Act drunk - your passport to anywhere

I have a unique power. I can make myself invisible. Now reading this you'll be thinking, "That Rog T has finally had one too many and flipped". I don't mean invisible in the classic "The Invisible Man" sense, but over the years I've developed a knack of being able to blend in to the furniture and not be noticed, if I want to. I was reminded of this listening to the Vanessa Feltz show yesterday. They were talking about television in the 1970's. The subject of the steamy series "Bouquet of Barbed Wire" was discussed. Vanessa Feltz recalled how her dad always used to send her out of the room during the steamy bits. In my household similar things would happen. Generally my next oldest Sibling Caroline would be told it's bedtime or she had to go out. For some reason my parents would neglect to notice me sitting in the corner. I can remember getting quizzed at primary school for singing the theme tune to "News at Ten" as the teacher felt children should "be in bed by half past eight". Strangely enough my sister seemed to be rather more immune to my power of invisibility than the rest of the family. She would protest "Why aren't you sending HIM to bed" (She's 4 years older). My Mum would weakly retort "Oh, we forgot about him".

When I reached my teens and developed a liking for punk rock music, the power came in quite useful. I had an uncanny knack of spotting openings at gig venues to slip in for free. For some reason I'd always manage to slip in and whoever the poor sod who came with me was would get caught and be made to pay the entrance fee. The time this came in most useful was at a CRASS gig. Some of the anarchist following of Crass had decided to throw glasses at the police outside. The Police had tried to storm the pub and shut the gig down. Unfortunately (for them) the Police couldn't get down the narrow stairs due to a hail of missiles whenever they tried. Eventually a compromise was reached. The police would let everyone go home if the gig stopped. Unfortunately for the attendent mob, the police reneged on the deal and beat everyone up once they emerged. I rather suspected this would happen, so I suggested to my friend that we hide in the ladies loo. I figured they'd not check there. Sure enough the police came down, arrested all those left and off they went. This included the barman. When it all went quiet, we emerged to find ourselves in a completely empty pub. We decided to do the only sensible thing and help ourselves to a few beers. Eventually the Landlord emerged to find a pair of paralytic herberts in his pub. When he asked us what we were doing we replied "Minding your pub for you". He'd not had a good night, so he adopted the "If you can't beat them join them" approach and we sat drinking free beer until the early hours. Unlike everyone else who attended the gig, we had a great night.

By 1988, I'd discovered a great addition to my arsenal of invisibilty. I was talking to an old mate of mine who'd become a policeman. He told a story of his first night on the beat. He'd come across a harmless drunk and arrested them for being drunk and disorderly. On arrival at the station, the duty officer berated him for his stupidity "he wasn't hurting anyone and now we'll have to put up with him all night." A night of singing, shouting and vomiting followed. He never made that mistake again. It occurred to me from the tale that if you appeared drunk and harmless, you were far more likely to be left alone. This came in rather useful when I visited the the Soviet Union that year. Now unlike a visit to the UK, you'd get a visa for a particular city. You couldn't visit anywhere else. One of the places we were visiting was Minsk. I decided I'd quite like to get the train to Vilnius in Lithuania (then still part of the Soviet Union). A Russian friend got the tickets and off we went. We agreed that if anyone else was around, I'd just play the incoherent drunk. It was a really interesting visit. Once there we got talking to many Lithuanians. They were very anti Russian and very bitter about the political situation. I never for one minute thought that in 2009, they'd be independent and part of the EU. On the way back to Minsk, a rather attractive girl came and started chatting to my Russian friend. I sat in the chair swigging beers and staring out of the window. After about 2 hours, she got off. I said to my friend "She was quite nice, who was she" He said she was a KGB official and that if she'd realised who I was we'd have really been in trouble. I asked if she had an inkling. He responded "She said you were a disgusting Belarus peasant".

As a socialist, I found my travels to Russia quite depressing. Unklike Sweden which has a successful society run on very socialist principles, the USSR was a monster. Although it may be no surprise today, I was shocked by the racism I saw towards Cuban students in the local beer bars. The censorship was suffocating and the way citizens were treated was terrible. There was a two tier retail system. The one for the ordinary citizen, where you could buy nothing and the one for the party and the Toursists where you could get more or less what you liked. My Russian friends were great, but the system was so oppressive that huge problems of alcoholism were rampant. I laughed a couple of years ago to read a page in the annual reports of Scottish and Newcastle breweries. It said that the companies Russian subsidiary, Baltika Brewery was benefitting from the Russian Governments push for healthy drinking. You may ask how this could happen? Well it seems that the government were encouraging people to drink beer instead of Vodka or Samogon. I feel really sorry for the ordinary Russian people. It seems to me that it doesn't matter who's in charge, they get a lousy deal.

When right wing commentators choose to have a pop at Socialism, they invariable state the case of the USSR. Strangely they ignore more successful models such as Sweden. I've spent time in both countries and they are like chalk and cheese. To my mind it's not a question of what the system is so much as how it's run. One thing I can safely say is that I'd far rather be a poor person in Sweden than in the USA.