A pair of plays bracket the boom years of the end of the 20th century.
The first is Glengarry Glen Ross, the David Mamet Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece which had its world premier in London in 1983. This is the eve of the spread of the mobile phone and the salesmen in the seedy office do not have them, not even smoothie Ricky Roma. Consequently they can do nothing when the telephone handsets are stolen.
In pitiless observation of their language and values, Mamet exposes what they don't want to face; they couldn't do much when the phones were there, either. They just like to think they can. The numbers don't stack up; the junk estate they manage to unload on to fools is still not enough to pay for the time they spend hunting for the next mark.
They like to think of themselves as natural raptors but at that point in history there weren't enough stupid, juicy mice to sustain them. They believe their Jedi sales skills will work for them so long as they are allocated the Glengarry Glen Ross leads but there is no good reason to suppose that those leads even exist.
The office manager thinks these leads are what the firm has bought. He has to distribute them to the salesmen who can best convert them in to sales as shown on the competition board. But there is no reason why there should be a pool of convertible leads for swampland. We never know if the land itself is real. It's possible that the leads are just a mirage the firm has bought. It's possible the firm's owners know it is a mirage and are playing their own game of pretending to have a profitable company. The only time the leads have a quantifiable value is when they are stolen and palmed-off on to the next desperate re-seller.
The only people who get anything out of it are the Nyborgs, a couple who like having the attention of a salesman and can do so in safety because it doesn't matter what they sign; they haven't got a bean and the contract isn't enforceable.
In 1987, when Oliver Stone and Stanley Weiser created the character Gordon Gekko for Wall Street, they rooted him in the land speculation of the 1970s, when the early-entry gamers had parceled-up and moved on their junklands to intermediaries. Ten fictional years later, this office is a long way down the pyramid where Gekko is the pinnacle. It is the last step before the weak James Lingk (weak lingk, geddit) who is induced to sign a contract by Roma. No matter what the salesmen think of themselves, Mamet has positioned them at the bottom of the pyramid of losers, unless they manage to find the one bigger loser beneath themselves - and even then, the law will help their prey escape.
Mamet was appalled to find that far from taking the play as a warning, he had accidentally created a feedback monster and that this was used as a training manual. The latest incarnation is the Alan Sugar vehicle The Apprentice, where a group of young people are encouraged to shred each other for the edification of the viewing public. Glen Sugar.
The second play is Enron, Lucy Prebble's explanation of the collapse of the company. Although the dialogue is wonderful it has to do more technical exposition than Mamet had to because of the breath-taking scale of the fraud. How could something that big be hidden? Here we see the same kinds of people, still selling, still voluntarily blinding themselves to economic reality, only now they have a great deal more money because the boom years have persuaded them they are fantastically clever people instead of what is nearer the truth: they have been unbelieveably lucky.
The fictional Ricky Roma gave philosophical soliloquies which justified his actions; the fictionalized Jeffrey Skilling is similarly given speeches with queasy half-truths in them. Bubbles of inflated value have made things such as railway construction possible and we wanted it all to be true .
Prebble wrote a show which is geared for the modern stage using surprise motifs which wouldn't work in film. Whereas Glengarry Glen Ross is a realist drama, Enron owes more to forms such as Greek tragedy, a big canvas of tragedy compared to the intimate study of misery. Mamet takes small people and enlarges them in to monstrous detail, Prebble has to take a huge event and find a way to contain it on the stage. Alas, you'll probably have to hope somebody stages it near you or buy the script as there don't seem to be any listed productions at the moment.
This week it was announced that Jeffrey Skilling may be able to negotiate a deal which will see him out of prison earlier much earlier than his original sentence demanded. Although he presided over the biggest bankruptcy in US history, his mistake appears to have neglected to be a bank. Then he'd have been bailed out by the tax payer, probably still had his job and possibly still have been given a bonus while losing money.
Sunday, 12 May 2013
Thursday, 9 May 2013
Tall Ship's Official Seal
This is the Official Seal of the tall ship Mercedes, a brig on which I had the honour to sail at Easter.
When I say 'sail' I mean I sat there as excited as a ship's dog and they did all the rope work and sailing, then we went back to port and had lunch there as it was too fresh to try that on the waves. I had fish - what else would you eat at sea.
Mr Raft, who likes roller coasters, was standing on the prow so he could ride the waves outward. I stuck to the midship, me hearties, and watched the land because the potential for seasickness is obvious in us wet-bobs. The journey home was serene as we were running smoothly with the waves under the silence of the sails.
I can't say that I will ever be a sea sailor but I do love to look at tall ships - doesn't everyone? The good news is that in late summer 2014 there will be a tall ships regatta in Falmouth where they hope to assemble a world-class fleet of the most beautiful vessels ever built by man. (*).
Here's a video of Mercedes under sail
(*) Concorde is the most beautiful craft ever built by man if you include flying.
Update 15 May 2013
Dates for the Tall Ships Regatta 2014 have been confirmed. There will be three days of festivities from August 28 and the race will be on 31 August.
Everybody will be able to enjoy the spectacle of a fleet of up to 50 tall ships coming in to harbour, where the public will be able to see round some of them. The ships will race from Falmouth to Wight.
H/T The Falmouth Packet
Racing coordinated by Sail Training International
Twitter updates from Falmouth Tallships Association
When I say 'sail' I mean I sat there as excited as a ship's dog and they did all the rope work and sailing, then we went back to port and had lunch there as it was too fresh to try that on the waves. I had fish - what else would you eat at sea.
Mr Raft, who likes roller coasters, was standing on the prow so he could ride the waves outward. I stuck to the midship, me hearties, and watched the land because the potential for seasickness is obvious in us wet-bobs. The journey home was serene as we were running smoothly with the waves under the silence of the sails.
I can't say that I will ever be a sea sailor but I do love to look at tall ships - doesn't everyone? The good news is that in late summer 2014 there will be a tall ships regatta in Falmouth where they hope to assemble a world-class fleet of the most beautiful vessels ever built by man. (*).
Here's a video of Mercedes under sail
(*) Concorde is the most beautiful craft ever built by man if you include flying.
Update 15 May 2013
Dates for the Tall Ships Regatta 2014 have been confirmed. There will be three days of festivities from August 28 and the race will be on 31 August.
Everybody will be able to enjoy the spectacle of a fleet of up to 50 tall ships coming in to harbour, where the public will be able to see round some of them. The ships will race from Falmouth to Wight.
H/T The Falmouth Packet
Racing coordinated by Sail Training International
Twitter updates from Falmouth Tallships Association
Monday, 29 April 2013
Switzerland News
As can be seen from the diagram on My Favourite Wiki, Switzerland is not a member of the EU but in 2000 it signed the Agreement on Free Movement of Persons with the European Union. (Reports the Independent on Sunday)
It's not clear why they would sign that since Swiss citizens appeared to be able to move freely without it, but there must have been some reason at the time. Perhaps in those balmy pre-9/11, pre-banking-crisis days it seemed like a good idea. Switzerland's majority trade is with the EU so it makes sense not to annoy the customers. However, it also looks like a surreptitious way to try to get the Swiss to agree, de facto, to something they had already voted against.
Just in case of trouble, there was a safety-clause written in giving the Swiss state the power to restrict entry via a permit system but even that power will lapse. However, for the moment it has been invoked, capping the numbers of people who can come in to Switzerland from certain states. As wth all EU-related matters, the power is hedged about with conditions, categories and implementation dates, making it take effect slowly and incrementally.
But the overall pattern is clear: these levels of immigration are not acceptable to the Swiss people and the government has reacted to that. Since the complaint is reported by the Independent as immigration pushing up house prices as a result of business expansion and Switzerland being a very attractive place for businesses to relocate, it can be assumed that the squeeze is being felt by middle-class voters. The BBC however, reports this as if the concern is about the influx of lower-paid workers .
The doctrine of free movement of people is good for the businesses and the individuals who move to secure better conditions for themselves. However, the doctrine takes no account of the way this also imposes a disbenefit across the rest of the society. Demands for infrastructure: transport, housing, policing, health services and education rise. These have to be paid for by existing taxpayers who may then find they also face greater competition. Benefit is privatized, the wider costs nationalized. There can be good reasons for doing that, such as the general benefit of education, but the costs should be recognized properly instead of pretending they don't exist.
The Swiss mode of government includes regular use of referenda. It is therefore arranging two of them to find out exactly what people - their citizens, not other folk and especially not Germans - want their government to do.
It's not clear why they would sign that since Swiss citizens appeared to be able to move freely without it, but there must have been some reason at the time. Perhaps in those balmy pre-9/11, pre-banking-crisis days it seemed like a good idea. Switzerland's majority trade is with the EU so it makes sense not to annoy the customers. However, it also looks like a surreptitious way to try to get the Swiss to agree, de facto, to something they had already voted against.
Just in case of trouble, there was a safety-clause written in giving the Swiss state the power to restrict entry via a permit system but even that power will lapse. However, for the moment it has been invoked, capping the numbers of people who can come in to Switzerland from certain states. As wth all EU-related matters, the power is hedged about with conditions, categories and implementation dates, making it take effect slowly and incrementally.
But the overall pattern is clear: these levels of immigration are not acceptable to the Swiss people and the government has reacted to that. Since the complaint is reported by the Independent as immigration pushing up house prices as a result of business expansion and Switzerland being a very attractive place for businesses to relocate, it can be assumed that the squeeze is being felt by middle-class voters. The BBC however, reports this as if the concern is about the influx of lower-paid workers .
The doctrine of free movement of people is good for the businesses and the individuals who move to secure better conditions for themselves. However, the doctrine takes no account of the way this also imposes a disbenefit across the rest of the society. Demands for infrastructure: transport, housing, policing, health services and education rise. These have to be paid for by existing taxpayers who may then find they also face greater competition. Benefit is privatized, the wider costs nationalized. There can be good reasons for doing that, such as the general benefit of education, but the costs should be recognized properly instead of pretending they don't exist.
The Swiss mode of government includes regular use of referenda. It is therefore arranging two of them to find out exactly what people - their citizens, not other folk and especially not Germans - want their government to do.
Friday, 26 April 2013
Follies - Pied Pipers
The best excuse for watching a pile of old musicals on DVD is that you are swotting in preparation for a Sondheim. Then on to Cambridge for the Pied Pipers production of his 1971 elegy on the lost world of the fictional Weismann's Follies.
A musical must be accessible and Stephen Sondheim follows this rule but his intricate writing can be appreciated better if you already know about the world he set the story in. In 1971 this was part of common consciousness but that was itself 42 years ago; there is a danger that a musical about people confronting their own pasts sometime in the 1960s might itself have become a ghost.
Because he's a genius Sondheim foresaw this and also had some luck in the emergence of the video industry. Old musicals don't die although they sometimes go in to limbo. The references are always available now but he made sure he put enough in to the script even if you have never watched one. The tour de force of Loveland where the couples collide with their own memories and act out their own personal folly through popular genres of songs is breathtaking but could be baffling if you can't just let go and wallow in the lyrics. The plot is going on under there, you just have to wait until it re-emerges. The production has always divided critics, though. I think some of this is simply that Brits are sympathetic to meditations on faded glamour whereas Americans see it as a reproach.
The premise is simple; a reunion of the old Follies performers, most of them female, takes place before the theater is pulled down. There is unfinished business between some of them. It has to be finished that night because there will never be another chance. Thus the stage is set as a splendid but decayed theatre; high American Gothic. It is a ghost of the real Zeigfeld Theatre, pulled down in 1966. They will do one last performance.
Designers Andrew Feathertone and Sarah Phelps get this right when they show the damaged fabric of the theatre. The 1971 designs suggested a space which was was nearly gutted, but that would not distinguish it from any other warehouse.
Director Jacob Allan has to manage a complicated stage where the memories of showgirls past parade along the balcony like shades of Hamlet's father along the battlements of Elsinore. The younger selves of the key characters step out of the past either to show us what really happened, or sometimes to show us how they remembered it. Not necessarily the same thing.
This is not a minimalist production; although there is only one set there are numerous costume changes for the secondary characters and intricate choreography to bring the past and present characters to the right places on the stage, capturing the spectacle of the Follies. This is particularly successful in the big number "Who's that Woman?" where a tableau flows in to a tap dance which involves all the women, past and present.
As the company is fantastically devoted to performance they all give Sondheim's words the clarity they deserve but two interpretations stand out. Kirsty Smith as Solange, the French diva (who may or may not ever have been French) conveys all the flinty determination of a woman with her own brand of perfume to sell. She produces a gem in Ah, Paris!, which she delivers just fractionally flat in the correct stage-French style, the method by which millions of people have been convinced they are listening to a sophisticated Gallic chanteuse. Everything about the character is perfectly observed, right down to the dress ring over her elbow-length gloves.
Stephen Waring as Buddy Plummer has to do a superb acting job because unlike most of the other characters Plummer is not a performer. An oil engineering salesman, yes, but essentially he plays the civilian on a stage full of combatants. Even Ben Stone, played by Matthew Chancellor, is a literate, articulate character used to operating on a par with the intellectual elite in society. Waring has to portray the moderately successful ordinary guy, middle-America rather than Washington. He is therefore given one of the most tongue-twisting pieces to perform in a vaudeville number, The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues whilst doing a galumphing chase dance with the fantasy versions of the women who are driving him mad.
Full marks to the Pied Pipers for this ambitious staging. At time of writing there are only two tickets left so you'll have to lobby them to give it another outing.
A musical must be accessible and Stephen Sondheim follows this rule but his intricate writing can be appreciated better if you already know about the world he set the story in. In 1971 this was part of common consciousness but that was itself 42 years ago; there is a danger that a musical about people confronting their own pasts sometime in the 1960s might itself have become a ghost.
Because he's a genius Sondheim foresaw this and also had some luck in the emergence of the video industry. Old musicals don't die although they sometimes go in to limbo. The references are always available now but he made sure he put enough in to the script even if you have never watched one. The tour de force of Loveland where the couples collide with their own memories and act out their own personal folly through popular genres of songs is breathtaking but could be baffling if you can't just let go and wallow in the lyrics. The plot is going on under there, you just have to wait until it re-emerges. The production has always divided critics, though. I think some of this is simply that Brits are sympathetic to meditations on faded glamour whereas Americans see it as a reproach.
The premise is simple; a reunion of the old Follies performers, most of them female, takes place before the theater is pulled down. There is unfinished business between some of them. It has to be finished that night because there will never be another chance. Thus the stage is set as a splendid but decayed theatre; high American Gothic. It is a ghost of the real Zeigfeld Theatre, pulled down in 1966. They will do one last performance.
Designers Andrew Feathertone and Sarah Phelps get this right when they show the damaged fabric of the theatre. The 1971 designs suggested a space which was was nearly gutted, but that would not distinguish it from any other warehouse.
Director Jacob Allan has to manage a complicated stage where the memories of showgirls past parade along the balcony like shades of Hamlet's father along the battlements of Elsinore. The younger selves of the key characters step out of the past either to show us what really happened, or sometimes to show us how they remembered it. Not necessarily the same thing.
This is not a minimalist production; although there is only one set there are numerous costume changes for the secondary characters and intricate choreography to bring the past and present characters to the right places on the stage, capturing the spectacle of the Follies. This is particularly successful in the big number "Who's that Woman?" where a tableau flows in to a tap dance which involves all the women, past and present.
As the company is fantastically devoted to performance they all give Sondheim's words the clarity they deserve but two interpretations stand out. Kirsty Smith as Solange, the French diva (who may or may not ever have been French) conveys all the flinty determination of a woman with her own brand of perfume to sell. She produces a gem in Ah, Paris!, which she delivers just fractionally flat in the correct stage-French style, the method by which millions of people have been convinced they are listening to a sophisticated Gallic chanteuse. Everything about the character is perfectly observed, right down to the dress ring over her elbow-length gloves.
Stephen Waring as Buddy Plummer has to do a superb acting job because unlike most of the other characters Plummer is not a performer. An oil engineering salesman, yes, but essentially he plays the civilian on a stage full of combatants. Even Ben Stone, played by Matthew Chancellor, is a literate, articulate character used to operating on a par with the intellectual elite in society. Waring has to portray the moderately successful ordinary guy, middle-America rather than Washington. He is therefore given one of the most tongue-twisting pieces to perform in a vaudeville number, The God-Why-Don't-You-Love-Me Blues whilst doing a galumphing chase dance with the fantasy versions of the women who are driving him mad.
Full marks to the Pied Pipers for this ambitious staging. At time of writing there are only two tickets left so you'll have to lobby them to give it another outing.
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Footloose - Irving Stage Company
To the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds for the opening night of Footloose performed by the Irving Stage Company.
Those who know this 1998 toe-tapper adapted from a 1984 dance movie will be familiar with the big numbers "Footloose" "Holding Out for a Hero" and "Let's Hear it for the Boy". The company has to get the energy up on these because they are the feel-good spine of the story which holds against the very dark background of mourning, fear, and entanglement with a violent young man.
As it was opening night the company was coltish, wobbly on its legs to start with, so it was with great pleasure that the audience could see them hitting their stride as the company orchestra, directed by Mark Jefferson, went through the score faultlessly, sweeping them along. During 'Holding Out for a Hero' the company began to relax and swing in to it. By 'Let's Hear it for the Boy' they were a unified force on the stage.
The glossy programme (designer Camille Berriman) with thoughtful notes recounts that the show is animated by the fact that this really happened; a tiny town in Oklahoma had banned dancing and a youth there challenged the edict and won. The writer and composer Dean Pritchford then built a classic conflict and resolution plot around that. It isn't candyfloss - there's a proper play in there and Shakespeare would recognise it.
The strength of the plot makes great demands on performers. There is only one unambiguously bad character, all the rest are very good people but mistaken. This is a greater test of acting ability that goodies and baddies; the players have to hold our sympathy especially when they are wrong. The toughest job on stage is managed by Daniel Bunker as the middle-aged Reverend Shaw Moore, doubly difficult where the musical is performed in a country where the audience may not understand American reverence for Christianity. Bunker carries it superbly as he has to confess to the audience how close he is to breakdown when his whole life is built on his ability to be strong for other people.
Brian Carmack, who really is from Chicago, plays the outsider Ren McCormack, moved from Chicago to a very small town indeed, one even smaller than Bury St Edmunds. He provides a tuning-fork for the company; without this there is a danger of a rag-bag of cod-American impersonation. Accent coach Darian Vomund orchestrated the speaking voices convincingly and exploited Carmack's voice to create a an audible difference between the out-of-towners and the sharply-spoken city boy.
Carmack and Josie May Harrington as Ariel Moore have to lead the youth side of the story. They must capture how dangerously naive the highschoolers are. This is tricky for director Sian Couture to pitch correctly as it can all go 'a bit Operation Yewtree'. Although the Ariel Moore character can be assumed to be over the age of consent, she's close to it and has tangled herself up in to an exploitative and abusive relationship with a Chuck Cranston, played by Ben Child.
Within the story it is made clear that Cranston is a youth but Ben Child gives him a harder edge which is more credible in its manipulation. Cranston pretends to be concerned for Ariel's welfare but he knows what he is doing when he goes out of his way to tell the Reverend Moore that his daughter has lied to her parents. His aim is to inflict as much damage as possible on the family out of pure spite, particularly towards the reverend's grieving wife, played by Angela Grant.
The sub-plot of Rusty and Willard, played by Serena Grant and Ben Musgrove, requires that both of them bring an audience to its feet, which they do. Willard's character arc is also demanding. Musgrove has to persuade us he can go from tongue-tied country boy to the spinner of shrewd folk wisdom. He does this via the superb number 'Mama says', full of glorious one-liners set in a slapstick routine. Luckily it has a short reprise after the audience has finished clapping - we could easily stand see the whole thing again, particularly the line "Mama says the things you believe are the only things you really own". Discuss.
Keeping the stage relatively bare and moving a few props and a little scaffolding, the sets were created quickly by lighting so that the action kept moving. Special congratulations for choreography by Sian Couture and Christine Glancy. Inspired use of Achy Breaky Heart resolves the stage in to waves of line-dancing which perfectly express the universal appeal of dance.
Footloose is on until 27 April, so get in quickly. Don't forget your check shirt and cowboy hat.
Those who know this 1998 toe-tapper adapted from a 1984 dance movie will be familiar with the big numbers "Footloose" "Holding Out for a Hero" and "Let's Hear it for the Boy". The company has to get the energy up on these because they are the feel-good spine of the story which holds against the very dark background of mourning, fear, and entanglement with a violent young man.
As it was opening night the company was coltish, wobbly on its legs to start with, so it was with great pleasure that the audience could see them hitting their stride as the company orchestra, directed by Mark Jefferson, went through the score faultlessly, sweeping them along. During 'Holding Out for a Hero' the company began to relax and swing in to it. By 'Let's Hear it for the Boy' they were a unified force on the stage.
The glossy programme (designer Camille Berriman) with thoughtful notes recounts that the show is animated by the fact that this really happened; a tiny town in Oklahoma had banned dancing and a youth there challenged the edict and won. The writer and composer Dean Pritchford then built a classic conflict and resolution plot around that. It isn't candyfloss - there's a proper play in there and Shakespeare would recognise it.
The strength of the plot makes great demands on performers. There is only one unambiguously bad character, all the rest are very good people but mistaken. This is a greater test of acting ability that goodies and baddies; the players have to hold our sympathy especially when they are wrong. The toughest job on stage is managed by Daniel Bunker as the middle-aged Reverend Shaw Moore, doubly difficult where the musical is performed in a country where the audience may not understand American reverence for Christianity. Bunker carries it superbly as he has to confess to the audience how close he is to breakdown when his whole life is built on his ability to be strong for other people.
Brian Carmack, who really is from Chicago, plays the outsider Ren McCormack, moved from Chicago to a very small town indeed, one even smaller than Bury St Edmunds. He provides a tuning-fork for the company; without this there is a danger of a rag-bag of cod-American impersonation. Accent coach Darian Vomund orchestrated the speaking voices convincingly and exploited Carmack's voice to create a an audible difference between the out-of-towners and the sharply-spoken city boy.
Carmack and Josie May Harrington as Ariel Moore have to lead the youth side of the story. They must capture how dangerously naive the highschoolers are. This is tricky for director Sian Couture to pitch correctly as it can all go 'a bit Operation Yewtree'. Although the Ariel Moore character can be assumed to be over the age of consent, she's close to it and has tangled herself up in to an exploitative and abusive relationship with a Chuck Cranston, played by Ben Child.
Within the story it is made clear that Cranston is a youth but Ben Child gives him a harder edge which is more credible in its manipulation. Cranston pretends to be concerned for Ariel's welfare but he knows what he is doing when he goes out of his way to tell the Reverend Moore that his daughter has lied to her parents. His aim is to inflict as much damage as possible on the family out of pure spite, particularly towards the reverend's grieving wife, played by Angela Grant.
The sub-plot of Rusty and Willard, played by Serena Grant and Ben Musgrove, requires that both of them bring an audience to its feet, which they do. Willard's character arc is also demanding. Musgrove has to persuade us he can go from tongue-tied country boy to the spinner of shrewd folk wisdom. He does this via the superb number 'Mama says', full of glorious one-liners set in a slapstick routine. Luckily it has a short reprise after the audience has finished clapping - we could easily stand see the whole thing again, particularly the line "Mama says the things you believe are the only things you really own". Discuss.
Keeping the stage relatively bare and moving a few props and a little scaffolding, the sets were created quickly by lighting so that the action kept moving. Special congratulations for choreography by Sian Couture and Christine Glancy. Inspired use of Achy Breaky Heart resolves the stage in to waves of line-dancing which perfectly express the universal appeal of dance.
Footloose is on until 27 April, so get in quickly. Don't forget your check shirt and cowboy hat.
Friday, 19 April 2013
Prince Charles' watercolours
Prince Charles has, of course, collected a kicking from the Telegraph for his watercolours, despite obligingly providing them with several column's worth of material to blether about. There's no such ingratitude here; this blog knows a freebie when it sees one.
The Prince has published on line a gallery of his pictures. The gallery begins here.
A serious publication deserves serious evaluation - he's no less entitled to that than anybody else who picks up a brush and allows you to see their work. Watercolour is a defiant medium; it's just you, a few colours, paper, brush, and a pot of water. That's all you need to record your world. It's much less complicated than most other media but technically its a testing one because you have to have it clear in your head what you want to do and then lay it down in relatively few strokes.
Watercolour doesn't give much in the way of second chances; too many revisions and it goes muddy. Spiritually it is closer to handwriting than painting; it's best if you get it right (write) first time because the corrections are difficult to disguise. Experimentation is best done on cheaper paper; the idea is to find out how to work the brush and paint without worrying about a picture, then, when you have sorted out the strokes, turn back to reality and try to get the picture space organized.
Watercolour is democratic; it costs relatively few pounds to get going with a decent block of paper, a couple of brushes and a limited pan of colours. The brushes are the most expensive items but cheap brushes will still get you started. You will be working with materials which any professional would be just as happy to use. The grandma taking a U3A class starts from the same place as an Academician.
It is therefore interesting that the Prince chooses not an expensive camera but something which links him to every school child and hobbyist in the country. Moreover, he chooses to pursue that common experience "Wow, I wonder if I could get that down on paper?". Most of us give up at that point and get out the camera.
The pictures have been grouped by theme and location. It is obvious where his heart is, but for evaluation the question is: has he caught the differing lights in the various countries? How you judge that might depend on how well you know the places. I think it is obvious from the selection that he is using watercolour as a private record, a way of fixing experience on paper but is not always sure which aspect of experience it would be best to anchor the picture in.
There are choices in any picture when you have only limited time and palette. A giant major oil painting allows you to try for several in the same picture, but with watercolour you have to make that decision at the beginning and stick to it. Do you want the structure of the rocks and buildings? Or are you more concerned to always be able to get back to the fleeting sense of light over a landscape? Or you might be more in love with the impossible colours and decide to focus all your attention on the them and their relationship to each other. This might yield an abstract image which structurally bears little resemblance to the thing you saw.
Painters such as Samuel Edward Kelly (below) managed to combine these competing aspects and yet keep the colours clean, but there is also a strand of English watercolours which simply gives up and lets it go all sepia. They often paint decrepit barns and cottages where you'd expect it to be dingy.
It is often said that Prince Charles dithers; his pictures express an uncertainty about which aspect he wants. Since photography has been invented, it isn't strictly necessary to paint a picture for that purpose now. If he picked two high-contrast shades, light and dark, concentrating only on pushing areas of the picture plane back, pulling others forward, he'd find the weight of the rocks compared to the lightness of the air would emerge. They don't have to be strictly real; they just have to work in relation to each other.
Alternatively, many of the pictures show he is struck with the unearthly intensity of colour but then steps back politely, as if he doesn't want to be caught over-reacting and feels unable to lay down the ultramarine in case someone accuses him of not getting it quite right. The online collection does not show it, but there are times when light around Sandringham is psychotic; the leggy pine tress turn brick-red with slashes of dark emerald needles, the sky turns cerulean blue and the sun blood-drops in to the Wash. Those are the evenings he should be out on Holkham beach saying this is my paintbox, my picture, and I'll damn well paint it whatever colour I see fit.
Overall - sound catalogue, keep going, get bolder. There's always some bugger telling you that you can't do it this way, or that you shouldn't try at all. Don't listen to the Telegraph.
The Prince has published on line a gallery of his pictures. The gallery begins here.
A serious publication deserves serious evaluation - he's no less entitled to that than anybody else who picks up a brush and allows you to see their work. Watercolour is a defiant medium; it's just you, a few colours, paper, brush, and a pot of water. That's all you need to record your world. It's much less complicated than most other media but technically its a testing one because you have to have it clear in your head what you want to do and then lay it down in relatively few strokes.
Watercolour doesn't give much in the way of second chances; too many revisions and it goes muddy. Spiritually it is closer to handwriting than painting; it's best if you get it right (write) first time because the corrections are difficult to disguise. Experimentation is best done on cheaper paper; the idea is to find out how to work the brush and paint without worrying about a picture, then, when you have sorted out the strokes, turn back to reality and try to get the picture space organized.
Watercolour is democratic; it costs relatively few pounds to get going with a decent block of paper, a couple of brushes and a limited pan of colours. The brushes are the most expensive items but cheap brushes will still get you started. You will be working with materials which any professional would be just as happy to use. The grandma taking a U3A class starts from the same place as an Academician.
It is therefore interesting that the Prince chooses not an expensive camera but something which links him to every school child and hobbyist in the country. Moreover, he chooses to pursue that common experience "Wow, I wonder if I could get that down on paper?". Most of us give up at that point and get out the camera.
The pictures have been grouped by theme and location. It is obvious where his heart is, but for evaluation the question is: has he caught the differing lights in the various countries? How you judge that might depend on how well you know the places. I think it is obvious from the selection that he is using watercolour as a private record, a way of fixing experience on paper but is not always sure which aspect of experience it would be best to anchor the picture in.
There are choices in any picture when you have only limited time and palette. A giant major oil painting allows you to try for several in the same picture, but with watercolour you have to make that decision at the beginning and stick to it. Do you want the structure of the rocks and buildings? Or are you more concerned to always be able to get back to the fleeting sense of light over a landscape? Or you might be more in love with the impossible colours and decide to focus all your attention on the them and their relationship to each other. This might yield an abstract image which structurally bears little resemblance to the thing you saw.
Painters such as Samuel Edward Kelly (below) managed to combine these competing aspects and yet keep the colours clean, but there is also a strand of English watercolours which simply gives up and lets it go all sepia. They often paint decrepit barns and cottages where you'd expect it to be dingy.
 |
| Samuel Edward Kelly. Babbacombe. |
It is often said that Prince Charles dithers; his pictures express an uncertainty about which aspect he wants. Since photography has been invented, it isn't strictly necessary to paint a picture for that purpose now. If he picked two high-contrast shades, light and dark, concentrating only on pushing areas of the picture plane back, pulling others forward, he'd find the weight of the rocks compared to the lightness of the air would emerge. They don't have to be strictly real; they just have to work in relation to each other.
Alternatively, many of the pictures show he is struck with the unearthly intensity of colour but then steps back politely, as if he doesn't want to be caught over-reacting and feels unable to lay down the ultramarine in case someone accuses him of not getting it quite right. The online collection does not show it, but there are times when light around Sandringham is psychotic; the leggy pine tress turn brick-red with slashes of dark emerald needles, the sky turns cerulean blue and the sun blood-drops in to the Wash. Those are the evenings he should be out on Holkham beach saying this is my paintbox, my picture, and I'll damn well paint it whatever colour I see fit.
Overall - sound catalogue, keep going, get bolder. There's always some bugger telling you that you can't do it this way, or that you shouldn't try at all. Don't listen to the Telegraph.
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
When I'm 54 - the funeral of Baroness Thatcher
History has limitless time to evaluate her life and effects on British politics; the funeral is the closing of one chapter and the beginning of that process.
The note today is that she was 54 when she became Prime Minister. She didn't think "I've put 30 years in, I've led this party back in to power, I'll do two years and then plead illness, get a nice little country estate, go and spend some fun time with my money".
Instead, she did her best to lead the country. Everybody has their own opinion about how that went, and tomorrow that can be argued about. But today her example is that being over 50 has its drawbacks but it also has experience, fortitude and the possibility that the greater works may be done later in life because one finally has the knowledge of how to do them.
She has earned her rest.
....
H/T Ambush Predator
The note today is that she was 54 when she became Prime Minister. She didn't think "I've put 30 years in, I've led this party back in to power, I'll do two years and then plead illness, get a nice little country estate, go and spend some fun time with my money".
Instead, she did her best to lead the country. Everybody has their own opinion about how that went, and tomorrow that can be argued about. But today her example is that being over 50 has its drawbacks but it also has experience, fortitude and the possibility that the greater works may be done later in life because one finally has the knowledge of how to do them.
She has earned her rest.
....
H/T Ambush Predator
Friday, 12 April 2013
Prosecutions for use of Social Media
There seems to be a lot of activity around the subject of investigation and prosecution for the use of the social media. I think the document people may be looking for is this:
If your query concerns Paris Brown, who recently stepped down from being a Youth Commissioner for Kent Police, the following CPS clarification may be of interest to you:
The Scotsman has some figures which may also be of interest:
.....
Update 1 May 2013
Olswang LLP, who represented Paris Brown, have provided an excellent summary of the case.
Essentially, the police had to respond to the 50 complaints about a few tweets although they've got plenty of burglaries, murders and rapes to be going on with.
Responding suitably should have taken about a morning to check the published guidelines and note that the material arguably didn't come with in the scope of the guidelines, it had been removed, an apology had been given, and Paris Brown was under 18 so the bar for prosecution is set very high. They could have asked a CPS lawyer if they weren't sure what the guidelines meant. Then they could have politely declined to take the matter further.
Instead - and this is what we should be kicking about - they used the mere excuse of complaints of being offended to confiscate property and interview a child under caution. Then they had to drop any thought of charges since it was obviously a non-starter. Well done to Olswang for highlighting this abuse of process.
...
It is obviously ridiculous that a teenager has to call in a lawyer to protect her from the agents of the state who should have had more sense than to join in with child-kicking. Was their purpose in doing so nothing to do with the 50 complaints but rather a convenient excuse to examine communications between a police commissioner and her appointee?
Following the irregularities in the Andrew Mitchell Affair (which is still being investigated) there needs to be an independent investigation of the 50 source complaints to see if they were in fact genuine members of the public or if there was a concerted action by either a political lobby, police or those connected to them such as close family.
Issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions on 19 December 2012
If your query concerns Paris Brown, who recently stepped down from being a Youth Commissioner for Kent Police, the following CPS clarification may be of interest to you:
where a communication has been sent that is grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or false, there are a number of factors that are likely to mean that a prosecution is not in the public interest.
One of these factors is whether the suspect has taken swift action to remove the communication or expressed genuine remorse.Brown apologized and removed the items. It is difficult to see any public interest in taking the matter any further.
The Scotsman has some figures which may also be of interest:
Scotland Yard revealed that three police officers have been sacked for misusing social media over the past five years. Allegations linked to the use of sites including Facebook and Twitter have been recorded against 75 Metropolitan Police officers since 2009, with 38 of the claims substantiated.Disclaimer: this post is merely a link to relevant documents.
.....
Update 1 May 2013
Olswang LLP, who represented Paris Brown, have provided an excellent summary of the case.
Essentially, the police had to respond to the 50 complaints about a few tweets although they've got plenty of burglaries, murders and rapes to be going on with.
Responding suitably should have taken about a morning to check the published guidelines and note that the material arguably didn't come with in the scope of the guidelines, it had been removed, an apology had been given, and Paris Brown was under 18 so the bar for prosecution is set very high. They could have asked a CPS lawyer if they weren't sure what the guidelines meant. Then they could have politely declined to take the matter further.
Instead - and this is what we should be kicking about - they used the mere excuse of complaints of being offended to confiscate property and interview a child under caution. Then they had to drop any thought of charges since it was obviously a non-starter. Well done to Olswang for highlighting this abuse of process.
...
It is obviously ridiculous that a teenager has to call in a lawyer to protect her from the agents of the state who should have had more sense than to join in with child-kicking. Was their purpose in doing so nothing to do with the 50 complaints but rather a convenient excuse to examine communications between a police commissioner and her appointee?
Following the irregularities in the Andrew Mitchell Affair (which is still being investigated) there needs to be an independent investigation of the 50 source complaints to see if they were in fact genuine members of the public or if there was a concerted action by either a political lobby, police or those connected to them such as close family.
Thursday, 11 April 2013
Back to The Minack
The Minack Theatre opened the 2013 season in chilly but jolly form with Craig Johnson's Squashbox Theatre giving morning performances aimed at teenies.
Children wrapped up against the blow from the sea settled down round him looking like woolly cupcakes round a candle. The wind was so fresh he had to have an assistant keeping the scenery on the ground. Johnson's nemesis is a sea anemone brought out from his rock pool for our delight, but he's also taunted by an ocean full of limpets, sea-squirts, crabs and his seagull friend, Ruan.
As he takes us through his Cornish world we meet fishwives, sailors and the enchanting mermaid Morwenna. I can't tell you what she said - it's a spell, you only know you've heard one - but I can tell you that the man in the next family nearly burst with laughter. He was a helpless jelly the way a four-year old goes when something strikes them as impossibly hilarious. She must have reminded him of an old girlfriend.
Squashbox's theatre contains improving elements of education, but you won't notice them as he handles them with a supreme lightness of touch. If it gently reminds children - and adults - to put litter in the bin then I'd much rather it was done this way than by repeated ugly nagging, which doesn't work.
If you don't have or can't borrow any children, go anyway because Craig Johnson does magic before your very eyes, conjuring an alternative reality out of his imagination.
The Minack is looking very spruce indeed this year with a few new seats added. There is also a weekly feature on Saturday mornings on Billy Rawlings, who came as Rowena Cade's gardener and handyman then moved heaven and earth to build her a theatre.
Mark Harandon has researched and re-created the character of Billy and will lead you
around the theatre telling stories and reminiscing about how it was built. Come along between 10am and 2pm and catch up with ‘Billy’ in the theatre to hear his stories.
Children wrapped up against the blow from the sea settled down round him looking like woolly cupcakes round a candle. The wind was so fresh he had to have an assistant keeping the scenery on the ground. Johnson's nemesis is a sea anemone brought out from his rock pool for our delight, but he's also taunted by an ocean full of limpets, sea-squirts, crabs and his seagull friend, Ruan.
As he takes us through his Cornish world we meet fishwives, sailors and the enchanting mermaid Morwenna. I can't tell you what she said - it's a spell, you only know you've heard one - but I can tell you that the man in the next family nearly burst with laughter. He was a helpless jelly the way a four-year old goes when something strikes them as impossibly hilarious. She must have reminded him of an old girlfriend.
Squashbox's theatre contains improving elements of education, but you won't notice them as he handles them with a supreme lightness of touch. If it gently reminds children - and adults - to put litter in the bin then I'd much rather it was done this way than by repeated ugly nagging, which doesn't work.
If you don't have or can't borrow any children, go anyway because Craig Johnson does magic before your very eyes, conjuring an alternative reality out of his imagination.
The Minack is looking very spruce indeed this year with a few new seats added. There is also a weekly feature on Saturday mornings on Billy Rawlings, who came as Rowena Cade's gardener and handyman then moved heaven and earth to build her a theatre.
Mark Harandon has researched and re-created the character of Billy and will lead you
around the theatre telling stories and reminiscing about how it was built. Come along between 10am and 2pm and catch up with ‘Billy’ in the theatre to hear his stories.
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
Margaret Thatcher 1925-2013
The White Hart is a noble creature which is nonetheless doomed before it starts its run because clever people have already put a chain round its neck and have organized the traps it will inevitably fall in to. This does not prevent the hart from running, time and time again, even though the hunters think they've killed it. The errors the hart makes while running do not make it any less noble; there is a limit to what even the best runner can cope with and it is always outnumbered.
All fans of English and Celtic mythology know that when the old hart dies, a new one is growing in the shade of the forest and that it runs with the hopes and life of the nation on its back. It hasn't broken cover yet. When it does it will have all the distilled experience of the old hart to draw on.
Monday, 8 April 2013
Job of the Month - Chief of Staff, Kent Police
Quick - here's your chance for 90k's worth of goodies plus pension contributions and all the rides in blues and twos you can handle. Luckily, you won't have to do anything nasty like real work or dealing with dangerous violent people - it's all pretendy work. No formal qualifications or experience required.
Ann Barnes hasn't a clue how to do the job despite being elected to be the new Commissioner. Her first puppet was an average teenager who was in tears within a week because Ann failed to recognize that actually, you are nuts to expect a child to carry that kind of responsibility and public exposure. Her second appointment is supposed to figure out how to do the job, and do it, so that Ann can continue to collect the dosh for pretending to.
Anyhoo, here's the outline:
By the by, you have to be nice to Paris Brown, the youth commissioner - but then for goodness sake, the child was always going to be made to look awful. Think of it as social work, trying to patch up Ann's idiocy.
Here's what Ann promised the people of Kent and what she is now relying on you to implement for her.
In a better world this job would not exist because the Chief Constable would already be doing most of it, but since it does, why not put in an on-line application and give that money the very best chance of a good home where it will be appreciated. The real police will regard you with all the enthusiasm of something nasty on their shoes, but as soon as they get the drift of where you are coming from - being Ann's walker - they will at least temper their derision with pity.
My tip for the job would be to make friends with the mounted divisions, then get the horses out on PR appearances in the shopping centres. Everyone loves police horses.
Alternatively, if this seem too much like hard work and you are male, consider getting two women pregnant with at least five children apiece, then live on benefits. I gather it pays about the same. On balance, I know which I'd prefer to subsidize.
Update 10/4/2013
The Mail reports that Paris Brown has stepped down following reports that the police have been dragged in on the basis that her tweets may be within the scope of the criminal law. Her previous job - a trainee booking clerk in the parks department - may not be open to her now that her employers have an excuse to sack her for her comments.
So now we've got an unemployed and possibly unemployable child under the age of 18 whose biggest sin, as far as we know, involves being a bit gobby. No arson, mugging, embezzlement, torture of animals, not even as much as a caution for dropping litter - just a kid mistaking their nascent musings for hip writing which, of course, never happened before in the history of text.
Ann Barnes is still there on £85k (which is surprisingly less than her lieutenant will earn) while having shoved a kid through this sugar-cane crusher in pursuit of her own public image. The moment the allegations emerged she should have taken protective action instead of making the teenager humiliate herself in public for Ann's programme.
The only person who owes it to the electorate to step down is Barnes for having shown such obvious lack of commonsense and duty of care in the first place. If Keith Vaz had any decency he'd resign too. Yes, I know, don't hold my breath.
Update 11/04/2013
The Times reports that the police have been criticized by media lawyer Mark Stephens, who pointed out that Keir Starmer already issued guidelines on investigation of comments on social media. What exactly it has to do with Starmer, who runs the CPS but not the police, I'm not quite sure, but it is his job to advise about offences so it is probably worth checking what he says. The point here is that twenty years ago a police officer would have understood that one is free to hold odious opinions and express them. Now, the expression of those opinions - not just incitements against target groups - is something the state feels free to investigate so long as it has the flimsy excuse of 'somebody complained'.
These are the interim guidelines
The comments attributed to Brown were likely to fail the 'high threshold' test i.e. there was no public interest justification in pursuing them. Or, put it another way, if Brown is going to be chased, then so should many of the commenters on the passing of Mrs Thatcher.
Ann Barnes hasn't a clue how to do the job despite being elected to be the new Commissioner. Her first puppet was an average teenager who was in tears within a week because Ann failed to recognize that actually, you are nuts to expect a child to carry that kind of responsibility and public exposure. Her second appointment is supposed to figure out how to do the job, and do it, so that Ann can continue to collect the dosh for pretending to.
Anyhoo, here's the outline:
This post will provide the mainstay of direct support to the Kent PCC. This is the first role of its kind and as such the post holder will have the flexibility and freedom to create the framework of support needed by the PCC who has stated that her aim is to be the most visible, accessible and transparent Commissioner in the country.This means 'For god's sake, tell me what the job is and make me look good'. Fair enoughski, isn't that what the faithful 2-i-c people of the world do all the time?
This role is not a single focused senior administrative role, this is a high profile, potentially frequently pressurised, busy and varied role – you will never be bored! As the manager of the Office of the Kent Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) you must possess excellent interpersonal skills that you can adapt to any situation. You will be an inspirational leader, who inspires and motivates people from all walks of life, whether this is the staff working in the OPCC, officers and staff from Kent Police, members of the public or those people working in partnership organisations and agencies – in fact anyone you come into contact with.This sounds to me more like what was intended of the Commissioner, but Ann clearly hasn't any intention of doing it so it's a better billet than the usual 2-i-c as you don't have the ghastly admin or being made to do it all yourself. On the other hand, you'll almost certainly have to polish Ann's ego and make it seem as if she has thought everything good while you collect the blame for anything which goes wrong. At 90k plus bennies, this should slap a lot of balm on your own blistered ego. After all, you didn't win the election, did you.
You will be able to provide clear, objective, authoritative and impartial advice based on analysis and interpretation of complex information and situations.Ann can't work out what the briefs mean so you are supposed to read them and explain them to her.
As an effective horizon scanner, you should be able to anticipate the needs of the PCC and present information before it is requested.Preferably psychic.
Alongside this you will have developed a structure to provide regular, relevant management information that informs and updates the PCC on progress without creating burdensome bureaucracy.Pull some numbers out of your arse. They don't matter and there is no budget for gathering proper info - it was all spent on commissioners, youth commissioners and your wages. The least you can do is a bit of cut'n'pasting, you ingrate.
By the by, you have to be nice to Paris Brown, the youth commissioner - but then for goodness sake, the child was always going to be made to look awful. Think of it as social work, trying to patch up Ann's idiocy.
Here's what Ann promised the people of Kent and what she is now relying on you to implement for her.
In a better world this job would not exist because the Chief Constable would already be doing most of it, but since it does, why not put in an on-line application and give that money the very best chance of a good home where it will be appreciated. The real police will regard you with all the enthusiasm of something nasty on their shoes, but as soon as they get the drift of where you are coming from - being Ann's walker - they will at least temper their derision with pity.
My tip for the job would be to make friends with the mounted divisions, then get the horses out on PR appearances in the shopping centres. Everyone loves police horses.
Alternatively, if this seem too much like hard work and you are male, consider getting two women pregnant with at least five children apiece, then live on benefits. I gather it pays about the same. On balance, I know which I'd prefer to subsidize.
Update 10/4/2013
The Mail reports that Paris Brown has stepped down following reports that the police have been dragged in on the basis that her tweets may be within the scope of the criminal law. Her previous job - a trainee booking clerk in the parks department - may not be open to her now that her employers have an excuse to sack her for her comments.
So now we've got an unemployed and possibly unemployable child under the age of 18 whose biggest sin, as far as we know, involves being a bit gobby. No arson, mugging, embezzlement, torture of animals, not even as much as a caution for dropping litter - just a kid mistaking their nascent musings for hip writing which, of course, never happened before in the history of text.
Ann Barnes is still there on £85k (which is surprisingly less than her lieutenant will earn) while having shoved a kid through this sugar-cane crusher in pursuit of her own public image. The moment the allegations emerged she should have taken protective action instead of making the teenager humiliate herself in public for Ann's programme.
The only person who owes it to the electorate to step down is Barnes for having shown such obvious lack of commonsense and duty of care in the first place. If Keith Vaz had any decency he'd resign too. Yes, I know, don't hold my breath.
Update 11/04/2013
The Times reports that the police have been criticized by media lawyer Mark Stephens, who pointed out that Keir Starmer already issued guidelines on investigation of comments on social media. What exactly it has to do with Starmer, who runs the CPS but not the police, I'm not quite sure, but it is his job to advise about offences so it is probably worth checking what he says. The point here is that twenty years ago a police officer would have understood that one is free to hold odious opinions and express them. Now, the expression of those opinions - not just incitements against target groups - is something the state feels free to investigate so long as it has the flimsy excuse of 'somebody complained'.
These are the interim guidelines
The comments attributed to Brown were likely to fail the 'high threshold' test i.e. there was no public interest justification in pursuing them. Or, put it another way, if Brown is going to be chased, then so should many of the commenters on the passing of Mrs Thatcher.
Sunday, 7 April 2013
The return of Mr Ishmael
Like Merlin, he awakes just when you need him most:
"These telly MPs are just unspeakable. I’ve seen them, close-up, in the TeeVee studios, they’re not quite sure whether they are legislators who happen to be on telly or nascent stars, just a soundbite away from a lucrative, Robert Kilroy-Shit career.
It’s partly down to their cowardliness, their terror in the face of a producer or a make-up girl, but it’s also due to the unique cocktail of stupidity, vanity, greed, dishonesty and arrogance which flows through their sclerotic arteries; they’re filth, all of them, cocksuckers, shiteaters, pimps, slags, blackmailers, fraudsters, beasts, nonces, FuckMeJesus but the house of commons makes the Vatican look like a decent, wholesome place."
Friday, 15 March 2013
Whitby Gazette and Jon Stokoe
The Whitby Gazette is the city paper of the Goth capital. It was also the first paper to publish the work of Lewis Carroll, a regular visitor from 1850-70. Encouraged by the public reception - although self-critical about his early efforts - the Reverend Dodgson went on to write the books which dominate children's literature upon which millions of pounds and thousands of jobs have depended.
Then in 1885 The Gazette recorded on 24 October:
"The Russian schooner Dmitri of Navra, with silver sand, came in suddenly, in heavy weather, but going ashore in Collier’s Hope because a total wreck"The event camd to the notice of a visitor to Whitby, Bram Stoker, who also happened to find a name in a geography book in the local library which fired his imagination. That wreck became the Demeter out of Varna, carrying the potent fictional character Dracula, which is why his landfall became the Goth capital.
Who knows, but if the editor of the Whitby Gazette had not carried that report perhaps Stoker might have had him come ashore somewhere else, thus depriving Whitby of millions of pounds of tourism income over a century later.
Since 1854 the paper has maintained its place in the town and travels all over the world. There is an online version but the interesting thing about the Whitby Gazette is that it is still growing in its paper distribution. The online version is searchable but there is really no substitute for the discerning Goth or Steam punk or explorer; one simply must have a paper copy to read over tea no matter where that tea is taken. The object itself, not just the data, is part of the experience with its nautical masthead and distinctive typeface.
Strange then that the owners, Johnston Press, are proposing to dispose of the editor. Jon Stokoe bucks the trend in local papers. While others are struggling,The Gazette is growing. What ever he is doing, it is working. Even asking the question makes only about as much sense as sacking Rumplestiltskin because it costs money to provide him with beer and sandwiches. He's spinning straw in to gold, for goodness' sake. Keep him at it.
A petition to save the editor has been set up to plead with Johnston to show economic sense. Jon Stokoe is worth the money and should be kept on.
Go here to sign the petition.
Saturday, 9 March 2013
BBC Busted - for International Women's Day
Fingerprints : an ambush against UKIP has been identified.
On Question Time, Thursday 7 March, Amy Rutland, a regional Labour worker, pretended to be an average member of the public and took an opportunity to embarrass the Labour Party she supports by calling Diane James, the UKIP candidate, and anyone else who is concerned about the effects of uncontrolled immigration "disgusting".
As noticed by Political Scrapbook, she claimed earlier in the day to have cooked this up with Stephen Twigg, who was appearing on the panel. That probably explains why he was so smoothly ready with a prepared answer. Amy later protected her tweets. It has been suggested that these were merely boasting after the event and that Twigg might not have been in on it - in which case why protect them rather than leave them open?
Dimbleby, if doing his job properly, should have allowed Diane James to answer the original question of substance, which was about whether UKIP presented a threat to the Tories. Instead, he insisted that she respond to the insult. It has yet to be established if Dimbleby knew of the stitch-up; no doubt he'll deny it. It is very strange, though, how the microphone was able to go to an auburn-haired lady at the front who also appeared to be primed with the keyword "scaremonger". Were the women connected?
If you want to see the response by Diane James and the much saltier reply by Melanie Phillips which explained why UKIP are a threat to the Conservatives, the 5 minute clip is on Youtube.
But for the slow-learners in Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, let's play that old favourite Oh she's just a bigoted woman. You can see the moment his political soul leaves his body.
Kebab Time for Biased BBC has other fun photos.
On Question Time, Thursday 7 March, Amy Rutland, a regional Labour worker, pretended to be an average member of the public and took an opportunity to embarrass the Labour Party she supports by calling Diane James, the UKIP candidate, and anyone else who is concerned about the effects of uncontrolled immigration "disgusting".
As noticed by Political Scrapbook, she claimed earlier in the day to have cooked this up with Stephen Twigg, who was appearing on the panel. That probably explains why he was so smoothly ready with a prepared answer. Amy later protected her tweets. It has been suggested that these were merely boasting after the event and that Twigg might not have been in on it - in which case why protect them rather than leave them open?
Dimbleby, if doing his job properly, should have allowed Diane James to answer the original question of substance, which was about whether UKIP presented a threat to the Tories. Instead, he insisted that she respond to the insult. It has yet to be established if Dimbleby knew of the stitch-up; no doubt he'll deny it. It is very strange, though, how the microphone was able to go to an auburn-haired lady at the front who also appeared to be primed with the keyword "scaremonger". Were the women connected?
If you want to see the response by Diane James and the much saltier reply by Melanie Phillips which explained why UKIP are a threat to the Conservatives, the 5 minute clip is on Youtube.
But for the slow-learners in Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, let's play that old favourite Oh she's just a bigoted woman. You can see the moment his political soul leaves his body.
Kebab Time for Biased BBC has other fun photos.
Thursday, 14 February 2013
Murph Guest and Freedom of Expression
Ray 'Murph' Guest is a paramedic at the West Midlands Ambulance Service. He doesn't like the fact that some people have dared to complain about the treatment their relatives received at Stafford Hospital and that the Francis Report agrees with them that it was shockingly bad.
He expressed this in salty terms:-
Specifically, he wished that Julie Bailey would suffer a life-threatening illness. It didn't appear to strike him as at all inconsistent with being a paramedic or that it might reflect poorly on the people around him. His main purpose was to show that they are in fact wonderful people.
Epic fail.
According to the Telegraph, Julie Bailey has informed the police on the grounds that:
However, Guest has established one thing clearly: some front-line staff despise the patients. They wish them dead, seeing the maintenance of the NHS as the point of the job rather than the alleviation of human suffering. They hold opinions which make one very much doubt their willingness to do the job without having their arses licked, such is their fury at criticism.
At this point somebody usually jumps up and says "But it's only him, not fair to judge etc". But he's not the only one. He is like the pox blister which shows the corruption running through the blood. Bailey has had a five year fight and been repeatedly rubbished. Even now, when an inquiry and report has shown she was right to complain, the arse-covering Powers That Be are busy trying to make her seem like the unreasonable one for insisting that they must remove the corporate mask and hold accountable the individuals who failed.
But Murph Guest has accidentally blown the gaff by sneaking out from under the control of smooth PR operators. What he and the Powers That Be really believe is that old, dying people are bloody nuisances but for whom hospitals would be clean, target-hitting places.
So let's hear it for freedom of expression. This is why you have to have a free press and free speech - otherwise you don't find out what they really think.
He expressed this in salty terms:-
Specifically, he wished that Julie Bailey would suffer a life-threatening illness. It didn't appear to strike him as at all inconsistent with being a paramedic or that it might reflect poorly on the people around him. His main purpose was to show that they are in fact wonderful people.
Epic fail.
According to the Telegraph, Julie Bailey has informed the police on the grounds that:
“I believe that this man is an ambulance controller. I am concerned about what would happen if I was to have an accident and I was to phone the ambulance service and he was there in the control room.”Whether this is a police or a professional standards matter is not clear at the moment. Mr Guest seems to have fallen out spectacularly with his father after the death of his father's wife (who may or may not be his mother) and his father had joined Ms Bailey's protest group, Cure the NHS. There is an element of family business here and Julie Bailey has been caught in the crossfire.
However, Guest has established one thing clearly: some front-line staff despise the patients. They wish them dead, seeing the maintenance of the NHS as the point of the job rather than the alleviation of human suffering. They hold opinions which make one very much doubt their willingness to do the job without having their arses licked, such is their fury at criticism.
At this point somebody usually jumps up and says "But it's only him, not fair to judge etc". But he's not the only one. He is like the pox blister which shows the corruption running through the blood. Bailey has had a five year fight and been repeatedly rubbished. Even now, when an inquiry and report has shown she was right to complain, the arse-covering Powers That Be are busy trying to make her seem like the unreasonable one for insisting that they must remove the corporate mask and hold accountable the individuals who failed.
But Murph Guest has accidentally blown the gaff by sneaking out from under the control of smooth PR operators. What he and the Powers That Be really believe is that old, dying people are bloody nuisances but for whom hospitals would be clean, target-hitting places.
So let's hear it for freedom of expression. This is why you have to have a free press and free speech - otherwise you don't find out what they really think.
Friday, 8 February 2013
Stephen Hester is a banker
 |
| Crocodile wallets |
Stephen Hester is the Group Chief Executive of RBS. The one who was narrowly persuaded to go without his bonus.
Wiki
Hester is paid an annual salary of £1.2 million by RBS.[1] Alongside this, he took home £6.5m in bonus and pension payments in 2010.[8] In 2012 he was offered a bonus of just under £1 million, following some considerable pressure from politicians and the public, he declined the bonus.You may have heard of him being disgusted and depressed about the 'selfish and self-serving' behaviour of his staff during the LIBOR rigging scandal. Apart from banking, RBS is also 75% shareholder for Direct Line which operates several brands of insurance. One of these is Churchill
Churchill is part of the Direct line group, separately listed from RBS. It is headed by Paul Geddes.
Now let us go back in time, this isn't about banking. It's about insurance.
Churchill
Founded in 1989, Churchill is now one of the UK’s leading providers of general insurance, offering car, home, travel, pet, van and motorbike insurance over the phone or online. Many of the products are award-winning.
The Accident
In December 2009 the then-thirteen year old Bethany Probert took it in her head to walk home from horse riding at about 5pm. The accident happened on the Abthorpe Road which runs between Silverstone (NN12) and Abthorpe. You can see it for yourself on Streetview, which toured the road in good weather. The road is picture-postcard England, with straights, narrows, and shallow bends between hedges dotted with mature trees.
Yes, she could have waited for her mum to pick her up, but showing a spark of initiative and not being a prisoner, this schoolgirl decided to do what, at any other time in history, would be regarded as normal. She started to walk home on the country road. It was after sunset but it wasn't the middle of the night. Even in December people can be reasonably expected to be moving round at 5pm. Being a young teenager, she didn't think to dress up in a hi-vis jacket, which is not a legal requirement. She also may have been listening to music. That's legal too.
The road doesn't have a footpath or lighting. It has hedges which tend to lean in to the road, obliging pedestrians to walk a little further out. The speed limit is 60 but speed, as we are often told by the better drivers, is not the point. Conditions are the point, and the conditions did not admit that 55 year old Mr Paul Moore, who was on his way to work for his 5pm shift on the far side of Silverstone, should travel faster than 40mph in his Saab 9-3.
Unfortunately, he probably was traveling faster than that. Seeing an on-coming vehicle, he changed his position on the road, pulling left, closer to the hedge where Bethany was walking. Pedestrians are advised to face oncoming traffic but because of the hedges and a bend there, Bethany was on the narrow grass verge or the tarmac - it is thought she may have had one foot on each - rather than the advised side . For that particular point, she was on the correct side because of an approaching bend and a lack of a footpath (see paragraph 44 of Mr Pittaway's adjudication).
Mr Moore did not see Bethany because he was focused on the oncoming vehicle. He hit the girl. She was wearing dark clothing. Had he been traveling more slowly and remained aware that the pools of shadow under hedges might contain any number of things - dogs, deer, junk, even walkers - then he might not have had the accident.
Bethany did not die but the head injuries effectively ended the independent life she might have had. She requires full-time care from her mother but she's alive and can move round. Mr Moore didn't set out to hurt anyone, but the reality of driving is that you can, purely by miscalculation. Eversheds summarized the court's findings; liability was established against the defendant.
Fortunately, Mr Moore had insurance from Churchill. The child cannot be put back as she was, but she can be cared for.
But Churchill doesn't want to pay up.
When the case got to court in August 2012, by which time the child's condition was clearer, Churchill argued that because Bethany was a horse rider, she should have known about wearing a hi-vis jacket, even though she wasn't riding a horse at the time. The court found that you can't expect a 13 year old girl to carry the same degree of responsibility for her action as an adult might. Besides, Mr Moore was not looking where Bethany was walking; he was focused on the oncoming vehicle.
Churchill argued that she was negligent in listening to music, otherwise she would have heard the Saab coming. The court replied, based on the opinions of the accident advisors, that the noise of the oncoming car would have obscured the sound of the car behind her.
The insurers said they want to appeal. Mr David Pittaway QC, hearing the case, wrote that he thought they were seeking to reopen the issues which have been decided.
Despite that we now read that Lord Justice Ward has granted permission that Churchill can take the case to the Court of Appeal. Apparently, there is an argument that it might be alright to run children over if they aren't dressed as Christmas trees, psychic, and happen to be walking home in the country after sunset.
However, this post is not about about the strict legality of an insurance firm being able to go to the extent the law allows in order to avoid doing what it says on the tin: taking the financial pain away when there is a terrible accident.
This is about Stephen Hester of RBS and Paul Geddes of Churchill, who should stop pissing about and pay out £5m as directed. It will cost them that anyway; it's just a question of whether the lawyers are allowed to gouge more of the £5m out for their fees, or if it should all be paid to the girl.
£5m is less than Stephen Hester earned in the single year 2010.
The money, although substantial, can't be the issue. If it was, RBS wouldn't be paying out bonuses of £1.5bn to staff in its investment arm. £5m is chicken feed in comparison. The taxpayer owns at least 75% of RBS, and RBS is the 65% shareholder in Direct Line. RBS received £1bn in dividends from the flotation. The Probert settlement has to be managed to keep Bethany and her mother the rest of their lives, since her mother has had to give up work to care for her daughter. If Geddes and Hester were told to pay it personally out of their own fortunes, they'd barely notice it.
Stephen Hester has two children as does Paul Geddes . How might either of them might feel if their child was smashed in to a hedge and then they had to spend three years fighting for the compensation which insurance is supposed to provide. But then, earning a basic £1.2m a year, I expect Hester would be able to airily wave it away and pay someone else to do the hard work of looking after the child. If the worst came to the worst, he could sell the 350 acre estate in Oxfordshire or the ski chalet in Verbier.
Stephen Hester should ring Paul Geddes and tell them to settle before the stink does any more damage to the group ahead of the remainder of the divestment. Geddes shouldn't even need telling. That he does, tells us something about the failure of Hester to inculcate a sense of duty and decency in his staff. Hester will no doubt argue that under European Competition Law, he's not supposed to tell his executives what to do. This isn't about European Competition Law - it's about duty and decency.
It is the duty - already admitted - of Churchill is to pay this claim. Decency dictates that they pay the victim, not the lawyers.
Update 10 Feb 2013: The Sunday Times reports:
THE boss of Royal Bank of Scotland will be handed a £780,000 bonus just weeks after the bailed-out lender was fined £390m for its role in the global interest rate rigging scandal. Stephen Hester is set to pocket the share award next month. RBS, which is 81% owned by
Ah, poor lamb. If only he'd been wearing a hi-vis jacket.
Update 14 Feb 2013.
Inform Blog reports that Lord Justice Ward has retired.
Thursday, 24 January 2013
Job of the Month - Whitby
This one doesn't pay much but it could be a peach for somebody who wants to be slap in the middle of the action at Whitby. The New Angel Hotel wants a full time receptionist.
Photo : see their facebook timeline.
Chain JD Wetherspoon have refurbished the dowdy building in the modern nautical style; all glass balconies and minimal steel rigging which evoke 1920s cruise liners and yachting. Opening is projected for 28 March.
Application is online - there are only a few days left for this job - and they have a facebook page which charts the renovation.
Photo : see their facebook timeline.
Chain JD Wetherspoon have refurbished the dowdy building in the modern nautical style; all glass balconies and minimal steel rigging which evoke 1920s cruise liners and yachting. Opening is projected for 28 March.
Application is online - there are only a few days left for this job - and they have a facebook page which charts the renovation.
Saturday, 12 January 2013
If I had a talking picture
Ecce Duchess of Cambridge
Art critics clashed yesterday about the new portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge.
Brian Sewell, who is an expert on miniatures since his days of viewing pictures taken on tiny cameras by spies, said that it was about as good an effort as David Hockney was ever likely to make, seeing as how he normally paints trees purple.
Prince Charles, whose collection of novelty toilet roll covers is said to include a jeweled one in the shape of a hawk from the Saudi Royal Family, said he didn't mind so long as they put it in a gallery which was properly half-timbered.
Her Majesty The Queen peered at it knowledgeably and asked the artist "And how long have you been a portrait painter?"
Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, refused to answer the trick question and said that he was thankful to have married a woman who, like his grandmother, did not change her hairstyle, which was always beautiful. But if she did change her hairstyle, that would be beautiful too.
He also wisely declined to comment on whether the Duchess was packing it on as the pregnancy progressed but snappers none the less made efforts to get the burgeoning mum-to-be to stand against the light and turn sideways.
Tuesday, 1 January 2013
New Year's Day 2013
None of this deterred the thousands of visitors today so the restaurants, pubs and any shop which cared to open did a fair trade. Lunch was at Mr Chips in Church Street, down beyond the swing bridge in the sheltered moorings of the Esk, where Mr Raft had the selection platter to try everything.
As this is the Goth Capital their seasonal decorations were in the festive Goth colours of red, black and silver. So, just like normal really, but in a festive arrangement which should be easy to copy and requires no maintenance since none of it is alive.
After lunch we wandered along and found an alley which I had not noticed before although it has always been there. Since 1982 - how on earth can can I have missed it? - it has housed the Washhouse Pottery where Laureen Shaw produces pots and tiles which riff on traditional Delft designs.
She and her husband also rent out the house they restored, Pottery Cottage. The third photo down on that link is of the pottery which leads in to the courtyard where the cottage is. Bought a sweet little slab coaster for the desk in a fish design.
Walked back to One-O-Five, the jet workshop where Kevin Dixon was spending the last day of his season producing jewellery and carving exquisite jet sculptures. As of tomorrow, he's shutting up the shop and going to his annual retreat and source of inspiration, watching animals in the jungle. I think that's why his tiny lizards, bats, rabbits and snakes seem ready to dash out of the display cabinet. He'll be back at Easter, ready for another eight months.
The snag with the job is that it is a seven-day-a-week business now that Whitby has visitors from Easter to New Year. Kevin remembers when they used to roll up the road just after the summer holidays and store it with the deck chairs in the pavillion. Unfortunately for Whitby, it is ruled from Scarborough which has failed to get on with setting up the park and ride schemes which tourism needs if lack of access is not to deter people from spending their money down in the town.
Whitby has much more in common with the other towns along the Esk valley; they should be making their own decisions in their own interest, not being treated as a source of car parking revenue for Scarborough's benefit. Freedom for Whitby!
Sunday, 11 November 2012
Remembrance 2012
It has been a kind Remembrance Sunday; dry, bright and cool.
The cathedral was full to the doors.
The falling of petals during the silence is appreciated by mourners;
they file quietly to the altar afterwards to take photos.
Some take a petal as a relic.
For those who prefer a secular Act of Remembrance, the town centre was also full.
People choose to remember; they do not forget.
Saturday, 29 September 2012
My favourite Wiki - Supranational European Bodies
This lovely Euler diagram shows that there are alternative bodies we could be members of in a way which is very easy to see. It's only like a gym membership package or choosing which insurance options to take on a policy. Just move your flag to where you'd rather be.
Where we ought to move to is a matter for debate, and there could be some additional rules which link certain memberships so that if you want to be in one, you have to be in another, which might constrain which group(s) we go in to.
However, Switzerland seems to do pretty well by being in The Council of Europe, EFTA and the Schengen area. Admittedly they still have the rulings of the EFTA court to deal with but then, if you are forming mutual trade agreements you must expect there to be a way of arbitrating when club members disagree.
The main thing to grasp is that when David Cameron makes oozy noises about a referendum and Tory ignoramuses pretend you can pick and choose which part of EU law to comply with, either they haven't done their homework or they are telling a flat lie in the hope of electoral success. It's not an in-or-out issue to frighten the children with.
Yes, we can leave the European Union and survive. No, we won't necessarily lose all our memberships although we might have to ask EFTA nicely if they would admit us. No, we don't really need permission to go. Lawyers will tell you they can't undo this, that or the other. Tell them we are going to resile, repeal the ECA72, and if they won't get on with the job then, like Cardinal Wolsey, they'll be replaced with Thomas Cromwell.
If it's good enough for Henry VIII, it's good enough for us.
.....
See also Switzerland News
Monday, 10 September 2012
Baker - Job of the Month
Back in God's Own Country to continue my vital research in to Yorkshire tearooms. A perfect opportunity has emerged for one lucky person: Lewis and Cooper want a part-time cook/baker in their tearoom in Northallerton.
Lewis and Cooper's is a grocery shop of units grown-together over the last 112 years. It specialises in top-quality foods and wine for the discerning diner, cook and host. A wander through their food halls, which grow like a cave system back in to the depths of the building, is an exotic trip back in time. Unlike the deracinated supermarkets, aromas from all round the world waft from the deli, the bakery supplies and faintly from the chiller cabinets. There are bargains; I've had top-notch free range chickens at standard prices and it is the best source for bulk lavender flowers.
Above the shop are parlours set with snowy tables which look out over the high street.
I hold Strong Views on the food in L&C. With the exception of a dispute about the finest kippers, it is the best tearoom because it has philosophy of preparing food for the mouth and stomach rather than the eyes. This is not to suggest the food is ugly, but it is for consumption, not modelling.
When you sit in the parlour and look across the road and down the high street you see the mighty Bettys, the twinkling establishment patronised by the Alan Bennett-loving classes. A religious divide opens at this point between those who favour the international polish of the Swiss-influenced Bettys and the British approach of L&C.
This is not to imply that Betty's uses anything other than superb ingredients; it's just that they craft witty look-at-me fancies while L&C prefer to serve an exquisite scone with local butter, cream and strawberry jam.
The difference in approach is reflected in the recruitment policy. Lewis and Cooper are looking for a tip-top home baker and cook.
Lewis and Cooper's is a grocery shop of units grown-together over the last 112 years. It specialises in top-quality foods and wine for the discerning diner, cook and host. A wander through their food halls, which grow like a cave system back in to the depths of the building, is an exotic trip back in time. Unlike the deracinated supermarkets, aromas from all round the world waft from the deli, the bakery supplies and faintly from the chiller cabinets. There are bargains; I've had top-notch free range chickens at standard prices and it is the best source for bulk lavender flowers.
Above the shop are parlours set with snowy tables which look out over the high street.
I hold Strong Views on the food in L&C. With the exception of a dispute about the finest kippers, it is the best tearoom because it has philosophy of preparing food for the mouth and stomach rather than the eyes. This is not to suggest the food is ugly, but it is for consumption, not modelling.
When you sit in the parlour and look across the road and down the high street you see the mighty Bettys, the twinkling establishment patronised by the Alan Bennett-loving classes. A religious divide opens at this point between those who favour the international polish of the Swiss-influenced Bettys and the British approach of L&C.
This is not to imply that Betty's uses anything other than superb ingredients; it's just that they craft witty look-at-me fancies while L&C prefer to serve an exquisite scone with local butter, cream and strawberry jam.
The difference in approach is reflected in the recruitment policy. Lewis and Cooper are looking for a tip-top home baker and cook.
Contact Becky Robinson on 01609 772 880 for details and an application form.
Monday, 3 September 2012
Where the Buffalo Roam
If the Essex police get tired of sightings of lions and tigers and bears, oh my, they can book a safari in North Yorkshire where they will see majestic herds of buffalo and deer sweeping down from the Hambleton Hills.
These magnificent specimen followed our trailer and began to run and jump just like in the Westerns. While the water buffalo and highland cattle are disinclined to break in to a trot and demand to have the carrots brought to them, the American buffalo - Bison bison, so good they named them twice - are wild animals and always remember that they are supposed to be on a long journey.
They've settled in well to Yorkshire; the hottest summer days are a trial to them but they are cheerful in the winter and their whole body is adapted to deal with snow on grassland. They appreciate some top-up hay and yummy carrots but, unlike the conventional cattle, they don't have to be brought indoors and coddled through to spring.
Up close it's easy to see why the Great Plains people deified the animals; they look at you quietly but with a wary curiosity. There is definitely Somebody Home. The shaggy fur at the front looks soft and clean; they don't smell. The flanks are much finer skin, almost felty by the look of it - but they won't let you touch them.
This could be tricky. The whole point of them is to find a source of meat which is yummy, lean and unmodified by modern animal husbandry such as antibiotics, but after five minutes they begin seem like huge quiet spirits; things you'd rather have around than not.
The meat is wonderful my co-tasters advise. But I ended up eating venison and orange burger and iron-age pig sausage. Those are animals which are either air-heads or are bred to be eaten.
These buffalo are spooky, as if they have raced off the cave wall and never changed in all the 20,000 years, still wondering about those annoying apes.
Northallerton, North Yorkshire, DL6 2PD
Thursday, 30 August 2012
Blue Moon
You can have a religious argument about the definitions of "a blue moon". Whatever, this month contains the novelty of two full moons in one calendar month.
As it was so cloudy at the first full moon I wasn't able to see it so I'm hoping for better weather on Friday night. The August moon(s) are my favourite; she floats over the fens and fields as if looking for her own reflection in the water and windows. The great harvesters creep over the land late in to the evening, half-paddle-steamer, half-dragon, then they vanish improbably by daylight as if they went back to giant burrows.
Logically, everyone knows the moon is a faraway rock but when you look at that silver white disc - or a ruby moon which I've seen - it is impossible to think of it as merely subjectively beautiful; she's objectively, intrinsically beautiful and always was long before there were any humans to wonder if you could reach her.
In 2005 Andrew Smith published his series of interviews with the astronauts who had done more than just wonder. Standing at the pinnacle of thousands of years of technological development they had been able to answer the question: what's it like to go to the moon?
"Moondust - in search of the men who fell to Earth" was updated in 2009 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. It is now 40 years since the final manned Apollo mission and Smith's book puts the programme in to its historical context. He secured interviews from the remaining moonmen, including email exchanges with Neil Armstrong who clarified many factual points about the mission.
Thank goodness Armstrong's mission was successful. The emergency speech had already been written in case anything went wrong. And yet, as Smith's book shows, there is curious sense in which the eulogy remains true; the moonmen suffered a kind of death because their old selves would not exist thereafter and nothing they would do subsequently could quite compare with those few days.
This full moon will not have Neil Armstrong beneath it. I believe she'll be looking for him.
............
Moondust - in search of the men who fell to Earth
Andrew Smith, Bloomsbury 2005, update 2009
ISBN 978 1 4088 02380
As it was so cloudy at the first full moon I wasn't able to see it so I'm hoping for better weather on Friday night. The August moon(s) are my favourite; she floats over the fens and fields as if looking for her own reflection in the water and windows. The great harvesters creep over the land late in to the evening, half-paddle-steamer, half-dragon, then they vanish improbably by daylight as if they went back to giant burrows.
Logically, everyone knows the moon is a faraway rock but when you look at that silver white disc - or a ruby moon which I've seen - it is impossible to think of it as merely subjectively beautiful; she's objectively, intrinsically beautiful and always was long before there were any humans to wonder if you could reach her.
In 2005 Andrew Smith published his series of interviews with the astronauts who had done more than just wonder. Standing at the pinnacle of thousands of years of technological development they had been able to answer the question: what's it like to go to the moon?
"Moondust - in search of the men who fell to Earth" was updated in 2009 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. It is now 40 years since the final manned Apollo mission and Smith's book puts the programme in to its historical context. He secured interviews from the remaining moonmen, including email exchanges with Neil Armstrong who clarified many factual points about the mission.
Thank goodness Armstrong's mission was successful. The emergency speech had already been written in case anything went wrong. And yet, as Smith's book shows, there is curious sense in which the eulogy remains true; the moonmen suffered a kind of death because their old selves would not exist thereafter and nothing they would do subsequently could quite compare with those few days.
This full moon will not have Neil Armstrong beneath it. I believe she'll be looking for him.
............
Moondust - in search of the men who fell to Earth
Andrew Smith, Bloomsbury 2005, update 2009
ISBN 978 1 4088 02380
Thursday, 23 August 2012
Wanna buya Peter Oborne nuddy calendar?
Clutching a lace hanky and smelling salts, Peter Oborne launches in to Prince Harry on the basis that he shouldn't be having all this FUN with a willing young woman in case it fuels the fires of Republicanism.
Really? There has been comment about what we pay for the Prince, but then there would be anyway even if Harry was a cross between Cliff Richard and Mother Theresa. Even the staunchest anti-monarchist I know doesn't think that a young man doing something legal with a consenting adult in the privacy of his own hotel room should be pilloried because a scumbag took photos they should not have.
But since they did, let's be clear: this is a PR triumph.
The overwhelming response has been "Yaaaayyy, go for it Hazza" with a muttered side order of "Lucky sod, he even photographs well". See our Prince? That one, the one who has plenty of blood in his veins, enough to raise a flagpole, well, that's how a Tudor prince is supposed to look. That's how we like 'em, as if they can kiss and fight and have a go at a serenade.
Of course, this would look saddo if he were still playing strip billiards in ten years time and begun to look as if his skin needed ironing, and the pretty girls exchanged for hanging about with creepy-looking ladyboys the way his great-uncle went over the late Wallis Simpson, so he shouldn't make a life-long habit of it.
But right now the wisdom of Max Bialystock applies: When you got it, baby, flaunt it.
Really? There has been comment about what we pay for the Prince, but then there would be anyway even if Harry was a cross between Cliff Richard and Mother Theresa. Even the staunchest anti-monarchist I know doesn't think that a young man doing something legal with a consenting adult in the privacy of his own hotel room should be pilloried because a scumbag took photos they should not have.
But since they did, let's be clear: this is a PR triumph.
The overwhelming response has been "Yaaaayyy, go for it Hazza" with a muttered side order of "Lucky sod, he even photographs well". See our Prince? That one, the one who has plenty of blood in his veins, enough to raise a flagpole, well, that's how a Tudor prince is supposed to look. That's how we like 'em, as if they can kiss and fight and have a go at a serenade.
Of course, this would look saddo if he were still playing strip billiards in ten years time and begun to look as if his skin needed ironing, and the pretty girls exchanged for hanging about with creepy-looking ladyboys the way his great-uncle went over the late Wallis Simpson, so he shouldn't make a life-long habit of it.
But right now the wisdom of Max Bialystock applies: When you got it, baby, flaunt it.
Thursday, 16 August 2012
Festival City
Edinburgh is rife with festivals. There is even a website listing them. The city is the setting for a new novella by John Robertson Nicoll called The Balloon Man in Edinburgh.
On a fine Spring day in Edinburgh a strange, shabby little man alights from the train at Waverley Station and makes a beeline for Princes Street Gardens bearing gifts for the squirrels that inhabit the trees there. He meets an old Polish gentleman who, feeling sorry for the little "tramp", offers him free temporary accommodation in his large house on the edge of the City's New Town. But old Josef doesn't know what he has let himself or his tenants in for. Over the next few days the old landlord, poor lovelorn Miss Laird and the crook, Driscoll, will all feel the effect of Buster's presence and their lives will be changed forever.
Currently it is available in a Kindle edition, £1.78, and there is a free Kindle app for those of us - like me - who haven't got a Kindle and want to read it on the PC.
John R Nicoll also has a blog and is supposed - nudge nudge - to be getting on with writing an important fact-based play about Scotswoman Jane Haining, who refused to abandon the pupils under her care when the Nazis took power in Hungary.
Monday, 13 August 2012
At the risk of saying something nice.....
Last summer we saw the worst of our youth in the looting and rioting events. This year there has been a surprisingly touching and noble contradiction; look, they are healthy, they are sporting, they are doing something which involves aspiration and applied effort rather than blaming society.
The reservations about the Olympics have to be assessed in context: yes, it's hideously expensive but at least we have something to show for the money, unlike the billions we've shoveled in to the pockets of foreign dictators, pretending that it will help their wretched citizens, or the money we chuck every day down the hole of the EU.
For a start, the Kings Cross concourse is a marvel of engineering. I look forward to the day they finally undo the bodge which was made of the original frontage but so far the job has been good.
Mayor Boris Johnson has done well - a Pericles of our age, just like he always wanted to be - in wrangling the city in to a half-way decent condition. It is a mammoth job as London has been bedeviled by corruption and incompetence since the day the Luftwaffe went home and left the rest of the destruction of communities to the brown-envelope and and system-build brigade.
Socialist utopia, my foot; those estates were clearly built by people who were devoid of talent or taste; it's probably a compliment to think they were bribed - they were probably so dim that they honestly thought they were building something pretty. As it is, the average Victorian prison or workhouse compares favourably to the Pembury Estate.
There's still a long way to go but at least a start has been made. The more those tower blocks come down, the better things will be.
Just how much better things are getting might not show to the average Londoner who is there every day but on my last visit there was one small thing which made me think "Wow" and it won't be apparent to every visitor to this blog.
The toilets under Piccadilly Circus are finally working as they should be in a civilised city.
Frankly, it was a surprise to find them open, but to find them with an attendant, spotlessly clean and not like unto the devil's arsehole was such a shock that I went back for a second visit in case I'd dreamt it. There has to be an attendant; that prevents them becoming drugs-exchanges and doss-houses. Chuck out the lesbian out-reach 5-a-day coordinators and hire lavatory attendants and watch your civic culture improve.
My wish is that in addition to good toilets, Boris considers re-introducing that civilising thing, the drinking fountain, where any passer by, no matter how rich or poor, can get a drink of safe, clean water to keep them from fainting. It would also to cut down on all the manky plastic bottles floating about.
It can be done; I give you Bergamo, which has the most wonderful water, like liquid light, freely dispensed from drinking fountains all across the city. Let MacDonald's sponsor the fountains; they can put their logo on it if they like; they can still sell their burgers, orange juice and hot coffee but a sip of water and a safe place to wash your hands should be freely available everyone in the city and ultimately to everyone on the planet.
The reservations about the Olympics have to be assessed in context: yes, it's hideously expensive but at least we have something to show for the money, unlike the billions we've shoveled in to the pockets of foreign dictators, pretending that it will help their wretched citizens, or the money we chuck every day down the hole of the EU.
For a start, the Kings Cross concourse is a marvel of engineering. I look forward to the day they finally undo the bodge which was made of the original frontage but so far the job has been good.
Mayor Boris Johnson has done well - a Pericles of our age, just like he always wanted to be - in wrangling the city in to a half-way decent condition. It is a mammoth job as London has been bedeviled by corruption and incompetence since the day the Luftwaffe went home and left the rest of the destruction of communities to the brown-envelope and and system-build brigade.
Socialist utopia, my foot; those estates were clearly built by people who were devoid of talent or taste; it's probably a compliment to think they were bribed - they were probably so dim that they honestly thought they were building something pretty. As it is, the average Victorian prison or workhouse compares favourably to the Pembury Estate.
There's still a long way to go but at least a start has been made. The more those tower blocks come down, the better things will be.
Just how much better things are getting might not show to the average Londoner who is there every day but on my last visit there was one small thing which made me think "Wow" and it won't be apparent to every visitor to this blog.
The toilets under Piccadilly Circus are finally working as they should be in a civilised city.
Frankly, it was a surprise to find them open, but to find them with an attendant, spotlessly clean and not like unto the devil's arsehole was such a shock that I went back for a second visit in case I'd dreamt it. There has to be an attendant; that prevents them becoming drugs-exchanges and doss-houses. Chuck out the lesbian out-reach 5-a-day coordinators and hire lavatory attendants and watch your civic culture improve.
My wish is that in addition to good toilets, Boris considers re-introducing that civilising thing, the drinking fountain, where any passer by, no matter how rich or poor, can get a drink of safe, clean water to keep them from fainting. It would also to cut down on all the manky plastic bottles floating about.
It can be done; I give you Bergamo, which has the most wonderful water, like liquid light, freely dispensed from drinking fountains all across the city. Let MacDonald's sponsor the fountains; they can put their logo on it if they like; they can still sell their burgers, orange juice and hot coffee but a sip of water and a safe place to wash your hands should be freely available everyone in the city and ultimately to everyone on the planet.
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