Unrivalled cynicism

Well, maybe not totally unrivalled, but the Tories fulfilling their election pledge of a tax break for married couples by instituting it in April 2015, one month before the general election.  If Labour win it or go into coalition with the Lib Dems for a parliamentary majority, it will be scrapped.  So much for all that bollocks about supporting married families (who stay together longer than co-habitees, thus providing a stable household for any children).  All parties seek the atomisation of society as it makes it easier to control.

Old master and young pretender

Over 2003 and 2004, opportunities existed for Sir Bobby Robson and José Mourinho to face-off against each other with their respective team, master and apprentice.  Unfortunately, Newcastle United did not make the Champions League Group stage to take on Porto (though as Partizan Belgrade, United’s vanquishers, were in Pot Four and Newcastle would have been in Pot 3, the draw may not have placed Newcastle and Porto together).  The opportunity arose again in the 2004-05 season, when Mourinho made the switch to Chelsea.  Alas, the chancer Freddy Shepherd lost his nerve and sacked Sir Bobby after just four games in which they were very unlucky to have garnered only two points (in reality, they should have taken eight, but a last minute handball by Jimmy Floyd Hasselbank snatched a draw for Middlesbrough, a fluky goal won it for Spurs 1-0, Norwich were lucky to draw 2-2 and Aston Villa’s goalkeeper should have been sent off for handballing way outside the area midway through the game).  So the meeting never materialised and, for me, it is a matter of eternal, if small, regret.  The Pet shop Boys may have sung that there are a lot of opportunities but not in this instance. The Had Sir Bobby met with Mourinho, whose Machiavellian streak and mind games were rapidly becoming established knowledge, it would have replicated the scene in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, where Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader confront each other on the Death Star.  Mourinho could have touted with his imperious Stamford Bridge side (and Champions League medal with Porto in the bag), “Where once I was the apprentice, now I am the master.”  Like Obi-Wan, Sir Bobby could have replied, “Only a master of evil, José.”

This Saturday, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur join in battle for the first time this season.  Back at Chelsea, Mourinho is in the unusual position of old hand, taking on André Villas-Boas, head coach at Spurs.  In this scenario, Sir Bobby takes on the role of Yoda, Mourinho Obi-Wan and Villas-Boas, Annakin Skywalker.  Sir Bobby is the father figure both look up to, but a tension exists between the seasoned Obi-Wan and the impetuous Annakin, the padawan repeatedly criticised by his mentor.  Indeed, they have grown apart and have not spoken for seven years, but in no way could Villas-Boas be comparable to Vader, yet.  With neither side firing on all cylinders, it could be an intriguing personality clash that grabs the eye, just as Sir Alex Ferguson’s former charges were assessed when they became managers in their own right and came up against their old gaffer.

Energising the debate

All the hue and cry about Ed Miliband's proposed policy of an energy price freeze illustrates that it is a potential electoral game-changer.  Any hopes that the Conservatives had of riding a surging economic wave to a governing majority could be dashed on the rocks if the living standards of many are not raised by it and fuel poverty has drastically increased in the last few years.  I myself have noticed my electricity and gas basic bill more than double over the past year - maybe I should switch more between the providers but why should loyalty be punished?
Angela Knight reared her ugly head again.  No longer defending the banks in the wake of the crash and LIBOR-rigging scandal, this former Tory MP is now the spokesperson for the energy companies under the umbrella name Energy UK.  No doubt she would have scolded the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future for trying to change the ways of Ebeneezer Scrooge, so resolutely is she behind a bad cause.  Anything that comes out of her mouth is like the antonym of the trade union satire I'm Alright Jack - think of all the money the rich would lose if a price freeze went ahead!  I'm delighted that Caroline flint stuck it to her and to Peter Mandelson, a Blairite ghost in the Slimer from Ghostbusters mould, with his fingers in many energy company pies.
Then there were journalists mentioning California's rolling blackouts when these were engineered by Enron to force a recall of the Democratic governor (ushering in Arnold Schwarzenegger).  Yes, I know that investment doesn't come cheap, but we've heard too much of jam tomorrow, never jam today, like with the railways.  We've had two decades where no-one bothered to expand the energy supply and now Miliband is being blamed for future black-outs when neither the Coalition or New Labour did much about this impending energy crunch.  There is talk about uncertainty of investment but that uncertainty only exists if there is a real chance of Miliband becoming prime minister - the anger from those previously opposed to energy hikes in the newspaper middle market suggests they believe there is.

Maths lesson required, followed by logic lesson

The Angry Video Game Nerd - known as James Rolfe to his closest (and his helpmate Mike Mattei) – provides the ultimate nostalgia trip for people, usually guys, who grew up in the 1980s and ‘90s, excoriating games that in no way justified their price, indeed in no way justified their existence.  The Nerd’s rants on YouTube (because I’m too cheap to subscribe to Cinemassacre) do digress occasionally into other mediums of popular culture – one of his particular bugbears being Hollywood’s numbering of its sequels.  The modern Tinseltown preference is to dispense with numbers altogether and have subtitles below the main one, in aeffort to avoid sounding derivative (The Fast and the Furious phenomenon being a notable exception). 

Rocky Balboa’s naming diverges from this but seemed to subvert the previous four successors to Rocky.  The Nerd’s wrath though was reserved especially for the Rambo quadrilogy.  All three films following the original violate all rules of succession.  The first was called First Blood, about a Vietnam veteran struggling to adapt and having a shoot-out with the local police and the national guard. The second decided to append the protagonist’s name to the front making a mockery of the part two as was Rambo: First Blood Part II – if anything, it should have been First Blood Part II: Rambo, though this would still have been nonsensical.  This was followed by Rambo 3, even though the first one wasn’t called Rambo and the second one Part II, though given the Reaganite, tub-thumping idiocy that into which the franchise had now descended, this probably isn’t surprising.  Given that there was no longer any memory to sully, Sylvester Stallone went ahead with a fourth instalment two decades after the third.  Dropping all pretences of sequencing this was generally released as John Rambo, which essentially disowns the progenitor of the whole series and all that followed.  Mind-blowing and mind-numbing at the same time. (Interestingly, all those fought by John Rambo are now viewed in the opposite light – the police are almost sanctified by Middle America following 9/11; the Vietnamese are now allies of the USA while the Soviet Union no longer exists; Rambo’s Afghan friends are now fought by the West; and even Burma is now on friendly terms with the USA).

In relation to this, I saw the trailer for Krrish 3 on YouTube, being a sucker for fantasy films where people have super-powered abilities. It also recalls what Piscine Patel said in the Life of Pi that in the absence of American comic books, Krishna was his superhero.  Afterwards, I was intrigued to learn about this Bollywood movie’s predecessors.  What I found takes Rambo’s headband, ties it round the Vietnam vet’s goollies and tightens, so hands-down does it defeat the Stallone series in trashing notions of follow-ups numbering.  Hilariously, the protagonist who gives his name to the latest offering wasn’t even in the first of the (current) trilogy, Koi... Mil Gaya, being primarily about his father, Rohit, in the latter’s youth befriending a lost alien (there is a lot of debate of whether E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was based on this, which comes from an original script from Satyajit Ray).  It is not disastrous to have the second film called Krrish, just as Christopher Nolan’s Batman series continually changed how the series was named.  What is terrible though is to jump from Krrish to Krrish 3, just to give it the feel of a trilogy, insulting the intelligence of its audience.  Only the whimsy of the original super-band The Traveling Wilbury’s could pull this off, their second outing being Volume 3 because key member Roy Orbison had died before any second album and in honour of him they skipped it, numbering-wise.  Krrish 3 looks decent (as was intended, in matching Hollywood’s special effects), if not particularly original but why oh why did it have to have that name.

Un-Man-ned Booker Prize

The decision of the Booker Prize to throw open the competition to all English-speakers (code: come in USA) rather than just Britain, the Commonwealth, Eire and Zinbabwe is another case of homogenisation, better known as following the money.  Distinctiveness is cast aside, much like Euston Arch.  Suriname’s plans to join The Commonwealth can now be shelved, for surely the only reason for their application was to be able to participate in the Man Booker Prize.  Can probably kiss goodbye South Sudan’s accession too.

A spokesman for the prize celebrated the inclusiveness of the prize, where any English-speaker from “Chicago to Sheffield to Shanghai” can enter.  This sums up the imaginative bankruptcy of the decision (which has been debated for a long time).  First of all, it is a failure of alliteration by including a soft ‘c’ city, just because they couldn’t think of another American city that began with ‘S’ (Seattle?  San Francisco? San Diego? Santa Fe?  For a truly worldwide feel, St Petersburg, Florida?)  People, in general, don’t read books out loud either, unless they have an audience, so it fails on that count as well.  Secondly, it is too writer-ly.  A book containing such a phrase - without disowning it immediately through postmodernism - would barely be able to secure an agent, let alone a publishing house and forget all kind of lists, long and short.  Famous writers (Elmore Leonard, Sebastian Faulks) were/are always at pains to stress that if it sounds like it is written, dump it and start again.  Alliteration is like kryptonite to all tomes aspiring to win the Booker Prize.

Like the one-sided extradition treaty, written in American phraseology and signed by a blind British Home Secretary, which Theresa May effectively placed on a more equal footing by blocking Gary McKinnon’s removal, many American awards are not open to all and sundry English-speakers, e.g. the Pulitzer Prize (unless ones happens to write a distinguished history of the USA).  It penalises all the other authors from The Commonwealth (or formerly part of), in the first instance be denying them a place on the long list, which can be the difference between earning a living through writing or not and secondly, by the sheer volume of books that now need to be perused by the judges, nuances that can make the difference between winning and not may be overlooked.  The Man Booker Prize board may spare their blushes with the fig leaf that winning it will be an even greater accolade but such an abstract concept I feel would gain little traction to winners and runners-up alike.

Bookies smiling tonight

Every pundit had Alan Pardew as a nailed-on certainty to be the first managerial 'casualty' of the Premier League season but instead the dark place acted first - Paolo di Canio sacked after defeat at West Brom (beware David Moyes, Man Utd face the Baggies next).   The only shame is that Pardew won't be able to revenge himself properly for last season, but one can still hope that the players brought in are collectively useless and a new manager will be able to do nothing with them.

The Dragon in Aragon

A quite unexpected and heavy victory for Swansea in Valencia has a double irony – first of all, that a viscerally Welsh side (albeit with significant foreign elements) is improving the English UEFA co-efficient rankings (and against England’s closest national league competitor, Spain, but that’s by the by) and, secondly, that their place in Europe was assured by Swansea’s arch rivals, Cardiff, in a test case when the Bluebirds (as was) reached the 2008 FA Cup Final, prompting a special UEFA review (of whom, Michel Platini came out in favour of allowing Cardiff to compete in Europe if they were to win, though they in the end didn’t).

Quite a contrast to the last English representatives to pitch up at the Mestalla.  Stoke were the plucky underdogs but lost in the knockout stage.  I expected Swansea to go the same way but Michael Laudrup has a more cosmopolitan and cultured approach than Tony Pulis and has the added advantage of having already coached in Spain, where he led unfashionable Getafe into Europe and even defeated Tottenham at White Hart Lane, what proved to Martin Jol’s last game as Spurs’ boss.

The current Cockerels side is made of sterner and more united stuff as they took out the stuffing from their Europa League opponents from beyond the Arctic Circle, Tromsø, though the Norwegians will be glad to welcome Spurs for the away leg in the dead of winter.  As for Wigan, they took 3,500 fans to Belgium to see them make their Europa League bow (FA Cup winners do not need qualifying rounds), a figure that sometimes eclipses their home ground attendance.  They got a 0-0 result for their troubles, but if they can’t beat a Championship side, will Zulte-Waregem win a game?

Next claim by Putin: Sun goes round Earth

In a recent op-ed piece in a newspaper supplement in The Telegraph that details the news in Russia, my professor at both my BA and MA levels, Richard Sakwa, claimed that Russia had hold of a better understanding of the situation in Syria than the West.  Well, the Kremlin has truly smashed that idea now, even if it held water before.  Like North Korea and China, the smaller power is dictating terms to the larger one.

The United Nations weapons inspectors report did not apportion blame to anyone for the chemical gas attack in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, but they did include the trajectories at which the missiles landed in the buildings.  Human Rights Watch have traced these trajectories back to a government-controlled Republican Guard army base.  Russia which had not anticipated this from what they had expected to be unashamedly bland has spluttered more than a Tea Party member at the mere mention of Barack Obama.  Sergei Ryabkov, Russian deputy foreign minister, denounced the report as ‘one-sided’ and ‘distorted’, criticising the inspectors for not checking ‘suspected’ rebel gas attacks (carefully omitting that Russia blocked access for weapons inspectors at the time these events occurred).  He said they had evidence that the rebels carried out the attack. Who was this impartial source that had more neutrality than the United Nations – why, the Assad government!  Completely laughable and yet, as David Blair of The Telegraph argues, Russia has gone so far to the dark side in backing Assad that to backtrack would be very humiliating – hence this wilful blindness.  They will not force Assad to give up his chemical weapons if he obfuscates just as they could not restrain his use of chemical weapons like they promised he would.  Nor will they force him to the negotiating table given that he sees the civil war turning his way.  But this brass neck from Russia will not buckle as the defence experts Jane’s say that now more than half the opposition are jihadists, to whom compromise is just as alien as it is to Assad.  The West may soon end up tacitly backing Assad, distasteful as that is, because they waited too long to get involved.

Greater expectations

Last Friday night, I ended up at Singapora restaurant in Rochester High Street as a work colleague’s birthday was celebrated.  It was packed more tightly than a T-34 tank – given that its primary function is as a culinary outlet, a small strip alongside the bar area was not really conducive to nightclubbing, especially as it was pouring down with rain, so rendering a large section of the backyard unavailable.

It was quite a contrast when I greeted a friend in Rochester a few weeks ago and, after a refreshing pint, took him to Singapora to sate his hunger with something more satisfying than a nutri-grain bar.  It seemed that bar the bar staff (one of whom vocally demonstrated her CAMRA membership) we were alone – usually a bad sign for such an establishment, but first of all this was Rochester and not London.  Most importantly, this was Thursday night.

My friend, Alexander Goff had literally (not a word I use lightly) trekked from Westminster Abbey to Rochester Cathedral over the previous two days and come the morning would journey along the South Downs trail.  At Rochester train station he would link up with a few less hardy souls who would accompany him to Canterbury.  It wasn’t for charity (I don’t blame him – having watched the very popular Simon Savory struggle to accrue £2,000 for his London Marathon cause, fundraising can be a very stressful and exhausting business), rather something that Al wished to prove to himself. I guess as my peers hit 30 and beyond and look for new ways to experience life, without the comfort of children, it can be a little unnerving.  Maybe not quite a ‘quarter-life’ crisis, but certainly a time for re-evaluation.  I fancy that such a sojourn would be appealing to me, just as the Thames Walk (recently voted second best walking path in the world by Lonely Planet) would be, ahem, up my avenue.  Yet caring for a little daughter does put a crimpener on solitary plans.

Al had done the reverse of what Phillip Pirrip did in Great Expectations, in walking from the Medway area to London.  Whereas Pip was emotionally devastated, making the trip in one day, Al was in markedly finer fettle, despite the rain that splattered his second day and his ad hoc sleeping arrangements in Orpington for the first night.  He sent me a text in the early evening of the second day, ahead of our rendevous outside Rochester Cathedral, saying he was having a pint in Gillingham.  This rather threw me, thinking that to not re-cross the Medway, he must be taking a very southerly route – turns out it was Gravesend, but along with Gillingham, it was a place he would have passed through without tarrying in the past, hence the confusion.

I remember after arriving in Rochester and taking him to the nearby King’s Head pub, he swiftly proceeded to remove his damp hiking boots in exchange for flip-flops.  As I purchased drinks for us (where I was recognised by a barlady as a worker at The Telegraph Contact Centre through my friend Chris Foxwright offering her change for the vending machine whilst engaged in a game of pool with me – there is a rudimentary pool table at work), he quickly contacted his girlfriend Annie and then disappeared in the toilets for a while, freshening up.

After a trip to Singapora, I accompanied him to his pre-arranged digs at The Gordon Hotel.  Despite the chipboard reception, quite plush they were too, tapestries lining the stairwell with its oak banisters and an en-suite bathroom slightly bigger than the actual bedroom, with a lovely view of the cathedral’s spire.  After bidding my au revoirs, I got home and received a good night text from him.  Very touching it was as well, even though it was meant for Annie!

Too limited a history

It has become the fashion today to dress up scientists as secular theologians (with an honorary place for Stephen Fry), as if asking them to speak (or themselves taking the initiative) outside their specialism gives them any greater credibility than asking a streetsweeper about the merits of religion.  Oh, but they have these capacious brains, it would be argued, which first of all feeds into their arrogance and secondly renders everyone else as lesser beings who need their guiding light, not unlike priests of old (nowadays humility is all the rage).

When Channel 4 decided to engage Professor Stephen Hawkings in a question-and-(delayed) answer session (it was not live for some reason), they knew there would be fireworks, when they came before one of their gods with the question “Has religion been a force for good in the world?”

They have as well as asked if Hawking would have liked a corkscrew rammed into his eye.  From a man who has been inculcated and socialised in the atmosphere of his fellow sceptics in the academic world, he has been increasingly forthright making unfalsifiable statements on the existence of heaven and God, an estrangement from religion that coincided with his leaving Jane, his wife of several decades, who did (and does) have a strong Christian faith – despite a reconciliation following his second divorce.  So, were he more aware, he would have realised that Channel 4 News were treating him like a performing seal, chucking him something with which to play.

Hawking came out with the usual tropes, Crusades, Inquisition, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as if one can tar all religions everywhere and for all time with the same brush in a couple of sentences (curiously focusing only on the Abrahamic religions).  Not a smidgen of good could Hawking evince seemingly.  I’m sure if Justin Welby or Pope Francis were asked if atheism had been a force for good in the world,” they would have had more considered responses than the rambling rant of Hawking.  At root, religion is about passion, about love and love can do bad things as well as good, as can be seen when Hawking abandoned Jane to go with the woman he ‘loved’.

Anyway, Hawking has the opposite trouble to his biologist atheist friends who focus on the minutiae of life missing the big picture.  He has made his canvas too wide with A Brief History of Time to make any reasoned comment on particular history.  A favourite of historian sceptics is The Thirty Years’ War, though other distinguished historians can demolish that thesis as the conflagration being more about geopolitical (why else would Catholic France invade Catholic Spain and Catholic Germany) and dynastic (the Spanish Habsburgs coming to the rescue of their Germna cousins) reasons than confessional, just as one can do with the Crusades (Franks more interested in setting up principalities in the Levant; Normans keen to add Byzantine Greece to their conquests of Byzantine Italy and the Italian cities vying to increase their share of Mediterranean trade).  Hawkings limited reading of history in terms of the deeds of men and women – rather than the cosmos - is worse than flawed, it is simplistic.

Ultimately, it is a ridiculous question asked by Channel 4 News, as disrespectful to Hawking as it is to those of religious leanings. Christopher Swift, achieving the double of being a sceptic and a cleric, probably had it spot on in such space as would have been available were he alive today when he quipped that we have enough religion to hate but not enough to love.  Such literary elegance is perfect for the soundbite era but escapes those of its generation.

The sky of night

Though Oscar Wilde said, “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars,” in Elysium, the super-rich have ensured that they alone will not be in the gutter but actually in the heavens, while the billions of wretches below look up at their gleaming space station like the Moon on a crisp morning.  From the South African director of District 9, Neill Blomkamp, this dystopia 150 years ahead of us has an apartheid between the haves and the have-nots, as relevant on the Veldt as it is for those Latin Americans seeking to pass across the Rio Grande and the massive Vietnam War-airfield tracks of fences or the Africans risking the hazardous voyage across the Mediterranean.

On this artificial moon, the rich operate a form of cabinet democracy where the only positive thing that can be said of them is that they operate equality amongst each other, irrespective of creed or colour.  But when the defence secretary Delacourt (a well-cast Jodie Foster, considering Contact) oversteps her jurisdiction and destroys two craft crammed with migrants trying to break into Elysium, her reprimand and the threat of dismissal leads her to plan a bloodless coup where she will become dictator.  This involves co-opting a failing robotics weapons manufacturer, John Carlyle, whose company also holds the design to the space station’s computer, with mammoth contracts; as Elysium is served and policed by robots, rewriting their programming would make her rule invincible.

On Earth, Max (an excellent Matt Damon), an ex-con in Los Angeles trying to go straight, meets his childhood friend Frey (Alice Braga), now a nurse, but then suffers a workplace accident in Carlyle’s factory in which he is fatally irradiated.  Given five days to live with the scant consolation of a bottle of pills to keep him alive as his company pay-off, he desperately seeks to go to Elysium where machines that can cure every conceivable ailment are at the disposal of the rich.  The human trafficker Spider (Wagna Moura) who is eventually one of the good guys will let Max go on the next transport as long as he kidnaps one of the super-rich, extracting the credit card details and other data that are cybernetically imprinted on their brains.  Carlyle’s dismissive attitude to Max’s imminent death, where he values the hospital sheets Max lay upon above that of human life, makes Max choose him as the mark.  As Max’s body is failing, he is given a robotic frame as well as a brain plug to take out Carlyle’s knowledge.

To protect Carlyle, Delacourt activates Kruger (Sharlto Copley, a veteran of Blomkamp’s District 9), a brutal mercenary.  Intervening just after Carlyle has been attacked and has had his data downloaded (Carlyle is mortally wounded in the outcome), Kruger and his two sadist compatriots, track Max back to Frey’s house (where she had brought him after he found her again at the hospital).  They take her and her daughter, who has terminal leukaemia, hostage and after Max learns from Spider the worth of his acquired data (“the keys to the kingdom,” in Kruger’s words), he agrees to be taken into custody and to Elysium.  The reckless arrogance of the mercenaries causes a crash-landing on Elysium and Max faces a battle, alongside Spider’s help (with Elysium’s defences distracted by the crash, he and a team sneak in on a transport of his), to get his information into the mainframe to allow Earth access to Elysium’s ivory tower, as well as saving the life of Frey’s daughter.

Like Pacific Rim, I hadn’t really expected that much of Elysium from the trailer, but after seeing that it had received stellar reviews, affirming Blomkamp’s rising star, I thought it worth a view and was I not disappointed.  My wife, who has a low tolerance for space theatrics, was as captivated as myself.  There are a few predictable elements – the moment it becomes clear that Frey’s daughter is dying, Max’s friend, Julio (Diego Luna), is obviously going to be killed, to make space for her on a Spider transport, although the plot, once again, derivates from the traditional thereafter; Delacourt losing out in a confrontation with Kruger – yet overall, the film has a fresh take on most things futuristic, as well as being a parable of our current times.  The acting is top-notch, the suspense is kept taut and the script is plausible and engaging. 

The name itself Elysium has a double-meaning: firstly from Greek mythology where those related to or chosen by the pantheon of deities could live a perpetually happy existence in the afterlife; secondly, though, I am reminded of Gladiator where Maximus fires up his troops – “If you find yourself alone, riding in the green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled. For you are in Elysium, and you're already dead!” – the same could be said of the super-rich, their morally hollow shells as empty as the space they inhabit, as they poison Earth for their own corporate gain whilst being shielded from its effects and disowning responsibility for it.  The struggle for healthcare is particularly poignant given the political conflict over its extension in the USA.  Without giving the ending away, the rich will always find a way to isolate themselves from the less well-off.  Five out of five.

Unlucky for some

The fear of Friday 13th is quite irrational but still grips the popular imagination - no-one wanted to announce their engagement in today's Telegraph.  I once read a long exegesis (in pretending to be editorial) in The UB Post, outlining all the various theories as to how it arisen before concluding it was all bunkum. 
Ten years ago, before I had become acquainted with The UB Post, let alone read this piece, I asked as to the origin of why Friday 13th is considered so unlucky.  One of my group said, "It's because of a popular film franchise."  R-r-right.  Had the 'faceslap' meme been available then, that would have been an appropriate time to use it.

Undercover and oblivious

I do hope to move on from The Telegraph's announcements department soon, but for now I continue to wield my worldly eye in preventing mistakes that others whose in-depth knowledge lies elsewhere miss, be it in other papers or in my own ranks.  Many has been the occasion whilst working for births, deaths and marriages (incidentally engagements are more the stock in trade than official unions, letting the upper echelons know exactly who is now off the market), that I have come across a funeral director or a private client and offered my counsel, much as Jeeves would to Bertie Wooster, who have remarked most gladly at my observation rapidly followed by "Well, The Times did not spot that."  We have become accustomed to The Times modus operandi in that they require all submissions by email or fax, do not work Saturdays and never question what is sent to them.  It is on the head of the person who submitted the notice if the cut-and-paste jobbie conveys the incorrect details (though admittedly faxes could be a different matter, I feel they fax back proofs rather than read it out, the latter method I find more efficient in ferretting out mistakes).
I am a scourge of the tautology 'widow of the late' and will not permit it to be published where I can help it.  On other matters, such as bookending the caveat 'if desired' after 'donations' with commas, I am more relaxed - not demob happy as such, but realising that as my time at The Telegraph hopefully draws to a rapid close (not least because my measly holiday entitlement is almost at its limit), there are more important things than pressing one's own conception of the correct use of grammar.  I still exult in eliminating mistakes, such as 'internment' when what was meant was 'interment' - a recent homophone corner being a charity rferred to as The Prostrate Project rather than the Prostate Project.  My all-time favourite (from a funeral director) being a long list of family connections crowned with "and fiend to many," instead of 'friend'.
Today, I was in my element again.  Sir David John Stowell Hancock had reached his expiry date and this was being announced by his widow via the funeral directors.  Dutifully, they had copied with what she had instructed them and by and large this was fine.  Except in how he was being announced.  So it read "Hancock.-David John Stowell KGB."  I imagine had that gone to print there would have been considerable splutterings and upturned cups of tea, especially had he any friends in the security services ("What did I tell him while he was alive?").  Worse still, the funeral directors were going to engrave that on the coffin plate.  Of course, I instantly recognised it should be 'KCB' - that is Knight Commander of Bath - though my colleague who had typed it up had not.  And nor had any of the other publications to which the notice had been sent.  This really illustrates the entry-level nature of my job and how I must move on (some customers proffer surprise after a demonstration of my expertise that I should work in such a lowly position - but a job is a job).  Yet I had helped the funeral directors and Lady Hancock out of a potentially particularly embarrassing jam, given that, as far as we know, he was not a mole for the Soviet Committee for State Security.

Lack of freedom of vision, crushed by safety and commerce

On the 12^th anniversary of the 2001 East Coast massacres, I have finally seen One World Trade Center in its completed state.  In my mind, I had envisioned the creations of Daniel Libeskind and his later collaboration with David M. Childs.  A building with immense spires and windmills coasting among clouds in an open-air superstructure.  But I didn’t realise it would be the version, radically revised by Childs, approved for the final time in June 2005, which is deeply uninspiring in comparison to what I expected (though I was under a misapprehension).  The initial twin towers were concrete monoliths, no-frills slabs jutting out into the sky.  They came – eventually – to be a much-loved aspect of the New York skyline but no-one could ever say they were graceful or innovative.  It seems Childs (re-hired) tapped into that ‘70s zeitgeist with a ‘safe’ design, after the epic battles in the years following the destruction of the World Trade Center about what should replace it.

Let’s be clear, it isn’t awful like the Heron Tower (which looks as if the containerised docks at Rotterdam had suddenly materialised in part in the centre of London), it isn’t out of place like the cylindrical monstrosity of Vauxhall Tower (ruining the riverbank of the Thames so some architect can indulge in willy-waving) and it doesn’t melt cars and set fire to outdoor carpets as the Walkie-Talkie AKA Walkie-Scorchie does.  But it could be in Hong Kong or Shanghai, without being a ‘world city’ monument, like Swiss Re (better known as The Gherkin) or The Shard i.e. could be in any city but has a distinctiveness whereby it is immediately adopted by its host city.  The original World Trade Center summed up the brutality and vulgarity of commerce, stripped of any pretensions but there has was an opportunity here to be a fitting monument to those who died in 2011 and reinvigorate the New York skyline but in the end the result went for one level above bland as epitomised by dropping the popular name Freedom Tower for One World Trade Center.

Land of the Rising Rings

Boris, 'The Animal' Johnson, in defence of his Telegraph column whilst London mayor, said he dashes it off on a Sunday morning, so it does not interfere with his mayoral duties.    This may be why these past few years, the quality has declined appreicably from before he assumed office at the Glass Bollock, only a sentence or two of any real merit survives precariously like an intrepid explorer amist the thicket and bracken of balderdash, the entangling creepers of bluff and the overall oppressive foliage of verbiage.  Bear Grylls next suviavlist challenge should be to survive in a BoJo op-ed.
I hope at least to provide bit more enlightenment than our capital's esteemed principal representative's sinecure.  It is so tempting to merely read the news and idle away the years/decades than to actually react constructively to them.  England win The Ashes - yay!  England win the Ashes only 3-0 against this Australia side - boo!  In fact, the whole series reflects, Homer Simpson's "that's bad, that's good" exchange with a creepy shopkeeper in Treehouse of Horror.  England should thrash Australia in the first test but in the end only just nick it - that's bad.  England trounce Australia at Lords - that's good.  Australia roar back at Old Trafford and England are only saved by the rain - that's bad.  In the next test, England wrap up the win, reaching 3-0 - that's good.  England go to pieces in the final test, selecting rookies who are subsequently roasted, England are set a generous target by Aussie captain Michael Clarke and fail to reach by just 20 runs (with 20 balls left) when poor light stops play - that's bad.  Some England players subsequently wee on the pitch in their victory celebrations - derivating from the wisdom of Homer, that's very bad, though to be fair they were probably getting their revenge on the Oval groundsman who cut the lawn ridiculosuly short, inducing Alastair Cook (who has proved to be a lucky rather than excellent captain) to field debutants Kerrigan and Woakes instead of Giles Tremlett (apparently Tremlett prefers a slightly hairier matt on which to bowl), handing Australia an unexpected advantage.  3-0 should be an amazing acheivement in an Ashes series for England but had they been on full throttle (as they were only at Lords), it could have been 5-0 and one has to look at the poor leadership of Cook for that.
Of rather more importance to the whole world is the award to host the 2020 International Olympic Games.  And the winner is (as Jacques Rogge slowly enunciates ev-er-y sin-gle syl-labl-le) Tokyo.  Interestingly, the USA failed to bid this time round, when against troubled ccandiates like Tokyo, Madrid and Istanbul, it would almost certainly have won.  The lingering bad smell of the 1996 'worst Games ever' at Atlanta and the Salt Lake City bribery scandal for the 2002 Winter Games has tainted the American brand, plus they were burned in 2005 with New York (in bidding for the 2012 Games) and in 2009 with Chicago (in bidding for the 2016 Games).  Noting that France will probably bid in 2024, Paris will be the runaway favourite on the centenary of the last time it hosted the Games, meaning the USA, if successful in 2028 will not have hosted a Summer Games in 32 years. As it is, the Japanese capital might be Neo-Tokyo in seven years time the way Fukushima refuse to go away.  To have a Chernobyl on your doorstep and still win indicates the paucity of the other bids.  Madrid had also bid in 2005 and came a creditable third behind London and Paris, but they had the immense influence of Juan Antonio Samaranch behind it (who subsequently swung his influence behind London as a thank you to Lord Coe for defying the 1980 Moscow Games boycott).  However, much infrastructure is creaking (the Madrid Metro, as it was in 2005) and that which is sparkling and new, may not be as safe as it appears, as witness the recent Galcian high-speed train disaster.  Plus, they are in the throes of economic depression (the reason Rome withdrew from the process) and could scarcely afforded it (though it might have given a boost to the legion of unemployed).  It is unbelievable that Istanbul, that crossroads of continents has never hosted an Olympic Games, but the summer unrest in the city with the subsequent authoritarian crackdown plus the general crisis on its eastern borders (Syria, Iraq, Iran and the Caucasus) counted against it.  Though essentially Tokyo itself would provide a trouble-free Olympics and could in theory host it tomorrow (notwithstanding the ever-present danger of a radiation cloud), this is its third successful bid (after 1964 and the cancelled 1940 Games) and I would have preferred the other two to have succeeded, neither having been host previously.

The beginning of the beginning of the end?

When laying the groundwork for a negotiated peace, it is vital that all sides can cling to a detail that they can trumpet to their supporters.  It may have been an off-the-cuff remark by John Kerry, but the idea that Assad could give up his chemical weapons to avoid airstrikes inadvertently gave the Secretary of State an independence that Barack Obama has always sought to curtail (notably in the case of Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton).  Russia seized upon it as a golden opportunity to avoid looking consistently obstructionist, Assad leapt on it to buy himself time (even though he has yet to officially acknowledge his possession of Cold War-era chemical stockpiles) and ultimately Obama grasped it as his mooted airstrikes seemed set to fail in the House from a combined mixture of Tea Party Republicans and isolationist Democrats.  All three (and Iran) would want to avoid seeing jihadists get control of such stocks.  People cite North Korea and Iraq as impossible cases for weapons inspectors and these were not countries gripped by active conflict, but such a move could bring about terms for peace.

It is clear that given Obama’s understandable reluctance to get involved – no new involvement in foreign wars in the Middle East he declared in his victory speech upon being re-elected – given all the perils that his dovish opponents pointed out, means the Syrian civil war will just drag on grimly and remorselessly for at least another year, maybe longer.  He is not the weakest president in living memory as The Telegraph’s usually circumspect American correspondent Peter Foster had the brass neck to declare (weaker than Carter?  Weaker than Dubya?  Obama got through the healthcare bill that eluded Clinton. Give me a break) – he is up against what Woodrow Wilson, in the days when the latter was a political scientist and not a president, ‘Congressional Government’ – that is Congress takes all the major decisions.  This power has increased throughout the twentieth century after the mendacity of the Johnson and Nixon administrations in south-east Asia.  Presidents have to carry senators and representatives with them (by two-thirds in the case of foreign treaties).  Obama has been rendered weak by the most implacable Congress in living memory, his right-wing foes refusal to understand that politics is about compromise – the Republicans failed to prevent his re-election; now they seek to tarnish his legacy as they wallow in intellectual turpitude.

Given that Obama therefore cannot wage war, even if he wanted to (though there is a legal argument that he could lob a few missiles without Congressional approval, in a manner that Reagan used to invade Grenada), it is obvious that to bring the civil war to a conclusion, Russia and Iran will have to be brought in from the cold.  I find their support for Assad distasteful but they will not let him fall, whatever it takes indirectly.  Unlike Dubya, who was committed to war in Iraq (and had a pliant Congress) when he demanded that Saddam Hussein and his family stand down in the days before the invasion, John Kerry may have similarly anticipated that Assad would never have agreed and it would have been an extra screw to tighten in the case against the Syrian dictator.  Yet it was the threat of potential force that induced Assad, under Russian pressure, to buckle.  At the very least, there will be a temporary cessation of the use of chemical weapons so as not to embarrass Moscow.  This is the proper way to deploy a military build-up, in that it need not be used if conditions are met.  I was not a frevent interventionist unlike the 'Middle East Peace Envoy' Blair (he would have us invade Iran as well, though he fails to realise his crebility is shot and his intervention over Syria was counter-productive), I just want Syria to have a productive and relatively happy future.  Hopefully, though the rebels and the refugees will be disappointed, this can lead to a lasting peace because an end to the bloodletting and population displacement is what is needed.

No truer words said

Vladimir Putin: "President Obama hasn't been elected by the American people in order to be pleasant to Russia.  And your humble servant hasn't been elected by the people of Russia to be pleasant to someone either."  - hasn't been elected by the people of Russia - you don't say!

Credit Obama, he’s (finally) doing the right thing over Syria

As the Syrian crisis has escalated with the chemical attack in the Damascus suburb, the American military build-up in the eastern Mediterranean and David Cameron’s defeat in parliament, Barack Obama’s decision to refer the final authorisation to Congress looks like a masterstroke.  Again derided as indecisive (a charge that his loser critics believe if they say it enough times will stick), Obama has a get-out if Congress reject it because despite bi-partisan support (in the form of John McCain and Lindsey Graham), there are many Republicans who refuse to accede to any request of his because they are pathologically prejudiced against all Democratic presidents.  This means all Assad’s careful secretion of weapons and army in civilian areas and packing of military installations with prisoners will have to continue, hampering his war-making capabilities for at least another week.  Had America attacked before Labour Day (yesterday), the Syrian government would have had many juicy PR photos of civilian and prisoner casualties.    Assad’s guns have not fallen silent but impeding the Damascus regime’s advance gives the rebels a vital chance to regroup.

Obama has been very reluctant to be drawn into the Syrian civil war when he could have nipped in the bud early on, shortly after the fall of Gadaffi, with the kind of strikes now being contemplated   The steady tightening of sanctions has had no effect as Iran has been pumping in billions to prop up the regime and being in sending fighters (as well as mobilising Hizbollah) in flights over Iraq, where Nouri al-Maliki – who was given refuge by the Assad family while Saddam Hussein was in power – has been performing the role of a dutiful client leader to Tehran.  It seems a cliché but brute force is the only thing that Assad understands.  A significant degrading of his military facilities will counter all the help that Russia and Iran have been giving him.  All will be done without an American in uniform in sight – Tomahawks and drones doing the pulverising.

All these votes seemed to validate the old dictator line about democracies not being suitable for war, as the element of surprise and maximum inflicting of damage is lost.  With a vote against the war paralysing the Cameron administration (interestingly from both sides of the Blairite stable, John McTernan saying Ed Miliband was right to crush weak opponents and Dan Hodges resigning his Labour Party membership for such brazen politicking), Assad seemed in a stronger diplomatic position than ever.  Then came Obama’s decision to put it to Congress which won’t be heard until the standard date for return of 9^th September, which changes the entire calculus.  After the British pulled out, he may have felt he had to do so (and this increases pressure on Francois Hollande to ask the French parliament, not the first time a promised British vote has inconvenienced a French president), but it gives the chance to really pile on the pressure on Russia in Russia, as the French release a dossier that is pretty conclusive that the Assad government carried out the chemical attack in the Damascus suburb (notwithstanding the stonewalling while UN inspectors were ensconced a few miles away and the sniper fire when they did try to advance).  I would have voted with a heavy heart for the missile strikes because punitive strikes do not achieve anything when so much warning has been given but a forceful statement must be made about the use of chemical weapons.  Only a significant pounding, annihilating Assad’s command-and-control structure, troop positions and chemical weapons dumps (whose movements are constantly monitored by satellites), is worthwhile.  110,000 people have died, more than two millions refugees, with probably both sides using chemical weapons and repercussions spilling over into Lebanon, to sit back and do nothing is gross irresponsibility.  People say things could get worse but I refuse to believe that so many must die.  Deaths have now matched that in Bosnia, if they reach the levels in Rwanda all those who vote against it (and support those against it) will have a share of culpability.  Yes, that’s an uncompromising message and talks would be better but we’ve been talking for two years and Russia won’t even support a limited Yemen-style transition.  It is the Russians who are abusing international law and their war-weary useful idiots in the West who are just letting Syria bleed.

Back in the saddle

I could say that I was waiting to get all available opinions on the Syrian crisis before commenting but that would be a lie.  I’ve just been burdened by other everyday constraints that life imposes upon us, not least distractions.  And, like speaking another language, it takes even more effort to return if it has been neglected and languishing in one’s life.

However, a few deaths of the prominent have shocked me recently, not just Sir David Frost who expired at the age only 74 last night but Elmore Leonard.  Of Leonard’s pantheon, I cannot claim to be a master but I remember reading his words as they alternated between the velvety and the crackling and one just felt the plotting and characterisation envelop you like a warm, honeyed shower.  He mastered the knack of finishing a book in a way that made you want to read another of his.

Sir David is a big figure on both sides of the Atlantic, mastering the political interview, beginning with breakout success in making Richard Nixon apologise to the American people.  Of course, he started out with That Was The Week That Was, but this has dated badly.  It is what would now be called sixth-form humour – in many ways quite gauche.  It happens to much contemporary comedy, even when one is a student of the era.  But not to all.  The original The Manchurian Candidate had a big reveal at the end that stuck a metaphorical dagger into Richard Nixon and was an audacious piece of satire.  Nixon though had the last laugh before the 1960s were out in assuming the presidency.  Appointing worthless vice-presidents in a bid against being deposed (believing people would prefer the frying pan to the fire), he was eventually forced out, but he still had a formidable power base.  His interview series with the plain Mr David Frost was meant to be his comeback.  Watchingn, it seemed he almost achieved it, but Frost pulled it out of the bag in the last of the four interviews.  The film Frost/Nixon (based on the play) plays a little loose with the words Nixon said but captured the drama well.  Frost was thereafter feted as the arch TV cross-examiner.  Of course, some of my abiding memories of him are as anchor on Through the Keyhole as the whole phenomenon of nosing around other houses took off - one particular house belonging to nature presenter Chris Packham (recently on I Love My Country) being fumigated by the nasal tones of Loyd Grossman.  I can't specifically remember any hard-hitting interviews he did in later life but he had a presence that was inescapable. Eventually, he left the BBC to go to Auntie’s former offshoot al-Jazeera and that was the last I had heard of him.  So while he seemed to have left the public scene, it still is sad to hear that he is no more and such a comparatively young age.