(Monday) Moan 42

THATCHER'S LEGACY?

So much has been written about Margaret Thatcher that illustrates perfectly how divisive a figure she was.  I’m not going to add to that.

 

But was I impressed by the representative cross-section of British society that turned out in Trafalgar Square for a party to celebrate her demise?  Not really.  Most of my thoughts were around the rent-a-crowd nature of the protesters – usual bunch who will turn up for anything where they can claim class war credentials.  At least some of them looked old enough to have actually remembered Thatcher rather than having been told about her.

 

I don't think the divisive nature of British politics is necessarily her legacy, although it has something to do with it.  I'm sure that the general feeling that it's OK to say whatever you like about people, and that you should film it and put it on YouTube or on any of the social media is more to do with the technology of today than it is a reaction to her tenure as Prime Minister.  In fact, let's have a little bet that had this been the death of Tony Blair then much the same motley crew would have turned out for his farewell celebration.

 

 

RETURN OF GORGEOUS GEORGE

So, one good thing to come out of the Thatcher debate has been the return to our screens of that king of British politics – Gorgeous George.  He’s been missing far too long – and I love his latest stylistic reincarnation.  I wonder where he got his inspiration? Anyone remember Gilbert O’Sullivan? Or was it Prince Charles? My money is on Brad Pitt.

 

Most disappointed man of the week was probably Rod Stewart, who thought it should have been him singing 'Maggie Mae' that made it back into the charts, rather than that Judy Garland song.  

 

The rest of us could just heave a sigh of relief.

 

 

RETURN OF FOOTBALL HOOLIGANS?

Millwall fans have a reputation to live up to – you know, put one in a room and he’ll fight himself.  So, wherever they gather there is always a danger that they’ll start fighting amongst themselves if there are no other targets around.  From what I could see there were not many people involved at Wembley on Saturday, but sad, nonetheless.

 

And then we have the fighting in Newcastle city centre on Sunday.  No doubt a little upset by losing 3-0 at home to fierce rivals and fellow relegation candidates Sunderland, some Newcastle fans decided the best thing to do was to punch a police horse.  Makes sense – if you’re an idiot. 

 

I agree with the police spokesman who said they were not true Newcastle fans and that the vast majority had been well behaved.  But how did he know they were not true fans?  I reckon it was because they still had their shirts on – unlike real fans.

 

  

FROM OUR PRAGUE CORRESPONDENT

Just spent nearly a week in Prague, and apart from coming back with the Prague virus which has laid me low for a few days, I had a great time.

 

As with everywhere, there were some things to like and some you could do without.  So, we loved the Metro – simple to use, frequent trains, easy to understand fares.  But on the other hand, I didn’t know whether to applaud the consideration, or feel insulted by the implication, when a young man offered to give up his seat for me.

 

Attentive service in restaurants is always to be welcomed, but in Prague this seems to have been taken to a ridiculous level by their insistence on whisking away your plate as soon as it seems that you have finished – whether or not you have finished in some cases, and always without regard to whether or not your companions are still eating.  Take it easy please – it makes you feel unwelcome to be rushed like this.

 

We had been warned that you are supposed to use a pedestrian crossing whenever there is one within 50 metres of where you want to cross the road.  We loved the way that there was a timer counting down the seconds until the pedestrian lights were to change to green, but we were a little surprised that they then stayed green for only 7 seconds.  The less able would probably just about have got their feet onto the crossing by then!

 

I took with me some cards in Czech explaining my various food allergies.  Really useful.  All the waiters and waitresses I came across read them carefully and said they would be able to sort out appropriate food for me.  Excellent, I thought.  Not so for the first meal after our arrival, where the waitress said all the right things but then brought me a pate with pistachio nuts embedded within it – not so good for my nut allergy.  And then ice cream with my fruit for the third course – not so good for my dairy intolerance.  Fortunately, an isolated example.

 

A couple of other observations.  First, it seemed like stepping back into the Dark Ages to discover that smoking is allowed in Czech restaurants.  I had forgotten how quickly the smell gets right up your nose and clings to your clothes for days.  Second, we had a conversation about how the English anglicise everything and wondered why we do this.  Then we saw this picture in a bookshop window and realised it’s not only us!

Monday Moan 33

Righteous indignation – or puffed up nonsense?

OK, I was asking for trouble reading the Daily Mail and I then compounded this error by reading the column by Quentin Letts - parliamentary sketchwriter, theatre critic, freelance writer, anonymous gossip-supplier to the media industry and all round pompous ass.

 

Almost anything written by Letts can be guaranteed to upset a large part of the population – inevitable really, since it will at the same time appeal hugely to most readers of the Daily Mail.  He can be humourous, of course, but he also peddles the kind of stuff you would expect in that paper – bombastic, little-Englander, anti-liberal, anti-socialist, pro-conservative (all with small capital letters), etc.

 

His recent piece bemoaning the defeat for the Conservatives over boundary changes for Parliamentary seats was a classic of its kind – the world is doomed by the actions of Labour and Lib Dem politicians being unfair to the Tories, aided by the Tories themselves not being firm with them.  The very foundations of our democratic way of life are threatened by what has happened.

 

Letts sees a left-wing conspiracy around every corner, including this one.  He puffs and splutters about corruption, cheating and outrage.  He works himself into a lather about the unfairness of it all and how the defeat for the Tories will result in that worst of all nightmares for him and those like him – “the Left will now be in power after 2015 — with all the repercussions for our national sovereignty that could bring.”

 

The poor man looks likely to explode if he’s not careful.  But can you really feel any sympathy for someone who not only uses the phrase ‘bien pensant’ in his article, but who is a repeat offender in this regard, having used the same words at least twice in recent months (1 November 2012 and 28 December 2012).  A good writer will not use words or phrases that cause readers to wonder what he or she is trying to say, either because the words are not commonly used or because their meaning is not always clear.  Letts fails on both grounds. Bad or smug writers, on the other hand, may use words and phrases they believe show how much better educated and clever they are than their readers.

Tony Pulis – the right man for the job

For those who don’t know, Tony Pulis manages Stoke City football club.  He has the demeanour of someone with a major chip on his shoulder. His gripe is that he represents a small club that is struggling to be treated fairly by the world, the football authorities, and specifically by referees. He believes that the rich clubs get favourable treatment and he has a particular issue with Arsenal for some reason.

 

He is, in fact, the perfect man to manage Stoke City.  Gritty, dour, unfashionable, committed to surviving by the principle of the ends justifying the means.  A marriage made in heaven.

 

On Saturday Pulis’s Stoke team faced Arsenal and, as usually happens, they lost.  Every football manager worth his salt can explain in great detail how it is that whenever they lose it was caused by the perpetration of some significant wrong against them. You really can’t be a manager if you don’t have this ability.

 

Arsenal’s winning goal was awarded only after the referee had consulted with a linesman (sorry, ‘referee’s assistant’) who had raised his flag for reasons known only to him, but assumed to be because he thought there had been an Arsenal player offisde.  Pulis started his after-match tv interview by saying “I haven’t got a clue what offside is now”.

 

The Monday Moan is glad to offer some help to him. A player is in an offside position if they are nearer to the opponent’s goal than both the ball and the second-last opponent – including the goalkeeper. You cannot be offside in your own half, if you are level with the second-last opponent or if you are behind the ball. However, being in an offside position is not itself an offence. A player is only penalized for being in an offside position if he is interfering with play, interfering with an opponent or gaining an advantage by being in that position.

 

So, with that tutorial, what happened in the game?  Well Arsenal took a free-kick, at which point the only player who might arguably have been offside was Theo Walcott, their no.14 – although as the picture shows, he is also arguably level with the last Stoke defender. 

 

The ball ended up in the opposite side of the goal to which Walcott was standing – he hadn't moved, he wasn't in the golakepper's line of vision, so clearly he cannot have been interfering with play.

 

All quite simple really – and now Tony Pulis will have no excuse for not knowing what offside is in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wrong, wrong and wrong again

We all make mistakes from time to time, but mostly they are not serious and very few people get to know about them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, some people are not so lucky with their mistakes.

 

The person responsible for the captions on the BBC News on Sunday will be blushing today:-

 

  

 

The Herts Advertiser copywriter who forgot to use spellcheck for the photo caption below probably realises their mistake:-

 

 

However, although I am confident that most people would see the Newcastle supporter’s display (above and on this link) as a mistake, I am not convinced that the fan himself will agree.

 

 

 

Parts in a machine

And finally, not a moan but an observation.  Sitting here and writing this blog I can picture you and other readers at your desks, or on the way to meetings and it suddenly seems very strange to me that I no longer have to do any of this, that I don't have to get up to work each day, and that the good ship ‘Ex-employer’ sails merrily on without my assistance.  It is a sobering thought that we are but replaceable components in machines that can function perfectly well without our being there, no matter how important our efforts and presence might once have seemed.

 

But it is also comforting to realise that the world won't end if you don't get that paper written or that email sent. There is time enjoy yourself and do other things.

 

 

Monday Moan 25

Christmas noise

It’s started – Christmas noise is all around us.  I am no Scrooge or Grumpy Old Man (honestly) but my patience and good nature are being sorely tested at the moment.

 

Can’t a person step out to do some shopping without their eyes and ears being assaulted by flashing lights and deafening noise from a PA system?  Twice last week I ventured out to local shopping areas.  On a late afternoon,  I chanced upon the build-up to the switching on of the festive lights.  Every child within a radius of 10 miles appeared to be there, mostly in their buggies, which made walking around for the rest of us such a pleasure, and almost without exception crying or shouting or making some other noise at high volume.  Within a few minutes of finding the relative tranquillity of a shop I then heard loud music from a PA system outside.  At least, I assumed it was just outside since it was so loud, but when I left the shop there was nothing to be seen, apart from a phalanx of buggies rushing along the road obviously on a mission to get somewhere important.  Swept along by the tide, I turned the corner to see a makeshift stage on which a young lady, apparently from a local radio station, was addressing the crowd in what can only be described as Radio DJ Estuary English, babbling along about nothing in particular and desperate for some interaction with the massed force of buggies assembled in front of her. 

 

What with that and the fairground rides and light-sabre sellers and tacky merchandise on hastily erected stalls and I was soon beating a retreat, saving my cash for another day.

 

I thought that other day might be last Saturday.  This time, partly because of the atrocious weather, the venue was a shopping centre.  It was crowded, but then it was raining and shopping centres are where people go in such circumstances.  It was noisy, but then that’s the nature of indoor shopping centres. It was full of what seemed suspiciously like the same buggies as I had encountered a couple of days earlier, but there was more room for manoeuvring round them so things didn’t seems so bad. There was a band of carol singers at one end of the mall, so I moved away fairly quickly. But once down the other end the loud music started and then I spotted another makeshift stage.  Surely lightning couldn’t strike twice?  Oh yes it could! Admittedly it was a different young lady and a different local radio station, but the approach and effect were the same – too much noise, too little enjoyment, and I was out of there as quickly as I could.

 

I still have money to spend at Christmas, but I think I will do most of my shopping online in the peace and quiet of my own home.

  

 

What’s the point, and what’s the cost?

The EU summit last week to discuss the budget for 2014-2020 was as predictable as it was disheartening.  Get the EU’s 27 leaders together to agree a budget?  More chance of winning the lottery than that they will agree anything at the first such meeting.  It’s all a rather weary charade isn’t it?  We all know what the respective positions of the member countries are and we all know they will not be able to agree. But we still have to go through the nonsense of these important people drawing up outside the building in their limousines, getting out, walking over to state their prepared positions to the waiting press, and then disappearing inside for the summit.  Two days later they will all emerge to give press conferences to say they are determined to stick to their positions, that the others are inflexible, that the European Commission has not worked hard enough to come up with an acceptable package, and then they will all disperse to their respective countries to play out the next round of the charade for their domestic audiences. 

 

They will be back.  And so will the circus that surrounds such events, including hordes of journalists and camera teams from every broadcaster in the EU, eager to catch the utterances of these god-like leaders and then play them back to us during the evening news bulletins as if there was something happening that was really newsworthy.

 

I’m fed-up with it all.  And I want to know how much all this costs – not just the costs of the summits themselves, but the preparations beforehand, the travelling and accommodation. And I want to know the cost involved in the assembling of the world’s press at such events.  How much do the BBC, ITV and Sky spend on sending their own teams to relay back to us the news that there is no news, only what we all knew already?

 

Someone ought to call a halt to it all.  Make a stand. Save some money. Demand that we all stop pretending that the meetings are anything more than a charade along the way towards eventual agreement.

 

 

Spot the difference

Now that I am a man of leisure I get time to look at things in more detail.  Some might say this results in me finding things to moan about that really aren’t worth getting bothered about.  They may be right, but isn’t that the attitude that allows people to get away with things that ought not to be allowed? 

 

For example, now that I shop more than I used to I have noticed how confusing everything is when you are trying to assess the value of what you buy.  Picking just one thing at random, I decided to buy some biscuits for Christmas last week – buy early and then avoid the hassle later, I thought.  I spotted a box of Crawford’s biscuits that appeared to be the same as the one I bought last year – yes, that would be an easy option, so into the basket it went.

 

But when I got home and put it side by side with last year’s, all seemed slightly different.  Instead of 12 varieties of biscuits we now had only 10.  It took some forensic examination to discover that the ‘missing’ biscuits included jammy dodgers – how could they!  Further close examination revealed that the weight of biscuits included in the box was actually more this year than last.  Curious. My initial instinct was that since the price was unchanged from last year this must mean the box was better value this time.  Fortunately, my wife was on hand to add the appropriate note of caution, suggesting that removing the jammy dodgers and one other ‘exotic’ biscuit meant that the weight gain could only have been achieved by increasing the proportion of plain, boring biscuits, so the overall value was diminished.

 

Far too complicated for me – just what the manufacturer’s intended, no doubt.

 

 

Didn’t he used to be good?

Watching Match of the Day last night we had the now familiar discussion after any match involving Chelsea of what was wrong with Fernando Torres and when was he going to rediscover his form.

 

The experts flap around looking for reasons why Torres no longer looks like he knows how to score goals. They remember him as he used to be and wonder who or what can spark him back to life.  It’s all very repetitive and pointless.

 

My wife interjected – “why are they bothering with this, he was rubbish at Liverpool and he’s rubbish at Chelsea”.  She was right, of course.  Although I should add that he was only rubbish at Liverpool after his two knee operations in 2010.  Might be a bit of a clue there, perhaps? Prior to that he had been a real goalscorer, but he never recovered this form.

 

Liverpool made one of the most astute transfer deals in recent years when they sold this crocked Torres to cash-rich Chelsea in January 2011 for £50m.  Laughing all the way to the bank?  Not quite, because the gloss of this clever deal was almost rubbed out by their decision to blow £35m of it on Andy Carroll – so Newcastle were actually the astute dealers in this little exchange.

 

Anyway, the point is that Torres might one day discover the form that once made him a great striker, but don’t bet too much of your money on it – the English game is full of ex-Liverpool strikers who lost their touch but were still purchased by a succession of clubs dazzled by their former prowess – think Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen, for example.