Reading Reading

Dear Stan,

Cafe Scientifique is a new venture by the University of Reading as part of its public education outreach. For years the University has run public lectures in the evening in the Palmer Building, in the same auditorium where Reading Film Theatre shows its arthouse movies. These lectures have covered a wide variety of fascinating topics and been delivered with an equally wide variety of skill by the eminent speakers. Just because you are the top expert in the world on Italy under Mussolini does not guarantee that you'll deliver a scintillating lecture on the subject, as I found out last March. As the lectures are all free, it is ungracious to complain and impossible to demand your money back.

Unlike the public lectures, Cafe Scientifique is held off campus - well, 200 yards off campus in one of the bars at the Queen's Head pub in Christchurch Road. This has the advantage of being less formal than the main public lectures where the lecturer is out front at a traditional lectern and the audience is in banked rows of cinema-style seats. At the pub we were all packed in close to the speakers. The disadvantage was the limited seating for the crowd who squeezed in to listen to two speakers on stem cell research. One of them was Dr Che Connon, a researcher in stem cell research specialising in using adult stem cells for treating eyes damaged by disease or accidents, such as having corrosive liquids thrown in the face. The other was David Oderberg, originally from Australia, now Professor of Philosophy at Reading. He has lectured and written extensively on the moral implications of bioethical research.

The evening held two stunning surprises. The first was Professor Oderberg's ethical approach. For much of his talk he sounded as if he was channelling Pope John Paul 2 on the sanctity of human life, destruction of embryos and so on. I had never heard of the guy before that evening although he lives only a quarter of a mile from Reading Prison and hence St James Church. See the attached interview with Prof Oderberg for a secular philosopher's views on some of the key aspects of morality. No wonder I had never heard of him; his opinions would not be welcome in the BBC or most British TV or newspapers.

The second surprise came in the shape of an American doctor who stood up in the question and answer session to declare himself a supporter of our old friend Jack Kevorkian and a long term campaigner in the USA for abortion rights. In a somewhat incoherent challenge to Professor Oderberg, he seemed to imply that universities were for 'intellectual' pursuits and lectures based on beliefs were somehow off limits in an ethical debate. I may be doing him an injustice, but he was almost a caricature of the moral liberationist so evident in much of the US and British media and parts of academia.

The Queens Head may sound like a bizarre venue for an educational initiative, but then Christchurch Road compresses the extremes of the British education system into a very small space. At its east end, less than 200 yards from the pub, you find the huge green campus of the University of Reading. Less than two hundred yards to the west of the pub there used to be Reading Alternative School. This sounds like a chic and radical school, with an imaginative curriculum and innovative teaching methods. Er, not quite. You went to Reading Alternative School only when there was no alternative for you. Your totally disruptive, violent or depraved behaviour meant that even the worst schools in town had washed their hands of you, but the luckless Local Education Authority still had a legal obligation to 'educate' you until the age of 16. A friend taught at this school for a few months and was lucky to escape uninjured when a pupil threw a pair of scissors at her. She is a really lovely and compassionate person and explained the horrendous backgrounds of many pupils; parental neglect and abandonment, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, drink and drug abuse, mental illness. The name was proof that local British government, like the national government, has no shortage of bullshit merchants.

I use the past tense because Reading Alternative School no longer exists. I walked past some weeks ago and Phoenix College had taken its place. My cynical sister suggested that the name was inspired by the 'students' torching the earlier school, but the buildings looked much the same. Plainly the bullshit merchants had paid a return visit. They must have trained the staff well because shortly afterwards an article appeared in the local paper. Reading Alternative School might as well have been on Pluto for all the press coverage it received. Every other school in town had newspaper articles describing its academic achievements, sporting successes, drama productions, musical concerts, fundraising events, etc. No parent would ever boast about their child going to Reading Alternative School. Now at last an article described a charity fundraising event at the Phoenix College. For the benefit of bemused local citizens,who had not a clue where this 'college' was or what it taught, a staff member explained that the pupils 'had many things going on in their lives'. It was like 'La Vie en rose' covering Edith Piaf's World War 2 career.

Walk less than 300 yards west along Christchurch Road from Phoenix College and you come to the junior department of Abbey School. You go to the Abbey School if you are female and your parents can afford £8,000 ($16,000+) a year in fees. Sally Taylor, who presents the local news on BBC South Today, went to Abbey School. In fact an astonishing number of TV presenters went to Abbey School. The Chief Vetinary Officer in Britain also appeared on TV quite a lot during the recent foot and mouth disease panic.....and she went to Abbey School. The pupils at Phoenix College probably have a better chance of flying to the moon than going to Oxford or becoming TV presenters, even when the school leaving age is raised to 18 as the Government plans. But the Local Education Authority will have the pleasure of educating them and keeping their teachers alive for even longer.

William Murphy

Irrational Atheism

Dear Stan,

Here is the link to the wonderful essay on modern atheists by Theodore Dalrymple in City Journal:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_4_oh_to_be.html
(Indeed, a brilliant essay. I actually believe Theodore Dalrymple is secretly a Vatican logician. If we knew his real identify, we'd find this stuff boring. But since he claims to be an atheist, we find it fascinating. - SW)

You can link it, spread the word and be free from copyright prosecution. As a follow up to Beckett's famous blast: "God doesn't exist - the bastard!", I am reminded of the old joke about the Irish atheist who went around wishing to God he believed in God. Trying to deny His existence is like the childhood game of trying to jump off your own shadow. As nature abhors a vacuum, other beliefs merely move in to act as unsatisfactory substitutes. Some of our most vocal British atheists sound like (and in some cases look like) religious crackpots in their propaganda zeal, especially on issues such as global warming which plainly play the role of surrogate religions for atheist advocates. George Monbiot and Johann Hari are prime examples, as in the recent case of a small but vocal demonstration against the expansion of Heathrow Airport. In his fervent denunciation of the demon air travel, the atheist Hari was reduced to raging against the gleaming streamlined shapes emitting CO2 and leading the planet "to Hell", which he does not believe in. Of course, Hari uses air travel, but only as a necessary evil in assisting his reporting on injustice in other parts of the world.....

English Language in Germany

I spent a few hours around the Central Rail Station in Cologne. In many cities (e.g. New York, Berlin, Turin, Prague) you are warned about the criminal dangers around the rail station - typically pickpockets, hustlers and drug dealers. But Cologne's station is brightly lit, well policed and busy nearly all the time. The historic station with its enormous curved glass roof sits on top of a good sized mall with numerous shops and cheap eating places offering cuisines from several countries. As the station is right beside the Cathedral, it was a very convenient spot to grab a quick meal before more sightseeing. But, best of all, it has a superb newspaper and magazine shop which illustrates the union of Europe better than any political speeches.

The shelves displayed publications from Germany, Britain, the USA, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic and Turkey. Cologne has been a European crossroads for centuries; the collapse of the Communist block and the expansion of the European Union has increased the numbers of people traveling in all directions for work and pleasure. After being brought up for decades on stories of the austerity of the Communist countries, it still seems strange to see glossy fashion magazines with Cyrillic letters surrounding the supermodels on the covers.

The English language selection was as good as you would find in many magazine shops in England and the main British "newspapers" (or Prolefeed as George Orwell accurately called them) were on sale on the same day as they appeared in London. If you wanted to learn the latest non-development in the eternal saga of Madeleine McCann (the little English girl lost/murdered/abducted/??? in Portugal) you could pay three times the London price and read all about it. But then you could check out the 1,720,000 references on Google for free and be just about as wise (or ignorant). As one of my cynical colleagues observed 20 years ago, here was more proof of the tens of billions of pounds we waste on education each year.

The size of the English section is just another reminder of the worldwide triumph of the language. A friend who works for a large multinational told me that his German colleagues were ordered to speak English in business meetings - even if only Germans were present.

The English language is typically the only alternative to German provided in most public places. Despite the heroic rearguard efforts of the Academie Francais and other cultural bodies, the French language is never going to endure this sort of linguistic Juggernaut; this seems especially ironic for a city whose English name is actually the French one. You can get guidebooks for the city and the cathedral in 6 or 7 main European languages, and guided tours can be obtained in several languages. But the useful detailed instructions on signs and noticeboards can practically be displayed in only two or three languages and English is the inevitable choice.

Outside the station it is only a short walk to the pedestrianised shopping streets where you can max out your credit cards as quickly as in any other major city on earth. You could buy much of the merchandise in London (or in Reading for that matter), so there was little to excite my interest. The French might be losing the language wars, but they are triumphantly winning the shopping battles. The distinctive French labels like Louis Vuitton, Chanel, etc are as evident in Cologne as they are in the Far East cities I visited. Luxury goods have been a French specialty for decades and with the continuing expansion of many countries' economies they are uniquely well placed to reap the fruits of their carefully nurtured trade marks.

The local jewelery store named "Christ" has its name across the cover of the city's shopping guide displayed at the airport and elsewhere. For a while I thought that this would be the customer's stunned ejaculation on seeing their price tags, but in fact much of their jewelery and watch prices are mid-market by German standards.

The huge department store Kaufhof (rough equivalent of Sears or JC Penney) had a huge window display which will probably linger in the memories of local children for decades. It showed dozens of soft toy animals animated in a range of gestures - so the monkeys swung from a beam, the elephant nodded its head and the tiger crouched and twitched its tail. It provided a well designed and executed entertainment for the Christmas/Carnival crowds and children of all ages.

One shop outside the main shopping area had a range of beautiful Christmas manger sets and other religious statues which you would not see in many cities. The individual museums and galleries stock memorabilia specific to each site.

One big difference between Germany and Britain is the brewery distribution. The local beer Kolsch has to be brewed within the city limits to be called Kolsch; there are various breweries making their own beers so you can get Peter Kolsch, Sion Kolsch and so on. Practically every town and city in Germany has its own beer and brewery, just as Britain had before the national and multinational firms took over or bankrupted the local firms. A surprising number still hang on determinedly in various parts of Britain and their products are relished and publicized by the Real Ale movement. But the local brews' position seems much more assured in Germany.

Beethoven, Germany, Things that Fly in the Air

After visiting the Beethoven Haus in Bonn, I walked down the the Museum of the History of the Federal Republic. The title was not particularly inviting or exciting and I would not have seen it if a German friend had not recommended it. But it was wonderful! Everything from the Berlin Wall (building and destruction) to an old Miele washing machine to a Trabant, a piece of moonrock and one of the Beatles' drumsticks. As the museum covers the period of German history from 1945 to the present, it also chronicles many major European and American events, such as the 1960s student upheavals, the space race and European unification.

The exhibits start in the desperate days after May 1945 when staying alive was a constant battle. One room recreates the stark interior of a refugee camp hut. In 1945 at least 6 million Germans fled from the eastern provinces of Silesia, Prussia and Pomerania ahead of the Red Army, plus more who were expelled by the newly liberated Czechs from the Sudentenland areas of Czechoslovakia. They arrived in areas of Germany where the existing inhabitants had no homes due to the bombing and there was no public transport, electricity, gas or clean running water. It puts into perspective the current hubbub in Britain about the influx of less than a million East Europeans arriving in a peaceful prosperous country with adequate housing and all public services functioning.

The exhibits are arranged in date order, so you get some sense of economic, political and social changes decade by decade. Much of the emphasis is on the West German perspective, though changes in the Communist East Germany get some coverage. The museum covers my whole life, so it was a thrill to see the smallest BMW car ever made - the two -seater "bubble" car (with only one door - across the front of the vehicle!) they produced in the 1950s and which I dimly remember seeing gleaming new in a showroom when I was a small child - at a time when British car buyers were very patriotic and any foreign car was a rarity on British roads. It was so strange seeing this tiny, slow, bizarre vehicle sporting the familiar blue-and-white round badge which now adorns some of the most powerful and advanced sedans in the world. BMW are of course one of the major contributors to Germany being the biggest exporting nation on earth. Despite all the fuss about Chinese exports, Germany, with 7% of the population of China and 25% of the US population, out-exports both countries.

Most of the labels in the museum are in German, though I bought the very fat and informative English language guidebook to steer myself round the complex layouts. For film buffs, there was one amazing surprise - a huge temporary exhibition dedicated entirely to "Das Boot" (The Boat), the 1981 classic about WW2 submarine warfare. Surely one of the best war films ever, the exhibition brought it to life again, showing many details of the production, such as the make-up, custome design, camera work and the model submarines used for exterior shots, plus the numerous awards the film justly won.

One hilarious episode which is not mentioned in the museum is the prelude to the introduction of the Euro in 2002. The roads down to Switzerland and Liechtenstein were packed with top-of-the-range BMWs and Mercedes loaded with Deutschmarks which had never been declared to the taxman.This loot needed to be paid into suitably discreet banks before the marks became obsolete.

Walking down the road to this museum there were several surprises. There was an "Old Catholic" church; I had read about this breakaway group, which left the Catholic Church after the First Vatican Council, but had never seen one of their churches. Right next door was the Newman institute for Catholic students. A few minutes on there was the old foreign ministry and the old residence of the President of the republic. In the best civil service tradition, the united German government have built a new foreign ministry and a new Residence for the President in Berlin - but still keep the huge redundant old buildings in Bonn. And I suppose that , somewhere in East Berlin, there is a third foreign ministry left over from the DDR.... As long as there is only one foreign policy. It is difficult enough keeping up with one set of foreign policies (especially if they are French).

Back in Cologne, the preparations for the Carnival season were well advanced. I had a meal with Annette, my German friend who I met when she was a member of one of the St James music groups for a year in 2004/5. She then did a year's teacher training in Ludwigshaven, the very industrial home town of BASF, the huge chemical company. Happily she has now moved on to a teaching job (English and geography) in the much more attractive city of Koblenz, where the River Moselle joins the Rhine. She explained that Carnival (called "the Fifth Season") runs from late November to Ash Wednesday, with a break for Christmas. The area south of the cathedral is covered with rows of solidly made wooden huts which will house the Christmas Market - one of several around the city.

Germans are reputed to travel abroad more than any other nation on earth and Annette and her family certainly live up to this stereotype. She spent two weeks in Iran last summer, with no trouble whatsoever. She found the Iranians incredibly friendly and hospitable, ready to engage in conversation and exchange email addresses at the drop of a hat. Of course, she had to observe basic proprieties, dressing very modestly and covering her hair with a scarf. She also attended the wedding of a American friend (of Egyptian parentage) whom she met while studying in Chicago. The wedding took place in an idyllic village church in the Loire valley in France, followed by the reception in one of the beautiful chateaux for which that region is famous. Unfortunately, the bride's parents were absent, objecting to her choice of a Jewish husband. This did not deter her numerous other relatives who flew in from the Middle East and elsewhere. The local French villagers applauded and threw flowers as this wedding procession of total strangers progressed past their homes. The bride was originally Orthodox, but converted to Catholicism so that she and her Jewish fiance could get married in church. It was a reminder of how "globalised" people are becoming.

Annette's parents had been around much the same area as me this year, visiting Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. I have not seen the last city, though it is certainly on my list for future holidays. But despite all this globe trotting, she was delayed in getting to our rendezvous outside the cathedral. It is only a hour by train from Koblenz, but there was a strike on! The train drivers were seeking a hefty increase. Still, most trains ran and she was only twenty minutes late.

When I took the trains to and from Bonn, they ran absolutely on time. It was a single decker train down to Bonn, a double decker on the way back - one of very few occasions I have ever been on a double decker train. Both trains were quiet, smooth and spotlessly clean. As with Singapore and Hong Kong, I felt very safe out at night in both Bonn and Cologne. It was such a pleasant change to going out after dark in Reading or London, where the massive alcohol abuse by thousands of people makes you all too aware that violence is never far away.

I went to Sunday Mass in Cologne Cathedral. The bishop lead the entry procession, which was swelled by a huge all-girl choir. The latter were mainly 10-13 years old; they looked suitably angelic in their white robes and sounded angelic as well. I checked out the wonderful St Gereons Church west of the Cathedral - no wonder Cologne is described as a Cathedral surrounded by Cathedrals. Several churches would be cathedrals in any other city. I then went to the City of Cologne Museum which boasts a winged car on its roof - this a tribute to Ford, a major employer in the area. A 1960s Ford is one of the exhibits inside.

The museum covers all of Cologne's history from Roman times to the present day, through the Middle Ages when it was the largest city north of the Alps, bigger even than Paris or London. A very frank area describes the Nazi period of Cologne's history, when swastika flags were hung even on the Cathedral. I had heard of the special cheap radios which the Nazis mass produced so that Germans could listen to their propaganda; sure enough, there were two samples in a display case. The WW2 destruction was apocalyptic; exhibits and photographs depict the devastation of the city's buildings, bridges and transport. 20,000 citizens were killed, 4,800 on one terrible night in 1943, more than a year AFTER the "Thousand Bomber raid". Other fascinating exhibits show the numerous industries and trades in the area. Most unexpected was the model of the enormous rafts of logs floated down the Rhine from southern Germany. The exhibit said that these were up to 300 metres long, which in one sense would make them the biggest vessels ever built up to that time.

I am now safe at home after a short but eventful flight from Cologne. We had a delay boarding the plane because it had been held up at another airport during its constant hops around Europe. Apparently one document said there were 137 people on board, while another said there were 134. Somehow three passengers were issued with duplicate boarding cards, which accounted for the three extra bodies. So by the time it reached Cologne/Bonn Airport and we were able to board, it was already well behind schedule. We thought that we were ready for take-off, but then there was a further delay because there was still one woman passenger standing without a seat. The crew argued over a cello which a musician passenger had brought on board. There were several other bulky instruments stuffed into the rear toilet compartment, which meant that no one could use that toilet for part of the flight. But this cello had a seat to itself, which the owner had paid for. This precious instrument was going into the cargo hold only over the owner's dead body.

After much negotiating and some surreal debate as to whether it was a "female" passenger, the cello was moved up to the flight deck the woman got her seat and we took off! I suspect the question of the cello's gender might have arisen from a head count of male and female passengers. There is always a spare seat (the "jump seat") on an airliner's flight deck, but the obvious solution (put a passenger in the jump seat) was forbidden by security rules. Part way through the flight, some of the musical instruments were taken out of the toilet so that passengers could use it, but don't ask me where the crew put them. The flight to London was less than an hour, but it was easily the bumpiest I have ever experienced. The aircraft flew only at 23,000 feet, which is much lower than most jets. I love flying, but was mighty glad to reach the ground this time. I was surrounded a a crowd of 10/11 year old children from a diving club who had been to a competition in Germany. Their harassed supervisors managed to retain their sense of humour while keeping the bored kids in order throughout the delays.

Back at Gatwick, you are inevitably reminded what total dumps the major London airports are in comparison with just about every other airport in the developed world. Going down the steps from the departure lounge to the tarmac at Gatwick was like descending to a 1950s urinal. Heathrow is little better. The enormous Terminal 5 finally opens at Heathrow next March; it has taken 20 years of arguing to get that erected after enquiries and planning consent delays and appeals. Unfortunately the ancient Terminals 1 to 3 will still be in business. Luton and Stansted are much more modern, but they are difficult to reach from Reading and offer fewer flights. But the real fun starts when you leave the bus to track down your car in the enormous long-stay carpark. Even with the benefit of a zone letter and a row number, I was wandering up and down for ages in the rain before I found it. I was 1:30am before I crawled into bed; up again at 6:30am for work on Monday......

Bonn, Germany

Dear Stan,

I am currently in Bonn, which makes it the 3rd ex-capital city I have visited in just over a year. (Turin used to be the Italian capital and East Berlin was the capital of East Germany). I have so far seen only the Beethoven House. He is plainly the city's most famous son, as you can tell from the numerous statues and signs pointing to the Beethoven House. It is well worth the €5.00 admission fee, as it contains the largest collection of Beethoven memorabilia in the world - his pianos, desks, viola, portraits, letters, manuscripts and, most poignantly, the ear trumpets and conversation books which he was forced to use as his deafness progressed. It also contains his death mask and a lifemask made 15 years earlier. I must confess that I had never even heard of a "lifemask" until I saw his, though it is a obvious procedure to use in the pre-photography age.

I had a fascinating few hours in the German-Roman Museum in Cologne. From the outside it is the sort of hideous square concrete box which gives neo-Brutalism a bad name - all the worse as it is right beside the peerless Cathedral. Once inside, it is endlessly enthralling. The interior design is far more appealing than the exterior, with one stairwell designed around a large Roman mosaic discovered in 1941 when building an air raid shelter. It boasts "the largest collection of Roman glass in the world" and I would not argue with this claim to fame. The beauty and intricacy of the craftsmanship in glass and ceramics surviving 2,000 years is a marvel in itself. It brings everyday Roman life back to life in a way better than any other museum I have seen. It includes children's toys, rings, hairpins and cosmetic pots used by the ladies, cooking pots, recreated domestic interiors, part of the Roman walls of Cologne and a rebuilt Roman carriage.

There was a wedding in progress when I visited the Town Hall, with the radiant bride and groom oblivious to the traumatic history of the building (totally rebuilt since WW2 leveling) and the nearby glass pyramid which covers the deep shaft of the Jewish ritual cleansing bath discovered at that site. The local Jews, as in every part of Europe, suffered pogroms well before the Nazis arrived. Round the corner from the Town Hall is the enormous tower of Great St Martin, a church which would be a cathedral in any other city, also totally rebuilt since 1945.

Museum Politics

Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest. Like now, when I am trying to access my Hotmail account from Cologne public library and it has taken me ten minutes to find the keystroke combination for @. Just try using the Internet without it! Even with a Roman keyboard, there are numerous ways of arranging the characters enough to confuse the foreigner.

I am enjoying a few days in Cologne and have so far seen the Chocolate Museum, the Sports Museum and the Dom (cathedral), the largest church in Germany. Among its numerous claims to fame is the golden reliquary containing the skulls of the Three Wise Men. Cologne was the target of the first Thousand Bomber raid in history in 1942. Actually, the Royal Air Force scraped up considerably less than 1,000 aircraft for that mission, but it looked good in the tabloid headlines of the time. As a result of that raid and numerous others, there was not much left of Cologne by the time peace came. But you would never know it today. The rebuilding of the city, like that of Berlin, is little short of miraculous.

As you might suspect from earlier postings, I always enjoy the quirky and unexpected aspects of any city and Cologne certainly has its share. The Chocolate Museum was founded by a local chocolate company owner and contains 3,000 years of the history of chocolate and the cocoa bean - everything from its origins in South and Central America to modern incarnations like the Mars bar, Kitkat and Toberlerone. A complete chocolate production line, a tropical hothouse nurturing the trees, chocolate animals, moulds, advertising, technical innovations, plenty of free samples - in short, a glorious afternoon for anyone with a sweet tooth.

The Sports and Olympic Museum next door is equally enthralling. It contains everything from Steffi Graf's 1991 Wimbledon trophy to Leni Riefenstall's 1938 epic Olympic documentary to Michael Schumacher's Grand Prix winning Renault. It does not duck the uglier aspects of German sporting history under the Nazis, but is curiously silent about the East German mass doping scandal. Some of the German Olympic medal winners gracing the walls are from the East German glory days of the 1970s and 1980s, about which an embarassed silence might be the only diplomatic recourse. Also at one end of a gallery, there was a bank of TVs showing sporting highlights from the last few decades, with the inevitable Chariots of Fire theme running in a continuous loop. Of course Chariots of Fire was set at the 1924 Paris Olympics - where Germany was banned as ongoing punishment for WW1. The Olympics have been political from the start, with one country or another being banned or trying to impose bans on some else.

Catholic Perspective of Religion in the East

My holiday to a strange land started on the aircraft flying from London to Doha, long before we touched the soil of Qatar. As I noted in an earlier blog entry, the menu on Qatar Airlines specifically advised us that our food was prepared according to Islamic principles and the big screen at the front of the cabin showed the direction to Mecca, in case anyone wished to pray in the correct way. Just before we landed in Qatar an announcement reminded us of the fasting requirement for Ramadan. On the return flight from Singapore to Qatar I sat beside a most friendly young man who inquired of the stewardess exactly when the discipline of fasting "dawn to dusk" would start to apply; she assured him that she would check with the captain (These things are tricky when you are flying in the dark across several time zones). One of the advantages of paying for the Premium service with Qatar is not just access to the executive lounges at airports, but separate prayer rooms for men and women. All this showed what happens when a society takes its religion seriously; all aspects of life reflect its influence and all businesses and institutions accommodate its practices.

The influence of Islam reaches far beyond its main population centres. In Bangkok's huge new airport, to judge from the architecture, you at first think that you have entered a temple of modernity and stark rationality. Yet among the five or six key direction signs at major junctions inside the airport you see "Muslim prayer room". Yet Thailand is allegedly 95% Buddhist! There is no suggestion of a facility where people of any faith other than Islam might want to pray quietly before a flight. Airports are places where people leave on journeys full of anxiety and sorrow; other airports provide generic "prayer rooms" for them to gather their thoughts and pray to face what lies ahead. You might blame this little example on an expansionist and intolerant Islam, but there are much more numerous signs everywhere in Bangkok of how vulnerable traditional societies and cultures are to Western modernity.

It is true that, as you walk from the aircraft to the Immigration area at the airport, you see huge replicas of the grotesque and gaudy demons which guard the gates at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in the city centre. But you cannot help feeling that this is merely lipservice to traditional Thai religion. So much of everyday life is Westernised and in implicit (and often explicit) contradiction to Buddhist practice: the hideous traffic congestion, the open prostitution, the movies at the multiplexes, the luxury malls full of exclusively Western technology, labels and goods, the immodest dress of so many of the young women. Huge billboards urge young people to learn English by enrolling at various language schools and thus improve their career prospects. Religion obviously plays an important role in some Thai lives; after such a brief visit I could not give any worthwhile estimate as to the percentage who fully participate in religious duties and believe in Buddhist precepts. But you know about the devastating impact of modernization on so many previously deeply devout Christian nations (Ireland, Holland, Italy, Spain etc) and it is difficult to see why the result should be any different for Buddhist societies in the long term - which may not be very long, given the ever increasing speed of cultural and technological transfers between countries. Obviously Bangkok is only one part of Thailand, but I cannot imagine provincial towns and villages escaping the same process a few years behind the capital.

You might want to blame someone for this corruption of Thai society and King Rama V could be a suitable fall guy - or at least a very telling example. He went to Oxford University in the 19th century and came home obviously besotted with Western culture and technology. Of course the late 19th century was almost the high watermark of Western European imperial expansion and military domination, before the rise of the USA and Russia. Dizzying economic progress, the amazing redevelopment of major cities like Paris and Berlin, industrial innovation and scientific discoveries all fuelled the impression of a future of continuous invention and limitless wealth. This scenario must have given many perceptive leaders from outside Europe the idea that the only way to survive in the future was to swallow the Western ways hook, line and sinker. They were hardly alone in being dazzled by this apparently overwhelming and unstoppable process. Much later, even in the 1930s, after a few little hiccups like WW1, Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin and Stalin, George Orwell was having great fun mocking the fanatical British worshipers of "progress" and "science" who still refused to see any sinister side to reckless innovation and dumping traditional ways.

Rama V built a very handsome summer palace north of the traditionally Thai palace beside the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The new summer palace is beautifully constructed from teak, with no nails, but its contents are so heavily western: china and glassware from England, France, Germany, Bohemia, Poland and Ireland, a typewriter from America (the first such machine to have Thai characters), a wine cooler from England, one of the earliest electric light systems in the country.....

Outbuildings at the palace house the collection of royal carriages - all made in Europe, the sort of horse-drawn landaus and closed carriages used by European monarchs and nobility in the early 20th century. The beautiful boats built in a uniquely Thai style for Royal transport on the river are housed in a museum elsewhere. The collection of Royal limousines naturally included Rolls-Royces, a Cadillac, BMWs and Mercedes.

Even more telling is the magnificent Throne Hall nearby. Surely such a building symbolises national sovereignty, traditions and identity, almost as much as the White House or Windsor Castle. I wandered around this wonderful structure with the odd feeling I had been here before. Of course I had - in St Peter's in Rome! The architect was Italian, the artists who painted Thai scenes on the huge domes were Italian, the flooring is Carrera marble by the ton, the floor plan is modeled on St Peter's. You can imagine the public uproar if George Bush commissioned a new Camp David which looked like a mosque, or Queen Elizabeth remodeled Buckingham Palace into something like a Hindu shrine. What does such a structure tell ordinary Thai people? That their best architects, craftsmen and artists are not good enough for the King's new prestige project? Why create such an important building in a totally alien style, which almost spits in the face of the country's majority religion? But Rama V got what he wanted; it cost him 15 million baht. It is difficult to give a present day equivalent price, but if you tried building it today you wouldn't have much change from US $100 million.

Hong Kong and Singapore are obviously subject to the same cultural influences as Thailand but somehow the everyday moral atmosphere feels healthier. The fact that both are largely British colonial constructions which have benefited hugely from applying the rule of law and protecting property rights is one obvious reason for their prosperity and low crime rates. I saw two beggars in four days in Hong Kong, and one of those was plainly a recent foreign arrival. I did not see a single beggar in three days in Singapore. You would see more in a ten minute walk round the centre of Reading. Apparently any indigent in Singapore is pressed in doing some sort of job, even if it is low-paid peddling. To my amazement, I was accosted by one lady of the night among the megamalls on Orchard Road, but she left me alone once I made it clear I was not interested in having a good time.... I was not approached once by any sex worker or pimp in Hong Kong.

Incidentally, I never give to beggars under any circumstances. A substantial number are basically charity collectors for the drugs barons. In the 1990s, I was burgled three times at two houses and had my car broken into twice. As 60 to 90 percent of crime in Britain is drugs related, it is a reasonable guess that 2 or 3 of these crimes against me were committed to fuel drug habits. So I have given more than generously to the drugs barons already. The ferocious Singapore attitude to drug abuse is therefore a major plus in my eyes. Before we landed at Singapore, passengers had to complete immigration forms. The first piece of information on Singapore, stamped in large red letters on this form, was that Singapore executes drugs dealers. So, Mr Drugs Dealer, you might consider moving on immediately to a country with a more relaxed attitude..... The taxi driver who took me from the airport in Singapore deplored this draconian punishment, but then he has not lived in a country like Britain where the drugs problem is utterly out of control.

The corrupting effect of drugs on all areas of society has all manner of unpleasant consequences, from beggars to crime to wholesale police corruption (drug lords can outbid any police salary anywhere in the world) and a section of the population being disabled from fruitful family life or employment and thus becoming useless parasites in prison, mental hospitals, on social security or on the streets. One perceptive British commentator suggested that drugs help to preserve the status quo by having a large number of citizens who are too doped or apathetic to arouse themselves to political or civil action. Thus it helps to shield visibly corrupt governments like Tony Blair's from the overwhelming wrath of an actively intelligent and informed electorate. No wonder that a country like Singapore, which is actively trying to encourage growth in the IQ of its population, would have such a merciless approach to drug abuse.

Still, I could not escape the thought that there is more to the unbelievable success of these two tiny societies than the favorable British legacy and intelligent government over several decades. There is a moral dimension to economic success, in everything from honest dealing and accounting to a hard work ethic. Has the visible Christian presence in both countries had a leavening effect on moral attitudes to sex and on the complex race relations politics in both cities? You cannot imagine any Christian or partly Christian country tolerating such vile and visible exploitation of young girls as I saw in Bangkok. Savage exploitation of many imported east European girls goes on in London, but out of the public gaze. I am not sure if the Bangkok police ignore the sex trade through apathy, lack of legal powers, warped work priorities or honest-to-God corruption, but it is a most unsavory sight which would not survive five minutes in Hong Kong or Singapore. Singapore used to have a hair-raising sex scene back in the 1960s, not far from my hotel. One journalist wrote: "Purple mascara, make-up an inch thick, skirts slashed to the waist...and that was just the blokes. You should see what the girls were wearing." That scene, like the corrupt Hong Kong cops of the 1950s and 1960s, has been wiped away. So it is possible to turn things around, as Guiliani did in New York's Times Square. There are heroic Christian missionaries in Bangkok, working with the desperately poor and exploited, but they are a tiny minority. You can only hope for a huge expansion of a more Christian approach to the weakest in Thai society.