Avant moi, le déluge

As the rain eases off ever so briefly, after absolutely tipping down before my eyes, it would be nice if the media did not follow slavishly the water companies’ official line (press releases – the delight of journalists and the bane of modern journalism).  With such downpours, the imposition of a hosepipe ban is not greatly constrictive, yet to emphasise we have had little rain relative to the last eighteen months is insulting to those suffering flash floods.  The River Medway looked ominously high yesterday as I looked down from the heights over Chatham and I am just grateful that I live on a hill (April has been a bad month for earthworms too – not only are their homes raging rivulets but there is so much surface water above ground that they migrate across roads and paths, with foreseeable consequences).  Yes, the reservoirs are lower than is preferable but a little more empathy to the rest of us than the executive boards of those who provide us with running water would be appreciated, as the flippant news gatherers juxtapose heavy storms in a time of drought by making light of the contradiction.

Reunion time

All the hot talk in football this side of the channel was about José Mourinho facing his old club Chelsea with his new one, Real Madrid, in the Champions League Final.  Less comment was made about Jupp Heynckes facing down Madrid, one of his previous employers, with his current ones Bayern Munich.  So instead of Mourinho winning three European Cups to draw level with Bob Paisley, Heynckes will have the chance to match Mourinho on two triumphs.  Were the German side successful, this would be their fifth success in the competition meaning they would become the fourth side to able to permanently retain the trophy (a new one will be cast) and at their home of the Allianz Arena to boot.  As Mourinho pointed out though, it is not such an advantage to be the first Champions League side to play the final at their own ground, for the seating for fans will be 50-50 (after officials have taken their cut). 

With the elimination of Barcelona and Real Madrid, the Club Med feel of the quarter-finals has been replaced with the resurgence of Europe north of the Alps.  It has been more than a decade since a German club won the Champions League (Bayern themselves in 2001) and the fans of Arsenal, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur will be hoping that barren run comes to an end (the fourth spot in next season’s Champions League would otherwise go to Chelsea and third place would no longer guarantee entry automatically but become a pre-qualifier).

Heynckes will be able to offer caution to Roberto di Matteo in the event of an unlikely Chelsea victory.  He won ‘the cup with big ears’ with Madrid in 1998 but was sacked for finishing fourth, eleven points behind then La Liga winners Barcelona.  Di Matteo would be lucky to finish in that position only 20 points behind either Manchesters, City or United, in the Premier League for this campaign.

A Sheer drop into the abyss

Labour MP Barry Sheerman’s rants about foreign people getting jobs over English people has a certain Alf Garnett ridiculousness about it.  Except he, as he liked to remind us, represents the people of Huddersfield and that is serious for inward investment in his constituency.  Essentially, it's grim up north because of foreigners; an Honourable Member of Parliament he may be but he is definitely a member too.

To recap, he tore into Camden Food company at London Victoria train station for employing someone from Eastern Europe (he chose only to name Lithuania and Poland, which could be as far as his geographical information stretches for that region).  It was because he had received his bacon buttie and coffee not quite to his liking and apparently the assistant had got his change wrong.

Notwithstanding that there are a slew of eateries on the concourse and Mr Sheerman had the misfortune to alight on one where the service was, in his opinion, substandard, the fact that the woman with whom he dealt had an accent does not invalidate the whole concept of the freedom of movement of labour.  His fervour in digging a hole meant that far from catching “the right train” as he assured his audience, he was engaged on a journey to the centre of the Earth.  His comment “There are a lot of unemployed people in Huddersfield and I think they should have first crack at jobs rather than someone who arrived from Eastern Europe yesterday.”  What does Mr Sheerman propose – that the good people of Huddersfield should be offered jobs by Camden Food to work at London Victoria station?  Would they have to catch ‘the right train’?  Considering fare hikes, would that be economic?  Never mind; at least it would mean they would have the ‘first crack at jobs’.  Mr Sheerman was disappearing up his own crack.

Yet he wasn’t finished.  “The average young person in my constituency has got competition from every young person in Europe.”  So instead of the youth of Huddersfield raising their game to compete with the keenest of the continent (within the EU, that is - those outside are restricted), they should remain in a sump of parochial mediocrity – the very reason why Britain went from being the second biggest economy in the world in 1950 to the seventh largest in 1990.  In the most savage indictment of his people who voted for him, he stated “It's a very competitive world out there and my constituents resent that.”  That defies comment.

In conclusion, according to Mr Sheerman, “irritatingly pernicious political correctness” has allowed this kind of thing to flourish and will continue to let it prosper (interestingly, when is pernicious not irritating – was Hamlet puzzled or jocular when he berated his mother Gertrude in absentia?).  Yes, that old chestnut, political correctness – nebulous and faceless.  His lament “I don't see why I can't say that I wish these chains would employ more British kids than kids that come from Eastern Europe,” displays his dashed hopes for the aspiration of the young of this country – one has risen to the top of the tree when one flips a burger for strangers.

Blue is the colour, football revenge is the game

Irrespective of being served like gazpacho soup, Chelsea have got their own back against Barcelona.  The robbery at Stamford Bridge in 2009 has been avenged.  The one difference in 2012 is that Chelsea have lost so many players to suspension and possible injury, the team they will face in the final, be it Real Madrid or Bayern Munich, will have to caution themselves against complacency.  Then again The Best Team In The World® couldn’t put away sufficiently at home an opposition who played for nearly an hour with ten men and without any recognised centre-halves for just as long.  And to have it capped off by a Fernando Torres goal – how embarrassing!  When was the last time Barcelona lost three times in a week (I know this was technically a draw but it would feel as numbing as any defeat for a blaugrana fan)?  The hubris of the Barcelona-mad press has been laid waste.  Oh well Fabregas, you can console yourself with trying to win the King’s Cup with your boyhood team (the SuperCup and World Club Championship were involved only on the back of what his teammates did the season before in winning the Champions League) – that’s what you always dreamed about when you left Arsenal, wasn’t it?

The print monster

As James Murdoch, with that weird, strangulated parrot voice of his, made a personal deposition to the Leveson Inquiry into press standards, BBC Radio five Live (making good its name) broadcast direct from the session.  After hearing some evidence and making a brief analysis of it, one of the anchors intimated a return to listening to the proceedings with “Let’s see where this is going.”  Thus, we were transported back to the Inquiry chamber at the High Court of Justice, whereupon an email of Murdoch’s was read out to the assembled audience containing the salty, angry phrase, “You must be f[**]king joking.”  A hurried retreat to the studio brought a sheepish apology and the collapsing rationale that it was “secondhand swearing but still swearing.”  Caught out there and at 1.45 in the afternoon!

I’m sure there will be fulminations about the BBC’s recklessness and naïvety, polluting the nation’s ears, but, just as the source was a Murdoch, so has damage to British society come from the Murdoch press.  The Daily Telegraph may soft-pedal it, fearing further erosion of the right-wing majority in newspapers, but the case of a bricklayer, Clive Peachey, who did not act to help a two year-old toddler, Abigail Rae, walking alone in the street (the child later was found drowned) out of fear of being accused as a paedophile can be traced back to the Murdoch tabloids, specifically The News of the World under the editorship of Rebekah Wade (now Brooks).  This child’s death was in 2002 yet the inquest is taking place now.

The Telegraph may focus on the number of CRB checks (now standing at 32 million – if that was for a separate individual each time it would be more than half the population of the UK) and how the government secret register, List 99, was operated for a number of years with little trouble occurring, but the level of hysteria engendered by the red-top in the wake of the murder of Sarah Payne in 2000 and then the Soham murders in 2002 was such as to make the country a more fearful place, especially of male adults, all to sell papers for profit.  Witness the semi-literate (some of those placards) mobs in Portsmouth in 2000.  The campaign to introduce a Sarah’s Law was supposed to protect children, yet because Peachey was frightened of being accused of trying to abduct Abigail, she ended up dead.  One can blame the nursery Ready Teddy Go for a catastrophic failure of care or that Peachey was being too cautious, but Rebekah Wade made the Salem witch trials look like examples of moderation.  She is the Lady Macbeth from whom the bloody spot cannot be washed.

From my history, in 2000, I was visiting Tate Modern as an 18 year-old with my family, including my 11 year-old sister.  As I pointed out aspects of the turbine hall, I heard from two female strangers behind me concerned that I was a child molester in the act of grooming, before concluding, “He’s too handsome to be a paedophile.”  Whether it was indeed me of whom they were commenting or another adult with child, to allege looks as a determining factor in perversion and deviancy is pathetic reasoning from pathetic minds, yet the kind that are easily led through the nose by tabloid demagoguery.  One would have to call into question their judgement on anything, not least on whether a person was good-looking or not.  I have no doubt that irresponsible, revenue-driven journalism had unhinged and unnerved them.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Gillingham High Street and a brother and his younger sister, about respectively five and three years perhaps, were racing each other on foot scooters.  The little girl fell off and skidded on the pedestrianised pavement.  I hesitated for a second, unsure of whether my attempt at help would be misconstrued.  I discharged that from my mind because here was a vulnerable human being who may be in need of aid.  I inquired as to how she was and picked up her scooter.  I didn’t dare touch her though since I felt for a lot of people that would be crossing a line.  So instead of proffering my hand to assist her in getting up, I waited for her parents to run over and lift her to her feet.  The little girl was fazed that a person she didn’t know was talking to her, dispensing words of comfort, but her parents were effusive in their thanks and I handed the uprighted scooter to her older brother who had come back.  The Telegraph article stated that over the past decade an atmosphere of mistrust has been created that has left young people more at risk. There was another example when a supply teacher, Martin Davis, was suspended after he gave a stranded 17 year-old pupil a lift home – though eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, a disciplinary that caused much distress to the boy involved who cited Mr Davis as a great help, the teacher has struggled to find work since.

Of course, children (and vulnerable adults) must be protected from abuse as far as is possible.  The facts are that very few paedophiles attack those they do not know and that not all child molesters are male.  Yet Brooks (née Wade) has contributed to the paranoia that there is a trenchcoat pervert on every street corner.  Brass Eye brilliantly skewered the hyperbole (though it was not consistently funny it has to be said) and was slaughtered for mocking the wide-eyed insanity backed by a profit motive.  Many children’s charities decried the counter-productive tactics but the Murdoch red-tops continued to crank up the volume.  The newspapers must have thought they were invincible which is why phone-hacking on an industrial scale was seen as acceptable and so it comes full circle.

Stringent Strindberg

With the recent release of a new biography of the Swedish playwright August Strindberg, I am minded to relate my own not so distant experience of the Scandinavian story-teller.  George Bernard Shaw considered Strindberg “the only genuinely Shakesperian [sic on my copy] modern dramatist,” which may not be such great praise given that Bernard Shaw was frequently disparaging of the Bard.

One of the books I inherited from my grandmother was Six Plays of Strindberg (translated Elizabeth Sprigge, 1955).  The opening three tales of the anthology – The Father, Miss Julie and The Stronger – have strongly materialistic bents with all the smug arrogance that this entails.  That should not be much of a surprise perhaps, for he must have been reacting against his strict Pietist and brutal upbringing, to tack the opposite way with heaving gloom.  The first two plays end with the deaths of the eponymous characters as they descend into despair.  I bridled against the themes deployed in The Father and it delayed me in completing the book.  I wrote down then (with a little finessing now), quoting from Strindberg “‘…a time may come when we have grown so developed and enlightened that we shall view with indifference life’s spectacle, now seeming so brutal, cynical and heartless.  Then we shall have dispensed with those inferior, unreliable instruments of thought called feelings which become harmful and superfluous as reasoning develops.’ This is probably indicative of the era – the nineteenth century – when emotions were generally repressed and to express openly one’s feelings was a sign of weakness and immaturity, but the way Strindberg attacks empathy, it could be a Cyberman philosophy.

“He is also rather hubristic, saying aloofly, ‘That my tragedy [his play] depresses many people is their own fault.  When we have grown [as] strong as the pioneers of the French revolution [zealotry, ahoy!], we shall be happy and relieved to see the national parks cleared of ancient rotting trees [the upper classes] which have stood too long in the way of others equally entitled to a period of growth – as relieved as we are when incurable invalid dies.’  This last is a sentiment shocking to modern ears but it prefigures the Swedish euthanasia programme of three decades between the 1920s and the 1950s.

“Having decried pity, Strindberg makes a play [no pun intended, at least now] for it himself. ‘My tragedy The Father [a moderately interesting divertissement into the exercise of power in the domestic household that veers into melodrama as the main protagonist succumbs to – justifiable – paranoia, with his family and professionals colluding to control him] was recently criticised for being too sad – as if one ants cheerful tragedies!  Everybody is clamouring for this supposed “joy of life” and theatre managers demand farces [as it was in Shakespeare’s day, plus ça change]…  I myself find the joy of life in its strong and cruel struggles, and my pleasure in learning, adding to my knowledge.’  What a worthy ascetic he is, in contrast to his worthless public.

“Even in 19^th century Sweden, he might have been insufferable to know [as I later found out, he beguiled women but found it harder to not drive them away, having three wives], looking down on almost all.  ‘What will offend simple minds is that my plot is not simple, nor its point of view single [possibly the translation, as for that last word I would have chosen ‘singular’].’  Even of the two countries he selects for intellectual and cultural praise – ‘England and Germany’ – he condescends, with the phrase ‘drama – like the other fine arts – is dead.’  Theatrically, he may have had a point [Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw being the exceptions perhaps but I honestly do not know enough of the literary merits of this age to make any accurate appraisal], but falls into a trap by widening it to the fine arts.  Later, he congratulates himself on his cleverness, something that must grate in whatever time period.

“Personality defects aside, his contemporaries valued his work.  [Having mentioned Bernard Shaw, I shall omit him here] Sean O’Casey was moved to exclaim ‘Strindberg, Strindberg, Strindberg, the greatest of them all!’  Friedrich Nietzche (ominous) and Emile Zola were moved to be generous too.  Strindberg may be a Swedish national treasure but there is baggage attached.”  I have mellowed in my approach to Strindberg since then, partly because young people as he was then can be moved to make intemperate comments but also as he was a very troubled individual and had a nervous mental collapse.  After that, he became less antagonistic, more wistful, at least going as far as the chronology of the anthology.

The Stronger, a two-hander in a café (with the occasional mute waitress) where only one of the character speaks is more upbeat as Mrs X discerns that her husband had a torrid affair with Miss Y and yet as Mrs X, in the second epiphany of this one act stager, admits adopting Miss Y’s habits and proclivities, she has nullified Miss Y’s impact on the shallow husband to emerge the stronger, for she ahs kept her spouse, leaving Miss Y lonely.  For fans of Strindberg, The Stronger having a very simple set must make it a favourite to produce, considering the Swede’s oftentimes extravagant demands of a theatre designer.

Easter is a play created after Strindberg had a breakdown and rediscovered a significant measure of spirituality.  It’s a tale with a family beset by financial crisis and humiliation in the wake of the father’s conviction for embezzling his students’ funds and the daughter’s committal to an asylum.  Yet the creditor, Lindkvist, forgives their debt as he takes into account the father’s kindness to him decades prior when he was in a matter of some distress. 

A Dream Play and The Ghost Sonata are highly surrealist with the former hard to understand as in the manner of unconscious minds with ideas pouring into one another.  According to Sprigge’s notes, Strindberg was strongly influenced by Theosophy when writing it.  Throughout, much mention is made of the ‘children of men’ (as compared, presumably, with the children of God).  The children of men are repeatedly pitied, living under the seemingly impossible strictures of life with its daily petty humiliations, where material needs become meaningless.  I wonder if this was the inspiration for the PD James novel The Children of Men.  It could well be.  A Dream Play concludes with the flowers of faith bursting into bloom.  The Ghost Sonata again features unhappy families with unhappy secrets, with an innocent character, sucked dry by the demands of society, perishing at the very end.  Strindberg, a born pessimist, reminds me greatly of Robert Schumann, the composer, in using his art to chronicle melancholy.  Strindberg died in 1912 – had he lived longer, goodness knows what he would have made of the World War One abattoir (even considering Sweden’s neutrality).

Perpetual motion

In recent days, there has been great outcry over Ashley Young’s felicitous swooning in opposition penalty areas.  This follows on from Andy Carroll’s dive at the home of his boyhood team against his boyhood team, which received a yellow card.  After winning a penalty against QPR, one commentator said that Young should take a good look at himself.  He obviously enjoyed what he saw since he repeated his trick against Aston Villa.  Maybe he thought ‘I’ve damaged one relegation-threatened side, so I mustn’t show favouritism to another’.  Tonight, as Chelsea does battle with Barcelona, one can expect to see players to be on the spin cycle of a tumble dryer as they take a tumble.  On and on they roll, where they stop nobody knows.

Before Monday’s duel with Wigan, Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger bemoaned that players who go down far too easily, whether contact is made or not, should not be the recipient of a yellow card, if the referee bothers to issue it.  His proposal was for a retrospective panel handing down three-match bans to such cheats.  It will never happen because the FA is loathe to re-referee games, which could undermine the authority of the match-day officials, who, as they follow the ball, cannot fail to see a player going down when in proximity to the air-pumped sphere.

What could be done is to take a leaf out of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book (no, not cheating on wives – footballers are well-versed in that already).  When elected governor of California (after a spurious recall of the previous governor, who was subsequently found to have been stitched up by Enron for political purposes), he took to describing his Democrat opponents and any Republicans who didn’t toe his line as ‘lady-men’.  The Gubernator was unrepentant about the slur and it came to become one of the defining phrases of his term in office.  With TV commentators watching fouls from every conceivable angle, when they give out the ‘Man of the Match’ award, they can follow that up with ‘Lady-Man of the Match’, if it applies.  The latter ‘prize’, instead of receiving a bottle of bubbly, should receive a slap in the face with a pink glove.  Un-PC maybe, but you wouldn’t certainly cut down on the amount of cheating.

Rickshaws for children

Want to do the school run but have a commitment to sustainability?  On my perambulation to work, I saw a mum bicycling with a covered, connected carriage to the rear.  Now, theoretically this could carry shopping but it has little plastic windows, so I imagine, as she was coming away from where a primary school is located, it was not long in carrying her own young children.  What a delightful way to travel, speeding up trudging along when they can barely stand up or having to hoist them onto one’s shoulders, though I personally would have a few reservations taking this ensemble onto a busy road.  I know kids would be fascinated by it - something new and interesting to clamber upon.  Cycling would also solve the issue of tummy (as opposed to yummy) mummies.  It even works in the terrible weather, where wind and rain mount such a fierce onslaught that it literally takes your breath away and any activity takes on an anaerobic hue (I was just in these howling conditions).  I suppose, as the sprogs grow up, walking and bussing would supersede this innovative approach to an intractable problem, yet I applaud the spirit behind it.

Weekend warmth in the sharp weather

Last Saturday was enjoyable on four accounts.  Firstly, I linked up with Ben Mahon - on his birthday - at Clapham Junction from where we proceeded to Thornton Heath for a pub to eat our fine cuisine (Tesco meal deal) and watch the second half of the FA Cup between Liverpool and Everton.  Out of deference to the pub owners (or rather just so we could sit down as we noshed), we decamped to the pub ‘garden’ on our arrival.  When we returned to the bar area, we watched the Scouse semi-final end in victory for the Reds, with ex-Newcastle United striker Andy Carroll heading the winner with just minutes left on the clock.  Thus, the Magpies were granted European qualification, for Liverpool had already achieved it by winning the League Cup and their opponents – Tottenham Hotspur or Chelsea – were also in the mix for Europe.  It is still not mathematically absolute but when you need to perform such numerical gymnastics, it is all but a nailed-on certainty.

Secondly, Sunnyhillboy came second in the Grand National, thus winning me some money in the office sweepstake.  It was a bittersweet moment at Aintree for several reasons but on my own personal account, Sunnyhillboy was leading with just a few lengths to go before losing by a nose to Neptune Collonges.  Still, £15 for the expense of one isn’t bad and almost matched the odds of J.P. McManus’ fine steed of 18-1.

We moved on to Selhurst Park to watch Crystal Palace take on Ipswich Town.  Though the Eagles are not my primary team, I do like to see them do well and got very much into the spirit of the game.  Ben’s dad Terry joined us in seats quite near the pitch.  It was standard end-of-season fare, with neither team fighting for anything more than pride, promotion and relegation treated as impostors just the same as triumph and disaster.

Ipswich had a very good first half but the two best chances fell to Palace, who took one of them to enter the break 1-0 to the good.  It was created by the right-back Clyne, who was in my eyes the man-of-the-match.  I liked to think I played my part, shouting words of encouragement (in a formulation that no-one else uttered) “Go on Clyne, you can do it, you know you can,” as well as lavishing other compliments on him.  With Zaha being marked and no other options available, Clyne went on a mazy run evading several tackles, getting the ball to Scannell who diverted it to Martin and the loanee from Norwich scored.  His full name is Chris Martin and his performance was akin as if the Coldplay frontman was in a cardinal red and blue shirt, disinterested at times and when he did make bursting runs, the grass might as well have been treacle under him, the defenders always beating him to the ball.  Only Darren Ambrose exceeded him in lethargy.

In the second period, the Eagles were better but it was Ipswich who scored next, the leveller a wonder goal that all the same was permitted by defenders backing off.  This quietened the home support till the final whistle, anxious that the game might be thrown away (except for a penalty appeal for Palace on which the referee came down against).  As is usual with a more committed away support facing a generally more discreet home crowd, the Town fans started laying in to the level of backing that the Selhurst faithful were offering.  I wasn’t having my surrogate team’s fans being abused in this way and responded with a few choice epithets, such as every time the away support bellowed ‘Ipswich’, I shouted back ‘F**kwits’.  I also upped my volume towards the on-pitch antics as further riposte, shouting ‘Come on Palace’ and other verbal adornments, while around me was somnolence.  As with Clyne, I don’t know how much my contribution (and that of some other fans in the stand I was in) made in deterring the Ipswich backing from criticising the level of home endorsement, but they held off thereafter, instead launching into ditties directed at helping their own team or attacking their derby cousins Norwich City.

Ending 1-1, I finally had seen a live goal scored by Palace at the fourth attempt (previously, I was there when Newcastle won 2-0, so I was happy at the clean sheet and then this season with nil-nils against Reading and Millwall.  Against Reading, I was more vocal in attacking the away players as well as backing the home squad.  On one moment, I shouted “You’re rubbish McAnuff!” as Jobi McAnuff was in close attendance.  Two seconds later, he was on his backside with a look that said ‘Bugger, I vindicated that guy in the crowd’).  My next objective is to see a Crystal Palace win.  In the end, the relaying of thrashings of bitter rivals, each shipping half a dozen goals, meant both sets of fans left with satisfaction beyond the draw.  I drew pleasure from sampling the atmosphere of a football game alongside someone with whom I could banter and getting in to the swings of things.

We bade farewell to Terry and went back to Ben’s apartment in Oval (via Balham Tube Station).  There was a delightful Orthodox-looking church/seminary in the Byzantine-style opposite his Regency (at a guess) block.  From his balcony, there were views of the Elephant and Castle Tower, the Shard and Canary Wharf in the far distance.  There were also two bones belonging to a small animal rested on the wall parapet, which was bemusing to Ben as he hadn’t eaten food out there recently and his girlfriend (in Bristol for another birthday, after staying over the night before) was vegetarian.  I took in the purveyance of Sky Sports whilst waiting for Ben to get ready for the night out – the latter being the fourth of the happy events of the day.

We travelled to Old Street Tube station and walked from there into the heart of Shoreditch.  The first bar that Ben had selected was all booked up by the time he came to reserving a place and we entered hoping to obtain some unallocated space for our party of eight to ten.  It wasn’t to be, though this turned out for the best, even if it didn’t look like that initially.  The bar was quite cramped anyway and needed to be entered over a ramp for the outside pavement was being dug up.  We ambled down Rivington Road, looking for an alternative outlet.  We came across the Bedroom Bar. Looking for a place to sit, we were approached by a man with a voice and appearance akin to Robert Vaughn and dressed nattily in black trilby, purple tie, white shirt and well-tailored black suit.  He asked if he was here for the Comedy Club and Ben asked him if he was performing.  He replied that he wasn’t and it came into my mind when in the first Austin Powers’ movie, a Texan punter in the casino toilets inquires if Powers is performing, to which the spoof secret agent retorts, “No, I’m British.”  This American man with Old World charm directed us over to a table (it was subsequently discovered to be reserved but we found an equally acceptable table opposite across the room) and was politeness itself.  Indeed, the whole staff of the Bedroom Bar were inclined to giving that extra sparkle to their service.  They also served food, of which Ben and I were much in need.  Fuel was the order of the day for us but the meals were exquisite, even a bowl of sausages and mash (my choice).

Ben had some rapid redirecting calls to make, as his Facebook event page had listed the previous bar as the meeting point.  Jon came long first, followed by Ed, Jamie, Marisa, Maria, Kamara and Fiona and a good time was had that I can report, before I departed at 10.30 p.m.  Anecdotal trivia all maybe but I’m not a Twitterer or a fan of the vast majority of dumb, numb cowpats that pass for tweets.  I think a weblog is far more expressive than something that is chopped down to 140 characters or less.  Brevity has its place but should I want reference to this in years to come, I’ll be able to fully recapture that flavour.  If anyone else enjoys my outpouring, so much the better.

Trash can tot

Walking to church today with Altaa, going in an opposite direction we saw a family of four, mum and dad and two boys, one about five and the other not older than two (but walking).  You would think the toddler would have limited opportunities with both parents in close proximity, but their eyes needed to wander for only a second and he had gone and picked up a crushed cider can from the gutter.  Mum reacted to hoist him up but far from being disorientated thus dropping the tin, he retained an iron grip on his new, shiny possession, so much so that his mum had to prise the rubbish from his hand.  The perils of parenthood, something for which Altaa and I must prepare.

Let’s go fly a kite, up to the highest height

But the philanthropic heights of wealth do not like this consultancy (or ‘exercise in kite-flying’ when ideas are floated without firm commitment behind them) into tax avoidance announced in the last Budget.  Ed Miliband had a good line when he said that the government has given a tax break to the richest one per cent, except for those who want to give to charity.  Of course, that’s not what the Government had intended but, as like so many things in the last month, it has handled it as adroitly has a North Korean rocket launch.  A crescendo is staring to build with UNICEF last week and now the female actor Cate Blanchett weighing in.  By curbing large philanthropic donations to charities, such as those which help the arts (hence Blanchett’s intervention), it is damaging the efforts of those struggling to plug the gap that is left by public spending cuts, never mind fostering a ‘big society’.  It is proving as dangerous as the kite-fighting that takes place in the skies above the Trans-Indus region, with the debris of stricken, spiked war-toys raining down on the innocent.  Expect this kite to be ‘re-engineered’ i.e. grounded soon.

Out of Africa, into the Orient, then over and out

The shocking investigation by Panorama last night brings a pretty strong case that all ivory sales should be banned from sale again and is an influential campaigning tool when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meets to discuss applications for relaxing the ban further.  The ‘one-off’ sale in 2008 of African ivory to China and Japan has rekindled an addiction which is as insatiable as it is destructive.  Although African countries can trade on their internal markets, smugglers from the Far East can mingle easily with the Chinese entrepreneurs surging through the sub-Saharan nations.  The ebony hearts of the poachers in their quest for ivory show no regard for sustainability.  Chinese shops are supposed to be rigorously regulated but as Panorama showed, even state department stores do not follow protocol (which should invalidate the CITES settlement, bringing back a full ban).

There were some interesting facts revealed, such as the Chinese name for ivory translates as ‘elephant teeth’, contributing to lowered concern among the general population about how ivory is obtained.  Carvers on occasion resort to using the tusks of woolly mammoths dug out of frozen Siberian tundra but possessions made from these are viewed as less valuable in the Chinese market.  Also, though the African elephant is lumped as one, the jungle pachyderm is as different from its savannah brethren as lions are from tigers.  Yet because of their remote locations - reducing income from tourists - the jungle elephants are most at risk of extinction.  Mankind’s record on preserving species is generally lamentable, as man’s demands are infinite on the Earth’s finite resources.  As far back as Roman times, the Anatolian lion was hunted out of existence to entertain the blood sports at arenas and who feels sympathy for these long-gone beasts now?  Education among buyers is too slow and selling tusks will make little dent in overall African poverty.  The ban should be extended once again.

Nothing to declare, not even genius

How would Oscar Wilde put it?  To lose one high-profile job in football may be regarded as misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness.  Once again, Damien Comolli find himself turned out on his ear, fired from Tottenham Hotspur over the Juande Ramos debacle and now paying the price for overpaying for duds.  The Frenchman may need to return to his native land to rebuild his reputation, though whether he’ll ever be hired in England in the future is more than moot.

Alan Davies.  No matter how he tries to defend his comments.  They were grossly insensitive.  So Liverpool won’t play on 15^th April and in the FA Cup semi-finals to boot – how could anyone criticise them for being unfair on Chelsea?  It’s not Liverpool forcing Chelsea to play Tottenham on Sunday at 6 pm.  It is the ludicrous demands of TV and the feebleness of the Football Association.  Chelsea asked to play on Friday, as happens in earlier rounds of the FA Cup, yet this was rebuffed.  Why?  If anyone is being unfair it the obtuseness of the television companies screening it and the FA in hock to them.

Rick-Rolling (off a cliff)

Never gonna to give you up, never gonna to let you down, never going to run around and desert you.  Until now.  Not for Rick Astley but Sick Rantorum, er, Rick Santorum.  The ‘conservative champion’ has bowed out of the race after a serious family illness and likely defeat in his home state of Pennsylvania.  Shame but I can understand that family comes first.  I would have liked to see him contest Texas.  If he could have stopped an outright victory for Romney then he might have negotiated a vice-presidential spot.  Newt Gingrich is a busted flush – there is no chance that he can stage another late revival to stop Romney clinching it before the Republican conference in August.  And as for Ron Paul, well, he’s Ron Paul.  He may have the most intellectual coherence of all the remaining candidates – why have small government at home but big government abroad? – but even his own side don’t flock to him in anything but nominal numbers.  Time to break out the Etch-a-Sketch.

Bad and dangerous, yes, but mad?

The assessment of Anders Behring Breivik as clinically sane and therefore fit to stand trial is a no-win situation for right-thinking humanity.  On the one hand, the Norwegian mass-murderer would be ruled criminally insane and committed to a mental asylum for the rest of his life, a prospect he viewed as a “a fate worse than death” because it would ‘invalidate’ his cause of white supremacism.  He is clearly deluded but people of otherwise sound mind can be.  This plays into the other hand - that he was in full control of himself when committing the atrocities and so must stand in a full trial (because, of course, he has pleaded ‘not guilty’ to the charge of terrorism).  The judges deciding the case cannot abrogate it straightaway to put Breivik in a padded cell.  This does allow the families of the dead and the wounded to have their day in court, to attempt to prevent their loved one(s) becoming another terrible statistic, yet it gives a platform for Breivik to spout his racist nonsense.  Despite western norms of innocent until proven guilty, there is absolutely no chance that he will be acquitted and thus he will be incarcerated for the rest of his life.  However, Breivik gets what he wants – to become an imprisoned martyr.  If he was ruled as mentally unfit to stand trial, committing him to that which he most dreads, the aggrieved families will not see him convicted of his crimes.  Neither option is especially appealing in dealing with this creature.

Maybe Breivik hopes, if sent to jail, that another inmate will murder him, elevating Breivik to the ultimate in martyrdom for those inspired by him (even if the cause is insidious).  This illustrates the problem with the death penalty – when the person wants (or is at least happy) to die, how is it a punishment?  Moreover, an execution would make Breivik’s life equivalent to the 77 people he slaughtered; you can’t take his life 77 times, only once and so, even in the moment of his death, Breivik would exert power over the friends and families left behind.  It would not be a deterrence to those determined enough to copycat his actions.  It would not be cheaper for, as the USA has experienced, it is more expensive to try and execute someone than lock them up for life, due to all the appeals and so lawyers’ fees that are paid out.  Even in vengeance (retribution would be the wrong word, for how could anything make up for the loss of a beloved), on the day of Breivik’s putative execution, his name would flash up and his fame would resume.  Were the surviving victims allowed to see Breivik pass away, he would even have a gallery to whom he could play up.  Breivik is a monster but Norwegian justice, as a reflection of its society, is not.

Liberating points from The Liberty Stadium

Having reached the total of 56 points three days ago – the same number of points Sir Bobby Robson managed to scramble together in his final full season, finishing fifth – if Newcastle United beat Bolton Wanderers, they will exceed the 58 points of 2005-06, when, as caretaker, Glenn Roeder rescued a season that threatened to end in ignominy.  That resulted in seventh place and entry into the now departed Inter-Toto competition (success in this prompting progress to the full UEFA Cup).  It is the irony of the league table but Newcastle could finish with more points that when finishing third in 2003, yet finish sixth and not in contention for Europe (if Everton beat Liverpool in next Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final and Tottenham Hotspur or Chelsea win the final but finish fourth or higher; or if Everton wins the trophy outright).  This season has been a surprise even to manager Alan Pardew yet it would be galling if all that effort resulted in no significant prize (even if the Europa League is held in dubious regard).

But first comes Bolton.  No game in the Premier League is a given this season (unless you are Manchester United) and so the win over Swansea at The Liberty Stadium in Wales was impressive. Brendan Rogers (in Arsene Wenger mode when Arsenal have been defeated by less silken opponents) moaned that the home team was the best side.  I have to question in what way.  Swansea had more than two-thirds possession of the ball, completed seven times as many passes as the visitors and had thirteen shots on target to Newcastle’s four.  But goals are the currency of football and that is what the Magpies dealt in, Swansea not bulging the net in their favour once (despite Newcastle having only one recognised, fit centre-half defender).  So the best side was that in orange (a bizarre away strip for a team of black-and-whites) in that they did not waste their passes, were clinical and had the telling quality.  Pardew had set his side up in a manner that even baffled commentators but it worked a treat and paid tribute to the threat of Swansea.  Here we are – now try to break us down.  Ultimately, Swansea couldn’t.   Possession is no longer nine-tenths of the law.  Moreover, given that the Toon should have triumphed in the north-east, this was a redressing of the balance in favour of the ‘best’ team.  How good Newcastle United are in the remainder of the season is tantalising but still to be seen.

Hungry for more

When the ancient Olympic Games were inaugurated, it was to honour the highest physical achievements of man but there were always people seeking an unfair advantage in order to be acclaimed, who brought the Games into disrepute.  One particularly grubby episode involved the Roman Emperor Nero on an official tour of Greece, who had the Olympic (and Nemean) Games brought forward for his own convenience.  Naturally, he carried off the prizes but bribed the judge and the best performers to be doubly sure.  There could be no clearer corruption of the ideal by Roman overlordship.

The Hunger Games combines the physicality of the Olympics with the degeneracy of those fighting to death in the Colosseum and other arenas in the Roman Empire, setting it in some quasi-fascist dystopia of the future so beloved of gloomy sci-fi writers.  It is based on a previous work and certainly William Golding’s Lord of the Flies has been referenced, both acting as a metaphor for school life.  Of filmic influences, The Running Man and particularly Battle Royale loom large, with the pitched killings taking place in a The Truman Show-style dome.  The message is, of course, that inside each one of us lies an inner savage, no matter how refined we portray ourselves.

I thought it was a very Southern take on the theme.  While not dismissing it out of hand, many of its motifs have been aired in the Republican primaries.  The era is undisclosed, taking place long after some apparently apocalyptic civil.  Nuclear weapons are deployed, as the apartheid-minded South Africans would have done had they feared being overrun by the peoples of the Bantustans they themselves had created.  The country is not named either, but as they all speak English with American accents, it is fair to say that it is a nightmare vision of the USA.  The history, written by the victors, not only claims the enormous destruction that took place, in addition portraying the breakaways as evil.  The tyranny of the federal government is enforced by jack-booted peacekeepers (a term redolent of the United Nations, another institution hated by American right-wingers).  The profiling of the children bring to mind Nazi labelling of Jews, though Southerners have never been slow to exaggerate the barbarity of the Beltway.  The inhabitants in the ‘treacherous’ districts are honest, hard-working, god ol’ boys and gals, while those in the Capitol (shorthand for Washington DC and New England) are preening effete and venal, kitted out in retro-futuristic post-Bellum outfits.  And, accused of long-ago treason, twelve districts.  Ain’t that a purty figure.  A number close to the eleven Southern states that seceded and let’s not forget the Confederacy was hoist by its own petard, when West Virginia in turn seceded from Virginia to stay with the Union, so really that makes twelve.

Jennifer Lawrence, the main protagonist, is used to acting in a backswood milieu, following on from Winter’s Bone.  Her girl-next-door looks shine through again – I think she could pull off a good Miss Elizabeth Bennett.  Keenly observing her range given her formidable reputation, she runs the gamut of emotions as artfully as she dashes through forestry.  There is a welter of supporting talent, each one sketched out to get an essence of the character – Woody Harrelson as a ragged mentor and previous winner of the Games who uses copious amounts of liquor to dull the pain of his past, Lenny Kravitz as a style guru who cares, Stanley Tucci as a supercilious TV host and so on.  Donald Sutherland’s stentorian yet vindictive president who does not like underdogs reminded me of the line that David Cameron enjoys laughing at those he considers losers.

The insidious nature of the games is enhanced in that children are selected as combatants.  The more they eat, the more (anti) credits they accumulate and so the more likely that they will be picked at random.  Inevitably, older kids, who have to eat more than their younger peers, have less chance to avoid the cut. 

Of the social landscape of this realm, those districts closest to the Capitol contain trained brats burning with arrogance and a tendency to wanton cruelty, as if to assign a corrupting influence to the Capitol.  Also, those males who live in the capital or close to it have Roman names corresponding with figures from the dying days of the Roman Republic – Stanley Tucci, for example, is called Caesar (incidentally, he wears a tie, an accoutrement most British office workers believe will disappear over the next 40 years, with a quarter convinced it will be obsolete in no more than a decade – this drama is set, at the earliest , towards the end of the 21^st century).  The country is run like an empire – raw materials flowing from the impoverished South, sorry, districts, into the Capitol for the metropolitan elite.  Divide-and-rule is in operation as the rulers set the districts at each other’s throats via The Hunger Games.  In events of failure, scapegoats are not just ruined professionally but forced to consume the equivalent of Socrates’ hemlock, for destabilising the constitutional arrangements.

As a side note, religion is not mentioned throughout and I think, rather than to try and avoid offence, the makers wanted it audible by the absence of discussion.  After all, Christianity played a crucial part in stamping out the gladiatorial bloodbaths.  Little tolerance or charity is displayed by the most of the characters.

The action is well-handled and genuinely surprising.  This movie treats its audience intelligently, unusual for its genre.  Many deaths happen out of direct sight or in an intentional jumble of hurly-burly cross-cutting and the film is not overly gruesome.  As far as possible, the producers give meaning to all those who perish, emphasising the importance and value of life.  The Hunger Games eschews the sentimentality of Minority Report (where the good guys triumph and the bad guys are ousted, against the odds), with an ending that is both uncertain and unsettling, as life can be.  Some find it dispiriting for the subject matter but I found it uplifting for the respect it imparts to us in the seats.  5 out of 5.

Grief, grievance and perspective

The commemorations of the Falklands War today are for the conflict of 30 years ago.  Strange to think, that I remember the 20^th and 25^th anniversaries so well and where my life is now, but that’s another story.  But there was little of the bitterness five and ten years ago as there is today.  Argentina’s political and media elite have embarked on a self-righteous crusade to paint Britain and the Falkland Islanders as the bad guys, swaying much of Latin America and even attracting sympathetic hearings from the US State Department (Antarctica is close to Argentina; why don’t you ‘enter into dialogue’ with Buenos Aires about handing over the American slice of it, Hillary?).

When President Cristina Kirchner abuses the language, saying that British control of the South Atlantic cluster of rocky outcroppings is ‘unjust’ and ‘absurd’, it is reminiscent of 1984’s Ministry of Truth, turning meanings inside out.  It would be funny if it wasn’t serious in the cold war between Port Stanley and Buenos Aires, the iron grey curtain of sea seemingly wider than ever.  I don’t agree with Max Hastings that it was a romantic adventure, a Boy’s Own tally-ho with the hounds!  Human life should not be so cheapened and every individual matters – at the very least, they all had mothers.  Rather it was a fool-hardy expedition which, if it failed, would have reduced Britain’s navy to not much more than coastal defence and a titchy nuclear deterrent.    An Israeli analyst, writing at the time of Israel’s 2006 incursion into Lebanon in pursuit of Hizbollah, said the decision to pursue war should rest on two precepts – it is just and is it wise.  An unprovoked invasion of the island group when talks could yet have delivered it over to the mainland made it a just conflict but hardly a wise one, which is maybe why passion ranks above rationality now.

There are some who focus on the statistics that those who died at the time and subsequently from Falklands-related trauma who try to undermine the case for war and, by extension, the legitimacy of the Falkland Islanders to choose their own masters.  You might as well say that Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay should be annexed to the land of the Pampas because they are all or part in the geo-historical ambit of the Vice-Royalty of Rio de la Plata, with its regional centre of operations at Buenos Aires.  They are all closer than the Falkland Islands and why should the interests of the people in these places be respected.  They must join with Argentina to stop their counter-productive independence.  Every death in the Falklands War is tragic but there was a principal of self-determination at stake as well.

Argentina is like a bully.  Meek and submissive when the UK was the most powerful country in the world, it tried to throw around its weight when it thought Britain was on the way down and got a bloody nose for its troubles, limping away to lick its wounds like a coward rather than throw everything into the fray.  Ultimately, the Falklands were not important enough.  And Britain should receive thanks not odium for hastening the departure of one the continent’s most despicable regimes.  Would Kirchner even be alive to deliver her diatribes if the military junta had continued for many years after?  Would she have been ‘disappeared’ to add to the 30,000 who have not been accounted for in the official tallies?  How many more thousands, if not tens of thousands, would have perished under the victorious generals?  That is the overwhelming benefit of the war and knocks into a cocked hat those who equate the numbers of dead in the battles to the number of Falkland Islanders.  Not that Britain will receive any gratitude for it but such is the way of the world.

Super Sunday (but not for football)

As football seasons in western and central Europe reach crunch points, I can’t help feeling a certain ennui to the whole proceedings.  Even with the gobbets of highlights, the hype surrounding the ‘importance’ of matches is like a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes – why does it matter.  Undoubtedly, the severe medical issues that have afflicted Fabrice Muamba and Stilyan Petrov has brought this issue into sharp relief, that in harrowing times as these, football is just a game.  Yet when the clamour of identikit mournfulness (I’m thinking of TV presenters and radio hosts, rather than the players and family close to Muamba and Petrov) passes and it will pass, as the cycle of news is 24/7, why should football be exalted with such intense acclaim?  This is not to say my support for my own football club has drained away – I am interested even in things that might have a peripheral impact on the team, pondering imponderables.  This is, admittedly, overwhelmingly from a position of helplessness, yet the identification with a tribe is burned into the heart.  And from this there can be no clearer summation – apart from the odd  qualifying match and summer tournament, football is not the ‘national game’ but a mosaic of petty rivalries.  More divides us than unites us.

I used to enjoy the twists and turns of a season, the story being told.  The immolation of Wolverhampton Wanderers by their fellow itinerants Bolton Wanderers, thus effectively sealing the relegation of the former, should have been a stunning moment.  Yet I can’t summon up much more than ‘meh’.  The fightback by Manchester City from 3-1 down to draw 3-3 should have been exhilarating, though with even the mitigating impressive technique of the goals, it left me feeling jaded, just another statistic in a jumbled bunch of them.  What did strike me was the ‘fans’ leaving five minutes early and so missing the action that brought their club parity.  Following on from Rio Ferdinand’s remarks, I thought of them crawling back into the woodwork from whence they came now that their team was stuttering.

The footballing authorities embrace of a Sunday schedule puts me in the frame of mind that they are also looking to inculcate a new spirit within people.  The power-hungry Premier League did not need to be asked twice, but the Championship and the FA and League cups are also insinuating their way as far as possible into people’s lives.  I’m not a fan of Sunday games, believing it should be a day of rest, at the very least for families to take their minds off it, though I understand the demands of television.  But for the screening of Manchesters United and City on Easter Sunday, both ‘vital’ games, I think of my room-mate in Romania who posited that the authorities were trying to formulate a substitute to Christianity.  They overstepped the mark when forcing a game to be played on a Sunday morning, but the FA and PL have grown confident again.  I remember commentator Alan Green berating fans turning up late for a match on a previous Easter Sunday, thinking them having a lazy lie-in, it not occurring to him that they might have been at a church service followed by lunch.  A German friend of mine, not religious at all, was surprised that England does this on Easter, saying that German clubs respect the holiday by all playing on Easter Saturday (this was back in 2004; things might have changed).  If this is to try and fill an emptiness inside people, it will never succeed (personally, I think, quite the reverse), but as long as it fills coffers till their cups runneth over, it will continue.  It will not stop my interest in the melee surrounding my club continuing to diminish.