Blue Moon

Sad about Stuart Pearce – he was a breath of fresh air when he came into football management. He managed the way he used to play: enthusiastic, energetic, tough but fair. And never missed a thing that happened on the field.
Then there was the Ben Thatcher incident, when one of his defenders violently tackled an opposing player in a thinly-disguised career-threatening attack. It was time for Stuart to show his mettle. Would he take this opportunity to start to clean up the reputation of football – and of Manchester City - by disciplining Thatcher?
Sorry. Stuart 'never miss a thing' Pearce, borrowing from the vocabulary of such greats as Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger, ‘didn’t see the incident’. (Or, presumably, footage from any of the 20-odd TV cameras.)
Last week his Light Blues were playing the Dark Blues of – as it happens – Everton, at Goodison Park. In the 90-minute match, Everton led 1-0 until the 92nd minute, when Manchester City scored, making it 1-1. City’s Joey Barton, a nasty piece of work with form for violence on and off the field, decided that a bit of triumphalism was called for, and dropped his shorts in front of the Everton crowd.
Another chance for Stu to show some Management – and decency, you might think, as an example to the millions of young kids who watch these games.
But no: ‘I didn’t see the incident myself’, Stu told the BBC after the game. Yet in yesterday’s Times he was able to say that he hoped the FA would not ‘unfairly punish’ Barton, because ‘I was pleased to see him give his shirt [to a disabled fan] and pleased to see his team-mate Nicky Weaver come over and tell him to pull his strides up’.
Funny that – the ‘shirt’ event took place immediately before the mooning, and the Nicky Weaver incident just after it. In between, Stu (‘never miss a thing’) Pearson suffered temporary sight loss, but before and after, he had 20/20 vision.
Welcome to the club, Stu.

As Virgil – former pilot of Thunderbird 2 – once said, beware of people with diminutive first names, unless they’re jazz musicians or comedians. If the guy also has a diminutive surname, (as in Charlie Haughey), he could be double-dodgy. If he’s also a politician, he’s likely to be dodgy squared. (I know the maths doesn’t support that, but it’s a metaphor.)
OK, so we’re talking Bertie Ahern, Irish Prime Minister (and successor to Charlie Haughey) for the last nine years. Bertie, a former accountant, has apologized to the Irish Parliament for accepting about $80,000 from businessmen when he was Ireland's finance minister. ‘It was a misjudgement’, he said. ‘It’ has been various things. First it was ‘only $60,000’, then 'a speaking fee’, then ‘an unsolicited gift to help me over my separation’ then 'a loan’. Now, it’s ‘a misjudgement’. I may not have them in the right order there, but you get the point, which is: keep an eye on those diminutives.
So if you see green truck with ‘Eddie Stobart’ on the side, get in the outside lane.

Happy Saint's Day, Francis

I had long wanted to go to Assisi, but while Pisa, Florence and Siena are all more or less handy to the autostrada del sole, Assisi was always just a little out of the way. But I remember, when I heard the news of the earthquakes in 1997, thinking selfishly that they couldn’t let it be destroyed before I had seen it.
We did get there eventually. Having spent longer on the road from Rome than we'd intended, by the time we wound our way up to the top of the hill it was almost dusk. Like many such non-decisions, it proved the best - it was the perfect time to arrive. It had rained earlier, but now the rain had stopped and the setting sun behind us floodlit the Basilica of St. Francis in all its Gothic glory. The last of the tourists busses had left and the little shops of the town were making their last attempts to dispense their religious tat before closing.
Thankfully, the Basilica itself was still open, and we were able to visit it alone and in peace.
Why are we thinking of Assisi? Partly because it’s my blog, partly because I saw this old Zefferelli film called Tea with Mussolini recently, about a bunch of middle-aged expatriate English women trapped in Tuscany by WW II. (Usual suspects: Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright and Judi Dench, plus Cher and Tomalin for the US market.); and partly because in Assisi today they’re holding the annual celebrations of the life of St. Francis. It’s his Saint’s day - so to Franks around the world, from Sinatra to Lampard: Buona festa!
Pope Gregory IX laid the first stone in 1228. Two years later Francis's body was brought here in secret for fear of looting by tomb raiders and buried in the unfinished church.
The tragedy of the earthquakes of September 1997 was not that I almost didn’t get to visit the Basilica, or even that ten people were killed and many injured by falling rubble (they were mostly archeologists investigating the damage caused by an earlier ‘quake). It was the damage done to the magnificent frescoes, dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, by great Florentine and Sienese masters like Giotto, Cimabue and Simone Martini (one of whose works, you will recall, is in Liverpool). When we got there, some of the works were still not visible because of the danger of further falls and some were still being repaired, but we were able to enjoy many of their works, amazingly fresh after 600 years.
By the time we had to leave the Basilica it was almost dark and we had made no plans about where we would eat or sleep. Funny - although I have complete recall about Assisi, I have no memory at all of what we did afterwards.

What’s the sell-by date of revenge?

A guy walks into a school in an Amish town in West Pennsylvania with an automatic pistol, stun gun and 600 shells, sends the boys outside and shoots the girls, killing five and injuring six, apparently in revenge for some slight inflicted on him when he was a pupil twenty years ago.
You have to wonder how long people can hold revenge in their hearts – and why? What good does it do them? And who suffers most – the victim, who suffers briefly, or the poor sod who's nurtured it for twenty years?
I’ve never seen much point in revenge. I had trouble accepting The Count of Monte Cristo: loved it until Edmond escaped from the Chateau d’If, but couldn’t follow the rest of it.
This is the third reported school shoot-up in the US in a week. There’ll no doubt be the usual discussions: you know, gun control versus the constitutional right to bear arms, then it will all die down.
The Democrats are trying to get a bill through the Pennsylvania legislature that will restrict the purchase of hand guns to only one, per person, per month. Charlton Heston would turn in his grave (if he were dead) - don't they realise that this means you will be able to buy only twelve guns a year? How many schools do they expect you to shoot up with twelve guns a year? (Or you could pop over to Ohio.)

Our more perceptive readers will have noticed that the posts are fewer and briefer of late. (In fact many have expressed gratitude.) It’s not laziness or lack of subject matter: the reason is purely technical - we have only one PC between us right now, so we have to wait until the other has finished before we can get on. Things can get pretty nasty.

Does Sir Cliff Richard read my blog? I haven’t noticed any significant increase in my Barbadian readership, but you have to wonder. Following my recent post on the subject of the Blair family’s All Goin’ on a Summer Holiday chez Cliff, the lisping knight has officially denied that he has ever discussed with T. Blair the possibility of bringing in legislation that would give him twenty years’ extension of his copyrights.
On the contrary, says Cliff - he allows the Blairs their annual cavort at Condo Cliff (when they’re not at Chateau Berlusconi) because he thought Mr B. looked ‘careworn’. If you want careworn, Sir Cliff, take a look at my picture – and oh yes, I’ll need the loan of Blair Force One to get there.

Let's hear it for British Airways media relations folks. Got a reply from them (see worldsworstwebsite) in 24 hours! Many thanks guys.

www.worldsworstwebsite

It’s officially autumn, but the skies are clear, the sun is shining on the coast and there’s an enormous cruise liner in the bay. Because it’s the deepest natural harbour on the Med – it used to be the base of the US Sixth Fleet until General de Gaulle pulled France out of NATO - the ships can come in so close to shore that you can hear the passengers of the ocean liners being given their orders for the day.

Funny how, even for the retired, days of the week still have their original significance. Saturday is the day we don’t shave (not me anyway – don’t know about her), buy the Times and try to finish the crossword (successful yesterday, but only thanks to dictionary, Google and Thesaurus Rex); Sunday is the day we don’t set the alarm for 7am, which allows us to wake naturally at 5.45 - and we go out to lunch by the sea. We could do any of the above on any other day of the week but we don’t.
So, it being Sunday and the second anniversary of Tony Blair’s unsuccessful heart surgery ( he survived) we decided to honour the marina at St.-Laurent-du-Var and watch the yachties sailing the same bit of water they sailed the previous Sunday, while we ate dorade royale (sea bream) grillée with a chilled rosé.

I am currently accepting nominations for the world’s worst website. My own nominee, British Airways, (ba.com) should win in a canter. (This is its new, vastly improved version.) They ask for your life history, then cut you off as you push the ‘Confirm’ button. You want to change your departure time; they put you back to the beginning and you have to give your life history again. They give you the price of the cheapest flight on any one day – but when you go to book it, you find that it gets in after midnight, and all the other flights that day cost four times as much.
Yesterday I wanted to know the cost in money or frequent-flyer miles to upgrade a reservation. After many infuriating attempts, the web site said, ‘to upgrade an existing reservation you must call the following number…’ I called it, and after I got through the cascade, it told me to go to the web site.
A month ago I asked a fairly simple question: ‘If I am unable to travel for compassionate or medical reasons, can I claim a refund of the airport ‘taxes’ that BA did not have to pay?’ They offered precisely 399 answers, none of which applied, and a month later I’m still waiting for an answer – though, to be fair, I did receive a questionnaire asking if I had found the response (on a scale of 0% to 100%) useful!
I know their flight network is more complex, but you have to wonder why they can’t just hire the guys who built the easyjet site.
Oh dear, I’m ranting again: pass the rosé.

Daniel, our local newsagent, has barely grunted at us in for the past seven years - proprietors of newspaper shops have to pass a special grumpiness test and Daniel must have qualified at Seven Dwarfs - or is it Dwarves? - level. But I put him in an article in France Today, and although he couldn't read it we're now soul-mates - addresses me by name and wishes me a good day. I'll have to put the boulangère in the next article.

Do not trust the horse

As Virgil – the famous British airline – said to the Trojans: ’Do not trust the horse. I fear the Geeks, even when bearing gifts’.
This is about what are laughingly known as online HELP Lines. HELP is a link even less useful than CONTACT US. Is it just me, or do others find the advice they give totally incomprehensible? If I could understand that stuff I wouldn’t need the HELP line. (I don’t even understand the questions.) The answers are written by geeks for geeks, who see incomprehensibility as their job security. I pay my taxes just like everyone else: is it fair that I, someone of reasonable – I thought - education and intelligence, should feel chronically inadequate? I only wanted to make a minuscule change to my template: but it will have to stay as it is.

Did I mention rain? Nonsense – the weather is perfect: blue skies, calm blue sea and a similar forecast for the weekend. Everyone told us to relaxez-vous, so we are. We picnicked among the olive trees on top of Mont Boron yesterday. It looks down on the Bay of Nice to the west and Villefranche to the east, and on the summit, near the Radio/TV transmitters, lives Elton John. Chateau Elton is harder to enter than Fort Knox, but as we came past his entrance, someone was about to drive in, so we tried to sneak a look inside, hoping to see his personal Schutzstaffel armed with AK 47s, but I drove by too quickly and all we got was the clang of iron gates.

Our neighbours recently invited us for an apéro – short for aperitif. The abbreviation seems to imply politely that you need not stay too long. French abbreviations not only save time, they save newsprint. You’ll rarely see ‘adolescent’ in a French newspaper headline: ‘ado’ is enough. ‘Profs’ are teachers, ‘bac’ is graduation, and so on. Acronyms are also permitted, but can be confusing: NATO being OTAN and the UN being ONU.
But don’t try it with someone’s name, especially writers and politicians: Brits may have their Toms, Dicks and Freds, but Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean-Luc Mendès-France must remain precisely and polysyllabically that. We have a friend called Marie-Yvonne, whose name you abbreviate at your peril.

You probably know about boules – the game played by French males on cigarette-end-strewn patches of rough ground to prove their manhood and exclusivity. There’s a national boules tournament with a difference going on in the next town, Beaulieu. It’s called boules carrées, and is played with square balls – honest.

Nice is really nice

We’re back in much-loved Villefranche – a warm but overcast Villefranche. It’s supposed to be the tired tail-end of hurricane Florence – or was it Gordon? – or Horace?

Having recently (Sept 7) given a commenter an unflattering image of Nice, I have the urge to present it in a more favourable light. I love it. Why? Well, mainly the fact that it really is a French city – the only one on the Riviera. You’d have to go to Marseille to find the nearest.
Then there’s the fact that it’s a year-round city. The Riviera is the opposite of what Florida is to Canadians. Its winters are not really warm enough to be the place where people go to escape harsh northern winters: it’s more an assurance of sunshine in spring, summer and autumn. This means that some parts of the Riviera tend to close down for the winter - as American travel writer James Salter puts it, ‘ruined by its appeal’.
But not Nice. Nice, although French, is cosmopolitan. There are art museums and galleries, cinemas showing English language movies, theatres, libraries, night life, concerts, the winter Carnival and the Battle of the Flowers to see you through until spring. And, of course the Jazz Festival.
It has an amazing mix of architecture. Yes, it has a lot of Parisian fin de siècle – like the Hotel Negresco, where Hemingway and Fitzgerald cavorted, on the Promenade. But the port, and squares like the place Massena and place Garibaldi - where a young newly-appointed general called Bonaparte psyched up his raggle-taggle army before setting off to conquer almost the whole of Europe - are pure Italian. And, since much of the city's expansion happened in the twenties and thirties, it probably has more art deco buildings - the main showpiece of which is the Palais Mediterrranée, which used to be a Casino until it was bankrupted by a bunch of crooks in 1979, but has now been reconstructed as a hotel, casino and apartment complex - than anywhere else in France. (Cannes used to have a magnificent art nouveau casino on its promenade, but they bulldozed it and replaced it with a concrete bunker. Nice rebuilt theirs within its original art deco façade.)
And, finally – for now anyway – Nice has the Promenade des Anglais. (So named because when the citrus harvest failed because of frost in the winter of 1821/22, the newly-founded Anglican church put together enough money to keep the agrarian community busy building a ‘prom’ to remind its expatriate congregation of seaside resorts back home.) Its five miles long arc has no equal anywhere in the world.
(Is that better Ed?)

Funny thing we noticed at Nice airport: a few years ago, most French rental cars were registered in a safe, bucolic, northern Département (whose registration no. was 51), with few conurbations where the tax and insurance rates were low. This saved the rental companies a lot of money.
But the result was that cars registered in Département 51 were a magnet to petty thieves, because trusting tourists were more likely to leave stuff in their rental cars than leery locals.
So they passed a law that rental cars, in order not to be tourist icons, should be registered in the Département in which they are rented. This meant that all rental cars hired in Nice would henceforth be registered 06.
But French laws have ‘best before’ dates, and only need to be honoured for a reasonable period of time, then they’re forgotten - unless the local Gendarmerie want to pin something on you.
So NOW, all rental cars are registered with number 60 – which is another safe, bucolic, northern Département with few conurbations, whose tax and insurance rates are low. This has two advantages: one, it saves the rental companies heaps of money; and two, the tourists are more readily identifiable by the robbers, which takes the pressure off the locals.

How do you like your words?

The times are a-changing. We’re trying to replace some negative habits - like jumping when the phone rings; worrying excessively about whether the mobiles are charged, or expecting the car, when we get into it, to charge off automatically down the M4 west - with positive ones. Such as talking to each other, cutting down on nightmares and eating our words about the NHS.
Especially eating our words. I’ve blogged on about our National Health Service in the past: now I don’t quite know what to say. Yes, I’ve had my problems with the NHS, and still have them. (Six weeks ago my doc referred me to a cardiologist: when I rang to see if anything was happening I was told ‘They’re very busy’.)
But this last month I’ve looked on in wonder as the most caring, tireless, professional group of people I have ever seen did everything humanly possible to comfort my step-son in his last days. Living alongside them 24 hours a day, my respect for these wonderful women has grown into something like awe. (What’s embarrassing was that they kept saying what a wonderfully supportive family we were!)
When you think how many other patients they, and his tireless GP, Meg, must have in their care, it seems incredible that those who were not working turned up at his funeral – including one who was on holiday. Here is part of the message they wrote in the Condolence Book*:
‘His extraordinary courage and will has left a legacy on the ward that has helped us all…’ Thank you, Meg and the girls of Highclere: Sarah, Vanessa, Mel, Mal, Sonja, Sue, Rita and daughter Debbie, Denise, Diane, Claire and so many others. You are a credit to your profession.

Our first thought, when the long battle was over, was that we had lost it. In one way, of course, we did, but in another we won: a little over year ago, when things looked bleak and a consultant at another hospital, (whom Rob called ‘Dr. Death’), was using words like ‘euthanasia’ in sentences that began something like ‘Of course I’m not suggesting…’, we agreed that if we were still together at the end of it all, we would probably stay together. We were and we will.

* - (Another message in the book was ‘never saw you travel so slowly in a car’.)

Nice is nice

Paris by the Mediterranean it’s not, but it has lots that Paris doesn’t have. Unlike many towns on the coast, it’s a year-round city and doesn’t put up the shutters in December, and it doesn’t have the miserable winters of the capital. Parking is a nightmare but public transport is good, which is good for the planet. And although it can be frustrating at times, they do things like cutting the six-lane promenade down to two in order to make more room for walking/roller-skating/cycling on the prom.
Just now the streets are total chaos – some of them have already been closed for two years, and traffic barely trickles through the city’s two main squares: place Masséna and place Garibaldi. They are installing a tramway system – or as they call it in French: le tramway.

(Sept 6) Tonight’s big football match, part of the eliminations from the 2008 European Cup, (‘Oh no, not again!), is between France (European Champions 2004) and Italy (World Champions 2006). The French press are calling it the revanche for Italy having beaten France in the World Cup final. France will be without star striker Zidane and are claiming that he should be absolved from his suspension. After all, they argue, the Italian striker Materazzi insulted Zidane’s sister (et ta sœur – and your sister – is a fairly common response to a verbal insult), while all Zidane did was to deliver a running head-butt on Materazzi. It will be a better match – and a better sport – without them.
(Sept 7) France won 3-1. One of those games after which you wonder why you spend so much time watching football. France were the better side – but it was more Italy being the worse. Refereeing was, as we've come to expect, appalling. But some praise is in order: to the crowd (French) for being able to keep up the constant booing of the Italians throughout the whole game (including through their national anthem); and to French captain Viera for his dexterity in managing to hit an Italian with one hand and catch him again with the other hand before he hit the ground.

When Poland was throwing out communism and communist icons were tumbling all over Eastern Europe, the government of Nice decided they should have a symbolic record of the times. So they renamed one of their streets. But the people at one end of the street were quite happy with their original name, and objected to the change. So a compromise was reached. Now, one end of the street is called boulevard Lech Walesa. The other end remains the boulevard de Stalingrad.

A Fridge too Far

I’ve learned something this trip. When we left the coast last time, I left the refrigerator reasonably well stocked, thinking we’d be back in a week or so. But circumstances changed – as they do – and it was many months. So one of the tasks this trip was to clean out the fridge. What I learned was: don’t leave a stacked fridge through the Mediterranean summer – and especially don’t switch off the electricity at the mains.

It’s an anniversary of sorts – a double one.
The Bellevue Stratford is a hotel in Philadelphia which has been the location of two momentous events. Its earlier claim to fame was that it was the location of the world’s first recognized outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease in 1976.
The other? Well, I was giving a talk to the PRSA there five years later with a different name – not me, the hotel - when I noticed my boss in the audience. This was unusual: he heard enough of me at work not to need to go to downtown Philly to hear me again. When I’d finished, he invited me into the bar for a drink, for which he paid: this was even more unusual. Something’s up, I thought. He’s either going to fire me – or give me a raise.
It was neither. He had been asked to sound me out on whether I would want to run an operation based on the French Riviera.
It was about as bizarre a life change as you could imagine – from the pressure-cooker world of mid-town Manhattan to a medieval Provençal village where farmers still herded their goats along the main street (not any more they don’t: they were blocking the traffic – and tourists spend more money than goats, even if in other aspects there’s a passing similarity); to move the kids from Junior High, swimming club, Little League and the Eagles to a world where the school bus was Dad’s Renault 21 and they would unlearn the 50 state birds and study strange things in a language of which they knew not a word.
It was so bizarre as to be hardly worth discussing, but I said I’d think about it. As we walked out of the hotel, we glanced up at the sign above a coffee shop right across the street, then at each other. The sign read ‘La Côte d’Azur’.
At home, we talked about it most of the night, used weighted pro and con tables, chicken entrails and other sophisticated management techniques – and finally came to the decision that surprised us both. We came to France.
That was 25 years ago, and now, nearly native - if only part-time – I work at the desk pictured in the Profile, looking out on a terrace that overlooks the Med.
And the bilingual kids? They live in England.


I ‘published’ my previous post Sunday night. It didn’t blog until this morning, Wednesday Sept. 6 - dated Monday Sept. 4. 60 hours.
Is someone trying to tell me something?

Mea culpa

I feel an excuse is required for having neglected posting blogligations.
I’ve been on Death Row. I don’t think I can explain that: the person second-most involved will – if she ever gets a free moment.
To celebrate Rembrandt’s 400th birthday there are all sorts of things going on in Amsterdam and throughout the world. One of the more bizarre is that, in the Rijksmuseum, you can buy a print of his 1642 work – the vast 12-foot-wide The Night Watch – with your own picture as one of the watchpersons. I thought of ordering it with the DG in it, but she’d think it naff. Meanwhile I am on release from the Row for some business/DIY projects in the Riviera town we know and love, accompanied by the guilt of having left her on The Night Watch, alone.

Malcolm Muggeridge said ‘I always read the obituaries section first to make sure I’m still alive’.
This week I saw one that proved that I was. Not mine, but just as revelatory. It was that of Rufus Harley, deceased, aged 70.
I’ve been an unquestioning Sonny Rollins disciple since puberty, (he's had more farewell appearances than Frank Sinatra and I've been to most of them), but of all the wonderful tracks he did – St. Thomas, To a Wild Rose, etc – the one that always knocks me out after all these years is his Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, on which the accompaniment is - bagpipes.
Yes, bagpipes. It starts off gently, straight melody, a bit like Wild Rose, then breaks away, ups both tempo and improvisation, and then the bagpipes come in, trading riff for riff with Rollins until the whole thing explodes in your head.
You don’t get much discography on a tape cassette – especially bootlegged ones bought in Italian markets – so I've spent years wondering who could make bagpipes swing like that. And now I know.
It was a Philadephia tenor sax player of Cherokee descent with a name like a motor bike, whose life changed completely the day he saw the Black Watch playing the pipes at JFK’s funeral.
So, belated but no less heartfelt thanks, Rufus Harley, up there swinging in your sweet chariot. I hope you told them you won't be needing the harp.

Ate at Chez Michel last night. Michel (his wife is also Michele) thanked me effusively for the plug in the France Today article - so much so I thought a cognac might appear with the coffee. Ah well.

Methinks they doth protest...

I’d been looking forward to a rant-free day today following yesterday’s diatribe about sports administrators and their jealously guarded powers. But now we have a crisis in that most gentlemanly of sports – cricket. The dreaded umpire Hair – that’s his name not his coiffure – decided that the Pakistan team had tampered with the ball to make it swing more. (You’re allowed to polish one side, but not to scuff the other.) Without further discussion he reduced their score by five runs. Not a very severe punishment - less than 1% of their score in fact – but they expressed their displeasure by not coming out after the tea interval. Hair expressed his by calling the game off and awarding it to England – who had already won the series anyway. In the letter of the law he was entitled to do this – I'm not sure about the spirit.
As if we didn’t have enough problems with Pakistan, Mr Hair has now upset the president, and Pakistani pols are calling it a slur on the whole nation. But you can bet that the cricket bigwigs will back Hair.
Meanwhile the ‘faceless amateurs’ of the Football Association have banned Rooney for three weeks for being sent off during a pre-season friendly match. Well, we don’t want players to start getting above themselves. They’ll start to think that people pay to watch them – when in fact it is the officials who are the main attraction. The Roon protests, but it’s not worth it.
The blazers always win.

They flirted with flower power and bankrolled the Beatles. Some of them claim that they invented rock festivals and CND and won the 1966 World Cup for England. Some even think they created women’s lib (200 years after Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman) and gay rights. They also stormed the Bastille, built the Suez Canal, invented the polio vaccine and abolished slavery.
OK, maybe the baby boomers did achieve a few things, (I guess they had plenty of time on their hands, not having to fight a war) but they did not do it in silence. Roland White in the Sunday Times calls them the most self-regarding generation for generations.
On the other hand, some of them are the most caring, loving, generous people in the world.
I should know - I married one.

Send in the clowns

How do you know when Andy Murray has arrived in your country? When the ‘plane switches off its engines you can still hear the whining.
The athletically-challenged Scottish tennis player who supports any team playing against England at any sport, beat the world number one, Roger Federer, on his way to the quarter-finals of the Cincinatti Masters, then succumbed to Pete Roddick. It was, he said, the humidity: ‘I’m dying out here’, he shouted to his new coach.
We have this Scottish Home Secretary who, when the police are shown conclusively to be not doing their job, complains that the public are not reporting enough suspicious characters. If he doesn’t become the next Prime Minister, it will be another Scot, the Chancellor, who complains that we don’t pay enough tax, or the Minister of Defence (yes, you guessed it) who complains about everything. As the headline in Saturday’s Times leader put it, ‘There are few more impressive sights than a Scotsman complaining’.
So it seems I’m not the only one. There’s a video blog on YouTube by someone who calls himself ‘McRant’ who complains about the crassness of those who still think that the land north of Hadrian’s wall can support intelligent life. He argues that all the intelligent Scots have fled to England – which doesn’t say much for the ones who stayed behind.
McRant complains that every time he goes there, ‘I get this sense of meanness, lack of spirit, lack of identity, lack of people’, and that ‘holding parties to celebrate England’s defeat in the World Cup is unbelievable meanness.’
The funny thing is that McRant is a Scot.

Saturday’s opening day of the football season was impressive, and not just because Everton won and for 24 hours were above Man U and Chelsea in the table. (They didn’t play until Sunday.) The games were competitive but clean, there was no diving – a real treat after the histrionics of the World Cup this summer. There was only one thing wrong: the refereeing. Poor refereeing was crucial to the outcome of more than half of the games. Everton were given a penalty because Peter Walton thought that a player who was hit on the head by a ball had handled it. Liverpool were given one because Rob Styles had the impression that a defender intended to bring down Steve Gerrard. There were more examples, but you get the idea.
How is it that the same bad referees are allowed to come back into the top divisions year after year? You’ll have to ask the blazered buffoons at the FA. Who are they? No one knows - the England team manager calls them the ‘faceless amateurs’.

Because I'm worth it

It’s annual school cliché day – the day when kids get their A-level exam results and TV newscasters who’ve had a whole year to think how they could present the subject in a different way repeat the old worn-out shots of postmen arriving, students opening results letters on camera and going ecstatic and hugging each other at the results - which researchers have already checked out to make sure that no one says ‘Oooh shit’.
Such a situation would be unusual because the pass rate has increased every year for the last 24 and is now 97%. By 2008 it will be impossible to fail. Cue next cliché, which is head teacher and/or Education minister denying that the exam is getting easier.
It’s just another cinematic cliché, like those multiple pipettes (or whatever they’re called) that you always see on research stories, or those canisters with what looks like steam coming out that go with artificial insemination pieces.
Director, needing 35 seconds for an NHS item: ‘Nottingham today guys – get Boots to let you shoot one of those girls in white hats filling bottles with pills – coloured if possible. The pills, not the girls’.
Crew: ‘Aw c’mon Gary, we’ve got miles of that stuff on file’.
Director: ‘It’s got to be authentic. Nottingham - you can charge dinner and two nights’ hotel.’

I’ve got this new doctor – the old one retired. The new one is young, eager and apparently competent - Dirk Bogarde to the old one’s James Robertson Justice. (Wait a minute, aren’t they both dead?) The old one had ‘Ah well’ disease - when you complained of an age-related symptom he would glance at his screen, tell you your age, and start to talk like a garage mechanic, as in ‘Ah well, what do you expect? You’re – how many? - x years old…’
Look, Doc, already know how old I am – I just want it fixed.

When I worked in France I had this cartoon on my desk showing two Roman centurions trudging through pouring rain in the process of invading Britain. Says one Roman, ‘Have you been in Britain before?’ The other says, ‘No’. And the first one says, ‘If you like the weather you’ll like the food’. French colleagues would often remark on this treason. There was this Frenchman on Radio Four today – Antoine de Cohn I think. He has a programme, Eurotrash, which takes the piss out of the British - on British television. The interviewer asked if there was a parallel programme on French TV. ‘No’, he said. ‘It couldn’t happen in France. They don’t laugh at themselves.’ When you think about it, few nations do. The last American to do it was Al Capp, and he’s been dead thirty years. A United flight to Washington was diverted to Boston and tailed by military fighters because a woman had smuggled some face cream on board. Did that mean she could do less damage in Boston?

Caid mille failte

What's Irish for 'politically correct'?
Now I’m as big a fan of the Emerald Isle as anyone. They were one of, if not the, first countries in Europe to ban smoking in public places, my mother was Irish, and I was married there. I’ve even kissed the Blarney Stone, twice, without having to pay. (The first time I was too young – ten - and the second time I was a pensioner.) So it can't be all bad. But they’ve gone too far this time.
They have managed to persuade the European Parliament that the Gaelic should be recognised as an official language. As of next year, members will be allowed to address the EU assembly in a language that only five MEPs claim to be able to understand. In addition, all documents and legal papers will have to be translated into Irish, adding a million Euros to a translation budget which already exceeds a billion.
To recognise a minority language of a country that has (albeit wisely) not yet ratified the European Constitution seems to be the start of a slippery slope. I don’t know what criteria they use in making such decisions, but many languages that are much more widely used: Welsh, Catalan, Scouse… are not yet recognised. Do I smell a deal to persuade the Irish to ratify the Constitution?

Everton and walking on water

Gerry and the Pacemakers did it by ferry, but yesterday a guy became the first man to WALK across the River Mersey.
He set off just before 8am and took just over an hour to cover the two miles from Ince Banks, near Ellesmere Port in Cheshire to Oglet Shore near Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport, with only a helicopter and a hovercraft for company
‘You just have to keep moving all the time and go for it,' he said. 'It's unbelievably difficult as the currents are quite strong in the Mersey’.
I must say I’m not too happy about this record and may have to raise an objection. First of all, he did not walk ON the water in true biblical fashion, but THROUGH it. Second, he had an unfair advantage - he did it at low tide and his head stuck out above the water, (he’s 6ft 9 - 2.06 metres – tall). Third, he refused a doping test. And finally, he’s a Yorkshireman. Were no Scouses available?
But I guess it’s all right: he was hoping to raise £100,000 for a charity for people with the genetic skin blistering condition, Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB). I hope he didn’t put the word on poor Sir Paul – he’s down to his last £600 million and will need it all for the lawyers.

Four days, 20 hours and 15 minutes to go. The big kick-off is at 3pm Saturday. We have a new striker - well, not new exactly, but only slightly used - and we're playing at home against one of the newly-promoted teams from what used to be called the second division. We won't get a better chance. Allez les bleus!

The Glorious Twelfth

In those little diaries you were given as a kid at Christmas time, under August 12 it used to say ‘Grouse shooting begins’. This information was of limited value to a kid living in one of the less salubrious quarters of Liverpool. (On a recent visit I tried to find Arthur Street, my natal residence, but it wasn’t there. Neither was the next street, Herbert Street. It says something about the living space in those houses if I tell you that Liverpool City Council, after bull-dozing the bits that the Luftwaffe had left standing, built them into a single street of reasonably sized houses and subtly named it Herbarth Street.)
When I asked my Dad what ‘Grouse shooting begins’ meant, he, not wishing me to know that we lived in a lace-curtained jungle, explained that it was the date after which one was allowed to shoot grouse for the table. When I asked him if he would point out to me the next grouse to fly over Arthur Street, he told me that grouse prefer to nest in heather and bracken and that concrete and tarmac were not their natural habitat. He suggested that if I were to go to nearby Walton Jail I would hear nothing but grouse... Bit of a punster, my old man.
I've still never tasted grouse - and doubt I ever will. I hear they're running at £4,000 a brace - and you don't get them at Tesco's. You have to go all the way to Scotland yourself to shoot them, which puts it out of the question.
It may be a bad day if you’re a grouse, but it’s a good one for lepers: this is the day of their patron saint, Louis of Toulouse. He was a bishop at 20 and a saint – albeit dead – at 23. I’m not sure how he managed this fast-track promotion when old John Paul II hasn’t made it yet, but I guess being the son of the King of Sicily didn’t do him any harm. He must have made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.

I'm a professional poet

I sent this poem to an American writers' magazine:

OENOLOGY

My words are vines
The grapes they bear
Harvested with tender care.

Picture my rage
When on the page
The vintage is vin ordinaire.

They sent me $5 (£3) – net of postage, less than $4.
That's 15 cents a word.

I could give up my day job - if I had one.

No fireworks, please

As Stevie Wonder would say, it’s celebration time. If I were a cricketer people would be on their feet applauding. If I were a few years older I’d get a telegram from the Queen.

We have this former neighbour in Liverpool who as kids we always thought was a relative. It turns out she’s no relation to us at all but we still go and visit her is if she were, (let’s face it, ageing relatives – even pretend ones – are hard to find these days). We went to see her last week. She’s 94, has eight children, the youngest of which is 52, and she can’t wait to get the Queen’s telegram – she even pretends she’s 95 . As we get near her house, DG asks how long we should stay. ‘She’ll tell you’, I say.
Winnie, a devout Catholic, proudly shows us the postcard she’s received from Rome: a picture of Pope John Paul with Mother Teresa – her two favourite people. ‘I know’, I say. ‘We sent it to you.’ This does not deter her from reading to us – without glasses - the message that we wrote to her.
We chat and drink tea, and after 35 minutes she asks me to open a cupboard and take out a video cassette. Then she asks me to put it on without the sound – ‘I just like the colour in the background’. Five minutes later asks us to turn up the sound because she can’t hear it. We get the message and leave. There are some benefits to being 94 - sorry. 95.

But for me there won’t be applause or telegram. I don’t even expect a cake - I’m not sure the occasion merits one. Don't know whether it demonstrates stamina or lethargy - my hundredth post.

Tony Goes to Hollywood

He’s on his way to that secret destination in Barbados, but before he left, he had to leave the world crises on hold to go to California to attend the annual bunfight of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, owners of our best and worst newspapers - which makes Rupert a pretty important person. Not that the which Blair project went all the way to CA just for Rupert: he also had to attend the party thrown by Adidas to celebrate its new contract to supply Chelsea’s football kit - not a gig to be treated lightly. AND, to ensure that the trip will be chargeable to the taxpayers, he dropped in on his California opposite number, that well-known socialist, Arnie Schwartzenegger, to discuss global warming.

As regulars will know, I have no grudge against Scots – only an objection to their increasing influence in the administration of the country from which they seceded because they wanted to control their own affairs. Especially as the system does not work in reverse: non-Scottish Britons have no say in what happens north of the border. Thus Scottish students get free college fees, and elderly Scots free home care – paid for by British taxpayers, who do not enjoy these privileges.
A certain SMP (Member of the Scottish Parliament) just sued one of our tabloid pooper-scoopers for libel because it said he made a habit of extramarital activities with ladies of dubious moral turpitude. He won his case and came out with an unblemished character and £300,000 damages – surprising in view of the fact that the News of the World had assembled 18 witnesses. Why did the jury decide that the SMP was innocent? Did he have an alibi? Did he prove that it was someone else? Or that all 18 sworn witnesses had perjured themselves? Well no, but one wonders if the fact that the NotW is English and the case was tried in Scotland might have been factors.

Duckbilled Platitudes

Do you get annoyed at sports commentators and their leading questions? You know: ‘Double century – pretty good score, Ian?’ or ‘’45,000, Gary – good crowd?’ What the hell else can Ian and Gary do but agree? But there’s a way to stop it: for the commentator to say, ‘Pretty good round, Clive – three holes in one?’ – and Clive to say, ‘Not really, he was crap. Went in the duck pond on the twelfth’.
Brilliant idea?

The competition as to which of the competing Phoenix serial killers – the Baseline Killer or the Serial Shooter - is ahead in the body count gets more complicated as the cops start to pin earlier, unsolved, cases on them, and to advertise in Spanish to find out if anyone in that community is missing someone they haven’t mentioned yet. And the reward has been doubled. $200,000 should fix it.

Talking about serial killers, as the number of Lebanese deaths approaches three figures, our leader seems finally to have got things in hand. Is he shuttling around the Middle East brokering cease-fires and peace deals? Well, not exactly: he is fulfilling his promise to change the copyright laws so that wealthy pop singers like Cliff Richard will not start to lose their copyrights 50 years after publication.
But not right now. First he’s off on holiday to Barbados. For security reasons, we don't know exactly where he's staying, but he usually roughs it at the sumptuous seaside home of *

A glance at the DG’s blog will explain why the posts are fewer and briefer these days. When on Rob watch 40 miles from here, we listen, and catch some sleep in a bed intended for a single bloke with a pronounced dip in the middle (the bed, not the bloke) forcing us to be rather more friendly than we would prefer to be in this hot weather. On our days off we sleep, and when not sleeping the DG is either on the phone or waiting for it to ring. We’re not complaining – it’s just so you’ll excuse us if we owe you a phone call, text, letter or other social contact.

* - Sir Cliff Richard