Monday Moan 28

I-paper gets me mad again ....

In Moan 9 I questioned Amol Rajan’s approach to others as being aggressive and unnecessary.  He accused others of various character defects in sweeping assertions, themselves open to serious doubt.  Now, having read the I-paper again, I see he’s still at it – maybe he’s always like this?  Certainly he’s got a 100% record whenever I have read his pieces.

 

This time he takes to task those who oppose the legalisation of drugs in the most immoderate of language. A Government spokesman’s response to a Select Committee’s report on drugs policy is dismissed by Rajan as “possibly the stupidest thing said by any public servant this year”.  Not content with that offensive remark he continues that the spokesman’s next words were “belched” by a “historically illiterate and possibly teenage buffoon”. Nice.  The “buffoon’s” crime appears to have been to say that drugs destroy lives and blight communities.  Apparently, according to Rajan, this will “enrage any right thinking person”, since it is “utterly ignorant of the lessons of the past century”.  Rajan considers that the ‘War on drugs’ is “the most disastrous policy error in the history of mankind” and the spokesman’s statement “oozes the kind of base morality common in theocrats”.

 

Rajan is well into his stride now, and next asserts that “it is very, very clear to anyone who can open their eyes”, that whole nation states are dissolving because of “idiotic prohibition” and that any parent who thinks that criminalising drugs helps to protect their children has “absolutely no idea about the society, let alone the world, you live in.”

 

Apparently, we should all take note and our lead from Portugal, where decriminalisation has reduced drug consumption and crime.

I have no idea whether Portugal offers a good model for the future.  But I know that Rajan’s hectoring, dismissive, aggressive, patronising, and insulting form of writing is most definitely not a good model for others to follow when it comes to constructing a persuasive argument. Rather the opposite, since his style will surely, to borrow from his own invective, enrage any right thinking person since it is utterly ignorant of the rules of common courtesy and public behaviour.

Should we really beat ourselves up?

In the same copy of the I-paper as the one mentioned above, Simon Kelner writes a piece on some of the issues arising from the sad death of Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse who took her own life after being taken in by the Australian radio station pranksters.

Mercifully, Kelner eschews the approach adopted by Amjol Rajan and instead writes a thoughtful article in which he suggests that you and I must take the blame for the suicide because we were all in the joke through our wicked, voyeuristic delight in people being exposed as stupid, cruel or eccentric.  He cites Big Brother as his only evidence for this sweeping assertion.

He then asserts that we are all to blame because of our insatiable appetite for royal news.  Moving swiftly along from this most suspect of statements, he then suggests that the public was culpable rather than the News of the World and its journalists for the whole phone-hacking scandal, because it revels in tales of scandal and misbehaviour, without thinking how those stories are unearthed.

 

Hang on a minute!  Simon Kelner was Editor of The Independent between 1998 and 2011. How typical of a journalist to try to absolve all of his profession and shift the blame elsewhere.  It’s all the public’s fault, and the journalists are merely writing what the public demands. I don’t know about you, but I find this analysis to be lacking in any kind substance - more like a child denying any responsibility for its actions, whatever the evidence there for all to see. 

 

As a member of the public that Kelner accuses, I deny any responsibility. I have never suffered from an insatiable appetite for royal news, I do not crave tittle-tattle about anyone, or demand that the human failings of high-profile people be exposed, and I have never delighted in anyone being exposed as stupid, cruel or eccentric. 

 

No, I want to read the news.  I would happily buy a publication that was able to provide that service free from any of the other things Kelner accuses us of 'forcing' journalists to do. 

Is that too much to ask of a newspaper?  Apparently it is.

  

Arsene Wenger – “I am not embarrassed”

After last week’s defeat by Division 2 Bradford City Arsene Wenger said that he was not embarrassed. 

Oh really?  Well he should have been.  True, it was only the second time his Arsenal side had been knocked out by lower division opposition in any cup competition in his 16 years in charge – a better record than that of any other team in England. But it came on the back of some really disappointing results in other competitions and when Arsenal were already beyond any serious hope of winning the Premier League title with considerably less than half of the season gone.

Yesterday’s 5-2 victory at Reading was probably a truer reflection of his team’s ability, but needs to be repeated if Arsene is to be able to continue to claim not to be embarrassed.

  

Bradley Wiggins  - Sports Personality Of The Year

Congratulations to Bradley – and congratulations also to all the other sporting stars of 2012 – the year that Britain lost its tag as a gallant loser.

 

I don't want to overplay my role in this sporting triumph, but can it really be just a coincidence that in Moan 8 I predicted that Wiggins would win SPOTY unless some Olympian did something exceptional this year?  Is it credible to believe that, having read this, Wiggins did not understand the message I was giving him?  No, much more likely is that he saw the wisdom of those words, recognised the danger, and decided that he would be the one to do something exceptional.  This was the cause of him adding an Olympic title of his own to his victory in the Tour de France, thus building his case for the SPOTY title. 

A true champion - no thanks necessary. 

Monday Moan 27

Hands up all those who pay more tax than the law requires?

Perhaps it’s just me, but I can’t help wondering what all the fuss is about on the issue of taxation and whether or not companies are somehow finding ways of avoiding paying more tax than is necessary.

So many politicians (who themselves seem pretty keen to take maximum advantage of the rules, of course) are working themselves into a high state of moral indignation on this topic that I fear for their health unless they soon take one of their frequent extended holiday breaks.

I am fed up with seeing Margaret Hodge parade herself in front of the cameras every week to deliver another barrage about the ‘immorality’ of companies using the tax rules to pay the minimum amount of tax that they can – all perfectly legitimately, as it happens. If politicians don’t like it then this is not the fault of those who advise clients on tax strategies, but of those who made the rules in the first place.  Hodge last week harangued a witness appearing before her Public Accounts Committee (see Moan 6 and Moan 8 for previous comments on such Committees) with a string of aggressive questions, or rather statements designed to draw out the responses she wanted.  A bully at work.  But when she said “If the public knew you were in the business of deliberately avoiding tax they would think you were completely and utterly and totally immoral in the work you are doing” I had to pinch myself to check that I was not dreaming.  Was she really saying that someone was engaged in completely and utterly and total immoral work when what they were doing was promoting a scheme that had been advised to the tax authorities and approved by them as being perfectly legal? If you've nothing better to do then have a look here at 12 mins 40 secs.

Hands up all those (apart from Starbucks, apparently) who want to pay more tax than the law requires?  Hmm, a fairly small number of people I imagine.  And that number is unlikely to include Margaret Hodge herself, whose life has been made just a little easier by being the daughter of a very wealthy businessman who sent her off to private school and, following her inheritance on his death, in whose company she holds (directly and through her children and others) almost 10% of the shares, currently valued at some £20m.  Questions about the tax avoidance strategies of that company have exercised some commentators recently, although the company itself says everything it does is perfectly legal.  I’m quite sure that is true, but in other circumstances that would not stop Hodge from seeking a headline or two.

 

Radio 4 Today programme – an exercise in playground debating tactics

The Today programme has been up to its usual tricks again. Evan Davis interviewing George Osborne last week demonstrated precisely why either he (Davis) should be given a holiday or why politicians generally should be wary of agreeing to be interviewed.

In classic Today style (see Moans 8 and 22), Davis knew all the answers to his ‘questions’ (statements) beforehand because he, of the massive ego, was much brighter than poor old George. So, his task was simply to get George to admit his guilt by answering ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as required – another tactic much used these days (see Moan 17).  Davis kept telling Osborne to answer with either of these, and then talked over Osborne if he didn’t comply.  Osborne tried to reason with him but was rudely rebuked for wasting Davis’s time.

Osborne -“I’m sorry, you can’t just ask these questions and before you even allow me to answer” ….

Davis - “Well, it’s a factual question, you are clearly unable to answer, so let’s move on. Come on, let’s not waste time.”

Memo to Today.  Please stop this pointless and insulting approach to interviewing.  Perhaps just try to imagine the boot being on the other foot and ask yourselves whether you would consider this to be a perfectly reasonable approach or whether you would find it rude and unacceptable – the equivalent of playground behaviour.

 

A clever economist speaks ……

Whilst on the subject of the Today programme, we had the great pleasure of listening to Lord Skidelsky, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick and long-standing economic know-all, being interviewed alongside Bridget Rosewell, professional economist and business woman, last week on the subject of the Autumn Statement and the state of the UK economy.  Bridget Rosewell ventured that Lord Skidelsky’s recipe for the economy was based on a false premise because, she said, “the economy is a bit stagnant but it is not in recession”. 

Lord Skidelsky, eminent professor and man of many well-constructed thoughts, responded by saying “The economy is in recession, it has not grown, to any extent, in the last year and a half and if that isn’t …. well, all right, call it semi-recession”.

So, that’s clear.  The noble Lord’s views are based on the UK being in recession, which turns out to be not a recession but a newly-coined economic state of half-recession when confronted by the need to support his assertions.

Makes you look up to the academic profession, doesn’t it?

 

Time to put it out to grass?

I have been a great fan of Have I Got News For You for many years.  I have put up with Ian Hislop’s almost unbearable smugness, particularly when there is a guest he clearly dislikes.  I have put up with the scripted nature of so much of the programme, because it still made me laugh and there was enough apparent spontaneity to make you feel you were watching people thinking on their feet.

This series, however, has limped along rather joylessly.  We have had too may poor episodes to be able to excuse each of them as ‘just one that didn’t work’ (see Moan 19). Far too many awful guest presenters.

Even Paul Merton now appears to have lost his spark.  He has been the key to the programme’s attraction for me, and it is sad to see him struggling to find things to say that make you laugh. He doesn’t seem disiniterested, just lost.   This week’s epsode featured an extraordinarily wooden David Mitchell as guest host – another who suffers when working to a formal script, it seems.  Worst of all, it featured, yet again, Janet Street-Porter. Leaving aside the voice, which ought to have guaranteed that she was never allowed to broadcast in any form whatsoever, the fact is that she is just boring and whatever is the very opposite of funny.  She has been on this programme so many times I have to assume either that she is always available and very cheap, that she has some incriminating evidence stashed away against whoever is in charge of bookings for the programme, or that (surely not?) some kind of warped audience research indicates that people like her.

 

I can hardly believe it, but I can't see the point in watching HIGNFY in future.  It's the end of an era.

Monday Moan 26

Lord Leveson – did he fail to read the script?
The Leveson Inquiry seems to have been going on for ever, but in the way these things work it did not actually take that much time.  The problem was that it was heavily featured on the television, mainly because there were so many high-profile witnesses (i.e. newsworthy people) and because the coverage provided a fabulous opportunity for the non-Murdoch owned media to gloat over the discomfort of Rupert and his empire.

Leveson published his report last week – all four volumes and around 2,000 pages of it – and within what seemed like minutes we had firm opinions on what it contained, including later the same day the Prime Minister saying that he was not minded to accept the fundamental recommendation of Lord Leveson for statutory under-pinning of a new system of self-regulation.

Nobody should be surprised at how quickly positions taken for or against the recommendations. Very few people ever bother to wait to read such a report, consider what it says and then form a view as to the merits of its proposals.  Unfortunately, life isn’t like that and so we cannot expect our politics to be any different.   People know what they want, what they agree with and what they oppose – very few of them are open to persuasion, let alone to taking a fresh look at their own views (prejudices) and seeing if they stand the test of independent analysis.

So, let me reveal one of my own prejudices.  Any time Shami Chakrabarti, Director of pressure group Liberty, speaks on a subject I am immediately likely to find what she says irritating.  I know, it shouldn’t be like that, but then she shouldn’t keep saying such irritating things, should she?  In this case, she was one of six Assessors appointed to the Leveson Inquiry but she has come out against the legal underpinning recommendation because, she says, it would violate the Human Rights Act (oh no, not that again!) - "A compulsory statute to regulate media ethics in the way the report suggests would violate the act, and I cannot support it." 

Now I confess that I have not read the whole document – one of the many benefits of having retired from my previous full-time employment.  But I cannot easily shake old habits and so I have read the Executive Summary of the Report.

So, for those who have neither the time nor the inclination to plough through the Leveson Report, what did it actually say on this subject?  Here’s the summary:-

The press, operating properly and in the public interest is one of the true safeguards of our democracy. As a result of this principle … the press is given significant and special rights in this country … with these rights, however, come responsibilities to the public interest: to respect the truth, to obey the law4 and to uphold the rights and liberties of individuals … principles  proclaimed and articulated by the industry itself (and to a large degree reflected in the Editors’ Code of Practice). (paras 5 and 6)

 … there have been far too many occasions … when, chasing the story, parts of the press have acted as if its own code, which it wrote, simply did not exist. This has caused real hardship and, on occasion, wreaked havoc with the lives of innocent people. (para 7)

Not a single witness has proposed that the Government or Parliament should themselves be involved in the regulation of the press. I have not contemplated and do not make any such proposal. (para 12) I consider that what is needed is a genuinely independent and effective system of self-regulation. (para 51)  In order to give effect to the incentives that I have outlined, it is essential that there should be legislation to underpin the independent self-regulatory system and facilitate its recognition in legal processes. (para 70)

The legislation would not establish a body to regulate the press: it would be up to the press to come forward with their own body that meets the criteria laid down. The legislation would not give any rights to Parliament, to the Government, or to any regulatory (or other) body to prevent newspapers from publishing any material whatsoever. (para 71)

This is not, and cannot be characterised as, statutory regulation of the press. What is proposed here is independent regulation of the press organised by the press, with a statutory verification process to ensure that the required levels of independence and effectiveness are met by the system in order for publishers to take advantage of the benefits arising as a result of membership. (para 73)

 

Now, if you think all that amounts to a proposal for Government control of the press and the end of democracy in the UK, then please line up behind the Tory part of the Coalition, the phalanx of Tory MPs who apparently still fear to cross Rupert Murdoch, Shami Chakrabarti and others.  If, on the other hand, you think that the press has had enough opportunities to put its house in order, that 8 inquiries in the last 70 years into the way the press operates in the UK suggests that leaving things as they are will mean we’ll be faced with another inquiry before too long, and that what Leveson proposes seems entirely logical, then please form another queue under the banner of ‘Bound to be disappointed’.

 

I won’t be able to avoid a moan for too much longer

After what seems like most of the last few editions,  various readers have asked me why there have been no moans about Arsenal and their decline from title contenders to also-rans.  My response has always been that I don’t like to jump on bandwagons and, anyway, everyone recognises that ‘Arsene Knows’ – he will wave his magic wand and all will be well again.

I still hope that this is true.  I am no longer utterly convinced, however, and so the time is coming ever closer when a moan will be inevitable.

Come on Arsene – get your collection of talented players to perform somewhere near to their abilities, give them a bit of fight to go with their ball-skills.  Beating Tottenham 5-2 every season is simply not enough, if you couple that with abject surrenders to the likes of (no insult intended) Norwich and Swansea.

There – that should be enough to galvanise him and them into action.

 

White legs and a full house

I have just had a fabulous weekend away in one of my favourite places in the UK.  I’m not going to tell you where, since then you’ll all want to go there, but I will say it’s by the coast and the sun shone all day yesterday.  Four hours of walking beside the sea in the cold, fresh and invigorating air made me feel very tired but full of the joy of living.

I managed to attend a concert the previous evening, given by the local choir who have the very great fortune of being able to sing in one of the best concert halls in the country.  The place was all but a sell-out and, from the comments I heard around me during the interval and at the end, everyone thought it was a wonderful evening.  Oh well, satisfy your audience and you’ve done well.  It was a throwback to the English tradition of community choral societies, only transferred to a fabulous concert hall.  Those who know me will perhaps be surprised to hear that my presence lowered the average age of the audience and would have significantly lowered the average age of the choir too, had I been on stage with them.  

I’m glad I went, though.  There was one star of the evening and that was the soprano soloist – her performance made the journey and the cost of the ticket worthwhile, absolutely brilliant.  I really can’t say the same about all the others, including one who seemed to think that having been on TV and been promoted as one of this year’s ‘young things in the classical world’ meant he had arrived.  He hadn’t, at least in any kind of musical sense.

There were other highlights too.  The energetic contribution of the orchestra leader was a constant source of interest.  The lilywhite legs of the cellist were a constant distraction – suggest she wears some black tights next time.  And I’ll never again think bad thoughts about the dress sense of our own choir’s conductor – at least he never tries to look like Gandalf.

 

p.s. to avoid confusion, I should add that the image above is not taken from the actual concert ...........

 

No need to rub it in!

One of the great delights of being out and about is the way that the smell of fresh bread or the look of a cream cake or Danish pastry can lure you into a café so you can then enjoy a relaxing time over a cup of coffee or tea whilst consuming the produce that enticed you there in the first place.

Unfortunately, I had the misfortune to be diagnosed as a coeliac sufferer just over a year ago.  So, no more fresh bread and mouth-watering cakes for me.   I think I have coped quite well, all things considered.  Obviously, I still go into places that sell such enticing foods because my wife needs to eat.  The chances of going somewhere and finding that they offer gluten-free cakes are very slim – and even then those cakes will never be able to compete with the real thing in terms of smell, looks and taste L  But worst of all is to go somewhere to be told by the waitress (also the owner in this case) that “oh yes, we normally do gluten-free cakes but we have run out today”. 

Cruel.  There ought to be a law against it.

 

Monday Moan 25

Christmas noise

It’s started – Christmas noise is all around us.  I am no Scrooge or Grumpy Old Man (honestly) but my patience and good nature are being sorely tested at the moment.

 

Can’t a person step out to do some shopping without their eyes and ears being assaulted by flashing lights and deafening noise from a PA system?  Twice last week I ventured out to local shopping areas.  On a late afternoon,  I chanced upon the build-up to the switching on of the festive lights.  Every child within a radius of 10 miles appeared to be there, mostly in their buggies, which made walking around for the rest of us such a pleasure, and almost without exception crying or shouting or making some other noise at high volume.  Within a few minutes of finding the relative tranquillity of a shop I then heard loud music from a PA system outside.  At least, I assumed it was just outside since it was so loud, but when I left the shop there was nothing to be seen, apart from a phalanx of buggies rushing along the road obviously on a mission to get somewhere important.  Swept along by the tide, I turned the corner to see a makeshift stage on which a young lady, apparently from a local radio station, was addressing the crowd in what can only be described as Radio DJ Estuary English, babbling along about nothing in particular and desperate for some interaction with the massed force of buggies assembled in front of her. 

 

What with that and the fairground rides and light-sabre sellers and tacky merchandise on hastily erected stalls and I was soon beating a retreat, saving my cash for another day.

 

I thought that other day might be last Saturday.  This time, partly because of the atrocious weather, the venue was a shopping centre.  It was crowded, but then it was raining and shopping centres are where people go in such circumstances.  It was noisy, but then that’s the nature of indoor shopping centres. It was full of what seemed suspiciously like the same buggies as I had encountered a couple of days earlier, but there was more room for manoeuvring round them so things didn’t seems so bad. There was a band of carol singers at one end of the mall, so I moved away fairly quickly. But once down the other end the loud music started and then I spotted another makeshift stage.  Surely lightning couldn’t strike twice?  Oh yes it could! Admittedly it was a different young lady and a different local radio station, but the approach and effect were the same – too much noise, too little enjoyment, and I was out of there as quickly as I could.

 

I still have money to spend at Christmas, but I think I will do most of my shopping online in the peace and quiet of my own home.

  

 

What’s the point, and what’s the cost?

The EU summit last week to discuss the budget for 2014-2020 was as predictable as it was disheartening.  Get the EU’s 27 leaders together to agree a budget?  More chance of winning the lottery than that they will agree anything at the first such meeting.  It’s all a rather weary charade isn’t it?  We all know what the respective positions of the member countries are and we all know they will not be able to agree. But we still have to go through the nonsense of these important people drawing up outside the building in their limousines, getting out, walking over to state their prepared positions to the waiting press, and then disappearing inside for the summit.  Two days later they will all emerge to give press conferences to say they are determined to stick to their positions, that the others are inflexible, that the European Commission has not worked hard enough to come up with an acceptable package, and then they will all disperse to their respective countries to play out the next round of the charade for their domestic audiences. 

 

They will be back.  And so will the circus that surrounds such events, including hordes of journalists and camera teams from every broadcaster in the EU, eager to catch the utterances of these god-like leaders and then play them back to us during the evening news bulletins as if there was something happening that was really newsworthy.

 

I’m fed-up with it all.  And I want to know how much all this costs – not just the costs of the summits themselves, but the preparations beforehand, the travelling and accommodation. And I want to know the cost involved in the assembling of the world’s press at such events.  How much do the BBC, ITV and Sky spend on sending their own teams to relay back to us the news that there is no news, only what we all knew already?

 

Someone ought to call a halt to it all.  Make a stand. Save some money. Demand that we all stop pretending that the meetings are anything more than a charade along the way towards eventual agreement.

 

 

Spot the difference

Now that I am a man of leisure I get time to look at things in more detail.  Some might say this results in me finding things to moan about that really aren’t worth getting bothered about.  They may be right, but isn’t that the attitude that allows people to get away with things that ought not to be allowed? 

 

For example, now that I shop more than I used to I have noticed how confusing everything is when you are trying to assess the value of what you buy.  Picking just one thing at random, I decided to buy some biscuits for Christmas last week – buy early and then avoid the hassle later, I thought.  I spotted a box of Crawford’s biscuits that appeared to be the same as the one I bought last year – yes, that would be an easy option, so into the basket it went.

 

But when I got home and put it side by side with last year’s, all seemed slightly different.  Instead of 12 varieties of biscuits we now had only 10.  It took some forensic examination to discover that the ‘missing’ biscuits included jammy dodgers – how could they!  Further close examination revealed that the weight of biscuits included in the box was actually more this year than last.  Curious. My initial instinct was that since the price was unchanged from last year this must mean the box was better value this time.  Fortunately, my wife was on hand to add the appropriate note of caution, suggesting that removing the jammy dodgers and one other ‘exotic’ biscuit meant that the weight gain could only have been achieved by increasing the proportion of plain, boring biscuits, so the overall value was diminished.

 

Far too complicated for me – just what the manufacturer’s intended, no doubt.

 

 

Didn’t he used to be good?

Watching Match of the Day last night we had the now familiar discussion after any match involving Chelsea of what was wrong with Fernando Torres and when was he going to rediscover his form.

 

The experts flap around looking for reasons why Torres no longer looks like he knows how to score goals. They remember him as he used to be and wonder who or what can spark him back to life.  It’s all very repetitive and pointless.

 

My wife interjected – “why are they bothering with this, he was rubbish at Liverpool and he’s rubbish at Chelsea”.  She was right, of course.  Although I should add that he was only rubbish at Liverpool after his two knee operations in 2010.  Might be a bit of a clue there, perhaps? Prior to that he had been a real goalscorer, but he never recovered this form.

 

Liverpool made one of the most astute transfer deals in recent years when they sold this crocked Torres to cash-rich Chelsea in January 2011 for £50m.  Laughing all the way to the bank?  Not quite, because the gloss of this clever deal was almost rubbed out by their decision to blow £35m of it on Andy Carroll – so Newcastle were actually the astute dealers in this little exchange.

 

Anyway, the point is that Torres might one day discover the form that once made him a great striker, but don’t bet too much of your money on it – the English game is full of ex-Liverpool strikers who lost their touch but were still purchased by a succession of clubs dazzled by their former prowess – think Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen, for example.

 

 

Monday Moan 24

Olympic Stadium - Get on with it!

The Olympic Stadium was a wonderful venue.  80,000 spectators accommodated with ease, good sightlines for all, plenty of catering and toilet facilities, good access to the venue and to the area.

So what’s the delay over deciding what it should be used for in the future?  Interminable wrangles over whether it should be used for football and, if so, who is to pay for the ‘conversion’ work required, seem nonsensical to me.  There is no reason I can see for it to be used for football, especially if huge amounts of money have to be spent to make it ‘adequate’ for the task.  The stadium was fit to hold the Olympic Games and drew approval from everyone who used it.   Why does it need to be converted into anything else? 

 

According to David Bond, the BBC’s Sports Editor, some of the arguments currently being put forward include the following:-

‘Premier League Football is the only way of filling the stadium on a regular basis’ – well, no, that’s just an assertion.  There is a long list of other uses that could bring in huge crowds on a regular basis, from concerts to other sporting events.

‘The roof needs to be extended so that all the seats are covered’ – why? Have we all become so cossetted that we cannot now be expected to get a little wet on occasions?

‘Retractable seating needs to be installed so that fans can be nearer to the action’ – why?  Even if the stadium was to be used for football there is nothing inherently wrong with watching from a little further away, especially given the huge cost involved in installing such seating.

‘The toilets need to be refurbished’ – excuse me?  Were the toilets good enough for 80,000 spectators every day during the Olympics, but not up to standard for football fans?  Or maybe it is that the toilets were too good, too clean, too plentiful, and they need to be trashed a little before football fans would feel comfortable?

As far as I’m concerned the stadium is ready right now to be used for other events, subject only to the Olympic site being cleared of the other renovation work taking place. Stop this endless debating about its future, give it to a proper management company to run, let them offer themselves and the venue in the same way as happens with the O2 and Wembley.  Above all, keep football out, unless they choose to hire it in the same way as anybody else.

 

Nothing to do with us ……..

Do you ever read the small print, or the disclaimers attached to virtually all communications from corporates these days?  Thought not.  Nor do I make a habit of doing so, but I took the time to look at the disclaimer provided by E.ON when they emailed me recently to let me know their meter-reader would be calling round soon.

“This email has been sent by E.ON Energy Solutions Limited, while we have checked this e-mail and any attachments for viruses, we can not guarantee that they are virus-free. You must therefore take full responsibility for virus checking.”

 

OK, I accept that as a responsible internet user I ought to have some kind of virus protection.

“Internet communications are not always secure and therefore E.ON does not accept legal responsibility for this message. The recipient is responsible for verifying its authenticity before acting on the contents.”

This one is a bit harder to swallow.  E.ON accepts no responsibility for its own message and asks its customers to ‘verify its authenticity’.  So we are supposed to do what, call them to check that they really did send the email?

 

“Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of E.ON.”

 So this means that an official email from E.ON, which I have checked for viruses, the authenticity of which I have checked to my satisfaction, is then considered to contain the views of the author and not those of E.ON?  Come on E.ON, you have to take some responsibility here don’t you?  If it comes from you and is written either by one of your employee’s or, most likely in this case, is a standard communication generated automatically by your system, then I think I’m entitled to hold you responsible for what it says.

p.s. The views expressed in this article are not necessarily my own and it is the responsibility of the reader to verify their authenticity and to take steps to ensure that no damage is caused to their mental faculties as a result of having taken the time to read this message.

 

Give us a smile

The Moan has an editorial policy of not gloating about football results, so let’s be clear that the following piece is actually about ‘Honest’ Harry Redknapp and not his beloved Tottenham’s abysmal showing against Arsenal at the weekend.

A few weeks ago ‘Honest’ Harry was positively revelling in Arsenal’s predicament (as he saw it) after they had lost to Norwich, a team he cast (by implication) as the sort of no-hopers that the top teams should beat with their eyes closed.  Incidentally, I wonder whether pundits like ‘Honest’ Harry might care to revise their condescending attitude towards Norwich now that they have also beaten Manchester United?

Anyway, leaving that aside, it was hard to believe that the chirpy, wide-eyed ‘Honest’ Harry we saw that day was the same person who appeared this week on Match of the Day after Tottenham had, again, lost 5-2 to Arsenal.  This time his body language was rather different. He sat on his chair with his body turned slightly away from the other two pundits, with the most miserable of looks on his face that you could imagine.  Just like a sullen teenager who has been forced to accompany his parents on a visit to his relatives – he was not going to smile.  He was determined to be grumpy whatever they said, and although he was full of praise for Santi Cazorla he refused to join in anything that resembled praise for Arsenal, even insisting that Tottenham, would still finish above Arsenal and that they had a stronger squad.  Sat next to him was Vincent Kompany, captain of Manchester City, who was invited to agree with ‘Honest’ Harry’s assessment.  Instead, Kompany said that Arsenal were the best team Manchester City had played this year, he had nothing but good to say about them, and he wouldn’t be surprised to see them finish a lot higher than now – and above Tottenham. 

Of course, it is possible that Tottenham will finish higher than Arsenal, but the likelihood of this happening is about on a par with the proverbial pig being able to fly – it might happen but don’t bet on it.