A Right Royal Piss-Take

What just happened there then?

Why were friends and acquaintances I had always found to be entirely sane and discerning now displaying more grief at the demise of a woman they had never met than they had on the death of their own parents? And why were some taking so personally my calling out the Queen’s funeral pomposities as I saw them, as excessive, ridiculous, even obscene?

“There is a time and a place,” I was repeatedly told. But I reside in a place that was never on the Queen’s map, and — seeing as I had just endured ten days of mawkish tosh being trotted out from every UK media outlet (including by journalists who I knew did not believe a word they were saying) — the time seemed just fine too.

The deification of the Queen this past fortnight — culminating in an OTT, stage-managed funeral that made Speer’s rallies look like a 70s NF march down Eltham High Street — appeared to me like collective hysteria bordering on mental illness.

So what is it all based on then, this monarchy thing? The divine right of kings?

If you have spotted the “divine” in our adulterous new King, who throws tantrums over leaking fountain pens, then please do let me know where. Or if you have seen it in his brother — reportedly the Queen’s (one-time, at least) favourite son — who at best fraternised with a notorious sex trafficker and paedophile, and at worst raped an underage girl. Or in his younger son, whose idea of a lark was dressing up as a Nazi . . . though perhaps this one should not entirely surprise, seeing as all manner of uncles and aunts actually were Nazis, married to them, or a little bit partial to a soupçon of Nazism.

I mean just how gullible can people be about a family of such preposterous, unearned and undeserved wealth and privilege? And who in their right mind would actually look up to such a largely dysfunctional lot? Now that the Queen has left us, I can’t think of a single role model amongst them. Indeed, to come up with a family as unsavoury, I have to think back to some of those I came across during my training in Criminal and Family Legal Aid.

The supersensitive friend (now ex-) most enraged by my “obscene” observation — and that is pretty much all it was — on Facebook is a fellow Leeds United fan who once Sieg Heil-ed in my presence in a Madrid bar. (Nothing to do with me, you understand, rather the unannounced playing of a U2 song . . . they are Irish, you know!) I suppose different things offend different people.

The Queen always came across to me as a decent human being. But that was all she was . . . a human being, if with a heightened sense of duty and moral rectitude, who performed an essential “check and balance” under the curious British Constitution.

Growing up, I would look at Mrs Hart — our lovely “daily” on Edgeworth Crescent, who worked tirelessly for her family on the local estate — and ponder the unjust randomness of things. To me, as a boy, she and Elizabeth Windsor even resembled one another. Pat Hart, though, had not been born into a family anointed by an absurd fiction. “Good morning, Doctor Isaacson,” Mrs H would always merrily call out to my father. But on the occasions that Prince Philip visited him at King’s College Hospital, my father, a brilliant consultant physician, was not even permitted to initiate conversation with the Duke.

The main conclusion I draw from the sometimes surreal past fortnight is that people are looking for meaning that organised religion — including my own (I was simply aghast at how many Jewish friends bought into the mass hysteria) — cannot provide. I mean even an avowed apikores (non-believer) like me would rather hedge my bets with a Higher Being, with credentials stronger and a reign longer than those of a family characterised by at least as much bad as good.

Queen Elizabeth II (credit: Julian Calder for Governor-General of New Zealand)

Highlands and Holy Lands: Observations from Civilisation

While I find a ten-day getaway, each year, to some remote part or other of the British Isles to be conducive to my state of mental well-being, it can also leave me feeling rather worse than when I left, constituting a much-needed break from life in this mad little place, on the one hand, but also a painful reminder of the ‘small’ things that we can never enjoy here.

Pulling into passing spaces to give way to oncoming cars on single lane country roads in the Scottish Highlands in June – always accompanied, of course, with a courteous, if perfunctory, wave of the hand – it occurs to me that such an arrangement could never work back home . . .

With the British and Irish, there is instant, mutual understanding of which vehicle of the two should enter the space, based on an assessment of relative: proximity to it at the point of cognition, velocity, vehicle size, etc.

With Israelis, however, such mutual consideration, and respect for the unwritten rules of the road, would, instead, turn into a potentially lethal game of “chicken”, with the driver with the more chutzpah and chest, back and shoulder hair winning the day.

I also enjoy, on my trips, the endearing ability of the English (especially) to talk enthusiastically on any subject, however ostensibly mundane. In an Ardnamurchan Peninsula hotel bar, one evening, I sit spellbound through a half-hour discussion, between the English proprietor and a patron, of the establishment’s problematic central heating system. Until the Croatia vs. Spain Euro 2012 kick-off brings a premature end to the excitement, I learn that boiler “recoverability”, not capacity, is what really matters.

I attempt in vain to imagine a similar scenario – and without audience mutterings of “ya Allah” (dear God) and “me’anyen et hasavta sheli” (literally, it interests my grandmother) – back home, where Iran, high-level corruption, making a fast shekel and plastic media ‘personalities’ appear to be the only subjects which animate.

The realization that my all too brief reintroduction to civilisation is at an end is always harsh and sudden, upon arrival at the Departures check-in desk, with the invariable, tense standoff between incredulous gentile airline staff and my adopted compatriots, as well as Stamford Hill charedim, muttering of anti-Semitism and beseeching that:

• the 20 kilo hold allowance really allows up to 35 kilos;
• the one-piece-of-hand-luggage rule does not preclude it being stuffed with weights or being accompanied onboard with an unlimited number of plastic bags; and
• the airline’s hand luggage size frame is not really binding, but for guidance purposes only.

Just in case I hadn’t  noticed that I was back in the country, on arrival at work the following morning, I am pinned to the rear elevator wall as I attempt to exit on my floor. The natives exhibit quite curious elevator etiquette: when elevator doors open here, those on the outside, rather than letting people exit, immediately stampede in, as if they have been tipped off that a buffet of burekas – cheese, potato, and spinach – awaits them at the back.

And my mind drifts back to those dreamy passing spaces . . .

The Old Forge, Knoydart Peninsula: Britain’s remotest pub

The Diamond Jubilee: A right Royal piss-take

There is a long list of things beyond my feeblish comprehension. Close to the top of it, however, is how so many Britons – a people renowned for its healthy scepticism and refusal to blindly bow to authority – buy into the bollocks that is the Royal Family.

“Anyone else consider these jubilee celebrations obscene?” I posted to Facebook from my phone in the early hours of last Tuesday, at the end of my tether following days of Sky News sycophancy.

“Only the mentally ill” was the first response I woke up to – though, it should be clarified, it came from a teacher at Hasmonean High School for Boys – and it was followed by a chorus of disapproval, topped by a clearly peeved private school and Cambridge educated cousin:

“People who misuse the word “obscene” in circumstances like this are always attempting to express extreme, usually puritanical moral disapproval of some activity enjoyed by others, in which they are not included.”

True, I had not been included in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee festivities, but the “extreme . . . puritanical moral disapproval” was, in this case, clearly not mine. I had merely posed a question.

In Hendon, I would often stare at our “daily” (my mother’s doublespeak for cleaner), who cut a not dissimilar figure to the Queen, and ponder how very different her life would have been had she only been born a Windsor and not a Hart.

I know which one my money’s on!

And I still imagine that the Queen must laugh herself to sleep at nights, not quite believing her luck. The woman is unremarkable in nearly every respect. And Mrs. Hart, to the best of my knowledge, did not have (to varying degrees of allegedness): an adulterous husband and son, and  another son and a grandson (with a penchant for dressing up as a Nazi) who were illegitimate.

Should we even respect this dysfunctional, inbred clan, never mind look up to it? It is fitting that Madness played so central a role in the Diamond Jubilee Concert because, if anyone is really “mentally ill,” it is surely those who believe that the Family are actually deserving of their status, privileges and patronage.

Moreover, those of us who live in – or at least care about – Israel cannot overlook the fact that Her Majesty has visited more than 130 countries over the past 60 years, but – in spite of being Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith – never once the Holy Land. She must not, of course, offend those darling Arabs so beloved by her Foreign Office.

But seeing all those upper-class twerps bawling “God Save the Queen”  from their Epsom boxes last week just made me long for Johnny Rotten. God save you, Ma’am . . .

Just scum, innit

“What is going on in England, Mike?!”

Recent unrest in the Mother Country has given Israeli friends and colleagues the opportunity – in which they have revelled – to make the point that the English are not that much more civilised than the “monkeys” whom I so consistently (if jokingly . . . well, semi) disparage.

In general, too, Israelis love to make mileage out of the seeming tears in the fabric of ostensibly ‘normal’ countries. And who can blame them? Opportunities to feel good – or, at least, better – about their own country, and to convince themselves that the matzav (defence/security situation) is not that bad after all, are few and far between. And they positively delight when such tears appear in the fabric of the former Mandatory power.

And I have made no excuses for my former compatriots, explaining to any Israeli who has asked that the pond life involved in the recent disturbances is like nothing and no one that they – or even many Englishmen – have ever experienced (or should wish to): take your biggest chach-chach (the nearest local equivalent to a chav), arse or frecha (see here), or even Betar Jerusalem fan (generally held up as the very worst sort of “ape”), and he or she will not even come close to the scum which looted and set fire to the streets of England a fortnight ago. The most serious crimes in over a month of so-called “protest” in Israel, on the other hand, have been nothing more than possession of offensive back hair, and of an imitation nose.

I spent most of my solicitor’s training, in North London Legal Aid practices, attending on blue-collar criminals in Crown Courts and prisons. And they were easily the most eye-opening years of my (admittedly previously sheltered) existence: from shoplifters to murderers, wife-beaters to Yardies, I had to deal with them all.

On one, regrettably unforgettable, occasion, a suspected paedophile saw fit to place a photograph of his member – and not of Parliament – on the table in front of me.

“What is this?!” I asked, furiously rotating the image in the hope that it might quickly resemble something else.

“My penis,” responded the nonce, with all the nonchalance of someone who had just shown a snap from a family holiday.

The recent riots, however, had nothing to do with pervs, psychopaths, or even hardened criminals, but with an underclass that you never want to encounter. And I am not convinced that historian David Starkey is the racist that the knee-jerks have branded him: in stating his view that England’s “whites have become black,” he was merely giving less humourous and subtle expression to the reality expressed by Ali G (view the pair ‘together’ here). That white English youths have taken on aspects of black “gangster culture” is surely beyond question.

To blame England’s black community, however, for the scum of the white one – and I am not sure that this was Starkey’s intention – is as ridiculous as charging England’s indigenous whites for instilling a pernicious consumerism in the sons of simple, post-War Caribbean immigrants. And, if anything, the chavs or “white trash” (to use an Americanism) that I came across during my legal training were generally far further beyond redemption than the black youngsters caught up in the criminal justice system, many of whose families appeared to possess a far stronger sense of tradition, and of right and wrong, than the entirely rootless white ones.

Looters in Birmingham, earlier this month

The recent outrages clearly had nothing to do with race or colour; but, to my mind, with the decline amongst England’s poorest, least educated classes of religion and the nuclear family. Indeed, Puff Daddy is about as close to anything paternal as many of the rioters and looters will ever have come. At the same time, I don’t buy the loony liberal – I was sat next to one such at Friday night dinner – argument that these kids are merely non-responsible victims who have no alternative to a life of crime. One could just as easily excuse Betar fans, following all the years of Palestinian terror, for their chants of “mavet le’Aravim” (death to Arabs).

While listening to working class parents eff and blind at their very young children in the Crown and Family Courts of England and Wales was a shocking experience, one exchange more than any other – between a young adult (white) and his barrister, attempting to put some meat in his imminent plea of mitigation (before sentence) – will always remain with me . . .

“What should I tell the judge that you intend to do with your life now?” enquired the Oxbridge-educated counsel.

The defendant looked up at the ceiling, the family brain cell clearly going into overdrive.

“Study, innit.”

“And where should I tell the judge that you are planning to study?”

The young man tilted his head back even further.

“College, innit.”

“And what do you wish to study?” the barrister triumphantly concluded, certain now that his carefully-honed questioning skills were about to reap their reward.

The client, however, merely glared at his advocate as though he were a complete imbecile.

“A course, innit!!”

[Apologies for the delay between posts . . . just moved apartment, innit! If you are enjoying melchett mike, please take a few minutes to donate a fiver or tenner to my Norwood charity bike ride (click here) . . . just 700 quid to go!]

Vedding?! . . . Ye call dat a vedding?!

Having ignored invitations to various Anglo-Israeli Royal Wedding bashes – quite apart from my already admitted davka-ness, why would I chance having to share such a uniquely British occasion with Israelis, Americans and, worst of all of course, French? – I watched William’s chasseneh, in Netanya, in the company of the person with whom I witnessed that of his parents, thirty years ago: my mother.

The Duke of Hazard

To be totally honest, I feel rather above such gatherings . . . which of course I am, my late father having served as physician to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Though, for the benefit of the commoners who read this blog, a soupçon of life with the Royals: On the evening before his first visit from the Prince, dad received a telephone call at home informing him of the correct protocol, essentially not to speak until spoken to. This was ironic, really, considering that dad had a very strong sense of propriety, while the Prince, on the other hand, is famed for putting his foot in it at every given opportunity. “If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat . . . are you going to ban cricket bats?” was his contribution to the gun control debate following Dunblane; whilst his welcome of the Nigerian President (who was in traditional robes) – “You look like you’re ready for bed!” – was what perhaps precluded a return invite to Abuja.

Anyhow, as for the wedding and immediate aftermath, I was less worried about Will’s and Kate’s rather pursed lip kisses on the Buckingham Palace balcony than I was relieved that Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wasn’t caught – for the few seconds that the TV cameras were on him in the Abbey – joining in with Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah (more commonly, though erroneously, known as Bread of Heaven).

Neither royalist nor republican, I recognise the stability that the monarchy brings to the British political process, and believe that the nation would be a great deal the poorer for the loss of occasions such as Friday’s.

"Lionel who?!"

That evening, however, Hanna, an Israeli friend (of Moroccan parentage, if you are reading, Isaac), told me that the excesses of the wedding confirmed to her just how ridiculous the British really are. But it fell on deaf ears, seeming as it did to be akin to Bnei Yehuda’s finest, Pini Balili (right), telling Lionel Messi that he wastes too much time dribbling.

But it was not just Hanna. Sunday morning’s Haaretz was full of cynicism and sneers. On its front page, ‘journalist’ Shai Golden could only sum up the wedding as “a classic case of “Why didn’t you tell us your sister was prettier than you?”,” following that with an equally moronic reference to the newlyweds as “successors” to “the couple regarded as international British royalty,” David and Victoria Beckham.

"Victoria, there's a massive fruit gum on yer 'ead!"

As well as displaying the quality of (what my father used to call) being “well-balanced . . . having a chip on each shoulder,” many Israelis have an infuriating habit of pretending to understand – like they do ‘proper’ football (see Moti, you ain’t no Motty!) – other traditions and cultures (older, if not superior) . . . when, really, they know nothing about them. Golden no doubt watched the wedding on Israeli TV, and, probably only recognising Elton John and “Posh and Becks” amongst the invited guests, had to write about one of them.

“The monarchy has long been dead in Europe,” Golden, now the brilliant constitutional theorist, concluded, seemingly on the basis that “there will never be another like [Lady Diana].” Who could argue with such logic? (Though why am I still expecting anything other than ignorance and arrogance from the writers and pages of Haaretz? See Haaretz: Always hitting us when we’re down.)

As for “trash pop culture and empty celebrity hedonism” – of which Golden brands the Beckhams (of whom, incidentally, I am no fan) “the ambassadors” – he need look no further than his own doorstep for these, so sadly obsessed has this country become with crap reality TV and its inane participants. Indeed, who could expect your average Israeli, whose idea of a “spectacle” is the last night of Ha’Ach Ha’Gadol, to appreciate the magnificent pageantry that we witnessed on Friday?

It is impossible to even imagine Israelis, like the tens of thousands of Britons who lined the wedding route, camping out for days on end with such patience and stoicism: they’d finish their Yediot and garinim, get bored, spread the newspaper over the largest possible area – perhaps, if no one is looking, stealing a few extra inches – and then demand that neighbouring campers save the space until they return in three days’ time! (Anyone unfortunate enough to have shopped in an an Israeli supermarket will know exactly what I mean.)

Who wouldn't want the opinion of this man?

Another report in Sunday’s Haaretz, from the Tel Aviv party attended by the British ambassador, saw fit to quote Israeli singer Tzvika Pik (right), a ridiculous, ageing hippy who once wrote a few catchy pop songs: “I would have had him [Elton John] sing again in the church the way he sang in Princess Diana’s memory. You don’t need more than that.”

And, whilst you’re at it, Tzvika, why not also, after the service, bus all the guests down to the Blackwall Tunnel for a re-enactment of the Paris crash?

Most Israelis just don’t get it. One of the very few who seemed to was actor, Rami Heuberger: “we appreciate the British sense of humor . . . inviting us to an event like this has a lot of humor in it. Because what do we have to do with this? The only blue blood in our veins is the water from the Frishman beach.”

But to my fragrant English Rose, Pippa . . .

Would I . . . !!

Quite apart from your boyfriend (or, rather, momentary aberration) clearly being an absolute dope – who retires at 27 from an extremely promising career as an international cricketer . . . to go into finance?! – I think you will agree that “Pippa and melchett” has a beautiful ring to it.

And you need not worry your lovely legs about what my mum and her Netanya ladies will think/say . . . just the thought of all those hats again – and in real life, this time! – will win ‘em over.

So, Pippa sweetness, you know where to find me. And I am willing to wait if necessary . . . unlike my adopted countrymen, I am extremely patient!

In the Rudest of Health (The Israeli, Part III)

“You’ve got too much to say!”

So North-West London’s most famous French teacher would often chide his loquacious (he preferred “yapping”) pupils.

And not always having to say something – especially if, as my parents would remind me, that “something” is not worth saying – is an English attitude that the Israeli would do well to consider. Indeed, while silence and Jerusalem may both be golden, only one of them is “blue and white” too (for the time being, at least).

As I have documented on these pages (here, here and here), most Israelis are of the view that it is not only their God-given right, but also their duty, to give their opinion – even to complete strangers – on absolutely everything, whether or not that “everything” even concerns them.

Most common is advice . . . in my case, dating, dieting and doggy (dogging is, I am informed, something completely else). Earlier this week, for instance, there was the elderly lady on Rothschild who deemed it incumbent upon her to inform me that I was endangering the lives of Stuey and Dexxy by not observing the Do Not Walk sign (wonderfully altruistic, I thought, considering that Hezbollah is now in possession of scores of missiles capable of reaching, and destroying, her bidet).

The Israeli, however, does not limit him or herself to the purely prescriptive . . .

Two Saturdays ago, I drove Stuey and Dexxy to see Tal, a friend’s 6-year old daughter – housebound and miserable due to an upset tummy – who is particularly fond of my hairy flat mates, and who had summoned them to Hod Hasharon to cheer her spirits.

It might have been wise, before tucking in, to have spared a thought for the cause of Tal’s stomach ache. And, lo and behold, a short while after being amply fed by my Moroccan hostess, Tal’s mum, my bowels started to feel the effects of her schnitzel and couscous (delicious though they were).

While Edna’s apartment is small, and WC smaller still, I have brilliantly refined, over the years, the subtle art of camouflaging my lavatorial activities in other people’s homes. I don’t wish to give too much away – if the Made Simple or For Dummies people are reading this, you know where to find me – but it involves cleverly synchronizing  eruptions, emissions and plopping (to quote my earlier Blog on the Bog) with the ebbs and flows of living room discussion and/or peaks in television volume.

And on this particularly delicate – the smaller the abode, the greater the risk of social disgrace – occasion, I put in a typically sterling performance. Indeed, even the absence of a canister of air freshener in the poorly ventilated shoebox did not worry me unduly, as I had noticed that Edna had only just exited. The true professional, you see, leaves nothing to chance.

Fortune and fate, on the other hand, are vicissitudes for which even the ultimate pro cannot legislate . . .

Whilst washing my hands in the adjacent bathroom, I heard (who I immediately understood to be) Edna’s ex-husband (and Tal’s father) – whom I had never met, and who was totally oblivious to my presence – enter the apartment, and head straight for the toilet.

“Shit!” I exclaimed to myself. “What stinking luck!” One always likes a few minutes grace after visiting one’s host’s WC.

And my worst fears were confirmed at once, with the uncouth bellowing of “Ed-naaa . . . eifo ha’spray (where’s the spray)?!”

“Shut up!” I silently begged. “Pleeease!!”

I had, now, nowhere to hide.

I mean, I hardly expected a momentary awkwardness, followed swiftly by a forced (and redundant) clearing of the throat and an off-the-cuff comment on the day’s weather – the inevitable English response – off a Moroccan! But, meeting the corpulent, hairy native in the narrow corridor, neither did he deem a cheeky grin and a wink to suffice . . .

“La’briyut, gever (good health, man)!” bellowed the great oaf – clearly delighting in my lavatorial faux pas – as he shook my hand in traditional, Gever Gever Israeli style (i.e., as if trying to yank my arm off my torso).

I was reminded, by way of contrast, of an incident from my youth – at a friend’s parents’ dinner table in the genteel London suburb of St. John’s Wood – when a contemporary’s risqué crack was instantly met, by our friend’s mother, with a totally straight-faced “More meat, Jonathan?”

But the thought of saying nothing on the subject – or, at least, nothing that would heighten my considerable discomfort – had not even occurred to Edna’s ex. And I wouldn’t mind, but it is not as if your average Israeli male has exemplary toilet habits (see a philistine with a small pee).

On the other hand, perhaps I am just, still, a little too sensitive to that male. After all, the episode was nowhere near as humiliating as that experienced by a friend, backpacking Down Under, who – from overenthusiastic eating on suddenly being reacquainted with home cooking – chundered over the seder (Passover) table of his Australian friend’s parents, whom he had just met that same evening.

It was also far less excruciating than that suffered by another travelling friend, who chose the family home of an American girlfriend, no less, to discharge matter that stubbornly refused to be sent on its fetid way. Seeing no alternative – and I jest not – he fished the offending object out of the bowl, wrapped it in toilet paper, and smuggled it out of the house.

Nonetheless, hardly just reward for a well-intentioned visit to a poorly child.

http://www.justgiving.com/melchettmike

England, Your England

“Sorry,” he proffered, as he inadvertently passed between me and the bookshelf.

“Bloody hell” I thought, after doing a brief double take, “that would never happen in Steimatzky!”

I had been browsing the Travel Writing section of my favourite bookshop – Waterstone’s (formerly Dillons) on Gower Street – as the impeccably mannered Englishman momentarily obstructed my view. This seemingly insignificant episode, however, resonated with me, demonstrating as it did the huge contrast in attitudes and behaviour between my birthplace and my homeland.

There is something lovely and serene about many aspects of life in Blighty, including the manner in which (most) folk treat each other with common courtesy and respect (if not warmth).

After a week in London (following a year and a half without a visit), however, I was ready to come home (which I did a few days later, last Thursday). Whilst enjoying the ‘civilisation’ booster, I now experience considerable difficulty in readjusting to the English, and – oddly perhaps – to English Jews especially.

This has become very apparent to me on Anglo-Jewish charity bike rides overseas, when I find it extremely testing having to spend a week and a half with a hundred, primarily North-West London coreligionists. For my last ride, in the Far East, I made my own way from Tel Aviv to the group’s hotel in Saigon. On arrival, the first person I came across, from Stanmore, on hearing that I had come from Israel, felt compelled to assure me of his Zionist credentials:

“I would never sell my flat in Herzliya Pituach.”

Oh, Theodor would have been so proud!

At last Monday’s seder (Passover meal), which I enjoyed in Muswell Hill, the Manc sitting opposite me, finding an Anglo-Israeli at the table, laid into American Jewish settlers, who – even if I don’t always agree with them – have priorities considerably more weighty than the “French château that sleeps 19” which Manc informed us he is about to lose to his ex-wife. I liked her already.

Then, clearly trying to impress the new fiancée by his side – and more closely resembling the Haggadah’s (seder service’s) Wicked Son (who tries to distance himself from the Jewish people) with every ignorant word – he became a tad bolder:

“It might have been better if Israel had never existed.”

“Your life would be a lot more precarious if it didn’t,” I fired back as if he had just dissed my mum. In fact, if the Wicked Son hadn’t been my friend’s brother-in-law, the Isaac Son might have jeopardised any future invitation by following the Haggadah’s instruction to “smash his teeth”.

The purpose of my trip was to attend an Isaacson simcha (festivity). And whilst – following the bar mitzvah of my cousin’s twins – there are two fine new Isaacson men, the speeches (including that of the Rabbi), essentially on cricket and Arsenal FC, prompted even this once sports mad teenager to think that his Isaacsons (should he, one day, surprise everyone) will grow up here.

When in England, these days, I find myself acting like a member of the Israel Tourist Board. Wicked Son excepted, I offered Melchett hospitality to everyone I met. The obvious reluctance of some to accept it, however, saddened me.

“I am not visiting until there is peace,” declared a cousin on the other, Reiss side of the family, who spends his vacations in Dubai. “I wouldn’t feel safe there” (a curious statement, I thought, considering he has never been). And another (who has a box at Arsenal) hasn’t returned since receiving poor service at his hotel’s pool during his only visit, in the Seventies.

I also dropped in on an old friend from law school, whose seemingly delightful Hampstead Garden Suburb existence – replete with BMW jeep and designer Labrador – showed me what I could have had if I didn’t love this f*cked-up country so bloody much.

The only thing that I truly do miss about Blighty is the sound of leather on willow – one even more seductive than that, from the building opposite, of “Melchett Shabbes afternoon girl” (if you get my drift) – but the politeness, the châteaus, the Premier League boxes, the Suburb, the jeeps, even the ‘proper’ dogs (only joking, Stuey and Dexx!) . . .  none of them held any real allure.

If you feel that you truly belong here, none of that “stuff” is any substitute.

[See also Why I Am Not (Really) an Englishman and the last four paragraphs of my Rosh Hashanah Message.]

The Israeli male, a philistine with a small pee

Taking a Shabbes afternoon stroll through Jaffa last weekend, and feeling the effects of a liquid brunch, I had the sudden urge to relieve myself. And, spotting the wrought iron gates of a shack set back and largely obscured from the road, I took my chance.

“Zeh docheh” (that is revolting), Michal, my walking partner, hissed as I rejoined her a bladderful lighter, a (provocative) smirk of self-satisfaction emblazoned across my face.

Israeli women love a good hiss, though I immediately recognised this one to be symptomatic of the familiar female frustration that their anatomies – lovely though they are – simply do not allow them to do what ours can with ease.

Tel Aviv’s architecture has earned it UNESCO World Heritage Site status. It is not just the Bauhaus buildings themselves, however, but also the gaps between them, that make the “White City” such a wonderful one in which to live. It proved impossible in London’s semi-detached, side-gated suburbia to locate any discreet, impromptu pee stops between the Tube and the Isaacson household, resulting in many a desperate, late night dash – “Please God, help me make it!” – up the home straight. The male, post-ale stagger through Tel Aviv, on the other hand, is a blissfully relaxed one, with alleys conveniently located all the way to Melchett.

Like any chivalrous English gentleman (after regularly witnessing them wee in WC basins, I exclude our football fans from such characterisation), I only spend my penny discriminately (in line with the sign, right, which tickled me during my trip last year to the Caribbean) and out of view. While still urination (and arguably even indecent exposure) in a public place – and strictly speaking, therefore, a likely breach of the penal code – I believe it to be an inalienable expression of my manhood, and a rite which I will fight to preserve.

In our ridiculously PC age – in which it is no longer considered acceptable to give an attractive female stranger a friendly pinch or pat on the bottom, or even to compliment her on her breasts – were this advantage and privilege to be taken away from us, then what, dear reader, would be left?

The indigenous male, however, does not possess the refinement or finesse of the Englishman, nor even of little Stuey for that matter, who will only raise his hind leg by trees, corners of walls or discarded plastic bags (his target of choice).

No, Israeli men possess no such subtlety, indiscriminately discharging the contents of their bladders anywhere and everywhere. The sight of them proudly urinating against shop fronts in busy high streets is a familiar one, as is that of unabashed motorists taking leaks in the full glare of oncoming traffic – and we wonder about our accident rate! – when they could just as easily take a few steps behind their vehicle or down the embankment.

Perched upon the pavement, together with other cheapskates, outside Leonard Cohen’s recent performance in Ramat Gan, we were suddenly treated, during the interval, to the delightful spectacle of long lines of local Neanderthals peeing in our direction down the Stadium embankment.

Like Stuey perhaps, Israeli males are keen to mark their (occupied) territory and to simply be “top dog”. It is part and parcel of the macho Israeli psyche: “I am a gever (male), and I will take it out wherever I like.”

In spite of last week’s flash floods here, it is a continuing source of wonder to me how, with such a paucity of annual rainfall, the country’s agriculture survives such uncomfortably hot summers and almost entirely arid springs and autumns. Perhaps now, however, I have the answer: it is the continual watering of the Land by the uncouth Israeli male – providing showers of a rather different nature – which performs, however unwittingly, the critical role in its irrigation. “Jerusalem the golden”, indeed!

So, Michal, the next time the English oleh (immigrant) needs to pull out his “hose”, praise rather than scold him for performing his Zionist duty . . . and, still, with a sprinkling of class.

Hating the French . . . racist, or merely human?!

Walking the streets of Tel Aviv these days, it is impossible to go very far without one’s hearing being assailed by a sickening nasal sound. And I am not referring to the delightful manner in which Israelis clear their sinuses (before projecting the dislodged contents onto the pavement without a thought for adjacent pedestrians).

No, I am talking French.

Like Germans entering France in May 1940, the French have arrived in Tel Aviv in their hordes. And they have only been a little more welcome, male and female Frenchman alike bearing tasteless testament to the deleterious consequences of gaudiness and too many hours spent under the sunbed (though North Africa is probably as much to blame as France for these roasted peacocks, jangling and clunking under the weight of excessive gold).

Israelis, hardly paragons of best manners, loathe the behaviour of the French – though perhaps they resent the competition – even scapegoating them for Tel Aviv’s increasingly unaffordable property prices (thankfully, the French have tended to settle the streets in the immediate vicinity of the Mediterranean, a safe-ish distance from Rothschild).

Whoever invented the French language must have had a single guiding principle: “How do I come up with a sound that will drive other nations to sheer distraction?” And my instantaneous, though subconscious, reaction every time that I hear it is for my cheek muscles to contort my mouth into a De Niro grimace, that psychotic inverted smile which “Bobby” pulls in the movies whenever he is about to “whack” someone.

When spoken by the male of the species especially, the language turns me into a Tourette’s case, giving me the irrepressible urge to utter “the ‘c’ word” (not that, as regular readers of melchett mike will attest, I normally need too much encouragement). And the Frenchman, like the c*** in your high school class, has absolutely no self-awareness of that quality.

Following the arrogant, pretentious excesses of Eric Cantona (who could only be French), Thierry Henry restored the dignity of the Frenchman in English football. But the dastardly Hand of Frog ‘goal’ (left) that broke Irish hearts 12 days ago – cheating them out of a place at next summer’s World Cup in South Africa – showed that Henry had us duped. And, instead of admitting his offence, and going down in history as both a great footballer and a gentleman, Henry will now be remembered as a cheat in the mould of that repellent Argentine degenerate, Maradona.

Breaks yer heart: Parisians watch German soldiers enter the capital (June 14, 1940)

To the Englishman, memories of white flags being raised over France in 1940 are as repugnant as thoughts of the Hand of God doing so in Mexico City in 1986. It took the French all of six weeks to surrender to the Germans – it is no coincidence that the central strip of the French tricolore is white – a noble feat which they then surpassed by establishing the collaborationist Vichy regime.

But are our neighbours across the Channel any more worthy of our contempt than, for example, the Belgians or the Dutch, who surrendered in two and a half weeks and four days, respectively? And, cowardice aside, what is it about the French that so gets under our skin?

Far from displaying a modicum of gratitude to the British for fighting for his nation’s freedom, De Gaulle subsequently made every effort to exclude the United Kingdom from the European Community (now Union). And his successors, too, have stabbed the British in the back at every given opportunity.

For some peculiar reason, known only to themselves, the French are persuaded that they are superior to everyone else. In art. In style. In food. And, most inaccurately of all, in bed. According to a global sex survey, the French only spend an average 19.2 minutes on foreplay, while we Brits spend 22.5 minutes (I have been known to spend even longer . . . especially when I have company).

In spite of its close proximity to London, I have visited Paris just once, and then only for a cousin’s engagement party (yes, he did). But it was enough to discover an absence of hospitality – shopkeepers feigning not to comprehend a single word of English as I groped for morsels of O-level French – that gives me no urge to return.

Since S, the French girl who paid me midnight visits at Jerusalem’s Ulpan Etzion (the aptly named “absorption centre” where we lived for five months following Aliyah), I have not even come close to dating a French woman. Moreover, my extensive Facebook and mobile phone lists contain a mere single French entry. And, having known Yael for ten years now, the thing that still strikes me every time that I meet her is how nice she is for a French woman. The exception to the rule.

A French cock

So, Thierry Henry – arguably, until a week and a half ago, the greatest living Frenchman – reverted to type, proving that it is no coincidence that the national emblem of France is the cock.

Call me a “racist”, but . . . when it comes to the French, xenophobia takes on a rationality that makes it, if not a virtue, then common sense.

Dedicated to Bridlington Gert and his noble crusade against racism in all its forms (oh yes . . . except that against Jews).

Hendon: Just Nostalgic Illusion?

But not for long . . .

Hendon-but-not-for-long     

This was the street sign idea I proposed, as a small design project, to a conceptual artist friend.     

Jason and I both grew up in Hendon, the suburb of North-West London which most people – or at least those whose interests and aspirations extend beyond a healthy Jewish community and an excellent selection of synagogues (including, of course, the ones that you don’t go to) – long to get away from. And during university vacations, following months of undergraduate decadence, Jason and I would invariably bump into each other and catch up in Hendon Central, always reflecting – though with humour and no little affection – on the sheer dullness of our childhood home. Indeed, whenever a woman in whom I had an interest would ask where I was from, I would always mutter the response in an extremely throwaway manner. “Hendon” had always been a conversation stopper.     

Even ignoring Hasmo and its Legends, however, Hendon features more landmarks and places of interest than your average suburban neighbourhood: the RAF Museum, Police Training College, one end of Britain’s best known motorway (the M1), the Welsh Harp, Hendon Hall Hotel (where FA Cup Final teams would stay, a safe distance from any action, on the night before the big day), Middlesex University (if you couldn’t get in anywhere else), Barnet Copthall Stadium, and that paradise of the bored North-West London Jewish housewife, Brent Cross Shopping Centre.     

Hendon has somehow contrived, however, to be far less than the sum of its parts. I have no desire to even visit (and if I do, it will only be for free board and/or Brent Street’s excellent Lahore curry house).     

But, perhaps as with all childhood homes, nostalgia tends to drown out reality. And the memories of many former Hendonites are fond. Following his return to Israel from a recent visit, my cousin Marc said something that tickled me: “You know what, Michael, I walked down Brent Street, and it meant nothing to me.” Now, anyone who knows Brent Street will be amazed that this dreary suburban high street – with seventies eyesore, Sentinel Square, at its miserable heart – could ever have meant anything to anyone. But Marc and I regularly reminisce lovingly about the “old country” during our concurrent morning drives through the Israeli traffic.     

Or was the Hendon of our childhood really a better place?     

The neighbourhood supplied no shortage of characters. There were the Carmels who owned the greengrocery on Vivian Avenue, and whose hotheaded son Danny was constantly fighting with customers over one thing or another, often the handling of his fruit. Opposite them was irascible old Mr. Kaplan the grocer, with his unfeasibly strong Mitteleuropean accent, who was just as prone as Danny to upset patrons.     

And who can forget the Irishman charged with running the tennis courts at Hendon Park (below right), but whose little green (appropriately) hut – for booking the courts – was nearly always closed (judging by the hue of his cheeks when he eventually appeared, it was never too difficult to work out where he had been)? The usual form was:     

• turn up . . . to find the hut shut;
• start playing anyway;
• run off when the Irishman eventually appeared (because we were near the end of the match anyway . . . and Jewish, considering the 30p an hour fee better put towards the cost of our first flat or car);
• find refuge in the “corner shop” next to the Hendon Classic (cinema), where we would drive the Asian owners to distraction, leafing through their comics (and, later, other “mags”) with no intention whatsoever of making a purchase.

If Hendon’s most famous son was the great Test batsman Denis Compton, its celebrity resident was heavyweight boxing champion Henry Cooper, who once dumped Cassius Clay on his backside, but who would unfailingly offer a warm “hello” as he strolled his giant poodle up Brampton Grove. Carry On and East Enders actress Barbara Windsor also lived in Hendon, while eighties soul band Imagination frequented the local video shop on Sentinel Square (or was that Just an Illusion?)     

Talking of carry-ons, the forty-odd detached homes on our street, Edgeworth Crescent, seemed to house and generate more characters and drama than your average small town. And I am not just talking about the product of the lively – some would say perverse – imagination of award-winning author Clive Sinclair, who grew up next door and who, on revealing his Hendon roots, has been quoted as exclaiming “God help me!”     

Where there is now a Holmes Place and sheltered housing, however, once stood two ‘proper’, old-style cinemas: the Classic (opposite Hendon Central tube) and the Odeon (in the Quadrant). Hendon was also home to numerous traditional English pubs. The White Bear, on the Burroughs, provided shelter to a much-loved stuffed polar which disappeared with the pub’s character when it – like so many others – was converted into a vapid theme pub, the only discernible theme being its absolute dreariness.     

Another Hendon institution sorely missed is its football club, Hendon FC, which now groundshares with Wembley FC after, this year, being forced to leave its home of 80 years, Claremont Road.     

Another goal for the mighty Greens, as the away keeper reacts a tad late.

Perhaps it is just me (and the several dozen other saddos who watch Hendon),  but I always found it oddly gratifying being able to stand right behind the away goal and to viciously abuse the generic “fat useless c*nt” – i.e., every visiting goalie (irrelevant of ability and girth) – knowing that he would hear every word (and, often, respond). You can’t do that at Arsenal. And standing among us was another favourite son of Hendon, David “Got your number!” Bedford (with caricature, right), the former 10,000 metres world record holder and – more significantly for fans of Hendon – vice-chairman and champion of our ailing club.     

The Burroughs still provides a strong sense of a more distinguished past. And, on three consecutive General Election nights, we gathered beneath the balcony of Hendon Town Hall to hear Maggie Thatcher – whose constituency was neighbouring Finchley – deliver her victory addresses.     

The study room of the adjacent Hendon Library was where we revised for our O and A level examinations. Its stereotypically plain librarians – remember the lovely “Olive Oil”, anyone? – would never fail to take the bait of pranksters who would ring up asking for “Mike Hunt”. During the heat and pressure of summer exams – as frum (primarily Hasmonean) boys had their closest exposure yet to non-religious Jewish and Gentile girls – there were more Jewish erections in that room than on your average West Bank hilltop.     

Raleigh Close (Hendon United) Synagogue still is, for me, Shul. A reader of melchett mike has opined, interestingly, how Reverend Hardman z”l, Rabbi Silberg, and the incumbent Rabbi Ginsbury “so accurately represented, and represent, the state of Anglo-Jewry at the time”. And shammes (beadle) Moshe Steinhart (right) became an inadvertent communal legend, his wonderfully naive, malapropistic weekly announcements sparking more hilarity than your average stand-up comedian.     

Last month, at the lacklustre Kol Nidrei (Yom Kippur eve) service in Tel Aviv’s Great Synagogue, my mind wandered back to the atmospheric Raleigh Close Kol Nidreis of my childhood and youth, where Hendonite coreligionists whom one hadn’t seen for an entire year would spend the entire service awkwardly rearranging their garish kippot (skullcaps) – each with its own unmistakable year-long crease across its middle – on their often equally shiny bonces.     

But Hendon possessed a wider sense of community too. Every Sunday morning and summer evening, there were “pick up” games of football in Hendon Park, where Jewish kids, black kids, Greek kids, and those from local council estates, would all muck in very happily (Asian Muslim kids however never did, the first time we became aware of any “them ‘n us” tension, though it was of course to get much worse). And there were real characters there too (whatever became of “Mad” Dave?)     

But all that has gone.     

I still see Stuart – known as “Rushie” in those games because of his remarkably cool (for park football), Ian Rush-like finishing – on my increasingly infrequent visits to London. He still lives in Hendon, and bemoans the changes there, not least the increase in crime and general feeling of insecurity on its streets, which he blames on the influx into the neighbourhood of eastern Europeans.     

Whatever the accuracy of his analysis, there is a perceptible dearth of ethnically English people left in Hendon. These days, the roads not sufficiently desirable for Jews to inhabit are occupied primarily by Asians and the eastern Europeans who Stu so decries. There is virtually nothing “English” about Hendon left. And – however un-PC, and impertinent for a Jew, to say so – that strikes me as sad.     

Hendon was our shtetl, our East End: good times and great memories . . . though I, for one, would not want to be back there.