THE LION BAR IN WINTER - CRISIS TIME?

There’s a scary rumour around that the “Lion Bar” is no more.

Without in any way admitting to being hooked on the stuff, I can seriously understand why the “Bar of Chocolate” is probably quite high up on the List of “A” Class Addictive Substances List, if Our Leaders, in their unceasing quest to measure and control Our Lives Totally, ever thought about creating such a thing. And the position of the Lion Bar in this List would be somewhere at the very top, espescially the King Size Version. I have only eaten one of those Monsters once, and I was not mentally strong enough at the time to dare to read the contents label, as I suspect I would have collapsed at the Levels of Calories, Fat, etc etc etc I had just consumed.

But, in reality, that’s the whole point about them, isn’t it? It’s called Comfort Food for goodness sake, and that’s precisely what it is. When it’s what you want, the idea of nibbling a Raw Brussel Sprout, or a Mung Bean and Tofu Surprise isn’t even on the board. And, in this author’s very humble opinion, The Lion Bar is King – or is it more of a case of “The King is Dead, Long live the Raspberry, Granola and Oat Krunchie?”

Checking on Nestle’s web site leads us nowhere. There’s a very carefully, mealy mouthily worded comment about the Lion Bar on their List of Products. Each of their many products has a “Come on, Eat Me” picture alongside the description, but the Lion Bar’s section sits there pictureless, and the caption simply and forlornly reads –

Lion bars were launched in 1976 and are aimed primarily at young men aged 16-24.

Which in itself is a bit of a bummer – I’m not sure I like to be associated with a target market of “young men aged 16-24” – the way they write it doesn’t sound over complimentary to me. But the main issue is they get you well and truly addicted over what is essentially the whole of your Chocolate eating life, and then – Pouf! Because some Swiss Business Analyst wielding a chocolate spreadsheet decides he doesn’t like the numbers, it doesn’t exist any more.

I can’t help thinking that this sort of thing ought to governed by the same sort of restrictions that prevent great works of Art from going abroad. You can see it today with Turner’s Blue Rigi where, because it’s such an important item, there is a concerted plan to save it for the nation. (Just so you don’t think I’m completely barking, here’s a picture of this intensely beautiful painting.)

TURNER'S "BLUE RIGI"

There is a mandatory stay of execution on its export while enough support, be it monetary or political, is raised to keep the thing in the UK, and so it should be. But where’s the campaign for the Lion Bar, which probably touches more people than Turner’s masterpiece? There's an argument that if you partake or are involved with something over such a long period of time, you almost begin to own a bit of it, so you should have some sort of say when a major decision about stopping its availability.

And just in case you don’t believe just how many people are so chocaholically fixated, a couple of keystrokes on a computer transports you "Lion (Bar), Witch and Wardrobe"-ly, into a totally parallel universe. Just look at the following link and be amazed - http://snackspot.org.uk/thread.php?story=0412201849sbc . In it you will find streams of learned discussions on such things as the existence of 22 different flavours of Kit Kat, including swelpme, Christmas Pudding and Green Tea (not in the same bar I hasten to add) flavours. There’s even a taste test on some of them which probably explains why they're not on sale in the UK –

There's a faint smell of sick you get from white chocolate sometimes. The Lemon Cheesecake KK flavour's sickwhiff was quite pronounced, but they were still edible if not brilliant.

The Green Tea variety absolutely reek of it, with a worrying and inexplicable subpong of melting plastic too. It certainly doesn't smell anything like any green tea I've ever drunk... can't comment on the flavour as I never made it that far. (Yeah, I'm a wimp.)

Still, the Japanese people in the room were not put off by the stench, so they didn't go to waste. Though it took a good ten minutes for the objectionable odour to waft away.

Mmmmm. Sounds really scrummy.

But, back to the main subject. If you want the Lion Bar, with its ultimate combination of Chocolate, Biscuits, Rice Krispies, Milk, Toffee – if you eat cereals in the morning, it’s a bit like a Chocolate All Day Breakfast – to be with us, for your children, and your children’s children, you may want to write in the strongest “Outraged of Tunbridge-Wells” tones to Nestle NOW.

Tomorrow may be too late.

WELL ANYWAY, IT AMUSED ME - No.6

The Letters columns of the Broadsheets (that word needs to change now - any ideas?) are a constant source of personal pleasure. Reading them gives you a shaft of awareness of the intelligence, wit, humour and simple good sense that still exists in this country.

I know it shows one's age terribly to poke fun at the young, as well as the attendant need to suppress constantly the almost Pavlovian "Well, in my day, of course ....." response. I do feel however that it's much easier when you read the letter below, written to "The Times" a while ago, which struck a very resonant chord.

Do I see a GCSE Maths question coming on?

WELL ANYWAY, IT AMUSED ME - No.5

Nameplate on the side of a building seen in Norfolk - interestingly the strapline isn't "... the names you can trust".

I wonder if his Christian Name is Nick?

"SLEEPWALKING INTO A SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY" - AGAIN!

I suppose it’s because, in the last 1000 years, this country has never been invaded, has never had its citizens “governed” by unelected people from another country, that we don’t realise just how important is the degree of personal freedom we enjoy. Perhaps taking this Oh So Important Freedom for granted, because, as a body of people, we have never been subjected to an overpowering totalitarianism, that we seem to be prepared to submit to the current insidious and gradual erosion of personal privacy which is going on around us at a gathering and seemingly unstoppable pace.

You simply wonder who the people are who want all this information, and what precisely their Grand Plan is, because it’s totally unclear to me. Just take a look at the following list –

1994: Government paves the way for major expansion of CCTV - there is now 1 CCTV installation for every 14 people in this country (more than anywhere else in the World!), and these machines are now sprouting ears to listen to what we are saying, and pattern recognition to see how many people are around, and what they are doing.

1995: The world’s first National DNA Database is established in England and Wales.

2004: Number of DNA profiles hits the two million mark. The Prime Minister has suggested that the DNA of every British adult should be stored by the state. The national database now holds 3.7 million samples, 6 per cent of the population, far higher than any other country. More than one million have been taken from people never convicted of an offence.

2004: Information Commissonaire Richard Thomas warns that Britain is ’sleepwalking into a surveillance society’

2005: MPs vote to introduce identity cards

2006: Identity Cards Act becomes law

2007: Data-sharing by Whitehall departments likely to be introduced

2008: Foreign nationals will have to start supplying fingerprints, eye or facial scans added to a National Identity register

2008: Children’s database, covering all under-16s in England and Wales, will be launched

2009: The first biometric identity cards will be issued to British citizens when they renew their passport

2010: NHS Database will store the records of 50 million patients providing details over the internet, and we all know how secure that is, don’t we? Millions of medical records are to be transferred to a central NHS database, allowing staff anywhere to access patients’ information. People who object will not be able to opt out. The most personal information will be available to hospital managers, IT departments, high street pharmacists and civil servants.

2010?: The Department of Transport is examining plans to use satellite technology to keep tabs on every vehicle’s exact movements. Estimated introduction date is around 2010, and Motorists will be forced to have a black box fitted in their cars, and will be billed for every journey they make. So if you fancy an illicit affair from 2010 onwards, make sure you go by public transport, and pay by cash! Actually, I have a view that some form of Road pricing is required – I just think it should be administered by an independent organisation, without the potentially sinister Government implications which the current plans imply.

2012?: ID cards compulsory - A whole new bag of worms!

In all of this, the government smoothly attempts to mollify us by claims that they all address Terrorism, Crime, Illegal Immigrants, Identity Theft and improved “efficiency” – it’s always terrorism, by the way, isn’t it?

They claim to be going for “Joined Up” government, but we now seem to have a set of leaders who are prepared to stand by and watch the exponentially increasing fiasco of MRSA, killing hundreds, probably thousands of people each year in hospitals, which my simple mind used to imagine were places where you got better from illnesses. And the same Government, at the same time, is stealthily and very quietly, totally, permanently and adversely changing every individual in this Country’s relationship with the State, to prevent a level of “Terrorist” destruction one or two orders of magnitude less than that. My simple mind is obviously missing a great chunk of the Westminster strategic Jig-saw here.

The situation is further exacerbated by the Public Sector’s seemingly total inability to get any of these things to work. We hear about the unbreakable level of security which will be permanently inbuilt into all these systems, and how foolproof they will be, meaning that, in their eyes, our concerns about unlawful usage of personal information are totally unnecessary and quite misplaced.

Is it just me or can anyone else recall ever seeing anything about failures in the Sex Offenders' Register, the CSA, the Criminal Records Bureau, the recent problems tracking criminal records from overseas, and the utter ineptitude the Government continues to show in its dealings with illegal immigrants.

A colleague of mine, well versed in matters Computeral, will say that the weakest link in any system is the guy who has his finger on the keyboard, and even for just the National Medical System, that number must run into many tens of thousands. Just look at the list above and see who will have access to your personal medical records - Hospital managers, IT departments, high street pharmacists and civil servants. It’s interesting to note that “The Times” reports that the National Medical database will not include information on “celebrities” and “politicians”. Now I wonder why that would be – we’d know for sure the truth about Blair’s MMR injections, and that would never do, would it? Or actually, we wouldn’t because the information would never get out.

And there was me thinking that when I went to see my Doctor, I was having a private and confidential chat with him about my innermost secrets!

The strange thing about all this, and it’s an issue which has worried me in this Blog before, is that the younger members of our society don’t seem to share these concerns. I suspect they have been brought up in an environment where it’s becoming the norm anyway, so What’s there to worry about?

It’s only when it starts to affect them personally that it starts to strike home that maybe, just maybe, this is important. Like when the CSA sends a series of demands and threats for randomly different amounts of money, none of them supported by any rational analysis, and you can’t get any information about it, or even speak to someone to discuss it. Or when the Health Visitor, ostensibly coming to your house to help with your child’s progress, asks to look around the house, and you realise they want to see any evidence of your child being maltreated. You then realise that there is a degree of official suspicion about you.

Maybe it’s a bit late then.

Tags:

surveillance,
conspiracy

WELL ANYWAY, IT AMUSED ME - No.4

This was taken recently in Newport, South Wales – actually, I can't think of anything to say!

WELL ANYWAY, IT AMUSED ME - No.3

I can’t help feeling that a few more minutes quiet reflection by the Author on the order of the words used on this notice would have eliminated the intrusive Marie Antoinette image which currently I can’t get out of my mind.

The notice is, after all, at the entrance of the local Hospital’s Major Emergencies unit.

SIX OF THE BEST - NORFOLK 1

We visit Norfolk quite a lot – its beautiful, understated countryside, its gentle non pushy people, its excellent seafood and its glorious, varied and usually almost deserted beaches and coastline make it very easy to “chill out” there.

I’ve started to put together my own photographic view of the area, and this set of six images is the first of a few sets I’ve taken so far of the area around Burnham Overy Staithe, Blakeney, Brancaster and the coast towards Cromer.

I've called the set of pictures - "Big Skies and Small Boats".

EARLY MORNING - BLAKENEY

NEAR SALTHOUSE

KIPPER HEAVEN! - CLEY NEXT THE SEA

CLEY'S FAMOUS WINDMILL AT DAWN

ON BRANCASTER BEACH

A TYPICAL NORFOLK SUNSET

Tags:

norfolk,
landscape,
photographs,
britain,
coast,
cley,
brancaster

WHAT'S MINE IS YOURS

One of the truly exhilarating intellectual challenges with which you wrestle during your roller-coaster life as an Accountant is the idea of Retention of Title – the concept where something you have bought remains the property of the Seller until you, the purchaser, have actually paid for it. You’d think it was dead simple as an idea, but no, Accountants and Lawyers being what they are, the maintainance and clarification of the Rules on all this keep some very highly paid people in employment permanently – not, I hasten to add, individuals with whom you’d want to spend too long in a pub. Anyway, we’ve all seen the comments written on the bottom of invoices which companies send to us when we buy something new.

The first invoice I received through the post after New Year contained one of these clauses. In the circumstances however, being still full of bonhomie and good naturedness, I contacted them to advise that, even in the (unlikely, I hope) event that my Bank did not honour my cheque, I was more than happy for them to retain the goods involved in the transaction whatever happened. I actually foresaw no circumstances where I would conceivably want the goods to be returned to me.

Generosity knows no bounds at this time of year!

Upon reflection, this magnanimity may also have been slightly coloured by the fact that the “goods” referred to in their invoice (Exhibit A below) were the contents of our Septic Tank which, before Christmas, they had just emptied and removed.

Enjoy your breakfast!

"THIS LIFE" TEN YEARS ON - NOT OUTSTANDING!

THE ADVERT FOR THE HOUSE

Occasionally, something comes along on TV which captures your imagination, something different from everything you’ve seen before. In 1996, I stumbled across (well, it was broadcast at something like 11 o clock on a Tuesday night on BBC2, so stumbled was about the right word) a series showing the goings on, in a London house, of five would be graduate lawyers, including all the Sex, drugs and Rock'n'Roll you could want. The camerawork was jerky, almost amateurish, the dialogue was sharp, real and immediately attention grabbing, and the characters, who had soft and dark sides as well as their brash outer shell, were very perceptively and quite brilliantly drawn. Not a great deal happened that perhaps you wouldn’t expect to happen to a bunch of pushy, aggressive, sharp young things, but the whole thing moved along with a real “buzz”, and you were immediately drawn into them and their lives – what they were, what they wanted, how they interacted, and simply how their lives panned out. As a bridge between wanting to be the hard partying twenties and being dragging reluctantly into unwanted adulthood, it was hugely addictive, lasted for 32 episodes, and was called “This Life”.

I am not an avid TV viewer, but it sits comfortably in the best three or four drama Series I have ever seen on TV.

Amy Jenkins (bizarrely, the daughter of the Labour Chancellor Roy Jenkins - what, besides Claret drinking, must have gone on in their house?) has claimed most of the plaudits for its success, although I seem to remember at the time that the really cracking episodes were written by others, particularly Richard Zajdlic. It was one of those series where you really believed in the characters – there seemed to be nothing forced about them or the way they dealt with each other, even though they were huge differences between them, both in their backgrounds or their attitudes. Even the secondary characters, Ferdy, Kenny, Kiera, Jo, Graham, the loathsome Rachel, and the equally slimy and appalling O’Donnell were jewels in the way they added colour and excitement to the storylines. And after a whirlwind two seasons, the whole thing came to a sharp halt, with the most stupendous last two seconds I’ve ever seen in a drama.

If ever you wanted a demonstration of the difference between the questions “Why did you stop?” and “Why don’t you stop?”, This Life got it absolutely right. It finished on an absolute high, and left you screaming for more. The finale gave you no idea what happened to Miles, Warren, Egg, Milly and the stupendously long legged, chain smoking, Soave drinking, beguilingly exciting Anna, and you were deliberately left to work out for yourself what directions all their lives took.

Just before Christmas, it was announced that Tony Garnett and Amy Jenkins had managed to get the main cast together again for a one off “10 years on” programme, and I have to admit to a huge rush of anticipation which stretched all through Christmas, on reading this. As a run up to the show, the whole of the original two series were shown again, and any thoughts that it might have aged over the last 10 years were immediately squashed. It was still fresh and vibrant and come last night, when it was broadcast, I sat down with a great feeling of excitement to watch 90 minutes of what was clearly going to be pure joy.

I cannot remember such a letdown in a television programme. The characters had all lost at least one of their dimensions. The storylines were contrived, inappropriate, illogical, facile, and simply unbelievable. The plotlines contained glaring errors and were hopelessly condensed, with the cadences and flow which made the original two series being completely lost. All in all, it was a self indulgent and ill thought out programme, which left you feeling the author was taking the easy option at every turn.

It was simply a programme which should never have been made. So, if you haven’t yet seen the original 1996 programmes, watch them – they are terrific and a real treat. In Warren-speak - "Outstanding!"

But don’t go anywhere near the “10 years on” update – it’s an absolute stinker.

Tags:

this life,
television,
amy jenkins,
this life 10

RUTH BERNHARD - 1905-2006

Ruth Bernhard, one of the more important photographers of the Twentieth Century died a couple of days ago, at the monumental age of 101. She was born in Germany, and moved to the USA where she spent the rest of her life. She spent some seven decades taking pictures, and being involved with people like Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Edward Weston – great names indeed. She was best known for her studies of the female form, and her still lifes. Her nudes were very classically and theatrically lit, and veered to the sculptural in style. If you want to see her pictures, just type her name into Google, and they will pour out at you.

I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but you sometimes wonder what it is that keeps people positive at these great ages. This seems to be a simple and powerful example, and is something Ruth Bernhard produced and gave out at her 90th and her 100th Birthday parties.

Just read this and imagine if you’d feel the same at that age. I found this on a website run by someone who knew the Good Lady well, but it’s so strong, I think it needs a wider audience.

ASHES TO ASHES

I have spent the last week recovering from our Cricketers’ amazing performance in throwing the 2nd Test away, and finally managed to write my thoughts down, which I finally published last Wednesday, just after the first day of the 3rd Test had finished. True to my form as a pundit, I got it completely wrong, haranguing most of our team for playing, for the first two matches at least, like a team of Big Girls Blouses.

In that blog, I threatened to eat my hat if they ever managed to get their act together, and start to make a game of it all. As is the way of things, the first day of the Perth test showed England in a totally different light, winning the day all ends up. Australia was bowled out for 244, and we ended the day on 51 for 2. Panesar took 5 wickets, so that at least is a resounding “Yaa Boo Sucks” to the England team selectors.

My faith was therefore recovered, all was well in the house, Duncan Fletcher wasn’t an idiot after all, and I felt pretty good. So, in a fit of Sauvignon Blanc driven magnanimity, in spite of England’s terrific performance, I Published.

And was Damned.

Or so I thought. The next two Cricketing days were, to say the least, not England’s finest. Watching Adam Gilchrist put together the second fastest 100 EVER was astounding. Anyone who thinks cricket is a gentle game should watch a replay of his knock. It was utterly brutal – a man on a total mission to destroy the other side. He will probably never have another day like it, and although it put a huge dent in England’s chances, it was quite riveting to watch. And, to make it even worse, it built on centuries from Hussey and Clarke, as well as a nearly one from Ponting, to put Australia into an position where an England win, or a draw seems a tad unlikely.

So, by rights, I should stand on ceremony, and keep my hat firmly on the hat-stand. But being ever the optimist, after the first day, I thought England might just do it.

And in an attempt to help them along, I thought if I did indeed eat my hat there and then, that keeping my side of the bargain would put them under some form of moral obligation to keep theirs.

THE AUTHOR SHOWING AN UNCOMMON LEVEL OF HUMILITY

Oh well, you win some, you lose some!

YOU CAN'T MAKE IT UP, CAN YOU?

CONSIDERING HIS POSITION

What is Prescott about?

We seem to have lost him off the radar recently, what with the Croquet, and the Affair. But, here he is again, this time anointing the Portuguese with spatterings of his “Green” credentials at Meeting of the Party of European Socialists.

Firstly, at short notice, he had to condense a prepared ten minute speech into five minutes. Apparently his novel technique to solve this problem was to speak twice as quickly as he had previously planned to do – actually for him, that’s a terrifyingly logical solution to the problem. Mind you, the thought of listening to the Good Man précising a speech on Socialist Greenery, on the fly, would have us all hiding behind the sofa. His approach to the concept of the Precis would probably be to read out each alternate word, and coming from him, that might just make as much sense as the original would have done.

But no, instead of that, the audience were treated to a uniquely Prescottian “scattergun” approach to oration. Actually, as a bye-the-bye, what is the adjective pertaining to Prescott – Prescotty (as in the dog), Prescotts (as in the Guards), Prescotch (as in the Whisky), Prescottish (as in the Highlands), or Prescottian (as nearly in Nova)?

Anyway back to the story, in the middle of his speech he seemed to get really wound up, and lost his way a bit, and in response to the inevitable “Spit it out!”, he did precisely that ,and fired one of his incisors at a member of the audience. He had presumably just got to the rousing “We shall fight tooth and nail …….” bit at the end, and got a bit carried away with the metaphor.

In his defence, it would seem the man has been undergoing dental work (A Bridge Too Far?) and what came out of his mouth was a part of the Work in Progress.

He managed to finish the speech, though I simply can’t get my head around John Prescott lisping his way through an extemporised Green speech in Portuguese. There seems way too many pitfalls there for the DPM even to contemplate. But there you go.

In normal Blairite fashion, the Labour apparatchiks at home had to put their spin on the issue, to try and recover some sort of normality out of this little gem. But even they seem to have failed here. All that seemed to come out of the Machine, when asked for the inevitable comment by the Media, was that his Private Office was “tight-lipped”.

Ho, Ho, Ho! Bit late for that, I'd have thought.

Christmas Humour, Westminster style.

CRICKET'S A GIRL'S GAME UNDER IT ALL

This piece was written a couple of days ago, and due to, as Harold Macmillan once said, “Events, Dear Boy, Events”, I’ve only just got round to publishing it. I’ve also just heard the score after Day One of Test Three, and hope that I may yet have to eat a good part of the hat I’m currently wearing.

Nothing would give me greater pleasure. And anyway, none of us know whether the team’s underwear is different for this match – See Below!

You see it written today that, for many people, Sport has now taken the place of War and Tribalism. It does seem to sit toweringly in many (usually Men’s) people’s list of the Most Important Things in Life. That’s not the case with me, so I’m probably a bit weird.

Except for last week, and THE CRICKET.

I simply didn’t understand why at the time, but the personal impact of our team losing the 2nd Test Match was far more dramatic than I could have imagined. I’d been daft enough to sit up until what a friend eloquently described as “Burglar’s Hours” watching the first two matches in Australia. Last week, for the first four days of the game, I had four 3 o’clock in the mornings on the trot, and interestingly not a great deal of sympathy from The Steering Committee as a consequence.

Come the last day, I chickened out at 1 o’clock in the morning, with our batsmen, at 61 for 1, getting some batting practice in, as the Draw obviously and inevitably approached.

To hear the ghastly details of what actually happened, painfully spelled out later in the day, brought me up with an involuntary shudder – something very few sporting occasions have ever done.

There have been acres of punditry since Black Tuesday, explaining the whys and the wherefores, and I’m not sure anyone has stood back and got the whole picture yet. One of the reasons Cricket is such a good game, is the huge psychological element which plays itself through the whole of the period covering the lead-up, the actual game itself, and the aftermath of the action. It’s literally part of the game’s fabric.

One writer was looking back to find a sporting parallel where such a crushing defeat was carved out of such a strong winning position, and the best he could come up with was Devon Loch blowing it all 50 yards from the line in the 1953 Derby. I think he should have looked at the 1981 Ashes where the Australians must have felt much the same after Botham with the bat, and Willis, with the ball, pulled a cricketing rabbit out of the hat.

But the event which comes to my mind was in the 1996 Masters Golf tournament, where Greg Norman led by 6 strokes from Nick Faldo going into the last round, and managed to lose by 6 strokes to Faldo, eighteen holes later, having played a life-changingly disastrous round of golf. Norman, gracious in defeat, claimed basically that it was only a golf game, and that no-one had died that day, so no big deal. Except that, magnificent golfer that he was, he never won, or got anywhere close to winning, another Major. Whenever he got anywhere near contention, you can just hear those whispers of doubt coming into his mind – “Remember Augusta 1996”, and that was it gone. Let’s hope that’s not the mind state of the England team out in Perth.

But here we are, at the start of the next test, and what have we learned? Apart from the fact that the Australians have some really top class Premier league batsmen, and in people like Shane Warne, a decidedly useful bowler. The other thing they seem to have is an utterly burning desire, not just to win, but to crush us. They never let up, and you’ve got to admire that immensely. I think they have a desire not just to win back the Ashes, but to take this series 5-0. Just to show the world that 2004 was an aberration, and that they are simply resuming their rightful place on top of the world.

But it’s not all gloom and doom. We’ve shown, in fits and starts, the capability to bat well – just remember Collinwood and Pieterson in the last match. If that wasn’t a class act, I don’t know what is. But look at the bowling. Our fastest strike bowler Harmison is playing like a .... You fill in the detail here. His attitude and demeanour says it all – he seems as if he’d rather be almost anywhere else other than on a cricket pitch, and don’t you think the Australians haven’t picked that up. His combined bowling figures in both Tests are 1 for 288. And when you add Anderson at 2 for 303, and Giles, the man at the other end, stopping the flow of runs and spinning them into a state of bamboozlement with figures of 3 for 262, you don’t have to look far for one main reason for the current state of play – between them that’s 6 for 853 in 4 innings! Bring on Monty!

But what about our self-belief, our confidence and our inner desire to thrash the living daylights out of them - that’s where we simply don’t come up to scratch. We need some form of psychological brainwashing to erase the memory of the first two matches, and instil a new self-belief in the players. You can just imagine the whisperings of Warne and Co, as soon as we get anywhere near a winning position – “Remember Adelaide, Remember Adelaide”!

I’m reminded of the film “Bull Durham”, starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. It’s a real, feel-good Baseball film which focuses on the mind games which go on aimed at making people play well. Tim Robbins, as the rookie Pitcher was throwing the ball all over the park and couldn’t get his pitching act together at all (an interesting resonance with Harmison). To make him focus and play his natural game, she got him to wear one of her suspender belts under his kit – to free up one half of his brain, and to stop him thinking too much about the next pitch. And it worked!

Now I bet Duncan Fletcher, who to my mind bears a lot of blame for where we are in this series, hasn’t thought about that one. I mean, Harmison’s playing like a big girl, so wearing their underwear probably isn’t that bad an idea. I think I’ll send them a copy.

I have a feeling they’ll need something a bit different.

NOW THIS IS AN ADAGIO

THE STORY SO FAR

There I was yesterday, sitting in the doctor’s, waiting for the practice nurse to give me my annual bollocking for not eating enough nuts and berries in my quest to avoid another heart attack, when I picked up one of their magazines to read. The small article I read, I simply thought someone was pulling my leg – big time. Especially when I looked at the date on the cover, and saw it was April 2006.

It talked about a piece of music by John Cage, an avant garde experimental American composer who died in 1992. The piece rejoiced under the catchy title of Organ2/ASLSP. Now the only piece of music I’ve heard (if that’s the right word) by John Cage is his 4’33”, which is a work performed in three movements, and lasting (yes, you’ve guessed) for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, without a single note being played. It was broadcast a while back from the Barbican, and a very strange feeling it gave off, watching a packed house sitting quite still during the performance.

JOHN CAGE

This other piece, where the ASLSP means “As slow as possible” is actually being taken very, very, very literally. Originally written as a 20 minute piece by Cage, the work is currently being performed in a beautifully restored church in Germany.

This particular performance is planned to last for 639 years. It started in 2001, and its completion is expected in 2640. In this piece, Cage was fascinated by “the discovery of slowness”, and the symbolism of the “planting of a musical apple tree”. Apparently his aim was to “rediscover calm and slowness in today’s fast changing world.” Well, even after his death, he’s done that in spades. The location for the performance is St Burchardi’s Church, in Halberstadt, Germany, an old ruined building which has been painstakingly restored to act as the home of this strange project. The 639 years comes from the length of time which had passed between the building of the church in the mid 14th Century, and its recent restoration. The team putting on the concert, wanted to match the life of the building with the length of the music’s performance, so 639 years it is.

St BURCHARDI'S CHURCH, HALBERSTADT

Apparently the first 1½years of the performance were total silence, and then a couple of notes started to play in July 2004. The piece is playing continuously (click on http://www.john-cage.halberstadt.de/new/index.php?seite=cdundtoene&l=e to hear it), and you can visit the church during the week to hear the action. The notes are held lovingly down on the keyboard by weights, and the next new note is due to be played on July 5th 2008.

Rather bizarrely, to fund the project, you can “Book a Year”, and the performance during that year will be “yours” for €1,000. You may think this would have no takers, but the first year currently available is 2014, and the range already sold is quite mystifying. You can understand someone buying the last year, so they could be there, at least in spirit, at the music’s climax, but 2553? Someone must know something I don’t.

I have to say, I thought this was an April Fool’s prank when I read the short article, but a swift trawl of the Internet proved my suspicions totally wrong. Some wag has seemingly already tried to get the 72 terabyte download from KaZaA, and apparently there are people already waiting for the 5,597,640 CD Box Set, even though the timing of its release is still unconfirmed.

I really don’t know what to say about this – I find the thought of it all quite unnerving. But listening to it for a few minutes does set your mind going, and if that was Cage’s intention, well he’s succeeded. I even suspect that an afternoon in the exquisite surroundings of St Burchardi's in Halberstadt would be a strangely moving experience.

I’ll bet you the seats for July 5th 2008 are already sold out. Extraordinary!

Tags:

organ2,
organ2/aslsp,
john cage,halberstadt

CEREAL ACRONYMITY

WHAT'S THE POINT - An exercise in Colour - REC

You know the way you read something, and think “Someone’s pulling my leg here” - Well, that happened today.

My reader will by now be aware of my fascination for Things Photographic, so I very recently trawled one of the many excellent websites which support and explain for us mortals the technical background to digital imaging. I came across a rather erudite (that means I didn’t fully understand it) article on some of the issues involved in keeping consistency in colour matching through the chain of Digital Camera, Viewing screen and the final Printer output ie making sure that what you think you photographed actually comes out as you expected in the final print. Yes, I know it’s sad, but if it wasn’t for people like me, the anorak industry would implode and disappear.

Anyway, the author was explaining how uncontrolled the printing industry is in this area – you’d think they would be totally clued up here, with process controls and standards coming out of their ears. But no – they seem to operate on the basis of “Make the colours look nice, and the customer will be happy”. Let’s hope none of the managers in this bit of the printing industry fancy a change of career direction and try their hands at building aeroplanes.

This loophole is apparently now being closed, and a range of new standards has been developed to allow the Industry to move forward on a common, standardised basis, and put a tgeeny bit of control into their processes. For reasons I haven’t the slightest interest in trying to understand, three new complementary standards have now been developed, and they are all in the process of introduction.

Their names are – Specifications for Newsprint Advertising Production (for Newspapers), General Requirements for Applications in Commercial Off-set Lithography (for Commercial Printers), and Specification for Web Off-set Publications (for more specialised Printing) – or in acronymic terms, SNAP, GRACOL and SWOP.

I kid you not – look it up on Google.

Who said the Americans didn’t have a sense of (sic) humor?

IT'S THE CHEESE, STUPID!

You trip over the answers to the problems of the Universe in odd places – last week, it was a food programme on the Radio. The presenter was in France, where a few really keen Englishmen were holding a Cheese Festival – Coals to Newcastle, or what?

But of course, it’s not like that at all. The French Cheese industry is apparrently undergoing a bit of a recession at present (I was going to write that “It’s going off”, but that’s not very funny, is it?), with an increasing number of the artisan producers over there ceasing production. The reason the guy came up with was the strength of the local French Cheese Cooperatives. Their products, he claimed, were now so good that the gap between them and the real specialists was not that large, and the French public, who are in the middle of a burgeoning love affair with les supermarchés at present, are turning away from the small producers. I can’t believe that myself, but it was on Radio 4, so it must be right.

Anyway, as reliably as night follows day in spoken Cheeseland, General De Gaulle appeared, and the slightly over quoted comment he made duly arrived – “How can you be expected to govern a country that has 246 kinds of cheese?” When you look into the quote, you find of course that over the years, de Gaulle milked it a bit, and used it on many occasions, with the result that the number of cheeses France produced varied as time went on. One year, it was “over 200”, another year it was 256, or 265, or even “one for each day of the year”.

Whatever the number, it’s a lot, and the point of the comment is that was his way of saying governing France was a bit like herding cats – Impossible.

So, having said so memorably how difficult it all was, he didn’t need to bother anymore, so he didn’t. Job done.

But now of course, you come to this country, and a bit of lateral thinking makes you realise why Our Glorious Leader in Number 10 is having such a problem in his job, and why so much isn’t working the way he said it would in 1997. It’s all caused by the explosion in the number of English Cheesemakers, which has very accurately coincided with the dissipation of the UK’s governmental competence.

In an industry which came perilously close to extinction in the UK a couple of decades ago, there are apparently now well over 400 different cheesemakers in this country, producing a massive range and diversity of traditional and new cheeses. Good though that may be for our taste sensations, the political ramifications are clearly huge, with the future survival of UK plc at stake. If de Gaulle couldn’t hack it in France with their 246 fromages, then what chance does our Tone have when we have heading towards twice as many.

And “Stop Press” – a trawl around WWWland throws up, if that is le mot juste, that the USA has more than 500 - now that explains everything!

So, to get this country rolling again, we simply need a concentrated cheese-focussed pre-emptive strike to zap all the producers and go back to a position where there is only good old “Mousetrap” in this country. We can keep all that foreign smelly, runny stuff for the gannets among us, and Britain will be great again. It’s all very simple really isn’t it?
Q.E.D.

GEORGE BEST - 1946-2005

George Best and Mike England - White Hart Lane - 1973

Yesterday was the first anniversary of George Best's death. It's rather strange, because his final departure really set me off writing this collection of Bits and Pieces. As it says in the piece below, I am very much NOT a footy man, but for reasons I simply don't understand George Best had found a place in my heart. His death moved me to write down my thoughts, and the piece I wrote set me off on the Blog trail. I only showed it last year to a couple of friends at work, and then left it. But, given the date yesterday, I thought I'd put it down here, as a bit of a memorial to a genius.

The photograph was taken by a great Sports photographer - Chris Smith, late of The Times, and gives a really graphic view of Yer Man in action - terrific image!

George Best died yesterday.

I must be one of the most unlikely people you could find today, anywhere in Britain, to write about him. Yet strangely, I feel a real need to put my thoughts about him down on paper. I have had a life long non-interest in football – indeed I was probably the only man in the country who chose not to watch the 1966 World Cup Final, because there was something more important on that day which I had to do.

This rather abnormal view has prevailed for most of my life, apart, that is, from the few years when I was at University. The sole reason my flame of interest flickered for that brief time was George Best. I can remember, as if it was yesterday, sitting in the Imperial College Hall of Residence lounge, along with what seemed like thousands of others, watching on a very grainy, black and white television as George Best single-handedly destroyed Benfica playing away from home. Benfica were then regarded, I now realise, as the best team in Europe, and for all I know, the world. Even to my untutored eye, his skills were bordering on unbelievable, and he made the game seem to be more an art form than a sport.

Some years later, after being thrown out of Manchester United, watching his personal change from player to playboy was in some ways very sad, but almost inevitable. People go on about a "flawed genius". I think that is missing the point almost completely. He was a genius, but only when he was playing football – when that had finished he descended to being a mere mortal, like the rest of us. Most sportsmen, even the really greats (and there are far less of those than the media would have you think) must surely realise that the pinnacle of their sporting careers are going to occur when they are relatively young, and unless they have other major skills which can supplant them, the rest of their lives will inevitably be played out to a long drawn out tune of anticlimax. Those that find a meaningful alternative survive and prosper, those that do not, face the daunting prospects which Best clearly faced.

To football fans today, his memory will be distorted and restricted. The amount of TV footage of him is relatively limited, and very poorly shot. In video terms, he came from a previous era, but in reality he blazed an amazing trail. He hit the scene in the middle of the Sixties, with long hair, good looks, his shirt flowing loose outside his shorts, and an outrageous and amazing talent. It was the time when footballers finally broke free from the restrictions of the £20/week Maximum wage. In contrast however, he remained in an era where the Red and Yellow Card was still to be introduced, and the level of physical violence allowed on the field, particularly to someone as key as him in a team was quite unbelievable compared to today's standards. Footballing life then was very different from today, but in many ways he was the one individual who formed the link from old to new.

His skills were, to use a very much overused word, awesome. Although quite diminutive, he rose above and passed defenders, beating them in ways they did not believe possible. He scored impossible goals, and in spite of football supposedly being a game played by a team of eleven players, he won matches, and important matches at that, simply by the force of his own footballing brilliance.

For the last thirty years, we have seen his decline into chronic alcoholism cruelly documented in the press, and it would not be surprising for younger football fans today to think that all he was was a bit of a joke, a drunken bore who used to play football a bit. The stories of his Miss World Collection (he bedded four of them, and apparently the only reason the other three he met were not in this club was because he did not turn up to meet them on their date) are undoubtedly true, but are irrelevant compared to his glittering footballing legacy.

He was the butt of a lot of black humour jokes, some made by himself. To me, the blackest of them all is that he said towards the end that he actually carried an Organ Donor Card. You could be forgiven for wondering if this was a huge joke on his part, which none of us have yet twigged. We also laugh at Caroline Aherne's fluffy little grenade of a comment as Mrs Merton - "If you hadn't run around so much, maybe you wouldn't have been so thirsty." And a very recent comment from one pundit that "having destroyed his own liver, he has recently set about destroying someone else's" (a brutal reference to his life saving liver transplant 3 years ago) – all these serve to reinforce this emphasis on the last thirty years of his life. These quips, whilst very funny at the time, now sit very uncomfortably on the page, as I type them with the hint of a tear in my eye.

But this latter phase of his life masks his real genius. I am not skilled in the ways of football, so to get as objective a view as possible, I have just read several of the Country's leading Sports Writer's articles about him. For once, to a man, they all agree. Simon Barnes (Senior Sports Writer in The Times, and a brilliant journalist) – "George Best was the greatest footballer that ever lived. Let us be perfectly clear about that, no matter what other judgements we make about his life …………… Best was the best I have seen, and the best anybody has seen." The rest say broadly the same, but do not use the simple, eloquent words Simon Barnes has chosen. One of the newspapers today also reprinted their verbatim report of the actual Benfica match I saw in University, and it chronicles a systematic and deadly 90 minute destruction of a brilliant team, by one man – "Had I not seen it, I would not have believed it." is Geoffrey Green's (the journalist who wrote the article in 1967) simple summing up.

And now he's gone – one less genius in the world, and there are few enough of those. There will be the standard, well meant One Minute Silences around the football grounds this weekend. One Scottish club however has, I think, got it absolutely spot on – they are having not a One Minute Silence, but a One Minute Applause – how absolutely brilliant is that?

We do however need to ask ourselves - Why do we not cherish these people whilst they are still with us, and why do we have this uncontrollable urge to discredit them? Yes, they all have feet of clay – they are human, for God's sake. But admire them for what they can do, and what no one else can match. People like Pete Sampras, Lance Armstrong, Jim Clark, Tiger Woods, Shane Warne, Jack Nicklaus and Carl Lewis (by definition, the list will be short) are jewels in human sporting terms. Their like comes along all too infrequently, and rather than complain about how boring it is to see the same person winning or dominating everything, we should recognise just how good these few guys are. Let's luxuriate in their genius – it's there for all too short a time, and no-one knows when or if it will return. Look again at Simon Barnes's words summarising his judgement about him – no "one of the best ……" - Barnes's words are absolute – "the best" – no caveats, no ifs, no buts, no maybes.

Perhaps George Best's name should be on the list as well.

REC

26 November 2005

Tags:

football,
george best,
sport,
manchester united,
mufc

TODAY (ACTUALLY THREE WEEKS AGO) IN PARLIAMENT

I have been just looking for something to give my mind an intellectual workout this evening, and settled on reading about the goings on in the Mother of Parliaments. The members of this august band of people are the 646 privileged colossi to whom we all entrust the future direction of this country. And as we all know, it is in Westminster that we see the focus, the pinnacle of debate, the cut and thrust of razor sharp minds, honed on the debating stump, resolving for all our benefits the huge problems we all face today.

So, pootling around with my intellectual pin, where did it hit and what did I find? The first worrying thing was it related to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, John Leslie Prescott.

In spite of the TV based perception of the Chamber, the real machinery of Parliament is actually the backroom activities, the Select Committees, and the Parliamentary Questions and written Questions and Replies which give Back Benchers the opportunity to probe the actions of the High and Mighty – the Prime Minister and the members of his Cabinet.

For reasons which I can’t understand, JP has always come in for some stick over the way he operates his department. So one innocuous little question I came across was clearly aimed at probing how the Good Man controls and manages the administration and cost base of his rather sprawling Ministry. Rather than even comment on the point being addressed, just read this – it’s straight from the Horse’s Mouth – the Commons’ Written Answers on 25th October.

Caroline Spelman (Meriden, Conservative) Hansard source

Question - To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer of 4 September 2006, Official Report, column 1646W, on ballpoint pens, what use is being made of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister-branded pens; how much was spent between 2002 and the abolition of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on ODPM branded products and promotional gifts; and what types of goods were purchased.

Angela Smith (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Communities and Local Government) Hansard source

Answer - The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) branded pens are being used to write with, and will continue to be used as standard stationery items until stocks are exhausted.

Between May 2002 and May 2006 a total of £5,095 was spent on ODPM branded pens, carrier bags, and note pads.

These items were used at exhibitions and events to help promote the office's schemes and policies.

Just to be clear, the Bold, Italics and large type is mine.

Why have the Media missed this revelation? Talk about “The Public has a Right to know” – I’m not sure they can stand the tension.

If these two were your own kids, you’d send them to their bedroom with no tea. You just hope they were doing it for a bet, but I have a horrible suspicion, they were deadly serious.

Worrying.

"THE HISTORY BOYS" - BRILLIANT!

Richard Griffiths - An Acting Masterclass

I’ve just seen the film “The History Boys”, and it’s the best film I’ve seen in years.

The point of the film is to contrast the effect on potential university students of two very different types of education in their school. The first is where the teaching is aimed simply at “improving and expanding the minds of the pupil”, but taking little cognisance of the future university, educational or indeed any specific needs of the boys – a pure “Pass the Parcel” style of learning where the simple expansion of the mind is seen as all important. The second, introduced into the school by a rather intense and zealous Headmaster is aimed at “tuning” the pupils for “Oxbridge” entrance. This style of teaching is aimed at maximising the University entrance rate, with pass rate being the be-all and end-all of the process. Written by Alan Bennett, and clearly extremely autobiographical, it started life in the theatre as a play, and most of the action, if that’s what you call it because there's not much of it, takes place in a school classroom.

It’s rather like a Yorkshire version of “Dead Poet’s Society”, set in a theatrical environment, with its exquisite dialogue reflecting Alan Bennett’s very personal attitudes to his upbringing. It's simply the best evocation of growing up, and the pains, pressures and joys of scholastic adolescent flowering I have seen.

The film uses the same cast which has been performing the play in the theatre for the last couple of years, and this shows brilliantly in the interplay between all the boys and the schoolteachers involved. They all seem to be so comfortable with each other, a state you get when the actors have been performing it together for a long time. You have to look beyond their real ages, which all seem older (because actually they are) than the “Upper Sixth” age setting of the film. But when you get past that, all the individual boys and teachers seem simply so “right” in themselves and with each other.

The star of the film is Richard Griffiths, as the “Pass The Parcel” ageing teacher - it's a real, subtle, jewel of a performance. His performance brings my own schooling back to mind vividly and immediately – the teachers at Bedford were often just like him. There is one exquisite sequence where he sits in a classroom explaining the meaning of a World War One poem to one of the boys - I suspect it was the boy in the group who Bennett wrote to represent himself. Richard Griffith’s acting here is subtlety brilliant – you see him in extreme close-up, and if ever you wanted to show someone a Masterclass in acting for film, showing how the slightest facial or vocal inflection can build the tension in a “take”, just watch that sequence. It’s simply perfect.

Whilst I had a real science “bent” at school, finding Physics, Chemistry and Maths a relatively comfortable combination, my efforts at the more “arty” subjects were, to say the least, much more of a struggle.

And yet, a couple of teachers, as a result of their force of personality, zest for learning and skill in teaching, wrought miracles on me, in the areas of Art and Music – Ted Amos and Ron Dalzell. I entered their classes being a perfect definition of a Musical and Artistic “philistine”, and as a result of their amazing ability in both subjects to “Pass the Parcel” onto an originally very unwilling me, they changed my life immeasurably. I have loved pictures and all sorts of music since their genius and magic was sprinkled over me, and I am eternally grateful for their efforts and the change they made in me. The sad thing is that neither of them would have even realised just what they had done.

Such is the profession of the teacher, and probably explains why “The History Boys” made such an impression on me. It’s not an “exciting” film, and there are no real action sequences, but as a film to savour, written by a master and vividly bringing back a large chunk of one’s personal history and putting it in context, it’s a real joy to watch.

ALL THE PRIME MINISTER'S MEN

Assistant Commissioner John Yates

Watch this face - you'll see it again!

There is an increasing sense of schadenfreude in watching the twists and turns of Our Glorious Leaders trying to pretend that the “Cash for Honours” issue simply doesn’t exist. The antics of Scotland Yard’s Assistant Commissioner John Yates (above) seem destined to ensure that he will finish his illustrious career with no “gong” after his name, given the way he seems to be moving inexorably across the political chessboard towards King Tony.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but his favourite film must be “All the President’s Men”, and, given his compact size, he must be fantasising playing the Dustin Hoffman character in that terrific film. Here we have a newspaper, this time the "Sunday Times", and not the "Washington Post", seeming to be hell-bent on pushing the issue of where the decision to change Party “donations” to Party “loans” was actually centred. The Sunday Times seems to have made its mind up that this is an issue where they can “get” Blair, and they seem to be doing all they can to aid and abet the Police in bringing the culprits, however high and mighty, to justice.

The net seems to be moving remorselessly closer to Number 10, as, one by one, the disaffected Donors/Lenders* (*Delete as applicable) seem to be saying that pressure was brought from on (very) high to make what they originally offered as gifts, appear in the Labour Party Finance books as loans. Blair is another one here who needs to reread LBJ’s dictum about "The Tent". You’re either inside, or you’re outside. These are influential men, and they do not like to be made to look foolish.

I suspect that everyone thought this investigation would stall from the massive weight of political pressure being brought by Number 10 against it, but it would seem that Assistant Commissioner Yates is continuing to pick the Cabinet off one by one. He has already conducted around 90 interviews and he is reputed to have now formally written to all of the Cabinet, asking them all a range of questions. All that is, apart from one person who, apparently, has not yet received a letter - Mr Blair. This omission, according to those versed in the way of the Fuzz, means that He (did I really put a capital letter there?) is most likely their Prime Suspect.

One interesting person in all this is Gordon Brown. Everyone thinks that Tony Blair’s political career is drawing to a close, but Brown is still looking to make one more play in the current UK political poker game. And yet, one of the New Labour donors/lenders, Nigel Morris, came into the loans/gift arena apparently via high level sources at the Treasury. Given Gordon Brown’s propensity to not just micro-management but pico-management, you could be forgiven for thinking that either he must have known, which leads off in interesting directions, or alternatively he didn’t know, in which case he doesn't know what's going on about major, strategic issues in his Ministry. The hairs on the back of my neck are telling me this particular bit of the story has not yet finished. Watch this space.

At the moment, we do not know if Mr Blair will be interviewed or not, and if he is, we do not know if the report which the Assistant Commissioner is writing will result in the Crown Prosecution Service taking any further action, and if they do, we do not know if that will result in any action being taken against Mr Blair.

But, the really sad thing for politics in this country is that, in spite of all these Ifs, I suspect most people believe that, whatever happens, Tony Blair did play a major part in this issue, and therefore deserves to have his collar felt – and felt quite hard. If you want a preview of one possible outcome, head to Blockbusters and rent a copy of "All the President's Men". If you don't agree with the possible outcome, it's still a bloody good film.

It’s all about Trust, and once it’s gone, it’s gone.