20th November 2008

FOLDS, CREASES AND PLEATS

Germany 1 England 2

In the latest chapter of Mi Sono Parliamo Pleat, ITV's most ridiculed soccer commentator introduced an impressive range of new phrases for footie viewers to digest. While a game between England and Germany is always good for rhetorical hyperbole, such occasions would still be dull affairs without David Pleat's uniquely surreal contribution.

There now follows a painstakingly accurate summary of Pleaty's analysis during the game's first fourteen minutes.

"Yes, and England are looking for upfront holding roles and ascendancies.....we need to keep it nice and lively, progressing in the wide positions - England mustn't freeze up or they will be frozen out. What we're looking for is a nice feel to the shape while keeping a high line, and it's good to see that so far Carrick has interesting feet."

This four-dimensional syntax showed signs of Pleat having made a close study of Bryan Sewell talking about art; but ignoring his impenetrable commentary entirely, the first quarter-hour had England clearly dominating play - a dominance which, for once, we converted into a lead via Upson's scrambled goal.

David Pleat declared this "a great opportunity for England to relax, pass easily, play with fluidity and be tight. I see good movement among the bodies, but we need to get in behind them and slip the quick players further up the field". If ever the Nation tires of such piffle, a secure career in management consultancy beckons for this eccentrically plausible man.

It is a feature of English commentary upon England soccer games that the opposing side are of only tangential interest. Opponents are depicted merely as a collective nuisance in the way of us winning every game 91-0. So to be objective for a sentence or two, the Germans had good ideas but lacked the technical skill to make them work. With England, it was more a case of having upped the skill level without as yet having garnered any creative ideas with which to lift things beyond competent defending and methodical attacking.

To be fair, we were without half a dozen leading players and the German side was the sort of experimental team they tend to put out between World Cups. This being the reality, the pundits' half-time verdict was disturbingly triumphant: we were 'in control', and the Germans showed 'no immediate fret'. Even the previously dodgey English goalkeeping substitute Carson was described as 'solid'. England captain John Terry was 'a rock'.

The German equalising goal soon after half-time thus came as no surprise. The solid keeper Carson got involved in a misunderstanding with the Terry the Rock, and the obscure young striker Helmes was left with the formality of a tap-in.

The one genuinely encouraging thing about England's display from here on was the admirably workmanlike way in which the side shrugged off this setback, buckling down to the heavy task of boring Germany to death. In this respect, the influence of a disciplined Italian coach was very obvious. So on balance, when Terry headed the winner from a free kick with ten minutes left, it was no less than England deserved. Predictably, Pleat hailed the goal as penatrive.

In summary, while the England squad will have learned a great deal from this game, even the intelligent soccer viewer took nothing from it whatsoever. Cynical as this report may seem, the jury is still out as to whether Capello's reign will produce an England side that can win things, or one that can compete at the highest level with a degree of elan, or one that can avoid disgracing itself without exciting anyone. Ultimately, we will not produce a stylish, winning England side until more money goes back down to the game's roots, and is converted into self-belief. In the meantime, we must give Capello credit for putting together competent performances.

 

19th November 2008

 

GOOD MEN DOING SOMETHING

An nbyer in Tolworth (Surrey) has sent the following new episode on slithery things:

'Tesco has promised to completely remodel Tolworth roundabout and will build a five-storey community centre, if plans to be officially unveiled this weekend get the nod.

The supermarket giant has released the first artists’ impression of the controversial new Tesco supermarket and flats, which the company hopes to build in Tolworth by 2013. The designs are being previewed at a special exhibition this weekend, to give residents the chance to have their say before Tesco submits a planning application next month.

The supermarket chain withdrew its last planning application in February 2007 after a fierce backlash from residents.

Bosses now hope the revised plan will win public support.'

So much for "but it's not gonna make any difference...."

CALLING FOR SECONDS

I think it's time we brought back duelling. If nothing else, it will take some pressure off the judicial system, and help wipe out undesirables. Above all, it will put so many lawyers out of work, the day of the Bill's passage will be forever treated as a day for rejoicing - and perhaps even a public holiday.

We have come a long way from "Have a care sir or I shall have to inform my seconds" to "Wharrafuck are you lookin' at?". Ever since the 1832 Reform Act regrettably forced the Courts to treat everyone equally, the natural recourse of those lower orders involved in a punch-up has been to the Law - either voluntarily or otherwise.

However, not only is the legal system far too invasive in our lives already, it also has much more important things to do. One thinks of snaring homophobes, suing trees, deciding the precise level of male impoverishment in divorce cases and so forth. A bullet's decision is speedier, and carries a greater degree of finality.

Not to be ignored, of course, is the gargoyle-elimination dimension of duelling. Had for instance Mr El H'arrod simply been called out by the Duke of Edinburgh for his disgraceful remarks on the subject of conspiracy to drive white Fiats in Parisian tunnels, Philip would have sent this unpleasant MP-briber on to the virginal delights of Islamic Heaven and doubled the Windsors' standing in the opinion polls with one deft squeeze of a hair-trigger.

For the sporting enthusiast, soccer would be transformed - and entirely for the better - by the reintroduction of duelling. An unseemly brawl between Wayne Scowl and Dudier Gobbler might be replaced by the sort of shoot-out to make penalties after extra time seem tame by comparison. The commercial opportunities afforded by instant betting on such contests are too obvious to require any expansion here - and the savings on football club wage bills enormous.

Drawing a discreet veil over the delicious prospect of political duelling, the broader ramifications for society as a whole are enough to quicken the heart of even the coldest engineer. Gender balancing is all well and good, but brain-capacity balancing could revolutionise our culture in a matter of months. The feckless yob with no thought for tomorrow might turn up at dawn with a hangover and wave his Colt Magnum around wildly: but the calmly insignificant and quietly prepared opponent from the Waterstones biography section would surely dispatch him with one round from a Webley & Scott.

There are those who might say the whole scheme could be spoiled by the emergence of champions - yeomanry whose job was to appear on behalf of their employers at duelling contests. I cannot see anything but good in this: it would ensure the survival of vital artistic genes owned by the creatively fey cadres - but equally certainly mean the destruction of those Oxbridge twits who feel themselves omnipotent, and thus above any help from our more practical petit-bourgeois stock.

It goes without saying that all men - or women - winning a duel resulting in the death of the other shall be absolved of all guilt. Looking at the 2007 statistics for murder - and the remarkable fact that murderers and their victims are almost always known to each other - I think it self-evident that the time spent by bored Beaks listening to the clearly mendacious pleading of defence barristers would be decimated. Instead of being the bleeding-heart land where everyone is a victim, if my idea is adopted, in future Britain will become a land of three clearly delineated social groups: valiant heroes, deserved victims and black-hearted winners destined to be challenged and destroyed by the valiant heroes. There can be only one Darwinian result from that, and I look forward to it.

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18th November 2008

 

THE NEXT AUSSIE OUTBACK CHALLENGE: A DOORMAT

Zucker....bazoomas

'The local council owner of a block of flats has banned doormat use by its residents, on the orders of Health & Safety.' (Daily Mirror)

The producers of I'm washed up let me stay in here have at last found a challenge unlikely to make WAG-woman Carly blub: the Doormat Test. The task (should Carly choose to accept it) is to step onto a horse-hair mat, wipe her feet, and then walk on without breaking any limbs.

Said soccer-star boyfriend Joe Cole "I been lined up to do the commentary right, an I reckon my girl won't let me down cos like underneaf all them tears an shit right, seefingizzlike she's got bottle an we're in love innit".

I can't wait for the post-replay analysis by Cole:

"An yes she's seen the mat an she's on it and there look she's wiped 'er feet an then she's off again an' she's in the kitchen. Brirrant."

From what I hear, Carly is a bit of a doormat herself.

 

A SEER'S LOT IS NOT A HAPPY ONE

'He who says "I told you so" should expect no bouquets' my great aunt Lizzie used to say - often immediately before saying "I told you so".

I've never understood the wisdom of that aphorism: it seems by definition to have been invented by the grasshoppers of life rather than the squirrels. Just because one is angry that winter has indeed arrived and those Bermuda shorts no longer seem quite so practical, there is no reason on God's earth to tell those with foresight to shut up - other than petulance.

In case folks hadn't considered this, the syndrome is also pretty damned annoying for we of the soothsaying tendency. In fact, the I-told-you-so words tend to spill out when the fourteenth twit that day has said "I've lost a third of my wealth - how did that happen?"

There are various responses to that rhetorical enquiry - "You were too busy making more, you pillock", "You have all the grounded common sense of a depressed lemming", "Because you're a jerk" - but the more usual line tends to be, "Well, I did tell you this would happen".

The next bit can be very hard to bear if you're as much of an intolerant know-all as me. And it tends to go like this:

"Oh right, yeh - well, it's easy to be wise after the event innit?"

An acquaintance of roughly half my age said almost exactly this to me a couple of months ago. This was after three years of telling me I was a grumpy old man and why couldn't I lighten up. Only the intervention of a third party much larger than either of us stopped the exchange turning rather ugly.

It's a funny old thing, your life: ever since 2004 and nby's predictions of a house crash, market crash, national insolvency, Brown as human disaster area and the plummetting Pound, just the two mates who differed from my view have said. "Yup, you were right all along". But then, we're all like that - because we're all human.

And equally, no friends have pointed out that my certainty of a Martian invasion before September 2006 was a little off-beam.

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17th November 2008

 

THANK GOD FOR THE G20

IMF...yes we Strauss-Kahn

In the light of the momentous and entirely confusing output from the G20, markets around the world showed their enthusiasm for species togetherness by heading further south yet again.

Perhaps they were worried about the pledge to quickly and gradually produce local stimulus packages not coorodinated internationally. Or puzzled by the sight of so many Friedman worshippers shouting 'hear, um, I think' as State injections were announced by most people and then rejected by the Americans. Possibly, they took one look at the whole over-hyped, carbon Bigfoot shambles and thought "Ooooohhh deeeaaaarrrr...."

But luckily, a secret weapon appeared over the horizon. Arise Sir Osborne, slayer of dragons and propper-up of things without legs or engines. For no sooner had Georgie-Porgie pulled out a plum at the weekend than Sterling bounced back up by 2%. And as the Americans discovered who he was, the Dow jumped 200 points after midday New York time.

And so our global staregy is clear: we wheel the Shadow Chancellor around the world to say rude things about Chinese overheating, Japanese deflation, American dollar disaster and Russian infection collapsing the EU. Then wait for the inevitable recovery.

More amusingly serious was the laughable attempt by Lord Munchingbum on Radio Four's Today this morning to lumber The Osborne Child (see Opinion) with responsibility for Sterling's demise. This is akin to blaming Rory Bremner for the Glencoe massacre.

And talking of Bremner, if you haven't been watching his special four-parter Silly Money, then you've been missing a well-informed treat. Final episode Tuesday evening, 18.11.08

DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS

My wife had a urinary infection last week, and after flushing out with Cranberry juice for three days, she gave up and got some antibiotics from the GP - Cyprofloxicyn.

They gave her six tablets - three days supply. This is the guideline for Cypro these days - in the UK's flourishing better-than-ever NHS. Everywhere else in the world it's four days. It's just the dead hand of accountancy again - the same cadaverous extremity which nearly did for me entirely fifteen years ago.

If not enough antibiotic is prescribed, one or two things happen: the infection comes back - having this time developend an immunity; and often, the infection spreads to other more important organs like the bladder or the prostate. This will then result in a far higher cost of medication - plus in many cases a consultant's fee. In my case, it resulted in eighteen months of misery.

But this is minor stuff, is it not? True - now read this.

A close friend's brother died the week before last. He died because a second MRI scan to see if the cancer had spread to his bowel was deemed 'unnecessary'. Great call by the folks with big hair.

The rise and rise of the management accountant in our economic culture is one of the major causes of overworked people with life imbalance, stupid cuts that are this year's solution and next year's problem, dishonest reporting of results - and above all, risk aversion in favour of shareholder return. It's such an obvious syndrome I'm amazed I have to keep boffing on about it.

I've nothing against accountants - in their place. And that place is behind the scoreboard, not at the crease.

 

OFF THE BUSES

Reg Varney - the man who held the world record for Brylcreem usership - shuffled off the coil at the weekend. I was astonished to read that he was 92.

Although most folks remember him chiefly as Stan the clippie from On the Buses, Varney's first big TV hit was in the late 1950s as the head of cutting in The Rag Trade. Very much a product of its time, and a bit sub-Boulting Brothers, The Rage Trade starred Miriam Karlin as the shop steward ("Everybody out!") and Peter Jones as Mr Fenner the Jewish ownerof Gamma Garments. As a comedy, it hinged around trade union cliches, Jewishness, and the relative rarity in those days of a workplace where there was just one man and lots of women.

It was also a major breakthrough for Barbara Windsor - and the adorable Sheila Hancock, with a bit part as one of the cutting girls. She later married John Thaw - and of course went on to bigger things. One of the great British character actresses, Hancock remains an underrated national treasure.

Karlin, Jones and Hancock

16th November 2008

HIGHLY PAID AND COMPLETELY WRONG

Capital Economics opined this weekend in the Sundry Mimes that Gold will fall in value, as we are heading for a mega-deflationary era.

This is a classic case of over-educated twits missing two key paragraphs from Page One: that fear is what makes gold rise in price - and we are all feared up right now; and the next era will inevitably be one of inflation in some areas (fuel) and deflation in others (motor-drive olive-stoners).

Gold will explode in price once the Fort Knox dampeners are removed (See Gold).

But if you're in any doubt, cast back to some of CE's other firm predictions:

BBC October 2003 - House prices are set to fall by 20% in the next 18 months, a leading economics firm predicts. - Capital Economics argues that central banks in both the US and UK have fuelled the housing bubble by keeping interest rates deliberately low, and house prices are now at "dangerously high levels." It predicts that average house prices will fall from £135,000 in 2004 to below £110,000 in 2007, before beginning a more gradual recovery. WRONG!

BBC April 2007 - Capital Economics Turns Bullish ? - Capital Economics, which in 2003 famously predicted that the UK was headed for house price falls of up to 20%, broadly agrees with Mr Boulger's upbeat analysis. "It gets to a stage when you can't keep saying a crash will happen while prices keep on rising," Ed Stansfield, analyst at Capital Economics, admits. WRONG!

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15th November 2008

ON THEIR BEST BEHAVIOUR

HBOS shareholders were warned last Friday that resisting free taxpayer money in the shape of a heavily-subsidised LloydsTSB takeover would result in the bank being nationalised. In short, stick that where monkeys stick their nuts.

Lord Massagemebum meanwhile is forced once again to warn banks that pulling the rug out from the few entrepreneurs trying to turn a decent profit will cause him to introduce those bankers to somewhat insistent Turkish proctologists of his acquaintance.

And interbank lending rates remain high despite 700 billion quid of our money being applied as some kind of laxative.

My apologies for the anal theme to all this, but it does seem to me appropriate for a sector of capitalism seemingly occupied entirely by shits.

These people will never get it. Protected for thirty years by a framed debate able to smear anyone with a better idea as a dangerous Commie, they fail to see that not only has the gravy train been derailed - there's no replacement train on the way.

TESCO SLITHERS INTO LYME REGIS

Woolworths has closed down on Lyme's historic Broad Street - with its unique view of the Channel at the bottom, listed buildings, cosy pubs, art deco cinema and delightful selection of mainly independent retailers as yet unsullied by the likes of Coffee Banana Brasserie Republic or some other such bollocks.

Woolworths is the last remaining example of hopelessly erratic and disorganised retailing typified by the variety store of 1955 Britain. All its stores should have an A-Star Grade I listing on them, up to and including the staff: especially the staff.

But such is not the way in Cool Bankruptia. So just twenty yards from a more than adequate Coop convenience store, the appalling Tesco people are moving in with their Finest and their fake Value brands and their Stepford Wife till girls. And they shall not rest until their perfect shiny apples or ambient Chinese meals and line-caught gently farmed pre-gutted Sea Bass have knackered every other food business in town.

Who can know what genus of plant-life allowed this planning permission through? Who can tell what number of tenners or numbered Swiss accounts oiled the wheels of this economic steamroller? Who knows how the Devil any deliveries will take place to the store in a seaside town already choking with cars? Who knows what madness overcame the Trouser Snake and persuaded him to appoint the yogurt Hazel Blears as Culture Secretary?

OLD FOLKS ALSO HAD CRAP DRESS SENSE IN THE 1970s

What everyone should do on rainy Sunday afternoons (when lunch has been digested and the papers have been scanned for evidence of remaining British IQ) is get out family photos and look at what the older generation were doing during Glam Rock.

This will reveal the following:

1. People over fifty had sideburns

2. They had hair over their ears

3. They wore flared trousers

4. Their shoe heels - while not Cuban or Stacks - nevertheless showed evidence of what the Americans call lifts.

What the shots will not show, natch, is that at one and the same time they were all wittering on about about how they couldn't tell the boys from the girls these days.

And for what it's worth, their sons now sport trendy bald heads, and their daughters have hair cut in Posh Beckham gamine style.

Plus ca change.

 

FREE TRADE & REGULATION....OR PERHAPS MORE OF THE SAME, WITH JUST A PINCH OF PROTECTIONISM

As the Great Gordo breezes into the USA, his message is clear: you've gotta do what I've done. Otherwise, a dire outcome can be the only result....especially for me.

Sadly for Gordonzola Cheese ("I'm sure the House will join with me in paying tribute to our gallant etc etc") there are noises off.

The biggest of these are the Weebles of Wall Street, who as we all know can wobble but must not be allowed to fall down. Like a prizefighter talking a good game into that CBS microphone a minute after the ref stops the fight, the neo-liberalist alliance (led by Dubya in a Hitlerite scorched-earth blow up some bridges pre-G20 speech) continue and amplify the mantra of There Is No Alternative to the MericanWayee.

Smaller but louder, at the other end of the spectrum sits the unlikely form of Sarko - the man who was created to turn France into Singapore, and sweep away all those scum with their inconvenient road-blocks and banlieue riots. The Good European who thought he could do business with the Vlads - and discovered they were even more Machiavellian than him - now thinks the way to be a good European is to say 'France first and everyone else last'. Imagine what the bugger will do when he's no longer a revolving Euro-President.

After a short 'G20 Effect' rally last Thursday, the media were replete with 'leaked' stories just desperate to manage down expectations of the meeting.

Hang on chaps, the idea is to get people's hopes up. Calling Franklin Delano Roosevelt....Franklin Delano Roosevelt?.......

14th November 2008

BOLSHOI CHAIRS

This is a former Communist Party game only two can play. In fact, only people called Medvedev and Putin can play.

Mr Putin gives Mr Medvedev his job to mind for four years, during which time he takes the minor post of Prime Minister. Then Mr Medvedev asks the Duma to extend the Presidential term from four to six years with the reassurance that he will not seek that office. Then Mr Putin stands for two terms as President.

Then we did have jelly and cheesy wotsits and we were all very sick and invaded Poland.

G20 ROULETTE

This is a game billions of people must play, whether they like it or not. The rules are very simple so long as you pay attention.

Twenty severely damaged greasy pole climbers ('the jokers') meet in the capital of the land which has caused most of the world's financial trauma despite being unsure where anywhere else in that world is.

Although these jokers have nothing to offer in the way of solutions, the sight of arriving limousines excites the players and they put all their money on UP.

Everyone then goes to sleep, and the next day nothing has changed so all the players put their money on DOWN.

The game continues through BLACK, RED, FORWARD, BACK, IN and OUT until everyone is both exhausted and broke.

Then everyone borrows some more and the game starts again.

12th November 2008

THE REGAL TWIRL

Royals do not spin, they twirl in a timelessly stylish fashion. However, as Charles hits the Big Six-Oh, the twirl has become more of a whirl: somewhere in the recesses of Fort Chuck, a dervish is working overtime to continue reshaping our heir to the throne.

We've had an up-and-down relationship over the years, Charles and I. In the 1950s I remember being forced to put my money into savings stamps with his chubby face on. This was entered in my life-ledger as cash that would've been far better employed buying Standard tuppenny cannon fireworks. By the mid 1960s, this resentment had hardened into the view of him as a bit of a twerp (plastered hair and ghastly parting); but then I heard him being interviewed by Jack de Manio on his 21st birthday in 1969, and decided he was amusing. As he plunged into and out of the waves on various Aussie beaches and didn't show the slightest interest in getting married, he rose further in my estimation: for a brief period, he seemed to be almost a hunk....a demihunk, perhaps.

On my arrival in London during 1971, I fell into a circle which - by chance - was quite well informed about what fun Princess Anne was, and what a prig Charles seemed to be. Equally however, I heard so many anecdotes about what a complete arse Prince Philip is, some sympathy for the future Charles III returned. Not too long afterwards, the next in line met the woman who was to become a style icon until her collision with a Parisian rampart in 1997.

Recently, I've observed that young Harry is being touted by endless wannabe Royal suit suppliers as a style icon. I have a simple view about style icons: they tend to be quite abnormally messed up. Also thick, and ineluctably attention seeking. Wills takes after his Dad and Mum in all their best traits; Harry seems to have inherited the residue.

But rewinding to Paris, Charles behaved impeccably. While the chatterers were chucking gladioli at the funeral car, he took charge, comforted his sons and - on one occasion - told his father to 'fuck off' when he moaned about how the British were responding to Diana's demise. He's never been so high in my esteem. When some gobby employee gave him a hard time (and a rude memo from him about it was leaked) I wrote to him saying fear not Old Top, the real people are right with you.

And then the see-it-coming-a-mile-off stuff to move Camilla from pariah to princess got going, and the Heir went down a snake again. By the time the Ritz bunfight occurred, I'd written him off as just another celeb whose only point of difference was a tendency to dress like my grandad.

Now, the Royal Wow-He's-Sixty Machine has gone into overdrive. The Monarch herself has blessed his succession, and everywhere one looks there is Prince's Trust this and Duchy products that. But on balance, Charles remains a curate's egg. His architectural taste is leaden, his views on many subjects naive, his desire to mend broken lives genuine and never-ending, his distrust of agrobusiness entirely commendable.

 

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10th November 2008

O'BAMA

A big YouTube hit at the moment is an Irish band singing There's no one as Irish as Barack Obama. I would've thought there were lots of folks more Irish than the President-elect, but it certainly is true that his great-grandfather came from the Emerald Isle. However, I have this theory that Homo sapiens did not actually kick off in Africa at all, but in Eire.

With the contemporary interest in genealogy, the first port of call for hacks when somebody becomes famous or reaches the top is to trace that person's ancestry. And I'm telling you, every single time they wind up having at least partially originated in Ireland.

I have it on good authority, for example, that Putin's original family name was Poteen. And Glam Rock began first in Ireland as Shamrock. Straight up.

 

AN UNCOMMON COLD

Every year there is a new cold virus, and every year it seems somehow to be more eclectically fiendish than last year's model.

The one Jan and I have at the moment isn't flu. It isn't even what Hilary Strident would call man-flu. And it certainly isn't a common cold: this is a highly refined and well-read cold that displays a creativity far beyond the abilities of anything vulgar. And it is ghastly.

Why, I wonder, do we call it a cold? I suppose originally it was the shivering thing, but as much of the time one's face feels hot, one's throat feels like the sands of the desert and the nose is on fire, 'cold' is not the soubriquet one would instinctively choose in a psychometric test.

As for the 2008 version, I'd probably plump immediately for something like Black Death. Granted, there are no pustules (yet) but the varietal symptomology is bewildering. The stages are as follows:

1. Sore throat. No, that doesn't do it: a throat within which a hyperactive goblin has been scraping away with a Brillo pad and hydrochloric acid for six months.

2. Sensation in the cranium similar to that experienced by those unfortunate enough to have undergone a rabid dog implant.

3. Expulsion of enough liquid from the nasal area to obviate a World Snot Shortage, should this ever occur.

4. A desire to sleep, and tell any interfering Prince keen on the waking-kissing solution to fuck off.

5. Taste in the tonsil region to beat the worst olfactory experience of even the most committed consumer of sea urchin excrement.

6. Evacuation of all food and liquid infected by appalling phlegm at 5.

7. Irritatingly, the ability after Day Two to function perfectly normally and therefore be denied crucified-pilgrim-meets-burned-martyr status

 

FOXHOLE IN CAIRO

 

It transpires that part of the reason for high security during our recent stay in Sharm el Sheikh was the presence of Anthony Blair QC at the nearby conference centre. Moral Tone was busy managing the expectations of everyone from Hamas to Rupert Murdoch, which is as we all know his abiding skill.

I know this because the Legacy Man was interviewed Sunday evening on the BBCNews channel. Here is a brief resume of what Blurrrrghhr said: Well, hey, look - what I think we've managed to do is get the Palestinians and lots of other folks with beards and guns plus also the Israelis to understand that a viable Palestinian State and a defensible State of Israel are central to the whole peace thing.

Thank God we've cleared that up. Let us now move on from all talk of a German Protectorate in Rommelland and the resurgent OAS in French Algeria towards consideration of what the likely effects of Italy's bombing of Abysinnia might mean for the League of Nations.

MARKET RESEARCH

Here's a thought: instead of spending oodles of dosh on a sort of random money-throwing contest to find out exactly what the banker persons seek, why not conduct some market research among these movers and shakers in a last-ditch attempt to arrive at a package of which - you never know - they could bring themselves to approve?

I'm not suggesting this will move us forward, but I do think it might at least justify the mass slaughter which would inevitably follow their demands. So if nothing else, when some future War Crimes Commission wonders why Internment Camps sprouted all over the UK, we can say "Well, we asked the buggers what they wanted, and it was so daft we decided to section them".

 

BACK NOT FORWARD

Now that GCHQ has been given carte blanche (via its vast new surveillance budget) to monitor every mobile phone call, text and website visit any and all of us make, it is becoming increasingly clear how the Resistance will take shape in the coming years. Revolutionaries comme moi will simply revert to that old favourite which never got spammed out, or sent to an unrecognised address: the letter.

While the British seem happy to have their every communication invaded by Jacquie Spliff and her Thought Police, anyone over the age of forty would balk at their letters being opened. And to be honest, even MI6 don't have the personpower to steam open billions of letters each year. Add to this a simple code via which apparent banality hides murderous intentions, and hey presto - an entirely undetectable medium of communication.

If Crozier starts steaming the bloody things open, then we'll move on to carrier pigeons, the pony express, morse code, sign language, sky writing or whatever else it takes.

The Government target is for everyone to be employed in GCHQ by 2020, by the way.

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9th November 2008

ARABIC TAPS

Now here's something with which to amaze your friends at parties: Arab mixer taps work the other way round to ours. After a week in Egypt during which I got scalded or frozen without meaning to more than once, close examination revealed that their maximum heat is on the left, while ours is on the right. I know that with separate taps this doesn't apply, but shut up and let me get on with it.

Why should this be? My best guess is that your Arab, being dyslexic, writes from right to left. He (and let's be clear on this, it's hardly ever 'she' in Abdul's World) therefore works on the principle of starting at 0 (right) and going up to 100 (left).

But we need to keep this contrarian tendency under control. The Chinese write from top to bottom, and various South American tribes don't write at all. I think we need an international standard before someone gets seriously hurt.

I wonder how Peter Madforbum's taps work.

COOKING FOR BOYS

Wandering around Lyme Regis the 0ther day, I popped into the bloke who sells fish under a grubby arch just by the Cobb. He's an interesting guy in that he likes 1920s/3os Anglo-American Jazz - a genre I tend to call bow-tie or Ritz. My wife has always wished she was young in that era (she's an avid Wodehouse reader and collector) and so we talked about Al Bowley and Bix Beiderbecke and then the price of locally caught Sea Bass. He didn't have any, and even the farmed stuff was a silly price. So he said "What about pollack?"

Pollack is a member of the cod family and about a quarter the price of bass. My mum used to buy it for the cat, and while I knew a bit about it I'd never cooked it before. As he offered me a whopping fish for just over five quid, I decided to give it a go.

This meant going to quite a few culinary websites, and in the course of doing so I came upon this gem:

'Take large canvas and drizzle paint meaninglessly all over it...hang on a minute, that's Jackson Pollock'

Clearly a top bloke, and therefore immediately offered a life membership of Not Born Yesterday.

Here's the heads-up: you need some intense flavour with it. And this fish has a backbone to make Sir Steve Redgrave's look wimpy. Finally, the skin tastes like shit. This is what I did.

Chop off the head and tail. Bung it in a small pan with water and wine to create a stock. Take the remaining gutted trunk and wrap it in foil, adding a generous amount of olive oil, lemon and salt to the parcel. Cook at 2ooC for about fifteen minutes per half-pound.

Put some small new potatoes in a pan and boil them to taste.

While this is going on, finely chop a medium onion and fry it briefly in butter, after which you can add an orange pepper, a dozen stoned black olives, some capers (or chopped gherkins) and then some double-concentrate tomato puree. Bit of garlic if you fancy it. Leave the whole on a low light and let it reduce.

Drain the ghastly head and tail melange and (obviously) retain the liqueur. I mean you can throw the bloody stuff away if you like but that seems a bit random to me. Add a veggie stock cube (or bouillon powder) to it, heat on a low light for a few minutes, then remove from heat and add a large knob of butter. If you've any fresh thyme to hand, wack that in too. Five minutes before the fish is likely to be ready, turn the heat right up under this sauce and reduce it. It thickens quite nicely without adding anything artificial.

Take out the foil parcel, open and check that the pollack flesh is white and flakey. If it is, the stupid fish will fall into a million bits as soon as you try and put it on a plate. Get over this and place the reduced Mediterranean mixture next to the fish-mess on the plate. Add the spuds, pour over the sauce and eat. It's not bad at all.

 

7th November 2008

THE POINT OF PERSONAL STYLISTS

Ooooh....that dress

I should imagine Michelle Obama is one tough cookie and not a little ambitious.....but she has already won a place in my heart. This is not only because she doesn't give a monkey's for what the minceurs say about her not entirely well-chosen red and black number on Election night; above all, it's because she doesn't have a personal stylist - for (as she says) "I don't need one". And she's right: I mean - I wouldn't kick her out of bed, would you?

There may indeed be a future for an Obama/Ward liaison, for I too do not have a personal stylist: indeed, I even cut my own hair. This means that my 'look' can change without warning from Russell Brand to Richard Plantaganet - and not always on purpose - but variety is the spice of life. This week I will be mainly looking like the thin bloke from Fun Boy Three.

Unfortunately, Michelle obviously prefers short-haired chaps, but there are two other reasons why I do not need an affair with the First Lady. One, she's not as sexy as my wife; and two, Mrs Ward would rip my heart out if there was any hanky-panky. Which is exactly as it should be.

6th November 2008

 

THE ONGOING PUPPY/SHOE DILEMMA

Ladies at rest

Our house at the moment has a weird look to it. It's not just the untidiness (our house is always untidy) but the specific nature of the mess. For it is dominated by shoes.

New puppy Tiggy (foreground above) has Squirrel Kleptomania Syndrome. The overall problem with SKS is that the obsessive desire to walk off with stuff in her mouth is equalled by the young girl's cunning when hiding the booty. But shoes are the worst - although for her of course, the best - because there are two of them and they have laces.

Once Miss Tiggywinkle settled in here and got going, the living room downstairs looked like a shoe shop for one-legged people: a beach where all the flotsam had been removed, and only jetsam remained. Now we've intervened to stop the mayhem, everywhere has the air of an exhibit at the Saatchi, but this time with pairs of footwear on cupboards, shelves, tables and radiators.

This means that the only opportunities available to the young fetishist are in the mornings when she's upstairs while we get dressed. And the really neat thing about Upstairsland is that there are beds and doors everywhere. So Tiggy withdraws the shoelaces and transports one of a kind to the guest bathroom, and the other to Jan's study. Then one shoe is secreted under our bed, and the other taken to a guest bedroom and left - after first being thoroughly chewed - behind a wardrobe door. There have been days recently when going to the gym became irrelevant, given that by nine am I'd already walked five miles looking for everything from brothel creepers to zip-up boots.

When the miraculous Gordon came to transform our downstairs loo and update us on Thai pork belly futures, Tiggy had his chisel in her jaws within seconds. We found it four days later under a bush in the garden. When Mike came to replace the kitchen dimmer switch, she was away with his screwdrivers until apprehended in our shed.

And the thing is, she's not petite like Foxie: when we picked her up from the breeder, we met her mum who is - to say the least of it - very big for the breed. So now I'm waiting for the day she starts pulling at the Aga. At which point, a very serious talking-to will be required.

 

3rd November 2008

MEGABANKS COLLIDE. NOT MANY DEAD

'Lloyds says its merger with HBOS will save it £1.5bn a year, more than expected, which could mean heavy job losses.'

(BBC website)

Alright, alright - I know the sub-ed who penned this nonsense went to a Comprehensive, doesn't understand punctuation and doesn't do irony, but just read that sentence carefully again.

Eric Daniels is going to save even more than he hoped by firing lots of people. And no doubt he got much more taxpayers' money than he'd hoped for in his wildest dreams.

So, let's see - I think I've got this now. You give me tons of money - so I can save my shareholders tons of money by firing you. Right, fair enough - we'll do that then.

We are unbelievably, indescribably mad to be doing this.

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2nd November 2008

WHAT THEY DONE WHILE I WAS ON MY HOLIDAYS

Hip-hop happening band Bran Dross became the first act to utilise the telephone service for their new single Barcelona Granddaughter. Imagine how hard it was trying to work this story out from Egypt: Manuel, answering machines, naughty words and lots of resignations.

I have three observations in relation to Wossygate: First, the desire for vicarious fame has now reached such levels, people will even phone the BBC in order to get in on the act. I wonder how many of the (eventual) 31,000 complainants actually heard the broadcast? Second, isn't it funny how the buck always stops long before it gets anywhere near Mark Thompson? And finally, I have heard the piece now; if people get offended by this, then they need to get out more.

Of course Jonathon Ross should've primed Sachs for the gag, and of course they shouldn't have used the fuck word. It's the culture, stupid - but either way, I thought it very funny indeed. If Thompson had any spine or decency, he'd have defended the producer - who is, so I'm told, one of the best Auntie has.

But none of it is half as funny as the title of Ross's autobiography, Why do I say these Things?

Alistair Farmyard Keynesling won the pools and announced he was going to spend, spend, spend. The rest of us knew only too well it would not change our lives, but the big-forehead folks immediately started an arid Keynes v Friedman debate about the wisdom or otherwise of this decision.

As usual, the econ0mic elite missed the only point worthy of consideration: for the US to do a U-turn and go all Keynes is fine - they do (allegedly) have $27,ooo trillion in gold against which to borrow should this become necessary. We have just the twelve billion. Or put another way, they have 2,250 times more gold than we do. Our gold would pay off just 1% of our National Debt. Theirs would wipe it out several times and still have lots of change. So Government dissembling about our debt-to-GDP ratio being much lower than America's is meaningless, cynical piffle.

In short, the US is a triple-A borrowing risk, and we are a sort of radioactively insolvent core isotope with a half-life of three million years.

We have neither the money nor the credit score to spend and borrow like this.

 

24th October 2008

Quick intellectual gag before we start today: Thomas Hobbes slurred his words on account of having been a piss-artist. What he actually said was 'Life is Asti, brut an' ish bought....up Tesco'

NOT A SITUATION WE ARE RECOGNISING ON THE GROUND

How delightfully ironic that the very phrase behind which politicos have been hiding since 1991 is now coming back to haunt them.

Take the strange case of the NHS in which everyone will get a GP's appointment within 48 hours.

The week before last, having noticed a disturbing numbness of toes, I made an appointment to see my GP - but not of course using my toes to make the phone call. The only thing on offer was 6.20 pm five working days later - doctors in primary medicine no longer working in the same manner as people getting ill, two days a week are non-working - for which inconvenience the adorable Patricia Blewitt gave them a 25% pay rise.

I told my chap the symptoms - raised blood pressure and tingling extremities - and his immediate thoughts were underactive thyroid or diabetes. Not heart then? No, he opined - having listened to the ticker - nothing wrong there.

So I had the blood tests and they both came up negative. I rang again, and chummy had cut down his surgeries still further.....in fact, given that fact plus his annual leave, I was going to be lucky to see him before Christmas.

So two other doctors I don't know were suggested, but neither could see me for over a fortnight. Eventually we settled on a lady who can see me a week next Thursday, but only works a three-day week. This for a bloke complaining of cold feet, numb toes and raised blood pressure.

Now answer me this: in real commerce, imagine a client ringing up and being told (a) you can't have a meeting with us for ten working days and (b) we've just taken your account executive off the business without bothering to inform you of this cavalier act. What would your response be? I rest my case.

These chaps are swinging the lead. And what's worse, we have allowed the NHS to be taken over by women with big hair who think they know about business; whereas it is quite clear they cannot tell business from putty. Grrrrr.

Or what about gold prices? (See the updated investigation here) How barmy can life get when the price of a commodity is falling, but once one walks into a retailer and asks to buy some of the stuff, the response is "I can give you fifty quid's worth squire, but at a 20% premium over the quote price"?

To which the answer is, not much more barmy than that. But you see, the market must decide.

23rd October 2008

PITY POOR MANDY

Scramble & Fondlebum....'partners'

We are asking all loyal nby readers this week to contribute to the charity supporting Conceptual Dyslexia (CD), the appalling spinal disease from which Lord Mendacious-One suffers. Tragically, it has become clear that this poor man cannot tell the difference between a fact and a smear. Thank goodness he did not become a gynaecologist - although as he is an amateur proctologist, there are still disturbing ramifications. Sailing close to the wind is one thing, but bottom-feeding in the current economic environment is perhaps not entirely wise for a Minister for Business. For a chap whose CD means he finds it hard to tell back from front, that fine electoral slogan Forward not Back surely applies.

FULL AHEAD BOTH

Unborn & Manybum.....'mutual friends'

Following the Prime Minister's interesting experiment in holding Cabinet meetings outside London, it's good to see that both Parties are expanding this tradition to include yachts. Lord Fondlebum is of course no stranger to sailors, but George Osbornyesterday is an equally likely guest on the Gin Palace circular. He is after all a chap whose subtlety allows him to discuss donations without soliciting them, an important requirement for all politicians aspiring to run the nation's finances.

Meanwhile, there were further revelations today in relation to the relationship between the Earl of Roughchild and Chinese trade minister Yu Fuk Mi Moon. Allegedly the improper liaison occurred on Ocks Bridge, close to the small but infamous Bullingdon Cottage.

 

20th October 2008

TIME OFF FOR BAD BEHAVIOUR

As I write, the FTSE is going up and down like a seismograph on Vesuvius - or possibly acid. Anyway, I'm taking a holiday from the madness. To keep you amused during the restoration and redecoration break, there is some delightfully bitter stuff about BBCNews (and amused RitchieWatching) at Mediocrity, some intriguing thoughts on gold prices if you haven't already been there, and an essay about the dreadful Fondlebum which will probably just make you angry.

Hang loose and buy long. There's not much long in the world, and the price is bound to sky-rocket.

GOOD GAME, GOOD GAME

No longer in charge

I'm sure that, like me, your weekend was ruined by the news of Bruce Forsyth's decision to quit Strictly Come Dancing. His role in this quite remarkable success story seems to have been bumping into the other people involved, or looking this way and that for cameras, contestants and cue-boards. So his absence will definitely change the show substantially, but as with the world's finances at the minute, nobody is as yet sure how, or indeed who might be involved.

Strictly Come Dancing is another Argos for me - I just don't get it. I know it's me, I really do know it's me- but if an indie had come to me five years ago and said let's revive the 'Sarah is wearing a delightfully sequined tent trimmed with emerald taffeta to match Cyril's wig' routine, I'd have thought them suitable sectioning material.

Of course, the format's as much to do with people out of their depth as anything else - and the viewers do like a bit of schadenfreude. But they also like celebrities doing something surprisingly well - and in the absence of any other public figure performing this task at the moment, in some ways I can understand the nation being in thrall to all this nonsense.

The problem for some time (so a prodbod on the show tells me) is that Brucey thinks he's in Beat the Generation Game Clock, and nobody can convince him otherwise.

Anyway, it's harmless. If only one could say the same for Forsyth.

 

19th October 2008

EVERYTHING NOT TOO BAD REALLY

Former LloydsTSB Chairman Bryan Pitman offered Beeb viewers his considered opinion today that things are much, much better than they were in the 1970s. His two reasons for reaching this profound conclusion were first, we don't have a three-day week; and second, the IMF isn't knocking on our door.

I hate to rain on Bryan's parade here, but the reason we don't have the three-day work schedule is that we lack both the Arthur Scargills and coal mines to achieve such a result. But more to the point, the IMF is so distracted by its Chairman's bonking favouritism, it has no time to deal with peripheral matters such as Small Mad European Offshore Islands.

THE SCHAMA ENIGMA

I only hope Simon Schama's account of America's future is better written than his account of France's past. It is one of life's odd truisms that people who are highly entertaining and erudite in personal appearances (and speech generally) are sometimes complete duds in writing. Mr Schama is one of these.

His book Revolution! - an account of the French head-chopping thing during and after 1789 - is easily the most badly written history book I've ever read. As if composed for the enjoyment of anorak five year-olds, this effort from thirty years ago sits on my bookshelves still. It is amazing how many visitors zero in on it and say "Ah - Schama - that'll be good".

The following morning at breakfast, the scene is always the same. Bloke comes to table (a slightly puzzled expression on his face) and I ask "Enjoy the French Revolution?" The response involves harrumphs and looking at the tablecloth....until I say "Crap isn't it?" Only then do the eyes light up. The head nods. "Absolutely" the visitor says.

 

18th October 2008

WHO ARE THOSE GUYS?

Whoopee....another day, another dollar

As if working on the New York stock exchange might be fun, each and every morning and evening the NYSE bell rings, and another group of folks applaud from the rostrum. Of late, in a desperate show of solidarity, the chosen guest stars have gone beyond clapping: they now wave too.

At times they look like the contestants on Millionaire, which would be apt if it wasn't so tragic at the moment. Some days I crack up, because there's a little jostling for camera position - and this plus the fixed smiles always puts me in mind of that 1980s television spoof, Soap. 'Confused? You will be, after this episode of....'

But who are they? Well, I've no idea how they get chosen, but the fickle finger of fate points in some odd directions. Last month we had Navy seals. Earlier this year, Gay Men's Health Crisis readied the mood for another day of counting backwards. And on 28th August, Harley Davidson workers 'remotely rang' the morning bell from Milwaukee, preferring to do this than boldly go to the Exchange itself. This was a good call, as apparently it was a terrible day.

I'd turn it down, myself. Imagine your main claim to fame being that you rang the NYSE bell the day the Fed ran out of gold. You'd have a self-esteem problem forever.

MANDYBOO DE BUM-BUM

Fonduebum....running up a jumper

While the media are busy congratulating themselves on having seemingly KO'd Fondlebum in the first round, the truth is that catching Mandy with various parts in various places they shouldn't be is really shooting duckies in a barrel.

From the day he left these shores, Guacomole Man simply set up shop in another place and carried on as before. Only a few enterprising people at the Sunday Times continued to watch his career with interest. Well, them and Not Born Yesterday.

In fact, nby's discovery of naughtiness on the Rough Trade Commission was one of those bizarre accidents that occasionally occur in the era of forty billion websites. Up popped a Hungarian satire website (in English, for some reason) making one or two accusations about nice boys, knitting and the Trade Commissioner. So I emailed them to ask what else they knew, and then it all got rather silly.

Please forget we ever said it, they answered. Please don't write to us again. We're closing down now and joining a monastery in Czvvryyhnastvvrhy.

But further discreet digging revealed the lifestyle of a Hungarian delegate on the Commission, the very same man given the unwelcome oxygen of publicity by the novice monks. And a short gambol through contemporary meetings and speeches relating to Fondlebum quickly revealed a remarkably coincidental correlation between intensive knitting and preferential Hungarian trade quotas.

I can say no more: my lips are sealed. Anyway, it's old news now - because the media were too busy shoving fireworks through celeb letterboxes to pick it up. And at that time, the Credit Crunch hadn't been invented.

 

16th October 2008

LIFE GOES ON

 

My niece and Godchild so unceremoniously dumped by Lehmans in SFO a month prior to her wedding has been rehired by the new owners Barcap. This news prompted me to get on with choosing something from the wedding list. As we all know, in 2008 this is a breeze because we have websites and pcs.

Williams Sonoma is the name of the San Franciscan store, and it's a very elegant site. Unfortunately, the checkout process was designed by a gay, who personally composed all the responses. Well bless me, Percy Checkout wanted the right Zip sweetie and a ten digit phone number dear. And if you wanna order from overseas, well you'll just have to ring the store and talk to ME. Then we can exchange numbers and Judy Garland CDs.

The inflexibility was irritating, but the syntax hysterically funny. With each mistake I made, it was 'Now look what you've done'.

The original Rocky Horror Show on the stage gave a line to the gay professor Frank N. Stein. He asks Brad "Whaddya think of this man I just made?" Brad looks at the monster and replies "Not much". The professor pouts and replies "I didn't make him for you dear". It was easily the funniest line in the show. If you want the experience online, go to the Williams Sonama website.

 

Last night I went off to Firmly-Wolfsitall's Canteen in Axminster. One sort of expects the entrance to be like an abattoir, but the emporium (which is also a shop dedicated to local produce) is actually very nice in a rough-and-ready stylish way. I've been once before for lunch: the service was chaotic to surreal and the food ghastly. This was the Second Leg: friends kept saying 'you had a bad experience, try it again'. So chum Richard and I did.

Duck confit terrine thingy

It was very good in a number of ways. There was a complimentary glass of English red (chum was sniffy about it, I liked it) with the meal. The first proper bottle that arrived was a 2003 Cotes de Roussillon organic red. Good wine, very good year. It was fizzy. Richard spotted it by eye because he knows about this stuff, I felt the petillance on the overworn tongue. After a minute or two's hesitation, I got the sommeliere over.

The lady was brilliant: knowledgeable with the right attitude. She tasted it, pulled a face and brought another bottle - bit better but not much - and eventually we changed to a 2005 Chateau Beausejour, also organic. Fulsome apologies, and the new offering was pretty damn good. Genuine thanks to us for pointing it out.

This was a wet Wednesday in October, but by 8pm the place was fairly busy. It's very woody in the Canteen, but in a natural rather than Ski Chalet circa 1973 way. And there's none of that shrill ambience one gets in neurotic London brasseries. Chalk on a blackboard announced the menu: it was presented very much in cafe ouvrier manner, with minimal choice and zero bullshit. This is exactly how it should be for such a meal. Iced tap water arrived without us asking. The order was taken nicely and quickly.

We both had the duck confit terrine-and-pickle creation for starters. It was terrific. Not fancy, just really, really good. Richard had pigeon to follow ("this chap did not die in vain" he opined) and I had slow-roast pork with mash and greens. If it says 'slow roast' on a menu and doesn't refer to broccoli, I usually choose it. It was my best decision of the day. Like a good book, I found myself eking the dish out. All very tasty and professionally done.

We shared a plate of local cheeses with nice wholemeal oatcake thingies to finish. Again, just the right amount and excellent quality - especially the brie. In fact it was the best brie I've tasted this year.

The bill was sixty quid for two. That's a lot of money in Axminster, but still very good value for well-cooked, fresh and satisfying food in near-perfect surroundings. This is a highly professional operation, and while Fearnley-Whittingstall has been the butt of many jokes (often mine) over the years, basically he is a good egg. Yes, he's making lots of money and yes, most everything is all about Hugh - but there's more to the brand than podgy tv chef. The bloke is trying to do the right thing by everyone, and as the barmy old zeitgeist splutters towards collapse, what he's offering in total is perfectly poised on top of the wave.

That's enough about Hugh, let's talk about me, ha-ha. Seriously though folks - if you're in town, give it a go. (In the evenings, it looks closed, but isn't.)

A dog's life goes on too, although our veteran terrier Daisy passed away six weeks ago. I haven't been able to write about it until now.

I met Daisy a few days after I met my second wife. She came as a banded-pack offer with Jan, and it is a measure of our love that (a) Jan accepted Daisy's banishment from the bedroom and (b) I didn't insist on her banishment from the country. Pretty soon after that I realised this young Sporting Lucas terrier was more intelligent than some of my friends.

If I begin to tell you how amazing Daisy was, it'll never end. So instead, a few highlights.

For many years before we met, I was a Sunday is For Newspapers sort of bloke. Daisy ended this obsession by jumping on my Sunday Times at 10.30 am (time for walk) and again at 4.43 pm (time for Bakers Complete). Gradually, the mists cleared and it dawned on me that walks with our dog and homo-canine afternoon tea had more to offer in almost every way than a publication owned and ruined by a deranged Australian.

Because she was so acute, Daisy knew every word in the English language remotely connected to either food or exercise. We devised a system of talking about such things in French, but she cracked the code within weeks. In the following years, we moved on through German, Afrikaans and Spanish before giving up with Latin. By the time she was ten, our terrier could've been gainfully employed as an interpreter in Brussels. You could say 'nos habebit humus' to her and she'd nod her head, as if thinking 'post jecundum juventutum'.

Her last year was marred by several strokes, but given quality by a homeopathic vet whose remedies were nothing short of miraculous. As her limb/brain coordination became increasingly informal, watching the old girl go downhill became an entertainment - which was infinitely preferable to thinking of it as a tragedy. Her bottom overtook her head until by the time she reached level ground, she was upside down. Daisy would right herself, give one of those all-over doggy shakes and then continue with an elegant defiance. In a credit-crunch, she'd have been more use - and more dignified - than an army of human beings.

I miss her every day. I don't miss her more every day, because it would be impossible to exceed the desolation I felt the day after she died. As for Jan's emotions, multiply that by two hundred, imagine a US banker facing nationalisation - and you're halfway there.

We've got three smashing dogs left. But first love never dies: when it comes to Daisy, while in the midst of life we are in death, the remembered contribution to a life cannot but make me smile. I will always be grateful for that.

 

15th October 2008

6th October 2008

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE SPEAKING

'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.'
Thomas Jefferson 1802

What an endlessly wise man was Thomas Jefferson - wiser even than Benjamin Franklin, although Benny had the edge when it came to gags.

Quote courtesy of the Von Ausland Institute of Universal Wisdom

 

5th October 2008

DEPRESSION IN GWYNNED

In Wales for family reasons (see yesterday's piece) Mrs W and I were wandering round the back field of her ancestral seat with the dogs (I say ‘field’: those of us born lower down the social scale would call it a small county). Apropos of not very much, Jan remarked, “Over there is where our goat hung himself”. I thought ‘Blimey, I knew the weather was crap up here, but that’s appalling’.

Turned out that the goat topped himself by mistake on a bit of barbed wire. Well I wasn't to know, was I?

EU CONCERTED ACTION IN TATTERS SENSATION

'We'll go that way, then'

'The EU is only a wobbling toddler as supra-national states go: local politics still dominate, while the obvious waste, corruption and unreal lifestyle of the Brussels bureaucracy remains bitterly resented almost everywhere in the Union.'

(nby, March 2008)

Surely not? You don't mean that President Bling's wheeze to evade the credit crisis ended in disorganised inaction on the part of twenty-seven disparate countries?

Yes, it's true: strange as it may seem, the hurriedly welded together front-half Renault-Fiat territories and the rear Lada-Polski regions of the Pantomime Union inexplicably veered off in twenty-seven different directions last Friday, leaving Sarko to wonder why he bothers with the foreign policy shtick. You'd think he'd have had enough after South Ossetia and the strange case of the Russian wave/particle tanks, but no: never say die, that's Nico's motto. Still, a noseful of powder helps the medicine go down, and all that.

When nby first predicted in 2006 that the EU would struggle to survive the coming Damocles sharp thingy, I got an email from a French-Canadian convinced that she could speak English. One of the more comprehensible bits averred "How wrong you would be. The Unionist Europe will prove the necessary barricade over American ambition. Surely anyone can watch this is true?"

Bien sur, madame. And I am that man watching Brussels going from launching the Euro to taking the urine. German bankers have been briefing against the Euro since its first wobble six months again, and Merkel was also first out of the blocks to guarantee 100% of all retail deposits. Having spotted soon afterwards (perhaps with the help of a French ear-flea) that this would cause everyone in Europe to switch their accounts to AnythingcalledDeutsche Bank, Geli scuttled back into her blocks again. At the time of writing it was underwater rugby without the ball.

So much for This Great European Project of Ours.

When eras change, the truly unexpected occurs: and right up to the last moment, those using the rear view mirror rather than the windscreen are surprised when things disappear. Within five years, the EU will be a Free Trade area again - if that.

 

4th October 2008

HOME AGAIN TO WALES

It's £5.30 to cross the Severn Bridge these days. Five pounds thirty. I suppose Brown has to get the money from somewhere, but that's a bit steep. In France, you can go from Cherbourg to Bordeaux for £5.30; in Cool Britannia, it gets you across a river.

I feel like going to the Environment ministry and saying "Just give me the Severn takings for five years and I'll build you a new one." With a couple of 1956 Junior III Meccano sets, I could knock one up in no time.

Mrs W being of mixed Welsh and German blood, we'd decided it would be nice to eschew the motorway madness for once and drive up through South Wales and up to Dongellau, before taking Snowdon from behind - which my friends in the knitting circle tell me is not unusual. (Being rude about Royals and gays is not the way to a knighthood, but if it offends lots of generally awful people all at once, then it serves some kind of social purpose).

Wales always was a stunning country, and when the sun's shining, the valleeees are unlike anywhere else in the world. Soft fields of lush green, gnarled oak and ash like casual observers at the roadside, the roads windey enough to render Clarkson tumescent, and an astonishing backcloth of grey-blue mountains to cap it all off. At one point, an autumn waterfall tumbled off the peaks, splashing carelessly onto the startled sheep below. And as Snowdonia came into view, two forbiddingly enormous clouds in the distance dumped rain with almost clinical precision onto one little village chapel. Either side of this celestial power-shower were two bright sunbeams. I've known virtual editing fail to achieve this effect after several weeks of swearing: it was proof positive yet again that God went digital long before the rest of us.

Back in the Kammerling homestead to celebrate a 50th, the surprise party at Saturday lunchtime had to be organised by those of us lodged in the ancestral home. It turned out to be another object lesson in why, when such helter-skelter organisation is going on, the safe route for blokes is to ask "What can I do?" This is vaguely acknowledged in a tone silently demanding 'what took you so long to ask then....?' The tasks one is given will be utterly pointless, but in such circumstances, silent and obedient survival is the name of the game.

For myself, I took out the placemats which were predicted to be in the Hall dresser but turned out to be in the sitting-room sideboard. The theory was that some of the catering would be hot. Having laid the mats out, they were instantly moved to another table for reasons which escape me still, but before I could think that hard about it, a counter-hypothesis said the food was all cold, and so I was asked to put them back in the Hall Dresser.

I wandered about muttering more what-can-I-dos, and was handed various things which were almost immediately taken from me again. I felt like a trainee kleptomaniac during a removal. In the background someone with his head in the sitting-room sideboard asked "Where are the placemats for crying out loud?" and I said I knew where they were and got them out again. The food might well be cold, it seemed, but several people had voted for warm flans and sausage rolls. So the placemats were out, but in reserve and not on tables just yet.

When the caterers arrived, flans, rolls, pies, cheesy potates and frankly just about everything except the bloody salad was hot, so my next mission involved shifting things around on the tables and putting all the mats on the surfaces thus freed. Dishes then came in steaming dangerously, and every last mat I'd put out was felt to be inappropriately positioned.

Then the guest of honour arrived and we all got drunk.

As I wrote several paragraphs ago, my role was utterly pointless, but the day was as always very good crack.

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2nd October 2008

 

L IS FOR LIES

Ken cuddles up to pro-Putin chum

One thing we always know with dear old Red Ken Leninspart is that he will offer his version of The Truth to anyone regardless of race, religion, culture, nationality or political persuasion. But when it comes to the real truth, the recipients of his wisdom are permanently rationed. And it's hard for reality to survive on 0% rations.

Livingstone's take on the firing of Ian Blair is that it's a political sacking. Correct. But, dear Kenneth, you too have a long history of political sackings: starting with the elected GLC Leader you deposed three weeks after a democratic election had voted for him, as opposed to, er, you. And the post of London Mayor is a political position: one from which one must feel able to sack those who would (quite clearly) oppose one's plans.

Big Blond Bo has been equally specious in his description of Blair's departure. But then, Blair will go largely unmourned. Let's wait and see who replaces him.

 

1st October 2008

GREATNESS THRUST UPON HIM?

One thing tumbles on top of another at the moment. Last night I thought 'If I hear bloody Brown witter on about 'doing whatever it takes' once more, I may emigrate'. This morning I watched shocked as more dumb bank shareholders put their own personal greed before bigger concerns. Shortly after lunch, American sources began suggesting that even the revised Paulson package might fail. I went to the gym in an effort to calm down.

To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to more rhetoric from the Macaroon, but once again he surprised me. The bloke really does seem to be growing into the job; I'm tempted to suggest that the worse things get, the more relaxed and yet determined (and the less glib) he seems to get. Somehow, the tragedy now unfolding has forced the Toff to cut the gags and get properly down to business.

He would have to do something spectacularly dumb now to blow this chance.

 

WELL OF COURSE, YOU KNOW....

When my now 26 year-old daughter was ten, she saw (between endless videos about gloworms, locomotives and postmen) a short news piece upon which Tony Benn featured. With his silver hair and pipe and brown corduroys - and general air of a kindly University lecturer - he as always gave a strong impression of plausibility.

"What a nice man" said Anne-Marie. And just this one comment from my daughter made me understand the need to stop smirking at the old Silver Spoon Socialist - and remember that this silly old twit had been spectacularly wrong all his life. (Later, he was also one of the achitects of social democracy's decline and fall in Britain)

Benn retains a warm place in the hearts of the radical chique everywhere. But he is as dissembling as the worst of contemporary politicians, with just the one vital difference: he is much much better at rewriting history than they are.

In pursuit of this goal, Wedgie-Benn as was developed a clever technique - some time after deciding to switch from being white hot technocrat to red hot Leftie in the late 1960s. This was (and is), "Well of course, you know....."

The intro (and the avuncular delivery tone) suggest that what we're about to hear is both self-evident and true. So for the gullible middle-class intellectual, he's got it all.

He was at it again last week on The Daily Politics, along with that other arch-berk of the 1980s, Norman Fowler. I've met Fowler on several occasions professionally. Apart from being extraordinarily tall, he also has that cunning often enjoyed by rather dim people. Perhaps it's to do with oxygen starvation all that way up there in his head.

Ripple-dissolve back to the present. We are (of course) in crunch meltdown analysis session yet again.

Fowler opened the batting by asserting that there was no bipartisan approach to the crisis, nor did he expect one - a prediction whose spectacular inaccuracy was revealed within twenty-four hours. He then stopped talking - both mercifully and unaccountably. And this gave The Benn his chance to shine.

"Well of course, you know...." he began. Without pausing for breath, he summarised the last thirty-five years with remarkable erudition, although not much brevity. But it w