the cuddly side of football

The cuddly side of football

It wasn’t only Manchester United who were given a shock last week by Athletic, the team from Bilbao in the Basque region of Spain.  There was inevitably an enjoyable sense of schadenfreude for much of the British football world in seeing Manchester United knocked out of yet one more competition this season, but they were also clearly stirred by Athletic’s creative, positive and ultimately winning style of play.  Perhaps even more unexpected was the behaviour of Athletic’s supporters: they did unprecedented things, like rapturously acclaiming Wayne Rooney’s dazzling consolation goal; giving an appreciative ovation to United’s substituted players, even though they’d been crap…. They even applauded the rare passages of good play by United which the cynic in me assumed was mere sarcasm, but I have to concede this was unlikely.  I remember being told by someone I know, who had worked in Bilbao for a while, that in so far as you can generalise about these things, the Basques were the sincerest and most generous people he’d ever met.  Sarcasm would not sit comfortably with such a national character.

Miraculously, some of this humanistic football philosophy seems to have entered like quicksilver into the slipstream of British football attitudes.  Immediately after their win over Manchester United many British football supporters were proclaiming Athletic as their new second favourite team. Then at the weekend, a young Bolton player, Fabrice Muamba, collapsed with heart failure in the middle of a game, and both sets of players and supporters, where once they might have just stared gormlessly at the scene, were clearly distressed and concerned about Muamba.  And when Fernando Torres managed to score his first goal for Chelsea in 100 games (I might have got that figure slightly wrong, but it has certainly been a long time), and his sad clown’s face broke into a beaming grin, the supporters of the team he had just scored against were applauding just as enthusiastically as those of his own team.  

(Image from RECORD)

But this new friendly football philosophy seems to be getting a bit creepy now, with a mass praying campaign for Fabrice visible everywhere – on banners, on shirts, and on Twitter.  He now seems to be recovering thank goodness, but evangelical atheist Richard Dawkins must be gnashing his teeth in frustration that this will no doubt lead some credulous souls to believe that praying is a more effective way to save lives than prompt and excellent medical care.  He must be wishing fervently that it had happened to John Terry instead.  A much less appealing character than Fabrice Muamba – it's unlikely that many would have prayed for him.

a beguiling irish ghost story

A beguiling Irish ghost story (for St Patrick’s Day)

(Image from "Learning to Fly")

Teig O’Kane and the Corpse is a traditional Irish tale, about a feckless young man who learns to behave himself after a macabre encounter with the dead. It was transcribed and translated from the Gaelic, and crafted into a superb short story by Douglas Hyde (who became the first President of Ireland). It’s quite funny too, and might give you pleasantly spooky dreams. If you’re curious, you can read it here, on a lovely website called Scary Stories.  Or even better, buy a copy of the spellbinding collection in which it appears.

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!

the art of smashing things up - a curse

The art of smashing things up

I’ve found that one of the many benefits of not having a job is that I now have time to appreciate things that stimulate the imagination as well as the brain. I’m particularly intrigued at the moment by the notion of destroying some objects to create others. The Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakhunin proclaimed that “the passion for destruction is also a creative passion” (another benefit I’ve found of not working is that there is more time to read about anarchist thinkers), and though he was specifically talking about the destruction of the state, I’m sure he would have equally approved of a more aesthetic interpretation of the idea.

A friend and former colleague who has now retired was wondering recently what to do with the hundreds of business cards he accumulated during many years working in international relations. I suggested that he could cut them all up and turn them into sculptures. Inspiring examples abound, and birds seem to be a popular subject. Recently for example I’ve seen bird sculptures made from cut up bits of CDs, and birds that have been created from paper torn from fine old books. I have to confess the latter made me swallow hard at first – cutting up books? But the sculptures are really lovely.

 

Paper bird sculpture (from My Modern Met)

My husband has made birds too - strange metallic creatures modelled out of bits of a knackered salad shaker. He has always had quite a talent for spotting the imaginative potential in stuff I’d quite happily chuck in the bin and never see again. As well as the birds he's made plant pots from wine bottle tops, sinister voodoo style necklaces from chicken wishbones, and lamps from sea glass collected during hours of wandering along beaches. But his most spectacular innovation was to smash up empty bottles and other unwanted glass objects (like 1970s smoked glass coffee tables), and build rather gorgeous lamps out of the lethally sharp fragments.. (NB After a few nasty cuts he eventually bought a special machine which rounds off the sharp edges of the glass, so the lamps are now less dangerous, though obviously less exciting to look at.

Dangerous glass lamps

A curse

May they decompose alive and smell their own flesh rotting on their bones……….

This curse is aimed at the bosses of the energy companies. And the reason? Simple - their rapacious profiteering…..

My latest energy bill, despite our attempts to be frugal this winter is still nearly 30% higher than for the same period last year, so there must have been a heck of a rise in unit costs.

It’s always seemed pretty stupid to me that gas and electricity supplies (and water) should be in the hands of the private sector, for which profit will always be a more powerful motivator than public good. There is little elasticity in the demand for heating, lighting, fuel for cooking - they’re not luxuries, they’re basic needs, so we can’t stop using them just because they’re too expensive. You can economise to some extent, like having four minute showers, or creeping around your house with a torch to avoid putting lights on, but there’s a certain level below which you just can’t go without unacceptable discomfort. And even if everyone did manage to keep their bills down, the companies, faced with the resultant declining revenues, would simply put the prices up again.

It makes no sense, and it’s time they were re-nationalised.

we're all in it together - rude gestures - an inspiring model

We’re all in it together

I’m feeling quite sorry for people living in drought-ravaged South East England.  Things are getting so serious that water restrictions are now being introduced.  Visitors from countries where they know the real meaning of drought, might find these quite baffling if they should still be in force during the London Olympic Games this summer, especially as by then the rain will inevitably have returned with a vengeance.  More seriously for the well-groomed people of the south-east though is that they are being urged to preserve water by limiting their time in the shower to just four minutes (special “shower timers” to help them do this are already available – with a choice of blue or pink sand). 

  

Of course in the North it rains all the time, so we have lots of water here, and now Boris Johnson, London’s flamboyant mayor (who might indeed look like a bit of a tit but is capable of the occasional astute insight), has come up with an ingenious permanent solution to the imbalance.  Why not, he said (in his typically biblical style), “bring surplus rain from the mountains to irrigate and refresh the breadbasket of the country in the South and East"  In other words, find some way of transporting the abundant rainfall of the north to the dry south.  I’m not sure how well he knows Northern England, but we don’t actually have that many mountains here, just a few in Cumbria, the rest of the region being merely hilly.  Or was he perhaps thinking of Scotland? (now that could be an interesting negotiation if the Scots were to go independent).

But anyway he’s right, it’s not about southerners being able to keep their half hour showers, it’s about economic necessity and it’s for the good of the country as a whole that the orchards and wheat fields should thrive.  And it’s not as if we need a lot of water here in the primitive North.  For as every southerner knows, northerners rarely take showers, even four minute ones, and most of them don’t have gardens to hose down, because they live in pokey little huts with backyards instead.   In fact, the only significant need for water in the north is for brewing, and ensuring a stable supply of Holt’s Bitter.  

So yes, they can have our excess water. If only in return there could be something with which the South is disproportionately endowed moving in the opposite direction– like jobs.

Rude gestures

Lately, I’ve been feeling rather confused about offensive hand gestures.   I don’t often make them, possibly because I don’t drive a car.  I think the last time I made one was at an idiot male driver who’d gone whizzing through a huge puddle at the side of the road, drenching my dog and me, and a passing elderly lady (who didn’t make a rude gesture, but seemed to approve of me doing it).  In normal circumstances however, I find it much more satisfying to say the words out loud. 

The thing is though, if I ever do feel like being offensive by hand, I’m no longer sure whether I should use the traditional two finger gesture which I'm most familiar with, or the new fashionable version of just the middle finger, as practised recently by iconic British pop singers, and of course the notorious Uruguayan footballer, Luis Suarez (although it has to be said that in the Suarez catalogue of malevolence, a rude gesture ranks much lower than biting, eye-gouging, blatant cheating, and racist abuse). 

So what I need to know is which of the two gestures is the more offensive, because if I’m going to do it, I obviously want to be as offensive as possible.

An inspiring model

I thought that the Sunday Times’ war reporter Marie Colvin looked very swashbuckling with her eye patch, though I suspect she might have worn it as some sort of talismanic protection, a reminder that she’d had her baptism of fire long ago, and survived it.  Sadly she was killed this week in the horrible conflict in Syria.  But what an admirable and inspiring figure she could be for young women today, with her brio, style, and fearlessness – far more so than those who whinge about breastfeeding rights, and mildly risqué jokes from the cosy offices of the Guardian or the New Statesman.  I do find it odd though that the death of a media worker should cause so much more shock and outrage than the deaths of kids.

a place for my bucket list - the vampires of st kilda - anticipating a personality change

A place for my bucket list

(for more photos see the official website of the Sedlec Ossuary)

The Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic is often featured in lists of the world’s spookiest places, and is a popular tourist attraction.  It’s a Cistercian monastery chapel, in which the beautiful and the ghastly are disturbingly combined in its décor and furnishings, all of which have been created from human bones, every single variety of them.  They’re the remains of 40,000 disinterred corpses, cleared to make space for new ones.  Since the 13^th century it’s been quite an in-demand place to be buried – due to the founder having scattered there some of the earth from the site of the crucifixion, which he’d picked up during the Crusades.  I’ve not been to the Ossuary (yet), but I enjoyed watching this nightmarish short video of it by Czech film-maker Jan Svankmajer- there’s certainly a menacing creepiness about the place. 

The vampires of St Kilda

The remote Scottish islands of St Kilda, which have been uninhabited since 1936, are the setting for a forthcoming comic book about a vampire invasion which caused the final evacuation, though sadly there is no historical evidence for the story.  The book is also attracting some interest from film-makers. 

(Scottish National Trust)

I’ve been told that my great-great-grandma was from St Kilda, though having now done some research (meaning I looked it up on Wikipedia), I think this might possibly be a family myth.  The islands were too isolated, and the people living there would almost certainly have been too primitive to know how to get away from the place - even in the 19^th century, the main means of communication was through messages in bottles.  But if my great-great-grandma did get away, then perhaps it was to escape the tyranny of the local minister, who forced the islanders to attend church services for six hours on Sundays, making St Kilda a thoroughly miserable place.  A vampire invasion might have been a welcome diversion. 

Of course I would love it to be true that I have St Kildan ancestry, and if it is true, it might explain my continued preoccupation with the weird and the macabre.  

(Scottish National Trust)

Anticipating a personality change

My husband has just been prescribed Gabapentin tablets for pains he sometimes gets in his arm, which has been held together for 40 years by a metal pin, the consequence of a foolish adolescent accident.   Gabapentin is a neuropathic pain relief drug, which neither of us had heard of before, but we were intrigued to find out that it also has recreational uses.  Not only does it reduce pain, but it can also have psychoactive effects, making users more cheerful and sociable, and even chattier.   So just in time for St Valentine’s Day.

slow reawakenings - beautiful game

Slow reawakenings

I don’t belong to that happy band of people who manage to be busy and lively throughout the winter, but after several weeks of being buried in a torpor of inactivity, when the first day of February arrives, I’m almost ready to start coming back to life.  This is the month of the beginning of slow reawakenings: spring is only a few weeks away, the weather should soon be brightening up, and it isn’t going dark quite so early.  Not there yet but approaching the end of winter.

But it’s a treacherous delusion; because February is frequently the coldest and grimmest month of the entire season.  More elderly people die of respiratory related illnesses during this month than any other time, and some North American Indians used to refer to February as the Hunger Moon, because the ice and snow made hunting so difficult.

The first few days of February here have been freezing.  To illustrate, here’s a list of the clothes I felt it necessary to wear on my fortnightly walk to sign on in Trogtown the other day: tights, leggings, socks, boots, skirt, two t-shirts, jumper, coat, hat, scarf, gloves.  If I count the socks, boots, and gloves as two items each, and adding underwear, that’s 17 items of clothing in total (which is possibly why the walk seemed more tiring than usual).  And in Central and Eastern Europe (one of my favourite parts of the world) they’re having a much harder time than we are in Britain, with towns obliterated by snow and temperatures in the minus 30s (and sadly over a hundred deaths); even the Black Sea, despite its usually mild winter climate, and the toxic cauldron of pollution bubbling below its surface, has turned to ice in parts - for some extraordinary photos see here

The frozen Black Sea, from English-Russia

Beautiful game

We had snowfalls throughout yesterday and it made Manchester City’s televised evening match against Fulham quite spectacular viewing, with the entire game being played through a blizzard. Some of the close up action shots looked quite magical, as if you were seeing them through one of those little glass snowstorm shakers. It was a pity the players all looked so glum, as if they didn’t really want to be there – just look at Nasri’s face on the photo. He looks like he's about to cry.  And why was that big strapping Yorkshire lad Micah Richards wearing gloves, when there were bare-chested Manchester boys in the crowd intrepidly defying the temperatures? Footballers are such pampered wimps. On the other hand, how do goalkeepers not freeze solid in such weather?  For most of the time they aren’t even involved in the action, just standing around waiting for something to happen - and yet they still have to wear short pants!  Footballers are so tough and resilient.



Samir Nasri looking miserable, from Manchester City website



the perplexities of democracy - the adventurous blob

The perplexities of democracy

It may be true that democracy is the least bad system of government, but that’s a long way from saying that it’s necessarily a good system of government, or that it’s easy to establish and maintain it. Democratic politics can sometimes raise awkward and perplexing questions of what’s right, and rational.

Last week a referendum was conducted in the City of Salford on the introduction of elected mayors. This would be a quite significant constitutional change for Salford: elected mayors are entirely different from traditional mayors, who open local fêtes and garden parties, and strut round wearing ceremonial chains and other regalia. The elected mayor has a powerful executive role in local governance, which councillors, as local legislators, don’t have. The outcome of the referendum was that about two thirds of the votes were in favour of the change, and consequently Salford will be having its first mayoral election in May.

Now this isn’t meant to be an argument for or against the principle of elected mayors, but there is something troubling – not to say undemocratic - about the way this whole thing has been decided. The crucial fact is that only 18% of the electorate even bothered to vote – which (if I’ve got my sums right) means that only around 14% actively want to be able to vote for a mayor, about 7% actively don’t want a mayor and the other 80% or so don’t give a monkeys, which doesn’t exactly indicate strong public support for the principle. In the face of such mass indifference is it right that such a fundamental change should be going ahead?

On the other hand I’m quite curious to see how those of our hitherto wholly unremarkable and undistinguished local politicians who wish to stand will be trying to convince us that they have either the flamboyance or gravitas for the role.

The adventurous blob

During these miserable cold and dead days of winter, I have even less enthusiasm or energy than usual to do anything, so for anyone who’s experiencing similar lethargy, here’s something to brighten up the time. It’s an animated film showing a few moments in the life of an energetic and adventurous blob. It was made by a very clever friend of ours who designs 3D graphics.

The film was created in Maya and composited in Premiere (nb I don’t really know what that means). You can find more of his funny and entertaining work here

(With thanks to John Warburton, University of Salford)

medieval black humour and propaganda - elsewhere on the telly - religion for atheists and radicals

Medieval black humour and propaganda



Main portal of the Cathedral of St Lazaire, Autun (from The Web Gallery of Art)



I’ve had a nice synchronicity experience this week. I’d been looking through a couple of art books (because I couldn't be bothered doing anything else), and I saw something about a 12^th century stone carving of the Last Judgement, which is on the portal of the cathedral in Autun  (in Eastern France).  The sculptor was called Gislebertus, and it’s a fantastic piece of art.  I thought the section where the archangel and the devil are weighing the merits of souls together was quite funny, and I wondered whether it might be evidence  that people in the Middle Ages might have appreciated a bit of black humour now and then, but that's surely wishful thinking.  There must have been a universal terror of damnation in those times which would have precluded any jokes. Anyway, the very next day I watched part one of the BBC’s new documentary series on The Crusades, and within the first few minutes, it mentioned the Gislebertus sculpture.  So having never heard of him in my life before, I’ve now come across him twice in two days.

I’d recommend the tv programme to anyone who hasn’t watched it yet, and it will be available on the BBC website for a few weeks.  It’s a good blend of everything that’s in the BBC’s foundation mission (“to educate, inform and entertain”), and the presenter shuts up occasionally.  I don’t mind that he has left out a lot of background information, or related events.  It’s not meant to be an exhaustive chronicle, it’s his own perspective, and he’s only got three hours to show it.   And I quite liked the slightly clichéd use of music too (Gothic chant, Sephardic wailing) - it created atmosphere.  There was also a not unpredictable subliminal message.  The whole thing was kicked off at the very end of the 11^th century by a cunning piece of papal propaganda, which conjured up the notion of a threat to Christendom from a common enemy against which different factions could rally, abandoning their previous rivalries (and thereby solving a few of the pope’s own political problems). It was an early articulation of “otherness”, the presenter pointed out, and we all know where it’s led, was what he meant. 

Elsewhere on the telly

Putin, Russia and the West: Another high quality new documentary series from the BBC.  The first part was enthralling.  Putin is a strange character, self-effacing and mesmerising at the same time.  And his cool astuteness makes a lot of other world leaders look cloddish and naïve.  He also managed to face down the oligarchs, and told the Taliban to fuck off (literally).

Coronation Street: Becky is finding it difficult to decide whether to hang around the streets of Salford in the hope of getting back with a chubby balding man who moans a lot, or to start a new life in Barbados with a chap who could be the next James Bond.

Religion for atheists and radicals

NB This is a review of a book review, not the book itself which I haven’t read, but might get around to one day.

In his latest book, the seemingly paradoxically titled Religion for Atheists, Alain de Botton  tries to show that even for atheists there are aspects of religion which can create important social benefits.  As a non-believer, but a “cultural Catholic*”, and an amateur historian, I’m not at all surprised by this.  For centuries religion has been one of the main sources of aesthetic inspiration .  Without Christianity we would never have enjoyed the ethereal masterpieces of the Renaissance, or Gothic cathedrals, or polyphony, or Paradise Lost, or some of the rambunctious stories in the Bible. Other religions too have left a staggering legacy of architecture, art, music and literature.  And of course there are the values of hospitality and charity, of treating others with decency, and the capacity of religions for supporting order in society, and the organisation of communities.  The famous historian of the working class in Britain, E P Thompson, for instance, believed that the working class movement was able to grow in confidence and self-awareness because it had learned from the egalitarian organisation practices of the Methodists.  This reading of the role of religion of course should be seen alongside a more sinister one – for religion has undoubtedly also fuelled many of the most savage genocidal acts and conflicts throughout history.

In the Guardian this week there was a rather viperous review of De Botton’s book by the radical Marxist academic and intellectual superstar, Terry Eagleton (who was originally from Salford, is still in a manner of speaking a Catholic, and was once taught by my dad):

“One wonders how this impeccably liberal author would react to being told that free speech and civil rights were all bunkum, but that they had their social uses and so shouldn't be knocked. Perhaps he might have the faintest sense of being patronised. De Botton claims that one can be an atheist while still finding religion "sporadically useful, interesting and consoling", which makes it sound rather like knocking up a bookcase when you are feeling a bit low. Since Christianity requires one, if need be, to lay down one's life for a stranger, he must have a strange idea of consolation. Like many an atheist, his theology is rather conservative and old-fashioned”

Ironically Professor Eagleton a couple of years ago wrote a book called Reason, Faith and Revolution (I'll probably never read this one because it would almost certainly be too hard for me), which would appear to echo some of De Botton’s ideas about the utilitarian value of religion, yet here he seems to imply that De Botton is being hypocritical if not dishonest in suggesting that a secular society might be able to take advantage of some of the non-doctrinal aspects of religion, without embracing the beliefs.  His review has made me quite curious about De Botton’s book, which I'd guess wasn’t his intention.

* A “cultural Catholic” is someone who was brought up in the Catholic faith, who while no longer believing in its dogma, still retains a fondness for the beauty and mystique of its rituals. Sadly that mystique, and its sense of immutability, has disappeared since the introduction of the user-friendly vernacular services.

"l'audace" - pink doesn't always stink - find the human

“L’Audace”

(Bloomberg)

There can't have been many crazier or more romantic moments in football than that which occurred last week when the now bearded and chubby Thierry Henry scored a goal on the first appearance of his second comingfor Arsenal , lighting a flame which illuminated an apparently stale and turgid game, and launched it into the mythosphere.  I was listening to the commentary on the radio and the noise of 50,000 or so people roaring with pride and emotion was deafening.  I was going a bit wild too – Arsenal aren’t my team but I love these epic moments, and Henry, a part of the fabulous swashbuckling French side which won the World Cup in 1998, has always been one of my favourite players .  But then, shortly afterwards, it really did get crazier and more romantic –news was coming through that another mercurial French footballer, the swaggering and unfathomable Eric Cantona, still the unofficial king of Manchester (and who wears his beard with far greater panache than Henry), had announced he would be running for the French presidency. 

(Goal.com)

Although it sounds a rather brilliant idea to have Eric steering the French economy through the quagmire of the eurozone crisis - and it's less bonkers than the notion that any of the weird bunch of Republican candidates in the United States could ever actually be in charge of the country - it was of course, as we might have guessed, a typically audacious publicity stunt by Cantona to draw attention to housing problems in France. But I wonder if the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, before she realised it wasn’t real, felt just a fleeting quiver of excitement when she imagined being closeted in one to one meetings with him.

Pink doesn’t always stink

(Flickr.com)

I generally share feminists' deep abhorrence of the gender stereotyping of children.  I don’t however share their horror of the colour pink.  It’s true that pink does have a strong association with gender stereotyped clothes and accessories for little girls – pink frocks, pink frills, pink hairbands, pink handbags – but it seems unreasonably harsh to blame the colour itself.  Pink isn’t one of my favourite colours (I only have one favourite colour and that’s black) but it can look very striking – a cerise scarf worn with a black dress for instance.  On the other hand, pink furniture, as featured in the annoying tv adverts for three piece suites that are always inflicted on us in the new year, can be ghastly. I can equally understand why some might feel slightly queasy when they see the pink salad dressing that I’ve devised, although to be fair it’s quite a muted pink.  But if you can disregard the colour, it tastes rather nice and is also very healthy, full of nutrients and polyunsaturated fats.  It consists of yogurt (ie natural yogurt, not strawberry), garlic, olive oil and cider vinegar, and paprika, which is what provides the pinkness. If you are find the colour too off-putting, you can use balsamic instead of cider vinegar, which absorbs the pink and creates a nice muddy colour instead.

Find the human

I’ve spent hours studying this picture and I’ve concluded that there must be something wrong with either my eyes or my brain.   The idea is that if you stare at it for long enough you will suddenly see an unmistakable human person.  The trouble is that within the tangle of twigs and foliage covering the ground, I can make out many different human faces each time I look at the picture.   Amongst those I’ve spotted are Mick Jagger, Dracula, Queen Elizabeth I, Stalin, a generic Latin American dictator in shades, Attila the Hun, Edna from Emmerdale, Salman Rushdie, the Pope, and Postman Pat (but not Elvis).

casting off the demons - a brief reminder of my old life - existentialist whingeing

Casting off the demons

The last time Manchester United played Manchester City they were cut to ribbons (I can’t even bear to repeat the score).  We watched the match in a pub in North Wales, unable to believe what we were seeing, and surrounded by whooping City fans (I never found out what they were doing in North Wales); it was a humiliating experience so goodness knows what it must have felt like for the United players.  They were probably dreading the FA Cup game against City today even more than I was, aware that another pasting would be definitive proof that there had been nothing freakish about the previous result.  Well in the end, though it wasn’t the purest of exonerations, it was 3-2 to United, with some of their pride restored, and the taunting demons of self-doubt cast off.  And because I know a lot of Manchester City supporters, I’d better also say that it was an impressive fightback by them, and a really good game all round. 

In the next round, in the most fiendish of narrative twists, United will play Liverpool, with whom their relations are possibly at their most acrimonious ever. Liverpool Football Club is surely not a nice place to be at the moment with their inept handling of the Suarez episode, the moronic racist abuse of a young player from a visiting team by some of their supporters last week, and one of their players arrested at the weekend for allegedly smacking up his ex.

A brief reminder of my old life

When I was working my usual rising time was around 6.30 (despite which I somehow never managed to get into my office before 9.30).  One dark stormy morning last week I found myself awake at six, and unable to go back to sleep.  If I’d still been working I would probably have reluctantly got out of bed, and started to get ready for work(and still not managed to get there any earlier).    But this time, while I did manage to get out of bed, it was only to creep down to the kitchen, make myself a cup of tea, refill my hot water bottle, and then sneak into the spare room, and, snuggled into a warm chunky quilt, on a bed so comfortable that you can almost melt into it, and read my book to the accompaniment of Radio 4 news and the churning wind and rain outside.  Knowing that I could do this without having to go out and confront the weather was blissful.  I felt a great sympathy towards every working person I know who would have had no choice but to haul themselves out of bed, unable to experience such indulgent luxury.   I might be a lot more skint these days, but such moments are worth more than money.

Existentialist whingeing

Dear me, what a shrill, over-sensitive society Britain is becoming.  This week Diane Abbott (a Labour Party MP and shadow minister) has been in deep cack following a comment she’d made on Twitter – something about white people enjoying playing divide and rule.  Pretty bland, and in the wider context of the history of race relations not inaccurate either.  But on account of it she incurred a deluge of fury from people who pronounced themselves to be deeply offended by what she had said, along with accusations of racism, and clamourings for her to be dismissed from her post, followed by fury towards Ed Miliband because he failed to do so (giving her a typically lumbering ticking off instead).  This isn’t the only example of misplaced indignation that we’ve witnessed over the last few months – Alan Hansen, who probably isn’t up to date with every nuance of the race relations discourse, was forced to apologise for the offence he caused with an innocuous reference to “coloured footballers” on Match of the Day a few weeks ago, and, inevitably, the eternally offensive Jeremy Clarkson gratuitously and unapologetically insulting every target that crossed his path - Northern England, Mexico, public sector workers, Indian food....... .  

It’s all getting a bit stupid, so it was quite refreshing to find a Guardian journalist, Alexander Chancellor, pleading in a terse article this week for a little less sensitivity and a little more proportionality.

When Lord MacPherson, in his examination of institutional racism, recommended that an act or remark could be deemed racist if it is “perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person”, it was obvious that his intention, quite sensibly, was to protect individual victims of racism from dismissive and ignorant attitudes amongst the police, and to ensure that racist crime would in future be taken seriously.  Unfortunately he seems to have unwittingly helped to create the great existentialist whinge of our time – where, egged on by the media, people can now proclaim in relation to any carelessly phrased but essentially innocuous remark by a public figure, “I’m offended, therefore this is offensive – and something must be done about it.”

the year of the dragon - occult football - the end of the beginning

The year of the dragon

From: Chinese Culture

Happy new year and good luck to everyone who like me is hoping to be more creative, curious, healthy, frugal and organised during 2012.  

The first of January is possibly the only day of the year when most people try to look ahead and feel positive, especially if the year just passed has been an appalling one.   So here’s the top headline on the BBC News website this morning: “Europe leaders warn of grim 2012” And the Guardian’s top story?  “EU leaders predict 2012 will be worse than 2011”. 

Couldn’t they have waited a few days before telling us about what a gloomy year we face, puncturing any positivity that we might just be feeling at the beginning of a new year.   Couldn’t they have saved the story for when resolutions have crumbled and no-one really gives a shit.  At least the top story in the Independent (bless its barmy heart), on the dangers of silicone implants, will only be disturbing to the very small minority of the population with fake boobs.

(NB I know that the Year of the Dragon doesn’t officially start until 23 January, but it’s a good title and a nice image, so I don’t care.)

Occult football

It was a weekend of miracles in the English Premiership.  First, next to the top team United were unbelievably beaten by bottom of the table team Blackburn yesterday which meant that United had missed an opportunity to overtake top team and intense rivals Manchester City.  But it also meant that Blackburn could regain some pride for themselves, and possibly some latitude for their nice manager, who’s been the target recently of some sulphurous criticism from the team’s supporters. Confusing emotions.  Yet while it might not have seemed so yesterday,the voodoo gods were smilingly benignly on both Manchester United and Blackburn Rovers this weekend, for today, Manchester City lost unexpectedly themselves, dramatically, in the last ten seconds of the game, to near to the bottom team Sunderland, cancelling out the advantage they’d been handed by United.  So after two occurrences which only a lunatic would have put money on, it’s all exactly as it was before.   Also yesterday, the looming Götterdämmerung at Chelsea unfolded a little more as they lost, at their own ground, to Aston Villa.

 

The end of the beginning

Today we ‘ve finished off the wine, the Laphroaig and the mince pies.  It’s the end of the holiday, the Christmas tree comes down tomorrow and an abstemious week lies ahead.

seven days in the life of a dead turkey - charles dickens: to read or to watch?

Seven days in the life of a dead turkey

(From Flickr)

Days 1 and 2:

Chilling nicely in the fridge

Day 3:

Sitting in the oven for six hours.  Should have only been four but it was still raw.  I think I might need a new oven.  This one can handle a frozen pizza but apparently not a creature weighing ten pounds.

Day 4:

Leftover turkey and vegetable soup, made from the stewed carcass; plus a lip-smacking nosh for the dog from the yucky bits scraped off the bones (and nearly a most unappetising late night snack for my husband who, mistaking all the slimy bits of skin and gristle for carved slices of meat, tried to put them onto a sandwich.

Day 5:

Leftover turkey, bacon and mushrooms with gnocchi

Day 6:

More leftover turkey, bacon and mushroom with gnocchi

Day 7:

Leftover turkey and spinach korma.  Half of it eaten, the other half frozen until we can face turkey again.

Coda (Day 8):

My mum is too busy to do anything with her leftover turkey meat – so she’s given it to us!

(I was going to publish my drinking log for the week as a companion piece to the above, but it got a bit too complicated.  I’ll be returning to less intemperate ways in the new year)

Charles Dickens: to read or to watch?

(From University of St Andrews)

I’ve never been a big fan of Charles Dickens, unlike my dad, who taught English, and read nearly everything Dickens wrote.  He rated him so highly that he believed that a close and regular acquaintance with his books would inevitably develop good writing skills in the reader.  This was certainly true for my dad– the absence notes he used to write for me were possibly the wittiest and most deadpan ever seen at my school (eg “my daughter was unable to attend school yesterday due to the injudicious consumption of a hamburger at a local festival”).      

But while I acknowledged Dickens’ singular genius – his clever plotting, his shrewd observations and masterful presentations of the human comedy – and his clear superiority to Balzac (whom I really did detest) – it was never really what I wanted to read.   I did enjoy some of his less daunting novels or novellas, like A Christmas Carol (which is brilliant actually), Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, but, with one or two exceptions, I never managed to finish any of the whoppers like David Copperfield or Nicholas Nickleby.  His grotesque casts of half-wits, lunatics, eccentrics, misers, and creepy villains never felt real to me, and I found the sentimentality irritating.  And I particularly loathed his virtuous female characters – and the frequency with which they appeared as submissive victims of predatory men (though I do want to read The Old Curiosity Shop one day, as Oscar Wilde seemed to think it was very funny).

On the other hand, Dickens seems to work very well on the telly, and some of the BBC adaptations have been particularly good.  I loved their version of Bleak House (about 5 years ago), and if I’d known it was possible to compress it into 12 riveting hours, I would never have spent five enervating months reading it.  The latest, Great Expectations, which was shown this week didn’t quite match it for quality, but it’s been superior to everything else that’s been on television over Christmas.  It had one big weakness, and that was the peculiar casting of Pip and Estella.  It’s Estella who should be ravishingly pretty, and Pip a bit of country bumpkin, not the other way round - it weakened the overall credibility.  But most of the other parts were well played and I particularly liked Gillian Anderson’s innovative interpretation of Miss Havisham – gaunt, spectral, unhinged and eerily beautiful, nothing at all like the moth-eaten old crones in previous productions.  The Mystery of Edwin Drood (which I’ve never attempted to read) will follow some time in January.  I wish the BBC would spend more of our licence money on this sort of stuff instead of garbage like East Enders.