Just how often can you write that 'things are going from bad to worse' without losing bags of credibility or, worse, your audience? I've just watched a BBC 2 Newsnight piece about the ever-worsening conditions - for some - in Greece, and it is really quite horrific. Given that hacks, and even the BBC hacks are hacks, go out to get the story newsdesk wants - OK, BBC hacks might have just a tad more integrity than the rest of us, but not much - and given that it is always wise to take what the media purveys with a bag of salt - usually - what was reported from an EU member state was simply bloody awful. Soup kitchens and, apparently, many people searching through rubbish after dark for food - after dark because they are so bloody ashamed of what they have been reduced to doing.
But I'm obliged to give the report credence and the only conclusion that can be reached is that the general election in Greece next Sunday (June 17) will really be a crucial moment for the EU.
It seems the coalition of left-wing parties is doing rather well and if they do come out tops and get the extra 50 seats in parliament the winner always gets, it will form the next government. After which the shit will hit the fan.
I wonder: could it really be feasible that the military will intervene as I suggested recently to form a spurious 'government of national unity'? Who knows.
That the left-wingers out for power unashamedly admit to wanting to take Greece in a Marxist direction, I cannot imagine that those with so much to lose will play the democratic card and resign themselves to the situation.
Also on Sunday are parliamentary elections in France. The country already has a left-wing president, and if he were to gain control of parliament and institute all the measures he says he intends putting into practice, the euro ball game will change utterly.
What is so utterly bizarre about the whole euro crisis is that, in my view at least, the horse has long ago bolted. Here in Britain the Chancellor (a lovely chap called George Osborne who, according to one of the feature executives on whose conversations I regularly eavesdrop, is a far nicer guy than David Cameron - someting of a vindictive shit according to my eavesdrop victim who met both many times in a former incarnation and, crucially, long before either came within a sniff of power) has announced what were not actually called emergency measures to protect Britain from the worst of the fallout of a euro collapse. It was something to do with lending the banks more money on the strict understanding that they would lend it further. Again, who knows.
. . .
But just how often dare I mention the euro? Well, perhaps not a lot more. So instead I shall write about cigars. I have long been a cigar smoker and have carried on the habit, seeking out nicer cigars all the time (courtesy of the cheaper prices charged for them abroad and which prices I avail myself of when returning to Old Blighty to keep up my stock). The question I aske myself, before lighting one up is this: should a heart attack victim - mine was on May 2, 2006, a Tuesday - really risk smoking cigars? I tell myself, in that way we all have of burying our heads in the sand, that 'as I don't inhale the smoke, but simply savour it'
I am not doing my pulmonary system any damage. Well, as they say, go tell that to the marines.
Yet, cigars are a true pleasure in a way cigarettes never were. I don't crave them as a cigarette smoker craves a cigarette, but I must be honest and say that argument doesn't even convince me. Then I tell myself that Churchill was a life-long cigar smoke and lived until he was, I believe, 167. OK, he died gaga, but I dont' think that can be put down to smoking cigars.
My habit - there, I've said it - has even led me to buy a humidor in which to keep the latest batch, bought in the 'duty-free' shop at Valencia airport last May. These most recent are Jose L Piedra Cuban cigars, of which I bought 25 for about 37 euros. I googled them and discovered the same ciagrs, 25 of them, would set me back about £150 here in Britain. But would that undoubted economy measure really stand me in good stead when, as might well, happen, a clot forms in my blood which eventually gums up a crucial artery and brings my heart to a standstill? No, your honour, it won't.
I started cigars in a small way smoking piddly little Henry Winterman cigarillos. But they were nothing but brown ciargettes and I soon progressed to Henry Winterman half coronas. Then, in the mid-Eighties, my sister, who live in Germany, bought me a box of Fehlfarben: whole coronas which were cheaper because they each had some kind of cosmetic blemish. Otherwise they were as good as those without a blemish. And that really was that. Oh, well
.
. . .
Several years ago, this blog featured all the cars I had bought. I've since bought a few more, but that list gave me the idea of listing all my girlfriends. Why? I really don't know, and I was rather affected by the thought that listing them might be just a little bit tacky. But what the hell. Who can't be tacky once in a while. So, dear reader, if you are intersted read on in coming entries. I shall not be identifying them - I shan't actually be naming them - but I shall give their initials. Oh, the glory of being tacky once you have reached and passed the age of 60. (I'm 63 in November.) My first was WR. My second, with whom I 'fell in love' was SH. Then came several more. To be continued.
Friday 15 June 2012
Thursday 14 June 2012
Dave Fiuczynski: a fan writes
Years ago - I suppose I should now write many years ago - a curious device arrived called the ‘MP3 player’. I’m not exactly a technical bozo, and it took me a while to get my head around it, and I was not especially fast off the mark in getting one. This was especially so because the iPod had then been recently launched, the iPod was - as, it seems, are all Apple products - pretty expensive, so non-iPod MP3 players, I reasoned would also be pretty expensive.
Then one day (while on holiday in Devon for a travel piece I was going to do for the Mail, which can be found here. UPDATE: No, you can't any more. The bastards seem to have wiped it from their system. But you can read a travel piece about a Tuscan cookery course here and a travel piece about a nostalgic trip to Berlin here.) I came across someone using one and, not knowing too much about them, began to question him. What first of all surprised me was how cheap the model he had bought was. It was, admittedly, not half as useful, user-friendly or ‘cool’ as the iPod, but it did exactly what the iPod did at something like a tenth of the price. I then began to investigate the things, on many visits to my local branch in Kensington of PC World, and I eventually bought one. I think it was a 128mb model and I think I paid something like £49 for it, which might help you work out how many years ago this was: not many in human years but several lifetimes in technological years. You can probably no longer get an MP3 player that small, and as a 2/4gb USB memory stick will not set you back more than £6/7, that 128mb model I bought would be yours for about 94p.
With my new MP3 player came the usual gubbins of guarantee and a small user manual, but with it also came an offer to download, I think, 20 tracks for nothing. All you had to do was register on a website. I did and downloaded a collection of jazz tracks by a variety of different musicians. I can no longer remember much about the tracks or most of the musicians, except that the tracks were pretty conventional and the musicians were more or less all well-known names. But one musician stood out for me because he was a guitarist and I am a guitarist manque (very manque. I could be better if I practised - anyone can be better if they practise - but I don’t, and as I just noodle around on guitar because I like noodling around on guitar, I don’t care). The guitarist was called David Fiuczysnki and he struck me as a tasty guitarist (although as all guitarists the world over are better than me, they almost all strike me as tasty guitarists).
This is where it all gets a little, or rather very, hazy. I decided to check out David Fiuczynski to see what else he had done and whether he had made records of his own. Indeed he had and I bought one, although as I say everything is a little hazy and I can’t remember why I bought that particular one. It is called Amandala, and it was a revelation, music unlike any I had heard before. More to the point it pressed every musical button in me I want to have pressed and then some. It was exactly - exactly - the kind of guitar and music I would like to play if I had the gumption to practise a lot more and apply myself and was able to play to that standard. And not only was the guitar playing great, so were the drums and bass.
After buying Amandala (not to be confused with Miles Davis’s Amandla, which is also great but very different), I then bought Lunar Crush (with John Medeski), then Kif and most recently Jazz Punk.
Some reading this will be familiar with Fiuczynski’s guitar playing and music, many more will not, but to try to describe it to those who are not is, I’m afraid, pretty much impossible. Fiuczynski (who was born in the US, but who moved to Germany with is parents when he was eight and didn’t return to live in the US until he was 19) has described himself as a ‘jazz musician who doesn’t want to play just jazz’.
He most certainly can play ‘conventional’ jazz guitar, but when you get to hear his own music, you’ll understand what he means.
It is accessible to those coming to it from jazz, but it would be equally accessible to those coming to if from rock and heavy metal. But it would be utterly misleading to try to categorise it as something - as crass as - rock/jazz fusion or even jazz/rock fusion. It is almost a genre of its own. It is organic, it is itself and for me ‘fusion’ implies some kind of melding of two, rather like a mule being half-horse, half-donkey.
I am writing about Fiuczynski because I have just recommended to a young colleague who was asking for ideas of what to give her dad for Fathers’ Day that she might like to give him one of Fiuczynski’s CDs. She is 23 and her father is 49 and, she says, ‘likes rock’, but he might now be of an age to expand a little, if he hasn’t already done so. (These days I find rock, however pleasant, just too two-dimensional, if you get me.) I lent her my iPod to listen to some, and she agreed it might well be the kind of music he would like.
Then, driving home from London last night (and stopping off at The Brewers Arms in South Petherton to watch the second half of the Holland v Germany match, and weren’t Holland a peculiar kind of unimaginative shite?), I spent the best part of two hours listening to Fiuczynski. And what with Syria, the euro, the euro and the Middle East and all that crap, I decided to blog on something entirely different: just how great David Fiuczynski’s music is and how much I like it and how glad I am that I came across it. Apparently, according to Wikepedia, he is a ‘full-time professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston’ and since 2011 ‘Guggenheim Fellow’, but please, please, please don’t let that put you off.
The way I described it to Libby is ‘if you don’t like it, you’ll hate it. And if you like it, you’ll love it’. So get a taster and see what you feel.
UPDATE: February 26, 2019
PS If by chance you visit this entry again, here is a taster of Dave Fiuczynski
Amandla/Dave Fiuczynski
Then one day (while on holiday in Devon for a travel piece I was going to do for the Mail, which can be found here. UPDATE: No, you can't any more. The bastards seem to have wiped it from their system. But you can read a travel piece about a Tuscan cookery course here and a travel piece about a nostalgic trip to Berlin here.) I came across someone using one and, not knowing too much about them, began to question him. What first of all surprised me was how cheap the model he had bought was. It was, admittedly, not half as useful, user-friendly or ‘cool’ as the iPod, but it did exactly what the iPod did at something like a tenth of the price. I then began to investigate the things, on many visits to my local branch in Kensington of PC World, and I eventually bought one. I think it was a 128mb model and I think I paid something like £49 for it, which might help you work out how many years ago this was: not many in human years but several lifetimes in technological years. You can probably no longer get an MP3 player that small, and as a 2/4gb USB memory stick will not set you back more than £6/7, that 128mb model I bought would be yours for about 94p.
With my new MP3 player came the usual gubbins of guarantee and a small user manual, but with it also came an offer to download, I think, 20 tracks for nothing. All you had to do was register on a website. I did and downloaded a collection of jazz tracks by a variety of different musicians. I can no longer remember much about the tracks or most of the musicians, except that the tracks were pretty conventional and the musicians were more or less all well-known names. But one musician stood out for me because he was a guitarist and I am a guitarist manque (very manque. I could be better if I practised - anyone can be better if they practise - but I don’t, and as I just noodle around on guitar because I like noodling around on guitar, I don’t care). The guitarist was called David Fiuczysnki and he struck me as a tasty guitarist (although as all guitarists the world over are better than me, they almost all strike me as tasty guitarists).
This is where it all gets a little, or rather very, hazy. I decided to check out David Fiuczynski to see what else he had done and whether he had made records of his own. Indeed he had and I bought one, although as I say everything is a little hazy and I can’t remember why I bought that particular one. It is called Amandala, and it was a revelation, music unlike any I had heard before. More to the point it pressed every musical button in me I want to have pressed and then some. It was exactly - exactly - the kind of guitar and music I would like to play if I had the gumption to practise a lot more and apply myself and was able to play to that standard. And not only was the guitar playing great, so were the drums and bass.
After buying Amandala (not to be confused with Miles Davis’s Amandla, which is also great but very different), I then bought Lunar Crush (with John Medeski), then Kif and most recently Jazz Punk.
Some reading this will be familiar with Fiuczynski’s guitar playing and music, many more will not, but to try to describe it to those who are not is, I’m afraid, pretty much impossible. Fiuczynski (who was born in the US, but who moved to Germany with is parents when he was eight and didn’t return to live in the US until he was 19) has described himself as a ‘jazz musician who doesn’t want to play just jazz’.
He most certainly can play ‘conventional’ jazz guitar, but when you get to hear his own music, you’ll understand what he means.
It is accessible to those coming to it from jazz, but it would be equally accessible to those coming to if from rock and heavy metal. But it would be utterly misleading to try to categorise it as something - as crass as - rock/jazz fusion or even jazz/rock fusion. It is almost a genre of its own. It is organic, it is itself and for me ‘fusion’ implies some kind of melding of two, rather like a mule being half-horse, half-donkey.I am writing about Fiuczynski because I have just recommended to a young colleague who was asking for ideas of what to give her dad for Fathers’ Day that she might like to give him one of Fiuczynski’s CDs. She is 23 and her father is 49 and, she says, ‘likes rock’, but he might now be of an age to expand a little, if he hasn’t already done so. (These days I find rock, however pleasant, just too two-dimensional, if you get me.) I lent her my iPod to listen to some, and she agreed it might well be the kind of music he would like.
Then, driving home from London last night (and stopping off at The Brewers Arms in South Petherton to watch the second half of the Holland v Germany match, and weren’t Holland a peculiar kind of unimaginative shite?), I spent the best part of two hours listening to Fiuczynski. And what with Syria, the euro, the euro and the Middle East and all that crap, I decided to blog on something entirely different: just how great David Fiuczynski’s music is and how much I like it and how glad I am that I came across it. Apparently, according to Wikepedia, he is a ‘full-time professor at the Berklee College of Music in Boston’ and since 2011 ‘Guggenheim Fellow’, but please, please, please don’t let that put you off.
The way I described it to Libby is ‘if you don’t like it, you’ll hate it. And if you like it, you’ll love it’. So get a taster and see what you feel.
UPDATE: February 26, 2019
PS If by chance you visit this entry again, here is a taster of Dave Fiuczynski
Amandla/Dave Fiuczynski
Friday 8 June 2012
‘Germany abandons euro and re-introduces DM’ - that, I think, is a headline we will read at some point in the next two months. And Euro 2012 kicks off with my bets already going awry
For what it’s worth, my guess in the whole Germany v Everyone else in the euro crisis will be that Germany blinks first, but they won’t do what we expect. To bring you up to speed, Germany and its people are industrious, conscientious, don’t throw money around like confetti, like to pay their way, are good savers, make quality goods the world wants and, as a result of all that, are doing rather well, thank you very much, while the rest of the eurozone is slowly - painfully slowly, to be sure, but nevertheless surely - going to the dogs.
Well, that is my view, and there are others. One, for example, which I can’t quite get my head around (though blame my Dick and Dora grasp of economics) is that when the euro was set up, it was set up to benefit the Germans. That, at least, is what some are claiming. But whatever is true, the solution to the crisis now universally put forward is ‘eurobonds and fiscal union’. Eurobonds mean that in theory all eurozone members would be responsible for paying of the debts of every other eurozone member, and fiscal union means that tax rates would be centrally established for the whole eurozone.
Given that Greece is largely in the trouble its in because it borrowed money, spent it grandly and now can’t pay off its debts because it lived beyond its means (and no self-respecting Greek pays a cent in tax), Germany is ineffably reluctant to agree to pay of Greece’s debts or anyone else’s for that matter. My view is ‘can you blame them’, although I am honour-bound to admit there are other views. As for fiscal union, it would work in theory, but would take years of detailed negotiation and preparation to set up, whereas the eurozone has got about another month to go before it goes the way of the dodo. And that brings me to my point that Germany blinks first.
For several weeks now, I have believed that the most likely outcome of the crisis is not that Greece, or Spain, or any of the other eurozone members will be forced out, but that Germany will pay its respects, kisses all round, tell everyone what a smashing time it had, and then head for the exit to a far safer and far saner world of a re-established Deutschmark. That would, naturally, precipitate a collapse of the euro and eurozone and all such a collapse would entail, but Germany and its hard-earned wealth would avoid all the fallout. It would most certainly be reviled from here to Timbuktu for a year or two, but as is the way of these things, in time it would be forgiven. And that is what I am now certain is going to happen, although I admittedly do not have shred of evidence. The great thing is that if I am right, folk will say ‘well, he’s a bright cookie, and make no mistake’. And if I am wrong - well, people have exceptionally short memories.
. . .
I’m not any good at football, despite 143 of watching the game on TV man and boy, but I can think of no reason why I shouldn’t add my two ha’porth worth on games I’ve seen on TV. Tonight was the opener, Poland against previous Euro champions Greece, after Greece’s performance tonight it is worth asking just how did they clinch that championship.
It ended even-stevens 1-1, although I thought Poland had the edge, showing more flair - just - and being the more disciplined players. Their first goal was a good one, and when Greece had a player sent off for his second yellow card, I thought that was that. And as I have two bets riding on the result - a double and a Yankee or something - I was rather pissed off. But then Greece equalised, with a goal which once again wasn’t at all bad, although Poland’s defence was pretty bad, and when they were awarded a penalty after Poland’s defender fouled a Greece striker and got a straight red, I thought I was quids in. Was I hell.
The new goalie guessed the right way and dived the right way and save what was not a bad strike but not a good one, either. Things did look up when Greece seemed to score again, but had the goal disallowed for offside. So that was that. My first bet, the double, is now out of the window, and although my second could still return if I get the other three results right, my winnings, because of the nature of the bet, will be very much reduced. On to the next game in 20 minutes, Russia agains the Czech Republic. I’m backing the Czechs so it looks as though Russia will be a shoo in.
Euro 2012 Part II: the Russia v Czech Republic game made Poland’s spat with Greece look like Sunday league. OK, so Russia won and played some great football (and I have already lost money on bets), but the Czechs also played well. Where Poland v Greece was kick and rush at it worst, sometimes, Russia v Czech Republic was like watching to Champions League sides playing at their best. Anyone disagree?
Well, that is my view, and there are others. One, for example, which I can’t quite get my head around (though blame my Dick and Dora grasp of economics) is that when the euro was set up, it was set up to benefit the Germans. That, at least, is what some are claiming. But whatever is true, the solution to the crisis now universally put forward is ‘eurobonds and fiscal union’. Eurobonds mean that in theory all eurozone members would be responsible for paying of the debts of every other eurozone member, and fiscal union means that tax rates would be centrally established for the whole eurozone.
Given that Greece is largely in the trouble its in because it borrowed money, spent it grandly and now can’t pay off its debts because it lived beyond its means (and no self-respecting Greek pays a cent in tax), Germany is ineffably reluctant to agree to pay of Greece’s debts or anyone else’s for that matter. My view is ‘can you blame them’, although I am honour-bound to admit there are other views. As for fiscal union, it would work in theory, but would take years of detailed negotiation and preparation to set up, whereas the eurozone has got about another month to go before it goes the way of the dodo. And that brings me to my point that Germany blinks first.
For several weeks now, I have believed that the most likely outcome of the crisis is not that Greece, or Spain, or any of the other eurozone members will be forced out, but that Germany will pay its respects, kisses all round, tell everyone what a smashing time it had, and then head for the exit to a far safer and far saner world of a re-established Deutschmark. That would, naturally, precipitate a collapse of the euro and eurozone and all such a collapse would entail, but Germany and its hard-earned wealth would avoid all the fallout. It would most certainly be reviled from here to Timbuktu for a year or two, but as is the way of these things, in time it would be forgiven. And that is what I am now certain is going to happen, although I admittedly do not have shred of evidence. The great thing is that if I am right, folk will say ‘well, he’s a bright cookie, and make no mistake’. And if I am wrong - well, people have exceptionally short memories.
. . .
I’m not any good at football, despite 143 of watching the game on TV man and boy, but I can think of no reason why I shouldn’t add my two ha’porth worth on games I’ve seen on TV. Tonight was the opener, Poland against previous Euro champions Greece, after Greece’s performance tonight it is worth asking just how did they clinch that championship.
It ended even-stevens 1-1, although I thought Poland had the edge, showing more flair - just - and being the more disciplined players. Their first goal was a good one, and when Greece had a player sent off for his second yellow card, I thought that was that. And as I have two bets riding on the result - a double and a Yankee or something - I was rather pissed off. But then Greece equalised, with a goal which once again wasn’t at all bad, although Poland’s defence was pretty bad, and when they were awarded a penalty after Poland’s defender fouled a Greece striker and got a straight red, I thought I was quids in. Was I hell.
The new goalie guessed the right way and dived the right way and save what was not a bad strike but not a good one, either. Things did look up when Greece seemed to score again, but had the goal disallowed for offside. So that was that. My first bet, the double, is now out of the window, and although my second could still return if I get the other three results right, my winnings, because of the nature of the bet, will be very much reduced. On to the next game in 20 minutes, Russia agains the Czech Republic. I’m backing the Czechs so it looks as though Russia will be a shoo in.
Euro 2012 Part II: the Russia v Czech Republic game made Poland’s spat with Greece look like Sunday league. OK, so Russia won and played some great football (and I have already lost money on bets), but the Czechs also played well. Where Poland v Greece was kick and rush at it worst, sometimes, Russia v Czech Republic was like watching to Champions League sides playing at their best. Anyone disagree?
Friday 1 June 2012
The question we are all asking ourselves: will it rain? And several Royal facts the papers won’t tell you
It can surely not have escaped the attention of the rest of the world that our glorious, glorious Queen Elizabeth is this weekend celebrating 60 years of occupying the throne. (Note to foreign readers: not literally, of course. Although we Brits are sticklers for tradition and custom, no one in his or her right mind will have expected that she literally spent all that time with a crown on her head and keeping a sceptre straight in her right hand. It used to be like that, of course, but we British do like to move with the times a little, whatever French cooks thing).
Prince Philip, who has in the past demonstrated a superb organisational flair suggested that the Queen should row most of the stretch, but that idea was ruled out on health and safety grounds because the Queen is apparently not qualified to row more than half a mile in any 24 hours. (And, it will surprise, our foreign friends who think Brits are utterly in thrall to their monarchy and all it stands for, if she does do so and health and safety gets wind of it, she risks a stiff fine just like the rest of us. We didn’t behead Charles I just for the hell of it, you know). It has to be said senior courtiers, who were appalled by the suggestion from the off as they regarded it as insufferably infra-dig, were for once wholly supportive of what is quite obviously an intrusive piece of unnecessary bureaucracy. (NB If you think that’s far-fetched, take a look at these this and this.)
Whatever: the Queen won’t be rowing, although as a compromise (Labour insisted that she should, at least, make some kind of demotic gesture in solidarity with all those who have no choice but to row to work every day, so I understand she will symbolically ‘touch an oar’.)
The following day there is to be an open-air concert outside Buckingham Palace, when the Queen has agreed to ‘strum the first chord’. The line-up of artistes (I think that’s the word) was only finalised last week and, it has to be said, has not met with universal approval. Cliff Richard is set to perform, as are The Moody Blues (or the two of them still alive), Leo Sy Duck in Gravesend (a favourite haunt of Charles Dickens’) to The Pig and Whistle at West Molsey where the Queen is due to down a pint of Jubilee ale and polish of a plate of pie and mash. Prince Philip originally suggested (with the enthusiastic support of his daughter Anne, who takes after him in many ways) that the Queen should row most of the stretch, but that idea was ruled out on health and safety grounds because the Queen is apparently not qualified to row more than half a mile. And, it has to be said senior courtiers, who were appalled by the suggestion from the off as they regarded it as insufferably infra-dig, were for once wholly supportive of what is quite obviously an intrusive piece of unnecessary bureaucracy.
Whatever: the Queen won’t be rowing, although as a compromise (Labour insisted that she should, at least, make some kind of demotic gesture in solidarity with all those who have no choice but to row to work every day, so I understand she will symbolically ‘touch an oar’.)
The following day there is to be an open-air concert outside Buckingham Palace, when the Queen has agreed to ‘strum the first chord’. The line-up of artistes (I think that’s the word) was only finalised last week and, it has to be said, has not met with universal approval. Cliff Richard is set to perform, as are The Moody Blues (or the two of them still alive), Leo Sayer, Sir Mick Jagger and Sir Paul McCartney, Lulu, the last remaining Bee Gee, Kira de Something or other (the one from New Zealand), and several other bands, singers and what-not who are thought to personify the Zeitgeist of the past 60 years. There was a lot of loose talk about disinterring Noel Coward and Jimi Hendrix (who is now regarded as an honorary Brit because he lived in the house once occupied by George Frederic Handel) but again health and safety were rather against it all, as I write that idea has gone to appeal and no judgment has yet come down. We do know that Brian May (who was lead guitarist for Queen, not married to the Queen as far too many people in the US seem to believe) will also strut his stuff, and if you’re a nostalgia buff, the concert outside Buck House is not to be missed.
But that, rather neatly, brings me to the dilemma central to this entry. Let me make it plain: I am neither a rabid monarchist nor a rabid republican, but I would like to see it all, from the Queen swimming upstream to Windsor Castle from the Tate & Lyle pier in Rotherhithe to what promises to be a really fabulous open-air concert, succeed. And it all, as does so much else in Britain, come down to the weather.
The Met Office have ruled out unseasonal snow, but are adamant that they cannot ensure that it won’t piss with rain. And rain would, of course, ruin it all. So far the forecasts are by no means optimistic. Rain, I’m afraid to say, has been forecast. Usually at this juncture, we Brits fall back on the hope that, as a rule, the Met Office, more or less totally useless to a man and woman, always get it horribly wrong. But . . .
So let us pray: no rain, please God, no rain. The idea of the Queen spending most of Sunday and Monday huddled under a large umbrella with just Prince Philip and Prince Charles for company while everyone else whistles cheerfully and insists it doesn’t matter, is just too awful to contemplate. Think about it: Britain would be the laughing stock of the world and it would surely be curtains for the Coalition. Think about it.
. . .
I realise that there are many, many, many people who simply cannot get enough of our British Royals and there are many books which will reveal the inner workings of the our monarchy to satiate that appetite. There are, however, several facts which aren’t that well-known about the Windwors, so here are a few:
Prince Harry, though still a young man, has shagged more women than most of us (though not me) have had hot dinners.
Prince Philip is a very proficient spoons player and even applied to appear on Britain’s Got Talent. Unfortunately, senior courtiers, who have a fine ear for these matters, nixed the idea and, it has to be said, the Queen, who otherwise is wholly supportive of Philip, agreed with them. So no Prince Philip on our screens.
Charles, a keen gardener whose garden at Highgrove is a classic of its kind, is often satirised after he admitted ‘talking to his plants’. What is not as well known is that he has a very good relationship with a herd of cows at Highgrove and will often doss down in the cowshed for the night if he feels his presence will cheer them up.
Anne, the Queen’s only daughter and second child, now has to shave every two days.
Prince Andrew has a ‘love child’ in every continent. In fact, he has several in every continent, but only one in North America.
Edward, who plays the cello rather well, was once offered a job with the Halle Orchestra. But he had to turn it down, again on the advice of those oh-so-stuffy seniour courtiers.
William can fly a helicopter blindfolded.
The Queen once admitted that she was a keen EastEnders fan and even wanted to knight several leading players in the soap. But yet again - you guessed it - senior courtiers persuaded her not to do so.
Prince Philip has the world’s largest collection of original Bill Hailey recordings, and turned down a multi-million from Bill Gates to buy them.
. . .
UPDATE (June 4, 2012): A reader has kindly alerted me to the fact that a diamond jubilee doesn’t celebrate 50 years, as I mistakenly thought, but 457 years, and I have now corrected this entry accordingly. Apologies to all readers who had begun to doubt their sanity (‘Surely it's not 50 years? I mean it just can’t be, can it?’) and, of course, to you Ma’am.
Prince Philip, who has in the past demonstrated a superb organisational flair suggested that the Queen should row most of the stretch, but that idea was ruled out on health and safety grounds because the Queen is apparently not qualified to row more than half a mile in any 24 hours. (And, it will surprise, our foreign friends who think Brits are utterly in thrall to their monarchy and all it stands for, if she does do so and health and safety gets wind of it, she risks a stiff fine just like the rest of us. We didn’t behead Charles I just for the hell of it, you know). It has to be said senior courtiers, who were appalled by the suggestion from the off as they regarded it as insufferably infra-dig, were for once wholly supportive of what is quite obviously an intrusive piece of unnecessary bureaucracy. (NB If you think that’s far-fetched, take a look at these this and this.)
Whatever: the Queen won’t be rowing, although as a compromise (Labour insisted that she should, at least, make some kind of demotic gesture in solidarity with all those who have no choice but to row to work every day, so I understand she will symbolically ‘touch an oar’.)
The following day there is to be an open-air concert outside Buckingham Palace, when the Queen has agreed to ‘strum the first chord’. The line-up of artistes (I think that’s the word) was only finalised last week and, it has to be said, has not met with universal approval. Cliff Richard is set to perform, as are The Moody Blues (or the two of them still alive), Leo Sy Duck in Gravesend (a favourite haunt of Charles Dickens’) to The Pig and Whistle at West Molsey where the Queen is due to down a pint of Jubilee ale and polish of a plate of pie and mash. Prince Philip originally suggested (with the enthusiastic support of his daughter Anne, who takes after him in many ways) that the Queen should row most of the stretch, but that idea was ruled out on health and safety grounds because the Queen is apparently not qualified to row more than half a mile. And, it has to be said senior courtiers, who were appalled by the suggestion from the off as they regarded it as insufferably infra-dig, were for once wholly supportive of what is quite obviously an intrusive piece of unnecessary bureaucracy.
Whatever: the Queen won’t be rowing, although as a compromise (Labour insisted that she should, at least, make some kind of demotic gesture in solidarity with all those who have no choice but to row to work every day, so I understand she will symbolically ‘touch an oar’.)
The following day there is to be an open-air concert outside Buckingham Palace, when the Queen has agreed to ‘strum the first chord’. The line-up of artistes (I think that’s the word) was only finalised last week and, it has to be said, has not met with universal approval. Cliff Richard is set to perform, as are The Moody Blues (or the two of them still alive), Leo Sayer, Sir Mick Jagger and Sir Paul McCartney, Lulu, the last remaining Bee Gee, Kira de Something or other (the one from New Zealand), and several other bands, singers and what-not who are thought to personify the Zeitgeist of the past 60 years. There was a lot of loose talk about disinterring Noel Coward and Jimi Hendrix (who is now regarded as an honorary Brit because he lived in the house once occupied by George Frederic Handel) but again health and safety were rather against it all, as I write that idea has gone to appeal and no judgment has yet come down. We do know that Brian May (who was lead guitarist for Queen, not married to the Queen as far too many people in the US seem to believe) will also strut his stuff, and if you’re a nostalgia buff, the concert outside Buck House is not to be missed.
But that, rather neatly, brings me to the dilemma central to this entry. Let me make it plain: I am neither a rabid monarchist nor a rabid republican, but I would like to see it all, from the Queen swimming upstream to Windsor Castle from the Tate & Lyle pier in Rotherhithe to what promises to be a really fabulous open-air concert, succeed. And it all, as does so much else in Britain, come down to the weather.
The Met Office have ruled out unseasonal snow, but are adamant that they cannot ensure that it won’t piss with rain. And rain would, of course, ruin it all. So far the forecasts are by no means optimistic. Rain, I’m afraid to say, has been forecast. Usually at this juncture, we Brits fall back on the hope that, as a rule, the Met Office, more or less totally useless to a man and woman, always get it horribly wrong. But . . .
So let us pray: no rain, please God, no rain. The idea of the Queen spending most of Sunday and Monday huddled under a large umbrella with just Prince Philip and Prince Charles for company while everyone else whistles cheerfully and insists it doesn’t matter, is just too awful to contemplate. Think about it: Britain would be the laughing stock of the world and it would surely be curtains for the Coalition. Think about it.
. . .
I realise that there are many, many, many people who simply cannot get enough of our British Royals and there are many books which will reveal the inner workings of the our monarchy to satiate that appetite. There are, however, several facts which aren’t that well-known about the Windwors, so here are a few:
Prince Harry, though still a young man, has shagged more women than most of us (though not me) have had hot dinners.
Prince Philip is a very proficient spoons player and even applied to appear on Britain’s Got Talent. Unfortunately, senior courtiers, who have a fine ear for these matters, nixed the idea and, it has to be said, the Queen, who otherwise is wholly supportive of Philip, agreed with them. So no Prince Philip on our screens.
Charles, a keen gardener whose garden at Highgrove is a classic of its kind, is often satirised after he admitted ‘talking to his plants’. What is not as well known is that he has a very good relationship with a herd of cows at Highgrove and will often doss down in the cowshed for the night if he feels his presence will cheer them up.
Anne, the Queen’s only daughter and second child, now has to shave every two days.
Prince Andrew has a ‘love child’ in every continent. In fact, he has several in every continent, but only one in North America.
Edward, who plays the cello rather well, was once offered a job with the Halle Orchestra. But he had to turn it down, again on the advice of those oh-so-stuffy seniour courtiers.
William can fly a helicopter blindfolded.
The Queen once admitted that she was a keen EastEnders fan and even wanted to knight several leading players in the soap. But yet again - you guessed it - senior courtiers persuaded her not to do so.
Prince Philip has the world’s largest collection of original Bill Hailey recordings, and turned down a multi-million from Bill Gates to buy them.
. . .
UPDATE (June 4, 2012): A reader has kindly alerted me to the fact that a diamond jubilee doesn’t celebrate 50 years, as I mistakenly thought, but 457 years, and I have now corrected this entry accordingly. Apologies to all readers who had begun to doubt their sanity (‘Surely it's not 50 years? I mean it just can’t be, can it?’) and, of course, to you Ma’am.
This isn’t pleasant viewing (especially if you aren’t white)
I can’t deny that I’m not excited by the prospect of three weeks of wall-to-wall football coming up when Euro 2012 kicks off on June 8 in Poland and the Ukraine. But I’ve just watched a BBC Panorama report on iPlayer about racism and white supremacists in Poland and Ukraine which makes sickening viewing. It would be dishonest to retort, as I’m sure some will, that ‘they are only a minority’, because that minority is well-organised and some of its elements are even training themselves up for quasi-combat. Actually, describing this behaviour as racism is a little misleading. These idiots, both young men and women, are also virulently anti-semitic.
I know from experience that it is very possible and very easy for a reporter and his team to go out there and construct the story you want, but what was so striking about the report was the footage of massed supporters giving the Nazi salute and beating the shit out of a group of Indian students who were sitting, thinking themselves to be safe there, in the family area. Take a look at the whole programme and make up your own mind as to how sickening it is: Just to play it safe: this video is the copyright of the BBC and the report was shown on BBC One's Panorama on Monday, June 4.
I know from experience that it is very possible and very easy for a reporter and his team to go out there and construct the story you want, but what was so striking about the report was the footage of massed supporters giving the Nazi salute and beating the shit out of a group of Indian students who were sitting, thinking themselves to be safe there, in the family area. Take a look at the whole programme and make up your own mind as to how sickening it is: Just to play it safe: this video is the copyright of the BBC and the report was shown on BBC One's Panorama on Monday, June 4.
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