31 December 2006

Sonnet 2

'A poem is never finished, merely abandoned.'


Each one so precious: a sonnet

When with the dawn she slides into my bed,
The dress of dreamless darkness slips away.
Her teasing fingers flutter on my head.
Her whispers draw me up and into day.

Laughing, the throbbing sun has reached his height,
Spreading himself across the sweating land,
Thrusting aside the clouds with shafts of light.
The world is his to own, his to command.

But soon the evening sky is bleeding redly,
The day despairs, declines and slowly dies,
The melancholy moon is hanging sadly,
Betrayed by love and laughter, lust and lies.

Each woman, each so precious, always leaves.
So let it be. I am too proud to grieve.


30 December 2006

The death of Saddam Hussein

It's odd how the mind works. Take Saddam's execution.

Reports that it was imminent yesterday sent a cold shiver through me. I wondered why. It's not that I am against the death penalty. And if it didn't exist in Iraq, I would be in favour of inventing it just for the likes of Saddam Hussein. It's not just the personal delight he, and his sons, seemed to take in cruelty and murder, it was the fact it was a cold-blooded instrument of policy.

And her is where the morality begins to get complicated. I don't suppose I'm the only one to be repelled by the hypocrisy of Tony Blair, quite prepared to sacrifice his own men and authorise the deaths of hundreds of innocent people in a good cause, again an instrument of state policy, and yet wring his hands over the execution of the one man whose elimination was the good cause in the first place (actually, it was in the second place, after WMD discovery was relegated).

It's so easy for people who can say things like 'capital punishment is immoral'. How wonderful it must be to have been granted such insight into right and wrong. To be able to say that capital punishment is wrong but abortion is OK and the killing of children in a 'just war' is acceptable. The rest of us have to balance a variety of instincts and a tangle of arguments and practical considerations before we can make a judgment.

A million people will die today, some before they were born, some in stupid accidents, some because of carelessness or poverty or murder or war, some through their own choice or the choice of 'merciful' relatives and doctors. Hardly any will deserve to die. And hardly any death will make a lasting difference.

Saddam deserves to die and his death just might make a difference. But I know when I see the inevitable scenes of jubilant Iraquis dancing in the streets and firing off their guns into the air, like lethal children with Christmas presents, I will feel sick.

27 December 2006

The Christmas Repeal

BBC's Today Programme has been inviting votes to choose an Act of Parliament which is particularly unpopular and which most people would like to see repealed. The plan is to find a tame MP to take up the cause of the winning (= losing) law and make a forlorn (I'm sure) attempt abolish it.


The shortlist of six are pretty fundamental to national sovereignty, the constitution and individual freedom.

If The European Communities Act (1972) is chosen, and I hope it is, there's not a cat in hell's chance of it being repealed. The Establishment are fully behind the European Union (how I hate that phrase) for all kinds of sentimental, political, economic and plain selfish reasons. I can understand Luxembourg liking it. How else could a prime minister with roughly the same power as the chief executive of a British county council get to sit at the top tables of Europe?

But Britain? Great Britain? Discarding a millennium of inheritance for a mess of potage. Gradually divesting itself of hard-won national freedom and submitting tamely to the dictates of foreign bureaucrats.

If we must abandon national sovereignty, let's become the 51st state of America. At least they speak English.

The Human Rights Act (1998). How can anyone be against human rights? Not me, there are two problems with this Act:

It seems that every conceivable 'right' has been included, almost as if they were jotted down on a flip-chart in a seminar on the subject, not subjected to any test of practicality and imposed from outside. That's why we have the 'right' of murderers to vote in elections, or of convicted terrorists no to be deported.

Moreover, it means that our own supreme court, the House of Lords or its successor, can be overruled. Technically, that means that our Head of State, the Queen, is no longer being sovereign, and neither is our Parliament.

The Act of Settlement (1701) follows on naturally from my mention of the Queen. Now, I'm no royalist, but I am a monarchist, at least in British terms. In my estimation, Britain is a republic, but happens to have an hereditary president. If we had a republic on the German model, we'd have a toothless politician as head of state; if the American model, we'd have a totally different constitution, not that that's not worth considering, in view of overwheening prime ministerial power her.

Basically, our monarchy works constitutionally and, emotionally, I like the link it provides with the past. (I'm obviously no radical).

But the Act of Settlement excludes Roman Catholics from the throne, as well, if I'm not mistaken, as other non-communicants with the Church of England. I think the implication of this would be the disestablishment of the Church of England, no bad thing, but bang goes all that tradition by which I set so much store. So be it. And while we're about, let's abolish the primacy of male children in the succession. It won't make any difference for 50 years anyway.

Next is The Serious Organised Crime Act (2005), with particular reference to the banning of demonstrations within a certain radius of Parliament. I don't know about the act as a whole, but I have to say I have no worries about keeping demos away from Parliament. At best, they can disrupt the work of MPs, at worst they can intimidate. After all, we don't want to be like the French National Assembly after 1789, with the mob howling outside.

The arrest of that woman reading out the names of soldiers killed in Iraq was obviously foolish and lacked common sense. So maybe an amendment is required, but libertarian as I am, I can't see an erosion on free speech here. There's plenty of erosion going on elsewhere.

The Dangerous Dogs Act (1991) is one of those silly laws brought in on a wave of press hysteria
about some very nasty injuries inflicted on children by pit bull terriers. The government had to be seen to be doing something about it, and this was it. It was the same sort of thing with the law banning handguns - a lot of inconvenience for innocent citizens because of one or two irresponsible or criminal people.

As for The Hunting Act (2004), it is hardly worth repealing because it's impossible to enforce, and when normally law-abiding people start finding ways round an unpopular and intrusive law. I don't hunt, never have, don't want to; but I see no reason why those who enjoy it should not indulge. It's another area where Parliament should mind it's own bloody business.

I've voted to choose the EC act, but I would happily see the back of 5 of these laws. Sometimes I think we should abolish all laws and start again.

Why, oh why?

Not 'why, oh why?' do I drink too much and fall asleep at 9 o'clock?

Not 'why, oh why?' do I get up at 3am when I could doze for another hour or so?

But why, oh why do I put the radio on and listen to Test Match Special in the vain hope that I might hear good news from Australia?

Why, oh why do I keep saying 'just one more over and then I'll read a book or watch a film or write a sonnet' before wasting another hour torturing myself?

Why, oh why do I never learn?

25 December 2006

Christmas Day

Up at six o'clock and planning the day, while listening to Radio 4. A Yorkshire Christmas. Why does everyone think Yorkshire is so special? Especially Yorkshiremen. After all, they live there and should know better.


There's some woman singing a song about wassailing, 'a typical Yorkshire tradition'. Oh yeah?

And there's Ian Macmillan, poet and Yorkshireman. I suppose you have to try especially hard to prove yourself a Yorkshireman when you're called 'Macmillan'. I've always thought he is so popular on radio is because he's a poet with an accent. He's got this way of telling nostalgic tales slowly and deliberately, which makes them sound full of significance.

I'll have to walk into town today if I want to go the pub, which I do. I certainly can't be cooped up in the house all day. I don't like the local pubs, too expensive, too cliquey. I'll go to my pub where I can be cliquey.

Five miles there and five back will give me an appetite for dinner, which today is duck. Breakfast is usually garlic mushrooms but I'm having a slight change today. I'll note down the recipe in a minute.

The radio's just told me about Yorkshire pie, sword-dancing, singing pubs. They're now claiming that Malton helped inspired A Christmas Carol. And obviously they've had to mention J B Priestley. And there's the obligatory vicar. 'Christmas is a time when God tells us we are special.' Please!

This pub singing is good. It's proper singing, not the drunken 'base football player' stuff. I've been listening to While shepherds watched sung to the tune of O for a thousand tongues to sing. Lots of parts.

Stilton, Walnut and Mushroom Parcels

Ingredients (for one person)

4 large flat mushrooms, minus stalks
1 tbsp (olive) oil
1 shallot (I'm using spring onions and a bit of an ordinary one)
50g chopped walnuts (let's hope I can find the nutcrackers)
50g fresh breadcrumbs(I don't normally like using metric weights, but I'm too lazy to translate)
1/8 tsp (freshly grated) nutmeg (I know, but I've had to reduce these quantities)
1 1/2 tbsp milk
1 tbsp thyme
1 tbsp parsley (all these are fresh, etc but I've a jar of mixed herbs to use up
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (this is for drizzling, hardly worth the cost)
50g blue Stilton, thinly sliced
fresh thyme sprigs to garnish (optional, very)

Method

Preheat the oven to gas mark 6, 200C
Cook the shallot in the oil till soft (I think I'll add some garlic)
Mix in the walnuts, breadcrumbs, herbs, nutmeg, milk. Season
Spread it over a couple of mushroom caps and top with the cheese
Put the other mushroom caps on, like a lid. Tie them with string
Into the oven and bake for 20 minutes.

There's an argument going on on the radio about the nature of 'happiness.' They'll never agree because none of them has defined the word and they are all advocating a different emotion. Joy, contentment, resignation, pleasure. Any one of them would suit me.

I think I'll listen to Terry Wogan for a while. Funny old day, Christmas.

Merry - (happy, joyful, contented, carefree, pleasurable, sensually satisfying) - Christmas.


President de Gaulle was being interviewed.

'Monsieur le President. Are you happy?'

De Gaulle: 'Do I look stupid?'

21 December 2006

Be a Sport!

Kirkaldy, in Scotland, has at least three famous names of which to boast. Adam Smith, for one, the great economist, whose common sense ideas were buried under layers of socialist wishful thinking for two centuries.

Gordon Brown, MP for Kirkaldy, would no doubt deny it, but he's a disciple of Smith, except in his more sentimental or politically cynical moments.

And then there's Jocky Wilson, world champion darts player, a volatile character, but who endeared himself to all when, replying to the question, 'How's it feel to be World Champion?', he said, 'Good. I can afford to get that kitchen extension finished now.'

I thought about Jocky a while ago when the Today programme on Radio 4 stage one of those silly debates it has periodically when news is thin. This one was about whether darts should be an Olympic sport. One 'spokesman' said yes; the other talking head said no.

It reminded me of the days when I used to run a pub quiz and asked the question, 'In which sport might you score a ''shanghai''.' Answer: darts (it's an arrow in the single, double and treble of the same number. You can play a whole game on that basis).

Now quiz teams can be very competitive and one team captain complained that I'd misled them by calling darts a sport, when it was a mere game. I justified my position, with calm and informed argument. 'Piss off,' I think were my words. After all, it wasn't very sporting of them, was it.

Now there's an interesting topic for debate: why do we associate games with sportsmanship, and sports with gamesmanship?

The English language plays with us. There are so many nuanced synonyms that we are encouraged to be boastful or snobbish about which particular word we use. And there is certainly a kudos in having your particular leisure activity named Sport. Just as every village wants to be a town, and every town a city, every college a university, and every cook a chef, so every tiddlywinker wants to be a sportsman, nay, an athlete.

That is why these sterile debates so often centre on what is not a sport, rather than attempting the impossible task of establishing positive criteria to define what is.
So, darts - it can't be a sport, they say because it doesn't involve physical effort and doesn't tend to make you fit. How, these guardians of sport's good name aver, can darts be a sport , when one of its leading practitioners, Andy Fordham, weighs over thirty stone? And they sneer at Andy for saying, 'I must be a sportsman, because I wear trainers and I've been on Grandstand.' Obviously a fat, working-class bloke can't be capable of irony either.

Therefore, by this criterion, darts and angling are out, but body-building is in. I don't suppose anyone's going to argue with Arnie about that, are they?

And these people don't notice the damaging effects of many recognised 'sports'. I don't just mean those pub teams where a game of football is merely a prelude to a session of boozing, or of Shane Warne, whose idea of training is a few tubes and a packet of fags. No, I'm thinking of fast bowlers' backs, golfers too; and Joe Mercer contracting Alzheimer's through years of heading the ball; and there are jockeys starving themselves and sumo wrestlers stuffing themselves; and I haven't even mentioned drugs or Russian transsexuals.
Now, skill. A true sport involves skill, say the pedants. After all, we don't want shove ha'penny getting lottery funding, do we? The trouble is that everything involves skill, whether it's tying your shoelaces or getting served in a busy pub. And it lets darts back in.

What else? Oh yes, competition. True sport involves competition. This reminds me of one of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads series, the one where Maggie Smith plays a frustrated vicar's wife fretting about the church flower rota. 'If you think squash is competitive,' she says, 'you should try flower-arranging.' Do you remember John Goodman bowling in The Big Lebowski? That was competitive. Anything can be made into a competition - pie-eating, dwarf-tossing, synchronised swimming, ballroom dancing, and that gymnastics thing where they jump about waving ribbons on sticks. Even art. The Turner Prize. Of course, that can't be a sport because it doesn't involve skill.

While on the subject of art - by the way, when does a craft become an art? - there are some 'sports' that are judged by 'artistic impression' and consequently a value judgment. Synchronised swimming, for example, and ice dance. Think of a football match on that basis. Imagine watching a 0-0 draw between Manchester United and Bolton and Man U being awarded the three points because they played more attractive football. In boxing, a fighter can get extra points because he shows more aggression. How would Man U get on now that Roy Keane has left? I can't help but think back to the Turner Prize and wonder if Torvill and Dean, had they kept falling over, might have been able to claim that their artistic impression was conceptual and that they symbolising the contingency of life and the absurdity of competition.

Many 'so-called' sports are, a sense not competitive. In sprinting and golf, putting the shot and tossing the caber (and darts), the athlete is not interacting with his opponents. His competition is with the course, the track or the board. apart from psychological pressure there is nothing he can do legally to prevent others doing better.

In any case, if certain teachers are to be believed, competition can be very harmful, especially to children. Failure, apparently, can damage the sensitive souls of the little sods, sorry, souls. Do they not realise that failure is the very essence of success. (Discuss)

There's a more recent factor in the exclusion of some activities from the sporting canon. Political correctness. Why do people use the phrase 'political correctness gone mad' ad nauseum? It's bloody crazy to start with. Anyway, boxing is frowned on. How can that be a sport when it's very purpose is to beat your opponent to a bloody pulp? Even cricket is dangerous for children, not to mention conkers. Angling is cruel and so is horse-racing. Hawking and polo are elitist and upper-class. Fox-hunting has even been outlawed.

And as for dwarf-tossing!

On the other hand, politicians like to encourage sport in schools because they think it shows they are doing something about the fact that kids are fat, lazy bastards. God knows why they think it's any of their business. If kids are fat, lazy bastards, it's because they've got fat, lazy bastards for parents. But sport, we are told, encourages other virtues. Self-discipline, for example, such as that displayed by George Best; nobility of character, such as Roy Keane's; team spirit, such as was always displayed by Geoffrey Boycott. Perhaps we'd better play down the fostering of a competitive spirit.

Enough of all this sniping. Making a list of of characteristics and non-characteristics does not define something. Otherwise we might manage to prove that a dog was an elephant. What, actually, is sport?

I'll start with Shakespeare. In the first scene of King Lear, Gloucester is talking to fellow-Duke, Kent. He introduces his 'whoreson', Edmund, and, abandoning iambic pentameters for man-to-man prose, says with a nudge and a wink, 'There was good sport at his making.' No doubt this making involved a degree of physical activity, even a modicum of elementary skill, possibly a little previous competition, but I cannot see it becoming an Olympic sport, however hard the French lobby for it. The English probably take the Richard III view, 'I, that am not shap'd for sportive tricks. . .'

I could talk about Doc Holliday, professional gambler, who described himself as a 'sporting man'. Jack Russell, breeder of the terrier, and inveterate rider to hounds, was known as the 'sporting parson'. The dictionary is crammed with meanings of the word 'sport'. And fundamentally it means 'fun'. So that's sorted.

I shall conclude by pondering on the original Olympic games. They were the basic sports of running, jumping and throwing. And they all had a military origin as well as a military purpose, just like shooting and riding in later centuries. It was much the same in medieval England and Wales, when the archer became the decisive force. Every Sunday, men within a certain age range and from the appropriate class were obliged by law to attend practice sessions. Football was outlawed, partly because it led to riots and dissolute behaviour, but also because it diverted men away from their vital training with the bow.

It is said that before the battle of Agincourt, Henry V's archers amused themselves by throwing their arrows at the circular bases of ale-casks, thereby inventing the game of darts and beginning its long association with beer. Following this pleasant interlude, they listened to the stirring words of the king and indicated to the French that their fingers were intact and itching to draw back the bowstring. Minutes later a shroud of arrows covered the enemy, whose army was reduced to so many bloodily squashed hedgehogs.

Gordon Brown wants to encourage a sense of 'Britishness'. I've no idea what that is but Gordon could do worse than promote the sport of Jocky Wilson, Britain's true national sport. Not only that, we have a realistic chance of winning something.

And if you don't agree, all I can say is that you're a spoilsport.


20 December 2006

That Sonnet - Remember?

That sodding sonnet has obsessed me now
For nigh on ninety days - maybe it's more.
I still can't get it finished, don't know how.
My fingers, not to mention brains, are sore.

I struggle with each rhyme, each assonance,
And try to fit each iamb into the verse;
I strive with mangled metre's consonants
And end up with a mess. Then sit and curse.

I don't know why I started all this crap,.
Or arrogantly tried to ape the Bard;
Or why I threw myself into this trap.
Oh, give up, man, it's just too bloody hard.

So, budding poets, leave Will on the shelf.
Forget him, guys, write prose and please yourself.

19 December 2006

Gift Books for Teenage Boys (but not exclusively)

I have just started the second volume of A M Smith's Mma Ramotswe's saga.

This man is bloody brilliant. Read it, read them all.

It made me think of what books I'd recommend to teenagers, especially my own. I'll list them. Now, I'm assuming a certain amount of willingness, a certain amount of intelligence. And my list will probably be more acceptable to boys. What I want are novels that will be enjoyed, but are nonetheless well written, let's say a bit classy. For what it's worth, here it is:

1. Brighton Rock by Grahame Greene. Catholic guilt by the seaside. Greene was full of shit, to be honest, but if you're a juvenile starting to think about meaning, but still like a few razor murders, this is your book.

2. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Jaundiced rewrite of Coral Island. We are all 'born in sin and conceived in iniquity'. Can't argue with that. Compare with The Wild Bunch.

3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Beautiful child's-eye view of the liberal lawyer in the racist Deep South defending a black man on a charge of rape - what else? Spawned the film, that gained Gregory Peck an Oscar, the accolade of America's favourite cinema hero and inspired a million Americans to study law.

4. Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger. Has to be on the list, doesn't it? Self-indulgent, alienated teenage crap. They'll love it.

5. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. 'Them as dies'll be the lucky ones. Haha, Jim lad' - or is that the film. Give them the video at the same time.

6. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. If they like this, who knows, they might move on to Great Expectations. I choose this because it's short and seasonal. It probably invented Christmas as we know it. By the way, don't tell them it's written in verse.

7. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Or, Farewell, My Lovely. Or, best of all, The Long Goodbye. Chandler's plots are incomprehensible and you never remember the ending, which means you can read them over and over and just enjoy the style. I think even Jane Austen would have smiled secretly at the line, 'She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.'

8. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I wasn't going to put this in, but why not? She's readable, she's witty, she's ironic, she's stylish, she's great. She's also bloody frightening.

9. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan Thomas. Short stories, vaguely autobiographical, and it doesn't come much better. When a great poet relaxes, the prose just flows. After this, get them to listen to Under Milk Wood, and, who knows, they might even think Fern Hill is a bit special.

10. The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. As long as they don't expect a convoluted mystery or blood and guts, they might like this wonderfully observed depiction of a gentle, mature African lady, making her way as a PI amongst the easy-going traditions of Botswana. My latest enthusiasm.

11. Harry's Game by Gerald Seymour. British agent infiltrates Republican Belfast. Spare, simple, tragic. Seymour wrote lots more books, longer and more detailed, always well-researched, but this one is clean and sharp. And nerve-wracking.

12. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre. Le Carre has tended to be a bit preachy recently, but he is a very good novelist, for all that he is a genre writer, so-called. Tinker, Tailor . . .is wonderful and A Perfect Spy is a genuine masterpiece. Start with The Spy . . .and you'll be hooked.

13. Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard. This is the one Tarantino's Jackie Brown was based on. I think of Elmore Leonard as being superior pulp fiction (appropriately). As is -

14. Jim Thompson. If you can get it I recommend The Getaway.

15. Right Ho, Jeeves! by P G Wodehouse. I fear that the upper-class twenties ambiance of the Wooster stories might be off-putting to today's teenager. And Wooster's slang could come across as just plain silly. Nevertheless, the intelligent teenager deserves the chance to read these beautifully crafted, intensely funny stories. I have heard it argued that Jeeves and Wooster are a comic version of Holmes and Watson. Which brings me on to -

16. A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle. The first Holmes story and the first long story (It's hardly a novel). I recommend this rather than The Hound of the Baskervilles because there's too little Holmes in the latter, although it has the moors and the hound. Then there are the sets of short stories. I've always thought the best is Silver Blaze, which does not involve the all too frequent exotic creatures, Australian secret societies and hopelessly incompetent 'Napoleons of crime'.

17. Shane or Monte Walsh by Jack Schaefer. Along Oakley Hall's Warlock and Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, these are two of the few novels set in the Old West which have literary pretensions and are also enjoyable and informative.

18. Riotous Assembly or Indecent Exposure by Tom Sharpe. Depending on your taste, Sharpe is either outrageously offensive or hilariously funny. Either way, a good choice. These two books are savage satires on South Africa's apartheid regime. Sharpe got himself deported.

19, 20. More comedy: Peter Tinniswood (I didn't know you cared) and David Nobbs (The Fall and Rise of Reggie Perrin). Both intelligent, affectionate and funny. And how they love the English language.

21. The Onion Field by Joseph Wambaugh. Not a novel, but written with the verve that Wambaugh brings to his fiction. It's the story of a robbery that goes wrong and its effects on the cops and criminals involved in the torturous legal process which follows.

22. C S Forester is still worth reading. His Hornblower novels, especially A Ship of the Line, are preferable Patrick O'Brian's Napoleonic Wars naval stories, because they carry their expert knowledge more lightly. I always feel I'm being lectured in the architecture of sailing ships by O'Brian. Of course, that might appeal to the more nerdish.

23. The War of the Worlds by H G Wells. I know nothing of modern SF and choose this because it was written before the advent of the genre and the cult and is therefore more human.

24. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Steinbeck's reputation is lower than when he won the Nobel Prize, but this remains a modern classic. An angry book, that never gives up on human nature, it transcends its left-wing bias.

25. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. A nice short introduction to the great man.


18 December 2006

The Ipswich Murders

The involvement of the press in this series of murders is nothing short of appalling.

As soon as the news broke, the media circus came to town. There's nothing they like more than a story like this. It can help fill in those long empty 24 hours every day. There's great opportunity for those irritating 'breaking news' captions. Sky even sent their top anchor man, whose name, mercifully, I forget. The character whose middle age, deep voice and dodgy haircut/piece is supposed to pass for gravitas.

I've always said, get killed on your own and nobody gives a damn; get killed in a small group and its news; get killed with a hundred others and someone, somewhere is in for some money.

What the police think of it all, God knows. They might say, through gritted teeth, how useful the press can be, how much they value their co-operation, but in fact they know the press is a damn nuisance. It presents every half-truth as fact, it publicises the ravings of psychics, it undermines the police at every turn, with greasy sanctimony.

To keep the story going, it is opened out. We hear all the usual reasons why these women are prostitutes: the drugs, the abuse (but not the idleness). Liberals are having a field day, because for the time being no-one is allowed to talk about prostitution 'blighting' an area.

I heard some feminist blaming the men (of course) and regretting that these women were being called 'girls'. I think they're past caring, dear. Why don't we just call them whores?

We've had interviews with whores who have carried on working 'because it's Christmas'. Is she expecting a bonus? With MPs, about the legal basis of prostitution. Oh, and with policemen, ostensibly to ask how the investigation is going, but in reality to snipe at them for showing no fast results and to remind them of the Yorkshire Ripper.

But the worst thing of all is the coverage of this Tom Stephens' arrest. A man is arrested on suspicion and the TV screens are filled with his picture, his life history, examples of his handwriting, interviews with his whores. One reporter said that the police have to brace themselves for the possibility of having to release this man, 'their only suspect', if they can't crack him.

How is this man, innocent until proven guilty, going to get a fair trial after all this? How can he go back to normal life after this public mauling? The press has gone too far here. Quite apart from the fact that they have provided this suspect themselves, their whole reporting strategy has perverted the course of justice.

Guess what? The press is now discussing whether the press coverage is prejudicial. Have they no shame?

Ashes in the Mouth

The Ashes are lost. Now all we can hope for is to avoid the whitewash.

First, the excuses:

We lost Vaughan, our best batsman and a good captain.

We lost Simon Jones, the master of reverse swing (whatever that is).


Trescothick had 'personal problems' and lost it.

Harmison just lost it

Giles was injured.

We were playing Australia.


Second, the mistakes:

We made Flintoff captain. Like, Darren Gough and Botham before him, he's a great player and inspirational force within the team, but I doubt his tactical nous and his toughness as a leader. The last year's results should have proved this. He was the newspapers' choice.

We took a team of cripples, physically, mentally and in terms of form. We just hoped for the best from Harmison, Flintoff and Giles.

The same applies to Cook and Bell, the first a kid, the second always fragile.

Anderson and Mahmoud have never really proved themselves.

We chose the wrong wicket-keeper. All this talk about needing those who can get runs is nonsense. If the real batsmen haven't got them, it's too late for a number seven to get them, despite some notable late partnerships. One missed stumping is not cancelled out by 50 runs - and that assumes you're going to get them, which we didn't.

No-one told Pietersen to stop being an arrogant prima donna and play for the team for a change. (I accept that he seems to have learned by the third test, but his dismissal in the first innings was typical).

We let Vaughan hang around on the fringes, undermining Flintoff.

We didn't play anything like enough proper games in Australia to prepare. those two-day games, with 12 players, were a joke.

We were playing Australia.



Third, other points:

The Panesar/Giles thing was just got up by the press, because Monty is a 'character'. The editor of the Daily Mail is no more qualified to select the England team than the Radio 5 reporters. Monty did very well when he was chosen, but he would not have saved the first two tests, nor did he save the third.
I do not blame the coach, Fletcher. Not entirely. We won the Ashes under him, the culmination of a long process of improvement owed to him.

I blame the players. We got ourselves into winning positions, twice, and the batsmen threw it away. What makes it worse is that they showed that they could bat with grit and determination when they set their minds to it.

We were not motivated enough, we were not tough or hard or hungry or pure mad-dog mean enough. We don't love the Ashes enough.

We were playing Australia.

17 December 2006

Poets should eat more meat.

Birds cry
And lovers lie
In sylvan glades and shady nooks
And sigh.

Bees drone
And lovers groan
With eyes aglow and soulful looks
And moan.

Poets long
And sing their song -
Anaemic, euphemistic muck! -
How wrong.

Oh, please! Give me a steak,


Hot and hissing,
Pink and sizzling,
Plumply spread across my eager plate;
Red with blood, flecked white with dripping fat;
Egg-yolk yellow,
Onions smelling
Scorched, with bloated mushrooms gilled in black.
Hunger oozing,
Juices drooling,
Mingling, melting, burning the back
Of my gulping throat,
So fast I choke,
Too fast to last,
Bursts in my belly, an orgasmic blast

What a load of rubbish!

15 December 2006

The Lady from Botswana

I finished The Number One Ladies Detective Agency yesterday and immediately reserved the sequel, Tears of the Giraffe, from the library.


Number One is a remarkable book. More a series of short stories and impressionistic interludes, loosely strung together, than the kind of 'detective novel' you might expect from Christie, Chandler or Highsmith.

The central character is Mma Ramotswe, Mma being a polite form of address to a lady of marriageable years (the masculine equivalent is Rra). Following the death of her father, she sells her large bovine inheritance and sets up as a private detective, the first and only in Botswana. Various cases follow but they only serve to illustrate the perspicacity and humanity of our heroine, who loves to sit and talk about her beloved country, its progress, its traditions and its weaknesses, mainly caused by men, so chauvinist, so unfaithful, so venal.

Botswana is made to seem like an easy-going place, democratic (with a little harmless corruption) and enlightened (apart from a little backwoods witchcraft). It's got a touch of To Kill a Mockingbird about it. I'm not sure why that popped into my head, but I'll leave it in here and trust to my instincts.

The author, Alexander McCall Smith, now a professor in Scotland, I believe, lived in and obviously loves Africa. His depiction of Botswana is gentle, humorous and indulgent. His style is simple and elegant, intelligent, wise and wry. I recommend him.

12 December 2006

National Anthems

I like to claim Viking blood, as well as a little Jewish, but as far as I know I have no claim to Welshness, except when their team is playing Rugby. On such a day I am Welsh in spirit because they have the best national anthem.

I've never known why Flower of Scotland or The Soldier's Song are considered so moving - maybe it's something to do with drink. And as for those dirges invented for the colonies and those jaunty but interminable tunes that represent the Italians and Argentinians, what can I say, except that I believe them to be some sort of patriotic test.

Poor old England, as usual, is in two minds. Is it politically correct to use God Save the Queen for just one part of the United Kingdom? If not, then what? There'll always be an England is a bit music-hallish, Rule Britannia is British, not English, and so terribly imperialistic. As for the best potential anthem of the lot, Land of Hope and Glory, it is a martial, swaggering, triumphal tune, so at odds with our actual sporting achievement.

The Great Escape would probably not be taken seriously. So we end up with Jerusalem, an incomprehensible poem, associated with Christian Socialism and the Women's Institute.

But the Welsh have Land of My Fathers, a tune of such emotional charge and such majesty that I defy anyone, of any nationality not to be moved by it. And what's more, A Welsh crowd can actually sing it in tune, follow the tempo and reach the high notes. Just compare that with a Liverpool crowd singing You'll Never Walk Alone.

It's interesting that my three favourite national anthems all follow an odd pattern, not the standard 4-line structure plus chorus or bridge. La Marsellaise, The Star-spangled Banner and Land of My Fathers all sound as if they are made up as they go along.

11 December 2006

A few songs


I was typing away the other day, when from another room I heard the unmistakable strains of The Beautiful South's song Don't Marry Her, Have Me (or) Fuck Me, if you prefer. As a matter of fact, I do prefer the f-word here and not just because it's slightly shocking to some.

It is obviously the original word used and is essential to the song's theme, namely the choice between the comfortable cage of family life, with all its restrictions and compromises, and uncomplicated fucking with an undemanding partner. What do want? A routine outline for lust, a panacea for loneliness and someone to do your laundry? Aren't those three L's the usual reasons for a man's marrying? And a woman's? Love, Lucre and Let's get the bastard!

OK, it's cynical, impracticable and juvenile. But that sweet siren voice singing along to that prettily seductive tune is tempting. The adult approach, of course, is to have both.

I first heard it a Lincoln pub, the William IV, at a low point of my life. I was hoping the flotsam and jetsam of failure would drift away on a tide of alcohol - good that! - and found the mantra of 'Don't marry her, fuck me' rather comforting. As was The Mavericks' Just wanna dance the night away.

It looks like I'm travelling down memory lane again. Perhaps I'm using this blog to exorcise nostalgia. But, to continue with songs that trigger memories, I shall move on to Nina Simone.

I was having lunch with a colleague one day (in Martha's Vineyard) when an instrumental version of My baby just cares for me came on. For some reason that middle piano riff just hooked me. I was told it was Nina Simone. Of course, I'd never heard of her, but now I'm a great admirer. She seems to been an awkward, angry old bat, with a chip on each shoulder, and probably a few more hidden under the piano. No doubt she had good reason. What was it she said once? 'Jazz is a white term for black people. My music is black, classical music.'

More important, 'I've got life. I've got my freedom. I got the life.'

It's amazing the music I only discovered by accident, long after it was first released. For example, I'd never heard of Credence Clearwater Revival until I watched An American Werewolf in London on video. Now they are the one rock group I would take to my desert island. Bo Diddley's I'm a Man was another pub discovery (Blandings), as was Frank Sinatra's New York, New York (George and Dragon). Ye Olde Crowne introduced me to Mustang Sally (Commitments version essential). I have a friend who does an excellent rendition of it.

The Levis Originals advertising campaign revived many great songs of the past - I'm Mad about the Boy (Noel Coward was thinking about a boy when he wrote it), Take another little piece of my heart (Irma Franklin), Heart Attack and Vine (Screaming Jay Hawkins - father of approx 100 children). And The Clash with Should I stay or should I go?

And this is where I come to Mavis, for she is associated with many songs. The Clash remind me of a long exposition of the musical reasons for the rise of punk, as a reaction against the prevailing pop culture, plastic pop, glam rock and sophisticated studio production. I'm still not convinced. I think most punk rocker were just tossers.

And then there were the Spice Girls, whose Wannabee we agreed was an excellent pop song, innovative, striking, worthy of its success, like it or not. And that Imagine opening to the Oasis song - was it Don't Look Back in Anger? - which had to be explained to me. But we both remembered Lonnie Donegan's Putting on the Style with affection and respect.

And back to Ye Olde Crowne for the Grease megamix, which I disgraced myself by playing on the juke-box at least six times in a row one Christmas Eve, and later doing the same thing with Hot Chocolate's You Sexy Thing.

And all that is quite apart from that Hank Williams song, I can't help it if I'm still in love with you.

08 December 2006

Pigman's Pie



Ingredients:


1 kg pork mince
0.5 kg apples, de-pipped, sliced, but not skinned
1 large onion, chopped
1 tin chopped tomatoes
6 cloves of garlic, squashed (more if you like garlic - stick a whole bulb in, why not)
1 pkt sage and onion stuffing (cheap)
Mushrooms - as many as you like
Gravy granules


Other bits and pieces that you want to get rid of, celery, spring onions, whatever; but remember it's pork and apple, so you might want to add a few more of those if you've got a lot of odds and ends to use up
Salt, pepper, if you can be bothered


Method

Cook the apples in just enough water till they're softish. A spoonful of sugar, a bit of cinnamon if you've got it. Strain and - nb - keep the liquid
Cook the onions till soft
Add the garlic, cook a bit more
Add the mushrooms (obviously rough-chopped)
Put in the mince and cook till brown
Then the tomatoes
Other bits and pieces
While this is going on, heat up the apple juice (add water to make it up to about 3/4 litre) and when it's boiling, add the gravy granules, probably about 6 teaspoonfuls. (Use your common sense and initiative here).

Add the sage and onion mix to the gravy and pour into the mince - by the way, you're going to need a big pan for this - did I mention that?

Give it a good stir and bring up to the boil. Then keep it simmering for 3/4 to 1 hour. Every few minutes, give it a another stir; it might tend to stick to the bottom of the pan.

Then forget about it till tomorrow. It should be reasonably stiff. If not warm it up again and add in some cornflour.

You can use the result as a base for a shepherd's pie type dish, or as a stew with added baked/boiled potatoes.

I've named it Pigman's Pie.

07 December 2006

Alastair Cooke


Anyone clicking on my title should get to one of Alastair's Letter from America. That's assuming, of course, that I've done it right. It's easier on 'Live Journal', Mr Blogger.com.

Yes, I did it wrong. I've just checked. It should be:




Now that gets you somewhere near , but it's still not right. Try this:


Bingo! Now all I have to do is learn how to paste URLs etc, because it's a real pain copying them out.

I'm very fond of Alastair Cooke. Maybe his talks are not so good when you read them, without hearing his voice, but read them I do, frequently. I love his style, discursive, knowledgeable, literate, anecdotal. He usually has two main themes, which he eventually gets round to linking up, after a circuitous journey involving many diversions and stops to admire some historical monument or to chat about golf and jazz.


I'm an Americanophile myself. I love their films, their music, their constitution, their variety, their humour, their generosity, their optimism. All of which means I'm often disappointed, even hurt, by their antics. The French, the Germans, the Australians, the whole of Africa - what else do you expect? But the Americans are the best of British, the ones with courage, enterprise and a desire for freedom and self-expression, for whom this country was too much of a straitjacket, who left it and invented their own country.

They can be so naive. They're like a huge, cuddly bear which just wants to be loved and can't understand why so many people are frightened of it, or why things tend to break in its great clumsy claws. Look at Iraq. They can't understand why those idiots aren't grateful that they've been given the great gift of democracy. God forbid we should think they're a bunch of childishly fanatical savages who can only function under dictatorship.

Their heart is definitely in the right place. I just think they've forgotten sometimes where they left their brain.





Poetry and prose

On returning to Sonnet 2 yesterday, somewhat despairingly, I asked myself if I actually had anything to say or if I were merely piling up phrase upon phrase to no real purpose.

I decided to write it all out in prose, but not prosaically. I though that what I ended up with was better for being without artifice. Or more accurately for being without 'artificial artifice'; for being art hiding art.

It may also have shown up the banality of my thoughts. Can it be that prose shows up the banality of poetry, but that poetry adds beauty to the banality of prose? Maybe it can refresh the tired cliche.

Wordsworth's Daffodils is very popular, and so it should for it is delightful. Kipling's If likewise, but are they saying anything profound or original? I don't think so, but they are saying it so well. Poetry cannot always be To be or not to be, or Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, or Ode: Immortalilty, or Do not go gentle.

I'm not really sure that I'm coming to any conclusion here, except that I seem to be disagreeing with Keats and his 'Truth Beauty' idea. Maybe I should try poetic prose.

Maybe I should stop using analysis to delay action. Maybe I should just write the damn poem.

And maybe I should stop using the word 'maybe' so bloody often.

05 December 2006

When the air becomes uraneous . . .

. . . we will all go simultaneous.


Every transuranic, radioactive cloud has a silver - that's an element - lining. And the death of that former KGB thug from, first, thallium, then, correction, polonium has served to remind people of Tom Lehrer, the golden satirist of the sixties

Radio has a desperate desire to find a piece of music appropriate to the news item and, sick as it may seem, it has been playing Tom's setting of the periodic table to the tune of I am the very model of a modern major-general, whenever it reports on the current scare about mass poisoning.

Let's hope it leads to a revival of the great man's reputation.

All I have to do is dream

There's hardly a day goes by when Mavis does not enter my thoughts. After all these year, her face, her voice is still with me.

It is not bitterness or lingering resentment, nor is it lust that constantly recalls her. Nor is some desire on my part for self-torture.

The physical reality of her seems to have dissolved into an ideal, something unattainable even when attained.

The other night I dreamt of her. I was in a pub, or maybe a hotel lounge for I was lying on a sofa. People around me appeared to be waiting. Then I noticed Mavis out of the corner of my eye. She was with a woman, a younger woman, her daughter? Mavis hasn't got a daughter, as far as I know. I'm not even sure if I recognised Mavis herself. I think I was afraid to greet her her, possibly through fear of rejection.

Then I felt something being laid on my stomach. Money. And Mavis was standing over me, smiling, and saying, 'Don't you now me?'

Last night I dreamt I was locked up in a mental home. I was wearing a uniform of pink pyjamas. I know Mavis was there too, but I never saw her. Apparently there was a plot to free her from this place, because Bill, an old friend of mine, my first best man in fact whom I haven't seen for 20 years, and his wife were with me, whispering conspiratorially. Somehow a doctor was involved. I believe she had been bribed, but she still had a long argument with me about the extent of Mavis' madness.

While my friends went searching for Mavis, I found myself in a kind of dormitory, where a fight broke out. One of the biggest, most unbalanced inmates started a riot and I took the opportunity to slip out and get into Bill's car. Luckily I found her I was now wearing a jacket and tie and we drove without problem through the security gates. We drove wildly - at one point I had to manoeuvre the steering-wheel from the passenger seat - and arrived in a distant town.

'It's a good thing I found this jacket and tie,' I said, and then realised I was still wearing the pink pyjama bottoms.

Next we were sitting in a pub, waiting. It was obviously a rendez-vous.

We paid a lot of money,' said Bill. I hope she comes.'

After a while another friend came in. This was Tom, also dressed in pink, another escapee. He shook his head.

Everyone except me agreed that Mavis was better off where she was.

I gave Tom a hundred pounds to help him while he was on the run. The trauma of this generosity woke me up.

04 December 2006

Words I hate

Institutional

It all started with that judge's report into the Met, which introduced the phrase 'institutional racism.' At the time I thought, 'what's he mean, institutional'? Was racism official policy? Did interviewers have instructions to ask racist questions or use racist screening techniques?

OK, maybe there was 'cultural' racism. In other words, a laddish, working class attitude to blacks, Asians, etc, among police officers. Maybe - no, certainly - a tendency to assume that if you're black and driving a big car you must have nicked it. But 'institutional'? It's a misuse of the word.

It hasn't gone away. I've recently heard it about in connection with women executives, or lack of them, in the City. And with the scarcity of female judges.

Community


This is connected with 'institutional'. The fact that it is used so widely shows how the sociological method has infiltrated all government and media pronouncements. On other words, everyone is defined by some group that they belong to. It shows lazy thinking to talk about the gay or Muslim or grey or hunting or scientific or international (!) or whatever other 'community' you invent to give the impression that there is a solid block of people with a single view.


It also allows self-appointed 'community leaders' to emerge, claiming some sort of spurious authority for their individual opinions.


It also links up with the idea that only members of a community can represent it. So we must have a proportional number of disabled, women, black and young MPs. Rubbish, I want a proportional number of MPs to represent my politics, not my age, sex, race or religion.

What is a community, after all? It's a village, a small group of people of all sorts living in the same place at the same time. All other uses are merely metaphorical or analogous, not factual.


Offence


Another link here. This morning I hear that employers are forbidding the decoration of offices with Christmas baubles and tinsel 'for fear of giving offence to members of other faiths.' don't they realise that most people who celebrate Christmas are of another faith, namely totally agnostic, practising non-Christians. Normal people don't belong to these groups, so beloved of the press. So why do intelligent people take notice.

Intelligent people, since I mention them, are always giving offence. Because they ask questions, because they doubt and refuse to take things for granted. 'Offence' is in the ear of the listener and shows intolerance, insecurity and intellectual backwardness.

For Christ's sake, I'm offended by a split infinitive or a refusal to use the subjunctive where appropriate.

02 December 2006

The Hitman Diaries

I've just finished Danny King's The Hitman Diaries (click on my title for link)

A professional killer kills a lot of people while looking for love, of a sort.


What can I say? I wasn't laughing out loud all the time, as I'd been promised, but the piling up of unwanted corpses near the beginning of the story is genuinely comic.

I wasn't shocked by the casual attitude to violence. I was watching spaghetti Westerns in the sixties. And Get Carter. And The Killers, with Lee Marvin (highly recommended).

I wasn't impressed by the attempt at depth by reproducing the imaginary dialogues our psychopath hero has with his dead mother and the odd victim.

Interesting idea that the ideal woman for him is one who is so ill or injured that she needs constant selfless care. Is Mr King a Catholic?

He's no Jane Austen or Irvine Welsh, but I've already reserved The Bank Robber's Diaries from the library.