The Lucretius Plan

The Smell of Victory

"You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end..."
(Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, Apocalypse Now)

I have spent the past few weeks working on a project to reform and revitalise Indonesia's forestry sector, which has seen so much unsustainable logging over the past few decades. There now seems to be an overwhelming consensus in the world that forest destruction is wrong, and so it is instructive to review a period of history when forests seemed less important.

I can recall that Agent Orange was a herbicide manufactured by Dow and Monsanto to be used by US forces to clear foliage in Vietnam. I was not aware, however, of the scale of physical destruction wrought by this chemical warfare aside from the thousands of Vietnamese people poisoned by the dioxin.

According to the UN, between 1962 - 197, 70 million litres of Agent Orange was deployed over 1.7 million hectares. 36% of the mangrove forest in South Vietnam was destroyed, and 20% of the natural forest, with a further 300,000 hectares physically cleared by tractors.

The academic journal BioScience concluded that:
'In those 0.5 million hectares of multiply sprayed jungle, these effects have been more drastic, permitting significant amounts of conversion to Imperata grasslands or bamboo brakes whose reversion to forest is not expected for at least several decades. Over 20% of S. Vietnam's 0.5 million hectares of mangrove forest have been sprayed, causing total annihilation of the vegetative cover without subsequent recovery for a time measurable in decades. The plant and animal communities have been totally disrupted.' (Westin, A.H., Ecological Effects of Military Defoliation on the Forests of South Vietnam in BioScience, Vol. 21, No. 17 (Sep. 1, 1971), pp. 893-89)

Our current debate about forestry seems to indicate that we would never allow such wanton destruction again, as L. P. Hartley began 'The Go-Between': "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." However, it does seem hypocritical of northern countries to criticise Indonesia over the current rates of deforestation, without first acknowledging the legacy of destruction in South East Asia perpetrated by northern interests.

As a 'just-so' exercise, it is worth reminding ourselves that the Vietnam war was part of a political strategy in Asia to prevent the spread of communism and thus allow US interests to permeate emerging markets in the region. Suharto's violent coup of 1965 was supported by the US as it was seen as a way to asphyxiate the communist movement in Indonesia. It is interesting to consider that Suharto's brand of US-supported crony capitalism, the legacy of which still despoils this country, was also the main driver for deforestation in the 1980's and 90's, culminating in the structural and governance weaknesses that frustrate sensible forest policy today.

If Indonesia had been allowed to follow its own path, even becoming a quasi-communist state in the style of Vietnam or Cuba, there is a reasonable argument to be made that the forests would be in a better state than they are now. This would have had important implications for the rural livelihoods of 50 million people, bio-diversity and climate change, though shed a tear for the dozen oligarchs who would be a lot poorer. One wonders if there is any evidence, in Asia, Latin America or the Middle East, where it can be said that US geo-political strategy (often prosecuted with no regard to long-term consequences) has improved matters in the long run.

Degrees of separation

I was waiting to board a Garuda flight to Surabaya when Beth sent me a text telling me that a Garuda jet had just burst into flame upon landing in Yogyakarta. I am ashamed to say that I gave this little thought. Three years in this country has induced a kind of fatalism that borders on insouciance in the face of the seemingly incessant disasters.

Some of these disasters, such as last week's landslides in Flores and earthquake in Sumatra, are natural (though arguably the landslide was exacerbated by illegal logging), while others are either man-made or simply the sorts of accidents that could happen anywhere.

However, this particular disaster could not just be pushed to the back of my mind, lest my knuckles become even whiter as they grip the armrests of the ancient Boeing 737 as it slews and judders its way down the runway. Sadly, this disaster involved people I knew, either directly or indirectly. The person I was going to see in Surabaya told me that one of his management team was missing (he was later confirmed dead).

Two weeks ago I was at AusAid's offices for a meeting (they are the main donor of the program I am working on). The highly respected director of the AusAid mission in Jakarta, Allison Sudradjat, was also one of those killed in the Yogyakarta crash.

Most tragically, and closest to home, my friend and colleague's wife perished on the plane. She was the Australian Embassy spokesperson. My friend waited all day for news, increasingly baffled and traumatized by the conflicting stories reaching him from various sources. Official confirmation of Liz's demise did not arrive until Friday. She leaves a 10 month old baby girl behind.

Both these women were very high profile in Indonesia. As The Australian newspaper reports:

Indonesia's President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has expressed his "sympathy and sorrow". In a letter to Prime Minister John Howard, Dr Yudhoyono said some of the victims had become "our friends at the presidential office".

"Elizabeth O'Neill OAM is known as a warm, kind person who smiles at everybody and we all like her. She was at my office the day before the accident," he wrote.

"Allison Sudradjat is well- known as a dedicated and creative AusAID officer and we will forever appreciate her compassion and her good work for Australian-Indonesian relations.

In some sense one has to marvel that so many people survived the crash, and give thanks for that, but when these events visit those close to us, or even those separated from us by one or two degrees, it naturally triggers a more narrowly focused empathy than may well up in us after more remote disasters.

I would like to think that the past week has just been one of those thankfully rare periods of trauma that test all of us from time to time, serving to remind us of our own fragility. All that we have is contingent, it can be snatched away from us in an instant, and however many people may offer condolences or sympathy, even the President himself, as the evening draws to a close those left behind will be alone in the darkness.

The Mouse that turned off the lights

So, at long last anthropogenic climate change makes the front pages of every newspaper. The first authoritative report on the subject came out in 1990, yet since then the world has largely managed to avoid making any hard choices to tackle the subject. It is tempting to see us now as the inveterate smoker who waited till he was diagnosed with lung cancer before giving up the weed, by which time the gesture was irrelevant.

It is at times like this that I turn to The Daily Telegraph newspaper for amusement. For years the Telegraph has 'exposed' climate change as a myth perpetrated by Guardian-reading killjoys, intent on slapping taxes on anything enjoyable. The Kyoto agreement was characterised as an attempt by Europeans to hobble the world's economic stallion, the USA, through taxes and levies. Any scientist or economist (such as the bonkers and widely discredited Bjorn Lomborg) that questioned the consensus on global warming was held up as 'the voice of reason'. It seems that being a contrarian is enough to get endorsement by the Telegraph (and, sadly, by The Economist, which is a great newspaper that often finds itself on the wrong side of any argument in which the editors express an opinion).

In the light of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, the skeptics have to find a new line of argument lest they be abandoned floating on a diminishing iceburg with the creationists, MMR vaccine protesters, Donald Rumsfeld and a very hungry polar bear. The Economist has, to its credit, issued a mea culpa and started reporting about the ways international businesses have stopped waiting for politicians to catch up and are already getting on the right side of the debate.

In contrast, The Telegraph's new theme is the Private Frazer approach to crisis management: 'we're all doomed laddie, doomed I tell you!' Today's leader, 'carbon emissions', suggests that as the UK represents such a small proportion of global emissions that,

'Unless the Americans, Chinese and Indians curb their own CO2 emissions, our own efforts will be doomed to costly and pathetic failure.'

Whatever happened to the blitz spirit and Churchill's defiant stand of 'alone, then' in the face of the Nazi menace and America (ever the Jonny-come-lately to a global crisis) refusing to enter the war until a specific invitation was received from Hitler? I hope that the doughty Telegraph reader, port-ridden and bilious after his Sunday beef roast, will not allow his organ to so readily shrivel in the face of a global threat, however alarming.

The fact is that there is much that Britain can do, and indeed is already doing to face the threat of climate change. Although even a 20% cut in UK emissions will not save Greenland if other countries do not follow our lead, we have certain strategic advantages that we could use as leverage:

1) Heathrow airport is the largest passenger hub in Europe and third largest in the world. By lobbying for a Europe-wide aviation tax on all aircraft entering European airspace, the UK could show that narrow economic self-interest should not stymie collective action (hopefully the French will take note).

2) The UK is a net importer of manufactured goods out of all proportion to its size and population (the arrival of the supership Emma Maersk just before Christmas confirmed this). All UK consumers can send a message to developing economies such as China that sustainability must be built into every product. Thoughtlessly buying plastic toys without considering their provenance is a poisoned gift for the child in question, as each pointless extrusion of polyethylene represents a step towards a precarious future for our offspring.

3) One of the few government departments that has improved beyond recognition under this government (OK, the only one), is the Department for International Development (DfID). In development circles, DfID is now regarded as the gold standard of 'good' development practice. It can now use this credibility to encourage other aid agencies to explicitly intervene to stimulate sustainable development. Again, the French could do with some help in this area, along with the Italians, Greeks and Irish. Oh, and of course USAID (not that they listen to anybody).

4) Contrary to doom-laden predictions in 1997, London has advanced and entrenched its position as one of the world's leading financial centres. Any fiendishly clever financial instruments that deal in emissions trading are likely to be designed here. As soon as the speculators see some prospect of lucre in it, they will be head first into the trough. Cap and trade schemes, securitization of natural resources, exotic derivatives and the like will weave the financial markets into a system that at last accounts for environmental consumption along with capital and labour.

So, shall we sob in our bunker with the Daily Telegraph, defeated before we have even fired a shot? Or shall we accept that Britain has a crucial role to play in preserving this wonderful planet for future generations?

rule of 72

A rare treat to be found at Singapore airport (apart from the bright lights and beguiling shops) is the availability of some UK newspapers.  I was thus able to enjoy The Observer, while Beth tucked into The Sunday Times.  After two years away from the old country, it is slightly alarming to get a glimpse of what awaits us when we return in August.  A random reading of the lifestyle sections of these Sunday newspapers seems to portray a country in which the ‘average’ person owns at least three homes (including a flat in London and a substantial holiday home in Cornwall); is worried about their state pension and the cost of petrol; and has recently set up a business that is now turning over 40 million pounds. 

As someone earning 100 pounds a month, with no career prospects as such and no holiday homes to speak of, this is liable to induce status anxiety.  Also, I cannot quite understand how someone with a second home would be seriously worried about the state pension.  As for the price of petrol, it still seems very good value compared to olive oil, milk and mineral water, none of which will propel your vehicle very far.  In fact, in spite of all the moaning in the newspaper, it seems that the good people of Britain are having a fairly comfortable existence. 

Apropos of nothing in particular, I refer you to an article in the ‘Your Money’ section of the ST, which pondered the state of house prices (what an innovative idea!  I expect the editor was very impressed with that suggestion.  ‘A think-piece on house prices, in the Sunday paper, what an original idea!’ she must have exclaimed). Anyway, the article quotes one ‘expert’ who is bearish about prices, thinking they will increase by about 4.5% per annum over the next couple of decades.  The journalist then presents the counter argument from a bullish ‘expert’ who makes the panglossian prediction that ‘over the next 10 to 15 years prices will increase 100%!’ 

As I have not much else to do in Maumere on a Tuesday afternoon, I read this article again, and recalled something I learned many years ago called ‘the rule of 72’.  This dictates that any rate of interest divided into the number 72 will return the total number of years it will take for a value to double (assuming compound rates apply).  So, if we take the more ambitious of the analysts predictions (prices double in 10 years), then this gives us a rate of 7.2% per annum, which is a long way from the ‘double-digit growth’ that the journalist said the bullish pundits were predicting.  However, if we take the outer marker of the expert’s prediction, that is 15 years, then the annual rate of return is just 4.8%.  So, in one sense the difference between the bearish and bullish pundits is just 0.3% per annum, which I guess is not such an exciting headline for the article. 

Come to think of it, it doesn’t make for a very exciting blog entry either.  Normal service will be resumed tomorrow…

An orange by any other name...

Before I left the UK, I recall trying to buy fruit from a garage forecourt convenience store. They did not seem to have any fresh fruit, until I noticed a shrink-wrapped extravaganza bearing the label 'healthy citrus snack'. It was an orange in a moulded polystyrene tray shrink wrapped in clear plastic. It occurred to me that an orange already comes in its own convenient packaging, and in any case what kind or world do we live in where an orange has to be individually shrink-wrapped and lablled 'citrus snack'? Have we neglected the education of your young to such an extent that they may take an orange to be an enormous gobstopper?

An article in the Observer pursues this theme by telling the story of the shrink-wrapped coconut in Morrisons. I cannot even bring myself to tell my Indonesian friends about the fact that in the UK we find it necessary to wrap coconuts in protective packaging, which must be the very zenith of superfluity.

The newspaper asked some families to save all their packaging for a month, to review its impact and utility. One thing that struck me is that the energy required to generate all this (arguably surplus) packaging was an average of around 200KwH per family, per month. I estimate that this energy, from just one small family's monthly shopping, could supply five families in Flores (about 40 people) with their entire electricity requirement for the month.

I am reminded of being told as a schoolboy to finish my plate of glutinous slop the institution called food 'because some people in the world are starving and would be grateful for it', which struck me as ridiculous because I knew for a fact that the scraps were all tipped into the huge hoppers behind the kitchen block, and collected every week to be turned into pig food. So by eating the food I was denying the poor hungry pigs, rather than insulting the world's poor and famished.

I am therefore not suggesting that by cutting down on your packaging the power saved will mysteriously arise in Maumere. However, I do believe that the arguments in the UK about nuclear power versus renewable energy are entirely irrelevant until each household learns how to reduce their power consumption (and actually cares about doing so). As power demand reduces, so does reliance on fossil fuels, which in turn takes the pressure off crude oil prices and alleviates the suffering of poorer countries who are currently paying energy prices bolstered by the demand of the wealthy.

So, the next time you see some superfluous packaging, rip it off and leave it in the supermarket. Or carry a large marker pen and write 'set this orange free' on pre-packed 'citrus snacks'. You will probably be ostracised by civilised society, but any society that is so careless about the resources it consumes is, frankly, not that civilised.

The last Rolo

I was interested to read in The Guardian that UK housebuilder David Wilson homes has built an experimental eco-house and monitored the activities of a family while they lived in the house for some months:

Follow the link here.

We have often pondered to what extent our life in Maumere is 'greener' than it was back in the UK. On the one hand, we have no access to organised recycling services or lean technology, but on the other hand our energy footprint is much lower here than the UK. Here is a quick and dirty green audit of the Elson household in Lorong Berdikari, Maumere:

Electricity:

we use about 160kWh per month, but I have no memory of how much we used in the UK, so it is hard to make a comparison. According to Strathclyde University the average UK two person houshold uses about 350kWh per month. However, this amount includes our neighbours, who borrow our electricity via a cable slung round our coconut tree (a common practice here as it can take years to have a meter installed). So, two families, comprising five adults and four children use about 5Kwh per day, about one quarter of the equivalent in the UK. Most of this is consumed by the exterior security lights that we all have to deter thieves, and the fact that we provide the electricity to light up the shared lane to our little group of houses. The rest is probably consumed by this laptop, the fan and the water pump. Obviously our consumption is constrained to some extent by frequent power cuts, but also we do not have a great deal to plug in.

Water:

We have no mains water, so we rely on a well that taps into the local aquifer. The level of this water source is largely reliant upon watershed management up in the hills behind us, and some local NGOs are trying to improve this. Water sources have become more scarce in Flores over recent years, partly because of deforestation and over-extraction for irrigation. The rainy season has been good this year (so far), so we are not worried about our well, but last year there was a real chance that the pump would start throwing up sand as the long dry season followed a very poor wet season. To supplement the well we collect rain water (see picture), this is seen as rather radical by our neighbours, none of whom seem to collect this free source of fresh water. One objection is that someone will steal the water butt, and whenever we are away our neighbours lock the butt up in the house, which defeats the object somewhat. If I can find a way to secure the butt, and then use a bamboo draining pipe to improve roof collection, then I may be able to persuade some neighbours to follow the same system. As we have no shower, bath or flushing WC (we use the traditional bak mandi system, which is basically a tiled cistern and a plastic scoop), our water usage must be a fraction of what it was in the UK.

Waste:

Whilst there is no official waste collection service here, and certainly no recycling service, our 'waste footprint' is miniscule compared to the UK: All organic waste goes to the neighbour's pig; bottles go back to the shop for a deposit refund; cans are collected by the local kids and sold to a trader for recycling in Java; newspapers and magazines go to the local warung (takeaway) to wrap rice dinners; waste paper and some plastics are burned in the back garden; we do not use toilet paper anymore (like the majority of the world's population we use the 'left hand splash' method, which whatever you soft westerners may say is much more hygienic then toilet paper) so no bleached tissue ends up in the sea to suffocate coral reef. Any waste that is left over (some cans, shampoo bottles, beer bottle tops) I take down to the neighbourhood skip (donated by the German government department GTZ), but am always intercepted by some local fishermen who have wised up to the fact that the sampah bule (white guy's trash) always contains stuff one would be mad to throw away. It all gets reused. Plastic bottles and shampoo containers become floats for fishermen, cans become oil lamps, old batteries are given to babies to suck on (only kidding. I hope). Amount of our rubbish that ends up in landfill? A big fat zero. Beat that.

Carbon emissions:

We drive motorbikes instead of cars, which clearly reduces our CO2 emissions somewhat, as my Honda MegaPro will do at least 50km to the litre. On the other hand, we fly to Bali quite frequently, certainly climbing onto planes more often than we did in the UK, but these are all short hops. We have not taken any flight longer than three hours since we arrived her in May 2004. Burning some of our rubbish probably contributes to global warming, but the bigger danger is probably the dioxins given off by the plastic bags.

So, on balance I would say that our ecological impact is a very small fraction of what it was in the UK. Why is this important?

Reducing our consumption of the earth's scarce resources is not only connected to global warming. Over-consumption by the US and EU is an actual cause of poverty and war in the developing world. Higher fuel prices are driven by northern consumption, but a gallon of crude oil costs the same in Wolowaru or Wisconsin. Diversity into biofuels is leading to de-forestation in Borneo as huge palm oil plantations replace indigenous flora. Rising transport costs have caused the prices of inbound goods to Flores (sugar, rice, cooking oil) to double in the last year, while the same transport costs have caused commodity prices (bananas, cashew nuts, cocoa, coffee) to fall. This collapse in the terms of trade of local farmers has wrecked household incomes and increased poverty, leading to malnourished children, higher infant mortality and more of the ongoing grind of human misery and suffering that Beth and I see every day.

In a globalised world, individual actions can no longer be separated from their effects. This may call to mind the oft-quoted cliche about a butterfly flapping its wings in Devon causing a hurricane in China, but on the contrary, that axiom refers to chaos theory. There is nothing chaotic about the deliberate over-consumption of resources by the north leading to poverty in the south. I have come to understand that environmentalism is not about saving orang utans or whales. It is about understanding the notion of opportunity cost: remember the TV advert about sharing your last Rolo (a kind of chocolate candy)? If we share a pack of Rolos, then each one I take deprives you of one. Every time you drop the kids off to school in your SUV instead or walking; every time you fly 'easy jet' to Spain instead of taking a holiday in Devon; each time you buy fruit and vegetables with unecessary packaging; you deprive someone else of that portion of fossil fuel, and it is gone forever.

Last night we watched a bootleg copy of 'Girl in the cafe', the Richard Curtis film that I believe was made as part of the 'Make Poverty History' stuff last year. The point of the film seemed to be that we should blame the politicians for the straits the world is in. Certainly politicians must share the blame, not just for the timidity of debt relief, but also on a failure to control the global arms trade and a myriad other examples of structural violence that oppress the world's poor (not least the immoral 'wars of choice' and 'torturing for freedom' doctrine of the current US regime). However, the film failed to point out that all of us as individuals must take some responsibility for the state of the world. Are you willing to share that last rolo?

Squeeze until the pips yawn

What an encouraging headline this is, from The Jakarta Post:

Ceremony, pomp as 10 millionth taxpayer feted

The article reports that "the Presidential Palace was suddenly turned into a glamorous stage on Wednesday to celebrate the self-proclaimed success of the Directorate General of Taxation in expanding the taxpayer base to 10 million companies and/or individuals."

Wow. 10 million taxpayers in a country of 220 million people. The latest UNDP report shows that 52% of the population live below $2 per day, so are exempt from taxes (which kick-in at about $150 per month), Of the remainder, 30% are probably under age 15 and 4% over 65 (again, according to the UN stats). This leaves around 60 million people who are currently 'unknown' to the tax authorities. That is almost the population of the UK. Still quite a long way to go then.

Perhaps these refuseniks are simply following the example of Pak Suharto in pursuing personal gain at the expense of the wider community. Transparency International(TI), in its Global Corruption Report, created a list to show how political corruption and private bribery hurt development, and former President Suharto of Indonesia tops the all-time corruption league table.

Suharto's alleged haul of $15-$35bn in 31 years of rule, TI said, demonstrated how abuse of power "undermines the hopes... of developing countries". Let us not forget how some of this graft came about from UK arms manufacturers such as Alvis and BAe Systems, using the Export Credit Guarantee Scheme to ensure the deal was underwritten by the UK taxpayer.

Another recent Jakarta Post headline less encouragingly reports:

An Indonesian bears $600 in debt

The paper reports that the fact that "...one in five Indonesians still lives on less than US$1 a day is made even gloomier by the fact that every person in the country — including those extremely poor and even newborn babies — already has nearly Rp 6 million (US$600) in debt to shoulder.

Such a sad, but true reality was unveiled on Monday when Minister of Finance Jusuf Anwar told the House of Representatives’ Commission XI for financial affairs that Indonesia’s outstanding debt through this year’s first quarter amounted to Rp 1.28 quadrillion (some US$128 billion), or 52 percent of the 220-million population’s gross domestic product (GDP)."

The legacy of Suharto, and the Western politicians who supported him as a bulwark against communism, continues to drain this country of cash, natural resources and hope. Seen in this context, perhaps it is remarkable that as many as 10 million Indonesians bother to pay their taxes.

Delusions of faith (part II)

Further to Vyv's comment about the Bali Bomb (see the comments list in the side bar), here are some more thoughts on the motivations of the bombers.

Bali is the only predominately Hindu island in Indonesia, as such could be seen as a target by radical Islamists, however I cannot see why they would deplore Balinese Hinduism more than any other religion. It is more likely that Bali is a soft target and has the advantage that it has promoted itself as the moderate face of Indonesia. In a subtle way, Bali could be accused of presenting itself as a unique oasis of easy-going eastern mysticism in an archipelago of Muslim asceticism, which is slightly disingenuous. I was told a story by a diplomat recently about a pan-Asian tourism conference where the vice President of Indonesia, Yosef Kalla, was asked by a European politician if Indonesia found it tough competing with Bali. Kalla expressed his disappointment that people did not realise Bali is merely a province of Indonesia, and in fact Bali has been asked to stop promoting itself abroad as if it were an independent island state.

Perhaps the bombers want to remind Bali that it is just 3 million Hindus in a nation of over 200 million Muslims, however it is more likely that the bombers merely saw Bali as a soft target with the added advantage that some westerners will get killed as collateral damage.
For more authoritative information on the bombs, see Wikipeda, which says this:

Motivations for the bombings remain unclear. Some, such as the Australian Prime Minister, have suggested the attacks were intended to undermine Indonesia's moderate democratic government. Moreover, media organisations have suggested that the attack was planned to correspond with massive fuel price increases in Indonesia, so as to maximise economic and political damage. On the contrary, Dr Sidney Jones, of the International Crisis Group, believes that it was not an attempt to undermine democracy "per se", but rather an example of jihadist extremism: "I think they very much see the world in a black and white way, us against them, Muslims against infidels... [They see] that the infidels led by the United States as part of a Christian-Zionist conspiracy are out to persecute and attack and eliminate Muslims around the world, and therefore, [they] have to fight back." However, in common with the Prime Minister, Dr Jones believes the attack was indiscriminate and not an attack on Australians "per se". She suggested Bali was selected as the site of the attacks because there was less chance of Indonesian Muslims being killed, and there was "a chance of getting a few foreigners"

more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Bali_bombings

Delusions of faith

It is hard to depict Indonesia as a safe and rewarding destination at the best of times, if the fuel riots don't scare you, the impending bird 'flu pandemic might. And now, just as Bali was recovering from the 2002 bombing, it all happens again.

We know Jimbaran beach well. It is an unpretentious area, with a string of basic restaurants along the beach, serving freshly caught fish. Plastic chairs and tables are set out on the sand, and an Indonesian guitar band sashays from table to table playing Bob Marley, Mariah Carey and the occasional Bollywood tune. The place is not a seething mass of semi-naked Australian surfers cavorting and canoodling, offending public morals and Allah. It is hard to see what could offend any of the major faiths; the prices charged are reasonable, and the bottled water is halal.

The outcome from this tragedy will, I guess, be another exodus of tourists from Bali. The surfers will decide that the waves on the Gold Coast are just as high and can be enjoyed without fear of evisceration. The pool dwellers and yoga junkies will de-camp to Thailand, and the package holidaymakers will find the Bali pages ripped out of the brochures, with a note explaining that due to insurance costs that destination has been withdrawn until further notice.

If so, the effect on Bali's economy will be devastating, and may have a concentric effect on the surrounding islands, including Flores. All of this, of course, will eventually impact on the poor more harshly than anyone else. Bombs in London have little effect on the local economy because London is one of the few 'essential' cities in the world. Bombs in Bali mean people go hungry, and it is hard to see how this could be the intention of these sad, deluded bombers.

In true Indonesian style, the heads of the bombers have been on TV to see if anyone can identify them. And I mean the actual heads. Because of the nature of the bombs the bombers were decapitated, and as Asian TV is sometimes horrifyingly graphic, the notion of showing the bombers ID photos was probably never considered. My local colleagues did not think this was in any way beyond the pale, and one is reminded of the ancient Roman method of planting criminal's heads on spikes at the scenes of the crime, pour l'encouragement les autres, as it were.

The Ministry of Truth

One of the many revolutions brought about by the internet is the capacity to manage one's cash from remote locations. Some years ago I started using Cahoot as one of my on-line banks, as at the time they were pretty good, but as all other banks have become more sophisticated Cahoot seems to be stuck in a timewarp.

The latest example of their idiosyncratic approach to customer service is this message which flashed up as I tried to access my bank account today:

"We have recently made improvements to the cahoot service and because of these changes you may have problems viewing your account."

How can anyone write such elegantly crafted bullshit and not go far in this world? Note how the fact that I am now separated from any control over my finances is presented to me as an 'improvement'. Surely a job in New Labour is just around the corner for this odious lickspittle, perhaps telling the people of Iraq that:

"We have recently made improvements to your democracy and because of these changes you may have problems staying alive."

Clearly the bullshit nexus that seeks to diminish human interactions and debase the truth is alive and well in Britain at the moment.