Tuesday 28 May 2013

(Monday) Moan 48

 
The Perils of Live Broadcasting – part 1
There is an understandable desire amongst broadcasters for the live interview, particularly when they are covering breaking news stories.
 
But it doesn’t always work out well.
 
Radio 5 Live decided that last week’s story about a plane being diverted to Stansted under escort from RAF Typhoons warranted the ‘breaking news’ treatment.  Chris Warburton was the man charged with extracting some interesting information from the passenger selected for interview. 
 
It didn’t go well:-
 
CW “tell us exactly what you were able to see?” 
Passenger “Ah, well nothing much”
CW “and what did you hear?”
Passenger “ah, nothing because we were at the front of the plane and it must have been at the back”
CW “so what about the fighter plane escort. That must have been alarming?”
Passenger “well actually, I didn’t see anything because I was sitting in the middle seats and you can’t see out of the windows and in any case we were flying in the clouds”
 
So, not much of an eyewitness account. But it was good radio because of the discomfort of the interviewer - who ploughed on in an ultimately vain attempt to get his subject to say something interesting.
 
 
The Perils of Live Broadcasting – part 2
Worse than the live interview is the live broadcast whilst an event is taking place or just as it has finished.  If the event is going on we often see the reporter standing up with his back to whatever is happening, speaking in hushed tones because they know that they are disrupting the main event – for example, speeches at conferences or whilst some sporting event is in progress. So irritating for the viewer.
 
And then we have the broadcast at the end of an event, often a sporting event, as the crowd is dispersing. Now this ought to set alarm bells ringing, you would think.  Apparently not, if the report from Wembley Stadium after the Championship play-off game yesterday is any guide.  Reporter Chris Slegg was doing a piece to camera about how Crystal Palace had won the game and the Premiership jackpot, when a departing Watford fan took the opportunity to give this incisive comment on the game. 
 
Predictable?  Of course.  Will it happen again?  Inevitably.
 
 
German football resurgence?
So, Bayern Munich won the all-German Champions League Final against Borussia Dortmund on Saturday.  A close and very fast-paced game that was decided only at the very end. Dortmund fought hard to upset the odds, often making Bayern’s dominance in Germany this season seem questionable, but the right team won, both for their performance on the night and for their results over the whole season.  Watch the Bundesliga highlights show on ITV4 each week to see the quality of the German league.  
 
Just a couple of minor observations, rather than moans.  First, the British press went overboard (surely not?) before the game about how German football had reinvented itself following years of ‘under-achievement’ (i.e. not winning a major trophy at either club or international level for years) and how they had, in particular, focused on developing their own young players.   Sounds like a good point, except that the Munich team contained six non-German players and the Dortmund team four. It’s the same with all the top teams in every country – they scour the globe for the talent and then go for those they feel are the best mixture of skill and affordability.  Let’s not pretend the Germans are any different.
 
Second, there seemed to be an inconsistency in the Deutsche Bundesliga’s own website’s headline of “Arsenal, Juventus and Barcelona: just a handful of the seven sides to crumble under the might of Bayern Munich this season”, when set against their own summary of the game when Arsenal came so close to knocking Bayern out of the competition – “Bayern suffered an almighty scare when Arsenal won the second leg 2-0 to draw 3-3 on aggregate but lose on away goals”.
 
Not so much a crumble as elimination on a technicality.
 
 
 
The new Ice-Cream Wars?
It seems that more and more people are resorting to online shopping from the major supermarkets these days. 
 
Advocates talk about the time and effort saved in shopping online as against getting into the car, driving to the shops, walking round the aisles to choose the things they want, and then reversing the whole process to get home again. Why not have someone else do the hard work and leave you free to do other things?
 
Those against this trend argue that you can’t beat being able to choose which items will go into your basket – this apple rather than that one, this cake you wouldn’t have considered except that it looks so tempting as you are walking round the shop, etc.
 
I hope that those who are resisting the new way of shopping will continue to do so, or the roads around us will become even more clogged with supermarket delivery vans than they are at present.  They appear at all hours of the day, banging their crates as they unload their deliveries, revving their engines as they struggle to negotiate the narrow streets lined with parked cars.
 
Last week these two vehicles were delivering at the same time – not sure if they were going to the same address or not.  Or maybe, as my wife suggested, it’s the start of a supermarket equivalent of the ice-cream van ‘wars’ we used to see?

Monday 20 May 2013

Monday Moan 47



Loons?  What a ridiculous idea
So, Lord Feldman (apparently, Conservative Party Chairman) is supposed to have described Conservative Party activists as ‘mad, swivel-eyed loons’. The comment is alleged to have been made to journalists and concerned the Party’s kamikaze descent into madness over Europe.

For non-Conservatives this is a wonderful time, watching them get worked up over a series of issues that have been left bubbling away beneath the surface for many years.  Europe is the best example, of course, with former Ministers lining up on either side of the debate to criticise the way the Party is going.

Of course, the idea that swivel-eyed loons are the exclusive preserve of local Conservative Associations is, clearly, nonsense – according to my research into Jeremy Hunt , Michael Gove and David Mellor.

Some people are beginning to wonder whether the flames of unrest are being fanned by sections of the media more interested in a story than any balanced reporting. For example, the BBC decided to lead its main News programmes yesterday with extensive coverage of the delivery of a letter to 10 Downing Street by a group of 34 Conservative Association chairmen and former chairmen, complaining about same-sex marriage. Rather less prominence was given to the separate letter, signed by more than 100 Conservative activists, calling on the Party’s MPs to back the same-sex legislation.

I suspect Alex Salmond is behind all this.  After all, which Scot wouldn’t vote for independence from the rest of the UK once UKIP becomes the largest party in England?




Heard on the bus ……
Sometimes, just listening to other people can be as entertaining a way of spending time as reading the newspaper or listening to music. 

For example, travelling on a bus in one of our significant seats of learning at the weekend, I had the pleasure of listening to a young lady talking to two others who appeared to be her parents.  I really wasn’t eavesdropping – it was impossible not to hear her.  A loud and, in all honesty, what can only be described as one of the most irritating voices I have ever heard, forced its way into my consciousness when it was describing how the lady in question had failed to be offered a job despite the fact that she had been told she had “interviewed well”.  Nothing to do with her voice, I am sure.

Then displaying all the intelligence that she had, no doubt, brought to bear in her interview, she explained how the interview had taken place in “Bulgaria, that posh bit of London”, and wondered whether if you rode a ‘Boris-bike’ in London you were allowed to use the pavements rather than the roads.

Can’t for the life of me think why she didn’t get the job.




Arsene Wenger – Miracle Man
‘Honest’ Harry Redknapp told the Match of the Day audience last October (see Moan 20) that Arsenal were rubbish, would finish beneath Tottenham, and that it would be a miracle if Arsenal qualified for the Champions League this year.

Well, ‘Honest’ was about as right as he always is.  His prediction that Tottenham would finish above Arsenal was one he has made every year since I can remember – and it was wrong yet again. In fact, it is now so long ago since Arsenal last finished below Tottenham that you have to begin to question whether the law of averages really does exist.  When was it?  1994-95 – the same year that Blackburn Rovers were the champions and Wimbledon finished in the top half of the Premier League.  So long ago.

The debate will continue over whether Arsene Wenger can ever again turn Arsenal into serious title challengers, but in an era when money may become less of a key to success and when Manchester United have to learn to live without Alex Ferguson, you never know.





Can you read between the lines?
One of the simple pleasures of life is to enjoy the countryside and marvel at all that nature conjures up each year.  Our annual trip to enjoy the bluebells in the Ashridge Estate yesterday delivered its usual quota of awe and sheer enjoyment at the marvellous display of colour that these small flowers bring.

However, I am slightly worried that my eyesight is deteriorating.  Some of the footpaths were closed, but try as I might to read between the lines, I could not see anything on the notices about the closures that said that this did not apply to unsupervised children, or to adults who just wanted to take a ‘nice’ photograph of their companion sitting amongst the flowers.

What is it about people that they can blithely ignore rules or requests like these?  Are these the same people who think that the ban on using your mobile phone whilst driving doesn’t apply to them,  or that prohibitions on parking in a disabled bay or on a yellow line are meant for everyone else?  

Selfish and arrogant individuals, all of them. But don’t challenge them, unless you are prepared to be subjected to abuse, verbal or perhaps worse.

Monday 13 May 2013

Monday Moan 46



Eurolather

There is something entirely predictable and sad about the lather the Conservatives have got themselves into over Europe.  It doesn’t take much for the usual bunch of noisy nobodies to mount their soapboxes and start ranting about the iniquities of Europe and how the UK should cut itself off from the rest of the continent – sailing off (back) into a Golden Age where Britannia rules the waves.

Onto the roundabout again.  No doubt the surge of ‘support’ for UKIP in the local elections last week has spooked some Conservatives. But for the Eurosceptics (or, more accurately, the anti-Europeans) this is just a convenient excuse to play their anti-European loop yet again.

As well as the usual suspects (why do they always wheel out John Redwood, largely considered to be just the right side of mad?), Lord Lawson, no less, thinks we should leave the EU.  The addition of Lord Lawson to the anti-European numbers shows that we should all take this seriously, apparently. But hang on a minute, could this be the same Lord Lawson who now lives in France and who was mercilessly mocked by nearly everyone a few years ago when he declared that global warming was a myth?

And then there is Lord Lamont – you remember, the chap who used to be Norman Lamont, veteran Eurosceptic, Chancellor of the Exchequer during the ERM debacle in the early 1990s (whose advisor was one David Cameron), all round figure of fun.

Don’t you hope that just occasionally our politicians can pull themselves together and do something worthwhile?

 

The Queen’s Speech

In the days when I was a working man I used to look forward to the Queen’s Speech – it was a big deal for me to provide quick analysis for my employers of the speech and the legislation proposed and its likely impact on us.

Last week’s Queen’s Speech outlined the legislative programme for the next year. It contained about the same number of proposals as usual, some of them were quite important, some were of less importance.  But what struck me most was how little impact the event had on the vast majority of people – not a topic of conversation in social circles, not headline news in the media other than for the subsequent coverage of Tory MPs wanting to know why it didn’t include anything on a referendum on Europe.

Now I know why my friends looked at me with a mixture of incomprehension and pity when I used to tell them I had a big day ahead with the Queen’s Speech.  What matters in life all depends on your perspective. 

 

 

Another endless loop to be debated again

Must be the week for endless loops.  This time it’s whether or not London needs another airport or, more accurately, whether or not London’s airport capacity needs to be increased to cope with demand and, if so, how this should be done.

Cue the debate on expanding Heathrow or perhaps Stansted, or whether we should build an entirely new airport in the Thames as Boris Johnson keeps promoting.

The question of airport capacity has been discussed for as long as I can remember and, no doubt, will be discussed long after I can remember anything.  It’s an industry that keeps a lot of people employed, one way or another. But it costs us all a lot of money – in the end we pay for the indecision and for the inevitable (and hugely expensive) public inquiries and all that they entail.  The beauty for those engaged in this is that there can never be a resolution to the issue – even if another runway or airport is built, it won’t be long before the debate about expansion starts again.

That’s why so many of the public simply switch off when the topic comes up.





Where’s Ed?

Still no sightings.  Anybody know where he is?

 

 

 

 

Tuesday 7 May 2013

(Monday) Moan 45


Vintage outing

We had our kitchen refitted last week, which meant we had to eat out every night as we had no facilities at home.
 
Most days it was fine.  We didn’t want fancy food or service – just something tasty and relatively quick.  So, hats off to the various pizza-type chains who all met the criteria and managed to come up with gluten and dairy-free food that I was able to enjoy.

Our only disappointment was a trip to our local Vintage Inn.  This was a last minute decision and we were left to regret all the other options we had discarded when plumping for this one. 
 
In fact, it wasn’t that the food was not perfectly good – it was.  Being a Sunday it was a shame that they had run out of any roast options – or rather that the chef wouldn’t serve any because they had fallen below the standards he had set.  I should applaud that, I suppose. 
 
No, the problems were to do with the experience as a whole.  Let’s see, there was the man who had fallen asleep at his table, perhaps because of the very slow service, perhaps because he had had a very hard day – who knows?  Sleeping is discourteous, but snoring loudly is quite another thing!  I don’t blame his companions, who tried valiantly to rouse him on a number of occasions, and though he eventually awoke and ate his main course (cold by now) he then fell asleep again before his dessert arrived.

Then there was the fractious child, up far too late, of course, and then denied any food by the slow service.  This was compounded by the constant stream of people heading for the door to go for a smoke, and leaving that door open every time, leaving the rest of us in a draught.  We took it in turns to get up and shut the door, but rather than this sending a message to the smokers that they ought to shut it themselves, one of them decided to put the door on the latch, so that it stayed open permanently.  Fortunately, an ostentatious show of taking it off the latch and shutting it very firmly did not produce an angry response from the miscreant.

Still, at least we weren’t the customers who were sat at their table at 20.50 with a menu, but then left by the waitress until at 21.15 she came over to them to say that the kitchen was now closed.  Her offer to ask the chef if he might possibly reopen to serve them something seemed doomed to failure, and the customers knew this and just left.
 
Note to self – give this place a wide berth for a while to give them time to get their act together.
 

 

Del Boy to lead us to the promised land?

I was deeply irritated by the extensive coverage on the BBC of the upcoming local elections for a week or so before they actually happened last week.  No doubt they are obliged to cover such things, but it really did seem like a promotion for the election rather than reporting of events.
 
Then we had a screen full of Nigel Farage – so much free publicity for his eclectic bunch of potential councillors.  They are not a protest party, apparently.  No, people vote for them because they support their policies and want to see change in this country.  Yeh, right.
 
Maybe it’s Nigel’s magnetic personality and persuasive tongue that attracts people to his party?  Incidentally, I call it his party, because I challenge anybody to name any other leading light in the party – and yes, I know about Neil Hamilton, and rest my case.
 
Farage obviously works hard on his image, with so many poses of him with cigarette or pint in hand.  But what’s with the Del Boy coat and the trilby hat?  Are these really the things that will attract people to take him seriously?  It seems so, in combination with his village idiot looks and statements. 
 
In truth, he and his party are not much more sensible than the Monster Raving Loony Party – and at least they don’t take themselves too seriously.  Who could fail to support a policy of instructing the RSPCA to ensure that all meerkats come in twos, in order to enable the public to effectively compare the meerkat?  (Yes, that is a Loony policy proposal rather than a UKIP one – but I’m sure Nigel would adopt it if he thought people would go for it.)

 
 

Del Boy not on his own

For all that Nigel Farage appears to be a joke leader, he’s not alone amongst the political ‘elite’ of this country, is he? 

I mean, what’s going on when our leaders are as uninspiring a bunch as mad Boris, boring Nick, unctuous Dave, unhinged Alex and invisible Ed?
 
Add to that their supporting cast of the likes of Ed Balls, Nigel Evans, Patricia Hodge and so on, and it’s no wonder we are in a mess, is it?

 
 





Pavement artists

The local council recently decided to replace all the pavements in our street. Out with the old-fashioned paving slabs and in with the new, smooth asphalt.  No problems with that.  But the sub-contractors tasked with carrying out the work seemed to lack what you might describe as attention to detail – or perhaps the expression should be common sense? 
 
They had obviously been told to put in edging strips alongside what remains of the grass verges on the street.  So far, so good. But design was not their strong point, as the haphazard line of edging stones demonstrates.  And what are we to make of the decision to edge half of a strip of grass, but not the other?    OK, it’s not earth-shattering, but it’s visually unattractive and they have been paid some of my Council Tax to carry out this work, so I’m not happy!