New Year's Eve- another year over.
Oh well who would have thought it. Another year is about to pass into the history books and to quote the great and much missed John Lennon what have we done? The truth is of course that whole torrents of water have passed under the bridge and we are where we thought we'd be. Wiser and more enlightened perhaps or maybe just baffled and totally mystified. For those who prefer their years to be completely free of trouble and misfortune you may want to look away now.
At times 2017 has been hellish, inhumane, savage, murderous, gruelling and very difficult. It's been the kind of year Britain may want to erase from its minds as quickly as possible and just move on as they say. This maybe the time to calm down, slow down, give all the weightier issues some careful consideration and keep drinking coffee or since this is New Year's Eve a bottle of fizzy champagne could be the order of the day.
None of us knew at the beginning of 2017 that we were going to get the most vainglorious President of the United States of all time, that Britain would be subjected to one of the most embarrassing General Elections for many a decade and above all that Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, would end the year on a high. It's been one of those zany, insane, incomprehensible years when everybody seemed to lose the script and those in positions of authority behaved in such an appalling fashion that it's just as well that nobody took life too seriously in the mad scramble for sanity.
Still as the temporary ringing of Big Ben's bell ushers in 2018 we may look at each other in full party mode with just a bit of wishful and wistful thinking. Traditionally, New Year's Eve is the one night of the year when we all get rather drunk and silly without a single regret on New Year's Day. We allow jubilation to be unconfined, eat and drink fulsomely, dance around our living rooms or community centres wildly and uninhibitedly as if we just don't care and then wake up tomorrow with sore heads and mind numbing hangovers. But hey who cares it does happen only once a year.
But some things never change. Over the weekend the New Year's Honours list made its yearly appearance as it always has for as long as anybody can remember. For the traditionalists and patriots, Britain loves to hand out its OBE's, its CBE'S, MBE's, Knights of the Realms, Dames, Sirs and all kinds of acknowledgements for services to charity and the sometimes dizzying world of celebrity. This year proved to be no exception to the rule. In fact some of the most unlikely figures were rewarded for a lifetime in the public eye.
The snotty cynics and critics still regard the New Year's Honours list with all the withering contempt of people who seem to begrudge them such undeserved medals around their necks. To the grumpy curmudgeons, the New Year's Honours list is some dated anachronism that should have been scrapped in the Stone Age. What exactly, you hear them cry, have wartime military colonels, dukes and duchesses nobody has ever heard of or indeed a chairman of some glass blowing factory done to merit an OBE?
Still, here we are on the last day of 2017 and the great and good have got their just desserts or not as be it the case. My first reaction was shock as first Bee Gee Barry Gibb became Sir Barry Gibb, Ringo Starr became Sir Ringo Starr and then Strictly Come Dancing judge and graceful ballerina Darcey Bussell became Dame Darcey Bussell. On careful reflection it all seemed to make perfect sense but all of the above can only think that such rich recognition was long overdue anyway.
Barry Gibb of course and his Bee Gee brothers will always be renowned for that glorious 1970s movie blockbuster, box office spectacular Saturday Night Fever. Now sadly, Barry remains the only connection with the original Bee Gees dynamic trio, a film that broke all records and transformed the whole world into a disco dancing, foot stomping, acrobatic and athletic society. The Bee Gees, of course were that high pitched, wonderfully harmonising band of brothers who recorded some of the most evocative dance and disco music of all time.
The Gibb brothers pushed back all the boundaries of pop music during the 1970s with that very specific genre of high energy, vividly flexible dancing on a flashing disco floor. 'You Should Be Dancing', a full on, pulsing disco number, just exploded onto the screen like the most colourful meteorite. 'Staying Alive' was similarly magnificent, boiling and bristling with verve, vigour and vitality. By the end of the song most of us were very much alive and gasping for water.
For most of us the Bee Gees had created a musical genre that would forever be carved indelibly into Hollywood folklore. All three Bee Gees had a remarkably identifiable presence on stage that most of their fans had quite clearly had not expected. When the Gibb brothers recorded 'Words', one of their first entrances into the pop charts, the thought of all three brothers exposing hairy chests and strumming disco fuelled guitars seemed almost inconceivable.
Tragically though Barry Gibb is now on his own after the untimely deaths of all his brothers. In recent years Barry Gibb attempted a solo comeback with a new album of new songs. But when the world thinks of Barry Gibb we tend to think of three happy-go-lucky, bearded singers with an unquenchable zest for music and writing songs for the 1970s generation. Then the lights went out for Barry Gibb and after 50 years of devotion to his craft Sir Barry Gibb will step forward to receive the sword on his shoulder and much gratitude for a splendid career.
Then there was Darcey Bussell who, almost naturally, has become Dame Darcey Bussell. Darcey Bussell's glamorous and serene career on the ballet stage is now well documented. For those who still regard ballet as a culturally elitist spectacle and an acquired taste then the title of Dame Darcey Bussell sounds a trifle pretentious. But ballet is undoubtedly the one art form that oozes class and refinement and the Sadlers Wells theatre in London a magnet for both tourists and lifelong admirers.
Bussell has recently come to our attention on the BBC's light entertainment Saturday evening show 'Strictly Come Dancing', a superb early evening TV spectacle that has completely lit up dark, wintry evenings. Here once again is a woman with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of dance and dancing techniques. After so many years of dainty pirouetting on the balls of her feet, her impeccably delivered judgments and shrewdly observed comments on 'Strictly Come Dancing' have earned her the right to be Nothing But A Dame.
And then there is Sir Ringo Starr which sounds as though it should have been awarded years ago. Ringo Starr was one of the most modest drummers in one of the most astonishing pop music bands of any time. Starr was the humorous, down to earth drummer of the Beatles, surely one of the finest and greatest of music practitioners and stylists of all time. They sold singles and albums by the multitudinous millions, packed out concert halls and outdoor stadiums by the million and wrote some of the most powerful and poignant songs of all time.
When Paul McCartney became Sir Paul McCartney a couple of years ago it only seemed fair that his loyal acquaintance and buddy Ringo Starr would also get the nod from Buckingham Palace. After all Starr had been the memorable voice for 'Thomas the Tank Engine' and could still bang a drum for charity, music and literature. Yesterday Ringo Starr became a richly deserved Sir Ringo Starr because Richard Starkey sung quite notably on 'Yellow Submarine' and besides who on earth could have so enlivened such a simple song with his unparalleled genius when Paul, John and George were going through the roughest of patches. Well done Ringo.
For those of us who like their literature I was interested to see that Jilly Cooper became a CBE. Jilly Cooper writes novels of such breadth, length and depth that you wonder how any modern day author can pack so much dialogue and prose into one book. But consistently Cooper has been the chief purveyor of erotic sex in the haystacks of England and aristocratic high jinks in the dining rooms of rich baronets and horse riding millionaires. Perhaps the novel 'Polo' neatly encapsulates the highly imaginative world of Jilly Cooper with its bold bawdiness and raunchy descriptions. But with all due respect to Jilly this is not one for my bookcase. Sorry Jilly I think I'll take a rain check on your literary offerings. I hope you don't mind.
And last but not least a small collection of those whose contribution to the world of art and culture may have been criminally overlooked. Helen Sharman is a pioneering woman who became the first woman astronaut to step out into outer space. Truly, Helen Sharman, for all that dedicated research into high tech astronomy and groundbreaking work, has rightly been awarded the Order of St Michael and St George because astronauts surely sound as if theirs is the coolest and most visionary of all fields of expertise.
Rick Stein of course has rarely been off British TV for some time. Chef, cook, fisherman, Michelin starred chef and widely celebrated by his contemporaries, Stein continues to travel the world with his perceptive comments on food and cooking, tenderly embracing fish recipes and late evening suppers with a lip smacking attention to detail.
So there you have it folks. The winners have been honoured by their peers and that age old New Year's honours list is now complete. It's now time not to converge on the Embankment in London's West End or indeed Trafalgar Square for that matter. The fact is though that if you're thinking about a trek to Trafalgar Square you may find there's nobody there. The New Year's celebrations were abandoned many years ago on safety grounds although you may still catch some very ambitious reveller who may fancy their chances in the fountains.
Realistically though the Embankment is the only place where you'll be guaranteed your yearly viewing of fireworks and cheery 5-4-3-2-1 hooray Happy New Year voices. Then we'll watch in increasing degrees of fascination as the London Eye provides that incredibly kaleidoscopic backdrop of reds, blues, greens, yellows, oranges, gold, silver, white and bronze that so illuminate the New Year London landscape at mid-night.
For the best part of roughly half an hour, wet, shivering Londoners will gather in their hordes, yelling and shrieking at the tops of their voices and congratulating everybody around them, the collective shaking of strangers hands followed by the most beaming of smiles as 2018 bounds into view. And then we'll all be spellbound by thousands of fireworks screaming into the midnight air, soaring off to some distant corner of the planet and fizzling into obscurity in some remote corner of Hyde Park.
Oh well wherever you are tonight everybody I'd like to wish everybody a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful New Year. For those of us who live in Britain this was perhaps the most challenging of all years because shortly our European neighbours may see us in a markedly different light and 2018 may turn into a complex muddle full of noisy posturing and more complications. To all you and your loved ones have a great night and - oh before I forget- Happy New Year.
Sunday 31 December 2017
Wednesday 27 December 2017
Harry Kane- once again the perfect citizen althoug Manchester City at the top.
Harry Kane- once again the perfect citizen although Manchester City at the top.
Holding that yellow and purple football in his hand, Harry Kane looked pretty pleased with life. Kane, Tottenham Hotspur's new Roy of the Rovers and goal scoring sensation, had just chalked up his 56th goal in 2017 and everything in the Seven Sisters Road was hale and hearty, in the rudest health. On New Year's Eve Kane will share his groundbreaking achievement with his family and eagerly anticipate 2018 like a child on Christmas morning. Hold on, Christmas Day is now ancient history so it may be advisable to just focus on the here and now rather than the past tense.
It is common knowledge that all centre forwards or strikers thrive on the habit of scoring goals and if that goal scoring touch deserts them for any length of time they begin to suffer withdrawal symptoms, concerns are expressed and before you know it a full blown crisis is announced and the world seems to have come to an end.
But when Harry Kane scored his umpteenth hat-trick for Spurs against Southampton at Wembley yesterday records were broken and smashed, the goal scorers union rose as one in unison and the neutrals rightly celebrated the astonishing feats of one of its members. Harry Kane had paid his subscription fees and the world of goal scorers was a happy and jubilant one. Kane has established himself as one of Spurs all time greats, a genuine goal scorer who doesn't need any prompting or coaxing because scoring goals is in his bloodstream and that's what he loves doing.
Yesterday Kane responded beautifully to the orchestrations of the equally as incisive Dele Alli but perhaps more importantly the Danish playmaker Christian Eriksen, a natural creator and inventor, a sparking plug and catalyst for all of Spurs most fluid and liquid passing movements. Then there was Heung- Min- Son, a delightful touch player who revels being in the thick of the action. Son darted, dashed and glided across those lush green Wembley acres with a wonderful sense of independence fully aware of Kane's positional play and then slotting the ball perfectly into Kane's path as if the two could just instinctively read each other's minds.
So it was that the local boy who made good shone again and the Tottenham supporters who have proudly and rightly claimed him as one of their own, stood together as one and could hardly believe that they have now in their ranks an internationally renowned and respected goal scoring striker. It's been some time now but after a long, barren period the North London side are once again crowing and flush with success. Kane is a goal scoring phenomenon and for perhaps a vast majority of Spurs fans hardened to many seasons of serial underachievement, the presence of a lethal goal scorer must be too good to be true.
Back in the early 1970s and even further back to those heady days of the 1960s football was almost spoilt for powerful forwards who would think nothing of scoring goals for fun. They were the goal scoring obsessives, players with an incurable addiction to both scoring and providing but mostly being in the right time and the right place. They were hustling, bustling, foraging and hunting strikers who gobbled up the ground, devoured space, rifling shots into the net with unerring accuracy and then heading the ball fiercely into the roof of the net as if it was something that came naturally to them.
During the 1970s one man warmed the cockles of the White Hart Lane faithful. Martin Chivers, signed from Southampton in the late 1960s from Ted Bates Saints, made the kind of devastating impact at Tottenham that very few had seen coming. Chivers was tall, broad shouldered, confident, muscular and rousingly resilient. Chivers would roam, rove and prowl around the pitch like a grizzly bear full of meaty aggression and red blooded strength. But Chivers was a lovely, friendly bear who made no secret of the fact that goals were his trademark. Chivers height meant that when the ball was there to be headed he would never be slow off the starting blocks.
When England came calling Chivers was the obvious choice. Chivers scored moderately for England although not with the frequency that some would have liked. Chivers was bold and fearless, striking the ball with uncompromising brutality and heading the ball into the net with the sweetest of flavours. After leaving Spurs Chivers moved to Switzerland but then returned to England when the cuckoo clocks became too much.
A decade before Spurs carved, shaped and sculpted another of their hot properties, a man who would achieve legendary status and send Spurs fans into a frenzy of wild excitement. Some strikers are just born and some become adopted sons who are idolised by football fans. Throughout most of the 1960s Spurs found their trump card, a man for all seasons, a sparkling gem, a goal scoring virtuoso with gold in his boots.
Jimmy Greaves was signed from Chelsea at the right time and the right place. When Bill Nicholson brought this chirpy, cocky character to White Hart Lane it was felt at the time that Spurs had bought themselves a blue chip bargain. For the best part of several years Greaves was unstoppable, unplayable, electrifying and sharp as a pair of scissors. Greaves surged forward into opposition penalty areas like an overwhelming force of nature, skipping past defenders as if they were lightweight obstacles ready to be knocked down at first sight.
Greaves of course was an England regular and when Sir Alf Ramsey picked him for England's 1966 World Cup squad it was widely assumed that Greaves would win the World Cup single mindedly although Bobby Charlton might have had something to say about that. Sadly Greaves although a full time participant for most of the tournament in England, missed out crucially for the World Cup Final at the expense of Geoff Hurst's superb and now romantic hat-trick against West Germany.
By the time Greaves joined West Ham in the admittedly twilit period of his career, the Spurs goal poacher supreme had, tragically and most regrettably, turned to drink. But Greaves had made a stunning contribution to the world of football and the goals he would score at both Chelsea, Spurs and West Ham remained permanently etched on the minds of those who saw them. Greaves was, and remains, a warm hearted and deeply engaging character full of cheeky wit and admirable humour.
Spurs of course now have their very own modern day successor to Jimmy Greaves who seems to be scoring goals from all angles, directions and trajectories. Harry Kane, only 24, could be the classical winning link in England's latest bid to win the World Cup. Next summer Kane will attempt to reproduce the goal-scoring from of one of his most illustrious predecessors, the goals that have been so terribly lacking in previous tournaments.
It is to be hoped that Kane will retain his loyalty to the club who brought him up and nurtured his talent. When Greaves went to Italy and Milan Spurs had not only lost their most prolific goal scorer they'd almost lost the focal point of their attack. Greaves, rather like Kane, was, quite notably, a hard working player always determined to help out his side when needed both in the middle of the pitch but always involved in all areas of his team's often attractive, free flowing team.
Meanwhile Manchester City are still in pole position at the top of the Premier League breaking their own unique records. City are now unbeaten and head for the New Year as seemingly a lone horse in a gentle gallop. City's football is still so full of pretty pictures and illustrations that they somehow defy any classification. Still, the remarkable Kevin De Bruyne, the allegedly unsettled Sergio Aguero, the immaculate David Silva and the fleet footed Raheem Sterling spin their bewildering webs around the rest of the Premier League.
Still forget about Manchester City, forget about Lionel Messi, forget about Alan Shearer, forget even about Pele, Cristiano Ronaldo and Diego Maradona. There can be only one man on everybody's lips at the moment and he wears that lilywhite shirt at Tottenham. Harry Kane is indeed the perfect citizen and even Orson Wells would take his hat off to that.
Holding that yellow and purple football in his hand, Harry Kane looked pretty pleased with life. Kane, Tottenham Hotspur's new Roy of the Rovers and goal scoring sensation, had just chalked up his 56th goal in 2017 and everything in the Seven Sisters Road was hale and hearty, in the rudest health. On New Year's Eve Kane will share his groundbreaking achievement with his family and eagerly anticipate 2018 like a child on Christmas morning. Hold on, Christmas Day is now ancient history so it may be advisable to just focus on the here and now rather than the past tense.
It is common knowledge that all centre forwards or strikers thrive on the habit of scoring goals and if that goal scoring touch deserts them for any length of time they begin to suffer withdrawal symptoms, concerns are expressed and before you know it a full blown crisis is announced and the world seems to have come to an end.
But when Harry Kane scored his umpteenth hat-trick for Spurs against Southampton at Wembley yesterday records were broken and smashed, the goal scorers union rose as one in unison and the neutrals rightly celebrated the astonishing feats of one of its members. Harry Kane had paid his subscription fees and the world of goal scorers was a happy and jubilant one. Kane has established himself as one of Spurs all time greats, a genuine goal scorer who doesn't need any prompting or coaxing because scoring goals is in his bloodstream and that's what he loves doing.
Yesterday Kane responded beautifully to the orchestrations of the equally as incisive Dele Alli but perhaps more importantly the Danish playmaker Christian Eriksen, a natural creator and inventor, a sparking plug and catalyst for all of Spurs most fluid and liquid passing movements. Then there was Heung- Min- Son, a delightful touch player who revels being in the thick of the action. Son darted, dashed and glided across those lush green Wembley acres with a wonderful sense of independence fully aware of Kane's positional play and then slotting the ball perfectly into Kane's path as if the two could just instinctively read each other's minds.
So it was that the local boy who made good shone again and the Tottenham supporters who have proudly and rightly claimed him as one of their own, stood together as one and could hardly believe that they have now in their ranks an internationally renowned and respected goal scoring striker. It's been some time now but after a long, barren period the North London side are once again crowing and flush with success. Kane is a goal scoring phenomenon and for perhaps a vast majority of Spurs fans hardened to many seasons of serial underachievement, the presence of a lethal goal scorer must be too good to be true.
Back in the early 1970s and even further back to those heady days of the 1960s football was almost spoilt for powerful forwards who would think nothing of scoring goals for fun. They were the goal scoring obsessives, players with an incurable addiction to both scoring and providing but mostly being in the right time and the right place. They were hustling, bustling, foraging and hunting strikers who gobbled up the ground, devoured space, rifling shots into the net with unerring accuracy and then heading the ball fiercely into the roof of the net as if it was something that came naturally to them.
During the 1970s one man warmed the cockles of the White Hart Lane faithful. Martin Chivers, signed from Southampton in the late 1960s from Ted Bates Saints, made the kind of devastating impact at Tottenham that very few had seen coming. Chivers was tall, broad shouldered, confident, muscular and rousingly resilient. Chivers would roam, rove and prowl around the pitch like a grizzly bear full of meaty aggression and red blooded strength. But Chivers was a lovely, friendly bear who made no secret of the fact that goals were his trademark. Chivers height meant that when the ball was there to be headed he would never be slow off the starting blocks.
When England came calling Chivers was the obvious choice. Chivers scored moderately for England although not with the frequency that some would have liked. Chivers was bold and fearless, striking the ball with uncompromising brutality and heading the ball into the net with the sweetest of flavours. After leaving Spurs Chivers moved to Switzerland but then returned to England when the cuckoo clocks became too much.
A decade before Spurs carved, shaped and sculpted another of their hot properties, a man who would achieve legendary status and send Spurs fans into a frenzy of wild excitement. Some strikers are just born and some become adopted sons who are idolised by football fans. Throughout most of the 1960s Spurs found their trump card, a man for all seasons, a sparkling gem, a goal scoring virtuoso with gold in his boots.
Jimmy Greaves was signed from Chelsea at the right time and the right place. When Bill Nicholson brought this chirpy, cocky character to White Hart Lane it was felt at the time that Spurs had bought themselves a blue chip bargain. For the best part of several years Greaves was unstoppable, unplayable, electrifying and sharp as a pair of scissors. Greaves surged forward into opposition penalty areas like an overwhelming force of nature, skipping past defenders as if they were lightweight obstacles ready to be knocked down at first sight.
Greaves of course was an England regular and when Sir Alf Ramsey picked him for England's 1966 World Cup squad it was widely assumed that Greaves would win the World Cup single mindedly although Bobby Charlton might have had something to say about that. Sadly Greaves although a full time participant for most of the tournament in England, missed out crucially for the World Cup Final at the expense of Geoff Hurst's superb and now romantic hat-trick against West Germany.
By the time Greaves joined West Ham in the admittedly twilit period of his career, the Spurs goal poacher supreme had, tragically and most regrettably, turned to drink. But Greaves had made a stunning contribution to the world of football and the goals he would score at both Chelsea, Spurs and West Ham remained permanently etched on the minds of those who saw them. Greaves was, and remains, a warm hearted and deeply engaging character full of cheeky wit and admirable humour.
Spurs of course now have their very own modern day successor to Jimmy Greaves who seems to be scoring goals from all angles, directions and trajectories. Harry Kane, only 24, could be the classical winning link in England's latest bid to win the World Cup. Next summer Kane will attempt to reproduce the goal-scoring from of one of his most illustrious predecessors, the goals that have been so terribly lacking in previous tournaments.
It is to be hoped that Kane will retain his loyalty to the club who brought him up and nurtured his talent. When Greaves went to Italy and Milan Spurs had not only lost their most prolific goal scorer they'd almost lost the focal point of their attack. Greaves, rather like Kane, was, quite notably, a hard working player always determined to help out his side when needed both in the middle of the pitch but always involved in all areas of his team's often attractive, free flowing team.
Meanwhile Manchester City are still in pole position at the top of the Premier League breaking their own unique records. City are now unbeaten and head for the New Year as seemingly a lone horse in a gentle gallop. City's football is still so full of pretty pictures and illustrations that they somehow defy any classification. Still, the remarkable Kevin De Bruyne, the allegedly unsettled Sergio Aguero, the immaculate David Silva and the fleet footed Raheem Sterling spin their bewildering webs around the rest of the Premier League.
Still forget about Manchester City, forget about Lionel Messi, forget about Alan Shearer, forget even about Pele, Cristiano Ronaldo and Diego Maradona. There can be only one man on everybody's lips at the moment and he wears that lilywhite shirt at Tottenham. Harry Kane is indeed the perfect citizen and even Orson Wells would take his hat off to that.
Tuesday 26 December 2017
The day of the pantomime. Oh yes it is.
The day of the pantomime.
Boxing Day can only mean one thing. Oh yes, it does! Oh no, it doesn't! Behind you! Yes, I know it's that day again. The pantomime season is here to stay for the rest of 2017 and probably well into the beginning of the New Year when the children have had enough of silly costumes and people behaving in the most foolhardy fashion. We've all done it, haven't we? You're more or less exhausted by all that food, drink and revelry and all you want to do is to nip into your local theatre and just chuckle shamelessly at slapstick fun, old fashioned music hall jokes and then pretend that it wasn't you who was laughing but the kids. It's their fault that you decided to come so let's keep this civil and polite.
But of course it isn't and in our heart of hearts we all know that pantomimes were exclusively designed for the kids and not for the adults. Still it's time to make concessions for those of us for whom pantomimes are no longer the box office thrill they used to be. Our children are now longer kids although I have to admit that our son, his girlfriend, my wife and I will be cackling our heads off at a local pantomime in a couple of days time.
There is something appealingly good and wholesome about the yearly pantomime that can never be truly matched by any other experience. There is the wit and humour, naughtiness and nudge nudge innuendo, the mischievous tomfoolery and the childish stupidity which may be forgivable at this time of the year. We all love a laugh don't we? And let's face it most of us are in dire need of some light relief after some of the heartrendingly harrowing events that have come to define 2017. To put it mildly this has not been a year Britain will have any cause to remember with affection at all.
There were suicide terrorist attacks in London and Manchester, the terrible Grenfell tower fire which claimed the lives of so many, a General Election nobody really wanted to be a part of, a considerably weakened Theresa May as Prime Minister and a political hot potato called Brexit that remains in the inbox and may never be decided one way or the other.
And of course we should never forget one Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States for whom any kind of rational description may have to be reserved for another time. To say it's been an eventful first few months for Mr Trump may be the biggest understatement of all time. Still it could have been a whole lot worse. America may be extremely grateful that a certain Clint Eastwood or Arnold Schwarzenegger, those political heavyweights, decided not to throw their hat into the ring. Cowboys or Hollywood muscle men never really seemed the ideal fit for Presidency of the United States.
The fact is that most of Britain's families and their children must have been longing for Boxing Day. The kids may well be fed up with their latest Christmas Day presents, boredom has set in with a vengeance, the dogs need to be taken on another brisk walk around the park, Uncle Nigel is still snoring peacefully in his comfortable armchair and a general air of battle fatigue has rendered most of us unwilling to do anything.
Until that is somebody mentions the Boxing Day pantomime which is guaranteed to galvanise us into action. Come on kids it's time for Widow Twankey, Jack and the Beanstalk, Aladdin, Dick Whittington, Cinderella, even Hans Christian Andersen or maybe you're not into fairy tales in which case you could always finish off a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle or play Pass the Parcel simply because there's nothing else to do.
When our kids were much smaller my wife and I loved going to Hackney Empire because the Hackney Empire was a lovely old traditional theatre with an old fashioned grandeur and charm about it that was completely enchanting. Every plush red seat, column, fixture and fitting oozed class and gentility. The ceiling and walls are sumptuously beautiful, the curtains a velvety Victorian wonder and that stage that must have witnessed music hall at its triumphant peak.
All in all though it's the pantomime we used to look forward to. Somehow the English pantomime had it all: slap my thigh humour, comedy by the minute, jokes in abundance, an almost constant air of fun and frivolity, corny one liners and a nice line in topical references. There was that classic demonstration of harmless rudeness, characters wearing outrageous clothes that wouldn't have been out of place at the conventional fancy dress party and Boxing Day silliness.
There are people running onto the stage in varying guises and disguises, actors and actresses who look as though they're having the time of their lives but are quite clearly struggling to keep a straight face. This is the one time of the year when a plethora of TV celebrities do their utmost to dent otherwise unblemished reputations. This could be the time though for embarrassment and notoriety so it's time to hold your breath, suspend your imagination and watch through closed eyes.
By the end of the pantomime there is a genuine air of relief as Jack finally makes it to the top of that Beanstalk and Cinderella gets to the ball in a glass carriage. You see it does finish happily ever after all and we are all united in our collective joy at the sheer absurdity of it all. Boxing Day will be painless and quite definitely amusing if indeed family pantomimes are your kind of thing.
I have to make a rather sad admission at this point. Yesterday I sat down on Christmas Day with my family to watch Toy Story 3. There, I've said it and I don't mind admitting to it. Of course I should have known better and must have a moment of self questioning. What on earth possessed a 55 year old bloke to sit down and watch what is essentially a film designed for six year olds? Was it too much brandy, whiskey or maybe I should, quite literally, get out more?
On reflection though I see no reason to apologise for this rather childish moment of regression. Toy Story 3 had me in belly laughing hysterics. It was just glorious, simple and innocent, a throwback to our youth, your youth and my youth. Besides what other kids film can so easily make that natural transition to an equally as appreciative adult audience? Or at least I'd like to think it does.
With the brilliant and enormously versatile Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story 3 was just the most immensely enjoyable film to grace any Christmas Day on the TV. Tom Hanks has just broken into the world of publishing his first book of short stories and here he was once again as a lovable cowboy complete with stetson hat, guiding his chums through one adventure after another.
There was Mr and Mrs Potato Head, Slinky the Dog, Sergeant, the Aliens and Rex The Dinosaur. Now here were established veterans of the Hollywood film industry, titans of the silver screen, icons of the movies and professionals to the core. What other Christmas film would show a group of impeccably drawn animation characters, investing them with human emotions and telling them to goof around like kids at a birthday party? Those six eyed Aliens as well as Mr and Mrs Potato Head were just the funniest of all creations and who cares if I'm 55 and should quite rightly behave in a manner more befitting of a consenting adult. Toy Story 3, I have to tell you, was by far and away the best piece of TV on this Christmas Day. Boxing Day has much to commend it though. Oh yes it does.
Boxing Day can only mean one thing. Oh yes, it does! Oh no, it doesn't! Behind you! Yes, I know it's that day again. The pantomime season is here to stay for the rest of 2017 and probably well into the beginning of the New Year when the children have had enough of silly costumes and people behaving in the most foolhardy fashion. We've all done it, haven't we? You're more or less exhausted by all that food, drink and revelry and all you want to do is to nip into your local theatre and just chuckle shamelessly at slapstick fun, old fashioned music hall jokes and then pretend that it wasn't you who was laughing but the kids. It's their fault that you decided to come so let's keep this civil and polite.
But of course it isn't and in our heart of hearts we all know that pantomimes were exclusively designed for the kids and not for the adults. Still it's time to make concessions for those of us for whom pantomimes are no longer the box office thrill they used to be. Our children are now longer kids although I have to admit that our son, his girlfriend, my wife and I will be cackling our heads off at a local pantomime in a couple of days time.
There is something appealingly good and wholesome about the yearly pantomime that can never be truly matched by any other experience. There is the wit and humour, naughtiness and nudge nudge innuendo, the mischievous tomfoolery and the childish stupidity which may be forgivable at this time of the year. We all love a laugh don't we? And let's face it most of us are in dire need of some light relief after some of the heartrendingly harrowing events that have come to define 2017. To put it mildly this has not been a year Britain will have any cause to remember with affection at all.
There were suicide terrorist attacks in London and Manchester, the terrible Grenfell tower fire which claimed the lives of so many, a General Election nobody really wanted to be a part of, a considerably weakened Theresa May as Prime Minister and a political hot potato called Brexit that remains in the inbox and may never be decided one way or the other.
And of course we should never forget one Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States for whom any kind of rational description may have to be reserved for another time. To say it's been an eventful first few months for Mr Trump may be the biggest understatement of all time. Still it could have been a whole lot worse. America may be extremely grateful that a certain Clint Eastwood or Arnold Schwarzenegger, those political heavyweights, decided not to throw their hat into the ring. Cowboys or Hollywood muscle men never really seemed the ideal fit for Presidency of the United States.
The fact is that most of Britain's families and their children must have been longing for Boxing Day. The kids may well be fed up with their latest Christmas Day presents, boredom has set in with a vengeance, the dogs need to be taken on another brisk walk around the park, Uncle Nigel is still snoring peacefully in his comfortable armchair and a general air of battle fatigue has rendered most of us unwilling to do anything.
Until that is somebody mentions the Boxing Day pantomime which is guaranteed to galvanise us into action. Come on kids it's time for Widow Twankey, Jack and the Beanstalk, Aladdin, Dick Whittington, Cinderella, even Hans Christian Andersen or maybe you're not into fairy tales in which case you could always finish off a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle or play Pass the Parcel simply because there's nothing else to do.
When our kids were much smaller my wife and I loved going to Hackney Empire because the Hackney Empire was a lovely old traditional theatre with an old fashioned grandeur and charm about it that was completely enchanting. Every plush red seat, column, fixture and fitting oozed class and gentility. The ceiling and walls are sumptuously beautiful, the curtains a velvety Victorian wonder and that stage that must have witnessed music hall at its triumphant peak.
All in all though it's the pantomime we used to look forward to. Somehow the English pantomime had it all: slap my thigh humour, comedy by the minute, jokes in abundance, an almost constant air of fun and frivolity, corny one liners and a nice line in topical references. There was that classic demonstration of harmless rudeness, characters wearing outrageous clothes that wouldn't have been out of place at the conventional fancy dress party and Boxing Day silliness.
There are people running onto the stage in varying guises and disguises, actors and actresses who look as though they're having the time of their lives but are quite clearly struggling to keep a straight face. This is the one time of the year when a plethora of TV celebrities do their utmost to dent otherwise unblemished reputations. This could be the time though for embarrassment and notoriety so it's time to hold your breath, suspend your imagination and watch through closed eyes.
By the end of the pantomime there is a genuine air of relief as Jack finally makes it to the top of that Beanstalk and Cinderella gets to the ball in a glass carriage. You see it does finish happily ever after all and we are all united in our collective joy at the sheer absurdity of it all. Boxing Day will be painless and quite definitely amusing if indeed family pantomimes are your kind of thing.
I have to make a rather sad admission at this point. Yesterday I sat down on Christmas Day with my family to watch Toy Story 3. There, I've said it and I don't mind admitting to it. Of course I should have known better and must have a moment of self questioning. What on earth possessed a 55 year old bloke to sit down and watch what is essentially a film designed for six year olds? Was it too much brandy, whiskey or maybe I should, quite literally, get out more?
On reflection though I see no reason to apologise for this rather childish moment of regression. Toy Story 3 had me in belly laughing hysterics. It was just glorious, simple and innocent, a throwback to our youth, your youth and my youth. Besides what other kids film can so easily make that natural transition to an equally as appreciative adult audience? Or at least I'd like to think it does.
With the brilliant and enormously versatile Tom Hanks as Woody and Tim Allen as Buzz Lightyear, Toy Story 3 was just the most immensely enjoyable film to grace any Christmas Day on the TV. Tom Hanks has just broken into the world of publishing his first book of short stories and here he was once again as a lovable cowboy complete with stetson hat, guiding his chums through one adventure after another.
There was Mr and Mrs Potato Head, Slinky the Dog, Sergeant, the Aliens and Rex The Dinosaur. Now here were established veterans of the Hollywood film industry, titans of the silver screen, icons of the movies and professionals to the core. What other Christmas film would show a group of impeccably drawn animation characters, investing them with human emotions and telling them to goof around like kids at a birthday party? Those six eyed Aliens as well as Mr and Mrs Potato Head were just the funniest of all creations and who cares if I'm 55 and should quite rightly behave in a manner more befitting of a consenting adult. Toy Story 3, I have to tell you, was by far and away the best piece of TV on this Christmas Day. Boxing Day has much to commend it though. Oh yes it does.
Sunday 24 December 2017
The final hours before Christmas Day.
The final hours before Christmas Day.
It almost feels like the last lap of a Formula One race where Lewis Hamilton roars past the flag to clinch yet another victory, then leaping out of his car with all the exuberance he once showed as a child go karter, a time when life was all about finishing your school homework. Hamilton must wake up every morning feeling that every day is Christmas Day. And so ladies and gentlemen Christmas Eve. Of course it is. We just knew it. It could hardly be anything else because if you look outside you'll find emptiness, lifelessness, not a soul or car on the road and eventually, once darkness falls later on today, it'll feel strangely eerie and gothically mysterious.
But here we are on Christmas Eve. It does feel like the final day of a cricketing Test Match, the concluding chapter of a riveting book, the final set at Wimbledon, a compelling final day of a Premier League season where those at the top are intent on outwitting each other and games of psychology are all that matter. We now know that Christmas Eve is rather like the final furlong of a flat season horse racing classic, the build up to the FA Cup Final or that end of season game where it all hinges on one controversial decision.
Then again Christmas Eve does feel like the preparation for something that is indescribably special, something we can't help but look forward to. There is that obvious anticipation and excitement before the big day, a buzz around the local town and city, an atmosphere of feverish expectation, a sense that the world will just explode with happiness tomorrow. But then again that can't be so because, as the cynics would tell you, we do the same thing ever year and have done since the beginning of time.
Every year we sprint over to the shops and supermarkets, quivering with fear in case we haven't got enough food when the reality is that we have. We don't need any more tinsel, more wrapping paper, more decorations, lanterns or soppy cards with snow on the ground. But oh I hear you say, it's Christmas and it's no time for Dickensian humbug or mean spirited gentlemen sitting in lonely attics refusing to give anything to Tiny Tim. Mr Scrooge, how could you be so stingy and parsimonious? This is the time for giving and sharing, not airing your grievances to anybody within earshot.
It's hard to imagine what exactly Charles Dickens must have been thinking when he wrote 'A Christmas Carol' but I don't think Albert Finney was uppermost in his mind. Still the tale of the miserably miserly Scrooge still resonates throughout the ages. True, life was considerably harder and much more poverty stricken than it is now but there are similarities and perhaps some striking parallels.
In Britain and particularly London, the whole issue of homelessness, estrangement and isolation continues to be a disgraceful blight on the landscape. For years and decades those who have been forced to live on the cold, freezing streets have once again been left to their own devices. We shake our heads in revulsion and horror at such criminal neglect of the human underclass, those who have slipped under the radar with only a blanket for a friend and a draughty doorway.
Of course the plight of the homeless is rightly highlighted but the truth is that regardless of the circumstances, the lonely people always seem to be unforgivably overlooked. Why is it that Christmas is the only time of the year when the homeless are given any kind of recognition or publicity? It almost feels as if Dickens will miraculously come back to life this Christmas and write the same story with a 21st century slant.
Dickens did his utmost to emphasise poverty, social injustice, those in pain, discomfort and permanent suffering. And yet for Dickens Christmas was not the broad canvas he would have preferred to portray his characters on. In many ways Tiny Tim and that impoverished family came to represent not only the society he was writing about but the bigger world outside. Christmas was truly a joyous festival for one and all but for Dickens there was a much more serious aspect to the holiday, a pronounced gravity that most of his readers could easily identify with.
There were people crouching pitifully in shop doorways with only a dog for company, people huddling in the corner with torn pieces of cardboard for comfort. These were the silent minority, the ones who'd lost their way in life, driven out of house and home because the homes they were brought up in were no longer the warm and welcoming homes they thought they'd known and could trust in. It all seemed dreadfully unfair and callously cruel.
We've all heard about those cold and bleak back alleys where those seeking just a modicum of warmth in a hospitable hostel are then mercilessly turfed out into the wild wilderness, a place inhabited by nobody at all and nobody who seems to care. It is the traditional rejection of the unfortunate, the lesser known and, quite possibly, the forgotten members of society. These are the people who should be noticed and comforted but are somehow destined to be outcasts, those who feel marginalised by society and then tossed into some shivery alcove, some horribly squalid place where only the morning seems to come to their rescue.
But the current news bulletins never tire of telling us that this is indeed the loneliest time of the year for those with nowhere to go and then find themselves consigned to street life through no fault of their own. Homelessness seems to be that incurable social condition that none of us can find an adequate cure for and now as the last Christmas shoppers push and shove their way past each other as if their lives depended on it, it is time to think of those for whom the holiday period must surely be one, long continuous nightmare.
Of course those shoppers deserve their quality family time together and may they eat and drink abundantly and freely. Sadly though, we may find ourselves thinking that the sad and alienated may never be able to enjoy the privileges and luxuries the rest of us take for granted. This is of course a time for humanity and compassion to come to the fore - as they must do without fail. But even the most heartfelt sympathies may not be what the homeless are genuinely looking for. Still, one day the hope must be that things will improve considerably for the better and that's all that matters.
It could be said that this is my festive message for the year but this is no cry from the heart nor some sentimental plea. It is simply my attempt to underline those ageless difficulties that always seem to present themselves to us over the Christmas period. In the midst of the celebrations they lurk in the background rather like some dirty mark on the wall or some vile smell that can never be traced. These are the imperfections, the inconsistencies, the things that never seem to add up in any society at any time.
Anyway not long to go now before dear old Santa negotiates that familiar journey from the South Pole, tumbling and sliding clumsily down millions of dusty chimneys. Then he'll drop down onto that new floor you've just laid with the loudest thud. Now a million children will fall out of bed convinced that it was some old April Fools joke where Father Christmas was just some silly character, a mythical figure that is no more than a figment of everybody's imagination.
Me? I'm looking forward to Christmas Day and my yearly quest to find anything or anybody on the streets of London and suburbia. Nowadays though there doesn't seem any point so I'll leave that to you if you like. The streets of Ilford were completely deserted on Christmas Day and to this day memories of strolling down Ley Street and the Cranbrook Road remain vivid. You've no idea how invigorating a walk is on the only day of the year when the country seems to shut down completely. The numbers of vehicles and people could have been counted on the fingers of one hand.
Tomorrow our favourite TV channels will be alive to the perennial diet of heart warming family films, Top of the Pops which isn't quite the same to those of us who grew up listening to the 1970s medleys. Then invariably a Bond film explodes into action with its glorious fantasy and escapism, Bond surviving the impossible when we all know that he'll survive because he always does.
At 3.00 in the afternoon though Britain watches Her Majesty the Queen with her deeply admirable speech to the nation. From a quiet corner of either Windsor or Balmoral Her Majesty will deliver that now famous message which becomes more and more relevant with every passing year. She tells us about her year, our year, the events and non events that have so coloured our lives and moved us.
Sadly some of us will think back to our childhood Christmas when things were so markedly different. On Christmas Day morning ITV would allow us into a children's hospital where celebrities would comfort sick children with sacks of presents and the most impressive of Santa Claus outfits. By the afternoon when most of us would now be stuffed, a revelation would make its presence felt.
Deep into tea time, Billy Smart's Circus would burst onto our TV screens rather like some ho ho Santa Claus. Now what you have to remember is that British TV during the 1960s had yet to grasp the concept of political correctness so it had to be forgiven its faults and foibles. Then at roughly 5pm a circus appeared like some quaint musical box with a ballerina on the top.
Suddenly a circus came bounding into our living rooms with all the cliches we might have come to expect from the Big Top. Of course there were the jocular clowns with their silly red noses and their buckets of water. There were the high wire trapeze acts risking life and limb because it probably seemed a good idea at the time. There were those much admired jugglers, remarkable fire eaters, more clowns with childish cars and knife throwers galore where the audience briefly held their breath and gasped with delight.
It didn't stop though at that point. Then what seemed whole communities of lions, tigers and elephants would slowly make their way into the circus ring without so much as a second thought. It was now that the animal rights activists would have hit the roof. The ring master would crack his whip and what must have been every animal in the kingdom would entertain thousands of excited children.
Then our Christmas Days would be complete with the unforgettable Morecambe and Wise and a delightful helping of The Two Ronnies, a day when the whole world fell in love with their comic mastery. And so we count the hours to yet another Christmas Day wonderland where all of our loyal friends come back for some more of the same. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you smiling children's faces, giggling and guffawing, guilt and remorse as that last piece of turkey is consumed and old fashioned board games such as Monopoly and Scrabble followed by a spot of hilarious karaoke from Uncle Tom. All in all I think we're in for a terrific Christmas Day this year. That Christmas pud looks wonderful. Have a good one everybody.
It almost feels like the last lap of a Formula One race where Lewis Hamilton roars past the flag to clinch yet another victory, then leaping out of his car with all the exuberance he once showed as a child go karter, a time when life was all about finishing your school homework. Hamilton must wake up every morning feeling that every day is Christmas Day. And so ladies and gentlemen Christmas Eve. Of course it is. We just knew it. It could hardly be anything else because if you look outside you'll find emptiness, lifelessness, not a soul or car on the road and eventually, once darkness falls later on today, it'll feel strangely eerie and gothically mysterious.
But here we are on Christmas Eve. It does feel like the final day of a cricketing Test Match, the concluding chapter of a riveting book, the final set at Wimbledon, a compelling final day of a Premier League season where those at the top are intent on outwitting each other and games of psychology are all that matter. We now know that Christmas Eve is rather like the final furlong of a flat season horse racing classic, the build up to the FA Cup Final or that end of season game where it all hinges on one controversial decision.
Then again Christmas Eve does feel like the preparation for something that is indescribably special, something we can't help but look forward to. There is that obvious anticipation and excitement before the big day, a buzz around the local town and city, an atmosphere of feverish expectation, a sense that the world will just explode with happiness tomorrow. But then again that can't be so because, as the cynics would tell you, we do the same thing ever year and have done since the beginning of time.
Every year we sprint over to the shops and supermarkets, quivering with fear in case we haven't got enough food when the reality is that we have. We don't need any more tinsel, more wrapping paper, more decorations, lanterns or soppy cards with snow on the ground. But oh I hear you say, it's Christmas and it's no time for Dickensian humbug or mean spirited gentlemen sitting in lonely attics refusing to give anything to Tiny Tim. Mr Scrooge, how could you be so stingy and parsimonious? This is the time for giving and sharing, not airing your grievances to anybody within earshot.
It's hard to imagine what exactly Charles Dickens must have been thinking when he wrote 'A Christmas Carol' but I don't think Albert Finney was uppermost in his mind. Still the tale of the miserably miserly Scrooge still resonates throughout the ages. True, life was considerably harder and much more poverty stricken than it is now but there are similarities and perhaps some striking parallels.
In Britain and particularly London, the whole issue of homelessness, estrangement and isolation continues to be a disgraceful blight on the landscape. For years and decades those who have been forced to live on the cold, freezing streets have once again been left to their own devices. We shake our heads in revulsion and horror at such criminal neglect of the human underclass, those who have slipped under the radar with only a blanket for a friend and a draughty doorway.
Of course the plight of the homeless is rightly highlighted but the truth is that regardless of the circumstances, the lonely people always seem to be unforgivably overlooked. Why is it that Christmas is the only time of the year when the homeless are given any kind of recognition or publicity? It almost feels as if Dickens will miraculously come back to life this Christmas and write the same story with a 21st century slant.
Dickens did his utmost to emphasise poverty, social injustice, those in pain, discomfort and permanent suffering. And yet for Dickens Christmas was not the broad canvas he would have preferred to portray his characters on. In many ways Tiny Tim and that impoverished family came to represent not only the society he was writing about but the bigger world outside. Christmas was truly a joyous festival for one and all but for Dickens there was a much more serious aspect to the holiday, a pronounced gravity that most of his readers could easily identify with.
There were people crouching pitifully in shop doorways with only a dog for company, people huddling in the corner with torn pieces of cardboard for comfort. These were the silent minority, the ones who'd lost their way in life, driven out of house and home because the homes they were brought up in were no longer the warm and welcoming homes they thought they'd known and could trust in. It all seemed dreadfully unfair and callously cruel.
We've all heard about those cold and bleak back alleys where those seeking just a modicum of warmth in a hospitable hostel are then mercilessly turfed out into the wild wilderness, a place inhabited by nobody at all and nobody who seems to care. It is the traditional rejection of the unfortunate, the lesser known and, quite possibly, the forgotten members of society. These are the people who should be noticed and comforted but are somehow destined to be outcasts, those who feel marginalised by society and then tossed into some shivery alcove, some horribly squalid place where only the morning seems to come to their rescue.
But the current news bulletins never tire of telling us that this is indeed the loneliest time of the year for those with nowhere to go and then find themselves consigned to street life through no fault of their own. Homelessness seems to be that incurable social condition that none of us can find an adequate cure for and now as the last Christmas shoppers push and shove their way past each other as if their lives depended on it, it is time to think of those for whom the holiday period must surely be one, long continuous nightmare.
Of course those shoppers deserve their quality family time together and may they eat and drink abundantly and freely. Sadly though, we may find ourselves thinking that the sad and alienated may never be able to enjoy the privileges and luxuries the rest of us take for granted. This is of course a time for humanity and compassion to come to the fore - as they must do without fail. But even the most heartfelt sympathies may not be what the homeless are genuinely looking for. Still, one day the hope must be that things will improve considerably for the better and that's all that matters.
It could be said that this is my festive message for the year but this is no cry from the heart nor some sentimental plea. It is simply my attempt to underline those ageless difficulties that always seem to present themselves to us over the Christmas period. In the midst of the celebrations they lurk in the background rather like some dirty mark on the wall or some vile smell that can never be traced. These are the imperfections, the inconsistencies, the things that never seem to add up in any society at any time.
Anyway not long to go now before dear old Santa negotiates that familiar journey from the South Pole, tumbling and sliding clumsily down millions of dusty chimneys. Then he'll drop down onto that new floor you've just laid with the loudest thud. Now a million children will fall out of bed convinced that it was some old April Fools joke where Father Christmas was just some silly character, a mythical figure that is no more than a figment of everybody's imagination.
Me? I'm looking forward to Christmas Day and my yearly quest to find anything or anybody on the streets of London and suburbia. Nowadays though there doesn't seem any point so I'll leave that to you if you like. The streets of Ilford were completely deserted on Christmas Day and to this day memories of strolling down Ley Street and the Cranbrook Road remain vivid. You've no idea how invigorating a walk is on the only day of the year when the country seems to shut down completely. The numbers of vehicles and people could have been counted on the fingers of one hand.
Tomorrow our favourite TV channels will be alive to the perennial diet of heart warming family films, Top of the Pops which isn't quite the same to those of us who grew up listening to the 1970s medleys. Then invariably a Bond film explodes into action with its glorious fantasy and escapism, Bond surviving the impossible when we all know that he'll survive because he always does.
At 3.00 in the afternoon though Britain watches Her Majesty the Queen with her deeply admirable speech to the nation. From a quiet corner of either Windsor or Balmoral Her Majesty will deliver that now famous message which becomes more and more relevant with every passing year. She tells us about her year, our year, the events and non events that have so coloured our lives and moved us.
Sadly some of us will think back to our childhood Christmas when things were so markedly different. On Christmas Day morning ITV would allow us into a children's hospital where celebrities would comfort sick children with sacks of presents and the most impressive of Santa Claus outfits. By the afternoon when most of us would now be stuffed, a revelation would make its presence felt.
Deep into tea time, Billy Smart's Circus would burst onto our TV screens rather like some ho ho Santa Claus. Now what you have to remember is that British TV during the 1960s had yet to grasp the concept of political correctness so it had to be forgiven its faults and foibles. Then at roughly 5pm a circus appeared like some quaint musical box with a ballerina on the top.
Suddenly a circus came bounding into our living rooms with all the cliches we might have come to expect from the Big Top. Of course there were the jocular clowns with their silly red noses and their buckets of water. There were the high wire trapeze acts risking life and limb because it probably seemed a good idea at the time. There were those much admired jugglers, remarkable fire eaters, more clowns with childish cars and knife throwers galore where the audience briefly held their breath and gasped with delight.
It didn't stop though at that point. Then what seemed whole communities of lions, tigers and elephants would slowly make their way into the circus ring without so much as a second thought. It was now that the animal rights activists would have hit the roof. The ring master would crack his whip and what must have been every animal in the kingdom would entertain thousands of excited children.
Then our Christmas Days would be complete with the unforgettable Morecambe and Wise and a delightful helping of The Two Ronnies, a day when the whole world fell in love with their comic mastery. And so we count the hours to yet another Christmas Day wonderland where all of our loyal friends come back for some more of the same. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you smiling children's faces, giggling and guffawing, guilt and remorse as that last piece of turkey is consumed and old fashioned board games such as Monopoly and Scrabble followed by a spot of hilarious karaoke from Uncle Tom. All in all I think we're in for a terrific Christmas Day this year. That Christmas pud looks wonderful. Have a good one everybody.
Friday 22 December 2017
The Friday before Christmas.
The Friday before Christmas.
The Friday before Christmas. It has a certain ring to it. You may be inclined to think that it could be a suitable title for a yet to be released pop song or an advertising slogan. But yes folks you've got roughly two and half days to cram as much into your shopping basket and you don't need to panic as such because all of those glitzy and festively outlandish supermarkets are still shifting huge quantities of mince pies, turkeys, vast boxes of chocolates and biscuits, crisps at their most mouth wateringly enticing, knockdown price and you know what's it like.
You spend most of the year taking your shopping at quite the most leisurely pace and now we've reached that last, momentous week of the year and all hell seems to break loose. It's mayhem and bedlam on the same day, hour, week and month. All is one chaotic sequence of humanity trying desperately to break all kinds of records for speed shopping in case the whole world just closes down and never opens again at any time in the foreseeable future. Mustn't forget Uncle Neil's favourite onion stuffing for the turkey or his Christmas present. Not more bottles of after shave lotion, surely. But then Uncle Neil does like his after shave lotion which means we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
Now things are beginning to wind down for the holiday period after yesterday's traffic jam madness on all roads leading out and into North London. There is a maddening maelstrom of activity which has seemingly been with us for the best part of a week or so. The frantic pursuit for more food and more drink seems to have diminished now and slowly but surely the great British public are closing their front door ready to feast and gorge ravenously on the yearly festive fare. The families have been safely welcomed and that green laurel wreath on the door looks more attractive than ever before.
Inside, red cheeked children will run around your home, throwing themselves intrepidly off your sofas when mum has made it abundantly clear that the children will break something 50 times. Then the kids will carry out their traditional somersaulting across the carpets and then fling themselves over petrified chairs and tables. Eventually order will be restored but this is the time when families gather harmoniously and besides kids will be kids and it is Christmas after all.
But here we are once again on the same day and week of the year and this is the way we've always done it without fail. There are the well wrapped, golden bowed presents, dad proudly standing next to the fireplace with glass of brandy in hand, cigar quietly fuming away. Then mum busies herself vigorously in the kitchen balancing plates and bowls in an extraordinary display of nimble dexterity.
In one amazing demonstration of natural skill, she peels potatoes, squirts cream onto another cake and then rustles up a huge stir fry of rice accompanied by mushrooms, brussel sprouts, carrots and all manner of vegetables - all seemingly at the same time. Then there's a boiling and smoking in the kitchen, pressure cookers boiling with fury and indignation, smoke alarms going off simultaneously and then the radio comes on. Now this is the cue for Christmas to start. Now the kitchen and the living room become the centre of our universe. It is a living organism, a sacred December ritual and it's got to be right and perfect on the day. If it isn't then the day will be considered a complete disaster.
Suddenly the family put on their Mass best and churches across the world address the issues of love to one and all, peace on earth as well as much merriment and mirth. This is a day of complete abandonment to the good things in life, the things we may have taken for granted over the preceding 11 months while also questioning why the horrors and depredations that have already taken place over the year can never be entirely forgotten. But Christmas is perhaps the one time of the year when we all get misty eyed, nostalgic perhaps and warmly reflective. We giggle and chuckle almost incessantly at the delightful frothiness and frivolity of the whole festive period. We hanker after snow on Christmas Day but then wince with horror when it rains or those blustery winds blow with a vengeance.
The spirit of Christmas lives on and on as if it were hard wired into our system and we know exactly what to expect. There's the Salvation Army in the local shopping centre forever smartly dressed, full of virtue and virtuosity. There goes another helping of 'Come All Ye Faithful' and 'Ding Dong Merrily On High as a robin skips playfully from one branch to another. And then there's the prompt arrival and presence of the Christmas tree, oblivious to all the hurry and scurry, determined to remain upright.
Then your family makes its way towards that very respectful church where the vicars of the world in white gently shake the hands of the local parishioners before wandering through parklands with whispering sycamore trees. Christmas Day is a day for being thoughtful and optimistic, rationalising the year that has passed so quickly, shrugging off disappointments but then revelling in the here and now.
And now everybody descends on the huge boxes of chocolates once again. There is a cosy domesticity and intimacy that Christmas can so naturally engender because nobody has to worry about life in the office or shop for a week or two. We gather around groaning tables of food and drink, feeling enormously guilty about the excessive amount of food available on the table and then resigning ourselves happily to hangovers the following day. Christmas Day offers much that some may feel is too much but then who cares. It only happens once a year after all.
Above all Christmas is perhaps the only time when we feel totally liberated, allowed to do the things that would never be regarded as acceptable behaviour in, shall we say, a wet weekend in March when there's nothing on TV and everybody looks bored on a Sunday afternoon. The restrictions have been lifted, the restraints and constraints temporarily just a distant memory. So let's plonk those silly hats
on our heads, pull a cracker with Uncle Neil and Auntie Ethel while imagining that this is the one time of the year to let go and enjoy themselves.
Shorty the Saturday before Christmas will appear on our landscape and we'll launch into that hectic merry go round of buying, rummaging around for cheap pullovers and then embarking on another journey into that familiar world of hustling and bustling, panicking and palpitating in case we've missed out something vitally important. It's probably the craziest and zaniest time of the year but how we throw ourselves whole heartedly into a holiday period that seems to go on for ever. Oh Christmas, it is indeed the most wonderful time of the year. Andy Williams knew what he was singing about.
The Friday before Christmas. It has a certain ring to it. You may be inclined to think that it could be a suitable title for a yet to be released pop song or an advertising slogan. But yes folks you've got roughly two and half days to cram as much into your shopping basket and you don't need to panic as such because all of those glitzy and festively outlandish supermarkets are still shifting huge quantities of mince pies, turkeys, vast boxes of chocolates and biscuits, crisps at their most mouth wateringly enticing, knockdown price and you know what's it like.
You spend most of the year taking your shopping at quite the most leisurely pace and now we've reached that last, momentous week of the year and all hell seems to break loose. It's mayhem and bedlam on the same day, hour, week and month. All is one chaotic sequence of humanity trying desperately to break all kinds of records for speed shopping in case the whole world just closes down and never opens again at any time in the foreseeable future. Mustn't forget Uncle Neil's favourite onion stuffing for the turkey or his Christmas present. Not more bottles of after shave lotion, surely. But then Uncle Neil does like his after shave lotion which means we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
Now things are beginning to wind down for the holiday period after yesterday's traffic jam madness on all roads leading out and into North London. There is a maddening maelstrom of activity which has seemingly been with us for the best part of a week or so. The frantic pursuit for more food and more drink seems to have diminished now and slowly but surely the great British public are closing their front door ready to feast and gorge ravenously on the yearly festive fare. The families have been safely welcomed and that green laurel wreath on the door looks more attractive than ever before.
Inside, red cheeked children will run around your home, throwing themselves intrepidly off your sofas when mum has made it abundantly clear that the children will break something 50 times. Then the kids will carry out their traditional somersaulting across the carpets and then fling themselves over petrified chairs and tables. Eventually order will be restored but this is the time when families gather harmoniously and besides kids will be kids and it is Christmas after all.
But here we are once again on the same day and week of the year and this is the way we've always done it without fail. There are the well wrapped, golden bowed presents, dad proudly standing next to the fireplace with glass of brandy in hand, cigar quietly fuming away. Then mum busies herself vigorously in the kitchen balancing plates and bowls in an extraordinary display of nimble dexterity.
In one amazing demonstration of natural skill, she peels potatoes, squirts cream onto another cake and then rustles up a huge stir fry of rice accompanied by mushrooms, brussel sprouts, carrots and all manner of vegetables - all seemingly at the same time. Then there's a boiling and smoking in the kitchen, pressure cookers boiling with fury and indignation, smoke alarms going off simultaneously and then the radio comes on. Now this is the cue for Christmas to start. Now the kitchen and the living room become the centre of our universe. It is a living organism, a sacred December ritual and it's got to be right and perfect on the day. If it isn't then the day will be considered a complete disaster.
Suddenly the family put on their Mass best and churches across the world address the issues of love to one and all, peace on earth as well as much merriment and mirth. This is a day of complete abandonment to the good things in life, the things we may have taken for granted over the preceding 11 months while also questioning why the horrors and depredations that have already taken place over the year can never be entirely forgotten. But Christmas is perhaps the one time of the year when we all get misty eyed, nostalgic perhaps and warmly reflective. We giggle and chuckle almost incessantly at the delightful frothiness and frivolity of the whole festive period. We hanker after snow on Christmas Day but then wince with horror when it rains or those blustery winds blow with a vengeance.
The spirit of Christmas lives on and on as if it were hard wired into our system and we know exactly what to expect. There's the Salvation Army in the local shopping centre forever smartly dressed, full of virtue and virtuosity. There goes another helping of 'Come All Ye Faithful' and 'Ding Dong Merrily On High as a robin skips playfully from one branch to another. And then there's the prompt arrival and presence of the Christmas tree, oblivious to all the hurry and scurry, determined to remain upright.
Then your family makes its way towards that very respectful church where the vicars of the world in white gently shake the hands of the local parishioners before wandering through parklands with whispering sycamore trees. Christmas Day is a day for being thoughtful and optimistic, rationalising the year that has passed so quickly, shrugging off disappointments but then revelling in the here and now.
And now everybody descends on the huge boxes of chocolates once again. There is a cosy domesticity and intimacy that Christmas can so naturally engender because nobody has to worry about life in the office or shop for a week or two. We gather around groaning tables of food and drink, feeling enormously guilty about the excessive amount of food available on the table and then resigning ourselves happily to hangovers the following day. Christmas Day offers much that some may feel is too much but then who cares. It only happens once a year after all.
Above all Christmas is perhaps the only time when we feel totally liberated, allowed to do the things that would never be regarded as acceptable behaviour in, shall we say, a wet weekend in March when there's nothing on TV and everybody looks bored on a Sunday afternoon. The restrictions have been lifted, the restraints and constraints temporarily just a distant memory. So let's plonk those silly hats
on our heads, pull a cracker with Uncle Neil and Auntie Ethel while imagining that this is the one time of the year to let go and enjoy themselves.
Shorty the Saturday before Christmas will appear on our landscape and we'll launch into that hectic merry go round of buying, rummaging around for cheap pullovers and then embarking on another journey into that familiar world of hustling and bustling, panicking and palpitating in case we've missed out something vitally important. It's probably the craziest and zaniest time of the year but how we throw ourselves whole heartedly into a holiday period that seems to go on for ever. Oh Christmas, it is indeed the most wonderful time of the year. Andy Williams knew what he was singing about.
Tuesday 19 December 2017
England let slip of the Ashes, Donald Trump, Theresa May, and more festive fun.
England let slip of the Ashes, Donald Trump and more festive fun.
There comes a point in our lives when the fickle finger of fate always seems to point in the wrong direction. No matter how hard we try to force the issue, nothing seems to go right. We search for reasons and ask persistent questions and it just seems so predictable. We open up our newspapers, watch the breakfast morning news or tune into the radio and those same sentences and paragraphs keep cropping up.
Yesterday the English cricket team lost hold of the Ashes once again in Australia. Now how often have we heard that old chestnut? It now feels like an eternity since England came home from Down Under with that little urn. Still you have to take your hat off to our boys in the Antipodes. They do give it a go, their persistence remarkable, their honest endeavour seemingly unquenched. But the reality is that it never seems to go our way and not for the first time English cricket received a damaging blow to its solar plexus. That punch to the ribs really did achieve maximum penetration.
England's relatively new captain Joe Root will now begin to carry out a huge inquest into how and why things went so dreadfully wrong for his team. After the magnificent victories against South Africa during this summer, Root must be deeply hurt by the humiliation of England's belly flops in Australia. After all, this is not the way it was meant to be for the England team. Still these things happen in international sport. One moment you're at the summit planting your flag and the next you're languishing near the bottom without a friend in sight. Such are the thin dividing lines between success and failure.
This time there were no silver linings for England and when they come to review the somewhat unfortunate headlines that followed them around Australia they may be tempted to think that Christmas at home with their families would have been a much more appealing proposition. True they did throw one or two jabs at their opponents but eventually the cotton reel unravelled and England simply found themselves in a terrible tangle.
But when we come to look back at the Ashes it's the behaviour of the players and the less than favourable publicity the tour has generated that will always be remembered. There were those awkward and spiky exchanges between the players as they walked off the pitch after a stressful day out in the field. Joe Root was to be seen glaring at the Aussies rather disapprovingly and then muttering what looked to be withering insults and derogatory comments. There were, shall we say, some unnecessary confrontations between the players that could have been avoided.
The fact is though Australia have quite handsomely outplayed England and the 3-0 defeat leaves most of England wondering whether it could have done anything different. The answer has to remain in the negative and Steve Smith's Australia, with dignity restored and that ageless urn under lock and key, will be feeling rather smug and self satisfied with life at the moment.
With Mitchell Starc frightening the life out of the somewhat fragile English batting attack, a bowler of lethal and terrifying speed, Pat Cummins also tearing great lumps out of our batsmen and Josh Hazelwood emerging quite rightly as one of the many heroes in the Australian side it all seemed to fall apart from the first Test onwards.
New boys James Vince and Mark Stoneman seemed to have no answer to the Aussie's powerhouse bowling and batting. Johnny Bairstow, from whom much was expected, almost vanished from view and only Dawid Malan emerged with flying colours. But the entire Ashes conflict just seemed to escape from English clutches, the familiar drift towards some lonely shore nothing less than tragic.
True, the legend that is Jimmy Anderson did some extremely convincing impersonations of Ian Botham at his peak but that bright red cricket ball became like a bar of soap in English hands. Anderson's bowling was perhaps the most impressive feature of the whole tour. He bowled straight, kept a firm line and length and the ball seemed to zip through at a fair rate of knots. Anderson bowled with fearsome accuracy and a punitive ferocity that Botham could only swoon at.
Meanwhile back on the political stage, Donald Trump must be looking forward to his Christmas pinching himself constantly at the sheer audacity of of it all. The year for Trump has been nothing short of miraculous and if somebody had told him that by the end of 2017 he'd still be President of the United States he would almost certainly have looked at them in wonderment. Or maybe his sense of vanity and narcissism would have kicked in and he'd have told us that he knew he'd still be in office.
Still the farce and soap opera that is the Trump presidency rolls on and on like an endless old Hollywood western that keeps going on relentlessly without pausing for breath. Nobody quite knows what to expect from Trump because, in his private moments, maybe even he doesn't know. Suffice it to say that the American nation are braving the elements, keeping their heads down and longing to watch James Stewart's epic Christmas film 'It's A Wonderful Life'.
So where are we with Donald Trump? Here is the social media commentator extraordinaire tweeting and twittering his frustrations, his endless propaganda about nothing of any significance and then blaming the milkman, the neighbours and quite possibly the dogs for everything and anything. Trump has become a man on a mission, an angry, one man crusader, a furious, incensed and morally outraged campaigner who loves his country but is never quite sure whether his country loves him.
It is hard to know how Trump will be spending his Christmas this year. Will he hire out the whole of Trump Towers for one extravagant party, a shin dig that none of his guests will ever forget? Will his wife and children sit around the Christmas tree trembling in case he suddenly launches into an explosive tirade against North Korea or Russia? Will Trump exercise his already well employed vocal chords with his version of Bing Crosby's wonderful 'White Christmas'? Or will he sit back in his well padded arm-chair and just entertain everybody with those bizarre finger gestures? Answers on a postcard please!
On the shiveringly cold streets of New York and Washington there is an overwhelming sense of wonderment and an obvious suspension of belief. Here is a once bankrupt billionaire businessman holding the reins of one of the most important jobs in the political universe and some of us are still trying to figure out how it all happened and whether anything can be done to rectify the problem. If indeed it needs to be fixed.
Trump is breathing fire and menace wherever he goes in the world and from our perfect vantage point here in Britain it all seems barely believable. Trump, who to some may be regarded as completely clueless, could be seen as a fumbling and bumbling figure, sniggering mischievously behind everybody's back, drinking his twentieth can of Diet Cola and then attacking Vladimir Putin for being Russian. You really couldn't make it up. From here in Britain it all looks and sounds complicated.
Still you never know. Maybe Trump will find a red coat and white beard. The chances are that he may find a sack of presents for the American children although sacking may not be the word Trump will want to hear at the moment. But as for fairies on tops of trees and turkey with all the trimmings, Trump may decide that you can only have too much fun.
And finally we come to Britain, Prime Minister Theresa May and that broken record known as Brexit. May of course did win the General Election back in June and she did hold onto power by her fingertips. But her majority was blown out of the water and when she limped back to 10 Downing Street there were very few bandages and bottles of medicine so she had to make do with what she had.
So what are we left with? We have a British government considerably weakened, damaged, wounded, injured and undermined by forces that could be said to be beyond them. The Tories may hold the balance of power but when somebody tips the scales they may find a Prime Minister who doesn't know which way to look, who smiles obligingly for the cameras but in her heart of hearts knows that some of her Cabinet colleagues are restless and muttering their discontent.
Oh well come on Prime Minister. Kick off those heels, put your feet up and let's play Scrabble or Monopoly on Christmas Day with your family and friends. You deserve a break. To quote one of your Labour adversaries from yesteryear. Things can only get better. Or maybe they have and we didn't really notice. It may be safe to show your face since the disappearance of Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn is no more than a political lightweight although Corbyn may think not. It's time to hang up some more mistletoe. We can only imagine what Santa will bring Corbyn. Perhaps another injection of humour. Ho Ho Ho!
There comes a point in our lives when the fickle finger of fate always seems to point in the wrong direction. No matter how hard we try to force the issue, nothing seems to go right. We search for reasons and ask persistent questions and it just seems so predictable. We open up our newspapers, watch the breakfast morning news or tune into the radio and those same sentences and paragraphs keep cropping up.
Yesterday the English cricket team lost hold of the Ashes once again in Australia. Now how often have we heard that old chestnut? It now feels like an eternity since England came home from Down Under with that little urn. Still you have to take your hat off to our boys in the Antipodes. They do give it a go, their persistence remarkable, their honest endeavour seemingly unquenched. But the reality is that it never seems to go our way and not for the first time English cricket received a damaging blow to its solar plexus. That punch to the ribs really did achieve maximum penetration.
England's relatively new captain Joe Root will now begin to carry out a huge inquest into how and why things went so dreadfully wrong for his team. After the magnificent victories against South Africa during this summer, Root must be deeply hurt by the humiliation of England's belly flops in Australia. After all, this is not the way it was meant to be for the England team. Still these things happen in international sport. One moment you're at the summit planting your flag and the next you're languishing near the bottom without a friend in sight. Such are the thin dividing lines between success and failure.
This time there were no silver linings for England and when they come to review the somewhat unfortunate headlines that followed them around Australia they may be tempted to think that Christmas at home with their families would have been a much more appealing proposition. True they did throw one or two jabs at their opponents but eventually the cotton reel unravelled and England simply found themselves in a terrible tangle.
But when we come to look back at the Ashes it's the behaviour of the players and the less than favourable publicity the tour has generated that will always be remembered. There were those awkward and spiky exchanges between the players as they walked off the pitch after a stressful day out in the field. Joe Root was to be seen glaring at the Aussies rather disapprovingly and then muttering what looked to be withering insults and derogatory comments. There were, shall we say, some unnecessary confrontations between the players that could have been avoided.
The fact is though Australia have quite handsomely outplayed England and the 3-0 defeat leaves most of England wondering whether it could have done anything different. The answer has to remain in the negative and Steve Smith's Australia, with dignity restored and that ageless urn under lock and key, will be feeling rather smug and self satisfied with life at the moment.
With Mitchell Starc frightening the life out of the somewhat fragile English batting attack, a bowler of lethal and terrifying speed, Pat Cummins also tearing great lumps out of our batsmen and Josh Hazelwood emerging quite rightly as one of the many heroes in the Australian side it all seemed to fall apart from the first Test onwards.
New boys James Vince and Mark Stoneman seemed to have no answer to the Aussie's powerhouse bowling and batting. Johnny Bairstow, from whom much was expected, almost vanished from view and only Dawid Malan emerged with flying colours. But the entire Ashes conflict just seemed to escape from English clutches, the familiar drift towards some lonely shore nothing less than tragic.
True, the legend that is Jimmy Anderson did some extremely convincing impersonations of Ian Botham at his peak but that bright red cricket ball became like a bar of soap in English hands. Anderson's bowling was perhaps the most impressive feature of the whole tour. He bowled straight, kept a firm line and length and the ball seemed to zip through at a fair rate of knots. Anderson bowled with fearsome accuracy and a punitive ferocity that Botham could only swoon at.
Meanwhile back on the political stage, Donald Trump must be looking forward to his Christmas pinching himself constantly at the sheer audacity of of it all. The year for Trump has been nothing short of miraculous and if somebody had told him that by the end of 2017 he'd still be President of the United States he would almost certainly have looked at them in wonderment. Or maybe his sense of vanity and narcissism would have kicked in and he'd have told us that he knew he'd still be in office.
Still the farce and soap opera that is the Trump presidency rolls on and on like an endless old Hollywood western that keeps going on relentlessly without pausing for breath. Nobody quite knows what to expect from Trump because, in his private moments, maybe even he doesn't know. Suffice it to say that the American nation are braving the elements, keeping their heads down and longing to watch James Stewart's epic Christmas film 'It's A Wonderful Life'.
So where are we with Donald Trump? Here is the social media commentator extraordinaire tweeting and twittering his frustrations, his endless propaganda about nothing of any significance and then blaming the milkman, the neighbours and quite possibly the dogs for everything and anything. Trump has become a man on a mission, an angry, one man crusader, a furious, incensed and morally outraged campaigner who loves his country but is never quite sure whether his country loves him.
It is hard to know how Trump will be spending his Christmas this year. Will he hire out the whole of Trump Towers for one extravagant party, a shin dig that none of his guests will ever forget? Will his wife and children sit around the Christmas tree trembling in case he suddenly launches into an explosive tirade against North Korea or Russia? Will Trump exercise his already well employed vocal chords with his version of Bing Crosby's wonderful 'White Christmas'? Or will he sit back in his well padded arm-chair and just entertain everybody with those bizarre finger gestures? Answers on a postcard please!
On the shiveringly cold streets of New York and Washington there is an overwhelming sense of wonderment and an obvious suspension of belief. Here is a once bankrupt billionaire businessman holding the reins of one of the most important jobs in the political universe and some of us are still trying to figure out how it all happened and whether anything can be done to rectify the problem. If indeed it needs to be fixed.
Trump is breathing fire and menace wherever he goes in the world and from our perfect vantage point here in Britain it all seems barely believable. Trump, who to some may be regarded as completely clueless, could be seen as a fumbling and bumbling figure, sniggering mischievously behind everybody's back, drinking his twentieth can of Diet Cola and then attacking Vladimir Putin for being Russian. You really couldn't make it up. From here in Britain it all looks and sounds complicated.
Still you never know. Maybe Trump will find a red coat and white beard. The chances are that he may find a sack of presents for the American children although sacking may not be the word Trump will want to hear at the moment. But as for fairies on tops of trees and turkey with all the trimmings, Trump may decide that you can only have too much fun.
And finally we come to Britain, Prime Minister Theresa May and that broken record known as Brexit. May of course did win the General Election back in June and she did hold onto power by her fingertips. But her majority was blown out of the water and when she limped back to 10 Downing Street there were very few bandages and bottles of medicine so she had to make do with what she had.
So what are we left with? We have a British government considerably weakened, damaged, wounded, injured and undermined by forces that could be said to be beyond them. The Tories may hold the balance of power but when somebody tips the scales they may find a Prime Minister who doesn't know which way to look, who smiles obligingly for the cameras but in her heart of hearts knows that some of her Cabinet colleagues are restless and muttering their discontent.
Oh well come on Prime Minister. Kick off those heels, put your feet up and let's play Scrabble or Monopoly on Christmas Day with your family and friends. You deserve a break. To quote one of your Labour adversaries from yesteryear. Things can only get better. Or maybe they have and we didn't really notice. It may be safe to show your face since the disappearance of Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn is no more than a political lightweight although Corbyn may think not. It's time to hang up some more mistletoe. We can only imagine what Santa will bring Corbyn. Perhaps another injection of humour. Ho Ho Ho!
Sunday 17 December 2017
My You Tube video for No Joe Bloggs. A great Christmas read.
My You Tube video for No Joe Bloggs. A great Christmas read.
I know. You've seen it before, you've heard it before but here's my latest promo for my books No Joe Bloggs, Joe's Jolly Japes and Victorian Madness Lyrics. You've got to shout it from the rooftops but not too raucously in case somebody understandably complains. But when you've got something to boast and gloat about then why not? You pick up the tannoy and you proudly declare that these are your achievements and this is what you love doing. This is my announcement and I make no secret of the fact that as the author of three books I'm as proud as Punch. So here goes.
If you click onto You Tube you'll find my narrative for my book No Joe Bloggs. Just tap in No Joe Bloggs in You Tube and bob's your uncle or maybe he's your cousin. Here I talk about my life so far, a heartfelt, sentimental and emotional description of my book. No Joe Bloggs is my funny, moving, emotional, nostalgic and lyrical memoir and social commentary book If you like Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Junior and co. you've come to the right place. Because inside No Joe Bloggs now available at Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Waterstones online market place and Books-A-Million online I tell the imaginary but I think affectionately told story of my late dad's journey to Las Vegas.
At the beginning of No Joe Bloggs I give a perfectly authentic account of my grandparents and my grandpa's one claim to fame. He was the one who cut the hair of England's 1966 World Cup fabled trio of Sir Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and Bobby Moore. My grandparents lived near West Ham's now famous old ground Upton Park and nothing gave my grandpa greater pleasure than giving a short back and sides to those glittering West Ham legends.
Then I describe growing up in wonderful Ilford, Essex with descriptions about the local Valentines Park and the London and West End for which my wonderful late dad had the softest of spots for. London, particularly, comes under the spotlight for attention. I talk about London with some vividly descriptive sounds and sights. The rest of No Joe Bloggs is my journey throughout my childhood, the triumphs and disasters, my favourite music, singers, movies, radio stations, loads of pop culture from the 1960s and 70s, pen portraits of football clubs such as Arsenal, Aston Vila, Everton, Ipswich Town, Chelsea, Leeds United, Liverpool, Manchester City and United, Spurs and Wolves, favourite sports personalities from those decades, favourite sporting occasions, favourite comedians and favourite TV programmes from the 1960s and 70s.
In my latest book Joe's Jolly Japes, also available at Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Waterstones online market place, Foyles online and Books- A-Million online. Joe's Jolly Japes is my take on England, the middle classes in England, the cultural institutions including the Chelsea Flower Show, the Henley Regatta and Polo on the playing fields of England. I write about England's World Cup football performances throughout the years, the victories and defeats, the players and managers.
I also talk about that great English wordsmith Alan Bennett and his fellow literary lion John Arlott, cricket's finest of all broadcasters, authors, poets and a wine expert par excellence. Essentially Joe's Jolly Japes is my personal perspective on the world and society.
Finally I give you my first book Victorian Madness Lyrics, a bonkers, nonsensical if, I think hilarious book. Victorian Madness Lyrics is a verbal festival of words that defy description. If you like language, words and alternatively funny words, metaphors and similes then Victorian Madness Lyrics is definitely the book for you. Here are some examples from the book. Our House becomes One's Abode, House of Fun- Establishment of Amusement and there is much more on the same song sheet. Victorian Madness Lyrics can still be bought at FeedaRead.com.
So there you have it my friends. Christmas is now a week away, that extraordinary time of the year when everything reaches that full stop of the year, the end of the sentence, the end of the paragraph, where regardless of the events that have preceded it, everybody around the world takes time out to sit down and wonder where the year has gone and why it seems to have flown by. None of us would like a justification or explanation for the speed at which the year has passed. It just has and suddenly the next chapter in our lives is on the next page. It may have gone too quickly for our liking or just sped past like an express train from London to Glasgow.
But if you'd like an enjoyable read I have to heartily recommend my books No Joe Bloggs, Victorian Madness Lyrics and Joe's Jolly Japes. They're Christmas crackers of books. Could somebody pass me a chocolate or maybe another mouth watering Chanukah doughnut. Better still Bing Crosby's legendary 'White Christmas' or Jona Lewie's 'Stop the Cavalry' or a delicious slice of Slade's Christmas classic. Sometimes you have to pinch yourself in case it's a dream. But it's that time of the year again and time to wrap up another gift for your loved ones. Oh, what bliss. Have a good one folks.
I know. You've seen it before, you've heard it before but here's my latest promo for my books No Joe Bloggs, Joe's Jolly Japes and Victorian Madness Lyrics. You've got to shout it from the rooftops but not too raucously in case somebody understandably complains. But when you've got something to boast and gloat about then why not? You pick up the tannoy and you proudly declare that these are your achievements and this is what you love doing. This is my announcement and I make no secret of the fact that as the author of three books I'm as proud as Punch. So here goes.
If you click onto You Tube you'll find my narrative for my book No Joe Bloggs. Just tap in No Joe Bloggs in You Tube and bob's your uncle or maybe he's your cousin. Here I talk about my life so far, a heartfelt, sentimental and emotional description of my book. No Joe Bloggs is my funny, moving, emotional, nostalgic and lyrical memoir and social commentary book If you like Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Junior and co. you've come to the right place. Because inside No Joe Bloggs now available at Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Waterstones online market place and Books-A-Million online I tell the imaginary but I think affectionately told story of my late dad's journey to Las Vegas.
At the beginning of No Joe Bloggs I give a perfectly authentic account of my grandparents and my grandpa's one claim to fame. He was the one who cut the hair of England's 1966 World Cup fabled trio of Sir Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters and Bobby Moore. My grandparents lived near West Ham's now famous old ground Upton Park and nothing gave my grandpa greater pleasure than giving a short back and sides to those glittering West Ham legends.
Then I describe growing up in wonderful Ilford, Essex with descriptions about the local Valentines Park and the London and West End for which my wonderful late dad had the softest of spots for. London, particularly, comes under the spotlight for attention. I talk about London with some vividly descriptive sounds and sights. The rest of No Joe Bloggs is my journey throughout my childhood, the triumphs and disasters, my favourite music, singers, movies, radio stations, loads of pop culture from the 1960s and 70s, pen portraits of football clubs such as Arsenal, Aston Vila, Everton, Ipswich Town, Chelsea, Leeds United, Liverpool, Manchester City and United, Spurs and Wolves, favourite sports personalities from those decades, favourite sporting occasions, favourite comedians and favourite TV programmes from the 1960s and 70s.
In my latest book Joe's Jolly Japes, also available at Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Waterstones online market place, Foyles online and Books- A-Million online. Joe's Jolly Japes is my take on England, the middle classes in England, the cultural institutions including the Chelsea Flower Show, the Henley Regatta and Polo on the playing fields of England. I write about England's World Cup football performances throughout the years, the victories and defeats, the players and managers.
I also talk about that great English wordsmith Alan Bennett and his fellow literary lion John Arlott, cricket's finest of all broadcasters, authors, poets and a wine expert par excellence. Essentially Joe's Jolly Japes is my personal perspective on the world and society.
Finally I give you my first book Victorian Madness Lyrics, a bonkers, nonsensical if, I think hilarious book. Victorian Madness Lyrics is a verbal festival of words that defy description. If you like language, words and alternatively funny words, metaphors and similes then Victorian Madness Lyrics is definitely the book for you. Here are some examples from the book. Our House becomes One's Abode, House of Fun- Establishment of Amusement and there is much more on the same song sheet. Victorian Madness Lyrics can still be bought at FeedaRead.com.
So there you have it my friends. Christmas is now a week away, that extraordinary time of the year when everything reaches that full stop of the year, the end of the sentence, the end of the paragraph, where regardless of the events that have preceded it, everybody around the world takes time out to sit down and wonder where the year has gone and why it seems to have flown by. None of us would like a justification or explanation for the speed at which the year has passed. It just has and suddenly the next chapter in our lives is on the next page. It may have gone too quickly for our liking or just sped past like an express train from London to Glasgow.
But if you'd like an enjoyable read I have to heartily recommend my books No Joe Bloggs, Victorian Madness Lyrics and Joe's Jolly Japes. They're Christmas crackers of books. Could somebody pass me a chocolate or maybe another mouth watering Chanukah doughnut. Better still Bing Crosby's legendary 'White Christmas' or Jona Lewie's 'Stop the Cavalry' or a delicious slice of Slade's Christmas classic. Sometimes you have to pinch yourself in case it's a dream. But it's that time of the year again and time to wrap up another gift for your loved ones. Oh, what bliss. Have a good one folks.
Friday 15 December 2017
Christmas, the West End of London and all that jazz.
Christmas, the West End of London and all that jazz.
What a great day for a family day out. The snows had come and gone in a fleeting flurry, the ice had reluctantly gone and it was time for some window shopping in the West End. My wife, daughter, boy friend and father in law had deliberately set out with the sole intention of taking in the festive delights of the commercial wonderland that is Selfridges. Sometimes you just can't get enough of London's stunning department stores. This year, more than ever, the industrious display workers had excelled themselves in much the way they'd always done although that may be open to debate.
So here we are in the middle of the usual spectacle that is Christmas in the West End of London. Now is the time for the customary overblown excess, the harum scarum materialism, the ringing and singing of the cash registers, the hundreds and thousands of shoppers, tourists all hectically rushing, scampering, scurrying, millions of feet pounding along pavements thick with swinging, groaning shopping bags. It's enough to send you crazy if you let it. But this is no nine to five regime.
We witness the same scenes every year and we may never tire of it. Today in the bustling, seething and throbbing West End we find the people of the world, the mesmerising multitudes walking up and down Oxford Street in the most orderly of formations. It wasn't nearly as crowded as it should have been but then there's just over a week or so left and by Christmas Eve it may well be jammed solid and packed. You may have difficulty in finding any space to walk so this could be the time to buy, buy and buy before the doors shut for goodness knows how long.
These are the people of the West End set, the people who fuel this pre Brexit economy, who fill the aisles of a hundred clothes rails, souvenir and music shops, sports shops, restaurants, cafes, fast food outlets that somehow defy description. Here are the very latest in fads, gadgets, high tech gizmos, frying pans, saucepans, TVs, all manner of high tech mobile phones, sheets and blankets with yellow and purple polka dots, designer cutlery and crockery sets, ovens that can whip up your meals in next to no time. Then there are the jewellery shops with watches that can you tell the time in Hong Kong with just a single swipe of the fingers.
But we were here in the West End to do some intensive market research on life in the West End. We are now ten days away from that good old fashioned Christmas knees up when the families of Britain don silly hats and pull hilarious crackers before diving into another Norfolk turkey. Isn't it wonderful? Our destination was Selfridges but I couldn't help but indulge in some social observation and topical commentary.
We were roughly ten minutes into our expedition when the street theatre of London's West End opened its beautifully decorated curtains. At strategic points of the pavements were situated London's most mellifluous musicians, possibly the finest gathering of instrumentalists ever to assemble in one street. They were all there you know. There was the gentleman playing his accordion, that charming squeeze box that sounds wonderfully European. The shame is though that in two years this may not make for easy listening since Britain will no longer require the services of an accordionist. We're leaving the EU and that's final.
For a moment or two I was suddenly transported to a quaint back street in down town Amsterdam or a pretty market square in Brussels where the sweetest town hall clock strikes up precisely on the half hour and then the hour. But the life of an accordionist looked a lonely and thankless one although our man with the squeeze box did seem to attract a number of admiring glances. There is a jolly, wheezing sound to an accordion that always reminds you of European market squares and busy cafes. But here in the West End it seemed the rarest but most surprising of discoveries.
Oxford Street was always the heartland for millions of tourists from all four corners of the globe. There were the familiar postcards, fridge magnets, badges, mugs, cups, Union Jack stickers, flags and Keep Calm and Drink Coffee signs that always bring them back year after year. Today was no exception to the rule as curious by standers and wandering people watchers strolled up and down that famous West End thoroughfare, enthralled by the Christmas air and ready to embrace the holiday with some relish.
I then encountered some of the best musical instruments ever to play before a captive West End audience. Oxford Street has now become the temporary home for jazzy, funky saxophones, perhaps the most richly satisfying sound ever to grace the West End. On the same street London's celebrated 100 club, a jazz haven for over 60 years now, has entertained those who like their music played to a backdrop of soft and soothing trumpets, smooth and streamlined rhythms, jazzy pianos tinkling sedately in the background and small clouds of cigarette smoke.
Now though the saxophones blasted out the most magnificently upbeat tempos, full of style and suave sensuality, finger clicking numbers that somehow belonged to the 100 club in Oxford Street but were now appearing on the chilly wintry pavements of Oxford Street. There is something so essentially laid backed and relaxed about the sound of the sax that restores your faith in human nature.
Then further along there were the appropriately dressed Christmas tuba players, the eternally smart French horns, the rousing trumpets harmonising perfectly on 'We Wish you a Merry Christmas', Jingle Bells and those standard Christmas favourites that most of us can hum backwards. The music of today had wafted into the London air with its traditional verses and nuanced meanings that send a warm glow down the spine.
And so we end our day back at Selfridge's sampling the rarefied air of this golden Oxford Street venue. We find ourselves at the Selfridge's Food Hall, a gastronomic ghetto where lunch seemed to be the perfect signature to an idyllic early pre-Christmas afternoon. The preferred choice was the salt beef bar. Now for those of us for whom a salt beef sandwich is rather like sipping the finest nectar then you may think there can be nothing like it in the whole wide world. Salt beef is the most logical complement to any lunchtime snack and only matched by its Brick Lane counterpart in both taste and presentation.
We headed for home uplifted by the completeness of the whole Oxford Street experience, the singular magic, the sheer uniqueness of it all, that yearly treat for families, children and adults alike, a place with its very specific appeal to young and old, the magical yearning for even healthier and happier years ahead, the ribboned boxes of Christmas presents and those snowy white windows with sleighs and fairy tale figures.
Still there was the remarkable HMV, a record emporium that some of the traditionalists thought had probably seen better days. There was the horrible feeling that the age of vinyl records would never be available again but I spotted HMV with that famous dog and gramophone and thought I'd gone to heaven. Vinyl had made a major comeback although maybe not on the grandest scale. Now though HMV seems to be hidden away or swallowed up by the larger shopping attractions and those vast brand name conglomerates that seem to tower over the shop.
But I couldn't help but remember the saxophone players with their coin filled caps on the ground. The tunes seemed to echo across the humming, murmuring traffic lanes of Oxford Street. In one shop window a giant red paper mache robin with all the festive trimmings bobbed up and down, bouncing and flouncing languidly without a care in the world. Christmas had made that spectacular return to the West End. All is well in the world and that subtle fragrance of salt beef will linger for quite a while. It's time for another mince pie.
What a great day for a family day out. The snows had come and gone in a fleeting flurry, the ice had reluctantly gone and it was time for some window shopping in the West End. My wife, daughter, boy friend and father in law had deliberately set out with the sole intention of taking in the festive delights of the commercial wonderland that is Selfridges. Sometimes you just can't get enough of London's stunning department stores. This year, more than ever, the industrious display workers had excelled themselves in much the way they'd always done although that may be open to debate.
So here we are in the middle of the usual spectacle that is Christmas in the West End of London. Now is the time for the customary overblown excess, the harum scarum materialism, the ringing and singing of the cash registers, the hundreds and thousands of shoppers, tourists all hectically rushing, scampering, scurrying, millions of feet pounding along pavements thick with swinging, groaning shopping bags. It's enough to send you crazy if you let it. But this is no nine to five regime.
We witness the same scenes every year and we may never tire of it. Today in the bustling, seething and throbbing West End we find the people of the world, the mesmerising multitudes walking up and down Oxford Street in the most orderly of formations. It wasn't nearly as crowded as it should have been but then there's just over a week or so left and by Christmas Eve it may well be jammed solid and packed. You may have difficulty in finding any space to walk so this could be the time to buy, buy and buy before the doors shut for goodness knows how long.
These are the people of the West End set, the people who fuel this pre Brexit economy, who fill the aisles of a hundred clothes rails, souvenir and music shops, sports shops, restaurants, cafes, fast food outlets that somehow defy description. Here are the very latest in fads, gadgets, high tech gizmos, frying pans, saucepans, TVs, all manner of high tech mobile phones, sheets and blankets with yellow and purple polka dots, designer cutlery and crockery sets, ovens that can whip up your meals in next to no time. Then there are the jewellery shops with watches that can you tell the time in Hong Kong with just a single swipe of the fingers.
But we were here in the West End to do some intensive market research on life in the West End. We are now ten days away from that good old fashioned Christmas knees up when the families of Britain don silly hats and pull hilarious crackers before diving into another Norfolk turkey. Isn't it wonderful? Our destination was Selfridges but I couldn't help but indulge in some social observation and topical commentary.
We were roughly ten minutes into our expedition when the street theatre of London's West End opened its beautifully decorated curtains. At strategic points of the pavements were situated London's most mellifluous musicians, possibly the finest gathering of instrumentalists ever to assemble in one street. They were all there you know. There was the gentleman playing his accordion, that charming squeeze box that sounds wonderfully European. The shame is though that in two years this may not make for easy listening since Britain will no longer require the services of an accordionist. We're leaving the EU and that's final.
For a moment or two I was suddenly transported to a quaint back street in down town Amsterdam or a pretty market square in Brussels where the sweetest town hall clock strikes up precisely on the half hour and then the hour. But the life of an accordionist looked a lonely and thankless one although our man with the squeeze box did seem to attract a number of admiring glances. There is a jolly, wheezing sound to an accordion that always reminds you of European market squares and busy cafes. But here in the West End it seemed the rarest but most surprising of discoveries.
Oxford Street was always the heartland for millions of tourists from all four corners of the globe. There were the familiar postcards, fridge magnets, badges, mugs, cups, Union Jack stickers, flags and Keep Calm and Drink Coffee signs that always bring them back year after year. Today was no exception to the rule as curious by standers and wandering people watchers strolled up and down that famous West End thoroughfare, enthralled by the Christmas air and ready to embrace the holiday with some relish.
I then encountered some of the best musical instruments ever to play before a captive West End audience. Oxford Street has now become the temporary home for jazzy, funky saxophones, perhaps the most richly satisfying sound ever to grace the West End. On the same street London's celebrated 100 club, a jazz haven for over 60 years now, has entertained those who like their music played to a backdrop of soft and soothing trumpets, smooth and streamlined rhythms, jazzy pianos tinkling sedately in the background and small clouds of cigarette smoke.
Now though the saxophones blasted out the most magnificently upbeat tempos, full of style and suave sensuality, finger clicking numbers that somehow belonged to the 100 club in Oxford Street but were now appearing on the chilly wintry pavements of Oxford Street. There is something so essentially laid backed and relaxed about the sound of the sax that restores your faith in human nature.
Then further along there were the appropriately dressed Christmas tuba players, the eternally smart French horns, the rousing trumpets harmonising perfectly on 'We Wish you a Merry Christmas', Jingle Bells and those standard Christmas favourites that most of us can hum backwards. The music of today had wafted into the London air with its traditional verses and nuanced meanings that send a warm glow down the spine.
And so we end our day back at Selfridge's sampling the rarefied air of this golden Oxford Street venue. We find ourselves at the Selfridge's Food Hall, a gastronomic ghetto where lunch seemed to be the perfect signature to an idyllic early pre-Christmas afternoon. The preferred choice was the salt beef bar. Now for those of us for whom a salt beef sandwich is rather like sipping the finest nectar then you may think there can be nothing like it in the whole wide world. Salt beef is the most logical complement to any lunchtime snack and only matched by its Brick Lane counterpart in both taste and presentation.
We headed for home uplifted by the completeness of the whole Oxford Street experience, the singular magic, the sheer uniqueness of it all, that yearly treat for families, children and adults alike, a place with its very specific appeal to young and old, the magical yearning for even healthier and happier years ahead, the ribboned boxes of Christmas presents and those snowy white windows with sleighs and fairy tale figures.
Still there was the remarkable HMV, a record emporium that some of the traditionalists thought had probably seen better days. There was the horrible feeling that the age of vinyl records would never be available again but I spotted HMV with that famous dog and gramophone and thought I'd gone to heaven. Vinyl had made a major comeback although maybe not on the grandest scale. Now though HMV seems to be hidden away or swallowed up by the larger shopping attractions and those vast brand name conglomerates that seem to tower over the shop.
But I couldn't help but remember the saxophone players with their coin filled caps on the ground. The tunes seemed to echo across the humming, murmuring traffic lanes of Oxford Street. In one shop window a giant red paper mache robin with all the festive trimmings bobbed up and down, bouncing and flouncing languidly without a care in the world. Christmas had made that spectacular return to the West End. All is well in the world and that subtle fragrance of salt beef will linger for quite a while. It's time for another mince pie.
Thursday 14 December 2017
Honours even - Hammers and Gunners share the points.
Honours even- Hammers and Gunners share the points.
The rain fell from an inconsolable East London sky. On a wintry evening at the London Stadium a glimmer of sunlight crept out of the murky darkness and suddenly West Ham began to look much healthier and sprightlier than in recent times so the latest medical report is a positive one. The signs are that if they keep taking the tablets the Hammers may feel whole lot better about themselves before the the great Christmas jamboree.
Last night West Ham met their North London neighbours Arsenal in a lively if one sided Premier League encounter. For the best part of 90 minutes Arsenal more or less bossed this London derby and if this had been a boxing match then the referee would almost have certainly thrown in the bloodied towel. But West Ham clung on for dear life and a goal-less draw looked to be the most honourable outcome. Arsenal, for their part, may think that any realistic Premier League challenge will have to be put on the back burner for another season.
At the top of the Premier League the two Manchester clubs have taken up full time tenancy while the contenders behind them look like gasping marathon runners who seem to have hit the wall. Spurs beat Brighton 1-0 at Wembley Stadium, Chelsea took care of Huddersfield on Tuesday after the jolting setback at West Ham, Manchester United saw off Bournemouth and Liverpool are still gripping hold onto the coat tails of the rest. But it all seems fairly pointless and forlorn.
Still Arsenal came into last night's match against West Ham sensing perhaps that miracles may still happen but then recognised sensibly that the only way Manchester City are going to be moved from top spot is by a huge crowbar and a wrecking ball. Pep Guardiola's free wheeling, foot loose and fancy free City look almost certain to remain unbeaten until Christmas at the very least and for those who believe that they can be caught then you could be accused of wishful thinking. There is more chance of Santa Claus arriving on Christmas Eve. Ho Ho Ho! This is not the time for silly fantasies.
After their disappointing 1-1 draw at Southampton on Sunday, Arsenal probably felt this was a perfect chance to wallow in West Ham's current misfortune and finding their London neighbours in generous mood. In the corresponding game last December Arsenal destroyed West Ham at the London Stadium with a 5-1 victory that was a landslide waiting to happen. There was an air of meek surrender and capitulation that evening but a year later and West Ham are in much the same spot of bother. This time though there is no sulking Frenchman thinking fondly of home comforts.
When midfield playmaker Dimitri Payet finally took his leave of West Ham and returned to France with his family a heavy weight seemed to be lifted from West Ham's collective shoulders. The signing of Robert Snodgrass, although an adequate sticking plaster, was never more than a short term replacement. Snodgrass was indeed a fish out of water and although capable and workmanlike, was about as far removed from Payet as it was possible to be.
Now though West Ham have adopted that familiar air of discomfort that some felt was inevitable after all those moving problems to the London Stadium from Upton Park. Those curtains just don't look right and that kitchen is too big. Somehow the noise, atmosphere and acoustics will never be the same as the lovely old Boleyn Ground where the crowd seemed to give West Ham a goal start.
Poor Slaven Bilic departed the East End without so much as a whimper and new manager David Moyes has been charged with the unenviable task of propping up the Hammers, lifting the gloom and dejection and revitalising a West Ham side who seem to be sinking without trace. They may yet find though the Christmas and the January transfer window to be their ultimate salvation.
For long periods West Ham seemed to be chasing so many black Arsenal shadows that gradually they were beginning to see stars. Arsenal flicked their passes between their players in short, sharp bursts of one touch brilliance that must have demoralised the home side. Their passing was so breathtakingly accurate and geometrically right that even the most eminent of draughtsmen would have been deeply impressed. West Ham were pinned back onto the ropes with nowhere to go.
When the likes of Mesut Ozil, the welcome return of Jack Wilshere to Arsenal's first team, Alexis Sanchez, Alex Iwobi and Olivier Giroud began to weave and stitch together their passing patterns. West Ham could only hover around their opponents like claret and blue clouds drifting towards nowhere in particular.
Arsenal were now sparring, toying, taunting and tormenting West Ham as if they were a rag doll. The passes were now fluttering around the pitch in and around small pockets of West Ham's stubborn defence. Here was the case of the matador waving the flamboyant cape and inviting the bull for yet more mind games. Eventually a claret and blue bull held its own and the whole contest fizzled out like a spent firework.
For West Ham this was another gritty, backs to the wall performance, a display of solidity, firmness, character and stern defensive resolution that could well serve their purpose for the time being. Sometimes an army does fight on its stomach but once the trenches are dug defensive measures become vital to the cause. In many ways West Ham looked as if they were walking through treacle such was their difficulty in finding a way out of their own half.
Long spells were spent spreading a claret and blue sheet across their embattled back four and then plodding their way laboriously forward like a beached turtle that has completely lost its bearings. No sooner had they won possession then Aaron Cresswell, Pablo Zabaleta, Winston Reid and Arthur Masuaku were giving the ball straight back to their opponents. It was probably on nights like this that they must have wished they'd stayed at home and caught up with the latest developments in Coronation Street.
Once again Pedro Obiang, captain Mark Noble and Manuel Lanzini were treating the ball as if it were the hottest potato, frequently denying any blame for giving the ball wastefully and then trying desperately to redeem themselves when it was far too late. Thankfully for West Ham, Oliver Giroud, the bearded French warrior, made all the wrong connections when the ball was played to him in the air and Alex Sanchez continues to look like the spoilt kid who can never get his way. Sanchez spent most of the evening moping and complaining about perhaps the colour of the ball or the East London rain. The overall impression was that in Chile it never rains and besides it's everybody else's fault but his. Football can seem so grossly unfair Alexis.
Still. this was a fair to middling night for those happy Hammers. Finally everything seems to be clicking for Austrian winger and forward Marko Arnautovic. And not before time some might have privately thought. On Saturday Arnautovic had one of his most eye catching games for quite a while, running the Chelsea defence ragged and once again against Arsenal he drove his way forward on the flanks, nostrils flaring and eyes blazing.
On a more or less regular basis Arnautovic trapped the ball beautifully with his chest, turned and swivelled swiftly and did use the ball productively. Occasionally it all looked rather uncomfortable for the angular Austrian but the thoughts and deeds were certainly working in harmony. Hector Bellerin and Nacho Monreal, the Arsenal full backs were spun around and turned deftly but ended the game frustrating Arnautovic.
For Michal Antonio, another source of danger on the other flank this was not quite the game tailored to his liking. Antonio is both strong and muscular but Arsenal were a different kettle of fish. Whenever West Ham were offered any kind of relief from Arsenal's carousel of passing movements, Antonio heroically stuck out his chest and sprinted along the touchline like a man in a permanent hurry. There were the menacing bursts into space and a passionate desire to win the ball. Sadly though this was not to be Antonio's evening and there were too many road blocks in front of him.
So it was that the match seemed to be drawing to what seemed the fairest of all conclusions. Then with the match in injury time and Arsenal rapidly running out of short cuts to West Ham's goal, the home side launched one final attack. A loose ball inside the Arsenal penalty area fell neatly at the feet at West Ham substitute Javier Hernandez who promptly curled the ball artistically towards Arsenal keeper Petr Cech. Then Hernandez experienced his very own Sir Geoff Hurst moment, the ball bouncing fiercely against the bar and dropping this time on the wrong side of the line. So close and yet so far.
With a trip to Stoke on Saturday and an appetising Christmas and New Year programme on West Ham's horizon this could be a season defining spell for the men in claret and blue. An impressive haul of points could be the difference between mid table safety and a winter of discontent. It's never been easy following our favourite team of choice because most of us can recite the same song off by heart.
Then the cameras panned towards that tearful sky with its deluge of raindrops slanting across Stratford. The West Ham fans trooped out of the London Stadium with a modicum of hope in their heart but never entirely sure where hope would take them. The stadium lights were switched off and Christmas beckoned for those discerning Westfield shoppers. It was time to gather our thoughts for Boxing Day perhaps but then 1963 and Blackburn Rovers were briefly recalled. It may be the pantomime season but it is to be hoped that an 8-2 defeat will not be the abiding memory. We are indeed forever blowing bubbles.
The rain fell from an inconsolable East London sky. On a wintry evening at the London Stadium a glimmer of sunlight crept out of the murky darkness and suddenly West Ham began to look much healthier and sprightlier than in recent times so the latest medical report is a positive one. The signs are that if they keep taking the tablets the Hammers may feel whole lot better about themselves before the the great Christmas jamboree.
Last night West Ham met their North London neighbours Arsenal in a lively if one sided Premier League encounter. For the best part of 90 minutes Arsenal more or less bossed this London derby and if this had been a boxing match then the referee would almost have certainly thrown in the bloodied towel. But West Ham clung on for dear life and a goal-less draw looked to be the most honourable outcome. Arsenal, for their part, may think that any realistic Premier League challenge will have to be put on the back burner for another season.
At the top of the Premier League the two Manchester clubs have taken up full time tenancy while the contenders behind them look like gasping marathon runners who seem to have hit the wall. Spurs beat Brighton 1-0 at Wembley Stadium, Chelsea took care of Huddersfield on Tuesday after the jolting setback at West Ham, Manchester United saw off Bournemouth and Liverpool are still gripping hold onto the coat tails of the rest. But it all seems fairly pointless and forlorn.
Still Arsenal came into last night's match against West Ham sensing perhaps that miracles may still happen but then recognised sensibly that the only way Manchester City are going to be moved from top spot is by a huge crowbar and a wrecking ball. Pep Guardiola's free wheeling, foot loose and fancy free City look almost certain to remain unbeaten until Christmas at the very least and for those who believe that they can be caught then you could be accused of wishful thinking. There is more chance of Santa Claus arriving on Christmas Eve. Ho Ho Ho! This is not the time for silly fantasies.
After their disappointing 1-1 draw at Southampton on Sunday, Arsenal probably felt this was a perfect chance to wallow in West Ham's current misfortune and finding their London neighbours in generous mood. In the corresponding game last December Arsenal destroyed West Ham at the London Stadium with a 5-1 victory that was a landslide waiting to happen. There was an air of meek surrender and capitulation that evening but a year later and West Ham are in much the same spot of bother. This time though there is no sulking Frenchman thinking fondly of home comforts.
When midfield playmaker Dimitri Payet finally took his leave of West Ham and returned to France with his family a heavy weight seemed to be lifted from West Ham's collective shoulders. The signing of Robert Snodgrass, although an adequate sticking plaster, was never more than a short term replacement. Snodgrass was indeed a fish out of water and although capable and workmanlike, was about as far removed from Payet as it was possible to be.
Now though West Ham have adopted that familiar air of discomfort that some felt was inevitable after all those moving problems to the London Stadium from Upton Park. Those curtains just don't look right and that kitchen is too big. Somehow the noise, atmosphere and acoustics will never be the same as the lovely old Boleyn Ground where the crowd seemed to give West Ham a goal start.
Poor Slaven Bilic departed the East End without so much as a whimper and new manager David Moyes has been charged with the unenviable task of propping up the Hammers, lifting the gloom and dejection and revitalising a West Ham side who seem to be sinking without trace. They may yet find though the Christmas and the January transfer window to be their ultimate salvation.
For long periods West Ham seemed to be chasing so many black Arsenal shadows that gradually they were beginning to see stars. Arsenal flicked their passes between their players in short, sharp bursts of one touch brilliance that must have demoralised the home side. Their passing was so breathtakingly accurate and geometrically right that even the most eminent of draughtsmen would have been deeply impressed. West Ham were pinned back onto the ropes with nowhere to go.
When the likes of Mesut Ozil, the welcome return of Jack Wilshere to Arsenal's first team, Alexis Sanchez, Alex Iwobi and Olivier Giroud began to weave and stitch together their passing patterns. West Ham could only hover around their opponents like claret and blue clouds drifting towards nowhere in particular.
Arsenal were now sparring, toying, taunting and tormenting West Ham as if they were a rag doll. The passes were now fluttering around the pitch in and around small pockets of West Ham's stubborn defence. Here was the case of the matador waving the flamboyant cape and inviting the bull for yet more mind games. Eventually a claret and blue bull held its own and the whole contest fizzled out like a spent firework.
For West Ham this was another gritty, backs to the wall performance, a display of solidity, firmness, character and stern defensive resolution that could well serve their purpose for the time being. Sometimes an army does fight on its stomach but once the trenches are dug defensive measures become vital to the cause. In many ways West Ham looked as if they were walking through treacle such was their difficulty in finding a way out of their own half.
Long spells were spent spreading a claret and blue sheet across their embattled back four and then plodding their way laboriously forward like a beached turtle that has completely lost its bearings. No sooner had they won possession then Aaron Cresswell, Pablo Zabaleta, Winston Reid and Arthur Masuaku were giving the ball straight back to their opponents. It was probably on nights like this that they must have wished they'd stayed at home and caught up with the latest developments in Coronation Street.
Once again Pedro Obiang, captain Mark Noble and Manuel Lanzini were treating the ball as if it were the hottest potato, frequently denying any blame for giving the ball wastefully and then trying desperately to redeem themselves when it was far too late. Thankfully for West Ham, Oliver Giroud, the bearded French warrior, made all the wrong connections when the ball was played to him in the air and Alex Sanchez continues to look like the spoilt kid who can never get his way. Sanchez spent most of the evening moping and complaining about perhaps the colour of the ball or the East London rain. The overall impression was that in Chile it never rains and besides it's everybody else's fault but his. Football can seem so grossly unfair Alexis.
Still. this was a fair to middling night for those happy Hammers. Finally everything seems to be clicking for Austrian winger and forward Marko Arnautovic. And not before time some might have privately thought. On Saturday Arnautovic had one of his most eye catching games for quite a while, running the Chelsea defence ragged and once again against Arsenal he drove his way forward on the flanks, nostrils flaring and eyes blazing.
On a more or less regular basis Arnautovic trapped the ball beautifully with his chest, turned and swivelled swiftly and did use the ball productively. Occasionally it all looked rather uncomfortable for the angular Austrian but the thoughts and deeds were certainly working in harmony. Hector Bellerin and Nacho Monreal, the Arsenal full backs were spun around and turned deftly but ended the game frustrating Arnautovic.
For Michal Antonio, another source of danger on the other flank this was not quite the game tailored to his liking. Antonio is both strong and muscular but Arsenal were a different kettle of fish. Whenever West Ham were offered any kind of relief from Arsenal's carousel of passing movements, Antonio heroically stuck out his chest and sprinted along the touchline like a man in a permanent hurry. There were the menacing bursts into space and a passionate desire to win the ball. Sadly though this was not to be Antonio's evening and there were too many road blocks in front of him.
So it was that the match seemed to be drawing to what seemed the fairest of all conclusions. Then with the match in injury time and Arsenal rapidly running out of short cuts to West Ham's goal, the home side launched one final attack. A loose ball inside the Arsenal penalty area fell neatly at the feet at West Ham substitute Javier Hernandez who promptly curled the ball artistically towards Arsenal keeper Petr Cech. Then Hernandez experienced his very own Sir Geoff Hurst moment, the ball bouncing fiercely against the bar and dropping this time on the wrong side of the line. So close and yet so far.
With a trip to Stoke on Saturday and an appetising Christmas and New Year programme on West Ham's horizon this could be a season defining spell for the men in claret and blue. An impressive haul of points could be the difference between mid table safety and a winter of discontent. It's never been easy following our favourite team of choice because most of us can recite the same song off by heart.
Then the cameras panned towards that tearful sky with its deluge of raindrops slanting across Stratford. The West Ham fans trooped out of the London Stadium with a modicum of hope in their heart but never entirely sure where hope would take them. The stadium lights were switched off and Christmas beckoned for those discerning Westfield shoppers. It was time to gather our thoughts for Boxing Day perhaps but then 1963 and Blackburn Rovers were briefly recalled. It may be the pantomime season but it is to be hoped that an 8-2 defeat will not be the abiding memory. We are indeed forever blowing bubbles.
Tuesday 12 December 2017
Chanukah- normal service resumes.
Chanukah - normal service resumes.
Normal service resumes. We always knew it would. It had to really. Last year Chanukah, that wondrous breath of fresh air at the end of the year, is back where it perhaps belongs. In 2016 the Jewish festival of Chanukah began on Christmas Day which at the time seemed to be far too late on the year and almost chronologically incorrect. But amends have been made and the festival of ultra sweet doughnuts and latkes- aka potato cakes- is now well and truly underway.
Across the world Jews will gather together before a menorah- a candlestick with eight candles, sing light heartedly and then feel slightly guilty at the perfectly understandable and excessive devouring of jam, cappuccino, lemon drizzle, chocolate and coffee flavoured doughnuts. Personally I can't get enough of them since this is the one time of the year when as a Jew, I take enormous pleasure in over indulgence, excess and spinning dreidels- spinning tops with Hebrew letters on them.
Essentially Chanukah belongs to the Jewish children of the world but adults must never be excluded from any of these eight precious days of smiling faces, parties and exuberant celebrations. The first candle will be lit in most Jewish homes around the globe. The festivities are of course are uninhibited and unrestrained, outpourings of joy, elation, dancing in the streets and a time to let yourself go without fear of being mocked or criticised.
Every year Jews abandon ourselves shamelessly to the kind of celebration that in just under a fortnight now will be replicated in the Christian calendar. But Chanukah has none of the razzamatazz, tinsel, glamour, turkey eating or ornately wrapped presents normally associated with Christmas. Not for us the fine, upstanding, richly garlanded tree in the corner or the mince pies that lend the whole occasion such a spicy piquancy.
Chanukah is though an altogether different kind of festival. There are no carol singing choirs who yearly turn up on millions of doorsteps, none of those outrageous advertising campaigns for those famously corporate supermarkets, none of the fuss, panic and stress normally associated with Christmas. There are none of those frantic stampedes towards the West End department stores in the hope of buying so many fancy fripperies that you wonder whether Christmas will ever end. But we do know how to have a good time.
Personally Christmas Day for my family will indeed be a special one. My father in law's birthday, by coincidence, falls on Christmas Eve. But this year Chanukah got its dates and times right and in the right order. We now know that you can light our candles in the middle of December, while outside Manor House the crisp and even snow has given way to slightly disconcerting ice. You can now walk the pavements with a purposeful tread without slipping or tripping. The coast is clear everybody. What a relief although the snow itself was a welcome sight depending on your point of view.
So here we are on the first night of Chanukah and for the next eight days or so we will recite our happy- go- lucky songs, don our fancy dress attire and laugh at the merriment of it all. For as long as I can remember, quite certainly, it was that end of the year party where Jews of the world held on proudly to their identity, independence and sense of liberation when all around them was division, discord and dissent. And yet it doesn't have to be like that at all because the Jewish people cherish their traditions, hold onto their love of everybody and everything and never forget that the simple joys of life are there to be treasured.
We are now weeks away from the end of the year and after all the festive flourishes are safely stored away for another year it may be the right time to look at 2017 and wonder whether those disgraceful attacks on our civil liberties and those soul destroying terrorist attacks on London and Manchester will forever be scarred on the conscience on those who committed these evil abominations.
This is not the time to utter our disgust and revulsion, more a time for healing, repairing, sanity and normality. It is not the time for being offensively hurtful to each other, murderous, cold blooded, violent and aggressive because what on earth did that ever achieve? There is though perhaps a time for pausing for breath, extending the hand of friendship and refraining from harm and destruction.
Chanukah was always the one time of the year when we could do a good deed, we could go that extra yard for society without feeling it was the one celebration of the year that had to be accompanied by cheesy sentimentality and schmaltzy candy floss frothiness. It may be easy to dismiss any festival or special occasion as some temporary escape from the rest of the world's ills.
But that can only be the cynical explanation because both Chanukah and Christmas are the perfect expressions of goodwill and surely that has to be commended. Time to bring on those lovable jam doughnuts. Nobody could possibly turn those down.
Normal service resumes. We always knew it would. It had to really. Last year Chanukah, that wondrous breath of fresh air at the end of the year, is back where it perhaps belongs. In 2016 the Jewish festival of Chanukah began on Christmas Day which at the time seemed to be far too late on the year and almost chronologically incorrect. But amends have been made and the festival of ultra sweet doughnuts and latkes- aka potato cakes- is now well and truly underway.
Across the world Jews will gather together before a menorah- a candlestick with eight candles, sing light heartedly and then feel slightly guilty at the perfectly understandable and excessive devouring of jam, cappuccino, lemon drizzle, chocolate and coffee flavoured doughnuts. Personally I can't get enough of them since this is the one time of the year when as a Jew, I take enormous pleasure in over indulgence, excess and spinning dreidels- spinning tops with Hebrew letters on them.
Essentially Chanukah belongs to the Jewish children of the world but adults must never be excluded from any of these eight precious days of smiling faces, parties and exuberant celebrations. The first candle will be lit in most Jewish homes around the globe. The festivities are of course are uninhibited and unrestrained, outpourings of joy, elation, dancing in the streets and a time to let yourself go without fear of being mocked or criticised.
Every year Jews abandon ourselves shamelessly to the kind of celebration that in just under a fortnight now will be replicated in the Christian calendar. But Chanukah has none of the razzamatazz, tinsel, glamour, turkey eating or ornately wrapped presents normally associated with Christmas. Not for us the fine, upstanding, richly garlanded tree in the corner or the mince pies that lend the whole occasion such a spicy piquancy.
Chanukah is though an altogether different kind of festival. There are no carol singing choirs who yearly turn up on millions of doorsteps, none of those outrageous advertising campaigns for those famously corporate supermarkets, none of the fuss, panic and stress normally associated with Christmas. There are none of those frantic stampedes towards the West End department stores in the hope of buying so many fancy fripperies that you wonder whether Christmas will ever end. But we do know how to have a good time.
Personally Christmas Day for my family will indeed be a special one. My father in law's birthday, by coincidence, falls on Christmas Eve. But this year Chanukah got its dates and times right and in the right order. We now know that you can light our candles in the middle of December, while outside Manor House the crisp and even snow has given way to slightly disconcerting ice. You can now walk the pavements with a purposeful tread without slipping or tripping. The coast is clear everybody. What a relief although the snow itself was a welcome sight depending on your point of view.
So here we are on the first night of Chanukah and for the next eight days or so we will recite our happy- go- lucky songs, don our fancy dress attire and laugh at the merriment of it all. For as long as I can remember, quite certainly, it was that end of the year party where Jews of the world held on proudly to their identity, independence and sense of liberation when all around them was division, discord and dissent. And yet it doesn't have to be like that at all because the Jewish people cherish their traditions, hold onto their love of everybody and everything and never forget that the simple joys of life are there to be treasured.
We are now weeks away from the end of the year and after all the festive flourishes are safely stored away for another year it may be the right time to look at 2017 and wonder whether those disgraceful attacks on our civil liberties and those soul destroying terrorist attacks on London and Manchester will forever be scarred on the conscience on those who committed these evil abominations.
This is not the time to utter our disgust and revulsion, more a time for healing, repairing, sanity and normality. It is not the time for being offensively hurtful to each other, murderous, cold blooded, violent and aggressive because what on earth did that ever achieve? There is though perhaps a time for pausing for breath, extending the hand of friendship and refraining from harm and destruction.
Chanukah was always the one time of the year when we could do a good deed, we could go that extra yard for society without feeling it was the one celebration of the year that had to be accompanied by cheesy sentimentality and schmaltzy candy floss frothiness. It may be easy to dismiss any festival or special occasion as some temporary escape from the rest of the world's ills.
But that can only be the cynical explanation because both Chanukah and Christmas are the perfect expressions of goodwill and surely that has to be commended. Time to bring on those lovable jam doughnuts. Nobody could possibly turn those down.
Sunday 10 December 2017
West Ham, the Premier League and snow in London.
West Ham, the Premier League and snow in London.
Well, we knew it would arrive sooner or later but had no idea when. It was always on the cards and the chances are it'll continue doing this for the rest of the day. Ladies and Gentleman I give you snow. Yes here in North London great building skips of snow are falling from metallic grey and white skies with a seriousness of intent London has rarely seen on this scale for years. In fact I'm not sure I can remember a snowfall of such insistence and persistence since who knows when.
We awoke this morning to skies of snow laden, Christmas card beauty, the kind of snow most of us thought we'd never see again. We flung open our curtains and blinds and found that, wonder of wonders, the meteorological phenomenon known as thick snow was pouring from ashen faced skies. In recent years snow has been fairly thin on the ground so to speak so its sudden return after a fairly lengthy absence came as something of a shock particularly since the last time it snowed like this most of us thought we'd never see it properly again for some time.
But here we are again on a winter wonderland and London looks positively beautiful, a decorative marzipan cake of thick white snow and here on a pre-Christmas Sunday it may snow for the duration of the day. Admittedly, the kids are going to have a ball but for those of us who may find walking something of a challenge it's best to smile resignedly, stare out of the dining room window and just be grateful that you don't really have to venture out that far. The trains and buses may grind to a standstill but hey make yourself a hot toddy, sup some heart warming bowls of tomato soup and dream that white may well be the predominant colour for a number of hours.
Outside a strange silence has descended over Manor House as people go about their daily lives, footsteps crunching deeply into the ground, footsteps bounding forward heroically towards some destination where the snow has turned into slush. In fact if you find yourself at Manor House Tube station you'll be confronted with small puddles of wet slush and the remnants of a brief rain shower.
Yesterday though proved to be a victorious day for West Ham United. There were never any indications that it would snow at all so it may have been just as well that the London derby between the Hammers and Chelsea went ahead because if it hadn't I'd have probably wondered whether this claret and blue follower would ever see his team win again this year. At long last then West Ham finally found themselves on the right end of a win rather than dwelling on what might have been.
Saturday lunchtimes were normally reserved for copious drinking at the Boleyn pub when Upton Park was our kind and generous sanctuary. They downed just a couple of swift amber libations, sang some hearty renditions of 'Bubbles' and then marched confidently towards the Boleyn Ground for either devastating anti climaxes, narrow defeats, moderately impressive victories or just a wretched afternoon of missed open goals, shots that shook the crossbar and those that were agonisingly kicked off the line.
This Saturday lunchtime though was different for the claret and blue loyalists. At long last West Ham suddenly became aware of their deeply worrying run of defeats which had seen them fall quite perilously into the relegation zone. For those who have seen this unravelling before West Ham's struggles are nothing new. Sometimes you always know what you might be getting with our friendly East London club but yesterday felt as if the worm had actually turned.
After an encouraging 2-1 defeat at runaway Premier League leaders Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium the doom and gloom mongers were groaning with unrelieved despondency. The end of the world has been nigh for those of a claret and blue shade but against Chelsea yesterday West Ham recognised the enormity and gravity of their current plight. It didn't look good and it wasn't pretty at all. But West Ham proudly puffed out their collective chests and shook the foundations of Chelsea's apparently fruitless attempt at holding onto their Premier League title.
These have been difficult times for West Ham and when Slaven Bilic left the club recently, it was felt that a new broom at the London Stadium would only sweep up the dust and debris of crumbling masonry. Then there was David Moyes and the man once recommended by Sir Alex Ferguson for the Manchester United hot seat now finds himself in an East End stew. This could turn into the longest season for West Ham this winter and if they should see the cuckoos of early spring with a clear head then the West Ham fans may come to regard this moment in their season as just a passing phase.
Now though Moyes is in charge and the claret and blue pullover was accompanied by the neatest claret and blue tie. It was never like this as a Celtic player and although his successful spell as Everton manager may well mark him down as a good, go-ahead coach with innovative ideas the reality at West Ham is entirely different. Moyes was never a fire fighter but at Manchester United the raging flames were too hot to handle.
Still, West Ham, for what seemed too many Premier League encounters, did now click into gear, re-discovering their old zest and passion without allowing themselves to be completely overwhelmed by a Chelsea side whose comfort in possession threatened to take overall control of the game. Chelsea stroked the ball around all of the important areas of the pitch with an elegance and simplicity that reminded you of Manchester City's passing fest against West Ham last Sunday.
This time though Chelsea appeared to assume so many snotty and superior airs that Antonio Conte must have thought that a cricket score would be in the offing once his players had stepped onto the London Stadium pitch. There was an air of snooty condescension about Chelsea that West Ham thought deeply abhorrent and distasteful. How the middle and upper classes of Kensington turn up their noses at those East London upstarts. Tell them to clean the parlour downstairs and make sure they do it thoroughly.
Once again Chelsea looked to their knowledgeable architect Eden Hazard to dribble his way beautifully his way through a furiously retreating West Ham defence. Hazard spent most of his lunchtime haplessly weaving and scheming around the pitch like a feisty terrier searching for that elusive bone. But when the likes of Pedro, sub Victor Moses and striker Morata failed to find that smooth goal scoring touch, manager Conte slowly paced his technical area like a frustrated Italian painter looking for some kind of old masterpiece.
Frequently Chelsea were almost toying with their hosts. White shirts swarmed around claret and blue with pinball machine, one touch football that left most of the West Ham players circling Chelsea rather like pigeons swooping from one rooftop to the next. Chelsea tapped the ball around sweetly to each other but the passes invariably ended up in a no go cul de sac. West Ham were never remotely fazed by this blizzard of passing movements. The game was far from up for the Hammers.
From the beginning West Ham lunged at the opposition, surged forward in huge numbers, attacked positively and were much more sure footed than has been the case in their last three Premier League games. There was a spirit and heart about the home team that had undoubtedly gone missing for most of the season. Their football, admittedly had none of the finesse and breeding that their opponents could proudly boast. But then this was entirely expected given West Ham's recent defensive ailments.
This time though the disciplined defensive quartet of Angelo Ogbonna, Aaron Cresswell, Pablo Zabaleta and Winston Reid all obeyed their rule books, stuck rigidly to their allotted roles and tightened up the rusty bolts of West Ham defence. Notably, there was Arthur Masuaku, a full back heavily equipped with his very own box of tricks, deceptive turns of pace and a player who looked hell bent on opening up Chelsea without any prompting. Masuaku kept wriggling and wiggling his way along the touchline, in and out of a posse of white Chelsea shirts.
In midfield West Ham welcomed back their gallant captain Mark Noble into their first team squad. Noble is now approaching that 30 plus landmark when thoughts of retirement and carriage clocks may, fleetingly, cross his mind. Once again Noble was at his hustling, bustling, chasing, champing at the bit best and biting his teeth into tackles with some ferocity. His is a wholehearted commitment to the game that is wonderfully admirable in these days of short term contracts and loans. Football has a lot to thank the likes of Noble. It has few better role models.
Alongside Noble there was the ever willing and powerful Pedro Obiang, not exactly a Trevor Brooking or Martin Peters but Obiang does a great deal of brick laying and hod carrying. Yesterday Obiang was sharp, energetic, aware, useful, constantly scurrying and scampering before releasing the most sensible pass as and when required.
After only 10 minutes West Ham took the lead. The goal scorer was the one man who West Ham had spent a colossal £25 million on during the summer and then discovered they may have unearthed just a muddy coin and a broken vase. Marko Arnautovic, Stoke City's free scoring forward and winger, landed in the East End and unreasonable hopes were pinned on the Austrian attacker. You suspect that Austria's early 20th century managerial maestro Hugo Meisl would have turned his head away in disgust.
Still it all came good for Arnautovic. In a a dizzying, giddy sequence of short, snappy passes involving Lanzini, Antonio and Arnautovic twice, the ball was rolled into the path from Lanzini's lovely return pass and Arnautovic swept the ball past Chelsea keeper Courtois. It was the goal from heaven that the West Ham faithful must have longed for so long. The Austrian forward dived into the crowd to receive the acclaim of the West Ham faithful. Game on for West Ham.
For almost the remainder of the first half West Ham had now become locked up in their own half like a prowling tiger in its cage. Chelsea surrounded West Ham with pass after pass of sheer quality and it must have seemed only a matter of time before the Blues would be on level terms. Those delicately precise passing movements were just too good to be true. But wherever Eden went there was indeed a visible Hazard.
West Ham packed the middle of the pitch with huge claret and blue fences, well protected stockades and barriers that were simply impenetrable. Chelsea strolled and pottered around the London Stadium like university students on a freshers week. There were so many pockets of space for Chelsea to exploit that an equaliser for Chelsea had to come sooner or later. But the pockets were sewn up, Antonio Conte's face became a permanent scowl and private excuses were beginning to mount up. Poor Chelsea hey! Conte blamed tiredness but there were few sympathisers. Maybe they should have thought about an early night rather than a list of grievances the length of the Kings Road.
By the hour mark Chelsea decided that Willian would be the cure for their continuing woes. The Brazilian did add touch of cunning and craft to Chelsea's midfield but when their second sub Victor Moses came on it looked as if the West London side were clutching at straws. Moses had been loaned to West Ham in their final year at Upton Park and certainly looked the part. Now Moses had nothing to offer but sweat, toil and labour. It had now become far too late on in the day for redemption.
A decisive victory for West Ham felt like a mirage at first. Then there was the sudden realisation that Chelsea can only hope that the teams above them will falter astonishingly. A top four place seems to be the most realistic objective for Conte's shell shocked team. Last season Chelsea played football of the silkiest material but now can only rely on loose threads, flimsy fabrics and a ragged piece of blue cotton. Sadly this season is rapidly turning into a tale of moody Blues and while the title may be a faint and receding hope the truth is that Chelsea may have to be content with something rather more low key than a Premier League title.
It is hard to wonder how West Ham's season will now pan out for them. On Wednesday Arsenal pay their second visit to the London Stadium and it still seems like salvation is some away for the Hammers. Last season Alexis Sanchez. Mesut Ozil and Aaron Ramsey played havoc with a careless West Ham defence and inflicted a heavy 5-1 victory over the hosts. If the snows don't get to West Ham by Wednesday then the Arsenal cannons may well get there first. Still, who knows. the man from Austria may well have the last laugh. You never know.
Well, we knew it would arrive sooner or later but had no idea when. It was always on the cards and the chances are it'll continue doing this for the rest of the day. Ladies and Gentleman I give you snow. Yes here in North London great building skips of snow are falling from metallic grey and white skies with a seriousness of intent London has rarely seen on this scale for years. In fact I'm not sure I can remember a snowfall of such insistence and persistence since who knows when.
We awoke this morning to skies of snow laden, Christmas card beauty, the kind of snow most of us thought we'd never see again. We flung open our curtains and blinds and found that, wonder of wonders, the meteorological phenomenon known as thick snow was pouring from ashen faced skies. In recent years snow has been fairly thin on the ground so to speak so its sudden return after a fairly lengthy absence came as something of a shock particularly since the last time it snowed like this most of us thought we'd never see it properly again for some time.
But here we are again on a winter wonderland and London looks positively beautiful, a decorative marzipan cake of thick white snow and here on a pre-Christmas Sunday it may snow for the duration of the day. Admittedly, the kids are going to have a ball but for those of us who may find walking something of a challenge it's best to smile resignedly, stare out of the dining room window and just be grateful that you don't really have to venture out that far. The trains and buses may grind to a standstill but hey make yourself a hot toddy, sup some heart warming bowls of tomato soup and dream that white may well be the predominant colour for a number of hours.
Outside a strange silence has descended over Manor House as people go about their daily lives, footsteps crunching deeply into the ground, footsteps bounding forward heroically towards some destination where the snow has turned into slush. In fact if you find yourself at Manor House Tube station you'll be confronted with small puddles of wet slush and the remnants of a brief rain shower.
Yesterday though proved to be a victorious day for West Ham United. There were never any indications that it would snow at all so it may have been just as well that the London derby between the Hammers and Chelsea went ahead because if it hadn't I'd have probably wondered whether this claret and blue follower would ever see his team win again this year. At long last then West Ham finally found themselves on the right end of a win rather than dwelling on what might have been.
Saturday lunchtimes were normally reserved for copious drinking at the Boleyn pub when Upton Park was our kind and generous sanctuary. They downed just a couple of swift amber libations, sang some hearty renditions of 'Bubbles' and then marched confidently towards the Boleyn Ground for either devastating anti climaxes, narrow defeats, moderately impressive victories or just a wretched afternoon of missed open goals, shots that shook the crossbar and those that were agonisingly kicked off the line.
This Saturday lunchtime though was different for the claret and blue loyalists. At long last West Ham suddenly became aware of their deeply worrying run of defeats which had seen them fall quite perilously into the relegation zone. For those who have seen this unravelling before West Ham's struggles are nothing new. Sometimes you always know what you might be getting with our friendly East London club but yesterday felt as if the worm had actually turned.
After an encouraging 2-1 defeat at runaway Premier League leaders Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium the doom and gloom mongers were groaning with unrelieved despondency. The end of the world has been nigh for those of a claret and blue shade but against Chelsea yesterday West Ham recognised the enormity and gravity of their current plight. It didn't look good and it wasn't pretty at all. But West Ham proudly puffed out their collective chests and shook the foundations of Chelsea's apparently fruitless attempt at holding onto their Premier League title.
These have been difficult times for West Ham and when Slaven Bilic left the club recently, it was felt that a new broom at the London Stadium would only sweep up the dust and debris of crumbling masonry. Then there was David Moyes and the man once recommended by Sir Alex Ferguson for the Manchester United hot seat now finds himself in an East End stew. This could turn into the longest season for West Ham this winter and if they should see the cuckoos of early spring with a clear head then the West Ham fans may come to regard this moment in their season as just a passing phase.
Now though Moyes is in charge and the claret and blue pullover was accompanied by the neatest claret and blue tie. It was never like this as a Celtic player and although his successful spell as Everton manager may well mark him down as a good, go-ahead coach with innovative ideas the reality at West Ham is entirely different. Moyes was never a fire fighter but at Manchester United the raging flames were too hot to handle.
Still, West Ham, for what seemed too many Premier League encounters, did now click into gear, re-discovering their old zest and passion without allowing themselves to be completely overwhelmed by a Chelsea side whose comfort in possession threatened to take overall control of the game. Chelsea stroked the ball around all of the important areas of the pitch with an elegance and simplicity that reminded you of Manchester City's passing fest against West Ham last Sunday.
This time though Chelsea appeared to assume so many snotty and superior airs that Antonio Conte must have thought that a cricket score would be in the offing once his players had stepped onto the London Stadium pitch. There was an air of snooty condescension about Chelsea that West Ham thought deeply abhorrent and distasteful. How the middle and upper classes of Kensington turn up their noses at those East London upstarts. Tell them to clean the parlour downstairs and make sure they do it thoroughly.
Once again Chelsea looked to their knowledgeable architect Eden Hazard to dribble his way beautifully his way through a furiously retreating West Ham defence. Hazard spent most of his lunchtime haplessly weaving and scheming around the pitch like a feisty terrier searching for that elusive bone. But when the likes of Pedro, sub Victor Moses and striker Morata failed to find that smooth goal scoring touch, manager Conte slowly paced his technical area like a frustrated Italian painter looking for some kind of old masterpiece.
Frequently Chelsea were almost toying with their hosts. White shirts swarmed around claret and blue with pinball machine, one touch football that left most of the West Ham players circling Chelsea rather like pigeons swooping from one rooftop to the next. Chelsea tapped the ball around sweetly to each other but the passes invariably ended up in a no go cul de sac. West Ham were never remotely fazed by this blizzard of passing movements. The game was far from up for the Hammers.
From the beginning West Ham lunged at the opposition, surged forward in huge numbers, attacked positively and were much more sure footed than has been the case in their last three Premier League games. There was a spirit and heart about the home team that had undoubtedly gone missing for most of the season. Their football, admittedly had none of the finesse and breeding that their opponents could proudly boast. But then this was entirely expected given West Ham's recent defensive ailments.
This time though the disciplined defensive quartet of Angelo Ogbonna, Aaron Cresswell, Pablo Zabaleta and Winston Reid all obeyed their rule books, stuck rigidly to their allotted roles and tightened up the rusty bolts of West Ham defence. Notably, there was Arthur Masuaku, a full back heavily equipped with his very own box of tricks, deceptive turns of pace and a player who looked hell bent on opening up Chelsea without any prompting. Masuaku kept wriggling and wiggling his way along the touchline, in and out of a posse of white Chelsea shirts.
In midfield West Ham welcomed back their gallant captain Mark Noble into their first team squad. Noble is now approaching that 30 plus landmark when thoughts of retirement and carriage clocks may, fleetingly, cross his mind. Once again Noble was at his hustling, bustling, chasing, champing at the bit best and biting his teeth into tackles with some ferocity. His is a wholehearted commitment to the game that is wonderfully admirable in these days of short term contracts and loans. Football has a lot to thank the likes of Noble. It has few better role models.
Alongside Noble there was the ever willing and powerful Pedro Obiang, not exactly a Trevor Brooking or Martin Peters but Obiang does a great deal of brick laying and hod carrying. Yesterday Obiang was sharp, energetic, aware, useful, constantly scurrying and scampering before releasing the most sensible pass as and when required.
After only 10 minutes West Ham took the lead. The goal scorer was the one man who West Ham had spent a colossal £25 million on during the summer and then discovered they may have unearthed just a muddy coin and a broken vase. Marko Arnautovic, Stoke City's free scoring forward and winger, landed in the East End and unreasonable hopes were pinned on the Austrian attacker. You suspect that Austria's early 20th century managerial maestro Hugo Meisl would have turned his head away in disgust.
Still it all came good for Arnautovic. In a a dizzying, giddy sequence of short, snappy passes involving Lanzini, Antonio and Arnautovic twice, the ball was rolled into the path from Lanzini's lovely return pass and Arnautovic swept the ball past Chelsea keeper Courtois. It was the goal from heaven that the West Ham faithful must have longed for so long. The Austrian forward dived into the crowd to receive the acclaim of the West Ham faithful. Game on for West Ham.
For almost the remainder of the first half West Ham had now become locked up in their own half like a prowling tiger in its cage. Chelsea surrounded West Ham with pass after pass of sheer quality and it must have seemed only a matter of time before the Blues would be on level terms. Those delicately precise passing movements were just too good to be true. But wherever Eden went there was indeed a visible Hazard.
West Ham packed the middle of the pitch with huge claret and blue fences, well protected stockades and barriers that were simply impenetrable. Chelsea strolled and pottered around the London Stadium like university students on a freshers week. There were so many pockets of space for Chelsea to exploit that an equaliser for Chelsea had to come sooner or later. But the pockets were sewn up, Antonio Conte's face became a permanent scowl and private excuses were beginning to mount up. Poor Chelsea hey! Conte blamed tiredness but there were few sympathisers. Maybe they should have thought about an early night rather than a list of grievances the length of the Kings Road.
By the hour mark Chelsea decided that Willian would be the cure for their continuing woes. The Brazilian did add touch of cunning and craft to Chelsea's midfield but when their second sub Victor Moses came on it looked as if the West London side were clutching at straws. Moses had been loaned to West Ham in their final year at Upton Park and certainly looked the part. Now Moses had nothing to offer but sweat, toil and labour. It had now become far too late on in the day for redemption.
A decisive victory for West Ham felt like a mirage at first. Then there was the sudden realisation that Chelsea can only hope that the teams above them will falter astonishingly. A top four place seems to be the most realistic objective for Conte's shell shocked team. Last season Chelsea played football of the silkiest material but now can only rely on loose threads, flimsy fabrics and a ragged piece of blue cotton. Sadly this season is rapidly turning into a tale of moody Blues and while the title may be a faint and receding hope the truth is that Chelsea may have to be content with something rather more low key than a Premier League title.
It is hard to wonder how West Ham's season will now pan out for them. On Wednesday Arsenal pay their second visit to the London Stadium and it still seems like salvation is some away for the Hammers. Last season Alexis Sanchez. Mesut Ozil and Aaron Ramsey played havoc with a careless West Ham defence and inflicted a heavy 5-1 victory over the hosts. If the snows don't get to West Ham by Wednesday then the Arsenal cannons may well get there first. Still, who knows. the man from Austria may well have the last laugh. You never know.
Friday 8 December 2017
Let it snow, let it snow.
Let it snow, let it snow.
There is a hint of snow in the air. The sharp blasts of cold weather are drifting in from the Arctic or Antarctic or indeed wherever cold weather comes from nowadays. Here, in Britain we can never be quite prepared for freezing temperatures, biting winds or anything that remotely resembles the winter climate.
We're more or less or conditioned and resigned to summer weather because everybody knows what happens then or maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised. Oh who cares. I don't care what the weatherman is saying you'll never hear me complaining. Bring on some Gene Kelly singing in the rain and let the hailstones fall like golf balls. It's almost Chanukah and Christmas shortly and this is time to be jolly and deck the halls with holly. Jolly dee. I can't wait.
If that jovial man with the red coat and white beard arrives without at least the complete works of every book written in the history of literature I'll be most disappointed and just a tad upset. On second thoughts pour me a glass of lime cordial, present me with a mince pie and let me partake of several slices of festive turkey. Christmas seems to get earlier and earlier. In the West End department stores the rumour is that Christmas started on the hottest day of July and it may be assumed that Harrods opened up their Christmas grotto sometime in May just after the Bank Holiday.
Still, the weather centre in London has forecast a cake sprinkling of snow on Sunday. In some parts of Britain the snow has already fallen in soft coatings on the hills. Deep in the Pennines people woke to pavements resembling birthday cakes and birds sneezing almost uncontrollably. Snow, as we know, evokes a whole variety of emotions in all of us. Some of us love it, children can never get enough of it and the rest of the nation curses it because in most cases it's sufficiently disruptive and above all it makes any kind of journey almost physically impossible.
If it snows persistently and heavily we may have to batten down the hatches and just keep warm for the rest of winter. If it means we have to set out for work or school at two o'clock in the morning then these are obvious grounds for complaint. But what else to do under the circumstances? We could always stay at home, build a snowman in the garden, throw snow balls joyously at each other and just rub our heads together with the broadest smile on our faces.
There are always emergency or contingency measures if the snow really does fall in huge quantities. Your heart always goes out to those poor villagers in the country who are more or less stranded and trapped in their cosy cottages. There is nowhere to go, the back roads are impassable and every pavement is clogged with thick clumps of the white stuff. The pavements will undoubtedly become icy and slippery and shopping expeditions are completely out of the question. It could turn into a nightmare but the British are battle hardened, resilient and refuse to give into the elements.
Sadly though, snow has been the rarest of sights in Britain. I can't think of a recent winter when gallons of snow would swirl around the air and plop onto the ground with considerable force. Admittedly it can be the most dreadful nuisance and inconvenience when the car won't start and the buses are utterly non existent. So then we have to just grit our teeth and knuckle down to the task in hand very resourcefully.
The memory goes back to the mid 1980s when snow seemed to be dumped down onto the ground from a great height, settling on the roads and pavements and then carpeting the whole of Ilford, Gants Hill and Redbridge. Walking became an almost military operation and I can still remember clomping down snow clogged roads, then wading through immense blocks of snow with painstaking care.
Every day during that long and hard winter we pulled up our coat collars firmly, wrapped more and more scarves around our necks and shivered sometimes uncomfortably. The winds seemed to get wilder and colder with every minute and I must have felt like some intrepid explorer or some very ambitious soul tackling a white Swiss skiing resort By the end of my journey my feet felt like those ice cubes you normally use at summer barbecues for the Pimms.
The one winter when the snows of Britain really did leave us with serious repercussions was my first year on Planet Earth. In the winter of 1962 the snows arrived just before Christmas and remained with us until early April. My parents frequently tell me of their obvious sense of confinement in the face of a winter where it snowed and kept snowing and didn't know when to stop.
My mum, somewhat amusingly, tells the story of how she did try to venture out for a spot of shopping and promptly forgot all about me as she turned back for home without me. Oh the sense of desertion and isolation as this red-cheeked baby cried prodigiously for all his worth. There was a happy ever after ending though to this tale as mum suddenly recognises that her first son is not where he should have been. Needless to say I have forgiven my mum for that very brief moment of absent mindedness but that momentary alienation from society may have been understandable given the severity of that winter. Mum, it wasn't your fault.
Still, the rest of the 1960s seemed to be relatively snow free to the best of anyone's recollection and the 1970s were simply wet, foggy, rain soaked and generally dark. I can recall some very sharp and bitterly cold winters but the snow seemed to keep away from Ilford. The early school morning excursions were just very chilly and shudderingly shivery. We did though survive against the most daunting of elements as rain slanted piercingly into our deeply exposed faces.
So it is that we now face that crucial weekend with a fortnight to go before ding dong merrily on high resounds through the neighbourhoods and the dogs become hilariously tangled up in festive knots of glitter and tinsel. Once again neighbouring windows here in Manor House are beginning to look as if Christmas can't come quickly enough. Some of them seem to be decorated with the same decorations as last year. There are the yearly sleighs, the cute ice blue light bulbs and of course dear old Santa in varying shades of red and, for those who cherish the Victorian age, green Santas.
Me? Well I've no objections to the snow at all. In fact it is pretty and picturesque with all its connotations of Christmas. How we love those warm and snug fireplaces with mantelpieces groaning with Christmas cards, a fine, upstanding tree from Homebase and well wrapped presents nestling next to the tree. Throw another log onto the crackling fire and mine's a well chilled wine please.
The snow of course is specifically designed for the children because essentially this is their favourite time of the year. And if that means you have to spend the best part of Christmas sticking a twig on the snowman's face and planting some very effective eyes on its forehead then it can't be bad at all. Then the whole family tuck into their turkey, sprouts and pud before racing out of the front door afterwards and heading for your local park where the kids can just let off steam, rolling about on snow patterned grass and jumping around with perfect freedom.
Yes indeed snow is something to be looked forward to in great anticipation rather than dreaded. Who can possibly resist the temptation to gaze out of the window at white grass, white hedges, white fences and white trees, white sheets of snow and more snow glittering and glistening in that timeless fashion.
I'm reminded of one of my favourite Christmas songs. Chris Rea's 'Driving Home for Christmas' is quite the most delightful and attractive Christmas ditties of all. The You Tube video featuring a car's windscreen wipers caked in ice and snow and driving down a remote country lane is simply the best. But to quote another festive offering. Let it snow let it snow. Or perhaps you'd rather it not snow in which case let's have some incessant winter sunshine. Personally, I'm looking forward to my first Chanukah doughnut with just one mince pie to be going on with.
There is a hint of snow in the air. The sharp blasts of cold weather are drifting in from the Arctic or Antarctic or indeed wherever cold weather comes from nowadays. Here, in Britain we can never be quite prepared for freezing temperatures, biting winds or anything that remotely resembles the winter climate.
We're more or less or conditioned and resigned to summer weather because everybody knows what happens then or maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised. Oh who cares. I don't care what the weatherman is saying you'll never hear me complaining. Bring on some Gene Kelly singing in the rain and let the hailstones fall like golf balls. It's almost Chanukah and Christmas shortly and this is time to be jolly and deck the halls with holly. Jolly dee. I can't wait.
If that jovial man with the red coat and white beard arrives without at least the complete works of every book written in the history of literature I'll be most disappointed and just a tad upset. On second thoughts pour me a glass of lime cordial, present me with a mince pie and let me partake of several slices of festive turkey. Christmas seems to get earlier and earlier. In the West End department stores the rumour is that Christmas started on the hottest day of July and it may be assumed that Harrods opened up their Christmas grotto sometime in May just after the Bank Holiday.
Still, the weather centre in London has forecast a cake sprinkling of snow on Sunday. In some parts of Britain the snow has already fallen in soft coatings on the hills. Deep in the Pennines people woke to pavements resembling birthday cakes and birds sneezing almost uncontrollably. Snow, as we know, evokes a whole variety of emotions in all of us. Some of us love it, children can never get enough of it and the rest of the nation curses it because in most cases it's sufficiently disruptive and above all it makes any kind of journey almost physically impossible.
If it snows persistently and heavily we may have to batten down the hatches and just keep warm for the rest of winter. If it means we have to set out for work or school at two o'clock in the morning then these are obvious grounds for complaint. But what else to do under the circumstances? We could always stay at home, build a snowman in the garden, throw snow balls joyously at each other and just rub our heads together with the broadest smile on our faces.
There are always emergency or contingency measures if the snow really does fall in huge quantities. Your heart always goes out to those poor villagers in the country who are more or less stranded and trapped in their cosy cottages. There is nowhere to go, the back roads are impassable and every pavement is clogged with thick clumps of the white stuff. The pavements will undoubtedly become icy and slippery and shopping expeditions are completely out of the question. It could turn into a nightmare but the British are battle hardened, resilient and refuse to give into the elements.
Sadly though, snow has been the rarest of sights in Britain. I can't think of a recent winter when gallons of snow would swirl around the air and plop onto the ground with considerable force. Admittedly it can be the most dreadful nuisance and inconvenience when the car won't start and the buses are utterly non existent. So then we have to just grit our teeth and knuckle down to the task in hand very resourcefully.
The memory goes back to the mid 1980s when snow seemed to be dumped down onto the ground from a great height, settling on the roads and pavements and then carpeting the whole of Ilford, Gants Hill and Redbridge. Walking became an almost military operation and I can still remember clomping down snow clogged roads, then wading through immense blocks of snow with painstaking care.
Every day during that long and hard winter we pulled up our coat collars firmly, wrapped more and more scarves around our necks and shivered sometimes uncomfortably. The winds seemed to get wilder and colder with every minute and I must have felt like some intrepid explorer or some very ambitious soul tackling a white Swiss skiing resort By the end of my journey my feet felt like those ice cubes you normally use at summer barbecues for the Pimms.
The one winter when the snows of Britain really did leave us with serious repercussions was my first year on Planet Earth. In the winter of 1962 the snows arrived just before Christmas and remained with us until early April. My parents frequently tell me of their obvious sense of confinement in the face of a winter where it snowed and kept snowing and didn't know when to stop.
My mum, somewhat amusingly, tells the story of how she did try to venture out for a spot of shopping and promptly forgot all about me as she turned back for home without me. Oh the sense of desertion and isolation as this red-cheeked baby cried prodigiously for all his worth. There was a happy ever after ending though to this tale as mum suddenly recognises that her first son is not where he should have been. Needless to say I have forgiven my mum for that very brief moment of absent mindedness but that momentary alienation from society may have been understandable given the severity of that winter. Mum, it wasn't your fault.
Still, the rest of the 1960s seemed to be relatively snow free to the best of anyone's recollection and the 1970s were simply wet, foggy, rain soaked and generally dark. I can recall some very sharp and bitterly cold winters but the snow seemed to keep away from Ilford. The early school morning excursions were just very chilly and shudderingly shivery. We did though survive against the most daunting of elements as rain slanted piercingly into our deeply exposed faces.
So it is that we now face that crucial weekend with a fortnight to go before ding dong merrily on high resounds through the neighbourhoods and the dogs become hilariously tangled up in festive knots of glitter and tinsel. Once again neighbouring windows here in Manor House are beginning to look as if Christmas can't come quickly enough. Some of them seem to be decorated with the same decorations as last year. There are the yearly sleighs, the cute ice blue light bulbs and of course dear old Santa in varying shades of red and, for those who cherish the Victorian age, green Santas.
Me? Well I've no objections to the snow at all. In fact it is pretty and picturesque with all its connotations of Christmas. How we love those warm and snug fireplaces with mantelpieces groaning with Christmas cards, a fine, upstanding tree from Homebase and well wrapped presents nestling next to the tree. Throw another log onto the crackling fire and mine's a well chilled wine please.
The snow of course is specifically designed for the children because essentially this is their favourite time of the year. And if that means you have to spend the best part of Christmas sticking a twig on the snowman's face and planting some very effective eyes on its forehead then it can't be bad at all. Then the whole family tuck into their turkey, sprouts and pud before racing out of the front door afterwards and heading for your local park where the kids can just let off steam, rolling about on snow patterned grass and jumping around with perfect freedom.
Yes indeed snow is something to be looked forward to in great anticipation rather than dreaded. Who can possibly resist the temptation to gaze out of the window at white grass, white hedges, white fences and white trees, white sheets of snow and more snow glittering and glistening in that timeless fashion.
I'm reminded of one of my favourite Christmas songs. Chris Rea's 'Driving Home for Christmas' is quite the most delightful and attractive Christmas ditties of all. The You Tube video featuring a car's windscreen wipers caked in ice and snow and driving down a remote country lane is simply the best. But to quote another festive offering. Let it snow let it snow. Or perhaps you'd rather it not snow in which case let's have some incessant winter sunshine. Personally, I'm looking forward to my first Chanukah doughnut with just one mince pie to be going on with.
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