Monday Moan 74

A PERFECT CHOICE

The House of Lords Committee on the Olympic and Paralympic Legacy published a thoughtful report last week on the Legacy of the Games and how well this measured up against the various targets set and promises made as part of the Olympic bid process.  Chair of the Committee is Lord Toby Harris, a Labour Peer steeped in London politics over many years.  

Lord Toby did the usual round of media interviews about the report, and was widely quoted on one of the few areas where there appears to be a failure to achieve the promised beneficial legacy – there has been no significant increase in the number of younger people becoming active participants in sport. 

Lord Toby was the perfect choice for his observation that “the reality is that there’s an obesity epidemic in this country …..”

STRICTLY NECESSARY?

Sir Bruce Forsyth gets a lot of stick in some parts of the media for his performances hosting Strictly Come Dancing, but he has difficult reading the autocue and even when he manages it he is then saddled with a script that often requires him to deliver utterly predictable jokes.  He also has to manage a judging panel where honest comment on the performances is at a premium, and where the audience seems to believe it’s at a Christmas pantomime, with the increasingly camp Craig Revel Horwood being treated like the Wicked Witch.

But surely spitting at the panel is a little over the top?

And was there a conspiracy to get rid of Fiona recently?  Seems to me that the BBC can’t add up!

TRAVELLING IS NOT ALWAYS A PLEASURE

I have never been much of a bus user but every now and then it seems the best, sometimes the only, option. Last week my car needed repairing and the only sensible way home after dropping the car at the garage was to use the bus.  Sensible?  Turned out to be anything but.

The bus I had to catch only runs once an hour (yes, outside the cities this is not unusual). It was cold, it was raining heavily.  The bus station was under cover but there was nowhere warm and sheltered to wait.  So I joined the queue.  And we waited …. and waited.  The bus ‘disappeared’ from the otherwise helpful electronic indicator board.  The rain came down heavier and the wind blew stronger.  I disappeared into a nearby café for a cup of tea and to warm up.

Just under an hour later I went outside to queue again.  The bus just hadn’t turned up – the same people were still in the queue – just looking colder and more fed-up.    Another long wait and the same thing happened – after half an hour I concluded that the bus just wasn’t going to turn up and so I caught a taxi home instead.

Most of the people using buses during the day do so because they have no alternative.  The people in the queue were all elderly and many were disabled.  Probably didn’t have a car.  What a miserable time they had, waiting for over two hours with no warmth, no shelter and no information.  

I find it hard to believe that a bus company can simply cancel services in this way – especially when they are only scheduled to run every hour.   And I find it hard to believe that in this day and age an enclosed and warm shelter cannot be provided at a city centre bus station.   A letter will be winging its way to my local council as soon as I have finished my Moan!

A HANDY TIP FOR CYCLISTS

Although I would class myself as a motorist, I do have a bicycle and I love using it during the summer.  I’m not one for cycling on main roads unless it’s impossible to avoid, preferring to find alternative and quieter routes wherever possible. 

The recent spate of fatal accidents in London involving cyclists reinforces my view that the dangers of cycling in cities are ever-present and too high for my liking. 

But here’s a tip for cyclists – offered in the spirit of wanting them to help themselves to be as safe as possible.  Don’t be like the group of enthusiasts I saw on Sunday morning – cycling along a busy road on what was a murky, horrible day – misty and in persistent rain.  And for a day like this they chose to wear black lycra suits – no doubt because that was the uniform of their cycling club.  

Come on chaps – help yourselves and help other road users.  Wear something that will help us see you. I even saw a dog wearing a high-visibility jacket - couldn't you have done something similar?

Monday Moan 73

THE OLYMPIC SPIRIT MOVES TO GLASGOW
Some commentators worried that the enthusiasm and spirit generated by the Olympics last year would not last and that people would soon forget the joy of sporting events  and the benefits that they could bring to communities and to society as a whole.

The next major sporting event in the UK is the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow next year.  From the huge response to calls for volunteers to the almost complete sell-out of tickets, it seems clear that the Olympic spirit has survived and been transferred to Glasgow.

And if you want further proof that the spirit of the Olympics lives on, then look no further than Bob Crow, General Secretary of the RMT transport union, who has called for extra payments for his members to recognise their importance in keeping the transport systems going during the Games.  

This barely-disguised strike threat worked wonders at the Olympics, securing lovely bonuses for people to go to work as normal, and having found the key to the treasure chest Crow was never going to forget where to find it again. 

WOULD YOU WANT TO BE A REFEREE ....... OR EVEN A COMMENTATOR?
Not content with providing the referees at the Rugby League World Cup with a natty shade of pink for their kit, the organisers also made an astute choice of sponsors ……… 

Rugby League has even fewer teams in with a realistic chance of being crowned world champions than Rugby Union.  But it still holds a World Cup tournament, in which the also-rans and minnows are given their chance in the spotlight.

The current World Cup tournament is being staged at venues across England, Wales, Ireland and France.  Wales must have hoped for some success, their 5th ranking seemingly placing them in a good position to progress from a group of matches against the USA (12th), Italy (13th) and the Cook Islands (18th).  Unfortunately for them, they lost all three matches.  The loss to the Cook Islands took everyone by surprise, including the BBC reporter who interviewed David Fairleigh, Coach to the Cook Islands, immediately after the game.  It was the Cook Island’s first victory in a World Cup finals and the reporter had clearly practised her questions on the assumption of a Welsh victory ……………  

WANT TO TRY TO SPOIL THINGS FOR OTHERS?  TRY THESE TRICKS
I went to a fabulous concert yesterday in the Royal Albert Hall, where Lang Lang, the extraordinary Chinese pianist performed a wonderful programme of Mozart and Chopin, followed by no less than 7 encores.

You really can’t beat the experience of a live concert, whatever your taste in music.   CDs and videos have made music and performance accessible to all, but being there in person is a totally different experience.

 

So why mention this in the Moan?  Well, of course, nothing is perfect!  So, if you go to a rock concert you expect the audience to be noisy, to participate, to hold up their smartphones throughout so they can upload their videos to YouTube, etc.  An audience at a classical music concert generally follows a different etiquette.  No less involved, but this is demonstrated by rapt attention, silence and sitting still.  

Only, of course it isn’t ever quite like this. So yesterday we what must have been the annual outing for the combined forces of the bronchial wards of every London hospital, who took it in turns to cough and splutter, rather than all going at the same time.  Then there were the people fiddling to find things in their bags, with periodic thuds echoing around the auditorium as having found them they then dropped them on the floor.   And whilst I can see that some people might have had to rush off at the end to catch trains home (although why book them with so little margin for error?), why did so many people feel the need to leave before the end?  Everyone knows you will get an encore or two at such concerts.  Lang Lang even announced that he had performed six at the previous concert and wanted to do more.  If the all the encores had actually formed part of the printed programme then everyone would have stayed to listen – so what’s the difference?

RULES THAT APPLY TO OTHERS BUT NOT TO YOU …………..

There is a growing list of rules that clearly do not apply to everyone.  Speeding and using a mobile phone when driving being obvious examples.

Yesterday threw up two more examples.  Those signs on trains that say ‘Please do not put your feet on the seats’ appear to apply only to those who are too old to raise their feet to seat level.  Below a certain age it seems that you must be required to put your feet on the seats as soon as you sit down – especially if the footwear within which they are contained has remained unacquainted with the concept of cleaning for a while.

Maybe these were the same people who ignored the reasonable request at the concert for people not to use flash photography during the performance.  No demand that you don’t take photographs, even during the performance, but please do not use flash.  Of course, that rule doesn’t apply to you if you feel that using flash will get you a better picture.  No, your needs are greater than those of the performer and the rest of the audience, so just carry on.

Monday Moan 72

WE DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK

The press keep on telling us that they are the defenders of freedom in this country and, therefore, that there should be no shackles placed on them. They appear completely unmoved by Leveson, phone hacking, High Court trials, public disgust or anything else that suggests they should mend their ways.  They tell us they have changed, they have learned lessons from the past, they will be squeaky clean in the future and we should just trust them to do the right thing. 

Thus we have their furious reaction to Parliament’s endorsement of the Government’s new Royal Charter on Press Regulation and their determination to press ahead with their own, clearly more press-friendly, version. 

And thus we have the  The Spectator magazine joining with other press organisations to say they won’t take any notice of the Royal Charter,  with their Parliamentarian of the Year award, usually (as you’d imagine from the title) given to an individual single MP, being awarded this year to the 15 MPs who voted against Government plans.  And to top it all we have Bore-us Johnson, comical Mayor of London, urging all editors to follow the example of The Spectator and refuse to abide by the Government’s plans.   

Bare-faced, brazen disregard for anything other than their own views and self-interest.

 TALKING OF BARE-FACED AND BRAZEN ... 

Who should pop up on my screen on last week’s Question Time than Vicky Pryce, recently detained at HM’s pleasure in one of our most congenial of prisons.  Not content with trying to milk her illegal activity for all it’s worth through the publication of a book about her thoughts on prison, she sat and smirked her way through the TV programme in a bare-faced, brazen disregard for all that she had done, in a way that any editor of a UK newspaper would have been proud. 

Apparently there is absolutely no truth to the rumour that Chris Huhne was originally booked for this episode, but that Ms Pryce agreed to his request to do his time for him.

MOZART KNEW BEST

Music is one of the great joys of life to vast numbers of people.  It doesn’t matter what kind of music you like – there are so many to choose from and it is a dangerous path to tread to suggest that one form or style of music is better than another, no matter how firmly you may believe this to be the case.  That one form may be more complex, more difficult to play or sing, more varied in its dynamic range, etc. than another is unarguable – but whether it is “better” depends on too many things to make it worth arguing about. 

Having said that, we are all free to say what we like best and to choose not to listen to things we don’t like.  And we can all have an opinion on what works and what doesn’t, on  whether we think one version of a piece of music is better than another. Knowing a piece is a double-edged sword, because if the rendition you hear does not fit with your own view of how it should be performed, there is a danger you will be disappointed.   Of course, you can still enjoy it even if it isn't performed in exactly the way you hear it in your own mind, but if it strays too far either from what you like, or from what you consider to be a reasonable interpretation, then you will be disappointed.  You may even start to rant at the radio. 

So here goes.  I was listening to the radio the other day and smiled when the announcer said that the next piece would be the second movement of Mozart’s clarinet concerto.  One of the most well-known pieces of classical music, it is a favourite of mine for a whole host of reasons.  Unfortunately, the recording that then came over the airwaves just didn’t do it for me.  Far too fast and with so much embellishment,  improvisation or, as I see it, unnecessary extra notes, that the melody was sometimes almost indiscernible.  A bit like a Mariah Carey version of almost any song – you know the tune is in there somewhere, but it’s pretty difficult to work out where. 

Mozart is generally reckoned to be one of the greatest composers who ever lived.  I like to think he knew what he was doing when he wrote his music.  I’m OK with people interpreting in the sense of speed, volume, emphasis, emotion, etc. But unless he specifically invited people to improvise a section, I’d rather just hear the notes he wrote rather than those someone else has added because they think they know better than Mozart.  They don’t. 

OH JOY, IT’S CHRISTMAS ALREADY

The Christmas season has now started.  How do we know this?  Because it’s now impossible to watch the television (apart from on the advert-free BBC, free of adverts that is for anything other than its own programmes) without being bombarded with this year’s crop of cringeworthy Christmas adverts for the major retail stores. 

I blame John Lewis.  A few years ago they ran some ads that were actually quite entertaining and, possibly, quite successful in enticing people to think nice things about the store and maybe even spend more money there rather than elsewhere.  Unfortunately, every retailer now feels obliged to produce its own seasonal advertisement, which usually involves the viewer having to sit through some uninspiring footage of Christmas scenes and a few gifts, to the background of some seasonal music, with the only saving grace being the guessing game as to which store's name will come up at the end – “oh, that’s an ad for XXXX is it?”  

Apparently, some people have been heard to say that this year’s John Lewis ad has made them cry.  Really?  I can’t see why, unless it’s because of the realisation that you’ll never get that two minutes of your life back, having listened to Lily Allen try to ruin a perfectly good Keane song. 

Still, at least they haven’t made the same mistake as Tesco, and used a Rod Stewart track.  I wonder how many people will decide not to patronise Tesco this Christmas as a result? 

P.S.  A SUGGESTION POST-RUSSELL BRAND .....

A friend of mine was moved to comment on the Russell Brand article from last week  with the suggestion that “perhaps British Constitution could be introduced as a compulsory topic in our schools, not as an optional exam subject but just as an informative introduction to how the huddled masses have fought and won the right to help shape the way the country is run and why they can at least make a choice in who runs the country. It would, of course, have to be pointed out to them that the ballot paper does not carry a "Whatever" option. Yet.” 

Well said Sir!  Couldn’t agree more.  Perhaps my own interest in current affairs and in matters political and historical was developed during the time I spent mustering a low-grade A-level pass in British Constitution all those years ago.  At the risk of sounding like that old bloke who used to sit in the corner of the pub every night, it didn’t do me any harm.

Monday Moan 71

 

RUSSELL BRAND – WHY?

One of the great questions of our time is how on earth Boris Johnson ever got to be taken seriously as, well, anything.  Now we can ask the same question about Russell Brand.  

 

Brand’s recent appearance being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on BBC’s Newsnight has done nothing to diminish the feeling that we are being asked to take seriously someone whose antics, posturing, behaviour and general Dave Spart-like spoutings might have been mildly interesting or even amusing in the 6^th form, but who shouldn’t be allowed to sit with the adults unless he promises to act his age. 

 

Someone thought it would be a good idea to let Brandspart edit the New Statesman this month, which led to the Paxman interview on Newsnight:- 

 

RB  “It’s not that I’m not voting out of apathy, I’m not voting out of absolute indifference and weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery and deceit of the political class that has been going on for generations now and which has now reached fever pitch where you have a disenfranchised, disillusioned, despondent underclass that are not being represented by that political system so voting for it is tacit complicité (?) with that system and that’s not something I’m offering up.”

JP “Why don’t you change it then?”

RB “I’m trying to”

JP “Well why don’t you start by voting?”

RB “I don’t think it works, people have voted already and that’s what’s created the current paradigm”

JP “When did you last vote?”

RB “Never”

JP “You never, ever voted?”

RB “No. Do you think that’s really bad?”

 

According to Jane Garvey, presenter of Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme yesterday, the Newsnight interview was “one of those great media moments”.  Skating over the nonsense of that statement, she also told us that how we view Brand’s comments may depend on our age. As sweeping generalisations go, that’s up there with the best.  According to her, to many people in their 20s Brand is an inspiration. To those older than this he’s just talking “tosh”.  

 

It’s not only Brand, of course.  One James Ovenden (aged 25, writes for the Planet Ivy website, which is for and written by those aged 18-25 – so presumably he’ll be looking for a new position shortly) was interviewed by Garvey and said “I don’t vote because I don’t think the current system can do anything to address the issues like inequality, kind of house prices, the general hopelessness that young people are feeling at the moment. They won’t be able to own their own property, I think it’s something like one in five will likely own their own property and I don’t see that current system you know addressing this and I feel I’m forced to vote to keep somebody out as opposed to vote for somebody to remain in and I feel that’s negative.”

 

Faced with such an articulate and persuasive argument, Gavery asked her other interviewee “Doesn’t he have a point? Don’t you sometimes feel that the world is run by faceless multinational, international conglomerates and we are just tiny little bits of flotsam who amount to nothing?”

 

Feeling depressed at this summary of the world as it is, I was given fresh hope by Garvey when she turned back to Ovenden (aged 25) to say “don’t you think they [our current leaders] are just overwhelmed by the scale of the problem?”, to which Ovenden replied “not really, well possibly it might be that, but that’s all just semantics really”.

 

Vote for Brand and Ovenden – they’ll get us out of this mess.

 

 

ON THE OTHER HAND …..

Superficial and irritating though Blandspart may be, the ‘grown-ups’ in Parliamentland show no sign of maturing and taking their responsibilities seriously.

 

This week’s Prime Minister’s Questions was up (down) to its usual standard. 

 

How on earth are we to take any of this seriously if these people can’t have a proper debate where (a) the main participants do more than engage in knockabout playground insults, and (b) the audience listens instead of thinking their role is to pretend they are at a Christmas pantomime?

 

 

 

THE PRESS DOESN’T NEED ANY HELP – OH REALLY?

Harriet Sergeant, journalist, author and Research Fellow of the Centre for Policy Studies, appeared on BBC’s Question Time last week. Initially, I assumed that Caroline Aherne has simply come up with a new name for her ‘Mrs Merton’ character, but it turns out that Harriet is a real person after all.  She writes for the Daily Mail and the Sunday Times.  

 

Answering a question from the audience about the new Royal Charter on Self Regulation of the press, Ms Sergeant distanced herself from the rest of the panel who thought it right that the press should not be the sole judges of whether they were behaving appropriately, by suggesting that “we should judge institutions by how they deal with their scandals.  We have had scandals in the press and what do we have this week?  We have two editors on trial, we have eight journalists on trial in the courts ….” 

 

Oh dear.  If she thinks this demonstrates that the press is perfectly capable of regulating itself then she needs to do some of her famed 10 months of research before she feels capable of dealing with a topic, during which she might ponder on whether those journalists referred themselves for prosecution or whether it was, in fact, the legal processes that took them there. 

 

To save her a lot of time and effort, I am willing to let her know that those journalists were using their freedoms and privileges to ignore appropriate behaviour and it was the intervention of others and the application of the law that saw them in court.  As a demonstration of the strength of self-regulation this left rather a lot to be desired.

 

 

TESCO – STILL FAILING TO GET IT TOGETHER

Have you tried to cash-in your Tesco vouchers recently?  Maybe it’s just my incompetence, but it took me ages to order some things online using my Tesco vouchers – including having to register separately for the Clubcard, Tesco Direct and F&F clothing parts of the site.

 

Having spent far more time on all this than was appropriate I then turned up to collect the goods ordered.  Nobody on the ‘Click & Collect’ desk – there were two people looking after this, the electrical, the mobile and the phone desks, and both were serving the same customer.  

 

The goods were, eventually collected.  Unfortunately, on getting home and trying the clothes on, they did not fit properly and a bigger size was needed.  Not to worry, the helpful person on customer service helpline said to fill in the returns form and return it and the goods to any store and they’d send them back.

 

Not quite as simple as it sounds. Again, it took ages for one of the employees to finish dealing with another customer at one of the four desks he was covering.  Then neither he, nor a colleague who he summoned knew anything about this process and tried instead to offer a refund.  I didn’t want that, and the refund complications arising from having part paid for them with vouchers threatened to cause all sorts of system overloads for a while.  Eventually the boss was raised on the phone and he said that the process was to call the customer service helpline for advice.

 

Maybe it was just luck, or maybe there is only one person on the helpline, but it was the same person I had spoken to earlier. The shop employee passed the phone to me – the voice at the other end said that maybe he hadn’t explained things clearly enough to me, but all I needed to do was hand it over to the store staff and they’d send it back to the depot for action.  “Exactly as I had told them”, I said, and handed the phone back.

 

All I expected was to appear at the store, someone to be there to deal with my issue, take the parcel and say “thanks, we’ll take it from here”.  Is that too much to expect?