Monday Moan 39

 

I know I shouldn’t smile, but ……..

An Aston Martin DBS costs around £180,000, or it did until production was discontinued.

A Vauxhall Corsa costs around £10,000 when new.

Last week an old and rather battered Corsa, fetchingly painted in various shades of pink, managed to run into the side of a sleek, black DBS whilst the latter was standing at a petrol station being refuelled.  The story had its funny side, of course.  The pink Corsa was being driven by a woman with pink hair, for example, and then there was a troubling degree of pleasure at seeing something so valuable damaged by something so cheap and unpretentious (ok, apart from its colouring).

But some other things troubled me about the story as well.  First, the DBS owner’s immediate assertion that the vehicle was a write-off, beyond repair.  Oh really?  Look at the picture and see how much damage there is, and then consider whether writing off such a valuable car with that amount of damage might possibly be one reason why your insurance premiums are at an all-time high.

And then there were the comments from Aston Martin, whose spokesman is reported to have said “The DBS is not of the understated elegance of a DB9, nor the youthful agility of the V8 Vantage. It is explosive power in a black tie, and has its own unique character which will equal that of James Bond.'    

I’m guessing this ‘quote’ must have been taken out of context, but even so, what on earth is it supposed to mean?  Don’t these people speak English any more?

 

From our Bavarian correspondent

So, Arsenal came away from Bayern Munich with a 2-0 victory rather than suffering the humiliating loss that many had predicted.  Going out of the competition on the away goals rule seemed particularly harsh, given that they actually won the game against all the odds.

Those odds were high.  Bayern have now played 16 games at home against English opposition in European competitions.  Only one other side has beaten them over 90 minutes (yes, I know this ignores Chelsea’s game last season, but over 90 minutes that was a draw; after extra time that was a draw; then Chelsea prevailed in a penalty shoot-out).  Anyway, which other English side has managed to lower Bayern’s  colours?  None other than Norwich City, who won there in 1993. 

Most of all, I loved the way that the pre-match atmosphere was described on the Bundesliga’s own website -  “The stadium has remained relatively empty [40 minutes before kick-off] – it’s too cold for the fans, who have seemingly opted to stay inside as long as possible whilst they eat their pre-match sausages …….” 

Sausages for the Germans, beefburgers for the British. What do Italian or Spanish fans eat before I game, I wonder?

 

It’s all a matter of priorities

Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce were caught lying about which one of them was driving when a speed camera registered that their car was being driven too fast.  

Toby Hayden battered his girlfriend at a cashpoint after the machine failed to allow him to withdraw any money.  He was drunk. He was serving a suspended sentence for a previous violent crime. He assaulted two police officers who turned up at the scene.

One of these crimes was, essentially, victimless – nobody got hurt, nobody suffered as a result of the illegal action.  The other saw assaults on anybody who happened to be there at the time.

All three of the accused were convicted.  Two of them were sentenced to time in jail. One of them was given a community service order.

Can you guess who received which sentence? 

No doubt my learned friends would be able to explain it all.  It’s all a question of priorities, I suppose.  Perverting the course of justice is just a more serious crime than beating up an innocent person on our streets and then assaulting the police officers who came to investigate. 

Or should we have just a tiny worry bead that the legal system is bonkers?

  

Standards and incompetence

A quiet lunch out in a hotel that advertises itself as "the perfect place to sit back, relax and enjoy the delights that we have to offer" should not feature in the Moan, should it?  Well, I’m afraid it does – and on two counts.

First, doesn’t anybody dress up to go out for a nice meal these days?  I know that nobody bothers with a tie and jacket, even for evening meals in rather nice restaurants.  That battle was lost a long time ago.  But I was still surprised to see that in a large party out for a meal to celebrate one of their number reaching the age of 55, t-shirts outnumbered both polo and rugby shirts amongst the men, and jeans were the unanimous choice of them all.

Second, what kind of an establishment invites you to take your tea and coffee in the lounge before checking that there is actually space in the lounge for you to sit?  Yes, you’re right - an incompetent one.

Monday Moan 38

It all depends on your perspective

When I heard the story about Nani being sent off at Old Trafford the other night in the Manchester United v Real Madrid game, I initially assumed that it was one of Wayne Rooney’s more agile conquests who had managed to evade security in order to remonstrate with him about failure to pay his debts, or something similar.

 

It was only later that I realised my mistake and that the furore was about someone being sent off for a trivial offence at Old Trafford and that this had affected the result of the game.  Now, so many players have found themselves on the wrong end of dubious refereeing decisions at Old Trafford over the years that this hardly constituted news, except that in this case, unlike almost every other, it was a Manchester United player who had been sent off and not a visiting player.  Now that really is unusual!

 

How instructive was it to read the comments of former United players on this episode?  Well, Roy Keane, not one usually associated with being on the side of the angels, thought the referee was right - "I think the referee has actually made the right call. Everyone's upset about it and it's slightly unlucky, but it's dangerous play. Whether he meant it or not is irrelevant. It's dangerous play - it's a red card. You have to be aware of other players on the pitch. Does he think he's going to have 20 yards to himself? "  

 

On the other hand, Paddy Crerand, (for younger readers, he played for Manchester United from 1963-1971 and has since found himself unable to say a bad word about the club and has refused to have surgery for the removal of the red and white blinkers he was given as a leaving present)  apparently thought that "Roy Keane was in a minority of one. Not one person said it was a red card except Roy. Why do we not talk about the 99.9% of people who said it wasn't a sending off.”

 

Warming to his theme he added, “Why are we talking about Roy Keane - because he played for Manchester United? Well, let me tell you something. I played with Manchester United, I played in a European Cup final, Roy didn't. The referee was wrong."

 

If you want objective analysis devoid of personal bias or animosity then don't bother calling Paddy Crerand.  If you want old-fashioned vitriolic nonsense, then he's your man.

 

 

 

 

Vicky Pryce – taking it well

According to many in the media, the Liberal Democrats have been rocked by ‘sensational claims’ that Vicky Pryce, ex-wife of Chris Huhne and now failed plotter and convicted liar, confided in them two years ago.  According to that unbiased bastion of objectivity, the Daily Mail, this was “a nightmare for a party still reeling from sexual harassment allegations”.

 

It seems that Pryce has now claimed, in previously undisclosed emails to a journalist, that she told some important people in Liberal Democrat circles that her husband had done some bad things.

For example, she says she mentioned that Huhne had ‘behaved badly’ and said to others that there might be a scandal about to break over Huhne. That, it seems, is the substance of the 'sensational claims'.  Wow.

 

Pryce has admitted to a campaign of leaks and planted information designed to get back at Huhne for his treatment of her when they were married.  She has been, to all intents and purposes, a woman on a mission to exact what she thought would be delicious revenge.

 

For such an apparently intelligent woman it is amazing that she did not think through the likely consequences of her actions.  Had she done so then surely she would have realised that they were likely to see her go to prison as well as him?  And given this background, why is the UK media so keen to peddle other allegations made by her, in a crude and transparent attempt to drag as many people as possible into her ugly and spiteful world?

 

With any luck she will be sentenced today to a spell in jail, where she can reflect on her foolish pursuit of revenge and we can be spared from having to read any more about her.

 

 

 

Bolshie at the Bolshoi

The story of the acid attack on Sergei Filin, the Bolshoi ballet’s artistic director is full of some deliciously over the top diva-esque intrigue.

 

Bolshoi soloist Pavel Dimitrichenko has been in court this week and has admitted paying someone to attack Filin, but only to beat him up and not to throw acid in his face.  Sub-plots abound, with most of them seeming to involve Dimitrichenko’s girlfriend Anzhelina Vorontsova or her teacher and mentor Nikolai Tsiskaridze who was, apparently, none too pleased that Filin was given the top job rather than him.

 

I am not yet convinced that this is anything other than an elaborate hoax being played on us by the Russian media.  The story is almost unbelieveable and the casting questionable.  The biggest clue to the subtefuge, however, was to be found in the ‘court’ scene last week. Look at the person playing the part of the policeman guarding the suspect – nothing more than a camp ballet dancer in an unconvincing disguise, I think. 

 

 

 

Celebrate success

Arsene Wenger and his Arsenal team have been slated in the media this year for another season of failure.  Things are looking black for Wenger and the club. They face another season without a trophy. It is also possible that for the first time under his managerial reign – 16 consecutive seasons so far - Arsenal might not finish above Tottenham in the league. That really would be a mark of failure.  The crowing that comes from Tottenham fans on the rare occasions that they have managed to beat Arsenal during that time has been in stark contrast to the utter silence, indeed the complete invisibility, of those same fans on other occasions.  If they are to have a moment of triumph then goodness knows how they will manage to control themselves.  Enjoy it while you can, would be my advice.

 

But before everyone gets carried away with their perceived failures, let’s remember that no matter what happens this week in the second leg of their tie against a dominant Bayern Munich, Arsenal have survived longer in the Champion’s League this season than any other British team.  OK, not the most stirring of achievements, and some might argue that this is just a quirk of the fixture list, or that Nani has given them a helping hand, but Arsenal fans won’t care.  When you are starved of success then you make the most of the little things.  Just ask Tottenham fans.

 

Monday Moan 34



Strip away the veneer and they are all the same

There are those who fondly imagine that there are different types of politicians; those we know all too well from the experience of many years, who are on the make, who get seduced by the status of their office or the power of responsibility, and those who are not like them, who have some scruples, who are not out for themselves and who genuinely want to do the right thing.

 

The dawn of the Coalition government promised a new beginning, with the coming to power of a party and a group of politicians who had not been corrupted by office and who had the opportunity to put into practice the line they had put forward in opposition – open government, honesty, acting for the common good.

 

How sad. How naïve.
 

Chris Huhne now faces jail for lying and thereby perverting the course of justice. Sympathy for him will be in short supply because he’s a politician, he comes across as arrogant, he has been exposed as a liar, and not just a small time liar, but one who has brazenly and repeatedly fronted up before the cameras to repeat his lies.

 

Yet, curiously, the other main protagonist in this sad affair does not engender any public sympathy either. We are not granted the usual luxury of siding with the ‘victim’. Vicky Pryce’s attempts to portray herself as the vulnerable woman, unable to withstand the demands of her overbearing husband, do not sit well with everything else we know about this hugely successful woman.  She is a highly respected economist with a great CV, working for top-rated private sector companies before landing very senior positions in the Government. In her personal life she seems to have a thing for men of some standing. 

What we learn from this is simply that, as we ought to have known all along, people in such positions are actually just like the rest of us. They have private lives that are as complicated as ours, they lie when they feel the need, they are vindictive against people who they think have wronged them.

How dispiriting.

 

Unloved politicians

Talking of unloved politicians, it was good to see Michael Gove so apologetic and humble over his U-turn on his plans to reform the examination system through the introduction of the English Baccalaureate and scrapping of GCSEs.  Obviously I am being economical with the truth about the apologetic and humble bit.

The man has form as far as the Moan is concerned (see Moan 3) but the thing that has really surprised me is that he, and it seems others, think he has been doing a splendid job in Government and that he is a serious contender to lead his party one day.  If it was April I would assume this was a joke but, sadly, it might actually be true.

Cue more sadness.

 

What an unjustified waste

Walking around our local Sainsbury’s yesterday afternoon about an hour and a quarter before closing, we thought we’d see what they still had for sale in their bakery area.  From a distance it did not look very hopeful as the shelves seemed to be almost empty, but we carried on anyway.  When we got nearer we saw that the shelves were, indeed, empty.  But it was also clear that they were only empty because the staff were in the process of removing everything that was there and throwing it into a waste bag, very clearly marked as ‘not for consumption’.

The staff were as bemused as the customers who were asking why they were doing this.  ‘Orders’ seemed to be the best way of describing their response to questions.  Yet the shop was open for another 75 minutes, and they were throwing away perfectly good food rather than reducing it in price in order to encourage sales, or making it available to a charity that might offer it to the homeless or needy.

What kind of crazy logic is at work here?  I have no idea, but I have written to the store manager and will let you know his response.  Maybe I'll be referred to their company values and environmental credentials - maybe they need to be updated or followed?

 

And another beef

Talking of food, I have difficulty with so many aspects of the horsemeat ‘scandal’.  

As a confirmed member of the ‘never touch beef’ club I realise I am on potentially shaky ground, but here goes ………

At the outset of the revelations I imagine many people were not only surprised to discover that cheap beefburgers contained horsemeat, but were equally surprised, and probably pleasantly so, to discover that they contained any form of meat at all. 

Since then the scale of the scandal (deception?) has grown to the point where even the French have started to withdraw products from their shelves.  Yes France, the home of horse steaks for the unwary British traveller, has taken the opportunity to remove some British products from its shelves.  Nothing new in that, really.

I am told that horse meat is safe, that it is quite tasty, but that it is virtually unobtainable in the UK (at least, under its proper description), mainly because we are a sentimental lot when it comes to animals and which of them we want to see served on our dinner plates. Horse meat is one of the few 'horrible foreign foods' left, allowing us to feel superior and civilised in comparison with those places that eat such things. France, for example.  Music to the ears of UKIP and the Tory right I expect.