Monday Moan 16

Protests spread over shocking insult to Royalists

Royalists around the world have reacted against the publication of photographs of The Duchess of Cambridge sunbathing topless in the garden of her holiday home.  Protesters in every corner of the world have taken to the streets to demonstrate their opposition.

 "Those who should be held accountable, punished, prosecuted and boycotted are those directly responsible for these photographs and those who stand behind them and those who support and protect them, primarily the French," a leading protester said.

He said that British and Commonwealth governments should press for an enforceable international law banning insults to the British and other royal families.

There have been protests over the photographs in cities around the world in recent days, with spontaneous demonstrations by mobs of angry old ladies, who have made fairy cakes and set up bring and buy stalls outside French embassies. When questioned, none of the protesters had actually seen the photographs, but they had read about it in the Daily Mail so knew it must be true.

The “tut-tutting” could be heard from miles around.

The obscure, poor quality photographs at the centre of the row show the Duchess as a beautiful, if rather thin, young woman, comfortable with her body and with her new husband, apparently deeply in love and unaware that she is being spied upon.

The world needed to know Royalists "would not be silent in the face of this insult", said the protester, who branded the photographs the most dangerous insult to Royalists ever.

 

Didn’t take long, did it?

Oh dear, the Guardian's columnist Simon Jenkins has become the first journalist I have seen to break with the self-imposed restraint code operated by the media during the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

In his column on 11th September  he takes a number of huge swipes at the "sobbing with joy and weeping with ecstacy" of the London media and politicians. Nice touch to suggest it was a London issue - that should help garner support from everywhere else.

He makes numerous references to "throwing public money" at problems and contrasts Danny Boyle's entertainers and the athletes with the "nasty taste of the International Committee, it's ZiL lanes and fats cats" - lovely populist stuff there, particularly the mention of unnamed 'fat cats' - who doesn't despise them?

Of course, his praise for Danny Boyle's entertainers does not sit well with his condemnation of the "extra £40m on the opening ceremony", but hey, who needs consistency when you are ranting?

Wild, unsupported and contentious statements litter this apology for serious journalism - "this proves only that unrestricted public spending can work wonders" - well, yes it can, but then again it might also be just a waste of money unless it is properly controlled and with a specific aim.  "The same is true of defence. No sum is considered too great and no return too abstract". Oh really?  Why then have we had such an uproar about defence cuts? No unrestricted public spending there, surely?

And then the priceless "if it [the Government] can blow £9.3bn on sport why not shower money on intellectually rather than physically gifted young people and call it a university?". (note: it’s difficult to find official Government data, but some estimates suggest that public expenditure on tertiary education has been more that £10bn each year since the Olympics were awarded to London)

The whole article is full of statements that could be picked apart, but why bother? The press is back where it feels most at home - criticising, carping, undermining.  It was a lovely summer without this insidious nonsense, but all good things must come to an end I suppose. It would have been nice if we could have had a few more days though, but I guess they were champing at the bit for the Games to end. Normal service has been resumed.

 

 

Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY)

According to Barney Ronay, apparently chief sports writer of The Guardian, the reason for Andy Murray having taken so long to become a real British sporting personality is nothing to do with him being sullen, scruffy, chip-on-both-shoulders, spoilt youth, but the fact that he was not born in Surrey.  He calls on the great British public to demonstrate that SPOTY can be "more than a self-serving irrelevance stewarded by a clique of home counties voters".  No sign of The Guardian pandering again to the anti-London and the South-East brigade there then.

Equally, no guidance from Barney as to who that 'clique of home counties voters' would like to see crowned SPOTY this time - so how are we to know who shouldn't get our vote?  He suggests they would chose to vote for people like Steve Redgrave and Seb Coe, as if this was somehow wrong.  How can it be wrong to support people who, in their eras, were the best in the world at times when Britain was not endowed with many who deserved that title?

It's all very well writing humorously Barney, but have an eye for factual accuracy and at least a modicum of logic.

 

 

Downton Abbey

Apparently, I am not allowed to say anything about Downton Abbey, the story of every-day, simple folk now set in the years after the First World War.  It is a national treasure above lampooning.

 

 

 

 

Monday Moan 8

You might be a professor, but ……

John Kay is one of Britain’s leading economists. He has been chairing the Review of UK Equity Markets and Long-Term Decision-Making which reported today to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. He is a visiting Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, a Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a director of several public companies, the author of many books, and he writes a weekly column in the Financial Times.

In short, he’s done pretty well for himself based on his intellectual prowess.

But that doesn’t mean he listens to questions.  Asked on the Today programme this morning how confident he was that the Government would take heed of his recommendations, he replied that the questioner would have to ask the Government to answer.  Sounds like a sensible response?  Well no, not really.  The question wasn’t whether the Government would follow his recommendations,  it was what he – John Kay, eminent professor and all round brain-box - thought the Government would do.

Why on earth would we have to ask the Government whether it knew what John Kay’s answer would be to that question?

The Today programme is a wonderful source of irritation, isn’t it? Never fails to come up with something that gets me going in full moaning mode.  Usually it is John Humphreys displaying his usual Grumpy Old Man impression - “I-know-more-than-you-so-let-me-tell-you-what-your-answer-should-be.”

This morning it was James (don’t mention Jeremy Hunt) Naughtie who stepped into Humphreys’ shoes.  He was trying to interview Alistair Leathead about the recent shootings in America and asked “they're getting used to these kind of events aren't they?”  Leathead replied that he didn’t hear the question, but instead of repeating it, Naughtie said “these things come around in a kind of ghastly regular pattern now and Americans have got to accept that every now and again this is going to occur and it seems to produce a kind of element of mystification each time."

That sounds more like a statement for Leathead to support rather than a question seeking an answer.

The pulse of the nation?

So, the Olympics are nearly upon us and the nation is gripped by ……….?  I’m not sure what to put in here.  Are we really excited and enthusiastic about the Olympics, or are we miserable, angry about the cost/disruption/influx of visitors, etc? 

I guess it all depends on what you want to believe.  Turning to that great barometer of the nation’s views that is the Comments section on the  Daily Mail’s website, you might conclude that the citizens of this country are just waiting for everything to go wrong so that they can all leap up as one and shout “we told you so”.  Who are these people that have the time to fill their lives with sending venomous comments to online websites, berating all who have a view that does not coincide with their own?  Do they represent the true face of the UK?  Specifically in relation to the Olympics, do all the people living north of Watford see this as a huge southern conspiracy to spend Northerners’ tax contributions on this extravaganza, in which they (the Northerners) have no interest at all?

If so, then who are all the people that have, for the last month or so, been seen at roadsides all over the UK having parties, enjoying themselves, getting on with strangers, proudly waving their Union Jacks, waiting for hours on end, just to say they saw the Olympic torch?  There certainly didn’t seem to be any lack of enthusiasm for the Olympics anywhere in the country when the torch passed by.

On your bike

Bradley Wiggins is likely to become the Sports Personality of the Year, unless another British athlete performs amazingly well during the Olympics.  Those touting Andy (cry me a river) Murray for this title are surely mistaken.

Fantastic achievement by Bradley, of course. Becoming the first ever Briton to win the annual cycle trip around France is absolutely brilliant.  But, but ……

We will now have to put up with even more cyclists on the roads, jumping traffic lights, wobbling uncertainly in front of other vehicles, chaining their cycles to street furniture and causing blockages to pedestrians in the process.  Trains will become even more crowded with fold-away bicycles and sweaty cyclists during the rush hour.

Worst of all, there will be an explosion of lycra on our streets as people of all shapes and sizes don the uniform that they assume will make them into better and faster cyclists – unbelievably tight and unflattering clothes that should only be worn by those who are (a) fit and (b) not afraid to display their wares in public.

Bradley – well done on winning, but what have you done to us all?

 

Give it a rest?

 

Politicians have seized upon the Olympics as a guaranteed means of generating publicity.  Select Committee chairs have been quick to spot the endless possibilities for self-promotion.  A previous Monday Moan (number 6 posted 9 July) highlighted some of the deficiencies with the Select Committee system.  This last week has provided further evidence in support of the Moan’s views.

Last week we had Keith Vaz, Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, waffling on about the poor performance in an oral evidence session before the Committee (and it is true that is really was appallingly poor) of the hapless Nick Buckles, apparently (and there is no clue as to how he managed this) Chief Executive of G4S, regarding security at the Olympics.   

So much bad-mouthing of people from the safety of the Parliamentary fortress.  But in the interests of balance, let’s not forget that this is the same Keith Vaz who has what can charitably be described as a chequered history of staying on the side of the angels during his Parliamentary career – having been, for example, investigated on a number of occasions by the Parliamentary standards watchdog over various claims of wrong-doing and having once been suspended from the House of Commons after an investigation by the Committee on Standards and Privileges found him guilty of making false allegations.

Milking of the Olympics for publicity will continue for a long time to come.  Vaz’s Committee has already announced that it will hold at least three further oral sessions in September – including a return (by populist demand?) of Nick Buckles.  Can't wait?  Thought not.

I want that job .....

And finally, we had Philip Barker on this morning’s Breakfast tv on BBC1. Philip has a really important job – he’s an Olympic Sports Historian. As an aside, I can’t help wondering where you can you apply for such a role. Anyway, Philip was being asked whether he thought the UK’s target medal tally was realistic. Summoning all the expertise gathered over his years of hard work as an Olympic Sports Historian, he replied that it was a very difficult question to answer because “a lot of other teams are also trying their best”.

Wow, for this insight into what the Olympics are all about, Philip should be given the knighthood that had probably been reserved for Andy Murray had he won this year’s Wimbledon.