I am currently in a place of emptiness. Nothing of any great innovation, interest or importance happens… and before you ask – I am not trapped inside the mind of Katie Price, and nor have I gone for a holiday to Slough. I am instead talking about the short period that exists between Christmas and the New Year.
Quite what we are supposed to do during this four day period between Boxing Day and New Year’s Eve is anyone’s guess. Having previously helped to stimulate the retail industry in the run up to Christmas and then the alcohol industry during Christmas, I now find myself helping out the sitting-on-my-arse-starring-blankly-at-the-television industry during this four day period.
It would be nice if something more meaningful could happen, perhaps in future years a major golf tournament could be organised, it would last four days so would therefore be ideal. Of course playing golf in this kind of snow and frost would be far from prefect and all participants should have either yellow or red balls – and to be honest, if that’s the case, then I think said participant would probably rather miss the golf tournament and instead pay a visit to the doctor… particularly if they are female.
Golf, understandably, doesn’t make it into the television schedules around Christmas time, so instead comedy specials are normally on offer; in the old days, The Two Ronnies and Morecambe and Wise were the staples of Christmas Day television. This year Ronnie Corbett did his own show, The One Ronnie, and Morecambe and Wise did nothing – presumably using their usual pisspoor excuse that they had both been dead for over ten years. That said, for anyone prepared to stay up late, there was some first rate comedy on Sky – Australia were attempting to play cricket, and presumably in a tribute to Morcambe and Wise… their batsmen played in a manner which suggested that they had also been dead for over 10 years.
Although in terms of comedy, you can’t beat the woefulness of Christmas cracker jokes. Recent research has suggested that it is essential to have really bad cracker jokes, that way no-one will feel left out by not getting the joke – I’m guessing a similar rationale is used for making policies in the current Government. As such and in keeping with the general content of this ‘blog, I feel it is only appropriate to list some of the Christmas cracker jokes I came across this year:
- What is the difference between a computer with a broken hard drive and England goalkeeper Robert Green? One of them doesn’t save anything… and the other one is a computer with a broken hard drive.
- What do Piers Morgan and a chef who keeps dropping his pancakes have in common? They are both useless tossers.
- How may policeman does it take to crack an egg? None… it fell down the stairs.
- What is the difference between Frank Bruno and Michael Barrymore? One has been battered around the ring… and the other one is a boxer.
- Why did Nick Clegg cross the road? Because he said he wouldn’t.
Christmas crackers are however just one of the many traditions that adorn Christmas, another such tradition is putting Christmas presents in a stocking. This tradition, allegedly, originates from when Santa was visiting the home of a poor elderly man and his three younger daughters - obviously they are younger, if they were “older daughters” then the man should have probably asked serious questions as to whether the children were Fathered by himself.
As the man was unlikely to accept charity, Santa had to be discreet about where he hid the presents for his daughters, those presents being a bag of gold coins for each daughter. Thinking with a clear and logical mind, despite probably having already drank many glasses of sherry, Santa put the gold coins into the girls’ stockings, which were hung up above the fire to dry out. Whilst this was a nice gesture, it does give an insight into what Santa gets up to on the other 364 days of the year, perhaps he regularly puts money into ladies’ stockings in strip clubs? It certainly gives a different meaning as to exactly what “Lapland” is – although I think any stripper would probably object if Santa’s method of payment was to put numerous coins into her underwear…
Perhaps one of the most endearing aspects of Christmas is that all of a sudden many people change their attitude and everything somehow gets Christmas crow-barred into it – be it Christmas lights in the window, or your local delicatessen renaming itself “Cheeses of Nazareth” for the entire month of December.
On top of the renaming and redecorating things, Christmas is the season of goodwill and one can easily spend the two to three weeks preceding Christmas getting out of all sorts situations simply with the words “let me off please, it’s Christmas”… a few weeks ago I was walking through a shopping centre and a Christmas pudding on roller skates crashed into me, the Christmas pudding laughed it off and skated away thinking that that “because it was Christmas” his action were acceptable. Personally I thought his actions were unacceptable – just like vandalising the Cenotaph and then claiming that, despite being a history student, you weren’t aware of what the monument was.
Whilst I did manage to come up with the witty response of “I would like to douse you in brandy and set you on fire”, said response lost its effect as it came to me about half an hour later and I was the only person in the room at the time. That said, such an event shouldn’t detract from the fact that Christmas puddings are interesting little things, where else could you get such a high content of fruits and alcohol? – other than a Michael Barrymore party…
On the whole, food in general plays a large part in the Christmas experience for many people. For some reason at Christmas, quite a lot of people illogically think it’s appropriate to fill up a bowl with hard shelled dried fruits, such as pistachios and cashews… they must be nuts. More bizarrely, there was also a story recently regarding the supermarket Morrisons, whom apparently requested that a squirrel taste-test various nuts to see which were the nicest and therefore included in Morrisons’ selection boxes of nuts… Morrisions did miss one important trick though… they forgot to ask Eamonn Holmes to do the same thing with the selection boxes of chocolate…
Tuesday 28 December 2010
Sunday 28 November 2010
I’m not ashamed of my actions… said the man in the balaclava
The right to protest is always an interesting area to look into. A few Wednesdays ago marked the first time I had travelled to London in 18 months and there were also 50,000 people protesting on the streets of London – I am informed that the two events are unconnected, I am neither that unpopular nor an instigator of mass protests.
These 50,000 people were protesting about the proposed increased level of student tuition fees in a protest in Central London, “We shall not, we shall not be moved” is what the protesters sang… until Countdown came on, at which point they went home or decided to smash up the Troy headquarters in Milbank.
The small minority who descended on Milbank took all the headlines. As one they, unfortunately, caused a detraction from the key issues – that being of university funding. One these moronic protestors threw a fire extinguisher off the top the Tory’s Milbank headquarters – which just like airbags in cars, was an instance health and safety equipment potentially causing more harm than good.
Although to be fair, the throwing of the fire extinguisher may have been to assist his fellow protestors put out one of the effigies of David Cameron or Nick Clegg that the protestors had set alight – yet if this was his rationale, then it would have been far safer to throw a fire blanket. It was later to revealed that said protestor was a student from Cambridge – fortunately he attended Anglia Ruskin University and not Cambridge University, proving that we do at least have some form of good education standards in this country.
One chap who did undermine my last assertion, was the student decided to show there should be no financial barriers to students wanting to attend university by kicking an overhanging glass window until the window smashed. What with the window overhanging, it smashed all over him and he was covered in shards of glass – thank god this man had a good university education, otherwise he might have done something that made himself look like an idiot.
I don’t mind protestors, but in my opinion it’s important to clearly think about how your protest will be perceived? Are you protesting for the right reasons? Are you getting your message across? Think back to 2009, when a group protested about the banks’ role in “causing” the Credit Crunch on a day to coincide with the submit of the G20 finance ministers. The idea of the protest was a logical one – the banks had lent irresponsibly, thought it was continually possible to achieve double digit growth and were taking on risk-laden transactions with little personal consequence if things went wrong. The execution of the protest was woeful – the protestors smashed up RBS’ headquarters in Central London. What with the RBS being majority owned by the taxpayer, the protestors basically cost themselves some money. Such actions must be like complaining about the state of television by smashing up your new 32 inch flatscreen.
I understand the motives of the protestors who were campaigning against an increase in student tuition fees. Nick Clegg is once again being made to look like a lapdog for David Cameron, quite how he can pledge to abolish tuition fees and then support them tripling is anyone’s guess. This Government is often said to be unpopular and “no-one voted for it” – but that is our electoral system and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats collectively took 59.1% of the vote at the General Election. This compared to the 35.2% of the vote that Labour took in 2005. Henceforth, the major problem facing the Government, which was also faced by Gordon Brown when he took over from Tony Blair, is the lack of a mandate to rule, David Cameron doesn’t have a mandate, Nick Clegg also doesn’t have a mandate – indeed the only person to have a mandate is William Hague, although he strenuously denies this allegation and claims they were sharing a room to save costs, that way the money saved can be spent on repairing Milbank.
There have been cuts, things have had to change and Higher Education is not the only sector that is suffering from these cuts. The military has had a massive slash to its budget, with the Government reorganising certain defence arrangements, particularly with respect to warships: The Prince of Wales warship will lay redundant for a sustained period and will be fully bought into service many years later than expected – which draws an uncanny parallel with the man the ship is named after. As well as that, the UK and France are due to share warships under a groundbreaking military initiative – presumably part of a European initiative for the UK to pair up with a partner whom is terrible at fighting wars. I have no idea what would happen if the UK and France went to war with each other… well… other than that the UK would claim victory upon France’s surrender.
Following the lack of good news in the Higher Education sector, there was a second protest scheduled a fortnight later, with demonstrations all around the country, with many more students involved and this time and also less violence – I’m guessing this protest constituted a re-sit for all those who had performed poorly the first time around.
I saw part of the protest in my local city centre where there was a helicopter getting involved in the proceedings, presumably from the police’s side of things – it wouldn’t be a very good idea for the students to protest about the cost of university by one of them bringing a helicopter with them… although it does make you wonder at times that if these students decided not to protest, then perhaps all the extra money that has been spent on police and other security during these protests could maybe be allocated to university funding… just a thought…
One of the protestors I saw summoned his entire educational ability and made a placard which simply said the words “FUCK THE TORY ARSEHOLES”… something which is highly offensive… especially to Nick Clegg… because that’s his job…
*P.S. Subsequent to writing this I remembered that during the first protest I saw a protestor on the news, he was quite bafflingly dressed as a panda – I still to this day have no idea what the message behind it was… although it may have been that the average student is about as active as a mating panda…
These 50,000 people were protesting about the proposed increased level of student tuition fees in a protest in Central London, “We shall not, we shall not be moved” is what the protesters sang… until Countdown came on, at which point they went home or decided to smash up the Troy headquarters in Milbank.
The small minority who descended on Milbank took all the headlines. As one they, unfortunately, caused a detraction from the key issues – that being of university funding. One these moronic protestors threw a fire extinguisher off the top the Tory’s Milbank headquarters – which just like airbags in cars, was an instance health and safety equipment potentially causing more harm than good.
Although to be fair, the throwing of the fire extinguisher may have been to assist his fellow protestors put out one of the effigies of David Cameron or Nick Clegg that the protestors had set alight – yet if this was his rationale, then it would have been far safer to throw a fire blanket. It was later to revealed that said protestor was a student from Cambridge – fortunately he attended Anglia Ruskin University and not Cambridge University, proving that we do at least have some form of good education standards in this country.
One chap who did undermine my last assertion, was the student decided to show there should be no financial barriers to students wanting to attend university by kicking an overhanging glass window until the window smashed. What with the window overhanging, it smashed all over him and he was covered in shards of glass – thank god this man had a good university education, otherwise he might have done something that made himself look like an idiot.
I don’t mind protestors, but in my opinion it’s important to clearly think about how your protest will be perceived? Are you protesting for the right reasons? Are you getting your message across? Think back to 2009, when a group protested about the banks’ role in “causing” the Credit Crunch on a day to coincide with the submit of the G20 finance ministers. The idea of the protest was a logical one – the banks had lent irresponsibly, thought it was continually possible to achieve double digit growth and were taking on risk-laden transactions with little personal consequence if things went wrong. The execution of the protest was woeful – the protestors smashed up RBS’ headquarters in Central London. What with the RBS being majority owned by the taxpayer, the protestors basically cost themselves some money. Such actions must be like complaining about the state of television by smashing up your new 32 inch flatscreen.
I understand the motives of the protestors who were campaigning against an increase in student tuition fees. Nick Clegg is once again being made to look like a lapdog for David Cameron, quite how he can pledge to abolish tuition fees and then support them tripling is anyone’s guess. This Government is often said to be unpopular and “no-one voted for it” – but that is our electoral system and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats collectively took 59.1% of the vote at the General Election. This compared to the 35.2% of the vote that Labour took in 2005. Henceforth, the major problem facing the Government, which was also faced by Gordon Brown when he took over from Tony Blair, is the lack of a mandate to rule, David Cameron doesn’t have a mandate, Nick Clegg also doesn’t have a mandate – indeed the only person to have a mandate is William Hague, although he strenuously denies this allegation and claims they were sharing a room to save costs, that way the money saved can be spent on repairing Milbank.
There have been cuts, things have had to change and Higher Education is not the only sector that is suffering from these cuts. The military has had a massive slash to its budget, with the Government reorganising certain defence arrangements, particularly with respect to warships: The Prince of Wales warship will lay redundant for a sustained period and will be fully bought into service many years later than expected – which draws an uncanny parallel with the man the ship is named after. As well as that, the UK and France are due to share warships under a groundbreaking military initiative – presumably part of a European initiative for the UK to pair up with a partner whom is terrible at fighting wars. I have no idea what would happen if the UK and France went to war with each other… well… other than that the UK would claim victory upon France’s surrender.
Following the lack of good news in the Higher Education sector, there was a second protest scheduled a fortnight later, with demonstrations all around the country, with many more students involved and this time and also less violence – I’m guessing this protest constituted a re-sit for all those who had performed poorly the first time around.
I saw part of the protest in my local city centre where there was a helicopter getting involved in the proceedings, presumably from the police’s side of things – it wouldn’t be a very good idea for the students to protest about the cost of university by one of them bringing a helicopter with them… although it does make you wonder at times that if these students decided not to protest, then perhaps all the extra money that has been spent on police and other security during these protests could maybe be allocated to university funding… just a thought…
One of the protestors I saw summoned his entire educational ability and made a placard which simply said the words “FUCK THE TORY ARSEHOLES”… something which is highly offensive… especially to Nick Clegg… because that’s his job…
*P.S. Subsequent to writing this I remembered that during the first protest I saw a protestor on the news, he was quite bafflingly dressed as a panda – I still to this day have no idea what the message behind it was… although it may have been that the average student is about as active as a mating panda…
Sunday 24 October 2010
A German Aunty
I have a German Aunty, I also have a Danish Grandfather and a Dutch Cousin, and before you ask… no I am not a member of the Royal Family; they are of course, my international relations.
International relations has become an increasingly popular subject since the formation of the current Government - often referred to as the “coalition Government”, which is slightly odd as the previous Government was never referred to as the “majority Government”.
David Cameron appears to be quite bad at international relations; in recent months he’s upset Israel, the USA and Pakistan – quite why he insists on upsetting countries that harbour nuclear weapons is anyone’s guess.
In addition, when he wasn’t angering countries with nuclear weapons, he was angering certain quarters of the British public by claiming that Iran, a country without nuclear weapons, did have nuclear weapons – things can obviously get confusing and quite why such an error occurred is nuclear… sorry I meant unclear… as I said… things can get confusing.
The Prime Minister clearly views foreign affairs to be of high importance and as a safety precaution; he has requested that Boris Johnson remains on British soil – not because he’s highly gaffe prone and may cause offence to the people of whichever country he visits; I simply mean that he’s so adulterous that it’s highly probable that he would have an affair with a foreign lady. Whilst Boris is a massive advocate of the congestion charge, he sensibly doesn’t apply to his bedroom – as it would end up costing him a fortune.
Whilst the Conservatives are take a great active interest in foreign affairs, almost paradoxically; many of them are noted Eurosceptics – which must be like Jeremy Clarkson teaching a class about responsible driving or Brian Blessed lecturing people on how to be discrete.
I think such scepticism in terms of the EU derives a lot from the expansion of it May 2005; where the EU increased from having 15 member countries to 25 member countries, the ten countries joining being Estonia, Malta, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Dopey, Sleepy and Happy.
The right-wing media made a huge fuss about the large volume of people who would flock to the UK as soon as the new countries were inducted into the EU. The fuss was so large that anyone would have thought the UK was about to sink under the sheer weight of the new immigrants – at which point it would probably have been quite useful if some of them were dwarfs.
Whilst the EU does have its drawbacks, it was notable that during the three Leadership Debates this year; that one of the two things that all the three major party leaders agreed on was that it was important for the UK to remain part of the EU – the other thing they all managed to agree on was that they all agreed with Nick.
Yet despite all this, the anti EU lobby is alive and well and is led by UKIP, whom have Nigel Farrage as one of their senior figures – despite him having a French pronunciation to his name. In fairness to Nigel Farrage, I’m guessing that the manner in which his name is pronounced is rather a small issue to him, given that earlier this year he was involved in a severe airplane crash that nearly killed – whether this was a failed suicide mission against the European parliament remains to be seen.
But fortunately the Government is taking a more serous approach to foreign affairs than the jokers that are UKIP, who with their monotonous ill-informed drone about how the EU is harming our economy and heritage, should probably adopt a slogan of “we talk, UKIP”.
As a sign of the significance that the current Government places on foreign affairs, they have made William Hague the Foreign Secretary. Hague is an important Political heavyweight, hence his honorific title of First Secretary State – a title formerly held by John Prescott, who was very much a “Political heavyweight” in a totally different sense.
Hague has been the unfortunate victim of a smear campaign regarding an alleged homosexual relationship with his former aide Christopher Myers, something Hague has robustly denied – presumably pointing to the fact that he’s from Yorkshire and he used to drink 14 pints of bitter a day as evidence that he’s a heterosexual.
The manner in which Hague has been the cornerstone of the Conservative front bench since David Cameron’s election as party leader, led to Cameron quickly coming out in support of Hague saying he was “100% behind William Hague”… meanwhile… Christopher Myers was claiming that he was anywhere but “100% behind William Hague”…
International relations has become an increasingly popular subject since the formation of the current Government - often referred to as the “coalition Government”, which is slightly odd as the previous Government was never referred to as the “majority Government”.
David Cameron appears to be quite bad at international relations; in recent months he’s upset Israel, the USA and Pakistan – quite why he insists on upsetting countries that harbour nuclear weapons is anyone’s guess.
In addition, when he wasn’t angering countries with nuclear weapons, he was angering certain quarters of the British public by claiming that Iran, a country without nuclear weapons, did have nuclear weapons – things can obviously get confusing and quite why such an error occurred is nuclear… sorry I meant unclear… as I said… things can get confusing.
The Prime Minister clearly views foreign affairs to be of high importance and as a safety precaution; he has requested that Boris Johnson remains on British soil – not because he’s highly gaffe prone and may cause offence to the people of whichever country he visits; I simply mean that he’s so adulterous that it’s highly probable that he would have an affair with a foreign lady. Whilst Boris is a massive advocate of the congestion charge, he sensibly doesn’t apply to his bedroom – as it would end up costing him a fortune.
Whilst the Conservatives are take a great active interest in foreign affairs, almost paradoxically; many of them are noted Eurosceptics – which must be like Jeremy Clarkson teaching a class about responsible driving or Brian Blessed lecturing people on how to be discrete.
I think such scepticism in terms of the EU derives a lot from the expansion of it May 2005; where the EU increased from having 15 member countries to 25 member countries, the ten countries joining being Estonia, Malta, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Dopey, Sleepy and Happy.
The right-wing media made a huge fuss about the large volume of people who would flock to the UK as soon as the new countries were inducted into the EU. The fuss was so large that anyone would have thought the UK was about to sink under the sheer weight of the new immigrants – at which point it would probably have been quite useful if some of them were dwarfs.
Whilst the EU does have its drawbacks, it was notable that during the three Leadership Debates this year; that one of the two things that all the three major party leaders agreed on was that it was important for the UK to remain part of the EU – the other thing they all managed to agree on was that they all agreed with Nick.
Yet despite all this, the anti EU lobby is alive and well and is led by UKIP, whom have Nigel Farrage as one of their senior figures – despite him having a French pronunciation to his name. In fairness to Nigel Farrage, I’m guessing that the manner in which his name is pronounced is rather a small issue to him, given that earlier this year he was involved in a severe airplane crash that nearly killed – whether this was a failed suicide mission against the European parliament remains to be seen.
But fortunately the Government is taking a more serous approach to foreign affairs than the jokers that are UKIP, who with their monotonous ill-informed drone about how the EU is harming our economy and heritage, should probably adopt a slogan of “we talk, UKIP”.
As a sign of the significance that the current Government places on foreign affairs, they have made William Hague the Foreign Secretary. Hague is an important Political heavyweight, hence his honorific title of First Secretary State – a title formerly held by John Prescott, who was very much a “Political heavyweight” in a totally different sense.
Hague has been the unfortunate victim of a smear campaign regarding an alleged homosexual relationship with his former aide Christopher Myers, something Hague has robustly denied – presumably pointing to the fact that he’s from Yorkshire and he used to drink 14 pints of bitter a day as evidence that he’s a heterosexual.
The manner in which Hague has been the cornerstone of the Conservative front bench since David Cameron’s election as party leader, led to Cameron quickly coming out in support of Hague saying he was “100% behind William Hague”… meanwhile… Christopher Myers was claiming that he was anywhere but “100% behind William Hague”…
Thursday 5 August 2010
Statistically speaking
It’s time to ‘blog again and after my comments a few weeks ago about Top Gear having short interviews with meaningless celebrities; their final three episodes of the series saw them interview: Andy Garcia, Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz and Jeff Goldblum – so I must now eat my words as BBC wonders why they let Michael Parkinson and Jonathan Ross leave.
Anyway, back on to the current ‘blog, there’s no need to bring the past out all over again – as O J Simpson often says.
It can be said that there are: true lies, damn lies and… the statements which Jeffery Archer used to claim were correct (I don’t even have to put the word “allegedly”, as he’s a convicted perjurer). Aside from that, statistics are often be grouped in with the contents of the previous sentence; and they are often said to be misleading - this is probably because 10 out of every 9 statistics are incorrect.
Ultimately, I think a good statistic can often give food for thought, yet these are often too simplified, there is often very little in the reported media that really drills down into greater detail. When he was Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott always used to advise that people take statistics with a pinch of salt – although to be fair, John Prescott use to advised that everything be taken with a pinch of salt. Moreover, in terms of statistics, it’s very important to remember that one can easily drown in a swimming pool which has an average depth of half a metre.
Whilst reading a report about California’s current fiscal emergency, the BBC News Website referred to California’s economy as being the “8th largest in the world”, a statistic which is totally meaningless – you can’t create an economic area and slot it into another table and claim it to be an acceptable thing to do, did this table consider the combined economy of the EU? What about the combined economy of the NAFTA members? Has anyone considered the combined economy of the USA and Kenya? It’s a bit like me saying that the £8 note is the fourth highest monetary denomination in the UK (after the £50, £20 and £10 notes) this is a obviously a load of rubbish – as I haven’t considered the £13.80 note.
To some degree, I of course sympathise, with the people of California during their economic struggle; who would have thought that a Hollywood actor and former bodybuilder with no Political experience whatsoever would struggle to lead his state through an economic downturn? At current, he’s making massive cuts to the public sector and cancelling contractual agreements – I suppose he can now legitimately be called the Terminator.
Obviously, economics can be very hard to understand, as can making money via financial services in an economic downturn. Having heard a bit about trading, I recently attempted to make a lot of money buying and selling on the markets – but unfortunately, no-one wanted to buy my fresh fruit and vegetables. I then tried to trade on the stock market, where I attempted to make a large amount of money by using a “short-selling” strategy – but regrettably, it was during the winter, so not many people wanted to buy shorts.
I think statistics links in well to finance as it is partly based around having a numeric competence. This week, a lot of the UK banks released their six month results for the first half of the year. Northern Rock was one such bank, and the “bad” portion of the bank, which consists of mortgages and unsecured loans, made a profit of £349.7m, meanwhile, the “good” portion of the bank, consisting of consumers’ deposits and newer loans, made a loss of £142.6m. With the “bad” bank making a profit and the “good” ban being at a loss; it is hardly a great surprise that people don’t fully understand the mechanics of the banking crisis – after all, the bad/good bank’s profit/loss situation at Northern Rock is akin to Sir Edmund Hillary climbing up Everest and then being unable to walk up his staircase when he returned home.
So, having now written over 73.728% of this ‘blog I should head back to the irrelevant statistics, particularly with respect to percentages. The phrase “I gave 110%” is increasingly popular, and Gordon Brown was once heavily criticised for saying he “was 101% behind Tony Blair”, even though he was behind him to a greater level than his physical capabilities – it’s like complaining that Jesus walked on water, instead of running on lemonade.
I think my main dislike regarding statistics stems from the roundness of the numbers; the manner in which percentages are rounded to the nearest 10% shows a lack of reliability. There is an advert on television about road safety that advises that “if you hit a child a 30 [miles per hour], there’s a 80% chance they will live; if you hit them at 40 [miles per hour], there’s a 80% they will die.” There statements are not wholly accurate (or if you like, not 100% accurate) – because no matter what speed you hit the young child at, they will die eventually.
That rounds up all I have to say about statistics, and it may be a while until I ‘blog again; as I am soon to move to the big city and start working full time… I’m a little bit nervous about living in a big city centre… but I should be fine… apparently 90% of people enjoy it…
Anyway, back on to the current ‘blog, there’s no need to bring the past out all over again – as O J Simpson often says.
It can be said that there are: true lies, damn lies and… the statements which Jeffery Archer used to claim were correct (I don’t even have to put the word “allegedly”, as he’s a convicted perjurer). Aside from that, statistics are often be grouped in with the contents of the previous sentence; and they are often said to be misleading - this is probably because 10 out of every 9 statistics are incorrect.
Ultimately, I think a good statistic can often give food for thought, yet these are often too simplified, there is often very little in the reported media that really drills down into greater detail. When he was Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott always used to advise that people take statistics with a pinch of salt – although to be fair, John Prescott use to advised that everything be taken with a pinch of salt. Moreover, in terms of statistics, it’s very important to remember that one can easily drown in a swimming pool which has an average depth of half a metre.
Whilst reading a report about California’s current fiscal emergency, the BBC News Website referred to California’s economy as being the “8th largest in the world”, a statistic which is totally meaningless – you can’t create an economic area and slot it into another table and claim it to be an acceptable thing to do, did this table consider the combined economy of the EU? What about the combined economy of the NAFTA members? Has anyone considered the combined economy of the USA and Kenya? It’s a bit like me saying that the £8 note is the fourth highest monetary denomination in the UK (after the £50, £20 and £10 notes) this is a obviously a load of rubbish – as I haven’t considered the £13.80 note.
To some degree, I of course sympathise, with the people of California during their economic struggle; who would have thought that a Hollywood actor and former bodybuilder with no Political experience whatsoever would struggle to lead his state through an economic downturn? At current, he’s making massive cuts to the public sector and cancelling contractual agreements – I suppose he can now legitimately be called the Terminator.
Obviously, economics can be very hard to understand, as can making money via financial services in an economic downturn. Having heard a bit about trading, I recently attempted to make a lot of money buying and selling on the markets – but unfortunately, no-one wanted to buy my fresh fruit and vegetables. I then tried to trade on the stock market, where I attempted to make a large amount of money by using a “short-selling” strategy – but regrettably, it was during the winter, so not many people wanted to buy shorts.
I think statistics links in well to finance as it is partly based around having a numeric competence. This week, a lot of the UK banks released their six month results for the first half of the year. Northern Rock was one such bank, and the “bad” portion of the bank, which consists of mortgages and unsecured loans, made a profit of £349.7m, meanwhile, the “good” portion of the bank, consisting of consumers’ deposits and newer loans, made a loss of £142.6m. With the “bad” bank making a profit and the “good” ban being at a loss; it is hardly a great surprise that people don’t fully understand the mechanics of the banking crisis – after all, the bad/good bank’s profit/loss situation at Northern Rock is akin to Sir Edmund Hillary climbing up Everest and then being unable to walk up his staircase when he returned home.
So, having now written over 73.728% of this ‘blog I should head back to the irrelevant statistics, particularly with respect to percentages. The phrase “I gave 110%” is increasingly popular, and Gordon Brown was once heavily criticised for saying he “was 101% behind Tony Blair”, even though he was behind him to a greater level than his physical capabilities – it’s like complaining that Jesus walked on water, instead of running on lemonade.
I think my main dislike regarding statistics stems from the roundness of the numbers; the manner in which percentages are rounded to the nearest 10% shows a lack of reliability. There is an advert on television about road safety that advises that “if you hit a child a 30 [miles per hour], there’s a 80% chance they will live; if you hit them at 40 [miles per hour], there’s a 80% they will die.” There statements are not wholly accurate (or if you like, not 100% accurate) – because no matter what speed you hit the young child at, they will die eventually.
That rounds up all I have to say about statistics, and it may be a while until I ‘blog again; as I am soon to move to the big city and start working full time… I’m a little bit nervous about living in a big city centre… but I should be fine… apparently 90% of people enjoy it…
Friday 30 July 2010
Walking in a Summer Wonderland
The summer is upon us in Britain: sunny days, long warm evenings and lovely tans… will not be found, not in the British summer at least. However: scattered showers, overcast conditions and high winds can all be found – so much for global warming.
The British summer is always unusual, last year a barbeque summer was predicted; and in fairness to the Met Office, we were given the a barbeque summer – so long as the barbeques we were planning on having had a monsoon theme to them. One can only hope, for the sake of their spouse and children, that the head of the Met Office isn’t on a performance related pay scheme.
Forecasting is always going to be hard, in effect you’re trying to predict the future and that’s no easy job – who for example would have predicted that Boris Johnson would be allowed to run one of the most important cities in the world?
With certainty, the meteorologists are better predictors of the future that the so called “fortune tellers” that can often be found a fairgrounds. These fortune tellers often ask questions such as, “does the name John mean anything to you,” to which the person answering has 2 options:
- Answer “yes” and then you can explain a bit about John.
- Answer “no” at which point the fortune teller will say, “he will come into your life soon” – if he doesn’t, which is likely, then you’re hardly going to be able to track the fortune teller down.
Such is the cloudiness of what fortune tellers say that they now have to officially state that their advice is purely entertainment – a move that, unsurprisingly, the fortune tellers didn’t see coming and one wonders if the weather forecast should display the same warning.
In fairness, we shouldn’t really complain about the weather forecaster, it’s not their fault that the British summer tends to be intertwined with bad weather, in a manner similar to which the England football team is intertwined with underachievement and the words “British Telecom helpline” are intertwined with being an oxymoron.
It would be nice to be able to go out to the beach and enjoy a hot summer’s day, safe in the knowledge that it will remain a hot summer’s day, yet the last time I went to the British seaside, I had to go and buy a jumper to keep myself warm, and this was in August – whilst I wanted to see some beautiful blue skies and the feeling of the sand going between my toes, I ended up with blue hands and my toes nearly dropping off due to frostbite.
I always think the summer and the British seaside has always been associated with something slightly smutty, perhaps is it the Carry On style postcards that adorn the independent seaside newsagents. I don’t think that there has been a Carry On film recorded at the seaside, but it would have been a good idea; it would certainly give a legitimate reason for Barbara Windsor to be wearing a bikini and the writers would no doubt find an adequate reason for said bikini to fall off. Furthermore, the setting could easily be at a port town – that way Kenneth Williams could make jokes about sailors and the amount of discharged seamen on the streets.
But the British seaside during the summer appears to be a heaven for older people, often sensibly dressed in overcoats, tailored cotton trousers and black shoes, and who can blame them, the weather will often chance dramatically. It really is a shame though that our older people who’ve worked hard all their life aren’t afforded the luxury of nice weather in the summer, consequently people will instead holiday abroad.
The British will often head over to Spain, Portugal or Greece their holidays and battle with the rest of Europe in a competition to secure a sunlounger as early in the day as possible. At least by heading abroad, the schoolchildren aren’t subjected to the TV adverts that occur 1 day into the 6 weeks holidays saying that they will soon be “going back to school soon”, the children are aware of this, so it would be nice not to constantly remind them of the inevitable – you don’t see people going around an old peoples’ home and advising them that they will be dying soon, similarly, you don’t see people at a John Terry’s house telling his wife that her husband is probably having an affair, allegedly.
Yet, once the sunlounger is reserved, a week long project to change the colour of your body can commence, which will go one of two ways – firstly, you will burn and turn a shade of red which is slightly brighter than a highly embarrassed and heavily bleeding tomato or you will go brown and your body will have a higher leather content than Tom Jones’ trousers. Accordingly, on your return from holiday you need to ensure that you don’t visit the Land of Leather, just in case someone puts a price tag on you and includes you in their closing down sale – which a sale that has been ongoing since 1894.
Perhaps it is this desire to sunbath/burn that drives people to the sunnier spots, as well as the want to be close to the more attractive people, obviously for the younger man, there is the opportunity to froth at the mouth at the topless sunbathers from around the world… indeed, I once remember lying on a sunlounger next to an American with the biggest breasts I’d ever seen… he was enormous…
The British summer is always unusual, last year a barbeque summer was predicted; and in fairness to the Met Office, we were given the a barbeque summer – so long as the barbeques we were planning on having had a monsoon theme to them. One can only hope, for the sake of their spouse and children, that the head of the Met Office isn’t on a performance related pay scheme.
Forecasting is always going to be hard, in effect you’re trying to predict the future and that’s no easy job – who for example would have predicted that Boris Johnson would be allowed to run one of the most important cities in the world?
With certainty, the meteorologists are better predictors of the future that the so called “fortune tellers” that can often be found a fairgrounds. These fortune tellers often ask questions such as, “does the name John mean anything to you,” to which the person answering has 2 options:
- Answer “yes” and then you can explain a bit about John.
- Answer “no” at which point the fortune teller will say, “he will come into your life soon” – if he doesn’t, which is likely, then you’re hardly going to be able to track the fortune teller down.
Such is the cloudiness of what fortune tellers say that they now have to officially state that their advice is purely entertainment – a move that, unsurprisingly, the fortune tellers didn’t see coming and one wonders if the weather forecast should display the same warning.
In fairness, we shouldn’t really complain about the weather forecaster, it’s not their fault that the British summer tends to be intertwined with bad weather, in a manner similar to which the England football team is intertwined with underachievement and the words “British Telecom helpline” are intertwined with being an oxymoron.
It would be nice to be able to go out to the beach and enjoy a hot summer’s day, safe in the knowledge that it will remain a hot summer’s day, yet the last time I went to the British seaside, I had to go and buy a jumper to keep myself warm, and this was in August – whilst I wanted to see some beautiful blue skies and the feeling of the sand going between my toes, I ended up with blue hands and my toes nearly dropping off due to frostbite.
I always think the summer and the British seaside has always been associated with something slightly smutty, perhaps is it the Carry On style postcards that adorn the independent seaside newsagents. I don’t think that there has been a Carry On film recorded at the seaside, but it would have been a good idea; it would certainly give a legitimate reason for Barbara Windsor to be wearing a bikini and the writers would no doubt find an adequate reason for said bikini to fall off. Furthermore, the setting could easily be at a port town – that way Kenneth Williams could make jokes about sailors and the amount of discharged seamen on the streets.
But the British seaside during the summer appears to be a heaven for older people, often sensibly dressed in overcoats, tailored cotton trousers and black shoes, and who can blame them, the weather will often chance dramatically. It really is a shame though that our older people who’ve worked hard all their life aren’t afforded the luxury of nice weather in the summer, consequently people will instead holiday abroad.
The British will often head over to Spain, Portugal or Greece their holidays and battle with the rest of Europe in a competition to secure a sunlounger as early in the day as possible. At least by heading abroad, the schoolchildren aren’t subjected to the TV adverts that occur 1 day into the 6 weeks holidays saying that they will soon be “going back to school soon”, the children are aware of this, so it would be nice not to constantly remind them of the inevitable – you don’t see people going around an old peoples’ home and advising them that they will be dying soon, similarly, you don’t see people at a John Terry’s house telling his wife that her husband is probably having an affair, allegedly.
Yet, once the sunlounger is reserved, a week long project to change the colour of your body can commence, which will go one of two ways – firstly, you will burn and turn a shade of red which is slightly brighter than a highly embarrassed and heavily bleeding tomato or you will go brown and your body will have a higher leather content than Tom Jones’ trousers. Accordingly, on your return from holiday you need to ensure that you don’t visit the Land of Leather, just in case someone puts a price tag on you and includes you in their closing down sale – which a sale that has been ongoing since 1894.
Perhaps it is this desire to sunbath/burn that drives people to the sunnier spots, as well as the want to be close to the more attractive people, obviously for the younger man, there is the opportunity to froth at the mouth at the topless sunbathers from around the world… indeed, I once remember lying on a sunlounger next to an American with the biggest breasts I’d ever seen… he was enormous…
Monday 26 July 2010
Head and Shoulders above the rest
I remember when I was at school, there were many occasions when I got into trouble and I was told to go and speak to a man who had no arms, no legs and no body – he was called “the head”.
The role of the head-teacher is critically important to people’s education and future lives, the book ultimately stops with the head-teacher. Hence they can at times be accountable for up to 2,000 people’s education, it fosters a lot of responsibility and, a bit like Abu Hamza trying to tie his shoe laces – it’s not a very easy job.
A few weeks ago there was dismay after the head-teacher, Mr Mark Elms, of an inner-city London school was paid over £200,000 during the tax year. This led to calls from Education Secretary Michael Gove to cap take home pay for teachers, however, it should be noted that Elms did have a large amount paid to him as arrears, hence one of Elms’ failings was not demanding that his money be paid to him in the year he earned it. In any event, the parents of this school stated that Elms is worth every penny – presumably the opposers to Elms’ pay would rather employ an idiot to the post, pay them £20,000 and hope that by chance these children can somehow prosper.
The argument can no doubt be made that the Government needs to reduce its deficient and that is partly been done by cuts to public services and, there have been many criticisms of the current and previous Government and their spending: Was it wise to let John Prescott claim a food allowance on his expenses? Was there good value for money in the research and development of Boris Johnson? Was there really a need for 2 Millibands?
Certainly, the case can be made that no-one deserves to be paid more than the Prime Minister, however the large salaries that the private sector offers; make Mr Elms’ take home pay see rather meagre. In addition, one rather bizarre part of the story was for the GMB workers union to complain about Mr Elms’ pay, claiming it to be too high. It does make you wonder what the job of a union is, aren’t they meant to push for higher wages? To me it all appeared to be as bizarre as the occasions when Katie Price complains about press intrusion or when Simon Cowell criticises the lack of original and creative music.
Teaching though in general can be a tricky profession, you are the responsible person in the room, when a young child is neglected by their parents, hence it becomes the teachers’ responsibility to report this. This is a responsibility that continues right through to adulthood, when I was in a lecture theatre at university a few months ago, a girl fell down the stairs when leaving and even then, in a room full of adults, the lecturer was the person who walked to the front and checked if the girl was okay. Fortunately she was fine - therefore, everyone else in the room could continue with the feelings of: wanting to laugh, and regretting not recording the fall on their mobile phones.
Teaching is ultimately a skilled profession after all and the great saying goes, “Those who can teach; those who can’t… have to make do with less than 13 weeks holiday a year”. So it must be something of a kick in the teeth for teachers when the Conservatives announced their idea that parents and community groups can set up their own school if they feel their local school is underperforming. Aside from showing little care for the existing school, what do parents know about running a school? This idea I believe is quite popular in Scandinavia, where many schools are set up by parents and community groups. In Sweden, you can try to set up your own school – the school arrives flat-packed and you must assemble it with an alum key.
It would of course be useful if when you had a Government, which had some ridiculous half-baked ideas, then you could go and set up your own Government, however, there is no such possibility. The idea of having a choice is an interesting concept, and “choice” has become a buzzword in recent years. For example, there are plans to allow a patient the choice of which hospital they get have an operation in. To be honest, if I was due an operation, I wouldn’t really care which hospital I went to, as long as the job gets done, and furthermore, I know nothing about hospitals – to make a fully informed decision, I would probably have to go to medical school for 6 years, train as a doctor and then spend some time working in the hospitals I wanted to choose from, at which point I would probably have already died from whatever it was that left me requiring an operation.
As a way of transferring the power back to the people (or a way of making massive cuts in the public service, depending on your viewpoint) David Cameron this week announced his plans for a big society, where the community takes over the running of certain facilities, in a place where everyone contributes and gives their time for free. Cameron announced this last week and then went straight to America to speak to President Obama, that way he didn’t have to answer any questions about the “big society” that he appears to be forcing on to the nation – something which there doesn’t seem to be much choice in.
The trip didn’t run all that smoothly for Cameron though, he got into to hot water when asked if he’d, “packed his back himself,” to which he responded, “no… I got Nick Clegg to do it for me”… following on from that, the trip went from bad to worse… what with the cuts to services, and everyone being forced to make a contribution to society… Cameron was forced to fly the plane to America himself…
The role of the head-teacher is critically important to people’s education and future lives, the book ultimately stops with the head-teacher. Hence they can at times be accountable for up to 2,000 people’s education, it fosters a lot of responsibility and, a bit like Abu Hamza trying to tie his shoe laces – it’s not a very easy job.
A few weeks ago there was dismay after the head-teacher, Mr Mark Elms, of an inner-city London school was paid over £200,000 during the tax year. This led to calls from Education Secretary Michael Gove to cap take home pay for teachers, however, it should be noted that Elms did have a large amount paid to him as arrears, hence one of Elms’ failings was not demanding that his money be paid to him in the year he earned it. In any event, the parents of this school stated that Elms is worth every penny – presumably the opposers to Elms’ pay would rather employ an idiot to the post, pay them £20,000 and hope that by chance these children can somehow prosper.
The argument can no doubt be made that the Government needs to reduce its deficient and that is partly been done by cuts to public services and, there have been many criticisms of the current and previous Government and their spending: Was it wise to let John Prescott claim a food allowance on his expenses? Was there good value for money in the research and development of Boris Johnson? Was there really a need for 2 Millibands?
Certainly, the case can be made that no-one deserves to be paid more than the Prime Minister, however the large salaries that the private sector offers; make Mr Elms’ take home pay see rather meagre. In addition, one rather bizarre part of the story was for the GMB workers union to complain about Mr Elms’ pay, claiming it to be too high. It does make you wonder what the job of a union is, aren’t they meant to push for higher wages? To me it all appeared to be as bizarre as the occasions when Katie Price complains about press intrusion or when Simon Cowell criticises the lack of original and creative music.
Teaching though in general can be a tricky profession, you are the responsible person in the room, when a young child is neglected by their parents, hence it becomes the teachers’ responsibility to report this. This is a responsibility that continues right through to adulthood, when I was in a lecture theatre at university a few months ago, a girl fell down the stairs when leaving and even then, in a room full of adults, the lecturer was the person who walked to the front and checked if the girl was okay. Fortunately she was fine - therefore, everyone else in the room could continue with the feelings of: wanting to laugh, and regretting not recording the fall on their mobile phones.
Teaching is ultimately a skilled profession after all and the great saying goes, “Those who can teach; those who can’t… have to make do with less than 13 weeks holiday a year”. So it must be something of a kick in the teeth for teachers when the Conservatives announced their idea that parents and community groups can set up their own school if they feel their local school is underperforming. Aside from showing little care for the existing school, what do parents know about running a school? This idea I believe is quite popular in Scandinavia, where many schools are set up by parents and community groups. In Sweden, you can try to set up your own school – the school arrives flat-packed and you must assemble it with an alum key.
It would of course be useful if when you had a Government, which had some ridiculous half-baked ideas, then you could go and set up your own Government, however, there is no such possibility. The idea of having a choice is an interesting concept, and “choice” has become a buzzword in recent years. For example, there are plans to allow a patient the choice of which hospital they get have an operation in. To be honest, if I was due an operation, I wouldn’t really care which hospital I went to, as long as the job gets done, and furthermore, I know nothing about hospitals – to make a fully informed decision, I would probably have to go to medical school for 6 years, train as a doctor and then spend some time working in the hospitals I wanted to choose from, at which point I would probably have already died from whatever it was that left me requiring an operation.
As a way of transferring the power back to the people (or a way of making massive cuts in the public service, depending on your viewpoint) David Cameron this week announced his plans for a big society, where the community takes over the running of certain facilities, in a place where everyone contributes and gives their time for free. Cameron announced this last week and then went straight to America to speak to President Obama, that way he didn’t have to answer any questions about the “big society” that he appears to be forcing on to the nation – something which there doesn’t seem to be much choice in.
The trip didn’t run all that smoothly for Cameron though, he got into to hot water when asked if he’d, “packed his back himself,” to which he responded, “no… I got Nick Clegg to do it for me”… following on from that, the trip went from bad to worse… what with the cuts to services, and everyone being forced to make a contribution to society… Cameron was forced to fly the plane to America himself…
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Gentleman Only Ladies Forbidden
Gentleman Only Ladies Forbidden is long said to be the acronym which golf takes its name from, this is a total load of codswallop – the first recorded use of the phrase Gentleman Only Ladies Forbidden was on the invitation to one of Michael Barrymore’s infamous parties.
Golf is a game that has been played for many generations, throughout the ages some special golfers have staggered audiences throughout the world with some remarkable feats: Seve Ballesteros mesmerised crowds with his superb putting; Jack Nicklaus wowed the spectators with his accurate iron play and Tiger Woods left many ardent golf fans wondering… just how a black man was ever allowed to join a golf club.
At current, golf is in great danger of becoming an all inclusive sport, women play golf nowadays, despite the chortling from many old-fashioned men “well… I have no problem with a woman having an iron in her hand”, “she can take hold of my wood and balls any day” or “yeah… that’s what I like to see… she’s getting the tee ready”.
Nonetheless, I enjoy playing the occasional round of golf, some people often say that it can be a good walk spoilt, however the way I play, there is always the chance of a nice ramble through the trees and bushes after some of my wild strokes.
In recognising that golf has become more accessible, credit must be given to the powers that be for their marketing of the sport. I remember playing on PGA golf when I first got a PC in the 1990s and after the emergence of Tiger Woods, his prowess was hooked into and subsequent golf games were referred to as “Tiger Woods Golf 2003” etc. I have often played on these games and they are great, you get to play on some of the best courses in the world, such as Pebble Beach and Sawgrass and the 2010 version of the game has some new features, like “going to the lapdancing club”, “briefing your PR man about who to give money to, in order to keep them quiet” and “driving away from your wife while she tries to beat you to death with a golf club” – which also comes with a nifty “club selection” feature.
A lot of fun can be gained from playing golf and it should appeal to more people. Young people can start by playing crazy golf (now referred to as “emotionally different golf” in order not to offend – this is a move that is both: political correctness gone mad, and madness gone politically correct). Subsequent to that, youngsters can on: play pitch and putts, par 3 courses and then have a shot at the full 18 holes (insert your own Tiger Woods joke here…)
Golf is game that involves a great amount of skill and planning, it is based around a solid technique, whilst it may not be dynamic, walking 4 miles certainly is good for one’s fitness. On top of this, it is also a game of tactics, risk and brave decision making – it certainly take a lot of balls the way I play it.
The frustration with golf is that one day you can be play in a manner that is outstanding, and the next day you can be woeful. This is do doubt what gives the game an appeal to some people, whilst driving others up the wall. I have had many rounds where on the front 9 holes I’ve performed like The Beatles and on the back 9 holes, I’ve performed like Chas and Dave. My best round in the few years I’ve been playing was when I shot a 12 over 84, this consisted of a front 9 score of 39 and back 9 score of 45 – this round was my small tribute to the many troops who fought in the second world war, and it gives me some affinity with them, as I went out in 39 and came back in 45.
Last week, the showpiece of UK golf, The Open Championship, was played at the home of golf, St Andrew’s, on the Old Course – you would have thought that for such an important tournament, they would let them play on a newer course instead of a tatty old thing.
But nonetheless, the Old Course it was and the most famous hole is the 17th, named the road hole. Local rules state that if the ball lands on the road at the back of the green, then you hit the ball off the road, instead of moving the ball onto the grass to play your shot. Such rules probably turn people away from golf, the entire rule book must be exorbitantly thick, and on top of that, each club carries local rules as well. It’s like the Highway Code saying that on certain roads you must drive on the right-hand side of the road.
The Open was won in a convincing manner by Lodewicus Theodorus Oosthuizen – no doubt man who engraved the trophy this year was given a lot more work to do than he expected, that said he can’t really complain given that he only does it once a year and hopefully he will have finished the job in time for next year’s tournament.
Oosthuizen’s achievement was quite impressive, it was only the second time in his entire career that he has ever finished in the top half of any of golf’s 4 major tournaments and this perhaps emphasises the best part of the game: there are times when you can simply play out of your skin and impress anyone. Spare a though for Rory McIlroy, who had a 17 shot difference between his first two rounds – I’m not sure exactly, but that must be a record that simply can’t be beaten, a bit like Lee Harvey Oswald’s record of “the most amount of times anyone has ever killed President John F Kennedy”.
In terms of trying to impress anyone, I remember once playing golf with a friend of mine who taking a large amount of time over his tee shot on the first hole. When I questioned him as to what he was doing, he responded that his wife was watching him from the clubhouse balcony and he wanted to hit the perfect shot… he landed his ball in the trees at the side of the fairway… this was unfortunate for him… he was trying to hit his wife between the eyes…
Golf is a game that has been played for many generations, throughout the ages some special golfers have staggered audiences throughout the world with some remarkable feats: Seve Ballesteros mesmerised crowds with his superb putting; Jack Nicklaus wowed the spectators with his accurate iron play and Tiger Woods left many ardent golf fans wondering… just how a black man was ever allowed to join a golf club.
At current, golf is in great danger of becoming an all inclusive sport, women play golf nowadays, despite the chortling from many old-fashioned men “well… I have no problem with a woman having an iron in her hand”, “she can take hold of my wood and balls any day” or “yeah… that’s what I like to see… she’s getting the tee ready”.
Nonetheless, I enjoy playing the occasional round of golf, some people often say that it can be a good walk spoilt, however the way I play, there is always the chance of a nice ramble through the trees and bushes after some of my wild strokes.
In recognising that golf has become more accessible, credit must be given to the powers that be for their marketing of the sport. I remember playing on PGA golf when I first got a PC in the 1990s and after the emergence of Tiger Woods, his prowess was hooked into and subsequent golf games were referred to as “Tiger Woods Golf 2003” etc. I have often played on these games and they are great, you get to play on some of the best courses in the world, such as Pebble Beach and Sawgrass and the 2010 version of the game has some new features, like “going to the lapdancing club”, “briefing your PR man about who to give money to, in order to keep them quiet” and “driving away from your wife while she tries to beat you to death with a golf club” – which also comes with a nifty “club selection” feature.
A lot of fun can be gained from playing golf and it should appeal to more people. Young people can start by playing crazy golf (now referred to as “emotionally different golf” in order not to offend – this is a move that is both: political correctness gone mad, and madness gone politically correct). Subsequent to that, youngsters can on: play pitch and putts, par 3 courses and then have a shot at the full 18 holes (insert your own Tiger Woods joke here…)
Golf is game that involves a great amount of skill and planning, it is based around a solid technique, whilst it may not be dynamic, walking 4 miles certainly is good for one’s fitness. On top of this, it is also a game of tactics, risk and brave decision making – it certainly take a lot of balls the way I play it.
The frustration with golf is that one day you can be play in a manner that is outstanding, and the next day you can be woeful. This is do doubt what gives the game an appeal to some people, whilst driving others up the wall. I have had many rounds where on the front 9 holes I’ve performed like The Beatles and on the back 9 holes, I’ve performed like Chas and Dave. My best round in the few years I’ve been playing was when I shot a 12 over 84, this consisted of a front 9 score of 39 and back 9 score of 45 – this round was my small tribute to the many troops who fought in the second world war, and it gives me some affinity with them, as I went out in 39 and came back in 45.
Last week, the showpiece of UK golf, The Open Championship, was played at the home of golf, St Andrew’s, on the Old Course – you would have thought that for such an important tournament, they would let them play on a newer course instead of a tatty old thing.
But nonetheless, the Old Course it was and the most famous hole is the 17th, named the road hole. Local rules state that if the ball lands on the road at the back of the green, then you hit the ball off the road, instead of moving the ball onto the grass to play your shot. Such rules probably turn people away from golf, the entire rule book must be exorbitantly thick, and on top of that, each club carries local rules as well. It’s like the Highway Code saying that on certain roads you must drive on the right-hand side of the road.
The Open was won in a convincing manner by Lodewicus Theodorus Oosthuizen – no doubt man who engraved the trophy this year was given a lot more work to do than he expected, that said he can’t really complain given that he only does it once a year and hopefully he will have finished the job in time for next year’s tournament.
Oosthuizen’s achievement was quite impressive, it was only the second time in his entire career that he has ever finished in the top half of any of golf’s 4 major tournaments and this perhaps emphasises the best part of the game: there are times when you can simply play out of your skin and impress anyone. Spare a though for Rory McIlroy, who had a 17 shot difference between his first two rounds – I’m not sure exactly, but that must be a record that simply can’t be beaten, a bit like Lee Harvey Oswald’s record of “the most amount of times anyone has ever killed President John F Kennedy”.
In terms of trying to impress anyone, I remember once playing golf with a friend of mine who taking a large amount of time over his tee shot on the first hole. When I questioned him as to what he was doing, he responded that his wife was watching him from the clubhouse balcony and he wanted to hit the perfect shot… he landed his ball in the trees at the side of the fairway… this was unfortunate for him… he was trying to hit his wife between the eyes…
Friday 16 July 2010
A German Named Paul
Animals have always been something that have interested me, both domesticated and wild, all humans are animals (in Wayne Rooney’s case, the resemblance is a bit too uncanny), however not all animals are human, and that is a very important thing to remember.
I, to be honest, am not an animal lover, but I appreciated that other people are. I know when I go to a friend’s house and if they have a dog; I will get covered in dog hairs and I also appreciate that some cat owners may erroneously believe that their cat is a child. However, I do not appreciate being accosted in the street by a dog with sharp teeth who rears up, salivates all over me and puts their mucky paws on me – even if the dog is “only playing”. Likewise, I don’t particularly like it when my friend’s dogs/cats decide to hump my leg – as I said, I’m not an animal lover, literally.
In fairness, my main gripe isn’t so much towards the animals, as it is towards the owners of said animals, quite how a dog/cat owner knows when their dog is “only playing” or that their cat is “really clever” is beyond me. Indeed, can animals even be all that intelligent?
Well… presumably… yes. As this week it was revealed that a German Octopus called Paul tried to predict the outcome of 8 World Cup games and he got them all correct – this makes him significant cleverer than the person who decided to call an Octopus Paul. Paul would also be an unusual name for a German, however, Paul was apparently born in England – so along with Howard Webb, he ensured that England had some form of involvement with the World Cup final.
Whether it was skill or guesswork is a mystery, the likelihood of Paul’s guesses being pot luck are quite rare at 1 in 256 – which carries the same chance of putting the entire songbook of Westlife on, and happening upon a good song. Or alternatively, the same odds as Prince Phillip going on a Royal visit and not making an offensive remark. (By the way, my favourite gaffe from Prince Philip was when he saw a badly fitted fuse box on a tour of a factory in Scotland and commented that it, “looked like it had been fitted by an Indian” – a remark that managed to offend over one billion people in one fell swoop, which is an impressive number, even by Prince Phillip’s standards).
Getting back to Paul, he should be congratulated for his feat, predicating as many games correctly as you have legs is tricky for an animal and I for one am certainly looking forward to David the Hungarian Millipede’s predictions for the 2014 World Cup.
Paul’s method of predicting the winners was simple, he sat on the box of the country whom he thought was going to win – the original plan was for him to point to the county he thought was going to win, but when he tried it out in a practice run, all he broke loose as their were tentacles gesticulating all over the place.
Whether Paul is that intelligent is a topic for debate, whilst he managed to predict the result of the World Cup final, he failed to predict that it would be a terrible game and he would have been rendered useless if Germany had drawn any of their group games. Furthermore, if Paul was that intelligent then surely he would have tried to place a few bets on his predictions – he could have earned himself a few squid. *
I think that our obsession with Paul, and creatures such as him, is because we as a human race like to claim we know exactly what an animal is thinking. Often people say that snakes are more frightened of humans than humans are of snakes – I can assure you that this isn’t the case, there is no way whatsoever that if I came face-to-face with Oliver the Burmese Python, that he would be more terrified than me. The idea that he is more scared of me is like suggesting that if I was convicted to death by firing squad, then the fighting squad would be more concerned about their safety that I would be about mine – although this may be a legitimate feeling if it’s an American firing squad, what with their well known ability to shoot their own allies.
I can understand people’s desire to get near to animals, particularly dangerous ones, as it is a form of flirting to the unknown, a thrill-seeking endeavour, however, as Steve Irwin proved things can go horribly wrong. This week the land Down Under gave another example of this, when it was a revealed that a heavily intoxicated Australian named Michael Newman, was on his way home from a pub, when he decided to try and ride home on a Crocodile – Mr Newman now no doubt regrets walking into his local taxi office and saying, “can you find me something to take me home… and make it snappy”.
Note, these are all allegations made by the police – hence the police can now be legitimately referred to as “the alligators”.
The poor man was savagely attacked by Macro the Australian Crocodile; following this he then went back to the bar he had previously been drinking in with chunks of flesh missing from his lower body. Mr Newman has been heavily intoxicated on many occasions (he’s Australian), however, this time… he was… quite literally… legless…
* I greatly appreciate it if you continued reading this blog after the “squid” joke…
I, to be honest, am not an animal lover, but I appreciated that other people are. I know when I go to a friend’s house and if they have a dog; I will get covered in dog hairs and I also appreciate that some cat owners may erroneously believe that their cat is a child. However, I do not appreciate being accosted in the street by a dog with sharp teeth who rears up, salivates all over me and puts their mucky paws on me – even if the dog is “only playing”. Likewise, I don’t particularly like it when my friend’s dogs/cats decide to hump my leg – as I said, I’m not an animal lover, literally.
In fairness, my main gripe isn’t so much towards the animals, as it is towards the owners of said animals, quite how a dog/cat owner knows when their dog is “only playing” or that their cat is “really clever” is beyond me. Indeed, can animals even be all that intelligent?
Well… presumably… yes. As this week it was revealed that a German Octopus called Paul tried to predict the outcome of 8 World Cup games and he got them all correct – this makes him significant cleverer than the person who decided to call an Octopus Paul. Paul would also be an unusual name for a German, however, Paul was apparently born in England – so along with Howard Webb, he ensured that England had some form of involvement with the World Cup final.
Whether it was skill or guesswork is a mystery, the likelihood of Paul’s guesses being pot luck are quite rare at 1 in 256 – which carries the same chance of putting the entire songbook of Westlife on, and happening upon a good song. Or alternatively, the same odds as Prince Phillip going on a Royal visit and not making an offensive remark. (By the way, my favourite gaffe from Prince Philip was when he saw a badly fitted fuse box on a tour of a factory in Scotland and commented that it, “looked like it had been fitted by an Indian” – a remark that managed to offend over one billion people in one fell swoop, which is an impressive number, even by Prince Phillip’s standards).
Getting back to Paul, he should be congratulated for his feat, predicating as many games correctly as you have legs is tricky for an animal and I for one am certainly looking forward to David the Hungarian Millipede’s predictions for the 2014 World Cup.
Paul’s method of predicting the winners was simple, he sat on the box of the country whom he thought was going to win – the original plan was for him to point to the county he thought was going to win, but when he tried it out in a practice run, all he broke loose as their were tentacles gesticulating all over the place.
Whether Paul is that intelligent is a topic for debate, whilst he managed to predict the result of the World Cup final, he failed to predict that it would be a terrible game and he would have been rendered useless if Germany had drawn any of their group games. Furthermore, if Paul was that intelligent then surely he would have tried to place a few bets on his predictions – he could have earned himself a few squid. *
I think that our obsession with Paul, and creatures such as him, is because we as a human race like to claim we know exactly what an animal is thinking. Often people say that snakes are more frightened of humans than humans are of snakes – I can assure you that this isn’t the case, there is no way whatsoever that if I came face-to-face with Oliver the Burmese Python, that he would be more terrified than me. The idea that he is more scared of me is like suggesting that if I was convicted to death by firing squad, then the fighting squad would be more concerned about their safety that I would be about mine – although this may be a legitimate feeling if it’s an American firing squad, what with their well known ability to shoot their own allies.
I can understand people’s desire to get near to animals, particularly dangerous ones, as it is a form of flirting to the unknown, a thrill-seeking endeavour, however, as Steve Irwin proved things can go horribly wrong. This week the land Down Under gave another example of this, when it was a revealed that a heavily intoxicated Australian named Michael Newman, was on his way home from a pub, when he decided to try and ride home on a Crocodile – Mr Newman now no doubt regrets walking into his local taxi office and saying, “can you find me something to take me home… and make it snappy”.
Note, these are all allegations made by the police – hence the police can now be legitimately referred to as “the alligators”.
The poor man was savagely attacked by Macro the Australian Crocodile; following this he then went back to the bar he had previously been drinking in with chunks of flesh missing from his lower body. Mr Newman has been heavily intoxicated on many occasions (he’s Australian), however, this time… he was… quite literally… legless…
* I greatly appreciate it if you continued reading this blog after the “squid” joke…
Tuesday 13 July 2010
And on That Bombshell
I am back ‘blogging, fortunately I wasn’t taken by members of the Russian underground – or used as a bargaining tool to facilitate an international spy swap.
This ‘blog focuses on television chat shows, a genre which has always interested me. It appears to be a popular format, to the extent that almost every television programme now appears to drop a few chat show elements into it – for some reason, listening to two people talk on television is far more interesting than if they were talking in place other than in front of a television camera.
I watched Top Gear on BBC2 the other week and Alastair Campbell was the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, hence he had a mini interview with Jeremy Clarkson as well,
“he’s quite obnoxious, rude and small minded, yet despite all this, he appears to large following, with many people ignoring his misgivings and worshipping the ground he walks on”
… is what they both said after the interview. Campbell in fairness didn’t really have much to plug whilst he was on Top Gear, instead he spoke about the recent General Election and he put his usual spin on it. Clarkson conducted the interview quite well and he didn’t explode like Adam Boulton – the now infamous Boulton/Campbell clash is quite unique as Boulton became the first person in history to actually make Alastair Campbell come out of an interview looking relatively pleasant.
It is noticeable that Clarkson ends every episode of Top Gear with the Alan Partridge phrase “and on that bombshell” – this is perhaps a good analogy for what television chat shows have become, what started out as a joke on the fictional Alan Partridge show actually came to life when Cabinet minister Mo Mowlem MP took part in a dog marriage ceremony on So Graham Norton in 2000. Also such bottom-of-the-barrel behaviour was replicated when Jonathan Ross asked David Cameron MP if he had ever “had a wank while thinking about Mrs Thatcher”, which is quite a disgusting thing to ask – although no doubt the messages left by Ross on Cameron’s answerphone after the show were even more distasteful.
A few days before Campbell’s appearance on Top Gear I was flicking through the TV channels and happened upon a show on More4 which reviewed books to read for the summer. The guest on this occasion was Peter Andre, he spoke to heavyweight interviewer Jo Brand about his book “My World: in Pictures and Words” – one can only assume that to simply publish a book called “My World: in Words” would be too intellectually challenging for both Andre and his customer base, so he instead when for a Mr Men style book. I’m not fully sure which Mr Men character Andre would be – although it is worth noting that the most recent Mr Men book to be published was called Mr Nobody.
Whilst promoting his book, Andre did chat about his career, which didn’t take long, and he then spoke about his life and said that whilst he’d done “sex” and “rock and roll”, he didn’t do “drugs” – I’m not sure exactly what constituted the rock and roll to be honest, it could have been Mysterious Girl, but likewise it could have been that well know rock and roll song Insania. In all honesty, Andre sounds like a nice enough type of man. But that’s it. You could find people just as amiable as him on the street, yet we have a thirst for knowing more about him.
Indeed if we do want to find out about people on the street then we can get a warped idea by watching the Jeremy Kyle Show, where Kyle nips down to the local job centre in order to recruit his guests. Kyle, the morally superior host (twice married, fathered four children, had a string of affairs, former gambling addict and stole from his first wife, allegedly) then bear bates his guests, the bulk of whom have their lives in turmoil. Such a show isn’t new, the bigoted and permanently tanned Robert Kilroy-Silk presented a similar show for many years until he was forced to resign, he then attempted to re-start his Political career. Note, one funny moment involving Kilroy-Silk was when someone threw a bucket of horse manure over him – a case of the shit hitting the tan.
The nature of a celebrity chat show is quite tried and tested: start the series amongst much hype with some relatively big hitting guests; subsequently the quality of the guests will dwindle; normally each show will contain a comedian, in order to get a few laughs, and there will also be a musical guest for ensure everyone’s taste is catered for. It is worth pointing out that BBC4 has a range of in depth interviews that last one hour and focuses on the thoughts and career of the sole interviewee. These programmes are often on late at night though – heaven forbid that they might schedule clash with Robson Green’s Extreme Fishing.
Perhaps the worst of all the chat shows was Davina McCall’s self-titled show Davina – she will no doubt now regret the naming of the show as it inherently links back to her. However the slightly perverse thing is that not many people remember her for it because it was so terrible and the guests were so poor that virtually no-one watched this prime-time BBC1 show. Indeed it took over a week to realise that one show featured as its guests: Osama Bin Laden, Lord Lucan, Shergar and music from Glenn Miller… and on that bombshell…
This ‘blog focuses on television chat shows, a genre which has always interested me. It appears to be a popular format, to the extent that almost every television programme now appears to drop a few chat show elements into it – for some reason, listening to two people talk on television is far more interesting than if they were talking in place other than in front of a television camera.
I watched Top Gear on BBC2 the other week and Alastair Campbell was the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, hence he had a mini interview with Jeremy Clarkson as well,
“he’s quite obnoxious, rude and small minded, yet despite all this, he appears to large following, with many people ignoring his misgivings and worshipping the ground he walks on”
… is what they both said after the interview. Campbell in fairness didn’t really have much to plug whilst he was on Top Gear, instead he spoke about the recent General Election and he put his usual spin on it. Clarkson conducted the interview quite well and he didn’t explode like Adam Boulton – the now infamous Boulton/Campbell clash is quite unique as Boulton became the first person in history to actually make Alastair Campbell come out of an interview looking relatively pleasant.
It is noticeable that Clarkson ends every episode of Top Gear with the Alan Partridge phrase “and on that bombshell” – this is perhaps a good analogy for what television chat shows have become, what started out as a joke on the fictional Alan Partridge show actually came to life when Cabinet minister Mo Mowlem MP took part in a dog marriage ceremony on So Graham Norton in 2000. Also such bottom-of-the-barrel behaviour was replicated when Jonathan Ross asked David Cameron MP if he had ever “had a wank while thinking about Mrs Thatcher”, which is quite a disgusting thing to ask – although no doubt the messages left by Ross on Cameron’s answerphone after the show were even more distasteful.
A few days before Campbell’s appearance on Top Gear I was flicking through the TV channels and happened upon a show on More4 which reviewed books to read for the summer. The guest on this occasion was Peter Andre, he spoke to heavyweight interviewer Jo Brand about his book “My World: in Pictures and Words” – one can only assume that to simply publish a book called “My World: in Words” would be too intellectually challenging for both Andre and his customer base, so he instead when for a Mr Men style book. I’m not fully sure which Mr Men character Andre would be – although it is worth noting that the most recent Mr Men book to be published was called Mr Nobody.
Whilst promoting his book, Andre did chat about his career, which didn’t take long, and he then spoke about his life and said that whilst he’d done “sex” and “rock and roll”, he didn’t do “drugs” – I’m not sure exactly what constituted the rock and roll to be honest, it could have been Mysterious Girl, but likewise it could have been that well know rock and roll song Insania. In all honesty, Andre sounds like a nice enough type of man. But that’s it. You could find people just as amiable as him on the street, yet we have a thirst for knowing more about him.
Indeed if we do want to find out about people on the street then we can get a warped idea by watching the Jeremy Kyle Show, where Kyle nips down to the local job centre in order to recruit his guests. Kyle, the morally superior host (twice married, fathered four children, had a string of affairs, former gambling addict and stole from his first wife, allegedly) then bear bates his guests, the bulk of whom have their lives in turmoil. Such a show isn’t new, the bigoted and permanently tanned Robert Kilroy-Silk presented a similar show for many years until he was forced to resign, he then attempted to re-start his Political career. Note, one funny moment involving Kilroy-Silk was when someone threw a bucket of horse manure over him – a case of the shit hitting the tan.
The nature of a celebrity chat show is quite tried and tested: start the series amongst much hype with some relatively big hitting guests; subsequently the quality of the guests will dwindle; normally each show will contain a comedian, in order to get a few laughs, and there will also be a musical guest for ensure everyone’s taste is catered for. It is worth pointing out that BBC4 has a range of in depth interviews that last one hour and focuses on the thoughts and career of the sole interviewee. These programmes are often on late at night though – heaven forbid that they might schedule clash with Robson Green’s Extreme Fishing.
Perhaps the worst of all the chat shows was Davina McCall’s self-titled show Davina – she will no doubt now regret the naming of the show as it inherently links back to her. However the slightly perverse thing is that not many people remember her for it because it was so terrible and the guests were so poor that virtually no-one watched this prime-time BBC1 show. Indeed it took over a week to realise that one show featured as its guests: Osama Bin Laden, Lord Lucan, Shergar and music from Glenn Miller… and on that bombshell…
Thursday 8 July 2010
To Spy or Not To Spy
“David, Howard, Aaron, Charles, Sergei… I’ve been informed that we have a spy amongst the group.” Spying has long such been a mysterious grey area that intrigues people, although I suppose that is the point - if a spy was to reveal every facet of their duties, together with a neon sign pointing to them informing all and sundry that they are a spy, then they would be doing something of a poor job.
Spies are something that, in my own mind at least, tend to be associated with Russia and the old Soviet empire. The last three international stories that I can recall regarding spies all involved Russia – although to be fair, Russia may not be linked to spies more than any other country, it could just be the case that Russia’s spies are inherently terrible at their job and get found out far too easily.
Last week a story broke regarding an alleged Russian spy ring, which had been uncovered by the American authorities, with ten people taken into custody and whilst an eleventh remained at large. The methods that these spies used were traditional, brush-past bag swaps in public places was one of them, writing coded messages in invisible ink was another one – one person who read my blog recently suggested that I should type in invisible ink, in order to make my blog a better quality read…
Another technique used was the utilisation of code words, this has been a long held tradition for spies, here are a few code words from both the past and present:
- “England back four” was a phrase used predominantly in the second world war, it meant “the Germans are coming; so we must separate out and fade into the background for the next 90 minutes”.
- “Coalition Government” is a phrase used when the spies are running short of supplies, it means “pool our resources together… and proceed with all the worst bits”.
- “New iPhone” is a message that goes between the spies on the ground and HQ, it means “I think my telecommunication device has got a poor signal, but I could be holding it wrong. I’ll send a carrier pigeon to be on the safe side; in the meantime, I’m playing on Angry Birds”.
- “George Michael” is a critically urgent message sent to all spies on the ground, it means “there is a rouge sleeper agent on the road, please move indoors for your own safety - to be fully free from hazard possessed by this sleeper agent, please ensure you don’t go to a public toilet”.
My earlier assertion that spies are often linked to Russia also relates to the case of Alexander Litvinenko, a man who went out for an enjoyable meal of sushi in a London restaurant in November 2006 and returned home with a radiant glow in his cheeks. This radiant glow was due to him being poisoned, and sadly, he subsequently passed away. He wasn’t allowed to be cremated due to fears that the crematorium would turn into a small scale Hiroshima and become uninhabitable for years to come – even though, most people in a crematorium are dead anyway. Hence he was instead buried, his grave is apparently kept in a nice condition – rumour has it that his is the only grave in the cemetery that has no weeds growing on it.
As a side note, I was once in the toilet of a hotel and an Eastern European gentleman was talking to an English teenager. The chap from Eastern Europe spoke to the young lad about being part of the Russian secret service and said that he had met Alexander Litvinenko. I didn’t really want to remain in the room with a potential member of the underworld, however, given that I was currently going to the toilet, I was unable to make a quick getaway. To this day I have no idea what that man was doing in the restroom – The only thing I can rule out is that he hadn’t just been given the George Michael codeword.
The travel arrangements for spies must be increasingly difficult. Post 9/11, airport security is far tighter and when 11 members of Mossad allegedly hunted down and killed a senior Hamas figure in a Dubai hotel in January 2010, details of the alleged perpetrators were published very shortly afterwards, together with their routes in and out of Dubai – this was done on a diagram that looked like one of those end of year football transfer webs that often appear during the off season, or if you don’t like football, it was like a diagram plotting the marriages of Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Something else causing problems for spies are the security checks in place at airports, due to the increased risk of terrorism. The most recent attempted airborne terrorist act was committed around Christmas time 2009 when a bomber attempted to detonate a bomb that was in his underpants, that said, the clues were there to spot this terrorist – he spend 2 hours going around the airport saying “I’ve got a 7 inch weapon in my pants”, however, everyone just thought he was a highly sexed pervert. Obviously for the bomber, that whole escapade would make for a superb anecdote to tell his future grandchildren – unfortunately for him, he blew his testicles off in the making of the story.
With all that in mind, travel restrictions should now make spying much trickier for the Russians, however it doesn’t… these Russians all still travel together… starting with the largest spy, who has inside him a slightly smaller spy… who in turn has a slightly smaller spy inside him… who in turn has a slightly smaller spy inside him…
* Hopefully I will be able to blog again and I won’t be bumped off by a member of the underworld.
Spies are something that, in my own mind at least, tend to be associated with Russia and the old Soviet empire. The last three international stories that I can recall regarding spies all involved Russia – although to be fair, Russia may not be linked to spies more than any other country, it could just be the case that Russia’s spies are inherently terrible at their job and get found out far too easily.
Last week a story broke regarding an alleged Russian spy ring, which had been uncovered by the American authorities, with ten people taken into custody and whilst an eleventh remained at large. The methods that these spies used were traditional, brush-past bag swaps in public places was one of them, writing coded messages in invisible ink was another one – one person who read my blog recently suggested that I should type in invisible ink, in order to make my blog a better quality read…
Another technique used was the utilisation of code words, this has been a long held tradition for spies, here are a few code words from both the past and present:
- “England back four” was a phrase used predominantly in the second world war, it meant “the Germans are coming; so we must separate out and fade into the background for the next 90 minutes”.
- “Coalition Government” is a phrase used when the spies are running short of supplies, it means “pool our resources together… and proceed with all the worst bits”.
- “New iPhone” is a message that goes between the spies on the ground and HQ, it means “I think my telecommunication device has got a poor signal, but I could be holding it wrong. I’ll send a carrier pigeon to be on the safe side; in the meantime, I’m playing on Angry Birds”.
- “George Michael” is a critically urgent message sent to all spies on the ground, it means “there is a rouge sleeper agent on the road, please move indoors for your own safety - to be fully free from hazard possessed by this sleeper agent, please ensure you don’t go to a public toilet”.
My earlier assertion that spies are often linked to Russia also relates to the case of Alexander Litvinenko, a man who went out for an enjoyable meal of sushi in a London restaurant in November 2006 and returned home with a radiant glow in his cheeks. This radiant glow was due to him being poisoned, and sadly, he subsequently passed away. He wasn’t allowed to be cremated due to fears that the crematorium would turn into a small scale Hiroshima and become uninhabitable for years to come – even though, most people in a crematorium are dead anyway. Hence he was instead buried, his grave is apparently kept in a nice condition – rumour has it that his is the only grave in the cemetery that has no weeds growing on it.
As a side note, I was once in the toilet of a hotel and an Eastern European gentleman was talking to an English teenager. The chap from Eastern Europe spoke to the young lad about being part of the Russian secret service and said that he had met Alexander Litvinenko. I didn’t really want to remain in the room with a potential member of the underworld, however, given that I was currently going to the toilet, I was unable to make a quick getaway. To this day I have no idea what that man was doing in the restroom – The only thing I can rule out is that he hadn’t just been given the George Michael codeword.
The travel arrangements for spies must be increasingly difficult. Post 9/11, airport security is far tighter and when 11 members of Mossad allegedly hunted down and killed a senior Hamas figure in a Dubai hotel in January 2010, details of the alleged perpetrators were published very shortly afterwards, together with their routes in and out of Dubai – this was done on a diagram that looked like one of those end of year football transfer webs that often appear during the off season, or if you don’t like football, it was like a diagram plotting the marriages of Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Something else causing problems for spies are the security checks in place at airports, due to the increased risk of terrorism. The most recent attempted airborne terrorist act was committed around Christmas time 2009 when a bomber attempted to detonate a bomb that was in his underpants, that said, the clues were there to spot this terrorist – he spend 2 hours going around the airport saying “I’ve got a 7 inch weapon in my pants”, however, everyone just thought he was a highly sexed pervert. Obviously for the bomber, that whole escapade would make for a superb anecdote to tell his future grandchildren – unfortunately for him, he blew his testicles off in the making of the story.
With all that in mind, travel restrictions should now make spying much trickier for the Russians, however it doesn’t… these Russians all still travel together… starting with the largest spy, who has inside him a slightly smaller spy… who in turn has a slightly smaller spy inside him… who in turn has a slightly smaller spy inside him…
* Hopefully I will be able to blog again and I won’t be bumped off by a member of the underworld.
Monday 5 July 2010
FABio CRAPello
In 2014 England football fans will talk about having 48 years of hurt, this is because in the 2010 World Cup the result for England was the same as every other World Cup bar 1966 – England didn’t win. On this occasion England bowed out in a woeful style, although to say they had any form of style would be an elongation of the truth. After a strong qualifying campaign the manger, Fabio Capello, was lauded in the press, yet come the finals he made a monument mistake – he kept with the same tried, tested and successful system… he thus became a bad manager.
Quite why England were so inept is a bit of a mystery, the were not able to pass the ball competently – it was so poor that I wondered whether England were fielding an invisible 12th player who they kept passing to and he was simply unable to control the ball. On top of that, come the World Cup, the team’s structure appeared to have all the rigidity of the Tay Bridge in Scotland – that last sentence was quite rare as it is one of the very few to contain the words “World Cup” and “Scotland”. The whole debate about whether England should have played 4-4-2, 4-5-1, 3-5-2 or 4-2-3-1 did make the words “polish” and “turd” spring to mind.
England started off badly at the World Cup – their pre-tournament meal was a disaster: Robert Green dropped his drink and it went all over the floor, Emile Heskey then slipped on the wet tiles. Despite there not being a foul, England were awarded a penalty, which Frank Lampard took and put over the bar, knocking the squad’s pre-purchased bottles of: whiskey, vodka, gin, port, scotch and martini off the shelf and down the cellar hatch… thus, quite literally, the team’s spirits were at an all time low, having just fallen through the floor.
On the pitch things weren’t much better, England were woeful against the USA, subsequently they were pathetically abysmal against Algeria, moderate against Slovenia and they were finally embarrassed by Germany - where the defence on display was as poor as the ones given by MPs during the expenses scandal and John Terry’s wife appeared to have a greater understanding of where Terry was than Matthew Upson did.
In terms of firepower, England appeared to be as well equipped as a soldier going to fight the Taliban armed only with a water pistol – regrettably, such a solider would probably be one of the better equipped troops that Britain currently has fighting in Afghanistan. Wayne Rooney was the man whom the England fans had pinned their hopes on prior to the World Cup; his form going into the tournament was superb - in terms of footballing ability, he is regarded as one of the best genetically modified potatoes in the world.
Analysing the campaign, one survey of the England fans showed that 68% of the supporters thought Rooney had a poor World Cup – the other 32% presumably failed to realise he even attended the tournament.
Nonetheless, the reports coming from the England base camp suggested that Rooney was banging in goals right, left and centre during training – however, in training he did have the considerable advantage of playing against England’s defence.
The England camp appeared to harbour a great disharmony and many things went wrong leading up to, and during, the World Cup: John Terry forgot who he was married to, Beckham and Rio both suffered injuries, John Terry appeared to suggest the players were revolting (they weren’t in terms of disobeying their leader, although they probably are morally) and during the game with Algeria, there was an unwanted intruder in the dressing room who had no footballing ability whatsoever – but that’s enough about Shaun Wright-Phillips.
After a turbulent campaign where the manager was ragged from pillar to post. The final nail in the coffin came via a 4-1 mauling to Germany, a team who are destined to be labelled as “efficient” just like their car industry – similarly, the British car industry had been in decline since the 1970s, despite having a lot of cash thrown at it.
England were unlucky when Frank Lampard’s shot appeared to break the laws of physics – the fact that the ball hit the crossbar, bounced and then hit the crossbar is clear indicator that the ball crossed the line. Although to be honest I didn’t see the incident in great detail… I was busy trying to linesman the match.
Subsequently the players came home early, given that the French team were forced to return home via economy class due to their poor showing, the England team should have been sent a consignment of roller skates for their return trip. But nonetheless 23 young fit men arrived back at Heathrow last week, tired from their season of football… well 22 young fit men… true to form, Robert Green was unable to even catch the flight…
Quite why England were so inept is a bit of a mystery, the were not able to pass the ball competently – it was so poor that I wondered whether England were fielding an invisible 12th player who they kept passing to and he was simply unable to control the ball. On top of that, come the World Cup, the team’s structure appeared to have all the rigidity of the Tay Bridge in Scotland – that last sentence was quite rare as it is one of the very few to contain the words “World Cup” and “Scotland”. The whole debate about whether England should have played 4-4-2, 4-5-1, 3-5-2 or 4-2-3-1 did make the words “polish” and “turd” spring to mind.
England started off badly at the World Cup – their pre-tournament meal was a disaster: Robert Green dropped his drink and it went all over the floor, Emile Heskey then slipped on the wet tiles. Despite there not being a foul, England were awarded a penalty, which Frank Lampard took and put over the bar, knocking the squad’s pre-purchased bottles of: whiskey, vodka, gin, port, scotch and martini off the shelf and down the cellar hatch… thus, quite literally, the team’s spirits were at an all time low, having just fallen through the floor.
On the pitch things weren’t much better, England were woeful against the USA, subsequently they were pathetically abysmal against Algeria, moderate against Slovenia and they were finally embarrassed by Germany - where the defence on display was as poor as the ones given by MPs during the expenses scandal and John Terry’s wife appeared to have a greater understanding of where Terry was than Matthew Upson did.
In terms of firepower, England appeared to be as well equipped as a soldier going to fight the Taliban armed only with a water pistol – regrettably, such a solider would probably be one of the better equipped troops that Britain currently has fighting in Afghanistan. Wayne Rooney was the man whom the England fans had pinned their hopes on prior to the World Cup; his form going into the tournament was superb - in terms of footballing ability, he is regarded as one of the best genetically modified potatoes in the world.
Analysing the campaign, one survey of the England fans showed that 68% of the supporters thought Rooney had a poor World Cup – the other 32% presumably failed to realise he even attended the tournament.
Nonetheless, the reports coming from the England base camp suggested that Rooney was banging in goals right, left and centre during training – however, in training he did have the considerable advantage of playing against England’s defence.
The England camp appeared to harbour a great disharmony and many things went wrong leading up to, and during, the World Cup: John Terry forgot who he was married to, Beckham and Rio both suffered injuries, John Terry appeared to suggest the players were revolting (they weren’t in terms of disobeying their leader, although they probably are morally) and during the game with Algeria, there was an unwanted intruder in the dressing room who had no footballing ability whatsoever – but that’s enough about Shaun Wright-Phillips.
After a turbulent campaign where the manager was ragged from pillar to post. The final nail in the coffin came via a 4-1 mauling to Germany, a team who are destined to be labelled as “efficient” just like their car industry – similarly, the British car industry had been in decline since the 1970s, despite having a lot of cash thrown at it.
England were unlucky when Frank Lampard’s shot appeared to break the laws of physics – the fact that the ball hit the crossbar, bounced and then hit the crossbar is clear indicator that the ball crossed the line. Although to be honest I didn’t see the incident in great detail… I was busy trying to linesman the match.
Subsequently the players came home early, given that the French team were forced to return home via economy class due to their poor showing, the England team should have been sent a consignment of roller skates for their return trip. But nonetheless 23 young fit men arrived back at Heathrow last week, tired from their season of football… well 22 young fit men… true to form, Robert Green was unable to even catch the flight…
Friday 2 July 2010
British Petroleum, Bad Publicity and Bugger-off President
On April 21st 2010 an explosion at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sadly caused the death of eleven people working on the rig. The fall out from this had been quite far reaching, perhaps what BP didn’t realise at the time was that coming up on their horizon was a deep-mess as opposed to deep-water. The rig itself is quite an engineering masterpiece, it drilled down to the deepest oil well ever, at the time, this was the biggest bore ever – until Katie Price’s fly-on-the-wall documentary What Katie Did Next aired on ITV2.
Many of the locals of the Gulf of Mexico have been vocal in the dismay at the handling of the crisis and of the level of oil seeping into the ocean, their criticism has been aimed at both BP and President Obama. It is slightly ironic that a country who is prepared to fight wars in order to secure oil (allegedly) starts complaining when BP delivers oil direct to many Americans’ doorsteps around the Gulf of Mexico.
This spillage is probably the greatest oil disaster to affect America since The Gulf War and BP’s attempts to deal with stemming the flow of oil were about as fast as John Prescott running the 400 metre hurdles and about as successful as him trying to climb through a cat-flap. I wouldn’t go as far to say that BP tried everything to stop the oil leak, but they certainly tried anything, including golf balls and mud – such ideas were probably thought up by men and this combination also signified the first time golf had been involved in so much muck and dirt since the Tiger Woods scandal.
Two men appear to have taken a lot of criticism for the poor response to the spillage; one of them is President Obama who appears to be a fault because he hasn’t personally swan down to the bottom of the ocean with some plumbing equipment and henceforth plugged the leak - which BP appeared to trying to plug by using a vast amount of public relations, just type “BP oil leak” into Google to find out more about how they are helping.
The whole notion that President Obama wasn’t doing enough possibly stems from the fact that he hasn’t spent long enough on the shore saying how bad the situation was and asking the people affected “how they feel” etc. - this is a far cry from how things were 18 months ago when Obama would presumably have been able to view the site of the explosion and assess the damage first hand, by walking out there on the water. Nonetheless, President Obama has levelled criticism at BP and has had crisis talks with David Cameron, where Obama presumably went in there to “kick ass” and Cameron to “lick ass”. Whilst BP finally stemmed the flow of oil by putting a large metal cap on the haemorrhaging rig, they must also have been tempted to put a large metal lid on President Obama after his criticism of them.
The other man bearing a large portion of the public disapproval is BP’s Chief Executive Tony Hayward. This is a man who complained on Facebook that he “wanted his life back” - perhaps no-one explained to him that his highly paid job as the head of a multi-national listed company actually involved working long hard days every now and again.
Aside from this he was also publically castigated for going out sailing in around Isle of Wight a few Sundays ago. I have no problem with him doing this, he is still a human being and having worked constantly over the last few months he is allowed to relax with his friends and family. Granted he was out in the public, but he did not ask people to take photos of him and he presumably didn’t want people making a fuss regarding the perfectly acceptable activity he was pursuing during his leisure time.
That said, after the sailing trip he soon did get to know the meaning of hard work - he was forced to spend hours cleaning all the oil off his boat…
Many of the locals of the Gulf of Mexico have been vocal in the dismay at the handling of the crisis and of the level of oil seeping into the ocean, their criticism has been aimed at both BP and President Obama. It is slightly ironic that a country who is prepared to fight wars in order to secure oil (allegedly) starts complaining when BP delivers oil direct to many Americans’ doorsteps around the Gulf of Mexico.
This spillage is probably the greatest oil disaster to affect America since The Gulf War and BP’s attempts to deal with stemming the flow of oil were about as fast as John Prescott running the 400 metre hurdles and about as successful as him trying to climb through a cat-flap. I wouldn’t go as far to say that BP tried everything to stop the oil leak, but they certainly tried anything, including golf balls and mud – such ideas were probably thought up by men and this combination also signified the first time golf had been involved in so much muck and dirt since the Tiger Woods scandal.
Two men appear to have taken a lot of criticism for the poor response to the spillage; one of them is President Obama who appears to be a fault because he hasn’t personally swan down to the bottom of the ocean with some plumbing equipment and henceforth plugged the leak - which BP appeared to trying to plug by using a vast amount of public relations, just type “BP oil leak” into Google to find out more about how they are helping.
The whole notion that President Obama wasn’t doing enough possibly stems from the fact that he hasn’t spent long enough on the shore saying how bad the situation was and asking the people affected “how they feel” etc. - this is a far cry from how things were 18 months ago when Obama would presumably have been able to view the site of the explosion and assess the damage first hand, by walking out there on the water. Nonetheless, President Obama has levelled criticism at BP and has had crisis talks with David Cameron, where Obama presumably went in there to “kick ass” and Cameron to “lick ass”. Whilst BP finally stemmed the flow of oil by putting a large metal cap on the haemorrhaging rig, they must also have been tempted to put a large metal lid on President Obama after his criticism of them.
The other man bearing a large portion of the public disapproval is BP’s Chief Executive Tony Hayward. This is a man who complained on Facebook that he “wanted his life back” - perhaps no-one explained to him that his highly paid job as the head of a multi-national listed company actually involved working long hard days every now and again.
Aside from this he was also publically castigated for going out sailing in around Isle of Wight a few Sundays ago. I have no problem with him doing this, he is still a human being and having worked constantly over the last few months he is allowed to relax with his friends and family. Granted he was out in the public, but he did not ask people to take photos of him and he presumably didn’t want people making a fuss regarding the perfectly acceptable activity he was pursuing during his leisure time.
That said, after the sailing trip he soon did get to know the meaning of hard work - he was forced to spend hours cleaning all the oil off his boat…
Wednesday 30 June 2010
Don’t Judge a Book by Whether You’ve Read It
Reading is the subject of this blog and what can I say: it’s a lovely town in Berkshire with an important historically context, particularly around the Medieval period.
I suppose I should also take the time to write a bit about books. To be honest, I don’t read many books in my leisure time, the main reason is that as a student I spent the bulk of my time reading (and eating Pot Noodles). Thus, the idea of spending my free time reading is slightly absurd; you wouldn’t expect a coal miner to finish work and then relax by going down the pit for a few hours in the evening. Similarly a Gynaecologist is unlikely to get home and start inspecting his wife’s neither regions… well… actually… I suppose gynaecology can be a stressful occupation and he has to relax somehow.
However, my time as a student has now ceased and I have a slight quandary, should I start reading? Without wanting to show-off, I am relatively intelligent and I don’t believe that reading is either necessary or sufficient to regard someone as “intelligent”. For example, I wouldn’t refer to Chris Finch, who reads a “book a week” as more intelligent than me – perhaps not the best example to use, as he’s a fictional character.
Whilst I do read a small amount of books here and there, I read very little with respect to stories as I struggle to empathise with a character that I know doesn’t exist – for my fiction outlets, I prefer to read Wikipedia and Political parties’ manifestoes.
My non-reading isn’t due to a lack of books, I do have a pile of books that I am due to read, most of which will hopefully be completed sooner rather than later. In addition, I am a member of my local library, which I can borrow books from as long as I can bear the screaming children that tend to be present when I walk in.
In addition, I have recently found out that charity shops can be a great source of books. I went in one the other day to offload some t-shirts that I used to wear a few years ago, the vast bulk of which appeared to be designed by a four year old who had eaten too many smarties, and then vomited all over their designs due to their high sugar intake. Just as I dropped off these deckchair inspired shirts I noticed a table full of books, all of them at the bargin basement price of 75 pence each or 3 for £2. Included in there were some bestsellers, such as Pamela Stephenson’s biography about her husband Billy Connolly and Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code – which is still overpriced at 75 pence.
The visit to the charity shop provided me with many questions, especially as there was an enormous cellar downstairs with even more books in there, the volume of which was easily double what was on display in the shop. First and foremost, is everyone else like me and doesn’t read very much, clearly there is an abundance of supply, but is there the demand? Does everyone instead actually read a lot, perhaps there is one huge complex set-up which involves passing books on to each other in a structured network that I don’t understand (a bit like The Tube) and I’m not part of it? And, more importantly, even at 50 pence, who in their right mind will buy my old shirts…
I suppose I should also take the time to write a bit about books. To be honest, I don’t read many books in my leisure time, the main reason is that as a student I spent the bulk of my time reading (and eating Pot Noodles). Thus, the idea of spending my free time reading is slightly absurd; you wouldn’t expect a coal miner to finish work and then relax by going down the pit for a few hours in the evening. Similarly a Gynaecologist is unlikely to get home and start inspecting his wife’s neither regions… well… actually… I suppose gynaecology can be a stressful occupation and he has to relax somehow.
However, my time as a student has now ceased and I have a slight quandary, should I start reading? Without wanting to show-off, I am relatively intelligent and I don’t believe that reading is either necessary or sufficient to regard someone as “intelligent”. For example, I wouldn’t refer to Chris Finch, who reads a “book a week” as more intelligent than me – perhaps not the best example to use, as he’s a fictional character.
Whilst I do read a small amount of books here and there, I read very little with respect to stories as I struggle to empathise with a character that I know doesn’t exist – for my fiction outlets, I prefer to read Wikipedia and Political parties’ manifestoes.
My non-reading isn’t due to a lack of books, I do have a pile of books that I am due to read, most of which will hopefully be completed sooner rather than later. In addition, I am a member of my local library, which I can borrow books from as long as I can bear the screaming children that tend to be present when I walk in.
In addition, I have recently found out that charity shops can be a great source of books. I went in one the other day to offload some t-shirts that I used to wear a few years ago, the vast bulk of which appeared to be designed by a four year old who had eaten too many smarties, and then vomited all over their designs due to their high sugar intake. Just as I dropped off these deckchair inspired shirts I noticed a table full of books, all of them at the bargin basement price of 75 pence each or 3 for £2. Included in there were some bestsellers, such as Pamela Stephenson’s biography about her husband Billy Connolly and Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code – which is still overpriced at 75 pence.
The visit to the charity shop provided me with many questions, especially as there was an enormous cellar downstairs with even more books in there, the volume of which was easily double what was on display in the shop. First and foremost, is everyone else like me and doesn’t read very much, clearly there is an abundance of supply, but is there the demand? Does everyone instead actually read a lot, perhaps there is one huge complex set-up which involves passing books on to each other in a structured network that I don’t understand (a bit like The Tube) and I’m not part of it? And, more importantly, even at 50 pence, who in their right mind will buy my old shirts…
Friday 25 June 2010
Game, Set and Hatch… a plot to find a decent player
‘Bad Luck Laura, There’s Always Next Year’ read one headline aimed at Middle England. ‘There’s Always Next Year’ is the nauseating phrase that informs one and all that Wimbledon is upon us. The recipient of said phrase on this occasion was 16 year old, world ranked 234, Laura Robson; were the British nation actually expecting her to win? There would have been more chance of David Cameron saying “we really need things to say the same” or for Paul McCartney saying “Actually, me and Heather Mills are still on really good terms”.
Whilst Robson’s underlying potential cannot be questioned, her Britishness perhaps can. In Melbourne, Australia she was born and raise… on the tennis court she spent most of her days. However, despite being born and educated in Australia, if she’s good at sport, we’ll have her – which is pretty much the UK immigration policy in a nutshell.
I am not having a dig at Robson for switching her nationality to British, she’s not the first and probably won’t be the last. For many years, Britain were represented at tennis by Greg Rusedski; a man who would have felt more at home in British Columbia than he would in Britain. The French have adopted a similar approach with their national football team, with many players being of African heritage. This plan massively backfired at the current World Cup as they crashed out in the first round, nonetheless, the team did show some typical French traits – they went on strike.
In the men’s game, Andy Murray is the only hope, if you are an Englishman and refuse to support Murray on account of him being Scottish, then tough. There were no English players in the men’s draw – for the first time ever. Such is the sheer dearth of talent in the British game, that whilst we love strawberries & cream and shouting “come on Tim”, we are ultimately woeful at tennis.
Quite why Britain is so bad at tennis is something of an unknown, it certainly isn’t a new thing; we have been bad for many years. A gentleman on Sky Sports when commenting on this very issue, referred to the fact that Australia is also currently very poor at producing tennis players. Whilst being a good attempt at dodging the issue, it doesn’t really wash; when Burnley were relegated from the Premiership this year, their manager didn’t say “well, if you look at the points table, 2 other teams were also relegated”.
Tennis is ultimately a very enjoyable game to play: competitive and good for one’s fitness. I had a relaxing match in the local park against my friend the other day, I won 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 – I believe this means I am now ranked number 8 in Britain.
Wimbledon is the event that makes Britain tennis mad and for two weeks the world’s elite (and a few bit part players from the UK) complete for the various titles on show. Often things are quite predictable: Federer or Nadal will win the men’s singles; the Williams sisters/brothers will win the women’s singles and Lily Savage or Edna Everage will win the mixed singles.
This year’s tournament has thrown up a few interesting moments, none more than the epic encounter between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut; a match that began in the car park at Wimbledon before the game was even codified and on the match’s 10th anniversary, the tennis complex was built around them. The match finally ended on Thursday afternoon, with Isner trouncing Mahut 70-68 in the final set – it would have been nice if the umpire had referred to 40-40 in the final set as “deuce”. This game was easily the greatest in terms of grit and determination and easily the worst in terms of killer instinct.
These games add to our love of tennis, as does the superb BBC coverage. They have some of the all time greats of tennis as part of their commentary team: John McEnroe, Boris Becker and Pat Cash. Tim Henman also commentates, he even commentated on the final last year… well… he was bound to get into the final eventually… he tried for long enough.
Whilst Robson’s underlying potential cannot be questioned, her Britishness perhaps can. In Melbourne, Australia she was born and raise… on the tennis court she spent most of her days. However, despite being born and educated in Australia, if she’s good at sport, we’ll have her – which is pretty much the UK immigration policy in a nutshell.
I am not having a dig at Robson for switching her nationality to British, she’s not the first and probably won’t be the last. For many years, Britain were represented at tennis by Greg Rusedski; a man who would have felt more at home in British Columbia than he would in Britain. The French have adopted a similar approach with their national football team, with many players being of African heritage. This plan massively backfired at the current World Cup as they crashed out in the first round, nonetheless, the team did show some typical French traits – they went on strike.
In the men’s game, Andy Murray is the only hope, if you are an Englishman and refuse to support Murray on account of him being Scottish, then tough. There were no English players in the men’s draw – for the first time ever. Such is the sheer dearth of talent in the British game, that whilst we love strawberries & cream and shouting “come on Tim”, we are ultimately woeful at tennis.
Quite why Britain is so bad at tennis is something of an unknown, it certainly isn’t a new thing; we have been bad for many years. A gentleman on Sky Sports when commenting on this very issue, referred to the fact that Australia is also currently very poor at producing tennis players. Whilst being a good attempt at dodging the issue, it doesn’t really wash; when Burnley were relegated from the Premiership this year, their manager didn’t say “well, if you look at the points table, 2 other teams were also relegated”.
Tennis is ultimately a very enjoyable game to play: competitive and good for one’s fitness. I had a relaxing match in the local park against my friend the other day, I won 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 – I believe this means I am now ranked number 8 in Britain.
Wimbledon is the event that makes Britain tennis mad and for two weeks the world’s elite (and a few bit part players from the UK) complete for the various titles on show. Often things are quite predictable: Federer or Nadal will win the men’s singles; the Williams sisters/brothers will win the women’s singles and Lily Savage or Edna Everage will win the mixed singles.
This year’s tournament has thrown up a few interesting moments, none more than the epic encounter between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut; a match that began in the car park at Wimbledon before the game was even codified and on the match’s 10th anniversary, the tennis complex was built around them. The match finally ended on Thursday afternoon, with Isner trouncing Mahut 70-68 in the final set – it would have been nice if the umpire had referred to 40-40 in the final set as “deuce”. This game was easily the greatest in terms of grit and determination and easily the worst in terms of killer instinct.
These games add to our love of tennis, as does the superb BBC coverage. They have some of the all time greats of tennis as part of their commentary team: John McEnroe, Boris Becker and Pat Cash. Tim Henman also commentates, he even commentated on the final last year… well… he was bound to get into the final eventually… he tried for long enough.
Wednesday 23 June 2010
Have I told you Bleakley that I(TV) love you
The increase in the quality of television sets appears to be inversely proportional to the quality of the actual television programmes we watch on them. There was a time when we could watch Yes Minister, Morecambe & Wise and Porridge on a 14 inch portable analogue set, with a poor signal. At current we have the privilege of watching Celeb-air (where z-list nobodies learn to become air hosts/hostesses) on a 32 inch Ultra HD flat plasma screen that is the focal point of one’s living room. In the future, there will no doubt be the chance to have the 3D images of a show’s participants projected directly into your living room – hopefully this will be ready in time for the second series of Celebrity Toaster Swap… On Ice.
Such programmes stifle the genuine talent, which, undoubtedly still exists, but unfortunately, no longer prospers. Many questions can be derived from the current state of television: Would a variety act such as Bruce Forsyth have found fame and popularity in today’s society? Indeed, could television’s standards go any “lower”? What is Kerry Katona’s job? (Also, if anyone knows who won the third series BBC Three’s hairdressing programme Celebrity Scissorshands, please let me know - I missed the whole series… ironically I was washing my hair).
When he appeared on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, Noel Edmonds complained about the lack of talent on television and surmised that Kenny Everrett probably wouldn’t have an outlet for his talents in the contemporary society. Edmonds of all people should be glad of the lack of talent around on television at the moment; at current he is allowed to continue hosting a game show involving people opening a shoe box, having first sensed what is inside and trying to answer that elusive question – where does Noel get his shirts from?
The whole notion of playing things safe in terms of television may be best summed up by BBC One’s Show, The One Show, which confusingly airs at 7 o’clock, so it should be called The Seven Show. The One Show mentions a few topical issues in a nice cheery way, “there is currently unrest in the Middle East, which could be bad if you’re planning a holiday there”. As well as being a heaven for names of yesteryear, Gyles Brandreth will talk about the fake snow factory he has visited, whilst Carol Thatcher will… refer to people as “gollywogs” and be politely sacked, with immediate effect.
The One Show anchor, Christine Bleakley, has recently announced that she is jumping ship to ITV after dithering on a contract of allegedly £900,000 a year from the BBC. Her job is to effectively sit on a sofa for 30 minutes a day and keep the nation company via chit-chatting to a guest who is promoting a book/film/album/television show. The value of the contract was so large that some Members of Parliament complained that the money being offered was an unjustifiable use of a large amount of public money – which is quite an insult to Bleakley; having an MP insinuate that you are a waste of a large amount of public money is like being criticised about not caring for the environment by Tony Hayward.
After effectively rejecting the offer on the table, Bleakley has decided to move to ITV in order to present the revamped GMTV (“GM” stands for Good Morning, and not Genetically Modified – the presenters aren’t all 10 foot tall). Presumably she has moved for more money and let’s be honest; you would want more money. After all she will now be in the studio before 6 o’clock in the morning and moreover; she will once again be forced to sit next to Adrian Chiles, only this time for longer…
Such programmes stifle the genuine talent, which, undoubtedly still exists, but unfortunately, no longer prospers. Many questions can be derived from the current state of television: Would a variety act such as Bruce Forsyth have found fame and popularity in today’s society? Indeed, could television’s standards go any “lower”? What is Kerry Katona’s job? (Also, if anyone knows who won the third series BBC Three’s hairdressing programme Celebrity Scissorshands, please let me know - I missed the whole series… ironically I was washing my hair).
When he appeared on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, Noel Edmonds complained about the lack of talent on television and surmised that Kenny Everrett probably wouldn’t have an outlet for his talents in the contemporary society. Edmonds of all people should be glad of the lack of talent around on television at the moment; at current he is allowed to continue hosting a game show involving people opening a shoe box, having first sensed what is inside and trying to answer that elusive question – where does Noel get his shirts from?
The whole notion of playing things safe in terms of television may be best summed up by BBC One’s Show, The One Show, which confusingly airs at 7 o’clock, so it should be called The Seven Show. The One Show mentions a few topical issues in a nice cheery way, “there is currently unrest in the Middle East, which could be bad if you’re planning a holiday there”. As well as being a heaven for names of yesteryear, Gyles Brandreth will talk about the fake snow factory he has visited, whilst Carol Thatcher will… refer to people as “gollywogs” and be politely sacked, with immediate effect.
The One Show anchor, Christine Bleakley, has recently announced that she is jumping ship to ITV after dithering on a contract of allegedly £900,000 a year from the BBC. Her job is to effectively sit on a sofa for 30 minutes a day and keep the nation company via chit-chatting to a guest who is promoting a book/film/album/television show. The value of the contract was so large that some Members of Parliament complained that the money being offered was an unjustifiable use of a large amount of public money – which is quite an insult to Bleakley; having an MP insinuate that you are a waste of a large amount of public money is like being criticised about not caring for the environment by Tony Hayward.
After effectively rejecting the offer on the table, Bleakley has decided to move to ITV in order to present the revamped GMTV (“GM” stands for Good Morning, and not Genetically Modified – the presenters aren’t all 10 foot tall). Presumably she has moved for more money and let’s be honest; you would want more money. After all she will now be in the studio before 6 o’clock in the morning and moreover; she will once again be forced to sit next to Adrian Chiles, only this time for longer…
Sunday 20 June 2010
Leaving the meter running
Taxis are interesting vehicles, when you get in one the reason for it could be one of many things: in a rush to get to an urgent meeting, coming home from a nightclub in the early hours, use as a getaway vehicle after a bank robbery - this is highly stupid as the taxi driver would then know where you lived. In any event, robbing a bank in this day and age is fairly silly, given the lack liquidity in the banking system; your loot would probably struggle to cover your taxi fare home.
Taxi firms in general can be quite frustrating "he's on his way" or "he'll be 2 minutes" and never "he's lost" or "he's preparing an ill informed rant, then he will spout off to you". Nonetheless, cab drivers can do some good work, on many occasions nothing has pleased me more than an illuminated yellow taxi sign heading in my direction during the early hours. This pleasure is often taken away when I realise that I am stood in the middle of the road and taxi driver is about to run me over.
Despite all that, taxi drivers are by and large well meaning people, particularly if you get into their good books. I remember getting into taxi in Central London on a cold December Saturday morning 18 months ago and having an unusual conversation with the driver. Things started badly on the journey as I revealed that I was a Northerner - he was a native of London Town. However I clawed things back for myself when I said I went to Loughborough University, this does not normally get you on-side with a taxi driver or any member of the public. However this chap's son attended the same university and from that moment on, I knew I would get from Marble Arch to St Pancras in the quickest possible time for around £10 and not by going via Croydon at a cost of £85.
The key to a pleasant taxi journey is to get on-side with the driver, so you can at least have a amiable experience. However you shouldn't take it too far, for example, imagine my surprise when I read on the BBC news website that Newquay taxi driver Don Pratt had been left around £250,000 in the will of a former regular customer, Mary Watson. I often tip the driver by rounding up to the next pound, her gesture is taking this act of goodwill a bit too far.
Mr Pratt has apparently already sold his taxi firm to a friend and has stated that he will go travelling as he has often worked tireless days and nights for his self-owned firm. To be honest, you can't fault him and it is nice to see a hard-working man get a lucky reward in life, hopefully he will enjoy his retirement.
However there are 2 reasons why we shouldn't feel overly envious of the cabbie in question:
1) His surname is Pratt.
2) Ms Watson's Solicitors have been on the phone and advised Mr Pratt that the inheritance will be with him any minute now...
Taxi firms in general can be quite frustrating "he's on his way" or "he'll be 2 minutes" and never "he's lost" or "he's preparing an ill informed rant, then he will spout off to you". Nonetheless, cab drivers can do some good work, on many occasions nothing has pleased me more than an illuminated yellow taxi sign heading in my direction during the early hours. This pleasure is often taken away when I realise that I am stood in the middle of the road and taxi driver is about to run me over.
Despite all that, taxi drivers are by and large well meaning people, particularly if you get into their good books. I remember getting into taxi in Central London on a cold December Saturday morning 18 months ago and having an unusual conversation with the driver. Things started badly on the journey as I revealed that I was a Northerner - he was a native of London Town. However I clawed things back for myself when I said I went to Loughborough University, this does not normally get you on-side with a taxi driver or any member of the public. However this chap's son attended the same university and from that moment on, I knew I would get from Marble Arch to St Pancras in the quickest possible time for around £10 and not by going via Croydon at a cost of £85.
The key to a pleasant taxi journey is to get on-side with the driver, so you can at least have a amiable experience. However you shouldn't take it too far, for example, imagine my surprise when I read on the BBC news website that Newquay taxi driver Don Pratt had been left around £250,000 in the will of a former regular customer, Mary Watson. I often tip the driver by rounding up to the next pound, her gesture is taking this act of goodwill a bit too far.
Mr Pratt has apparently already sold his taxi firm to a friend and has stated that he will go travelling as he has often worked tireless days and nights for his self-owned firm. To be honest, you can't fault him and it is nice to see a hard-working man get a lucky reward in life, hopefully he will enjoy his retirement.
However there are 2 reasons why we shouldn't feel overly envious of the cabbie in question:
1) His surname is Pratt.
2) Ms Watson's Solicitors have been on the phone and advised Mr Pratt that the inheritance will be with him any minute now...
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