Glastonbury - the Jamie Oliver, naked carnival

This town has long been famous for three things: the Festival, the Tor and the Abbey. Don’t add the Glastonbury Carnival to this list; it is a damp squib.

Actually, the Carnival – although I never knew it existed and its website claims it has run since 1854 – is quite spectacular, only in a kitsch, un-local sort of way. Its floats would suit Notting Hill or Bridgwater, even Rio de Janeiro, and have probably done so, but they are not what I would call a local carnival. They are merely professional floats and carnival participants, all in search of somewhere to run their self-perpetuating show. It is fine, but it is nothing to do with what a local carnival is all about.

Glastonbury Carnival is the Douglas Sirk of carnivals – it is slick, showy and professional but completely over-the-top. Even for a carnival, it is a chocolate box, Christmas scene, complete with bambi and red nose reindeers. The floats are not made up a few weeks beforehand by local people, with pride in their shop or factory - does that even exist anymore? - but are on-going, peripatetic floats that have no local allegiance, no home and no relevance whatsoever; it is simply a carnival with no purpose. It has no spirit.

I can’t even remember the name of one single float; they are identikit, generic efforts, suitable for the entire carnival circuit in this area, including Bridgwater, Weston-super-Mare and all the other places. Where is the local schools float? Where is the Abbey float (with the Jesus-in-a-manger routine)? Where is the Glastonbury Festival float? Where is the relevance to Glastonbury at all? This is simply the Jamie Oliver of naked carnivals.

The floats are enormous, their thousands of lights powered by giant battery units towed behind, like an American juggernaut, only passing through the tiny streets of this quiet Somerset town. The Stewards have yellow, fluorescent jackets that have ‘Ilminster Carnival’ written on their backs. And the entire excuse for the carnival is not local pride or anything but simply to raise money for the next event, various stewards and loud-speakers urging you to ‘remember that we cannot maintain this event without your support; please give generously’. When you hear those words you usually expect a noble cause but this is anything but.

Why do the people bother? What we need is the Return to River Cottage Carnival, a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, grass-roots carnival, devoid of any metropolitan glitz.



Glastonbury Carnival website:
http://www.carnivalchronicle.com/glastonbury/

Exeter play Grimsby at St James's Park

St James’s Park is red. Just like the city of Exeter.

Approaching the ground along Old Tiverton Road and into the new side road – Stadium Way – the first thing you notice is the great new Cliff Bastin stand, just where the old ‘big bank’ used to be four years ago. Each end of the stand is faced with a giant red brick wall, topped by a vast roof, which also has red paintwork and trimmings. All of the turnstiles are red, too. This is without doubt the home of Exeter City Football Club, now in its centenary year.

Today’s match is the FA Cup First Round tie against Grimsby Town – the Mariners – from Lincolnshire. It’s my first visit to the ground for at least a year and I’m looking forward to this even more than watching Chelsea on satellite tv down the pub. Or watching Yeovil Town at Huish Park. It should be a great occasion. You expect here not great football but simply atmosphere.

Exeter City, after leaving the Football League two years ago, have made about as much impact in the Conference as a goldfish in the English Channel. Indeed, in the three years since they were in the same league as their great Devon rivals, Plymouth Argyle, their fortunes are now so far apart that Exeter may soon join Tiverton Town, just two leagues below them, in the Southern League Premier Divison. Argyle will be in the Premier League within two years.

After buying a snack from a local shop on Blackboy Road – to avoid the high prices inside the ground – I arrive at the turnstile about three minutes after kick-off. There is a big commotion and a roar just as I hand my twenty pound note to the cashier.

‘Exeter are one up. Gaia after one minute’, a delighted turnstile man informs me. I regret to say that I couldn't manage to sound suitably elated, merely acknowledging his help.

The turnstile clicks one last time – a limp applause for a rare, late visit to the Park – and I head for the stairs up to the top of the big bank before a steward stops me and says he needs my lid. I never knew that a plastic pint of milk was such a grievous weapon. He wears a huge yellow fluorescent raincoat, just like a policeman, along with several colleagues: STEWARD. I take comfort and strength in emptying the container before his eyes, my daily pint of milk.

How do you watch a moving dot next to a spotlight? Today, the match ball is accompanied in all its efforts by the stark, low November sun at the far end of the ground. From my eerie at the back of the big bank, surely one of the largest standing terraces left in English football, aerial football is not suited to a low sun. If only they kept the ball on the floor.

The new Ivor Doble stand is even more red than the big bank; its two thousand red seats and brickwork add to the overall effect. There are no glass shields at each end, so the elements force everyone to wrap up well in what is one of the coldest afternoons so far this autumn. Only the Doble nameplate itself, on the side of the stand, is not red; it is rendered in gold, embossed lettering, the colour of the jeweller.

It is nearly full and many are standing up, some in a rage. In particular, one old man near the touchline is waving his arms wildly at the referee: sudden, piercing movements as he points his fist at the referee, shouting like a maniac. In his bulbous, beige anorak he forms an angry blob from where I am standing. His small grand-daughter below him looks bewildered.

There are only 3378 here today but they generate a noise worthy of a crowd twice the size; on the big bank, fanatics sing typical football songs and some summon up every ounce of anger, passion and idiocy to let any opposition player know: 'you are a wanker... FUCK OFF'. But the Grimsby players do a fine job in totally ignoring the abuse, unlike Eric Cantona ten years ago at Selhurst Park.

After their surprise, early lead, Exeter spend most of the first half defending, although there are no clear scoring chances for Grimsby either, today wearing their yellow away kit. They would have worn their traditional black and white stripes but Exeter are in black. Black? Exeter’s normal red and white stripes have gone, all in honour of their centenary.

A small boy draws up beside me on the terrace, also bearing the new black shirt. Is this part of the ‘Red or Dead’ campaign, or an extended mourning period before the club finally goes to the wall? The club’s debts amount to just ten weeks' pay for a Premier league superstar but at this level they are enormous; at half-time, there are several volunteers combing the busy big terrace with large black buckets - Red or Dead Campaign - hoping for a contribution no matter how small. Can it make a difference? Ian Huxham, the new chairman of the supporters' trust that is now Exeter City, has done a magnficent job in holding out against all sorts of creditors, including Doble - the former owner - the tax man, and the construction firm.

On the tannoy, at half-time, it's announced that so-and-so has raised £500 by having his hair dyed red and white (not black, their new kit colour) in support of the Red or Dead campaign. He parades around the touchline, beaming, waving at the crowd, and gets a fine round of applause for this, his five minutes of local fame, though I cannot remember his name. There is a also a whole family - the Bowdens - who have raised even more, £1000, for the campaign and they receive formal anointment and recognition in the inner circle.

Next to me on the terrace, a man of about twenty five has the latest video phone and is sending live pictures of the ceremony to someone, somewhere; I'll call him Videophone Man. He is quiet, unassuming and apparantly on his own. In front of me, another man says that he is actually a season ticket holder at Chelsea but preferred to watch his local team today; he had been due to return last weekend on the very train that crashed near Newbury and it has made him think more about life and support. He is, nonetheless, delighted when I tell him that Chelsea are leading. I've spent the entire first half listening to Radio 5 Live on my small, personal radio; no-one understands when I punch the air after Chelsea score to go 2-1 up.

The club mascot - Alex the Greek - has been emasculated, his bronze plastic sword taken away, all in the name of political correctness; but he continues nevertheless, all sorts of strange and sudden warrior-like movements down on the touchline. He has been allowed to retain his plastic bronze breastplate and red and white feathered hat and is still very popular with the younger supporters.

As for the teams, they have long since disappeared into the inner sanctum of the old - ancient - grandstand on the railway side. This stand is a relic of the club's pre-war years, its dilapidated roof looking weary and about to cave in, swallowing up the one thousand fans sitting inside. One misplaced cigarette end would do the trick nicely.

The teams later emerge for the second half, always jointly these days so that the applause is seen as equal, the one chance to remove any partisanship. Of course, there are only about one hundred Grimsby fans in the minuscule away end anyway - all six steps of terracing at the St James's Road end - and their two coaches have already arrived, ready for the exhausting five hour return to Cleethorpes, over the Wolds, three hundred miles away. It's a long way to come for no reward.

Grimsby Town have seen better days. This season is the sixty-ninth anniversary of their highest ever league finish, an astonishing fifth in the old First Division, the same season that Arsenal were champions. They have also twice managed fifth in the old Second Division, the last as recently as 1984, when behind Chelsea, Newcastle, Sheffield Wednesday and Manchester City. They have managed twelve seasons in the top flight and spent over half their existence in the top two divisions of English football. In 1936 they reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup, only to lose 1-0 to Arsenal, at Huddersfield.

Exeter City have never been above the third division and only been there for about a fifth of their life. However, in City's Division 4 Championship season - 1989-90 - they were 10 points ahead of Grimsby, in second place on 79 points. City have reached the 6th round of the FA Cup twice, in 1931 and 1981. A city the size of Exeter - 111,489 people - should have a bigger club.

In many ways, Russel Slade, their manager, has an even harder task than his Exeter counterpart, Alex Inglethorpe. Historically, Grimsby are a bigger club although given their secluded part of the country, lack of supporters and money, perhaps their expectations could be lower. But - with Boston United and Lincoln City - they form a curious triumvirate of Lincolnshire clubs, all in this lesser known, remote corner of England. Paul Gascoigne - or should I say G8? - had a brief tenure at Boston but failed.

The second half passes without much incident apart from a great chance for Exeter's Sean Devine; he is clean through on goal but hesitates, tries to turn direction and misses his chance. Grimsby enjoy some late pressure near the end and look threatening but it is all too little too late. Time for the coaches to switch on their engines, gather their inhabitants and leave.

However, the final whistle itself is a revelation. The Grecians fans greet the confirmation of a win and their progession to the second round with wilder, more rapturous scenes than at any match I have ever seen. Videophone Man morphs into a fanatical maniac, screaming madly, punching the air, arms held aloft as if greeting the messiah and the scene is matched throughout the entire ground. He begins singing madly, screaming until hoarse, checking left and right - his head trembling - for rhythm and company as the uproar gains momentum. There is wild cheering around the entire stadium - almost as if the very future of the club has been secured - and the players all embrace, before themselves approaching the big bank, home of their greatest fans.

The few Grimsby fans at the other end quietly and disconsolately leave - not a murmur of protest or disapproval - with a whimper. A terrible day and a long journey back and all for no reward, not even a replay. I always feel sorry for the away fans.

At the Centre Spot - housed in the old school buildings behind the Doble Stand - its large bar and rooms are full of fans, now eager to catch up on the national football news. This is the essence of football support, a local team and then your national team. This bar is a shrine to the way of life that is football. There are all sorts of memorabilia on the walls, including scarves from all over Europe: Werder Bremen, Lazio, Ajax, Fenerbache, etc., etc. It is a truly great sports/football theme pub, well worth a visit. Chelsea are clear at the top and all that remains now is the draw on Sunday afternoon. Could it be Yeovil? Or Plymouth in the third round, later on?

Embedded Spookism

Just what is ‘embedded’ journalism?

There’s a lot on the tv news about it in Iraq, about these supposedly new ‘embedded’ journalists, the ones that travel with the regiment, sleep, drink and socialise with the troops and see things from the troops’ very own point of view. What sort of journalism is that? You might as well embed Mike Riley, the referee, in the Man Utd dressing room. (Is he the one who always give Man U a penalty?).

It all reminds me of World War One and the atrocity myth propaganda. You had people like Arthur Machen, the English horror writer, coming up with fantasies like the Angel of Mons to assure the troops that God was on their side. You also had Charteris and the GHQ intelligence people whipping up loads of anti-German propaganda. You also had embedded journalists – in fact there were no other kinds, I imagine, only they hadn’t invented that jargon then. What about the bloke who filmed the Hawthorn Ridge explosion? So what if he was in the army.

The main thing is that their job was to create myths and spooks, both to dupe the Germans and to whip up support at home. The other side probably did the same, too. You had the Edith Cavell atrocity (true, although she may have been a spy), the German corpse factory in Belgium myth, and the Canadian soldier crucifixion story. It's all happening again in Iraq.

First, you had the WMD, 45 minute, London-destroyed fantasy (who wrote that!?). Then you had the bin laden-Saddam Hussein world bogeymen myth. Then you had the Zarqawi, Beast of Fallujah stuff. There's no knowing what's true and what isn't, just like the Private Jessica Lynch stuff. One thing that is true is that war is the mother's milk of propaganda.

Ninety years ago, there was no television, no radio and no internet. In fact, there were only newspapers, post and telegrams. (Unless you include carrier pigeon). That's why you needed more embeddng back then than now. How many British newspapers in 1916 had a correspondent in, say, Berlin, Vienna or Constantinople? Probably none; they were all either at home or embedded in the British forces, I imagine, spewing out propaganda about how Tommy Atkins could do with some more corned beef and Woodbines but overall loved it.

The only other reasons for embedding are acquiescence and support. And there is one person who was more embedded than the general managers of Courts and MFI bed departments combined.

T E Lawrence (of Arabia) was embedded, in the truest sense of the word. He was so embedded, literally, that his bed was the floor of a tent in the Arabian desert; you can't get much more embedded than that. But he was also embedded in the emotional and psychological sense, having a true empathy for the people of the desert. That is the essence of embedment. Although he was a British officer, he dressed like Osama bin laden and travelled by camel. We've all seen the pictures and the film; we all know the myth.

Okay, he was also - by modern, American definition - a terrorist, and an Arab one at that. He helped end Turkish rule in the Middle East, some say singled-handedly; you could say that he was an early Zarqawi, although in those days (at least until the end of World War One) the Arabs were the West's friends. Then oil reared its ugly head. If there weren't so much of it embedded in those lands there would be no trouble there now.

But... the internet is to embedded journalism what samizdat was to the Soviet Union, only magnified a million times and without the secrecy. There are some interesting 'bloggers' out there, many reporting from the frontline, whether you believe them or not. Some are pro-Coalition, others against; you can take whatever you want. (I would recommend the Riverbend blogger, from Baghdad).

Kevin Sites has a fantastic blog; he is the embedded journalist, travelling with US marines on the ground, recently censured for his film of the marine executing the immobile insurgent in the mosque in Fallujah. The Sites /NBC controversy is an example of what happens when embedded starts to become uncensored and independent. Indeed, Sites has unintentionally become an anti-war subversive and cause celebre merely by releasing his footage.

Although Sites sees himself as rigidly neutral, it is worth noting that his pictures in no way convey the enormity of the events in Fallujah. Possibly, they serve as useful, pro-US propaganda, with marines dutifully on patrol, betraying no savagery whatsoever, simply moving around like policemen. You never see someone shot dead and there are no piles of dead bodies. There is simply no blood and gore, the inevitable reality of a city-wide assault.

The anti-dote to Sites is the controversial Fallujah in Pictures blog; for pure realism, it is like comparing The Longest Day with Saving Private Ryan. Or, dare I say it, Leni Riefenstahl with direct cinema. Also, the Fallujah blog is a collection of pictures from many sources, whereas the Sites blog is just his pictures; one person cannot be everywhere at once and only has a limited exposure, the whole point of the embedded journalist.

That’s why you can’t entirely believe this Zarqawi beast stuff. Alright, there are videos of people beheading hostages (what do you prefer, beheading or blown to bits by a 500kg bomb?) but they're all hooded and it could be anyone. It could be you!

This Zarqawi bloke might well be a phantom, just like bin Laden. Zarqawi is the new Prussian Butcher, the beast in the painting by Edmund J Sullivan in World War One who is about to behead the actual Angel of Mons! Come to think of it, where is the Angel of Mons in Fallujah?



The Angel of Mons:
http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/170_angelofmons.shtml

Another Angel of Mons website:
http://www.worldwar1.com/heritage/angel.htm

The Baghdad Burning, Riverbend blogger:
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

A Family in Baghdad blog site:
http://afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com/

Kevin Sites blog site (the American journalist embedded in US Army; filmed the notorious marine executing the insurgent). His article, Open Letter to the Devil Dogs of 3.1, Sunday 21 November 2004, explains the events surrounding the mosque 'execution':
http://www.kevinsites.net/

Fallujah Pictures (a sort of opposite view from the photos by Kevin Sites):
http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/

Sloppy Journalism - the Express & Echo

The Express & Echo – the local, evening newspaper for the Exeter area – is based in Sowton, in a nice shiny, bright new building, about three miles from the city centre. It shows in their journalism. They are always at least two days behind the real news.

Take the massive flooding in November 2000. The worst point of this flooding was in the early hours of the morning of 1 November 2000, at about 3am. I walked around Exeter later on in the day, about 9am, with my camera to record what must be the worst flooding seen around Exeter for decades.

At Exe Bridges, the River Exe was a mere five feet below the road itself and at the steps leading down to the river, on the St Thomas side, you could count thirteen steps up towards the top before you saw the pavement (I calculated this later on when the flooding had gone as it is so many steps down from the top, I forget how many). But there were no pictures at all in the Express & Echo except some taken at least a day later when the flooding had receded. Their pictures did no justice to the danger.

I wrote to them about this later on and one of their correspondents – Rob Sims – phoned up and enquired about the photographs I had taken. He expressed an interest (although he never rang back). But the photos showed the River Exe lapping at the doors of the On the Waterfront pizza restaurant by the quay. Where were the similar pictures in the Echo?

My theory is that Echo reporters just sit at their computers in Sowton, gaining all their information from outside sources. They might take information from the Met Office or Environment Agency and then present that as true reportage in the newspaper itself. But it is not. It is shoddy, fake, lazy journalism. What happened to the days when journalists would actually walk around town and observe what is going on around them? Why didn’t an Echo photographer AND journalists go into town that night to see for themselves what things looked like?

The other week – November 2004 – another desk-bound journalist, Paul Matthews the 'Business Reporter', published an article in which he stated that the new Wetherspoons pub in South Street would open by the ‘end of the month’. But, today, if you walk past the place you can see that it cannot possibly open for at least several more months. It is a shell, shrouded in scaffolding. I should know because I'm waiting for this place to open more desperately than anyone else in Exeter! It'll be a fine, worthy addition to the Exeter drinking scene - though a disaster for the ancient White Horse Hotel opposite (their bar, at least). Probably the best new pub in Exeter since the City Gate re-opened, under Youngs of Wandsworth, about two years ago.

Actually, I also asked a member of staff at the Imperial when it was opening and she says ‘next year’. All the journalist had to do was get out of the office and actually use his eyes in the city centre, something that they just don’t do anymore. They are all lazy morons.

Paul Matthews displayed the same shoddiness when he wrote a piece on the landlady of the Jolly Porter pub in St David's, who complained about no street parking outside her pub (if you please!). In the article, the only parking is the £20 a day stuff in the square outside St David's Station. Yet you only had to walk about one hundred yards along Cowley Bridge Road to find plenty of vacant, cheap parking. About a one minute walk from the Jolly Porter.

The Express & Echo used to be based in the High Street itself and then in Sidwell Street, still in the city centre. In those days, their journalists would mix with real people in the city centre and would travel around for themselves, perhaps even by foot, and would notice what was going on. They would drink in city centre pubs and restaurants and meet real people. No more! We now have, in effect, the Barn Owl circular, an evening paper based on a meeting of Echo workers in the local pub along with staff from their love affair, the Met Office (that ugly, 'flagship' edifice, hidden away behind some hills near the Barn Owl pub).

Is it the same with the decline of Fleet Street in London? Probably not, since London is a city thirty miles wide and most of the action was always in the City – one mile away the Stock Exchange – or in the West End, the Law Courts and Temple near-by. Plus, most of the national papers cover stuff from hundreds of miles away, as well. Would Boswell and Johnson write about places and news that they had never seen themselves?

What is the Exeter equivalent of the famous Old Bell Inn, Fleet Street? I think there should be a campaign to make the Turks Head the spiritual home of journalism in this city. It is on the High Street itself, next door to the Guildhall, and near Cathedral Close. It is the centre of gravity of all the pubs of Exeter, too.

It is time for journalists to rediscover the traditional art of knowing your own patch and literally seeing the area you work in. A bit like being a bobby on the beat, perhaps. They must get out of their cars and the Exeter by-pass and actually discover the city that they represent.

The following excellent website, by Stuart Callon, contains some totally brilliant history and photos of Exeter, all themed around the city's pubs. It covers the historic parishes of Exeter and the modern suburbs, a wealth of Exeter history, all brilliantly and meticulously researched, all in a suitably humorous manner. Find the Features pull-down menu on the left and select 'Floods and Flooding' for some pictures of the flooding and a description of the flood problem in Exeter.

UPDATE
Express & Echo, Thursday, 25 November 2004:
FLATS SCHEME, Page 14, a small box in right hand column:

"PLANS have been put forward to redevelop a three-to-four storey building fronting Verney Street and Red Lion Lane, near Exeter's Sidwell Street, for 67 flats"

This is yet more sloppy, unprofessional, bog-standard journalism from the Express & Echo. I walked past this very site - it is the corner where the two roads meet - on the Monday before this article and happened to notice that the former building has been demolished. NO mention of this in the slap-dash Echo piece, written by some moron in their Sowton offices, just taking it from the Council planning notices, no doubt. How can you 're-develop' a building that no longer exists? Anyway, you 're-develop' a site, not a building; to re-develop a building is to alter a building that already exists. The plan is clearly to demolish the existing building and replace it with an entirely new building.




Exeter Through the Bottom of your Beer Glass:
http://www.exeterbeerglass.co.uk/

For a rubbish website, over-run by sales and the stupid 'Fish For' concept, have a look at this:
http://www.thisisexeter.co.uk/

Less Service for More Subsidy - Bedford Street Post Office

The queues in this post office make those on the Tokyo subway - where ushers physically cram people onto the trains like sardines into a can - look like a picture of tranquility. Why?

The moronic Post Office Counters management have closed down all of the smaller, sub-post offices around Exeter so that everyone now has to go to Bedford Street. This creates more bus and car journeys into the city centre, more congestion, more pollution and more resentment. It's bad for the smaller shops, cafes and businesses around St Thomas, Mount Radford, Alphington and other outlying areas but presumably quite good for those in the city centre. However, it means more buses driving along the High Street, more profits for Stagecoach (despite their million pound subsidy from the taxpayer, via Devon County Council) and, overall, a piss-take on the taxpayer. Less service for more subsidy.

'It's unusually quiet here today.'

I spoke to the (very pretty, dark-haired) young woman on the counter on Saturday afternoon when, miraculously, there were virtually no people in Bedford Street Post Office. Before noon it is a very different story.

'It's because it's the middle of the month; it's busy at the end of the month when people renew their car tax, tv licences.' Now I know why.

I renewed my car tax the other week, in the middle of August, and was told that the new tax starts at the beginning of August. I lost out on two weeks of car tax. In this age of information technology, it is utterly appalling. It is a rip-off, just the same with the TV licence. The system is antiquated and requires people to descend on the post office at the exact same time, the end of the month (preferably the last day of the month).

Why not issue TV and car tax licences that run from the day you buy them regardless of what day of the month it is? That would stop the queue bottlenecks. Why not do Internet licensing where you buy over the Internet and the disc or licence is customised for you and then sent by post? They need to get their act together.

I feel sorry for the staff. They are led by the most slimey, toadying unions imaginable, the sort that won't stand up for their own members. The staff at the post office have been treated abysmally; they are made to work slave conditions, endless queues, no reasonable breaks and just churning out massive counter 'hits' hour after hour.

And what happens when the current post office is demolished and the Post Office is shrunk into a tiny shop in a portion of the old Tesco in Sidwell Street? Then it really will be sardines into a tin. It all shows what Britain has come to. Tony Blair, you are scum.

Ben Bradshaw, the local MP, pretends that he understands the problem and even campaigns against some closures, yet he is in the government, the company Post Office counters is still owned by the government - some sort of subsidiary of the awful Royal Mail, the former Consignia or whatever £5 million waste-of-money-name it was given - and if he was really bothered he would make a real issue of it with his cronies in London. But, he's simply playing it both ways.

In the Gutter of Career Failure

When you open the glass front door of the employment agency Labour Ready, in Paris Street, you know you are entering a different world. You are going through the looking glass and entering the nether world, or the world of the unclassed and workers in the dawn. This is the world of the underpaid and the desperate, the migrant newly arrived in the city. I have heard the call, seen the posters and am joining up for the duration.

Labour Ready has a slick, glazed and shiny shop front, in one of the original shopping streets of Exeter, Paris Street. You feel not like a desperate unskilled labourer or factory worker on minimum pay, but a consumer, someone entering Next to wield consumer muscle. It could not be further from the truth, however.

Go into any employment agency these days and they will ask, or demand, proof of your identity. It is not enough to speak with a broad Devon accent and look as local as a cream tea, you must prove it. It is the same at the Jobcentreplus, too. You must have a passport and several letters proving where you live, such as the gas or electricity bill and so on. True, you will be surrounded by foreigners of all known descriptions and they must sort out the legal from the illegal, subject to a £2000 fine, or something. But it is annoying nonetheless.

In the Express & Echo (the local evening paper for Exeter) they never miss a chance to state that there is now almost full employment and that anyone not working is a shirker, or too fussy. It is the other way around. Employers in Exeter are simply too fussy: they throw at you application forms that take two hours to complete; they never even acknowledge that they've received them; they might ask you for an interview where they will ask annoying, stupid question such as 'can you show that you are a team worker?'; and, finally, they want anything up to about four references.

Manpower, in the High Street, are the worst. They routinely ask for four references which, in my circumstances, is impossible. Which is a shame, really, since most of their facile jobs I could do easily. For instance, if they have a part-time job as an audio typist, or data entry clerk, you simply have to be able to type. No matter; they need four references and then all of the bullshit about 'prove you are a team worker', 'when did you demonstrate initiative'. Worst of all, when you spot a handwritten job on their board on the pavement outside - and this goes for every single agency in Exeter - and go inside to enquire, they will get you to waste one hour filling in their forms before even asking you any questions. I went through this only to be told that the job on the board outside was no longer available. Did it ever exist in the first place?

Take Royal Mail, in Sowton. A bigger bunch of pompous, robotic management morons you will never meet. They are all dinosaurs from the 1970s trying to adopt modern recruitment methods yet failing spectacularly. Job: Mail Sorter, Sowton. What do you need to sort mail? I've done it several times before, as a Christmas Casual in London, and you need simple reading skills and very basic fitness levels. But this bunch of fucking morons put you through 'psychological testing' where some idiot conducts tests on reading a postcode, copying postcodes and stuff like that.

How dumb are they at Royal Mail? The stupid woman who interviewed me - Suzanne Devonish - was a fucking ugly, stupid dumb old woman; she just couldn't see that you simply need basic reading skills and basic fitness. They turned me down, of course. When the other bloke - two interviewers to be a Mail Sorter, for fuck's sake - started asking me what my strengths and weaknesses were I knew it was time to leave. They even had the fucking nerve - since the job was a mere ten hours a week, on a weekend - to question whether I would be working anywhere else during the week. Pathetic. They expect total loyalty/fidelity, brilliant IQ scores and stuff to earn the grand sum of £5.80 an hour! And that's on a Saturday and Sunday! And then the Express & Echo complains that workers are too fussy! This is modern, Tony Blair New Britain for you.

At Kelly 'Services', as they describe themselves, they have even extended the concept of the 'embedded' journalist, the type you get in Iraq who lives, sleeps and follows the regiment around, assimilating the whole ethos of the soldiers and experiencing things from their point of view. (It is simply old-fashioned war propaganda and censorship given a new, modern name). The Kelly embedded consultant can be found at South West Water, in Sowton, with her own office and surrounded by the people she serves. On the other hand, it makes her - why are they always women, these employment agency people? - obsessed with her organisation, blinded from the reality of the world outside.

Employment agencies - and, for that matter, all employers - need to be less fussy in offering employment. It is simply a myth that workers are too fussy in Exeter, too choosy when it comes to finding work. You should be able to get work easily, without a barrage of over-personal examination and fussiness from all these people.