Monday Moan 72

WE DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK

The press keep on telling us that they are the defenders of freedom in this country and, therefore, that there should be no shackles placed on them. They appear completely unmoved by Leveson, phone hacking, High Court trials, public disgust or anything else that suggests they should mend their ways.  They tell us they have changed, they have learned lessons from the past, they will be squeaky clean in the future and we should just trust them to do the right thing. 

Thus we have their furious reaction to Parliament’s endorsement of the Government’s new Royal Charter on Press Regulation and their determination to press ahead with their own, clearly more press-friendly, version. 

And thus we have the  The Spectator magazine joining with other press organisations to say they won’t take any notice of the Royal Charter,  with their Parliamentarian of the Year award, usually (as you’d imagine from the title) given to an individual single MP, being awarded this year to the 15 MPs who voted against Government plans.  And to top it all we have Bore-us Johnson, comical Mayor of London, urging all editors to follow the example of The Spectator and refuse to abide by the Government’s plans.   

Bare-faced, brazen disregard for anything other than their own views and self-interest.

 TALKING OF BARE-FACED AND BRAZEN ... 

Who should pop up on my screen on last week’s Question Time than Vicky Pryce, recently detained at HM’s pleasure in one of our most congenial of prisons.  Not content with trying to milk her illegal activity for all it’s worth through the publication of a book about her thoughts on prison, she sat and smirked her way through the TV programme in a bare-faced, brazen disregard for all that she had done, in a way that any editor of a UK newspaper would have been proud. 

Apparently there is absolutely no truth to the rumour that Chris Huhne was originally booked for this episode, but that Ms Pryce agreed to his request to do his time for him.

MOZART KNEW BEST

Music is one of the great joys of life to vast numbers of people.  It doesn’t matter what kind of music you like – there are so many to choose from and it is a dangerous path to tread to suggest that one form or style of music is better than another, no matter how firmly you may believe this to be the case.  That one form may be more complex, more difficult to play or sing, more varied in its dynamic range, etc. than another is unarguable – but whether it is “better” depends on too many things to make it worth arguing about. 

Having said that, we are all free to say what we like best and to choose not to listen to things we don’t like.  And we can all have an opinion on what works and what doesn’t, on  whether we think one version of a piece of music is better than another. Knowing a piece is a double-edged sword, because if the rendition you hear does not fit with your own view of how it should be performed, there is a danger you will be disappointed.   Of course, you can still enjoy it even if it isn't performed in exactly the way you hear it in your own mind, but if it strays too far either from what you like, or from what you consider to be a reasonable interpretation, then you will be disappointed.  You may even start to rant at the radio. 

So here goes.  I was listening to the radio the other day and smiled when the announcer said that the next piece would be the second movement of Mozart’s clarinet concerto.  One of the most well-known pieces of classical music, it is a favourite of mine for a whole host of reasons.  Unfortunately, the recording that then came over the airwaves just didn’t do it for me.  Far too fast and with so much embellishment,  improvisation or, as I see it, unnecessary extra notes, that the melody was sometimes almost indiscernible.  A bit like a Mariah Carey version of almost any song – you know the tune is in there somewhere, but it’s pretty difficult to work out where. 

Mozart is generally reckoned to be one of the greatest composers who ever lived.  I like to think he knew what he was doing when he wrote his music.  I’m OK with people interpreting in the sense of speed, volume, emphasis, emotion, etc. But unless he specifically invited people to improvise a section, I’d rather just hear the notes he wrote rather than those someone else has added because they think they know better than Mozart.  They don’t. 

OH JOY, IT’S CHRISTMAS ALREADY

The Christmas season has now started.  How do we know this?  Because it’s now impossible to watch the television (apart from on the advert-free BBC, free of adverts that is for anything other than its own programmes) without being bombarded with this year’s crop of cringeworthy Christmas adverts for the major retail stores. 

I blame John Lewis.  A few years ago they ran some ads that were actually quite entertaining and, possibly, quite successful in enticing people to think nice things about the store and maybe even spend more money there rather than elsewhere.  Unfortunately, every retailer now feels obliged to produce its own seasonal advertisement, which usually involves the viewer having to sit through some uninspiring footage of Christmas scenes and a few gifts, to the background of some seasonal music, with the only saving grace being the guessing game as to which store's name will come up at the end – “oh, that’s an ad for XXXX is it?”  

Apparently, some people have been heard to say that this year’s John Lewis ad has made them cry.  Really?  I can’t see why, unless it’s because of the realisation that you’ll never get that two minutes of your life back, having listened to Lily Allen try to ruin a perfectly good Keane song. 

Still, at least they haven’t made the same mistake as Tesco, and used a Rod Stewart track.  I wonder how many people will decide not to patronise Tesco this Christmas as a result? 

P.S.  A SUGGESTION POST-RUSSELL BRAND .....

A friend of mine was moved to comment on the Russell Brand article from last week  with the suggestion that “perhaps British Constitution could be introduced as a compulsory topic in our schools, not as an optional exam subject but just as an informative introduction to how the huddled masses have fought and won the right to help shape the way the country is run and why they can at least make a choice in who runs the country. It would, of course, have to be pointed out to them that the ballot paper does not carry a "Whatever" option. Yet.” 

Well said Sir!  Couldn’t agree more.  Perhaps my own interest in current affairs and in matters political and historical was developed during the time I spent mustering a low-grade A-level pass in British Constitution all those years ago.  At the risk of sounding like that old bloke who used to sit in the corner of the pub every night, it didn’t do me any harm.

(Monday) Moan 61

PURE PFEFFEL

Boris Johnson is in Australia. I’d like to think he’s there on holiday rather than at the expense of London taxpayers, but I’m not sure on that one.  Whilst there, he manages to ensure headlines in all the UK newspapers and airtime on news programmes by calling for ‘fair treatment for Aussies and yah-boo sucks to the EU’ in terms of the right to work here in the UK for citizens of those different countries.

 

So, as well as wondering why Boris is in Australia, you might also be puzzled as to why he is saying nice things about Australians and why he is slagging off the EU.  Could this be because he has long held the view that we are discriminating against Australians?  Doubt it.  More likely it’s just a good PR move suggested to him both to ensure media coverage in Australia and to suck up to the thousands of Australians living in the UK who are eligible to vote in UK elections.  Does he really think we should treat Australians better than EU citizens?  Or is pandering to the growing anti-EU sentiment in the Conservative Party and its supporters part of his plan as well?

 

The BBC London news report about all this managed to find two talking heads to offer their views on all this. One, Alex Ivett, editor of the Australian Times (“for, by and about Aussies in the UK”) – presumably one and the same Alex Ivett who also writes for the New Zealand Times (“for, by and about Kiwis in the UK”), sounded suitably serious when interviewed - “There is a really strong professional Australian community in the UK and every Australian here is contributing to the economy by working, living, travelling, really engaging with the community so I definitely think that enhancing those opportunities for Australians can only be of benefit to the UK”.  Slightly different from her more usual young, carefree, singleton, gossip-girl style in the two Australasian publications.

 

The other talking head was Sarah Ludford, Lib Dem MEP for London, who took Boris to task for ‘cherry picking’ the bits of the EU package he wanted to enjoy, noting that he seems to want freedom for businesses but not for individuals.  And she managed to deliver her assessment of him as “talking piffle” with a straight face – resisting the temptation to smirk at her own joke of (presumably intentionally) getting in a reference to his full name of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.  

 

Who said politicians lacked humour?

 

 

 

FRACKING NONSENSE

So much hot air about fracking in Balcombe last week (enough to extract all that gas in the rocks below if only it could have been captured and re-used?), complete with PR-stunt arrest of Caroline Lucas, MP.  Rather disappointingly, this experienced politician appeared not to understand that democracy means the freedom to express views but not to break the law when your own view does not prevail - “clearly democracy isn’t working because we have tried all means of putting our views over but still they are not doing what we want”.*

 

The usual band of merry protestors turned up to demonstrate against the end of civilisation as we know it if fracking were to be allowed. Shame on those who labelled them rent-a-mob or new-age protestors, or anything similar.

 

But when Vivienne Westwood arrived to support the cause we knew the game was up.  Good old Vivienne – no protest ever allowed to pass by without an appearance from her.  After all, a little bit of publicity for her t-shirts is always a matter of serious political, environmental and educational interest.

* OK, not word for word what she said, but close enough to get the gist of it

 

 

SO THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED TO EDUARDO……….

Eduardo da Silva was a highly talented footballer whose career never recovered from a horrific injury sustained when playing for Arsenal against Birmingham City in 2008.  After leaving Arsenal he played for Shakhtar Donetsk for a while and then I lost track of him.

 

That was until last week, when he re-emerged with a new identity of David Miranda, partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who was the one leaking secret documents about the NSA and other security services provided to him by Edward Snowden.

 

The amazing thing was that Greenwald and Miranda appeared more than a little surprised that Miranda had been detained by UK authorities, apparently believing that journalists were protected from the application of the law by their status as self-appointed arbiters of what is right and wrong in the world today. Journalists, defenders of all that is good in the world today,  working in league with some of our favourite whistleblowers - Assange, Manning and Snowden.  

 

Greenwald was so upset that he immediately threatened to release material about the UK that was, by his own words, highly damaging to its security services.  

 

Temper tantrum, no doubt. Maybe he’ll think better of it when he’s had a chance to think about it.

  

 

A PERFECT MATCH

The announcement that Bradley Manning wants in future to be known as Chelsea should not have come as a surprise.

 

Pretending to be something they are not, assuming they can do what they like without regard to others or the consequences, not caring what anybody thinks of them – Bradley and Chelsea are a perfect fit.

 

 

Monday Moan 46

Eurolather

There is something entirely predictable and sad about the lather the Conservatives have got themselves into over Europe.  It doesn’t take much for the usual bunch of noisy nobodies to mount their soapboxes and start ranting about the iniquities of Europe and how the UK should cut itself off from the rest of the continent – sailing off (back) into a Golden Age where Britannia rules the waves.

Onto the roundabout again.  No doubt the surge of ‘support’ for UKIP in the local elections last week has spooked some Conservatives. But for the Eurosceptics (or, more accurately, the anti-Europeans) this is just a convenient excuse to play their anti-European loop yet again.

As well as the usual suspects (why do they always wheel out John Redwood, largely considered to be just the right side of mad?), Lord Lawson, no less, thinks we should leave the EU.  The addition of Lord Lawson to the anti-European numbers shows that we should all take this seriously, apparently. But hang on a minute, could this be the same Lord Lawson who now lives in France and who was mercilessly mocked by nearly everyone a few years ago when he declared that global warming was a myth?

And then there is Lord Lamont – you remember, the chap who used to be Norman Lamont, veteran Eurosceptic, Chancellor of the Exchequer during the ERM debacle in the early 1990s (whose advisor was one David Cameron), all round figure of fun.

Don’t you hope that just occasionally our politicians can pull themselves together and do something worthwhile?

 

The Queen’s Speech

In the days when I was a working man I used to look forward to the Queen’s Speech – it was a big deal for me to provide quick analysis for my employers of the speech and the legislation proposed and its likely impact on us.

Last week’s Queen’s Speech outlined the legislative programme for the next year. It contained about the same number of proposals as usual, some of them were quite important, some were of less importance.  But what struck me most was how little impact the event had on the vast majority of people – not a topic of conversation in social circles, not headline news in the media other than for the subsequent coverage of Tory MPs wanting to know why it didn’t include anything on a referendum on Europe.

Now I know why my friends looked at me with a mixture of incomprehension and pity when I used to tell them I had a big day ahead with the Queen’s Speech.  What matters in life all depends on your perspective. 

 

 

Another endless loop to be debated again

Must be the week for endless loops.  This time it’s whether or not London needs another airport or, more accurately, whether or not London’s airport capacity needs to be increased to cope with demand and, if so, how this should be done.

Cue the debate on expanding Heathrow or perhaps Stansted, or whether we should build an entirely new airport in the Thames as Boris Johnson keeps promoting.

The question of airport capacity has been discussed for as long as I can remember and, no doubt, will be discussed long after I can remember anything.  It’s an industry that keeps a lot of people employed, one way or another. But it costs us all a lot of money – in the end we pay for the indecision and for the inevitable (and hugely expensive) public inquiries and all that they entail.  The beauty for those engaged in this is that there can never be a resolution to the issue – even if another runway or airport is built, it won’t be long before the debate about expansion starts again.

That’s why so many of the public simply switch off when the topic comes up.

Where’s Ed?

Still no sightings.  Anybody know where he is?

 

 

 

 

Monday Moan 15

Special End of Festivities Edition

 

 

Mad Max and Mogadon

What a brilliant party the Olympics and Paralympics has been!  Loved the sport, loved the overall atmosphere, loved weather (!), loved the inspirational performances of all the athletes, loved the superb organisation, loved the way that London in particular, and the rest of the UK (as far as I could see) have embraced it all and shown the world a side of the UK not often seen.

Of course, there has been an unwritten rule that nobody is supposed to make any comments on the things that haven’t gone well, but readers of the Moan will know that this has not stopped me from pointing out a few things that have annoyed me over the last few weeks.

So, in the spirit of calling it as I see it, I am sorry but I have to say it was just such a shame that the closing ceremony yesterday should have no connection that I could discern with the most amazing Paralympic Games apart from spaces for a few disabled performers amongst the thousands who took part.  I kept thinking ‘Why?’   We have been through all the emotions from amazement to awe at the immense achievements of people with so many different disabilities. And then we have to finish with a Mad Max pastiche, with pointless posturing from actors and some of the most mind-numbingly boring music in the world from Coldplay, the music industry's answer to insomnia.

 

What did it all cost?  What was it all about?  Why was so much of the music pre-recorded and not live?  Why Coldplay?  Why couldn’t we have something shorter and more relevant to the Games?

 

 

Where was the tension?

I have had the opportunity to attend many major sporting events in the past. Each has had its own atmosphere and has been focused on a particular sport.  Some have been more enjoyable than others.  So many things can contribute to that overall feeling – the standard of the sport, the weather, the people you are with, the atmosphere at the event. 

On any measure the Olympics and Paralympics have been different.

Most of my sporting experiences have been spent at team events, usually where I was supporting one side over the other.  Most of that has involved football, although other sports have had their moments too.

So, attending the Paralympics was a real culture shock.  Where was the constant underlying threat of physical violence between supporters, the bad language, having to fight your way into the venues past the ticket touts, hot dog stalls, and street vendors flogging t-shirts and the like, the booing of national anthems, vicious abuse of supporters of the other side, the sullen silences and refusal to acknowledge skills shown by the other side?

Instead we have had good-natured and friendly crowds, keen to applaud all the athletes and recognise both effort and achievement. People were able to walk to the stadium without fear, they did not have to worry about their safety or that of their families, they did not need to beware of pickpockets, they could watch the sports without being assaulted by bad language and snarling groups of men.  Of course, there has been patriotism by the bucket-load, with the crowds in a frenzy of support for British competitors, but this has all been within the overall context of support for all the competitors of whatever nationality.  The cheers for the international ‘stars’ were as loud as those for the British favourites.

No doubt normal service will be resumed now that the Games are over.  That’s a shame, but I realise that it is also reality.

 

 

Boris is still a clown – surely?

I am completely baffled as to how on earth Boris the Clown has been transformed in the eyes of part of the media and, it seems, the public, into Boris the National Treasure. 

 

Boris is still the same man who can be relied upon to say something inappropriate, who looks and sounds like the village-idiot far too often to be taken seriously – isn’t he?

Perhaps he’ll make an appearance at the forthcoming Conservative Party Conference and be greeted as some kind of Messiah-like figure?  He certainly seems to have been the recipient of the kind headlines and acclaim that David Cameron must have hoped might come his way. 

But how long will it take before reality asserts itself, and Boris is once again seen as a figure of fun rather than a potential future Prime Minister?  By Christmas, I’d say.

 

 

Channel 4 - consistent to the end

 

Channel  4 have had mixed reviews for their coverage.  Deserved plaudits for providing more coverage than others managed for previous Games and for trying very hard to explain the complicated arrangements for deciding which of the many categories each athlete should be in.

Unfortunately, they continued to display all the irritating things that had plagued their coverage from the start.  I could pick on almost any day from the Games to illustrate my point, but rather than repeat things I have said before let’s just look at their efforts on the day that Oscar Pistorius and the rest of the South African team won gold in the 4 x 100 metres relay.  Channel  4 showed the previous race just before 10pm.  At the end of that race we could see the relay athletes warming up in the background whilst the interviews were taking place.  Unfortunately, they  then cut away to something else and returned to show the relay half an hour later.  They showed the race as if it was live and cut back to the studio, completely missing the fact that the 2^nd and 3^rd placed teams had been disqualified.  Earlier in the day interviews with athletes after the 100 metres heats all included questions about Oscar Pistorius’s outburst earlier in the week, despite his subsequent apology – they just wouldn’t let it go. 
 

Shoddy work.

Finally, we won’t cheer everything regardless

George Osborne, Theresa May, Jeremy Hunt and Sepp Blatter were all recipients of a barrage of booing when they presented medals at the Games.  Boris Johnson, Gordon Brown and Tessa Jowell were cheered.    So the crowds were not so swept up in the general euphoria surrounding the games that they would cheer anyone and anything.  At least David Cameron had the good fortune to be presenting Ellie Simmonds with a medal, so his own boos were drowned-out by her cheers.

Monday Moan 3

 

Chiller

It seems that part of the reason for the frosty exchanges between Lord Leveson and Michael Gove when the latter appeared before the Leveson Inquiry in May was that the noble Lord had taken exception to earlier comments from Gove apparently questioning the impact of the Inquiry on free speech. Reading between the lines, Gove probably wondered something like 'how can we do our job supporting the Murdoch empire when this Inquiry is taking place?'

Apparently he referred to this Inquiry having a "chilling effect".  Hmm.  A little like the cold shiver readers may be experiencing now having looked at Gove's picture?

 

Fly me - please

The cable car over the Thames is to open on 28 June - having cost some £64m by all accounts. Quite possibly the BBC reporter and spokesperson for the service interviewed in May who both made disparaging remarks about the possibility that it would be open before the Olympics might wish their interview to be dropped into the murky waters of the river on its first journey.

And if you ever come across Tim Clark, president of Emirates, you might like to ask him if he had been drinking some of that water when he gave this quote - "The Emirates Air Line will bridge people closer, enabling them to discover, connect and express their ideas about this diverse city through crossing its majestic river, providing an incredible travel experience for residents, commuters and visitors alike." People were worried about the possibility of David Walliams contacting unmentionable illnesses when he swam the Thames recently - seems like Tim Clark has contacted a bad case of verbal diarrhoea.

Gorgeous

His Bradford constituents must be pleased to see that Gorgeous George is a media star with the independent Iranian news service PressTV.com.  Getting to grips with constituency issues has  always been a key thing for George.

The poor man has to listen to all sorts of waffle from callers to his programme and it can sometimes take the patience of a saint to wait for them to finish.  George is not a saint.  He gave this caller about 50 seconds of air time before he leapt in with his own rant.  Priceless. 

Where would UK politics be without George?  In a better place you say?  Surely not.

Don't call me ....

And finally, Harold Hackett has apparently decided that the modern world and its multiple ways of instant communication are not for him. Instead, he prefers to rely on an older method, first devised by those who found that their dream cruises did not take them to the destinations they had expected. Relying only on bottles and messages produced in large quantities, Harold has sent more than 4,800 messages on their way from the shore near his home on Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Thing is, the 3,100 replies he has received since he first started in 1996 constitutes a response rate that direct marketing professionals can only dream about.

Perhaps there's a message in that for us all?