Things Behind the Sun

No more foodies any more

2012-09-30T12:09:00.000+01:00

Wine-buff, travel-bug, sports-mad, news-hound: standard suffixes for the lazy conversationalist.

Male nickname suffixes: nothing more than the addition of the letter y to a name (Matt-y, Smith-y). I presume it's a y anyway. It could be ie.

On that theme, there's one particular ie that I find very irritating and that's the ie to be applied to the end of the word food. Foodie. Foodie. Foodie. Even writing the word causes a little bit of bile to rise up and catch the back of the throat like acidic backwash.

Do we really need a word for people who are passionate about their food, and even if we do, do we need a word that manages to sound trite, childish and smug all at the same time? "I'm a real foodie" clearly attempts to convey the idea of a fashionable character with money and taste who is able at the drop of a hat to regale you with stories of restaurants where they have dined, the signature dishes they have consumed and even the personal history of the chef who may have cooked their dishes.

It's not just the word foodie either. This breed of people have developed their own language and it's the language of the pretentious menu so loved by food bloggers. Is some food on top of some other food? it's been rested. Does food have chili in it? it's been 'spiked'. Are there spices? it's been given a 'kick'. The meat was not bought from a farm, it was 'sourced'. Do you have a random collection of separate entities on your plate? Why, something must have been 'deconstructed'. Does your meal look nothing like what you ordered? I expect that it is the 'chef's take' on a classic.

Menus seem to fall into two extremes, the yin and yang of culinary pretentiousness. Either you are presented with some kind of Victorian novella to describe the dish or you are presented with a single word, iron-chef style.

To pick the first example of the former category that I came across: Roasted Creedy Carver (no idea) duck, spice pear gel (so I assume not a pear, but a gel made from pears, reminding me very much of a limited edition radox brand) , braised duck leg, turnip (seems a shame to have so little information about how this is cooked give the information lavished on the duck), English Ale-Gar reduction (a reduction involving ale? A reduction involving agar? Can you reduce agar?). This level of waffle actually makes me yearn for the menu item that simply says 'mackerel' and I'll happily take pot luck with what's been done to my fish. Many of these items come from the sort of restaurants that are designed for people who will quite happily book a table for 5.30pm on a Monday evening 3 months hence to ensure they have a foodie go-to experience to be unveiled at a weekend dinner party.

But the worst thing of all is that the person who symbolises the word foodie for me is Alex James, that uber-twat cheese-evangelist late of Blur and best chum of both DC and Clarkson. Apparently (and this is pretty much a genuine quotation) his 20s were all about booze, his 30s about drugs and now his 40s are about food. He finds it an amazing way to connect with people in a far more fundamental way than his music ever could. Leaving this aside, the creator of tikka-masala cheese for Asda (now discontinued) and the soft 'Blue Monday' is the epitome of the type who feels food has some kind of inherent cool to it. Food isn't a status symbol, but we do eat a lot of it and it's probably wise to make sure that it tastes nice and doesn't do too much damage to the planet. That is all.

Let's get it trending!

2012-08-17T09:42:00.000+01:00

I like Twitter. I like it a lot. I probably spend more time looking at it than I should. One of the best things about it is that you only follow those people you want to; there's no need to listen to the opinions of those that are not of interest, unlike in real life. Following, un-following, re-following - these are all natural processes, unlike Facebook, where un-friending people is a serious business and is tantamount to phoning someone to let them know that you do not like them any more. There are many reasons that I begin to follow people and also many reasons why I stop following people. Top of the second list is when someone informs me of something cute that their child has just done/said; closely following this is the title of this blog: "let's get it trending".

Social networking allows us to become activists, albeit in a very minor and totally non-committal manner. An activist is defined as an especially active, vigorous advocate of a cause but Twitter (and to an extent Facebook) mean that we can be activists (just for one day). There are those that dedicate their lives to a cause, but "Let's get it trending" (LeGiT) is a the most banal, lowest effort and least likely to sway opinion method of activism. It usually requires the individual to press one button. Unfortunately, given the large number of people on Twitter and Facebook, the thoughtless pressing of a single button by numerous individual fingers allows an issue to 'trend' for a short time on Twitter, or clog up our Facebook feeds before it dies away, only to be forgotten.

Just one example: #stopkony became a popular hashtag on Twitter following Jason Russell's film. People were falling over themselves to press the retweet button, to do their part to save those 'invisible children', to feel better about themselves for becoming part of the movement to rid the world of the evil warlord Joseph Kony. Has Kony been stopped? No. Is he in prison? No. Ironically enough, Jason Russell has ended up in prison (before Kony) after a bout of 'reactive psychosis' caused him to strip naked and masturbate in the streets of San Diego. #stopkony doesn't trend any more; people have moved on and the Twitter activism has had no effect. Such is the way of things and no real change can be brought about when, deep down, people don't really care about an issue. When large number of people care, change can happen. When small numbers of people care, or large numbers pretend they do by pressing a retweet button, nothing happens.

Multiple changes of Facebook statuses represent another form of pointless, low-effort activism. There was a Facebook campaign recently where we were all encouraged to change our profile pictures to our favourite cartoon character, all in the name of bringing an end to child abuse. Really? How exactly was this going to work? Was the sudden appearance of lots of Droopies, Scooby-Doos and Pink Panthers really going to make child abusers think twice? Of course not, it was to raise awareness that child abuse is a bad thing; but I suspect that we were all aware of that anyway. In reality, it was a fun way of getting people to think they were doing something for a cause.

Gary Barlow and his wife recently lost their baby Poppy. This is horrendous for them. They should be allowed the privacy to grieve in private. Instead, we get Louis Walsh demanding that we all retweet his own sympathy "to show respect". Twitter glows with the hashtag #rippoppy. Feels rather tasteless. I showed my respect by leaving them in peace.

A young person is suffering from terminal cancer. "Their final wish is to end up trending on twitter" is the quote. This really happened. Surely this is more than a little undignified. No charity link, no suggestions for donations, no page directing you to offer condolences. Just the retweet button, for the simple sympathiser.

The knee-jerk reaction: most recently to the Olympics. Michael Vaughan (he should know better) claims that we need 1 hour of sport per day in Schools - "LeGiT". Of course we do. No need to think about the sold-off playing fields, the early finish in many Schools, the lack of competition infrastructure, the existence of sports clubs, the difficulty with employing qualified sports coaches for 60 minutes per day, the cost implications, the equipment implications. As long as the tweet is written, then retweeted by millions, something must happen, won't it? After all, we've done our bit for the cause and can rest easy. We're all activists now.

Time to post the link to this blog - "LeGiT".

Tomlinson v Harwood

2012-07-26T14:43:00.000+01:00

In the red-eyed corner, homeless alcoholic and occasional newspaper salesman Ian Tomlinson. He comes into this fight with two failed marriages, nine children (four of his own and five step-children; proof that he loves them to bits is evidenced by their names crudely tattooed on his hands). He's wearing a blue Millwall football shirt with a grey Milwall t-shirt on top; it's not a good look. He's not in great shape and looks older than his 47 years. Homelessness can't help and cirrhosis of the liver brought on by his alcoholism means that Harwood is a strong favourite to take the bout. Tomlinson is drunk, meaning that his movement is impaired and his reactions are slow and unpredictable.

In the blue-flashing-light corner, territorial support officer Simon Harwood. He comes into the fight in good shape physically, though he's been up since 5am and this must count against him. He's limbered up for the fight by pushing and palm-striking protesters and has roughed up a BBC cameraman for good measure. His chequered past means it's tricky to predict the approach he'll take. He's with the Met at the moment, though he's already moved from the Met to Surrey police once as a result of a misconduct hearing. This fight could define his future. Tomlinson is the crowd favourite and Harwood has little support from the crowd.

Before it's started, it's all over.

Tomlinson is down, the result of a smart baton strike to the leg and a simple push. He's down, up again and down again. This time he stays down. Police are pelted by protesters as they attempt to help Tomlinson.

Harwood barely notices the incident and certainly makes no note in his note book. The whole bout has taken little more than a few seconds but it's enough to remove Ian Tomlinson from the face of the planet and to send ripples of shock a long way out from the centre of the incident.

Tomlinson has been unlawfully killed, it is decided. No-one is guilty of this unlawful killing though Harwood's performance in court is so poor than it's almost as though he's trying to get himself sent down. Further revelations about Harwood's past and character are released. He is released.

The Tomlinson family sense reimbursement and state that they will sue unless an admission of guilt is forthcoming; their own guilt or greed may be driving factors. 13 years since Ian Tomlinson left to live his own life away from them, he's now reinvented as a wonderful dad. Look at the tattoos, they say...

There's some good news of course; Paul Lewis of the Guardian is named reporter of the year for his investigative journalism concerning the case. Meanwhile, Syria dominates one or two of the middle pages...

heard and overheard in London yesterday

2012-07-06T17:14:00.000+01:00

Here's a summary of my trip to London yesterday, documented by lines from me, my brother and some of the people with whom we interacted or just listened in on...

Totes; the barman recognises a girl who knows her liquor; OMG; that's not cote du rhone!; super-smart; it's mostly fernet branca and creme de menthe; sand eels are in season right now, in fact, everything's in season here; the latest conference in Rio was a disaster; super-rude; Peter Atkins saved my degree with his book on physical chemistry; isn't this just the entrance to the gift shop?; it's amazing just how big the champagne region is; super-annoying; my favourite is the crispy cod skin; these are the lengths to which we we go to prove we're not gay; I can't let anyone sit on these chairs after six; how do you cook the duck hearts?; how many different types of gin do you have?; Which one tastes least like gin?; the stag do in Nottingham was even worse than the one in Crawley; we need to make science more fun, not just about learning facts or even scientific process; we've been having a lot of problems with these barriers today; you can sit in the window and look at the tourists; isn't that your God-daughter?; I come from Lyon and I go back there three times a year; why don't we just share the clams?; I'll just have the beans and bacon; the rooms are really small; it's best on the fifth floor; good service on all lines.

*if you're expecting something like The Wasteland, you'll be sorely disappointed

The curse of the commentator

2012-06-29T15:27:00.001+01:00

I've just been watching a little of the Djokovic-Stepanek match at Wimbledon. John MacEnroe has just informed me that Djokovic "has literally fallen to his knees". Part of me delights at the first correct use of the word literally I've ever heard during sports commentary; we are normally bombarded with all sorts of erroneous literals such as "he's literally got ice in his veins" or "he's literally sweating blood out there". On further reflection I was more irritated; why do I need a commentator to inform me what is obvious from the screen. I can see that Djokovic had fallen to his knees (literally), why did I need someone to tell me?

I often think that a good test of a commentator is that if they were a friend sitting next to you on the sofa, would you find their input useful as a clear enhancer of the match experience or would you consider them to be an irritating statto, endlessly pointing out the bleeding obvious? I know which category most commentators fall into nowadays, but do play the game, either by asking a friend to remain silent whilst the sound is turned up or to listen to what your friend has to say with the sound turned down.

It wasn't always like this. Dan Maskell was like your Grandad asleep in the sofa, awakening just in time for a quickly fired off "I say" at a winning shot before going back to his slumbers. Whispering Ted Lowe might have spent 90% of his snooker commentary career in the pub for all we knew, so rare were his pearls of wisdom. But pearls they were, and just like a couple that actually get on, the long silences weren't embarrassing. They were happy to let the play speak for itself.

Radio commentary is always going to be about making the listener feel as though they were there, but TV commentary is harder. The pictures speak for themselves and the commentator is there to provide knowledge and atmosphere. I've had to turn off Wimbledon now (or at least turn the sound down) due to the morass of utter crap that was being forced into my ears. I now know that Stepanek divides his time between Prague and Florida, the name of the third best Serbian tennis player, the name of the girlfriend of Djokovic and the names of the most famous newscasters on American TV. It's just listening to two grown men talk boring pub chat. Literally.

Football commentary is similarly afflicted, with the retirement of Barry Davies and the impending 100th birthday of John Motson. We're now subjected to the Danny Baker-esque Robot Wars-style commentary of Jonathan Pearce on the beeb and the Prince Phillip of the commentary world Peter Drury on ITV.

Where's Sid Waddell when you need him?

Patriot games

2012-06-07T08:00:00.000+01:00

I wasn't in the country for the jubilee weekend. I wasn't trying to make a point, it's just that's when half-term landed.

I didn't really have any opinion at all on the jubilee, either on a superficial weekend party level or on a more fundamental monarchistic level. We have a monarchy; it's a bit archaic; most people don't think about it from day to day; it's one of Britain's USPs; the arguments are well rehearsed and well known. But I did feel like the odd one out, albeit from a distance. TV, Facebook and Twitter seemed to unearth no end of people with very strong opinions on the jubilee. It was impossible to be in the middle, or as I felt I was - far away watching the whole thing from a distance. 'So proud to be British' seemed to be one recurring statement, whilst those on the other side of the fence screamed 'tax dodging scum' at the Queen through a variety of mocked-up Facebook photos. Two bubbles had been set up, but this was no Venn diagram and the bubbles had no point of intersection.

So let's take the first set of people, the 'patriots' for want of a better word. A patriot is defined as one who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion. Was that what the people who lined the Mall were doing? Of course not, but they had turned up in the rain to wish happy birthday to the Queen, which at least falls under the heading of supporting one's country, even if one isn't tied into defending it or even necessarily loving it. I wonder how many of the Queen's favourite singers appeared? I know the Queen mother had a penchant for George Formby, but she's dead and in 2012 we were treated to a slightly odd selection. They'd clearly gone for longevity over popularity, with Paul McCartney, Cliff, Madness and Rolf Harris benefitting simply from existing for over three decades in the nation's consciousness. Quite how people were able to feel proud to be British watching Kylie, Rolf and Stevie Wonder was uncertain, though maybe it had something to do with the fact that the NHS has managed to keep Rolf alive past the age of 100. I don't know anyone who listens to Paul McCartney post-1970, Cliff or Rolf Harris ever (and certainly not for pleasure) and I don't know anyone that finds Lenny Henry funny. It didn't stop the patriots though. Even though it probably wasn't what the Queen wanted, or what they wanted and mostly wasn't British, the tweets about how proud they kept being sent out, before dissolving slowly into the twitt-ether to be replaced by other similar messages. None of it felt like a celebration of British-ness, British history, British music or British culture. We're far too worried about accusations of jingoism, racism, empirism and many other isms beside. So it ended up being a play-it-safe, MOR rock concert with inoffensive acts plucked randomly from the last 50 years of show-business. If this is what makes you proud to be British, great.

It was nice to see thousands of people line the Mall on Monday night, though it was inevitable that it would be business as usual on Tuesday. And so it seemed; much of the jubilee spirit seemed to have evaporated as the main new story moved from how 'humbled' the Queen felt to how some jubilee workers were forced to sleep rough under a bridge. Seems like we're fine when listening to Sir Paul, but when the music stops, we're a little less proud to be British.

It was nice to see that the effort and conviction visible in the anarchism of those that opposed the jubilee was just as MOR as the music at the jubilee itself. The re-release of the Sex Pistols 'God save the Queen' proved that things really do get less shocking with age (35 years in this case) and it seemed to have an effect more akin to basic nostalgia than to stir the nation's disaffected youth. The inevitable FB campaign to get the song to number 1 seems like a very tired idea now and even butter-advertiser extraordinaire Jonny Rotten thought the idea was feeble. Sharing the odd photo on FB of the Queen as a tax-dodger felt like a rather timid way of railing against the monarchy. It's one thing to adopt a lazy air of resignation when Lenny Henry is on stage, but it's even more pathetic to do so when you think you're being anti-establishment.

Alice in Troll-land

2012-05-15T09:54:00.000+01:00

Never one to shy away from the big issues, I thought I'd put the collapse of Europe to one side and instead concentrate on a mild spat between two journalists, one of which no-one had ever heard of before a couple of days ago.

In the blue corner: Giles Coren is a journalist for the Times. He published a piece last weekend in which he worried about his young daughter's safety and talked about how he yearned for a return to the comfy womb that was his Prep School. He's an entertaining writer. As a newspaper columnist and one who revels in being provocative (mostly by the use of innuendo and mild ranting) and as one who is a regular user of Twitter, part of his raison d'etre is to stir up opinion, some of which will nod in sage support of him and some of which will inevitably violently disagree. As someone who wrote a book entitled 'anger management', he's clearly an irascible fellow and likes nothing more than a good old spat on Twitter.

In the red corner: a 23 year old journalist called Alice Vincent (she's the non-famous one in this story) and hence information on her is limited. Having read his article, she tweeted Giles with the following:

"Columnists basing their opinions around their chldren. So yawn. Your column today is one step up from a mumsnet blogpost, @gilescoren"

Despite the use of the word 'so' in this context, which is irritating in itself, and the fact that she wrote a later tweet breaking up his name using an apostrophe (think Gile's instead of Giles'), it's actually rather a good put-down. Coren clearly sees himself as something of an alpha male - the enfant terrible of the animal husbandry and allotment world, if you will. Vincent manages to strike two blows - the first is the attack on Coren's own journalistic integrity and the second is achieved by comparing him to something he would regard as total anathema. However, she's clearly struck a raw nerve, because Coren's response demonstrated just how far the bile had risen:

"Go f*ck yourself, you barren old hag"

It's concise, pithy, straight to the point; everything we look for in quality journalism. In fact, if one looks through Coren's timeline, it's littered with profanity and playground insults. He seems to rather like it, and I guess that's his prerogative; you certainly know what the risks are when you choose to insult the man with the tiny beard. He has replied to a direct tweet from a woman he doesn't know, in which she expressed a withering opinion on his latest article. His response is less offensive in many ways, bearing in mind that it strikes nowhere near the heart and is offensive only in a very abstract manner. The fact that she's 23 means that she's not old, it's unsurprising that she's childless (it would be more surprising if she were sprogged up) and though she's no Venus de Milo, she's far from being a hag.

The most boring aspect of the whole spat is the amount of guff that it's generated on Twitter, with (according to Coren) around 85% of the Twitterati supporting him. Supporting him in what? The right to use rude words? The right to take umbrage when his work is criticised? The right to have children and then talk vaguely about them in his column? The fact of the matter is that Coren is just being Coren. It's what he does, it's his USP. He's the gentleman farmer in the wax anorak who talks about provenance of asparagus one minute and calls someone a c*nt the next. It's what we middle-class folk love. Alice Vincent is just a catty wannabe journalist who deserves all the abuse he chooses to give her. And besides, she started it. She should be happy that she's got a rise from him and she should let his clumsy factually incorrect insults wash off her like rainwater from a fresh-picked beet.

Accusations of 'Trolling' seem a trifle overblown. A troll (for those who don't know) is someone who posts inflammatory messages in an online community, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response. There's no trolling to see here. in fact, there's nothing much to see here. Move along please.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be

2012-04-26T14:36:00.002+01:00

All that is formulaic does not have to be bad. When sports teams hit on a winning formula either of personnel or tactics they would be foolish to move away from it. And of course there's something to be said for sticking to what you know (incidentally, I notice that Feeder have a new album out). TV seems to work on a similar principle, namely that you should be inventive only until you stumble across something that people like, then you make sure to give them more of the same until they are sick of it. For evidence, see Popstars, Popstars (the rivals), Pop Idol, American Idol, Fame Academy, The X factor, Britain's got Talent. The name changes, but generally the product stays the same. Of course ITV are most guilty, but the BBC have to hold their hands up in at least two areas. The first is the now-ubiquitous travel/cookery programme, many of which tend to focus on the British Isles in a sort of upmarket Man v Food manner, including vast quantities of whitecurrants, samphire and cob-nuts, whilst Giles Coren or the Hairy Bikers tell us what we should be eating more of, and isn't it a shame how what used to be orchards is now a ring-road around Stoke. The second is the nostalgia shows, and keen to live up to their name, the nostalgia shows have been away for a time but are now back with a vengence.

The BBC decided to go large on the nostalgia show around the year 2000 (a sensible time to look back), and spent every Saturday night with a programme entitled 'I love 1970' one week, followed by 'I love 1971' the following week. The feeling was that they knew it was possible to cobble together an entire night's TV on one of their two channels by simply showing repeats, as long as the repeats all happened to be from the same year. The glue that held these programmes together took the form of various comedians and social commentators (wherever else would Stuart Maconie and Gina Yashere come together?) whose role was to exclaim 'I can't believe we all used to wear leg-warmers' at the end of a clip where people wore leg-warmers, or 'I can't believe we all used to wear 3-foot high top-hats with mirrors on them' when a clip of Slade was shown.

The popularity of these programmes was such that when the 'I love 1970s' series came to a close in late 2000, they simply wheeled out an 'I love 1980s' series. This was followed by the 'I love 1990s' series. It was more difficult to class the 'I love 1999' programme strictly as nostalgia, bearing in mind that the show aired in 2001. I can't believe I used to wear that? Not really - clothes from 1999 made up the most fashionable items in my wardrobe at that time.

The Beeb have re-introduced the nostalgia again recently with a series called 'The 70s'. Apart from the fact that something from 1972 might turn up alongside something from 1976, rather than being separated by four Saturday nights, it doesn't smack of anything original. But people still seem keen to lap it up. But who is actually allowed to feel nostalgic whilst watching kids bouncing on space-hoppers or riding Rayleigh Choppers? Surely only those people that were bouncing on space-hoppers or riding Choppers at the time? So anyone from the ages of about 5-15 in, say, 1976 can feel nostalgic, which means that only those people aged between 41 and 51 now really be experiencing a feeling of nostalgia, or at least a heightened sense of nostalgia. These people are experiencing genuine nostalgia; they are whistfully remembering a time gone by, a happy time, a simpler time and a time about which they can say 'I was there'. I'm not nostalgic for space-hoppers because I never bounced on one, nor did I know anyone that did. I'm no more nostalgic for those squidgy orange balls than I am for penny farthings or Arkwright's spinning Jennys.

But nostalgia affects us all, and it seems that we're able to feel nostalgic about the past, even if it wasn't our past. I watched a programme about George Formby last week, which included clips of many of his bawdy songs (most of which seemed to be about his penis, or his desire to spy on women through windows). Yet by the end of the programme I was convinced that the London riots were pretty much a direct result of the decrease in the number of people playing the ukelele and that what this country needed was a mass-exodus to the Blackpool ballroom to listen to a load of George's old music-hall classics. I got rather carried away, as you can probably tell.

We're all keen to look back with rose-tinted spectacles, and tend to remember just how bad today is compared to the halcyon days of yesteryear. Wattle and daub houses and rampant syphilis, that's when times were truly great. Mind you, things can be taken too far. The Happy Mondays are back on tour.

You never see it coming

2012-04-20T13:10:00.001+01:00

It's a well-known fact that someday, inevitably, we turn into our parents. Habits, phrases and behavioural quirks that we swore would never become part of our daily routine end up sneaking in like a weasel through some form of genetic osmosis. Resistance is futile and it's safest to accept the inevitable and enjoy the ride. There's a great difference between noticing certain traits that have been handed down from parent to child and that specific point where it's clear that the transformation is complete, but you'll know it when it comes. I did.

For some time now I have been walking into rooms for something, forgetting what it was, doing something else, then remembering what it was only by walking back to the exact location at which I first realised there was something I needed to get in the first place. I have on various occasions found my pen in the toothbrush holder, my toothbrush in the fridge and the milk in the cupboard where we keep the teacups, but even this didn't strike me as marking the definitive move over to the parent-side. I was expecting the change to be rubber-stamped the day I rushed to answer the phone because a phone rang on the TV programme I was watching (which didn't sound at all like the house phone) and I've been watching out for this particular event hawk-like for some time. Maybe this was the problem and I must have taken my eye off the ball, because a couple of weeks ago I made a conscious decision to not simply complete the transformation, but to smash right through any kind of behavioural barrier than may have existed between myself and the intimate generation above.

The County cricket season started extraordinarily early this year, in the first week of April. March had been balmy, giving hope that this early start might be justified weather-wise. But the Gods of cricket have not built up a formidable reputation for nothing, and on Thursday 5th April a Baltic wind swept the Country, heralding the first day of the County Championship. Undeterred, I headed to perennial strugglers Leicestershire and their pretty Grace Road ground. A surprisingly large crowd (not quite into triple figures, but this is division 2) had gathered to see if Leicestershire could make a good start against Glamorgan. Not quite a battle of the Titans admittedly but Glamorgan were the only side that Leicestershire had managed to beat in the last 12 months. Two balls into the match, Leicestershire were 0 for 2. When I turned up, they were 7 for 3. I took my seat next to a woman, at least I think it was a woman; it was difficult to tell because she was wearing an anorak and furry hood tied tightly so as to resemble a periscope; a tartan rug was wrapped around the knees. It was the sort of day on which Captain Oates might have stayed inside. Still, as the scene unfolded before me, it still didn't occur to me that I had completed the transformation by merely being here at this Cathedral of cricket on such a polar day. However, as lunchtime approached and I delved into my bag to collect the goodies I had brought, it became all very apparent. Crisps - check; Wispa - check; bottle of water - check. Wait a minute! 3 separate tupperware pots! How did they get in there? As if in a dream, I had carefully placed the main ingredients for my picnic into different sized tupperwares. There was one for the pork pie (it was Leicestershire remember), a smaller one for my slab of cheddar and the smallest was reserved for a smear of Branston pickle. Yes, really - Branston pickle in a tupperware. This was the moment I had been expecting for some years and I could imagine my Dad sitting there, next to me on the cold plastic seat, under leaden skies, and as another Welsh medium-pacer of little regard turned at the top of his run-up I could see Dad nodding to me with a mixture of pride and pity: 'you're one of us now, son'.

Table for One

2012-04-12T10:31:00.000+01:00

I might have entitled this post 'Solo versus Social'. I've never been particularly clear on the rules regarding activities that should be done only with others as opposed to alone. I don't mean that I'm entirely oblivious to the fact that sex should ideally involve a partner (though the solo alternative according to Woody Allen is at least sex with someone you like) and that social reading (i.e. over someone's shoulder) is a hugely irritating habit (right up there with the feeling you get in the car when someone fails to acknowledge the fact that you have let them out of a side-street; would a wave of the hand really be so much trouble?). But I'm less clear on some of the following: cinema, eating out, holidays, going to the pub...these activities are generally regarded as things one does socially, though I think that most of them sit equally comfortably in the solo category.

The cinema is still seen as being a 'date location' and I do wonder why there should be a stigma attached to watching films in the cinema alone. The whole experience relies on silence and concentration, assuming one is beyond the age where the 'date' merely involves necking in the back row of Lethal Weapon 3. Nevertheless, I always feel a pang of shame when I request my single ticket, and tend to put the word 'just' in front of my ticket order each time. This is odd; the films I watch solo tend to be in the afternoon, and the vast majority of other paying customers have gone solo too - there's solidarity in numbers for you. You certainly get a varied crowd, with the oddest set of creatures being discovered at the Ritzy for 'Bobby Fischer against the World'; I guess there aren't that many fans of chess in Brixton. I did rather pity the soul who turned up solo to watch 'Antichrist', though maybe the embarrassment of watching genital mutilation with a friend outweighs the embarrassment of having the rest of the cinema think you're really into that kind of stuff.

The rules of eating out seem to be that it's an activity best done with friends, family or a partner and never alone. This is not something I agree with. Eating out alone, particularly at lunch, feels rather decadent - it's something that Gatsby might do. You get to order exactly what you want, your wine choice always complements your food (not someone else's) and in between courses you get to read a book (be honest, on some dining occasions it would be great to be able to get out the book even when not going solo). If you should feel embarrassed when dining alone, all you need to do is take a notepad and pencil along with you. At various stages you should sniff what's on the end of the fork and take long lingering looks around the dining room. Maybe order two starters and ask the waiter for a cleaner knife. If you go to all this trouble, you might convince people that you're a food critic simply doing his or her day job.

One should not be afraid of holidaying alone, but it is worth bearing in mind two simple rules. Firstly, go to the US, where your accent will be enough to gather together a whole set of new chums on day one (disclaimer: this will not work in Boston, where you are still regarded as the hated oppressor). Secondly, you can make the practice sound less weird by simply describing your holiday as 'travelling' (note that though there's no set definition for this term you're unlikely to convince many people that a long weekend in Dublin is a valid use of the word).

Sorry, I can't do anything for you if you have the desire to sit alone in the pub. That's just weird and you should be ashamed of yourself. Freak.

When Noel met Damien

2012-04-03T12:05:00.000+01:00

If asked to name several things we like and dislike, I'm certain that most people could answer instantaneously. I like Indian food, football, America and a whole host of other things besides. I dislike The Sun, gastropubs and Ryanair and a whole host (probably the list is longer) of other things besides. It's rare that two things on either list coincide and rarer still that something from one list coincides with something from the other. It's unlikely that I'm going to find a decent curry in America, and I hope that I'll never find myself reading The Sun on a Ryanair flight to Dublin (that's the airport named DUBLIN (Prestwick) in case you were wondering). I refuse to watch comedy awards ceremonies just in case the unholy trinity of James Corden, John Bishop and Michael McIntyre appear on screen at the same time.

It was with a certain sense of trepidation therefore that I approached last night's Channel 4 introduction to the Tate's retrospective on the work of Damien Hirst, combining as it did two of my 'dislikes', namely Hirst's work and the presenter of the programme, Noel Fielding. I don't find Hirst irritating at all, though I believe there's little artistic merit in his back catalogue. I have always found Fielding's popularity a total mystery. Nevertheless, it was with an open mind that I watched; maybe this was the show that would open up to me hitherto un-noticed subtleties in Hirst's work and perhaps Fielding was the man required to delve into Hirst's particular brand of artistic genius and have a good stir round.

In fact, the programme involved Damien talking in quite a bored manner about his output from the last 25 years while Fielding tiptoed around him like a Schoolboy needing the toilet, clearly in raptures just to be near the great man. Anything that Hirst said was eulogised by Fielding as though seminal words of wisdom dropped from his mouth like pearls every time he opened it.

Fielding started by comparing Hirst to the Devil, and was then amazed to find out that he was 'quite nice'. Hashtag: insight. We later found out that he 'wasn't like Dr Death at all' (whoever he might be), but instead was 'charming'. Good to clear that one up. We were told on many occasions that he was the first person to do things (put a shark in an art gallery, cut a cow in half) as if this alone was indicative of genius. Fielding was once an Art student himself (which is why I suppose he was allowed near this programme) but his own interest in Art seemed to go little further than a fascination with the shocking.

It was odd that we kept returning to the originality in Hirst's work, bearing in mind how tired and un-shocking it now looks. Originality in itself is not enough to justify great Art, and just because no-one has done it before does not mean that it's worthwhile. Brian Sewell was afforded just a few minutes of the programme, but he was allowed to make the point that just because the shark is in an Art gallery, this is not sufficient to classify it as a work of Art. Even if this was the point that Hirst was trying to make, he was about 80 years out of date with this idea, first introduced by Marcel Duchamp in 1917.

We then moved on to a new concept: the shark is dead, but it looks as if it was alive, and therefore it makes us question our own mortality. Really? Does the same thing not occur every time we see un-squashed roadkill on the A1? Hirst suggested that his fascination with death came from School, when he was asked to handle a human skull. He said that he was not able to reconcile the fact that this had once belonged to a living human being. This hardly shows great imagination on his part and presents us with the simplistic and eternal question about the nature of soul - the fixed atoms and molecules from which we are made and the extra undefinable something that makes us human and individual. Hirst is posing no new questions; he is not holding up a mirror to life or death; he is not producing works of Art, unless you consider that there is a certain beauty in the animal itself, either on the outside or inside.

I have been to see Hirst's work on several occasions over the years: his Pharmacy (the only part of his work I do have time for), his Twelve Apostles, his flayed goats with syringes and pills, his cow skulls with embedded scissors and his recent blue skull paintings (the last one did nothing for me save to prove that Hirst isn't very good at painting and in this sense only it's one of the most daring things he's ever done).

Much of Hirst's work boils down to the question: 'Is it Art?'. For me the answer is yes, just not very good or interesting Art. It's a bit like an OK-ish piece of GCSE coursework. You'd have no problem grading it as a B (or maybe a little higher), but it has little to say beyond that. I usually tend to define modern Art as being all about asking questions and engendering emotions, irrespective of whether those emotions are positive or negative. Hirst's work leaves me with a feeling of 'meh'. He's another example of a man who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Just like many of the exponents of Britpop managed to burgle careers out of the nation's mid-90s obsession with 'Cool Britannia', so Hirst and the other YBAs managed to ride by for many years on the fact that what they were doing became fashionable for a time, despite the limitations of its Artistic merit.

I might go along to the Hirst retrospective, but only to wait outside to ask the paying customer the old Sex Pistols question:

'Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?'

The importance of being liked

2012-03-29T15:40:00.000+01:00

One of the best questions to ask children (especially if you want them to talk amongst themselves and leave you alone for a while) is this: 'if you could have one super-power for the day, what would it be?' These discussions can go on for hours. Would I choose a cloak of invisibility? the ability to fly? an ability (inspired by the advert) that means that everything I touch turns into skittles (a sort of candy-based King Midas)? All of these would no doubt prove useful, but bringing a sense of adult realism to the proceedings, I think that the ability to make people like you is probably the most important power once can possess. I don't mean the ability to make a small section of your friends like you because you always buy the first round, I mean a like-ability so strong that makes even people you have never met break out into a smile at the mere mention of your name.

It's a universal rule of sport that you like the players that play for your team and you dislike virtually everyone else involved with that sport. When players are purchased by your team, you immediately like them and when players are sold from your team, they are disliked as soon as the pen signs the new contract. Most of us would admit to having a soft-spot for players who aren't currently playing for our teams, but they tend to be in no direct competition with the players we idolise. I don't supposed that Lionel Messi is likely to be running at the Palace back four any time soon.

The one player who seems to buck the trend is Mario Balotelli, the Manchester City striker. This man seems to inspire love and admiration from everyone. There are numerous (mostly apocryphal) stories about him all over the internet, and most seem to exist only to promote him as a sort of cross between black-and-white slapstick comedian Norman Wisdom and philanthropic walnut Mother Theresa. He seems to spend his time paying library fines for all and sundry, buying petrol for strangers or going mental in Argos, purchasing an scaletrix set when he should have been buying an ironing board for his Mum. People are keen to believe these stories too; Balotelli is held up as the anti-footballer; he's what we would be like if we played in the Premiership. Not for us the tedium of rhetorial interviews hung heavy with the dissemination of carefully media-trained non-information. Not for us the cliched footballer's night out on Cristal champagne in celebrity-studded London clubs. We understand far more the wish to set off fireworks with our mates in the kitchen, or late-night visits to the flesh-clubs of the North East, or late-night curries the day before a big game. We understand the passion of the fans and the need for a passionate player to inspire them.

But isn't Balotelli also the epitome of everything we hate about modern day footballers? He's over-paid, brattish, surly, under-performing, involved in continual training-ground bust-ups and is totally un-apologetic for his actions. Joey Barton must be wondering why he ends up the vilified hate-figure, and yet Balotelli is clutched to the breast of the Nation like a favorite comfort blanket.

Part of the country's love for Balotelli is because we feel sorry for him, which is all rather patronising and I doubt he could care less. He is Ghanain by birth and was raised from a young age by his adopted parents in Italy. He speaks lovingly about his Italian mother and father, with an endearing child-like innocence. He has been the victim of racist abuse and chanting in his adopted country and perhaps we need to show Balotelli the love that the Italians have been unwilling to. Part of the country's love is linked to the fact that he is genuinely entertaining on the pitch; he is super-talented, but is as likely to be subbed at half-time having shown little interest or effort as he is to score the goal that wins the game.

But perhaps the main reason that we love Balotelli is that we can relate to him. We have a national aversion to perfect sportsmen like Michael Schumacher or Pete Sampras. These people are born winners, racking up trophies with a single-mindedness that we cannot comprehend. When we accuse them of being devoid of personality, it is simply because there is nothing in their life that is anything like our own. We accuse them of being automatons, with their drive for excellence being mistaken for a lack of humour, grace and above all, fallibility. This is why our sporting heroes always tend to be the most fallible (think George Best or Shane Warne). We can't connect with Best or Warne's genius on the pitch, but we can with their drinking bouts or saucy texting. Balotelli is the link between us and the perfect sportsmen and women; he allows us to connect with these higher forms of athletic life. He's not so very different from us, and therefore we're not so very different from Mike and Pete after all.

We may have no idea what it feels like to play on Centre Court at Wimbledon, but we'd all rather play with toy cars than do the ironing, wouldn't we?

Much more than a spoonful (of Sugar)

2012-03-28T22:10:00.001+01:00

I went to a pub quiz in Peterborough two weeks ago. It was to celebrate a friend's birthday and I think we were being ironic. It was dark by the time we parked up so I could be wrong, but the pub seemed to be in an industrial estate; I was reliably informed that this was the posh part of Peterborough though it still looked a little like the Slough Trading estate. The quiz was supposed to be the main event of course, and a large number of teams had turned up. In the end, it wasn't the most highbrow affair, with three of the four rounds being 'General Knowledge' (or at least questions taken from the GK section of the quizbook that the barman got for Christmas). The other round was the more intriguing 'Things that happened in 2010' - not exactly topical, but I was looking forward to a few brain-teasers about the recent local history of this Town. Not a bit of it - each question started with 'Who won...' and ended with the name of a reality TV show. Dancing on Ice, X-Factor, Strictly were all there, though I was disappointed to note an absence of winners from ratings success 'Pointless'. I'm not sure if we got any right - my only stab was at the winner of The Apprentice 2010, which I got wrong. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that he/she has disappeared without trace (though may be on QVC I suppose) or maybe because all these pinstriped wannabe Sugars just tend to merge into one homogenised mass of macho soundbites and trouser suits after so many years.

I always used to think that The Apprentice was the standard bearer for non-shit reality TV. At least there was some talent involved, a worthwhile prize at the end and some genuine business-based tasks for some of the more promising of Britain's young business minds to get their teeth into.

This has now disappeared, and the series is yet another lazy tired piece of reality dross, being flogged to death by an unimaginative corporation to a public that seem to be able to stomach year after year of formulaic posturing. There are many flaws and aspects that really grate, but here are the worst IMO:

1. The show is no longer about finding 'The Apprentice'. The winner now gets to set up a new business using some of Alan Sugar's money. In fact, after the first series, the show become less about finding an apprentice at all and more about creating water-cooler TV where pushy 20 and 30-something business people could play-off against each other for who had the more cringe-worthy soundbite. Listening to 21 year-old yuppies talking about how they 'always get results' and 'don't care who they trample over to get them' gets rather tired by series 8, though the line of 'don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon' was a personal favorite.

2. The tasks themselves are the same every series, and in the same order. There's the one where they have to make a food product (ice-cream, ready-meals) and then sell them (farmers' market, tube station); there's the one where they get a mystery set of items they need to buy for as little money as possible; there's the one where they get interviewed by some of Alan Sugar's cronies (questions tend to be along the lines of 'you're not very good are you?' and other playground insults); there's the one where they have to go and buy some original Art and then sell it on. The tasks are of course designed to make good TV, not to identify anyone with particular business sense.

3. The ridiculous set-up of every task. This usually begins with a phone-call from Alan's PA at 4.45am, asking them to be at a London Landmark (British Museum, Tower Bridge) by 6am. 'The cars will pick you up in 15 minutes'. I'm never sure why this should be part of the test. Do all top businessmen and women have to prove their skill in the early morning and limited make-up time, or are we just supposed to think that Alan's up selling Amstrads at this time? The links between the locations and the tasks provide the most entertainment in the whole show, and I've not once guessed the nature of the task from the start location. Usually Alan's cronies will be standing six feet apart, when Alan makes an entry between them from a lift or a pile of dry ice. His first few lines tend to go something like:

'We're in the British Library; there's lots of books here; books have pages; Elaine Paige once sung Total Eclipse of the Heart; lambs have hearts; you're going to Smithfield market to buy offal which you then need to sell to paying customers at St John's Wood tube station....

4. Team names. Why? This merely adds to the cringe-factor as they come up with names that sound like the ones rejected from 90s TV series Gladiators (think insignia, prime, triumph, Hunter (ok, so maybe he was a Gladiator...)

5. The fact that Alan Sugar is now thought of by the new generation as someone to whom people should aspire. When I was growing up, he was the person that got his fingers burned at Spurs and whose company made crap computers. He's now Branson and Trump rolled into one, pretending that his Essex offices occupy most of the Gherkin and regaling us with tales of how he built up a business from nothing (every week).

6. The way they hold their mobile phones as though they're suspiciously sniffing the area where you connect the charger.

Or maybe the most disappointing thing is that so many people still tune in. The Apprentice is now adopting the old Perry/Croft maxim: if you just do and say the same thing every week, people will like it. It's like a big pin-striped comfort blanket. And I don't care who I hurt by writing this blog, because I'm on my way to the top and I won't stop trampling on people until I get there.

Whatever happened to the enfant terribles?

2012-03-13T12:48:00.000Z

One sure-fire way to guarantee that you've made it in life is when you've been awarded your very own epithet. It's that short phrase that characterises you and before your name is even mentioned everyone knows what kind of person is being discussed. It's even better if the epithet leads to you directly; surely there's none finer than the 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' Lord Byron, and at the opposite end of the scale I'm sure that King Ethelred wouldn't have been too happy with his own moniker 'The Unready'. Harsher still is to be found in the list of Ottoman Sultans, where sandwiched in between Ahmed III ('The Warrior') and Osman III ('The Devout') lies the rather unforunate sounding Mahmud I ('The Hunchback').

Various people have been given the epithet 'enfant terrible', and it doesn't seem to matter what field you are in. All of the following have been described as ETs at one time or another: you can be the enfant terrible of the kitchen (Marco Pierre-White, Tom Aikens), the enfant terrible of music (Jonny Rotten) or the enfant terrible of comedy (Ben Elton).

Marco Pierre-White ejected diners from his restaurant if they made negative comments about the food and cut open a chef's whites when he complained of being too hot; Aikens had 2 michelin stars by the time he was 26, became obsessed by detail and even branded one of his sous chefs with a hot palette knife for failing to make his exacting standards; Jonny Rotten was the epitome of anarchic youth in the late 1970s and the face of the punk movement; Ben Elton was a lead figure in the alternative comedy movement of the 1980s, attacking Thatcher's Government with his original brand of left-wing satire.

But what's happened to these principled passionate firebrands now? Elton is more likely to be seen at the Royal Variety Performance, toadying up to the Royals as he counts out the cash from the uber-dull tourist trap Queen musical 'We Will Rock You'. Aikens is now a 'celebrity' chef, appearing on the mind-bendingly awful 'Ironchef UK', Marco now advertises Knorr Chicken stock cubes and John Lydon has become the face of British butter. That's right - butter. Growing up has never seemed more dull. Where once Lydon offered a voice for disenchanted youth, he now champions one particular brand of dairy produce. Where once Elton dripped with political satire, he now drips only with cash.

The enfant terribles have become national treasures by virtue of not dying along the way. We shouldn't be drawing these washed-out folks to our collective breast, we should be putting them out to pasture, their work done. There's plenty of quiet places for them to go, like weekends on radio 2. When the great old British eccentrics become simply part of the furniture, it is indeed a sad day.

And to give you an idea of what a proper enfant terrible looks like, here's Ken Russell's obituary:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/nov/28/ken-russell

Barkind mad, and quite brilliant.

Happiness in Bangor

2012-02-14T11:22:00.001Z

It's half term now, or Long Exeat as we call it, and I'm enjoying the week off doing very little apart from reading books. I've been reading the 'Weird Tales' of H P Lovecraft, which are pretty weird in a Victorian Gothic ghosts and ghouls-type way. I've obviously not switched off from School completely though, because I came across an article in last week's TES which makes Lovecraft seem like the epitome of normality.

The article is by Maths teacher Jonny Griffiths, who teaches at a Sixth Form College in Norfolk. In it he attempts to explain that whereas we are all frustrated by the low motivation and work ethic of some pupils, the opposite can also be the case, and pupils do exist that are 'driven' and 'obsessed' and sometimes these can be 'just as draining'. He gives the example of one of his pupils called 'Michael' (this can't help reminding me of the Franz Ferdinand song, which is unfortunate given its strong homoerotic message). Anyway, Michael is an able mathematician, who has done well in his A level modules, but is worried that he has lost some marks along the way that may mean he does not secure the A grade he needs to attend Cambridge.

Here's where Jonny steps in, and says:

'Michael, apart from you, who cares what you get in your A level?'. [controversial line, needs some back up]

His Bambi eyes look at me in a bewildered way, as if he has just seen me kick a puppy.

'I mean, I care, of course,' I add, swiftly. 'But what is better: to go to Cambridge with three As and hate it or to go to Bangor with three Cs and love it?' [classic argument fallacy - limit the options, neither of which sound that great to me]

"Michael is too stunned to reply."

Later of course, the moment that Jonny is right all along dawns on Michael in a cringe-worthy final paragraph. Michael answers a question in class (wrongly) and is corrected by another member of the class. He then turns to look at Jonny, a smile breaks out over his face, and then he realises....what? That he was crap at Maths all along, that he might as well go to Bangor, that he doesn't really give a shit either way, or maybe Franz Ferdinand were right all along, and that he and Jonny should head down to Disco X right there and then.

The real problem here is that there is a very important and valid point that Jonny is trying to get across, but that it's been lost in a clumsily-worded article. The problem is that the current examination system has heaped extra pressure on pupils, pressure that did not exist until about ten years ago when the examinations went modular.

One of the main purposes of examinations (and I do mean examinations, not education) at Sixth Form level is to sort a very large number of pupils into two distinct categories: those that go to university and those that don't. Within the former category, the examinations need to assign pupils to universities and courses that are appropriate to their interests, talents and ambitions. Students at university should be appropriately challenged academically, but it's wrong for someone to end up on a course that is too demanding for them as to end up on one which is conceptually beneath them.

So what's the problem?

1. You can do the exams several times

Some papers can be taken four times through the course of the Sixth Form, and only your best mark counts. Most universities don't care how many times you had to take the paper to gain the best mark.

2. Some subjects are much easier than others

Studies show that there's about a two-grade difference between the hardest and easiest subjects. This means that the same pupil (without specific talents in one subject over another) would get two grades higher for, say Film Studies, than they would for Physics. Even within the same subject, the percentages of A grades are different depending on what exam board you take. The differences here are smaller, but not negligible.

3. You can pay for examiners to come in and tell you the answers

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/8941589/Exam-boards-WJEC-chief-examiners-caught-on-film-telling-teachers-what-is-in-next-years-GCSE-history-paper.html

4. Formulaic examinations

I very rarely hear pupils telling me that they don't understand topics, or that they don't possess the knowledge to be able to answer questions. The oft-most cited reason for losing marks is 'examination technique', as in 'I knew everything about that question, but my exam technique let me down'. Never mind; all we have to do is work through a filing cabinet-full of past papers, and all the examination technique problems will disappear. Except they won't; all that will happen is that you will do the same style of question so many times that you've developed a rote manner for answering that particular question. It doesn't matter that this particular brand of technique will never be required again, so long as they help you gain that A. These formulaic examinations also reward a particular type of pupil, the automative 't-crosser'. This type of person is useful if you want a large data-entry to be completed accurately, but they aren't necessarily the kind of creative thinker that's going to deal with the population/economic/energy crises.

5. Grade inflation

1980: 8% of A level grades were A. 2011: 8% of A level grades were A*, with around 30% at grade A. Grade inflation is happening, and it's not that teachers are getting better or pupils are getting cleverer. It's also not that exams are getting easier, which is often seen to be the public's belief. It's simply that much more teaching is focused on how to pass these exams. This isn't really what teachers want, but this is what has happened, and it's understandable why. By cramming so many grades awarded at the top end, we are struggling to differentiate between pupils, and this is the reason that Jonny's pupil Michael feels quite so under pressure. He knows that to get AAA twenty years ago would put him in a real academic elite; nowadays, this isn't good enough. He needs A* grades, maybe two of them. He's stuck with 'gymnastics scoring', where 9.975 is good, and 9.895 is frankly rubbish.

6. Unfair grading

Every now and again, I mention to non-teaching friends of mine that it's possible to get 320/400 marks at A level to gain an A*, and to get 379/400 and gain an A. They think it's ridiculous and so do I, but it's the truth. Bearing in mind that top universities use A* grades in their offers, they're not even certain of separating out the top pupils by marks any more.

7. Extra filtering

Pupils can now be filtered out of top courses on their GCSE grades, and it's very unlikely that anyone will get an offer from Oxbridge without at least 6A* grades on their CV. But why does a Maths GCSE matter for a brilliant linguist and why should an aspiring medic be discriminated against for being only quite good at French? Pupils at different Schools take different numbers of GCSE subjects, and some subjects are harder than others. Due to the grade inflation point above, universities need extra ways of filtering out pupils. Looking at GCSE scores makes little more sense than looking at hair colour.

So what's the solution?

Place more emphasis on problem solving in examinations; take away an over-reliance on past papers; add an abilities test to the end of Sixth Form examinations; scrap GCSEs; allow universities to set their own entrance papers; do away with coursework; don't allow re-takes; cap the number of A grades that are awarded each year; break the links between chief examiners and School visits; have fewer Sixth Form subjects - not every course needs to have an exam at the end of it to be educational.

And finally, don't let Jonny Griffiths write an article in the TES again.

Bruce's Britton

2012-02-05T18:51:00.000Z

I'm no social or cultural historian, as if you hadn't noticed already, but I do take an interest in fashions and fads; in particular the question of whether the sort of fads that seem to grip the nation are dictated by what people actually want to wear, watch or listen to, or whether there's some kind of conspiracy by higher powers to see what people can be made to wear, watch or listen to. I can understand the popularity (past or present) of X Factor, Downton Abbey, Masterchef, Ugg Boots, Take That in boy and man incarnation, jeans tucked into boots (Uggs or otherwise), small plates of food and pop-up restaurants and cinemas. I can even just about comprehend the very short lived fad of staying up half the night to watch some hatchet-faced Scottish Grandmother win a Curling medal at the Winter Olympics (it was only a one-night thing, after all). I'm not sure why my 'Dead Pool', in which one predicts which celebrity deaths will occur over the next twelve months has not caught on yet, but it's got time to become a fad that'll grip the nation, and my next blog will feature the crop for 2012.

The latest TV fad seems to be the travel + food-umentary, and it looks as though everyone's cottoned on to this sure-fire ratings winner. The Hairy Bikers, Oz and James, Jamie Oliver, Michael Portillo, Ade Edmondson, Rick Stein, some posh twit mates of Hugh F-W, Rory McGrath and Paddy McGuinness and the soap dodger from single-serious curate's egg 'One Man and his Camper-van'.

The premise is quite simple, and by this, I mean cheap. It involves a man, or maybe a couple of men, or sometimes even three men, driving around Britain, meeting local people, usually doing a bit of cooking along the way and generally reminding us what a great place this island nation is to live. The rules seems fairly simple, and consist of the following:

1. A regional stereotype must be wheeled out at every opportunity.
2. The vehicle in which the man/men travel around the country must be 'vintage', ideally caravan/campervan.
3. Any cooking must be done on location, ideally using a mini-stove from said campervan.
4. (optional) - some kind of challenge might be involved, presumably to add a competitive edge. This might involve the protagonists needing to cook only food that they can catch/barter/work for/steal. It is never explained why this should be necessary.

A perfect example of how one can cram all three of the above rules into just 5 minutes of television came from the truly awful 'Ade in Britain', starring Ade Edmondson. This show seems to have been put together simply because someone thought the title was good, and there's only one famous Ade out there of course, which at least keeps him in work. One stop on Ade's trip was Morecambe. He pulled up in his Mini Cooper, complete with small cavannette/stove being dragged behind. He visited a local man that made potted shrimps, obtained the recipe, re-created it from his very own camper-stove before feeding the fruits of his labour to four buck-toothed men from the George Formby appreciation society (we knew this because they each had a ukelele); all this took place in the shadow of the Eric Morecambe statue.

Why has there been a sudden explosion of TV shows of this kind? Has there been an outcry from the public, demanding a fusion of game-show, travel and al fresco culinary travails? Or have a group of media moguls suddenly come to the same conclusion that this is what our screens have been missing? Or are they just cheap, and require little or no budget/planning? I think I know which one it is.

Hugh F-W seems to have had the best idea, in that he doesn't even appear in his latest culinary road-trip. Instead, three snaggle-haired photogenic posh-boys hammer round the South West in (you guessed it) a camper-van, with no money, eating only food they have earned, before cooking it all up on a ring-burner in the back of their vehicle. Hugh merely provides a voice-over, and even that looks to associate him a little too closely with this rot.

I await the next installation of the format with baited breath. 'Bruce's Britton' perhaps, featuring Bruce Forsyth and Fern Britton. Bruce and Fern drive around the country in a 1973 Austin Allegro, compete with the sort of caravanette you used to win on Bullseye. They visit artisan food producers, but can only eat the food if they manage an arm-wrestle win. Voice-over by Vernon Kay. I'd watch it. Wouldn't you?

Football's dark secret

2012-01-29T18:15:00.000Z

I've just been listening to a bit of football on the radio. Quite an exciting bit of football as it happens: Arsenal football club have just scored 3 times in 15 minutes at the start of the second half and now lead Aston Villa 3-2 in a highly entertaining cup tie. This is just one of many football stories this week, though as ever with the beautiful game, what happens on the pitch only makes up a fraction of what ends up written in the papers and discussed in pubs across the land.

This week we have Luis Suarez's continued ban for racially abusing Patrice Evra, John Terry's court 'appearance' for racially abusing Anton Ferdinand. Ferdinand himself received a spent shotgun cartridge in the post this week, which seems rather more than harsh; whether he was racially abused or not, he has surely done nothing to deserve this threat of death?

Football has been blighted by accusations of racism for many years, though thankfully we seem destined never to return to the peak of the 1970s and 80s when it was common for black players to receive monkey chants and have bananas thrown onto the pitch. The 'Kick Racism Out' campaign appears to have been successful, though it's probably more a case simply that times have changed, along with the notion of what is acceptable and the values of a more enlightened population in general have been reflected in the behaviour of the average football supporter.

So far so good, but as Alan Hansen said recently on Match of the Day whilst talking about the issue of racism in football: 'there's still a long way to go'. He's right of course, and until racism is 'kicked out' completely, we must continue to campaign and to educate. Unfortunately, in talking about racism, he also used the term 'coloured people', which meant that his sane message was lost in a tumult of calls to the BBC demanding his resignation for using such a derogatory term. OK, so the word coloured isn't exactly fashionable these days; it's a term more closely linked to 70s sitcom 'Mind your Language' and it does tend to imply that there are only two races in the world: 'Whites' and 'Coloureds'. But we all knew what Hansen was trying to say, and if his terminology was perhaps less than sound, at least his logic was fine. In any case, the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) surely couldn't have had a problem, given that the word coloured makes up a pretty key part of their message to the world.

Maybe Hansen should have used the word 'Black'? I was under the impression that this was more offensive than 'coloured', but I have been informed by several of my friends that this is not so, and actually this term is far less controversial and far less likely to offend. However, returning to John Terry's court appearance, we find that he has been investigated and subsequently charged with the offence of calling Anton Ferdinand a 'black c*nt' during a recent West London Derby. Thank God he didn't call Ferdinand a 'coloured c*nt', then the shit would really have hit the fan. Actually, now I reflect further, isn't the word c*nt actually rather more offensive than either 'black' or 'coloured'? Admittedly it has no racial connotations, but I reckon it's about the most offensive individual word than one can utter in conversation.

Racial abuse is simply a sub-section of abuse, but due to the behaviour of past generations, it's a sub-section that lies far higher up the 'likely to cause public outrage' scale. There are undeniably some ignorant cromagnon football supporters that genuinely do believe that black people are genetically inferior to whites, but these are few and far between and are loathed unanimously within the football community. Most racist abuse is not indicative of an ideology that is unsound; it is simply a clutching at straws way of insulting another member of the human race. If John Terry called Anton Ferdinand a 'black c*nt', it shows him up to be an unpleasant man, not necessarily to be an institutional racist. Much of the debate around Luis Suarez's ban concerned the question of whether using a racist term necessarily meant that he himself was a racist. Surely this is just a case of labeling and semantics? If I laugh at a sexist joke am I necessarily displaying a serious tendency towards misogynism? Probably not, though it doesn't rule it out either. I would in either case not like to think that my entire belief system and ideological 'soundness' could be summarised by one outburst or reaction to a joke.

The problem with football, and more precisely with the fans that follow the sport, is that their own beliefs seem to take a back seat whenever it comes to issues regarding their club, the manager and the players. Do all Liverpool fans believe that Suarez is not a racist? Do all Manchester United fans believe that he is? Do all Chelsea fans really believe that John Terry is not a racist? Do they even have enough evidence? Loyalty to a club is one thing, but these issues go far beyond mere support from the terraces. It is perfectly possible for me to hope that my team will win, whilst also being disappointed in the behaviour of an individual that happens to play for the side I follow. Football supporters tend to lose their ability to think for themselves on issues involving their club, instead choosing to agree with any sentiments uttered by their players and manager. It's so much better to be told what to think by people that you admire rather then actually taking the time to have an opinion yourself.

But maybe they are the sensible ones, bearing in mind how difficult it is to engage anyone on the subject of racism without either being labelled as a woolly liberal or as a racist oneself. After all, several of my best friends are coloured, or should that be black?

All rather depressing

2012-01-21T21:45:00.000Z

So the roving eye of the British public moves on. Bored of 'occupy', bored of bankers and bored of arguments over who's being racist on twitter (for the moment), it settles on the issue of depression, and depression in sport in particular.

Gary Speed kicked it all off when he went and hung himself. It was as shocking as it was surprising. That day, twitter was full of the standard 'RIP Gary', but was also inundated with messages urging people to spread the awareness about depression. This seemed odd; no valid reason has ever been suggested as to why Gary Speed would take his own life, and yet the twitter-ati clearly decided that it was an open and shut case, and the D word needed to get out. This made no more sense than the average man in the street, who upon hearing about a plane crash, immediately campaigns for greater public awareness of testicular cancer.

Depression does seem to affect a large number of sportsmen, and the incidences of suicide (especially in cricket) are certainly higher than most other professions. Marcus Trescothick's well publicised battle with the disease is a case in point, and it's clear that many sportsmen struggle to cope with life once their playing careers are finished. Ex-Hull City striker Dean Windass spoke to the Guardian this week, keen to admit (possibly as catharsis) that he was 'close to ending it all' this week.

I'm not an expert, but the link between sportsmen and depression seems to make sense. The weight of public expectation, the mighty highs and cavernous lows and the 'back to earth with a bump' that accompanies the end of one's playing career would indeed cause some of the less robust personalities to struggle to deal with the harsh realities of 'real' life. I was amazed that a colleague of mine chose to rail against this phenomena, expressing utter contempt for these sufferers and an amazement that they could be afflicted in this manner, given that they were performing in a role that many ordinary folk would give their eye-teeth to take on. 'Let them go and meet the maimed soldiers from Afghanistan' she wailed, 'then they'd know how lucky they are'. I'm pretty sure this is not how depression works. It would be easy to snap out of things if all one had to do was to be introduced to someone more worthy and/or more unlucky. I'm sure that the bi-polar Stephen Fry is aware that he is a clever, successful man, and very much the nation's favourite uncle. This doesn't seem to make him snap out of the medical condition with which he is afflicted.

As if to satisfy the public's curiosity with all things depressive, and hot on the heels of Gary Speed, came Andrew Flintoff, who opened his heart on his depressive past. Less convincing this one: his depression apparently co-incided with his only tour as England captain. As England slumped to only their second ever 5-0 Ashes defeat, and their first for 85 years, Flintoff admitted that he had felt down and had struggled to get out of bed in the morning. He had even started to drink too much. None of this seemed all that surprising. Legendary boozer Flintoff had carried on boozing. He had also felt pretty low and gutted that his team were being comprehensively thrashed. This isn't a depressive episode, it's just a bad day (or few weeks) at the office. Miraculously, this depressive episode seemed to pass once England started playing a little better.

Fintoff's mate Steve Harmison has now chipped in, blaming his lack of form on foreign pitches on depression. 'I didn't realise it at the time, but that's what it must have been'. Give it a label Steve, just to make yourself feel better.

The saddest thing of all is that many people do need to change their opinion of his disease, which is misunderstood and brushed under the carpet all too often. However, the more that celebrities trivialise depression and use it merely as a catch-all label to magic away the natural lows of their profession, the more that it will remain misunderstood. Ironically, by bringing it into the public eye in this manner, it is likely to provide just a few minutes of pub chat, and less likely to kick-start any worthwhile debate on the issue.

It's all just so depressing.

Small talk

2011-11-28T14:55:00.001Z

Here's a couple of lines from the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, much of which I seem to be quoting at the moment, or at least searching for inspiration within the text:

One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about humans was their habit of continually stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you all right? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour; if human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up.

After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working.

Conversation with other human beings is still the main method we use to communicate with each other, at least in a face to face manner. There's nothing particularly personal about email after all.

Small talk is the glue that binds social gatherings together. Social gatherings such as weddings and house parties tend to be characterised by a lot of people standing around making small talk, usually holding a glass in one hand and a food morsel in the other. The mouth opens and shuts, and the brain spends most of its time wondering when is the right time to attack said food morsel and whether it's a one or two-bite canape.

There's nothing wrong with small talk, in fact it's vital to the success of any conversation. It's like the suet the holds the Christmas pudding together. It provides a vehicle for the good bits, and otherwise you'd just be eating mouthfuls of dried fruit laced with alcohol (actually, maybe that doesn't sound too bad). However, suet on its own makes for a pretty dull pudding, and small talk on its own makes for very dull conversation, and I'd argue that small talk alone becomes conversation simply to avoid the alternative: silence.

Just as Christmas pudding needs the fruit, small talk needs to be laced with occasional moments of big talk. I define big talk as matters which are personal, matters which are important, matters which are controversial. Small talk is the low-risk inoffensive patter that skirts these bigger topics.

I'd like to see some rules invoked nation-wide, so that people are clear on the small talk/big talk balance. These rules could be displayed in wedding venues, hired-out rooms above pubs, even people's living rooms when it's time to get the street round for Christmas drinks. Pubs generally have pool-table rules laid out clearly next to the tables to avoid confusion and argument, and this would merely be providing the same service for social gatherings.

Here are the rules, as laid down by me. (You should feel free to add to this list, or amend as necessary. Once people become au fait with the rules, you might want to take your A1 sheet down from the wall, but it may be wise to have small laminated rule cards on your person, just to dish out to any surprise guests, or first-time conversationalists.)

1. Always start with small talk

Never bring out the controversial topics too early. Everyone likes to settle in with a nice wide loosener or half-volley, and you'll swiftly find yourself on your own if you come in with a rant about the immigration problem in the area. Try kicking off with a conversation about how you know the host, or maybe a query about what your conversation partner happens to be driving at the moment.

2. Choose your moment to bring in the big talk

Wait for an appropriate prompt. If your chosen chat-protagonist regularly uses a Boris bike (small talk), this is the moment to bring in your thoughts about the coalition's handling of the debt crisis (big talk). Don't miss your chance mind, and shy away from the big talk. Now is not the time to mention Boris' buffoonery on HIGNFY.

3. Some small talk is too small

There are some topics of conversation that are so small, so pointless and so clearly just a way of avoiding silence that they should be banned from ever raising their heads. These include questions such as how did you get here? or where are you for Christmas this year? No-one cares.

Right, I'm off to find someone in the street to ask them whether they feel that religious belief implies the existence of a God-like being. Wish me luck.

Teardrop

2011-11-20T14:54:00.003Z

It's worth getting one thing straight before I start: children in need is a good thing. Anything that raises nigh on 30 million pounds for various children's charities cannot be anything other than a good thing. Whether one finds dancing newsreaders a little bit hackneyed and probably best left in the 70s with Angela Rippon and Morecambe and Wise, and whether it's patently obvious that Sir Terry should have been mothballed along with Sir Bruce years back, that doesn't make CiN anything other than a good thing. It's a British institution; it's proof that we're not all greedy bankers and we're willing to give to a good cause; it's a good thing. Have I protested too much? Probably. Have I made my point? Hopefully.

I've just watched 'teardrop' by 'The Collective', which is the official CiN single. It's a curious mix of young black British musical talent, Ed Sheerin rapping (well, speaking) in a sort of 'mock-ghetto public-schoolboy in his bed-sit with pictures of Tupac on the wall' accent, and an occasional focus on Gary Barlow doing what I presume is the face he would do were he to come across a run-over, though still partially alive, kitten.

It's a terrible cover of what is a very good song. It's basically the same music, with a lazy rap done over the top. It's got some strings in it; you can tell this because of the Gormenghast-relic bearded chap doing some conducting in the middle of the video. But, with CiN being a good thing, even this poor song represents a case of the end justifying the means. And if one sees it as nothing but a bad song making some money for a good cause, well, it's probably a good thing too, all in all. At least it's better than 'The Stonk'.

The mistake I made was to listen to the lyrics. They're such incredible dross. It takes a while to get going, but it's as if by the two minute mark, the lyricists decided that it was time to get all insprirational. Thus we have gems like:

1. 'you can be anything you dream of...'

This is patently untrue. I'd like to be a professional footballer thanks. What's that? I'm not good enough at football? But Ed Sheerin said...

2. 'value everything you own, somebody probably dreams of the bed that you sleep on'

Nice guilt trip. As long as I own a bed, that should be enough to make me feel guilty. Unlike the rabble of x-factor types in the video, who have really had to struggle with the instant fame and fortune conferred on them.

3. 'be anything, it's your choice'

A similar conundrum to point 1. It may be your ambition, but very rarely is it your choice. You can be a writer, but you still need a publisher to get your words out there. You can be a singer, but you still need a record deal to get your music heard. And you'll never be an astronaut or a footballer - best just get used to it.

4. 'always speak your mind'

This is a bad idea. Questions such as 'do I look fat in this?' and 'isn't he such a cute baby?' may get you into a awful lot of trouble for speaking your mind. There are times when speaking your mind is a good idea, and no-one's trying to suggest you should be a wall-flower at all times, but there will be times when the advice is plain irresponsible.

5. 'you can turn silver into gold with 4 coins'

A mathematical question. With one 50p coin, two 20p coins and a 10p, you can indeed turn silver into gold (a pound coin) though I'm pretty sure that they're not made of gold. Then again, the 'silver' coins mentioned above are mostly nickel-alloy; nevertheless, it works mathematically, despite the confusion between colour and value of coin. Having said it, this is probably the only true part of the song, though I doubt many people will be inspired by the basic metric system of currency.

Maybe I've looked into things in too much depth. In fact, I know I have. But sometimes things aren't glamorous, they don't represent instant gratification and they don't always end with the success you've worked towards or the success you deserve. Sometimes things only come with hard slog, and even then, you're not going to be famous doing them. But you should be happy with your own achievements, even though you have to realise that you can't do anything you want, or be anything you wish. Better to hear the truth now.

If you're after inspiriation, eschew Barlow, and head to another great man, Marcus Aurelius:

'Be like the Rocky headland on which the waves constantly break. It stands firm, and round it the seething waters are laid to rest'

Confusion reigns

2011-10-24T10:53:00.005+01:00

Life is confusing.

It's confusing from a philosophical point of view (what is our purpose in life?) but it's also pretty confusing from an everyday point of view (what's the difference between all these coloured nespresso capsules, and how does one operate the machine anyway?)

Many people manage to avoid this confusion by choosing the simple life, and by this I don't mean heading off into the wilderness a la 'into the wild', or tagging along with Paris Hilton through the hick backwaters of the US. I mean the simple life from yesteryear, where all that mattered was having a menial job which enabled one to put food on the table, and raising a couple of kids who stayed on the straight and narrow. One can add to this the watching of X factor and the occasional KFC bucket and some lottery tickets, but for many, this is life as it should be lived in little Britain. This mass of people are required to keep the country going. They are the gammas and below of Huxley's 'Brave New World', and they represent the glue that binds society together.

There are others that ponder the big questions; the questions that are concerned with the advancement and future of mankind. Crucially, they also end up in a position to be able to do something about it. These are the betas and upwards of BNW, the thinkers and do-ers in Douglas Adams' 'The Restaurant at the end of the Universe'. In a demoncracy, these are the people (and those around them) that we rely on to get the big decisions right in order the safeguard the future of nations.

In 'The Restaurant at the end of the Universe', the residents of a planet whose future was known to be doomed, decided to leave the planet via spaceship to colonise another. They left the 'useless third' of the population behind, having taken the 'thinkers' and 'do-ers' away with them.
So can we isolate the useless third of our planet, those that are left when all the thinkers and do-ers are taken out of the equation? Not quite that simple, but with the world population having just hit 7 billion, we can't afford too many passengers on this over-crowded planet.

I'm more concerned with the state of 'protesting' in general. There's a lot of protestors out there at the moment; granted that there's certainly plenty to protest about. However, whereas you can do a menial job very well without too much thinking, to protest without thinking can be quite a dangerous thing.

If you're in any doubt what I mean, have a look at these chaps in this clip:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15322134

They're from the 'Occupy London' protest. Their names are confused person 1 and confused person 2 (not really, but that's how I like to know them). They are protesting against corporate greed, which is generally taken to mean bankers. Fine. But if you listen to their ramble, they're also protesting about lack of political intervention and control, Murdoch's control of the media and the 'rule' of the aristocracy (as if they have any actual power?). Is this precisely what all the people outside St Paul's are protesting against? I very much doubt it. At least the second chap is articulate, albeit in a rather stereotyped student way; the first guy seems to have no idea what he's protesting about, except to say that there's a lot of anger on the streets (well there is if you live in a tent on the streets around St Paul's); he seems to have been dragged along in this current of anger. He's a rebel without a clue.

More confusion: I heard a group of protestors at Aberdeen airport speaking on the radio recently. They had chained themselves to one of the runways (not sure how this is done...), and were protesting at the emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels in aircraft leading to global warming and its associated environmental problems. They had attached themselves to the runway to stop the planes from landing. That's right, landing. Not taking-off, but landing. Their protest ensured that the planes either had to stay in the air, burning more fuel, until another runway becamse available, or they had to be diverted to another airport entirely, with similar consequences. The group seemed rather crestfallen when this was pointed out by the interviewer.

Yet more confustion, from abroad this time: I was in Vienna this week, where their version of the 'slutwalk' was taking place. For the uninitiated, this involves a group of women (and men) marching the streets in protest against the remarks made by a Toronto policeman at a safety lecture earlier this year. He suggested that women should avoid 'dressing like sluts' to minimise the risk of attack from men. He has since apologised for this incredibly crass statement. I'm not sure that anyone would argue that rape is good (hence this is akin to a protest against murdering people), and I'm also unsure that one idiotic statement from one policeman should be taken to mean that every nation in which the protests have taken place gives out the message 'don't get raped' as opposed to 'don't rape', but what was more interesting was the level of confusion displayed by the participants of the protest. Some clearly seemed to have understood, and were scantily clad in 'slut-wear', which is the point of the walk, namely that individuals should be free to wear what they like without fear of being judged, or fear of assault. Others held banners of 'support feminism', which I guess is related, though I'm not sure it's a key feminist principle. Others held 'smash capitalism' banners. Surely these people are confused? Does a capitalist society promote rape? Or were they just keen to piggy-back one protest for another?

Confusion brought about by a lack of thinking. Dangerous stuff.

What if there's no future?

2011-10-17T14:35:00.005+01:00

I was asked this morning, just in passing, which decade I would most like to have lived in. It's a question I've been asked surprisingly often, but which I mean it's been asked approximately once every six months for as long as I can remember. It's one of those questions people use to find a way in to another conversation, about the music of the '60s, or the family values of the '50s. No-one seems to be very interested in my response, which is why my standard answer of the 1920s provoked little more than a shrug this morning. Mind you, I wouldn't be very interested in anyone else's answer, whether it was the 3010s or the 1290s. I've come to justify my answer with some ramble about Fitzgerald and glamour and other such things, but the point is that it's not interesting because it's not possible. None of us ever get the choice of which decade we're born into, and so it will forever remain a little ice-breaker, along the lines of 'would you have sex with the Corrs, if you had to do the bloke too?', which I seem to remember was an important dilemma for a while, probably when the Corrs were big news, so a little while ago.

I quite like living my 30s through the 2010s, though I can't imagine that my life would be significantly different if I was this age in the 1990s. I've now reached an age where I've got about as much future as past. It's an ideal age: the past is recent enough that I can remember it, I can revel in my triumphs and I can learn from my mistakes. There's a quite a bit of future too, and I reckon I've still got quite a lot to look forward to. I asked one of my classes at School to write about the future or the past, from any point of view. All by one pupil wrote about the future. Of course they did - they've got far more future than past, and even though the future is uncertain, it's also exciting. At age 16, you're pretty bullet-proof, and there's a myriad of paths in front of you. Even if you take the wrong one, you've got time to return to the junction to take another, and it might just lead you somewhere exciting anyway. Time passes very slowly when you're 16; there's not even much past to remember, so you can recall things easily.

Being old doesn't interest me, which is a puffed-out chest way of saying it scares me a little. I remember waking up one night when I was about 8 or 9 years old, literally in a sweat from the realisation that I would die, and that it would be forever. My life would be as a flash of light between two eternities of dark, and even at 8 years old, that was a worrying thought. When you're old, you've got a very limited future, and most of what you have is past. When you're young, the future is uncertain, but that's exciting, and it's brimming with possibility. When you're old, even the past is uncertain; there's so much of it to remember, so much to regret and so much on which to ponder. You've had your one chance, and there's nothing you can do about it.

I'd like to remain in this state of middle-ground for a while. I acknowledge both what's gone before and what's still to come. I like my memories to remain vivid, not seen through frosted glass, and I like to think that my mistakes yet to come won't be un-correctable.

Dan Wheldon, the Indy car driver, died yesterday in a crash at the Indy 300 in Las Vegas. I have a picture of my School year in 1991, and he'd been at School only a month by then. His future was uncertain, and it was certainly exciting, though ultimately tragic. I wonder if he'd have swapped the excitement for a long uneventful life, Achilles-like?

It's the sound of the police

2011-08-27T08:24:00.003+01:00

Much has been written in recent weeks about the alienation of young people from society. I've already explained why I think this is a parental issue far more than a societal one, but I'd also add that it's actually quite difficult to bring young people into the (big) society fold. Young people (and by this I really mean teenagers) are not exposed to many of the important issues that are faced by adults. As a teenager, you are shielded by your parents, or at least you should be. You shouldn't need to worry about getting a job, renting/buying a house etc, and the people that you deal with on a day to day basis (your friends) aren't ready to contribute much to society either, and this is exactly as it should be. Teenagers are often by nature non-conformists; they're keen to rebel, albeit usually in a harmless way, against their parents, teachers and polite society in general. Very few people dress like they did when they were a teenager, and listen to the same music; many of us take up, and then give up, smoking as teens. This is all part of growing up; it's doesn't suggest any fracture within society, but teenagers are always going to exist on the margins of society - there's plenty of time for them to become their parents later on.

When one becomes an adult, it's far easier to define yourself as a useful, upstanding member of society. But what does one have to do to achieve this? I think that most people would agree with that the following is key: be employed, and to earn one's keep, ideally in a job where you are clearly performing a useful role in society, and not earning far more than perhaps your contribution would suggest is reasonable.

I think most people could suggest a job that fits this criteria (nursing, teaching), and could also suggest some that would not (banking). One job that clearly fulfils the above would be the police. It's a job with difficult hours, the pay is reasonable but no more, it's essential to society.

So why do we continually run down our police force? Why have the policemen and women become the target for such criticism and marginalisation from all angles?

To quote examples - lack of riot training/riot equipment for police to deal with the recent troubles, major Government cuts to the police, accusations of police brutality (Ian Tomlinson), accusations of police timidity (London riots), people spectating at the riots in London, the goading of the police by rioters more interested in capturing evidence on their phones than making a political point. Even the title of this piece is taken from a piece of music criticising police brutality, though the real meaning of the song has been lost amid the amusing siren sounds, and though none of us pay any real attention to them, the sentiments can become lodged. None of us are surprised to hear Dr Dre's line of 'so muthaf*ck the police', and none of us are shocked as we would be were he criticising an ethnic minority, or women. There is an inherent need for young people to rebel, but should we still be doing the same thing against our police force as adults?

The most obvious contrast from the police would be the British Army. My brother was an officer in the cavalry for a decade, and has since joined the metropolitan police. I've never had the conversation with him, but I suspect that he's quite surprised about the difference in public feeling towards the two (fairly comparable) roles. The British Army are often referred to as heroes, and the charity 'Help for Heroes' is now one of the richest in the UK. How about a similar charity for police officers wounded in the riots? Would there be a similar outpouring of national feeling (and cash)? Maybe it's because the Army are sorting problems in foreign lands, where the local people there deserve all they get, and maybe here our natural inclination is an anti-authority standpoint where we regress to our teenage feelings of rebellion towards those that enforce polite society, but it seems like a confused message to give.

So who feels more alienated from society - the teenager, who has yet to have the chance to contribute, or the police officer, providing a vital role than many of us wouldn't do for twice the money, and being pilloried by the very society that they protect?

I predict a riot

2011-08-18T19:34:00.005+01:00

Actually, I didn't predict the London riots, but at least I had the excuse that I was abroad, on holiday. Whilst I was away, I watched Question Time on the BBC Parliament channel (it's amazing that I have a girlfriend, isn't it?), and from listening to those sage political commentators, you'd be convinced that each of them had predicted these precise events a long time ago. Many of them (Prescott, Paddick etc) spoke of a kind of inevitability about the London riots, which was surprising, as no-one to my knowledge had warned the country of this powder keg about to blow at any point before certain areas of the capital were on fire, by which time most people would agree that it was a little late. The shocking events of last week are made even more shocking by the fact that they came as a surprise to most people.

Public (and media) reaction has broadly fallen into two wildly simplistic categories. The liberal view is that we have a mass of young people (mainly young black males) that have been 'failed by society'. This failed by society line (henceforth to be known as FBS) is trotted out often, but no-one has yet to give a satisfactory answer as to what it means. Still, it sounds good, and it gave the Guardian a chance to wheel Russell Brand out to emphasise the FBS point. Mr Brand clearly gave so many soundbites after the death of Amy Winhouse that he's now required to comment on all major news stories. I await his coverage of the US presidential race with baited breath. Back to the main point, but in what way has society failed these young rioters? One news channel suggested that it was the fault of the 'nice things' industry, which has created 'must-have' items such as iphones and D+G clothing. The theory is that young people cannot afford these things, therefore their self-worth is defated, meaning there is nothing left for them to do but smash things, and nick things. Does anyone actually believe this is the truth? There's lots of things that I can't afford (a yacht, for example), but you won't see me down at Brighton Marina at midnight in a hoodie, making off with someone else's.

Having nice things doesn't make you happy and content. These young people are angry because they don't aspire to anything, and the majority of the fault lies with the parents. Quality parenting is about setting your child up well for life, and guiding your child as best you can until you are able to remove the stabilisers, and they are free to make their own way in society. This usually means some form of understanding of what is right and wrong, a respect for your fellow human beings, and a little bit of education along the way. Is that too much to ask? Only yesterday, my hairdresser was bemoaning the fact that so many of her friends are pregnant (they're all about 21, and the babies are unplanned in general; I did a bit of research). Why are these people so happy to have kids, when they're generally so unhappy with the raising them properly bit? True satisfaction comes from earning things: not having them given to you, and not from nicking them. There's a good message from which to start. Labour were totally wrong in the assertion that 50% of people going to university would be a good thing. In fact, less people going to university would be a good thing, and more people doing apprenticeships and learning a trade would be an even better thing. All young people have talents, and the sooner they find out what they are good at the better.

On the flip side to the liberals and their seeking to justify this behaviour comes the 'lock em up and throw away the key' brigade. Those that think it's reasonable to lock up two morons from Cheshire for 4 years each for trying to incite a riot via facebook. I don't know what's more tragic, the long sentence or the fact that nobody came. This knee-jerk reaction attempts to placate a public that is baying for blood, but we cannot allow public opinion to override rational decision-making. Handing out over-tough sentences as an 'example' has been proved not to work; someone isn't going to refrain from hurling a brick through a window because the sentence length for criminal damage has increased by 33% in recent times. We need to consider the root causes of this anti-social behaviour to prevent it - to cure the cause, not to hammer the consequence.

We are a confused country. Are you proud to be British? Am I? Do we know what it means? The spectacular failure of Cameron's Big Society suggests that the Thatcherite ideal of greed is good still looms large over the country. Better parenting to start, more opportunities for kids to learn a trade early, less emphasis on having to go to university (less universities even) and far less exposure for Russell Brand.

That can't be too tricky, can it? Or maybe Huxley had the best idea after all?

You're the one for me, fatty

2011-07-27T09:26:00.002+01:00

It's been a week of grim news, and as I keenly scanned the BBC website for an uplifting tale, instead I can across this depressing headline: 'calorie counts on menus prompt healthy choices'.

This research comes from across the pond, where calorific information has been displayed on New York menus since 2008. The results of this survey do seem patchy, with the headline being just one conclusion from a scattered set of data points. Subway, for example, showed an increase in calorific intake by customers once the calorie information was displayed on menus. This is likely to be due to the fact that people have decided to eat twice the portion of a 'healthy' option that contains only 75% of the calories. The Yanks have few faults, but maths is clearly one of them, at least amongst Subway customers. UK restaurants have now begun to ape this trend of putting calorific information alongside food options, from the lowly (KFC and McDonald's) to the Michelin starred emporium of Alexis Gaultier in Soho. We ignore much of what is best about the US (cheap fuel, good service) and yet copy some of the worst (American gladiators); this is another fad that we would have done well to leave alone.

I am all for education regarding diet and healthy living, but this should come from parents and in Schools. It is important that children are made aware of what is meant by a healthy diet (to my mind there are no such things as 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' food items, seeing as no one food can supply all the nutrition that we need); it is important that we are aware of portion control (something which the Americans have lost sight of); it is important that we are aware of seasonality and its impact on lowering food miles; it is important that children are encouraged to eat a varied diet; it is important that they are able to cook.

Placing calorie information on menus seems to ignore the education side of food (as above), and instead looks to the strategy of trying to catch the horse's tail in the stable door. Healthy eating is not all about calories anyway; avocados are very calorific, and yet most people would say they are a 'healthy' option. Iceberg lettuce has virtually no calories, and yet it has no nutritional value either, and therefore can hardly be defined as being healthy. Education via calories might teach people how to become thin, but that's not the same thing as a good diet. Also, whatever Kate Moss thinks, some food really does taste far better than skinny feels (I'm looking at you, foie gras).

I don't think that calorie information works at either end of the gastronomic spectrum. Take Gaultier Soho, a fine dining restaurant (tasting menu £68 pp). How often are you likely to go to this restaurant, or any restaurant like it? Once a month, if that? This is an occasion restaurant for a partner's birthday, or a significant anniversary. This restaurant represents the opportunity to be decadent and hedonistic, to start a meal with champage and finish with a cognac over coffee. It's certainly not your everyday meal. Surely the last thing you want to do is to make meal choices based on calorie content? If anything, let's live like it's the last days of Rome, be perverse and have the most calorific choices on the menu. Part of the pleasure of fine dining is that it's totally out of the ordinary, a one-off treat, and one about which you shouldn't feel guilty. On another note, if you're eating at a place like this and you can't tell that the grilled fish is less likely to clog those arteries than the foie gras on brioche, you probably wasting your money as you're someone who eats only to live.

At the other end of the spectrum we have KFC and McDonalds. I'm sure that some people think the food here is great, but these people are mostly 12 or under, and as we've already discussed, it really is the parent's responsibility to educate children about food. For most of the rest of us, the output of McDonald's or KFC are pre-football food, hangover food, bored at the airport food; some don't touch them out of principle, but fast food provides an important option when needs must. I don't think anyone would argue that a standard meal of fried chicken/burger and chips is not brilliantly healthy, and it's not good to eat them too often; I hope I'm not overestimating the intelligence of the average Brit, but I think this should be a given. Placing the calorie information next to a Big Mac, informing us that it's got a lot of calories, shouldn't be a surprise, and neither should it put us off buying one. The introduction of the McGrapes and McCarrotsticks about ten years ago was truly bizarre; surely people go to McDonald's for only one thing: some greasy cheap food. If you wanted some grapes, just go and buy some from the nearest supermarket, though maybe I'm underestimating how ubiquitous McDonald's really is.

Food shouldn't really be complicated; people need only a few clear guidlines, and they can make their own choices from these. The '5 a day' for fruit and vegetables has passed into common parlance, though there's no real reason why it should have been 5, and not 4 or 6. If kids are given a varied and balanced diet, and taught how to cook a few simple dishes, people should be fine to make their own decisions. I'm glad that the research (despite the headline) showed no distinct pattern, and certainly didn't seem to support the need to expance the calorie information to all sorts of other menus. As with many things, it's the education, the pro-active strategy that tends to work, and as soon as one adopts the reactionary approach, we run the risk of having to deal with a nation of fatties, rather than ensuring that we don't produce these big units in the first place.