17Mar – we've reached the rally hotel in Valparaiso – End. Yesterday evening the support landrover arrived on a low loader and this morning we heard that Conrad's Alfa had arrived in Mendoza. We set off earlyish for the border with Chile. Leaving Maipu there was a holdup on the dual carriageway – the problem was a sit-down protest against the national oil company – with deck chairs in the fast lane! A great drive up and over the Andes to 3250 metres with dramatic scenery and the engine seemed fine (hope I can still say that tomorrow!). The border crossing was ok as it wasn't too busy (we'd overtaken them all!). Roadworks meant there was single file traffic both to and from the top of the pass and we were lucky not to be delayed. Then a run through the cities of Vina del Mar and Valparaiso to find the hotel in the old town with steep narrow streets; again we were lucky that although the GPS gave up we found the hotel. Others must have had a problem as only 3 cars have arrived so far and they arrived 3 hours ago.
We've done over 6,100 miles at an average of nearly 29 mpg, we've turned the car upside down, put it back on its wheels and carried on driving and problems – very few, replaced a trunnion and solved a starter/charging problem left over from before. They say Loti are sensitive, fragile cars – not true. As for the engine – fantastic, apart from adding a little oil we've done nothing to it; not touched timing, points or plugs. What a car!!
16 Mar – a gentle day all tarmac 430kms. At breakfast we heard that there had been a tremor overnight and Livvy woke to hear the lights rattling. We also saw that Patrick had arrived – at 4am. So all the participants cars are up to speed and running and the two causing concern are the organisers! Conrad's Alfa may arrive in Mendoza with the mechanics who are repairing it, whilst the rally support landrover has only two gears and may die at any moment.
Our destination was Maipu, south of Mendoza in the wine heart of Argentina so we had to visit an vineyard and the hotel has arranged a tasting session for later this evening. Tomorrow we head for Valparaiso in Chile and on Thursday the docks – end of rally!
15 Mar – we were now down to 5 cars as Peter/Sue were heading south and Patrick and Conrad's cars had not caught up. We later heard that Patrick, having solved the wheel bearing problem had set out with Conrad but lack of fuel and a smashed radiator meant that they spent the night in sleeping bags in the car. The landrover did arrive at the hotel but not till midnight.
Our day started with the problems of heading east into the bright, low morning sun (and the perspex screen) so my head was soon out of the window. There were some navigational problems as we were on the detour with no GPS and several cars took wrong turnings. It was a long day and the ripio was dustier than usual and the fastest car took 9 hours for the 560 kms. The landscape was mostly barren rock and we passed numerous old volcanoes and odd rock formations – some looked like slices of bread.
14 Mar – Another short day 220 kms with tarmac and ripio. Early news was that Conrad's car was not repairable in the time available as it was still blowing out coolant. Met up with Peter/Sue and Klaus/Maja for a roadside coffee stop on the ripio and later passed a monkey puzzle tree plantation. Our hotel was on a peninsular into Lake Alumine and our room looked straight out west onto the water – so Allison can have her setting sun. Tomorrow is a long day – 600kms on roads the rally has not driven – this is our detour around the earthquake area of Concepcion.
13 Mar – a short drive 200km to St Martin los Andes but first we heard that they had been working on Conrad's car till 1am and it still wasn't working – no compression. The Alfa is similar to the Lotus, Webers and twin overhead cams with a timing chain. I offered to help. We found that TDC had not been identified and after some searching we found the marks on the pulley and on the front cover. Allison found the internet forum and we located the corresponding cam shaft marks; one shaft was out by one tooth so that was adjusted. There was a spark but it would not start and the rally mechanic was convinced there was a fuel problem. We left them to it and set off (hours after the others).
It was the coldest day of our journey and threatening rain as we passed the more-than-usual police road checks and reached Angostura for coffee and cake. Then alongside the lakes on the ripio (poor quality), the scenery less spectacular in the gloomy low cloud. Klaus and Patrick passed by as we stopped for lunch. Then 2km along the road there was Patrick with the front wheel off. The wheel bearing repair had failed as the bearing was the wrong size. The boss of a road repair team took us into Angostura but it was 3pm on Saturday and everyone was closing for the weekend. The best option was to take the car on a loader back to Bariloche. We resumed our route and were the last in with just a few a few nuts to tighten up.
11 Mar – there were two routes to Bariloche, the scenic ripio route through the National Park and the tarmac route. We chose the later and visited Maiten and the railway engineering workshops before having lunch in the "hippy" town of El Bolsen where Allison bought a stone to replace one lost from her bracelet. Our hotel is on the Llao Llao peninsular where we were happy to be rejoined by Peter & Sue, back from England with spares for Conrad and Patrick (but his immediate neede is for the spares they did not bring….! Changed the Elan's oil filter but apart from that………..what's not broke, don't fix!
10 Mar – the first of two gentle days driving with a stop in Esquel and on to Bariloche and a rest day to follow. The landscape was arid Patagonia relieved with occasional oases of green. Esquel has two features – the nearby Welsh settlement of Trevelin and La Trochita –the old Patagonia Express, a narrow guage railway designed to open Patagonia for settlers. We visited Trevelin for a large "Welsh Tea" in one of the many tea houses and watched the smoke from a "field" fire (they have big fields!) fill the ring of mountains. Others went for the train and helped shunt it round the sidings before putting it into its shed until Saturday.
9Mar – 300km due east to Sarmiento. The day started badly with the low sun straight into our eyes making the perspex windscreen impossible to see through. We had scoured Coyhaique for brasso last night – and found a tin. Now in the middle of the ripio we tried using it to clean the screen. It worked to a limited extent – but we made more progress when I drove with my head out of the drivers window! (hair now full of dust). Progress was slow with the lack of visibility and poor surface. We passed through the border and for a moment believed that Argentine ripio would be better than Chilean – not for long and we were soon in 1st gear again. We had the best part of 150km on ripio, generally in 2nd and 3rd gears and 4th only on rare occasions . Towards the end the combination of boredom and a better surface saw us at 50mph – but driving on the sumpguard as much as the wheels! After an unexpected lunch in Rio Mayo where we treated ourselves to a peaceful hotel meal, quiet, cool, dust free we found Conrad at the roadside and had tea – what else? We checked the car after seeing the petrified forest; the car was fine apart from the water temperature sender unit which had broken off half way along the morning's ripio.
8Mar – a gentle run away to Coyhaique 270 kms, about 2/3 on variable ripio and then some super tarmac at the end as we climbed up to 1120metres from Cerro Castillo and then dropped down to the valley. An excursion to the Cave of the Hands was a disappointment as we laboured over rough tracks to find that the original hand paintings were destroyed by a volcano 20 years ago! Giancarlo had more problems; this time shock absorbers but now repaired. Tomorrow we return to Argentina and stay there until we head for Valporiso to return the cars to their containers.
7Mar – a rest day at El Maiten on the shores of Lake Carrera. We checked the Elan yesterday and its in amazingly good shape. We've now travelled 4,000 miles, used 600 litres of petrol and only 2 litres of oil. Giancarlo got his car mended and reached the hotel yesterday evening. We awoke to rain but by 10.00 after a log, late breakfast it had cleared to give a bright sunny but windy day. A new route has been identified for March 15-17 to avoid the area around Concepcion (hit by the earthquake). Instead we go to Mendoza and from there to Valpariso.
6Mar – a short day (300km) with a border crossing the Chilean ripio was as bad as we expected but was relieved by the spectacular views of lake Carrera with the snow capped Andes behind; with views like that and a reasonable arrival time you can forgive the ripio. The border crossing was enlivened by the need to get through before a particular Chilean customs official started her shift. In the entire section of Argentine/Chilean crossings she is convinced that right hand drive cars are not permitted and the helpful Argentine officer told us she started at 12.00. Late news that Giancarlo in the Volvo has a broken wishbone and the car has been transported back to Chile Chico. Tomorrow is a rest day so hopefully he'll rejoin then.
5 Mar – An early start (6.30) for a long day – and it was very long; nearly 600km mostly on ripio, whose quality varied from poor to bxxxxy awful! The two worst types were where there were mounds of gravel between the tyre tracks, fine for higher cars but just positioned to continuously catch the underside of a low slung Lotus. The other was the hard lumpy rocks which pounded the front suspension and at least one wishbone bush needs replacing. It took 11 hours, the landscape was bleak and as hard as the track. We stopped for coffee at "Siberia" in the middle of nowhere and Allison insisted that this collie photo is included – there are collies everywhere and she's missing ours. At the end of the day we crisscrossed the brand new ribbon of tarmac but looking was as close as we got. The Estancia we stayed in looked run down, power was from a generator, the welcome reluctant but a small group meal with copious bottles of wine made for a good end to the day.
4 Mar – a gentle 300km mostly on good tarmac on Ruta 40 (Argentine equivalent of route 66). Time to stop to see some cave painting (not worth the exorbitant charge), for photo opportunities and a civilised mid morning coffee and cake with Livvy, Denise and Robert. The petrol station in the small town of El Chalten was occupied by 5 rally cars when we arrived, waiting for the promised 2pm opening – which it did! We had restricted ourselves to 60/65 mph so the car was happy and I used sunglasses so there was no glare from the perspex windscreen.
March 2/3 – a gentle run from Torres del Paine national park to El Calafate and the world's largest glacier – Perito Morino………..err no!
About 50km into the day's 400km run, Allison misjudged a corner on the ripio, lost the rear end, slewed across the road – and we ended up on the roof in a ditch. Its very disorientating hanging from your seatbelt, trying to work out how to sit on the inside of the roof, switch off the engine and open the door. The passenger's door opened and I crawled out, the drivers door was trapped in the ditch so I had to pull Allison out of the passenger's door feet first. We were unhurt, not even a scratch.
We started to remove stuff from the car because petrol was dripping from the fuel cap and we couldn't get to the battery as the entire boot would empty first! Patrick, Rod and Cath appeared in the Chevvy and we unceremoniously righted the Elan – none of this gentle lowering of the suspension, it was roof, side upright. Everything looked ok, the wheels were all vertical, undented, no oil had leaked out so we repacked everything, started the engine and continued. Ok we had no windscreen, both door pillars were broken, there was a large hole in the roof (where my head might have been?), the passenger's door had split in two and the lower hinge broken and the side of the car a mess. We drove on to the border where we found the support crew who applied lashings of ducktape.
Progress was slow as I was terrified of losing the rear screen. We did the remaining journey at 35mph through some howling winds, both dressed in fleeces, windproof jackets, hats and gloves – and were still cold. In El Calafate, we were able to find a glazing company who agreed to take the car next morning and fit a temporary perspex screen.
3 Mar – we dropped the car off and took a hire car to the glacier – tourists for a day. This huge glacier is the reason this town exists and is spectacular; the 30 metre high vertical cliffs of ice stand out into the lake and periodically pieces crack and collapse into the water sending slow surface waves and more substantial ones underwater so that more distant shores feel the swell but with little visible cause.
We picked up the car and found a new screen – noisy and with distinctly imperfect vision when driving into the sun – its better than no screen at all – the car rolls on………….
1March – a rest day after the group meal last night. Time to check the car, give it a quick wash – there was dust everywhere – then a wander through the park – to a waterfall, watching the reflections of the mountains in the now still waters and listening to the sounds of avalanches from the snowy peaks above us. So quiet and unbelievably spectacular scenery made for a memorable walk. The hotel had a very rickety wooden ramp for cars so put the Lotus up on part of it for a gearbox oil check but as it looked a bit doubtful took it off again.
28 Feb – no grease gun so plan B and by 9am we were on the road. We had been told of a classic car museum just off our route between Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales. We thought that maybe they'd have a grease gun –they did but the nozzle was too big and we ended up with a puddle of grease. We carried on. There was a strong cross wind and keeping the car in a vaguely straight line at anything over 60 mph was very difficult. Leaving Punto Natales our GPS was confused by the in/out routes preloaded and intended to give a circuit round the Torres de Paine National Park. We found the correct (anticlockwise) track and moved from Tarmac to ripio – couldn't stop laughing at the sign "incipio ripio". The park is a mixture of mountains and lakes and our hotel was perched on a small island in lake Pehoe.
27 Feb – woke up early thinking that there was a one hour time shift between Chile & Argentina so maybe the 14.00 boat was actually 13.00 – no the time shift starts on 14 March. The run was easy, borders quick and ripio good so we arrived well before the ferry sailed. Two cars elected to take the longer route with a normal start time – but no-one knows where the landrover with the mechanics went. Television news is of a major earthquake in Conception where we are due in 16 days time – the organisers may need to re-route…….
Checking the car found that the near side trunnion was worn – fortunately we carry a spare – but incredibly no-one has a grease gun and all the car spares shops are closed…..plan B is take it apart and apply grease by hand.
26 Feb – rest day in Ushuaia. A boat trip along the Beagle Channel in the morning followed by the museum of the End of the World and civilised lunch. Then another museum – housed in the old prison. Early night called for as we get up at 4.30 tomorrow to catch the only boat of the day at 14.00 and to get there we have one border crossing and 450 kms with 150 km of ripio – more dust!
24 Feb – no news of petrol so we set off in an early group of 4 cars; we had as much fuel as anyone and easily reached the filling station 120kms away. Allison has a thing about penguins so we left the main road and onto the ripio to find the 4th largest colony of magellan penguins. Car was fine and I was happier as I'd tweaked the voltage regulator box again (the setting from Feb 21 produced a very hot battery and cooking batteries is not a good idea!). Then an easy run into Rio Gallegos – a town founded by English settlers in the 1880s. En route we fell off lovely tarmac onto rough and dusty gravel and the car complained – nasty squeaks from the back end. The shock absorbers have become weak and the noise was the springs grinding against dust – we live to drive another day!
we were the first visitors of the day but one other rally car made the deviation on the (gravel) ripio – it was worth the trip, the landscape was spectacular, what the moon should look like with almost no vegetation, a dried up lake and an extinct volcano.
22 Feb – 600km to Comodoro Rivadavia passing the Welsh towns of Trewlew and Gaiman. Trewlew had a power cut and Gaiman seemed to be largely asleep – there are plenty of Welsh tearooms – but all are closed in the mornings. The only bank refused to change sterling for Pesos – US dollars only. Then a long haul south through an ever more desolate countryside with less and less vegetation to the oil town of Rivadavia.Car now starting and charging happily – now its drinking water – someone said we were driving too fast…………what's a Lotus for? It is a little unhappy on the open roads where the ruts and wind deflect it. Also on the ripio where the heaped gravel catches the underside and can give unexpected changes of direction.
21 Feb – a rest day so time for some tourism and our first taste of ripio – well graded gravel – but slippery and with ruts which can deflect an Elan. It had rained hard last night so some roads were closed but in the morning there was less dust. We saw penguins, elephant seal cubs, sealions, armadillos, foxes, hares and rhea plus plenty of birds. I should add that the foxes (wild animals in a nature reserve) were waiting outside the kitchen of the café awaiting the chef's whistle for scraps whilst the armadillo was searching the car park for crumbs). The rally has now regrouped but we're down to 6 cars plus the organiser's – and 5 of them are red! The car started every time today and the battery is charging nicely (I thought too nicely at times – burning out the dynamo by over doing it would be a very bad idea).
20 Feb – an unexpectedly short day as we were now 180km further east than planned. It was just 320km to Peninsula Valdes – a nature reserve with whales, sea lions, shunks and penguins – though the whales are absent at this time of year. The car started every time – so maybe there was a starter problem and now it's a charging problem…….
19 Feb – we woke at 6.15 for an early breakfast and a long day – 710kms and it was raining. – heavy rain. The car started so that was good but progress was slow with the combination of the rain and the ruts. Our route was west to Bahia Blanca before turning south to Carmen de Patagones. Things went wrong at the first fuel stop when the starter did – nothing, we were travelling with Klaus and Maja who helped push. At the second fuel stop it was the garage owner who pushed……………..problem not solved! The roads were straight and the scrubland went on seemingly for ever. There were periodic road checks to prevent the movement of fruit and meat and at one of these, just 150km from our destination we were told that the road ahead was blocked as two bridges were down – one featuring on the front page of the newspaper. We turned round and faced a 700km detour if we wanted to get to the night's hotel (we decided to pass on that). Klaus and Maja had now joined us and we set off back the way we'd come. As we went we "collected" all the other cars except for Patrick's. The one person we couldn't get hold of was the organiser! We reached Las Grutas after a hard and fast drive and the rally Doctor, who speaks Spanish, arranged hotel rooms for us. It had been along day and a beer was called for!
The minister of tourism flagged us off on time and after a stop go exit from Buenos Aires we made good time until stopped by police because we did not have out headlights on. Lots of document scrutiny and then off again past many other police checks. All went well until after our lunch stop when the starter motor went on strike just like Morocco. We really thought we had cured it. Back to bump starting and after that it gave no trouble. Balcarce, the birthplace of Fangio, was the overnight stop so we visited the well presented museum to him. It also has a large collection of run down Art Deco buildings. What to do about the starter motor? I found that the shaft was loose – so maybe the problem was that in certain positions there was no electrical contact. The Argentine rally mechanic took me round the town looking for a bush, then some emery paper to sand it down to fit – whilst all the while the car was sitting on some garage ramp. Total cost Ps 24 (about £4) – here's hoping!
It took 5 hours to get the car from the port today but we were lucky as 2 cars coming from Genoa took 9 hours because they were not started upon until those from the UK were cleared. The car started first time but the exhaust must have been knocked as it is a bit noisy. We did manage to fit in a visit to a modern art museum and some tunnels under a Jesuit church.
An unusual street scene is the Dog walkers – they take dogs for walks (obviously!) but not just one or two!
We arrived in Buenos Aires late Sunday 14th. Looking for currency exchange on Monday morning we saw a Lotus 7 and rushed over to say hello. Carlos explained that he'd owned it for 5 months and had broken down and was waiting for a tow truck – not a good omen!
We'd been told that we could get the Elan out of Customs on Monday, then Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon was spent on paperwork and we hope to see it on Wednesday prior to leaving BA on Thursday morning – though as the Minister of Tourism wants to flag us off we can't be sure!
5 Feb – updating the technology! Now a new laptop so hopefully we will have the means to report progress.
The 2009 Casablanca Challenge required more repair work than we had expected before we were ready for Patagonia 2010. There was damage to the passenger's door which had to be repaired and then resprayed and to the footwell – but that has had to wait till later. The major problem was electrical – the starter failed in Morocco but even a new battery, new starter and a thorough check of the electrical supply didn't help. We had to return to a repaired old starter and a new Optima battery which proved to be a better combination.
Casablanca had consumed points/condensers like never before so there was a new distributor and a reduction in the dynamo cut-in voltage which we hope will help – though in truth we don't know why so many points burned out so quickly.
A new` differential output shaft, seal and bearings were required – along with a clean-up of the rear-end which was coated in the oil we'd been leaking for the past 1,500 miles. There was a brake squeal to attend to and new front wheel bearings. Then with the MOT a day away, the wipers failed – there's an underlying electrical problem somewhere that wasn't there before and I haven't found it yet.
It passed the MOT and on 18 January we dropped the car at the container terminal and hopefully we'll see it again in Buenos Aires in February.
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Given a preference, nearly any tea drinker would rather have "pure" tea. Pure is clean. Pure give the sense of being closer to Nature – fewer steps away from Sun and Earth.
We choose to drink pure tea not only because of what we want to be closer to, but what we want to be farther from. Not that long ago, there was an anecdote about an herbal tea was being dried by truck exhaust during processing.
And so, we look to teas that are organic, or biodynamic, or some term that conveys a sense of being more pure.
But how are these terms used? What do they mean?
All of these practices can contribute to tea's growth in a healthier environment.
Note: I originally submitted this article to the U.S. League of Tea Growers. It was published as The Flavor of US Grown Tea on Nov 15, 2013.
The buzz about the potential of US grown tea seems to increase in a rate proportional to the number of new tea bushes put into American soil. Although it may be too early to look for US grown tea on grocery store shelves, it is the right time to consider what those teas should taste like when they do hit the mainstream.
If you ask a grower, he may say that the final taste profile of a tea is 60% due to elements like terroir and growing conditions.
If you ask a tea processor, she may say that the final taste profile of a tea is 60% due to the manufacturing process.
Determining who is right at this point may not be as important as a more fundamental question for US grown tea – what should US grown tea taste like?
Or, what teas should American teas seek to imitate?
In some cases, imitation is the stronger, more straightforward path to success.
Despite criticisms in the judging and scoring processes, The Judgment of Paris reveals how skillful imitation can give a much-needed boost of recognition to a group of growers/processors whose product is considered inferior by the Establishment. In The Judgment of Paris, a group of French judges gave higher scores to California wines over French wines during a blind tasting.
Even though the French judges tried to rescind their scores, and French wine publications refused to acknowledge or publish the results, the impact changed the wine world. The California wine industry received validation and was no longer defaulted to an inferior status.
California wine makers' skill in producing wine in recognized categories, or styles was validated. They could then build on that skill and validation to continue making competitive "Old World" style wines, or use their recognized abilities to create "New World" styles.
If American tea producers could similarly best teas from more established, and "superior" tea regions, wouldn't American teas receive a similar boost in prestige? Would American tea producers similarly prove their growing and processing skills?
Instead of anticipating a characteristic "American tea profile" (even if a single profile could be established), American tea growers/processors may be better of imitating the classic, "Old World" teas.
But which classic teas to imitate?
1. Imitate teas that engage the full tea tasting experience. The taste of tea, like most tasting experiences, is more than just flavor/aroma. It includes texture. It has finish, or aftertaste. And it is not only about intensity of each of these elements, but also the duration of these. Staying-power is more often ignored than the other elements. It is said that it was the duration of character found in preciously small sips of teat that sustained monks during meditation.
A full tea tasting experience is a harmonious blend of each of these elements. A pure, un-blended, artisanal tea would be severely deficient if it were limited to a brief, initial pop of flavor as the tea hits the tongue.
2. Imitate classic teas that American tea drinkers already appreciate, or are growing to appreciate. Admittedly this will be a challenge. A large portion of the North American tea drinking population simply wants to wear the healthy halo they see in tea. The temptation here will be to produce green and white teas with simpler flavor characteristics that will appeal to those who may only tolerate the taste. It is more profitable to create teas with lower production complexity. But sooner or later, the tea drinking public will year for better quality. And when they do, producers who took the simple path may not have the processing mastery to create more refined product. Sell tea to pay your bills, but be prepared for the day your customer will ask for a more exquisite tea.
Senchas with sweet vegetal notes and creamy brothiness can generate broad appeal as they can be cold or traditionally brewed.
Roasty, high-fired teas like some dong dings and roasted tie guan yin deliver rich character, strong and enduring aromas, with sweet aftertastes.
High-mountain Taiwan teas combine sweet floral characteristics, soft, silken textures, and lasting finishes. These teas are another example of ones that open even more character as they are drunk cool.
Malty, silken Yunnan-style (dian hong) already have a following, and may be a better choice for those who still want some milk in their cup.
The brisk but floral character of Darjeeling teas may also be worth imitating.
During the 2013 World Tea Expo, I was talking with a US tea grower as he shared one of his teas with his Taiwan tea mentor. The mentor took a sip and said "Tastes like a dian hong." Through experimentation and imitation, this tea grower has already developed the skills to re-create a desired tea profile that resonates with tea masters and tea drinkers of the world.
There are a only a couple of people I trust who could sip a tea blindfolded, and tell me detailed facts about what they have sipped. Many people could identify a longjing, for example, but few could pinpoint its origin, what cultivar it is, and comment on specific flaws or strengths created during processing. This level of detail exhibits a Ph.D. in tea tasting, and I'm not even sure that the people I trust have such extensive skills across a great spectrum of different kinds of tea.
If you are working on your Ph.D. in tea-tasting, the International Tea Cuppers Club offers opportunities for you. They recently offered a collection of longjing teas of various grade, cultivar, and source to compare.
One of the challenges of shopping for teas online is knowing whether you are getting the kind and quality of tea that you should expect. This challenge becomes even more compounded when you have never tasted a certain kind of tea before, or are not sure if you have formed an accurate impression of that tea to use as a basis of comparison.
Da Hong Pao wulong is a classic and popular tea that many tea drinkers encounter at one point or another. Due to its increasing fame, the tea is also one that is frequently imitated and adulterated.
Recognizing authentic da hong pao requires experience in detecting certain taste characteristics. Many people have tried to describe that set of characteristics.
The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea used "brown sugar," "molasses," and referred to stone fruitiness.
In a conversation with Peter Leong of Red Blossom Tea, he mentioned medicinal notes, but it is da hong pao's balanced character that better defines the tea.
Yan Yun (岩韵): "cliff rhyme", a balanced and musical sense to the tea. It is generally described as consisting of xiang, qing, gan, and huo.
While these definitions can be very helpful, they do not go far in giving a clear picture of how these elements relate to each other, and how the intensities of these characteristics relate to each other. A combination of the descriptions above and my own experience has helped me create this profile wheel with lines indicating intensity of flavor components in relation to each other.
I tend to agree that overall flavor intensity may not be as profound as that found in many other wulongs, and that the silken texture and fuller, finer, aftertaste are major considerations in choosing better da hong pao.
When tasting a new tea for the first time, a series of conflicting thoughts and feelings can occur.
On the one hand, there is the desire to start with a blank slate of expectations, and simply receive the tea for what it is.
But once you have to decide if the tea is a better than another tea, a set of defining characteristics and expectations help in the evaluation process.
Some frequently occurring characteristics do arise in describing dragonwell flavors. One of the most often used is "chestnut." The wok-firing process that helps flatten the leaves and preserve the green character of long jing tea does endow many longjings with a nutty character. Toasty and nutty flavors can range from chestnut to cashew to freshly cooked rice.
Vegetal components are also regularly noted. Some associate the taste with green beans. Others feel the taste calls to mind leafy greens or sweet pea.
Other valuable elements in the dragonwell's profile should be considered. Astringency levels are minimal in finer dragonwells. Even when over-steeped, better quality longjings have an astringency closer to having your tongue dusted with powder. Bitterness in good dragonwell should be essentially non-existent.
Many good teas are expected to create a sweetness, and longjing is no different. Like other fine teas, the sweetness is expected to concentrate mostly in the back of the mouth and upper throat. This has traditionally been preferred over sweetness concentrated near or under the middle of the tongue.
The longer the sweetness and light astringency pleasantly reside, the better. The importance of aftertaste should not be discounted.
A dragonwell's profile can be shaped by several factors, one of which is its source. The running joke (that isn't a joke) is that there is more dragonwell sold than the traditional dragonwell area (Hangzhou region) can produce.
Harvest time is another factor. Ming Qian (before the Qing Ming Festival) harvests are often lighter, some would say faint, in flavor profile. That is why others prefer the relatively stronger characteristics of longjing harvested closer to GuYu.
Thirdly, cultivar can be a major consideration. Gingko Seto has written extensively about the potential differences in Long Jing #43, Jiu Keng (九坑), and Wu Niu Zao (乌牛早) cultivars.
Ultimately, choosing any tea should be about finding a tea you appreciate. But when trying to choose a tea you have never tried, sometimes it helps to know what you should expect.


text:
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From the series "Musical treasures"
A cabinet presentation in the hallway leading to the Reading Room for Music, Maps and Images is centred on two of the most important German composers of the first half of the 20th century, whose personal papers are preserved by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek: Heinrich Kaminski (1886 – 1946) and Hugo Distler (1908 – 1942). Drafts and clean copies of various important works and early compositions from the years of study of both composers are shown.
Kaminski's life is well-documented in photographs. The presentation shows a number of photographs particularly of Kaminski's life with his family, his students and guests of his house in Ried, most of which the Heinrich Kaminski Association has loaned for the presentation. From Hugo Distler's personal papers, the presentation shows documents from this life, among them the reports written by his university professors in Leipzig, Günter Ramin, Hermann Grabner and Carl Adolf Martienssen. The presentation is complemented by programs, libretti and sheet music prints.


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Why the City bankster is so frightened of prison!
No-one wants to be convicted of committing a crime.
As a basic rule of thumb, I don't think this is a remarkable statement, although there are a group of criminogenic personalities inside the underclass milieu who probably don't give a great deal of thought to the question, and to whom, the receipt of a criminal conviction is little more than a social rite of passage!
No, I am talking about most normal people, to whom the receipt of a criminal conviction carries a real social stigma.
I have been very engaged recently in trying to understand why Government and the regulatory agencies, have been so concerned to ensure that they do not criminalise the actions of City practitioners, even when there are very real transgressions of both the financial market law, and the ordinary criminal statutes!
We are a very strange society in so many ways. We examine all social activity for signs of behaviour which we deem unacceptable, and where such conduct transgresses the moral law which means that other people have been put at risk, we tend to treat it more severely than if the conduct complained of was merely anti-social.
So, where a financier treats a client in such a way that the clients' monies are put at greater possibility of loss or the client is exposed to greater risk of suffering financially because of the conduct of the adviser, we examine that conduct to establish whether he or she has behaved in anything other than in a proper manner, and the loss sustained is due to unforeseen market circumstances, or whether the conduct of the adviser was so egregious that it directly contributed to the losses concerned!
Where the actions of the adviser or intermediary are shown to have directly contributed to the client's loss or damage, society, rightly, takes a much more severe view, and examines the actions of the adviser to establish whether the criminal law has been broken.
Take, as an example, the actions of those in the Quality Care Commission, against whom it is alleged that their actions, by suppressing an important critical report into conditions inside a particular institution, have caused such public distress and loss of confidence in the NHS, that there is now talk of criminal investigations.
I suspect that the reason for this assertion of criminality is more to do with the embarrassment that this episode has caused to politicians as opposed to the damage to the Common Weal, but the end result is that there will now be a criminal investigation of the conduct of the persons involved.
Another example which I believe throws light on our attitudes towards criminality is the treatment of Boat Race protester Trenton Oldfield who has been refused leave to remain in the UK after the Home Office decided his presence was not "conducive to the public good".
The Australian, who disrupted last year's University Boat Race by swimming into the path of the crews, was jailed for six months for his actions when he was found guilty of causing a public nuisance.
The Judge said he had ruined the race for everyone: "You caused delay and disruption to it and to the members of the public who had gone to watch it and to enjoy the spectacle of top athletes competing."
Adding that Oldfield's actions had endangered his life and those of others, the judge said: "Your offence was planned. It was deliberate. It was disproportionate. It was dangerous."
These elements may well be true, but was the offence so egregious as to deserve a custodial sentence? I suspect that Oldfield was treated so severely because he had transgressed the social rules of one of Britain's most important class-focused sporting events, as opposed to anything else. The man was clearly a bounder, and a foreign bounder at that and had to be taught a big lesson, but was his behaviour so much more damaging and dangerous than some financial adviser who cheats his clients of thousands of pounds of their money, or who deliberately manipulates an important market benchmark in order to enhance his profits, at the expense of many others?
I comment regularly on our national benchmark behaviour in criminalising single mothers on benefits who fail to report the fact that they allow a lover to stay the night, actions of such dishonesty which enables the State to convict them of welfare benefit fraud, and I also comment on the paucity of criminal convictions for those who work in the financial services industry, even when they commit offences running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
I have been wondering why this state of affairs is allowed to continue to exist, and I have been amused beyond measure by the observations of ministers following the recommendations of the Banking Commission.
The talk is all of imposing prison sentences for reckless bankers, but as I have already said elsewhere, when we deconstruct the conditions precedent for any such prosecution to be brought, we discover that the new proposed law is even more complex than the perfectly good existing law on reckless conduct which could have been imposed normally, and will mean that it is even more difficult to convict dishonest bankers.
So why is it that imprisonment for criminal offences is so routinely abjured when it comes to dealing with financial practitioners? What makes the crimes of the suites and the dishonest actions of the powerful so different that they deserve to be treated in a different manner from the crimes committed by the underclass in the streets?
One thing is certain, the City practitioner group believes it deserves to be treated differently, and it has been often said to me, 'we never once thought that we would be treated like common criminals.'
So where does that presumption come from?
The British have always adopted a schizophrenic attitude towards the way they view criminal activity. There is the crime of the streets, burglary, theft, mugging, joy-riding, rioting, committed by identifiable criminal types, and dealt with by the police. Then there is the kind of wrong-doing that takes place within the financial sector, but when it happens, it gets called something else (mis-selling), and is dealt with by regulatory agencies.
For some reason there is a complete distinction between the two courses of conduct. They are, and have always been dealt with differently; penalised differently; administered differently, and for some strange reason which I only finally understood after I had studied the work of Edwin Sutherland, considered differently by politicians, regulators and in many cases, even by the general public.
Edwin Sutherland, who first coined the phrase 'White Collar Crime' separated and defined the differences in blue-collar street crimes, which are often blamed on psychological, associational, and structural factors. Instead, he defined white-collar criminals as opportunists, who learn to take advantage of their circumstances to accumulate financial gain. They are educated, intelligent, affluent, confident individuals whose jobs involve unmonitored access to large sums of money. Precisely because these criminals were held in such high esteem, Sutherland claimed that society tended to turn a blind eye to the crimes they committed.
In order to test this assertion, I once conducted an academic research project where I asked a group of financial services compliance officers to place in order of seriousness a series of criminal offences. In the general list I included six typical identifiable criminal offences such as theft, fraud, joy riding, robbery, while for the other six I used recognisable terms such as 'insider trading', 'churning', 'misselling a financial product for the purposes of generating more commission, 'misselling a financial product which meant that the client was no better off, but which generated more profit for the company', 'front running', etc.
Without exception, in excess of 60 respondents put the identifiable ordinary crimes first in the list, while putting the financial issues last. It was as if activities which could be described in conventional criminal terms assumed a far greater degree of social opprobrium than did financial crimes, even though in pure legal definitions, all the offences alleged were equally criminal and all should be investigated and punished equally seriously.
Financial practitioners do not fear regulatory fines, mostly because they are not individually called upon to pay them. The burden always falls on the shoulders of the shareholders, many of whom, if the Standard Chartered Bank case is anything to go by, will not even blame the Executives of the bank for landing them in this mess in the first place. Regulatory findings will always find fellow practitioners who are willing to sympathise with them. Public scandal can be difficult to handle, but rarely does an executive get forced from office. He may quietly resign at a later stage, but he does so with a well-padded pension fund and other generous benefits to cushion his existence.
This whole issue of the suitability of punishment for serious wrong-doing has been a critical element of the longer-term failures of the former FSA to bring a robust approach to the regulation of the UK financial market. Ultimately, it is prosecution for crime which the financial practitioner truly fears, but if the market knows that the regulator is deliberately avoiding adopting its prosecutorial role, then this will lead to a realisation that the regulator has no real teeth!
It has always been one of the greatest ironies of the whole regulatory conundrum that criminalisation for simple offences of ordinary 'crime' is one of the greatest fears of the Executives of the financial sector.
Ironically, it is not necessarily the sentence which is passed which is of the most importance, the true fear of the financial practitioner is of the verdict of 'guilty' being publicly pronounced in open court. Such a verdict immediately takes away the sense of being a 'protected species' which too many banksters have believed they possessed for too long.
A criminal conviction places them on a par with other ordinary criminals, people who under any other circumstances they would go out of their way to avoid like the plague. The fact of conviction now puts them in the same 'criminal class' category and it spells social and commercial death for any city practitioner who has been so convicted. It is the ultimate exclusionary weapon of social and reputational mass destruction.
So powerful is the impact of criminalisation that even those who had once called the convicted man a friend find it very difficult to continue to see him, even in a private social context. As for any further dealings with him on a commercial context, such a thought would never enter their heads. He is now entirely beyond the pale, and he can never be received again inside the magic circle.
This is the fundamental point, a criminal conviction marks the end of the bankster's career. He is out on his ear, in the street, and no-one can do business with him ever again!
Can you imagine the impact that such an action would have had on the careers of Fred the Shred, or Bob Diamond or any of the other monsters of finance who have presided over the downfall of the British banking reputation, if they had been, at some stage in their career, told that the criminal activities being carried on in their banks would mean that they were going to be prosecuted for permitting such activities to carry on? Do you not think that it might have caused them to make enquiry and put a stop to whatever was going on?
This may be what makes it so difficult for regulators to bring such a powerful weapon to bear on those whom they perceive may come from the same class and socio-economic background as themselves! They won't admit this of course, and they tend instead to use the excuse that financial crime cases are too difficult to get convicted, that juries do not understand them, although that has never been my experience.
One of the reasons for the lack of public confidence that permeates the body politic of this country is because the ordinary man and woman in the street simply does not believe that their interests have any champion, whether in politics, or government, and that they are merely expected to carry on being the pawns in the game played by the rich and powerful.
I have spoken to literally hundreds of such people who protest that they feel completely disenfranchised from any system which exists to protect their interests, whether it be in the form of a fair hearing when they have been cheated of their hard-earned money, or a forum from which they can get equal treatment when they wish to challenge the arbitrary decision-making of the financial institutions.
Civil servants, regulators and government departments seem to exist to protect the interests of politicians and regulated members, not to provide the citizen with any right of redress or fair hearing when they have been defrauded.
One way to start reclaiming the balance of fairness would be for the powers that be to treat financial practitioners with equal rigour when they commit obvious criminal offences. Once the public got the impression that there was only one law for all, and that it was applied with equal fairness, it would go a long way to begin restoring confidence in the way this country is run!
Posted by Rowan Bosworth-Davies at 7:56 AM 4 comments:
The new FCA is proving itself every bit as bad as the old FSA!
On 19 June, 2013, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced that they have fined financial arranger Gurpreet Singh Chadda £945,277 and banned him from working in the financial services industry, for 'significant failings' when conducting sale and rent back agreements.
This outcome proves that the FCA have not learned the lessons of failure which so marked out the actions of their failed predecessor, the FSA. This kind of pathetic refusal to prosecute wholesale financial criminal behaviour is a sad return to the bad old days of the feeble Fantastically Supine Authority . These weren't 'significant failings' these were straightforward criminal offences of fraud, and this man should have been prosecuted in the criminal courts, and a serious message sent to the financial community that criminal behaviour in financial services will be treated as such, and people who steal and defraud clients and other financial providers will go to prison!
When single mothers on benefits routinely get prison sentences simply for failing to tell the authorities that they have a lover and that he stays the night, why should a man who just because he works in financial services, receive an entirely different treatment when he steal hundreds of thousands of pounds? It is the same grotesque differential that means that the poor get prison while the white collar criminals get to walk away from the consequences of their crimes.
Yet again, the FCA have proved that their Financial Crime Team is simply not up to the job of investigating and prosecuting these fraudsters, and instead, they have shamelessly gone for what they would call a 'quick regulatory win', a scalp on the tent post, any scalp will do, just so they can show their political masters that they are doing something, anything, thus justifying their significant salaries and their copper-bottomed pension benefits, oh yes, and their bonuses!
The FCA investigated Chadda's involvement in seven sale and rent back transactions between June 2009 and January 2010 and found serious failings in all of them.
A sale and rent back transaction is an agreement where a home owner sells their home and then rents it back from the arranger so as to be able to carry on living there.
Often people who sell their homes in this way are vulnerable as they are in financial difficulties and need to raise money to pay mortgage arrears and avoid imminent repossession.
Chadda's widespread failings included misleading the sellers of the properties, who were his customers, by telling them he would be buying their homes when in fact the purchasers were other people.
He also failed to notify the sellers that these purchasers were not authorised or regulated by the FCA, which meant they were not covered by the regulatory protections.
Chadda also helped purchasers to obtain mortgages in the knowledge that he was giving misleading information to mortgage lenders. In the seven sale and rent back transactions the FCA investigated, there was no independent valuation and Chadda assigned values to the properties based on the purchaser's mortgage valuations or his own opinion.
He assigned to two properties a market value which was significantly less than actual market value.
In one case, he or his representatives fabricated a mortgage valuation to make it look as though the seller's property was worth substantially less than its real value.
Chadda deceived the purchasers of six of the seven properties by obtaining mortgages when he knew that the mortgage lenders would not knowingly lend money on a sale and rent back transaction.
In one case he drafted a letter that falsely confirmed that the seller would not be remaining in the property after the sale.
Although the sellers expected to get a discounted price for their properties, they did not know that Chadda was receiving the full price for the properties from the purchasers.
In two cases he reduced the seller's share of the sale money by misleading them about the value of their property, and in one case he exaggerated the legal costs that the seller had to pay, to further reduce the amount the seller received.
In three cases the sellers got less than half of the value of their property and in two of these three cases the seller only received 38% of the sale price of their homes.
The FCA believes that Chadda received £695,277 from the seven transactions as a result of his misconduct, and that these charges were unfair and excessive.
In her usual way, Tracy McDermott, director of enforcement and financial crime, made one of her usual pontifical statements about Chadda's misconduct. She said;
"...Chadda's misconduct is the most shocking we have seen from a home finance arranger.
"He is a disgrace to financial services. He deliberately misled his clients for his own personal gain and then repeatedly and cynically lied to the FCA.
"Chadda is not fit to work in regulated financial services and he presents a serious risk to customers and lenders alike with his dishonest and unscrupulous actions.
"The unprecedented level of the fine for a sole trader reflects our determination to deprive him of the gains he made as a result of his misconduct."
Chadda seriously aggravated his original misconduct by making false and misleading statements to the FCA, failing to disclose relevant documents and information and creating misleading documents. He also arranged for people to impersonate his customers in order to mislead the FCA.
If ever there was a case whereby a person should have been investigated and prosecuted for criminal offences, this was surely such a case!
But what happens? The Regulatory Agency treats him as if he has just failed to comply with some nit-picking regulatory niceties, and fines him the equivalent of the illegal profits he made.
In other words, he has just disgorged his illicit gains, but he himself has paid no additional penalty. Banning him from the industry will be a pyrrhic victory as he will surely find other areas of business to operate in where he does not need the same kind of supervision.
This man has clearly proven himself to be a danger to the financial market, but he has been allowed to walk away from his criminal actions, virtually unpunished. What kind of message does this send to the rest of the industry, many of whom may be tempted to try on similar activities themselves, as it is clearly so very easy!
The whole point of the Commission on Banking Culture was to establish a new approach to regulating the financial market, so the crooks and the wideboys did not get away with criminal actions.
Of course, Ms McDermott will continue to maintain that her agency does not have the power to prosecute simple offences such as fraud. The hearings during the Banking Commission scotched that interpretation, and Ms McDermott knows very well that she can engage with such actions, if she has the will so to do.
It's not difficult, any detective officer should be able to instruct her in how to do it, and it should now become a routine matter for the FCA, to prosecute all financial criminals, where the evidence exists to demonstrate that there is a prima facie case to answer.
If this doesn't happen, and we continue to see similar cases of manifest criminality and dishonesty being dealt with in a regulatory manner, then we will know that despite all their protestations, the FCA is going the same feeble way as the FSA.
So if this is going to be the case, then the question I want to pose in this blog, before things get any worse, is whether we should be able to expect better from our financial regulators?
The recent Commission on Banking Culture castigated the FSA for its many failings, indeed, I can rarely think of an similar example where a leading regulator was on the receiving end of such a series of vituperative comments, and we were told that the new Financial Conduct Authority was going to be a very different animal!
I think that the first question we are entitled to ask ourselves is how it is that so many of the people who were in post under the previously failed regulatory regime, are still in post under the new management regime? If the last staff members couldn't do the job properly, why should we expect them to be any more successful just because the organisation's initials have been changed?
I raise this point because I feel very strongly that the tradition of the 'safe pair of hands' or the 'one of us' mentality which permeates the British Civil Service and Government Service, causes a sclerotic obstruction in the body politic, and simply continues a culture of failure!
No-one who has any experience of the British banking structure in recent years, possesses any illusions as to the organised criminal nature of the edifice which has been routinely allowed to get away with the worst kind of financial crimes and fiscal excesses, without anyone of stature or importance being sent to prison for crimes which would make Al Capone blush for shame!
The persons responsible for allowing that state of affairs to proliferate were a bunch of spineless individuals who found it easier to turn a blind eye to the wrong-doing that was routinely being carried on, simply because their political masters wanted a 'light touch' regulatory environment.
Not one of these responsible people ever appears to have gone to the relevant committee at H.M.Treasury, and said 'Have you any idea what's going on - Do you know what some of these gangsters are doing?' No-one wanted to rock the boat, no-one wanted to put their heads above the parapet. Just keep your head down and push the paper and make the right soundings, and pick up your salaries and bonuses!
I do not apologise for saying that this is a pathetic state of affairs, and is a compounded admixture of incompetence and professional cowardice, coupled with a complete moral vacuum, and we, the investing public were being let down again and again and again.
And if the FCA continues to operate in this way in the future, we shall continue to be let down again, and again, and again!
Posted by Rowan Bosworth-Davies at 10:25 AM 3 comments:
New Lamps for Old! - Why the threat of imprisoning bankers is a hollow one!
Reading the City headlines, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Government had been handed an important new power with which to confront rogue bankers.
"...Greedy bankers to face prison as Chancellor prepares new law to target reckless bosses who take risks with the economy..."
screams the headline in the Daily Mail, as if the Banking Commission had suddenly identified some rare and wonderful new power that had never been used before.
It is of course, all complete and utter bollocks!
These headlines are a deliberate opportunity for David Cameron and George Osborne to present what appears to look like a new and positive response to the cataclysmic failure of banking regulation which has predicated the financial crisis, and the resultant recognition of the way in which the ordinary British bank clients have been systematically defrauded by an organised criminal cabal of bankers and brokers.
The Commission has recommended the following proposal;
"...There is a strong case in principle for a new criminal offence of reckless misconduct in the management of a bank. While all concerned should be under no illusions about the difficulties of securing a conviction for such a new offence, the fact that recklessness in carrying out professional responsibilities carries a risk of a criminal conviction and a prison sentence would give pause for thought to the senior officers of UK banks. The Commission recommends that the offence be limited to individuals covered by the new Senior Persons Regime, so that those concerned could have no doubts about their potential criminal liability.
"...The Commission would expect this offence to be pursued in cases involving only the most serious of failings, such as where a bank failed with substantial costs to the taxpayer, lasting consequences for the financial system, or serious harm to customers. The credibility of such an offence would also depend on it being used only in the most serious cases, and not predominantly against smaller operators where proving responsibility is easier, but the harm is much lower. Little purpose would be served by the creation of a criminal offence if the only punishment available to the courts were the imposition of a fine, because substantial fines can already be levied as a civil sanction with a lower burden of proof. We would expect the determination of the available sentences to have regard to relevant comparable offences..."
This proposal is so bound around with caveats and pre-conditions as to make it virtually impossible to convict anyone for its commission.
Even Fred Goodwin, the reckless and arrogant former boss of RBS wouldn't grip the bars under these charges, because it would be too difficult to prove.
First of all, the offence would only apply to a very small group of individuals identified under the new and as yet untried 'Senior Persons Regime'.
Secondly, the bank failure would have had to have failed with 'serious costs to the tax-payer', i.e, there had to have been a huge financial rescue package involved, where the failure had what are described as 'lasting consequences for the financial system', however that would have to be defined; or, 'serious harm to customers'!
Well, if everyone has lost their money, and the Bank of England customer protection plans are not warrantable, then no doubt this condition might apply.
I am not trying to be deliberately awkward, but as someone very skilled in the application of the criminal law, I can easily imagine the smoke and mirrors that an experienced QC could draw around these flabby definitions.
This is why I say that the likelihood of such a charge ever being levied against a banker in the future for this kind of activity is so unlikely as to be risible.
The Banking Commission and its attendant satraps went to great lengths to consider how best this new offence should be couched. They pussyfooted around the issue, demonstrating the traditional reluctance of members of the Administrative class to even consider anything so unpleasant as the imposition of a criminal conviction for persons who had failed in business, no matter how spectacularly. They considered these issues to be even more important than public concern!
Tracy McDermott, the Head of Investigations at the failed FSA told the Commission;
"... A criminal offence will have a real deterrent impact and satisfy public concerns only if it can be practicably prosecuted. There are some big issues of fairness and individual rights in relation to criminalising bad business decisions. There are various stages along the spectrum in relation to business decisions, but it is a very big step to say that we should criminalise incompetence or negligence. It is a much wider question than simply whether the public are angry about this..."
Ms McDermott is apparently far more concerned with the '...issues of fairness and individual rights in relation to criminalising bad business decisions...' than she is to protecting the rights of clients or investors. She appears to feel that '...it is a very big step to say that we should criminalise incompetence or negligence...; Indeed, Ms McDermott feels that this is more important, because '...It is a much wider question than simply whether the public are angry about this..." Yes, why worry what the public thinks, there are plenty more of them yet to be fleeced!
It is crap like this that helps to explain why the FSA failed in its function. No-one is talking about criminalising incompetence or negligence, we should be able to hope that the Regulator could be capable of dealing with this level of egregious behaviour, although they consistently prove they are not as good at it as we might like!
No, what we are talking about is behaviour which is so manifestly unpalatable that it falls into the realm of recklessness, and the basic fact for all those crowing about the draconian nature of the new proposals is that we have already had a law of recklessness for many years.
There is no reason why bankers could not have been subject to its provisions already, and in circumstances where it would have been far easier to prosecute, albeit in full recognition that recklessness is a difficult charge to prove.
Nevertheless, we don't need a new piece of legislation, when the one we have is perfectly adequate, and only needs some prosecutor worth his or her salt, and the bottle to get on with it, to prosecute these useless, greedy bastards for all their worth!
Criminal law recognizes recklessness as one of the mental elements to establish criminal liability. It demonstrates less culpability than deliberate intention, but more culpability than criminal negligence. The test of any mental element is always based on an assessment of whether the accused had foresight of the prohibited consequences and desired to cause those consequences to occur. The three types of test are:
Subjective where the Court attempts to establish what the accused was actually thinking at the time the guilty act or series of actions was caused;
Objective where the court imputes a mental element on the basis that a reasonable person with the same general knowledge and abilities as the accused would have had those elements, or
Hybrid, i.e. the test is both subjective and objective.
The most culpable mental elements will have both foresight and desire on a subjective basis. Recklessness usually arises when an accused is actually aware of the potentially adverse consequences to the planned actions, but has gone ahead anyway, exposing a particular individual or unknown victim to the risk of suffering the foreseen harm but not actually desiring that the victim be hurt.
The accused is a social danger because they gamble with the safety of others, and the fact they might have acted to try to avoid the injury from occurring is relevant only to mitigate the sentence. Note that gross criminal negligence represents such a serious failure to foresee that in any other person, it would have been recklessness. Hence, the alternative phrase 'wilful blindness' acknowledges the link representing either that the accused deliberately engineered a situation in which they were ignorant of material facts, or that the failure to foresee represented such a danger to others that it must be treated as though it was reckless.
I am the first to admit that the law of recklessness, when applied in the criminal sphere is a damnably difficult charge to bring home and juries are very often reluctant to convict for its commission.
For this reason, I have always maintained that to ensure that the recognition of responsibility continues to remain alive in the mind of bankers, it is important to prosecute all offences of whatever nature, where a criminal offence is identifiable.
So, virtually all the PPI frauds could have been the subject of criminal charges, the only problem being was that they were so widespread that it would have literally flooded the Courts with work. Nevertheless, there are times when selected prosecutions have to be brought, because the outcome has a distinct ability '...pour discourager les autres...'
The problem lies not in the lack of criminal charges available, as the Commission acknowledges, but in the willingness of the Regulators to do anything about them. We know that the Labour Government had issued strong decrees to back-pedal on the financial sector, to regulate with a light hand, so perhaps we should not be too surprised when we see that no-one was bringing any fraud charges against the bankers.
But what happened when the LIBOR scandals broke? We cannot address those issues presently as criminal charges have been finally laid against an individual and are sub judice.
The outpourings from the City Press about the draconian nature of these new proposals should be disregarded in their entirety, they are just puffing smoke to please their City PR snouts!
The real truth is to be found in the statements of the City insiders.
Responding to the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards' report, BBA Chief Executive Anthony Browne said:
"...This is the most significant report into banking for a generation. There has already been a huge amount of change in the industry since the financial crisis but the banks recognise that more needs to be done. Regaining trust is an absolute priority - we want the UK's banking industry to once again set the gold standard for professionalism and integrity.
"...We look forward to working with Government and regulators to take forward the constructive proposals contained in the report, learning the lessons of recent years in order to deliver a banking industry which is trusted, financially sound and serves the interests of its customers, shareholders and society..."
Did you spot the soft soap and the snake oil?
When organisations like the BBA, the most guilty organisation of all when it comes to the failure to administer the LIBOR management properly, can come out with claptrap like this, you know that they aren't hurting. This is the City Establishment at its best, doing what it knows how to do better than anyone - selling you and me a toothless pup, while sharpening their own canine fangs for a better return to the hunt for profits at our expense!
Don't believe the simpering smiles, the protestations of wanting to regain trust or learning lessons, the 'how can I help you' approaches we will all see for the next few months, the banks know they have got away with it, because no-one has the courage to face up to their excesses, and cut them down to size.
There will be lots of talk about break-ups and re-thinks, but in the end, the City will carry on just like it always has before. Governments and Parliamentary Commissions may think that they can dictate to the City of London, but they can't, the banks will always win, because as Willy Sutton, the great American bank robber once observed, 'that's where they keep the money', and money, as we all know, is the real power!
"A Fudge Too Far" - A Response to the Commission on Banking Standards Report.
The Report issued by the Commission on Banking Standards falls into the same trap as so many similar official submissions over the years. It is too wordy, it aims too far, and it misses the point.
The point is that they have completely failed to undertake any meaningful examination of the criminogenic culture which permeates the banking industry, and they have deliberately disregarded the possibility that what has been allowed to develop is an organised criminal enterprise within British Banking.
The question we all need to ask ourselves is that "as a result of this report and all the consideration that has gone into it, will it change anything in the culture of banking in the future?"
The answer, I submit, is a resounding 'no'!
The first intimation for me of this outcome was watching Sir Martin Jacomb, former deputy chairman of Barclays Bank, general all round jolly-good-chap and well-known City safe-pair-of-hands, talking on Newsnight last night, when all he could say of any substance was that everything contained in the report was yesterday's news, that was then, this is now!
This is a typical response from someone who has been so enmeshed in the fabric of the City for as long as Sir Martin has, and if that is all a man of his experience has to say about it, then we already know that the City Establishment has discounted the Report and its contents, and is already looking to the future, secure in the knowledge that their lobbying impact has drawn the teeth of any proposals that were going to mean anything.
This is very worrying because it means that frankly, the Commission's report will be allowed to fester on departmental shelves, small sub-committees will spend months discussing its implications, and in the end, nothing will be done, as too much time will have been allowed to elapse since the publication, and things will have changed.
As I predicted a few days ago, the proposal to introduce a new criminal offense will have absolutely no effect at all, and I really don't know why they have bothered to even spend time debating the issue. I will address this point, later in this blog.
First, let us examine the issues which have concerned the vast majority of the ordinary people in this country.
We, the daily users of the banking sector have found ourselves prejudiced and financially damaged by the actions of those whom we have trusted to give us good financial advice, look after our savings or engage with our ordinary day-to-day banking requirements.
We have been defrauded if we bought PPI contracts, we were exposed to bank lending fraud when we sought to borrow money to expand a business or enhance a property, we were ripped off by bad service offerings, and we were forced to share the embarrassment and the hubris, as our banks failed, were charged with money laundering or engaged in criminal malpractice in the LIBOR markets.
We were further defrauded later of the taxes we had paid to build schools and hospitals, when the Government, which had wholly failed to regulate the banking sector, and constrain their reckless lending and spending, then decided to give them vast sums of public money to help keep them afloat.
As a result of their criminal excesses and their reckless profligacy, thousands of bank employees were paid salaries and bonuses at levels which would make Croesus envious, and when we, the tax-payers were forced to bail the bastards out, they continued to demand their million pound bonuses, ignoring the fact that we were keeping them in their jobs.
The culture of the banks in the latter years has been one of sheer greed, a lack of any normal moral scruples, the ambition to cheat, defraud and steal from their clients, to grab as 'big a piece of the client's wallet' as they could so do, and generally to act in a way that exposed their clients, their shareholders and their employees to shame, dislike and public opprobrium.
Theirs was a culture of 'anomie', of normlessness; they were behaving like mercenaries in a criminogenic environment, and they were committing criminal offences. These offences were already catered for in statute.
The report admits at para 1174. "...A number of 'financial crimes' already exist relating to money laundering, insider dealing, market abuse, misleading statements and fraud or dishonesty. The Serious Fraud Office, for example, is able to investigate and prosecute investment fraud, corporate fraud and public sector fraud under the Fraud Act 2006, the Theft Act 1968, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and the Money Laundering Regulations 2007. Individuals are prosecuted under these and other powers..."
The report admits ruefully; "...However, the types of offence which give rise to criminal sanctions at present tend mostly to involve individuals or small groups, and do not cover the apparent mismanagement and failure of control by senior bankers which has been at the heart of the recent concerns about standards and culture in banking..."
This is where the report gets it both right, in a way, but also so wrong!
In any organisation, it is simply not possible that small groups of underlings can be engaged in widespread wholesale criminal, behaviour, but such conduct is completely unknown to senior members of staff and supervisors.
Where big money is being made, it is a fact that supervisors and executives, tend to look the other way, and hope to deny all knowledge of the wrongdoing if it is ultimately identified.
In other cases, such as the PPI scandals, the supervisors and the executives were consciously pushing for these criminal actions to be continued and enhanced.
One of my students who has worked for a major City bank talked openly in class about her experiences as a junior compliance officer during the LIBOR manipulations.
"...Everyone knew what was going on, down on the floor...It was the talk of the trading floors...you can't stop traders bragging and boasting...we all knew that some of the traders were working the LIBOR rates to their own advantage...No-one thought this was criminal..."
And there lies the conundrum. No one stopped to think that what was going on was criminal!
Does anyone seriously believe that this knowledge was not being discussed on the 5th floor over the pre-lunch gin and tonics? Of course it was, but it was always deniable!
It is this ability to operate at arm's-length, and to deny knowledge of criminal culpability which makes it more difficult to prosecute senior managers of firms where criminality is discovered.
Regulators talk convincingly about the difficulties associated with collating evidence to prosecute such cases.
The report states;
"...The FSA pointed out the main obstacle to the successful use of criminal sanctions:
"...For a criminal case the evidential burden will be even higher. There is, therefore, a risk that a criminal offence of mismanagement however constructed would rarely be prosecuted and consequently lose its deterrent value through its lack of use.
Tracey McDermott added:
"...we invested a significant amount of time and resource into the investigations we did into the failed banks, but we were not able to establish the evidence necessary to take regulatory action, so even if there had been a criminal offence on the statute book, that would not have got us there [...] a note of caution has to be sounded that this will not be an easy offence to prove [...] If the evidence is not there, it will not be there for criminal cases in the same way as it won't be there for regulatory cases. You can debate whether we got that call right or wrong, but ultimately the evidential standard is higher in criminal cases rather than lower..."
This really identifies the root element of the problem. It is something I have tried repeatedly to point out to regulators and the Commission itself, which is that most regulators are woefully and hopelessly ill-equipped to conduct meaningful criminal investigations, because they have received no training nor do they have any skills as criminal investigators.
As I stated in my evidence to the Commission, evidence which was suppressed by its civil servants;
"... One of the greatest tragedies of the British regime of financial regulation, and one of its biggest failings, is that none of those who hold down senior roles within the upper reaches of the regulatory agencies, have ever once undertaken even the simplest form of criminal investigation. They have never even arrested so much as a shoplifter, and they do not know how criminals will behave when they are being investigated; they do not know what evidence is needed to bring these persons before a court and to obtain a safe and proper conviction; they do not know how to go about acquiring even the most basic evidence which can be used to convict a criminal; and perhaps most importantly of all, they do not understand how to conduct themselves when they are being required to investigate a pattern of behaviour which might prove to possess important criminal consequences. Put more simply, they simply do not understand the signs of crime, and they are therefore ill-equipped to deal with them even when they are staring them in the face!
"...Yet these are the very people we put in charge of our regulatory agencies, and we give them very complex investigatory powers. Members of the 'Great and Good', people who have held down no doubt important roles in academe or the law, (even the Serious Fraud Office has been seriously criticised for its administrative failings), banking or other areas of financial business, former civil servants or senior partners in leading firms of accountants (if ever there was a serious conflict of interests it is in appointments such as these), or people who are seconded from other regulatory environments, but who have no experience at all in dealing with criminals.
"...While they all possess undoubted skills and experience, the one thing they all have in common is a complete lack of any understanding of the function of the criminal temperament..."
None of these issues have been debated in the report, all that has been proposed is a new offence as follows;
"... The Commission has concluded that there is a strong case in principle for a new criminal offence of reckless misconduct in the management of a bank. While all concerned should be under no illusions about the difficulties of securing a conviction for such a new offence, the fact that recklessness in carrying out professional responsibilities carries a risk of a criminal conviction and a prison sentence would give pause for thought to the senior officers of UK banks. The Commission recommends that the offence be limited to individuals covered by the new Senior Persons Regime, so that those concerned could have no doubts about their potential criminal liability..."
However, the Commission feels that the circumstances under which this offence should be applied are limited and specific;
"... The Commission would expect this offence to be pursued in cases involving only the most serious of failings, such as where a bank failed with substantial costs to the taxpayer, lasting consequences for the financial system, or serious harm to customers..."
This is a proposal to give the headline writers something to write about, but it is never going to happen! In reality, we should expect such a recommendation to be debated at excruciating length, both publicly and in Parliament. The banking lobby will throw vast sums of money at opposing the proposal, and we should expect no Parliamentary timetable to be available to debate the proposal for a minimum of 2 years. Putting it simply, I do not believe it will ever happen, because by the time any meaningful window of opportunity has presented itself to put this on the Statute books, Parliament will have lost interest in the debate.
As far as I am concerned, the rest of the Report will do little to change anything very greatly. As I said, Sir Martin Jacomb is already discounting it, and that means the rest of the City is taking its cue from him.
The issues which impact the ordinary British bank user the most remain untouched. The banking lobby has proved its worth, and it has talked out or emasculated the impact of any meaningful changes which might have made a real difference. This report merely tinkers at the edges, and has done little to change the culture of greed and dysfunctional conduct which has so identified the banking sector in the past.
This is why I say this is a fudge too far. The Commission have tried, through the production of a worthy tome, to give the impression that they really mean business this time, whereas the banking sector knows that whatever business is being planned, it is business as usual!
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The San Francisco-based writer and cultural theorist Shawna Vesco and the New York-based artist, writer and curator Anne Wheeler tackle an indeed easily confusing, yet fascinating phenomenon in their current exhibition "Un-Working the Icon: Kurdish "Warrior-Divas". The exhibition is part of apexart´s Franchise Exhibition program, which is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation, among many others.
We talked to them about this important show at Gallery Mario Kreuzberg.
Berlin ohne Berlinale wollen wir uns gar nicht vorstellen. Dasselbe gilt für unsere Lieblingskategorie den "Berlinale Shorts", in der dieses Jahr wieder rund 30! internationale Kurzfilme um den Goldenen und Silbernen Bären konkurrieren. Wir haben Euch die wichtigsten Termine zur Berlinale Shorts zusammengefasst.
Absolutes Must-See & Go im Rahmen der Berlinale!
Keeping up with Berlins art scene, ARTBerlin brings to you the raisins in the cake of exhibitions this month: From blockbusters at institutions like Transmediale and the Berlinische Galerie to smaller, quirkier venues – we've selected our favourites for you.
Under Construction, Quo vadis Mensch?
Das Schau Fenster in Berlin Kreuzberg: 25 Meter Wand, 25 Meter Fensterfront, 25 renommierte Künstler und Positionen werden nun an diesem visuell fordernden Ausstellungsort präsentiert. Das Künstlerpaar Römer + Römer, neben Ko-Kurator Erik Andersen die Kuratoren dieser Ausstellung, haben sich mit uns unterhalten.
Stijn Ank is focusing on the relationship between matter and void. We met the artist at Künstlerhaus Bethanien and talked about his work and his two upcoming parallel solo exhibition openings at Künstlerhaus Bethanien and Gallery Michael Janssen.
If you are ready to face reality again after the excesses of christmas and hangovers of new years – here are Artberlin's exhibition highlights for the start of a hopefully grand year 2017!
Where are thou Berlin Art Prize?
The Idea and approach behind the Berlin Art Prize concept is one that pays credit to the overwhelming number of artists (known and unknown) living and working in Berlin. An annual and independent art prize by artists for artists, no recommendations needed, with an anomynous selection of the jury to queer the system of hierarchy. That was in 2013.
We talked to 3 of the founders about their most significant moments, artists, insights and future goals.
Brightening up the darkest time of the year we bring to you Berlins finest artists and events!
Berlin never fails us in terms of variety and beauty when it comes to its countless openings and events. Especially as the beauty does not only lies in the eye of the beholder but in it many forms and individual meanings. Once again, we picked out 5 Highlights and wish you a month full of colors, surprises, new tattoos and prizes!


Offshore drilling contractors Archer have announced an extension to their contract with US based Apache Corporation.
The contract cover all UK North Sea assets currently staffed by Archer workers, which currently includes the Forties and Beryl offshore oil and gas fields.
The extension is one of two options that was written into the original contract, and will last for one year.
This year like most offshore drilling companies, Archer has had a torrid time, having to cut jobs by as many as 1,500, though it is hoped that the Apache contract will help to stem the tied of losses.