June- Summer's here and it's the half way point and we're feeling good.
It hardly seems possible but London experienced its first summer heatwave of the year. We're half way through June and the blue skies, once immortalised by the Electric Light Orchestra, have stepped up to the plate and are quite the most breathtaking of sights. We all know that the English weather never quite lives up to anybody's expectations because even if we do get a scorcher on any given day during May, June, July or August it always seems to be interspersed with dramatically loud thunderstorms, fierce downpours, blustery winds, hailstones and in some parts of Britain swirling tornadoes followed by the mildest of earth tremors. But hey none of us would have it any other way.
Recently we've got used to, even conditioned to the ups and downs, the peaks and troughs of the English climate. I think I've cracked the code, fathomed the formula. This isn't some futile exercise in guesswork or mind games. In Britain the summer weather comes in a standard pattern of blocks, specific lengths of time and consistent waves. It suddenly occurred to me today that the British summer of 1976 may well come to be viewed as a notable exception to the rule but summer's here and let's bask in its radiance.
Over the weekend we were presented with those amazingly blustery winds that may well have got lost in March and suddenly turned up on our doorstep without any warning. June had no idea of what it was going to get and, out of the blue, furious gusts and gale force winds shook those big old birch and larch trees and then the floating clouds got busy in the sky, first gathering together like well ordered regiments and then darkening quite mysteriously. Then a faint drizzling was normally accompanied by an indecisive rain which then held up briefly before shafts of summer sun tried desperately to break through. It could only be the English weather and never could it be accused of a lack of variety.
But today was unarguably beautiful. There was an impeccable blue in the sky with hovering wisps of cloud. Today reached the soaring heights of the high 70s and it actually felt like a perfect summer's day. Before long the garden lawnmowers, pruning shears, hose, and secateurs will be proudly brandished like some wonderful domestic appliance that sits so proudly in our shed. Then we'll take a fond look at our beautifully manicured grass, clip and cut the roses lovingly, hack away remorselessly at the overgrown weeds, pick up the beetroots and tomatoes and smile at the heavens.
June is the time for those deliciously sweet red British strawberries that remind you of Wimbledon, country fetes, village fairs and street carnivals. June is the half way point of the calendar year and that pivotal turning point when everything looks healthier, feels better and makes you feel good about everything or everybody. Or so the theory goes. Then there were a few tentative drops of rain followed by brooding, moody skies which put a complete dampener on the summer barbecue. At this point we flee indoors, tap our fingers indignantly on the window sill, curse that wretched English summer, put on a box set of Last of the Summer Wine or an action packed American cop show.
Then we stare dolefully at the rain and the wind, wishing that somewhere out there in the big wide world a heatwave will settle on the British isles for at least three months. According to George Orwell, or so we're led to believe, it always rains in Norway so maybe Britain can take small comfort from the fact it couldn't possibly get any worse. So we take a deep breath, venture forward into the world of the unexpected and hope that the wheatfields will shine, the undulating hills of Yorkshire, Lancashire and the highest of Scottish glens will always be there and the rugged coastlines of Sussex will never lose their silvery sheen. How the British love the ebb and flow of the seasons and there will never be cause for any complaint when English landscapes show off their finest colours.
Here in our peaceful North London suburb of Manor House it may have been just another ordinary working day in June and yet it was much more than that. It was extraordinary because there was something very gratifying about a warm, unbroken day of sunshine where nothing could spoil your day. We know all about the disasters and tragedies that continue to disfigure our society and somehow it's almost impossible to ignore.
Yet the brighter shades of idyllic summer hover temptingly in the background rather like some distant light show. So we look over the rooftops and think that of course it's good to be alive because if the birds can sing sweetly so can we. Or maybe I'm being a soppy, sentimental soul and the sun may have got to my head. But it has got its hat on and it will be with us for as long as possible. It's time to be positive, idealistic, forward thinking, adventurous, sit on our deckchairs in either rain, sun and snow and just whistle indefinitely until the sun sets and somebody mentions the General Election and Brexit for the 375th time.
It may be an urban myth that the summers were always warmer in the old days and the winters, by contrast, colder than the old days. Perhaps our perceptions of the British weather are almost set in stone. Soon conversations will turn to Wimbledon and the famous tennis fortnight when the British public gets all hot, bothered and patriotic about Andy Murray, unmistakably the greatest tennis player the British isles has ever produced. In fact British tennis has never had it so good and some of the most discerning of English tennis observers think that Murray is so good that if he doesn't win Wimbledon again this year there may have to be a lengthy inquest and morbid noises about the end of the world.
In a couple of weeks time the SW19 London tennis aficionados will be lounging on their well earned Wimbledon seat basking in the knowledge that the state of the British game has never looked in ruder health. Then the umpires will climb that mini Mount Everest that takes them to that lofty seat overlooking Centre Court and its surrounding courts.
They will tap their microphones, bark out those very genteel and formal introductions while the ball boys and girls will take their positions, put their hands behind their backs most respectfully and a hundred yellow tennis balls will miraculously appear. They will crouch down dutifully at the nets and after those thunderous serves are delivered, will offer the ball rather like some peace offering. They will look slightly sheepish and self conscious because the general consensus is that they aren't the main centre of attention and could be considered as mere water carriers rather than the main participants. as messengers rather than stars of the big occasion.
Truly it does seem to be shaping up to be a good, old fashioned summer. Besides England are the new Under 20 football World Champions, England will give South Africa the cricketing game of their lives and we'll think back to those deeply troubling moments of recent history, pretend they were simply minor setbacks and then decide it wasn't bad after all. It didn't hurt, it wasn't painful at all and we survived the endless flow of words, prepared paragraphs, playground finger pointing, insisting that our political party is far better than yours. And then our thoughts turn to Kensington and we're all at a loss for words.
At the moment we're all understandably shocked and appalled by recent events but come on everybody let's all run joyously into the sea, embrace a British beach, plonk a handkerchief on our head, lounge on a stripy deckchair and forget about capitalism, socialism, atheism, plagiarism, Marxism, Jeremy Corbyn while not forgetting that mauve and yellow party who call themselves UKIP. We can all just let all it go. It wasn't that serious or critical at all and nobody was either right or wrong about any of this exhaustive agenda of vote, vote, vote, sulk, sulk, sulk, becoming deeply pessimistic and negative, then jumping for joy when we knew the Tories would win anyway even though we now face a hung parliament which sounds a little drastic but Theresa May is still our Prime Minister. And so there.
For those who can't take any more of this blustering and back stabbing, these contrasting and divisive opinion makers, these teeth gnashingly boring orators, the blood and death on our streets. the good news is that summer is here for a while. Sadly that horrific fire which claimed the lives of so many in a Kensington block of flats does leave us with the most horrible of feelings.
But June will carry on and we'll keep doing what we have to do to rationalise, to simplify everything, to clarify the inconsistencies of everyday life and the things that are completely beyond our understanding. Who cares? The English will always have their summer game of cricket, tennis, the varying fortunes of the British and Irish Lions rugby union team and shortly Glastonbury, that great music outdoor gathering of the great and good. This year Glastonbury will not turn into a mudbath and you won't be needing your wellington boots so let's get on down and move with the metronomic rhythms of summer.
And then we'll drink our refreshing Pimms on English country lawns and the neighbours back garden, cover our faces with a Sunday paper on a sandy English beach, wave a Union Jack and then indulge in that familar ice cream. Life is perfect, life feels very good, life lifts you, energises you, animates you and then makes everything that much better. Sor it's time to forget about the hung Parliament and just suspend your belief. Come on everybody it's summer.
Wednesday, 14 June 2017
Monday, 12 June 2017
Valentines Park- was it Itchycoo Park or not?
Valentines Park - Ilford's one of Essex's finest parks.
During the 1960s The Small Faces, one of those Hippy Hippy Shake, far out, groovy and right on pop music bands, produced, or allegedly, a record called Itchycoo Park, one of the many pieces of pop experimentation and cool innovation so popular at the time. Throughout Itchycoo Park voices fade in and out spookily with varying degrees of frequency and the sound is one that somehow exemplified the music revolution that Britain was undergoing. Drums and guitars were given the full pyschedelic treatment and a nation marvelled at what sounded like echoing musical instruments with strange backing tracks.
But Itchycoo Park, as legend would have it, was written as a tribute to Valentines Park in Ilford or maybe it wasn't. Some maintain that it was Victoria Park in Hackney, East London or maybe it was one of London's more famous parks such as London's Hyde Park. But I'd like to think that it was my childhood park of Valentines in Ilford. Yes Valentines Park wins by a considerable margin, hands down by some distance but I'm open to debate. It could be that bias has once again intervened and favouritism has won the day after all.
So what about Valentines Park? Today I made my one of my increasingly frequent revisits to the suburb where childhood memories still take me on a multiplicity of journeys. It has to be said that Valentines Park looks much the same as it's always looked. Isn't it strange how some of our favourite places never change over the years? It could be that everything seems to be in the same place that it's always been and time has not withered anything. It is easy to see the things that you fell in love with as a child are now seen in an identical perspective because essentially there is a lovely timelessness about it.
The park is the prettiest tapestry of huge, domineering trees, vast bushlands, narrow streams, beautiful boating lakes, a Weeping Willow sobbing its heart out and then perhaps crying with laughter at the sheer absurdity of the political system. There are those two richly green strips that host frequent games of crown green bowls. Here men and women gently roll a black bowling ball with all the grace and effortless ease they can muster during the summer.
But Valentines Park is one vast walking paradise, acres of long, meandering pathways that lead to wherever you want them to go. Then you reach the Valentines Park cafe which, for as long as I can remember, has always been there. The one fond memory takes me wondrously back to the summer of 1976 when the cafe became a huge tourist rendezvous although that may be a slight exaggeration. The summer of 67 may well have been the summer of love but once you'd changed the numbers around the summer of 76 became one long swimming marathon.
From early morning to the early evening hours Ilford was suddenly converted into one of the most popular and happiest of all parks. For one summer everybody seemed to turn up at the Valentines Park Lido. There may well have been other summers to match it but when the first rays of Mediterranean sun bounced ecstatically over the blue and white waters of the Lido everybody was infected by a remarkable sense of euphoria and freedom from the long, lingering darkness of winter. Oh the English weather. How I'm reluctant to join in with that topical and typical English discussion piece.
Rumour has it that Valentines Park was surrounded by squirrels. In a densely forested area of the park squirrels would occupy every bush, tree and hideaway that the park could provide the squirrels with. There was a sense that everybody had been taken hostage by these grey squirrels. There they would go, scurrying, scampering, nibbling, racing frenetically up and down branches as if determined to remain inconspicuous. If you were spotted running in that area you had to take your life in your hands because this was quite clearly dangerous territory for the human race.
And so I returned once again to Valentines Park, Sadly and most regrettably, the Lido is no longer there, years of neglect forcing the hand of Redbridge council. But even now you can hear the distant voices of children you grew up with, an explosion of enthusiasm, ear splitting screams that dominated the whole of Valentines Park for day after day.
I seem to remember hearing that one of the main reasons the Lido had been closed down was because two fatal accidents had left the local council with little alternative. But for most of the summer of 1976 the diving board and slide would enthrall enraptured teenagers. Families would lay blankets on the ground where picnics and ice creams would overtake the Lido for the whole sun kissed summer.
It hardly seems possible now but my generation just revelled in the electric atmosphere that seemed to light up this incredible amusement park. Unfortunately the slide and diving board had to be dismantled because one of the kids had died as a result of either the diving board or slide. But for one long, hot summer the Valentines Park Lido was the one place where tensions were released, inhibitions were dive bombed, you could be whoever you wanted to be and there were no boundaries. Or none that I could see.
All you could see was the gushing fountain, kids being whistled at by disapproving lifeguards, kids pushing the lifeguards patience to the limit. blue and white lockers with sopping wet towels on the door and swimming trunks that were just dripping with chlorine. Then large groups of rebellious kids would ignore the lifeguards, grab hold of one of their poor, unsuspecting mates and chuck them heartlessly into a freezing swimming pool that you felt sure had been filled with large ice cubes almost permanently.
Ah yes. The freezing Valentines Park outdoor swimming pool. Whose idea had it been to make absolutely sure that the temperature of the water would be so insufferably cold that it made swimming in it almost impossible? But we braved the elements and the kids, undeterred and undaunted, spent many an hour chasing each other into the water in a stubborn act of disobedience, almost militant in their refusal to behave themselves. The whole population of Ilford had now descended on the Lido and would not be moved.
Meanwhile for one serene week Valentines Park would hold its annual Essex cricket festival at the beginning of June. Once again and so sadly the cricket festival has been deemed surplus to requirements, a complete irrelevance and something Chelmsford may do rather better than Ilford. In the old days Essex cricket club would regularly patronise the richly green pastures of Valentines Park but now the ground, to all outward appearances, is now an empty shell.
But you would always peer through the hedges and the crown green bowling just to catch a tantalising glimpse of Keith Fletcher and John Lever at their very best. It was England at her most restful and sedate, full of decorum and utter contentment. Maybe this was always the way Valentines Park had done things. The other Valentines Park cricket strip almost seemed like a forgotten piece of land where once the summer game had been celebrated and feted unashamedly.
Still the tennis courts have never been spoilt or affected by time. There were no umpires, no sets, no 15-30 nor was there a game that was finely poised at 4-4 and little in the way of competitive intensity. Oh yes there were no strawberries, ivy clad walls, Wimbledon hysteria and no Pimms. But there was something delightfully amateurish about the Valentines Park tennis courts that induced a good deal of mirth and private chuckling. There was nothing drastically wrong with the court but there were obvious faults and drawbacks that have yet to be rectified.
Most of the ground is embarrassingly cracked and the fault lines seemed to be zig zagged across the whole of the court. The nets seemed to be drooping almost apologetically and almost resigned to their fate in life. Large netting around the court looked moderately secure but there were moments when you wondered where players wayward shots would unexpectedly end up. There were no ball boys and this morning the whole of Valentines Park looked remarkably like a bird sanctuary.
Where ever I went huge blackbirds, crows and what looked like ravens had taken up occupation of the green fields. They were everywhere, proudly positioned next to their favourite trees and carefully observing the land with inquisitive stares, always in search of food. In fact it seemed to me that they were actually watching me and I couldn't help but feel ever so slightly self conscious. It looked as if they were almost determined to spend as long as they liked in one area of the park. Nothing would budge them and it was intriguing to note that they hadn't asked for permission and nobody had told them to keep off the grass which I once found so baffling.
So it was that the morning had passed off peacefully at Valentines Park and all was well. Next to the cafe is a thriving exercise park. How good it was to see that the local residents were doing their level best to keep fit, pulling and lifting light weights, cycling and pedalling up and down in bizarre looking cycling machines, leisurely jogging on small running machines. The modern health and fitness craze had broken out in Ilford and was here to stay which has to be a good thing.
I began to look round at the sheer wonder and magic of Mother Nature. The trees in thick green outcrops were furiously swaying and shaking in almost unseasonal strong winds. It was one of those blustery days of early June when the wind seemed to get its seasons mixed up. But my mind and reflective thought processes went back in time to that amazing summer of 1976 when the heat seemed to last indefinitely, the grass had been completely replaced by dust patches and everybody used that charming pitch and putt golf course, a course so small that you would hardly have noticed it on any other occasion. Oh Itchycoo Park. Was that really written on the swings and roundabouts of Valentines Park or maybe the Small Faces were just paying their own personal tribute to the glories of Valentines Park. In a sense you can hardly blame them.
During the 1960s The Small Faces, one of those Hippy Hippy Shake, far out, groovy and right on pop music bands, produced, or allegedly, a record called Itchycoo Park, one of the many pieces of pop experimentation and cool innovation so popular at the time. Throughout Itchycoo Park voices fade in and out spookily with varying degrees of frequency and the sound is one that somehow exemplified the music revolution that Britain was undergoing. Drums and guitars were given the full pyschedelic treatment and a nation marvelled at what sounded like echoing musical instruments with strange backing tracks.
But Itchycoo Park, as legend would have it, was written as a tribute to Valentines Park in Ilford or maybe it wasn't. Some maintain that it was Victoria Park in Hackney, East London or maybe it was one of London's more famous parks such as London's Hyde Park. But I'd like to think that it was my childhood park of Valentines in Ilford. Yes Valentines Park wins by a considerable margin, hands down by some distance but I'm open to debate. It could be that bias has once again intervened and favouritism has won the day after all.
So what about Valentines Park? Today I made my one of my increasingly frequent revisits to the suburb where childhood memories still take me on a multiplicity of journeys. It has to be said that Valentines Park looks much the same as it's always looked. Isn't it strange how some of our favourite places never change over the years? It could be that everything seems to be in the same place that it's always been and time has not withered anything. It is easy to see the things that you fell in love with as a child are now seen in an identical perspective because essentially there is a lovely timelessness about it.
The park is the prettiest tapestry of huge, domineering trees, vast bushlands, narrow streams, beautiful boating lakes, a Weeping Willow sobbing its heart out and then perhaps crying with laughter at the sheer absurdity of the political system. There are those two richly green strips that host frequent games of crown green bowls. Here men and women gently roll a black bowling ball with all the grace and effortless ease they can muster during the summer.
But Valentines Park is one vast walking paradise, acres of long, meandering pathways that lead to wherever you want them to go. Then you reach the Valentines Park cafe which, for as long as I can remember, has always been there. The one fond memory takes me wondrously back to the summer of 1976 when the cafe became a huge tourist rendezvous although that may be a slight exaggeration. The summer of 67 may well have been the summer of love but once you'd changed the numbers around the summer of 76 became one long swimming marathon.
From early morning to the early evening hours Ilford was suddenly converted into one of the most popular and happiest of all parks. For one summer everybody seemed to turn up at the Valentines Park Lido. There may well have been other summers to match it but when the first rays of Mediterranean sun bounced ecstatically over the blue and white waters of the Lido everybody was infected by a remarkable sense of euphoria and freedom from the long, lingering darkness of winter. Oh the English weather. How I'm reluctant to join in with that topical and typical English discussion piece.
Rumour has it that Valentines Park was surrounded by squirrels. In a densely forested area of the park squirrels would occupy every bush, tree and hideaway that the park could provide the squirrels with. There was a sense that everybody had been taken hostage by these grey squirrels. There they would go, scurrying, scampering, nibbling, racing frenetically up and down branches as if determined to remain inconspicuous. If you were spotted running in that area you had to take your life in your hands because this was quite clearly dangerous territory for the human race.
And so I returned once again to Valentines Park, Sadly and most regrettably, the Lido is no longer there, years of neglect forcing the hand of Redbridge council. But even now you can hear the distant voices of children you grew up with, an explosion of enthusiasm, ear splitting screams that dominated the whole of Valentines Park for day after day.
I seem to remember hearing that one of the main reasons the Lido had been closed down was because two fatal accidents had left the local council with little alternative. But for most of the summer of 1976 the diving board and slide would enthrall enraptured teenagers. Families would lay blankets on the ground where picnics and ice creams would overtake the Lido for the whole sun kissed summer.
It hardly seems possible now but my generation just revelled in the electric atmosphere that seemed to light up this incredible amusement park. Unfortunately the slide and diving board had to be dismantled because one of the kids had died as a result of either the diving board or slide. But for one long, hot summer the Valentines Park Lido was the one place where tensions were released, inhibitions were dive bombed, you could be whoever you wanted to be and there were no boundaries. Or none that I could see.
All you could see was the gushing fountain, kids being whistled at by disapproving lifeguards, kids pushing the lifeguards patience to the limit. blue and white lockers with sopping wet towels on the door and swimming trunks that were just dripping with chlorine. Then large groups of rebellious kids would ignore the lifeguards, grab hold of one of their poor, unsuspecting mates and chuck them heartlessly into a freezing swimming pool that you felt sure had been filled with large ice cubes almost permanently.
Ah yes. The freezing Valentines Park outdoor swimming pool. Whose idea had it been to make absolutely sure that the temperature of the water would be so insufferably cold that it made swimming in it almost impossible? But we braved the elements and the kids, undeterred and undaunted, spent many an hour chasing each other into the water in a stubborn act of disobedience, almost militant in their refusal to behave themselves. The whole population of Ilford had now descended on the Lido and would not be moved.
Meanwhile for one serene week Valentines Park would hold its annual Essex cricket festival at the beginning of June. Once again and so sadly the cricket festival has been deemed surplus to requirements, a complete irrelevance and something Chelmsford may do rather better than Ilford. In the old days Essex cricket club would regularly patronise the richly green pastures of Valentines Park but now the ground, to all outward appearances, is now an empty shell.
But you would always peer through the hedges and the crown green bowling just to catch a tantalising glimpse of Keith Fletcher and John Lever at their very best. It was England at her most restful and sedate, full of decorum and utter contentment. Maybe this was always the way Valentines Park had done things. The other Valentines Park cricket strip almost seemed like a forgotten piece of land where once the summer game had been celebrated and feted unashamedly.
Still the tennis courts have never been spoilt or affected by time. There were no umpires, no sets, no 15-30 nor was there a game that was finely poised at 4-4 and little in the way of competitive intensity. Oh yes there were no strawberries, ivy clad walls, Wimbledon hysteria and no Pimms. But there was something delightfully amateurish about the Valentines Park tennis courts that induced a good deal of mirth and private chuckling. There was nothing drastically wrong with the court but there were obvious faults and drawbacks that have yet to be rectified.
Most of the ground is embarrassingly cracked and the fault lines seemed to be zig zagged across the whole of the court. The nets seemed to be drooping almost apologetically and almost resigned to their fate in life. Large netting around the court looked moderately secure but there were moments when you wondered where players wayward shots would unexpectedly end up. There were no ball boys and this morning the whole of Valentines Park looked remarkably like a bird sanctuary.
Where ever I went huge blackbirds, crows and what looked like ravens had taken up occupation of the green fields. They were everywhere, proudly positioned next to their favourite trees and carefully observing the land with inquisitive stares, always in search of food. In fact it seemed to me that they were actually watching me and I couldn't help but feel ever so slightly self conscious. It looked as if they were almost determined to spend as long as they liked in one area of the park. Nothing would budge them and it was intriguing to note that they hadn't asked for permission and nobody had told them to keep off the grass which I once found so baffling.
So it was that the morning had passed off peacefully at Valentines Park and all was well. Next to the cafe is a thriving exercise park. How good it was to see that the local residents were doing their level best to keep fit, pulling and lifting light weights, cycling and pedalling up and down in bizarre looking cycling machines, leisurely jogging on small running machines. The modern health and fitness craze had broken out in Ilford and was here to stay which has to be a good thing.
I began to look round at the sheer wonder and magic of Mother Nature. The trees in thick green outcrops were furiously swaying and shaking in almost unseasonal strong winds. It was one of those blustery days of early June when the wind seemed to get its seasons mixed up. But my mind and reflective thought processes went back in time to that amazing summer of 1976 when the heat seemed to last indefinitely, the grass had been completely replaced by dust patches and everybody used that charming pitch and putt golf course, a course so small that you would hardly have noticed it on any other occasion. Oh Itchycoo Park. Was that really written on the swings and roundabouts of Valentines Park or maybe the Small Faces were just paying their own personal tribute to the glories of Valentines Park. In a sense you can hardly blame them.
Saturday, 10 June 2017
Scotland- England World Cup qualifier at Hampden - a brief history of the great and good game which finally produced the goods.
Scotland- England another football battle - World Cup qaulifier- 15 minutes of magic and mayhem.
The Hampden Park roar was at its most ferocious. For a few fleeting seconds Scotland were within joyful distance of a famous victory over their most famous foes England. Scotland could almost smell the sweetest of victories over the international team they've come to despise and I'm not talking about Gibraltar. It may be that Scotland will always hate each other at football for ever more and they'll always think they're superior to each other but how can we ever resist the temptation to blow the proverbial raspberries at each other. It is one of the most lovably silly of all rivalries and long may it stay that way.
Scotland's fiercest adversaries and villains of the piece are their next door neighbours from over Hadrian's Wall England. And then as if by a cruel twist of fate Harry Kane, Spurs devastating striker, ghosted into the Scottish penalty box and in much the manner of a Martin Peters, steered the ball comfortably into the Scottish net for England's second half second equaliser. Your heart was in tatters and yet if you were English you were probably blowing out your cheeks in sheer relief.
Deep in the heart of Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee and all of those very welcoming cities with their hospitable pubs they'll be throwing down huge quantities of the amber nectar, beers and lagers will be wildly and wantonly swallowed and a thousand emotions will be expressed. It is easy to imagine that heartache, grief and a terrible sense of loss may well be some of the predominant emotions but for Scotland this was neither pretty nor was it palatable. The game ended in a draw but it could have been very different had it not been for Harry Kane's late, last gasp equaliser.
With the game in its last gasp stages Scottish hearts and fans were baying for English blood, smiling sadistically at English football supporters for whom victory over their cross border neighbours has almost become second nature. But this was oh so close, tantalisingly close but just beyond Scotland's reach. Scotland must have thought, for a couple of magical minutes that, finally, after years of humiliation that their time had come and it was their turn to stick the proverbial two fingers up at the English.
Sport has always been tribal, territorial and proprietorial but this would have been such a landmark victory for Scotland over England, a special and historic moment for all kinds of reasons. Besides Scotland were hoping to mark the 50th anniversary of their Home International Championship victory against England when a 3-2 win for the Scots must have felt like the Battle of Bannockburn and Culledon revisited.
It was the year after England's unforgettable World Cup Final victory against West Germany and even now with the benefit of hindsight it still feels that Scotland's victory against Wembley in 1967 was nothing more than the resolution of a personal argument, a grudge match where very little mattered apart from gloating rights. That day Scotland must have felt like a million dollars, revenge and retribution meaning much more to Scotland than England. Still it did give the Scots something to dine out on for the next 10 or 20 years so in the end everybody was happy one way or the other.
Of course back in those now very far off days of 1967 Scottish football seem to be experiencing one of its happiest and most pleasurable of eras. Celtic, under the wise, far sighted and enormously revered Jock Stein had just won the European Cup in Lisbon and the Lisbon Lions of Bobby Murdoch, Tommy Gemmell and Bertie Auld were conquering, steamrolling and trampling over the very best that Europe had to offer.
It took another seven years for Scotland to give even a passable imitation of those marvellous Celtic days. First Willie Ormond, the businesslike and straight talking Scotland manager, gave us the wonderful Leeds dynamic trio of Peter Lorimer, Joe Jordan and Billy Bremner. In 1974 Scotland, after three group matches, singularly embarrassed themselves then briefly came good but not for long. Their laboured 2-0 victory over a horribly naive Zaire side was followed by partial redemption against Yugoslavia in a brave 1-1 draw. But then there followed a stale goal-less draw with Brazil and Scotland were out of the 1974 World Cup in Germany.
Then there was the equally as disastrous and shameful World Cup exit in Argentina 1978. It was the World Cup where Scotland manager Ally Mcleod visibly crumpled in front of our eyes, first scowling and then folding his hands over his eyes self consciously before burying his head in desperation and utter dejection. That year Scotland would produce three of their most creative of midfield playmakers in a manner that somehow seemed out of character for Scottish football.
Don Masson, of QPR, was a beautifully balanced player with excellent close ball control, a delicately delivered passing range and a superb eye for goal into the bargain. Archie Gemmill was about to win two consecutive old First Division championships with Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest. Gemmill was permanently busy, always on the move, tireless, tigerish in the tackle, full of enthusiasm and happily prepared to sacrifice everything in the cause of victory. Gemmell kept running and running until it was physically impossible to run any further. Gemmell was Scotland's steam engine, a vigorous presence in the heart of Scotland's midfield, scheming, hunting, forever creating lucrative openings.
Throughout the 1970s Scotland took us on a kind of nostalgic roller coaster ride. During the 1960s they'd given us bountiful talents such as Bobby Murdoch and Tommy Gemmell. Then ten years later Asa Hartford would give Scottish football a healthy injection of craft, cunning, wisdom and more measured passing. Hartford loved to hold possession of the ball, a magisterial influence, a radical visionary who could also give the Scots a fair ration of blood, sweat and tears.
When Bruce Rioch made the step up to international football as a Derby County player, Scotland had finally found its finest orchestrator, its fourth gear, its gentle braking power and then a large dose of cultured beauty. Rioch was straight backed, well proportioned, full of grace and poise with a vicious free kick and shot in his extensive repertoire. He would later become, albeit briefly, Arsenal manager before the golden years of Arsene Wenger.
And of course there were the Scottish strikers Denis Law and then the extraordinary Kenny Dalglish a striker who must scored goals for fun both firstly Celtic, his boyhood team, then profitably and handsomely for Liverpool. Both Law and Dalglish were goal scoring machines with a natural capacity for scoring goals on all occasions.
Law began his celebrated career at Huddersfield Town before Sir Matt Busby came calling at Manchester United and the rest, to quote a cliche, is history. Law, once bitten by the goal scoring bug just helped himself to a gourmet of goals, feasting hungrily on goals from both head and feet. At United Law simply blossomed like a blushing red rose, scoring goals as if by instinct and intuition.
And so we find ourselves at the present day Scotland team and a World Cup qualifier at Hampden Park. The game itself finished in an honourable 2-2 draw but could have ended up on a much more sour note for both England and Scotland. For much of the game the Scottish fans were almost resigned to their fate because realistically the game itself in Scotland has barely registered as a force for a distressing period of time.
Still deep in the heart of Glasgow the streets were well and truly alive with alcohol, breezy, buoyant spirits and splendid gallows humour. There was a cheerful humour followed closely by tear jerking songs and lively poetry from the good books of Rabbie Burns, undoubtedly a sharp scent of whisky from the Hampden terraces and men wearing tartan kilts who are just addicted to football regardless of Scotland's status within the international game.
Over the years we've grown used to that salty Scottish wit, its bristling passion , the acceptance of mediocrity and the celebration of great occasions.But there remains a hard flintiness, an inner steel and iron about the Scottish footballing constitution, once typified by Sir Alex Ferguson, Jock Stein and Bill Shankly, Scotsmen of the finest stock with a lust for life and an enduring affection for the Beatiful Game.
So what did we get today. There was Scotland manager Gordon Strachan who once again did exactly the same thing as he did at Wembley last November. When Harry Kane equalised for England with the last kick of the game at Hampden, Strachan melted our hearts once again. This game of football is just a wicked conspiracy out to get you. When the final whistle blew Strachan furiously threw his bottle of water onto the ground and your sympathies were real and true. Why do the scales of justice always have to swing away from you? Why poor Gordon Strachan? It had to be him. Why couldn't they have picked on England manager Gareth Southgate. It really isn't fair and can he be left alone now. He deserves his privacy and time for reflection.
Throughout this game Strachan once again patrolled the Hampden Park dug out like a man searching for a tenner and then finding himself with just a handful of loose change. He sat patiently in his seat, occasionally bobbing up and down and then just slumping back down again, restless, fidgety and impatient, somehow wishing that something would turn up. But then he sat back down again and again before staring across at a distant gull perched perkily on a Hampden Park rooftop. One of these days Scotland will beat England and then Scotland will have its most uproarious Hogmany and Happy New Year. Does anybody understand Gordon Strachan's ambition. It will happen one day.
In his navy and yellow tie, bright shirt and perfectly fitting suit Strachan looked like a City financier waiting for a train. pacing the touchline, checking something and then holding up his fingers in case one of his players had noticed something that he hadn't. It all seemed very awkward and unsightly at times, a man who looked as if he'd have much preferred to spend an afternoon in June fly fishing by a remote Scottish river bank.
After a dreadfully dire and boring first half, both Scotland and England gradually awoke from their early summer slumber in the second half. The first half itself seemed to be teetering on the brink ready to be condemned as the worst international football match of all time. None of the afternoon's participants had even looked likely to construct a fluid and cohesive attack of any value and for long periods both sides looked sluggish, sloppy and frequently out of sorts.
We acknowledged once again that the football Premier League season had been a long, stamina sapping and gruelling slogfest. Those poor Premier League footballers with their luxurious residences, hundreds of thousands of pounds in their bank accounts and the most privileged of lifestyles, had been driven into the ground. It's been nine months of sheer pain, injuries, setbacks, all kinds of difficulties and you had to feel sorry for them. And yet how could they bring themselves to another 90 minutes of football when they could have been splashing about playfully on a Mediterranean beach.. Poor things. Poor bodies, weary athletes. Can we just enjoy our well deserved holiday.
For large passages of the first half England did look in cruise control. Eric Dier galloped up into attack as England's permanent holding midfielder and did hold England together in areas where Scotland might have profited. Dier is capable, commanding and unruffled in a crisis, He was all solidity, firmness and re-assuring authority. Then Kyle Walker, seemingly destined for Manchester City. continued to look one of the fittest and fastest players in today's red England shirt, sprinting down the flanks with power and controlled aggression. There was Chris Smalling of Manchester United slowly emerging as a player of international pedigree, carefully judging his moments to attack and reading Scottish attackers minds like a well thumbed novel.
In attack itself Adam Lallana, the Liverpool midfield busybody, was once again hurrying and harrying here and there, applying the neatest of touches, a player who places great store on the accuracy of his passing and the ferocity of his tackling. Lallana is whole hearted, purposeful and vastly intelligent. He is both shrewd, perceptive, correct and the most beneficial of influences. Once again Lallana did everything calmly and properly without losing his sense of position. The jury may be out on Jake Livermore, a player still a work in progress and maturity for England at England level may take some time.
Up front the new England captain Harry Kane performed creditably and may find that the terrible responsibility of leadership and skippering England too much of a burden. Still Kane always looked dangerous and there was a hovering, brooding air about him that had menace in every movement he made. Kane challenged, bustled, hustled for every ball but until that final vital equaliser didn't really connect or liaise with those around him. But Kane will score goals for both club and country and although marked out of today's game and anonymous, does look the real deal for England. It is easy to assume that Wayne Rooney's successor has very little to worry about. Kane is a lethal goal scorer and may well break the record of both Rooney and Bobby Charlton in years to come.
As for Scotland well the less said the better. Scotland look just a ragged hotch potch, a higgledy piggledly assortment of the ordinary and very bland. This may sound like excessively harsh criticism but the truth is that at Scottish club level, the structure is a very basic one with not a great deal of substance in between.For years and years, season after season Celtic have been the all powerful and perhaps only club in Scottish football with no other contenders of note.
This year Celtic matched Arsenal's feats by remaining unbeaten in the Scottish Premier League and eventually won it by a laughable number of points. It is hard to make any constructive suggestions about club football in Scotland but perhaps the investment in proper coaching and the nurturing of good young players could be the answer to Scotland;s problems. If only Scotland could once again rely on a hardcore of homegrown players at Aberdeen, Hearts, Rangers, Dundee and Dundee United then maybe recovery could be on the horizon sooner rather than later.
Occasionally you could see the seeds of regrowth particularly when Celtic's Kieran Tierney and the captain Scott Brown began to impose themselves on the game. Brown, certainly looks a player of great promise and controlled Scotland's midfield when England allowed him to. His brilliant scoring free kicks right at the end made him one of Scotland's most bejewelled of attackers. Stuart Armstrong, also of Celtic, looked energetic, strong and direct while Leigh Griffiths remains one of the best footballers in Scotland of modern times, whole - hearted, at times extremely imaginative on the ball and eager to please. Celtic have clearly found more gems in their collection and maybe that 50 year anniversary has done them the world of good.
And so Gordon Strachan with his blond hair and boundlessly emotional involvement in the game, gave his England counterpart Gareth Southgate a courteous hug and the Hampden roar faded into an early Glasgow evening. The Southgate waistcoat or, quite possibly cardigan was firmly pressed by Strachan. It was time to hit the pubs and clubs of Glasgow, time to drown sorrows perhaps or just reflect on one of the oldest games in international football. How football looks forward to its Scotland- England footballing battles.
There may well be a few Scottish hangovers tomorrow morning but maybe football wouldn't have it any other way. Now I wonder what happened to Nicola Sturgeon or maybe Alex Salmon could offer a few well chosen words. But it's only football and to quote the great Bill Shankly, another immortal Scot, there are few things that are more important
The Hampden Park roar was at its most ferocious. For a few fleeting seconds Scotland were within joyful distance of a famous victory over their most famous foes England. Scotland could almost smell the sweetest of victories over the international team they've come to despise and I'm not talking about Gibraltar. It may be that Scotland will always hate each other at football for ever more and they'll always think they're superior to each other but how can we ever resist the temptation to blow the proverbial raspberries at each other. It is one of the most lovably silly of all rivalries and long may it stay that way.
Scotland's fiercest adversaries and villains of the piece are their next door neighbours from over Hadrian's Wall England. And then as if by a cruel twist of fate Harry Kane, Spurs devastating striker, ghosted into the Scottish penalty box and in much the manner of a Martin Peters, steered the ball comfortably into the Scottish net for England's second half second equaliser. Your heart was in tatters and yet if you were English you were probably blowing out your cheeks in sheer relief.
Deep in the heart of Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee and all of those very welcoming cities with their hospitable pubs they'll be throwing down huge quantities of the amber nectar, beers and lagers will be wildly and wantonly swallowed and a thousand emotions will be expressed. It is easy to imagine that heartache, grief and a terrible sense of loss may well be some of the predominant emotions but for Scotland this was neither pretty nor was it palatable. The game ended in a draw but it could have been very different had it not been for Harry Kane's late, last gasp equaliser.
With the game in its last gasp stages Scottish hearts and fans were baying for English blood, smiling sadistically at English football supporters for whom victory over their cross border neighbours has almost become second nature. But this was oh so close, tantalisingly close but just beyond Scotland's reach. Scotland must have thought, for a couple of magical minutes that, finally, after years of humiliation that their time had come and it was their turn to stick the proverbial two fingers up at the English.
Sport has always been tribal, territorial and proprietorial but this would have been such a landmark victory for Scotland over England, a special and historic moment for all kinds of reasons. Besides Scotland were hoping to mark the 50th anniversary of their Home International Championship victory against England when a 3-2 win for the Scots must have felt like the Battle of Bannockburn and Culledon revisited.
It was the year after England's unforgettable World Cup Final victory against West Germany and even now with the benefit of hindsight it still feels that Scotland's victory against Wembley in 1967 was nothing more than the resolution of a personal argument, a grudge match where very little mattered apart from gloating rights. That day Scotland must have felt like a million dollars, revenge and retribution meaning much more to Scotland than England. Still it did give the Scots something to dine out on for the next 10 or 20 years so in the end everybody was happy one way or the other.
Of course back in those now very far off days of 1967 Scottish football seem to be experiencing one of its happiest and most pleasurable of eras. Celtic, under the wise, far sighted and enormously revered Jock Stein had just won the European Cup in Lisbon and the Lisbon Lions of Bobby Murdoch, Tommy Gemmell and Bertie Auld were conquering, steamrolling and trampling over the very best that Europe had to offer.
It took another seven years for Scotland to give even a passable imitation of those marvellous Celtic days. First Willie Ormond, the businesslike and straight talking Scotland manager, gave us the wonderful Leeds dynamic trio of Peter Lorimer, Joe Jordan and Billy Bremner. In 1974 Scotland, after three group matches, singularly embarrassed themselves then briefly came good but not for long. Their laboured 2-0 victory over a horribly naive Zaire side was followed by partial redemption against Yugoslavia in a brave 1-1 draw. But then there followed a stale goal-less draw with Brazil and Scotland were out of the 1974 World Cup in Germany.
Then there was the equally as disastrous and shameful World Cup exit in Argentina 1978. It was the World Cup where Scotland manager Ally Mcleod visibly crumpled in front of our eyes, first scowling and then folding his hands over his eyes self consciously before burying his head in desperation and utter dejection. That year Scotland would produce three of their most creative of midfield playmakers in a manner that somehow seemed out of character for Scottish football.
Don Masson, of QPR, was a beautifully balanced player with excellent close ball control, a delicately delivered passing range and a superb eye for goal into the bargain. Archie Gemmill was about to win two consecutive old First Division championships with Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest. Gemmill was permanently busy, always on the move, tireless, tigerish in the tackle, full of enthusiasm and happily prepared to sacrifice everything in the cause of victory. Gemmell kept running and running until it was physically impossible to run any further. Gemmell was Scotland's steam engine, a vigorous presence in the heart of Scotland's midfield, scheming, hunting, forever creating lucrative openings.
Throughout the 1970s Scotland took us on a kind of nostalgic roller coaster ride. During the 1960s they'd given us bountiful talents such as Bobby Murdoch and Tommy Gemmell. Then ten years later Asa Hartford would give Scottish football a healthy injection of craft, cunning, wisdom and more measured passing. Hartford loved to hold possession of the ball, a magisterial influence, a radical visionary who could also give the Scots a fair ration of blood, sweat and tears.
When Bruce Rioch made the step up to international football as a Derby County player, Scotland had finally found its finest orchestrator, its fourth gear, its gentle braking power and then a large dose of cultured beauty. Rioch was straight backed, well proportioned, full of grace and poise with a vicious free kick and shot in his extensive repertoire. He would later become, albeit briefly, Arsenal manager before the golden years of Arsene Wenger.
And of course there were the Scottish strikers Denis Law and then the extraordinary Kenny Dalglish a striker who must scored goals for fun both firstly Celtic, his boyhood team, then profitably and handsomely for Liverpool. Both Law and Dalglish were goal scoring machines with a natural capacity for scoring goals on all occasions.
Law began his celebrated career at Huddersfield Town before Sir Matt Busby came calling at Manchester United and the rest, to quote a cliche, is history. Law, once bitten by the goal scoring bug just helped himself to a gourmet of goals, feasting hungrily on goals from both head and feet. At United Law simply blossomed like a blushing red rose, scoring goals as if by instinct and intuition.
And so we find ourselves at the present day Scotland team and a World Cup qualifier at Hampden Park. The game itself finished in an honourable 2-2 draw but could have ended up on a much more sour note for both England and Scotland. For much of the game the Scottish fans were almost resigned to their fate because realistically the game itself in Scotland has barely registered as a force for a distressing period of time.
Still deep in the heart of Glasgow the streets were well and truly alive with alcohol, breezy, buoyant spirits and splendid gallows humour. There was a cheerful humour followed closely by tear jerking songs and lively poetry from the good books of Rabbie Burns, undoubtedly a sharp scent of whisky from the Hampden terraces and men wearing tartan kilts who are just addicted to football regardless of Scotland's status within the international game.
Over the years we've grown used to that salty Scottish wit, its bristling passion , the acceptance of mediocrity and the celebration of great occasions.But there remains a hard flintiness, an inner steel and iron about the Scottish footballing constitution, once typified by Sir Alex Ferguson, Jock Stein and Bill Shankly, Scotsmen of the finest stock with a lust for life and an enduring affection for the Beatiful Game.
So what did we get today. There was Scotland manager Gordon Strachan who once again did exactly the same thing as he did at Wembley last November. When Harry Kane equalised for England with the last kick of the game at Hampden, Strachan melted our hearts once again. This game of football is just a wicked conspiracy out to get you. When the final whistle blew Strachan furiously threw his bottle of water onto the ground and your sympathies were real and true. Why do the scales of justice always have to swing away from you? Why poor Gordon Strachan? It had to be him. Why couldn't they have picked on England manager Gareth Southgate. It really isn't fair and can he be left alone now. He deserves his privacy and time for reflection.
Throughout this game Strachan once again patrolled the Hampden Park dug out like a man searching for a tenner and then finding himself with just a handful of loose change. He sat patiently in his seat, occasionally bobbing up and down and then just slumping back down again, restless, fidgety and impatient, somehow wishing that something would turn up. But then he sat back down again and again before staring across at a distant gull perched perkily on a Hampden Park rooftop. One of these days Scotland will beat England and then Scotland will have its most uproarious Hogmany and Happy New Year. Does anybody understand Gordon Strachan's ambition. It will happen one day.
In his navy and yellow tie, bright shirt and perfectly fitting suit Strachan looked like a City financier waiting for a train. pacing the touchline, checking something and then holding up his fingers in case one of his players had noticed something that he hadn't. It all seemed very awkward and unsightly at times, a man who looked as if he'd have much preferred to spend an afternoon in June fly fishing by a remote Scottish river bank.
After a dreadfully dire and boring first half, both Scotland and England gradually awoke from their early summer slumber in the second half. The first half itself seemed to be teetering on the brink ready to be condemned as the worst international football match of all time. None of the afternoon's participants had even looked likely to construct a fluid and cohesive attack of any value and for long periods both sides looked sluggish, sloppy and frequently out of sorts.
We acknowledged once again that the football Premier League season had been a long, stamina sapping and gruelling slogfest. Those poor Premier League footballers with their luxurious residences, hundreds of thousands of pounds in their bank accounts and the most privileged of lifestyles, had been driven into the ground. It's been nine months of sheer pain, injuries, setbacks, all kinds of difficulties and you had to feel sorry for them. And yet how could they bring themselves to another 90 minutes of football when they could have been splashing about playfully on a Mediterranean beach.. Poor things. Poor bodies, weary athletes. Can we just enjoy our well deserved holiday.
For large passages of the first half England did look in cruise control. Eric Dier galloped up into attack as England's permanent holding midfielder and did hold England together in areas where Scotland might have profited. Dier is capable, commanding and unruffled in a crisis, He was all solidity, firmness and re-assuring authority. Then Kyle Walker, seemingly destined for Manchester City. continued to look one of the fittest and fastest players in today's red England shirt, sprinting down the flanks with power and controlled aggression. There was Chris Smalling of Manchester United slowly emerging as a player of international pedigree, carefully judging his moments to attack and reading Scottish attackers minds like a well thumbed novel.
In attack itself Adam Lallana, the Liverpool midfield busybody, was once again hurrying and harrying here and there, applying the neatest of touches, a player who places great store on the accuracy of his passing and the ferocity of his tackling. Lallana is whole hearted, purposeful and vastly intelligent. He is both shrewd, perceptive, correct and the most beneficial of influences. Once again Lallana did everything calmly and properly without losing his sense of position. The jury may be out on Jake Livermore, a player still a work in progress and maturity for England at England level may take some time.
Up front the new England captain Harry Kane performed creditably and may find that the terrible responsibility of leadership and skippering England too much of a burden. Still Kane always looked dangerous and there was a hovering, brooding air about him that had menace in every movement he made. Kane challenged, bustled, hustled for every ball but until that final vital equaliser didn't really connect or liaise with those around him. But Kane will score goals for both club and country and although marked out of today's game and anonymous, does look the real deal for England. It is easy to assume that Wayne Rooney's successor has very little to worry about. Kane is a lethal goal scorer and may well break the record of both Rooney and Bobby Charlton in years to come.
As for Scotland well the less said the better. Scotland look just a ragged hotch potch, a higgledy piggledly assortment of the ordinary and very bland. This may sound like excessively harsh criticism but the truth is that at Scottish club level, the structure is a very basic one with not a great deal of substance in between.For years and years, season after season Celtic have been the all powerful and perhaps only club in Scottish football with no other contenders of note.
This year Celtic matched Arsenal's feats by remaining unbeaten in the Scottish Premier League and eventually won it by a laughable number of points. It is hard to make any constructive suggestions about club football in Scotland but perhaps the investment in proper coaching and the nurturing of good young players could be the answer to Scotland;s problems. If only Scotland could once again rely on a hardcore of homegrown players at Aberdeen, Hearts, Rangers, Dundee and Dundee United then maybe recovery could be on the horizon sooner rather than later.
Occasionally you could see the seeds of regrowth particularly when Celtic's Kieran Tierney and the captain Scott Brown began to impose themselves on the game. Brown, certainly looks a player of great promise and controlled Scotland's midfield when England allowed him to. His brilliant scoring free kicks right at the end made him one of Scotland's most bejewelled of attackers. Stuart Armstrong, also of Celtic, looked energetic, strong and direct while Leigh Griffiths remains one of the best footballers in Scotland of modern times, whole - hearted, at times extremely imaginative on the ball and eager to please. Celtic have clearly found more gems in their collection and maybe that 50 year anniversary has done them the world of good.
And so Gordon Strachan with his blond hair and boundlessly emotional involvement in the game, gave his England counterpart Gareth Southgate a courteous hug and the Hampden roar faded into an early Glasgow evening. The Southgate waistcoat or, quite possibly cardigan was firmly pressed by Strachan. It was time to hit the pubs and clubs of Glasgow, time to drown sorrows perhaps or just reflect on one of the oldest games in international football. How football looks forward to its Scotland- England footballing battles.
There may well be a few Scottish hangovers tomorrow morning but maybe football wouldn't have it any other way. Now I wonder what happened to Nicola Sturgeon or maybe Alex Salmon could offer a few well chosen words. But it's only football and to quote the great Bill Shankly, another immortal Scot, there are few things that are more important
Thursday, 8 June 2017
Oh happy days- It's time to vote for the next Prime Minister again.
Oh happy days- it's time to vote for the next Prime Minister again.
Aha! Are we ready? How many times do we have to go through this democratic process? At times you begin to wonder whether it's deliberate and intentional. Not that I've any personal objection to the very concept of a General Election. It is though such a loathsome ordeal. It's this desperate plea for approval, this anguished need for attention, this massaging of a hundred egos, this relentless journey around the back streets and roads of Britain, this bellowing, bawling shouting match, the yaboo sucks mentality, this deafening cacophony of a thousand voices from a thousand vans.
It is this pathetic intrusion into our souls, the shouting and caterwauling, the acoustic artillery that just goes on and on. It is General Election day and by this evening, the whole of Britain may be heartily sick of voting, unbearably confrontational politics and all of those annoyingly persuasive words that just sound so hollow, contrived and stage managed that maybe the whole schedule should be changed, perhaps to an all night quiz show or a whole night devoted to reality TV. On second thoughts I think I'd rather watch the General Election. Or maybe I'm just a crusty, crotchety cynic who just doesn't care anymore. But I do care passionately and I have voted and to be honest you'll never know just how good it felt.
So how are you doing at the moment? Are you experiencing election battle fatigue or are you looking forward to tomorrow morning when all this fuss and commotion is over? Maybe then we can all just pull a veil over everything that is argumentative, controversial and contentious. Maybe then we can eat our breakfast, tea, lunch and dinner without being told what to do later on this evening. Maybe then we can take our ear plugs out of our ears and listen to something altogether more pleasant, relaxing and amusing.
At the moment you're reminded of one of those ugly bear pits, where political parties of all colours spend all of their time scratching each other's eyes, pulling each other's hair out and struggling to be heard above the maddening maelstrom of chattering, bickering and quarrelling. If this is democracy at work then maybe we should just switch off our TV's and radios, read a good book or listen to our cherished collection of vinyl records. Because quite frankly those pestering politicians are undermining our intelligence, blatantly blackmailing us and, it has to be said, driven us crazy. When will it ever end but it will and by tomorrow morning most of us will be back where we before the General Election.
And yet the continuous background noises keep rumbling on. At the moment the BBC's highly esteemed and seasoned political commentator David Dimbleby is getting in some much needed shut eye. Or at least I think he is. How else to explain the stamina, endurance and durability of this remarkable man? Every five years Dimbleby is contracted to stay up all night in his studio trying to make sense of the one night of the year which fails to do so quite miserably and yet your heart goes out to a man who looks like a teacher trying helplessly to keep their classroom quiet.
But this election is different for Dimbleby because this time a General Election has caught him out. This was a snap election and this one must have left him cruelly under prepared. Now it may be that all of our great TV presenters and broadcasters must have an internal mechanism whereby if something of note does happen in the country they can still ad lib or improvise or just remain coolly professional when everybody else may be losing their head.
Poor David. Do you think he knew that at any given moment that Theresa May would just suddenly announce a General Election? You'd have thought that May would have given Dimbleby shorter notice than that because quite clearly he's been caught on the hop. There were no warnings, no serious announcements from 10 Downing Street and nothing to suggest that a wild evening of political conflict, full on engagement and non stop dialogue would be thrown upon us out of the blue. There were no adequate explanations and nobody knew. Or maybe they did and the nation were taken by complete surprise.
Still I'm sure Mr Dimbleby will look his impeccable best tonight under the powerful glare of the BBC cameras. It won't be easy and even now he may well be rehearsing his lines, limbering up mentally, straightening his shirt and tie and then taking deep breaths. How he must dread this one night of the year. It is the most daunting of all assignments but one he always seems to handle with the most assured aplomb.
Every week on Question Time, Dimbleby ploughs his way through an arduous hour of finger pointing, name calling, childish vindictiveness and that incessant barrage of hostility that is the programme's premise or seemingly so. Every week he sits there like a High Court judge without the wig, gently presiding over political ping pong, as tempers fray, emotions reach boiling point without quite pouring over and then there is a general TV discussion that never seems to get anywhere.
The Dimbleby face is rather a sad and drained one. Every Thursday there is a pasty faced, whiter than white look, white as a sheet or ghost, eyes hooded and haunted looking, cheeks puffy, a wan and forlorn man who looks as though he hasn't seen a bed for quite a while. You find yourself consumed with admiration for him because quite clearly here is a man who gives his life unstintingly and devotedly to the kind of TV programme that anybody else would simply ignore with a barge pole. Who would be some neutral go between in a political clash of the Titans and then point a despairing finger at the audience as if he'd rather be a million miles away from a BBC studio.
So there you have it folks. It's time to roll up for that great piece of TV grandstanding, showboating and just a little nonsensical tomfoolery. The impartial among us will miss the Peter Snow swingometer, Robin Day's bow tie and those moments in the studio when all the communication goes haywire which it still does but not with the same frequency.
This year Jeremy Vine will be responsible for all of those wizzy, busy graphics with their blocks of votes, percentages, swings to the right, swings to the right and the swings that go right up into the air and land on the roundabouts. Oh what a bizarre evening it is. Oh for the complexities of the Election night, the whole Brexit saga of varying textures such as soft and hard Brexit. Are any of us more enlightened than we were before? It may be advisable to put the kettle on at regular intervals and just order several deliveries of pizza. It could be a very long night. Now let me see. I wonder what the likes of Disraeli or Gladstone would have made of the modern game of political charades? Mind you I'm sure I saw their Twitter accounts recently.
Aha! Are we ready? How many times do we have to go through this democratic process? At times you begin to wonder whether it's deliberate and intentional. Not that I've any personal objection to the very concept of a General Election. It is though such a loathsome ordeal. It's this desperate plea for approval, this anguished need for attention, this massaging of a hundred egos, this relentless journey around the back streets and roads of Britain, this bellowing, bawling shouting match, the yaboo sucks mentality, this deafening cacophony of a thousand voices from a thousand vans.
It is this pathetic intrusion into our souls, the shouting and caterwauling, the acoustic artillery that just goes on and on. It is General Election day and by this evening, the whole of Britain may be heartily sick of voting, unbearably confrontational politics and all of those annoyingly persuasive words that just sound so hollow, contrived and stage managed that maybe the whole schedule should be changed, perhaps to an all night quiz show or a whole night devoted to reality TV. On second thoughts I think I'd rather watch the General Election. Or maybe I'm just a crusty, crotchety cynic who just doesn't care anymore. But I do care passionately and I have voted and to be honest you'll never know just how good it felt.
So how are you doing at the moment? Are you experiencing election battle fatigue or are you looking forward to tomorrow morning when all this fuss and commotion is over? Maybe then we can all just pull a veil over everything that is argumentative, controversial and contentious. Maybe then we can eat our breakfast, tea, lunch and dinner without being told what to do later on this evening. Maybe then we can take our ear plugs out of our ears and listen to something altogether more pleasant, relaxing and amusing.
At the moment you're reminded of one of those ugly bear pits, where political parties of all colours spend all of their time scratching each other's eyes, pulling each other's hair out and struggling to be heard above the maddening maelstrom of chattering, bickering and quarrelling. If this is democracy at work then maybe we should just switch off our TV's and radios, read a good book or listen to our cherished collection of vinyl records. Because quite frankly those pestering politicians are undermining our intelligence, blatantly blackmailing us and, it has to be said, driven us crazy. When will it ever end but it will and by tomorrow morning most of us will be back where we before the General Election.
And yet the continuous background noises keep rumbling on. At the moment the BBC's highly esteemed and seasoned political commentator David Dimbleby is getting in some much needed shut eye. Or at least I think he is. How else to explain the stamina, endurance and durability of this remarkable man? Every five years Dimbleby is contracted to stay up all night in his studio trying to make sense of the one night of the year which fails to do so quite miserably and yet your heart goes out to a man who looks like a teacher trying helplessly to keep their classroom quiet.
But this election is different for Dimbleby because this time a General Election has caught him out. This was a snap election and this one must have left him cruelly under prepared. Now it may be that all of our great TV presenters and broadcasters must have an internal mechanism whereby if something of note does happen in the country they can still ad lib or improvise or just remain coolly professional when everybody else may be losing their head.
Poor David. Do you think he knew that at any given moment that Theresa May would just suddenly announce a General Election? You'd have thought that May would have given Dimbleby shorter notice than that because quite clearly he's been caught on the hop. There were no warnings, no serious announcements from 10 Downing Street and nothing to suggest that a wild evening of political conflict, full on engagement and non stop dialogue would be thrown upon us out of the blue. There were no adequate explanations and nobody knew. Or maybe they did and the nation were taken by complete surprise.
Still I'm sure Mr Dimbleby will look his impeccable best tonight under the powerful glare of the BBC cameras. It won't be easy and even now he may well be rehearsing his lines, limbering up mentally, straightening his shirt and tie and then taking deep breaths. How he must dread this one night of the year. It is the most daunting of all assignments but one he always seems to handle with the most assured aplomb.
Every week on Question Time, Dimbleby ploughs his way through an arduous hour of finger pointing, name calling, childish vindictiveness and that incessant barrage of hostility that is the programme's premise or seemingly so. Every week he sits there like a High Court judge without the wig, gently presiding over political ping pong, as tempers fray, emotions reach boiling point without quite pouring over and then there is a general TV discussion that never seems to get anywhere.
The Dimbleby face is rather a sad and drained one. Every Thursday there is a pasty faced, whiter than white look, white as a sheet or ghost, eyes hooded and haunted looking, cheeks puffy, a wan and forlorn man who looks as though he hasn't seen a bed for quite a while. You find yourself consumed with admiration for him because quite clearly here is a man who gives his life unstintingly and devotedly to the kind of TV programme that anybody else would simply ignore with a barge pole. Who would be some neutral go between in a political clash of the Titans and then point a despairing finger at the audience as if he'd rather be a million miles away from a BBC studio.
So there you have it folks. It's time to roll up for that great piece of TV grandstanding, showboating and just a little nonsensical tomfoolery. The impartial among us will miss the Peter Snow swingometer, Robin Day's bow tie and those moments in the studio when all the communication goes haywire which it still does but not with the same frequency.
This year Jeremy Vine will be responsible for all of those wizzy, busy graphics with their blocks of votes, percentages, swings to the right, swings to the right and the swings that go right up into the air and land on the roundabouts. Oh what a bizarre evening it is. Oh for the complexities of the Election night, the whole Brexit saga of varying textures such as soft and hard Brexit. Are any of us more enlightened than we were before? It may be advisable to put the kettle on at regular intervals and just order several deliveries of pizza. It could be a very long night. Now let me see. I wonder what the likes of Disraeli or Gladstone would have made of the modern game of political charades? Mind you I'm sure I saw their Twitter accounts recently.
Tuesday, 6 June 2017
Is Theresa May the new Barbara Streisand? Three days and we can hardly wait for the General Election.
Is Theresa May the new Barbara Streisand? Three days and we can hardly wait for the General Election.
Well, I don't know about you but I can hardly wait. In fact I'm beginning to count down the hours, minutes, seconds. This is the one General Election that has everything going for it or maybe this is just a figment of my imagination. We are now days away from the big day and the finger nails are being bitten to the quick. The contenders and main protagonists are all fit, ready and raring to go. They've all undergone late fitness tests, passed their medicals and should be ready to make their entry into the lion's den at any time.
All of our fine, upstanding politicians are baying for each other's blood and can even now smell the scent of victory under their noses. We're close to the finishing line and all of the respective parties are within sight of the finishing line. If you were to listen to some of the experts then you'd have to admit that even Prime Minister Theresa May may have had one or two problems in recent days. The chances are though that all she'll have to do on Thursday is simply to turn up at her polling station, make one of those emphatic statements of intent and still win the General Election with something to spare.
But yesterday's rather baffling statement from our wonderful Prime Minister left most of us scratching our heads once again. In the light of the London terrorist outrage on Saturday night Theresa May gave us a very convincing impersonation of Barbara Streisand and Donna Summer. Yes folks Theresa felt that enough was enough and if this gets any worse she'll have to take decisive action. You really couldn't make it up.
Now I'm sure that, in the general scheme of things, May is passionately committed to world peace and will do her to utmost to sort everything out in due course. At the moment she seems to be faced with the unenviable task of calming nerves, readying her troops for action on Thursday and then scoring a political double hat-trick to emerge as Prime Minister on Friday morning.
And yet for all the understandable shock and horror of the last couple of days perhaps we needed to hear something stronger rather than something we already knew in the first place. In these crucial days leading up to a General Election she seems to responding to a crisis in much the way that helpless politicians have always reacted. You extend your condolences and sympathy to the family and friends who have tragically lost their lives, soothe fevered brows with a few well intentioned words and then insist that terrorists will never destroy us, the battle against terrorism will always be won and in the democratic free world, the great English public are full of guts, defiance and fortitude. Terrorists will never win the day and the public should just vote for the Tories on Thursday.
So it is that in the final few days we've heard the same track from the same album played and played until it gets terribly scratched and your favourite songs keep jumping on the turntable. All around us the central characters in these pre- Election days are almost emotionally torn, stating the obvious and then turning back to their original agenda of standing up on orange crates, blasting out their blather from their tannoy and just desperate for that last influential speech designed to send us into a deep sleep.
Yesterday the London mayor Sadiq Khan, a man of some intellectual weight but little in the way of variation in his pronouncements, spoke very forthrightly about Saturday night but then reminded you of that London tube train announcement. At any minute you half expected Khan to tell us to mind the gap or take a bottle of water in the hot weather. He stood in front of a London still in a state of mourning and quite naturally told Londoners not to panic and that those verminous terrorists would never win in any part of Britain. But Khan still sounded like a benevolent vicar conducting a particularly heartwarming sermon in front of his appreciative Sunday parishioners.
Then you know who had to make his contribution to this dreadful, global disease. Donald Trump couldn't wait to join in with this great heated debate. Trump, one of Twitter's finest representatives, had to make his voice heard as if anybody really cared. Trump went on record as saying that the London mayor hadn't a clue what he was doing and should seriously quit or just keep a very low profile since Londoners had no reason to believe his so called weasel words anyway. But none of us can really make head or tail of what exactly Trump is trying to tell us anyway. Answers on a postcard please.
But against this explosively rancorous backdrop there was the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the Lib Dem boss Tim Farron all breathing hot air, clinging on for dear life and all the while believing in the impossible and miracles. Quite clearly both men seem to be whistling in the wind which may sound a cliche but the truth is that Corbyn and Farron are rather like those horses in the Grand National who, having unseated their jockeys, just keep running and jumping over fences with no sense of direction.
Then there was the Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish leader, looking very photogenic but vaguely ineffectual. Yesterday Sturgeon was hot footing on the campaigning trail joining in gamely with an exercise class and looking for all the world like a woman who just wanted to keep fit on a Monday morning. I'm not sure whether this is true or not but I think she looks and sounds like a very feminine version of her predecessor Alex Salmon but without the male hormones.
But the whole presentation and delivery though is beginning to look like a repeat version of the day before. Poor Nicola we wish you well on your personal mission for glory. Maybe she ought to take up hand gliding or hill walking if it all goes wrong for her on Thursday. Still Sturgeon is hugely intelligent and eloquent which may work in her favour. But there is something of the dissenting voice about her that very few of her rivals are really worried about.
Now who have I forgotten? Hold on what happened to Nigel Farrage? Has Farage taken a sabbatical, backpacking across the world, taking a well deserved safari holiday or just moving from one radio station to the next. The new UKIP leader Paul Nuttall is beginning to sound like a voice in the wilderness, a man hovering in the shadows of the political mainstream and with about as much chance of becoming the next Prime Minister as Dennis Skinner or that bloke who always waves his papers angrily at Prime Ministers Questions and then just heckles anybody prepared to listen.
So here we are with two days to go and the Britain is poised to tick its box and vote for their choice of Prime Minister for the next five years. The truth is though that most of us are just coldly disinterested in the outcome and just wish that Friday morning was now. It is hard to make head or tail of all the recent disruptions and turbulences in our every day life. The politicians are telling us not to worry and just hold everything together. The bottom line is of course that we'd rather watch wet paint or look at our wallpaper than vote for our next Prime Minister.
Gather around everybody. There's a General Election on Thursday and throughout the length and breadth of Britain, those scratched black boxes are being dug out of town hall cupboards, local community centres and halls are quite definitely on the front foot, eager to greet their residents and making a determined effort to look businesslike. Maybe it'll end in a score draw, maybe it'll go to extra time, maybe the referee will add on an hour for injury time. Perhaps it'll go to penalties or will the Tories win it by a street? Will Jeremy Corbyn shave off that thick thatch of grey beard, will Theresa May turn into Barbara Streisand and will Tim Farron just throw in the towel?
There is an inconclusive air about Britain at the moment, issues that may never be resolved and politicians who will never be forgiven. Here in Manor House we're surrounded by cranes, brand new housing developments, a lovely water feature in Woodberry Wetlands reservoir and Diane Abbott. Oh well two out of three is acceptable but Diane Abbott may not be to everybody's liking. Regrettably the borough of Hackney may think they're just stuck with Abbott and there are no real alternatives.
Still roll the drums, blow the trumpets and let the hostilities commence. Oh no they're here everybody, knocking on your door, handing out their leaflets, flaunting their red, blue and yellow rosettes, persuading us, gently prompting you to vote for them and then launching into some potty piece of propaganda you must have heard a million times. They nag and pester, hound and badger forever pleading and posturing, bamboozling you with more facts, figures and statistics that are enough to get on your nerves. Oh well I think I'll just wish that this whole General Election caravan
would just take itself off to some other part of the world. Roll on Friday morning.
Well, I don't know about you but I can hardly wait. In fact I'm beginning to count down the hours, minutes, seconds. This is the one General Election that has everything going for it or maybe this is just a figment of my imagination. We are now days away from the big day and the finger nails are being bitten to the quick. The contenders and main protagonists are all fit, ready and raring to go. They've all undergone late fitness tests, passed their medicals and should be ready to make their entry into the lion's den at any time.
All of our fine, upstanding politicians are baying for each other's blood and can even now smell the scent of victory under their noses. We're close to the finishing line and all of the respective parties are within sight of the finishing line. If you were to listen to some of the experts then you'd have to admit that even Prime Minister Theresa May may have had one or two problems in recent days. The chances are though that all she'll have to do on Thursday is simply to turn up at her polling station, make one of those emphatic statements of intent and still win the General Election with something to spare.
But yesterday's rather baffling statement from our wonderful Prime Minister left most of us scratching our heads once again. In the light of the London terrorist outrage on Saturday night Theresa May gave us a very convincing impersonation of Barbara Streisand and Donna Summer. Yes folks Theresa felt that enough was enough and if this gets any worse she'll have to take decisive action. You really couldn't make it up.
Now I'm sure that, in the general scheme of things, May is passionately committed to world peace and will do her to utmost to sort everything out in due course. At the moment she seems to be faced with the unenviable task of calming nerves, readying her troops for action on Thursday and then scoring a political double hat-trick to emerge as Prime Minister on Friday morning.
And yet for all the understandable shock and horror of the last couple of days perhaps we needed to hear something stronger rather than something we already knew in the first place. In these crucial days leading up to a General Election she seems to responding to a crisis in much the way that helpless politicians have always reacted. You extend your condolences and sympathy to the family and friends who have tragically lost their lives, soothe fevered brows with a few well intentioned words and then insist that terrorists will never destroy us, the battle against terrorism will always be won and in the democratic free world, the great English public are full of guts, defiance and fortitude. Terrorists will never win the day and the public should just vote for the Tories on Thursday.
So it is that in the final few days we've heard the same track from the same album played and played until it gets terribly scratched and your favourite songs keep jumping on the turntable. All around us the central characters in these pre- Election days are almost emotionally torn, stating the obvious and then turning back to their original agenda of standing up on orange crates, blasting out their blather from their tannoy and just desperate for that last influential speech designed to send us into a deep sleep.
Yesterday the London mayor Sadiq Khan, a man of some intellectual weight but little in the way of variation in his pronouncements, spoke very forthrightly about Saturday night but then reminded you of that London tube train announcement. At any minute you half expected Khan to tell us to mind the gap or take a bottle of water in the hot weather. He stood in front of a London still in a state of mourning and quite naturally told Londoners not to panic and that those verminous terrorists would never win in any part of Britain. But Khan still sounded like a benevolent vicar conducting a particularly heartwarming sermon in front of his appreciative Sunday parishioners.
Then you know who had to make his contribution to this dreadful, global disease. Donald Trump couldn't wait to join in with this great heated debate. Trump, one of Twitter's finest representatives, had to make his voice heard as if anybody really cared. Trump went on record as saying that the London mayor hadn't a clue what he was doing and should seriously quit or just keep a very low profile since Londoners had no reason to believe his so called weasel words anyway. But none of us can really make head or tail of what exactly Trump is trying to tell us anyway. Answers on a postcard please.
But against this explosively rancorous backdrop there was the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the Lib Dem boss Tim Farron all breathing hot air, clinging on for dear life and all the while believing in the impossible and miracles. Quite clearly both men seem to be whistling in the wind which may sound a cliche but the truth is that Corbyn and Farron are rather like those horses in the Grand National who, having unseated their jockeys, just keep running and jumping over fences with no sense of direction.
Then there was the Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish leader, looking very photogenic but vaguely ineffectual. Yesterday Sturgeon was hot footing on the campaigning trail joining in gamely with an exercise class and looking for all the world like a woman who just wanted to keep fit on a Monday morning. I'm not sure whether this is true or not but I think she looks and sounds like a very feminine version of her predecessor Alex Salmon but without the male hormones.
But the whole presentation and delivery though is beginning to look like a repeat version of the day before. Poor Nicola we wish you well on your personal mission for glory. Maybe she ought to take up hand gliding or hill walking if it all goes wrong for her on Thursday. Still Sturgeon is hugely intelligent and eloquent which may work in her favour. But there is something of the dissenting voice about her that very few of her rivals are really worried about.
Now who have I forgotten? Hold on what happened to Nigel Farrage? Has Farage taken a sabbatical, backpacking across the world, taking a well deserved safari holiday or just moving from one radio station to the next. The new UKIP leader Paul Nuttall is beginning to sound like a voice in the wilderness, a man hovering in the shadows of the political mainstream and with about as much chance of becoming the next Prime Minister as Dennis Skinner or that bloke who always waves his papers angrily at Prime Ministers Questions and then just heckles anybody prepared to listen.
So here we are with two days to go and the Britain is poised to tick its box and vote for their choice of Prime Minister for the next five years. The truth is though that most of us are just coldly disinterested in the outcome and just wish that Friday morning was now. It is hard to make head or tail of all the recent disruptions and turbulences in our every day life. The politicians are telling us not to worry and just hold everything together. The bottom line is of course that we'd rather watch wet paint or look at our wallpaper than vote for our next Prime Minister.
Gather around everybody. There's a General Election on Thursday and throughout the length and breadth of Britain, those scratched black boxes are being dug out of town hall cupboards, local community centres and halls are quite definitely on the front foot, eager to greet their residents and making a determined effort to look businesslike. Maybe it'll end in a score draw, maybe it'll go to extra time, maybe the referee will add on an hour for injury time. Perhaps it'll go to penalties or will the Tories win it by a street? Will Jeremy Corbyn shave off that thick thatch of grey beard, will Theresa May turn into Barbara Streisand and will Tim Farron just throw in the towel?
There is an inconclusive air about Britain at the moment, issues that may never be resolved and politicians who will never be forgiven. Here in Manor House we're surrounded by cranes, brand new housing developments, a lovely water feature in Woodberry Wetlands reservoir and Diane Abbott. Oh well two out of three is acceptable but Diane Abbott may not be to everybody's liking. Regrettably the borough of Hackney may think they're just stuck with Abbott and there are no real alternatives.
Still roll the drums, blow the trumpets and let the hostilities commence. Oh no they're here everybody, knocking on your door, handing out their leaflets, flaunting their red, blue and yellow rosettes, persuading us, gently prompting you to vote for them and then launching into some potty piece of propaganda you must have heard a million times. They nag and pester, hound and badger forever pleading and posturing, bamboozling you with more facts, figures and statistics that are enough to get on your nerves. Oh well I think I'll just wish that this whole General Election caravan
would just take itself off to some other part of the world. Roll on Friday morning.
Sunday, 4 June 2017
Brick Lane- what a relief!
Brick Lane - what a relief!
It was the morning after the night before. More to the point it was the day after the night before but you can see where I'm coming from. It happened last night and as usual London and Britain is back again, up and running for business and completely unscathed. Maybe there are a couple of mental and physical scars and bruises but nothing can possibly break the London or British spirit and resolve because we're made of stronger, sterner stuff. Our resilience is something we're rightly proud of and once we dig our heels in nothing can hurt or harm us.
On the day after yet another London terrorist outrage - this time at London Bridge and Vauxhall - London, bless her cotton socks, dusted off the bloodshed and carnage, expressed its perfectly understandable horror, shock and revulsion and then stuck the proverbial two fingers at the evil perpetrators of this disgusting act of violence and barbarity. It would have been so easy to shake our heads in despair and try to pretend that it couldn't happen to us and that it would never happen again. But after Westminster and Manchester, the grisly sequence of death and heartache has reared its ugly head again.
Still here in Manor House we had to get on with the business of life and we promptly did so almost immediately. We awoke this morning and forged ahead, determined to concentrate on the everyday, the ordinary. normal, the things that are customary and routine. Sunday had to be regarded as the second day of a relaxing weekend and nothing would ever disrupt our way of life, everything would just continue in the way it had always done.
And so it was that my wife, father in law and I surged into the day, adamant that nothing would change, deter, discourage or dishearten us. Besides none of us would ever be beaten down by those murderous, heinous terrorists, those heartless purveyors of savagery. Who were these despicable figures of hate to dictate the way our lives should be led? So we dressed, washed, breakfasted and just got on with it. We all needed structure again, the stabilising certainties, the ability to face any potential difficulties and never allow the enemy to strike us down when quite clearly it should never be allowed to flourish in any society.
It was planned last night and although we had no idea of the tragic events that would befall us, we still went forward in search of sanity and serenity. We'd done it once and we'd do it again- over and over again. Life needs its continuities, its civilised values and its standard procedures such as living, breathing, walking and talking. It may sound silly but after all that has taken place in recent weeks maybe we might have taken this everyday behaviour for granted.
It was Brick Lane in the heart of London's East End. Brick Lane was the indisputable destination, the place we had to be in because - well because we simply fancied it and the Sunday market in Brick Lane is something to be savoured. The Brick Lane Sunday market is one of the most joyous of experiences. It is one huge spectacle of commerce, frantic wheeling and dealing, tough negotiation, hard bargaining, tourists browsing, pottering around, glancing admiringly at old bric a brac, old records, old ornaments, old records, old everything. It is hard to imagine just how prosperous the day may have turned out for some of the stall holders but once again it was human behaviour at its most regular.
There was the woman with a guitar casually slung around her neck who for all the world looked like some Joni Mitchell lookalike singing powerfully and emotionally at the top of her voice. The lyrics were truly heartfelt and hinted strongly at loss, rejection and sentimentality. There was a decided note of hurt and betrayal in her voice and slowly but surely the bitterness in her voice soared to a moving climax.
Then there were the exotic food stalls that seem to multiply by the week. There was Vietnamese food galore, huge woks sizzling and frying with rice and all manner of spices and seasonings. There were the incredibly tempting paella and pasta outlets that stood very comfortably next to the sweetest of juices, mango and pineapple, guava, apple, orange and the most delightful range of fruits that somehow demanded that you buy just one because they looked just spectacularly attractive and colourful. Besides we all love the sweet things of life.
I'm not sure but I did notice more clothes rails in Brick Lane than I had on any previous visit. There was an abundance of women's clothes, rails and rails of women's clothes, flowing dresses in a kaleidoscope of colours, a rainbow of colours, quite possibly retro dresses that Mary Quant had once so proudly designed during the 1960s. But there they were prettily arranged and blowing gently in the softest of early summer winds.
Towards the end of our walk I once again cast my eye at a small knot of cameras, box Brownie cameras, Kodak cameras, cameras with a vintage lens and flash. And for some strange, incongruous reason there were the guitars I'd seen in Charing Cross Road last week, Not exactly the same guitars but similar in size and design. The range of guitars was much more limited but did look the part.
For personal reasons I couldn't resist a fleeting glance at the book stalls, books that were so random and arbitrary that there was little in the way of order in their display. There were stacks of annuals, paperbacks, classics scattered liberally and then little literary gems. But then I had to look twice at one book in particular because it was one of the great classics that I didn't think I'd ever stumble on in any jumble sale or marketplace.
It was that huge and colossal literary masterpiece by the great French author Marcel Proust. Now I did mention Proust in a recent blog but here was Remembrance of Things Past - A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, quietly sitting in the corner of a Brick Lane book stall on Sunday market day. But this was the most pleasant of discoveries and it was lovely to see an old literary friend in the middle of the East End. This 3,000 page mountain of a book didn't look at all out of place in Brick Lane and the discriminating readers of Whitechapel, Aldgate, Shoreditch and Hoxton know exactly a good book when they see it.
Finally and as if fated to be spotted, I saw out of the corner of my eye the one book that so completely broke all box office movie records when first released. It was the Margaret Mitchell epic Gone With the Wind, a vast and sprawling literary panorama of America at its most dramatic and tempestuous. It was a book and film about feuding families, tragedies and triumphs and the rich tapestry of American life in the deep South.
We gradually drifted over to the orchards of fruit stalls and found the kind of summer fruit had nature had always intended. There were piles of deeply yellow and orange peaches tumbling helplessly over each other and beckoning us towards them, glowing oranges and nectarines that were just irresistible, apples that had to be bought and the now impossibly beautiful red English strawberries that sat in their punnets obediently as if happy to be simply displayed for consumption. They had that deepest and richest red glow that somehow begged to be bought. The colour of early summer and trumpeting it for all its worth.
My wife, father in law and I made our way back home silently reflecting on the last 24 hours and trying hard to put everything into a kind of logical context. Last night we could hardly believe that once again our capital city of London had been disfigured, scarred, brutalised, murdered, cut open and totally demoralised. And yet maybe it hadn't because we knew we had a back up plan, a set of contingency measures, reinforcements in case things went irreparably wrong which it didn't.
We had Brick Lane, we had a Sunday market, a visual feast of humanity doing the things they've always done. For a few brief moments of our life you felt ashamed to be associated with the human race, appalled at the viciousness, the vile wickedness and the worst aspects of human behaviour. You felt completely robbed of your dignity, degraded and demeaned and massively shell shocked. How could they do it again and yet they did.
Those nightmarish images of dead or prostrate bodies lying on the pavements of London Bridge will take many weeks and months to erase from our minds. But once again London rose above it all with its traditional poise and composure, its commendable calm when the storms of terrorism threatened to engulf us all. Brick Lane was our quiet retreat, where the people of the world came together and ignored those who were so hell bent on disaster. It had been a Sunday of level headedness, of cool restraint. of observing the most traditional of Sundays. To quote a popular mantra of the moment. Keep Calm and Drink Coffee or Tea. I'll have milk with two sugars please.
It was the morning after the night before. More to the point it was the day after the night before but you can see where I'm coming from. It happened last night and as usual London and Britain is back again, up and running for business and completely unscathed. Maybe there are a couple of mental and physical scars and bruises but nothing can possibly break the London or British spirit and resolve because we're made of stronger, sterner stuff. Our resilience is something we're rightly proud of and once we dig our heels in nothing can hurt or harm us.
On the day after yet another London terrorist outrage - this time at London Bridge and Vauxhall - London, bless her cotton socks, dusted off the bloodshed and carnage, expressed its perfectly understandable horror, shock and revulsion and then stuck the proverbial two fingers at the evil perpetrators of this disgusting act of violence and barbarity. It would have been so easy to shake our heads in despair and try to pretend that it couldn't happen to us and that it would never happen again. But after Westminster and Manchester, the grisly sequence of death and heartache has reared its ugly head again.
Still here in Manor House we had to get on with the business of life and we promptly did so almost immediately. We awoke this morning and forged ahead, determined to concentrate on the everyday, the ordinary. normal, the things that are customary and routine. Sunday had to be regarded as the second day of a relaxing weekend and nothing would ever disrupt our way of life, everything would just continue in the way it had always done.
And so it was that my wife, father in law and I surged into the day, adamant that nothing would change, deter, discourage or dishearten us. Besides none of us would ever be beaten down by those murderous, heinous terrorists, those heartless purveyors of savagery. Who were these despicable figures of hate to dictate the way our lives should be led? So we dressed, washed, breakfasted and just got on with it. We all needed structure again, the stabilising certainties, the ability to face any potential difficulties and never allow the enemy to strike us down when quite clearly it should never be allowed to flourish in any society.
It was planned last night and although we had no idea of the tragic events that would befall us, we still went forward in search of sanity and serenity. We'd done it once and we'd do it again- over and over again. Life needs its continuities, its civilised values and its standard procedures such as living, breathing, walking and talking. It may sound silly but after all that has taken place in recent weeks maybe we might have taken this everyday behaviour for granted.
It was Brick Lane in the heart of London's East End. Brick Lane was the indisputable destination, the place we had to be in because - well because we simply fancied it and the Sunday market in Brick Lane is something to be savoured. The Brick Lane Sunday market is one of the most joyous of experiences. It is one huge spectacle of commerce, frantic wheeling and dealing, tough negotiation, hard bargaining, tourists browsing, pottering around, glancing admiringly at old bric a brac, old records, old ornaments, old records, old everything. It is hard to imagine just how prosperous the day may have turned out for some of the stall holders but once again it was human behaviour at its most regular.
There was the woman with a guitar casually slung around her neck who for all the world looked like some Joni Mitchell lookalike singing powerfully and emotionally at the top of her voice. The lyrics were truly heartfelt and hinted strongly at loss, rejection and sentimentality. There was a decided note of hurt and betrayal in her voice and slowly but surely the bitterness in her voice soared to a moving climax.
Then there were the exotic food stalls that seem to multiply by the week. There was Vietnamese food galore, huge woks sizzling and frying with rice and all manner of spices and seasonings. There were the incredibly tempting paella and pasta outlets that stood very comfortably next to the sweetest of juices, mango and pineapple, guava, apple, orange and the most delightful range of fruits that somehow demanded that you buy just one because they looked just spectacularly attractive and colourful. Besides we all love the sweet things of life.
I'm not sure but I did notice more clothes rails in Brick Lane than I had on any previous visit. There was an abundance of women's clothes, rails and rails of women's clothes, flowing dresses in a kaleidoscope of colours, a rainbow of colours, quite possibly retro dresses that Mary Quant had once so proudly designed during the 1960s. But there they were prettily arranged and blowing gently in the softest of early summer winds.
Towards the end of our walk I once again cast my eye at a small knot of cameras, box Brownie cameras, Kodak cameras, cameras with a vintage lens and flash. And for some strange, incongruous reason there were the guitars I'd seen in Charing Cross Road last week, Not exactly the same guitars but similar in size and design. The range of guitars was much more limited but did look the part.
For personal reasons I couldn't resist a fleeting glance at the book stalls, books that were so random and arbitrary that there was little in the way of order in their display. There were stacks of annuals, paperbacks, classics scattered liberally and then little literary gems. But then I had to look twice at one book in particular because it was one of the great classics that I didn't think I'd ever stumble on in any jumble sale or marketplace.
It was that huge and colossal literary masterpiece by the great French author Marcel Proust. Now I did mention Proust in a recent blog but here was Remembrance of Things Past - A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, quietly sitting in the corner of a Brick Lane book stall on Sunday market day. But this was the most pleasant of discoveries and it was lovely to see an old literary friend in the middle of the East End. This 3,000 page mountain of a book didn't look at all out of place in Brick Lane and the discriminating readers of Whitechapel, Aldgate, Shoreditch and Hoxton know exactly a good book when they see it.
Finally and as if fated to be spotted, I saw out of the corner of my eye the one book that so completely broke all box office movie records when first released. It was the Margaret Mitchell epic Gone With the Wind, a vast and sprawling literary panorama of America at its most dramatic and tempestuous. It was a book and film about feuding families, tragedies and triumphs and the rich tapestry of American life in the deep South.
We gradually drifted over to the orchards of fruit stalls and found the kind of summer fruit had nature had always intended. There were piles of deeply yellow and orange peaches tumbling helplessly over each other and beckoning us towards them, glowing oranges and nectarines that were just irresistible, apples that had to be bought and the now impossibly beautiful red English strawberries that sat in their punnets obediently as if happy to be simply displayed for consumption. They had that deepest and richest red glow that somehow begged to be bought. The colour of early summer and trumpeting it for all its worth.
My wife, father in law and I made our way back home silently reflecting on the last 24 hours and trying hard to put everything into a kind of logical context. Last night we could hardly believe that once again our capital city of London had been disfigured, scarred, brutalised, murdered, cut open and totally demoralised. And yet maybe it hadn't because we knew we had a back up plan, a set of contingency measures, reinforcements in case things went irreparably wrong which it didn't.
We had Brick Lane, we had a Sunday market, a visual feast of humanity doing the things they've always done. For a few brief moments of our life you felt ashamed to be associated with the human race, appalled at the viciousness, the vile wickedness and the worst aspects of human behaviour. You felt completely robbed of your dignity, degraded and demeaned and massively shell shocked. How could they do it again and yet they did.
Those nightmarish images of dead or prostrate bodies lying on the pavements of London Bridge will take many weeks and months to erase from our minds. But once again London rose above it all with its traditional poise and composure, its commendable calm when the storms of terrorism threatened to engulf us all. Brick Lane was our quiet retreat, where the people of the world came together and ignored those who were so hell bent on disaster. It had been a Sunday of level headedness, of cool restraint. of observing the most traditional of Sundays. To quote a popular mantra of the moment. Keep Calm and Drink Coffee or Tea. I'll have milk with two sugars please.
Friday, 2 June 2017
Thomas Hardy- birthday boy
Thomas Hardy- birthday boy.
If it had been left up to me then Thomas Hardy, had he still been around today, would certainly have thoroughly merited a knighthood from the Queen. In fact arise Sir Thomas Hardy has a rich ring to it but then Hardy would probably been very humbled and deeply flattered by such a honour so we'll never know anyway.
Today though marks the 177th birthday of one of England's finest classical authors and most highly regarded of late 19th and early 20th century writers. Happy Birthday Thomas Hardy. It's time to blow the candles out on your birthday cake. take a leisurely stroll down one of your well trodden Dorset country lanes and take a well deserved bow. But 177 hey? I think you should open up your birthday cards Thomas, take a hearty drop of brandy for lunch and then whole heartedly enjoy the fruits of your labours.
I think that Hardy would have revelled in being at the centre of attention and a brandy would have been the most fitting of drinks. But long after his death I'm inclined to believe that hidden away in a timber beamed country pub the spirit of Hardy is still being celebrated raucously by all of his admirers. They'll be slapping his back, smiling at passages of the famous novels and then laughing joyously at all of those well rounded characters.
Next year is the 90th anniversary of Hardy's death and his gravestone resides in a quiet Dorset churchyard. Today we can only look back on the glorious literary legacy he left behind him and wonder if today's modern scribes could even come even remotely close to re-producing Hardy's poetic prose, prose that had life, animation, vividness, descriptive paragraphs of the most exalted excellence and the whole emotional spectrum of society and the world.
From a personal point of view Thomas Hardy was by a considerable length of a Dorset country lane, the greatest writer I've ever read. It has been an inordinate privilege to read Tess of the D'Urbevilles, the Return of the Native, the lesser known perhaps Trumpet Major, Far From the Madding Crowd, Under the Greenwood Tree, A Laodicean and so many tragic, happy, tragi comic short stories, a huge treasure trove of writing that was by turns, memorably descriptive, wonderfully expressive and oozing prodigious lyricism.
It's hard to know why Hardy had such a profound effect on me, inspiring me to turn turn my hand to writing but the man was simply a literary genius, a man who loved to paint incomparable word pictures, who infused every sentence with the joy of living and left us with some of the most well embroidered poetry, language that had its own distinctive character, its personal stamp of brilliance, of classical virtuosity and earthy vitality.
Surely, I hear you cry, Hardy wasn't that good. It is impossible to judge and gauge any of the great composers, artists and writers of any age because this has to be a matter of opinion and quite clearly subjective but for me Hardy ticked all of the right literary boxes. He illustrated aspects of country life that none could really match. He remains beyond categorisation because there could have been few Dorset authors capable of equalling his literary style let alone surpassing it. Or maybe they can and I've yet to read their work.
His biography has been well chronicled now and we know enough about the great man without looking for any other set of superlatives or complimentary tributes. It is enough to extend my personal gratitude to Thomas Hardy. Hardy was a man of honesty, modesty, humility, a man who could conjure the most magical of literary sentences without ever resorting to cheap or vulgar dialogue. Of course Hardy experienced darkness and tragedy and even if the novels did descend into a murkier world, there were few if any authors who could write as well as he did. It's time for me to remember the 177th birthday of Thomas Hardy. In a deep corner of Dorset they'll be sighing with pleasure. What a jolly good fellow Hardy was.
If it had been left up to me then Thomas Hardy, had he still been around today, would certainly have thoroughly merited a knighthood from the Queen. In fact arise Sir Thomas Hardy has a rich ring to it but then Hardy would probably been very humbled and deeply flattered by such a honour so we'll never know anyway.
Today though marks the 177th birthday of one of England's finest classical authors and most highly regarded of late 19th and early 20th century writers. Happy Birthday Thomas Hardy. It's time to blow the candles out on your birthday cake. take a leisurely stroll down one of your well trodden Dorset country lanes and take a well deserved bow. But 177 hey? I think you should open up your birthday cards Thomas, take a hearty drop of brandy for lunch and then whole heartedly enjoy the fruits of your labours.
I think that Hardy would have revelled in being at the centre of attention and a brandy would have been the most fitting of drinks. But long after his death I'm inclined to believe that hidden away in a timber beamed country pub the spirit of Hardy is still being celebrated raucously by all of his admirers. They'll be slapping his back, smiling at passages of the famous novels and then laughing joyously at all of those well rounded characters.
Next year is the 90th anniversary of Hardy's death and his gravestone resides in a quiet Dorset churchyard. Today we can only look back on the glorious literary legacy he left behind him and wonder if today's modern scribes could even come even remotely close to re-producing Hardy's poetic prose, prose that had life, animation, vividness, descriptive paragraphs of the most exalted excellence and the whole emotional spectrum of society and the world.
From a personal point of view Thomas Hardy was by a considerable length of a Dorset country lane, the greatest writer I've ever read. It has been an inordinate privilege to read Tess of the D'Urbevilles, the Return of the Native, the lesser known perhaps Trumpet Major, Far From the Madding Crowd, Under the Greenwood Tree, A Laodicean and so many tragic, happy, tragi comic short stories, a huge treasure trove of writing that was by turns, memorably descriptive, wonderfully expressive and oozing prodigious lyricism.
It's hard to know why Hardy had such a profound effect on me, inspiring me to turn turn my hand to writing but the man was simply a literary genius, a man who loved to paint incomparable word pictures, who infused every sentence with the joy of living and left us with some of the most well embroidered poetry, language that had its own distinctive character, its personal stamp of brilliance, of classical virtuosity and earthy vitality.
Surely, I hear you cry, Hardy wasn't that good. It is impossible to judge and gauge any of the great composers, artists and writers of any age because this has to be a matter of opinion and quite clearly subjective but for me Hardy ticked all of the right literary boxes. He illustrated aspects of country life that none could really match. He remains beyond categorisation because there could have been few Dorset authors capable of equalling his literary style let alone surpassing it. Or maybe they can and I've yet to read their work.
His biography has been well chronicled now and we know enough about the great man without looking for any other set of superlatives or complimentary tributes. It is enough to extend my personal gratitude to Thomas Hardy. Hardy was a man of honesty, modesty, humility, a man who could conjure the most magical of literary sentences without ever resorting to cheap or vulgar dialogue. Of course Hardy experienced darkness and tragedy and even if the novels did descend into a murkier world, there were few if any authors who could write as well as he did. It's time for me to remember the 177th birthday of Thomas Hardy. In a deep corner of Dorset they'll be sighing with pleasure. What a jolly good fellow Hardy was.
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