A couple of years ago I developed a mini obsession with Oscar Wilde. I didn't start wearing green carnations or running up huge debts at the Albemarle Club or anything, I just read a few books because, up until that time all i knew of him was that he was quite witty and wrote some plays. He'd come across my horror loving radar as the author of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' and 'The canterville Ghost' but I'd never read him.
Well, I still haven't read much of his work but the fragrant nosegay I have plucked from his ouevre is just amazing. I defy anybody to read 'The Selfish Giant' without a lump forming in their throat (try reading it aloud to someone-the last paragraph'll kill you!)
I'd also recommend highly 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'
Get into Oscar-he's Wilde!
Thursday 27 March 2008
Thursday 20 March 2008
Between Iraq and a hard place.
I wore out my blogging fingers five years ago telling whoever would listen that to follow Dubya into his Iraq adventure would be disastrous. There were worse threats than him around at the time. Now five years on they're still there and Iraq is the rats nest we warned about.
It's too much to hope that any of the present cabinet will come out and say 'well, we fucked that up' The previous incumbent is clearly never going to admit he was wrong (a Middle East peace envoy for God's sake! Tom Lehrer was wrong, political satire didn't die when they gave Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize it just went into a deep coma. Tony just switched off the life support machine on it.) and the Whitehall elves are working feverishly to rewrite history so that it was actuall always our avowed intention to remove Saddam.
It just makes me weary. Too tired to fight-almost.
Oh and one more thing, I hate it when anybody who voices anti war feelings is accused of betraying our troops.
For the record, our forces are the only ones to emerge from this with clean hands. They get sent to do the bidding of the political pygmies, they don't have a choice.
Anti-war, yes, pro troops, definitely.
Five years on.
And on.
and on
It's too much to hope that any of the present cabinet will come out and say 'well, we fucked that up' The previous incumbent is clearly never going to admit he was wrong (a Middle East peace envoy for God's sake! Tom Lehrer was wrong, political satire didn't die when they gave Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize it just went into a deep coma. Tony just switched off the life support machine on it.) and the Whitehall elves are working feverishly to rewrite history so that it was actuall always our avowed intention to remove Saddam.
It just makes me weary. Too tired to fight-almost.
Oh and one more thing, I hate it when anybody who voices anti war feelings is accused of betraying our troops.
For the record, our forces are the only ones to emerge from this with clean hands. They get sent to do the bidding of the political pygmies, they don't have a choice.
Anti-war, yes, pro troops, definitely.
Five years on.
And on.
and on
Wednesday 19 March 2008
Ah, Darling
On behalf of the nation's smugglers and bootleggers I would like to extend the warmest and most heartfelt thanks to our Chancellor of the Exchequer. Once again he has seen fit to raise the duty on a packet of cigarettes by 11 pence. Cheap foreign travel is now so easy and affordable that they can arrange more and more fag runs. Couple this with the master stroke of actually cutting front line staff (and don't listen to the stock answer about 'brigading' and targeting areas) at the airports it's a bootlegger's bonanza.
What the Chancellor fails to realise is that more tax on tobacco here makes the prospect of buying cheap fags very attractive to almost everybody. It's a watered down prohibition and we all know how well prohibition worked in the US in the 20's and 30's don't we?
I speak as an ex customs officer when I say that we are scratching the surface of the problem. The seizure figures may well show a rise in the numbers but the street price for bootlegged fags is falling. Do you know why this is?
I'll tell you. It's because the Customs Officers at the airports (themselves haunted by targets) pick easy targets. You stop an average bloke and his wife with a bagload of Lambert and Butlers coming back from Malaga. He's seen the posters saying it's fine to do this so he feels happy. Then he gets pulled by a Customs officer, he gets questioned, formally interviewed. The world flips over and the Customs officer seizes his goods because he believes they are being held for a commercial purpose. Now your average bootlegger knows the answers to give to the Customs officer to, if not convince him, then at least give him no room to manouevre. Nine times out of ten they walk with their goods while the innocent guy who doesn't know what to say fulminates. Oh and they'll tell you about the appeals procedure. That's another good one. I'd love to ask the HMRC just how many appeals are upheld. (actually I know...and it's virtually none)
So, well done Chancellor. You've made bootlegging even more profitable, you've piled even more pressure on overworked Customs officers and you've alienated the travelling public (not to mention annoying ordinary smokers again -but that's fine because we're the only minority it's legal to discriminate against) all at one stroke!
Masterful.
What the Chancellor fails to realise is that more tax on tobacco here makes the prospect of buying cheap fags very attractive to almost everybody. It's a watered down prohibition and we all know how well prohibition worked in the US in the 20's and 30's don't we?
I speak as an ex customs officer when I say that we are scratching the surface of the problem. The seizure figures may well show a rise in the numbers but the street price for bootlegged fags is falling. Do you know why this is?
I'll tell you. It's because the Customs Officers at the airports (themselves haunted by targets) pick easy targets. You stop an average bloke and his wife with a bagload of Lambert and Butlers coming back from Malaga. He's seen the posters saying it's fine to do this so he feels happy. Then he gets pulled by a Customs officer, he gets questioned, formally interviewed. The world flips over and the Customs officer seizes his goods because he believes they are being held for a commercial purpose. Now your average bootlegger knows the answers to give to the Customs officer to, if not convince him, then at least give him no room to manouevre. Nine times out of ten they walk with their goods while the innocent guy who doesn't know what to say fulminates. Oh and they'll tell you about the appeals procedure. That's another good one. I'd love to ask the HMRC just how many appeals are upheld. (actually I know...and it's virtually none)
So, well done Chancellor. You've made bootlegging even more profitable, you've piled even more pressure on overworked Customs officers and you've alienated the travelling public (not to mention annoying ordinary smokers again -but that's fine because we're the only minority it's legal to discriminate against) all at one stroke!
Masterful.
Thursday 6 March 2008
Band on the ...ground
There is a menace on our streets and it is growing. Well that's overstating it quite a bit. Is it just me or has anyone else noticed the number of red elastic bands on our streets? I take the dog for a walk almost every day and, about six months ago, I started to see red elastic bands on the ground. They'd be singles or sometimes groups of three or four. I started to pick them up. Very soon I had a huge mugful of the things and I wondered where they were coming from. I found out that the Post office use them exclusively. This was confirmed when I discovered drifts of the things in the car park of the local sorting office as I walked past (yes I know how this makes me sound...)
Now I'm no economist and I'm not in business but it doesn't make a lot of sense to be closing down little post offices for not being economically viable when their staff are so profligate with their resources!
So pick up those little red rascals, parcel them up and send them back to the head of the Post Office...whoa, getting a little bit Daily Mail there for a second, starting to get carried away with the insanity. It is a point though, I can't remember seeing so many bands about before.
Maybe I should just forget it and have a nice cup of tea...
Now I'm no economist and I'm not in business but it doesn't make a lot of sense to be closing down little post offices for not being economically viable when their staff are so profligate with their resources!
So pick up those little red rascals, parcel them up and send them back to the head of the Post Office...whoa, getting a little bit Daily Mail there for a second, starting to get carried away with the insanity. It is a point though, I can't remember seeing so many bands about before.
Maybe I should just forget it and have a nice cup of tea...
Tuesday 4 March 2008
Mair
Certain broadcasters become brands, Humphries, Paxman, Dimbleby, and Whicker. By fair means or foul the best of them get information out of their subjects. No-one who saw it is likely to forget Jeremy Paxman's repeated asking of the same question to Michael Howard (back in the Jurassic period when Tories could form a government) which revealed far more about that particular reptile than would an answer to the question. John Humphries of course is at his best when lightly roasting any politician brave or foolish enough to attend for the 8:10 interview on the 'Today' programme.
Well I'd like to add my praise for another of these.
The incomparable Eddie Mair.
I first came across him one Sunday morning years ago when I discovered 'Broadcasting House' He was irreverent but never silly or lightweight and was capable of a marvellous turn of phrase. When he left BH (and I'm sorry to Fi and Paddy but it's never been half as good since) I was delighted to find him on PM. His style is sort of a cross between Alan Whicker, Louis Theroux and Robert Carlyle's character 'Begbie' in' 'Trainspotting'. You know what I mean; he goes into an interview with his gentle tones and his air of wide eyed interest. Sometimes I swear you can hear his interviewees purring as the questions wash over them and they can trot out their prepared text. Then, like Begbie at the bar, Mair strikes. The other night on PM he had some junior minister on talking about the railways. I'll confess it was washing over me too leaving nothing memorable behind. I was aware that the minister was talking at some length, an answer packed with statistics and bullshit. He paused and you could imagine him high fiving his spin doctor. Then Eddie, in his best modulated tones said. 'What does that mean?' with a slight emphasis on the last word.
The pause that followed reeked of sudden panic, bowel-stirring shock as if he had just been glassed in a pub. When he regained his composure the ministerette's answer was broken and so was any credibility he might have had. On reflection, perhaps glassing is not the right analogy. Mair is more subtle, a stiletto perhaps.
It's not just on the attack that the approach works either. Just today (March 3rd) Mr. Mair was presenting 'Cleaning up the camp’ a programme about the Service's attitude to homosexuality. He interviewed a guy who had been drummed out of the Parachute Regiment in the eighties after a long and unblemished career as a bandmaster. His offence was that he was a homosexual. He described how during his interrogation he was told by the provosts that he must have slept with his dog and his two brothers if he was gay. Dreadful stuff. At the end of the show after the 'happy ending' of the change in the law had been described Mair spoke to the man again. He described how he sat and wept after he had lost his career. Mair asked him, with his trademark simplicity,
'What were you crying for?'
The pause that followed that was eloquent indeed. The man genuinely had to think, there wasn't a knee-jerk answer. The pause spoke of the loss of more than a career for, as the other contributors had said, the Services aren't just a job but rather a life choice. Even those treated appallingly had no rancour for the service itself just the outdated and prejudiced rules that applied.
All that was expressed in the pause and the pause came because Mr. Mair asked a simple question.
Now that’s worth the license fee.
Well I'd like to add my praise for another of these.
The incomparable Eddie Mair.
I first came across him one Sunday morning years ago when I discovered 'Broadcasting House' He was irreverent but never silly or lightweight and was capable of a marvellous turn of phrase. When he left BH (and I'm sorry to Fi and Paddy but it's never been half as good since) I was delighted to find him on PM. His style is sort of a cross between Alan Whicker, Louis Theroux and Robert Carlyle's character 'Begbie' in' 'Trainspotting'. You know what I mean; he goes into an interview with his gentle tones and his air of wide eyed interest. Sometimes I swear you can hear his interviewees purring as the questions wash over them and they can trot out their prepared text. Then, like Begbie at the bar, Mair strikes. The other night on PM he had some junior minister on talking about the railways. I'll confess it was washing over me too leaving nothing memorable behind. I was aware that the minister was talking at some length, an answer packed with statistics and bullshit. He paused and you could imagine him high fiving his spin doctor. Then Eddie, in his best modulated tones said. 'What does that mean?' with a slight emphasis on the last word.
The pause that followed reeked of sudden panic, bowel-stirring shock as if he had just been glassed in a pub. When he regained his composure the ministerette's answer was broken and so was any credibility he might have had. On reflection, perhaps glassing is not the right analogy. Mair is more subtle, a stiletto perhaps.
It's not just on the attack that the approach works either. Just today (March 3rd) Mr. Mair was presenting 'Cleaning up the camp’ a programme about the Service's attitude to homosexuality. He interviewed a guy who had been drummed out of the Parachute Regiment in the eighties after a long and unblemished career as a bandmaster. His offence was that he was a homosexual. He described how during his interrogation he was told by the provosts that he must have slept with his dog and his two brothers if he was gay. Dreadful stuff. At the end of the show after the 'happy ending' of the change in the law had been described Mair spoke to the man again. He described how he sat and wept after he had lost his career. Mair asked him, with his trademark simplicity,
'What were you crying for?'
The pause that followed that was eloquent indeed. The man genuinely had to think, there wasn't a knee-jerk answer. The pause spoke of the loss of more than a career for, as the other contributors had said, the Services aren't just a job but rather a life choice. Even those treated appallingly had no rancour for the service itself just the outdated and prejudiced rules that applied.
All that was expressed in the pause and the pause came because Mr. Mair asked a simple question.
Now that’s worth the license fee.
Am I just jealous?
It's an alarming 31 years since I read anything with a view to studying it. Back then we read plays, novels and, of course, poems.
Now I still think the reading of plays is perverse and against everything the playwright intended. Language on the page can be pinned down like a moth and dissected until we know how it's constructed and classified so we know what it 's related to but that just leaves it as sterile and lifeless as a microscope slide. Hamlet's soliloquy does read beautifully but how much better is it when you hear the words spoken, interpreted? On the page 'Out, out damned spot' could be construed as an angry instruction to an erring pet but not when you see Lady Macbeth wringing those encrimsoned hands and hear the desperation and anguish in the voice. Since I left school therefore I have never read another play.
(Just to go off at a bit of a tangent here I learned with alarm that nowadays kids no longer read whole plays. Instead they watch a video of a performance and learn two 'key' scenes about which they answer questions and write essays. Now I don't want to get all 'Daily Mail' here but if that isn't dumbing down what is? Isn't it a bit hypocritical of me to complain about not reading whole plays right after saying that I think reading plays is perverse? Well of course it is, but if I had to plough through Julius Caesar, Henry IV parts one and two, Othello, Doctor Faustus and The Duchess of Malfi then I don't see why my kids can get away with reading two scenes from the The Tempest or The Merchant of Venice and claim they know the play!)
Now I still think the reading of plays is perverse and against everything the playwright intended. Language on the page can be pinned down like a moth and dissected until we know how it's constructed and classified so we know what it 's related to but that just leaves it as sterile and lifeless as a microscope slide. Hamlet's soliloquy does read beautifully but how much better is it when you hear the words spoken, interpreted? On the page 'Out, out damned spot' could be construed as an angry instruction to an erring pet but not when you see Lady Macbeth wringing those encrimsoned hands and hear the desperation and anguish in the voice. Since I left school therefore I have never read another play.
(Just to go off at a bit of a tangent here I learned with alarm that nowadays kids no longer read whole plays. Instead they watch a video of a performance and learn two 'key' scenes about which they answer questions and write essays. Now I don't want to get all 'Daily Mail' here but if that isn't dumbing down what is? Isn't it a bit hypocritical of me to complain about not reading whole plays right after saying that I think reading plays is perverse? Well of course it is, but if I had to plough through Julius Caesar, Henry IV parts one and two, Othello, Doctor Faustus and The Duchess of Malfi then I don't see why my kids can get away with reading two scenes from the The Tempest or The Merchant of Venice and claim they know the play!)
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