no conclusion, and only in any case proved a touch paper for other, far less easily solved problems. Meanwhile French authorities label the rioters 'thugs' and 'scum' and tear-gas mosques. How long will it go on and how far will it spread? You get the feeling the French authorities will have to scalp Sarkozy if they really want to end the conflict.

In the meantime, we have a government which has decided that the French model of forced integration is the answer to the threat of terrorism. Hopefully they'll take a look at what is happening in Paris, Rouen, Dijon, Strasbourg and Marseille and think again.

john simpson on europe

Quite an interesting article from John Simpson on the BBC website today, where he draws some interesting conclusions from the failure of France to vote in the new EU constitution. I have to admit that, although I am instinctively pro-european, I really don't know my stuff when it comes to the constitution, so I won't start arguing in its favour while remaining pretty thick on the subject. Anyway, Simpson's analysis of the 'deeper vs broader' argument is one I'm familiar with, but his style is a good reminded. More commentators with a take-it-slow-for-jonathan approach please.

John Simpson What next for Europe?

chanting rude calypsos

“I lived in Cornwall once - Falmouth, to be exact - working as a gardener at a local golf course. That was 40 years ago. I was metropolitan to the bone, from Port of Spain to London. I had been in Cornwall mere hours when my in-laws took me to the Old Quay Church for a communion service on a Sunday morning. It was a tiny church where the Gunn family worshipped. I was introduced to Pa Gunn, who spoke enthusiastically. I stared blankly. I managed only a dim smile. I could not understand a single word he was saying. As far as I was concerned, he came from Planet Zarg. Mothers would send their children to stroke my arm for luck; grown-ups rubbed my face to see if the black would come off. Months later, all that ceased as I eased into the local environs.”, Darcus Howe.

*

Trevor Phillips seems to get it wrong all the time. It wasn’t long ago, in the Mail on Sunday, that he wrote

“I strongly support the establishment of church-controlled schools. The old-fashioned discipline of Caribbean teachers, uniforms, detention, tough lessons and, yes, even the possibility of corporal punishment ... could stop many a criminal career before it begins.”

Nor indeed long since he was telling Benjamin Zephaniah to ‘grow up and join the real world’ after he refused an OBE (order of the British Empire, how dare they even suggest it!?!), or endorsing US style boot-camps to help races mix, even suggesting that it is time for Britain to desist with ‘multiculturism’ altogether (how?).

Last week, ever flexible, he claimed that something called ‘passive apartheid’ was operating in Britain’s countryside communities. But, as David Green over on his Civitas blog, writes,

"The only proof of this hostility was that, when you go in a local village shop, the shopkeeper tends to be a bit suspicious. Humphrys pointed out [on the Today programme, where Phillips made his claim] that people were suspicious of him when he went back to Wales, the land of his birth. In other words, they were not hostile so much as wary of strangers. But that did not satisfy Phillips, who was intent on inventing racism where none exists."

Darcus Howe has never been too keen on Trevor Phillips, fingering him immediately as an ‘establishment man’, albeit one with “a deep instinctive hostility to racial discrimination and prejudice”, and commenting that, with his love of colonial schooling, “He will have to find sadists and train them to violently subjugate West Indian youth”. Picking up on the countryside racism allegation, Howe is on predictably entertaining form in the New Statesman this week. The quote at the top of the post is his.

“Racism”, he goes on to say, “is always motivated by material concerns; competition for jobs, homes, school places and other social benefits. Rural Britain is not a target for the racial issue”.

So what prompted Phillips’ remarks? Well, Darcus thinks it’s political. “The Hunting Bill is before the House of Lords, and the metropolitan middle classes and the rural population are at daggers drawn. His intervention smears the countryside in order to demean rural folk's cause”. Perhaps.

In the Guardian today, John Lanchester has plenty more to say on the ever-apparent rural/urban divide. He writes

“In France … rural life is so quiet and so boring that there has been, for generations, a consistent pattern of internal migration from the country to the town. This is the general pattern across the developed world: people go to live in cities because they have better lives there. Not in Britain, though. For 2002, the last year in which there were accurate figures, a net 115,400 people moved out of urban environments into the countryside. In other words, every year a city slightly bigger then Exeter disappears, and reappears wearing green wellies and complaining about the bypass.”

So if the countryside is so much better than the town, why do the Countryside Alliance and their like do so much bleating??? Lanchaster, who as a child moved from Hong Kong to the Norfolk countryside (culture shock? I think so), finds an old school friend and puts this to him. Countryfolk do nothing but complain. His friend replies,

"Of course they do. People feel culturally invisible, they feel no one cares about them and no one knows anything about their lives. They feel modern Britain sees them as irrelevant. That's what they're really complaining about”.

It’s unfortunate that so many country folk have chosen fox hunting as the yardstick by which to measure their losses, because it is the one issue upon which they will get – and deserve – no sympathy. But I’m reminded of Alan Partridge talking down Chris Morris’s farmer. “We’ve all seen the big eared boys on farms”. Is it just a class thing? A Labour thing? Phillips often seems like more the Labour politician than the head of the CRE.

Impatient for progress and impatient of toffs, we just have no sympathy for the fact that they can’t get along with the world as it is changing. Lanchester writes:

“It seems to me that people in the English countryside are trapped between the immovable conservatism of our patterns of land use, and the irresistible changes brought by population pressure. You can, on reflection, see why they are prone to complaint. But when they mourn the loss of a sense of community, they are asking us to mourn something which died a long time ago if, indeed, it ever existed.”

And yet Phillips claims that the community is alive and well, well enough to repel the black invader, at least.

The truth is that we don’t understand one another. You, and I, and Darcus and Trevor and John Lanchaster and Eminem and Tony Blair and Tony Martin. What is the country? What is the city? What is a community, and what is exclusion? The world isn’t coherent enough.

*

“My own feelings about the English countryside were shaped by the contrast between them and the Far East, where I grew up. We moved to rural Norfolk from Hong Kong, which at that point was the most crowded city in the world. Compared to that, Norfolk was a paradise of space and light and fresh air. Our house was near the Broads, and I would go out in a canoe to explore the network of dykes and rivers almost every day. There was a kingfisher who lived near where I hid the canoe, and the electric-blue shock of his underbelly, so startling among the greens and greys of the reeds, was, every time I saw it, the high point of my day. As a city boy, I had not known that any natural phenomenon could be the high point of a day”, John Lanchester.

Me, I love the idea of Darcus Howe rolling up in my sleepy Cornish village, the sole black man hoving into view around the corner; we stop and stare. I recall him, during his brilliant ‘Slave Nation’ show describing his horror at meeting three beautiful young woman, all of whom believed that “Sex Education is Child Abuse”. My daughters are not virgins, he tells them. At least, “they don’t look like virgins to me”. There are no bible readings round at Darcus’s house, no censored books. “Just the sound of rude calypos, and perhaps… the smell of the herb”. Pity the poor folk of Falmouth who had to deal with Darcus when he was a young man – they mustn’t have know what hit them; I see this a TV show, and fabulously entertaining; Slave Nation meets Wife Swap meets the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Let’s see if that breaks down a few of those rural / urban barriers.