Monday Moan 32

Hazard warning

Pat Nevin, ex-Chelsea player, current broadcaster and weekly contributor to Chelsea’s website, decided that when Eden Hazard kicked the ballboy during last week’s game at Swansea, it was the ballboy’s fault and that Hazard was entirely blameless.  His ‘reasoning’ was that the ballboy’s job is to get the ball back and that as he failed to do this, holding onto it instead, the only course of action open to Hazard was to kick the boy.

Oh really?  Leaving aside the question of whether or not kicking out was an appropriate, indeed the only, option available to Hazard, let’s just have a look at the incident.  The whole episode lasted no more than five or six seconds from the moment the ballboy retrieved the ball after Chelsea had put it out of play.  He ran to collect it.  Hazard ran over too.  Hazard appeared to try to wrestle the ball from the ballboy and in doing so pulled him to the ground – as shown in my picture.  The crowd reacted to this.  The ballboy then failed to release the ball immediately whilst Hazard was still wrestling with him, so Hazard kicked him. 

Five seconds – that’s all we are talking about here.  Was this significant time-wasting on the ballboy’s part?  Hardly up there with the worst examples of time-wasting that we see all the time from players when they are trying to run down the clock.

Even if it was, why on earth did Hazard decide it appropriate to kick him, even if we accept that he was hoping to make contact with the ball rather than the boy?  Why on earth did Nevin think it was right to do so?  If one of the Swansea players had been the one holding onto the ball would Hazard have kicked him? Would Nevin have supported him?  Of course not – so why was it OK when it was the ballboy?

So, if you happen to be in a queue at the checkout of your local supermarket, or waiting in line to pass through airport security somewhere, or waiting patiently at the roadside for the traffic lights to change in your favour, and spot Pat Nevin behind you, be very careful not to cause even an instant’s delay, or you will have to suffer the inevitable consequences. That spell in A&E will be entirely your own fault.

 

 

Glad I did not listen to the forecasters

I watched the weather reports with growing concern last week as the cream of British weather forecasters became more and more convinced that the East of England would be subjected to a major snowfall on Friday night and Saturday morning.  My plans for a weekend break to the Suffolk coast to celebrate my wife’s birthday looked to be endangered, so much so that on Thursday night I looked at the hotel reservation to check that the normal 24 hour cancellation policy would apply.

To my horror I discovered that the hotel had a 48 hour policy – full charges would apply if any less notice was given.  So, the options were either to crawl there through snow on Saturday morning and then wade back on Sunday night through the forecast floods, or don’t bother going at all and be charged the full amount for the room and meals I had booked.

We decided we’d go, come what may.  Saturday morning dawned bright, sunny and dry in Hertfordshire, with not a sign of the predicted snow in our area.  So we set off, convinced that as the journey progressed we’d see increasing evidence of the snow and have to suffer the inevitable delays along the way.  The further we travelled the more hopeful we became that we’d not be too delayed, but it wasn’t until we were about half an hour from our destination that we realised we’d not be seeing any snow at all. 

Of course, we were delighted to have experienced probably the best journey we have ever had to that destination, including a wonderfully clear and blue sky the whole way.  We then had two days of brilliant weather and a wonderful return journey – no snow, no floods, no need for the worry and the planning for the worst.

I know other parts of the country suffered badly on Friday night and that weather forecasting is becoming more reliable.  I am just glad that a combination of the 48 hour rule and our determination to get away this weekend meant that we didn’t cancel and thus did not miss out on a fabulous break, including two days in January where the sun shone all day long!

 

Andy Murray – what has changed?

Not that long ago, Andy Murray was widely viewed as a miserable, moaning, loser, condemned to being Britain’s best player for a long time, but unable to beat any of the world’s top three players on anything other than the rarest of occasions.  In many people he generated high levels of antipathy, such that they actually looked forward to him losing matches.

Things have changed.  I heard from a normally sensible and reliable friend last Friday that they were confused by their changed view of Andy Murray and were now hoping he’d win the Australian Final when a year ago they would have settled down with their favourite food and drink to enjoy watching him lose and then be miserable and ungracious afterwards.  I tried to reason with them and then offer some reassurance but, truth be told, I fear a spell working through their problems in AA meetings (Andy Anonymous) beckons.

One of my lines of argument was that whilst it was slightly distasteful that Andy had taken full advantage of Gentleman Roger Federer’s disinclination to raise anything much more than a gentle drop of perspiration on court in the semi-final, that hard-nosed Novak Djokovic would match Jockie Andy’s bucketloads of the wet stuff in the final.  And so it proved. Andy’s tartan-clad supporters (none of the Union-Jack waving enthusiasm of British fans for Andy when he’s abroad) had to watch as he succumbed to Djokovic’s powerful tennis.  He took defeat well, so much better than his blubbering Wimbledon performance (see Moan 6).

But how to explain his higher approval ratings (he was voted 3^rd on the Sports Personality of the Year contest this year – although we have to remember that the word ‘Personality’ in this instance is just longhand for ‘person’).  Maybe some people found his blubbering endearing, but I suspect it is more to do with our natural (if slightly unedifying) desire to associate ourselves with winners rather than losers.  Since winning the Olympics and the US Open, with Rafael Nadal’s apparently hopeless battle with injury, and with Roger Federer’s inevitable decline as he gets older, Andy suddenly looks like the real deal – so who wouldn’t want to support him now?

 

The never-ending election process in the USA

President Obama has just been inaugurated for his second term as US President.  He made a stirring acceptancespeech full of resolve to move forward on some key issues over the next four years. In many ways a more impressive speech than at his original inauguration four years ago, when hopes were so high for immediate and major change that he needed to promise less in order not to leave all his supporters disappointed. But still offering hope that America can move towards some of the principles set out in its constitution that it seems to find harder to pursue than other countries around the world:-

“Our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts; our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well; our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote; our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity, until bright young students and engineers are listed in our workforce rather than expelled from our country; our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit, to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown know that they are cherished and cared for and always safe from harm.”

Good luck with all that, against a backdrop of a Congress dominated by Republicans who still see Obama as one stop short of being a communist, or worse.  I find it depressing that there are those, in this country and no doubt elsewhere in addition to the USA, who seem to think that it’s helpful to object to everything a Government, President or Prime Minister proposes because there’s at least a chance that in four years, or whatever the period might be, there will be another election and they will get a chance to try to bring in their own ideas – against the opposition of those who will see another election coming up in a further four years, and so on round the never-ending loop that they call politics. 

And in the meantime, those who don’t have the means, the time or the inclination to play this game are left wondering whether anybody really cares about improving things just because it’s right, rather than changing things because it’s helpful to a political cause.   

Monday Moan 31

Time to move on?

Most people who went to the Games or saw them on television will have spotted the Games Makers at the sites – the ones with the foam hands pointing the way, the ones on the chairs telling people to smile, the ones checking your tickets and stewarding at the stadia.  They won’t have seen the majority of Games Makers who worked behind the scenes driving athletes and officials, looking after the athletes and the press, taking charge of overseas and UK politicians, working as interpreters, etc.

 

That army of volunteers in their distinctive purple and poppy red uniforms at the Olympic events, did a great job.  They were rightly praised for what they did. Just about every politician of any note, and many of no note whatsoever, heaped plaudits onto them and tried to cash in on their reflected glory. As well as being lauded by everyone from the Prime Minister down, by the Queen in her Christmas message, by Olympic officials, etc, they were given various awards, such as from the Institute of Internal Communication, the British Volunteer Awards, and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Awards for 2012 for Volunteering; they were featured on a stamp issued by the Royal Mail – and so it goes on.

 

But isn’t it time to move on?  I was worried when I started to hear Ministers talking about building on the legacy of the Games Makers by raising an army of volunteers to do good works in society more generally.  Was this really what the Games Makers were about?  Were they volunteering for the good of the nation or were they volunteering because they wanted to be part of the Olympic  Games?  I know a few who were Games Makers and they are all lovely people, but I don’t know what appetite they have for continuing to give their time for no reward to other activities on some kind of ongoing basis.

 

I was also concerned when I heard some Games Makers being interviewed on the radio around Christmas time and one of them said how important it was to her to have been part of this and how she enjoyed the continuing recognition she got when she wore her uniform to go shopping.

Sounds to me like there’s a life that needs a new purpose.

 

And then last week in a letter to the London Evening Standard, someone wrote:-

“During the Olympics  … how great it was to have central London full of volunteers giving directions and information. I’m sure lots of them would love to continue with this work if a permanent scheme was introduced  - I would gladly if I were not working full time.”

 

So, there you have it – a suggestion that there must be lots of Games Makers whose lives are now so empty that they would leap at the opportunity to, once again, volunteer to do good things for no reward other than the warm feeling induced by their generosity.  Unfortunately it does have to be them and not those who, like the letter-writer, would love to do it if only they weren’t in full time, paid employment.  How they would much prefer to be able to give their time for nothing, making the kind of public service sacrifice only available to the Games Makers and their ilk.

I re-publish the letter as a kindly warning to all Games Makers – people are out to take advantage of you.  Don’t let it happen!

 

Fun in the snow – part 1

I ventured into London last Friday after the morning’s snow had stopped.  The journey in was fine but the return was disrupted a little by the effects of the snow – such as it was.

Having commuted into London for most of my working life this was no surprise, but what struck me was how little communication there was to keep the travelling public (customers) abreast of what was happening.  The train indicator board was a waste of time.  Trains appeared to be on time until the moment they just disappeared off the board.  I was waiting at Highbury and Islington station, which is underground and three stops down the line from the starting station.  For around 40 minutes there was no word from the controllers at that starting station to say when trains were leaving.  Then they announced that the next train would be arriving in about 15 minutes.  Surprise, surprise then when a train appeared within 5 minutes – going to a different destination from the one announced.  Had that train sneaked onto the line without the controller’s knowledge perhaps? 

 

Anyway, the train emerged from the tunnel and went to Finsbury Park – where it sat for a further 25 minutes without a word of explanation from anybody.

Whatever happened to customer service and keeping people up to date with developments?  Even if there were no developments, then a simple “sorry for the continuing delay – we don’t know what the problem is but are trying to find out” would have helped.

To cap it all, the passenger opposite was one of those you hope won’t sit near you.  This unvoiced prayer can be triggered for any number of reasons, of course, but on this occasion it was because he was making all sorts of loud and very strange noises – a kind of snoring whilst fully awake, muttering (swearing) in a very loud stage whisper all the time.

One of the great joys of retirement is that I no longer have to commute!

 

 

There is a place and a time– and it’s not here or now

My wife and I decided to have a quiet meal out in London recently and chose a likely-looking venue based on how it looked and the menu on offer.

The food was fabulous. The waiting staff were helpful and attentive. The venue itself was warm and cosy.

There were five or six other couples in the restaurant apparently doing the same as us.  Unfortunately, there was also a group of five people who seemed to be under the impression that it was a crowded wine bar and either the rest of us wanted to hear everything they were saying or they thought it so noisy they needed to speak very loudly in order to be heard by the rest of their own party.  They ruined the atmosphere for everyone else. Whilst I commend the manager of the restaurant for eventually having a word with them to the effect that they need to be quieter or they would have to leave, the fact is that this group had been consuming bottles of wine for some hours and ought to have been moved on earlier.

If you want to drink for hours and not have a meal then go to a wine bar, or a pub.  And wherever you are, please don’t feel you have to make sure everyone can hear what you have to say. We are perfectly happy conversing with our own friends.

 

Fun in the snow – part 2

If you thought the performances of some of the trains companies or of Heathrow airport were laughable, then I offer you this little gem as well – with thanks to one of my Facebook friends for the link J

Monday Moan 30

Retired singer makes comeback ……. Major news?

With an arty and interesting video, a rather boring tune and words that could have been lifted from the poetry of an English student at any of our public schools, David Bowie’s ‘return’ sparks the inevitable miles of column and online inches, involving the hurling of long and absolutely implacably held views as to the merits of the man as singer and icon. You can’t call it a debate.

 

Is he a genius and one of the greatest musicians ever to draw breath, or is he just a clever marketing man who over-stayed his time in the spotlight and has eventually been revealed to be rather shallow and boring?  Line up in either camp – you’ll not be alone.

 

What intrigues and irritates me in equal measure is the way that this ‘return’ (a prelude to releasing a new album) was given such over-the-top coverage by the media.  Good old Will Gompertz (see Moan 17) was on the case, of course, on the main BBC News, but then so was the Today programme on Radio 4.  Front page photos in a number of British newspapers, articles in all the broadsheets ……

 

Why? 

Give us some space – please!

I apologise for returning to a previous subject (see Moan 19), but it is clear that my moaning has not had the desired effect.

When I go to a play or opera or film, I watch whatever I have paid to see and then I leave, so that others, who have also paid, are able to take my seats for the next performance. If I stay in a hotel then I leave after the night I have paid for has passed, so that the next guests are not left standing in the corridor holding their bags and waiting their turn.  If I buy a train ticket to take me one stop down the line I do not imagine that this entitles me to stay in my seat whilst the train carries on to the end of the line and then comes back again. 

This simple principle seems to work pretty well everywhere apart from coffee shops, where people have got it into their heads that the purchase of a single cup of coffee entitles you to occupy a table all day if you want to, spreading out your books and papers, tapping away on your laptop, talking to friends, reading a book or paper, or just watching the world go by. 

It’s about time the management in these establishments took responsibility for asking such people to leave.  There can be flexibility, of course, but during busy periods these limpet-like parasites should be shown the door so that other customers are not left standing around holding trays of drinks and food that they are unable to put on a table and enjoy because of the selfish actions of those who appear to think that buying a drink is the equivalent of a day ticket.

 

It’s snowing – get a grip people

The television and newspapers were beside themselves in recent days with dire predictions of chaos and travel disruption because of horrendous weather coming our way, sufficient to make whole societies quake in fear at the prospect.  Yes, there was going to be some snow.

What is it with all this scaremongering?  It’s a bit of snow. Other countries experience snow for weeks or even months on end every year, but life goes on.

 

This doom and gloom before the event is fast becoming a new way of behaving in the UK media.  They seem to latch on to anything that might possibly go wrong and then fill their programmes/pages with stories designed to panic people into hoarding food, avoiding poking their heads beyond their front doors, keeping their duvets pulled tightly around their ears, worrying about the ability of society to cope, etc.

 

Remember the pre-Olympic period when we were all told that the world would end because of security failures, major travel disruption, organisational chaos at the events, etc?

 

So, here’s my suggestion to the media.  Try reporting on what actually happens (it used to be called ‘news’) rather than what might happen based upon some fevered speculation designed to boost your sales.

 

Please, just stick to the singing!

Thank goodness Adele can sing.  The Golden Globes Awards showed that she's not great at public speaking.

Maybe it would be a good idea to stick to her strengths, particularly if she wins an Oscar this year, as seems quite likely?

Monday Moan 29

 

Rain or Shine?  Make up your minds please

It doesn’t seem so long ago that we were all being told that the southern parts of Britain, if not the rest, were likely to develop Mediterranean-style climates soon.  Only a few months ago, all we heard about was the impending doom of the inevitable drought, as it didn’t seem to have rained in living memory.

Now we hear that rainfall in 2012 was the second highest in any year since records began.  We also hear that the future now seems likely to be more of the same as we saw in 2012 – lots of rain in heavy bursts.  I think we are still promised higher temperatures and, possibly, dry summers (droughts?) – but who knows.

Isn’t that the key question here?  Who actually knows what the future holds?  Certainly not the Government’s own experts if this wonderful summary from the Government’s response in January2012 to the UK Climate Change Evidence Risk Assessment Report  is anything to go by:-
 

“In the UK, we currently expect a shift towards generally wetter winters, and a greater proportion of precipitation to fall as heavy events. The UK Climate Projections published in 2009 (UKCP09) suggest that there is a greater likelihood that summers will be drier, but these projections cover a range of outcomes (including wetter summers).”

Everyone got that?
 

No Reality Allowed in the NRA

Gun crime in the USA is commonplace.  Massacres of innocent victims occur with depressing frequency.  Yet apparently, the main voice of the gun-loving people’s nobbying, the NRA, believes the issue is not the guns and their availability, but the lack of such guns being carried by the ‘good guys’.  So their recipe for avoiding future massacres in schools is to have every school in the country protected by a gun-carrying policeman.

 

An interesting view, I suppose, but I’m not entirely convinced.  Let’s see, how many schools are there in the USA?  And wouldn’t the first target of any future gunman be the policeman with a gun?  What about those massacres that don’t happen in schools or universities – are they proposing that every shopping mall, fast-food restaurant, place of work, etc also have their own policeman?

Isn’t the problem that the good guys have watched too many John Wayne movies, where good always triumphs over evil and the shooting is always blood and pain-free?  And that the bad guys have watched too many Quentin Tarrantino movies where the reaction to any problem seems to be to shoot someone?

 

Of course, holding guns is not of itself necessarily a problem (they do it in Switzerland, although even there they have the occasional multiple shooting in remote mountain  villages), but it is surely unarguable that if you take the guns away then nobody can shoot anybody else.

 

 

The Post Office – are we being served?

I wasn’t that well organised this year and admit that some of my present buying was a little last minute.  But at least I had remembered to order some gifts online and could wait for the Post Office to deliver them, after which I would wrap and re-post them to family around the UK.
 

Not as easy or as foolproof as it sounded. 
 

First, I had not reckoned with the postman deciding to eliminate that time-wasting ringing of the doorbell to alert the customer to his arrival.  No, in the interests of efficiency, I assume, the parcel was simply left on my doorstep.  Not a great problem, except that I had decided to stay in all day for the promised delivery, and did not venure out to the doorstep until the next day, frustrated that I had wasted the previous one waiting for the parcel that I thought had never come. 
 

Not quite a disater, as I was still in time to wrap and address them and take them to my local post office to catch the last posting.  Arriving just in time, I asked for first class stamps for them all, so that they would arrive the next day.    Unfortunately, I had not anticipated the response of “Sorry mate, we have run out of stamps.”
 

Run out of stamps?  The Post Office?  Well that’s them off my Christmas card list next year.

 

 

Christmas Turkey – or TV as some like to call it

I didn’t watch much televison at Christmas, mainly because I had excellent company and it was much better to talk to people instead of watch the box in the corner of the room.  But it has to be said that when a spot of television was called for the fare on offer was depressing.

 

I’m still not allowed to criticise Downton  Abbey, so I won’t.  But amidst the usual superficial plots and behavioural changes from many of the principal characters, we also had a major plot change with the demise of one of the main characters.  There was little subtlety about it, as everyone else was suddenly being very nice to and about the character concerned.  But I do wonder about the billing of this as a ‘Christmas Special’.  In the old days this meant a light-hearted episode where everyone was very jolly and nothing much happened beyond a few Christmas presents being opened.  So is it right to have a major plot and character change in a one-off episode that, presumably, many regular viewers of the programme will have missed because they were doing something more worthwhile at Christmas? 

I assume the episode will be shown again as a trailer for the inevitable new series.  But that just means those who cleared their Christmas schedules to watch it could have saved themselves the effort and done something better with their time.

While I’m on the subject of Christmas television, what was with the endless episodes of Miranda and of Mrs Brown’s Boys - two of the least funny programmes ever shown on British television?  Either that, or I have mislaid my sense of humour.

 

 

 

A New Year Message

When did it become OK for everyone to issue New Year Messages?  They are all at it these days – leaders of all the political parties, CEOs of companies to their workers, every clergyman under the sun (including yet another farewell from the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury – who seems to have had more farewells than Frank Sinatra), MPs to their constituents, Council leaders throughout the UK, etc.

Do we care what these people have to say?  Does it gladden our hearts to know that they are thinking about the next year and what they plan to do on our behalf (presumably)?

I doubt it. So, my New Year message to every one of them is to save their energy, enjoy their break and leave the rest of us in peace. Come back to your jobs refreshed and get on with them.  Thank you.

 

Finally, not a moan but a thank you

Someone suggested to me that I should throw in the occasional word of cheer rather than moaning all the time.  Seems to miss the point of this column, but ever eager to please my readers I offer here a word of praise and thanks for the NHS. 

 

Not always my favourite organisation, but over the Christmas break the representatives of the NHS in Buckinghamshire provided an excellent response to the worrying collapse of a family member during lunch in a restaurant.  The three medics involved were fantastic - very professional, reassuring and calm in all they did.  The patient was then whisked away to a specialist hospital where over the next five hours they were subjected to various tests and all the medical people involved were, again, excellent.

 

So, a big thank you to them.  Perhaps they could pass on a few tips to the NHS people where the patient lives, whose follow-up action has been less than impressive?