"This country is going to the dogs. I wish I could emigrate."
We've heard it all before. It's what the right wing press, like the Mail, wants us to believe.
We're being swamped by immigrants, everything is broken and nothing works anymore. Crime is out of control, political correctness dominates (you can't even celebrate Christmas anymore, for fear of offending muslims, don't you know?) and the country is drowning in a raft of health and safety rules. You can't even beat your own children or send them up chimneys anymore.
And it's only this country that's going to the dogs.
Not Greece where 50% of its young people are unemployed and where their pensions have been cut, or Spain which has sucked in millions of immigrants from Morocco, China and of course the UK.
No. The only problems are in England. Go to Paris and it's lovely there, so long as you stay near the Eiffel Tower and all the smart hotels and restaurants. And Barcelona? Lovely, but watch your wallet. No shitty areas anywhere else in Europe? Dream on.
Of course there is a lot that's wrong with this country.
The austerity policies of this Tory government, enabled by the Liberal Party, have made no difference to the rich but they have hammered the working poor. Iain Duncan Smith, an unpleasant man if ever there was one, pretends the food banks are not really needed, that the problems only exist because sometimes people don't get paid on time or those useless incompetents in the DWP don't pay them on time.
And there is still mass youth unemployment, especially in the sink estates which still exist, just as they do in every other major city on earth.
I could go on but the reality is that there is only one thing that really pisses people off about this country: the weather.
There's plenty wrong, of course, but I find that there are far more good people than bad. I find that the streets are no more paved with litter than they are in most other countries I have been to. There are issues with drugs and violence but that's hardly unique to us either.
No. It's the weather and it's also that when we travel abroad we don't normally go sightseeing in their sink estates. And people don't in ours either. Rarely do I see coach loads of Japanese tourists travelling down Long Cross, admiring the closed down pub of that name and salivating as they pass the traditional branch of Greggs on Riding Leaze. We see what we want to see and, as Paul Simon was fond of saying, we disregard the rest.
I see good all the time. People doing good things, people helping other people, people keeping an eye on their neighbours and just being kind.
And when all these good things are happening, it's pissing down so we dream of somewhere hot and if we're really British somewhere hot with karaoke and English beer.
The slate grey skies and rain beating on the windows do have depressing qualities because it's dark and gloomy.
But our country, far from being broken, as Mr Cameron tried to pretend when he was leader of the opposition, is actually doing all right, despite him.
So if you don't like it here, you know what to do.
The grass won't be greener because it rains so bloody much over here but you might be able to pretend it's better and some folk will believe you. I won't.
Monday 30 June 2014
Sunday 29 June 2014
My Glastonbury experience
Today is the final day of Glastonbury, a statement to which I shall add the comment, thank god.
It is probably just me because the thing usually sells out of tickets before they go on sale (or something like that) and the BBC must attract very healthy ratings (or why else would they send more people to sleepy Somerset than they did to the World Cup in Brail?).
But - and this is me judging the thing on the BBC coverage, never having been - I have been bored out of my mind with much of what I have seen (and heard).
On the positive side, I thought Metallica were excellent, even though I hardly knew any of their tunes. They were very smooth, too smooth if anything, but they know how to press find the G Spot of a festival audience.
The type of Metal banged out by the band is not always my cup of tea but I know a good band when I see and hear one and, despite my constant misgivings about lead singer James Hetfield's part time hobby of shooting dead large bears and supporting the NRA, I managed to tap my foot to the songs I knew. I would be lying, though, if I said I wasn't waiting the whole set for Enter Sandman.
The Manic Street Preachers were on a side stage (I do not know which stage, nor do I particularly care) and they too were excellent. They are not exactly in the first flush of youth, although they are compared to me, but they were terrific.
And Robert Plant. What can I say? Class is permanent and Robert, with a sublime backing band, is still very classy. Still on the age front, it did seem like the average age of the audience was as old as me, maybe as old as Robert himself!
But there was a lot of what us grumps call crap on view as well.
I look at Elbow and think, why? Guy Garvey, they say knows how to work an audience, but then so does Daniel O'Donnell and he's still rubbish. I sat through a few minutes of their turgid set and switched over to Sky to watch an obscure golf tournament in America. Well, what else is there to watch on a Friday night?
The oldies were there in force too.
Bryan Ferry did a set of Roxy classics and solo stuff and thanks to his blistering band he just about got away with it. But the truth remains, after 40-odd years into his career, he still can't sing; his quiet voice having to be heavily amplified above some backing singers who definitely could.
I can't knock his thinning hair - it happens to us all, especially men - and he doesn't look like a man well into bus pass territory, but it was another 'why?' moment.
Blondie played a set too. Debbie Harry suffers in the media much more than Ferry because she is a woman and women in showbiz are not allowed to become old. Of course she is not - and I am sorry to describe her in such terms - the four tissue job of the 1970s (I had friends who really said that; friends, honest) but she can still sing. They were all right and so much the better for the fact that they are a band still making music.
Part of my attitude to it could be explained by old age, although I have never fancied sleeping in a field with tens of thousands of others and needing a piss at 4.00 in the morning. Or queuing for a number two with the possible increasing of tension and desperation that might bring.
There are of course lots of other things to do, I'd imagine. I may be making this up but I am guessing there might be face-painting, fortune-telling and jugglers. And ethical burger stalls and bars selling expensive cider in plastic glasses.
And it is pretty obvious that the people there are thoroughly enjoying themselves, or at the very least good at pretending they are enjoying themselves. I can report that during Metallica's set, the traditional pretty young woman with small breasts covered, regrettably, with a bikini top, sitting high on the shoulders of a muscled young man was picked out repeatedly by the director. She plainly knew none of the words - maybe like me, not even the tunes - but she looked happy, which is probably more than the people who were standing behind her.
I have decided against watching Dolly Parton this afternoon because whilst I acknowledge her brilliance and towering presence in country music, I don't much care for the music or her voice. I am fairly sure that it is illegal to not be a massive fan of Dolly, who is playing in the Sunday afternoon novelty act spot occupied in previous years by legends such as Bruce Forsyth, Tom Jones and...er...Rolf Harris (who is currently unavailable).
I won't watch Kasabian either on the simple grounds that I don't know a single one of their songs, which makes me sound like one of those High Court Judges ("Now just who are The Beatles?").
I could watch Jo Whiley all night (and frequently do, in my dreams) and the funny one from Mark and Lard is an excellent presenter but I suspect the BBC's coverage does not do justice to Glasto, as the kids seems to call it because if they do, it's not very good.
I am guessing most people will be coming home tomorrow, knee deep in mud and god knows what else, with sopping wet belongings, no money and stinking to high heaven. And probably happy, looking forward to next year.
Metallica were this year's Jay Z so I suspect Michael Eavis will return to the safe old favourites of AOR next year, like Coldplay, but maybe he might surprise and drag the festival back to how it used to be and maybe still is given that I have never been and never will.
It is probably just me because the thing usually sells out of tickets before they go on sale (or something like that) and the BBC must attract very healthy ratings (or why else would they send more people to sleepy Somerset than they did to the World Cup in Brail?).
But - and this is me judging the thing on the BBC coverage, never having been - I have been bored out of my mind with much of what I have seen (and heard).
On the positive side, I thought Metallica were excellent, even though I hardly knew any of their tunes. They were very smooth, too smooth if anything, but they know how to press find the G Spot of a festival audience.
The type of Metal banged out by the band is not always my cup of tea but I know a good band when I see and hear one and, despite my constant misgivings about lead singer James Hetfield's part time hobby of shooting dead large bears and supporting the NRA, I managed to tap my foot to the songs I knew. I would be lying, though, if I said I wasn't waiting the whole set for Enter Sandman.
The Manic Street Preachers were on a side stage (I do not know which stage, nor do I particularly care) and they too were excellent. They are not exactly in the first flush of youth, although they are compared to me, but they were terrific.
And Robert Plant. What can I say? Class is permanent and Robert, with a sublime backing band, is still very classy. Still on the age front, it did seem like the average age of the audience was as old as me, maybe as old as Robert himself!
But there was a lot of what us grumps call crap on view as well.
I look at Elbow and think, why? Guy Garvey, they say knows how to work an audience, but then so does Daniel O'Donnell and he's still rubbish. I sat through a few minutes of their turgid set and switched over to Sky to watch an obscure golf tournament in America. Well, what else is there to watch on a Friday night?
The oldies were there in force too.
Bryan Ferry did a set of Roxy classics and solo stuff and thanks to his blistering band he just about got away with it. But the truth remains, after 40-odd years into his career, he still can't sing; his quiet voice having to be heavily amplified above some backing singers who definitely could.
I can't knock his thinning hair - it happens to us all, especially men - and he doesn't look like a man well into bus pass territory, but it was another 'why?' moment.
Blondie played a set too. Debbie Harry suffers in the media much more than Ferry because she is a woman and women in showbiz are not allowed to become old. Of course she is not - and I am sorry to describe her in such terms - the four tissue job of the 1970s (I had friends who really said that; friends, honest) but she can still sing. They were all right and so much the better for the fact that they are a band still making music.
Part of my attitude to it could be explained by old age, although I have never fancied sleeping in a field with tens of thousands of others and needing a piss at 4.00 in the morning. Or queuing for a number two with the possible increasing of tension and desperation that might bring.
There are of course lots of other things to do, I'd imagine. I may be making this up but I am guessing there might be face-painting, fortune-telling and jugglers. And ethical burger stalls and bars selling expensive cider in plastic glasses.
And it is pretty obvious that the people there are thoroughly enjoying themselves, or at the very least good at pretending they are enjoying themselves. I can report that during Metallica's set, the traditional pretty young woman with small breasts covered, regrettably, with a bikini top, sitting high on the shoulders of a muscled young man was picked out repeatedly by the director. She plainly knew none of the words - maybe like me, not even the tunes - but she looked happy, which is probably more than the people who were standing behind her.
I have decided against watching Dolly Parton this afternoon because whilst I acknowledge her brilliance and towering presence in country music, I don't much care for the music or her voice. I am fairly sure that it is illegal to not be a massive fan of Dolly, who is playing in the Sunday afternoon novelty act spot occupied in previous years by legends such as Bruce Forsyth, Tom Jones and...er...Rolf Harris (who is currently unavailable).
I won't watch Kasabian either on the simple grounds that I don't know a single one of their songs, which makes me sound like one of those High Court Judges ("Now just who are The Beatles?").
I could watch Jo Whiley all night (and frequently do, in my dreams) and the funny one from Mark and Lard is an excellent presenter but I suspect the BBC's coverage does not do justice to Glasto, as the kids seems to call it because if they do, it's not very good.
I am guessing most people will be coming home tomorrow, knee deep in mud and god knows what else, with sopping wet belongings, no money and stinking to high heaven. And probably happy, looking forward to next year.
Metallica were this year's Jay Z so I suspect Michael Eavis will return to the safe old favourites of AOR next year, like Coldplay, but maybe he might surprise and drag the festival back to how it used to be and maybe still is given that I have never been and never will.
Wednesday 25 June 2014
Suarez
The general media and social networks reactions to the latest Luis Suarez biting incident have left me strangely uncomfortable.
I doubt that my opinion will influence Blatter's FIFA but on the face of it Suarez is guilty as charged.
He was probably wound right up up the Italians but that doesn't give him the right to take a bite out of a fellow player.
He's got history. Is it three bites and out?
I'm uncomfortable about the mental health aspects. if there are any.
I've listened to the radio phone-ins and seen the 'hilarious' jokes on Facebook and Twitter and there are those who say Suarez may have mental health issues, some who say that he may have mental health issues but that's irrelevant and others who say he just bites people, that's just the way he is. Ban him for life.
I have no idea whether Suarez has mental health issues but I have had them for a lifetime and I know from personal experience and from the experiences of others that it makes you do some pretty odd things, with some it makes you do some pretty bad things.
Some people I knew harmed themselves, some harmed others. A few killed themselves too, all misunderstood, slipping below the radar.
When I was at my lowest, sickest ebb, I didn't make the best decisions, I didn't do things that I was proud of, I got a lot of things wrong.
As a distant outsider, I know two things: Luis Suarez is one of the greatest footballers on earth. At the moment, he is up there with Ronaldo and Messi. The second is that he is flawed, deeply flawed, and before we pronounce him guilty and condemn him to a severe punishment can we not just ask why?
Even in these so-called enlightened times, mental health remains the great taboo. People don't like to talk about it, many who have never suffered from it think we should just pull ourselves together and get on with it.
In my case, I did try to pull myself through it, albeit with the assistance of a small army of therapists, counsellors and even consultant psychiatrists - oh, and anti-depressant drugs that at one stage left me unable to do anything other than lie down in a darkened room.
Is Suarez ill? I have no idea. Maybe he is just that way inclined, although how you would expect to get away with biting an opponent before TV cameras on a worldwide stage seems a little far fetched.
I'll bet those at Liverpool football club woke up today thinking, "Oh, hell. Here we go again!"
Do they sack their prize financial asset, do they discipline him; what do they do?
I just hope beyond hope that the powers that be will say, okay, this has gone far enough. Why does he do these things, is there something wrong, is there any way we can make things better so it doesn't happen again?
I am as aware as anyone that in Britain psychiatry is regarded somewhere below quack 'medicine' like homeopathy and we are quick to condemn someone who should 'snap out of it' when they are 'low' or even mad.
If Suarez is not ill, if Suarez is just a nasty piece of work, then throw him out of football and leave it at that.
But what if there is some illness running through him?
Yes, he needs to be punished - he's bitten someone, again - but maybe he needs to be cured too?
I doubt that my opinion will influence Blatter's FIFA but on the face of it Suarez is guilty as charged.
He was probably wound right up up the Italians but that doesn't give him the right to take a bite out of a fellow player.
He's got history. Is it three bites and out?
I'm uncomfortable about the mental health aspects. if there are any.
I've listened to the radio phone-ins and seen the 'hilarious' jokes on Facebook and Twitter and there are those who say Suarez may have mental health issues, some who say that he may have mental health issues but that's irrelevant and others who say he just bites people, that's just the way he is. Ban him for life.
I have no idea whether Suarez has mental health issues but I have had them for a lifetime and I know from personal experience and from the experiences of others that it makes you do some pretty odd things, with some it makes you do some pretty bad things.
Some people I knew harmed themselves, some harmed others. A few killed themselves too, all misunderstood, slipping below the radar.
When I was at my lowest, sickest ebb, I didn't make the best decisions, I didn't do things that I was proud of, I got a lot of things wrong.
As a distant outsider, I know two things: Luis Suarez is one of the greatest footballers on earth. At the moment, he is up there with Ronaldo and Messi. The second is that he is flawed, deeply flawed, and before we pronounce him guilty and condemn him to a severe punishment can we not just ask why?
Even in these so-called enlightened times, mental health remains the great taboo. People don't like to talk about it, many who have never suffered from it think we should just pull ourselves together and get on with it.
In my case, I did try to pull myself through it, albeit with the assistance of a small army of therapists, counsellors and even consultant psychiatrists - oh, and anti-depressant drugs that at one stage left me unable to do anything other than lie down in a darkened room.
Is Suarez ill? I have no idea. Maybe he is just that way inclined, although how you would expect to get away with biting an opponent before TV cameras on a worldwide stage seems a little far fetched.
I'll bet those at Liverpool football club woke up today thinking, "Oh, hell. Here we go again!"
Do they sack their prize financial asset, do they discipline him; what do they do?
I just hope beyond hope that the powers that be will say, okay, this has gone far enough. Why does he do these things, is there something wrong, is there any way we can make things better so it doesn't happen again?
I am as aware as anyone that in Britain psychiatry is regarded somewhere below quack 'medicine' like homeopathy and we are quick to condemn someone who should 'snap out of it' when they are 'low' or even mad.
If Suarez is not ill, if Suarez is just a nasty piece of work, then throw him out of football and leave it at that.
But what if there is some illness running through him?
Yes, he needs to be punished - he's bitten someone, again - but maybe he needs to be cured too?
Tuesday 24 June 2014
Hodgson not out
So who watched the England v Costa Rica bore draw tonight in the World Cup and felt like I did?
Since we lost to the fatally flawed, it seems, genius of Suarez (Uruguay were nothing special), I have felt ever so slightly spaced-out. Our early exit, which I had been expecting, still left me in slight shock.
So I sat down to watch the final irrelevant chapter in our World Cup short story in a state of near apathy and disdain.
A game was going on but it didn't seem to have anything that was relevant to me.
I am not bothered about the result tonight or even the performance. How on earth could anyone expect this notch-potch of a 'team', selected by a man who must be in serious shock, as opposed to my far less serious shock, to suddenly 'gel' and play like world beaters? Never going to happen.
We did learn a few things, or maybe we just remembered them?
Smalling is not an international footballer, Lampard used to be a very good one. Shaw looks a great prospect, Milner works hard. And Sturridge is as good as we have as a striker but a Messi, a Moller, a Neymar, a Suarez he ain't. Give the man four or five chances and he is capable of missing the lot.
I could go on. Maybe I will.
I am at a loss why Roy Hodgson picked a team like that. He's an experienced man, a top coach and he has a vision of how football should look like. But tonight he goes and makes so many changes, the team are literally strangers to each other. And boy, did it look like it!
Whatever Roy said, that was a selection born of sentiment and experiment.
The selection of Lampard was a nice way to say farewell to a declining but very underrated player, as was the late substitution of Gerrard to play where Hodgson himself declared, on the basis of his previous selections, incapable of playing.
Rooney, the media and public hate figure, I could almost understand coming on late on, but I would have understood it more if he had started.
So where do I stand on Roy Hodgson and who cares?
Yesterday, when all my troubles seemed so far away, I was four square behind him, but tonight I am wondering why.
Odd selections, tactics that left me baffled and looked like they baffled our team too and a game plan that didn't look like any kind of plan at all.
What a mess.
Hodgson's appointment surprised many people who expected 'Arry to get the job. The people's choice, as The Sun might have it.
'Arry would never more than a sticking plaster appointment, one to to lift those who feel her is as great a manager as he thinks he is, but there would be no vision beneath the national team to address the mess that's underneath it.
Whatever Hodgson got wrong - and I think he got a lot wrong - he still knows more than me about football by quite a lot.
I'm not sure how much Hodgson messed up and how much the players messed up. But they did and it was quite a lot.
It's been a great World Cup so far and we've seen the best (Suarez) and the worst (Suarez).
Somewhere between the best and the worst, and much nearer the latter than the former, there's us.
Hodgson in, but I am no longer sure why.
Since we lost to the fatally flawed, it seems, genius of Suarez (Uruguay were nothing special), I have felt ever so slightly spaced-out. Our early exit, which I had been expecting, still left me in slight shock.
So I sat down to watch the final irrelevant chapter in our World Cup short story in a state of near apathy and disdain.
A game was going on but it didn't seem to have anything that was relevant to me.
I am not bothered about the result tonight or even the performance. How on earth could anyone expect this notch-potch of a 'team', selected by a man who must be in serious shock, as opposed to my far less serious shock, to suddenly 'gel' and play like world beaters? Never going to happen.
We did learn a few things, or maybe we just remembered them?
Smalling is not an international footballer, Lampard used to be a very good one. Shaw looks a great prospect, Milner works hard. And Sturridge is as good as we have as a striker but a Messi, a Moller, a Neymar, a Suarez he ain't. Give the man four or five chances and he is capable of missing the lot.
I could go on. Maybe I will.
I am at a loss why Roy Hodgson picked a team like that. He's an experienced man, a top coach and he has a vision of how football should look like. But tonight he goes and makes so many changes, the team are literally strangers to each other. And boy, did it look like it!
Whatever Roy said, that was a selection born of sentiment and experiment.
The selection of Lampard was a nice way to say farewell to a declining but very underrated player, as was the late substitution of Gerrard to play where Hodgson himself declared, on the basis of his previous selections, incapable of playing.
Rooney, the media and public hate figure, I could almost understand coming on late on, but I would have understood it more if he had started.
So where do I stand on Roy Hodgson and who cares?
Yesterday, when all my troubles seemed so far away, I was four square behind him, but tonight I am wondering why.
Odd selections, tactics that left me baffled and looked like they baffled our team too and a game plan that didn't look like any kind of plan at all.
What a mess.
Hodgson's appointment surprised many people who expected 'Arry to get the job. The people's choice, as The Sun might have it.
'Arry would never more than a sticking plaster appointment, one to to lift those who feel her is as great a manager as he thinks he is, but there would be no vision beneath the national team to address the mess that's underneath it.
Whatever Hodgson got wrong - and I think he got a lot wrong - he still knows more than me about football by quite a lot.
I'm not sure how much Hodgson messed up and how much the players messed up. But they did and it was quite a lot.
It's been a great World Cup so far and we've seen the best (Suarez) and the worst (Suarez).
Somewhere between the best and the worst, and much nearer the latter than the former, there's us.
Hodgson in, but I am no longer sure why.
Saturday 21 June 2014
It's Wayne Rooney's fault.
'England crash out of the World Cup.'
That's as original a headline as 'Bear shits in woods' or 'Pope a catholic shocker.'
What I am always surprised about is why we are always surprised.
I was a less than average, bordering on crap, footballer, trundling my way through 25 years of parks football. From the touchline, I could pick a pass, spot a run, but in the middle of the action, I couldn't trap a bag of cement.
I wasn't alone. Even the better teams were based on pace, power and tackling. Smaller players were ignored because, well, they were smaller.
When I had children of my own, they both played football and I soon learned why English football was so bad.
My oldest son, happily, was coached and managed by proper football men who could see beyond winning (although I am not going to pretend they didn't want to win). They developed boys, it was not win at all costs. But these coaches were the exceptions.
Most of the rest did want to win at all costs, playing 'ringers' from academies, roared on by passionate, pushy and occasionally abusive parents. It was a chilling insight.
And the facilities? Often the boys played, in 11 a side football at age 11, on a full sized municipal mud bath. Mostly, they arrived in their kit and left in it, sitting on blankets in their parents cars. At many places, games were delayed by the need to remove cans, glass and, of course, dog shit.
In fact, in the many games my sons played over a decade, you could count on the fingers of two hands how many times they were able to use a changing room.
As the national team blunders from one tournament defeat to another, so youth football flounders the same.
In 1992, we squirmed as Carlton Palmer miscontrolled his way through the European Championships but Palmer became the template for the young players we were developing.
Strong, powerful, able to get up and down the pitch all day (a good engine, they call it) and crucially able to boot the ball a long way. I have seen scores of players like that but hardly ever a Jack Wilshere-type player.
Whilst the Premier League was trousering billions of pounds and lining the pockets of mostly foreign players, the parents of the players of our future were forking out their own kind of fortune to let them be coached by some of the players' dads.
Youth football and below is a mess.
I am not a huge fan of Jose Mourinho, but he got one thing bang on when he said, "In England they teach children to win. In Spain, they teach them to play football."
Winning comes naturally and I strongly believe the competitive instinct, which is not the same with everyone, will evolve naturally, where it exists.
No more do we want the coach to berate the small boy who has dribbled too far and lost the ball. No. The coach should be telling him to try again. But I have even seen coaches substitute boys of 10 and 11 for not 'getting rid of it.'
I have seen youth football abroad, especially in the Netherlands, and it's a different world.
The pitches are smaller, the teams are smaller, the skills are better, the parents are silent and if they say anything, anything at all, they are sent away.
I am not convinced there is any desire in our country to change things because the emphasis is always on the Premier League, particularly now we have exited the tournament.
I think we'll be back here again in two years time and literally nothing will have changed.
And it will still all be Wayne Rooney's fault.
Thursday 19 June 2014
We're shit and maybe we might realise we are now.
And so endeth another World Cup for England.
I know that mathematically we can still qualify for the last 16 but I am not sure we really deserve it. And I am not sure I want it either.
I thought we were poor tonight, especially in the first half. We could have been a few goals down by the break instead of just the one, scored by the greatest player on earth.
I thought Uruguay were nothing special but they had one high class player, Cavani, and one truly world class player, Suarez.
The positives for us? I'm struggling now.
Tin hat at the ready, I thought Rooney was our best player by absolutely miles. He wanted the ball all night, tried to beat people all night and his desire got him the goal he deserved.
Hart was blameless for the goals and was forced to make a messy (not Messi) save from a bleeding corner.
But the rest?
I am a huge admirer of Johnson but only when he has a Milner in front of him, which he didn't tonight. At least he wanted it enough to create Rooney's goal.
Jagielka, for all his qualities, is not an international centre half and neither is Cahill, unless he has Terry next to him.
And Baines? Much better when Hodgson sent him forward but Ashley Cole he ain't.
Sterling showed none of the free-flowing brilliance he can produce and looked trapped within the system, as did Henderson who worked hard to little effect.
But Stevie G, oh dear.
My admiration for him knows no bounds but it looks as if his slip against Chelsea was a symptom of what was to come, that moment when the legs go and they don't come back again.
For all his prompting, his brilliant captaincy when we started panicking at 1-1 and his intelligent passing, a world class holding midfield player he ain't.
The Gerrard of a few years ago, when he carried the Liverpool team on his back, nearly was world class but he's a million miles away from that.
Rooney? I don't think he's world class, like a Suarez, a Messi or a Ronaldo, but he's as good as we have and he showed it tonight.
And Sturridge? He got the ball in all the wrong areas. I think he is about 75% of the finished article and if he really wants it, he could just make it.
Did Roy fuck up? Maybe, maybe not.
We all have our own favourite players, our favourite formations, our favourite tactics.
I was calling for Wilshere for most of the game because he keeps the ball and he dribbles. He's intelligent and he makes things happen.
And lots wanted Lambert but for all the wrong reasons - lump the ball, give him some headers, get some crosses in. He's better than that but even Rickie can't shit miracles in ten minutes.
I'd rather we were out tonight instead of relying on other teams and then on us beating Costa Fucking Rica.
It drags out the misery before we lose again.
Will Hodgson be sacked? Who knows? Doubtless his paymasters at The Sun will be touting 'Arry once again as being the man who can make things happen.
In many ways I wish we were out because I could then get on with enjoying the rest of the World Cup.
The truth is that we are not good enough. The truth is we are hearing about yet another golden generation which is breaking through but who is to say that they will be any better than the last lot?
They won't come from the top clubs like Chelsea, Man City or Arsenal from the top four in the Premier League who tonight gave us Joe Hart and Gary Cahill and fuck all else.
But never mind.
The Premier League starts soon and we can enjoy 'The Greatest League In The World' all over again.
We really are shit though and it wasn't just the sheer greatness of Luis Suarez who proved it tonight.
I know that mathematically we can still qualify for the last 16 but I am not sure we really deserve it. And I am not sure I want it either.
I thought we were poor tonight, especially in the first half. We could have been a few goals down by the break instead of just the one, scored by the greatest player on earth.
I thought Uruguay were nothing special but they had one high class player, Cavani, and one truly world class player, Suarez.
The positives for us? I'm struggling now.
Tin hat at the ready, I thought Rooney was our best player by absolutely miles. He wanted the ball all night, tried to beat people all night and his desire got him the goal he deserved.
Hart was blameless for the goals and was forced to make a messy (not Messi) save from a bleeding corner.
But the rest?
I am a huge admirer of Johnson but only when he has a Milner in front of him, which he didn't tonight. At least he wanted it enough to create Rooney's goal.
Jagielka, for all his qualities, is not an international centre half and neither is Cahill, unless he has Terry next to him.
And Baines? Much better when Hodgson sent him forward but Ashley Cole he ain't.
Sterling showed none of the free-flowing brilliance he can produce and looked trapped within the system, as did Henderson who worked hard to little effect.
But Stevie G, oh dear.
My admiration for him knows no bounds but it looks as if his slip against Chelsea was a symptom of what was to come, that moment when the legs go and they don't come back again.
For all his prompting, his brilliant captaincy when we started panicking at 1-1 and his intelligent passing, a world class holding midfield player he ain't.
The Gerrard of a few years ago, when he carried the Liverpool team on his back, nearly was world class but he's a million miles away from that.
Rooney? I don't think he's world class, like a Suarez, a Messi or a Ronaldo, but he's as good as we have and he showed it tonight.
And Sturridge? He got the ball in all the wrong areas. I think he is about 75% of the finished article and if he really wants it, he could just make it.
Did Roy fuck up? Maybe, maybe not.
We all have our own favourite players, our favourite formations, our favourite tactics.
I was calling for Wilshere for most of the game because he keeps the ball and he dribbles. He's intelligent and he makes things happen.
And lots wanted Lambert but for all the wrong reasons - lump the ball, give him some headers, get some crosses in. He's better than that but even Rickie can't shit miracles in ten minutes.
I'd rather we were out tonight instead of relying on other teams and then on us beating Costa Fucking Rica.
It drags out the misery before we lose again.
Will Hodgson be sacked? Who knows? Doubtless his paymasters at The Sun will be touting 'Arry once again as being the man who can make things happen.
In many ways I wish we were out because I could then get on with enjoying the rest of the World Cup.
The truth is that we are not good enough. The truth is we are hearing about yet another golden generation which is breaking through but who is to say that they will be any better than the last lot?
They won't come from the top clubs like Chelsea, Man City or Arsenal from the top four in the Premier League who tonight gave us Joe Hart and Gary Cahill and fuck all else.
But never mind.
The Premier League starts soon and we can enjoy 'The Greatest League In The World' all over again.
We really are shit though and it wasn't just the sheer greatness of Luis Suarez who proved it tonight.
My dad and Joni Mitchell.
It was the legendary songstress Joni Mitchell who sang the words, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone" and how right she was.
By the way, Joni and I have never met although I am good friends with one of her ex boyfriend's drummers. And I have met this particular boyfriend, Graham Nash, on two occasions, once backstage at the Royal Albert Hall. (Remind me to tell you about it sometime.)
Anyway, I digress.
I don't think I appreciated my dad properly until he had died.
He lived in Canada and our relationship consisted of letters (ask your parents, kids) and phone calls.
As he got older and as I got older (there's a coincidence), we became a bit closer and in 2004 when I was fortunate to attend his 75th birthday party in Ottawa we got to know each other a whole lot better.
Having missed out on having a conventional father - you know, one who comes home from work, usually in a bad mood and shouts at everyone about the mess they have left - yes, me - the fact that my dad actually did exist albeit thousands of miles away sat awkwardly with me and there were times when I pretended he didn't exist at all.
Five years later and I was in Ottawa again for his 80th birthday.
He had definitely aged in those five years but he was healthy enough and I imagined that in 2014 I'd probably be back for his 85th.
It did not occur to me when I flew home in the big Air Canada jet in 2009 that I would never see him again but by the end of the following year he became seriously ill and on February 28th 2011 he died.
I didn't cry when I heard the news because I had kind of expected something like this might happen due to the nature of his illness and I prepared to fly over for the celebration of his life (funerals were not for him).
I think my mindset when I caught the bus to Heathrow Airport was that this would be the same as my previous visits and I hadn't really reckoned with the fact that he might not be there.
I checked in and the woman asked me the purpose of my trip. And that's when I started crying, uncontrollably, startlingly.
I recovered my senses in the departures lounge with a few beers but when the flight was called my emotions overcame me again and I spluttered to the Air Canada person whether it would be possible for me to sit alone. Luckily, there was a seat away from other people and soon I engrossed myself in the flight, in the movies, in the music and industrial quantities of red wine.
Why did I cry? I worked out quite quickly that I had not prepared myself. I had not realised what was coming next and how it might affect me and when I was unprepared - bang!
I had blamed my father for years for my lifetime of struggle with mental illness. I couldn't think of another reason for the bouts of debilitating depression and terrifying anxiety that barged into my life from time to time. It had to be the absence of a father figure.
Maybe it was, but my subsequent plunge into more depression this time brought about proper psychotherapy and not just counselling.
Without boring you too much, dear reader, my dad played very little, if any part of my problems. It wasn't his fault.
I had not just blamed him, I had blamed him for years. I never told him, especially as he got older - why mess up someone else's life? - and I glad I didn't.
Although of course I knew he had died, it was when I set foot in Ottawa airport when the realisation was final because he wasn't there. (This probably sounds ridiculous: I guess you had to be there and be me.)
And what I no longer had was my dad or, in fact, any relatives who were older than me. No longer was I the junior of the family, I was the senior albeit with the mindset of a junior.
I discovered late on that I was much closer to my dad than I realised and that he loved me much more than I realised.
This was partly down to my habit of mind reading - something I discovered through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), where I would make assumptions on what I thought other people thought about me. It was just the way he was.
Most of us lose our parents and we assume their positions in the pecking order.
I miss being one of the younger people in the family and yet there is something magical about being the oldest, if not the wisest, person remaining.
There's a lot of responsibility that goes with your status as the older one which sits uneasily with my lifetime of irresponsibility but you get used to it or you die.
I wish I'd known then what I know about my dad and I wish I had treasured his life and company a little more but I got some good years and great times out of it and when he died we had never been closer.
Anthony Johansen - the obituary.
By the way, Joni and I have never met although I am good friends with one of her ex boyfriend's drummers. And I have met this particular boyfriend, Graham Nash, on two occasions, once backstage at the Royal Albert Hall. (Remind me to tell you about it sometime.)
Anyway, I digress.
I don't think I appreciated my dad properly until he had died.
He lived in Canada and our relationship consisted of letters (ask your parents, kids) and phone calls.
As he got older and as I got older (there's a coincidence), we became a bit closer and in 2004 when I was fortunate to attend his 75th birthday party in Ottawa we got to know each other a whole lot better.
Having missed out on having a conventional father - you know, one who comes home from work, usually in a bad mood and shouts at everyone about the mess they have left - yes, me - the fact that my dad actually did exist albeit thousands of miles away sat awkwardly with me and there were times when I pretended he didn't exist at all.
Five years later and I was in Ottawa again for his 80th birthday.
He had definitely aged in those five years but he was healthy enough and I imagined that in 2014 I'd probably be back for his 85th.
It did not occur to me when I flew home in the big Air Canada jet in 2009 that I would never see him again but by the end of the following year he became seriously ill and on February 28th 2011 he died.
I didn't cry when I heard the news because I had kind of expected something like this might happen due to the nature of his illness and I prepared to fly over for the celebration of his life (funerals were not for him).
I think my mindset when I caught the bus to Heathrow Airport was that this would be the same as my previous visits and I hadn't really reckoned with the fact that he might not be there.
I checked in and the woman asked me the purpose of my trip. And that's when I started crying, uncontrollably, startlingly.
I recovered my senses in the departures lounge with a few beers but when the flight was called my emotions overcame me again and I spluttered to the Air Canada person whether it would be possible for me to sit alone. Luckily, there was a seat away from other people and soon I engrossed myself in the flight, in the movies, in the music and industrial quantities of red wine.
Why did I cry? I worked out quite quickly that I had not prepared myself. I had not realised what was coming next and how it might affect me and when I was unprepared - bang!
I had blamed my father for years for my lifetime of struggle with mental illness. I couldn't think of another reason for the bouts of debilitating depression and terrifying anxiety that barged into my life from time to time. It had to be the absence of a father figure.
Maybe it was, but my subsequent plunge into more depression this time brought about proper psychotherapy and not just counselling.
Without boring you too much, dear reader, my dad played very little, if any part of my problems. It wasn't his fault.
I had not just blamed him, I had blamed him for years. I never told him, especially as he got older - why mess up someone else's life? - and I glad I didn't.
Although of course I knew he had died, it was when I set foot in Ottawa airport when the realisation was final because he wasn't there. (This probably sounds ridiculous: I guess you had to be there and be me.)
And what I no longer had was my dad or, in fact, any relatives who were older than me. No longer was I the junior of the family, I was the senior albeit with the mindset of a junior.
I discovered late on that I was much closer to my dad than I realised and that he loved me much more than I realised.
This was partly down to my habit of mind reading - something I discovered through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), where I would make assumptions on what I thought other people thought about me. It was just the way he was.
Most of us lose our parents and we assume their positions in the pecking order.
I miss being one of the younger people in the family and yet there is something magical about being the oldest, if not the wisest, person remaining.
There's a lot of responsibility that goes with your status as the older one which sits uneasily with my lifetime of irresponsibility but you get used to it or you die.
I wish I'd known then what I know about my dad and I wish I had treasured his life and company a little more but I got some good years and great times out of it and when he died we had never been closer.
Anthony Johansen - the obituary.
Wednesday 18 June 2014
A good walk not spoiled.
Another day and another round of golf on the Thornbury Par 3 course.
It's a kind of mini proper course. Much shorter than a full length course but littered with bunkers, long grass and trees to get in the way of someone, like me, who isn't necessarily the straightest of hitters.
I met a very nice man called Frank yesterday. We played a few holes together and had a good natter, as you do.
Frank made my day when he said that the club ran a 'roll up' coaching session, "but only for the over fifties, so it would probably be of no interest to you!"
I had to admit that I had seen fifty some years ago and when I got home, a brief look in the mirror confirmed my fears. But then I have had my eyes 'lasered' so I probably see things he doesn't.
I played rubbish yesterday, down in part to the fact I played behind the 'Par 3 club' which must meet every Tuesday morning. There were loads of them and they went out slowly and got even slower.
Of course, golf is good exercise, especially if you appear to be approaching death's door, but my god it got very boring.
And as it got more boring, my concentration started to wander and my golf deteriorated.
On day, probably very soon, I shall be playing as slowly as the 70 somethings and I will drive everyone else mad.
Today, in contrast, there was hardly anyone out there until I caught up with what we golfers call a group of old codgers. Nine holes had passed in rapid time but now I was slowing down again as the men in front adjusted their pacemakers and stumbled around on their zimmers. (I may have made this bit up.)
And two hours later I was on my way home, sweating profusely after making a schoolboy error as to which clothes to wear. I settled on a rugby (league) shirt and thick three-quarters due to the absence of the sun and naturally as soon as I reached the first tee it came out and it stayed out.
"Don't you get bored playing the same course over and over again, day by day?" people say to me and the answer is always no, I went to work for over 39 years and for most of that time I wanted to be somewhere else and everyday now I am somewhere else.
It's a kind of mini proper course. Much shorter than a full length course but littered with bunkers, long grass and trees to get in the way of someone, like me, who isn't necessarily the straightest of hitters.
I met a very nice man called Frank yesterday. We played a few holes together and had a good natter, as you do.
Frank made my day when he said that the club ran a 'roll up' coaching session, "but only for the over fifties, so it would probably be of no interest to you!"
I had to admit that I had seen fifty some years ago and when I got home, a brief look in the mirror confirmed my fears. But then I have had my eyes 'lasered' so I probably see things he doesn't.
I played rubbish yesterday, down in part to the fact I played behind the 'Par 3 club' which must meet every Tuesday morning. There were loads of them and they went out slowly and got even slower.
Of course, golf is good exercise, especially if you appear to be approaching death's door, but my god it got very boring.
And as it got more boring, my concentration started to wander and my golf deteriorated.
On day, probably very soon, I shall be playing as slowly as the 70 somethings and I will drive everyone else mad.
Today, in contrast, there was hardly anyone out there until I caught up with what we golfers call a group of old codgers. Nine holes had passed in rapid time but now I was slowing down again as the men in front adjusted their pacemakers and stumbled around on their zimmers. (I may have made this bit up.)
And two hours later I was on my way home, sweating profusely after making a schoolboy error as to which clothes to wear. I settled on a rugby (league) shirt and thick three-quarters due to the absence of the sun and naturally as soon as I reached the first tee it came out and it stayed out.
"Don't you get bored playing the same course over and over again, day by day?" people say to me and the answer is always no, I went to work for over 39 years and for most of that time I wanted to be somewhere else and everyday now I am somewhere else.
Thursday 12 June 2014
It's hot but not that hot.
As you may have gathered, there are many things that irritate me.
Tattoos, the X Factor and personalised number plates to name but three. More about them in weeks to come, but today's irritation is people who go on holiday and pretend that it's warmer than it really is.
Some friends of ours went to Ibiza a few years ago. They experienced a heatwave which was not reported in the newspapers. The shade temperature, every single day, was up around 47c.
Now that's Death Valley hot, stay in the apartment all day with the air conditioning on hot, it's call the doctor I have heat stroke hot.
But no, it was 47c in the shade and they spent every day by the pool. Everyone else was suitably impressed.
I simply didn't believe them so I looked at a few weather websites.
And I was right: the hottest day that month saw temperatures of 29c.
Now 29c is still hot, very hot when you consider right now we are frying under shade temperatures in the high teens, low twenties but for some reason it's not regarded as being hot enough to report on.
I am a member of another Facebook group and today people were reporting that in a certain Greek island which I shall not name (Corfu) that by 9.00 am the shade temperature had already reached 29c. Phew what a scorcher.
Astonishingly, four hours later and the temperature, as measured by Corfu airport was, er, still 29c!
I suspect the temperature reports emanate from the bloke who collects money for sun beds on the beach, or a bar owner who is keen to sell you more beer. But it's rubbish.
Once, we really did arrive in Corfu to 42c, or so the BBC was saying, and it was insanely, awfully hot. It lasted one day until the temperatures plunged to a more manageable - but still steaming - 29c.
I didn't feel the need to tell everyone because hot is hot, especially when you come from England which is generally not hot, but why folk feel the need to convince us, and maybe themselves, that it's hotter than it really is I find very odd.
Tattoos, the X Factor and personalised number plates to name but three. More about them in weeks to come, but today's irritation is people who go on holiday and pretend that it's warmer than it really is.
Some friends of ours went to Ibiza a few years ago. They experienced a heatwave which was not reported in the newspapers. The shade temperature, every single day, was up around 47c.
Now that's Death Valley hot, stay in the apartment all day with the air conditioning on hot, it's call the doctor I have heat stroke hot.
But no, it was 47c in the shade and they spent every day by the pool. Everyone else was suitably impressed.
I simply didn't believe them so I looked at a few weather websites.
And I was right: the hottest day that month saw temperatures of 29c.
Now 29c is still hot, very hot when you consider right now we are frying under shade temperatures in the high teens, low twenties but for some reason it's not regarded as being hot enough to report on.
I am a member of another Facebook group and today people were reporting that in a certain Greek island which I shall not name (Corfu) that by 9.00 am the shade temperature had already reached 29c. Phew what a scorcher.
Astonishingly, four hours later and the temperature, as measured by Corfu airport was, er, still 29c!
I suspect the temperature reports emanate from the bloke who collects money for sun beds on the beach, or a bar owner who is keen to sell you more beer. But it's rubbish.
Once, we really did arrive in Corfu to 42c, or so the BBC was saying, and it was insanely, awfully hot. It lasted one day until the temperatures plunged to a more manageable - but still steaming - 29c.
I didn't feel the need to tell everyone because hot is hot, especially when you come from England which is generally not hot, but why folk feel the need to convince us, and maybe themselves, that it's hotter than it really is I find very odd.
Tuesday 10 June 2014
'Faith' schools
And now the news headlines:
BONG! Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram have kidnapped more people!
BONG! Militants attack Karachi airport.
BONG! Cameron supports calls for 'British values' in schools.
BONG! More militants seize Iraq's third biggest city.
BONG! Five US troops killed in Afghanistan.
There was an 'and finally' story on BBC Radio Five Live - the continued reaction to the death of the brilliant Rik Mayall - but it was mainly stories about islam and bad news stories at that.
And we're used to stories about the religion of peace, aren't we?
To be fair, it's not always about islam. Sometimes there are horror stories about catholic priests abusing boys and sikhs kicking off in Birmingham about a play they don't like. And now and again, a bomb goes off in Northern Ireland, or someone is shot, usually in the name of god.
Where does it all start? Well, it starts at home and it carries on at school.
Have you noticed how almost all children who believe in god have the same religion as their parents? I think it would be an incredible coincidence if a child grew up in, say, a catholic family but chose the Church of Latter Day Saints as their religion of choice.
In fact, there is no such thing as a jewish child, a christian child or a muslim child, only children of jews, christians and muslims. You do not have monetarist children or anarcho-synidicalist children either.
We have lots of 'faith' schools too where parents send their children, presumably in order to firm up their religious beliefs (although a lot of people do pretend to be catholics in order to get places in top schools. I wonder what god would think of that, in the unlikely event he exists at all?).
For decades, we've stood by and seen more and more schools run by religious folk, even at a time when attendance in churches is plunging. It's a good way of getting the numbers back up.
The islamic schools are now concentrating our minds, especially with the 'Trojan horse' episode in Birmingham, but you either have religious schools or you don't.
In my world, you wouldn't have any 'faith' schools at all.
Sure you learn about religion in history lessons because even if none of it is true it has been a part of our existence. But school is not about, or rather should not be about, proselytising.
For too long we have turned a blind eye to 'faith' schools, on the
grounds, presumably that they were A Good Thing. But now others from less 'traditional' religions want their 'faith' schools too, paid for like all the other 'faith' schools by you and me.
I don't believe there is a politician in the land with the courage to say they will make all schools secular so we will continue the relentless drive towards separation and religious differences which haven't exactly fared to well in much of the rest of the world.
BONG! Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram have kidnapped more people!
BONG! Militants attack Karachi airport.
BONG! Cameron supports calls for 'British values' in schools.
BONG! More militants seize Iraq's third biggest city.
BONG! Five US troops killed in Afghanistan.
There was an 'and finally' story on BBC Radio Five Live - the continued reaction to the death of the brilliant Rik Mayall - but it was mainly stories about islam and bad news stories at that.
And we're used to stories about the religion of peace, aren't we?
To be fair, it's not always about islam. Sometimes there are horror stories about catholic priests abusing boys and sikhs kicking off in Birmingham about a play they don't like. And now and again, a bomb goes off in Northern Ireland, or someone is shot, usually in the name of god.
Where does it all start? Well, it starts at home and it carries on at school.
Have you noticed how almost all children who believe in god have the same religion as their parents? I think it would be an incredible coincidence if a child grew up in, say, a catholic family but chose the Church of Latter Day Saints as their religion of choice.
In fact, there is no such thing as a jewish child, a christian child or a muslim child, only children of jews, christians and muslims. You do not have monetarist children or anarcho-synidicalist children either.
We have lots of 'faith' schools too where parents send their children, presumably in order to firm up their religious beliefs (although a lot of people do pretend to be catholics in order to get places in top schools. I wonder what god would think of that, in the unlikely event he exists at all?).
For decades, we've stood by and seen more and more schools run by religious folk, even at a time when attendance in churches is plunging. It's a good way of getting the numbers back up.
The islamic schools are now concentrating our minds, especially with the 'Trojan horse' episode in Birmingham, but you either have religious schools or you don't.
In my world, you wouldn't have any 'faith' schools at all.
Sure you learn about religion in history lessons because even if none of it is true it has been a part of our existence. But school is not about, or rather should not be about, proselytising.
For too long we have turned a blind eye to 'faith' schools, on the
grounds, presumably that they were A Good Thing. But now others from less 'traditional' religions want their 'faith' schools too, paid for like all the other 'faith' schools by you and me.
I don't believe there is a politician in the land with the courage to say they will make all schools secular so we will continue the relentless drive towards separation and religious differences which haven't exactly fared to well in much of the rest of the world.
Monday 9 June 2014
Rik Mayall
My god - Rik Mayall has died. How sad is that?
For me, the man was a proper legend, appearing in two of the truly great TV shows of all time: The Young Ones and Blackadder. (I exempt the New Statesman, and his character Alan B'Stard, because, frankly, I didn't think it was all that good.)
But The Young Ones was all that good. It was cutting edge, it was cringeworthy, it was very original, it was crude, it was crass, it was brilliant and above all it was very funny and it was a show that everyone talked about the next day.
It changed the perameters of TV comedy in an era where Terry and June ruled the airwaves and safe middle class sitcoms was where comedy was at, provided you had your brain removed.
Rik, Vyvyan, Neil and Mike changed everything.
It was a career defining role for Mayall and now he has gone at the absurdly young age of 56 it will undoubtedly be the one for which he will be remembered.
There will never be another Young Ones but we should be grateful for the one we had.
RIP Rik.
For me, the man was a proper legend, appearing in two of the truly great TV shows of all time: The Young Ones and Blackadder. (I exempt the New Statesman, and his character Alan B'Stard, because, frankly, I didn't think it was all that good.)
But The Young Ones was all that good. It was cutting edge, it was cringeworthy, it was very original, it was crude, it was crass, it was brilliant and above all it was very funny and it was a show that everyone talked about the next day.
It changed the perameters of TV comedy in an era where Terry and June ruled the airwaves and safe middle class sitcoms was where comedy was at, provided you had your brain removed.
Rik, Vyvyan, Neil and Mike changed everything.
It was a career defining role for Mayall and now he has gone at the absurdly young age of 56 it will undoubtedly be the one for which he will be remembered.
There will never be another Young Ones but we should be grateful for the one we had.
RIP Rik.
Sunday 8 June 2014
It don't matter if you're gay or straight.
I'm a day late in commemorating his death, I know, but it was 60 years ago yesterday that Alan Turing died.
Does the name ring a bell? It should: he was the great codebreaker from World War 2, a national hero.
Oh, and he was gay.
The last bit is the least important to many of us these days but it wasn't in the 1950s when Turing was prosecuted for homosexuality (I am not making this up) and later chemically castrated. And in 1954, aged 41, he killed himself.
I can only imagine what it must have been like in those days. What with all these black people arriving from the West Indies, taking jobs over here in the NHS and keeping our transport system running, you can't imagine someone like Nigel Farage looking back to a golden period in British history.
Unless you are a complete lunatic, or a member of the US Tea Party (probably the same thing), you probably know that you cannot cure homosexuality anymore than you can cure heterosexuality.
It might be that your religious superstition leads you to believe that homsexuality is somehow unnatural, but then I might say that belief in a supernatural creator on the basis of some stories written in times when almost everyone was illiterate and uneducated was even more absurd.
My mum taught me very early on what a gay person was like.
She had a hairdresser called John who called by at the house. He had a partner who happened to be another man and it didn't even occur to me that there might be anything unusual about it. My mum just explained it, all matter-of-factly, that people weren't all the same.
So I was lucky.
But others weren't, and still aren't, so understanding.
Bigotry still remains in all kinds of ways.
I have little time for David Cameron or George Osborne who are obnoxious posh boys who feel they are born to rule and thanks to the half-witted Liberals they're being given a chance to, but on the issue of homosexuality they've shown unusually liberal values.
Osborne spoke out for Turing and Cameron supported equal marriage, brave moves in the Nasty (Conservative) Party in which family values usually mean straight heterosexual values within marriage.
So it's a small step forward in a world where many people fear 'coming out' as gay.
Hopefully, in 100 years no one will feel the need to come out because no one will care whether anyone is gay or straight. The question won't matter.
It matters today, in politics, in sport and in public life even though it shouldn't.
So when you celebrate the brief life of Alan Turing, just think of him as a British hero. His sexuality was none of our business.
Does the name ring a bell? It should: he was the great codebreaker from World War 2, a national hero.
Oh, and he was gay.
The last bit is the least important to many of us these days but it wasn't in the 1950s when Turing was prosecuted for homosexuality (I am not making this up) and later chemically castrated. And in 1954, aged 41, he killed himself.
I can only imagine what it must have been like in those days. What with all these black people arriving from the West Indies, taking jobs over here in the NHS and keeping our transport system running, you can't imagine someone like Nigel Farage looking back to a golden period in British history.
Unless you are a complete lunatic, or a member of the US Tea Party (probably the same thing), you probably know that you cannot cure homosexuality anymore than you can cure heterosexuality.
It might be that your religious superstition leads you to believe that homsexuality is somehow unnatural, but then I might say that belief in a supernatural creator on the basis of some stories written in times when almost everyone was illiterate and uneducated was even more absurd.
My mum taught me very early on what a gay person was like.
She had a hairdresser called John who called by at the house. He had a partner who happened to be another man and it didn't even occur to me that there might be anything unusual about it. My mum just explained it, all matter-of-factly, that people weren't all the same.
So I was lucky.
But others weren't, and still aren't, so understanding.
Bigotry still remains in all kinds of ways.
I have little time for David Cameron or George Osborne who are obnoxious posh boys who feel they are born to rule and thanks to the half-witted Liberals they're being given a chance to, but on the issue of homosexuality they've shown unusually liberal values.
Osborne spoke out for Turing and Cameron supported equal marriage, brave moves in the Nasty (Conservative) Party in which family values usually mean straight heterosexual values within marriage.
So it's a small step forward in a world where many people fear 'coming out' as gay.
Hopefully, in 100 years no one will feel the need to come out because no one will care whether anyone is gay or straight. The question won't matter.
It matters today, in politics, in sport and in public life even though it shouldn't.
So when you celebrate the brief life of Alan Turing, just think of him as a British hero. His sexuality was none of our business.
Friday 6 June 2014
Colleville-Sur-Mer
Watching the BBC coverage of the 70 year commemoration of D Day and I am in bits.
To the best of my knowledge, no one from my family was involved in the landings but hearing the stories of those who were, as well as from their proud families, is intensely moving.
The skies are blue at Colleville-Sur-Mer where thousands gather to pay their tributes and give their thanks to those who gave so much to ensure our freedom today.
It is impossible for me to understand the courage of those who did so much to ensure that we remain free citizens today.
Everyone involved in D Day must have known that they might never come home, that their lives and dreams might be ended in an instant.
My dad, at 15, served on the Liberty ships that dodged the U Boats in the Atlantic to see that our people were fed.
My mother and her family lived and almost died in Rotterdam, losing three homes and all their possessions, spending much of the Second World War under Nazi occupation.
Without the heroes of D Day, how many of us would actually be here today, and even if we were, what would our lives be like?
Their gift to us has been peace and freedom.
And we must never forget them.
To the best of my knowledge, no one from my family was involved in the landings but hearing the stories of those who were, as well as from their proud families, is intensely moving.
The skies are blue at Colleville-Sur-Mer where thousands gather to pay their tributes and give their thanks to those who gave so much to ensure our freedom today.
It is impossible for me to understand the courage of those who did so much to ensure that we remain free citizens today.
Everyone involved in D Day must have known that they might never come home, that their lives and dreams might be ended in an instant.
My dad, at 15, served on the Liberty ships that dodged the U Boats in the Atlantic to see that our people were fed.
My mother and her family lived and almost died in Rotterdam, losing three homes and all their possessions, spending much of the Second World War under Nazi occupation.
Without the heroes of D Day, how many of us would actually be here today, and even if we were, what would our lives be like?
Their gift to us has been peace and freedom.
And we must never forget them.
Thursday 5 June 2014
The tarnished memories of youth
How's about that, then?
That's what we all used to say, in doing our Jimmy Savile impressions.
It might have been at school, the morning after Top of the Pops (ask your parents, kids) when we would have seen Savile introducing Gary Glitter or any number of well known entertainers.
Or we'd have discussed Stuart Hall's raucous laughter during 'It's A Knockout'.
My one Gary Glitter LP is still in the loft, with the rest of my vinyl collection that I can't bring myself to unload, even though I know I really should.
It turns out that a lot of the famous people of my youth were perverts and paedophiles or both.
All these years on and the truth is now out there and my fond memories of more innocent times are fractured.
I sang along with and laughed at people who committed terrible crimes. It is the final end of the innocence.
It is nonsense to suggest that there were no perverts around before the advent of the internet and the permissive society.
Even as a young boy, I knew of a local scout leader who enjoyed the company of young boys in ways that we did not feel necessarily fitted in with the more traditional things they did.
We had heard the stories and it came as a surprise when he was sent to prison because, well, some people were just like that. He was just a harmless old child molester.
I kid you not, that was the gist of how many people felt.
I don't know if I felt physically sick at the time but I do now every time a new pervert comes to light. What drives these people to such awful things?
And you don't really know how awful some of these things are until you actually read some of the court documents. For instance, the crimes of the Lost Prophets singer Ian Watkins were so vile, so utterly perverted and downright evil, I wish I hadn't read them at all. For someone like me, implacably opposed to Capital Punishment, to feel I'd like to be his hangman bears testament to that.
Meanwhile, parts of my childhood memories have been tarnished by the sick deeds of others but the vast majority haven't. And it's actually a good thing that the bad guys are finally being outed, even if some like Savile have escaped justice.
And it's probably a good thing that, thanks to modern technology, that bad people are being rooted out.
That's what we all used to say, in doing our Jimmy Savile impressions.
It might have been at school, the morning after Top of the Pops (ask your parents, kids) when we would have seen Savile introducing Gary Glitter or any number of well known entertainers.
Or we'd have discussed Stuart Hall's raucous laughter during 'It's A Knockout'.
My one Gary Glitter LP is still in the loft, with the rest of my vinyl collection that I can't bring myself to unload, even though I know I really should.
It turns out that a lot of the famous people of my youth were perverts and paedophiles or both.
All these years on and the truth is now out there and my fond memories of more innocent times are fractured.
I sang along with and laughed at people who committed terrible crimes. It is the final end of the innocence.
It is nonsense to suggest that there were no perverts around before the advent of the internet and the permissive society.
Even as a young boy, I knew of a local scout leader who enjoyed the company of young boys in ways that we did not feel necessarily fitted in with the more traditional things they did.
We had heard the stories and it came as a surprise when he was sent to prison because, well, some people were just like that. He was just a harmless old child molester.
I kid you not, that was the gist of how many people felt.
I don't know if I felt physically sick at the time but I do now every time a new pervert comes to light. What drives these people to such awful things?
And you don't really know how awful some of these things are until you actually read some of the court documents. For instance, the crimes of the Lost Prophets singer Ian Watkins were so vile, so utterly perverted and downright evil, I wish I hadn't read them at all. For someone like me, implacably opposed to Capital Punishment, to feel I'd like to be his hangman bears testament to that.
Meanwhile, parts of my childhood memories have been tarnished by the sick deeds of others but the vast majority haven't. And it's actually a good thing that the bad guys are finally being outed, even if some like Savile have escaped justice.
And it's probably a good thing that, thanks to modern technology, that bad people are being rooted out.
Monday 2 June 2014
Just another manic Monday
Having rediscovered my golfing mojo, there was only one thing to do this morning; venture to the Thornbury Par to play a quick 18 before taxiing son number one to his latest exam at Coombe Dingle.
But I reckoned without my fellow pensioners.
I waved my membership card at the cheery staff on the front desk and made my way to the first tee only to find a queue of people who were, it must be said, not exactly in the first flush of youth.
I have learned about golfing etiquette in my two years of playing and part of it is to allow quicker players, or in my case Billy No Mates (me), to 'play through.
The people in front of me knew of no such good manners.
There is preciously little snobbery at most courses in golf, although I have heard the odd grumble from older players at the poor manners of the young. But today it was the older players who carried on playing and holding me up as if I wasn't there.
I played the first hole in double quick time, particularly now that I am once again capable of occasionally hitting the ball in the right direction and caught the group in front before they had even started the second. Well, they're bound to let me through, aren't they? Granted they're old, they can hardly walk and they certainly can't play, but they'll let me get on, won't they?
They didn't, of course, and after an hour and just six holes, I realised that I was not going to complete my round.
I did allow the odd curse under my breath as I departed the ninth on 36 (not good, but a staggering improvement on my last four rounds) and returned to my car.
But I wasn't going to allow it to spoil the improvement in my game.
And how did I do it?
Over the weekend, I looked on You Tube and instantly found out what I had been doing wrong and took it to the golf range to work on it.
By the time I stood on the first tee today, I was confident things were improving and that the ball missed the green by a mere 10 feet represented good news.
I only lost one ball too, a rapid improvement on recent times, and even there I hit the ball perfectly with my seven iron, dead straight. Sadly, I was aiming in the wrong direction and the ball disappeared into the trees off the seventh hole.
In the words of the epic poet, Pharrell Williams, I am now 'happy'.
I celebrated by driving to my favourite record shop, the wonderful Rise on the Triangle in Clifton.
I always feel obliged to buy a record there but instead today I bought yet another book the add to the absurd pile I have already acquired in recent months. Absurd because apart from on holiday I read very slowly.
Since you ask, the book is Wild Tales by Graham Nash, the great singer and composer from those great popular beat combo outfits the Hollies and Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young).
And I had to buy some more golf balls at Sports Direct because the extra ones I ordered through the internet haven't arrived yet. By the end of the week, I should be able to go into the golf ball sales business.
One thing did cheer me up when I left the golf course.
I know it's pathetic, vindictive and silly, but it started pissing down with rain as I drove away.
I'm pretty sure there isn't a god but if there is maybe he was teaching those older, very wet, golfers who don't understand golf etiquette, a lesson?
But I reckoned without my fellow pensioners.
I waved my membership card at the cheery staff on the front desk and made my way to the first tee only to find a queue of people who were, it must be said, not exactly in the first flush of youth.
I have learned about golfing etiquette in my two years of playing and part of it is to allow quicker players, or in my case Billy No Mates (me), to 'play through.
The people in front of me knew of no such good manners.
There is preciously little snobbery at most courses in golf, although I have heard the odd grumble from older players at the poor manners of the young. But today it was the older players who carried on playing and holding me up as if I wasn't there.
I played the first hole in double quick time, particularly now that I am once again capable of occasionally hitting the ball in the right direction and caught the group in front before they had even started the second. Well, they're bound to let me through, aren't they? Granted they're old, they can hardly walk and they certainly can't play, but they'll let me get on, won't they?
They didn't, of course, and after an hour and just six holes, I realised that I was not going to complete my round.
I did allow the odd curse under my breath as I departed the ninth on 36 (not good, but a staggering improvement on my last four rounds) and returned to my car.
But I wasn't going to allow it to spoil the improvement in my game.
And how did I do it?
Over the weekend, I looked on You Tube and instantly found out what I had been doing wrong and took it to the golf range to work on it.
By the time I stood on the first tee today, I was confident things were improving and that the ball missed the green by a mere 10 feet represented good news.
I only lost one ball too, a rapid improvement on recent times, and even there I hit the ball perfectly with my seven iron, dead straight. Sadly, I was aiming in the wrong direction and the ball disappeared into the trees off the seventh hole.
In the words of the epic poet, Pharrell Williams, I am now 'happy'.
I celebrated by driving to my favourite record shop, the wonderful Rise on the Triangle in Clifton.
I always feel obliged to buy a record there but instead today I bought yet another book the add to the absurd pile I have already acquired in recent months. Absurd because apart from on holiday I read very slowly.
Since you ask, the book is Wild Tales by Graham Nash, the great singer and composer from those great popular beat combo outfits the Hollies and Crosby, Stills and Nash (and sometimes Young).
And I had to buy some more golf balls at Sports Direct because the extra ones I ordered through the internet haven't arrived yet. By the end of the week, I should be able to go into the golf ball sales business.
One thing did cheer me up when I left the golf course.
I know it's pathetic, vindictive and silly, but it started pissing down with rain as I drove away.
I'm pretty sure there isn't a god but if there is maybe he was teaching those older, very wet, golfers who don't understand golf etiquette, a lesson?
Sunday 1 June 2014
Fore!
Not for the first time, I did things somewhat arse backwards today.
For a couple of weeks, my golf game, never quite at Tiger Woods' levels, has been in bits, culminating in a motorway pile-up as opposed to car crash round of 130 on the Thornbury Par Three last week.
My partner, who knows as much about golf as I know about rocket science, advised me, solemnly, to practice on the golf range before playing another round.
But I knew best.
I had already worked out where my game had gone wrong and I would put things right just by playing.
And the course was suitably half-empty by the time I arrived. Just the small matter of getting back in the swing of things, as us top notch golfers say.
Naturally, it didn't work out quite like that and soon I was slicing balls into the trees and into the long grass like I had just taken the game up. It was painful to watch, I should imagine, but even more painful to play.
And I steadily got worse and worse with every shot. My final score was 93, my third worst score ever.
With a bit of time on my hands, I elected to go on the golf range
to try and put things right, although I feared the worst.
I paid for 50 balls and made my way to the range, standing as far away from the other players as possible.
I started with a seven iron and - hey presto - I was hitting the ball beautifully. Long and by and large straight.
Then I went for a hybrid and, with one or two wild shots excepted, the balls was travelling - and I kid you not - some 200 yards.
And then the pitching wedge, from which my golf balls have been heading off virtually at right angles but not now.
Totally relaxed (was this a clue?), I was hitting some absolute gems and not one, not bleeding one, ball went anywhere other than where I intended it to go.
And it didn't feel like I was doing anything different from what I was doing when I was hacking and slicing my way round the course, losing eight - eight!!! - balls in the process, three on the same hole.
Now I don't really get this.
What has changed in my game to make it almost impossible to get the ball in the air, never mind the right direction, and yet when I got on the range I was transformed into Rory McIlroy, sort of?
I am now full of confidence, which can be a disaster for anyone who plays golf.
Doubtless I shall now turn up, probably tomorrow, and play like an idiot again.
I love my golf, I really do, and I got my mojo back tonight.
But once you think you have this game cracked, it rips you to shreds.
Fore!
For a couple of weeks, my golf game, never quite at Tiger Woods' levels, has been in bits, culminating in a motorway pile-up as opposed to car crash round of 130 on the Thornbury Par Three last week.
My partner, who knows as much about golf as I know about rocket science, advised me, solemnly, to practice on the golf range before playing another round.
But I knew best.
I had already worked out where my game had gone wrong and I would put things right just by playing.
And the course was suitably half-empty by the time I arrived. Just the small matter of getting back in the swing of things, as us top notch golfers say.
Naturally, it didn't work out quite like that and soon I was slicing balls into the trees and into the long grass like I had just taken the game up. It was painful to watch, I should imagine, but even more painful to play.
And I steadily got worse and worse with every shot. My final score was 93, my third worst score ever.
With a bit of time on my hands, I elected to go on the golf range
to try and put things right, although I feared the worst.
I paid for 50 balls and made my way to the range, standing as far away from the other players as possible.
I started with a seven iron and - hey presto - I was hitting the ball beautifully. Long and by and large straight.
Then I went for a hybrid and, with one or two wild shots excepted, the balls was travelling - and I kid you not - some 200 yards.
And then the pitching wedge, from which my golf balls have been heading off virtually at right angles but not now.
Totally relaxed (was this a clue?), I was hitting some absolute gems and not one, not bleeding one, ball went anywhere other than where I intended it to go.
And it didn't feel like I was doing anything different from what I was doing when I was hacking and slicing my way round the course, losing eight - eight!!! - balls in the process, three on the same hole.
Now I don't really get this.
What has changed in my game to make it almost impossible to get the ball in the air, never mind the right direction, and yet when I got on the range I was transformed into Rory McIlroy, sort of?
I am now full of confidence, which can be a disaster for anyone who plays golf.
Doubtless I shall now turn up, probably tomorrow, and play like an idiot again.
I love my golf, I really do, and I got my mojo back tonight.
But once you think you have this game cracked, it rips you to shreds.
Fore!
Cricket
I was once an obsessive cricket fan.
I watched everything that the BBC would show because the only cricket on TV was on the BBC (apart from a brief spell when ITV were involved.
It was in the early 1970s and I can almost recite out loud the England team I idolised.
There were legends like Geoffrey Boycott, Alan Knott, Derek Underwood and John Snow.
Granted the BBC coverage was a little stuffy and unimaginative but I didn't know any different.
The camera stayed at the same end all day and it didn't occur to anyone, never mind me, to have a camera at both ends of the pitch.
The Test matches were big news and people who weren't necessarily interested in the nitty gritty of the game would talk about it.
And so it continued, throughout the 1980s, 1990s and into the new millennium.
It was, and remains, our summer game.
TV changed when Sky came along and they bought up many of the most popular events.
Almost all live football went and, following a brief and happy dalliance with Channel Four culminating in the epic Ashes series of 2005, cricket followed.
Step forward to today and there is no cricket on terrestrial TV, apart from the Indian Premier League on ITV4.
I have noticed the difference in people's attitudes.
As a child after school and then an adult after work, I would go home to watch the evening session of whatever Test match was on.
And the next day we all talked about it.
The last Ashes series on terrestrial TV was in 2005 when C4 had the rights and it gripped the nation. The viewing figures were astonishing.
Four years later, the Ashes were tucked away on Sky and people weren't talking about it, certainly not in the numbers of previous years.
Whereas I could recognise all the top players of my youth, I would struggle to identify most of the England team. I have heard the names, of course, but they are no longer household names nor household faces.
I think it is a mistake by the authorities to place all their cricket with one non terrestrial broadcaster, although it is hard to blame them for taking the money.
And the authorities will doubtless point out that much of the money goes to grassroots cricket and that's true, even if many of the grassroots are actually situated in the more affluent suburbs of cities and smaller towns and villages.
In many state schools, cricket has died out and it is isn't played at all, whilst in private schools the game thrives.
Few of the England players of today are idolised like Botham, Gower and Flintoff.
Captain Cook has a great record but your average person would probably not know who he was. The same goes for the rest of today's players.
Worst of all, we're struck with it.
There is little political will to change the laws as to who can broadcast the game, in many parts of the country, especially in cities the game is of no interest.
Of course, the game will not die - the demand for tickets for international matches remains as great as ever - but I do wonder if, like the Premier League, it will become the plaything of the more affluent middle classes, if it hasn't done already.
I watched everything that the BBC would show because the only cricket on TV was on the BBC (apart from a brief spell when ITV were involved.
It was in the early 1970s and I can almost recite out loud the England team I idolised.
There were legends like Geoffrey Boycott, Alan Knott, Derek Underwood and John Snow.
Granted the BBC coverage was a little stuffy and unimaginative but I didn't know any different.
The camera stayed at the same end all day and it didn't occur to anyone, never mind me, to have a camera at both ends of the pitch.
The Test matches were big news and people who weren't necessarily interested in the nitty gritty of the game would talk about it.
And so it continued, throughout the 1980s, 1990s and into the new millennium.
It was, and remains, our summer game.
TV changed when Sky came along and they bought up many of the most popular events.
Almost all live football went and, following a brief and happy dalliance with Channel Four culminating in the epic Ashes series of 2005, cricket followed.
Step forward to today and there is no cricket on terrestrial TV, apart from the Indian Premier League on ITV4.
I have noticed the difference in people's attitudes.
As a child after school and then an adult after work, I would go home to watch the evening session of whatever Test match was on.
And the next day we all talked about it.
The last Ashes series on terrestrial TV was in 2005 when C4 had the rights and it gripped the nation. The viewing figures were astonishing.
Four years later, the Ashes were tucked away on Sky and people weren't talking about it, certainly not in the numbers of previous years.
Whereas I could recognise all the top players of my youth, I would struggle to identify most of the England team. I have heard the names, of course, but they are no longer household names nor household faces.
I think it is a mistake by the authorities to place all their cricket with one non terrestrial broadcaster, although it is hard to blame them for taking the money.
And the authorities will doubtless point out that much of the money goes to grassroots cricket and that's true, even if many of the grassroots are actually situated in the more affluent suburbs of cities and smaller towns and villages.
In many state schools, cricket has died out and it is isn't played at all, whilst in private schools the game thrives.
Few of the England players of today are idolised like Botham, Gower and Flintoff.
Captain Cook has a great record but your average person would probably not know who he was. The same goes for the rest of today's players.
Worst of all, we're struck with it.
There is little political will to change the laws as to who can broadcast the game, in many parts of the country, especially in cities the game is of no interest.
Of course, the game will not die - the demand for tickets for international matches remains as great as ever - but I do wonder if, like the Premier League, it will become the plaything of the more affluent middle classes, if it hasn't done already.
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