Monday Moan 47

Loons?  What a ridiculous idea

So, Lord Feldman (apparently, Conservative Party Chairman) is supposed to have described Conservative Party activists as ‘mad, swivel-eyed loons’. The comment is alleged to have been made to journalists and concerned the Party’s kamikaze descent into madness over Europe.

For non-Conservatives this is a wonderful time, watching them get worked up over a series of issues that have been left bubbling away beneath the surface for many years.  Europe is the best example, of course, with former Ministers lining up on either side of the debate to criticise the way the Party is going.

Of course, the idea that swivel-eyed loons are the exclusive preserve of local Conservative Associations is, clearly, nonsense – according to my research into Jeremy Hunt , Michael Gove and David Mellor.

Some people are beginning to wonder whether the flames of unrest are being fanned by sections of the media more interested in a story than any balanced reporting. For example, the BBC decided to lead its main News programmes yesterday with extensive coverage of the delivery of a letter to 10 Downing Street by a group of 34 Conservative Association chairmen and former chairmen, complaining about same-sex marriage. Rather less prominence was given to the separate letter, signed by more than 100 Conservative activists, calling on the Party’s MPs to back the same-sex legislation.

I suspect Alex Salmond is behind all this.  After all, which Scot wouldn’t vote for independence from the rest of the UK once UKIP becomes the largest party in England?

Heard on the bus ……

Sometimes, just listening to other people can be as entertaining a way of spending time as reading the newspaper or listening to music. 

For example, travelling on a bus in one of our significant seats of learning at the weekend, I had the pleasure of listening to a young lady talking to two others who appeared to be her parents.  I really wasn’t eavesdropping – it was impossible not to hear her.  A loud and, in all honesty, what can only be described as one of the most irritating voices I have ever heard, forced its way into my consciousness when it was describing how the lady in question had failed to be offered a job despite the fact that she had been told she had “interviewed well”.  Nothing to do with her voice, I am sure.

Then displaying all the intelligence that she had, no doubt, brought to bear in her interview, she explained how the interview had taken place in “Bulgaria, that posh bit of London”, and wondered whether if you rode a ‘Boris-bike’ in London you were allowed to use the pavements rather than the roads.

Can’t for the life of me think why she didn’t get the job.

Arsene Wenger – Miracle Man

‘Honest’ Harry Redknapp told the Match of the Day audience last October (see Moan 20) that Arsenal were rubbish, would finish beneath Tottenham, and that it would be a miracle if Arsenal qualified for the Champions League this year.

Well, ‘Honest’ was about as right as he always is.  His prediction that Tottenham would finish above Arsenal was one he has made every year since I can remember – and it was wrong yet again. In fact, it is now so long ago since Arsenal last finished below Tottenham that you have to begin to question whether the law of averages really does exist.  When was it?  1994-95 – the same year that Blackburn Rovers were the champions and Wimbledon finished in the top half of the Premier League.  So long ago.

The debate will continue over whether Arsene Wenger can ever again turn Arsenal into serious title challengers, but in an era when money may become less of a key to success and when Manchester United have to learn to live without Alex Ferguson, you never know.

Can you read between the lines?

One of the simple pleasures of life is to enjoy the countryside and marvel at all that nature conjures up each year.  Our annual trip to enjoy the bluebells in the Ashridge Estate yesterday delivered its usual quota of awe and sheer enjoyment at the marvellous display of colour that these small flowers bring.

However, I am slightly worried that my eyesight is deteriorating.  Some of the footpaths were closed, but try as I might to read between the lines, I could not see anything on the notices about the closures that said that this did not apply to unsupervised children, or to adults who just wanted to take a ‘nice’ photograph of their companion sitting amongst the flowers.

What is it about people that they can blithely ignore rules or requests like these?  Are these the same people who think that the ban on using your mobile phone whilst driving doesn’t apply to them,  or that prohibitions on parking in a disabled bay or on a yellow line are meant for everyone else?  

Selfish and arrogant individuals, all of them. But don’t challenge them, unless you are prepared to be subjected to abuse, verbal or perhaps worse.

Monday Moan 41

 

RED RAG TO A BULL?

Delegates to the NUT’s Annual Conference at the weekend were being asked to send a message to Education Secretary Michael Gove via the medium of pre-printed forms available for them to complete. 

 

According to Rita Chakrabarti, the BBC’s Education Correspondent, Michael Gove had sent the teachers a message wishing them a very successful conference.  Rita’s analysis of this message from Gove was that it was “a red rag to a bull”. 

 

Oh really?  Either her powers of analysis are lacking, or the teachers are a sensitive lot.  Let’s see what you think: –

 

Which of these statements would you consider to be a red rag to a bull?

(a)    I hope you have a very successful Conference, or

(b)   I don’t know why you are bothering with your Conference and hope you soon realise that it will be just so much hot air and a complete waste of everyone’s time.

 

 

MYTHS AND THE USE OF THE MEDIA

According to the Methodist Church's public policy adviser, Paul Morrison, the British public has "come to believe things about the poorest in our society which are just straightforwardly not true”, including that “the public believes that the major cause of poverty is laziness”.

 

Paul Morrison was featured heavily in the weekend’s coverage of the impending changes in the Government’s approach to welfare and other spending.  Morrison was the spokesperson talking about the joint report from the Baptist Union, the Methodist Church, the Church of Scotland and the United Reformed Church “The lies we tell ourselves: ending comfortable myths about poverty”.

 

The Report is an interesting contribution to the debate. Some might say a more interesting, reasoned and persuasive approach than that adopted by the Labour Party.  However, as a seasoned reader of such documents the first thing I looked for was the evidence to support Morrison’s claims that the public believed certain things, including that the poor are poor because they are lazy.  The Report itself says that “The most commonly cited cause of child poverty by churchgoers and the general public alike is that their parents don’t want to work”,  but in a quick scan of the report I couldn’t find any reference to the source of this statement, or indeed to any evidence that ‘people believe’ any of the ‘myths’ that the report sets out to explode.  Perhaps there is some evidence referenced somewhere in the report to back up this fundamental part of its narrative, but surely it should have been cited prominently?  And I hope it turns out to be a credible source, and not some shaky survey of a handful of people as they left church one rainy morning.

 

 

ROCK & ROLL - REBELLIOUSNESS OF YOUTH

The British ‘summer’ is packed with an increasing number of music festivals, mostly designed to part thousands of music fans from their cash in exchange for a couple of days of living in squalor listening in less than ideal conditions to a succession of artists they might not otherwise have chosen to hear.  Each to their own, of course.

 

The Glastonbury Festival is the king of all such festivals, pulling in huge numbers of people paying extraordinary amounts of money and generating an unbelievable amount of coverage on television and elsewhere.  But as an expression of the rebelliousness of youth (one of the founding principles of early music festivals) it falls far short of its ancestors.  Recent headline acts have included Stevie Wonder, Rolf Harris, Ray Davies, Leonard Cohen, Neil Diamond, Dame Shirley Bassey and Neil Young.  Rock and Roll it ain’t. 

 

This year (after missing a year because they couldn’t find enough portaloos because of the Olympics) they appear to have taken the ultimate step into old age with the promised appearance of the waxworks that are the Rolling Stones.  Perhaps they would have done the decent thing and renamed themselves The Zombies if that name had not already been taken.  The Zombies are actually the youngsters (Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone being only 68 rather than the almost 70 that Mick Jagger and Keith Richard have each (amazingly) amassed!

 

 

BRITISH CULTURAL TRIUMPH GETS JUST REWARD?

What an accolade for British culture - the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony has been nominated as one of six programmes to be the subject of a public vote for the Radio Times audience title at this year's Bafta Television Awards.

 

Apparently, previous winners have included ‘Celebrity Juice’ (a ‘comedy’ game show) and The Inbetweeners (an adolescent sitcom) – heady company for Danny Boyle.

 

Depressingly, Ben Preston, Editor of the Radio Times, thinks the shortlist (which also includes Strictly Come Dancing) captures a ‘sensational television year’.

 

Heaven help us.

 

 

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.

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?