End of year

It's been a very busy week for me personally since Christmas finished.  The departure of Alan Pardew from Newcastle United was the cause of celebration for some but it didn't bother me one way or the other as the real problem is Mike Ashley and whoever is appointed as 'head coach' will be irrelevant so long as the wideboy tycoon remains at the club.  Ashley knows the price of everything, the value of nothing and he doesn't give a crap about it.  Outsiders say he has brought the club into profit after years of living beyond its means under the previous regime, but the vast money coming from TV and sponsorship deals goes into his pocket with all money to improve the club raised from league position and player sales.  The club says it is following the Arsenal model, buying cheap players, improving them and moving them on but that is just one of so many lies, as Arsenal did not willingly let their best players go - their hand was forced.  Rather it is the Wigan Athletic model, a club owned by controversial rival sports chain owner Dave Whelan.  The mindset is identical but while Wigan are traditionally a small club, Newcastle are more or less a top-tier fixture, with a stadium capacity more than three times that of Wigan.  St James Park may no longer be called the Sports Direct Arena but it is in all but name: buy 'em cheap, sell 'em high and screw the staff - it's the Sports Direct way.

Elsewhere, Jordan withdrew from combat missions against Islamic State (IS). Diplomatically, it is because IS has a Jordanian pilot captive.  I think the real reason is the failure of the Jordanian-sponsored Security Council resolution to recognise a Palestinian state within three years.  Frantic pressure on Nigeria from the USA and Israel meant that Abuja withdrew from supporting it, meaning the resolution failed to get the nine votes for it to be discussed and where the USA would have to use its veto.  I think that has made the Jordanians furious.  Diplomatically, the USA says it believes in negotiations and compromises between the two sides but of course this is also untrue.  Israel's current government, comprised of many open racists, has no intention of negotiation, let alone compromise and other political leaders in Tel-Aviv are little better.  All the while, Palestinian territory is chipped away by Israeli settlers.  Even John Kerry unguardedly has said Israel is on the path to an apartheid state.  Every year, global sympathy for Israel declines through its uncompromising stance and as World War Two becomes more distant, justification for Israel's actions deteriorates.

It has been a big year for the actors of The Big Bang Theory. Brinkmanship brought them a $1m-per episode deal, they will become the top-rated comedy in the USA with the non-renewal of Two and a Half Men, one of them donated non-lethal supplies to the Israeli Self-Defence Force and Kaley Cuoco defended her nose job (it was for her sinuses!) and breast implants.  She says she has never experienced sexist discrimination and that is why she is no feminist.  A right-wing backlash in the USA is underway against 'feminism' but just because she has not suffered, does not mean no-one else has.  It was a rather parochial admission.  Despite all this, I will continue to watch what usually is a very entertaining show.

A first one bites the dust

So sadly we didn't make the middle of February and Neil Warnock becomes the first Premier League managerial casualty of the season, only four months after he was appointed by Crystal Palace.  An exceptional second-tier manager who will almost certainly get you promoted, he is best discarded soon after the step-up as he is deeply average at the top level, despite having more than 1,000 league games under his belt.
That said, it was a mistake to remove him now, with a game against QPR imminent.  If any match would get his blood pumping, his tactics most self-scrutinised and his motivation most scintillating, it would be against the club that unceremoniously dumped him the last time he frequented the top flight.  If the match goes the way of the pear, meaning a record of only three Premier League wins in 17 games, by all means dispense with his services, but if any match can be considered a banker for Crystal Palace, it would be this one with Warnock at the helm.
In the last match, where the Eagles were losing 3-0 at home against a Southampton side hitting their stride again, the fans chorused, "You don't know what you're doing," as Warnock withdrew a striker, Yannick Bolasie, for a defender, Martin Kelly (once of the parish of Liverpool and, inconceivably, England).  Warnock made fine sense of his decision - the match was gone and he was resting Bolasie for the relegation six-pointer against QPR.  As it turned out, after the substitution Palace scored, to lose 3-1.  Do the fans know what they're talking about?
The defeat was the final straw for Steve Parrish, a man lauded by Eagles' fans for rescuing the club from financial oblivion, but seemingly lumbered with appalling man-management.  His relationship with Ian Holloway was chaotic, Tony Pulis almost walked away on more than occasion before he actually did in August, days before the season started.  Parrish made unsubstantiated claims about Pulis leaving because another club had lined him up as their manager in a shabby way to make Pulis the villain - as of Warnock's sacking, Pulis is still a free agent, but don't expect him to be pitching up in south London anytime soon, no matter that he is the outstanding candidate.  Parrish bungled the replacement process, going for Malky Mackay on the basis of the latter's friendship with director of football Ian Moody, despite the strong interview given by Tim Sherwood, before both Mackay and Moody were disgraced by their racist, anti-semitic, homophobic texting and Sherwood turned his face as no-one's second choice.  This is how Warnock ended up at Selhurst Park for a second stint.  And here is Parrish wading in again, re-appointing much put-upon caretaker Keith Millen.  Yet Millen has no animus for QPR and his record is mostly one of losing gallantly.  Long-term BBC pundit Mark Lawrenson says it will be swift in picking up the phone to one of the interviewees from last time, be it "Steve Sherwood [who he?] or Chrissie Hughton."  Sherwood is still largely unproven outside of a ridiculously talented (and underachieving) squad and Hughton's last assignment did the spadework in paving for Norwich City's relegation.  And would they be interested in being third-choice at that?
Premier League clubs are notoriously antsy about being the first sacking club but now Palace have that mark on them, other clubs may be less reticent and more impatient.  A lot of people lost money on Nigel Pearson being evens to get his P45 from Leicester City.  Brendan Rogers is not out of the woods.  Steve Bruce is having the second season from hell. Harry Redknapp may be relieved of his duties at QPR at anytime.  Alan Pardew always seems to capable of great feats of escapology and Sean Dyche should stay in post so long as Burnley avoid humiliation as they get relegated.  Mauricio Pochettino seems to have got Spurs to click at last and should be safe himself while Roberto Martinez's misfiring Everton should have enough credit banked from last term to get him a mid-table finish.  Nevertheless, Parrish has fired the starting gun and the sack race has begun.

Boom boom!

As this the season for Christmas crackers and their abysmal jokes, let me keep up the tradition with a creation of my own.
Question: Why is speaking in unrelated sentences bad for an orderly garden?
Answer: Because the sentences are in non-sequiturs (non-secateurs).
Ba-boom-tsh!

Belgium - not so boring after all

Belgium is an unlikely candidate for extremes. However, though the country was damned with faint praise by Monty Python as a superior tourist destination to Finland, its capital Brussels was the “whited sepulchre” that Charlie Marlow recalled before embarking to the Belgian-run ‘Congo Free State’, on a journey into the heart of darkness in Joseph Conrad’s eponymous novel. Ravaged as a staging post in two world wars, it was rocked by a wide-ranging paedophile scandal in the 1990s that has only been eclipsed by the revelations post-Jimmy Savile in the UK. Austerity though is now top of the agenda, as it is across the European Union, while the USA surges ahead in growth and employment, having never deployed hard-hitting cutbacks of its own. And Belgians are defying the mild-mannered persona thrust upon them by outsiders.
The protests swiftly followed the formation of a new Belgian government in October (after the country had been without central leadership for five months because of discord between the Walloon and Flemish regions). A four-party coalition of Belgium’s main centre-right/nationalist parties came together, excluding the Socialist Party from any say in government for the first time in 26 years. 39-year old Prime Minister Charles Michel is Belgium’s youngest premier since 1841 and his pro-business Reformist Movement is determined to push through austerity policies to save the Benelux member €11 billion over five years. The changes include plan to raise the retirement age to 67, delaying a wage rise in line with inflation for civil servants (Belgian law mandates wage rises keep pace with inflation) and cutting health and social security benefits (the latter involving the unemployed working for the remittances).
On 6th November, at least 100,000 people marched in Brussels, the largest demonstration since the general strike of 1960-61. Industries affected by striking employees in November were transport, public transit, ports, steel, pharmaceutical, chemical and aerospace. Some of the overzealous crowd even occupied the Federation of Belgian Corporations, while violent clashes occurred between police and a group of agitators that had splintered off from the main host of marchers near the Porte du Hal area, resulting in the deployment of water cannon, baton charges by the authorities and thirty arrests. 112 policemen were injured in the fracas. Ironically, there were some Dutch neo-Nazi rabble-rousers fighting the police who carried leaflets denouncing the Socialist Party which supported the mass rally.
Michel’s predecessor as prime minister, Elio di Rupo, claimed to be one with the campaigners but Deputy Prime Minister Alexander de Croo derided the Socialist leader, telling L’Avenir, “Elio is marching with people who were marching against him,” di Rupo’s government had also imposed billions of euros in cuts. De Croo promised that the administration would negotiate in good faith with the unions but these discreet meetings were unproductive and the drumbeat of civil disobedience became insistent again.
On 8th December, severe disruptions crippled transport services across Belgium, leading to suspensions of international high-speed train journeys, including Eurostar (trains from across the Channel terminating at Lille). Moreover, industrial action by baggage handlers at Charleroi international airport led to almost half of flights being cancelled. While underground trains, buses and trams were at a standstill, those who still struggled to work were blocked from entering some industrial areas by pickets. Many children did not complain at the partial or wholesale closure of a raft of schools.
The 8th December action was merely the overture to the grand strike on 15th December, the culmination of the previous protests. Beginning on the night of Sunday 14th with interference to train and flight schedules, it steadily built up to afflict the entire nation with public transportation, schools, government offices, businesses and manufacturing facilities idle, by and large. Unions hailed it a great success but Flemish business groups countered by saying a majority of firms had seen all their workers report for duty, possibly partially reflecting the presence of pro-Flanders participation in government decision-making.
Having ridden out the storm on the 15th December and looking for the strikes to peter out over the Christmas period, Michel and his government must have been quite pleased with themselves. Even when one week later, Michel had french fries dumped over his head and was copiously squirted with mayonnaise by anti-austerity activists, he retained his sense of good humour, continuing his speech in his stained suit, apologising to his audience for smelling of mayonnaise. The culinary assault used arguably Belgium’s best loved food concoction (with the exception of chocolate) so it could be said Michel was anointed in patriotism in a manner akin to monarchs with ambergris (whale oil).
And this is the nub for those opposed to anti-austerity policies – they are making no headway in their demands. European governments have learnt how to implement austerity successfully by keeping the middle-classes onside, no matter the howls of anger from those outside the process. The shock value of strikes has subsided and become blunted by overuse. A government spokesman respectfully acknowledges the size of crowds and then business continues as usual. Some in Ireland have found innovative ways of civil disobedience but until anti-cuts groups in general change tactics and devise new ways to wrongfoot those in power, their protests will remain on the wrong side of history.

Me old Cocker

Sad to hear of Joe Cocker's death at the age of 70, once again confirming the research that musicians tend to die younger than the general population.  When living in Romania up in the Carpathians, I covered an international music festival held in Brasov.  Other acts included Ozone (Dragostea Din Tei) and Natalie Imbruglia, but the headliner was Joe Cocker and on a brutally cold night, his singing of You Can Leave Your Hat On proved to be very sound advice!  My article was on the website of the Brasov Visitor but this has now been discontinued as a site overall, otherwise I would have reproduced it here.  I have the hard copies of the magazine but everything is electronic these days.

Monsters in power

The mass-murder of at least 132 people, mostly children, in a school in Pakistan by the Pakistani Taliban underlines that the incompetently played geopolitical games of Islamabad have come back to haunt it in the most terrible way.  The lifting of the moratorium on the death penalty as announced by Nawaz Sharif will have no discernible effect.
It largely began with military dictator Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, a favourite of the Reagan administration, who sought for legitimacy to politicise religion to bolster his own credibility.  This 'Islamisation' of society was a betrayal of the secular vision of Mohammed Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan and led to a proliferation of extremist madrassahs (Islamic schools) across the country.  This set up part one of the tragedy.  Even after ul-Haq's death in a mysterious plane crash (along with several of his top military officials plus tow US diplomats), his efforts were not reversed.
Then, when the Moscow-backed government in Kabul fell to warlords, Pakistan's security services feared New Delhi could make inroads into influence in Afghanistan.  Thus they created the Taliban, the extremists technically answerable to Islamabad - it was only with extreme reluctance that they gave up the Taliban in 2001.  But like Dr Frankenstein and the Monster, that was not the end of it.  Angry at his creator, the Monster tormented the doctor to the end of his days.  Thus the Taliban did not disintegrate but profitted from the US being distracted by the latter's Arabian Dream/Nightmare in Iraq, extending its tentacles to both sides of the Hindu Kush.  The Pakistan Taliban and their attack on this school is a direct result of ul-Haq's disastrous short-termism and the security services in Pakistan creating the Taliban in the first place.  Unfortunately, most of these officials will never face punishment, judicial or employment-wise and that means there will be more tragedies like these to come.

Irish Stew

For most of the 1990s and 2000s, the Republic of Ireland steamed ahead with its economy to the extent that its GDP per capita exceeded that of the old colonial master of the UK. Inspired by the ‘tiger’ economies of the Pacific Rim, it became known as the Celtic Tiger. But it was an artificial boom inflated by the exchange rate fixed by the European Central Bank through Ireland’s membership of the Euro and when the Sovereign Debt Crisis struck, Dublin was ill-prepared. The Celtic Tiger became as precarious as the Siberian Tiger and as durable as a paper one. The rolling financial crisis that engulfed Ireland from 2008 left local politicians confounded and their austerity measures provoked protests, dissent intensified by the prescriptions from European Union/European Central Bank/ International Monetary Fund as the price of a bailout. In one form or another, discontent rumbles on to this day. Ireland exited the bailout strictures a year ago and the economy is set to be the fastest growing in the Eurozone but this has yet to filter through to the majority of the population.
The most recent protests have erupted over the government’s plan to charge households for tap water, the last major measure of Ireland’s austerity programme, where previously provision had been paid out of general taxation. On 1st November, more than 100,000 people across 100 locations demonstrated. Irish Water, the utility company created by act of parliament in 2013, reported two-thirds of people were refusing to have water meters installed and was forced to extend the deadline for registration. On 12th November, anti-water ‘tax’ protestors mocked the Taoiseach (prime minister), Enda Kenny, at Dublin’s General Post Office. Three days later, activists, prevented the car of the Tánaiste (deputy prime minister), Joan Burton, from leaving an event at Jobstown, with other campaigners repeating that action with regards to Kenny two days later at Sligo.
On 10th December, at least 30,000 marched through Dublin and gathered outside the Dáil (parliament) in an event organised by the campaign group Right2Water. They were joined by representatives of the Detroit Water Brigade, a group pushing back against what it calls ‘aggressive water shut-downs’ affecting 15,000 households in the US city. Socialist and nationalist politicians sharing a temporary stage urged the public to boycott their water bills. “No way! We won’t pay!” was the primary chant. Mostly peaceful, one garda (policeman) was injured in the face when a section of the crowd tried to topple security barriers and launched missiles at police lines, spurring a reaction from the riot police.
An unofficial breakaway set of around 1,000 agitators occupied the main junction of Dublin’s O’Connell Bridge, bringing traffic to a standstill for over three hours – some commuters in the evening rush hour abandoned their vehicles and walked. In a fashion reminiscent of the strike-breaking tactics on the eve of World War One related in James Plunkett’s Strumpet City, a large gardai group moved in formation up Burgh Quay accompanied with a public order unit and the dog squad. Scuffles broke out as gardai removed people by force to clear the thoroughfare, with three men and a woman arrested on public order offences.
Ahead of the march, the government sought to calm the opposition to the water meters by proposing smaller, more clearly defined water charges due to come into force on January 31st. Acknowledging the protest, Environment Minister Alan Kelly insisted that there would be no further concessions. Meanwhile it emerged that the Department of Social Protection vigorously opposed supplying Personal Public Service (PPS) numbers to Irish Water, particularly those that belonged to children for whom child benefit was paid. The utility said it needed these identifiers so it could apply government allowances for water charges, expecting the department to verify the numbers once they were handed over. The department demurred, citing data protection issues, while also being unimpressed by the casual, almost arrogant, way Irish Water communicated with the department.
The Detroit Water Brigade did not limit themselves to Dublin, with members touring Cobh in Co. Cork as an act of solidarity with residents. The visitors were impressed by the ‘military-like precision’ of protestors, with the latter even operating a ‘command-and-control post’ out of a horse box equipped with heating and a gas cooker. Every day at dawn for the past few months, surveillance teams drive out to the only two entrances to the area - a bridge and a cross-river ferry terminal, waiting until Irish Water contractors arrive. They then send group text alerts to their 300 members indicating the direction of travel of the trucks and the estates most likely to be targeted, with campaigners converging on these estates to prevent the contractors installing meters. The resistance continues.
The water meter protests are symptomatic of wider anger across the Eurozone at the demands by Germany for austerity programmes to rein in ‘offenders’. The Irish public has drawn the blood of the government in the past six years and can’t be so easily mollified as in the past, but the Irish government has to press on with the water meter programme having committed too much political and economic capital in its implementation, not to mention the third of households that already have a meter being none too impressed if the rollout ceased. This will be a long fight.

The tragic consequences of mental illness

Depression is too little understood by the general public and it has had devastating consequences in my personal life. One of my close friends, a bridesmaid at my wedding, has committed suicide and a small part of me has died with her. Beautiful Mel, wonderful Mel, lovely Mel. Always striving to encourage and put a smile on the face of others, you defy the cliche of eulogies to be truly worthy of them. So many possibilities extinguished. A world without you is a world less compassionate and less fun. It's getting dark a little too early. To quote Moonlight Shadow, "I stay, I pray, see you in heaven, one day."

Building mania

The legend of the city of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, is that it was cursed by an embittered, old, grey man from Ulemiste who said the day that Tallinn was completed would be its last.  Naturally, as the myth goes, the people were shocked and bewailed their fate, but, by and by, the prophecy was never fulfilled.  This was because given the size of Tallinn they would not only be building the occasional new building but continually carrying out repairs to their existing houses somewhere in the city.  Thus Tallinn is and never will be complete!
On a visit to the University of Kent at Canterbury campus, the administration acts like the curse applies to itself.  Many new buildings were constructed in both my stints there.  And the erosion of greenery continues to this day.  When I questioned a man from the Student Union about why an extension to the Templeman Library was needed, the answer went along the lines of, 'well, we've got the money, we might as well spend it (improving facilities)'.  The Student Union is responsible for millions of pounds.  So, just as the expansion of the library is drawing to a close, the skeleton of another structure in the offing has been erected due north of Rutherford building.  The continuous construction has led to a vast 'temporary' cabin/offices being built next to Rutherford car park - the architects, builders and craftsmen might as well operate in comfort if they are not soon to be leaving.  And all the while, the forest campus becomes less and less so.

Young at heart and mind

Youth is wasted on the young, quipped Oscar Wilde, though my rejoinder is that experience is wasted on the old.  When I was 16, I thought it was a grave injustice that people of my age were not allowed to vote. At that age, we could (then) legally leave school, smoke, play the lottery, join the army or even get married with the permission of the parents, though in the latter case we would be denied the wedding punch.  Of course, if a couple eloped to Gretna Green, they had no need for parental approval but Scottish laws and liberties are subtly different to those 'south of the border'.
In the recent referendum on whether Scotland was to remain part of the UK or not, the franchise was extended to 16- and 17-year olds in a desperate bid by the Nationalists to try and win the vote, thinking the younger age group would be more naive and idealistic and easier to hoodwink - a hypothesis proven correct by a majority of the 16-25 age group voting for separation.  With the experiment deemed successful, the SNP administration at the Holyrood Assembly pushed ahead with ensuring that all future elections to the Scottish autonomous parliament would be open to all those aged 16 and above.  It was quite a Machiavellian ploy as it is part of the SNP's calculated attempt to create a separate political culture from the rest of the UK, yet none of the main parties could bring themselves to vote against it for fear of being saddled with the charge that they are undemocratic and unfriendly to young people.
Yesterday, seeking to outflank the SNP, the national Labour Party announced they would give the vote to all those aged 16 and above throughout the UK, to avoid the anomaly that a, say, 17-year old could vote in a Scottish election but not in a nationwide one.  It will be in the Labour manifesto.  It is wrong.
Since I was a callow youth, I have moderated my opinions.  The greatest threat to western democracy is not a revanchist Russia, a rising China or even climate change (at least in the short-term).  No, the biggest danger is voter apathy - the freedom won in earlier generations being casually disregarded, allowing less scrupulous elites to claw back the power that their forebear altruistically dispensed.  I should say, altruism mixed with hard-headed politics, in trying to maintain social order and win a new constituency to the party that extneded the franchise.  Voter apathy is starkest among the 18-25 year group and the closer that you come to the liminal age of 18, the greater that is.  After the first flush of being able to vote, the interest and engagement of 16- and 17-year olds will tail off drastically.  So, whereas real numbers of voters will increase slightly, the percentage of the electorate will decline.
It may be patronising to say that teenagers at school are impressionable without opinions fully formed, yet is true as well.  Neither do they have an investment in society - though many twentysomethings (even thirtysomethings) still live at home with their parents, almost all 16- and 17-year olds do (or with a guardian).  They won't pay rent and many won't pay taxes through prioritising study over part-time jobs.  A few prodigies may understand the intricacies of the NHS and defence policies of each party but they were always going to vote at the next election after turning 18 anyway.
And the danger is that some truly unsavourable parties may get elected.  At the 1997 mock General Election at school, with a winner takes all, the Monster Raving Looney Party won the vote (with the Liberal Democrats second).  Admirable comedy outfit that they are, even its members would think twice about wielding power in Westminster.  When Euan (son of Tony) Blair was at school - as Head Boy - the 2001 mock General Election at his faculty gave UKIP the top billing.  With Nigel Farage recently blaming 'open-door' immigration for being delayed on the M4 but this being apparent for ages, those who do vote for them haven't thought through the consequences.
Young people on the whole tend to be more left-wing than the general population at large (the cliche being that as they age and take on more responsibilities and investments they become more right-wing) and this may have also played a part in the Labour Party's policy process.  But it would also be irrevocable.  Better to achieve a fairer electoral system by making the House of Lords fully democratic (keep the title of Lords - 'senators' are so common elsewhere, we should want to be distinctive) and adopting varying systems of proportionately for the upper and lower Houses.  Certainly the strength of the first-past-the-post argument of avoiding hung parliaments and providing strong single-party governance is broken beyond repair, with 2015 set to be even more messy than 2010.  But this scheme for 16- and 17-year olds given the vote, despite the policking involved is bad politics and will make Westminster less, not more, accountable.

Blues blue on Tyneside

St James' Park has often proved the graveyard for the ambitions and pretensions to greatness of Chelsea FC.  In the first season of the era of Roman Abramovich, Claudio Ranieri's fate was sealed by a 2-1 defeat, making it mathematically impossible for Chelsea to catch Arsenal in the Premier League title race of 2003-04.  A season later, under the all-conquering Jose Mourinho, Chelsea was looking to achieve the 'quadruple' of Premier League, European Cup, FA Cup and League Cup and seclipse Manchester United's 'treble' (Premier League, European Cup, FA Cup) in 1998-99.  At a blustery, snowy Newcastle in February, everything went wrong for the Portuguese's men, shipping an early Patrick Kluivert goal, making a triple substitution at half-time only to see Damien Duff pull up lame within minutes of the change and then to have the goalkeeper sent off in the last few minutes to finish the match with nine men.  Chelsea would fail to lift the European Cup that season too, but Manchester United fans were grateful that their unique treble would not be equalled or bettered (even if Chelsea had managed Premier League, European Cup and League Cup, it would be seen as a 'lesser treble').
And so it proved yesterday.  As recently as the match beforehand, Chelsea were being talked of the 'New Invincibles', following in Arsenal's footsteps of 2003-04 in going a Premier League campaign unbeaten ('invulnerable' would be more apt than 'invincible' as the following season, Chelsea lost one game but racked up more points than Arsenal in their so-called 'invincible' mode).  One small glitch: Mourinho had never won on the Tyne in the Premier League or FA Cup (a solitary victory in the League Cup was the aberration).  Never mind, as they just had to avoid defeat.  They had lost on the last two visits but surely this was the complete Chelsea.  Not quite, as Nemanja Matic was suspended and John Obi Mikel was a lacklustre deputy, failing to screen the back four or set up attacking runs.  Then again, Newcastle had their own issues: they started with their second-choice goalkeeper, who had to be replaced at half-time with the third choice - a 19-year old making his Premier League debut - and Steven Taylor was sent off in the 81st minute, reducing Newcastle United to ten men.  By that point, the Magpies were 2-1 ahead thanks to marksman Papiss Cisse, returning to the form of three seasons ago.  It was a nail-biting last quarter of an hour (with nearly seven minutes of injury-time, scotching Mourinho's argument about the availability of the ball from ball-boys) but the black-and-whites hung on to commemorate Alan Pardew's fourth anniversary in charge with some style and shred Chelsea's latest bid at immortality.  I was delighted with the win but would have taken a draw just so Arsenal fans couldn't crow about being the only 'Invincibles'.  Oh well, the Gunners have their own troubles at the moment to cure any hubris.

Passions run high in Italy

When one mentions labour strikes and violent demonstrations in city suburbs, the European country many would think of is France, with its formidable trade unions and strife in the banlieues but this past November, it is Italy wracked by such tensions and protests and unlike its northwestern neighbour in the past, the issues are interlinked. Stubbornly high unemployment, proposed government reforms and prejudice towards immigrants has produced a (Molotov) cocktail that exploded across the length of the country.
The jobless rate among the youth is particularly dire at around 42 per cent (the overall national rate is 12 per cent) and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s solutions to sluggish economic performance and low productivity is to loosen the labour laws - giving firms the flexibility to dismiss lazy or inefficient employees - producing no little consternation among the trade unions. Also, the government’s acceptance of Eurozone-imposed austerity packages has led to cuts to education, angering students and their affiliates. Protestors fought running battles with riot police in Milan and Padua (a far cry from when such armed officers from Turin sided with anti-European Union agitators in December 2013), Naples, Genoa and Turin were convulsed on a similar scale and some enterprising campaigners scaled the Colosseum, climbing up restoration scaffolding to hang a banner reading, “No Jobs Act and privatisation of public services.” The marches in Rome began with eggs and firecrackers being hurled at the economy ministry.
These have been termed ‘social strike’ protests and the composition of the demonstrators is disparate, ranging from union members and students to people demanding greater social housing, migrants and refugees. The rally in Milan was staged by Italy's biggest trade union, the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), and its metalworkers' arm, FIOM, which held a strike across northern Italy. Transport strikes further paralysed the country with disruptions to buses, trams, trains and even flights at Rome’s Fiumicino airport.  I can imagine the airport scene having once visited the capital and arriving on 1st November - a public holiday; leaving, I was stuck with all the other passengers in the tunnel linking the airport to the aeroplane for one hour, unable to re-enter the concourse, having shown our tickets or board the aircraft due to a mechanical fault.
The ongoing recession has also heightened racial tensions with some accusing refugees and immigrants as responsible for their economic pain. Italy, along with Spain, Greece and Malta, is inescapably on the EU front-line receiving those arriving by boat from North Africa. In the last 12 months alone, roughly 150,000 have made it to Italian soil (of whom the authorities know), a substantial proportion rescued by the Italian navy and coast guard until the Mare Nostrum humanitarian operation was ended by EU members’ common agreement on 1st November.
In the working-class Rome neighbourhood of Tor Sapienza, distant from the fashionable boutiques and restaurants at the heart of the capital, long-term neglect has crystallised around a reception centre for refugees called Un Sorriso (A Smile). After being repeatedly attacked by local residents in early November, with stones, flares and other missiles hurled, windows smashed and rubbish dumpsters set alight, 36 teenage migrants had to be evacuated from the building after the authorities said the area was no longer safe for them, despite the presence of riot police to hold back the troublemakers. Despite this warning, 17 of the evacuees returned to the centre, saying they had nowhere else to go.
Tor Sapienza has around 16,000 residents, less than half of whom are Italian citizens. When the Mayor of Rome, Ignazio Marino, visited the neighbourhood after the fracas, residents chanted ‘clown’ at him. Italian commentary believes that some of the perpetrators of the violence have connections to the far-right, noting the shouts of “Viva Il Duce” – a reference to Italy’s fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, even though he was in charge when the Great Depression of 1929 hit and that he led his country into humiliating disaster in World War Two. The frustrations of those who feel marginalised make they easy targets for extremist rabble-rousers. As a local teacher said, “It is a war between poor people,” adding, “It is not right that the institutions intervene in the suburbs only in emergency situations.”
Not that the victims were prepared to be voiceless. In an open letter to Italians, the migrants, many of whom risked their lives in the hazardous Mediterranean crossing, wrote, “In these last few days we have heard many bad things said about us – that we steal, that we rape women, that we are uncivilised. These words are very hurtful – we did not come to Italy to create problems, least of all to fight with Italians. We are truly grateful to them – we were saved in the middle of the sea by the Italian authorities. We are here to build new lives.” That said, government officers are not above grubby ‘pass-the-parcel’ political games, encouraging them to seek residence and employment in other EU countries. No matter what other success Renzi may achieve in his tenure as premier, he is unlikely to be able to regenerate ‘left-behind’ areas like Tor Sapienza or reduce incipient tension to anything less than simmering.

The liberal judgement of history

Jeremy Thorpe, the late Liberal leader, was arguably the greatest leader of his party since David Lloyd George.  But whereas Lloyd George's scandals, both pecuniary and romantic, were water off a duck's back, Thorpe's sunk him.  As Harold Macmillan chopped and changed his cabinet in a desperate bid to save his premiership in the wake of the Profumo affair, Thorpe quipped, in a paraphrase of the Gospel of John (15:13): "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life."  Yet in the twentieth century, it was his scandal that could rival it - that he wasn't in government and leader of a then very minor party meant it did not eclipse Profumo.  A celebrated epigrammatist like Oscar Wilde, he too came a cropper in court - even his own lawyer, the horrible wifebeater but brilliant barrister, George Carman, QC, said to the jury that an acquittal (of trying to kill an alleged homosexual lover) was not a presumption of innocence, merely that the prosecution had failed to make its case.
It all started with Thorpe meeting Norman Scott (né Josiffe) who would later be characterised as a lying, whinging  parasite.  His relationship with Thorpe was always a matter of some debate, but the Liberal leader said it was not sexual, a line which the press took that he doth protest too much.  Eventually, it became so convoluted that Thorpe was accused of hiring a hitman to bump off Scott (and his dog - the pooch bought it) in a bid to stop Scott blackmailing him.  Thorpe didn't take the stand himself - a wise move since so many vain people do so and unwittingly incriminate themselves (as Wilde did, as well as the chairman of Enron).  The voters of his North Devon constituency delivered their own verdict - having lost the leadership in 1975 over the affair, they kicked him out at the 1979 General Election, in the prime of his political life - he never made a comeback.  More than anything else he ever did, it is Thorpe's misfortune to be forever associated with his greatest humiliation.  Maybe history will be kinder - if it is Whiggish certainly more likely.

On Craig's List

Ahead of the release of Skyfall, I plunged myself into total sensory deprivation about the 50th anniversary edition so as to come to it totally fresh.  I caught the odd scene from promo trailers but not one that would materially affect my experience as when at the cinema, I closed my eyes, put my fingers in my ears and hummed at a low-level.  This paid off as I really enjoyed all the plot twists and maybe was just as well because the film doesn't fare so well on a second viewing (too much like Jack Bauer in 24 rather than Bond and once the surprises are known, it's a fairly thin exercise).

However, I have lapped up the news for Bond 24, namely that SPECTRE (the SPecial Executive for Crime, Terror, Revenge and Extortion) will return after Kevin McClory's estate finally relented.  So jubilant are the Bond producers that they have reacquired the rights that they have named Bond 24 after the organisation.  It's going to be one hell of a job namechecking that in the opening credits song.

Daniel Craig will return for what is surely his last appearance as James Bond (so many years of him as 007 we have been denied) and he has a pretty heavyweight cast.  In addition to stalwarts, Monica Belluci and Andrew Scott (Moriarty in Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes) join, probably as Bond allies.  I've been told that Christoph Waltz plays a conflicted character.  It seems that he starts out as a ski instructor to a young Bond but later becomes Blofeld - some jump from a teacher on the slopes to a criminal megalomaniac - but he will be brilliant, as always.  I'm salivating at the release next year.  Technically. this is the biennial cinematic release year but now we get the name an cast release instead - I guess that's modern film-making for you.

Be careful where you dig

So, they want to build a five-mile tunnel under Stonehenge at a cost of a cool £1.2bn?  Don't they know that is the base of the supervillain and first Marvel mutant, Apocalypse and invading his privacy will not be appreciated?  I was aggrieved when his long-buried spaceship blasted off and destroyed the ancient site in the animated series X-Men from the 1990s.  But he would have (almost) every right to wreak such havoc if he had to relocate (through his own choice) because of this interference.

Back from the past

The last James Bond movie Skyfall seems a long time ago, mostly because why the biennial cycle has been broken to accommodate Sam Mendes with a second stint as director, though why this has to be consecutive I don't know.  Martin Campbell was at the helm for the two best James Bond outings in the last 20 years - GoldenEye and the rebooted Casino Royale - and they were 11 years apart.  As it stands, we'll only have one addition to the Bond canon in seven years (Quantum of Solace, 2008, Skyfall, 2012, 'Bond 24', 2015) and Daniel Craig was no spring chicken when he started out.
I wrote out a text  just before Skyfall came out but mislaid it.  Recently, while searching under the bed for something Kimberley had rolled under the 2cm high gap between the carpet and the bed drawer, I came across it.  Always meaning to transcribe it to the blog, here it is.

When discussing his favourite James Bond music on Classic FM ahead of the release of Skyfall of which he was the artist tasked with the score, Thomas Newman highlighted John Barry's "lush, Las Vegas soundtrack" (although it was the laser killer satellite's theme) in Diamonds Are Forever.  Of course, Barry was a supreme composer for Bond and elsewhere but the spotlight placed on this particular slice elevated it in my consciousness and thus my consciousness elevated it.
As the seventh 007 film and Sean Connery's last official appearance (though he would pop up again in the unofficial remake of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again), Diamonds Are Forever is one of the weaker in the canon.  Though a major inspiration for Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (especially with the minions), it was held in such low regard that Charles Gray's portrayal of Ernst Stavro Blofeld was effectively excised and when 'Blofeld' is finally finished off in For Your Eyes Only (though whether it was a double or not is open to question, plus because of Kevin McClory's estate, everything related to SPECTRE was off-limits until recently, so it's just bald man in a wheelchair), it essentially is a return to the Telly Savalas depiction with the neck cushion from the incident with the tree in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  I wouldn't go as far as my fellow aficionado Chris Foxwright in labelling it the the worst of the official series (although I do have a soft spot for all of Bond's outings and cannot come to condemn any of them entirely, Quantum of Solace is the nadir for me; Diamonds Are Forever would not be in my bottom five).  While playing from YouTube '007 and counting', in a spare moment I thought to check up - on Wikipedia - all the aspects that damaged this opinion of the movie.
Chris did not mention Mr Wint and Mr Kidd as negative factors, mind.  I was surprised, to say the least, by their being voted on entertainment website IGN the worst Bond villains of all time, with Bambi and Thumper (who are pretty useless) from the same big screen outing at number two.  I felt this exceedingly harsh, though the trouble with write-ins is that there is no control sample which accounts for, among other things, imperfect knowledge (e.g. who has seen all the films, powers of recall, etc.) and those who can be bothered to vote in the first place.  In my view, Mr Wint and Mr Kidd combine an oily charm with their deap-seated malevolence and the fact that they are homosexual lovers (without overdoing it) indicates emotional undercurrents absent in most underlings, a sexlessness typified by Emilio Largo's right-hand man, Vargas - a no. 2 to a no. 2 as it were ("Vargas does not drink, does not smoke, does not make love.")  Of course, they do not hold a flame to Red Grant or Oddjob but then few do.
Were we to confine ourselves to principal henchmen (unlike the IGN poll) for the simple matter of like-for-like comparison, given that some villains make a limited contribution (Ho Fat and ludicrous karate school in The Man With The Golden Gun spring to mind - just how is Bond meant to meet his demise if the swords are withdrawn before the fights?), it can be shown that Wint and Kidd are far from the worst.  They are more effective than Professor Dent in Dr No (though they really should have done in the unconscious super-spy before placing him in the pipeline, even if they did nearly in Morten Slumber's Crematorium). From Russia With Love and Goldfinger stand above the crowd; Wint and Kidd are slightly above Vargas in Thunderball and definitely superior to Hans in You Only Live Twice who seems to only feed Blofeld's piranhas before being fed to them himself after losing his only fistfight with Bond.  Irma Bunt is one of the great underlings, especially so as she is only to survive and get away (until the reboot and Mr White in Quantum of Solace).  And there we have if from the silver screen projections before Diamonds Are Forever.
I don't propose to go through all Bond's adventure released thereafter but having seen them all more than twice, I'll pinpoint the principal henchmen who did not make par with Wint and Kidd.  Cha in Moonraker is so bad he doesn't even make it past the halfway stage (to be replaced by Jaws, who is both iconic and silly - his indestructability a counterpart to Bond's own but surviving many a situation that would end 007's career).  The situation in Licence To Kill is rather confused as to who is directly under Franz Sanchez but if it be Milton Krest, all he does is allow his shark to feast on Felix Leiter and run a drug-running operation incompetently; if Sanchez's 'lieutenant', then he is pretty poor, his principal impression being skewered on a fork lift truck; the third possibility, Benicio del Toro's character gives a good run but is rather junior.  Elliott Carver's blond beefcake bodyguard gets injured more than that which he inflicts (however, Tomorrow Never Dies is a Bond painting-by-numbers flick).  With the reboot, the main men of the main baddies were anonymous and easily taken out of the picture and Skyfall did not have a no. 2 worthy of the description.  I am not syaing that those unmentioned (Tee-Hee, Nick Nack, Gobinda, Emilio Locke, May Day, Necros, Xenia Onatopp, Renard, Zao) are necessarily superior to Mr Wint and Mr Kidd but, along with this couple, they form a memorable rogues' gallery alongside Red Grant (or is Rosa Klebb the real no. 2?) and Oddjob.

Double standards

When the railways were first privatised, John Major tried to minimise the political impact of what was a broadly unpopular decision by limiting fare rises to 1 base point below the rate of inflation (i.e. if inflation was 3%, fare increases would be 2%).  With Labour coming to power in 1997 with the country at their feet and with a desire to milk any cash cows going, fiddled the legislation to mean fare rises would be a maximum of 1 base point above the rate of inflation across the entire pricing system. Thus off-peak travellers saw little change but rush hour commuters were hammered.  Then the Coalition had the bright idea of limiting ticket hikes to 3 bases points above the rate of inflation before a severe backlash against the money-grubbing Treasury.  This is the Treasury, let us not forget, who insisted on splitting the rail track operator from the rolling stocks operators and divvied up itty-bitty franchises rather than a self-sufficient, say, Big Four (as John Major wanted), all in a bid for the Sir Humphreys to remain in control.  Despite certain advances, this is why rail privatisation was so disastrous and Gordon Brown made things worse.
The job of government apparently was to wean the train companies off the teat of public subsidy, eating the solid food of commuter wages.  Every time the passenger was pumped for more like a mafioso racketeering game, the faceless monotone response was 'improvements need to be paid for and the taxpayer must not suffer the burden'.  It was a statement not to be brooked - travellers were told, in effect, to suck it up.  The dullness of intellect by those who propounded this meant they never realised or never cared that railway commuters were also taxpayers.  So it meant they got hit from both sides of the Whitehall divide.
When it comes to the roads however, it is a completely different matter.  Were the roads treated in the same fashion as railways, then instead of a few toll roads for convenience, the entire network of roads down to country lanes would be subject to tolls.  As part of George Osborne's Autumn Statement, £15bn worth of new road schemes across the country.  But what about the burden to the taxpayer?  My use of the roads is very limited.  If road users can complain about the financing of the railways, the direction of travel should be both ways.
It was while campaigning to be president that Dwight Eisenhower recognised the deteriorating road infrastructure would harm the American economy and embarked on upgrades (something that is needed again).  Roads are an essential artery to allow the economy to continue unimpeded.  But railways also have a crucial boosting effect.  Drivers may complain about road tax, insurance, maintenance, petrol and parking fees and though four of that list may be government mandated, they are essentially commercial operations.  Though drivers may gripe about tax on petrol, the price rises are nothing like rail commuters have to endure (and the government has been known to scale back pricing schemes).  From the public purse, motorists have, by and large, a free lunch.  This fundamental imbalance between the modes of transport has existed for a long time and the £15bn announcement today just rubs that in to the wound.