ADVERTISING IS THE POETRY OF CAPITALISM** - DISCUSS.

Conventional wisdom states that TV advertising is there so you can pop out to make a cup of tea, without missing any of the important bits of the programme. In spite of this, the Company Marketing Wallahs shell out amazing amounts of money to get their 30 seconds on the screen, when, by the logic of the first sentence, you are actually rummaging around in the larder for a new packet of Choccy Digestives, when they are being shown.

The whole world of TV advertising started in this country in 1958, and given the amount of intellect, thought, creative genius and Money that has been expended in this area, it is not surprising that, in the intervening 5 decades, some of the snippets which have been interleaved with the programmes have actually been something approaching mini-Works of Art. You don’t realise just how good some of these creations are until you see them without the inconvenience of the programmes we have to sit through interrupting them, and diluting their genius.

So, it was, with considerable interest that, the other night, I watched one of the highly addictive “100 Greatest …” Programmes which Channel 4 have been producing over the last few years, this one covering the 100 Best TV Ads Ever.

The reality, of course, is that the list is only what a few Channel 4 viewers, “industry experts” and “critical opinion”, whatever that lot means. The real reason I suspect these programmes are made is to get you arguing with the TV set about a particular Ad being in there at all, or its position in a totally subjective Top 100. The truth of course, is that most of the Adverts are not even aimed at you, and you could probably get a good psychological profile of yourself by getting a shrink to review the ones which strike a chord with you individually.

You’ve no real idea if the Ads which you think are good, actually worked. The only way I can judge them, as an interested bystander, is if the company running them kept them going on TV for a decent length of time. In spite of Lord Leverhulme’s obligatory dictum that "Half of my advertising is wasted, but the trouble is, I don't know which half.", I bet that someone in these companies, especially those like Coca Cola knew precisely that the half that was on TV actually worked. The money being sprayed around was so huge that if it didn't work, they'd have canned the airtime and done something else pretty damned quick, or the Adman would have been finding another job.

So the conclusion you come to is that most of the ones which drill their insidious ways into our brains actually made people get off their backsides and go into the showroom, or buy a bar of chocolate, or shake some adulterated talcum powder on their carpet and then immediately Hoover it up. Or even try a can of Coke, and realise immediately that Pepsi still tasted better.

The ones I never understood were the ones like the BT Ads, which always seemed to me to be advertising a monopoly, and apart from a few additional calls between Maureen Lipman's friends congratulating her on a terrific performance playing herself, seemed to be heading nowhere.

Some of the 100 “Best” ones, you'd actually very much like to forget, but they are, by their very horribleness and the high degree of Cringe inducing feelings they generate, actually very memorable. My personal selection of these includes -

· Henry Cooper, splashing Brut around in a shower room full of semi naked men (one of whom was Kevin Keegan – I always worried about him) in a vaguely disturbing way, which today would have the Police round demanding to look at his Laptop.
· Charlie Girl perfume, with that girl in a gold Boiler suit, built like a Racing Snake, grinning like an idiot and twirling around in a Bar. I always felt as if a good slap would have been the order of the day there.
· Leslie Crowther getting supermarket buyers to taste bits of anaemic looking margarine on little bits of biscuit, without you thinking how much money they’d been paid to pick the one with Stork on. Can you imagine what the one they rejected must have tasted like, or even what it was?
· Victor Kiam selling Remington shavers – proving for ever that CEOs are no good whatsoever fronting a TV Ad
· Fairy Liquid with Nanette Newman and that ghastly, fawning child
· The Sugar Puffs Honey Monster
· The Milky Bar Kid
· The PG Tips Monkeys - where were Health and Safety, and the RSPCA when we really needed them? And finally
· The Shake n Vac Woman – the truly appalling thing was that every time they showed the Ad, their sales went into the Stratosphere, which says something about something – I just don’t know what it is.

But what about the good ones? The one thing you can guarantee is that the winner in the Channel 4 selection will not be your favourite, and your “Best One by a Mile” will come in somewhere like Number 37 – which indicates the real point of the programme. It’s four hours of inexpensive television designed to get you shouting at the set, calling them morons but talking about it all in the pub/at work the next day.

So yours won’t be mine, but seeing as I write this thing, I get to choose my eight favourites, perhaps not for a Desert Island, although I wouldn’t mind taking a couple of them with me! So, in no particular order -

Boddingtons - Well yes. It works on so many levels. The first one absolutely stopped you (or at least it did me!) in your tracks. The girl, in black stockings, and a very fitting Little Black dress walking very purposefully across the polished floor of a very expensive penthouse, sitting down at a dressing table, then cutting to her rubbing her moisturising cream seductively into her face a couple of times to finish her makeup. Then “The Sting” as she dips her hand a third time in the creamy head (!) of a pint of beer before applying it again.

Then we have the Swan (What was that all about?), the girl’s knowingly cocked eye, the posh guy appearing, and the genius bit (and it was genius) – his “Out of the Blue” Northern accent - “By 'ekk, yer smell gorgeous tonight Petal”.

And the simple strapline - The Cream of Manchester. The Cream of Manchester indeed. If that wasn't a perfect Ad, I don't know what was.

By the way, it was a young Anna Chancellor, aka Duckface in “Four Weddings” for those who want to join the lust-fest.

R Whites - It's a little company standing up and fighting the big boys. And didn't they do it well. An utterly infectious riff, I bet you’re starting to sing it now – “I'm a secret-a lemonade drinker, R Whites, R Whites......”. Brilliant.

Everyone in their time has been infected by it, and you get so irritated with yourself because you can’t stop singing it, and you feel such an idiot. Sung (for the anoraks) by Elvis Costello's dad. And who on earth was R White anyway, and what did the R stand for?

Cadburys Flake - Yes well, we've all got our favourite, and I suspect that you can tell a man's age by asking him which his was. Mine’s the languorous girl sitting on the open chateau window seat, if anyone’s interested. It's the way she licks it to start with. There's a slightly louche feeling running through them all - Botoxy lips before Botox had been invented, soft focus lenswork, somewhat surreal locations (no Luton Airport here), an obligatory lizard (don't even ask), the flake must crumble, and the girl eating it has to lick the crumbly bits. It’s probably my age but I swear the Flakes have got longer over the years.

I've no idea how these ads are seen through female eyes, but I can't imagine they'd have the same effect on them - which is odd because I can’t recall ever seeing a man eating one, so I assume they’re aimed at the females among us. Curious.

VW - in my view the best "Series" of Ads ever. They've had a wholly unique house style for something like 30 years now, and continue to be fresh, funny and effective. Even today, when you first see a new one being shown, you have to stop and watch it. I suspect they've been a very major factor in positioning VW's brand in this country - probably not that cheap to make, but they've earned their keep a hundred fold. We’ve got three in the family, so they must work!

Maxell Tapes - a very witty take on Bob Dylan, singing Subterranean Homesick Blues but given an exquisite twist (actually My Ears are Alight!) to make the point that Maxell tapes were the bees knees for clarity and hi-fi reproduction. Excellent.

The “Guardian” - actually quite a serious Ad, brilliantly made. It told the whole issue of putting a slant on a piece of news, the “It all depends on how you see something” approach quite amazingly brought to life in 20 seconds - the most intelligent Ad I've ever seen. I even bought the “Guardian” for a few days as a result, but I couldn’t get used to the unshaven armpits.

Lego Mouse - Just so clever, it showed exactly what the product could do in a way that appealed to kids, and grown ups - the Tommy Cooper impression was an absolute flash of genius.

Smash - for a product which has no sex appeal (well, at least not to me!), it was very silly and hugely watchable for umpteen years, and got the whole idea of instant mashed pototoes, a subject that didn't even show on my Million most interesting things list, onto that list. We even tried it once, but not as I recall, twice!

Yes, I do have a favourite, and if I had enough Techno-Nous, I'd put a copy of it in this piece. But I haven’t yet, so I can’t. It's not even on YouTube (as far as I can tell) so I can’t even point you there. So, to plagiarise Kenneth Williams, I've set myself a bijou project, to work out how to do it, because it’s 50 seconds of pretty flawless genius - almost a work of televisual Art, and it needs to be available to the World.

I will be back.

** A quote by Michael Maynard.

Tags:

tv adverts,
channel 4,
best tv adverts

SORRY SEEMS TO BE THE HARDEST WORD

A small item from today’s “Times” newspaper, found lurking in the “This Week on the Web” column put together by Rhys Blakely.

Pause for a slight smile, but then the whole sorry episode is a perfect definition of “Schadenfreude”, and that in itself always leaves you with a slight smile, even though it may be tinged with a touch of guilt. The unalloyed pleasure at watching that nice Mr Darling squirming as he tries to explain what’s gone on, is only surpassed by the joy at watching the excruciating contortions formed by Gordon Brown’s mouth as he vainly attempts the word “Sorry” for the first time in his life. Do we all realise who had the responsibility for HMRC for 10 years before he became Prime Minister? Just checking.

If, however, you want to put a real grin on your face, you should read a comment on a blog by a friend of mine, who for security reasons and avoidance of harassment from the Provisional Wing of the Government Audit Office, can only be identified by the codename X. If you look at his blog, which can be found on http://www.chris-linfoot.net/ (Don’t tell him, Pike), trawl back to 21st November – “Seen on e-bay, and a Government Warning”, and Enjoy.

He gets it in one.

Tags:

alistair darling,
hmrc,
gordon brown

LATE AGENDA ITEM FOR THE QUEEN'S SPEECH

I like to think of myself as a reasonable human being. I love my family and my dogs. I have a (very) few friends whom I also love. If I had to create a list of people who actively hated me, I don’t think it would be very long. So, reasonable it is.

One thing has occurred to me today, though. I am, in no way, a great fan of Capital Punishment, but I have concluded that there is a good case for its reinstatement in one certain, specific case – for those individuals who knowingly, intentionally and consistently leave the wrappers of “After Eight” Mints in the box having devoured their contents.

The utter rage following the opening of a box, apparently filled with a raft of the slim, little envelopes, when the only thing you want at that moment, above almost everything else in life, is a simple, flat, square, almost two dimensional dark chocolate Mint, only to find that some “person” has pigged the lot, leaving hundreds of empty black packets in the box, mocking you as you rummage through them, hoping against hope that they have missed just one. But they never have.

It seems perfectly reasonable to me that someone who commits such an action deserves no mercy, and the ultimate price for someone found guilty, is the only appropriate solution.

Just in case I might be over-reacting here, I have discussed this with a couple of like minded people, who unsurprisingly, are in total agreement with me. One actually felt that the proposed punishment was not adequate, and that, in addition, a £10 fine was also needed to balance completely the enormity of the offence.

I have no idea how to get such a proposal onto the Statute Books, so am now going to ring my local Parish Councillor to start the process.

It’s about time we felt the smack of Firm Government again.

Tags:

after eight,
chocolate

PICK OF THE PICS - No. 7

The last in this sporadic Pick of the Pics series, a few days ago, showed a picture of Ironbridge Power Station, seen from my house, pushing Goodness knows how many tons of Carbon Emissions into the atmosphere - but doing it very beautifully. Hence the picture.

Like buses coming in twos, today's picture is another one taken this afternoon from the same place, but in very different conditions. Having seen Man's puny attempt last week, this is the Almighty's version of the scene.

IRONBRIDGE POWER STATION - THE POT OF GOLD

Cue Rain, Cue Wind, Cue Yellow Brick Road, Cue a very different colour pallette.

Tags:ironbridge,
landscape,
photography,rainbow,
shropshire

NOW WE KNOW WHY THE ENGLISH INVENTED THE DEEP FRIED MARS BAR

One of the headlines in “The Times” Business Section today claims that “Wealthier pensioners ‘may subsidise the poor’”. The drift of their argument is that because people in the North die sooner than their Southern counterparts, they should receive a higher annual annuity payment from life insurance companies to compensate. Legal and General are proposing to add up to 3% to annuities paid to customers living in deprived areas of the UK – hence the “subsidy” headline.

Unless my brain has faded earlier and further than I had imagined, this suggestion of subsidy is grabbing totally the wrong end of a very large stick. The scary facts are that the average man in Glasgow City dies at 69.9 years, and his equivalent in Kensington and Chelsea lives until he’s 82.2, 12.3 years longer. If both of them had taken out an annuity when they reached 65, the Scotsman would have benefited for 4.9 years, and the Londoner for 17.2 years – some 250% longer. If their annual payment was £10,000, the Scotsman would be paid £49,000, and the Londoner £172,000.

Yet, until now, it would seem that their annuity payments, presumably for the same level of capital input, would be the same. Now I know, being a long-lapsed member of the Accounting Underclass, that the sums you see above have not been done with the same intellectual rigour as used by our actuarial friends, but if you look at them through the eyes of a man on, at least, the lower deck of a Clapham Omnibus, it is difficult to prevent the word “scandalous” from coming into your head.

This 3% is not the case of wealthier pensioners subsidising the poor, but the start of a recognition that the poorer members of our nation, by dying early are, and have been for many years, subsidising the wealthier members of the land, and to an enormous extent. It would be interesting, to get somebody with a more comforting grasp than mine of the “smoke and mirrors” of Actuarial maths to work out what the real annuity rates for our Scottish friend, and his SW3 equivalent should be. I think we’d get a real shock!

Perhaps it goes some way to explain why the Scottish Insurance companies, with their preponderance of home based customers, seem to produce consistently better financial results than their English counterparts on their Life insurance business.

The name “Scottish Widows” is starting to seem more appropriate to me now.

Tags:

annuities,
legal and general,
mortality rates

HANGING ON IN QUIET DESPERATION IS THE ENGLISH WAY ...

I wonder how many people of my generation, and probably the next one along as well, on reading the title of this piece, don’t immediately see, in their mind’s eye, a glass prism on a square, black background, refracting a light beam into the colours of the rainbow. Not that many I’d guess.

THE FLOYD IN ACTION c1970

I’ve lost track of the number of copies of “Dark Side of the Moon” that I’ve owned. I bought my first Vinyl 12” LP version early in the Seventies, and then because it kept getting scratched, that was replaced a few times. Then the CD version, which somehow disappeared (main suspects, although to this day unproven, still remain daughters). That was replaced, and a few months ago, that replacement “disappeared”. For most of 2007, I have been without a copy – until last night. For reasons I can’t explain even so soon after the event, I found myself in the CD Section of Tescos at approaching Midnight, and there facing me was a securitised copy of the famous prism at the princely price of £8. So, I have now rejoined as a fully paid up member of the Human race, with a copy of the CD in my car.

I’ve played it twice again in the last day, and am absolutely riveted by it. A few months off from hearing it has sharpened up my feelings about it, and I sat in the car, outside the gate of my house tonight, listening to the last couple of tracks and waiting for the closing heartbeat to fade into silence before rejoining the world.

Having pondered about it over my home made Pizza and obligatory glass of Sauvignon this evening, I’ve concluded that it’s simply the best Popular Album I’ve ever heard. No caveats. No Ifs and Buts.

Released in 1973, this was a record which, at a stroke, changed the face of modern pop music. This record was not about the specific story of an Eleanor Rigby, a Lady Jane or a Jumpin’ Jack Flash. It wasn’t about fancying the girl next door, Dreaming about California, being overconcerned about a Hound Dog, or being stuck Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa.

It was about the machinery of living today, the madness of everyday life and the pressures, worries and forces which mould it. It was about money, corporatism, greed, materialism and homelessness and the post juvenile disenchantment of facing these issues in the Seventies. It chewed over the place of the individual, both standing up for itself, standing out from other individuals, and also facing up to “them” – governments, and the myriad forces of the State. Over-riding the whole thing however, and stitching it all together is the idea of Lunacy and Madness.

In a nutshell, it was about the things which worry and concern all of us – when we look in a mirror, really look in a mirror, it’s about what we are. Not, you’d have thought, the most obvious and inviting subject matter for a Pop Music Album. This one however, has sold continuously for the last 35 years. After its release, it stayed, without a break, in the US Top 100 Album charts for a slightly insane 741 weeks (almost 15 years) and, since 1972, has featured there in total for more than 1500 weeks. I don’t think I actually know anyone who hasn’t had a copy at some time.

So why is that?

It’s both very complex, and exceedingly simple. The whole thing was the brainchild of one man, Roger Waters, who realised that, approaching 30, life was passing him by, and he needed to set down his thoughts about the facets of life which increasingly kept him awake at night.

ROGER WATERS IN AROUND 1970

ROGER WATERS 35 YEARS LATER

The words he came up with to do this are in no way fanciful – they are almost snippets, simple soundbites even. But the imagery the words conjure up are hugely potent, sharp and straight to the point. Try this for size – reflecting on madness, and the slide of one of the Floyd’s original members, Syd Barrett into its dark world, Waters writes –

... You raise the blade,
You make the change,
You re-arrange me till I’m sane

You lock the door
And throw away the key
There’s someone in my head but it’s not me.

Each set of four words tells a bit of the story, moving the idea on. But, in my humble opinion, at the same time, very chilling and very effective.

I am not an anorak about these things, but I don’t recall any album before “Dark Side of the Moon” having anything like a similar structure. Prior to its release, albums were a collection of songs – (Yes, even Sergeant Pepper). The whole thing here is created as an almost seamless, homogenous whole.

ROGER WATERS AT THE MIXING DESK

It starts with a simple heartbeat slowly increasing in volume – on first hearing you thought “What the hell is this about?” - and ends with the total reverse, the heartbeat fading away into nothing. Between these endpieces, there are nine sections, segued together quite brilliantly. Only in the middle of the work, where the original Vinyl LP ended Side 1, is there a hiccup. But, apart from that, one section slides effortlessly into the next – you can’t see the join, except when you realise that the ideas have moved on to another subject!

A new idea Roger Waters had was to use recordings of people around him reacting to a disarmingly simple but very leading set of questions he asked. He wanted to tease out their inner thoughts and prejudices, their opinions on things like violence and madness. He then overlayed these comments throughout the record. This gives a really dark and edgy side to the whole production, as the snippets do not always appear when you might expect them to - rather like the way our minds work, when we are suddenly hit by changes of subject in a random way we can’t control or understand.

All of that sounds a bit bleak, and, to be fair, it is a record which does not contain much optimism. You certainly don’t get DJs putting it on when they want to fill the dance floor at the wedding reception. It’s a very intimate and introspective thing actually, best listened to on one’s own, in a darkened room, with the sound up very high.

I suspect I’ve played this record more than any other I’ve ever owned. And, apart from all I’ve said above, the thing which keeps me coming back to it time and again, is that it’s an absolutely first rate collection of brilliant, memorable songs with great tunes. With David Gilmour’s soaring, and sometimes searing guitar, through the extraordinary wordless solo by Clare Torry on “The Great Gig in the Sky”, through Rick Wright’s hauntingly beautiful and introspective piano playing, there isn’t a weak link anywhere. In spite of Roger Water’s trying to “rubbish” it a bit now, calling it ”a bit Lower Sixth”, I think his overall vision was quite remarkable.

DAVE GILMOUR 35 YEARS AGO

DAVE GILMOUR IN ACTION - EARLY 70s

ROGER WATERS AND DRUMMER, NICK MASON

CLARE TORRY RECORDING "THE GREAT GIG IN THE SKY"

This bit will sound as if Melvyn Bragg has suddenly leant over my shoulder and started whispering in my ear, but I’ve been trying to think of a piece of art, created in my lifetime, which is more important, more significant and has had more effect on people in the Western World than “Dark Side of the Moon”, and actually I’m struggling.

I think it is an absolute masterpiece.

Tags:

dave gilmour,
pink floyd,
roger waters,clare torry,
dark side of the moon,
best album

SPOT THE MISSING WORD

An extract from our local Village magazine, and the first for this site – a Quiz.

Not for us the soft underbelly of the Million Dollar question on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”. Neither do we steep so abjectly low as the demeaning obviousness of “Round Britain Quiz”. And the straightforward, child-like simplicity of the Times “Ximenes” crossword has no place here.

This one’s really fiendish – but, at the same time, very simple. All you have to do is guess the 5 letter word which has been blanked out with asterisks in the excerpt which follows.

“A very successful ***** night was held last Saturday. We were entertained by our friends from the (place name withheld for security reasons) area: pictured from the left (Tecwyn Jones, Glyn Jones, Dilys Hughes (nee Jones), newcomer and rising talent, Rhys Jones and lastly, Evan Jones, who hosted the evening.” ……..

If, as I can easily imagine, this devilish problem completely defeats you, please e-mail the author, and, depending upon the amount of obsequious grovelling you indulge in, I may, repeat, may, offer a small clue.

WELL ANYWAY, IT AMUSED ME - No. 20

Grandparent, arriving at school, to pick up 6 year old Grandson: “Did you have a good day at school today?”

Grandson to Grandparent: “Yes thanks, Grandma.”

Grandparent to Grandson: “What did you do in class today?”

Grandson to Grandparent: “I don’t know – I’ve just deleted those files.”

Tags:

humour

THE "G" IN GMT STANDS FOR GREENWICH, NOT GLASGOW

It’s that one day of the year. The bright sparks in Westminster, 91 years ago, decreed that they would introduce the concept of British Summer Time.

The clocks go forward, or they go back. I’m getting to the age where I have to work out which is which, with the obvious result that one year, I got it wrong, and turned up to meet someone two hours before we had actually agreed to see each other. Instead of a perfectly reasonable 9.30am, his house was awoken by my push on the doorbell at 7.30am on a Sunday morning.

I don't think they were terribly impressed.

Each year, about now, we see a flurry of articles in the Press pointing out that, if we were really serious about minimising injury and loss of life among the population, we would change the way we do it, and keep British Summer Time going all year round. But, because a few shouty people in Scotland, who, if I’m not mistaken, now have their own Parliament, whinge on, as only Scots and Scousers can manage, we English withdraw from the argument, and keep the status quo. And a few more of our children, on the way home from school, are apparently sent for a terminal early bath, or at least suffer some unnecessary body modifications because we can’t be bothered.

If you look at the history of it all, it’s not quite as boring as you might imagine. Until the arrival of the railways in the early Nineteenth Century, each area of the country kept their own local time. It didn’t really matter that Nuneaton time was a few minutes different from Scunthorpe time. It took a day or so to get from one to the other, so what did a couple of minutes matter. The Railway timetables, over a period of 20 or so years put paid to that, although the more cynical among us might suspect that Virgin Rail has re-introduced it recently without telling us.

It wasn’t until 1880 though, that Parliament actually legislated to make UK time consistent with GMT throughout the country. Even at this date, Irish time, known as Dublin Mean Time (25 minutes behind GMT – Don’t even ask!) remained different. It took until 1916 for the Irish to come in line with the rest of the UK.

At the same time British Summer Time was introduced, and you’d have thought that that would have been it, until such things as Atomic Time was introduced. But No. The Government has fiddled about with this like a fiddly about thing. We even had double BST during the years of the Second World War. Intriguingly, the Government insisted that the reasons that it was removed after the war, were so sensitive that the papers were not to be released for 100 years. Intriguing.

Since 1916, in excess of 70 separate pieces of legislation tampering with our clocks have been passed, repealed, changed and reinstated since that time.

I had completely forgotten this, but we had a period from 1968 to 1972, when BST was kept on as an experiment all year. Apparently the forecast overall reduction of accidents did occur, but something (unknown) happened to make us revert to the previous BST/GMT arrangement at the end of that period.

And so it goes on. Scotland and Northern Ireland claim that a change to GMT+1 hour all year round would result in Sunrise in the most northerly parts of their countries not occurring until 10am or so. And this seem to have been the reason why successive attempts to change the system have failed.

Now I may be wrong, but I thought there were only about 25 people who lived north of Glasgow, so the whole of the UK is being disadvantaged by these guys. And now Scotland has its own Legislative Assembly, why not let them decide for themselves? What’s so difficult about a different timezone for Scotland if that’s what they want?

The whole thing seems to be very simple to me. Keep GMT in place all year round. It means the accident issue in England would be improved, it means I don’t face the possibility of arriving on a friend’s doorstep while his wife’s hair is still in curlers, and she’s only got the undercoat of her make-up on. It also has the passing benefit of getting up the noses of those north of the Border, who are getting a bit big for their boots. Remember Culloden, I say.

And most of all, this evening, when I was looking at the clock on this one particular day of the year, waiting at 5.45pm for the Sun to pass over the 6pm Yard-Arm, to break out the Gin, I wouldn’t have had to wait for a further miserable 15 minutes to demonstrate to myself, as a point of personal pride, that I am in control of my Alcohol Intake.

THE REAL REASON!

PICK OF THE PICS No. 6

I don't seem to have put up one of my own pictures onto this site for quite a while.

We live in the country, and have a distant, easterly view of Ironbridge. It has a power station there, and this evening, just as the sun was setting, I turned away from the sunset, and the scene which faced me was the one below.

IRONBRIDGE POWER STATION AT SUNDOWN

Sometimes the results of Man's efforts in the landscape can look rather impressive.

Tags:

ironbridge,
sunset,
power station,landscape,
photography

MINGLESSNESS

80% of the front page of my newspaper yesterday, Tuesday, was dominated by a lurid report sparked by Dawn Primarolo, the well known anagram and part time Public Health Ministress, that, as part of the most highly oppressed section of the population, I am now being targeted as a potentially “hazardous” consumer of alcohol – the Middle-Class Vice.

Someone has worked out that the worst areas in the country for consuming “hazardous” quantities of alcohol are Runnymede and Harrogate, where apparently 26.4% of the adults living there are potential abusers. Don’t ask how they work out the last decimal place here, ‘cos I’ve no idea. But this is such an important revelation that four fifths of the complete Front Page is given over to it.

However, skulking away, at the top right hand corner of the front page is a pithy little comment, occupying 3.04% of the remaining 20% of the page’s area, and totalling 46 words, noting that Sir Menzies Campbell had resigned as leader of the Lib-Dems.

Hang on a minute. This guy is (or was, as of 6.30pm on Monday) the leader of the party that polled 5,981,874 votes out of a total of 27,110,727 votes cast in the 2005 Election in the whole of this country – that’s 22.1% of the electorate. Call me old fashioned but I think that’s a bit newsworthy.

Yes, the Lib-Dems seem to have got themselves in an almighty tangle in the manner of his going. We seem to have Simon Hughes and Vince Cable appearing on the doorstep of the Cowley Street Party Headquarters, apparently doing a pretty good impression of a couple of Division 2 undertakers, announcing, in solemn terms, Ming’s departure, with no Ming to be seen. Which gem of a PR person planned that one?

But none of that is any reason for the Times to pop a 46 word “obituaryette” on the Front page, and carry on as usual. They’d clearly had the time to do the in depth three page spread because it’s all there on Pages 2-4. So it wasn’t one of those stories which blew just at the wrong time of day. They presumably thought that unruly, Chianti slurping Runnymede housewives were more newsworthy than the sudden demise of third most important Party leader in the land.

Perhaps that’s the reason why he’s been pushed out.

He always struck me as a man with more than his fair share of integrity and honesty - commodities which seem to be in rather short supply in Parliament these days.

Ho-Hum.

PS – As far as Lib-Dem future is concerned, is there anyone out there, apart from their respective Mums, who could honestly put hand on heart and either name or identify from a “Usual Suspects” line-up (and without a Chizz sheet), any of the potential Lib-Dem Leader replacements?

No, me neither.

Tags:

menzies campbell,
lib dems

LIES, DAMN LIES, AND NEWSPAPER CIRCULATION CLAIMS

Graph A below is copied from the front page of the “Daily Telegraph” today. In the fight for “Broadsheet Supremacy”, this is the Telegraph’s poke in the eye to “The Times”, and the graph shows a massive lead for the Telegraph over the Times. It says “Over the past two years, The Daily Telegraph has increased its lead over the Times from 198,175 copies in October 2005 to 236,491 copies in September this year.”

GRAPH A

Well, that seems quite clear.

Graph B below is copied from the front page of the “The Times” yesterday, and the graph shows a (not quite so) massive lead for the Times over the Telegraph. In the fight for “Broadsheet Supremacy”, this is the Times’ poke in the eye to the Telegraph. It says “Full rate sales of the Times were ahead of the Daily Telegraph for the 35th consecutive month …”.

GRAPH B

Well, that also seems quite clear.

I feel like writing to, say, "The Guardian", as the current, Independent (!) third place highest seller in the Broadsheet circulation battle, to ask them, as an interested and also hopefully a disinterested bystander, if they can help throw any light on all this, and possibly explain it to me.

Something tells me though, that it would all be a waste of time, because they’d have another graph which proved that the Guardian was the best seller of all.

Tags:

the times,
daily telegraph,
statistics,telegraph

NOW LET ME JUST STOP YOU THERE …

For anyone wondering where the most effective form of political opposition in this country has resided over the past decade, the answer is George Parr. He is the “Government Spokesman”, the Defence Minister, the Chief Executive of a thrusting NHS Healthcare Trust or a high profile businessman (in this case Sir George Parr), doing a “One to One” with a wide-eyed and incredulous, ever so slightly confused and disbelieving TV interviewer.

Played interchangeably by John Fortune or John Bird, (Sir) George Parr points up the utter absurdities, the rank prejudices, the craven scandals and the simply unbelievable happenings which those in high places involve themselves in, seemingly without the individuals involved feeling the slightest hint of personal embarrassment.

Last night, I pulled a book off one of my shelves – the original 1996 issue of “The Long Johns”. This is a set of verbatim scripts by Bird and Fortune from a great TV programme which in the 90s was called “Rory Bremner – Who Else”. They struck me at the time as utter gems, lasting no more than 5 minutes or so, as inserts into Rory Bremner’s show. I religiously recorded them all onto video, and when someone had the sense to publish the best of the scripts on Audio cassette, and lastly in Book form, I felt that my Entertainment Cup ranneth over.

Spookily coincidentally, I noticed today, that His Nasalness Sir Melvyn Bragg is devoting tomorrow night’s South Bank Show to Bird and Fortune. At last someone I’ve heard of - so that’s a must to watch and record.

The pair of them have been on the scene for so long now that you almost forget what modern TV satire was before them. Actually you can’t forget it, it wasn’t there until they put it in place. John Bird was the Cambridge Director of the original Footlights reviews, which shot Peter Cook into the public’s awareness. A couple of years later, John Fortune followed in Bird’s footsteps. They have been tweaking the tail of the Country’s establishment ever since, and it comes as a rather worrying surprise to realise that John Bird is now 70. Many of his “fellow travellers” have gone to the great TV studio in the sky – Ned Sherrin only a week or so ago, Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore.

Between them, they’ve got the pompous, the frighteningly intense and humourless politician or the scurrilous businessman, well and truly taped. And they do so in a simple way – all they do is to get the infinitely flexible George Parr to tell the truth – about Youth Crime, Prisons, the NHS, Asylum and immigration, Old People’s Homes, The Armed forces, Defence Procurement. Apart from one glorious sketch on Prison reform where they got a complete fit of the giggles, they play it dead straight. No laughs from them – that’s your job.

The really scary thing is that, in their hands, the truth is horrifyingly funny. You really can’t believe that we elect or allow the movers and shakers in the world to do all these things, but we do. Paul Hoggart’s “Times” note today sums their view on one aspect of it all - British Defence - “With British defence policy, you don’t have to make up jokes. You just say it.”

Their disarmingly simple conversation slashes like a rapier, leaving its marks, Zorro-like, over the subject, and, by making no judgements themselves, they leave you with an inescapable and logical conclusion, after, that is, you’ve wiped the tears of hysterical laughter from your eyes.

I’m not going to put lots of examples here – just watch the "Bremner, Bird and Fortune" Shows, watch the South Bank Show, buy one of their compilation cassettes, or read one of their books.

As bursters of political and business Egos, there are none finer. Absolute National Treasures.

Tags:

bird and fortune,
john fortune,
john bird,bird,
fortune

WORLD'S BEST PHOTOGRAPHERS - No 4 - SEBASTIAO SALGADO

I believe Sebastião Salgado is the most important photographer in the world today.

He is a Brazilian who studied Law and Economics, becoming an Economist in the late 60s in the Finance Ministry in São Paulo. Clearly a man with a dead centre socialist view of the world, he travelled to Africa for the World Bank and, presumably as a result of what he saw, decided to change careers and become a photographer. He worked for a couple of photographic Agencies during the 70s, finally joining the World famous Magnum group in 1979.

He set out to document the lives of people, particularly workers, in the Third World and show to those in the Western World, who probably don’t want to know, just how wide the divide between Us and Them actually is. Since the early 80s he has travelled the world, relentlessly recording the unremitting life that is the working lot of a huge proportion of the world today – the struggle for survival.

His pictures range over the Kuwaiti Oil field workers just after the first Gulf War, African tea Pickers, people building dams in India with their bare hands, Indonesians working in fuming Sulphur Mines, Mediterranean Fishermen, Bangladeshi men cutting up derelict ships by hand with hacksaws and, most famously, Brazilian miners manually digging Gold out in an enormous man-made pit, and photographed like something out from the mind of Hieronymus Bosch.

Although he sees fit almost to make light of his photographic abilities, the factor which catapults him above all others is the amazing power and drama he gets into his pictures, with the individual worker taking centre stage in the action. He works exclusively in Black and white, and seems to have the ability to get right in with the subjects, but in a way where they seem to treat him as part of them rather than as an outsider.

In almost every image, you are looking at back-breaking toil, merciless effort and (to these Western eyes) appalling poverty. And yet he brings a remarkable sense of dignity and even nobility to his images, which is uniquely uplifting. He uses light in an almost religious way, and similarly, his compositions often invoke religious overtones – the Cross, the Virgin Mary, even the 12 disciples appear frequently in his pictures.

He also possesses the “decisive moment” touch identified by Henri Cartier-Bresson. All the images he shows, you feel he’s hit the shutter at JUST the right millisecond. An instant earlier, or later, and the shot would not be as good.

And yet he describes his work as “militant photography”. Now there’s an interesting discussion.

It is this dichotomy of Subject vs Beauty which makes his pictures so important. The terrific quality of his work is what makes it stand out and makes Western eyes look at it, and by looking, get the Third World issues onto people’s tongues and into their minds.

His unique power to do this is the reason I’m writing this today.

In a strange way, I find it quite disquieting to go to an exhibition of his or turn the pages of one of his books, and feel the contrast between the beautifully constructed images staring out at me, and the harsh, unrelenting pressures on the people who are the subjects of the pictures. I can almost feel ashamed of myself for enjoying what I see, but the simple fact is they are quite remarkable pieces of work, and I rationalise it to myself by concluding that’s what he actually wants to achieve.

Salgado himself recognises this - a couple of quotes of his recently –

“I don’t want anyone to appreciate the light or the palette of tones. I want my pictures to inform, to provoke discussion – and to raise money.”

“If you take a picture of a human that does not make him noble, there is no reason to take this picture. That is my way of seeing things.”

Those two sentences give you a strong clue as to where he is coming from. He wants to use his skills to get a massive message across, and because he’s so good, he can make it work. But, as a means to get an unwelcome message across, his work, created by a single person, just taking and publishing pictures, punches way, way above its weight.

I don’t think it’s either fair or even possible to compare the ability of say, a Franco Fontana taking beautifully simple Landscape images, or an Elliott Erwitt taking humorous, quirky urban shots, with Salgado’s exquisite and hugely thought provoking output. What they do is so different – yes, they all take photographs, and very good ones, but there it ends. So, I’m not sure it’s meaningful to say “This Man is the Best photographer on the Planet”. However, if a straw poll was to be taken among photographers throughout the World, I’ll bet that Salgado, out of them all, would come out top.

I think, it is much easier to say however, because of what he is doing, and because of how well he has done it, and in the final analysis, because of the real change in human perception he, personally as one man documenting some quite unpalatable facts, has made throughout the Western World, that he is without doubt the Most Important.

I’ve borrowed a few of his images from one of the books of his I’ve bought, to give a flavour of just how good he is. His books are real works of art, although he probably wouldn’t call them that. You handle them lovingly, but always consciously thinking about the subject matter.

I hope that is what he wants to achieve.

Tags: worlds best photographer,
great photographers,
salgado,sebastiao salgado

BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE - JESUIT STYLE

It is one of life’s real, real pleasures watching a new grandchild taking their first steps in the world, both literally and metaphorically. Grandchild No.3 is now 16 months old, and walking like a good’un, as well as starting to speak. Today, I taught him the word “Excellent”, to be spoken each time after building up a pile of five building blocks, and then demolishing them with something that looks as if it could develop into a very useful late Cover Drive in years to come.

The second year of a child’s life brings on some remarkable, and really rather humbling changes – walking, talking, a sense of humour, and the simple genius of interaction.

There is however a downside. I thought that, having gone through the cycle twice already with Nos. 1 and 2, that my days with Bob the Builder would now be over.

But No.

As a result of the march of technology, we now have it on DVD rather than a Video tape, but the change of medium does nothing to reduce its Irritation Quotient. Even the introductory music gets at you. You can’t bear the thought that people who you want to look up to you (you know who you are!), will hear you humming it or even worse, singing the words. But it’s so infectious that you find yourself coming out with it, and an incipient sense of almost self loathing comes over you as, in spite of your efforts, you can’t get it out of your mind.

But it’s the “cast” of characters which gets me. Bob’s such a wus – as a role model to the under threes for the male of the species, he’s a complete disaster. It always has to be him who staples his mobile phone under the asphalt roof he’s just redone. It’s always him that makes a fool of himself. And, always humourlessly pointing out the errors of Bob’s way’s there’s that ghastly, simpering, whining female Wendy, who as far as I can see has never, ever done anything wrong. If she is the style upon which society’s “new females” base themselves, then I can understand how Hazel Blears and the like have got to where they are. And what about Wendy’s sister, Jenny? It is difficult to get the word “tart” out of your mind here.

The really awful thing about it all is that the episodes that I watched, or at least were on when I was in the room today, were written by a man. What’s this guy doing? Whose side is he on?

We need to get a few episodes written by someone like Geoffrey Boycott or Michael Winner or even Ricky Gervais – TV is supposed to be a matter of balance after all. We need Bob ringing Wendy telling her in no uncertain terms to get the dinner on, and clean the whippets out – and NOW!

And what about the machines? We have a digger called Lofty who is afraid of heights (male, you’ll notice), and a range of other dysfunctional creations aimed at moulding today's under fives’ characters. Oh, and particularly nauseating is the little cement mixer Dizzy, who, in each introduction to the programme, overtakes some of the other machines like an idiot on the blind side of a hill, and clearly needs to be done for “due care and attention”. She (at least I think it’s female), is really irritating and, in my balanced view, needs a bit of a slap.

The Jesuit comment of "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man." comes to mind. If this is what we give the toddlers of today as aspiration, I start to worry about the horde of individuals whom I need to earn the money to pay my pension.

To think that grandchild No. 3 is going to have to fight not only the world, but also the massed band of Bob’s worryingly unnerving collaborators. If he manages to grow up along the straight and narrow after being subjected to all that, he’ll have played a blinder.

Bring back Muffin the Mule!

Tags:

bob the builder,
muffin the mule

IT'S ALL A MATTER OF TIMING

Well, off we go. The inquest into Diana’s death started today, a mere ten years and one month after a phone call from a friend woke us at 8.30 one Sunday morning to tell us that Diana had been killed in a Paris underpass. It was one of those Kennedy/Lennon/Twin Towers moments which you remember for ever.

Why is it with things of this magnitude, that the review which inevitably follows, takes so long to come to the boil? First the French authorities, and then the British investigate it, and now 121 months later, we finally get to a formal inquest.

You could be easily forgiven thinking that the passing of time was seen as a key factor in diminishing the public’s interest in the proceedings. We’ve had the 10th anniversary, we’ve endured the concert, and the two princes asking for the "book to be closed". Today, at the inquest, less than 25% of the public seats were taken. That wouldn’t have been the case 5 year ago. So perhaps, for most people, excluding Mr Al Fayed, the thing is starting to fade a tad into history. And perhaps, that is what “they” wanted all along. You can’t help but wonder if the huge delay is simply Plan A from the Establishment.

But you see this almost as a trademark in all the big political set-pieces. Put some time and distance between the event, and the time when the report is issued or the court case finally gets heard. People have died, emigrated, changed, companies are not run by those under suspicion, and the thing takes on a degree of academic, almost impersonal review, where it is also now, conveniently, too late to exact any meaningful penalty.

Think of Maxwell. He died, either accidentally, suicidally, or at the hand of others, in 1991. The report which the DTI produced on the matter took 10 years to surface. By which time, he was a bit of folk-lore/notorious gangster/spy/businessman/potential war crime suspect – add more to suit yourself. The fact that he destroyed 30,000 pensioner’s lives by his actions seems to have been lost in time. The fact that his Auditors, Coopers and Lybrand, were finally, 10 years after the event, hauled over the coals seems to have been lost in time as well. They had even become a different company in 2001, and whilst contrite about their actions a decade previously, life for them seemed to move on without too much change. A decade can make things look so different.

Looking back at another case however, you conclude that Diana’s inquest and the Maxwell report have actually surfaced with a deal of what can only be described as unseemly haste.

Are you sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin.

Between 1978 and 1982, our Government provided assistance totalling £77 million to a company called DeLorean, to build a brand new sports car in a brand new manufacturing plant in Belfast. The grand plan was to produce 30,000 cars a year, and employ 2,000 people over 5 years in a politically highly charged, UK unemployment black-spot.

One year after production started, the company went into receivership, having produced just over 8,000 cars, and with a workforce of 2,600 people – what we would probably see in hindsight as a significant, negative variance to Plan.

The saga about who did what, to whom, and when, is contained in a 61 page report issued by the Northern Ireland Audit Office. The report, were it not for the fact that it is trying to explain how our leaders stood in a suburb of Belfast ripping up our five pound notes as quickly as they could manage it, is almost high farce. It sets the UK Government, and its team of lawyers against Arthur Andersen, later to star in the Blockbuster Enron affair, and if you want a good hour’s reading to convince you that the Government should not be trusted with your money, download it. You will not be disappointed.

By the way, the date on the NIAO’s report, should you be interested, is 12th February 2004, some 22 years after the company failed.

THE REPORT

The claim against Andersens is similar to the Coopers and Lybrand/Maxwell in that both companies were being accused of failure to declare fraud in their Audit reports on the respective companies.

In the case of DeLorean, the Research and Development for the car was to be performed by Lotus Cars Ltd, under an agreement with a Swiss company (GPD) who retained the services of Lotus. The original agreement provided for GPD/Lotus to receive $17.65 million, although DeLorean paid a further $23 million on a “cost plus” basis to Lotus/GPD for, allegedly, additional development work on the car. It later transpired that none of the initial $17.65 million ever reached Lotus.

In the end, following a culture clash between the American Andersen partnership, who, reading between the lines in the report, were very keen to string the proceedings out until the UK Government got fed up with it all, and the UK Government, who, equally clearly, wanted the whole thing to go away, and like a boomerang, the further they threw it, the speedier it came back. In the end, out of claims lodged against Andersens of £73 million in the UK, and a further $100 million in the USA, the DTI finally agreed a settlement of £20.72 million.

In addition, a further recovery of £15.64 million was obtained from the Receivers, following realisations of the DeLorean Company’s assets, as well as settlements of court actions arising out of the GPD misappropriations.

There were a few other “sundries” which built the total receipts up to £40.45 million, BUT, the DTI’s external costs in all this amounted to £20.72 million, and when asked what their internal costs over the years 1982-2002 were, they were unable to proffer a figure. The NIAO’s view was that “these costs amounted to a substantial sum”. So, in all probability, after 20 year’s work the net receipts were probably as near zero as makes no difference.

Interestingly, there are a few paragraphs relating to the Lotus saga strewn around the report. It is well known that the Government wanted to charge John Delorean with something, but being American, that came to nothing. They would have prosecuted Colin Chapman, the Lotus chief Executive, and probably the greatest racing car designer ever, except he had died from a Heart Attack three years previously. The poor sod they managed to charge, because he was a non-American who was still alive, was Fred Bushell, the Lotus Finance Director.

At a trial held in Belfast, Lord Justice Murray sentenced Bushell to 3 years imprisonment, and a fine of £1.6 million. The judge’s closing remarks in Bushell’s trial went on “…….and had Delorean not been American, and beyond the court’s jurisdiction, and Chapman alive, each would have been given 10 year prison sentences.”

If you rummage around in the Appendices to the NIAO’s report, you find entries relating to subsequent successful court actions for recovery of monies against Lotus (£1 million), Fred Bushell (£3.0 million), John Delorean ($9.5 million), and Colin Chapman’s estate (£4.67 million). Now, I don’t remember reading that in any of the Colin Chapman books I’ve seen.

The whole sorry saga, however, started its amazing story way back in 1978, and the benefit of the 22 year timescale between deciding to spend £77 million of our my money in building 8,000 cars in Northern Ireland, and producing the report which documents what happened, is that the extreme redness in the faces of those responsible in Government is now completely invisible.

Job done?

Tags:

delorean,
de lorean,
colin chapman,maxwell,
diana inquest,
lotus

WHAT'S THE SPANISH FOR "SCHADENFREUDE"? - TODAY'S JAPANESE GRAND PRIX

As a sexagenarian (please, for my sake, look it up if you only think you know what the word means), my regular reader could be forgiven for suspecting that I believe everything ten years old is better than its equivalent today. And that everything twenty years old is even better than the ten year old version. And that the fifty year old version – well that’s perfection on a stick.

Not so.

I rabbit on, in these pages, about this and that, and quite often “this” is about Motor Racing, one of my lifelong passions. Usually, I look back through the selective lenses of hindsight, and pick out the good bits, leaving my convenient filter of Early Onset Whatever-its-called to forget the less than good bits. Like the fact that people died doing it with terrifying regularity. In 1968, one top class driver was killed on the 7th day of four successive months. Another blogster worked out that, in the 60s, if you raced for five years, you had a two out of three chance of dying at the wheel. Thank God modern technology has made dramatic improvements there.

I watched the Japanese Grand Prix today, and marvelled at it all. A race which we’ll look back on for a long time, I suspect. It absolutely poured down for the whole race, and if you ever want a scenario which sorts the men from the boys, that was today. The great effect rain brings to such an occasion is that it removes the boring Computer game environment in which most Grand Prix racing today takes place, and it puts the control very firmly back in the hands of those men who know how to drive. And that’s not always those who are paid the most or who have been in the game longest.

You could moan about Michael Schumacher for an awful lot, but when he got in a racing car on a wet track, he was simply in a different league from the rest. Look up Senna’s record in the wet if you ever start to doubt how good he was. Read how Jackie Stewart won the 1968 German Grand Prix by over 4 minutes (yes, Minutes!) in the wet. The cream very definitely comes to the top in Motor Racing when it rains.

Today Lewis Hamilton won almost faultlessly, and if you had any doubts about how good he is (and I admit I did), today sorted them out. But look at who else put in brilliant performances today – Raikkenen, Alonso, Button, Coulthard and Webber all showed their class, and newer boys Vettel (at least until he drove into his team-mate Webber when they were 2nd and 3rd, putting them both out of the race – not terribly advisable!) and Kovalainen, who showed his Renault team-mate Fisichella how to do it all.

And if you see a re-run of the last few corners with Massa and Kubica fighting like spitting cats for (I think) 6th place, you can start to believe that the spirit of Arnoux and Villeneuve at Dijon in 1979 is still alive.

If you don’t recall that race, take a look at this clip.

ARNOUX (YELLOW RENAULT) & VILLENEUVE (RED FERARRI) AT DIJON IN 1979

Anyway, my faith in top class Motor Racing took a leap upwards today. And it’s suddenly quite clear and logical as I write, following my evening meal with a couple of not ungenerous glasses of decent Riesling, how Formula 1 racing should be organised in the future.

Get away from races being won by superior Pit-Stop strategising, and putting one lap more fuel in your car than the other bloke. Stop the grip of aerodynamics overwhelming the whole issue of car design, and putting the mockers on the idea of an overtaking manouevre.

Get all the circuit owners to put a large hosepipe around the track, turn it on at the start of Practice on a Friday and run every race with the track streaming with water, as it was today. The spectators can be comfortable watching it all in the dry, and the drivers can show us all just how good they all really are.

Simple really.

Tags:

japanese grand prix,
lewis hamilton,
f1,
formula 1,
grand prix

DON'T MENTION THE WAR ... I THINK I GOT AWAY WITH IT ALL RIGHT.

“Every morning I get up, I read the obituary page. If my name’s not there, I shave.”

George Burns

It must be my age, but I love reading obituaries – they often contain some of the most elegant writing to be had in a newspaper. Often full of wit, mirth, sardonic understatement and barely disguised innuendo, they also draw you attention to the lives of people who can intrigue you, mystify you and often amaze you.

By custom always anonymous, the ones I like the best are in the “Telegraph”. Yesterday was no exception. One was on John Gardiner, probably the best restorer of old racing cars in the world. A man who, literally, without whom, Vintage Car racing today would not be possible. Together with Dick Crosthwaite, he founded Crosthwaite & Gardiner (C&G), a vehicle restoration company which on its own demonstrates that this country can still produce true champions in the field of Engineering.

Just look at their website, www.crosthwaiteandgardiner.com and see what they’ve achieved.

John was in his mid 60s, and by all accounts a tad prickly, sounding as if fools were people he did not suffer gladly. He was clearly an utter engineering perfectionist, totally tuned into avoiding the fine line of prissy over-restoration, but getting it back as the original would have been, however that needed to be done.

A small sample of yesterday’s piece –

"After C&G had restored and prepared an original pre-war Auto Union Grand Prix car, Crosthwaite talked Audi into funding production of perfect running replicas of these complex machines. Gardiner master-minded the project, and visiting Audi engineers were astonished to find him working from a modest farm at Buxted, Sussex.

When Audi insisted on manufacturing the V16-cylinder engine crankshaft for these cars, it failed Gardiner's rigorous inspection; and when an Audi committee quibbled endlessly over technical details Gardiner told them: "Listen, all you've got to do is sign the cheques and tell us how big you want the swastikas painted."

Mmmmm.

It may not be quite the same car, but to get an idea what these guys created in their “modest farm”, look at this picture I took at Goodwood this year. This is one very serious motor car – way over 500 HP, and built originally in the mid 30s.

NOW THIS IS A RACING CAR

The quality of their work, to use a much overused word, but one which is absolutely applicable here, is awesome.

As far as the obituary is concerned, you get a really clear picture of your man in a very few paragraphs, and you can't ask any more than that. I don't know why they are all anonymous, and I don't know who decides, in a newspaper, that J Bloggs is worthy of a few paragraphs, or not. There must also be a covert army of people writing these things, and slyly updating them when some worthwhile misdemeanor befalls their subject. A whole world about which, to extend the Fawlty Towers reference, "I know nooo-thing".

The "Telegraph", actually I think it's Pan, have published a series of collections of them, including a good one on Rogues, which will have you chuckling, and a quite sobering one on Military people which will have you wondering very seriously what this country is coming to. If you're the sort of person with a library in the loo, these books, for their content, and very apposite story length, rather than their absorbent properties, are a great buy.

Tags:

obituary,obituaries,john gardiner,telegraph,audi,crosthwaite and gardiner

THE MEANING OF SPORT - 1

I have been ruminating about changing my newspaper from “The Times” to something else for some time. But one or two things in the paper keep me paying out my 70p per day. One of them is Simon Barnes. He is Chief Sports Writer, and his articles on sport are, to me, an absolute must.

He doesn’t report on the match, or give you a stroke by stroke exposition of the previous day’s proceedings – lesser mortals do that. He hovers above these things, and writes a piece, usually from way out on Left Field, which leaves you thinking that you’d thought the same all along – except you hadn’t really put it into words or even thoughts. Barnes makes you think you had.

It was actually his piece on George Best, the day after Best died, which set me off scribbling this minimus opus, some 183 postings and 15 months ago.

I am/was an Accountant, and was some decades ago, a technically trained Aeronautical Engineer. The act of writing, even slightly creatively, was something which had given me an extremely wide berth for over half a century. But, Barnes struck a very resonant chord in me that day, so I sat down to write my thoughts about George Best. I finally put them in this Blog a year to the day after his death.

Now, I am the least likely person you’ll ever find to show any interest in Football. I have been to about three matches in my adult life, and even spent the afternoon of England’s 4-2 World Cup win in 1966 shopping for something inconsequential in downtown Guildford. But I had seen Best play on TV and, even to my utterly untutored mind, could see he was from a different planet from the rest.

But it was Barnes’s words about him which energised me. When I saw he had written a book called “The Meaning of Sport”, I raided Waterstones, curled up in an armchair and sat down with it. As sports books go, it’s simply the most thought provoking one I’ve ever read. It doesn’t go thought the “What” of Sport, it looks at the “Why”. It looks at the spirit of sport, its purpose, its power and its futility. It distils the essence of Redgrave, Federer, Rooney, Sampras, Beckham, even Flintoff, and ponders on why what they do, be it kicking a ball, or yanking on an oar, is so supremely important to us.

That is not to say I agree with everything he says. He has a very individual balance on the relative importance of sports, with Soccer probably at the top. Since Soccer is a complete blindspot for me, I find myself reading about an almost alien subject.

His list of the Top 50 Sporting Events ever has me screaming "No" at a couple of them. The 1994 Grand Prix at Imola when Senna died was not a great sporting occasion. Ben Johnson’s mind blowing 100 meters run in 1988, was only a great occasion for a couple of days until his drug taking was exposed. After that, it was simply a betrayal. But we all have our own individual take on this, and it’s fascinating to see someone like him laying his set out for all to see.

On the other hand, his complete disdain for Golf, one of the most mind bending and psychologically intriguing games Man has yet invented, leaves me ranting at him about his lack of understanding and the level of his idiocy.

But, in spite of all that, and maybe because of it, he is continually twanging at your thoughts. The book rambles around, returning quite frequently to the things he clearly feels most deeply. ignoring these thoughts about his own individual sporting balance, I read it through in one sitting, and then started to read it again. And that, with a pretty massive pile of unread books beside my bedside table, is probably the ultimate accolade.

I’ve read a few sporting books, but I’ve never read one like this. It seems to stands above Sport, and looks at the subject as an essence, as a myth, as a mental challenge.

A very original, and brilliant book.

Tags:

meaning of sport,
barnes,
simon barnes,
book review