In 1985 the Greenpeace ship ‘Rainbow Warrior’, lay in harbour in New Zealand, making ready to protest against French nuclear testing in the Pacific. Her fate was sealed in Paris and she was sunk by French secret service agents. Unfortunately one man was killed. Portuguese-Dutch photographer, Fernando Pereira, was one of the crew members to go back on board to investigate after the first limpet bomb was detonated. He was still there when the second bomb exploded, and in the deluge of incoming water he was drowned. No one else was killed in this government-sponsored act of terrorism. 

A worldwide scandal ensued, implicating the high echelons of the French government and forcing the defence minister to resign. Years later it was proven that the hands of President Mitterrand himself were stained with the blood of the murdered man. For the first time eco-politics wasn’t just hippies in sandals and new age stoners in VW camper vans; now there was a visible war, and being an eco-warrior could not be mocked because it was obvious to all that being a protector of our planet was not a joke, but was dangerous to the point of being fatal.

Once upon a time the conservative majority could look on eco-warriors as young men and women with no direction, cast-offs from the loony left looking for excuses not to get jobs and not to wash their hair. They were remnants from the hippy movement, only they had been born too late. They had missed out on National Service, and had no sense of discipline. They would not be content until they had saved every useless plot of wasteland, dead tree, and pointless sea creature in the ocean. Always in the way of progress, and challenging the thrust of capitalism. Useless outcasts from society, self-ostracised and wantonly banished, they were people who would amount to nothing, and who would contribute nothing to the country’s prosperity.

Of course, there may be no truth in any of that, but that was the shadow that followed those souls that cared enough to do something about the continuing destruction of our planet and the creatures we share it with. And they were not without support. Armchair eco-supporters at odds with the near extinction of so many species, with the burning of rain forests to make way for plantations, and of the CFC aerosol usage that had created a hole in the ozone layer causing the icecaps to start melting, began to write letters and articles, and flirted at the edges of protest movements. So many habitats had been destroyed and so many species had already been lost, and probably many that had not yet even been discovered. The tide was beginning to turn, and green tinted glasses now sat shakily on so many noses that the eco-warrier could no longer be ignored. They had managed their first sociological victory; they had been seen, heard, and taken notice of.

Roll on the Nineties with dreadlocked hunt saboteurs running around the fields with whistles and scent rags, standing up to shotgun-wielding farmers and horse riding fox hunters in their liveries of blood and bone.  Swampy sat up in the trees, daring bulldozers and wrecking machinery to come forward and knock him down so that the Newbury bypass could be laid where woodland reigned. He lost the fight. The tree dwellers were brought to heel, but not until the entire nation had witnessed their battle against the destroyers of the greenbelt. The territory may have been lost to tarmac, but the unwashed in their oddly shaped knitwear calling for a green revolution had become the heroes of a new age. The eco-warrior was popular culture now. The eco-warrior was a creature to be squinted at but admired. The eco-warrior was someone to stand with and have your photo taken with if you were in the market for raising the profile of your green credentials. ‘Spider’ was on the telly in Coronation Street, bringing a friendly, cuddly persona to the idea of a soldier fighting for nature’s survival. And we the public, driving our dirty cars to the shop at the end of the road to save our legs the trouble, leaving our televisions on standby at night so we wouldn’t have to get out of bed to turn on GMTV in the morning, using chemical products by the gallon and throwing them down the drains only to poison our rivers and our seas; we lapped it up.

We still laughed at them, but we found we were starting to agree with their protests. Many started to hear the little green eco-warrior in each of them, calling them to arms. ‘Recycle’ was the new byword, and we no longer bragged of our personal squandering of the earth’s resources.

What has happened? What has caused this new sense of environmental responsibility?

Technology happened. The modern turn towards accessible media happened. The Swampys of the world now have Blackberrys and smart phones so they can video the injustices, and then they can send the evidence and their interpretation of it whizzing around the world to all manner of outlets in mere seconds. We can all be seen and heard, and we can all publicise those infractions that the powers at be would rather went unseen until it is too late to protest against it; too late to chain yourself to the tree, or sit down in the way of the JCBs.

 The rise of personal technology within our media savvy age has created what could very easily have become a divide of chasm-like proportions. Where does the grass-roots-direct-action environmentalist stand when everyone is now taking notice of the slick, suited and booted, lobbyist with their close contact with the media, their finger on the pulse of technology, and their snug little meetings with government officials attempting to secure clandestine handshakes on green issues? There are those who are not entirely comfortable with the new approach; there are still many of the old guard who feel that shouting and marching and sitting and direct action will always be the best way to get seen and heard and to make a difference. But with the global coverage provided by the internet and a culture of mass communication via mobile phone networks and satellites, it would be a waste to ignore this way of convincing so many strangers that it is possible for people to change the world without chaining themselves to a tree. Luckily it seems that rather than factions splitting apart into separate camps and fighting amongst themselves while we watch the world die, the two work well side-by-side without too much animosity. For once the cause is bigger than the methods used to bring awareness and realisation of the plight. There seems to be an acceptance that the different styles must co-exist to create a whole which is greater, stronger, louder, more capable, than the sum of its parts. And while a very smooth supplicant whispers sweet nothings into the ears of MPs about rising levels of carbon emissions and the kinds of investment needed to even start to offset the damage, there are men and women, young and old, students, teachers, parents, office workers and road sweepers, barricading the entrance to Heathrow airport, waving their placards, and being a very noisy, physical obstacle to the creation of a third runway. It is campaign harmony. The soldiers march through the mud into battle, while the diplomats grease the wheels that lead to the enemy’s surrender.

So many of us now are aware of what the dangers of our dominance on this planet are to everything else around us, that we are attempting in our own small ways to help reduce the damage we cause. Be it recycling, turning off lights when we don’t need them to be on, replacing filament light bulbs with energy saving bulbs, or walking those journeys that don’t really require the use of a car. Public transport in the form of buses, trains and trams all cut the amount of carbon dioxide pumped out, as does the limiting of fossil fuel-produced electricity in favour of wind and hydro generation. Planting trees creates mini oxygen factories, while refusing to buy products containing palm oil lessens the need to burn down vast swathes of the rain forests that are home to our critically endangered cousin the orang-utan. These small and not so small steps towards a more environmentally conscious way of living are triumphs in a movement brought about by those that were once mocked and derided, while our habitat has been victim to our greed-lust; our unending quest to amass financial gain for its own sake.

Jersey is a small island. Miniscule in relation to so many other land masses. Should that mean that our responsibility to the world’s natural health is miniscule also? Our island may not have the power to persuade the rest of the world to cease vomiting so much CO2 and stop the greenhouse effect and subsequent global warming in its tracks, but we can have a beneficial impact on our own localised environment. We can use recycled products in the bathroom, use only the electricity we need, fill our cavity walls with heat retaining insulation, and install solar panels on our roofs. As an island we can lobby the States to increase its commitment to recycling, protect our waters from overfishing, and buy more locally grown food to lessen the need for import. Our own gardens and courtyards and allotments can be havens for insects and birds and small mammals, and we can grow some of our own food, going a little way to lessen the need for so much to be shipped or flown in. We can suggest strongly, very strongly, with our ballot papers that our government take issues of environment and ecology as seriously as it does the economy and wealth. The UK, industrialised and with great polluted cities and towns, elected its first Green Party member of parliament in last month’s general election, so what is to stop Jersey, our rural and uncongested island home, becoming a forerunner in the environmentalist movement?  We can, if we choose to be, the first country to put the environment and real quality of life for our children before the country’s GDP. 

Because they had predicted what was coming; because they cared about the impact we have on our surroundings; because they made us think seriously about our place on the earth and what we leave to future generations when we have departed; the eco-warrior must be applauded. They may be our only hope against our own destruction, so perhaps it’s time we all listened to them with more than just a casual ear in their direction. They are role models for the twenty-first century. The eco-warriors, in all their guises, may just turn out to be our super heroes. 

Watch out. The skies are alive with activity. Outer space is buzzing. I’ve seen the lights in the sky. I’ve seen the circular patterns in the fields. I’ve seen Independence Day, Mars Attacks, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I’ve read all the right books, and I’m not going to be a victim of the space people; whether they be the little green kind with eyes on sticks, or lanky grey creatures with big heads and massive black eyes. Or even the masked robotic men in their silver suits. Doctor Who, V, X-Files, The Simpsons, South Park.

I’ve seen them all. I know what will happen, and I am determined not to be captured, abducted, probed, or vaporised in a ball of purple flame. I’m going to lock myself in the cellar and stay there reading my Dan Dare and Flash Gordon comic books. Or maybe I’ll turn to Scientology instead. Because I know what’s coming.
I’ve seen Signs, and I know that alien invasion is on the cards.

But really, joking apart… Who was joking? Perhaps it isn’t something to be scoffed at. What if, just what if, it is a possibility that is scarily possible after all? We all know, we all accept, that there is life beyond our orbit. Don’t we? And the idea that someday, in the not-too-distant future, we will make ‘contact’ with our intergalactic brethren is no longer something that we just wonder at the likelihood of. Is it? Surely it has become a when, rather than an if. Whatever our real beliefs concerning the existence of Martians and other species of little green men; if we assume for a moment that we are not entirely alone in the universe, then we are presented with another question; when they do drop by for a chat, will it be peace and friendship they are looking for, or will they be planning to wreak pain, destruction, slavery and perhaps total annihilation on us?

It’s a difficult question to answer. In fact, it is an impossible question to answer. There are some people who claim to have a fuller insight into these things than the rest of us; people that have studied all the sightings, and the abduction testaments, and the crop circles; people who might be a little better informed as to what the chances of invasion are. However, I couldn’t get any of those people to talk to me. So I said, fine, I’ll work out for myself what the odds are of having some great pink snotty blob landing in my back garden, and how long it will take for me to end up as its lunch. And after much studying of internet chatter around the idea of imminent alien invasion, and finding very little; and after searching tirelessly for the secret cell of rebels already preparing to resist attack from the Outer Limits of our solar system, and again finding nothing; I thought to myself, well, perhaps the chances of an assault any time soon is actually pretty low. I felt much better about things then and that night it seemed I would sleep soundly. Only, I woke up quite suddenly in the early hours of the morning, realising that because we have never knowingly been attacked by an alien race, invasion would be quite a surprise, making it an unquantifiable threat. The insomnia, and the involuntary shaking of my left hand, returned.

Later on I thought, let’s look to popular culture, as that has always had a fascination with space attackers and earth occupation.
In books, films, radio and television, the idea of the alien invasion has been prevalent for years. Many years. One of the first accounts of such a catastrophe is H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds; amazingly written all the way back in 1897, long before comic books and B-movies got hold of these apocalyptic plots. In his ground-breaking novel, Wells imagines a peaceful Victorian England ravaged by unstoppable creatures from Mars in their unbelievably superior and technologically incomparable walking and flying machines. They are not stopped in their three-legged tracks by humans though, but instead by the invaders’ own inability to exist on the planet they have conquered. The book has many things to say about human nature and society, but is perhaps most vocal in its warning against the cruel senselessness and ultimately futile pursuit of empire. The War of the Worlds has become a spring board for most other tales of invasion from beyond the stars; spawning several films and copies under different names, using the story in relevance to the socio-political atmosphere of the time. In 1938, with the world’s eyes on Nazi Germany and its intentions, Orson Wells created and broadcast a terrifyingly real radio adaptation of an updated version of The War of the Worlds; causing many normal, real American citizens to believe that planet Earth really was under attack from Martians in flying saucers.
The fake-news broadcast style of the radio play proved how
much power the media could command. 

The 1950s saw a whole glut of comic book and film invasions produced, and at a time when an insanely paranoid America was losing its head, and in retrospect all sense of rationality, over fears of invasion, slavery and destruction by the Soviet Union. The red threat and McCarthy’s witch-hunt for political deviants and their un-Americanism, had Hollywood churning out science fiction parables and parallels, filled to the brim with loosely veiled similes and metaphors, by the bucket load. A new character was emerging though; that of the home-grown, wholesome, boy-next-door, apple-pie-loving, all-American hero who would save us all and our planet from the evil marauders; those nasty, smelly, slimy creatures from the stinkiest depths of space. Earth had found its saviour in the US of A; Land of the free, and home of the brave.

Along a similar theme, Body Snatchers, a novel by Jack Finney
and published in 1955, was concerned with an alien species
taking over the bodies of the everyday man in the street, like a
kind of intergalactic demonic possession – seizing earth quietly
and unseen, giving no chance for a defence to be mounted.
This was also a polemic on the frightened obsession surging through America like a bout of the flu, that the Russians would not stomp their way, heavy-footed and reeking of vodka, onto American soil, but would use clandestine tactics to infiltrate positions of power in disguise as steadfast, God-fearing citizens; only to spread the evil infection of communism from the inside once they had gained enough control. The numerous film versions, most famously the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers and its 1978 remake crossed over from simple adventure science-fiction into a more frightening apocalyptic-horror type of film; with no triumphant hero or happy ending, but instead an increasingly deranged protagonist seemingly being the only one to know the truth and left reeling in a wilderness of lies and hopelessness.  

Television too has had a long love affair with the idea of aliens making war on us, and British stalwart of science fiction, Doctor Who, has over its remarkable forty-seven years had the various incarnations of the Doctor fighting off all kinds of invasion, from Daleks and Cybermen, to Sea Devils, gigantic maggots and murderous shop dummies. Recently the Doctor was forced to fight a massive invasion by the cold, emotionless Cybermen, who take control of Earth and systematically, industrially, remould their human captives into yet more Cybermen. If the plot sounds familiar, then it should; it is an analogy for Nazi Germany’s march on Europe and the factory slaughter of millions of Jews. It is thought that these episodes were also commenting, and frowning down on, the US and UK-led invasion of Iraq, and the damage, physical and psychological, that all occupations bestow, no matter who the occupied, or who the stronger, more aggressive, occupier turns
out to be. 

Just begun on the Syfy Channel is the new version of V. Originally an 80s mini-series, this is the tale of human-like alien visitors that have come to us in peace, but who soon turn out to be lizard creatures that have partially infiltrated earth society decades before they parked their massive ships above our major cities. I remember watching the original 80s version as a child, knowing I shouldn’t be watching it, and being absolutely terrified by it; suffering horrific nightmares as my punishment. V encompasses the main themes of most invasion stories; both the visible armada of rampaging assailants and the subversive, sleeping molester. 

Not all spacemen, or more suitably termed in our PC universe; space persons, within popular culture have had violence, exploitation and death on their bulging, oversized minds. Films such as E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and most notably, Howard the Duck, have all featured extraterrestrials whose only wish is to observe humankind while searching for a sense of understanding within a confused cosmos. These fluffy versions of alien-human interaction do well to explore humanity’s need to comprehend itself and to experience a connection with the world outside its own little bubbles of life. As uplifting as it is to believe we could form friendships with other planetary races, the truth of what may happen if we were to come across aliens that are weaker than ourselves, or naturally non-violent, may be more ignoble. The very clever and somewhat shaming District 9, set in post-apartheid South Africa, has us ‘help’ a wretched pack of alien refugees by interning them in slum conditions and degrading them as animals, whilst the violent and colonialist character of the human race is brought home to us in James Cameron’s Avatar; an allegory on the nature of invasion and military occupation, where this time it us, human beings, that are the alien invaders of another species’
home planet.

It’s still all a bit scary though. Xenophobia or cosmophobia,
fear is fear, and our reactions to it are not always straight forward, so without evidence one way or the other, I am not about to wave my flag and smile at the UFOs whizzing about my head. But I have got a plan (I’m calling it Plan 9); I will hold onto the heels of popular culture, and I will do my best to learn how to survive an alien attack; my life could depend on it. Should the worst happen;
when it happens, I will be ready. Watch the skies. Keep the force.
Live long and prosper. Na-noo, Na-noo.

They may have become popular in the Victorian music halls, and hit their peak in 1920s vaudeville, but since the beginning of television and still today they are a staple of light entertainment, especially on the Saturday evening prime time slot. I’m talking about double-acts.

Whether they are billed as a comedic partnership, characters in a soap opera or sitcom, or even a duo of television presenters, they all work in the same way with the same strict formula; the stooge and the straight man. It’s the way it has to be; for it to work there has to be a serious one and a funny one. The intellect and the idiot. Even Shakespeare made use of double acts, and not only in his comedies but even in his tragedies; Lear had his fool, Romeo had Mercutio, and Prospero had Caliban.

Either way, the straight man can only be funny if he has his idiot to berate, and the clown can only appear to be stupid if there is the no-nonsense presence of his foil. In modern television it is not always clear which one is which, and after each pair of phrasings they may swap over and reverse their roles; such is the case of Ant and Dec, where it is difficult to tell which one of them is really the most ridiculous out of the two. Double acts are a comedic certainty, but they do not only exist in television-land. Oh no; they are in our homes as well. They are our own relationships. And equally for those whose lifestyles are coloured in an alternative hue, even in the situation of a ménage a trois, it is still there, only now it is formed by two separate and sometimes warring double acts.

As a boy, which is a past reality that seems like so many years longer ago than it actually is, my favourite kind of comedy duo came in the guise of the ventriloquist act. Technically only one performer; one person, and one puppet friend, but two opposing characters all the same. And to me they were real; both characters, these two opposing personalities, they were both completely alive. I knew that one of them wasn’t actually living; that it was some kind of performed manifestation of the ventriloquist. A creation born entirely out of the puppeteer’s mind. And yet their relationship, even with some of the lesser quality acts where lips were seen quite obviously to move, even then the forces of their association which held them together and at the same time made them repellent to each other, was all so believable; and in a child’s eyes completely paralleled what could be seen every day at home and in the outside world.

Because it was the same, and is the same. In all marriages, relationships, long-term or short-term, heterosexual or same-sex, there exists always the ventriloquist and his, or her, dummy.  There is always a hand up somebody’s back, doing all of the controlling and all of the talking.  That is not to say that there is something destructive in this, but only that it seems to be the way of things without anyone ever requiring the need to think about it or analyze its reasoning.

But which one is which? Is there always one person as the performer and one as the puppet? Perhaps in very definitely controlled relationships, where one party demands the dominant role and bullies the other into submission. but I do not think that this is generally the case. I believe there is an organic fluidity to the whole aspect of control, and there is a constant unspoken dialogue going on all of the time, in all interactions, where dominance and submission is passed constantly like the ball in some prepubescent game between one another; neither person being entirely comfortable with either role for very long.

It makes me wonder that people don’t just claim their own divided personality of authority and obedience so that we never have to bow to anyone else’s will, or bend anybody else to ours. But, then again, I don’t think any one of us would be entirely comfortable with that situation either. If we were; if each person alone held onto both of their aspects and kept them checked and in a balance, then we would be completely whole, as one piece, and probably without the need for intimate relationships at all.Maybe then we could do away with all interaction with our fellow man altogether; whoever he or she may be, and whatever their connection to us is. What would happen if that should be the case? Quite simply, the world would be very quiet, and very dull, and perhaps for better or worse in a silent, sterile universe we would lose the sense of a need to survive and to shed new seed to carry on our species. How depressing! We would just die out altogether; a forever forgotten race of lonely individuals not worth the effort of lamenting by any alien race that may come across our solitary histories.

Fortunately our constantly warring aspects remain preeminent. There are times, many times in fact, when we fight to be the one who sets the way things are going to be, the one who selfishly gets his or her own way, often not thinking or caring what our counterpart might want. Because whether we like it or not, the self is often a fraction of the human condition that wins out. 

Sometimes though, when a decision comes along that we don’t want the responsibility of making, because the wrong turn could result in disaster, or because either way the road will be fraught with obstacles, we are happy then to be the dummy, nodding and shaking its wooden head, mouthing our words but comfortable in the knowledge that those words are not ours and the responsibility will not lay heavy on our shoulders, but will be borne by the one who has their arm pushed up into our body cavity and who will fold us up into a suitcase and walk away with us when the act is finished and the people have applauded.

Even demanding submissively that our partner take on the role of control, is in itself not really obedience but the sly gesture of power by an engineer pretending to be a puppet. So who is the dummy, when the puppeteer’s hand is up the back of the little wooden man, but when the dummy’s own little wooden fingers are operating the puppeteer?  Partnerships sometimes break down, and then what happens to the double act? Often the double act dies along with the relationship. But not always. There are some acts that are just too big, where the entire public identity of each party is tied up so completely in the act, that the ending of it would mean a freefall into obscurity for one or both performers. And when the act is more important that the individual, then the act stays even if the marriage is long dead.

This has been the case all through history. Alexander the Great and his wife, Edward the Second and his, and even the composer Cole Porter and his wife Linda Lee Thomas. In these cases the cause of the rift has been sexuality. Each of these men were gay, in a world where the term did not exist and where convention demanded that a heterosexual marriage take place regardless of male homosexuality. In each case the outcome was similar; the female part of the couple is left bereft of love and care, while the male does his thing. Other couples, political double acts such as Bill and Hilary Clinton, and perhaps John and Pauline Prescott, have had their marriages shaken so vigorously by personal infidelities with so many fragments having fallen away that the foundations are left with no more solidity than quicksand. And still they walk arm in arm in public view; not because of a love that holds them together, but because they need each other. To remain where they are, in the lifestyles they have worked so hard for, and to progress further still in their careers and remain in the public interest, it is imperative that they do not let go of each other even for a second. Who knows if there are feelings left between them, or even if they have been able to continue as friends? That is not important; it is the act, each with a hand up the other one’s back, that holds them together now.

Power struggles and ventriloquism, often in the minute and subconscious, seem to be the way that relationships work whether we like it that way or not. As long as we can still be equal, still be equivalent though we are not the same, then what does it matter? It is the relationship, and the fact that we have them at all, that is important.

And I for one really don’t mind having a hand up my back every now and then, tugging at my controls; just as long as that hand also scratches the itch on my shoulder blade, the one that I can never reach, at those times when I need it scratched.