Sorry to say this but: beware conspiracy theorists (or at least intemperate bloggers). And a spot of Britain’s national sport: Teasing The French. I’m sure our Gallic cousins have a useful word for ‘teasing’ which I could employ here just to show off, but, sadly, I don’t know it

All the following notwithstanding, I can’t resist posting a picture which has come my way of the latest euro bank note being issued in Cyprus. Here it is:

A year or two ago, I came across a blog by a former advertising executive call John Ward which he calls The Slog. The name is some kind of derivation from ‘deconstructing bollocks’, and his avowed intention was to try to cut through the - well, bollocks - in which much of our ‘news’ is swaddled by governments, official bodies and, sadly all too often, our media (who, unsurprisingly are more interested in keeping the dollars rolling in than anything else) to try to uncover what’s beneath it all. I found the blog at the previous height of the euro crisis when it looked increasingly likely that Greece would have to leave, causing all kinds of upset.

John Ward refers to his sources, many apparently in influential positions with whom, by his own account, he is in constant touch, and although I have no way of knowing whether or not they are quite as well-informed as he claims, I must, for any lack of evidence to the contrary, take him by his word. That was in the late autumn of 2010, and as that year turned into 2011, John Ward predicted with almost absolute certainty that it was a done and dusted matter that over the weekend in March 2011, Greece would leave the euro. I think I even blogged on it myself.

The plan, he said, had been hatched in Germany and Washington, which, he claimed, was following its own agenda of weakening Europe as a financial market, and the so-called ‘Grexit’ would be underway once the financial markets closed on a Friday. By the Monday Greece was still a member. John Ward gave chapter and verse as to what had happened and claimed that he hadn’t, in fact, been wrong, but there had been several developments which meant the plan to turf Greece out had been put on hold. That was two years ago. I carried on reading The Slog, but in view of that one failed prediction, I did so rather less.

I was also increasingly unimpressed by some of the language and phrases John Ward used. It wasn’t that I was offended, it was that they seemed curiously inappropriate for what would otherwise seem to be a serious commentary. And he, too, seemed and seems to subscribe to the, in my view completely batty, suspicion that the whole euro crisis is nothing less than a German plot to dominate Europe. I mean would you accept as serious your GP’s health advice if he also claimed regularly to talk with elves and goblins? No, nor would I. John Ward habitually refers to ‘Berlin-am-Brussels’, calls Angela Merkel the Füherine and often makes reference to the Fourth Reich.

Looney tunes? I am apt to agree. And though, on the other hand, he does a lot of spadework, digging into this report and that, I rather think it is the kind of spadework which might be undertaken by those intent on ‘proving’ the Moon is not only made of cheese, but it is, in fact, a rare cheese produced only in the Cynon Valley, in South Wales. His latest suggestion is that the governments in the eurozone are planning some huge theft of everyone’s money. Oddly enough, given the government of Cyprus’s plan to grab a percentage of all savings in the island’s banks - a plan swiftly abandoned in the face of savers’ anger - John Ward’s suggestion might not seem quite as batty. But batty it is. I have never been a conspiracy theorist and am always inclined to cock-up theories, so that is where Mr Ward and I must part company.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly will know that I think the whole euro experiment is doomed to failure sooner rather than later and that a bad situation is being made far worse by the day by ill-thought-out ‘solutions’ and remedies. It would be pointless to mention exactly where the euro started going wrong, but I shall do so anyway: monetary union must come after political union not before it, because there simply has to be a credible body governing how it is operated. So from the outset the euro was (in my view - my sister, whose opinion I always respect, disagrees) doomed.

Everything else, for example, reports that Chirac insisted as a favour to the Greeks that Greece should be allowed in as a quid pro quo for supporting German reunification, was a sideshow. Even that fact that a great many countries fiddled their figures to become members is, in essence, not important. Things have gone from bad to worse - horrible unemployment and related miseries in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland - because whatever measures suggested by the ECB and the rest were too timid, politically unacceptable or could simply not be agreed upon.

So we now have the mess we are in, including the utterly bizarre situation where European taxpayers might well have found themselves in the position of protecting the savings of Russians, much of which is widely believed to be criminal money.

I think the problem stems largely from the kind of people running the various European institutions. I think the essence of the matter is that those who staff the ECB and the EC etc are more or less my generation and a little younger, men and women – though, I should imagine largely men – who grew up in the heady days of student politics and idealism in the late 60s, early 70s and in a way simply haven’t outgrown that idealism. They seem to suffer from a panglossian conviction that ‘all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds’ however rocky the road to that world might at present be. (Here in Britain we have a similar problem in that all too many of our politicians in all parties started out as special advisers to other politicians and have limited experience of the world you and I know).

So underlying almost all the measures taken is that they must keep an eye on ‘the bigger picture’ – yes, things might be tough now and, yes, people might have to make sacrifices now, but think of what it is all leading to, the glory of it all.

After all, aren’t we continually told the one aim of the original ‘EU’ when it was first set up as the Coal and Steel Community was to tie France and Germany so closely together that they would never again go to war? And all too often the, in my view facile, claim is made that ‘the EU has kept peace in Europe for the past 60 years’. It is this immature idealism which is blinding the decision makers to the effects their decisions are having. I mean no one in their right mind would otherwise countenance tolerating youth unemployment at more than 50pc (as it is in Greece, Spain and Portugal).

To adapt that hoary saying ‘they can’t see the trees for the wood’. So although these men and women are by no means ‘stupid’, I suggest this mess is largely, almost wholly, the result of infinite bumbling, though for the reasons I suggest above.

. . .

There are few things we Brits like better than teasing the French, and Lord are they teasable. So in that spirit I’d like ‘to share’ (as they say on TV) these three anecdotes with you that are perhaps apocryphal, perhaps not, but which are quite amusing for those of use who aren’t French:

John Kennedy’a Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 1960s when De Gaulle decided to pull out of NATO. De Gaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible. Rusk responded: ‘Does that include those who are buried here?’

There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room and announced: ‘Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?’ A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: ‘Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day; they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day; and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?’

A Royal Navy admiral was attending a naval conference that included admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks when a French admiral suddenly complained that whereas Europeans learn many languages, the English learn only English. He then asked: ‘Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?’ Without hesitating, the British admiral replied: ‘Maybe it’s because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies, South Africans and Americans arranged it so you wouldn’t have to speak German.’

NB Does anyone use semi-colons when they speak? I’ve often wondered. And as I’ve just lambasted John ‘The Slog’ Ward for what I regard as unnecessary national stereotyping, it would be thoroughly remiss of me not to engage in some quite gratuitous hypocrisy. So in that spirit I give you: Jacques!

How not to do it: the EU shows us how. And I repeat my heartfelt plea: lay off the Germans, it’s not their fault. Britain’s one and only Ronnie Biggs waves farewell, and why global warming really frightens me

If someone somewhere has written a textbook on how make damn sure a bad situation becomes a lot worse and could well end in disaster sooner rather than later, the good folk trying to end the euro crisis have gone through it with a toothcomb and applied every principle therein they could find. They haven’t actually announced ‘the euro’s fucked, save what you can, each man and women for themselves’, but they might well have done.

We have been through Ireland and Greece almost going to the wall and then somehow hanging on – cuts in public services and misery for all those at the bottom of the pile notwithstanding - and then came Spain, which didn’t actually need a bailout, but which came pretty damn close and is most certainly not out of the woods yet. Each time the day was saved with the liberal application of sticking plaster, financial legerdemain and, I should imagine, outright lies, as the group which is referred to as the Troika kept the wolf from the door and the euro is as yet still alive, although not exactly kicking. In economic terms, Ireland and Greece are relatively speaking tiddlers.

The bigger worry was that the situation in Spain would get out of hand, followed by Italy. Both countries have sizeable economies and trying to contain a collapse in both could well have proved nigh-on impossible. But all has been quiet on the euro front for several months, the abysmal unemployment figures in Spain, Greece and Portugal – apparently every second man and woman under 25 is unemployed - notwithstanding. Then came the complete and utterly incomprehensible cock-up in Cyprus. In euro terms Cyprus in not just a tiddler, it hardly exists at all. But its government is on the verge of bankruptcy and needs a euro bailout to the tune of €17 billion.

This is where the brains in Brussels seem to have lost the plot entirely. Cyprus is well-known as a tourist destination, but its economy, in fact, is sustained by it being something of a banking haven. I read today that around €65 billion are stashed away in saving accounts with various Cypriot banks. (What makes the matter even more ticklish, although this has not direct bearing on the problem, is that a substantial part of that €65 billion is Russian mafia money.)

Given all that money tucked away in savings account the Troika suggested to the Cypriot government that it might care to steal some of it, around €6 billion or so, and put that towards the sum it needs ensure the PM and his various ministers continue to have a sensible supply of ouzo and mezes (err, I might be mixing my cultures there, but you get the point). Another factor is that German politicians - quite rightly – are slowly waking up to the fact that not all Germans – that’s not all Germans by a long chalk – are at all keen any more in ensuring the euro survives until kingdom come if it means they have to dip their hands into their pockets every other day. So the word went out to those with money stashed away in Cypriot banks: sorry, chaps, but we’re skimming off 10 per cent of what you have there. There was, as you can imagine, uproar, especially as there is a EU-wide law protecting the first €100,000 of any savings from such a measure.

Then there was the angle that depositors can broadly be split into those with just a little tucked away for a rainy day and various thickset Russian crims who all live in undersead Mediterranen lairs with speedboats and mini-subs when they are not patrolling the streets of

Moscow at night shooting each other. Or something along those lines. Given the rather large amounts of money they are laundering, a 10 per cent haul would be quite a sizeable amount. On the other hand these are chaps who know what to do with a gun and a knuckleduster rather more than you and I, so it does seem extraordinarily silly to suggest ripping off the rip-off merchants.

The most recent response has been that a vote on the measure in the Cypriot parliament saw the idea well and truly kicked out and everything is back to square one. But that means the government is still heading for bankruptcy if it can’t get hold of the necessary readies. During all this Cyprus’s banks were not opened to avoid a run on the banks. They are due to open on Thursday morning, although there are suggestions they could well be kept shut until a deal has been struck whereby the government can get hold of the £17 billion it needs for that next round of drinks. That makes sense, of course, but it seems unlikely that it will be lent the money. And as soon as the banks open we can confidently expect that run on the bank to take place.

Certainly, there will be some short-term emergency measures that can be put in place to try to avoid the worst, such as restricting the amounts which can be withdrawn, but in the long run that would simply be pissing in the wind. But the greatest damage has been made by allowing savers in Italy and Spain to start fearing that they, too, could well see some of their savings - well, stolen isn’t too strong a word - to bail out their governments of those countries as and when. And it doesn’t matter that, perhaps, a bailout will never be needed. Slowly, but surely, savers will start withdrawing their moolah and stashing it somewhere safer, in Britain, for example, or Switzerland, or for that matter anywhere outside the Eurozone.

So there you have it: a bad situation has been made 100 times worse because some bright spark simply didn’t think it through.

. . .

Keen and regular readers of the ‘ere blog will know that my heritage is partly Teuton (one of the reasons that two of my nicknames at school were ‘Jackboots II’ and ‘Kraut II’ – ‘II’ because until my last year I had an older brother there who was known as – is there really any need to labour the point? – ‘Jackboots I’ and ‘Kraut I’. (Incidentally, another nickname was ‘Preggers’ because at 13 my body had not yet evolved into that handsome, Adonis-like exemplar it was to become, and although I was about 10/11 stone, I was, for several years, still only around 5ft 5in, so being something of a round thing, various unkind souls thought I looked pregnant.)

I have to add that by way of laying my cards on the table as I am about to make a heartfelt plea for my mother’s kinsmen and women. Why is it always the Krauts who get the stick in all matters euro fuck-up? From where I sit their only sin is a chronic lack of imagination and a rather stolid out lookout. In fact, the word stolid’ might well have been invented to describe some, though by no means all, Germans. The lack of imagination is well highlighted by the cards they produce: superbly engineered and the car of choice in any emergency but less exciting to look than the view of a suburban street on a rainy afternoon in Droitwich). But that is their only sin.

The great Simon Heffer and the great Dominic Sandbrook are, I’m bound to say, entirely wrong: there is no masterplan to dominate Europe, to finish the job the Kaiser and Hitler started. The Germans are, almost to a man and woman, more than happy for life to carry on in its comfortable and ever-so-slightly dull way, with plenty of socialising, plenty of good food, plenty of wine and beer and no hassles whatsoever. It was this attitude which, for a while at least, made them EU enthusiasts. British pub bores are simply quite wrong: the Germans are not a warlike nation forever on the lookout for more Lebensraum.

Their tragedy, if that’s not too strong a word, is geographical: their country sits slap bang in the middle of Europe. So when Napoleon – now there’s a man who was warlike, but you don’t hear the French being perpetually slagged off for being warlike – set his heart on sipping a glass of vodka in Moscow one day, they only way he could get there was through Germany. If an army wants to get from one end of Europe to another, it makes little sense to ‘by-pass’ Germany so as not to disturb them. But things are stirring in Germany: why, many are now asking themselves, should we always foot the bill? The explanation that they should ‘atone’ for their past is, by now almost 70 years after the end of World War II, looking more than a tad threadbare. It is that sentiment which is behind the proposed new party Alternative Fuer Deutschland.

It is their lack of imagination which for so long, for far too long, in fact, has kept them suggesting the same solution – austerity – to the euro crisis. Of course, it looks good on paper: if you’re going bust, stop spending so much. What they can’t grasp is that solution which is the obvious one in a domestic situation is not the obvious one on an international level, just as Newtonian physics seem to work on a certain macro level, but come apart completely at the atomic level which is where Einsteinian physics come in. And even those are now being shown to fall apart in other situations.

Yes, Germany is a prosperous country (and might I also at this point knock on the head another myth: the Germans are not hardworking or, at least, no more hardworking than other folk. They are simply better organised and like to get things done the right way the first time round). But there is equally as much private wealth in France, Italy, Spain and, yes, Greece. So, German taxpayers are asking, why us.

Why indeed? . . .

The only way this pic can possibly be captioned is: ‘The British Way’. Foreigners (which is all of you who were not lucky enough to be born British, or in my case half-British, half-German) will have no idea and can have no clue as to why this pic is so pleasing. And if you’re British and also have no clue - fuck off abroad. Let me add a caveat: Kiwis and Ozzies might well also be in the picture, perhaps even Canucks (sorry, but I can’t think of anything more insulting - if there is a term, please get in touch).

However, much I dislike British food, British attitudes, British ‘style’, the British obsession with ‘class’, the Brits attitude to sex, it is a pic like this which sums up the quintessence of being British which, almost, forgives all. Almost. For the record it is a pic of Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs arriving at the funeral for fellow Great Train Robber Bruce Reynolds. Quite why he decided to flick a V sign and at whom I don’t know, but neither do I much care. Ronnie has given us Brits a great deal of entertainment.

He returned to Britain from Brazil when his health gave way and was immediately jailed by the usual jobsworths know what’s best for Britain. He was later diagnosed with cancer and released on compassionate grounds by the usual jobsworths who have a slighter better idea of what’s good for Britain than their less imaginative cousins. By the look of things Ronnie is not long for this world. I for one wish him a kind life for however much of it he has left.

. . .

Here are one or two items from the news you might have missed yesterday in all the excitement of whether or not Cyprus goes tits up by the beginning of next week or a few days later:

Kelly Holmes goes home in a blue shift dressafter a night out. Well!

Christina Aguilera has lost weight!

Girls Aloud split! 

Khloe Kardashian towers over her sister Kourtney because she’s wearing sky-hight heels! Fancy! The minx!

Nicki Minaj suffers yet another wardrobe malfunction! (Her tits pop out of her swimsuit as she films a music video.) 

Una Healy told by critics to put on a bit of weight! (Which is a welcome variation on the usual theme of ‘Just look what a fat cow XXXXX has become! And that cellulite! Shocking!)

Jessie J shaves all her hair off! Tulisa has NOT gone up two dress sizes! 

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Steward haven’t split! Ellen DeGeneres has the flu! Emmy Rossum turns up at charity gala - and allows photographers to take her picture! Well!

Nicole Scherzinger carries her bulldog Roscoe out of her hotel as she goes off to dinner! 

Vogue covergirl Kate Upton slaps her bottom!

Taylor Swift might have new boyfriend!

Ellie Goulding wears striped bikini top and stonewashed hotpants!

Colin Farrell goes for a brisk war! 

But that’s enough crap. For more of it visit the Daily Mail’s column of shame here

. . .

  Bloody global warming really, really, really pisses me off!

The Cry Of Love, Jimi Hendrix’s last bona fide studio album, and I are finally re-united after close on 30 years. What else could someone like you reduced to reading The Blogs Of Others care to hear more? And the Jesuits are the ones for me (if and when)

I’ll be adding more to this entry tomorrow, but I just wanted to record that today has arrived courtesy of whoever I bought it from an album (once an ‘LP’, now a ‘CD’ - oh, dear how important initials are these days when you want to prove you are still breathing and not yet dead). It’s one I once had as an ‘LP’ - OK, LP and I’ll forget trying to be such a smartarse - then ‘lost’, as I ‘lost’ quite a few LPs which were stacked in the attic of my house in Norlan Drive, Kings Heath, Birmingham B14 after I moved to Cardiff to start a job as a sub on the South Wales Echo and had to rent it out. I’ve been looking for it ever since, and a few years ago came across it again on Amazon, but the price was way beyond what I care to pay - around £35. Why I don’t know. However, taking another look recently, I saw someone was selling it secondhand for £24, and tight cunt that I can be, I decided even at that price I wanted it. It was, and now again, is one of my favourite albums.

It’s The Cry Of Love by Jimi Hendrix and was the last studio album he recorded, not, as happens all too often, a collection of outtakes and rejected crap which various record companies put out to fleece the fleeceable. I shall listen to it again tomorrow on my way to London for my four days of work (or should that be ‘work’, as I rather enjoy it?)

. . .

Apropos Pope Wayne - or is it Francis? These things are apt to confuse a handsome thirtysomething like me - the first Latin American football striker to be elected Pope and Bishop of Rome - yes, I had to read that twice, too, but we are, after all, living in a very modern world, one in which men can marry other men, women can marry other women and

Pope Wayne: He had a lethal left foot, but then discovered the Jesuits black is apparently white after all despite centuries of not being so - I heard a rather amusing anecdote about Jesuits, Dominican and Franciscans. Pope Wayne (who might well have played for Real Madrid in the 1970s, but who failed a medical) was so disillusioned by the cynical tactics of his fellow players and was, at heart, quite a sincere chap that he hung up his boots and took to the priesthood, choosing to apply to the Jesuits as at the time he thought they were the coolest.

It seems a Jesuit, a Dominican and a Franciscan were sitting together in a room when the light suddenly failed. The Franciscan took fright, fell to his knees and immediately prayed to God intensely that he (I understand the correct form is ‘He’ but then when was I ever one for correct forms?) should bring back the light. The Dominican, a slightly more cerebral chap, began a long discourse on the nature of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil and who . . . blah-de-blah-de-blah. The Jesuit got up and replaced the fuse.

When I was 12 and living in Berlin, I attended a Jesuit college for three years. I don’t know a great deal about the Jesuits, except that they tend to act as acid does to most metals, intellectually and otherwise. I must admit that I am rather drawn to the Jesuits and were a miracle to happen and I was not only persuaded that Christianity is not after all a load of voodoo hooey, but decided I had a vocation and should become a priest, the Jesuits would be my first and only port of call.

Actually, perhaps I shouldn’t joke as much. At least this guy has the good grace not only to admit the poor have a shit time, but also that the RC church should do something about it. And no one lives in a small flat, cooks his own meals and travels ‘to work’ on the underground for several years in the hope that he might one day be elected Pope and it will all look rather good in the Vatican PR handouts. Or am I just as naive as the rest of you?

Unsurprisingly, the British press, who rarely have much better to do, have already got their sharpened knives and are questioning just how active he was in the armed resistance to General Galtieri when that son of a bitch had the gall - had the gall! - to restrict shipments of tea to the Falkland Islands (or, as we Brits like to call them, the Falkland Islands). Did he or did he not - the public surely has a right to know! - personally suggest that if the Falkland islanders couldn’t get as much tea as they would like, they should perhaps, you know, try drinking coffee. I mean, it’s not the end of the world is it (unlike the Falkland Islands if you live in london rather than Buenos Aires)? Bastard! Calls himself a man of God? Yeah, right. The Jesuits will, apparently, take anyone.

A lovely version of Autumn Leaves, one of my favourite tunes, courtesy of a guitarist called Ryan Stewart of whom I know nothing

Not written here for a while and don’t at the moment have much to say, but just to keep you all ticking over, here’s a video of one of my favourite tracks played beautifully. The track is Autumn Leaves and it’s played on guitar by a guy called Ryan Stewart, whose website you can find here. I know nothing about Ryan Stewart and only came across this particular version when searching You Tube for versions of Autumn Leaves. There are some quite mediocre ones, but Ryan’s is one of the best I have heard and beats most all others by a country mile. Here it is, and I hope you enjoy it.

 

Forget UKIP, many economists in Germany now want an alternative to the euro freaks, too

The big news here in Britain for about five minutes last week was that at a by-election in Hampshire, the anti-EU party UKIP came second, beating the Conservatives into third place. I doubt whether that will have made many headlines abroad, and even here in Britain interest waned almost overnight given that strange things tend to happen at by-elections and given the accepted view that on many issues UKIP is more in tune with rank and file Tories than are the Cameronian Tories. Cameron himself has vowed that UKIP’s success will not mean he will take a ‘lurch to the Right’, but at the same time the Mail on Sunday reported today that a future Tory government will ditch the Human Rights Act. (Actually - and this is a bit of insider info, nudge, nudge, wink, wink – the word is that the Mail on Sunday hack did get a Tory briefing but got something horribly, horribly wrong and wrote the wrong story. The trouble is that now it has reported a possible new policy, one that will go down a storm in the shires and among suburban blue-rinsers and their wives, Cameron will look a right tit if he doesn’t follow through.)

UKIP – the United Kingdom Independence Party – is, as far as I am concerned not a political party at all but a single-issue pressure group. And that single issue is: Britain must withdraw from the European Union. A UKIP supporter reading this blog might well bleat ‘but we are a political party’, but as a rule political parties sport policies on a range of issues, and when UKIP does present ‘its policies’ on education, transport, defence, the economy and all the other areas politicians are forever sticking their noses into, they remain wholly unconvincing. Just the one issue preoccupies their every waking moment and that is getting Britain out of the EU. On all other issues they are pretty much contingent with the Tory party.

Cameron once wrote off UKIP as ‘loonies and closet racists’ (and he could well have a point), but the problem was that as many rank and file blue-rinsers have rather a soft spot for UKIP (and I can think of several Tory acquaintances in rural Cornwall who have told me they ‘would vote UKIP if they had any chance of taking the seat), he ran dangerously close to describing many Tory supporters as ‘loonies and closet racists’ (and, again to be honest, if he were to do so, could still well have a point.) But UKIP aren’t just a problem for the right-of-centre; there are plenty of voters who identify with Labour (and even the Lib Dems) who are equally disenchanted with the European Union and might well in extremis find themselves voting for UKIP, especially if it means that the more successful UKIP is in an election for any given seat, the less successful the Tory candidate will be, so the better the outlook will be for the Labour chap or chappesse. And that, of course, is the big Tory worry: UKIP might not garner enough votes at the 2015 general election to win any seats, but it could garner enough to do the Tories a hell of a lot of damage and lose it seats.

The one pertinent point about UKIP – yes, there is one, you know – is that, for all their fogeyism and cravats and golf club jokes and gin and tonics, they are more in touch with the mood of Britain than many like to admit. But a more interesting point is that their disillusionment with the EU is not just a parochial British affair. So a drum roll please for ‘Alternative für Deutschland’, a soon-to-be-established party in Germany whose would-be founders and supporters are terminally fucked off with the whole euro crisis, Merkel’s measures to solve it and cross-party support in the Bundestag for those measures. The at the moment the party is scheduled to be formally founded in April at a meeting in Berlin and has promised to try to contest seats in Germany’s general election this September, or, if it isn’t ready to, to take part in the EU elections in 2014. You can read about the new party here, here, here and here (if you read German) and I must admit that that is where I have garnered my scant knowledge of it so far. But a crucial point is that, as far as I can see, they should not be regarded as a version of UKIP in Lederhosen and a Stein of lager.

First of all, they are specifically concerned with the euro crisis and are not demanding Germany’s withdrawal from the EU. Second, unlike the profile of your average UKIP bod, who to my mind is more at home swapping ever-so-smutty jokes at the golf club bar than taking part in a truly academic discussion, a quite a few of the bods who plan to set up Alternative für Deutschland are university economists who, however much you might disagree with their analyses, can at least be accepted as knowing what they are talking about. And quite apart from not being ‘anti-EU’, many are wholehearted supporters of the EU. It’s just the way the euro crisis is being handled which bothers them and, more importantly, what they see as implications for German democracy, and, yes, I admit Germans can get rather intense and dramatic in some matters, but I do think they have a point. They point out that although the parties in the Bundestag might disagree on strategy and tactics, all are agreed that the euro must be protected. It is the solid consensus on the matter which troubles them, and those Germans, of which there is a growing number, who no longer agree, are simply unrepresented.

So perhaps their fears for the future of democracy in Germany is not quite as daft. This could get interesting, especially as the election last week in Italy ensured that parliamentary chaos there for the foreseeable future is certain.

. . .

Bloody rain!

. . .

I gave you a house in Southampton which looked like Adolf Hitler, now here's a church in Tampa Bay, Florida, which looks like a chicken (or at least to those who take an interest in these things).

Why sound is just a little more important than you might think in film

After doing the comparative bit with Leon Russell’s Song For You, I thought I might do something similar but for a different reason.

When we watch a film, whether a horror, film, a romance, a thriller, a mystery, a comedy or a drama few of us realise quite how much we are being manipulated by the soundtrack. Think of the violins in the shower scene in Psycho when Janet Leigh is taken of the payroll rather earlier than any of us had a right to expect. The soundtrack acts as a signpost: this is where you will be thrilled/amused/turned into a romantic pink pussycat/disgusted.

Below are two short films I once uploaded to YouTube. They are, in fact, the same video, but with and utterly different musical soundtrack. The second here was, in fact, the first to be uploaded. Then I decided to produce a second version - the first one below - with an utterly different piece of music. And as far as I am concerned even though the ‘film’ is the same, they are to utterly different pieces. Play them and see what you think. I suggest you play them in


order. I can’t for the life of me remember who the first piece of music is by, it’s just something I found knocking about my iTunes collection. But the second, rather lovely piece, is by an Uzbeki singer and songwriter Sevara Nazarkhan (pic above) whose music I came across by chance somewhere (on Radio 3’s Late Junction, I think). The piece is called Gazli, and I don’t know what it means, either.

Here’s the first upbeat version:

And here’s the second downbeat version.

The children are my two, Elsie and Wesley. The pictures are now about seven or eight years old.

. . .

I keep and eye on ‘the stats’ of this blog (should that be the ‘stats’ or ‘the’ stats? I don’t know. Suggestions please and all silly ones will be acted upon) and I am astounded to discover that one particular entry (this one) has been viewed more than twice as much as the next most popular entry — 4,031 times. At the time of writing this — March 2, 2013, at 10.06am, this blog as been views 38,128 times, so more than 10 per cent of those viewings are of that one entry. Why? Well, when I delve deeper into ‘the stats’ and look at ‘referring sites’, a great many of them are visited by people tracking down a well-known picture (left) of Mandy Rice-Davies (‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he’). So it has occurred to me to include that picture (and this preamble explaining what I’m doing) in every blog entry in an attempt to drum up visitors and encourage them to take a look at some other entries. It helps that when the picture was taken, she was a rather attractive woman.

Fingers are being crossed in Paris and Berlin that The Buffoon is not back - some hope given a decent but dull opponent. In Spain Rajoy promises to chop off his own hand, while in Athens the Greeks learn to swim

Well, all good thing must come to an end, and Italy’s recent resurgence in the credibility stakes could well breath its last in two days. Those who take an interest in these matters, and quite possibility even some of those who don’t, will remember that with Italy’s national debt growing ever bigger and the interest rates it had to offer in order to get people to lend it money growing ever larger the, the country – and the euro – was dragged back from the brink of disaster when its prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was persuaded to do the decent thing, take a pistol into the woods and resign.

In his place was appointed one Mario Monti, a highly respected economist, who set up an government of technocrats and helped Italy regain the confidence of the markets. But most importantly, unlike Berlusconi he was not regarded by the rest of the world as a complete buffoon. And in world politics these things do matter. Monti did the biz, much to the relief of assorted eurocrats for whom ‘the project’ and its success is not a matter of principle or ideals, rather a matter of not looking like a complete dick in the eyes of those who wish them ill at the best of times. And the euro is, in many ways, a symbol of the EU: if it crashes - in my view when it crashes - it will make the EU look so silly that the whole shooting match will go tits up (if I might, on this occasion, be allowed to mix ten to 15 metaphors).

On February 25 Italy goes to the polls in its 2,345th general election since the end of World War II. The left in Italy is led by a chap called Pier Luigi Bersani (a former Communist, but then most of those on the left usually are) who is well-respected generally thought to have the charisma of a packet of cornflakes. He is said to be staid and uninspiring, and that makes him no match for Berlusconi, however much of a buffoon our Silvio is.

Incidentally, there is still a great vagueness about how our man Silvio set up is business empire, which embraces the media, the food industry and a football team, and made his billions (the Daily Mail delights in his Blofeld-type lair on the coast of Sardinia). The Economist, which has never liked him, has hinted that he was first set up by the Mafia as a useful means to get

their money laundered. I can’t remember what evidence they produced for that claim, but I have to admit that it is a claim I subscribe to completely, solid evidence or not. It is the sheer vagueness of his start in business which is so worrying.

When Monti resigned and the election was called, the left had a very healthy lead in the polls of around 15 per cent. Then Berlusconi went out on the stump, got the crowds laughing (where Bersani has the crowds yawning) and that lead has already been cut to just under 10 per cent. That, admittedly, would be sufficient to see the man off, but the question is, will Berlusconi manage to whittle it away even more? We won’t however, know, because Italian electoral law dictates that no opinion polls can be held in the last two weeks of campaigning.

I should imagine that from Paris, Madrid and Berlin everyone is keeping his or her fingers crossed that The Buffoon is not returned to power. Because if he is that could well be curtains to all the good work in restoring the Italian economy Monti has done. And that could mean the curtain could go up in the – in my view long overdue – final act of the tragedy that is the euro. For once Italy falls, as it might, Spain will follow, then France. Germany’s Angela Merkel faces the electorate  in just over seven months and if the euro is going to the wall, she will know full well, ideals or not, that no electorate will be won over with exhortations to dig even deeper in their pockets to bail out their European cousins. No sir.

On the other hand, of course, Bersani might well squeak home and be in a strong enough position to form a government. Who knows.

And where does the leave yesterday’s ‘coming man’ the ‘Catholic gay poet’ Nichi Vendola. Well, exactly nowhere. When I first came across him courtesy of a radio documentary he was, indeed, the coming man of the Left and the one everyone ‘in the know’ predicted would be challenging Silvio Berlusconi at the next general election. Well, that was obviously news to our Mr Bersani, who is the man doing the challenging on Sunday and Monday. So if anyone assures you in any way that your are a ‘coming man’ or a ‘coming woman’, do the decent think and withdraw from public life gracefully, though sharpish, before you are obliged to withdraw from public life with rather less grace and a lot of egg on your face.

. . .

Quite apart from all that annoying business with the euro which might or might not blow up, Spain’s prime minister Mariano Rajoy has been facing demands that’s he should resign over  corruption allegations. I didn’t know until I heard it on a recent edition of the BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent (available on all good online radios, laptops and desktops) that the Spanish have a phrase, something of a linguistic shrug of the shoulders, which loosely translated means ‘well, that’s how it is’. It is a philosophical attitude which allows many to cope with some of the shit life throws their way.

But it would seem that Spain is becoming increasingly fed up with corruption, which (according to the FOOC correspondent) is rather more  widespread than I imagined. Quite a few people are at it. The examples given was slipping your doctor a fistful of euros to shift you


up the list to an estate agent agreeing not to charge you an extra 250 euros if he doesn’t have to give you’re a receipt for the money you have just paid him for some other business. On Wednesday Rajoy gave the Spanish equivalent to an address to the nation in which he pledged to cut down on party political spending blah-di-blah. What he didn’t address were the claims that he, too, has been busily stuffing used €10 euro notes into his underpants.

And what about Greece, the perpetual basket case whose government is so broke that hospitals are open for a day other month but whose national wealth is still quite fabulous (not paying taxes being seen, according to my brother, as a national patriotic duty, one which came from the days when Greece was ruled by those horrible Turkish Ottomans. It also helpfully means you have a bit more moolah to spend on all the goodies you want to treat yourself to)? Well, Athens was hit by several hours of heavy rain and a thunderstorm and is now ankle-deep in water everywhere. Which only goes to show that it never rains but it pours. (If I get negative feedback about that, admittedly rather weak, joke, I promise to withdraw it.)

. . .

I keep and eye on ‘the stats’ of this blog (should that be the ‘stats’ or ‘the’ stats? I don’t know. Suggestions please and all silly ones will be acted upon) and I am astounded to discover that one particular entry (this one) has been viewed more than twice as much as the next most popular entry — 4,031 times. At the time of writing this — March 2, 2013, at 10.06am, this blog as been views 38,128 times, so more than 10 per cent of those viewings are of that one entry. Why? Well, when I delve deeper into ‘the stats’ and look at ‘referring sites’, a great many of them are visited by people tracking down a well-known picture (left) of Mandy Rice-Davies (‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he’). So it has occurred to me to include that picture (and this preamble explaining what I’m doing) in every blog entry in an attempt to drum up visitors and encourage them to take a look at some other entries. It helps that when the picture was taken, she was a rather attractive woman.

Some of tomorrow's TV highlights here in Old Blighty: can you wait?

I do so hate to be thought a party-pooper or a misery guts, but I am beginning to wonder about the sanity of my fellow countrymen, or at least those who choose to spend their evenings glued to what my grandfather used to call the ‘idiot’s lantern’. The Critics’ Choice of the TV programmes on tomorrow (February 19, 2013) which is appearing in the paper published by my highly respected employers’ (may God protect and preserve them and all their cattle, praise the Lord) includes the following not-to-be-missed gems: on BBC 2 at 9pm The Railways: Keeping Britain On Track, the second of a six-part series you will get the chance to meet staff and passengers at Leeds station and hear what they have to say. I really can’t wait.

If that doesn’t float your boat, you can tune into Litter Wars on BBC 1 at 10.35pm which promises to be a fascinating account of folk who are fed up with all the waste and litter on our streets and are taking ‘matters into their own hands’. Well!

Pick Of The Day, which I assume is rated by the papers critics to be even more interesting, is The Friend Chicken Shop: Life In A Day, which takes a ‘unique, warts and all’ look at – well life in a chicken takeaway. That is on Channel 4, but also at 9pm, so if you want to see both it and the in-depth look at life on a railway platform, you’ll have to record one and watch it later. Decisions, decisions, the bane of our lives.

History is made as British Prime Minister gets Pope's go-ahead to marry his guinea pig. And Queen sensationally found hiding in Leicester car park

Well, the cat’s is out of the bag: David Cameron has pulled it off. He has persuaded the House of Commons to allow a man to marry another man and is now free to make an honest man of Nick Clegg, though what fiery Spanish Mrs Clegg (a one-time flamenco dancer, apparently, who can rustle up a mean tortilla) will make of it is yet to be seen. But who will now still insist that Britain is living in the Dark Ages? There will still be the nay-sayers, but please walk with me on this one and give them all the traditional two-fingered salute.

Our Prime Minister is now free to marry his Deputy and the fact that they are both men is no longer a barrier. I understand they don’t much like each other and bicker all the time, but are staying together for the sake of their principles, so it could well be a real, traditional marriage. I trust this will end all the loose talk that we still send our social workers up chimneys and have no idea what to do with vegetables except boil them for several hours until we can be certain they are dead. (Apparently, the latest scientific thinking is that vegetables do actually feel pain and the Dutch and Germans are already considering banning the practice of boiling them to death, although – surprise, surprise – the French and Spanish are dead against any such ban and claim the practice is a vital part of their natural heritage, like killing geese by stuffing them full of corn and teasing bulls to death.)

There are still many benighted fools who insist that marriage was, is and always should be between a man and a woman, and that if God had wanted man to marry his pets, he would have made them far prettier (the pets, that is, not man). But you and I, as intelligent,

‘Don't raise your hopes, Norman. I've got a feeling that Brad Pitt is already spoken for’
© Mac/Daily Mail/Associated Newspapers/Whoever gets the money rational, drinking people, know full well that whether you are for or against man marrying his pets is a generational matter: those of us who grew up with the traditional view that ‘marriage is between a man and a woman’ are simply incapable of adapting to change, whereas our younger folk almost to a man and woman regard it as an example of progress at its finest. (Billy Bragg has already written a song about it.)



To be blunt: opposing this legislation seems to me quite sufficient grounds for introducing euthanasia throughout the European Union. It would demonstrate quite clearly that nothing can stand in the way of progress, but there would be the added benefits that our struggling Western economies would see pressure on their pension arrangements eased considerably and it would be a very welcome shot in the arm for Europe’s funeral parlour sector who have been having rather a lean time of it of late, what with advances in medicine and the average lifespan growing ever longer. So a cheer all round please: thank you Mr Cameron and all the best for your future union with Mr Clegg

. . . .

 It is a measure of just how momentous the ‘man can now marry his pets’ legislation is that a similarly quite astounding piece of news has passed almost unnoticed. We woke up on Monday morning to be warned that although scientists were still performing tests and were remaining ‘tight-lipped’ on the matter, it seemed likely that the Queen has been buried in a car park in Leicester and had been there for several days.

What was particularly concerning about the news – and despite official caution, there can be little doubt that it was true – was that there were no reports at all from any of her palaces, castles and other residences that she had been missing. None. Not a sausage. Her Majesty of The Cinque Ports, Her Regal Holiness and Britain’s Favourite Granny (to give her some of lesser-known titles) has been leading an increasingly quieter life these past years (the word is that all the training for her celebrated parachute jump last August over Hackney rather took it out of here – she is, after all, well over 50) and is said to like nothing better these days than to retire to the Buckingham Palace conservatory with a copy of Woman’s World and a mug of tea. You would have thought that after she had not been seen for several hours, someone in the Royal Household would have raised the alarm. But apparently not.

The good news is that although she was completely buried in the car park, she was not dead. One report even claimed she was rather annoyed to have been discovered, the suggestion being that she had engineered the whole incident in an attempt to lead some kind of private life, but in a statement The Palace (you can find it in full here) confirmed that The Queen had indeed been found in the car park in Leicester and would appear at a special Press conference later this week. No further explanation was given.

Prince Charles issued a statement saying ‘one is relieved at the happy outcome of this matter’. When approached by journalists, Prince Phillip simply told them to ‘fuck off’, and Prince Andrew was out of the country. In a joint statement Princes William and Harry said they were glad that The Queen was ‘all right’, and Prince William’s sister-in-law Pippa Middleton revealed she had already been in touch with publisher to write a book about the matter. Should be a humdinger!

. . .

These things are, of course, always a matter of opinion, but as far as I am concerned the rot started when darts began to be televised. It got worse: last week, admittedly on daytime TV when most people are dead, we had a documentary on a day in the life of a bailiff.

 Tomorrow BBC2 (once seen as the ‘thinking man’s channel’ now just the channel for conceited folk who think they have a brain and will only watch BBC1 if they’re sure no one will find out) at 8pm there is Planning Process. This shows the ups and downs of life as a town planner.

This week ‘officers in the Borders consider an application to erect a shed – for 169,000 chickens – while a homeowner has been dumping rubbish in his garden for 20 years’. And our broadcasters have been dumping rubbish on TV for quite a bit longer. You’ll gather that I don’t bother watching I’m A Celebrity …, Big Brother, Cooking On Ice or Celebrity Traffic Warden. I prefer to watch paint dry. I shall keep you posted on further not-to-be-missed programmes on TV here in the UK. Should get foreign visitors to the blog green with envy.

. . .

I keep and eye on ‘the stats’ of this blog (should that be the ‘stats’ or ‘the’ stats? I don’t know. Suggestions please and all silly ones will be acted upon) and I am astounded to discover that one particular entry (this one) has been viewed more than twice as much as the next most popular entry — 4,031 times. At the time of writing this — March 2, 2013, at 10.06am, this blog as been views 38,128 times, so more than 10 per cent of those viewings are of that one entry. Why? Well, when I delve deeper into ‘the stats’ and look at ‘referring sites’, a great many of them are visited by people tracking down a well-known picture (left) of Mandy Rice-Davies (‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he’). So it has occurred to me to include that picture (and this preamble explaining what I’m doing) in every blog entry in an attempt to drum up visitors and encourage them to take a look at some other entries. It helps that when the picture was taken, she was a rather attractive woman.

Song for you: a comparative analysis of different versions, with reference to what is crap, anodyne and pointless (Whitney Houston, The Carpenters and Michael Buble) and two - Donny Hathaway and Herbie Hancock/Christine Aguilera - which at least do the song justice. Oh, and Russell's original (which I like best of all). And then just a little bit about gay marriage, to keep you buggers on your toes (bad joke not intended)

NB (24/05/21)

I’ve just looked up this entry because I want to send a link to it to someone who has been in touch (hi, Miz Walky Talky), and gave the different versions another listening, and I have to admit I was perhaps a bit harsh. 

It’s just that the Whitney Houston, Carpenters and Michael Buble stuff just isn’t my bag. I do prefer something just a little more edge and, frankly The Carpenters and Buble couldn’t and can’t interest me in a millions. But liberal ‘ol me is bound to admit some people do like it and my tastes are no better than theirs just different. 

But I will add, if you do like soul, why not go for the real thing rather than Buble and Simply Red’s ersatz crap. There is plenty of it about. Ok, the trumpet solo on Buble’s version is neat enough, but to my ears it still sounds too much like the soundtrack to a cinema ad for Martini.

I can’t remember when, why or how I first got to like the music of Leon Russell, although I was familiar with his name as one of the many knocking around when I was in my salad days. In the late Sixties, early Seventies he was best known for organising the Mad Dogs And Englishmen tour of the U.S., but apart from hearing songs from the eponymous album when I was in someone else’s flat and it was played, I knew nothing about him. ‘Leon Russell’ was just one of those names, and to add to the confusion there was an English folk singer knocking about at the time who was also called ‘Leon Russell’. But for some reason I bought one of his LPs (as they were in those days) called Carney and he immediately, just on the strength of that, became one of my favourite singers.

I’m the first to admit that he doesn’t have a conventional good voice, but then nor do several of my other favourite singers, for example The Kinks’ Ray Davies and Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, to say nothing about bloody Bob Dylan. Yet all four, in their own way can knock spots of the more vanilla types, your Michael Buble (see below), that fuckwit from Simply Red (I really can’t bring myself to write his name, I loathe him so much. He reminds me of TCP) who is to soul music what KFC is to fine dining. Russell never really registered as a ‘star’ in his own right, but made his name as a session musician, playing piano, guitar and bass, and sought-after arranger in Los Angeles. Another of the singer/songwriters I like, JJ Cale, was in his band when they were both knocking around Tulsa, Oklahoma, and trying to make a name for themselves.

Russell also wrote some great songs, notably the one I am writing about here, Song For You, as well as This Masquerade, which was a big hit for jazz guitarist George Benson - a great version - and the bloody Carpenters - the usual soft-edged crap. (Edit Oct 25, 2019: There is also a great jazz cover by the pianist Gene Harris.) You can tell I’m no big Carpenters fan (and, again, see below). Their version sounds like the kind of schmaltzy muzak you hear in lifts (US: elevators) from here to Dubai via New York and Rio, as does Helen Reddy’s and Kenny Rogers: great song, appalling interpretations.

Below are three cases in point. Song For You is a great love song. Play it to your girl, and she’ll forgive you anything for the next few days. But it does, it really does depend on interpretation. So here, apart from Leon Russell’s original, are five other versions, in reverse order. (Amy Winehouse also did a version, but I only found out after preparing the six below for upload to this blog, and I really can’t be arsed going through that again. And, anyway, although she sings it in her inimitable way, she doesn’t actually try to sing it as a love song, which as far as I am concerned rather misses the point.) The first three versions are an object lessons in how to kill something stone dead.

First off is Whitney Houston’s version. It starts of OK - well, OK if you like her middle-of-the road stuff which I don’t, but after one minute 30 seconds it completely loses the plot and is turned into ersatz middle-of-the road disco and becomes truly awful. In fact, I was obliged to fade it out as I can’t expect anyone reading this blog to be subjected to that kind of crap while enjoying my hospitality. But by all means listen for yourself just to reassure yourself that I’m not talking bullshit.

Next comes the version by The Carpenters, which if you are familiar with the kind of dross they used to turn out, will come as no surprise. I’m liberal enough to admit that some - deluded - people get their rocks off listening to The Carpenters (or what passes for their rocks) but I find them downright embarrassing. But give them at least a minute of your time and then, I trust, you’ll agree with me.

Next up is that arch tit Michael Buble, second cousin to The Carpenters and various other ersatz emotion merchants, who is another idiot who couldn’t resist taking a lovely song and turning it into accessible garbage. Let me speak my mind here: Michael Buble music is safe, white soul for safe white middle-class dinner parties given by the kind of fuckwits who think living life on the edge is leaving the house without their mobile phone (US ‘cell phone’). It, too, is - in my ever-so-humble opinion - quite awful. But give it a minute of your time, too, and then reflect on how not to do something. And if you listen to it all and tell yourself ‘what’s he talking about, it’s not that bad’, you are officially banned from reading this blog.

That’s the worst of them out of the way, and now for two versions which are half decent. I’m not too sure Donny Hathaway has all that much street cred (UPDATE: Actually, I’ve discovered he has quite a lot, but mainly among pensioners and baldy soul ‘buffs’ for whom ‘R&B’ is something entirely different, not that today’s R&B is all that bad. In fact, some of it is rather good. Trouble is I daren’t say so for fear of coming across as some kind of Medallion ‘Who, Me Old?’ Man. Sadly, Donny topped himself. He had mental issues and jumped out of a window). But at least he doesn’t make a pig’s ear of Leon Russell’s Song For You. You get the feeling, when he sings it, that he is at least singing of someone he loves or loved and isn’t just fulfilling a contractual obligation. The arrangement is, for me - at least from the 2.55 min/sec point, just a bit iffy, the kind of arrangement you might hear in an advert selling life assurance or a mortgage. But though it’s by no means the best, it is firmly this side of the fence where bloody Whitney Houston, The Carpenters and Michael Buble are well and truly the other side. Donny makes it.

This version is, in my view, a good one: Christine Aguilera sings it and Herbie Hancock plays keyboards and, I should imagine, arranges. This works, not least because the jazz is so good. And until I heard this, I always thought - never have heard much by her except various tracks while working out in the gym - that Christine Aguilera was just another pop chick. She’s obviously a lot, lot more.

Now for the one which knocks all the rest into a cocked hat, what this whole blog entry is all about: the version by the guy who wrote the song and who most definitely had someone in mind when he did so. This one is for me the tops by one million miles, a complete different song to all the rest. I don’t really like admitting this because it makes me sound a bit of a tit, but listening to Leon Russell’s version - each time - sends a chill up my spine. And I feel deeply in love with I don’t know who. Sadly, not my wife. It just reminds me of the days when I still felt such strong emotion. (Sorry about that last bit, but it would be dishonest not to add it.)

If you have the time to spare, play Herbie Hancock/Christine Aguilera’s version then Leon Russell’s one after the other. Then you’ll realise just what a great song it is and why Whitney Houston, The Carpenters and Michael Buble should be hauled before the International Criminal Court in The Hague and charged with crimes against humanity.

Oh, well, I suppose you deserve a photo of the man, so I have looked up two. Below is a very recent one - well, he is almost 71 -, and then below that as I like to remember him, not least because for a moment or two I can still persuade myself that I’m not yet an old fart. Not yet, but sadly, like the rest of you, slowly getting there.

PS: There’s got to be a PS to all this: looking up something related, I’ve come across the fact that a damn sight more people have recorded this song than I thought, including Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, The Wanker From Simply Red (surprise, bloody surprise), Neil Diamond, Celine Dion (oh dear), someone called ‘Leon Jackson’, someone called ‘Jim Brickman’ and Willie Nelson, who manages to ruin it in a totally unexpected way and ruins whatever good impression I might inadvertently have had of him. I think his major claim to fame is that he hasn’t yet died.

To hear these version (or not - I wouldn’t blame you) use Spotify. I haven’t heard the Aretha Franklin and Dusty Springfield versions and I would like to. The rest of them are equally as awful as Whitney, Michael and bloody Karen Carpenter.

. . .

This blog likes to stay up to date so let me add my two ha’porth on gay marriage. In Britain they are now allowed to enter into a ‘civil partnership’ which gives them the same legal rights as far as inheritance etc are concerned. And Amen to that. Why not? But I really, really can’t get my head around ‘gay marriage’. What more do they get that civil partnerships don’t give them? I did actually ask a gay acquaintance that very question and he gave me the very sensible answer that gays like to be treated equally. And I can’t disagree with that. Yet it still doesn’t answer my question: what do gays get which a civil partnership doesn’t give them?

It does, of course, come down to definitions. And definitions, like much else, not least our moral values, are not quite as set in stone as many like to believe. Yes, of course we can redefine ‘marriage’. For many it means the union of a man and a woman. So why not redefine it and make it ‘the union of two people who love each other, irrespective of sex, and want their union publicly sanctified’? That would surely do the trick. Yet I can’t get away from the feeling that we are chasing down some blind alley ever faster for no very good reason.

I think, perhaps, that that word ‘equality’ is in part to blame, given the explanation my gay friend gave me. We all seem to think we know what it means, but in fact it is a little vaguer than we might like. For ‘equal’ doesn’t mean ‘the same as’: it does depend on context. So when it comes to pay and conditions, I believe utterly that a man and a woman who do the same job should be treated ‘equally’: that they get the same pay and conditions. Full stop. But patently a man is not ‘the same as’ a women. Each is unique.

The issue here is that both should get ‘equal treatment’ when it matters (in itself far too vague a statement in the circumstances, though in my defence I should say that it’s almost 11pm).

I think much difficulty, and many difficulties, derive from the spurious equation of ‘equal’ with ‘the same as’. When we are talking of gays and heterosexuals, we should naturally point out that a gay couple is not able to produce offspring, whereas a heterosexual couple - in theory - can. (They might not fancy each other, hence the ‘in theory’). So in that sense a gay couple is not the same as a heterosexual couple. At this point you might, naturally, argue that ‘marriage need not necessarily imply the imperative to reproduce’. And to that I would be obliged to agree.

So it does come down to definitions. Unfortunately, the result of that is that morality is thus necessarily relative. And if that is the case, the various modern, current, Western moral imperatives - that racism is evil, that we should all be treated equally etc - are also relative, that is to say (at the end of the day) negotiable and might not necessarily be true always and forever. The trouble is that we don’t want them to be negotiable: the technical word for all this is ‘dilemma’.

But it is far too late to carry on now. All I can do is leave you with this one thought: once ‘God’ was the ‘fixed point’ which gave reference to everything else. Then in time we did away with ‘God’, although moral philosophers realised that without a ‘fixed point’ of some kind, some universally acknowledged imperative, all moral philosophies - i.e. ethical systems - fell apart. Today, rather dishonestly, we liberals ignore the philosophical incongruities of our reasoning and argue that our ‘liberal values’ are right and that is that! And if you don’t agree, you are a fascist, reactionary pig! And gays should be able to get married if they want to! And if you don’t agree, you are well beyond the pale! (And in the very same breath many of us liberals are apt to argue that all this talk of God is superstitious stuff and nonsense!)

But as I pointed out almost ten minutes ago, it is late and I am buggered if I can think as straight as I should to attempt to make the kind of points I am making. Although I will admit that having started this entry writing about a love song called Song For You, I am bound to admit, accept, acknowledge and all the rest that a man might feel the love it conveys for another man, and a woman for another woman just as much as a man can feel it for a woman or ... blah, blah, I’m sure you get my drift.

God bless you all. (Did I really say that? Well, wash my mouth with soap and water!)

. . .

PPS: I’m watching a BBC documentary on Mark Knopfler, and the thought just occurred to me that I would be more sanguine watching such programmes and such like if those being featured being interviewed didn’t all pretty much look like bloody retired geography teachers, retired social workers, retired and still recovering alcoholics and retired paedophiles.

. . .

PPPS (if that’s at all possible) Will the good Lord please save me from nostalgia. Please. Always. Nostalgia is The Beast we have all been warned of time and again.

. . .

I keep and eye on ‘the stats’ of this blog (should that be the ‘stats’ or ‘the’ stats? I don’t know. Suggestions please and all silly ones will be acted upon) and I am astounded to discover that one particular entry (this one) has been viewed more than twice as much as the next most popular entry — 4,031 times. At the time of writing this — March 2, 2013, at 10.06am, this blog as been views 38,128 times, so more than 10 per cent of those viewings are of that one entry. Why? Well, when I delve deeper into ‘the stats’ and look at ‘referring sites’, a great many of them are visited by people tracking down a well-known picture (left) of Mandy Rice-Davies (‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he’). So it has occurred to me to include that picture (and this preamble explaining what I’m doing) in every blog entry in an attempt to drum up visitors and encourage them to take a look at some other entries. It helps that when the picture was taken, she was a rather attractive woman.