The Oscars - Hollywood in all its splendour.
It could only have happened at the Oscars. We knew that it would and maybe we shouldn't have been that surprised or disappointed. The yearly ceremony encompassing the whole of the showbiz industry and some of our most well known celebrities, once again found Hollywood itself as the centre of attention and the centre of the universe.
The BBC news have just devoted at least quarter of an hour to that incident at the Oscars award ceremony. It was the Beeb's lead story and took precedence to the daily dose of war, argument,exploitation, corruption,violence and general pandemonium around the rest of the world. And that was just the rest of the news. I have to tell you that it made a welcome change to all of those nonsensical explosions that continue to act as an almost permanent soundtrack to our lives.
So what exactly happened? Did the lights go out in Hollywood, was there a major power cut in Los Angeles or was it the biggest cock up in Oscars history? All seem to be going well for most of the ceremony until the most important award of the evening. This would be the greatest, most successful, biggest budget, epic production that any film aficionado would richly celebrate for the rest of their lives.
A hushed silence fell across LA and the last of the audience's applause began to dissolve. There was, albeit temporarily, a stunned amazement and suspension of belief. For as long as Hollywood can remember the Oscars have provided us with some of the most enthralling evenings of typically crazy showbiz entertainment. As events were to prove last night this was perhaps one of the most embarrassing and farcical in Hollywood history.
Before last night's showbiz shambles, it was rumoured that a galaxy of film actors and actresses would use the whole occasion as a political platform. But this is usually the case anyway so maybe we should have known that something untoward would take place. You suspected that Donald Trump was probably hiding in a dark cupboard or trembling with fear in case the whole of Hollywood was about to gang up against him. And yet nothing seems to faze him and you suspect that he would be the last celebrity to feel threatened by anybody. Besides, as Trump never tires of telling us, all news is fake, artificial, sham, distorted and totally untrue. But Donald doesn't do persecution complexes and any damaging reference to him at the Oscars would have been completely ignored or roundly condemned as utter rubbish.
So it was then that the great announcement was made. The best film of the year had been La La Land. Or was it? Warren Beatty opened up the envelope, smiled almost apologetically and then retreated into confusion and puzzlement. Beatty is one of America's most loved and treasured of all showbiz stars. He looked around him and tried to make sense of what was going on around him. Everywhere, the whole of Hollywood briefly panicked, a startled assembly of the Hollywood glitterati hiding their faces in complete embarrassment before dissolving in uncontrollable laughter.
Beatty was accompanied by Faye Dunaway, one of the most accomplished and consistent actresses ever to grace the silver screen. Dunaway and Beatty, of course, were those evil, scheming and manipulative baddies in Bonnie and Clyde. For a moment you were taken on a wondrous journey back to the 1960s when the stars seemed to shine almost constantly. It was hard to know who was more amused at the sheer hilarity of it all. Beatty, Shirley Mclaine's brother, looked at his envelope and then haltingly blurted out the wrong information. Dunaway deliberately stifled her understandable giggling and it all got rather silly. You half expected Jackie Mason to come on with his inimitable Jewish comedy.
For what seemed an eternity La La Land was still the best movie of the year and film observers all over the universe were about to give the film the most rousing of standing ovations. Then there was incredulity, a delayed reaction and a sense that all was not right. Half way through La La Land's acceptance speech there was a sudden commotion and frantic hand waving. A gentleman with a beard, smart suit and tie made the most telling of interventions. Then there was a change of mind or change of script or maybe somebody had blundered on the grandest of scales. It was Hollywood quite possibly imitating itself and how we loved every single second.
Suddenly within a matter of seconds the best film had become Moonlight. Now it was impossible to read the mind of those responsible for Moonlight. But it's probably safe to assume that they didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Sometimes there are moments in our life when we all want the ground to swallow us up. Whether it's a presentation at work or an after dinner speech, we all stumble over our words, mix our metaphors or succumb to those every day human mistakes, faults and flaws.
But then it all seems to come out correctly and properly. Eventually normal service was restored, dignity remained intact and Hollywood still abandoned itself to those glitzy, glittering and glamorous parties that have almost become a yearly event.
For those who remember Hollywood in what might have been considered its golden age, this had not have been an evening to remember with any kind of affection. How, for instance would the legendary likes of James Stewart, Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, James Cagney, Edward G, Robinson and Kirk Douglas have responded to this comical charade. Perhaps with a shrug of the shoulder and the funniest of all remarks as well as a thick ladle of irony.
In recent years we've had emotional, tearful acceptance speeches and remarkable political speeches full of gravity and gravitas. Hollywood loves to lay it on thick believing privately that their pearls of wisdom will hit just the right spot. Many of us just chuckled and chortled because we all thought that this is the way Hollywood wants to be portrayed to the outside world. Besides we haven't had a great deal to laugh about recently so maybe this was the ultimate antidote.
Last night the Oscars indulged itself quite unashamedly in one of the craziest exhibitions of wild absurdity. Hollywood once again secured its place in our hearts and minds without even trying. This morning America gazed across the whole dreamscape that is Hollywood and probably yearned for something like normality. Hollywood, America. I think you're all brilliant.
Monday 27 February 2017
Sunday 26 February 2017
Sunday Sunday
Sunday, Sunday - what a day.
Picture the scene. It's a scene of domestic bliss, a Sunday lunchtime idyll where the only sounds that can be heard are as distinctive and traditional as they've always been. Ever since the relaxation of the Sunday shopping laws many years ago Britain has been totally pre-occupied with the kind of activities that just over 50 years ago would have been considered totally illegal, religiously unacceptable, morally incorrect and spiritually offensive.
It was a family lunch at our local Wetherspoon which is not so much a pub more of a packed restaurant and what could be commonly known as a gastro bar. There's an abundance of both food and drink on the menu and everything that is mouth wateringly gastronomic. The Sunday pub experience is now completely different to the Sunday pub of the old days. The opening hours are much longer and chucking out time is somehow a self imposed time of the pub's choice. It's normally 11.00 and just before the mid-night hour or maybe later if the pub band turn off the speakers off at a respectable time.
Over the years the pub decor hasn't changed all that much. True there are no traces of sawdust on the floor and the furniture is much more pleasing on the eye. Or maybe I'm just a snob. The fact is that the days when pubs resembled the Rovers Return in 1964 are long since gone. The pompous, severe and matriarchal Annie Walker type are quite definitely a thing of the past and even the optics behind the bar sparkle with a gleaming respectability. Coronation Street may have been at the forefront of our minds but this was an altogether different soap opera.
Today my wife, daughter and father in law all wandered into Wetherspoon's with the healthiest appetites and thirsts ready to be slaked. Sunday wouldn't be Sunday without the family unit and wherever you looked there were families with children and families with the obligatory dog next to them. Mind you it was hard to imagine any of those dogs queuing up for the roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and a variety of vegetables. Still, it's a lovely thought.
But while we were waiting for our table to become available I noticed something quite odd. In the corner of the pub, a TV showed a channel which struck me as slightly unusual. On the wall the satellite channel Bloomberg was beaming all of the recent and present developments in the cut throat world of high finance, thriving global industries and booming business. It looked an absorbing watch but for somebody who finds the accumulation of wealth too much to take in it may well have been another language.
Bloomberg takes you into a sizzling world of mergers and acquisitions, high flying economists, trading deals in far off exotic corners of the planet and currency rates across the world that bounce and fluctuate by the second. Bloomberg is a channel devoted to million dollar conglomerates, men with thick wallets and nineteen figures in their bank balance and a fistful of dollars just for good measure. Sorry that was a western wasn't it?
And yet the rolling news at the bottom of the screen ran a whole succession of vital commodities, basic foods and all those necessities we perhaps take for granted. There was corn, sugar, wheat, rice, tea and coffee plus everything with huge profit margins and substantial potential. It was one continuing sequence of all those products and cutting edge technologies that perhaps a Sunday pub TV audience couldn't have been expecting.
Normally today's pub normally keeps up an incessant coverage of Super Soccer Sunday from our dynamic friends at Sky. But today at Wetherspoon Sunday afternoon telly consisted of the futures market, the derivative market, the commodities market and above all an interview with that famous zillionaire Bill Gates.
It was hard to know what Gates was talking about since the volume was completely down and besides it was difficult to lip read. But the gist of what he might have been talking about had to be related to money. Yes that glorious subject that has more or less dominated our every day lives, transforming the mindset of vast swathes of the human population, influencing our every decision in the shop or supermarket and revolutionising our entire outlook on life. Money has ruled the roost since well- for ever. It speaks the lingo of the high street estate agent, a congested property market and anything connected to bricks and mortar.
Bloomberg is more or less a genuine shop window on the whole world of money. It focuses on the changing patterns of not only our disposable income but the very motor that drives consumerism and capitalism. But here we are in the very early stages of the 21st century and Wetherspoon has discovered the financial powerhouse that is Bloomberg, a channel for money makers and million pound wheelers and dealers, of negotiators and big businessmen and women.
Many years ago now I once went for a job interview at Bloomberg at Finsbury Pavement in London. Now for reasons best known to myself I was applying for a job in Bloomberg's vast and magnificent news room. Why I was looking for a job in financial journalism still escapes me. I have nothing but unqualified admiration for all of our accountants and chartered accountants but Bloomberg looked like one huge trading floor at the Stock Exchange, acres of flashing computers with whizzy graphics and journalists who seemed to be speaking French, German, Spanish and Italian all at the same time.
I can now see myself gazing around at this incredible looking high tech office and quite clearly feeling like a fish out of water. I remember scratching my head at quite the most terrifying test before you'd even reached the interview stage. Still it was a real eye opener and made me more and more determined never to have anything to do with numbers or figures. Even the TV studio at Bloomberg looked daunting but then it was an interesting day out.
Just for the record my Sunday lunch comprised of roast beef, turkey, potatoes, carrots and peas which may sound just like any other meal but one that was satisfying and in its way, financially rewarding. Besides it isn't every day that you get to see a financial TV channel in a pub. Now I wonder how my tin, steel and nickel shares are doing. On second thoughts I think I'll come back to the real world and watch Super Soccer Sunday on Sky.
Picture the scene. It's a scene of domestic bliss, a Sunday lunchtime idyll where the only sounds that can be heard are as distinctive and traditional as they've always been. Ever since the relaxation of the Sunday shopping laws many years ago Britain has been totally pre-occupied with the kind of activities that just over 50 years ago would have been considered totally illegal, religiously unacceptable, morally incorrect and spiritually offensive.
It was a family lunch at our local Wetherspoon which is not so much a pub more of a packed restaurant and what could be commonly known as a gastro bar. There's an abundance of both food and drink on the menu and everything that is mouth wateringly gastronomic. The Sunday pub experience is now completely different to the Sunday pub of the old days. The opening hours are much longer and chucking out time is somehow a self imposed time of the pub's choice. It's normally 11.00 and just before the mid-night hour or maybe later if the pub band turn off the speakers off at a respectable time.
Over the years the pub decor hasn't changed all that much. True there are no traces of sawdust on the floor and the furniture is much more pleasing on the eye. Or maybe I'm just a snob. The fact is that the days when pubs resembled the Rovers Return in 1964 are long since gone. The pompous, severe and matriarchal Annie Walker type are quite definitely a thing of the past and even the optics behind the bar sparkle with a gleaming respectability. Coronation Street may have been at the forefront of our minds but this was an altogether different soap opera.
Today my wife, daughter and father in law all wandered into Wetherspoon's with the healthiest appetites and thirsts ready to be slaked. Sunday wouldn't be Sunday without the family unit and wherever you looked there were families with children and families with the obligatory dog next to them. Mind you it was hard to imagine any of those dogs queuing up for the roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and a variety of vegetables. Still, it's a lovely thought.
But while we were waiting for our table to become available I noticed something quite odd. In the corner of the pub, a TV showed a channel which struck me as slightly unusual. On the wall the satellite channel Bloomberg was beaming all of the recent and present developments in the cut throat world of high finance, thriving global industries and booming business. It looked an absorbing watch but for somebody who finds the accumulation of wealth too much to take in it may well have been another language.
Bloomberg takes you into a sizzling world of mergers and acquisitions, high flying economists, trading deals in far off exotic corners of the planet and currency rates across the world that bounce and fluctuate by the second. Bloomberg is a channel devoted to million dollar conglomerates, men with thick wallets and nineteen figures in their bank balance and a fistful of dollars just for good measure. Sorry that was a western wasn't it?
And yet the rolling news at the bottom of the screen ran a whole succession of vital commodities, basic foods and all those necessities we perhaps take for granted. There was corn, sugar, wheat, rice, tea and coffee plus everything with huge profit margins and substantial potential. It was one continuing sequence of all those products and cutting edge technologies that perhaps a Sunday pub TV audience couldn't have been expecting.
Normally today's pub normally keeps up an incessant coverage of Super Soccer Sunday from our dynamic friends at Sky. But today at Wetherspoon Sunday afternoon telly consisted of the futures market, the derivative market, the commodities market and above all an interview with that famous zillionaire Bill Gates.
It was hard to know what Gates was talking about since the volume was completely down and besides it was difficult to lip read. But the gist of what he might have been talking about had to be related to money. Yes that glorious subject that has more or less dominated our every day lives, transforming the mindset of vast swathes of the human population, influencing our every decision in the shop or supermarket and revolutionising our entire outlook on life. Money has ruled the roost since well- for ever. It speaks the lingo of the high street estate agent, a congested property market and anything connected to bricks and mortar.
Bloomberg is more or less a genuine shop window on the whole world of money. It focuses on the changing patterns of not only our disposable income but the very motor that drives consumerism and capitalism. But here we are in the very early stages of the 21st century and Wetherspoon has discovered the financial powerhouse that is Bloomberg, a channel for money makers and million pound wheelers and dealers, of negotiators and big businessmen and women.
Many years ago now I once went for a job interview at Bloomberg at Finsbury Pavement in London. Now for reasons best known to myself I was applying for a job in Bloomberg's vast and magnificent news room. Why I was looking for a job in financial journalism still escapes me. I have nothing but unqualified admiration for all of our accountants and chartered accountants but Bloomberg looked like one huge trading floor at the Stock Exchange, acres of flashing computers with whizzy graphics and journalists who seemed to be speaking French, German, Spanish and Italian all at the same time.
I can now see myself gazing around at this incredible looking high tech office and quite clearly feeling like a fish out of water. I remember scratching my head at quite the most terrifying test before you'd even reached the interview stage. Still it was a real eye opener and made me more and more determined never to have anything to do with numbers or figures. Even the TV studio at Bloomberg looked daunting but then it was an interesting day out.
Just for the record my Sunday lunch comprised of roast beef, turkey, potatoes, carrots and peas which may sound just like any other meal but one that was satisfying and in its way, financially rewarding. Besides it isn't every day that you get to see a financial TV channel in a pub. Now I wonder how my tin, steel and nickel shares are doing. On second thoughts I think I'll come back to the real world and watch Super Soccer Sunday on Sky.
Friday 24 February 2017
Claudio Ranieri- another Premier League managerial victim.
Claudio Ranieri- another Premier League managerial victim
When he picked up the national newspapers this morning, Claudio Ranieri could have been forgiven for thinking that somebody had fatally stabbed him in the back. The latest Premier League managerial sacking almost feels as though we've been here a thousand times before. The sword of Damocles has fallen on a wonderful Italian gentleman who captured our hearts and won legions of admirers.
When Ranieri lifted the Premier League trophy with Leicester City in the Foxes last game of the season at a rain soaked King Power Stadium it seemed as though the world was, quite literally, Ranieri's oyster or maybe that should be a tasty spaghetti bolognaise. Maybe he should have known about the job description that comes with being a Premier League manager because recognition and appreciation are the last of such considerations on a chairman's mind. Maybe a chairman, some would have you believe, gets all of his priorities completely wrong.
If things go ever so slightly awry and misshapen and the results go against you on a regular basis you would be well advised to pack your bags, accept your P45 and just head for the exit. Quite clearly football is a dreadfully unforgiving industry and if you don't give the fans what they crave then you have to accept the consequences of your actions.
Football management, as we know, should come with a regulation Government health warning and as Ranieri may have learnt to his cost, the game is completely lacking in sentiment or, possibly tact. There may well come a time when football managers will have to take out a hefty insurance scheme if indeed they are treated shabbily or abominably.
Leicester currently sit a point above the relegation zone and are therefore in the most perilous of all states. This could be considered as a rash over- reaction on Leicester's part but the fact remains that today's chairman could be seen as being trigger happy or even, dare I say it, paranoid. Of course Leicester's current plight has to be taken seriously but when a decent, principled man does his utmost to lift a hitherto middle of the road, unfashionable club to the rarefied heights of the Premier League title then something rotten must be eating away at the very fabric of the Premier League.
This is quite clearly a terrible error of judgment and you have to feel deeply sorry for a pleasant and well mannered man who was just trying to do a job that somehow seemed to get away from him. Ranieri was always amusing and deeply courteous at press conferences but the fact is that humour and politeness don't win trophies and nor do they prove anything to anybody. What the Leicester board were demanding from Ranieri was, at the very least, a top four finish in the Premier League and the guarantee of an FA Cup Final victory. And this is the thin dividing line between failure and success.
Sadly though neither will come to pass so the scapegoat is Ranieri, Ranieri, quite regrettably, has to take the rap for such tactical and technical incompetence. Or so we were led to believe. He is the one who, according to those in the know, has to be accused of naivety and careless ineptitude at all levels. Leicester have, quite obviously, been a pale shadow of the team who conquered all last season and comparisons with Blackburn Rovers fall from grace after falling into the Championship having won the Premier League the season before are patently obvious.
When Ranieri was Chelsea manager the Russian oligarch and multi billionaire Roman Abramovich was issuing orders from the warm security of the directors box. Chelsea's dramatic evolution into a powerful, well equipped and formidable Premier League side was a startling revelation. Sadly Ranieri was never allowed enough time to see the fruition of his labours. Instead he was unceremoniously dumped into the builders skip and the sack followed. But as we now know we should never act in haste for fear of repenting at leisure.
It'll come as no surprise at all to learn that this the latest managerial casualty is simply another depressing chapter in a familiar book. Aston Villa fans have more or less resigned themselves to Doug Ellis, an allegedly ruthless and domineering chairman. Ellis, so his critics would have us believe, is a distant and autocratic figure who just sacks managers for fun without ever thinking of or consulting anybody. But then I couldn't possibly comment.
Tommy Docherty, the former Manchester United boss once said that he'd had more clubs than Jack Nicholas and maybe he thought loyalty was some old fashioned quality that no longer existed. The late and much missed Brian Clough once believed that he preferred his chairman to be in front of him rather than behind him. But then Cloughie was just being delightfully honest.
The truth is though that Claudio Ranieri is temporarily out of a job and Leicester may come to regret their decision. Football was horrified by the suddenness and abruptness of Ranieri's exit. They will look at their list of managerial successors, weigh up their options and then realise the error of their ways. Claudio Ranieri has decency, exemplary managerial pedigree and the most engaging manner. If Leicester do learn from what may seem a dreadful rashness then Claudio Ranieri will deservedly find gainful employment sooner rather than later. Football needs to come its senses sooner rather than later.
When he picked up the national newspapers this morning, Claudio Ranieri could have been forgiven for thinking that somebody had fatally stabbed him in the back. The latest Premier League managerial sacking almost feels as though we've been here a thousand times before. The sword of Damocles has fallen on a wonderful Italian gentleman who captured our hearts and won legions of admirers.
When Ranieri lifted the Premier League trophy with Leicester City in the Foxes last game of the season at a rain soaked King Power Stadium it seemed as though the world was, quite literally, Ranieri's oyster or maybe that should be a tasty spaghetti bolognaise. Maybe he should have known about the job description that comes with being a Premier League manager because recognition and appreciation are the last of such considerations on a chairman's mind. Maybe a chairman, some would have you believe, gets all of his priorities completely wrong.
If things go ever so slightly awry and misshapen and the results go against you on a regular basis you would be well advised to pack your bags, accept your P45 and just head for the exit. Quite clearly football is a dreadfully unforgiving industry and if you don't give the fans what they crave then you have to accept the consequences of your actions.
Football management, as we know, should come with a regulation Government health warning and as Ranieri may have learnt to his cost, the game is completely lacking in sentiment or, possibly tact. There may well come a time when football managers will have to take out a hefty insurance scheme if indeed they are treated shabbily or abominably.
Leicester currently sit a point above the relegation zone and are therefore in the most perilous of all states. This could be considered as a rash over- reaction on Leicester's part but the fact remains that today's chairman could be seen as being trigger happy or even, dare I say it, paranoid. Of course Leicester's current plight has to be taken seriously but when a decent, principled man does his utmost to lift a hitherto middle of the road, unfashionable club to the rarefied heights of the Premier League title then something rotten must be eating away at the very fabric of the Premier League.
This is quite clearly a terrible error of judgment and you have to feel deeply sorry for a pleasant and well mannered man who was just trying to do a job that somehow seemed to get away from him. Ranieri was always amusing and deeply courteous at press conferences but the fact is that humour and politeness don't win trophies and nor do they prove anything to anybody. What the Leicester board were demanding from Ranieri was, at the very least, a top four finish in the Premier League and the guarantee of an FA Cup Final victory. And this is the thin dividing line between failure and success.
Sadly though neither will come to pass so the scapegoat is Ranieri, Ranieri, quite regrettably, has to take the rap for such tactical and technical incompetence. Or so we were led to believe. He is the one who, according to those in the know, has to be accused of naivety and careless ineptitude at all levels. Leicester have, quite obviously, been a pale shadow of the team who conquered all last season and comparisons with Blackburn Rovers fall from grace after falling into the Championship having won the Premier League the season before are patently obvious.
When Ranieri was Chelsea manager the Russian oligarch and multi billionaire Roman Abramovich was issuing orders from the warm security of the directors box. Chelsea's dramatic evolution into a powerful, well equipped and formidable Premier League side was a startling revelation. Sadly Ranieri was never allowed enough time to see the fruition of his labours. Instead he was unceremoniously dumped into the builders skip and the sack followed. But as we now know we should never act in haste for fear of repenting at leisure.
It'll come as no surprise at all to learn that this the latest managerial casualty is simply another depressing chapter in a familiar book. Aston Villa fans have more or less resigned themselves to Doug Ellis, an allegedly ruthless and domineering chairman. Ellis, so his critics would have us believe, is a distant and autocratic figure who just sacks managers for fun without ever thinking of or consulting anybody. But then I couldn't possibly comment.
Tommy Docherty, the former Manchester United boss once said that he'd had more clubs than Jack Nicholas and maybe he thought loyalty was some old fashioned quality that no longer existed. The late and much missed Brian Clough once believed that he preferred his chairman to be in front of him rather than behind him. But then Cloughie was just being delightfully honest.
The truth is though that Claudio Ranieri is temporarily out of a job and Leicester may come to regret their decision. Football was horrified by the suddenness and abruptness of Ranieri's exit. They will look at their list of managerial successors, weigh up their options and then realise the error of their ways. Claudio Ranieri has decency, exemplary managerial pedigree and the most engaging manner. If Leicester do learn from what may seem a dreadful rashness then Claudio Ranieri will deservedly find gainful employment sooner rather than later. Football needs to come its senses sooner rather than later.
Thursday 23 February 2017
Storm Doris- where did that come from?
Storm Doris- where did that come from?
I know what you're thinking. Now where did that Storm Doris come from? It must have come from the Atlantic or perhaps blown furiously across the frozen wastes of Russia? There will come a time when perhaps I will stop talking about the weather but sadly the weather has successfully dictated and determined our moods since the beginning of time so why stop now?
So then Storm Doris. It's hard to know why we're all being blown off our feet and swept off the pavement by those blustery, whistling, howling winds which seem to have come from somewhere even if most of us haven't a clue where. It seems to be though that the months of the year have got this one slightly wrong. Don't we normally get these tempests in March hence March winds? Still I expect it'll quieten down eventually. It normally does.
We all stepped outside our homes and perhaps dreaded a repetition of October 1987 when a certain BBC weatherman called Michael Fish confidently re-assured Britain that they'd nothing to worry about because the rumoured storm that was on its way to the leafy suburbs and the big cities would miss us by several country miles and a couple of wobbling walls or fences. We had nothing to concern ourselves and when we'd awake the following morning everything would be exactly where it was before. We all know what happened next.
But here we are in Manor House and the only sound I can hear is uncannily reminiscent of one of those scary ghost stories they used to tell us on wild, windy nights. The wind is just crying, weeping, howling, moaning and groaning so movingly and, it has to be said, quite piteously. It feels as though at any moment our cupboards and wardrobes will start moving around like burglars callously ransacking your living room, shifting uneasily towards the door, then shrieking and wailing in extreme pain.
The fact is that Storm Doris is battering our sea defences, crashing aggressively against coastal walls and then buffeting anything in its way with breathtaking ferocity. In Britain we normally get the lot during the winter, the whole meteorological spectrum ranging from flooding, freezing, dripping, drizzling, rain, snow, frogs, locusts and now wind. And yet how we Brits brave our way through it all stoically and defiantly determined to venture out with dancing umbrellas and an intrepid soul.
Now the wind is with us and it feels as if at any moment that the house in the opening scene of the Wizard of Oz will come flying over us here in Manor House. Sadly Judy Garland is no longer here to grace us with her sweet voice but for now we'll just have to board up our homes, batten down the hatches and hope that by tomorrow morning we'll all be basking in a sweltering heatwave with temperatures soaring into the 90s.
In Britain we should be used to these gusting, blustery blasts that, at the moment, seem to be shouting protestingly and almost rebelliously. You can almost sympathise with their predicament because when the winds blow with a vengeance most of us just complain and wish that summer were here with all her decorative rays of sun to warm our bodies.
Regrettably- for the moment at least- the winds are picking up, fury and indignation echoing across Manor House. I'm still wearing my winter pullover and the squirrels outside are probably desperate for a warm bed for the night. I feel sure though that Storm Doris will be a storm in a teacup and those frightening things that go bump in the night will just seem like some minor disturbance in the history of British weather.
Exactly 30 years ago I woke up on that fated October morning and found the world had almost come to an end. Further down our road. my dad's poor, broken car had been severely dented and damaged. The roof of the car was clinging on for dear life and all around was chaos. The brick wall at the end of the road had been toppled to the ground almost cruelly. It may well have hit my dad's car by complete accident but none of us knew whether this was the case or not. It did though come crashing to the pavement with a huge thud and the whole day was shaped by one tempestuous event that the good old fashioned British weather had once again brought us quite vocally.
And so it is that Storm Doris will blow herself to a natural standstill before yet another gender influenced weather front. Will we get Thunderstorm Ernie followed by Hailstones Flora or just windy old Gordon? We'll wake up tomorrow and what seemed like the deafening noises of today will fade away rather like the ghosts that used to inhabit our imagination. Keep calm everybody. The winds of March may never materialise. We have to believe. We must hope.
I know what you're thinking. Now where did that Storm Doris come from? It must have come from the Atlantic or perhaps blown furiously across the frozen wastes of Russia? There will come a time when perhaps I will stop talking about the weather but sadly the weather has successfully dictated and determined our moods since the beginning of time so why stop now?
So then Storm Doris. It's hard to know why we're all being blown off our feet and swept off the pavement by those blustery, whistling, howling winds which seem to have come from somewhere even if most of us haven't a clue where. It seems to be though that the months of the year have got this one slightly wrong. Don't we normally get these tempests in March hence March winds? Still I expect it'll quieten down eventually. It normally does.
We all stepped outside our homes and perhaps dreaded a repetition of October 1987 when a certain BBC weatherman called Michael Fish confidently re-assured Britain that they'd nothing to worry about because the rumoured storm that was on its way to the leafy suburbs and the big cities would miss us by several country miles and a couple of wobbling walls or fences. We had nothing to concern ourselves and when we'd awake the following morning everything would be exactly where it was before. We all know what happened next.
But here we are in Manor House and the only sound I can hear is uncannily reminiscent of one of those scary ghost stories they used to tell us on wild, windy nights. The wind is just crying, weeping, howling, moaning and groaning so movingly and, it has to be said, quite piteously. It feels as though at any moment our cupboards and wardrobes will start moving around like burglars callously ransacking your living room, shifting uneasily towards the door, then shrieking and wailing in extreme pain.
The fact is that Storm Doris is battering our sea defences, crashing aggressively against coastal walls and then buffeting anything in its way with breathtaking ferocity. In Britain we normally get the lot during the winter, the whole meteorological spectrum ranging from flooding, freezing, dripping, drizzling, rain, snow, frogs, locusts and now wind. And yet how we Brits brave our way through it all stoically and defiantly determined to venture out with dancing umbrellas and an intrepid soul.
Now the wind is with us and it feels as if at any moment that the house in the opening scene of the Wizard of Oz will come flying over us here in Manor House. Sadly Judy Garland is no longer here to grace us with her sweet voice but for now we'll just have to board up our homes, batten down the hatches and hope that by tomorrow morning we'll all be basking in a sweltering heatwave with temperatures soaring into the 90s.
In Britain we should be used to these gusting, blustery blasts that, at the moment, seem to be shouting protestingly and almost rebelliously. You can almost sympathise with their predicament because when the winds blow with a vengeance most of us just complain and wish that summer were here with all her decorative rays of sun to warm our bodies.
Regrettably- for the moment at least- the winds are picking up, fury and indignation echoing across Manor House. I'm still wearing my winter pullover and the squirrels outside are probably desperate for a warm bed for the night. I feel sure though that Storm Doris will be a storm in a teacup and those frightening things that go bump in the night will just seem like some minor disturbance in the history of British weather.
Exactly 30 years ago I woke up on that fated October morning and found the world had almost come to an end. Further down our road. my dad's poor, broken car had been severely dented and damaged. The roof of the car was clinging on for dear life and all around was chaos. The brick wall at the end of the road had been toppled to the ground almost cruelly. It may well have hit my dad's car by complete accident but none of us knew whether this was the case or not. It did though come crashing to the pavement with a huge thud and the whole day was shaped by one tempestuous event that the good old fashioned British weather had once again brought us quite vocally.
And so it is that Storm Doris will blow herself to a natural standstill before yet another gender influenced weather front. Will we get Thunderstorm Ernie followed by Hailstones Flora or just windy old Gordon? We'll wake up tomorrow and what seemed like the deafening noises of today will fade away rather like the ghosts that used to inhabit our imagination. Keep calm everybody. The winds of March may never materialise. We have to believe. We must hope.
Tuesday 21 February 2017
Moorgate- London showing off her lesser known charms
Moorgate- a London jewel but lacking in glamour.
At first glance Moorgate in London doesn't immediately catch you in the eye. It lacks a certain glamour, a sense that there is some indefinable quality that seems to be missing. It looks as though it needs a hug or cuddle because there doesn't seem to be any get up and go, pizzazz, vim, verve and vitality about it. You begin to look around you and find that maybe it needs something that you can't quite put your finger on. There doesn't seem to be a great deal of colour or personality about Moorgate and you almost feel as though it cries out for a sharper identity. There is nothing vivid or striking about Moorgate and yet it does have a historical grandeur that sets it apart from others.
Now let me tell you something. I think Moorgate is both pleasant and charming in its way. Most of the buildings do though look both featureless, dull and deeply disheartening. There is a cheerlessness and sad functionalism about Moorgate that does leave you feeling ever so slightly dispirited. It is cold and soulless, a huge oasis of strangely designed office blocks and buildings with little in the way of charisma. But then Moorgate is not in the West End and therefore the glitz and glitter of theatreland is a world away from the more formal and businesslike City of London where men in suits dabble in commerce and high finance. .
My family and I popped along to the Museum of London near London Wall and I have to say I was deeply impressed. Throughout the years and decades I've seen most of London's great and good museums and they do give you the most revealing insight into the history and development of our great capital city. Of course London is the best because my late and wonderful dad made sure that I was given the best guided tour that any child could ever have.
But he didn't get around to taking me to the Museum of London although he did take his grey Ford Cortina around the London Wall on innumerable occasions. This was a forgivable oversight because as a young teenager you never see London in quite the same favourable light as you do when you get older. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and what seemed quite ordinary at the time now looks much more appealing and attractive.
Still, it has to be said, Moorgate sent a shiver of astonishment through me. You find yourself completely surrounded by huge blocks of concrete, glass and marble that are almost devoid of any architectural virtue. Now what I know about modern architecture could probably be written on the back of a postcard but Moorgate would never be my personal recommendation for a tourist looking for places to visit for any great length of time.
Wherever you look in Moorgate there are white and grey slabs of what can best be described as giant Lego bricks joined together in a very hasty and hurried fashion. There is something indescribably plastic and cosmetic about some of those office blocks that have very little in the way of elegance or deep aesthetic appeal.
There is a very strong thread of 21st century modernism running through Moorgate which should be inspirational but instead I think is very depressing. There are the cool and funky Pret A Mangers, the unmistakable vegan restaurants and cafes and a place, called quaintly, Cococos which sounds as though the sign- writer had a bit too much to drink. And then Moorgate almost looks as if it simply ran out of ideas or imagination because there is a huge ghetto land of aimless walkways and pavements that seem to go on for ever.
Anyway we all had a marvellous time this afternoon at the Museum of London. We learnt once again- as if we needed any confirmation- that those Romans weren't much of a help to Britain way back when. They invaded, pillaged, attacked, looted and generally threw their weight about when quite frankly there was no need for such outlandish behaviour. They were horribly aggressive, a general nuisance and did nothing for British morale when it was perhaps needed most.
Behind those impressive glass cases we saw all of that rather intimidating military hardware that led to war, wickedness and ugly bloodshed. There were knives, swords, shields, mail shirts worn by courageous soldiers in battle and all of those very early signs of wholesale destruction and manslaughter that so disfigured the face of history.
Your eyes were also though drawn to some of the finest and most outstanding pieces of very primitive pottery. There were vases and plates, bowls and limestone reliefs depicting kings and queens throughout those very early pre- Internet days when a tablet was something you found in an ancient ruin or roundhouse.
And finally we did arrive in the more up to date decades that for most of us provided a much clearer sense of identification with recent day to day life. There was the 1950s with its post rationing severity and a real sense of Post War recovery, the 1960s with all those bold, brilliant and adventurous colours, the 1980s with all of those dramatically revolutionary events, the 1990s when things seemed to get slightly out of control and then the 21st century which just rocked us back on our feet with a remarkable sequence of surprises.
As we left the Museum of London I couldn't help but notice a rather flattering homage to one of my favourite London landmarks. The Lyons Corner House was the finest place on earth while I was growing up and here at the Museum of London it had been given pride of place. As a child it was the greatest restaurant I'd ever been to and when my parents took me to the Lyons Corner House in Marble Arch you were made to feel very privileged and honoured to be in the presence of something that made you feel like royalty.
And so we bid farewell to Moorgate, the London Wall and the Museum of London. This had been my first visit to what, at first sight, seemed the most mundane of buildings. Still it was an enjoyable trip around the very essence of London and its very noble history. When all is said and done there is a great deal to be said for a trip to the Museum of London on a very mild February afternoon. I'll give it a definite thumbs up so that's a yes from me. Well done Moorgate.
At first glance Moorgate in London doesn't immediately catch you in the eye. It lacks a certain glamour, a sense that there is some indefinable quality that seems to be missing. It looks as though it needs a hug or cuddle because there doesn't seem to be any get up and go, pizzazz, vim, verve and vitality about it. You begin to look around you and find that maybe it needs something that you can't quite put your finger on. There doesn't seem to be a great deal of colour or personality about Moorgate and you almost feel as though it cries out for a sharper identity. There is nothing vivid or striking about Moorgate and yet it does have a historical grandeur that sets it apart from others.
Now let me tell you something. I think Moorgate is both pleasant and charming in its way. Most of the buildings do though look both featureless, dull and deeply disheartening. There is a cheerlessness and sad functionalism about Moorgate that does leave you feeling ever so slightly dispirited. It is cold and soulless, a huge oasis of strangely designed office blocks and buildings with little in the way of charisma. But then Moorgate is not in the West End and therefore the glitz and glitter of theatreland is a world away from the more formal and businesslike City of London where men in suits dabble in commerce and high finance. .
My family and I popped along to the Museum of London near London Wall and I have to say I was deeply impressed. Throughout the years and decades I've seen most of London's great and good museums and they do give you the most revealing insight into the history and development of our great capital city. Of course London is the best because my late and wonderful dad made sure that I was given the best guided tour that any child could ever have.
But he didn't get around to taking me to the Museum of London although he did take his grey Ford Cortina around the London Wall on innumerable occasions. This was a forgivable oversight because as a young teenager you never see London in quite the same favourable light as you do when you get older. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and what seemed quite ordinary at the time now looks much more appealing and attractive.
Still, it has to be said, Moorgate sent a shiver of astonishment through me. You find yourself completely surrounded by huge blocks of concrete, glass and marble that are almost devoid of any architectural virtue. Now what I know about modern architecture could probably be written on the back of a postcard but Moorgate would never be my personal recommendation for a tourist looking for places to visit for any great length of time.
Wherever you look in Moorgate there are white and grey slabs of what can best be described as giant Lego bricks joined together in a very hasty and hurried fashion. There is something indescribably plastic and cosmetic about some of those office blocks that have very little in the way of elegance or deep aesthetic appeal.
There is a very strong thread of 21st century modernism running through Moorgate which should be inspirational but instead I think is very depressing. There are the cool and funky Pret A Mangers, the unmistakable vegan restaurants and cafes and a place, called quaintly, Cococos which sounds as though the sign- writer had a bit too much to drink. And then Moorgate almost looks as if it simply ran out of ideas or imagination because there is a huge ghetto land of aimless walkways and pavements that seem to go on for ever.
Anyway we all had a marvellous time this afternoon at the Museum of London. We learnt once again- as if we needed any confirmation- that those Romans weren't much of a help to Britain way back when. They invaded, pillaged, attacked, looted and generally threw their weight about when quite frankly there was no need for such outlandish behaviour. They were horribly aggressive, a general nuisance and did nothing for British morale when it was perhaps needed most.
Behind those impressive glass cases we saw all of that rather intimidating military hardware that led to war, wickedness and ugly bloodshed. There were knives, swords, shields, mail shirts worn by courageous soldiers in battle and all of those very early signs of wholesale destruction and manslaughter that so disfigured the face of history.
Your eyes were also though drawn to some of the finest and most outstanding pieces of very primitive pottery. There were vases and plates, bowls and limestone reliefs depicting kings and queens throughout those very early pre- Internet days when a tablet was something you found in an ancient ruin or roundhouse.
And finally we did arrive in the more up to date decades that for most of us provided a much clearer sense of identification with recent day to day life. There was the 1950s with its post rationing severity and a real sense of Post War recovery, the 1960s with all those bold, brilliant and adventurous colours, the 1980s with all of those dramatically revolutionary events, the 1990s when things seemed to get slightly out of control and then the 21st century which just rocked us back on our feet with a remarkable sequence of surprises.
As we left the Museum of London I couldn't help but notice a rather flattering homage to one of my favourite London landmarks. The Lyons Corner House was the finest place on earth while I was growing up and here at the Museum of London it had been given pride of place. As a child it was the greatest restaurant I'd ever been to and when my parents took me to the Lyons Corner House in Marble Arch you were made to feel very privileged and honoured to be in the presence of something that made you feel like royalty.
And so we bid farewell to Moorgate, the London Wall and the Museum of London. This had been my first visit to what, at first sight, seemed the most mundane of buildings. Still it was an enjoyable trip around the very essence of London and its very noble history. When all is said and done there is a great deal to be said for a trip to the Museum of London on a very mild February afternoon. I'll give it a definite thumbs up so that's a yes from me. Well done Moorgate.
Monday 20 February 2017
Spurs- a throwback to the glory, glory days
Spurs- a throwback to the glory, glory days
It was a pleasant day by the River Thames. The river itself was calm and unruffled, almost oblivious to events at nearby Craven Cottage. Meanwhile an FA Cup match was carefully unfolding in front of us. Fulham were playing Tottenham Hotspur in the FA Cup fifth round and the world was going about its business in the way it always has. But Spurs were winding the clock back to the good old days of Bill Nicholson, push and run, give and go and intricate triangles. It was reminiscent of how things used to be rather than they are at the moment.
Fulham, of course, are no longer the Premier League force of old and the FA Cup is just one isolated memory. When they were beaten by fellow Londoners West Ham in the 1975 FA Cup Final it was a like a brief acquaintance with an old friend. They met at the railway station, slapped each other on the back and then lost contact with each other.
Last night I came across a classic piece of You Tube footage featuring the abundantly gifted and masterful George Best and the equally as celebrated Rodney Marsh just over 40 years ago. Then Best and Marsh became the magical exhibitionists playing in a Fulham side that seemed to have been temporarily bequeathed a priceless family heirloom. But it was only one season and perhaps the Fulham fans gathered at the Cottage yesterday may have been totally unaware of the Best and Marsh double act. It's probably safe to assume that some of them hadn't even been born yet.
Still today's FA Cup fifth round tie between the Cottagers and Spurs was all about the present day. Fulham are now a team playing below stairs rather than the upper class stratosphere. A couple of seasons ago they fell from Premier League grace after a 13 year tenancy in the big time League. But yesterday they faced a Tottenham team who were both technically brilliant, richly expressive and sumptuously stylish. If somebody had given them a paint brush before the game they'd have probably produced a masterpiece.
Tottenham are still hankering after another FA Cup. It's 27 years since their last Wembley Cup Final victory against Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest and the longing becomes greater by the year. Yesterday Spurs just demolished Fulham before they'd had time to release the handbrake. The passes were strung together like the prettiest of daisy chains and it all looked like something they'd cut and paste a million times from the training ground. It was football that had a wonderful off the cuff spontaneity, flowing like sugar and honey.
But essentially this was the day when Spurs superb striker Harry Kane gave a convincing imitation of a striker in the best goal scoring form. Surely it can only be a matter of time before England boss Gareth Southgate gives Kane complete licence to terrorise opposition defences on a regular basis. Kane's goal scoring prowess is now deservedly recognised throughout the game and there is something of his predecessor Jimmy Greaves about him.
Kane scores goals for fun, a hungry predator and could, you suspect, score goals in his sleep. Comparisons with Jimmy Greaves are deeply unfair at the moment but Kane has a wonderful goal- scoring prowess that seems to come naturally to him. All strikers relish the geography of a penalty area. They always seem to be in the right place and the right time. Kane has almost adopted the role and claimed it for himself. Now the goals are gushing out of Kane like a prolific oil gusher and yesterday Kane was just unstoppable.
Throughout the whole of the game yesterday Kane was like the central axis of all Tottenham's attacking movements. He floated and darted into space without any prompting at all and when he came anywhere near the Fulham goal, Kane was in his element. He pounced like a viper and then ruthlessly applied the killer punch. It was mercilessly cruel and somehow inevitable but then that's the way Kane likes it.
In a sense Kane's hat- trick against Fulham was somehow fated to happen. It was as if Fulham should have been given prior warning because Kane was a dark, menacing force breathing down their neck. All three goals were the direct result of some delicious passing and incisive approach work. You were reminded of a hospital surgeon with a scalpel. Fulham were cut open and then stitched back together with surgical precision. Job done.
Spurs supporting cast consisted of Christian Erikssen, a player straight out of the Tottenham finishing school of excellence. Rather like Spurs in their Ardilles and Villa incarnation, Erikssen loves to be in permanent control of the ball. Here he was in a complete command of proceedings, a player of wit and impulse, prompting and probing for Spurs at will, the complete playmaker.
Then there was one of the new and now flourishing home grown conveyor belt. Harry Winks looked bright, breezy, happy go lucky and vibrant. Winks was emotionally involved and splendidly carefree, fluttering around like the most colourful of birds. In many ways some of Winks football was tremendously eye- catching. Now where did that pun come from?
And so it is that Spurs go marching on in much the way Bill Nicholson would have advocated and supported whole heartedly. It's Millwall for Spurs in the FA Cup quarter finals and that cockerel at White Hart Lane could hardly be happier. Harry Kane, hey? Orson Wells would have been enormously proud of Spurs latest citizen.
It was a pleasant day by the River Thames. The river itself was calm and unruffled, almost oblivious to events at nearby Craven Cottage. Meanwhile an FA Cup match was carefully unfolding in front of us. Fulham were playing Tottenham Hotspur in the FA Cup fifth round and the world was going about its business in the way it always has. But Spurs were winding the clock back to the good old days of Bill Nicholson, push and run, give and go and intricate triangles. It was reminiscent of how things used to be rather than they are at the moment.
Fulham, of course, are no longer the Premier League force of old and the FA Cup is just one isolated memory. When they were beaten by fellow Londoners West Ham in the 1975 FA Cup Final it was a like a brief acquaintance with an old friend. They met at the railway station, slapped each other on the back and then lost contact with each other.
Last night I came across a classic piece of You Tube footage featuring the abundantly gifted and masterful George Best and the equally as celebrated Rodney Marsh just over 40 years ago. Then Best and Marsh became the magical exhibitionists playing in a Fulham side that seemed to have been temporarily bequeathed a priceless family heirloom. But it was only one season and perhaps the Fulham fans gathered at the Cottage yesterday may have been totally unaware of the Best and Marsh double act. It's probably safe to assume that some of them hadn't even been born yet.
Still today's FA Cup fifth round tie between the Cottagers and Spurs was all about the present day. Fulham are now a team playing below stairs rather than the upper class stratosphere. A couple of seasons ago they fell from Premier League grace after a 13 year tenancy in the big time League. But yesterday they faced a Tottenham team who were both technically brilliant, richly expressive and sumptuously stylish. If somebody had given them a paint brush before the game they'd have probably produced a masterpiece.
Tottenham are still hankering after another FA Cup. It's 27 years since their last Wembley Cup Final victory against Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest and the longing becomes greater by the year. Yesterday Spurs just demolished Fulham before they'd had time to release the handbrake. The passes were strung together like the prettiest of daisy chains and it all looked like something they'd cut and paste a million times from the training ground. It was football that had a wonderful off the cuff spontaneity, flowing like sugar and honey.
But essentially this was the day when Spurs superb striker Harry Kane gave a convincing imitation of a striker in the best goal scoring form. Surely it can only be a matter of time before England boss Gareth Southgate gives Kane complete licence to terrorise opposition defences on a regular basis. Kane's goal scoring prowess is now deservedly recognised throughout the game and there is something of his predecessor Jimmy Greaves about him.
Kane scores goals for fun, a hungry predator and could, you suspect, score goals in his sleep. Comparisons with Jimmy Greaves are deeply unfair at the moment but Kane has a wonderful goal- scoring prowess that seems to come naturally to him. All strikers relish the geography of a penalty area. They always seem to be in the right place and the right time. Kane has almost adopted the role and claimed it for himself. Now the goals are gushing out of Kane like a prolific oil gusher and yesterday Kane was just unstoppable.
Throughout the whole of the game yesterday Kane was like the central axis of all Tottenham's attacking movements. He floated and darted into space without any prompting at all and when he came anywhere near the Fulham goal, Kane was in his element. He pounced like a viper and then ruthlessly applied the killer punch. It was mercilessly cruel and somehow inevitable but then that's the way Kane likes it.
In a sense Kane's hat- trick against Fulham was somehow fated to happen. It was as if Fulham should have been given prior warning because Kane was a dark, menacing force breathing down their neck. All three goals were the direct result of some delicious passing and incisive approach work. You were reminded of a hospital surgeon with a scalpel. Fulham were cut open and then stitched back together with surgical precision. Job done.
Spurs supporting cast consisted of Christian Erikssen, a player straight out of the Tottenham finishing school of excellence. Rather like Spurs in their Ardilles and Villa incarnation, Erikssen loves to be in permanent control of the ball. Here he was in a complete command of proceedings, a player of wit and impulse, prompting and probing for Spurs at will, the complete playmaker.
Then there was one of the new and now flourishing home grown conveyor belt. Harry Winks looked bright, breezy, happy go lucky and vibrant. Winks was emotionally involved and splendidly carefree, fluttering around like the most colourful of birds. In many ways some of Winks football was tremendously eye- catching. Now where did that pun come from?
And so it is that Spurs go marching on in much the way Bill Nicholson would have advocated and supported whole heartedly. It's Millwall for Spurs in the FA Cup quarter finals and that cockerel at White Hart Lane could hardly be happier. Harry Kane, hey? Orson Wells would have been enormously proud of Spurs latest citizen.
Saturday 18 February 2017
The FA Cup fifth round- almost Wembley bound but not quite
The FA Cup fifth round- almost Wembley bound but not quite.
Football has always had time for the FA Cup. Many of us are distinctly aware of its central themes and narratives. The FA Cup, of course, is renowned for its giant killers, its romantic liaisons, its moonlit rendezvous by the river Seine, its gallant heroes, its timeless value, its nationwide fascination, the shock results, the non League goal-scorers who were builders by day and then valiant knights in shining armour by the evening. In the world of football the FA Cup is unique, irreplaceable and a huge topic of discussion. In fact we talk about nothing else if our team can almost smell the strong scent of Wembley Stadium and the Cup Final.
So what exactly will the potential giant killers be thinking of by the time I've written this piece? I've just been informed by my son that Lincoln City have just created a monumentally seismic shock by beating Burnley at Turfmoor 1-0. Now the truth is that none could have possibly imagined that a non League side who used to be in the old Fourth Division, could, quite plausibly, reach a Wembley FA Cup Final in even their wildest dreams.
But how the FA Cup continues to make faces behind football's back and and leaves most of us breathless. So much for Burnley and your proud history. I bet you couldn't have seen that one coming. For a day Burnley were given the most rude awakening and to think that once they were proud winners of the League- or the old First Division. Quite frankly the FA Cup affords little respect for the presumptuous or the pompous.
And yet it's happened and how amazing is that? We wish them well on their way and can hardly believe what's happened. But the FA Cup has that almost rare capacity to upset everybody when least expected. The FA Cup can creep up on you and just surprise you which can only boost the morale of those who believe that only the big teams should win the FA Cup. I kid you not the FA Cup has woven its magic spell, summoned up its fighting spirit and caught us off guard. The headline makers had dominated the back pages again. Wow who would have thought it. Lincoln City are in the FA Cup quarter finals and football is still getting its breath back.
On Monday evening, the laws and averages. the probabilities and possibilities that the FA Cup can so often throw up will create havoc with our emotions. Non League Sutton United, who in 1989 once upset everybody's Saturday afternoon's expectations by beating the then old First Division Coventry City, can only think their birthdays have arrived all at once. Maybe they were still blowing out the candles.
Sutton United, those dogged non League battlers from the Surrey stockbroker belt had the audacity and the effrontery to knock over Coventry City who 20 years before had been one of the most visionary teams of the late 1960s with a bearded Jimmy Hill as chairman. Coventry, as is well documented, had reached the FA Cup Final two years later and won the FA Cup. But on a far distant day Sutton's gorgeous Gander Green Lane was the venue of one of the biggest shocks in FA Cup history and Coventry must have felt both degraded, demeaned and ever so slightly embarrassed. Now how's that for a shock, more of an electric shock I'd say.
But the FA Cup adores its social climbers, its humble upstarts, its blatant disregard of form and fancy, its vast democratic reach and the players who dream the impossible. When the newsagents, postmen, milkmen, lorry drivers, cleaners and gardeners part company with their non League duties and focus on FA Cup glory, most of us begin to believe that the dreamers are entitled to their dreams. Because if you don't have a dream. Oh happy, happy talk. Sorry, that line bears no relation to the FA Cup.
And so it is that on Monday evening Sutton United will be rushing into their dressing rooms on a cracking, electrifying evening in the heart of Surrey. The citizens of Sutton will sprint home from their day in the office and wonder if they'll ever experience another night like it. Sutton United will come face to face with Arsenal, a side of world class internationals, a tradition the size of a continent and a reputation so formidable that Sutton might be questioning their motives for even turning up.
So it's Sutton United meets Arsenal. Now if all goes according to plan and everybody does what they're told to do then Arsenal should run up the most colossal cricket score. In fact it could be said that Sutton United should do themselves an immense favour and just stay at home. But oh no this is not going to happen because we all love the underdog, the teams who just play for the personal satisfaction of being there and soaking up the big time atmosphere.
But we embrace the FA Cup does its utmost to smooth out the level playing field, flipping up social hierarchies on their head and making monkeys of us all. Lincoln are ever so slightly light headed and dizzy with delirium. This is not supposed to happen in the FA Cup. Those small time Non League minnows should just mind their business and leave the greatest Cup competition alone. But then the cathedral city of Lincoln will be drinking themselves silly, singing their songs deep into the night and quite possibly lifting that famous old Cup high into the Wembley air. You can be assured the likes of Sutton United and Lincoln City have always been our fanciful fantasists and who knows? Besides Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States. Now what were the odds on that.
Football has always had time for the FA Cup. Many of us are distinctly aware of its central themes and narratives. The FA Cup, of course, is renowned for its giant killers, its romantic liaisons, its moonlit rendezvous by the river Seine, its gallant heroes, its timeless value, its nationwide fascination, the shock results, the non League goal-scorers who were builders by day and then valiant knights in shining armour by the evening. In the world of football the FA Cup is unique, irreplaceable and a huge topic of discussion. In fact we talk about nothing else if our team can almost smell the strong scent of Wembley Stadium and the Cup Final.
So what exactly will the potential giant killers be thinking of by the time I've written this piece? I've just been informed by my son that Lincoln City have just created a monumentally seismic shock by beating Burnley at Turfmoor 1-0. Now the truth is that none could have possibly imagined that a non League side who used to be in the old Fourth Division, could, quite plausibly, reach a Wembley FA Cup Final in even their wildest dreams.
But how the FA Cup continues to make faces behind football's back and and leaves most of us breathless. So much for Burnley and your proud history. I bet you couldn't have seen that one coming. For a day Burnley were given the most rude awakening and to think that once they were proud winners of the League- or the old First Division. Quite frankly the FA Cup affords little respect for the presumptuous or the pompous.
And yet it's happened and how amazing is that? We wish them well on their way and can hardly believe what's happened. But the FA Cup has that almost rare capacity to upset everybody when least expected. The FA Cup can creep up on you and just surprise you which can only boost the morale of those who believe that only the big teams should win the FA Cup. I kid you not the FA Cup has woven its magic spell, summoned up its fighting spirit and caught us off guard. The headline makers had dominated the back pages again. Wow who would have thought it. Lincoln City are in the FA Cup quarter finals and football is still getting its breath back.
On Monday evening, the laws and averages. the probabilities and possibilities that the FA Cup can so often throw up will create havoc with our emotions. Non League Sutton United, who in 1989 once upset everybody's Saturday afternoon's expectations by beating the then old First Division Coventry City, can only think their birthdays have arrived all at once. Maybe they were still blowing out the candles.
Sutton United, those dogged non League battlers from the Surrey stockbroker belt had the audacity and the effrontery to knock over Coventry City who 20 years before had been one of the most visionary teams of the late 1960s with a bearded Jimmy Hill as chairman. Coventry, as is well documented, had reached the FA Cup Final two years later and won the FA Cup. But on a far distant day Sutton's gorgeous Gander Green Lane was the venue of one of the biggest shocks in FA Cup history and Coventry must have felt both degraded, demeaned and ever so slightly embarrassed. Now how's that for a shock, more of an electric shock I'd say.
But the FA Cup adores its social climbers, its humble upstarts, its blatant disregard of form and fancy, its vast democratic reach and the players who dream the impossible. When the newsagents, postmen, milkmen, lorry drivers, cleaners and gardeners part company with their non League duties and focus on FA Cup glory, most of us begin to believe that the dreamers are entitled to their dreams. Because if you don't have a dream. Oh happy, happy talk. Sorry, that line bears no relation to the FA Cup.
And so it is that on Monday evening Sutton United will be rushing into their dressing rooms on a cracking, electrifying evening in the heart of Surrey. The citizens of Sutton will sprint home from their day in the office and wonder if they'll ever experience another night like it. Sutton United will come face to face with Arsenal, a side of world class internationals, a tradition the size of a continent and a reputation so formidable that Sutton might be questioning their motives for even turning up.
So it's Sutton United meets Arsenal. Now if all goes according to plan and everybody does what they're told to do then Arsenal should run up the most colossal cricket score. In fact it could be said that Sutton United should do themselves an immense favour and just stay at home. But oh no this is not going to happen because we all love the underdog, the teams who just play for the personal satisfaction of being there and soaking up the big time atmosphere.
But we embrace the FA Cup does its utmost to smooth out the level playing field, flipping up social hierarchies on their head and making monkeys of us all. Lincoln are ever so slightly light headed and dizzy with delirium. This is not supposed to happen in the FA Cup. Those small time Non League minnows should just mind their business and leave the greatest Cup competition alone. But then the cathedral city of Lincoln will be drinking themselves silly, singing their songs deep into the night and quite possibly lifting that famous old Cup high into the Wembley air. You can be assured the likes of Sutton United and Lincoln City have always been our fanciful fantasists and who knows? Besides Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States. Now what were the odds on that.
My first book Victorian Madness Lyrics
My first book Victorian Madness Lyrics.
Now how do I put this? My first book Victorian Madness Lyrics is quite the most bonkers, craziest and most unusual book you will ever read. But it does have its redeeming features and there are plenty of those. Victorian Madness Lyrics could be described as absurd, crazy and totally outrageous but I'm here to tell you that it's not. By Victorian Madness Lyrics I mean the brilliant ska group Madness fronted by the outstanding Suggs who has Victorian Madness Lyrics in his possession. Thanks Suggs.
If you love the English language and you love very posh metaphors then this is quite definitely the book for you. It is a book full of over the top, ridiculously long words, excessively expressive metaphors and a book that will take you on a long, but I think hilarious literary journey.
Victorian Madness Lyrics is I think funny, very quirky, lyrical and great fun. If you were a fan of the BBC's Good Old Days during the 1970s and that memorable presenter Leonard Sachs then you'll have some idea of what Victorian Madness Lyrics is about.
I've translated most of the ska group Madness's back catalogue into hugely descriptive language. Now here are some of the examples of the kind of language I've used in Victorian Madness Lyrics.
House of Fun- Establishment of Amusement
Our House - One's Abode
Embarrassment - Humiliation
So there you have it folks. My first book Victorian Madness Lyrics will have you chuckling and giggling and then laughing all the way to work, school, university or wherever you happen to be in the world. I think you'll enjoy it. I'm sure it's unlike any book you'll ever read which is not to say that it's unique. But if very posh words, language and verbal vitality is your kind of reading I can heartily recommend my first book Victorian Madness Lyrics.
Victorian Madness Lyrics is available at FeedaRead.com.
Thanks folks
Have a great weekend.
Now how do I put this? My first book Victorian Madness Lyrics is quite the most bonkers, craziest and most unusual book you will ever read. But it does have its redeeming features and there are plenty of those. Victorian Madness Lyrics could be described as absurd, crazy and totally outrageous but I'm here to tell you that it's not. By Victorian Madness Lyrics I mean the brilliant ska group Madness fronted by the outstanding Suggs who has Victorian Madness Lyrics in his possession. Thanks Suggs.
If you love the English language and you love very posh metaphors then this is quite definitely the book for you. It is a book full of over the top, ridiculously long words, excessively expressive metaphors and a book that will take you on a long, but I think hilarious literary journey.
Victorian Madness Lyrics is I think funny, very quirky, lyrical and great fun. If you were a fan of the BBC's Good Old Days during the 1970s and that memorable presenter Leonard Sachs then you'll have some idea of what Victorian Madness Lyrics is about.
I've translated most of the ska group Madness's back catalogue into hugely descriptive language. Now here are some of the examples of the kind of language I've used in Victorian Madness Lyrics.
House of Fun- Establishment of Amusement
Our House - One's Abode
Embarrassment - Humiliation
So there you have it folks. My first book Victorian Madness Lyrics will have you chuckling and giggling and then laughing all the way to work, school, university or wherever you happen to be in the world. I think you'll enjoy it. I'm sure it's unlike any book you'll ever read which is not to say that it's unique. But if very posh words, language and verbal vitality is your kind of reading I can heartily recommend my first book Victorian Madness Lyrics.
Victorian Madness Lyrics is available at FeedaRead.com.
Thanks folks
Have a great weekend.
Friday 17 February 2017
It really does feel like spring
It really does feel like spring.
I have to tell you that today bears an uncanny resemblance to Spring. Yes folks, when its spring again we'll sing again tulips from Manor House. Now that may be a complete exaggeration but there is a definite air and aura of the changing seasons. Years ago winters seemed to go on for so long that some of us began to lose track of time. The hours, weeks and months would drag their feet slowly and desultorily towards the early evening darkness, staggering, stumbling, puffing and panting their way towards the first glimmers of spring daylight. What a journey, what an exhausting marathon.
But here we are approaching the end of February- if not quite- and everything around us here in Manor House has a quiet orderliness about it. All of those howling, whistling winds seemed to have dropped and the day has a different orchestra about it. The woodwind and percussion section aren't quite as loud as they were, say, a couple of weeks ago and now all is still and content. Outside it feels as if all the cars, buses and lorries have left town for a while and may not be coming back again until at least next Monday.
Dare I say it but this morning has something of the August Bank Holiday about it. This is not to suggest that everybody has gone to the coast or seaside for the day. But there is a feeling of emptiness and solitude about Manor House. I think Manor House feels a horrible sense of abandonment. It may be Friday here in Manor House but the roads look extremely sad and solitary. Maybe they could do with some company. The trouble though is I've no idea who to ask.
Anyway with spring just over a month away maybe this is the right time to look forward to a season of blossom and colour. The winter was, when all is said and done, moderately tolerable apart from one or two icy blasts. But aside from one or two minor bouts of discomfort and the odd twinges we've all battled our way stoically through December and January without any major setbacks. There was a time when I didn't think I'd get through it all but this is February and I'd like to think that the weeks leading up to the first day of spring will be filled with vigorous health and renewed energy.
Next to us is the stunning and revelatory Woodbury Wetlands, a beautifully sculpted development that is almost too good to be true. Opened last year by the distinguished broadcaster David Attenborough, the Woodbury Wetlands is a natural wonder that if you didn't know you were in London, you'd swear was some breathtaking piece of countryside. But the Wetlands is situated in Manor House, a North London suburb. literally minutes away from the West End showbiz fraternity and the two are somehow compatible, almost meant for each other.
It is a huge, all encompassing bird sanctuary with a wonderful lake and hundreds of nature's most extraordinarily varied plants and flowers. Now is the time when Manor House begins to shakes off its dark foreboding and tries to open its eyes clearly. There is a refreshing beauty about that bright wintry sunlight that makes you feel that everything is just right. All of that grim December despondency and dampness has now been replaced by a mid February carnival of early spring colours.
I've yet to see those elusive tulips and the daffodils are quite happily snoring away in some hidden corner of Woodberry Wetlands. It may be that within the next couple of weeks the robins, starlings and the geese will all sweep down from warmer shores and take up temporary residence on British shores. But for the time being all of those swans and ducks may have to wait for the chance to float gracefully towards you at the first hint of bread from us.
On a run around Woodberry Woodlands some time last year I just happened to notice a whole family of geese next to the reservoir. One member of the family looked at me as if barely able to believe how slow I was. And yet the swan had given me the most admiring and supportive glance so this was all the incentive I needed to keep me going.
Every so often the Woodberry Wetlands just leaves you speechless and truly enraptured. Parties of butterfly watchers will carefully scribble down notes, all the while examining their discreet hideaways. Meanwhile another group will point their binoculars confidently towards a deeply attractive stretch of water that very rarely ripples and only seems to be disturbed when the ducks make their raucous presence felt.
Now I'm no naturalist but I do know that Woodberry Wetlands is the most splendid and magnificent creation. I know we're still in February but my body feels as though it's been given an sharp injection of good feelings. It's time to look ahead rather than back because this is the time for putting down positive markers for a warm summer and a firm belief that we will get that much coveted heatwave. Mind you a summer without a single mention of Donald Trump and Brexit can only be laden with good cheer. We can but hope.
I have to tell you that today bears an uncanny resemblance to Spring. Yes folks, when its spring again we'll sing again tulips from Manor House. Now that may be a complete exaggeration but there is a definite air and aura of the changing seasons. Years ago winters seemed to go on for so long that some of us began to lose track of time. The hours, weeks and months would drag their feet slowly and desultorily towards the early evening darkness, staggering, stumbling, puffing and panting their way towards the first glimmers of spring daylight. What a journey, what an exhausting marathon.
But here we are approaching the end of February- if not quite- and everything around us here in Manor House has a quiet orderliness about it. All of those howling, whistling winds seemed to have dropped and the day has a different orchestra about it. The woodwind and percussion section aren't quite as loud as they were, say, a couple of weeks ago and now all is still and content. Outside it feels as if all the cars, buses and lorries have left town for a while and may not be coming back again until at least next Monday.
Dare I say it but this morning has something of the August Bank Holiday about it. This is not to suggest that everybody has gone to the coast or seaside for the day. But there is a feeling of emptiness and solitude about Manor House. I think Manor House feels a horrible sense of abandonment. It may be Friday here in Manor House but the roads look extremely sad and solitary. Maybe they could do with some company. The trouble though is I've no idea who to ask.
Anyway with spring just over a month away maybe this is the right time to look forward to a season of blossom and colour. The winter was, when all is said and done, moderately tolerable apart from one or two icy blasts. But aside from one or two minor bouts of discomfort and the odd twinges we've all battled our way stoically through December and January without any major setbacks. There was a time when I didn't think I'd get through it all but this is February and I'd like to think that the weeks leading up to the first day of spring will be filled with vigorous health and renewed energy.
Next to us is the stunning and revelatory Woodbury Wetlands, a beautifully sculpted development that is almost too good to be true. Opened last year by the distinguished broadcaster David Attenborough, the Woodbury Wetlands is a natural wonder that if you didn't know you were in London, you'd swear was some breathtaking piece of countryside. But the Wetlands is situated in Manor House, a North London suburb. literally minutes away from the West End showbiz fraternity and the two are somehow compatible, almost meant for each other.
It is a huge, all encompassing bird sanctuary with a wonderful lake and hundreds of nature's most extraordinarily varied plants and flowers. Now is the time when Manor House begins to shakes off its dark foreboding and tries to open its eyes clearly. There is a refreshing beauty about that bright wintry sunlight that makes you feel that everything is just right. All of that grim December despondency and dampness has now been replaced by a mid February carnival of early spring colours.
I've yet to see those elusive tulips and the daffodils are quite happily snoring away in some hidden corner of Woodberry Wetlands. It may be that within the next couple of weeks the robins, starlings and the geese will all sweep down from warmer shores and take up temporary residence on British shores. But for the time being all of those swans and ducks may have to wait for the chance to float gracefully towards you at the first hint of bread from us.
On a run around Woodberry Woodlands some time last year I just happened to notice a whole family of geese next to the reservoir. One member of the family looked at me as if barely able to believe how slow I was. And yet the swan had given me the most admiring and supportive glance so this was all the incentive I needed to keep me going.
Every so often the Woodberry Wetlands just leaves you speechless and truly enraptured. Parties of butterfly watchers will carefully scribble down notes, all the while examining their discreet hideaways. Meanwhile another group will point their binoculars confidently towards a deeply attractive stretch of water that very rarely ripples and only seems to be disturbed when the ducks make their raucous presence felt.
Now I'm no naturalist but I do know that Woodberry Wetlands is the most splendid and magnificent creation. I know we're still in February but my body feels as though it's been given an sharp injection of good feelings. It's time to look ahead rather than back because this is the time for putting down positive markers for a warm summer and a firm belief that we will get that much coveted heatwave. Mind you a summer without a single mention of Donald Trump and Brexit can only be laden with good cheer. We can but hope.
Wednesday 15 February 2017
No Joe Bloggs- my story.
No Joe Bloggs- my story.
No Joe Bloggs, my second book is my heartfelt, emotional life journey. It is all about the good and positive things that life has to offer. It is about my childhood, what happened to me during that childhood, the teenage years that went terribly wrong for me, my struggles during a very awkwardly painful adolescence, my parents, my grandparents, the wonderful neighbours I grew up with and the whole backdrop of my life that eventually blossomed with a wonderfully loving and supportive family, wife, children and everybody who supported me during my traumatic year of the London Olympics.
It is a happy ever after story but without the schmaltz although I have to tell you it is a triumphant book where the main character in yours truly finds that things can work out for the best. Life really did take a turn for the better and if anything else, No Joe Bloggs is about survival and my victory against the odds.
There are times in our life when we all need a shoulder to cry on and somebody to lean on when things just crumble in front of us and we can never see the light at the end of the tunnel. Of course I was shy, of course I was immature as a kid, of course I was lonely and of course I made all the wrong decisions.
But I've always maintained that we're all wired up very differently and that means that we're all very unique individuals. It was this very sense of isolation and alienation that set me apart from the kids of my generation. I had no idea that autism would take some time before it was properly diagnosed but in No Joe Bloggs you'll find out how I overcame my very personal battles against shyness, apartness and a complete lack of any communication or dialogue with the outside world.
No Joe Bloggs, is sad, happy, quirky, funny, humorous, an enormously descriptive read where language and description feature prominently and extensively. Books represent the ultimate in escapism, of literary adventure, words that tell us everything we need to know about the author. No Joe Bloggs is not a science fiction novel, nor is it some romantic tale, although I think some of the stories in my book do take you into some romantic place where sadness turns into jubilation.
No Joe Bloggs tells you about my dad and his wonderful relationship with the West End of London he just adored, descriptions of London that I feel sure you will enjoy immensely, my dad's imaginary holiday to Las Vegas with Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis and my dad's all time hero Frank Sinatra. My dad goes to Las Vegas and plays American pool with all of those showbiz legends.
It is a book about my grandparents and mum as Holocaust survivors, the lives that were torn away from them during the bleakest and greyest years during the Second World War. Now this part is, I think a real tear jerker and very moving. But the underlying theme to this section is once again one of victory over adversity, success and happiness when everything goes wonderfully right.
So yes No Joe Bloggs is both tear jerking, moving, heartwarming, uplifting, funny, quirky, sad, happy, lyrically descriptive and another extremely entertaining read. I know you've read James Patterson, Lee Child, Stephen King, JK Rowling, Terry Pratchett, Dan Brown and all of those authors who take you into their world of imagination and excitement. But in No Joe Bloggs I tell you about my favourite movies, classic British TV shows, showbiz characters, my favourite music, the bands, singers, the memorable artists and everything that made you think, wonder and remember the 1950s, 1960s and 70s.
Well, if you fancy a read about an author with my story and my world and my imagination then my book No Joe Bloggs is definitely the book for you. You'll smile, giggle, laugh, cry and enjoy an author who tells it the way it was for him. It's a very personal, very sentimental, full of light and shade, light- hearted jokiness and frivolity. I would heartily recommend No Joe Bloggs because it's my personal observation on life, the world and everything that makes us smile.
If you want to find out more details about No Joe Bloggs you can find my You Tube video where I'll underline all the points I've made in my blog. No Joe Bloggs is currently available at Amazon, Waterstones online market place and Barnes and Noble online.
No Joe Bloggs, my second book is my heartfelt, emotional life journey. It is all about the good and positive things that life has to offer. It is about my childhood, what happened to me during that childhood, the teenage years that went terribly wrong for me, my struggles during a very awkwardly painful adolescence, my parents, my grandparents, the wonderful neighbours I grew up with and the whole backdrop of my life that eventually blossomed with a wonderfully loving and supportive family, wife, children and everybody who supported me during my traumatic year of the London Olympics.
It is a happy ever after story but without the schmaltz although I have to tell you it is a triumphant book where the main character in yours truly finds that things can work out for the best. Life really did take a turn for the better and if anything else, No Joe Bloggs is about survival and my victory against the odds.
There are times in our life when we all need a shoulder to cry on and somebody to lean on when things just crumble in front of us and we can never see the light at the end of the tunnel. Of course I was shy, of course I was immature as a kid, of course I was lonely and of course I made all the wrong decisions.
But I've always maintained that we're all wired up very differently and that means that we're all very unique individuals. It was this very sense of isolation and alienation that set me apart from the kids of my generation. I had no idea that autism would take some time before it was properly diagnosed but in No Joe Bloggs you'll find out how I overcame my very personal battles against shyness, apartness and a complete lack of any communication or dialogue with the outside world.
No Joe Bloggs, is sad, happy, quirky, funny, humorous, an enormously descriptive read where language and description feature prominently and extensively. Books represent the ultimate in escapism, of literary adventure, words that tell us everything we need to know about the author. No Joe Bloggs is not a science fiction novel, nor is it some romantic tale, although I think some of the stories in my book do take you into some romantic place where sadness turns into jubilation.
No Joe Bloggs tells you about my dad and his wonderful relationship with the West End of London he just adored, descriptions of London that I feel sure you will enjoy immensely, my dad's imaginary holiday to Las Vegas with Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis and my dad's all time hero Frank Sinatra. My dad goes to Las Vegas and plays American pool with all of those showbiz legends.
It is a book about my grandparents and mum as Holocaust survivors, the lives that were torn away from them during the bleakest and greyest years during the Second World War. Now this part is, I think a real tear jerker and very moving. But the underlying theme to this section is once again one of victory over adversity, success and happiness when everything goes wonderfully right.
So yes No Joe Bloggs is both tear jerking, moving, heartwarming, uplifting, funny, quirky, sad, happy, lyrically descriptive and another extremely entertaining read. I know you've read James Patterson, Lee Child, Stephen King, JK Rowling, Terry Pratchett, Dan Brown and all of those authors who take you into their world of imagination and excitement. But in No Joe Bloggs I tell you about my favourite movies, classic British TV shows, showbiz characters, my favourite music, the bands, singers, the memorable artists and everything that made you think, wonder and remember the 1950s, 1960s and 70s.
Well, if you fancy a read about an author with my story and my world and my imagination then my book No Joe Bloggs is definitely the book for you. You'll smile, giggle, laugh, cry and enjoy an author who tells it the way it was for him. It's a very personal, very sentimental, full of light and shade, light- hearted jokiness and frivolity. I would heartily recommend No Joe Bloggs because it's my personal observation on life, the world and everything that makes us smile.
If you want to find out more details about No Joe Bloggs you can find my You Tube video where I'll underline all the points I've made in my blog. No Joe Bloggs is currently available at Amazon, Waterstones online market place and Barnes and Noble online.
Joe's Jolly Japes- my latest book
Joe's Jolly Japes- my latest book.
Now I would say it but I think you'll like my latest book Joe's Jolly Japes. For those who like football nostalgia and a recent journey back into the England football team with all the trials and tribulations that seem to have accompanied them then this is the book for you.
But this is no random reminiscence of football trivia, dates, places or total flops. It is instead a tongue in cheek, witty and humorous account of England's World Cup players, managers and my personal take on Sir Alf Ramsey, Don Revie, Bobby Robson, Terry Venables, Sven Goran Eriksson, Ron Greenwood, Glen Hoddle, Kevin Keegan and all those great players from the 1970s, 80s, 90s right up to the present day.
Now I know you've probably read hundreds of books about England's World Cup misadventures, the failures, defeats, the victories and triumphs. But I think this is a book that'll make you chuckle, giggle and laugh all the way to school, college, university, work, your local park, or the privacy of your living room. It is a very different account of what happened to the England World Cup team when things went horribly wrong and then went dramatically right.
Joe's Jolly Japes is my quirky perspective on both football nostalgia, the middle classes in England, the great English national institutions such as the Henley Regatta, the Chelsea Flower Show, Polo on the playing fields of England, the great John Arlott and my tribute to the great cricket writer, my take on English seaside resorts and their special charms, my tribute to Alan Bennett and my observation on a Hyde Park concert a number of years ago featuring Chrissie Hynde, Billy Ocean and the lack of events that took place while I was watching the concert unfold.
I also describe the wonderful West End department stores with my very descriptive angle on Selfridges and all the major flagship stores in London's West End. I also analyse some of Britain's finest seaside resorts with what I think is an amusing version of what I think might happen when winter sets in and the evenings get darker at a much earlier time.
Then there's sport. I tell you about my favourite and, quite possibly, your favourite sportsmen and women from the 1970s such as Jackie Stewart, Ian Botham, James Hunt and many more who took our breath away.
And finally towards the end of Joe's Jolly Japes I go back to Ilford, Essex where it all began for me. There are another set of light- hearted anecdotes about the local shops, the people and events that shaped my childhood.
If you like language, description and quirky descriptions then this is definitely the book for you. Joe's Jolly Japes is light- hearted, funny and an entertaining read. It'll make you smile, resonate with you and take you on a voyage of discovery around Joe Morris. I've tried to incorporate all the elements needed for a good book. Joe's Jolly Japes is not a novel or story and there are no sci- fi references but it is a book that I think will tickle quite a few funny bones.
My latest book Joe's Jolly Japes is currently available at Amazon, Waterstones online market place and Barnes and Noble online. I feel sure you'll like it.
Now I would say it but I think you'll like my latest book Joe's Jolly Japes. For those who like football nostalgia and a recent journey back into the England football team with all the trials and tribulations that seem to have accompanied them then this is the book for you.
But this is no random reminiscence of football trivia, dates, places or total flops. It is instead a tongue in cheek, witty and humorous account of England's World Cup players, managers and my personal take on Sir Alf Ramsey, Don Revie, Bobby Robson, Terry Venables, Sven Goran Eriksson, Ron Greenwood, Glen Hoddle, Kevin Keegan and all those great players from the 1970s, 80s, 90s right up to the present day.
Now I know you've probably read hundreds of books about England's World Cup misadventures, the failures, defeats, the victories and triumphs. But I think this is a book that'll make you chuckle, giggle and laugh all the way to school, college, university, work, your local park, or the privacy of your living room. It is a very different account of what happened to the England World Cup team when things went horribly wrong and then went dramatically right.
Joe's Jolly Japes is my quirky perspective on both football nostalgia, the middle classes in England, the great English national institutions such as the Henley Regatta, the Chelsea Flower Show, Polo on the playing fields of England, the great John Arlott and my tribute to the great cricket writer, my take on English seaside resorts and their special charms, my tribute to Alan Bennett and my observation on a Hyde Park concert a number of years ago featuring Chrissie Hynde, Billy Ocean and the lack of events that took place while I was watching the concert unfold.
I also describe the wonderful West End department stores with my very descriptive angle on Selfridges and all the major flagship stores in London's West End. I also analyse some of Britain's finest seaside resorts with what I think is an amusing version of what I think might happen when winter sets in and the evenings get darker at a much earlier time.
Then there's sport. I tell you about my favourite and, quite possibly, your favourite sportsmen and women from the 1970s such as Jackie Stewart, Ian Botham, James Hunt and many more who took our breath away.
And finally towards the end of Joe's Jolly Japes I go back to Ilford, Essex where it all began for me. There are another set of light- hearted anecdotes about the local shops, the people and events that shaped my childhood.
If you like language, description and quirky descriptions then this is definitely the book for you. Joe's Jolly Japes is light- hearted, funny and an entertaining read. It'll make you smile, resonate with you and take you on a voyage of discovery around Joe Morris. I've tried to incorporate all the elements needed for a good book. Joe's Jolly Japes is not a novel or story and there are no sci- fi references but it is a book that I think will tickle quite a few funny bones.
My latest book Joe's Jolly Japes is currently available at Amazon, Waterstones online market place and Barnes and Noble online. I feel sure you'll like it.
Tuesday 14 February 2017
Valentines Day- love is in the air.
Valentines Day- love is in the air.
Ladies and Gentlemen. This is your day. I give you Valentines Day, a day dedicated to love, beating, palpitating hearts, flowers, chocolates, intimate, candle lit restaurants, champagne and tender romance. Oh yes I can it see now. You've booked a table in the farthest corner of your preferred choice of restaurant and you begin to giggle at each flirtatiously because maybe this is your first date or perhaps you've just seen the most wonderful heart shaped balloons on the ceiling. Oh what a day, romance is alive and well, tenderness and passion are on first name terms and Mills and Boon books are still the best.
Now we all know about Valentines Day. For as long as anybody can remember boy meets girl across a crowded bar, a light goes on and before you can say Barbara Cartland, a thousand kisses are blown, fantasies come true, relationships are sealed over a glass of red and it all ends up with a fabulous display of teddy bears. And yet the questions persist.
Why is the most romantic day of the year synonymous with an old massacre and why the distribution of allegedly soppy cards with equally as soppy messages? Why those endless acres of frothy messages in the national newspapers? Whose idea was it and somebody should ask them to give a decent explanation. But, say the glad hearts. it's a day of unrequited love and being nuts about each other, just smitten and besotted. There can be nothing wrong with that surely. It's love, the sweetest feeling and nobody can take that away from us.
And yet this is the very essence of Valentines Day. You know how it goes. Men all over the world will rush out of the office at the end of the day, find the nearest available florists or the florists in the most floral supermarket they can find, grab a spectacular bouquet of roses that may have set them back a second mortgage and then hold onto them tenaciously in case they get trapped helplessly in the ticket barrier.
It is perhaps the most frenetic day of the calendar but one that unites us blissfully because the feelings are so heartfelt and mutual. It is that old fashioned and timeless emotion called love. Love is that gloriously binding force. Love is that incredible feeling we get in the pit of our stomach when both girl and boy know that this is the day, this is the time and it just feels right. Love represents compatibility, understanding, compassion, adoration, sympathy when your partner is ill, sharing the good and bad times, honesty, tolerance and perhaps most importantly, compromise.
But Valentines Day is the day on which we declare our unashamed love for each other, respecting each other's wishes and looking forward to the day when, quite possibly, the bells are ringing for me and my girl. We look deeply into each other's eyes over our table for two, smile lovingly and then sigh breathlessly at the waiter because one of us may have forgotten our wallets. And that means the kitchen.
Oh no, though there's one quite important subject I may have overlooked: money. Just a minor matter and consideration perhaps. Money is the thing that raises a mortgage on a couple's first home or so they tell me. I think love though is all about sharing and caring, of being there for each other and battling through the bad times. In other words being good to each other when all seems like disaster and adversity around us. Even when the simplest words seem totally inadequate.
But Valentines Day has to be about the deepest affection and all of those affectionate endearments that seem to come naturally to us when you feel that everything is just right. Yes, I hear you cry. I know there are days when all of those essential lines of communication seem to break down and tears are shed by the bucket load. And then Eros appears at your front door, arrow poised to take flight and the reconciliation is complete because that blazing argument over the TV remote control seemed so petty.
Then there are the people who believe that love and Valentines Day means much more than whispering sweet nothings into each other and just telling your partner you're just crazy about them. It's about that mad infatuation for each other over a glass of Rose and the biggest pizza in Western civilisation. It's about running to the top of a majestic hillside or sprinting towards each other at Paddington railway station, hair flying wildly, pulses racing and then the realisation that it doesn't get any better than this.
Love is all about the chivalry we read about in Cervantes Don Quixote, the gallantry we displayed when everything seemed to be going horribly wrong and the enduring forgiveness in our hearts was all that mattered. In many ways Valentines Day is the one day in the year when both men and women are quite definitely on the same wavelength because the woman in your life has requested the most expensive perfume and the man just wants the quiet life.
This is the moral dilemma for men. Do they spend exorbitant amounts of money on their beloved or just slump back in the sofa and watch Sleepless in Seattle for the 352nd time? Or maybe they do act on impulse and just fly off to some perfect spot next to the Eiffel Tower? Perhaps they'd prefer to be serenaded by a gondolier on a Venetian canal. On second thoughts that sounds distinctly cheesy or who cares let's just go for it. Or perhaps they're just whisked off to some idyllic exotic island where love and happiness hold hands by the fishing harbour and the sun dips magically behind the mountains, like an eternal burning flame. Now what happened to those weeping violins and the dancing waiter.
So there you are boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen. Valentines Day has come and gone with a flutter of hearts, love has received the ultimate endorsement from our friend in Piccadilly Circus and we can all leave the cinema with tears in our eyes because he went down on one knee and proposed and all she just wanted was the horse and glass carriage to whisk her into the sunset. Today we've spent a fortune on cards, roses, champagne and the one day of the year when two hearts are entwined, our credit cards take a severe battering and men always seem to get it in the neck for saying the wrong thing. Or maybe they do say the right thing but phrase it incorrectly.
Love is that tingle down your spine when you know it's for real. Valentines Day is that indefinable day when the meeting of the two genders is all the confirmation you needed when the world outside was vicious and volatile. Love, as we all know. makes the world go wrong, makes your heart go pitter patter and is, quite obviously in the air. Love has been written in song, poem and verse for as long as man and woman has trodden on earth. It has been painted and sculpted, immortalised in film and simply celebrated because Valentines Day has always done that for you.
It is the one overriding emotion that makes us go weak at the knees, conquering the unconquerable, overwhelming and overcoming us when you just can't help saying what you've always wanted to say. Hold on it's time for men to go down on one knee and a woman to stare pathetically at their man and tell him to get up because he'll ruin those trousers. It's time to watch Sleepless in Seattle again or maybe we'll just spend a quiet night in.
Ladies and Gentlemen. This is your day. I give you Valentines Day, a day dedicated to love, beating, palpitating hearts, flowers, chocolates, intimate, candle lit restaurants, champagne and tender romance. Oh yes I can it see now. You've booked a table in the farthest corner of your preferred choice of restaurant and you begin to giggle at each flirtatiously because maybe this is your first date or perhaps you've just seen the most wonderful heart shaped balloons on the ceiling. Oh what a day, romance is alive and well, tenderness and passion are on first name terms and Mills and Boon books are still the best.
Now we all know about Valentines Day. For as long as anybody can remember boy meets girl across a crowded bar, a light goes on and before you can say Barbara Cartland, a thousand kisses are blown, fantasies come true, relationships are sealed over a glass of red and it all ends up with a fabulous display of teddy bears. And yet the questions persist.
Why is the most romantic day of the year synonymous with an old massacre and why the distribution of allegedly soppy cards with equally as soppy messages? Why those endless acres of frothy messages in the national newspapers? Whose idea was it and somebody should ask them to give a decent explanation. But, say the glad hearts. it's a day of unrequited love and being nuts about each other, just smitten and besotted. There can be nothing wrong with that surely. It's love, the sweetest feeling and nobody can take that away from us.
And yet this is the very essence of Valentines Day. You know how it goes. Men all over the world will rush out of the office at the end of the day, find the nearest available florists or the florists in the most floral supermarket they can find, grab a spectacular bouquet of roses that may have set them back a second mortgage and then hold onto them tenaciously in case they get trapped helplessly in the ticket barrier.
It is perhaps the most frenetic day of the calendar but one that unites us blissfully because the feelings are so heartfelt and mutual. It is that old fashioned and timeless emotion called love. Love is that gloriously binding force. Love is that incredible feeling we get in the pit of our stomach when both girl and boy know that this is the day, this is the time and it just feels right. Love represents compatibility, understanding, compassion, adoration, sympathy when your partner is ill, sharing the good and bad times, honesty, tolerance and perhaps most importantly, compromise.
But Valentines Day is the day on which we declare our unashamed love for each other, respecting each other's wishes and looking forward to the day when, quite possibly, the bells are ringing for me and my girl. We look deeply into each other's eyes over our table for two, smile lovingly and then sigh breathlessly at the waiter because one of us may have forgotten our wallets. And that means the kitchen.
Oh no, though there's one quite important subject I may have overlooked: money. Just a minor matter and consideration perhaps. Money is the thing that raises a mortgage on a couple's first home or so they tell me. I think love though is all about sharing and caring, of being there for each other and battling through the bad times. In other words being good to each other when all seems like disaster and adversity around us. Even when the simplest words seem totally inadequate.
But Valentines Day has to be about the deepest affection and all of those affectionate endearments that seem to come naturally to us when you feel that everything is just right. Yes, I hear you cry. I know there are days when all of those essential lines of communication seem to break down and tears are shed by the bucket load. And then Eros appears at your front door, arrow poised to take flight and the reconciliation is complete because that blazing argument over the TV remote control seemed so petty.
Then there are the people who believe that love and Valentines Day means much more than whispering sweet nothings into each other and just telling your partner you're just crazy about them. It's about that mad infatuation for each other over a glass of Rose and the biggest pizza in Western civilisation. It's about running to the top of a majestic hillside or sprinting towards each other at Paddington railway station, hair flying wildly, pulses racing and then the realisation that it doesn't get any better than this.
Love is all about the chivalry we read about in Cervantes Don Quixote, the gallantry we displayed when everything seemed to be going horribly wrong and the enduring forgiveness in our hearts was all that mattered. In many ways Valentines Day is the one day in the year when both men and women are quite definitely on the same wavelength because the woman in your life has requested the most expensive perfume and the man just wants the quiet life.
This is the moral dilemma for men. Do they spend exorbitant amounts of money on their beloved or just slump back in the sofa and watch Sleepless in Seattle for the 352nd time? Or maybe they do act on impulse and just fly off to some perfect spot next to the Eiffel Tower? Perhaps they'd prefer to be serenaded by a gondolier on a Venetian canal. On second thoughts that sounds distinctly cheesy or who cares let's just go for it. Or perhaps they're just whisked off to some idyllic exotic island where love and happiness hold hands by the fishing harbour and the sun dips magically behind the mountains, like an eternal burning flame. Now what happened to those weeping violins and the dancing waiter.
So there you are boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen. Valentines Day has come and gone with a flutter of hearts, love has received the ultimate endorsement from our friend in Piccadilly Circus and we can all leave the cinema with tears in our eyes because he went down on one knee and proposed and all she just wanted was the horse and glass carriage to whisk her into the sunset. Today we've spent a fortune on cards, roses, champagne and the one day of the year when two hearts are entwined, our credit cards take a severe battering and men always seem to get it in the neck for saying the wrong thing. Or maybe they do say the right thing but phrase it incorrectly.
Love is that tingle down your spine when you know it's for real. Valentines Day is that indefinable day when the meeting of the two genders is all the confirmation you needed when the world outside was vicious and volatile. Love, as we all know. makes the world go wrong, makes your heart go pitter patter and is, quite obviously in the air. Love has been written in song, poem and verse for as long as man and woman has trodden on earth. It has been painted and sculpted, immortalised in film and simply celebrated because Valentines Day has always done that for you.
It is the one overriding emotion that makes us go weak at the knees, conquering the unconquerable, overwhelming and overcoming us when you just can't help saying what you've always wanted to say. Hold on it's time for men to go down on one knee and a woman to stare pathetically at their man and tell him to get up because he'll ruin those trousers. It's time to watch Sleepless in Seattle again or maybe we'll just spend a quiet night in.
Monday 13 February 2017
Al Jarreau- a jazz singer of the highest quality.
Al Jarreau, a jazz singing legend
I was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of the American jazz and soul singer Al Jarreau. Jarreau, 76, died over the weekend after suffering from exhaustion and breathing problems. He was widely acknowledged as one of American's finest of jazz singers and the silkiest of crooners. Few were able to capture the flavour and soul of America in the heart of its soulful heartland.
Having caught up with some of his greatest hits on You Tube I was reminded of the depth and range of Jarreau's voice. Sometimes music provides us with something that strikes a chord within us and restores our faith in human nature. Frequently Jarreau provided the world with an instantly recognisable jazzy riff that transported us right into the heart of a New York jazz club.
But Jarreau will always be remembered for the theme from the immensely popular 1980s TV show Moonlighting starring Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis. The voice was light and feathery, a rich fusion of smooth, easy listening and laid back cool. There was an effortless style and sassiness about the Jarreau sound that rested beautifully on the ear, as he continued to go from strength to strength in a career that seemed to span a number of decades.
It may be easy to assume that Jarreau was easily influenced by that galaxy of black soul singers such as George Benson, with whom he paired up in a magnificent collaboration, Johnny Mathis, Stevie Wonder and most assuredly Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. Jarreau, though was the purest of all stylists and as his recording career flourished so did the burgeoning jazz scene in both America and the rest of the world.
One of his first singles Morning is quite the most endearing of all videos. I've recently taken the chance to look back at some of his greatest hits on You Tube and Morning is the ultimate mood lifter, a song of sweetness and simplicity in a complicated world. There is something deeply imaginative about the cartoon imagery that brought the widest of smiles to my face. Morning, you feel, may well have been recorded at breakfast time when Mr Radio was at his most alert and the bowl of Cheerios cereal simply couldn't stop dancing.
Boogie Down, is breathtakingly funky, magnificently upbeat and full of dance floor vitality. You find yourself drawn almost hypnotically into its web of jumping jazz. There is a definitive beat and rhythm that makes you want to sing all evening and all night. Boogie Down has funky trumpets, a solid, jazzy theme and all of the easy going vocal variations you could possibly ask for in a jazz singer.
We're in this Love Together fully emphasises the rich soulfulness of Jarreau and the true originality of his vocals. Jarreau celebrates not only the joy that love brings but a vocal delivery that is full of meaning and sentiment. It has triumph, resonance and the most delicate of touches.
I can remembering buying a couple of Al Jarreau's albums and being blown away by his ability to make a song cross the whole emotional spectrum. There is a warmth and tenderness in a voice which will continue to be played on every radio station that values such qualities. In a world that is sometimes both angry and explosive Al Jarreau brought solidity, reassurance and smoothness. I, for one, will miss him deeply. Thanks for the memories Al.
I was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of the American jazz and soul singer Al Jarreau. Jarreau, 76, died over the weekend after suffering from exhaustion and breathing problems. He was widely acknowledged as one of American's finest of jazz singers and the silkiest of crooners. Few were able to capture the flavour and soul of America in the heart of its soulful heartland.
Having caught up with some of his greatest hits on You Tube I was reminded of the depth and range of Jarreau's voice. Sometimes music provides us with something that strikes a chord within us and restores our faith in human nature. Frequently Jarreau provided the world with an instantly recognisable jazzy riff that transported us right into the heart of a New York jazz club.
But Jarreau will always be remembered for the theme from the immensely popular 1980s TV show Moonlighting starring Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis. The voice was light and feathery, a rich fusion of smooth, easy listening and laid back cool. There was an effortless style and sassiness about the Jarreau sound that rested beautifully on the ear, as he continued to go from strength to strength in a career that seemed to span a number of decades.
It may be easy to assume that Jarreau was easily influenced by that galaxy of black soul singers such as George Benson, with whom he paired up in a magnificent collaboration, Johnny Mathis, Stevie Wonder and most assuredly Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. Jarreau, though was the purest of all stylists and as his recording career flourished so did the burgeoning jazz scene in both America and the rest of the world.
One of his first singles Morning is quite the most endearing of all videos. I've recently taken the chance to look back at some of his greatest hits on You Tube and Morning is the ultimate mood lifter, a song of sweetness and simplicity in a complicated world. There is something deeply imaginative about the cartoon imagery that brought the widest of smiles to my face. Morning, you feel, may well have been recorded at breakfast time when Mr Radio was at his most alert and the bowl of Cheerios cereal simply couldn't stop dancing.
Boogie Down, is breathtakingly funky, magnificently upbeat and full of dance floor vitality. You find yourself drawn almost hypnotically into its web of jumping jazz. There is a definitive beat and rhythm that makes you want to sing all evening and all night. Boogie Down has funky trumpets, a solid, jazzy theme and all of the easy going vocal variations you could possibly ask for in a jazz singer.
We're in this Love Together fully emphasises the rich soulfulness of Jarreau and the true originality of his vocals. Jarreau celebrates not only the joy that love brings but a vocal delivery that is full of meaning and sentiment. It has triumph, resonance and the most delicate of touches.
I can remembering buying a couple of Al Jarreau's albums and being blown away by his ability to make a song cross the whole emotional spectrum. There is a warmth and tenderness in a voice which will continue to be played on every radio station that values such qualities. In a world that is sometimes both angry and explosive Al Jarreau brought solidity, reassurance and smoothness. I, for one, will miss him deeply. Thanks for the memories Al.
Sunday 12 February 2017
The Premier League- a throwback to the old Third Division
The Premier League- a throwback to the old Third Division.
At the top of the Premier League those household names are scrapping and fiercely competing for the Premier League title. Now the Premier League used to be the old First Division and if you were fortunate enough to win the old First Division you were acclaimed as the League Champions with that marvellous old trophy which looked as if it belonged on some Victorian mantelpiece. Occasionally one of the servants of an earl's ancestral home would dust it and then we would all sigh with wonder.
Now of course the Premier League trophy, although still very impressive looking, is somehow lacking in the charm and grandiosity of that big old silver pot. You can't help but think that those in the know didn't really think it through and what we're now left with is some very poor parody of a once cherished footballing prize. Still, it does look good in your club's trophy cabinet so maybe it's me.
At the moment the current Premier League does have a distinctly old Third Division feel about it. There is here a very nostalgic throwback to the 1960s. True, the Beatles, That Was The Week That Was, Vietnam and the Beach Boys have long since been swallowed up by history. But the fact remains that the old days have now launched a major comeback and if you close your eyes for a couple of moments you can almost see Bill Shankly of Liverpool, Sir Matt Busby of Manchester United, Bertie Mee of Arsenal and Bill Nicholson at Spurs. And then you revert back to the present day and find that it was all some wonderful dream.
So yes the Premier League does remind you of the old Third Division. Let me explain. There's Watford, Bournemouth and Hull City who once occupied the rather more unfashionable places in the great Football League pyramid. Now though they're all established members of the Premier League. Well not exactly established members of the Premier League but it does feel that all three clubs have accidentally dropped into a private party and perhaps found that they were at some very rich ambassador's get together. They're clearly not out of their depth but both Watford, Bournemouth and Hull City may feel in need in some of acclimatisation. A case of the working class proletariat mixing it with the upper class bourgeoisie
Anyway all three will have to get used to their exalted surroundings believing that every football club has a right to rub shoulders with the highest echelons of an all members club. For years the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, Spurs and Everton have all felt some divine right to be recognised as the cream of the crop. The old First Division is the place where all of the upper class aristocrats adopted their familiar airs and graces. All of the so called superiors turned up their noses with their snooty, snotty mannerisms and affectations. If you didn't wear the right jacket then you were kicked out, rejected and disowned. But those days have long since gone and maybe for the best.
At the Emirates Stadium Arsenal, one of the longest residents of the old First Division and still a class act in the Premier League, shook off the cobwebs that had begun to accumulate in their previous two matches and slowly re-discovered their slickness, their nimbleness, neat one touch football and all the facets of their game that have almost become second nature to them.
Their opponents Hull City, formerly of the aforesaid old Third Division, were the Gunners opponents and wore the kind of shirts that may have reflected their mood. Yesterday Hull ran out of the Emirates tunnel in the most depressingly sombre black. It is hard to remember a time when any football team in Britain has ever worn black. But here they were all in black and it was hard to understand why. Maybe they were lamenting their lost youth or fed up with being Hull City. Maybe they were just moping about the quality of their opponents and spitefully refusing to play well.
But Hull did play exceptionally well and belied their position in the lower basement of the Premier League. For long periods Arsenal must have felt as if the spectre of Chelsea and Watford was still hovering over them. Hull moved the ball around the Emirates as if they were the team who were in the top six rather than Hull. There is something about class, entitlement and privilege which does football no favours. Here were Hull on an equal footing with an Arsenal side that always look as if they play their football on a country estate. Hull had though just as much refinement as Arsenal but without quite the same social status. On the day Hull. were just as clever and cunning as the Gunners, a team that may be struggling to survive but, it has to be said, deserving of equality.
For long periods of the first half though Arsenal looked as if the defeats against Watford and Chelsea had imposed more psychological scars than they might have been expecting. Arsenal stuttered quite alarmingly as if perhaps mindful of Bayern Munich in the Champions League next week. The passes went into mysterious cul-de sacs and the fluency that has always characterised their football under their manager Arsene Wenger began to desert them.
Suddenly the gifted likes of Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain and the often brilliant Alexis Sanchez all performed as if they'd quite literally been introduced to each other. Mezut Ozil, their joyous midfield playmaker, frequently looked to the heavens as if mortally offended by forces that were beyond him and the whole foundation of Arsenal's heavenly passing game seemed to be wobbling and creaking at times.
Then came Arsenal's two winning goals and the status quo had been restored. Sanchez scrambled in Arsenal's first and then drove home a penalty that could have been avoided but wasn't. All was well in North London yesterday and when the Arsenal fans heard about their neighbours Tottenham's misfortune you could almost hear that belly laugh of hilarity that always seems to happen when Arsenal win and Tottenham lose.
Once again the game started at Saturday lunchtime which used to be the cue for a mass exodus to the pub and just a couple of hearty steak and kidney pies. In the old days football obeyed the old fashioned rules and regulations. The old First Division, including the Second, Third and Fourth always kicked off at the same 3pm slot they'd always been accustomed to and everybody just obeyed the conventions of the day. Everything seemed right, proper and fitting just as it had always been.
In the old days Arsenal played at Highbury and Hull played their games at Boothferry Park now long since lost to ancient history and very rarely mentioned by Hull's new generation of fans. It almost seems as if the game of yesterday is like some sentimental memory, a souvenir of the past rather than some ambitious plan for the future. But it did seem that Arsenal and Hull were playing on the same level playing field as each other so there was something to be said for what goes around comes around.
And yet my father in law, a lifetime Gunner and I, sat and watched a game on a satellite channel that could only have been some fanciful daydream 40 years ago. Then football had a sense of time and tradition, a feeling that everything that used to be common practice had now been tampered with beyond recognition.
Still my father in law was delighted with an Arsenal victory that, in the end was thoroughly deserved. And yet I suspect he could still hear the distant echoes of Liam Brady, Charlie George, John Radford, Eddie Kelly, Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry still calling but now just pleasant memories. As for Watford, Bournemouth and Hull. Let's just say that the old Third Division is now League 1 and there are now 300 million TV channels as opposed to the three I was brought up with. How times change. I'm off to look for my game of Subbuteo
At the top of the Premier League those household names are scrapping and fiercely competing for the Premier League title. Now the Premier League used to be the old First Division and if you were fortunate enough to win the old First Division you were acclaimed as the League Champions with that marvellous old trophy which looked as if it belonged on some Victorian mantelpiece. Occasionally one of the servants of an earl's ancestral home would dust it and then we would all sigh with wonder.
Now of course the Premier League trophy, although still very impressive looking, is somehow lacking in the charm and grandiosity of that big old silver pot. You can't help but think that those in the know didn't really think it through and what we're now left with is some very poor parody of a once cherished footballing prize. Still, it does look good in your club's trophy cabinet so maybe it's me.
At the moment the current Premier League does have a distinctly old Third Division feel about it. There is here a very nostalgic throwback to the 1960s. True, the Beatles, That Was The Week That Was, Vietnam and the Beach Boys have long since been swallowed up by history. But the fact remains that the old days have now launched a major comeback and if you close your eyes for a couple of moments you can almost see Bill Shankly of Liverpool, Sir Matt Busby of Manchester United, Bertie Mee of Arsenal and Bill Nicholson at Spurs. And then you revert back to the present day and find that it was all some wonderful dream.
So yes the Premier League does remind you of the old Third Division. Let me explain. There's Watford, Bournemouth and Hull City who once occupied the rather more unfashionable places in the great Football League pyramid. Now though they're all established members of the Premier League. Well not exactly established members of the Premier League but it does feel that all three clubs have accidentally dropped into a private party and perhaps found that they were at some very rich ambassador's get together. They're clearly not out of their depth but both Watford, Bournemouth and Hull City may feel in need in some of acclimatisation. A case of the working class proletariat mixing it with the upper class bourgeoisie
Anyway all three will have to get used to their exalted surroundings believing that every football club has a right to rub shoulders with the highest echelons of an all members club. For years the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, Spurs and Everton have all felt some divine right to be recognised as the cream of the crop. The old First Division is the place where all of the upper class aristocrats adopted their familiar airs and graces. All of the so called superiors turned up their noses with their snooty, snotty mannerisms and affectations. If you didn't wear the right jacket then you were kicked out, rejected and disowned. But those days have long since gone and maybe for the best.
At the Emirates Stadium Arsenal, one of the longest residents of the old First Division and still a class act in the Premier League, shook off the cobwebs that had begun to accumulate in their previous two matches and slowly re-discovered their slickness, their nimbleness, neat one touch football and all the facets of their game that have almost become second nature to them.
Their opponents Hull City, formerly of the aforesaid old Third Division, were the Gunners opponents and wore the kind of shirts that may have reflected their mood. Yesterday Hull ran out of the Emirates tunnel in the most depressingly sombre black. It is hard to remember a time when any football team in Britain has ever worn black. But here they were all in black and it was hard to understand why. Maybe they were lamenting their lost youth or fed up with being Hull City. Maybe they were just moping about the quality of their opponents and spitefully refusing to play well.
But Hull did play exceptionally well and belied their position in the lower basement of the Premier League. For long periods Arsenal must have felt as if the spectre of Chelsea and Watford was still hovering over them. Hull moved the ball around the Emirates as if they were the team who were in the top six rather than Hull. There is something about class, entitlement and privilege which does football no favours. Here were Hull on an equal footing with an Arsenal side that always look as if they play their football on a country estate. Hull had though just as much refinement as Arsenal but without quite the same social status. On the day Hull. were just as clever and cunning as the Gunners, a team that may be struggling to survive but, it has to be said, deserving of equality.
For long periods of the first half though Arsenal looked as if the defeats against Watford and Chelsea had imposed more psychological scars than they might have been expecting. Arsenal stuttered quite alarmingly as if perhaps mindful of Bayern Munich in the Champions League next week. The passes went into mysterious cul-de sacs and the fluency that has always characterised their football under their manager Arsene Wenger began to desert them.
Suddenly the gifted likes of Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain and the often brilliant Alexis Sanchez all performed as if they'd quite literally been introduced to each other. Mezut Ozil, their joyous midfield playmaker, frequently looked to the heavens as if mortally offended by forces that were beyond him and the whole foundation of Arsenal's heavenly passing game seemed to be wobbling and creaking at times.
Then came Arsenal's two winning goals and the status quo had been restored. Sanchez scrambled in Arsenal's first and then drove home a penalty that could have been avoided but wasn't. All was well in North London yesterday and when the Arsenal fans heard about their neighbours Tottenham's misfortune you could almost hear that belly laugh of hilarity that always seems to happen when Arsenal win and Tottenham lose.
Once again the game started at Saturday lunchtime which used to be the cue for a mass exodus to the pub and just a couple of hearty steak and kidney pies. In the old days football obeyed the old fashioned rules and regulations. The old First Division, including the Second, Third and Fourth always kicked off at the same 3pm slot they'd always been accustomed to and everybody just obeyed the conventions of the day. Everything seemed right, proper and fitting just as it had always been.
In the old days Arsenal played at Highbury and Hull played their games at Boothferry Park now long since lost to ancient history and very rarely mentioned by Hull's new generation of fans. It almost seems as if the game of yesterday is like some sentimental memory, a souvenir of the past rather than some ambitious plan for the future. But it did seem that Arsenal and Hull were playing on the same level playing field as each other so there was something to be said for what goes around comes around.
And yet my father in law, a lifetime Gunner and I, sat and watched a game on a satellite channel that could only have been some fanciful daydream 40 years ago. Then football had a sense of time and tradition, a feeling that everything that used to be common practice had now been tampered with beyond recognition.
Still my father in law was delighted with an Arsenal victory that, in the end was thoroughly deserved. And yet I suspect he could still hear the distant echoes of Liam Brady, Charlie George, John Radford, Eddie Kelly, Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry still calling but now just pleasant memories. As for Watford, Bournemouth and Hull. Let's just say that the old Third Division is now League 1 and there are now 300 million TV channels as opposed to the three I was brought up with. How times change. I'm off to look for my game of Subbuteo
Friday 10 February 2017
The shopping experience for men.
The shopping experience for men.
Here's the question? Hands up all the men who hate shopping. How many of us actually enjoy the whole experience of shopping in the supermarket? I'm willing to bet that there are some men who would claim to enjoy following their girlfriends or wives around that huge cathedral of commerce. Or maybe they grudgingly offer their help because if they don't they may have to regret the consequences. For men this is very much a no win scenario. If they don't make their contribution to the weekly shop then it could be baked beans on toast for the rest of the week and perhaps a cup of coffee with a biscuit. Men, allegedly, have an allergy to shopping or this could be a myth.
Today my wife and I merrily strolled around our local Asda with a spring in our step. It may well be that the day of the giant corporate supermarket will be here to stay for many a year. In the old days the corner shop, the butcher and baker represented our only opportunity for social small talk if there was nothing on at the cinema or the bingo hall was just out of the question. Mind you we do meet up with each other at family gatherings or converge amiably at summer fetes and visits to the local church or synagogue. But shopping is definitely a place to mingle with other people and even if they are only fleeting encounters we can still feel as though as if we've made a positive connection with the rest of the world.
But a trip to Asda on a Friday lunchtime was, it has to be said, one of the more rewarding experiences I've had since the beginning of the year. It was another day of sleet and drizzly rain but the fact remains that after my recent bout of coughs and colds this was perhaps a blessed relief. Admittedly walking around huge aisles and, inadvertently adding to my wife's rapidly increasing shopping bill could have had the reverse effect. Still it almost felt as if was I making a small contribution to the immediate health and nutrition of our family. So I began to whistle a tune in my head subconsciously and felt infinitely better than was certainly the case a couple of weeks ago.
Asda. it has to be said. a stunning piece of architecture. It's a wonderful tribute to the colour green. The big bold green Asda letters are, quite possibly, a veiled reference to the environment and there is a definite eco friendly feel about the shop. There are no eco warriors outside the supermarket but it does remain a sturdy monument to both the British economy and an accurate gauge of our prosperity. This may or may not be the case but perhaps Napoleon was right when he called us a nation of shopkeepers. Then again a famous English Prime Minister once said that Britain had never had it so good and judging by the number of shoppers in Asda he may have had a point.
All over Asda members of staff on the shop floor, plus a whole knot of managers and supervisors roam freely around the supermarkets, constantly pausing to chat at great length with each other. The sense of community and co-operation is pleasingly apparent. The feeling of goodwill and general sociability perhaps reinforces the point. Asda is a wonderful meeting place for sharing, communicating and catching up with each other. It is a rendezvous for people, a place to feel as if we all belong in the same neighbourhood rather than feeling detached and left out.
And so off my wife and I set on our pilgrimage around Asda rather like back packers travelling around the world. It was a voyage of discovery that sent a warm glow through us. Outside the supermarket the familiar gaggle of trolleys and baskets jostled neatly with each other while in the car park, a mass of cars got completely soaked. You felt desperately sorry for them. They all seemed to have a sad, weatherbeaten look of grief about them. Still I feel sure they felt much better when the shoppers brought them out of the rain.
Inside Asda itself all was a hive of activity. Baskets and trolleys were indulging in some private game almost deliberately dodging each other, weaving in and out of the aisles and then slowing down as if unsure where to go next. This is ritualistic behaviour in any shopping expedition and yet it feels as though we've always done it this way.
At the front of Asda a treasure trove of fruit beckon you towards them with a seductive and mouth watering glint in their eyes. Apples, pears, oranges, and bananas fight for your attention, tumbling over each other as consumers grapple eagerly with those tiny bags you have to snap off quite vigorously. There are tomatoes, cabbages, lettuces, carrots, peppers, bright colourful vegetables that look so inviting that it seems a terrible shame to buy them. And yet they were just irresistible, in your face and directly responsible for the decisions that you made.
And then you continue on your fun packed journey around Asda, There are huge stacks of brown bread, white bread, freezers bursting profusely with pizzas, pies, flans, ice-creams, cakes and a breathtaking variety of food and drink. The choice is staggeringly rich and too good to be true. Somehow supermarkets seem to revel in their proud position on the high street and may always feel this way. But the fierce rivalry and competition will perhaps always be there so Asda will have to live with their commercial counterparts regardless of what others may think.
On the ceiling I noticed thick tubes and pipes winding their way almost seamlessly around Asda. Asda is one vast theatre of food, food and excessive indulgence. There are grandiose, state of the art, art deco lights hanging from above and there is electricity wherever you go. Above me, big signs featuring prominently cut- price baked beans, cheese and bread, are clearly and strategically positioned. Everything is a bargain and you'll never find anything as remotely as cheap in Morrisons, Tesco, or Sainsbury's.
And so my wife and I finished our weekly adventure and I have to tell you it wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be. In fact it was a painless operation, I felt as though Britain was at ease with itself and happy to be in the same supermarket as each other. There were no complaints, nobody threw anything at each other and an air of contentment fell over Asda. There was a communal unity, and a personal sense of achievement that sent a surge of elation through me. We'd made our transactions, we'd loaded up our trolleys to bursting point and it was time to head home.
We wheeled our trolleys to the check out points and all of our household goods were kindly passed to us via that tuneful bar code beep that is admittedly very funky and jazzy. So it was that, loaded with a cargo of carrier bags, we made our way to the car park. After a rather uncomfortable January it really felt good to be up and about. This was really the most exhilarating shopping expedition I've been on for some time and, as a man, I mean that. So come on guys let's hear it for shopping. There's a lot to be said for shopping and I would heartily recommend a trip to Asda on a Friday in February and, perhaps more to the point, every week.
Here's the question? Hands up all the men who hate shopping. How many of us actually enjoy the whole experience of shopping in the supermarket? I'm willing to bet that there are some men who would claim to enjoy following their girlfriends or wives around that huge cathedral of commerce. Or maybe they grudgingly offer their help because if they don't they may have to regret the consequences. For men this is very much a no win scenario. If they don't make their contribution to the weekly shop then it could be baked beans on toast for the rest of the week and perhaps a cup of coffee with a biscuit. Men, allegedly, have an allergy to shopping or this could be a myth.
Today my wife and I merrily strolled around our local Asda with a spring in our step. It may well be that the day of the giant corporate supermarket will be here to stay for many a year. In the old days the corner shop, the butcher and baker represented our only opportunity for social small talk if there was nothing on at the cinema or the bingo hall was just out of the question. Mind you we do meet up with each other at family gatherings or converge amiably at summer fetes and visits to the local church or synagogue. But shopping is definitely a place to mingle with other people and even if they are only fleeting encounters we can still feel as though as if we've made a positive connection with the rest of the world.
But a trip to Asda on a Friday lunchtime was, it has to be said, one of the more rewarding experiences I've had since the beginning of the year. It was another day of sleet and drizzly rain but the fact remains that after my recent bout of coughs and colds this was perhaps a blessed relief. Admittedly walking around huge aisles and, inadvertently adding to my wife's rapidly increasing shopping bill could have had the reverse effect. Still it almost felt as if was I making a small contribution to the immediate health and nutrition of our family. So I began to whistle a tune in my head subconsciously and felt infinitely better than was certainly the case a couple of weeks ago.
Asda. it has to be said. a stunning piece of architecture. It's a wonderful tribute to the colour green. The big bold green Asda letters are, quite possibly, a veiled reference to the environment and there is a definite eco friendly feel about the shop. There are no eco warriors outside the supermarket but it does remain a sturdy monument to both the British economy and an accurate gauge of our prosperity. This may or may not be the case but perhaps Napoleon was right when he called us a nation of shopkeepers. Then again a famous English Prime Minister once said that Britain had never had it so good and judging by the number of shoppers in Asda he may have had a point.
All over Asda members of staff on the shop floor, plus a whole knot of managers and supervisors roam freely around the supermarkets, constantly pausing to chat at great length with each other. The sense of community and co-operation is pleasingly apparent. The feeling of goodwill and general sociability perhaps reinforces the point. Asda is a wonderful meeting place for sharing, communicating and catching up with each other. It is a rendezvous for people, a place to feel as if we all belong in the same neighbourhood rather than feeling detached and left out.
And so off my wife and I set on our pilgrimage around Asda rather like back packers travelling around the world. It was a voyage of discovery that sent a warm glow through us. Outside the supermarket the familiar gaggle of trolleys and baskets jostled neatly with each other while in the car park, a mass of cars got completely soaked. You felt desperately sorry for them. They all seemed to have a sad, weatherbeaten look of grief about them. Still I feel sure they felt much better when the shoppers brought them out of the rain.
Inside Asda itself all was a hive of activity. Baskets and trolleys were indulging in some private game almost deliberately dodging each other, weaving in and out of the aisles and then slowing down as if unsure where to go next. This is ritualistic behaviour in any shopping expedition and yet it feels as though we've always done it this way.
At the front of Asda a treasure trove of fruit beckon you towards them with a seductive and mouth watering glint in their eyes. Apples, pears, oranges, and bananas fight for your attention, tumbling over each other as consumers grapple eagerly with those tiny bags you have to snap off quite vigorously. There are tomatoes, cabbages, lettuces, carrots, peppers, bright colourful vegetables that look so inviting that it seems a terrible shame to buy them. And yet they were just irresistible, in your face and directly responsible for the decisions that you made.
And then you continue on your fun packed journey around Asda, There are huge stacks of brown bread, white bread, freezers bursting profusely with pizzas, pies, flans, ice-creams, cakes and a breathtaking variety of food and drink. The choice is staggeringly rich and too good to be true. Somehow supermarkets seem to revel in their proud position on the high street and may always feel this way. But the fierce rivalry and competition will perhaps always be there so Asda will have to live with their commercial counterparts regardless of what others may think.
On the ceiling I noticed thick tubes and pipes winding their way almost seamlessly around Asda. Asda is one vast theatre of food, food and excessive indulgence. There are grandiose, state of the art, art deco lights hanging from above and there is electricity wherever you go. Above me, big signs featuring prominently cut- price baked beans, cheese and bread, are clearly and strategically positioned. Everything is a bargain and you'll never find anything as remotely as cheap in Morrisons, Tesco, or Sainsbury's.
And so my wife and I finished our weekly adventure and I have to tell you it wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be. In fact it was a painless operation, I felt as though Britain was at ease with itself and happy to be in the same supermarket as each other. There were no complaints, nobody threw anything at each other and an air of contentment fell over Asda. There was a communal unity, and a personal sense of achievement that sent a surge of elation through me. We'd made our transactions, we'd loaded up our trolleys to bursting point and it was time to head home.
We wheeled our trolleys to the check out points and all of our household goods were kindly passed to us via that tuneful bar code beep that is admittedly very funky and jazzy. So it was that, loaded with a cargo of carrier bags, we made our way to the car park. After a rather uncomfortable January it really felt good to be up and about. This was really the most exhilarating shopping expedition I've been on for some time and, as a man, I mean that. So come on guys let's hear it for shopping. There's a lot to be said for shopping and I would heartily recommend a trip to Asda on a Friday in February and, perhaps more to the point, every week.
Thursday 9 February 2017
All quiet on the Manor House front- the NHS, the National Health Service is our national treasure.
All quiet on the Manor House front- The NHS, the National Health Service is our national treasure.
It's all quiet on the Manor House front. It's absolutely freezing out there and the temperature seems to be dropping like a stone. Soon we may have to go into hibernation. Besides if it's OK for hedgehogs then why not the entire UK population consisting of roughly 60 million shivering souls and those who just can't keep warm but try unsuccessfully.
My personal and fond memory is of my wonderful grandma who, when the cold set in, would drift over to the central heating, plant her warm and loving hands on the radiator, smile beamingly and then simply embrace the warmth. The cold wintry weather in Britain now seems to be a national pre-occupation. You can set your watch by it and it's more or less a standard topic of discussion in every home, office, school, factory or any location north of Watford.
Today's main news revolved around the NHS and the severely critical state of the National Health Service. Since its birth in 1948 the NHS has provided the whole of Britain with a vitally important service that can never be taken for granted. But now the NHS is struggling in a way that it might have done in the past but once again finds itself in the most embarrassing of all financial predicaments.
Governments may have come and gone but hospitals and doctors surgeries have been stretched to breaking point because the medical profession just can't cope, doctors and surgeons are required to work, quite literally. through the night and day with little in the way of substantial reward or appreciation and nobody seems to know what to do next.
You may have heard this before but the NHS is just groaning under the cumbersome weight of bad pay and conditions. We've been here before because the National Health Service simply can't manage with shortages of beds an ever present problem, elderly and infirm people criminally neglected in draughty corridors and people just left to languish in complete isolation. Crucial resources have simply not been forthcoming and waiting lists have reached a chronically high level. Of course you've heard all of this before but the crisis does seemed to have reached epidemic proportions. This may be a case of familiarity breeding contempt but if Bevin were still alive you suspect he'd be deeply ashamed of the current mismanagement at management level.
But then again hasn't it always been a case of lack of funding and money when the NHS finds itself under the microscope? More so than ever on cold nights such as these Britain cries out for a National Health Service that provides proper pastoral care, constant supervision for those in need and an environment that is comfortable and conducive to a full recovery.
The days of warm and benevolent matrons gently gliding around wards are now something that essentially belong to the 1950s. Of course nurses have always been thoroughly dedicated and conscientious but your heart goes out to those who find themselves working all hours without ever really feeling as though they've done enough.
So it's time to think of our beleaguered medical profession. It's time to deliver an NHS that is properly funded, maintaining the very highest standards that we've come to expect, skill and efficiency of the most professional kind, doctors and nurses who feel valued and cherished and top class surgeons who, when they enter theatre, are fully entitled to have all the right equipment to hand. This is one issue which is so much more deserving of our attention. It may be the time for the Government of the day to roll up its sleeves and fight for the survival of the NHS.
It's all quiet on the Manor House front. It's absolutely freezing out there and the temperature seems to be dropping like a stone. Soon we may have to go into hibernation. Besides if it's OK for hedgehogs then why not the entire UK population consisting of roughly 60 million shivering souls and those who just can't keep warm but try unsuccessfully.
My personal and fond memory is of my wonderful grandma who, when the cold set in, would drift over to the central heating, plant her warm and loving hands on the radiator, smile beamingly and then simply embrace the warmth. The cold wintry weather in Britain now seems to be a national pre-occupation. You can set your watch by it and it's more or less a standard topic of discussion in every home, office, school, factory or any location north of Watford.
Today's main news revolved around the NHS and the severely critical state of the National Health Service. Since its birth in 1948 the NHS has provided the whole of Britain with a vitally important service that can never be taken for granted. But now the NHS is struggling in a way that it might have done in the past but once again finds itself in the most embarrassing of all financial predicaments.
Governments may have come and gone but hospitals and doctors surgeries have been stretched to breaking point because the medical profession just can't cope, doctors and surgeons are required to work, quite literally. through the night and day with little in the way of substantial reward or appreciation and nobody seems to know what to do next.
You may have heard this before but the NHS is just groaning under the cumbersome weight of bad pay and conditions. We've been here before because the National Health Service simply can't manage with shortages of beds an ever present problem, elderly and infirm people criminally neglected in draughty corridors and people just left to languish in complete isolation. Crucial resources have simply not been forthcoming and waiting lists have reached a chronically high level. Of course you've heard all of this before but the crisis does seemed to have reached epidemic proportions. This may be a case of familiarity breeding contempt but if Bevin were still alive you suspect he'd be deeply ashamed of the current mismanagement at management level.
But then again hasn't it always been a case of lack of funding and money when the NHS finds itself under the microscope? More so than ever on cold nights such as these Britain cries out for a National Health Service that provides proper pastoral care, constant supervision for those in need and an environment that is comfortable and conducive to a full recovery.
The days of warm and benevolent matrons gently gliding around wards are now something that essentially belong to the 1950s. Of course nurses have always been thoroughly dedicated and conscientious but your heart goes out to those who find themselves working all hours without ever really feeling as though they've done enough.
So it's time to think of our beleaguered medical profession. It's time to deliver an NHS that is properly funded, maintaining the very highest standards that we've come to expect, skill and efficiency of the most professional kind, doctors and nurses who feel valued and cherished and top class surgeons who, when they enter theatre, are fully entitled to have all the right equipment to hand. This is one issue which is so much more deserving of our attention. It may be the time for the Government of the day to roll up its sleeves and fight for the survival of the NHS.
Tuesday 7 February 2017
Spring in the air.
Spring in the air
Now this maybe a false dawn and just a figment of my imagination but today in Manor House it really felt like spring. There was a mellowness and softness in the air that could almost be felt. But we're still in early February and winter still has a brooding presence. It could be that I'm just imagining it but this felt like the perfect day for a long walk along canal paths or sun dappled forests.
Then I noticed acres of puddles, remnants of the showers that must have fallen at some point during the day. So it was that it occurred to me that the tulips, snowdrops, foxgloves and daisies were never likely to appear in early February. It was wishful thinking so I pulled up the collar of my coat, realised just how deluded I'd been and accepted that winter was a genuine and unavoidable reality.
Surely not tulips in February and yet the temptation might have been to do a spot of woodland trekking or perhaps rambling in isolated areas of the country where the only sound you can hear are mellifluous robins twittering merrily on the branch or a cawing blackbird jumping gingerly around Finsbury Park with that inquisitive air that blackbirds are famed for.
They hop around those acres of grass determined to find something and invariably end up flying off in frustration and, to all outward appearances, terribly disappointed. Sometimes life can be so tough for our feathered friends and yet how good it is to see them when they do arrive.
Here in Manor House we're beginning to look forward to those brighter, lighter days of early Spring when the cuckoo announces itself at breakfast and then the other birds drop in for a slice of toast. This is a time for shrugging off the January strains and sniffles and that moment of the infant New Year when all that seemed so damp and dejected should now be replaced by something much more hopeful.
I tend to think of February as a month of forward thinking and careful preparation for more outdoors activities rather than thinking very negatively and introspectively. Next week our thoughts turn to Valentines Day when young lovers hearts beat to the most melodious of tunes and Donald Trump may have to revise his opinion of women. But Donald does love women so maybe we've got it all wrong about him.
And so it is that February plods along and has to be pretty good because there are so few days before March pokes its head above the privet hedges and spring is knocking on your door again. Yes what a brilliantly enticing prospect. Lighter days and mild breezes drift into kitchens smelling of fresh bread and fresh cakes. The windows look cleaner than ever before and there is a pristine loveliness about the immediate future.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. We may be anticipating events before they happen and it's probably best that we take every day in February as it comes. Besides Easter and Pesach is some way off and summer seems like some far off distant planet that can only be seen with a strong telescope. When the sun does come out to play we'll all kick off our winter mufflers, sprint into the sea and look back at winter as some passing phase in our lives.
On the day that England cricket captain Alastair Cook stepped down as skipper of his country it may be the right time to think about white cricketing flannels, thick white cricket pullovers in April and all those county championship sides rubbing their hands together for warmth in June. How we love the British weather. And yet cricket is the one sport that seems to soothe fevered brows when the Premier League football becomes too much and the one game that requires deep thought, clever thinking, subtle strategies, intense concentration and great tactical minds.
Cook, of course was the man who guided England to that classic Ashes victory a couple of years ago and on British soil he achieved something that gives English supporters a wonderful kick whenever they think of English cricket against Australia. But the cricket season is certainly way off the radar and besides Lord's, cricket headquarters, is still getting used to a couple of new structural tweaks and adjustments. And yet that stunning spacecraft that is the Lord's media centre continues to take the breath away every time you see it.
Anyway I'm off to look at this year's familiar array of roses, tulips and crysanthemums that every supermarket up and down the land will once again proudly reveal. Valentines Day is the one day in the year when all men develop a guilty conscience in case they forget to buy their beloved that yearly gift of chocolates, flowers or champagne. They dwell and mull over their choices deep into the night before and then wake up in a cold sweat when Valentines Day arrives in all its splendour. Or maybe I've got it wrong.
Still it's a fine old day. Romance is so timelessly cherishable that it may be the one thing that binds us together when all seems lost. We talk about the romance of the FA Cup but that just sounds faintly absurd because when was the last time that football took somebody out for a slap up meal in a candle lit restaurant or whispered sweet nothings into each other's ear. Anyway February is here to stay. It's still light at roughly 5pm in the afternoon and I think we'll get away with that predicted cold snap. There you are. Now that's a positive thought.
Now this maybe a false dawn and just a figment of my imagination but today in Manor House it really felt like spring. There was a mellowness and softness in the air that could almost be felt. But we're still in early February and winter still has a brooding presence. It could be that I'm just imagining it but this felt like the perfect day for a long walk along canal paths or sun dappled forests.
Then I noticed acres of puddles, remnants of the showers that must have fallen at some point during the day. So it was that it occurred to me that the tulips, snowdrops, foxgloves and daisies were never likely to appear in early February. It was wishful thinking so I pulled up the collar of my coat, realised just how deluded I'd been and accepted that winter was a genuine and unavoidable reality.
Surely not tulips in February and yet the temptation might have been to do a spot of woodland trekking or perhaps rambling in isolated areas of the country where the only sound you can hear are mellifluous robins twittering merrily on the branch or a cawing blackbird jumping gingerly around Finsbury Park with that inquisitive air that blackbirds are famed for.
They hop around those acres of grass determined to find something and invariably end up flying off in frustration and, to all outward appearances, terribly disappointed. Sometimes life can be so tough for our feathered friends and yet how good it is to see them when they do arrive.
Here in Manor House we're beginning to look forward to those brighter, lighter days of early Spring when the cuckoo announces itself at breakfast and then the other birds drop in for a slice of toast. This is a time for shrugging off the January strains and sniffles and that moment of the infant New Year when all that seemed so damp and dejected should now be replaced by something much more hopeful.
I tend to think of February as a month of forward thinking and careful preparation for more outdoors activities rather than thinking very negatively and introspectively. Next week our thoughts turn to Valentines Day when young lovers hearts beat to the most melodious of tunes and Donald Trump may have to revise his opinion of women. But Donald does love women so maybe we've got it all wrong about him.
And so it is that February plods along and has to be pretty good because there are so few days before March pokes its head above the privet hedges and spring is knocking on your door again. Yes what a brilliantly enticing prospect. Lighter days and mild breezes drift into kitchens smelling of fresh bread and fresh cakes. The windows look cleaner than ever before and there is a pristine loveliness about the immediate future.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. We may be anticipating events before they happen and it's probably best that we take every day in February as it comes. Besides Easter and Pesach is some way off and summer seems like some far off distant planet that can only be seen with a strong telescope. When the sun does come out to play we'll all kick off our winter mufflers, sprint into the sea and look back at winter as some passing phase in our lives.
On the day that England cricket captain Alastair Cook stepped down as skipper of his country it may be the right time to think about white cricketing flannels, thick white cricket pullovers in April and all those county championship sides rubbing their hands together for warmth in June. How we love the British weather. And yet cricket is the one sport that seems to soothe fevered brows when the Premier League football becomes too much and the one game that requires deep thought, clever thinking, subtle strategies, intense concentration and great tactical minds.
Cook, of course was the man who guided England to that classic Ashes victory a couple of years ago and on British soil he achieved something that gives English supporters a wonderful kick whenever they think of English cricket against Australia. But the cricket season is certainly way off the radar and besides Lord's, cricket headquarters, is still getting used to a couple of new structural tweaks and adjustments. And yet that stunning spacecraft that is the Lord's media centre continues to take the breath away every time you see it.
Anyway I'm off to look at this year's familiar array of roses, tulips and crysanthemums that every supermarket up and down the land will once again proudly reveal. Valentines Day is the one day in the year when all men develop a guilty conscience in case they forget to buy their beloved that yearly gift of chocolates, flowers or champagne. They dwell and mull over their choices deep into the night before and then wake up in a cold sweat when Valentines Day arrives in all its splendour. Or maybe I've got it wrong.
Still it's a fine old day. Romance is so timelessly cherishable that it may be the one thing that binds us together when all seems lost. We talk about the romance of the FA Cup but that just sounds faintly absurd because when was the last time that football took somebody out for a slap up meal in a candle lit restaurant or whispered sweet nothings into each other's ear. Anyway February is here to stay. It's still light at roughly 5pm in the afternoon and I think we'll get away with that predicted cold snap. There you are. Now that's a positive thought.
Sunday 5 February 2017
Denial - a film about proof and vindication. David Irvine, the historian who never said sorry.
Denial- a film about proof and conclusive evidence, David Irvine the historian who never said sorry.
Denial is both a triumphant, moving and powerful film. It casts the most glaring spotlight on one man, his loathsome ignorance and despicably racist ideologies. It is a film that rightly highlights and underlines one man's total distortion of the self evident truths and his passionate denial of all historical evidence.
At first Denial, starrring once again the supremely accomplished Timothy Spall, as David Irvine the historian who emphatically denied the Holocaust, is a perfect depiction of one man and his violent racism and an American lawyer who makes the wonderfully stirring defence for those who were unforgivably tortured, traumatised and then killed. Denial is a magnificent film in as much that it hits you straight in the stomach and arouses all the right emotions. A court trial at the highest court in the land is almost a fitting setting for outright proof and glorious vindication. Irvine is about to be verbally trampled into the ground. Denial is a masterly production, a film about truth and accuracy rather than dreadful lies.
Rachel Weisz is a gutsy, gritty, feisty and formidable American lawyer who finds herself unwittingly caught up in one of the most intense trials in a court of law. David Irvine, with all the repulsive insistence of a mad historian, holds to his beliefs with an almost manic stubbornness. Timothy Spall, acting out the role of Irvine. is, throughout, suitably slack jawed, opening his mouth only to spill the most vile and disgraceful poison. Should Mr Irvine read my appropriately devastating critique then you may have to accept my scathing opinion of you as just another honest commentary on your hideous take on history. Timothy Spall does admirable justice to the horribly bigoted Irvine.
Denial follows the case of an American lawyer Weisz, an actress of considerable stature, fighting bitterly an apparently losing cause where, initially, everything and everybody seems to be against her. She stalks the corridors at the Royal Court of Justice like a woman who has quite obviously been scorned. Weisz pleads with the might of the British legal system that justice will be seen to be done. Her memorable voice in the wilderness is, quite clearly a cry from the heart. And her stunningly polished performance made all of the most penetratingly pungent points. We must hope that it, quite literally, sticks in Irvine's craw because this had to be the overwhelming message that we should take from Denial.
Weisz is determined to battle this small minded historian all the way and she doesn't care who gets hurt along the way. She recruits some of the cleverest, most learned lawyers and barristers to act as her shrewd defenders, her rearguard reaction against a most disgusting barrage of anti-semitism. The film races along at a fair pace, probing and then ultimately humiliating Irvine. It is a complete exposure of a man who will never climb down from his rigid and intransigent stance.
Eventually we see the almost embarrassing disintegration of David Irvine and by the end of the film Irvine is reduced to a quivering and silent wreck. Here is a man who has devoted his whole life to peddling savagely vicious propaganda and nastiness. Denial gets to the heart of the matter, under the skin of the most appalling crime against inhumanity of all time. It is no-nonsense, visceral and uncompromising.
There is also a brilliant performance from Tom Wilkinson, an enormously intellectual lawyer who stands tall and proud in the face of potential disaster. Wilkinson buries himself in weighty legal books, drinking and smoking with increasing fervour and then delivering one of the best speeches you will ever hear in any film. But Wilkinson pulls on the wig and gown before breaking Irvine's resistance with a sadistic relish.
If Denial tells us anything it tells us that even the most cynical and sceptical of minds can eventuallly get the ultimate of come- uppances. Denial is an outstanding film, a film that tells us that justice can be seen to be done and one man has to be exposed as a sham and charlatan. Maybe there are many who believe that the likes of Irvine are completely right and that the Holocaust was just some Hollywood invention, a convincing portrayal of some fictitious war. The fact is though that history may come to see to Irvine as some very unique figure with little in the way of tact.
Perhaps Auschwitz was some European film set Mr Irvine. But as a grandson of Holocaust survivors I am horrified by your shamefully misguided pronouncements. It ought to be pointed that Irvine is simply a disturbing reminder of what happens when an idiotic historian continually mouths what can only be described as the demented rantings of some very angry man. Maybe Denial has finally consigned Irvine to a very lonely existence on the margins of history. Historians may simply decide to brush him under the carpet.
Well if Mr Irvine does read this then maybe he'd like to hear the evidence of somebody whose grandparents suffered so abominably against the Nazis. You are entitled to your opinions and you are entitled to your sheer narrow mindedness, a mind that seems to thrive on the worst of all thoughts. But the fact remains that Irvine, as Denial illustrated quite clearly. was simply a lone voice in the dark and and very much in the silent minority. These are the words of a man with a desperately poor grasp of history and all of its most salient facts. There can be no way back for Irvine because Irvine is simply beyond forgiveness.
I know you will not apologise for your mindset Mr Irvine because I know you never will. But if you have any remnants of remorse and conscience perhaps you might care to hear my personal story. Denial was the film that packed a lethal punch against the forces of racism and wicked propaganda. It is a film that has to be seen because we have to be reminded that sometimes society does throw up its dangerous characters who quite certainly live in the highest of ivory towers.
This is my recommendation. Denial has all the right qualities we always look for in movies. It is the finest of all commentaries on the Holocaust, it sends the coldest shiver down your spine, it touches your soul and it celebrates justice in its most favourable light. The villain of the piece will always be vilified and utterly condemned for ever more. Denial is just a masterpiece. Some films are meant to be remembered and cherished. I'd certainly spend some time in your local cinema. It's superb.
Denial is both a triumphant, moving and powerful film. It casts the most glaring spotlight on one man, his loathsome ignorance and despicably racist ideologies. It is a film that rightly highlights and underlines one man's total distortion of the self evident truths and his passionate denial of all historical evidence.
At first Denial, starrring once again the supremely accomplished Timothy Spall, as David Irvine the historian who emphatically denied the Holocaust, is a perfect depiction of one man and his violent racism and an American lawyer who makes the wonderfully stirring defence for those who were unforgivably tortured, traumatised and then killed. Denial is a magnificent film in as much that it hits you straight in the stomach and arouses all the right emotions. A court trial at the highest court in the land is almost a fitting setting for outright proof and glorious vindication. Irvine is about to be verbally trampled into the ground. Denial is a masterly production, a film about truth and accuracy rather than dreadful lies.
Rachel Weisz is a gutsy, gritty, feisty and formidable American lawyer who finds herself unwittingly caught up in one of the most intense trials in a court of law. David Irvine, with all the repulsive insistence of a mad historian, holds to his beliefs with an almost manic stubbornness. Timothy Spall, acting out the role of Irvine. is, throughout, suitably slack jawed, opening his mouth only to spill the most vile and disgraceful poison. Should Mr Irvine read my appropriately devastating critique then you may have to accept my scathing opinion of you as just another honest commentary on your hideous take on history. Timothy Spall does admirable justice to the horribly bigoted Irvine.
Denial follows the case of an American lawyer Weisz, an actress of considerable stature, fighting bitterly an apparently losing cause where, initially, everything and everybody seems to be against her. She stalks the corridors at the Royal Court of Justice like a woman who has quite obviously been scorned. Weisz pleads with the might of the British legal system that justice will be seen to be done. Her memorable voice in the wilderness is, quite clearly a cry from the heart. And her stunningly polished performance made all of the most penetratingly pungent points. We must hope that it, quite literally, sticks in Irvine's craw because this had to be the overwhelming message that we should take from Denial.
Weisz is determined to battle this small minded historian all the way and she doesn't care who gets hurt along the way. She recruits some of the cleverest, most learned lawyers and barristers to act as her shrewd defenders, her rearguard reaction against a most disgusting barrage of anti-semitism. The film races along at a fair pace, probing and then ultimately humiliating Irvine. It is a complete exposure of a man who will never climb down from his rigid and intransigent stance.
Eventually we see the almost embarrassing disintegration of David Irvine and by the end of the film Irvine is reduced to a quivering and silent wreck. Here is a man who has devoted his whole life to peddling savagely vicious propaganda and nastiness. Denial gets to the heart of the matter, under the skin of the most appalling crime against inhumanity of all time. It is no-nonsense, visceral and uncompromising.
There is also a brilliant performance from Tom Wilkinson, an enormously intellectual lawyer who stands tall and proud in the face of potential disaster. Wilkinson buries himself in weighty legal books, drinking and smoking with increasing fervour and then delivering one of the best speeches you will ever hear in any film. But Wilkinson pulls on the wig and gown before breaking Irvine's resistance with a sadistic relish.
If Denial tells us anything it tells us that even the most cynical and sceptical of minds can eventuallly get the ultimate of come- uppances. Denial is an outstanding film, a film that tells us that justice can be seen to be done and one man has to be exposed as a sham and charlatan. Maybe there are many who believe that the likes of Irvine are completely right and that the Holocaust was just some Hollywood invention, a convincing portrayal of some fictitious war. The fact is though that history may come to see to Irvine as some very unique figure with little in the way of tact.
Perhaps Auschwitz was some European film set Mr Irvine. But as a grandson of Holocaust survivors I am horrified by your shamefully misguided pronouncements. It ought to be pointed that Irvine is simply a disturbing reminder of what happens when an idiotic historian continually mouths what can only be described as the demented rantings of some very angry man. Maybe Denial has finally consigned Irvine to a very lonely existence on the margins of history. Historians may simply decide to brush him under the carpet.
Well if Mr Irvine does read this then maybe he'd like to hear the evidence of somebody whose grandparents suffered so abominably against the Nazis. You are entitled to your opinions and you are entitled to your sheer narrow mindedness, a mind that seems to thrive on the worst of all thoughts. But the fact remains that Irvine, as Denial illustrated quite clearly. was simply a lone voice in the dark and and very much in the silent minority. These are the words of a man with a desperately poor grasp of history and all of its most salient facts. There can be no way back for Irvine because Irvine is simply beyond forgiveness.
I know you will not apologise for your mindset Mr Irvine because I know you never will. But if you have any remnants of remorse and conscience perhaps you might care to hear my personal story. Denial was the film that packed a lethal punch against the forces of racism and wicked propaganda. It is a film that has to be seen because we have to be reminded that sometimes society does throw up its dangerous characters who quite certainly live in the highest of ivory towers.
This is my recommendation. Denial has all the right qualities we always look for in movies. It is the finest of all commentaries on the Holocaust, it sends the coldest shiver down your spine, it touches your soul and it celebrates justice in its most favourable light. The villain of the piece will always be vilified and utterly condemned for ever more. Denial is just a masterpiece. Some films are meant to be remembered and cherished. I'd certainly spend some time in your local cinema. It's superb.
Saturday 4 February 2017
Manor House - my kind of town
Manor House - my kind of town
I have to tell you Manor House is my kind of London suburb. It's roughly half an hour from the West End and it's situated very comfortably in a peaceful North London pocket. This morning we awoke to wet pavements and a suburb that had a very washed and bedraggled look about it. The opticians on the corner looked sturdy and robust, the newsagents were doing a slow but brisk business and the whole area is one huge concentration of posh, wealthy apartments, brand- new tall buildings and a lively sense of regeneration. I have to tell you that the whole of Manor House is positively thriving.
My wife, I and our children- now consenting adults- have witnessed an amazing renaissance over the last five years or so. When we moved into the area all those years ago Manor House had a solid, traditional feel about it. The old Woodberry Down estate looked very noble and upstanding but, quite possibly, needed smartening up. We'd heard about the plans to knock down the old flats with a view to a complete refurbishment but I don't think anybody knew how long it would take. Still Manor House just looks like our kind of town and after 14 years here we're both very happy and comfortable.
Our neighbours are lovely and, generally speaking, we all muck in together, speak to each other and joke about everything. Manor House is a great place to live in because nobody falls out with anybody and the sense of camaraderie is quite infectious. Manor House Tube station is rather conveniently accessible for us all and has been for as long as anybody can remember. Downstairs in the station it has all the fixtures and fittings you'd normally expect to find in a London tube station.
Next to the newsagents, there is an impressive display of Manor House station looking back to the very early decades of the 20th century. There are photos illustrating Manor House's past, a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Your eyes feast on those wonderfully charming tram terminuses, huddles of early morning commuters in the rush hour and the soft lighting down in the station itself which still exists, black and white images that are a permanent reminder of how life used to be.
Two members of staff exchange cheerful banter and the ticket office has now been replaced by a disobedient and temperamental ticket machine. Now the public have to be at their most patient, as coins get stuck in the machine and tourists look totally confused. And don't even think about paper money. Oh for the hellish complexities of the London Tube railway station. Still it beats waiting for a train once you've reached the platform. The Piccadilly Line takes you directly to Heathrow airport but there are about a thousand terminals so you may need to just hold on for a while. On second thoughts the trains do take you to Heathrow so I think we'll wait patiently and see what happens.
This morning dawned here in the way it has done for many ages and decades. Here, in early February, the main road began to hum and throb re-assuringly. The traffic lights were working normally which isn't always the case, while the cars and buses were trundling and swishing along the sodden roads with a businesslike efficiency. Manor House over the weekend, is still open for business. It's alive and well. There was a good vibe, a soothing acoustic that sounds very normal and customary so it's all systems go.
When those traffic lights are working there can be no stopping them. Every so often the traffic seems to shudder to a standstill and everything seems to slow down almost rhythmically. Then there is a jittery movement, a noticeable stop and start. And then the briefest of pauses as the green light is followed by a dramatic surge towards Wood Green. Then a whole procession of cars and buses flash past Finsbury Park before careering towards their intended destination.
Around us apartments with large balconies hang over into the street rather like those boxes you find in the theatres. There is something very well structured and architecturally correct about Manor House. All of the properties around here look well built and formidable. Even the TV aeriels look straight and symmetrical, attached together strongly.
Manor House has got some very handy and serviceable shops and businesses within a small area. There's a very prosperous looking hair-dressers, a vitally important chemist that used to be further along the parade of shops and a utility store which sells sweets, crisps, tins of everything, packets of everything , booze, cigarettes and is still open at, seemingly, mid-night. Perhaps they're open for 24 hours but this seems highly unlikely. Oh for the wheels of commerce.
Anyway the traffic lights are a constant source of fascination since nobody can see what's going through their mind. Every so often there's a pile-up because the red light refuses to change and the pedestrians have to guess when to cross without panicking. At our traffic lights there are three giant advertisement hoardings that are perhaps criminally overlooked by passers by.
Everybody can see them but they seem to be just background street furniture, rather like those roadside travellers who thumb a lift by the side of a motorway and are just ignored.. Some of the motorists just put their foot down on the accelerator racing across the lights as fast as possible. There is an urgent intensity and flow about a day in Manor House that can't be mistaken. Everything has to be done as quickly as possible otherwise we'll never get to where we'd like to.
Meanwhile those freshly new and imposing high rise apartments are getting taller and taller. According to all the latest publicity these are mega million apartments designed for the professional middle classes and upper classes. The rumour is that all of those distinguished lawyers, barristers and stock-brokers have set up home and have built their very own wine cellars and tennis courts next to them. But this may be something I may have heard on the grapevine.
So there you are my friends. Manor House has its very own indecisive and hesitant traffic lights, swanky apartments that are probably worth telephone directory figures and a doctors surgery which must be at least 60 years old. It probably looks totally out of character compared to all of the new developments around here but it still looks steadfast and welcoming. Meanwhile there's a castle further down the road from here and I have to tell you that I've yet to see any knights in armour or fair maidens in distress. But that's another story. Manor House, we're proud of you.
I have to tell you Manor House is my kind of London suburb. It's roughly half an hour from the West End and it's situated very comfortably in a peaceful North London pocket. This morning we awoke to wet pavements and a suburb that had a very washed and bedraggled look about it. The opticians on the corner looked sturdy and robust, the newsagents were doing a slow but brisk business and the whole area is one huge concentration of posh, wealthy apartments, brand- new tall buildings and a lively sense of regeneration. I have to tell you that the whole of Manor House is positively thriving.
My wife, I and our children- now consenting adults- have witnessed an amazing renaissance over the last five years or so. When we moved into the area all those years ago Manor House had a solid, traditional feel about it. The old Woodberry Down estate looked very noble and upstanding but, quite possibly, needed smartening up. We'd heard about the plans to knock down the old flats with a view to a complete refurbishment but I don't think anybody knew how long it would take. Still Manor House just looks like our kind of town and after 14 years here we're both very happy and comfortable.
Our neighbours are lovely and, generally speaking, we all muck in together, speak to each other and joke about everything. Manor House is a great place to live in because nobody falls out with anybody and the sense of camaraderie is quite infectious. Manor House Tube station is rather conveniently accessible for us all and has been for as long as anybody can remember. Downstairs in the station it has all the fixtures and fittings you'd normally expect to find in a London tube station.
Next to the newsagents, there is an impressive display of Manor House station looking back to the very early decades of the 20th century. There are photos illustrating Manor House's past, a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Your eyes feast on those wonderfully charming tram terminuses, huddles of early morning commuters in the rush hour and the soft lighting down in the station itself which still exists, black and white images that are a permanent reminder of how life used to be.
Two members of staff exchange cheerful banter and the ticket office has now been replaced by a disobedient and temperamental ticket machine. Now the public have to be at their most patient, as coins get stuck in the machine and tourists look totally confused. And don't even think about paper money. Oh for the hellish complexities of the London Tube railway station. Still it beats waiting for a train once you've reached the platform. The Piccadilly Line takes you directly to Heathrow airport but there are about a thousand terminals so you may need to just hold on for a while. On second thoughts the trains do take you to Heathrow so I think we'll wait patiently and see what happens.
This morning dawned here in the way it has done for many ages and decades. Here, in early February, the main road began to hum and throb re-assuringly. The traffic lights were working normally which isn't always the case, while the cars and buses were trundling and swishing along the sodden roads with a businesslike efficiency. Manor House over the weekend, is still open for business. It's alive and well. There was a good vibe, a soothing acoustic that sounds very normal and customary so it's all systems go.
When those traffic lights are working there can be no stopping them. Every so often the traffic seems to shudder to a standstill and everything seems to slow down almost rhythmically. Then there is a jittery movement, a noticeable stop and start. And then the briefest of pauses as the green light is followed by a dramatic surge towards Wood Green. Then a whole procession of cars and buses flash past Finsbury Park before careering towards their intended destination.
Around us apartments with large balconies hang over into the street rather like those boxes you find in the theatres. There is something very well structured and architecturally correct about Manor House. All of the properties around here look well built and formidable. Even the TV aeriels look straight and symmetrical, attached together strongly.
Manor House has got some very handy and serviceable shops and businesses within a small area. There's a very prosperous looking hair-dressers, a vitally important chemist that used to be further along the parade of shops and a utility store which sells sweets, crisps, tins of everything, packets of everything , booze, cigarettes and is still open at, seemingly, mid-night. Perhaps they're open for 24 hours but this seems highly unlikely. Oh for the wheels of commerce.
Anyway the traffic lights are a constant source of fascination since nobody can see what's going through their mind. Every so often there's a pile-up because the red light refuses to change and the pedestrians have to guess when to cross without panicking. At our traffic lights there are three giant advertisement hoardings that are perhaps criminally overlooked by passers by.
Everybody can see them but they seem to be just background street furniture, rather like those roadside travellers who thumb a lift by the side of a motorway and are just ignored.. Some of the motorists just put their foot down on the accelerator racing across the lights as fast as possible. There is an urgent intensity and flow about a day in Manor House that can't be mistaken. Everything has to be done as quickly as possible otherwise we'll never get to where we'd like to.
Meanwhile those freshly new and imposing high rise apartments are getting taller and taller. According to all the latest publicity these are mega million apartments designed for the professional middle classes and upper classes. The rumour is that all of those distinguished lawyers, barristers and stock-brokers have set up home and have built their very own wine cellars and tennis courts next to them. But this may be something I may have heard on the grapevine.
So there you are my friends. Manor House has its very own indecisive and hesitant traffic lights, swanky apartments that are probably worth telephone directory figures and a doctors surgery which must be at least 60 years old. It probably looks totally out of character compared to all of the new developments around here but it still looks steadfast and welcoming. Meanwhile there's a castle further down the road from here and I have to tell you that I've yet to see any knights in armour or fair maidens in distress. But that's another story. Manor House, we're proud of you.
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