Now is the Winter...

February 11 Two days before we left for Maspalomas, our central heating boiler packed up. The day we left, it snowed in England. When we got there it was 24º. For once we got it right – then why do I feel guilty – rats leaving sinking ship and all that? Plus I had not met my Feb 7 deadline – hope my editor doesn’t read this.
It’s at the southern tip of Gran Canaria, one of the group of islands off the west coast of Africa where northern Europeans go in winter to defrost – at the risk of being called a wimp I have to admit that even the Riviera doesn’t quite do it in midwinter
The last time I was here my kids were younger than my grandkids are now – it was more than 30 years ago. And how it has changed! It was just a place name that looked like a failed anagram of the capital, Las Palmas, and some sand dunes – they shot bits of Lawrence of Arabia here. Now you can hardly find the dunes.
It’s a man-made international vacation centre – a sort of Disney-less Florida, with the same green, planet-draining golf courses and the same Hispanic natives. Which means everything looks new; but nicely new: it's tastefully developed – even the big hotels are hidden behind vast gardens of bougainvillia and hibiscus. The whole place looks pristine and the only workers to be seen apart from domestics are men in white overalls with white-spotted faces, carrying buckets of paint
We got here just in time to watch Spain beat the NEW England team. Well no, only the coach was new – the players were the same eerie-dreary mustn’t lose automatons as before. When you see how hard they play when they play club football, you have to assume that the new coach is no better motivator than the old one.
It’s a truly multicultural place – the area we live in is called Campo Internacional. You can distinguish people’s nationality from their feeding times: FWVSCs (families with very small children) and Americans dine at around 5.30, followed by Dutch and Germans. Brits and French tend to turn up around eight, then when everyone has left and the restaurants are so deserted you think they're on the verge of closing, the Spanish start to arrive: waiters cheer up and enjoy animated banter about the relatIve merits of Real Madrid and Barca.
All in all, a very nice place, and it will do nicely until the worst of the winter’s past. Other assets – not much to do and no internet access: ie. very conducive to work. And as for the deadline – what’s Spanish for mañana?
But it's a great comfort, as we sit here surrounded by electric heaters waiting for the boiler men to arrive, to know that it's now 28 degrees in Maspalomas.

Sign language You see some odd signs in Maspalomas, but this one is about the oddest. Even in Spanish it doesn’t seem to make sense – although it must. But in German it does – it's that Kamelstation. Thus I think it must
mean ‘Access only to the camels’ place.’

Carbon Dating We were walking along the promenade the other night. It was a warm evening of the kind we sometimes see in UK in mid-August, and there was a gentle sea breeze. As we rounded a bend, there was a fountain – well, not so much a fountain as a mini-Niagara without the men in yellow coats telling you obvious things like ‘do not walk too near the falls’. Anyway, whether it was the surprise of seeing and hearing all that water cascading over pink rocks, or the balmy evening or the wine I don’t know, but we were both moved just enough to exchange a spontaneous - but perfunctory and discreet - kiss. And my immediate thought was of a recent post in which a dear fellow-blogger – who I’m sure would never entertain the slightest age-ist thought - complained about not liking to see old people snog. Now I’d say I’m not a fan of public snoggery by anyone, and can never understand how it is that the escalators on London Underground – especially the Bakerloo Line - tend to make people feel romantic.
But next morning, when we spoke to our neighbour, he asked us if we’d enjoyed our meal the previous evening, so we asked if they’d seen us. ‘Yes,’ they said, ‘by the fountain’.
Should we apologise?

Canary Row

(This being a Canary Island, it´s probably my once in a lifetime opportunity to use this title, so I hope Steinbeck doesn´t mind).

This is an interim post to explain my absence from the blog waves and, it´s hoped, sustain RW-hungry readers until we can get internet access. As you may have heard, contact with the world is limited here: ships take a week to reach England, and although there are ring-necked doves (with the most boring mating call known to ornithology - how they expect to tempt a female from spinsterhood I don´t know. Still, it must work or there wouldn´t be so many of the ring-necked buggers) there are no homing pigeons. But then, since this would be their home, they would not want to take messages to the mainland anyway.

No, the only net access within 40 miles is Stalag 17 up the road, where one is limited to 15 minutes at a time - of which the first 4 are taken up loading the blog and the remaining 11( at my typing speed) in entering the title. I cheat - the DG is typing this. There is no Wifi and the Obergruppenfuhrer does not permit pre-recorded text: uploading pictures is similarly verboten, and when your 15 minutes is up, everything is erased.

No more excuses - clearly the system is designed to discourage blogging and e-mailing - which for a vacation island is probably right. So apologies to both e-mailers and bloggers for this hiatus - I only hope the wait will turn out to have been worth it for you.

Do-roo-do-dooh Mrs Robinson

When the eldest son of King George III was the Prince of Wales (later George IV), he was a bit of a lad. He used to install his mistresses in locations convenient to Windsor Castle, just as Charles II did with Nell Gwynne in the 17th century and, more recently, the future Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.
One of the Prince’s dalliances was called Mary Robinson, a poet and actress most famous for playing Perdita in Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale. He saw the play when he was 17, fell in love with her, rechristened her Perdita and gave her a residence in Old Windsor (the older part of the town, where the Romans built the original Windsor Castle because it was a day’s march from London but which, since it was made of wood, has not survived). He asked her to become his mistress and it was agreed she would do so for £7,000, payable when he was 21, but by then he had tired of her and he never paid up. Not to be outdone, Mary got George III – in exchange for the Prince’s letters to her - to pay half of it and give her a pension, and she spent the rest of her life as a writer in Old Windsor. I’ve been looking for Mary for years because she’s a character in the book I’m researching - and this week I found her right here, in Old Windsor Parish Church:

Fizzy O’Therapy Made two careless mistakes with the wine order. First, I bought a case of ‘mixed Loire whites’. My daughter once nearly married a Tourain and he introduced me to Loire wines so I thought it would be good. But I broke my own rule: never buy 'mixed cases'. Mixed cases are how they get rid of rubbish they can’t sell by the case. It may be a crap bottle, you say of the first, but never mind - it’s only one bottle, and it’s open now, so…
But when the next one you open is also vino crappo you realise you've been conned.
The other mistake was not to read the catalogue properly. We like a cool Pino Grigio after a hard day’s retirement. But it was frizzante. I wondered what on earth I’d bought when I saw all those bubbles, but it's great. Good mistake.

Rough Justice I got my wife back after 3½ weeks of dispensing justice, so, as the British judicial system prevented us from escaping the worst of the winter, we decided to defrost in the Canary Islands. THEN… (disaster chord, followed by solo violin):
As David Letterman would say - what ten things would you least want to happen when you’re on a deadline and 1500 words short and two days from going away and have not yet made any preparations? And it’s the coldest day of the year? And - oh yes, it’s Sunday morning? OK – just one then? You’re right – the thing you’d least want would be for the central heating to pack up.
Well it did. After spending most of the morning in the Yellow Pages talking to answering machines, we finally got hold of Jonathan. He sounded more sleepy than enthusiastic: ‘Yawn. It’ll cost you double time’
‘ That’s OK.’
Jonathan arrives and says – ‘Of course I’m not really a repairer, I’m an installer’. Funny he didn’t mention that earlier (he’s listed under ‘Gas Engineers’.)
‘Can you fix this?’
‘The gas valve has gone.’
‘Can you fix it?’
‘I don’t carry spares’
‘Can you fix it?’ ‘
‘No, but I can install a new-technology energy-saving boiler for you.’
‘When?’
‘Couldn’t say. I’m busy until the week after next.’
‘Thanks Jonathan. By that time we’ll be on a sub-tropical island. We’ll call you. How much did you say?’
‘You'll have to add VAT to that.’

I can’t type any more – my fingers have gone numb.
Can't even stay up to watch the 5-hour car commercial interspersed with the odd few seconds of men in tights and body armour playing American football - also known as the Superbowl. The Bears will win anyway.
Gotta go - as Captain Oates said, 'I may be some time'. Do-roo-do-dooh

Sunday Blogger

When an admirer asked Philip Larkin if he would dedicate one of his books to her, he agreed, but said she would have to wait a long time, because he was only a Sunday writer. That’s what I am these days. Except that I suspect he only said that to convince the Hull City Library that he didn’t write poetry on payroll time. I never write in payroll time, but not because I'm writing immortal poetry: it's because no one pays me. Weekly blogging is not nearly as satisfying as the inspirational spur-of-the-moment kind: by the time Sunday comes around you’ve forgotten most of what pleased or angered you during the week – in fact you’ve almost forgotten how to blog. The solution, as every writer knows, is to carry a notebook and pen at all times – but my most brilliant thoughts come in the shower and the notes get soggy and unreadable.

Among the plethora of important anniversaries last week: Dixie Dean, Saint Sebastian, etc – one slipped by unnoticed except, understandably, by me. On January 15, 2006, I started this blog.
At dinner the other evening a friend wanted to know why we blog. A number of people have asked me that, but if I told you that this questioner is a writer whose opinion I respect, you would find it – as I did – surprising. It’s tempting to give the short answer, like Louis Armstrong’s to the person who asked him to explain jazz - ‘If you have to ask, you ain’t ever gonna know’. But the real answer is much longer.
Friend said it was self-indulgent. He’s dead right: of course it is - but then so are eating, drinking a crisp white Burgundy and lots of other things, yet no one asks us why we do it. I don't understand why people play golf, grow orchids, watch Big Brother, support Manchester United, sail and so on – but chacun á son indulgence.
Although RivieraWriter may now be a mere shadow of its former self (which some would say was already pretty shadowy), I have to say, 167 posts, 3,854 hits, 6,221 page views and 71, 361 words later, that I look back on my twelve months of blogging as - for me at least – a very enjoyable and satisfying experience. I’ve improved my typing rate if not its accuracy; had a lot of fun and met some wonderful and amazing people. Try it Mike, what have you got to lose?

Sky Television commentator on Arsenal game this week: ‘Arsène Wenger is not generally known as a man who lets his feelings show, but tonight he has run the whole gambit’.

Less is more. I was putting it out the rubbish last week when the postman handed me the mail. After one glance, it went straight into ‘Rrecycled Paper’. It must be frustrating to be a postie, delivering mail that no one wants.
There’s a great magazine called The Week It has no political leaning – it just selects the best writing from every paper and magazine in the world and I wouldn’t be without it. But last week it came with EIGHT pieces of junk mail - the junk weighed almost as much as the magazine.
One of the worst culprits seems to be Dell. Mr Dell, if you’re reading this, I don’t care how good your computers may be, I’ll never buy one because of what you’re doing to the planet.
Less is more in the junk mail business. It’s obvious to us, so why can’t the PR agencies see it? The answer is they can, but they have clients who want splash, and it’s their money. How can I get word to these people that every red envelope; every IMPORTANT MESSAGE!!!; every ‘free gift!’ of a 29p biro; every ’Chance to win a luxury holiday in Paris!’; and every 24-point exclamation mark; goes unopened into the recycling. If you want my attention, send something that looks like a letter and is addressed to me and I'll read it - especially if it has a postage stamp on it.

Happy Hundredth Dixie!

I would have had to do this one even if I had not been given an official blog pass for weekends.

Everton are celebrating Dixie Dean Day this weekend. William Ralph Dean – universally known as Dixie - was the star of the Everton team during its glory years: the late 1920s and early 1930s, when over a five-year period they won the second division championship, two first division championships and the FA Cup.If he were alive he would be 100 years old on Monday.

My Dad (who would be 120) was an Everton fan. Our house was a museum of Everton iconography: ties, scarves, tea cosies and hot water bottle covers, all knitted by Mum in royal blue and white. My eldest brother went to the school next door to the ground, and my brothers and I, when we couldn’t afford the seven old pence it cost to get in, would stand outside the ground to listen for the roar that meant that we had scored – and at three-quarters time, when the gates would be opened for early leavers, we would rush in to see the end of the game.

Dad’s greatest moment was his trip to Wembley in 1933 with his brother - my Uncle Bert - to see Everton win the FA cup. Both were passionate Blues. What else could they be - the 1901 census shows their address as “Newsboys’ Home, Everton Road, Everton Valley, Everton”? (Media was obviously in the DNA.)

If Everton was our faith, Dixie was our high priest. I was brought up on the legend of Dixie: the goal-scoring genius who could shoot with either foot, head like a trench mortar – half of his goals were from headers – and turn water into wine. My earliest literature was yellowing clips from the Liverpool Echo recording Dixie’s greatest performance, when at the age of 21 he scored more League goals in a season than anyone else, before or since.

With three matches of that season still to go, few thought that Dixie could get the 9 goals he needed to beat the record of 59 goals in a season. But he hit six goals in the next two games – helping Everton win the First Division Championship in the process - and people started to hope. But he needed three goals in the last game - and it was against Arsenal, the cash-rich ‘Chelsea of the 1920s', who had already beaten us twice that season.

On May 5, 1928, despite the fact that the Championship was already in the bag, Goodison Park was packed with the Faithful, come to see if Dixie could do it. He scored in the first five minutes, then, mid-way through the first half, he cracked in a penalty – equalling the record. But with eight minutes to go, the score at 2-all, and 60,000 people looking anxiously at the clock, it began to look as though he wouldn’t make it. Then Alec Troup sent in a corner kick. I have a grainy picture of Dixie soaring above the Arsenal defence. When he came down, football history had been made.

Dad used to get out old newspaper photographs showing an open-topped bus besieged by ecstatic fans, and point himself out in the sea of faces. Pity he never met his grandson or great-grandson, Evertonians both.

Dixie’s record of 60 goals in 39 matches has stood for 80 years, and is unlikely ever to be beaten. He scored almost 500 goals in his career, including 37 hat tricks, before retiring to run a pub in Chester. The pub, the “Dublin Packet”, became a Mecca for former fans: my Uncle Bert was one of the many who made the pilgrimage from Liverpool. I made my own many years later, but by then Dixie was long gone.

His death was so appropriate it might have been cued by Max Clifford: suddenly, at age 73, at Goodison Park, watching the Blues play the Reds - our historic rivals. The only flaw was that Liverpool won 2-1. At the funeral, huge crowds lined the streets of Liverpool in silent tribute.

One of the series of postage stamps commemorating the 2000 European Cup featured a typical Dean header, and is captioned “Football Legend: Dixie Dean, 1907-1980” – long-overdue recognition of the football legend who transferred to Everton from Tranmere Rovers for £3,000, and at the peak of his career earned £8 a week.

Little-known fact: Dixie played baseball for Liverpool Caledonians. In the year before Dixie scored his 60th, Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs - and came to watch Dixie play against Spurs at White Hart Lane. The two legends met - but The Babe's record only lasted 34 years.

Happy Centennial, Dixie.

In a Private Member's Bill before Parliament today an MP is trying to give local people more say over local planning. One of its aims is to stop High Street globalisation – Windsor’s, for example, used to have two fishmongers, a shop catering exclusively for left-handed people, a saddler's, plus independent bakers, bookshops etc. Now I don’t think there’s anything that isn’t a chain store. There even used to be a real coffee blender's that you could smell the length of the street: Starbucks plan to open a thousand new shops in UK this year.

OK., so we vote with our feet - people must like them or they wouldn’t be there, etc. But France and Italy have chain stores and supermarkets – yet they still have independent shops and street markets.

Talking about France, some once-secret papers from the National Archive have just been released under the 50-year rule, and it seems that in 1956 the French Prime Minister Guy Mollet came to London to discuss the possibility of a merger between France, who were having a tough time economically, and Britain.

(The media are leaving no cliché unexploited, outdoing each other in inane conjecture: if it had gone through, would we all be eating frogs’ legs and snails by now – and they fish and chips? - and so on. The Mirror cartoon: kid says, 'Daddy, can I have a pony?' Father: 'You've already eaten'.)

We turned Mollet down, so he came back with another proposal: that France be allowed to join the British Commonwealth. He even said they would accept the Queen as Mrs Big. Quote: "there need be no difficulty over France accepting the headship of Her Majesty".

Which was probably where he blew his case . It's that word 'headship' - we know what the French do to Kings and Queens.

Sylvester Stallone was at Goodison Park last Sunday – and not only wore an Everton scarf but was still wearing it when he got to the opening of Rocky 11 or 12 in Paris. I wonder if he got to chat with Tim Howard, our American goalie. Americans tend to make good goalies – there are several in English clubs – because they can catch. (All except Tim, who has some difficulty with that aspect of his game.)

Sly was a goalie once – remember Escape to Victory? A film about a bunch of prisoners of war that included, incredibly, Pele, Bobby Moore, Pusckas, and, even more incredibly, a paunchy Michael Caine. It gets even less credible: they form a team that beats the cream of the Wehrmacht at the Parc des Princes in Paris in a ‘friendly’ match and escape under the Germans’ noses while the crowd sing the Marseillaise. I saw it on an Air France flight from JFK to Paris and there wasn’t a dry eye on the flight.

Sly stayed just long enough to see Andy Johnson’s equalizer and left. If he’d stayed longer we might have won. If Dixie had been playing we would have won.

New kid on the blog?

No! Hey, it’s me! You remember me - Everton, Villefranche and all that?
How quickly people forget. I can’t tell you how much I’m missing blogging – blogless, I’ve felt at times that I don’t exist any more. I blog not, therefore I am not, as a drunken Descartes might have said - and although I still read my favourite bloggers and check out my hit rates (falling), it’s not the same. Oh - and I’ve rediscovered that writing is lonely.
But I’ve won a remission for good conduct and am permitted a brief weekly blogfix provided 3000 productive words have been written – so long as I don’t exceed 500 words.
The great British novel is taking shape, but it’s having a rough passage. Fiction’s hard after years of plagiarising – I mean researching - so I’ve devised a fiendishly cunning plan to acclimatise myself. I take a chapter of an earlier work that started out as a biography and fictionalise it into a complete short story. I’ve done that now – for better or for worse – and am almost ready to expose it to the ruthless but fair critics at my writers' group.
But the truth is, I never left you. The urge never went away, and I still find myself saying ‘that would make a neat blog’ – then forgetting what 'that' was.
You can’t plan a blog - blogging’s a sport, and has a similar affinity to jazz as sport. DG says that when we met she was surprised to find that I was a football fan. There she was – she says – thinking she'd found a bit of an intellectual, and he was a closet footy freak, and worse: a jazz fan! What a phoney – intellectuals don’t go for that stuff.
But there’s no difference between blogging and watching the teams run out at Goodison Park to the tune of Z-cars - the old Liverpool-based cops-and-robbers programme – or the moment Sonny Rollins ambles on stage, alone, tenor in hand. For the next 90 minutes you don’t know what’s going to happen - and neither does anyone else, even those most involved. The anticipation is the same. (Though you have to be prepared for it not working for you every time - just like blogs.)

Catching up on admin – even paid my tax 18 days early. There’s a questionnaire about on-line filing. Question 6: ‘Did you use the ‘Help’ button? Yes □ No □? I tick ‘No’. Q.7: ‘If you did, was it helpful?’ Yes □ No □? As there’s no ‘N/A’ box, I don’t tick anything`. You can guess the rest – they won’t accept it – ‘You have not answered Q.7!' Hope they’re not as pedantic when checking my return.

David who? David Beckham is heading for California on a 50-million-pounds – that’s pounds, not dollars - salary. Pity, I always wanted to watch him in Adidas whites at the Bernabeu and now I never will. He says he hopes to raise the profile of soccer in the US. I’d love to see it happen: there should be team sports for guys who are neither 20 stone (280lbs), nor giraffe-men.
When, in the 1951, the USA knocked England out of the World Cup, it was a national disgrace here, but no one in the USA even noticed. Some 20-odd years later, when I used to coach kids’ teams in Paoli, PA, things hadn’t changed much: the trainees were either immigrants’ children, like mine, or rejects from gridiron. Dads seldom came to watch, and, if they did, pretended they were walking the dog, even if they had to borrow a dog. The supporters freezing on the touchline were Moms. (Not quite as bad as New Zealand, where failure to make the grade in Rugby is grounds for disinheritance.)
Now I’m a bit of a fan of Becks: he can’t do many things on a football field, but what he does – pass, cross an early ball and take bendy free kicks – he does supremely well. But David, if the likes of Pele, Beckenbauer, di Stefano, George Best and many others couldn’t do it, I don’t think you’ve got a chance. Demi-god you might be in England or Japan, but US sport has its own. Good luck all the same.

Farewell to Blogs - or is it au revoir?

I’d like to say ‘Happy New Year’, but I fear that if this post is anything like as depressing to read as it is to write, you really ought to look away now – I’d hate to spoil your year. All this is because, as a prelim to writing this New Year’s resolutions, I thought I’d look at how I performed against last year’s, and I have to tell you that performance has been pretty abysmal. Some results were not bad: ‘to take more notice of the DG when it comes to personal relationships’ was even a qualified success, as was ‘drink better wine but less of it’. Even the one about the waistline - if it hasn't reduced much, it is not significantly increased either.
But the bad news, as the TV weather forecasters say - the deplorable news - was the one about writing the great British novel. Plan for 2006: to average 350 printable words per day. Actual: zilcho. In fact, it’s worse than zilch: since I’ve lost the thread of much that was already written in 2005, ‘net words completed’ is a reasonable figure - but a negative one. OK, family circumstances may have made a partial contribution, but in spite of this, over the same period I’ve blogged over 68,000 words: well on the way to a novel. The solution is obvious: less blogging, more fiction.
The problem is I love blogging – it’s cosy and friendly, while novel-writing is cold and lonely. And writing the book is only the beginning – you have to market it, get if published, proof-read etc. Blogging, to a writer, must be what, to an actor, is the difference between working on stage and in films – the reaction is immediate. Or, for a musician, the Nice Jazz Festival versus the recording studio. It must be the reason why Armstrong, Basie and Hampton did one-nighters all around the world until well into their 70s or 80s: instant response.
But what people will remember is the book on the shelf – or the CD or DVD - not the blog or the live performance. When I and my contemporaries are long gone, who will there be to remember Stan Kenton’s Accrington concert? Or The Duke at the Royal Albert Hall? Or Michel Petrucciani at the Festival Hall?
So it’s a temporary (I hope) goodbye to blogging – until either there’s some progress on the book, or I abandon the whole project. And goodbye to you long-suffering readers; I’ll miss your comments – posted, verbal and e-mailed. If anything exciting happens (like Everton getting into the Champions League) you'll hear it here first or on my website.

Take this tip from me

Where do you stand on tipping? I go through this confidence crisis whenever I go from the States, where it’s completely out of hand, to France, where I think it’s fairly orderly and sensible (except I hate paying to use public loos.) The UK is somewhere between the two, so you never know where you are. I think a tip is for a service above the normal call of duty and not for someone doing the job he’s paid for. Why should I pay the wages of restaurant staff, hotel flunkies, taxi-door openers and room cleaners? It seems demeaning for both tipper and tippee - no one ever gave me a tip.
I muse on this after a dinner in a pub in Newbury. Tipping-wise, pub eating presents special problems because they’re not restaurants and they’re not MacDonald’s. You do go up to the bar, you order and pay for your food, you collect your drinks and you take them to the table that you have selected. The only element of ‘service’ is when some youngster on the statutory minimum wage comes out and says, ‘Lamb chops?’ You say ‘Here’, and he or she plonks them down in front of you. It’s nice and casual, and infinitely better than some poncey restaurant. But tipworthy? In my book, only if he or she takes your wet coat and hangs it up, or finds you some freshly-made Sauce Bearnaise or puts your grandchild in a high chair.
But to Newbury: we called into a pub called The Swan on our way home from Tesco’s (that’s a possessive – short for Tesco’s supermarket). The manager, an Aussie, is clearly trying to ponce it up into a ‘restaurant’ – but it’s a pub. Usual procedure: belly up to bar, order and pay for wine and food, carry wine, glasses, condiments, napkins and cutlery to table, wait for food. And wait. Eventually girl delivers a plate of food and we eat. The food is quite good.
As we’re walking to the car, I realise I didn’t leave anything for the ‘waitress’. I ask spouse if she left anything. She says not. I was hesitating, wondering if I should go back and leave some token payment, when the pub door opens, a distinctly Aussie voice shouts – no, screams – ‘Fucking freaks!’, and the door slams shut.
Thus not only did this plonker ensure that we would never go near his pub again, but he prevented his girl from getting a tip – and he got himself blogged. Not bad for two words.

We had the last lunch of the year at Le Carpaccio on Villefranche port, sun glinting off the water - loup grillée fresh from the Med, service unfussy but impeccable – and included. How could you not leave a tip?

Happy old year folks and thanks for reading - and good blogging in 2007.

Robin's nest

From rainy, squally London to sunny Villefranche - 90 minutes. Sadly, it's only for a week as the DG is doing Henry Fonda duty next week. But we'll be back as soon as she's saved a few innocent men from the gallows.

No one would have noticed if their plane had not overshot the runway in Miami, but now it’s out.
Those famous free-loaders, the Blair family, have spurned Sir Cliff Richards’s humble Barbadian pad in favour of the altogether fancier Miami mansion of Robin Gibb, the falsetto BeeGee. They sponge off pop celebs because they can repay the debt at no personal cost. (The cadging couple have been reluctant to reveal the names of guests entertained at Chequers at taxpayers’ expense. When told he must tell, Blair said he would reveal all before the end of the year. Now he says he meant the end of the financial year - April 5 - by which time he'll be on his way out.)
Mrs Gibb – seen with Robin yesterday at Heathrow, presumably on the way to join their distinguished guests - said that the Blairs were not paying for the privilege, but this was hurriedly denied by Number 10. They didn’t say how much - just the odd peerage or knighthood I guess – plus a minor adjustment to the copyright laws.
Now that the secret is out, watch for the photo op with Tony and Robin in duet. (Tone, the hole goes at the front.)

Where to next year? Well, Bono just got an honorary knighthood, and - oh my god - he lives in Villefranche!

A demain, Villefranche

Not really a year to remember, 2006 – in fact a year best forgotten. Everton didn’t win the FA Cup, or the Premiership, or the Scottish Cup, or Sports Personality of the Year – and they didn’t even qualify for the World Conkers Finals. (they wouldn’t stoop to.)
From a national point of view things were no better: the ignominious departure from the World Cup in Germany was probably the worst part – or is that würst? Then this morning, beaten by the Aussies at their National Sport – Pommie-bashing. I may have mentioned the infamous Oz predilection for triumphalism. Having won the Ashes series, instead of letting our guys go home for New Year, their two best bowlers have postponed their retirement until after the Sydney game – not for the joy of a nail-biting game of international cricket, but in order not to miss one single opportunity to humiliate the Poms. It’s a bit like Mohammed Ali knocking out Foreman, and being allowed, nay, encouraged, to play bouncy castles on his lifeless body. Hence I was not surprised to receive the following gloat from an Oz friend:

FOR SALE: one double-decker, open top red bus, rarely used and no anticipated use for next 15 years, Apply to England Cricket Board, or English Rugby Union.

On the Personal front 2006 could hardly have been worse, but there's a little ray of sunshine to end on. You know how you sometimes don’t know how much you love someone or something until you almost lose it or them? Well, after spending a lot of time – and money – this autumn trying to sell our little piece of heaven in the south, it took only two showings to prospective buyers for us to realise we couldn’t possibly let it go.
So see you tomorrow, Villefranche!


Here's hoping 2007 is a great one for all of us. Happy New Year!

I can see it in your eyes, Fernando

I once met a guy in the States who told me that he had had a wonderful vacation in London - 'and we never saw fog once'. He had clearly expected those gas-lit scenes captioned 'London, 1888' that used to open Jack-the-Ripper movies, but which have rarely been seen since the Clean Air Act of 1948. But this week they were back - a freak high pressure system has kept the whole country under a Dickensian blanket for four days.
British Airways has cancelled, on average, more than 200 flights a day. (Only the less profitable ones, that is – not the long-haul flights, which seem to land and take off without problems.)
So more than 40 years after they proudly demonstrated completely blind take-off and land capability, almost every domestic flight and many short-haul ones have been cancelled and people who thought they were on their way to the sun for Christmas are shivering in tents outside the airport.
The reason, say BA and BAA, (aka ABBA) is that LHR is already working at over 98% of capacity, so the slightest disruption throws it into chaos. You know what’s coming, don’t you? Yes, you’ve got it – we need a new runway!
The DG suggests that the whole shambles could be about getting approval for Runway Three and crushing those sentimental Luddites who don’t want to see their 1,000-year-old church bulldozed. (See Getting the Pip.)
A number of observations tend to support this hypothesis:
1. The Spanish-owned monopoly is claiming that 50,000 jobs will be lost if they don’t get another runway (- and all those aircraft will go and pollute some other country?)
2. Madrid flights have been only slightly affected – they’re flying 747’s on the Madrid run to help clear clear the backlog.
3. Without any sign of the fog lifting, BA promised yesterday that all flights will be flying normally after mid-day today. How could they know that?
4. BA’s CEO is Willie Walsh. (See October 6 re diminutive first names.)
Strangely, ABBA say that the main reason for the chaos is that reduced visibility causes more congestion for aircraft on the ground. (How does a third runway help this?)

Glad I’m not a cynic.

If all else fails, read instructions

The new – well, nearly new - car has a SATNAV system. We didn’t know how it worked so the salesman demonstrated by keying in our home post code. Wow! We were directed to our humble without a single mistake – which was impressive but not very useful, since we already know where we live.
Then we were invited for lunch to a house in the wilds of the Hampshire countryside. ‘No need to tell us where you live’, we said smugly. ‘Just give us the postcode. We’ve got SATNAV’.
We followed its directions to the letter, and then, on a muddy country lane barely wide enough for a scooter, with tall hedges on both sides and not a signpost or building in sight, the SATNAV lady said, ‘You have reached your destination. The SATNAV system is closing down’. We had overlooked the fact that rural postcodes tend to cover larger acreages than urban ones. While our own postcode covers 41 houses, theirs seemed to take in the counties of Hampshire, Wiltshire and most of Dorset.
We found them eventually - very late and with the nearly-new machine covered in cow manure – by the traditional method of knocking on doors.
But we sure got home all right.

You've been Warned: the Antipodean triumphalists are in full chorus today. One says 'Ashes' means Another Sad Horrific English Series. Not very good but typical of the general level. Slightly better was: Q. What is the height of optimism? A. An English batsman applying sunscreen. And the fat bowler announced his retirement from test cricket saying that he only stayed on this long to see the English beaten. May he get lost in Hampshire next summer.

Getting the pip

A little background for those wanting to know the history of the Ashes.
Sorry you asked?

I never cease to be amazed at the lack of PR sense of our Royals (especially the one who runs a PR company). Then there’s Princess Anne, who treats the media with disdain until she wants her daughter to win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.
I have a bit of a problem with the Queen’s granddaughter winning this award. OK, I'll accept ‘BBC’ and even ‘of the Year’, but whether 3-day eventing is a ‘Sport’, or Zara Philips a ‘Personality’, I’m not so sure. Certainly not if her acceptance speech is anything to go by. Quote: ‘People asked if I’d prepared a speech. I was – like – no. […] This is amazing – it’s amazing to be here among these amazing sports people.’
After all, it wasn’t as though she had been unlikely to win it: they couldn’t have given it to a footballer after our pathetic showing in the World Cup; or the international rugby team, which has lost 8 of its last 9 games, or a cricketer after – you get the point. But don't you think, for someone who presumably had the benefit of an expensive private education and access to a whole stable of speech-writers, that the ability to pack three ‘amazings’ into a 30-word oration, is, well - amazing?

About four miles from here is a village with the unfortunate name of Poyle, which in the Berkshire accent is a homophone of the popular name for haemorrhoids but a lot easier to spell. In Poyle there’s an orchard dedicated to Richard Cox. He was a retired brewer, and a dabbler - someone who grows apple trees from pips - and he had the distinction of discovering the wonderful Cox’s Orange Pippin.
Richard lived in Poyle, and it was in his own garden that the first Cox's was grown around 1825. As a tribute, the seats in the orchard are placed to spell out his name – this is the ‘O’. (Good job he wasn’t called Fearnley-Whittingstall or there’d be no room left for the apple trees.)

Why am I blogging Richard Cox? Well, Richard was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary the Virgin, in the nearby village of Harmondsworth. This church was built in 1067, the year after the Norman conquest, which means that in 61 years' time it will be 1000 years old.
Except that it won’t if the British Airports Authority gets its way – and it usually does. St. Mary’s and the whole village are scheduled to be bulldozed to make way for yet another runway for Heathrow airport. But surely, you say, BAA would not dig up poor Richard and flatten St. Mary's and 700 homes, just to create yet more noise and pollution? Don’t they care anything for our heritage? Well no actually, because BAA, despite its name, is Spanish. It is the wholly owned subsidiary of Grupo Ferrovial, who, I am sure, don’t give a Cox's Orange Pippin for thousand-year-old churches, pollution or greenhouse gasses.
There's an on-line petition against the whole Heathrow expansion project. I don't suppose it will do any good - but you never know until you try.

O what a tangled web we weave

when first we practise to deceive. Did you ever tell a very minor lie that haunts you for years? I used to go to this dentist in Gerrard’s Cross. Charming man and very good dentist – if a bit vague. He once said to me, ‘You know Mrs Graham?’, and I, feeling that I should, said ‘yes’. What harm could there be in that? He said something bland about her and that was that – or so I thought.
It was a long course of treatment, and every time I went to the dentist he would talk about Mrs Graham – she was ‘old Mrs Graham' by then. Should I have said ‘I’ve no idea who you’re talking about’ – and been branded a serial liar? I used to have to psych myself up before each visit – not to withstand the pain, but not to laugh when he got on to Mrs Graham.
It lingered on from ‘Mrs G’s very sick, I have to do home visits now’ to the inevitable ‘Mrs Graham died last Sunday’ – and never once could I comment, or admit I had lied.
But I did learn a lesson – never lie to your dentist.

Remember the saga of the eye appointment? For those who missed the previous instalments: read Monday 11, when Ted was told that because King Edward VII Hospital is on the ‘Choose and Book' system, he could not book with King Edward directly – he must use ‘Choose and Book’. ‘But the system is not operational yet so ring later in the week.’
I ring Friday. ‘We don’t book that hospital, they maintain their own booking system. You must book directly with them’.
Me: ‘But you told me on Monday that I could not book directly with them’.
Ros, the Choose-and-Book booker: ‘Your doctor should have told you.’
Me: ‘But why did you tell me the opposite?’
Ros: ‘Your GP should have told you’.
Me: Then wouldn't it be a good idea if someone told the GPs?
This, I would remind you, is not the eye surgery – this is just to get an appointment to talk about it.
Now, I have great news. I just rang the hospital and got the earliest available appointment: March 12 (but don’t bank on it).

We lost the Ashes. We didn’t just lose them, we handed them to the Aussies as a present. The triumphant e-mails will begin at any second. They’re into triumphalism, the Aussies – especially over the Poms. The Kiwis will be the same if they ever win a cricket match. It seems we planted a sport and reaped national pride.
I remember when an Ossie folk group won a top UK music award: a belligerent Oz accosted me in a north London pub and said ‘See, we even beat you in your own song awards.’ ‘That’s right’, I said, ‘Is that why they call it “We live in a World of our Own”'?
But fair dos – we were pretty bad and they were very good – and, as with the football, we made some basic mistakes. It just wasn’t professional to send the team home on holiday when they should have gone to Aussie for some practice on Oz wickets; then we left out our best spinner because the third best might make more runs – which he didn’t. And above all, we should know better, living in a climate which has rain every ten minutes, than to play against a country where it rains every ten years.
And let’s face it, no one in the world can play against Shane Warne at his best - or even at his worst. Like they say – it’s not over until the fat bowler spins.

Ronnie Scott’s: Jazz Mecca

In the days when my job took me just about everywhere, I applied myself diligently to the study of -- jazz clubs. From LA to Latvia, I spent my nights listening to jazz and my days appearing at work late and bleary-eyed. I collected them the way some people collect stamps. I was a jazz philatelist: Blues Alley in Washington DC, Birdland in NYC, Fat Tuesday’s in New Orleans, Bel-luna in Barcelona, Le Petit Journal in Paris, Jazzland in Vienna… And the best of them all, for the 40 years since I first became a member; and the place where my ashes will be scattered (preferably when there’s no-one in it) is – I hope this doesn’t sound too nationalistic - Ronnie Scott’s.

Ronnie Scott was a jazz musician – a tenor sax player raised as Ronald Schatt in the East End of London. For the decade or so after the end of WWII, when all sorts of exciting things were happening in jazz in the US, a dispute between the American and British musicians’ unions prevented American musicians from playing in the UK, so we Brits had to listen to Billy Cotton or AFN Munich-Stuttgart while the Messiahs of modern jazz changed planes at Heathrow on their way to Paris. So that he could hear what was going on in New York, Ronnie got a job playing dance music on the Atlantic liners so that he could hang out in Manhattan listening to the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis.

In 1959 he came ashore and, together with fellow tenor saxophonist Pete King, he opened his own Jazz Club, Ronnie Scott’s, in London's Soho. In between leading his own band – the Jazz Couriers, touring and sessioning with big bands - he presented the artists at the club and during sound checks entertained with an inimitable brand of cynical humour: ‘…try the food here – fifty million flies can’t be wrong’.*
(Many jazzmen become funny writers: the likes of George Melly, Wally Fawkes, Humphrey Lyttelton and Benny Green – who lamented the decline of live music caused by electronic sound with the words ‘Now is the winter of our discoteque’.)
At first his intention was to provide a place where British jazz musicians could jam, but when the American Federation of Musicians lifted the ban on American musicians performing in the U.K., Pete and Ronnie started to present not only the best of British jazz musicians, but the cream of modern US and continental jazz.
They ran the club brilliantly for forty years until, ten years ago this month, Ronnie died. About the worst thing that can happen to saxophone players are teeth problems, and when Ronnie had to have tooth implant surgery, the pain, depression and inability to work led him to indulge in a cocktail of brandy and sleeping tablets. In his distress, he ‘phoned a girlfriend in New York and left a message on her answering machine which, had she received it, might have saved his life – but she was out of town and didn’t hear it until after he was dead. The verdict of the inquest was ‘death by misadventure’.
Ronnie Scott introduced a lot of people to jazz, and many others – including me - to mind-blowing musical experiences too numerous to list here.
One of his favourite lines now has special poignancy: ‘You’re very quiet tonight. Shall we all join hands and see if we can contact the living?’
Belated thanks Ronnie.

* Another of Ronnie's was that of a dyslexic Japanese who, every December 7, attacked Pearl Bailey.

Ghost town

What’s Gaelic for ‘politically correct’? During the sixties a few Irish and Welsh language activists began climbing signposts at dead of night and blackening out English – or English-sounding – place names. It was no problem if you wanted to get to Llangollen, but a blacked-out Radnor or Walton would be replaced by a jumble of consonants that you couldn’t read, let alone pronounce. In Wrexham (North Wales), one of these activists was caught and sent up for trial by the local magistrates court. He proclaimed loudly that he insisted on being tried in the Welsh language. One of the magistrates later told me that they immediately agreed to try him in Welsh, but after a few minutes the defendant had to admit that he could not understand a word of what was going on and asked to be tried in English. In Wales the fad has more or less died out, and today the signage is still in both languages.
In Ireland also, many of the activists were just that – they did not speak the Gaelic - but then the politicians got hold of it. In 1970 the Minister for the Environment ordered the removal of all English-language signposts. He was promptly ignored by the Local Authorities and the old black and white bilingual signs remained. So in March 2005, Minister O’ Cuiv (Cullen in English, I’m told) brought in the ‘Place Names Order’, forbidding the use of the English version of a place name.

All at once, the lovely seaside town on the Kerry coast formerly known as Dingle disappeared from sight. Today it is signposted solely as An Daingean. The townspeople are about to hold a vote on the matter, and the democratic majority are expected to plump for ‘Dingle’ – but the minister has said that the outcome of the vote is irrelevant - An Daingean it will be.
By far the most important industry of Dingle - I think I just broke the law – is tourism. So if you’re looking to spend your pounds, dollars or euros there, I’m afraid it has - like Brigadoon – disappeared in the mist. I hope someone finds it again.


Pain is relative to how closely it touches you. I’m sure there are philosophical papers on this, but I’ve only just thought about it. There could even be a formula for its seriousness. I’m not a mathematician, but it might look something like s=p/d2, where s is the seriousness, p is the pain level, and d is one’s distance from the location of the pain inflicted. Thus the further you are away from the location of the pain, the less serious it is. It’s human nature: if distance were not a factor we would barely be able to live with ourselves. The formula would explain why someone being tortured in Guantanamo, or losing a child to an agonising disease, can be as nothing compared with our own split finger-nail. It can explain the illegal invasion of Iraq, how we can bear to watch children dying of AIDS in Zimbabwe, and also why footballers kick the ball out so that the opponent they have just maimed for life can receive medical attention.

Catch 08456088888

Another gem from our National Health Service (well at least it’s National – two out of three ain’t bad). A week ago my GP referred me to an eye specialist. ‘It’s all computerised now,’ he says. ‘It’s called the “Choose and Book” system. Here is your reference number and password. You can now book the appointment on the internet.’ I try to do so, but after I’ve keyed in the reference and password, it says I can’t book an appointment on the internet – I must phone the above number.
I call the number. After the usual ID and security questions, a lady says, ‘Have you tried to book on the internet?’ I say I have. ‘Ah, she says, ‘then I can’t book you in within the next 30 minutes. Ring back later.’
I call back today. ‘The “Choose and Book” system isn’t working yet,’ she says. ‘Try later in the week.’
I say, ‘But can’t I call the hospital, the way I did for the other eye?’ ‘Oh no,’ she says, ‘they’re on the “Choose and Book” system now’.

I have been known to complain about unimaginative headline writers, but I have to admit that the best title often comes long after the story. I once did a piece about a walk across Paris from west to east that started on the Pont du Bir Hakeim. I titled the article 'Paris á Pied', (a bit pedestrian, you say?), which the magazine accepted. It wasn’t until years later that I saw the movie that opens with Marlon Brando meeting the girl on that same Bir Hakeim bridge, and realised that I should have called it ‘The Last Mango in Paris’.
I seem to think either of headlines that I’ve no story for, or stories I can’t headline, which is why I liked the one in The Sun (it’s origin is also claimed by the Glasgow Herald), when Aberdeen’s lowly Caledonian Thistle football team beat the mighty Glasgow Celtic – Scottish League leaders by miles: ‘Super Cally go Ballistic, Celtic are Atrocious’. Or what about the recent George Lang piece in the NYT about a visit to Hungary: ‘Nobody knows the Truffles I’ve seen’? Gotta go now – got to do a story about pear schnapps addiction to go with the title: ‘Intravenous Williams’.

When we were in Santiago not long after Pinochet had been extradited to Chile, I asked a number of people if they thought he should or would face trial. They all said there was no point – best that he be forgotten and die in peace. It sounded a surprisingly forgiving attitude at the time, or maybe they wanted to avoid creating a martyr. Either way it seems they were right. He will not get the state funeral that he and his supporters wanted - and it’s not his, but Salvador Allende’s statue that stands outside the presidential palace in which, on Chile’s own ‘9/11’, he was killed.
(The CIA admits it knew about the coup in advance, but ‘played no direct role’ in the execution - neither do they claim to have made any attempt to stop it. Like in the airline schedules that call a flight ‘direct’ even if it makes three stops, ‘direct’ is a subjective word.)

Never mind the quality, check the volume

It's an ill wind... Windsor’s nice, but the weather’s bad and getting worse. Can you believe a tornado, not in the Gulf of Mexico but in London? At least in the Caribbean you’ve got sunshine between the tornados or tornadoes. (It’s bright and sunny today, Sunday, which is a lesson: in England you have to post quickly before the weather changes.) But still, we have enough memories of NYC to keep us going until our next trip. Some great food: we tend to make for Little Italy – no point in considering French – where the most memorable meal was at Lunella on Mulberry Street, real Italian, with no attempt to substitute quantity for quality – and the worst, at a Korean place called Won Jo on W.32nd that Time Out describes as ‘first-class’, but where the reverse was the case. Quantity - overwhelming!
Also enjoyed the Metropolitan, (their sandwiches are as bad as the National's - you have to suffer for art) where we managed to see the ‘Americans in Paris’ event that we'd missed in London, plus what seemed like about 1% of the permanent collection. What’s striking is the number of benefactors – both private and corporate – who’ve donated or bequeathed works. Unlike our own system of government ‘support’ where funds are allocated by a group of philistine politicians - who have just told the arts organisations to plan for ongoing budget reductions of 7% a year. Why? To help pay for the Olympic Games in 2012, of course.
One more whine then I have to go. Last May I took issue with a well-known UK journalist who said that US television news reporting was infinitely better than that in UK, but I retracted when he claimed better and more up-to-date knowledge than mine. Sorry Bryan, I’m still a big fan, but I would now like to retract the retraction. After six days of watching stale news, (the week-old Litvinenko story was just beginning to attract posthumous attention because someone had thought of a terrorist angle) with its ‘London, England’ parochialism, presented by pretty but puerile celebrity anchors, 'news for grown-ups' on the Beeb was a welcome relief.
One of the things I like to do in the USA is to browse the magazine racks: for fun - DownBeat, Jazz Times etc - and as possible markets. There's one called ‘The Writer’, which calls itself ‘The essential resource for writers since 1887’. Its January 2007 issue (in November?) carries on its cover in 3cm-high capitals the words ’99 WORDS OR LESS’. Doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence.

‘We’ll have Manhattan…

…the Bronx and Staten Island too’. A few hours in NYC and you get song fatigue: almost every street and building strikes a chord. All the great songsters lived there: ‘Every street’s a boulevard in old New York’; ‘…you'll love the people you meet/ on Mulberry Street’; ‘…on the avenue I’m taking you to, Forty-second Street’; ‘…what street/ compares with Mott Street?’. The Waldorf, where Cole Porter’s Steinway stands in the lobby as if waiting, the Algonquin, where ‘April in Paris’ was written – and so on.


Calling Big Apple Greeters sounds a pretty naff thing to do, especially if you claim to know the town, but what better way for people to get to know a neighbourhood – sorry, neighborhood (why do they remove the ‘u’ for simplicity but leave the ‘neigh’?) – than to have natives introduce visitors to their own nayborhoods? It’s a simple but great idea.

Eileen is the ultimate New Yorker - a local of Greenwich Village, and an enthusiast.
It was cold – but not cold enough to deter the Washington Square chessnuts.


We could have seen The Producers 25 miles from here, in London, but somehow NYC seemed more appropriate. Terrific production: great songs, (Brooks once said his poetic inspiration was W. S. Gilbert , of Gilbert and Sullivan, and it shows) and script, played – or overplayed – to perfection. Even the old lines – the camp Carmen Ghia doing the ‘Walk this Way’ joke – get laughs.


We’ll be back when it warms up a bit, ‘though we wouldn’t like to have missed all the Christmas stuff – even pushed my way through the mob to snap Macy’s windows:


Tesco latest: I didn’t have time to send that indignant letter to Mr T. before we left – which is just as well. Two messages on the answerphone: one asking if I would re-enter the order and one saying please ignore the previous call. But then a man called Stuart rang from Dundee. I didn’t even mind being dragged from jet-lagged torpor because he apologised for the problems and said that if I cared to re-enter the order, they would deduct 25% from the cost, plus a further goodwill deduction. (I know I should have pointed out that the Gigondas that was £34 a case when I ordered it is now £54, but I was overcome with gratitude.) How did he know? Did he read my bog?
Who knows - anyway, the booze will be delivered after all and if you come by you’re sure to find a wee drop of bubbly (cooking, of course). And stuff Calais.

What, no huddled masses?

What's happened to the US Immigration service? Why is everyone so polite? Instead of spending three hours herded into an oversize chicken coop at 100 degrees and being yelled at by enormous security guards ('Get behind the yellow line!') with disciplinary hardware strewn about their ample waists, we are greeted by smartly-dressed cheer-leaders who use words like 'please' and 'you're welcome'.

Peter Ustinov once said that there used to be a question on the landing card asking foreign arrivals, 'Do you intend to participate in abnormal sexual practices?' His reply, he said, was, 'Sole purpose of visit'

Today's questions reflect the general permissiveness of society and ask less intrusive questions. One is: 'Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were involved, in any way, in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?'

Tough one.