Monday Moan 64

TOO BRAINY? TOO AGGRESSIVE?  OR JUST GOT A BOOK TO SELL?

Interesting piece in the Daily Mail last week from Kate Mulvey, wondering if love had passed her by because she was too intelligent.  She confesses to being challenging and wanting to let everyone know how well read and clever she is, and how she has an opinion on everything.  She admits she has been told she is intimidating, scary, difficult and opinionated, but her interpretation of this is that men think she’s just too clever.

 

Here’s a great quote  - “Unlike the canny girls who learnt how to flirt with men from an early age, the brainy ones, like me, were too busy with their books to master the art of flattery. Instead we challenge rather than charm, we control rather than compromise.”  

 

Not for me to comment – you can make up your own mind.  But it’s also interesting to see that she’s about to have a book published on the ‘humorous’ guide to the ‘art’ of being single, so maybe that’s all we need to know.

 

 

PLEASE LET ME FINISH!

I can’t be the only person in the country who sometimes watches a film or programme on television and wants to read the credits in order to find out who that actor was that I recognised, or what that music was, or something similar.  Sometimes I just want to use the time watching the credits as a means of absorbing what I have just seen, particularly if the programme has been emotionally involving or challenging.

 

Fat chance of any of this, as the scrolling credits are compressed and pushed aside in order to allow a picture of what is usually some completely unrelated programme to be plugged, complete with the continuity announcer’s voice exploding out of the TV destroying whatever atmosphere has been created.

 

Please STOP.  If you want to plug a programme then do so once the current one has finished and give the viewers the opportunity to reach the end of the programme they have just been watching.  I cannot believe there is any serious market research that says that viewers welcome this loud and intrusive action, or that many have ever said how grateful they were that they were told about the other programme.

 

 

AND WHILST I’M ON THE SUBJECT …….

Why do the TV companies insist on messing with the volume control all the time?  It’s not just that the adverts or programme plugs are so much louder than the programmes themselves.  Even within programmes the volume seems to be altered far too often.  There I am with volume level set at, say, 12, and then I find I can’t hear what’s being said, so up it goes to 14 – and then it will suddenly get louder so I have to put it down again, perhaps as far as 7 before I am fairly confident that my neighbour won’t be disturbed by it.

 

Why are the local and national news bulletins set at different levels, or the local and national weather reports?

 

And in cases where there is more than one presenter, please can they be encouraged to speak at similar volume levels?  Julie Etchingham on the ITV News, for example, is almost inaudible.

 

 

WHO SAYS MPs HAVE NO SENSE OF HUMOUR?

It’s good to see that some of our MPs still retain a sense of humour whilst preserving the dignity of being elected as our representatives in Parliament.  Of course it’s important to talk about things like the economy, or Syria, or famine, or any of those other predictable and intractable problems that fill most of the Parliamentary timetable. But hey, we all need some time to lighten up, to relax, to talk about things just for the fun of it, don’t we?

 

That seems to be the approach of three Conservative MPs Peter Bone, Chris Chope and Philip Hollobone.  Between them they have been pushing a number of wacky ideas as Private Member’s Bills, including the Margaret Thatcher Day Bill, which seeks to have the August Bank Holiday renamed after the lady in question – yes, honestly it does!

 

Hollobone appears to have become something of a spokesman for this motley crew, appearing many times on television recently to talk about his Face Coverings (Prohibition) Bill, which would make it a criminal offence to wear anything that covered the face in a public place if the primary purpose of the garment was to obscure the face.  So, no more balaclavas intended to obscure the face when the intention is to burgle a property or take part in a demonstration.  But not quite clear about balaclavas intended to obscure the face as a means of keeping out the freezing winds in winter.  

 

Hollobone defended this Bill on the basis that covering the face was not the way we did things in Britain, where he says we all exchange cheery smiles and waves with each other as we go about our daily business. Oh really? 

And even if we were a friendly bunch and felt miffed if someone transgressed against this ‘code’ by covering up, what next – a ban on beards, or bushy eyebrows, or wide brimmed hats, or sunglasses?

 

Anyway, there will be many who, looking at the three MPs in question, might feel it more appropriate to have a Bill to require faces to be covered in public.

Monday Moan 7

Reform of the Lords

Last week’s debates in the House of Commons over proposals to reform the House of Lords were bewildering to many people – not just those who took part in them.  All the major political parties are in favour of reform. 

The debate last week was impassioned, but the opponents of the Bill were united only in their opposition, not in their reasons for opposition.  Amongst the Tory ‘rebels’ it seemed that behind the various arguments they put forward, the overwhelming mood was of increasing indignation that they are beholden to the Lib Dems for the continuation of their time in Government, and want nothing more than that the Lib Dems should just knuckle-under and accept what the Tory majority wants.   That and a fear that a reformed second chamber would be more powerful than the current version. The Labour Party wants reform – but it wants reform on its terms rather than the Coalition’s.  After all, the Labour Party hardly had time to make any progress on the issue during its own 13 years in power.

All very interesting, of course, but after all these years of talking about real reform, the UK still remains the only major country in the world apart from Canada to have a wholly unelected second chamber – and even theirs has no hereditary element.

Emperor's New Clothes?

The opening night of the BBC Proms is an occasion to which music lovers look forward with growing excitement as the day approaches.  Sometimes the day provides a concert and a performance that lifts the heart and sets the whole lengthy Prom season off on just the right foot.  But not always. 

This year's Prom season got under way last Friday with the world premiere of a piece by Mark-Anthony Turnage called 'Canon Fever'.  The Guardian's reporter described it as  “a saucy piece, instantly likeable and utterly appropriate to the occasion.”   Hmm.  That certainly wasn’t my reaction.  Call me a Philistine if you like, but it sounded to me as though it had been composed by means of the ‘give 100 monkeys 100 typewriters’ principle.  You can judge for yourself by listening to the whole concert on i-Player for the next few days.  But if life is too short and you just want the buzz of the three minutes the piece lasts  then this is the place for you. 

On the other hand, if you want to know what I really thought then try this instead.

A Quiet Sunday Morning?

My neighbour’s house has been unoccupied for five months following a major water leak earlier this year.  The reinstatement of her house is being covered by insurance. 

My house was damaged by the water leak.  My insurance company has very generously estimated the cost of repair at around one quarter of the true cost.  I cannot claim on my neighbour’s insurance because to be successful I would have to prove that she had been negligent in not preventing the leak.

My neighbour is being accommodated elsewhere whilst the rebuilding work takes place.  I have to listen to the drilling and banging from the empty house next door.  The builders have also now taken to working  from 8am on both Saturdays and Sundays. 

Enjoying a lie-in on a Sunday morning?  Yep, that’s something I used to do L

Big Girl's Blouse - part 2

I came in for some stick after last week’s piece on Andy ‘big-girl’s-blouse’ Murray’s blubbing performance at Wimbledon.  Apparently, there are those who think he has become more human through this lachrymose behaviour, and that we have seen a different and more lovable side of him. 

I saw Andy on last week's 'Mock the Week'.  He looked like he was enjoying himself, which was great.  But the comedians were treading on eggshells so as not to offend him, which is not how they behaved on other topics during the rest of the show.  And the audience got to their feet to applaud our Andy - hopefully for his gallant performance during the match rather than his abject one afterwards.

But surely most Scots would say he has to ‘man-up’ wouldn’t they?  After all, if they can listen to bagpipes in public without crying then losing a game of tennis shouldn’t be a problem.