WRITTEN ON March 10th, 2007 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Uncategorized

I’ve just done the tedious congestion charge opt-out process. It requires reading four letters, document retrieval, photocopying, and filling out a fat form repeating the fat form I filled out a year ago, plus a tenner. This achieves the status quo ante (before London was stuffed with cameras and databases). The payoff is that Nothing Happens – I drive into London and it was just how it was before. It’s a sort of licence to pretend that New Britain isn’t happening at all, and it only takes two hours, some tedium and a tenner.

I encounter the strange tribe called the Tiefell. [According to some legends these people are NOT Tiefell at all, but a quite different cross-dressing tribe called the Capita who like to pose as Tiefell in a highly-prized ritual known as outsourcing.]

First thought: is Ms Sharon Corry, who seems to answer every letter and follow-up on the subject, a Real Person? Does she have a flat, a partner, and special dietary requirements? Or is she one of these artifical totems that tribes like the Dweep like to hide behind? The rationale, one supposes, is that disgruntled punters (cf that inexcusable recent encounter) vent their anger on a non-existent person. Though somebody still has to open the letters…

Second thought, as I skim through all the things one can do wrong and their easy listing of all the dire consequences, is this an area where the tribes are seeking reciprocation? Should we respond in kind, to prove we don’t feel our customs are superior? If we had a resource that listed the intricate customs by whch each tribe is bound , we could at random intervals send greetings in their own language along these lines:

Dear Ms Corry

I have occasion to remind you that it is an offence under the Data Protection Act for you or any of your Tieffel colleagues (including people from Capita dressed up as Tieffel) to leak, share or sell my personal details. This can easily occur if a “bad apple” takes bribes, or if you’re sloppy in your procedures (eg human and IT security). The penalties for doing this are [we'd have to bluff here, because ethnography suggests that leakng personal details is relatively risk free] Please check thoroughly and provide a convincing and thorough assurance that this has not occurred in my case or in the case of Ms Random this instance, together with complete details of your procedures in the event of such a leak]…PS: Do you exist? Please provide a photocopy of yuor ID Card, plus some biometric samples such as a cheek swap or a lock of hair. To conform to my procedures you MUST quote your PIN number

…and so on. Once they reply we could write again drawing on the rich cultural possibiities afforded by tribal lore health & safety, equal opportunities, not taking certain drugs at work, recycling etc.

If 5-10m of us wrote to these tribes in their own language say four times a year this would be overwhelming evidence that we appreciate their cultural norms and were in effective dialogue. They might start to feel we were treating them as equals, which is after all the basis of living in mutual respect and justice. Does seem a bore though. I wich they had more straightforward, fun and less pointless ways to engage with us.