Every country has its self-image, which is more often than not is rather flattering. The French like to see themselves as intellectuals, folk who would far, far rather discuss ontology than developments in the latest soaps. The Italians are convinced they are the great seducers, although apparently Italian women are the first group to pooh-pooh that one. (It doesn’t help that for economic reasons - largely - Italian men often live at home until they marry and expect their new wives to carry on where their mothers left off.) The Brits like to see themselves as quirky, slightly off-the-wall, the exception which prove most rules (which is just as well because portraying themselves as great intellectuals or great seducers would do nothing but elicit hoots of risible laughter from every other nation).
As it is, you can find eccentrics in every nation, not least, counter-intuitively, Germany: my sister once had a neighbour who thought his water company’s charges were getting too high and began drilling his own well in is back garden. He had got about 40ft deep before ‘the authorities’ - it’s always ‘the authorities’ - told him enough was enough and what he was doing was illegal under several laws, including one which stated that ‘borehole drilling, drilling boreholes, drilling any hole which might be interpreted as a borehole and which meets the different criteria leading to or leading from the definition of boreholes is not allowed if the area of land in which the borehole is being drilled is less than 20sq m, if work on drilling the borehole takes place predominantly between the hours of 5pm and 8am or at weekends, if the borehole driller cannot comprehensively demonstrate the need for a personal borehole (but see the section below on the impact of proposed new EU legislation) and the borehole/borehole drilling do not meet the general criteria of Safety At Work, Environmental Concerns and Tighter European Integration.’ As it was, he took ‘the authorities’ to court which ruled in his favour on all of those official objections except the last which we all know overrules every other law known to mankind.
Where was I?
It has to be said that if not the wackiest nation in the world, Britain is up there with the wackier ones. An example: to date we have here in Great Britain TWO parliaments and TWO assemblies. Both parliaments can raise taxes, although the second parliament (in Scotland) can only do so in some areas (taxes on litter, billboards, kerbstones, that kind of thing). Neither of the assemblies can raise taxes. In fact the assemblies, one in Belfast and one in Cardiff can do very little except meet and complain about the main parliament, the one which sits in Westminster, although I believe they do have limited responsibility for certain bye-laws - when folk can hang out their washing, the number of times you can spit in the street on weekdays, that kind of thing. The members of both parliaments and both assemblies, however, are reasonably content with the arrangement, and very good salaries, very generous expenses, subsidised restaurants and bars, very generous pensions and the insistence that it is all very, very democratic go a long way to ensure they don’t rock the boat too much.
My thoughts turned to wackiness when I logged on and did my morning trawl through the websites of the Telegraph, the Guardian, The Independent and the Daily Mail.
The Independent front page was especially puzzling, which is to say it was more puzzling than usual. Under the headline ‘Victory within reach - but cuts could spoil it all’ there are pictures of Hillary Clinton (looking rather old), Carla Bruni (still looking youngish and they call her Carla Bruni-Sarkozy) and Elton John (looking rather old). The overnight news was that all the rich folk in the U.S. have decided to make it easier for European banks to borrow their money (so good of them), Iran has decided it wants to be invaded by Britain, and our Chancellor has released a single (‘You Think It’s Bad? You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’ - quite catchy). What, I asked myself do Clinton, Bruni (‘Bruni-Sarkozy’) and Elton John have to do with any of that? The answer, of course, is nothing. For the Indy, as it is know to the few families in West London who still buy it, had decided to ignore the obvious news stories and lead on World Aids Day. Good on you, you might say, and I agree (after having read some of the pieces by the three involved) that it is timely to remember that aids is still a threat to many lives. But to splash on it in the run-up to Armageddon? That is eccentric.
But the Indy has form. It was launched in October 1986 to universal goodwill. It would be fair to say it hit the ground running. It’s design was fresh, clear and attractive, its use of photography was imaginative and its philosophy of political non-alignment very welcome indeed by many of the newspaper reading public who were thoroughly fed up with the entrenched attitudes of British newspapers, and its launch ad campaign - We’re independent. Are you? - very clever indeed, playing as it did on the conceit and vanity of potential readers. And from that high spot it began a slow, slow, painfully slow decline.
If I remember rightly, its initial circulation was more than respectable at around 300,000, although this was, admittedly, in the days before the internet when the Telegraph was still selling over one million, The Times far more than half a million and the Guardian’s figures did not look as sickly as they do now. So, off to such a promising start, the Indy decided to shoot itself in the foot: for no very good reason, it underwent a redesign. There was nothing wrong with the old design and at the time circulation figures were holding up, even though they were no longer as high as at launch. Redesigns (and ‘relaunches’) are usually the first sign that ‘things are not healthy’. Sometimes they come off (and as in the case of the revitalised Marks & Spencer chain under Stuart Rose, they come of spectacularly) but that is the exception which proves the rule. At the Indy, however, things were going rather well (as far as I know) and the redesign was entirely superfluous. Be that as it may, it unsettled some readers and circulation started drooping a little.
Its attitude didn’t help, either. Like many, I started reading it when I was launched but was soon turned off by an indefinable smugness. I once met a reporter, on The Times at the time, who told me he was headhunted by the Indy. He went for the interview and was seriously considering jumping ship until he was told the salary the paper was offering him. ‘But that’s several thousand pounds less than I’m getting now,’ he told them. ‘Ah, yes,’ they replied, ‘but you would be working for The Independent.’ That attitude seemed to permeate the paper, by then six years old. When I was living and working in London in the early 1990s, I worked regular shifts on the Indy in its City Road offices. It seemed to me the people I worked with were split right down the middle: regular, very professional sub-editors and then a gang of hacks who really thought they were the bee’s knees. It was rather odd.
Since then the decline has been inexorable. It has had ten editors in the past 25 years, including many who should never have been allowed near the editor’s chair in a month of Sundays. I shall name names: Andrew Marr (him again), Rosie Boycott and the ever delightful Janet Street-Porter. Circulations among the broadsheets have, admittedly, fallen dramatically all round: in October 2011, the Telegraph sold just 603,901 (in Oct 2010 it was 655,006, a decline of -7.80pc), The Times (another paper which thinks the sun shines out of its arse) 417,197 (479,107, -12.92pc), 230,541 (276,428, -16.60pc) and the Indy 133,449 (182,412, -26.84pc). To be fair, I should add that the Indy has recently launched the i, a kind of Indy lite (the main paper without the pretentious bit?) I gave up on the Indy when I found that all too often I simply didn’t understand too many of its feature articles, not a sign of my stupidity, but that the paper was badly written: the first rule of communication is Don’t Baffle The Reader), and one can assume that of the one in four readers who stopped buying the Indy year on year, almost all will have instead gone for the i. And this is selling rather well: 211,467 in October 2011, more than its older sister paper and just 19, 074 fewer than the Guardian. Now if that isn’t wacky, I don’t know what is. For a fuller account of these figures as well as those for the tabloids, you can go to this page.
. . .
Here is the most succinct, clearest and best explanation of the euro crisis I have yet read. It explains everything.
Thursday 1 December 2011
Wednesday 30 November 2011
My appointment with Death: any chance it could be sooner rather than later so that I can save a bit on bills?
I don’t know whether to be happy that I am over 60 and will die a little sooner than many of you and thus avoid must of the bad times on the way, or whether I should adopt the conventional attitude that death is quite simply awful and we should stave it off as long as possible. My English grandparents both died in their 70s, my German grandfather was taken by liver cancer just as the war ended. He was, I think 56. My German grandmother, on the other hand, made it to the ripe old age of 93 or 94. My mother died three months after her 60th birthday (of a heart attack) and my father was 68 when he popped his clogs (also of cancer, which began as prostate cancer and then spread).
It would seem that, my grandmother notwithstanding, we Powell/Hinrichs are not really a long-lived family. However, until just over seven years ago, I was convinced I would take after my German grandmother and annoy the world until I was well into my 90s. I had no very good reason for thinking as much as I had started smoking at more or less 14 and didn’t really stop until I was 50. There were times when I considered myself to be a non-smoker as I had stopped smoking cigarettes, but I carried on with my habit, acquired at university, of enjoying the wacky backy, and looking back it now seems obvious to me that when I thought I would like a toke or two of at any time during the day, in fact I was simply craving the nicotine hit smokers crave. Nevertheless, it was going to be a ripe old age for me, or so I thought until May 2, 2006, when I was carted off to hospital suffering from a heart attack. After that I slightly re-adjusted my plans.
Since then I have always told myself that I want to live long enough to see my children well-established and happily independent of their dad. That might be, say, when they are just short of 30. So that would give me another 18 years (Wesley turned 12 last May) and take me through to 80. But that seems rather unlikely given my grandparents’ fate, so maybe that would be 75 or 76. Who knows.
I am not being morbid – well, perhaps I am, but I don’t mean to be – when I write this. In fact, for some very odd reason I don’t have any ‘fear of death’ as many say they do. In fact, I’m rather curious to find out what happens afterwards, although, naturally, I shall be in no position to tell anyone still alive. But my thoughts turned to wondering how long I shall be around with the overnight news that economically things are going to get very, very bad over the coming ten years of so here in Britain, and that prognosis, cheerless as it is, is based on the assumption the euro will pull through, that the wise men and women who guide the countries which make up the Eurozone will finally – finally – get their act together and save the day and the euro at the last moment. Well, I have never been one to believe that pigs might fly. And that means that things will get far, far worse than the exceptionally awful future our esteemed Chancellor of the Exchequer predicted yesterday in the House of Commons. Great.
To make matters worse, some trigger-happy folk in Tehran decided to revive the old Iranian tradition of looting the British embassy. That is not a good sign. The British bulldog is not one to sit idly by while its dignity is injured and is apt to retaliate. The trouble is: with what will the British bulldog retaliate? At the last count its armoury consisted of two broken peashooters and a converted trawler. With exquisitely good timing, the Government has good rid of all our aircraft carriers, is sacking almost all of our Armed Forces and is in no state whatsoever to pick a fight with anyone. I think we’ll all know the game is finally up when it urges us all to knit for victory.
So that is why I’ve been wondering just how long I’ve got left. Not that I’ve ever been very convinced but the imperative to stay alive at all costs until the bitter end, because a bitter end it usually is. And on that cheery note I wish you all the best and enjoy the rest of your day.
It would seem that, my grandmother notwithstanding, we Powell/Hinrichs are not really a long-lived family. However, until just over seven years ago, I was convinced I would take after my German grandmother and annoy the world until I was well into my 90s. I had no very good reason for thinking as much as I had started smoking at more or less 14 and didn’t really stop until I was 50. There were times when I considered myself to be a non-smoker as I had stopped smoking cigarettes, but I carried on with my habit, acquired at university, of enjoying the wacky backy, and looking back it now seems obvious to me that when I thought I would like a toke or two of at any time during the day, in fact I was simply craving the nicotine hit smokers crave. Nevertheless, it was going to be a ripe old age for me, or so I thought until May 2, 2006, when I was carted off to hospital suffering from a heart attack. After that I slightly re-adjusted my plans.
Since then I have always told myself that I want to live long enough to see my children well-established and happily independent of their dad. That might be, say, when they are just short of 30. So that would give me another 18 years (Wesley turned 12 last May) and take me through to 80. But that seems rather unlikely given my grandparents’ fate, so maybe that would be 75 or 76. Who knows.
To make matters worse, some trigger-happy folk in Tehran decided to revive the old Iranian tradition of looting the British embassy. That is not a good sign. The British bulldog is not one to sit idly by while its dignity is injured and is apt to retaliate. The trouble is: with what will the British bulldog retaliate? At the last count its armoury consisted of two broken peashooters and a converted trawler. With exquisitely good timing, the Government has good rid of all our aircraft carriers, is sacking almost all of our Armed Forces and is in no state whatsoever to pick a fight with anyone. I think we’ll all know the game is finally up when it urges us all to knit for victory.
So that is why I’ve been wondering just how long I’ve got left. Not that I’ve ever been very convinced but the imperative to stay alive at all costs until the bitter end, because a bitter end it usually is. And on that cheery note I wish you all the best and enjoy the rest of your day.
Monday 28 November 2011
Hacks on the rack and how, when our glorious Press does, for once, do a decent thing, it is only to protect its own hide
It would be untrue to claim that at present the United Kingdom is gripped by the ongoing Leveson Inquiry into Press behaviour because the public simply isn’t gripped by it in the slightest. What interest it shows stems from the same nosey-parker tendency which led to the Press behaving badly in the first place: the public has a seemingly unquenchable thirst for witnessing the bad fortune of others, and our newspapers know there is good money to be made from attempting to quench that thirst. But it would be true to say that the Press themselves – the tabloid Press that is, not the saintly broadsheets, which are read by intelligent people don’t you know, the kind who hold a knife properly and don’t call supper ‘dinner’– are gripped by the possible outcome, and very bloody worried they are, too, as to where it will all lead. I don’t think anyone us under any illusion any more that tabloid hacks can sometimes – note ‘sometimes’ not ‘always’ – behave like complete scum, making the lives of those, whether they are ‘celebrities’ or not, a total misery as they pursue ‘the story’.
When the Press is under attack for its methods, it will often trot out that hoary old cliché ‘the public interest’, that it was behaving in ‘the public interest’, but that is, as so much else Press-related, a load of old cack. Years ago, a judge summed it all up rather well when he pointed out that there is a great difference between ‘the public interest’ and ‘what interests the public’. So, for example, the newspaper which published a story that the latest romance of actor Hugh Grant was on the rocks because of his close friendship with a ‘plummy-voiced’ studio executive would be extremely hard-pressed to substantiate any claim that had it not published the story the democracy of Britain was under threat. As a rule the Press tries to justify some of its worst behaviour by claiming – spuriously in my opinion – that any curtailment of its methods, even those used to gather stories which are not directly related to the well-being of the country’s democracy, would, in the long run, curtail its acknowledged role as guardian of democracy. In short, they claim that if we, the public, want a watchdog Press, we are obliged to take the rough with the smooth. And that, dear reader, dear member of the public, is, in my views, 24-carat bollocks. France, for example, not only has quite stringent privacy laws, but its Press is apt to give its politicians a very easy ride indeed when it comes to their private lives. So, for example, it was common knowledge that Francoise Mitterand not only had multiple mistresses, but that he also had a secret parallel family. Not a word of this ever appeared in print, yet would anyone seriously suggest that French democracy is under threat?
In a world of untruths and half-truths, it is wholly true that the public is unforgivably prurient: it has an insatiable appetite for tittle-tattle, and the more shocking that tittle-tattle is, the better. So it is wholly unsurprising that the Press is not disinclined to make good dough by satisfying that demand for the prurient details of the lives of others. And please don’t make the mistake in thinking that such a business model is restricted to the tabloid Press: the broadsheets also get in on the act as they know their readers, too, want to know every scummy detail. The wheeze they use which allows them to print it all yet appear to be above that kind of gutter behaviour is simply to run stories along the lines of: just look how shocking our gutter Press is – this is the kind of thing they are now publishing. They then publish the lot and their readers, too, can get their rocks off.
The trouble is that whereas 20 or 30 the News of the World could, say, splash on ‘The vicar of Little Magna is a homosexual’, in an age when that is no longer shocking – as someone pointed out, the love that dares not speak its name is now shouting it from the rooftops – it keeps having to go the extra mile. And given advances in technology and the new ways we choose to communicate with each other, it is no surprise that it will resort to using that technology to go that extra mile. That’s how this whole investigation into Press methods started: unscrupulous hacks were – er – hacking into the voicemails of celebrities, politicians, businessmen and our Glorious Royals (God bless The Queen and all who sail in her). As the boundaries of what shocked the public were further pushed outwards, the stories intended to shock the public into buying your paper in order to get the latest details had to become ever more outlandish. And if you didn’t have a good story, just make it up. Simple. That is apparently what happened in the case of the abduction of Maddy McCann, with the Press inventing stories they knew Maddy’s parents were in no position to discredit because It might compromise the investigation into their daughter’s disappearance.
. . .
By chance we are today reading a story on which, given the Leveson Inquiry into appalling Press behaviour, the Press cannot progress any further. It is a very sad story: Gary Speed, a well-liked and well-respected former Premier League footballer and the current manager of the Wales international team, hanged himself yesterday. His suicide came out of the blue (long gone are the days when we had to wait for an inquest into a death to rule it was an act of suicide before it could be described as such) and is described as ‘a mystery’ by the papers.
Actually, they all know it is no mystery whatsoever. Last night, I heard in the newsroom what is most likely to be the true explanation (and if I heard it, you can bet your bottom dollar it had already been round Fleet Street twice). Out of the blue Speed, a married man and the father of two young teenage sons, was informed that a tabloid ‘had proof’ that he was a closet gay and was going to publish its story. Speed told his wife, the couple had a blazing row, Speed spent the night sleeping in his car and in the morning took his own life. Normally, in reporting such a suicide, the Press would have no compunction whatsoever in reporting ‘the allegation’ – always a useful word for Fleet Street’s finest – that Speed was, in fact, gay.
Yet in none of the reports this morning is there so much as a hint of that allegation. As far as Fleet Street is concerned, Speed’s suicide is a complete mystery. So why the reticence? Obvious, really: no editor in his or her right mind would print such a tacky story while their highly paid briefs are attending an inquiry into their behaviour and doing their damndest to persuade the world and its inquiry that as a rule the tabloids are as pure as the driven snow and that any bad behaviour was only down to a couple of rogue reporters. That would have been another suicide. So, for once, they are doing the decent thing. But let it not be thought they are sparing the feelings of Mrs Speed and her sons. They are simply so far in the shit, it would be bloody stupid to see whether they might not get even deeper by printing ‘the allegation’ that Gary Speed was gay.
. . .
I have never once described myself as ‘a journalist’ when asked what I do for a living. Ever. I’m not one. Being a journalist is not just something they decided to do afer watching Lou Grant on the telly or thinking it must be really amazing to have your own telly show and, like, actually interview Rhianna.
By the way, if you're thinking of taking a ‘media studies’ course at university, don’t bother. Absolutely no one in the industry takes them seriously and you'll only find yourself - if your’re lucky - drudging away writing copy for a local authority tourism website. It'll be that or working in a call centre. Do a proper course, such as history, law, languages, sciences. Don’t believe all the cack colleges tell you. Oh, and don’t bother with a college which is less than 30 years old - The University of Tring, that kind of thing. It is a real scandal how the previous Labour governments have short-changed school-leavers into thinking getting a degree is vital. Now every nurse ‘must be a graduate’ and no longer does much of the hands-on nursing. For all the arse-wiping etc. the NHS employs ‘nursing auxiliaries’ – who don’t have to have a degree. Can no one else spot the intellectual legerdemain in that piece of ‘policymaking’? Get a degree only if it’s a real degree, sweethearts. A BA in Sandwiching-making and Domestic Appliances will only see you making sandwiches and selling kettles for less than the non-graduate who is your manager. And follow your heart as well as your head. Don’t be strongarmed into ‘going to uni’ if what you really want to do is make a career for yourself in retail or become a mechanic or a properly trained plumber/electrician/carpenter. Remember, it’s your life.
. . .
I see the ‘eurozone ministers’ are getting together in Brussels later today to discuss ‘expanding the bailout fund’. With a bit of luck they’ll agree on a tearound order and after several hours of intense discussion we can no doubt expect a jointly agreed communiqué reassuring the world that they are ‘committed to finding a solution’ to the current crisis and ‘have every confidence that the euro will survive’. Bliss is it in this dawn to be alive, but to be young is very heaven! Or something like that. Anyone care to remind me what it is like to be young? I’ve rather forgotten. Oh, yes, now I do: I spend several years in my mid-teens petrified that I would never lose my cherry and that I would die a virgin.
When the Press is under attack for its methods, it will often trot out that hoary old cliché ‘the public interest’, that it was behaving in ‘the public interest’, but that is, as so much else Press-related, a load of old cack. Years ago, a judge summed it all up rather well when he pointed out that there is a great difference between ‘the public interest’ and ‘what interests the public’. So, for example, the newspaper which published a story that the latest romance of actor Hugh Grant was on the rocks because of his close friendship with a ‘plummy-voiced’ studio executive would be extremely hard-pressed to substantiate any claim that had it not published the story the democracy of Britain was under threat. As a rule the Press tries to justify some of its worst behaviour by claiming – spuriously in my opinion – that any curtailment of its methods, even those used to gather stories which are not directly related to the well-being of the country’s democracy, would, in the long run, curtail its acknowledged role as guardian of democracy. In short, they claim that if we, the public, want a watchdog Press, we are obliged to take the rough with the smooth. And that, dear reader, dear member of the public, is, in my views, 24-carat bollocks. France, for example, not only has quite stringent privacy laws, but its Press is apt to give its politicians a very easy ride indeed when it comes to their private lives. So, for example, it was common knowledge that Francoise Mitterand not only had multiple mistresses, but that he also had a secret parallel family. Not a word of this ever appeared in print, yet would anyone seriously suggest that French democracy is under threat?
In a world of untruths and half-truths, it is wholly true that the public is unforgivably prurient: it has an insatiable appetite for tittle-tattle, and the more shocking that tittle-tattle is, the better. So it is wholly unsurprising that the Press is not disinclined to make good dough by satisfying that demand for the prurient details of the lives of others. And please don’t make the mistake in thinking that such a business model is restricted to the tabloid Press: the broadsheets also get in on the act as they know their readers, too, want to know every scummy detail. The wheeze they use which allows them to print it all yet appear to be above that kind of gutter behaviour is simply to run stories along the lines of: just look how shocking our gutter Press is – this is the kind of thing they are now publishing. They then publish the lot and their readers, too, can get their rocks off.
The trouble is that whereas 20 or 30 the News of the World could, say, splash on ‘The vicar of Little Magna is a homosexual’, in an age when that is no longer shocking – as someone pointed out, the love that dares not speak its name is now shouting it from the rooftops – it keeps having to go the extra mile. And given advances in technology and the new ways we choose to communicate with each other, it is no surprise that it will resort to using that technology to go that extra mile. That’s how this whole investigation into Press methods started: unscrupulous hacks were – er – hacking into the voicemails of celebrities, politicians, businessmen and our Glorious Royals (God bless The Queen and all who sail in her). As the boundaries of what shocked the public were further pushed outwards, the stories intended to shock the public into buying your paper in order to get the latest details had to become ever more outlandish. And if you didn’t have a good story, just make it up. Simple. That is apparently what happened in the case of the abduction of Maddy McCann, with the Press inventing stories they knew Maddy’s parents were in no position to discredit because It might compromise the investigation into their daughter’s disappearance.
. . .
By chance we are today reading a story on which, given the Leveson Inquiry into appalling Press behaviour, the Press cannot progress any further. It is a very sad story: Gary Speed, a well-liked and well-respected former Premier League footballer and the current manager of the Wales international team, hanged himself yesterday. His suicide came out of the blue (long gone are the days when we had to wait for an inquest into a death to rule it was an act of suicide before it could be described as such) and is described as ‘a mystery’ by the papers.
Actually, they all know it is no mystery whatsoever. Last night, I heard in the newsroom what is most likely to be the true explanation (and if I heard it, you can bet your bottom dollar it had already been round Fleet Street twice). Out of the blue Speed, a married man and the father of two young teenage sons, was informed that a tabloid ‘had proof’ that he was a closet gay and was going to publish its story. Speed told his wife, the couple had a blazing row, Speed spent the night sleeping in his car and in the morning took his own life. Normally, in reporting such a suicide, the Press would have no compunction whatsoever in reporting ‘the allegation’ – always a useful word for Fleet Street’s finest – that Speed was, in fact, gay.
Yet in none of the reports this morning is there so much as a hint of that allegation. As far as Fleet Street is concerned, Speed’s suicide is a complete mystery. So why the reticence? Obvious, really: no editor in his or her right mind would print such a tacky story while their highly paid briefs are attending an inquiry into their behaviour and doing their damndest to persuade the world and its inquiry that as a rule the tabloids are as pure as the driven snow and that any bad behaviour was only down to a couple of rogue reporters. That would have been another suicide. So, for once, they are doing the decent thing. But let it not be thought they are sparing the feelings of Mrs Speed and her sons. They are simply so far in the shit, it would be bloody stupid to see whether they might not get even deeper by printing ‘the allegation’ that Gary Speed was gay.
. . .
I’ve been posing as a hack for the past 37 years, five months and 24 days – I started my first job on June 4, 1974, taken on as a reporter by the Lincolnshire Chronicle. The paper was part of the then Lincolnshire Standard Group and had several sister papers. It had vacancies for trainee reporters on the Chronicle based in Lincoln, the Lincolnshire Standard which was based in Boston, and the Louth Standard, based in Louth. It was still a family-controlled group and I was interviewed by one of the family. I can no longer recall his name, but he had a big white beard and a very bad stammer. I was taken on by the Chronicle in Lincoln because I ‘was a graduate and Lincoln was a cathedral city’. To this day I don’t know whether he really was serious.
But this entry is not supposed to be about me. Some readers who have delved into the murky depths of previous entries will have gathered that I have a pretty low opinion of my fellow hacks when they are hacks. I must stress that: personally I like many a great deal, but when they turn up for work, something happens and they get very odd. To a man and woman they seem to believe that the world revolves around them. But I do have a great deal of respect for any number of men and women around the world who risk a great deal in their professional lives as journalists even their lives. To see why these people deserve our respect visit this site for more information. It makes gripping, though sad, reading. You could also try this site I have never once described myself as ‘a journalist’ when asked what I do for a living. Ever. I’m not one. Being a journalist is not just something they decided to do afer watching Lou Grant on the telly or thinking it must be really amazing to have your own telly show and, like, actually interview Rhianna.
By the way, if you're thinking of taking a ‘media studies’ course at university, don’t bother. Absolutely no one in the industry takes them seriously and you'll only find yourself - if your’re lucky - drudging away writing copy for a local authority tourism website. It'll be that or working in a call centre. Do a proper course, such as history, law, languages, sciences. Don’t believe all the cack colleges tell you. Oh, and don’t bother with a college which is less than 30 years old - The University of Tring, that kind of thing. It is a real scandal how the previous Labour governments have short-changed school-leavers into thinking getting a degree is vital. Now every nurse ‘must be a graduate’ and no longer does much of the hands-on nursing. For all the arse-wiping etc. the NHS employs ‘nursing auxiliaries’ – who don’t have to have a degree. Can no one else spot the intellectual legerdemain in that piece of ‘policymaking’? Get a degree only if it’s a real degree, sweethearts. A BA in Sandwiching-making and Domestic Appliances will only see you making sandwiches and selling kettles for less than the non-graduate who is your manager. And follow your heart as well as your head. Don’t be strongarmed into ‘going to uni’ if what you really want to do is make a career for yourself in retail or become a mechanic or a properly trained plumber/electrician/carpenter. Remember, it’s your life.
. . .
I see the ‘eurozone ministers’ are getting together in Brussels later today to discuss ‘expanding the bailout fund’. With a bit of luck they’ll agree on a tearound order and after several hours of intense discussion we can no doubt expect a jointly agreed communiqué reassuring the world that they are ‘committed to finding a solution’ to the current crisis and ‘have every confidence that the euro will survive’. Bliss is it in this dawn to be alive, but to be young is very heaven! Or something like that. Anyone care to remind me what it is like to be young? I’ve rather forgotten. Oh, yes, now I do: I spend several years in my mid-teens petrified that I would never lose my cherry and that I would die a virgin.
Saturday 26 November 2011
Thank the Lord for children. Perhaps they will do better than we did. And I come clean: I might no longer be a cunt, but I was once. Oh, and I plan a racy, though tacky, list of conquests
Every so often, I simply have an itch to write, and I am not particularly fussed about what to write. The trouble is, of course, that any old bollocks will probably bore the pants of most people, so I try to resist the temptation to rattle off at will. Then there is the fact that the euro crisis, the one ongoing story here in Europe which rather preoccupies us and on which I have been giving my two ha’porth ad nauseam for several months, is not necessarily of much interest to folk in Indonesia, Russia, Australia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea or any of the other places in which people who have dropped into this blog live and which are ‘not in Europe’. They, I am obliged to concede, have their own preoccupations. In fact, it is a universal fault that we believe everyone else is fascinated by our every fart: I farted, Lord, I’d better tell the world! And as, I hope, I am not only aware that that is the universal fault but that there is really no reason why I, too, do not suffer from it I try to resist simply blethering on about myself. Usually I succeed. But tonight - well, what the hell. So here goes.
I have two children, Elsie, now 15 years and four months old, and Wesley, 12 years and six months old. They are everything to me as and, it has to be said, that is something only a parent will completely understand. There are, obviously, exceptions, but as a rule having a child changes your life, and it most certainly changed mine. I was middle-aged when Elsie was born, and until I met her mother, now my wife, my life was going nowhere and I was not at all happy. The genesis of our union was not the most romantic, although I suspect it was less unusual than the purveyors of romantic fiction would like. I got her mother pregnant. I had not been going out with her. It was no great love match, although it turns out she had had a crush on me for many years, although I did not know that.
To cut a long story short, when she told me she was pregnant, I asked myself whether I would be happy if she had an abortion. I decided I wouldn’t, although had she wanted one, I would not have opposed her. But she didn’t want one. I then asked myself whether I would be happy being an absent father, the sort of chap who turned up every so often carrying expensive presents in the hope that their extravagant cost would somehow compensate for the fact that he had not relationship with the child at all. I decided didn’t. Then I asked myself whether I felt I would be happy asking the woman to marry me. I decided that although I didn’t love her, I liked her well enough and so I would ask her to marry me. I did. She accepted. A few months later, she miscarried the child she was carrying, and, to put it bluntly, I had a ‘get out’ clause. I was now under no obligation to ‘do the right thing’.
But I was 45, lonely, would loved to have had a family, and - to my shame - also realised that I would very much enjoy living in her 16th-century granite cottage situated in a pleasant spot on the edge of Bodmin Moor a quarter of a mile or so out of the village. So our plans carried on, she became pregnant again, our daughter Elsie was born on August 7, 1996, and our son Wesley was born a year and a half later on May 25, 1999, 110 years to the day on which my German grandmother was born. My - our? - marriage is not the most successful, but without wanting to sound too dramatic, I love my children more than life itself. They are no longer the cuddly babies, then toddlers they once were, but they are still the joy of my life.
. . .
Years ago, when I was 25 years old, I got a young woman pregnant, and when she told me she was pregnant, in one and the same breath she told me she would be having an abortion. She was 18 and due to go to university. She did not ask me whether I wanted her to have an abortion, she simply told me she was going to have one. And when Katie, the 18-year-old involved, told me, I remember two strong feelings: I was relieved that she was going to have an abortion and felt dumb relief that she had not considered asking me whether she should have one or not.
To this day, I firmly believe that whether or not to abort an embryo is essentially the choice of the woman. I don’t believe the father of the embryo has any rights at all. On the other hand, a woman who finds herself pregnant and realises she would prefer not to have the child needs as much support as she can get. Had Katie asked me whether she should abort the child or whether she should bear it, I have no idea what I would have said. For when she told me she intended to abort her foetus, I realised that in many ways I did not much like abortion. Hence, my relief that I was not asked to help make a decision. I’ll repeat: I firmly believe that it should solely be a woman’s choice whether or not she aborts the child she is carrying (and many would argue that the ‘embryo’ is not recognisably a ‘child’ for many months after conception). But I do feel a distaste for what might be described as the British abortion industry: having an abortion seems to have become a means of contraception. The difference is, of course, that there is a huge difference between ensuring that no life is created and terminating a life which is unwanted.
Many years ago, I was trying to flog feature ideas to magazines and I came up with the idea of whether or not a man should have any say in a woman’s intended abortion, the particularly ‘angle’ to the feature being whether or not a man had a right to demanding that a woman did not have an abortion. I interviewed various women in preparation - those ‘pro choice’ and those ‘pro life’ - and neither camp supported the idea that a guy had the right to such a demand. But what I particularly remember was an interview with a Scottish woman who ran a ‘pro life’ group.
First of all, she was no fanatic. We have a tendency to pigeonhole folk, and many ‘pro life’ activists are portrayed as right-wing religious nutters. Perhaps some are, but this woman most certainly wasn’t. She told me that when she was younger, she had had an abortion and subsequently felt a huge loss. She told me that gradually she had become active in counselling women who were considering having an abortion and that although she did not try to change the minds of those who were intent on aborting their child, she did warn them that, like her, they might subsequently regret it. I shall repeat: she did not strike me as a fanatic. Perhaps her ‘pro life’ views were shaped by her upbringing (whatever that was), but then that cannot be regarded as a drawback, for who is to say that it is ‘wrong’ that our upbringing should not influence what principles we espouse. Exactly why should the intellect hold the whip hand when it comes to deciding what we feel is ‘right’ and what ‘wrong’? And who can guarantee that those who espouse more ‘liberal’ and more ‘progressive’ principles aren’t ultimately equally influenced by their upbringing?
When Katie told me she was planning to abort the foetus, I was relieved. For I realised then and there that had she wanted to keep the child, I would have gone along with her wish. Furthermore, being (this is a very, very difficult admission but) inclined to doing the ‘right’ and ‘honourable’ thing (did I really claim that? Yes, I did. Please don’t think me a completely conceited toe-rag. It might well not be true), I would at the very least have acknowledged the child and supported it. But it never got that far. Katie told me that she was going to have an abortion and I was very, very relieved. (She had it on August 29, 1975, a date I remember especially well, as it was also the birthday of Annette, the girl I was going out with who lived near my parents in Oxfordshire. And it is also the day I did what I regard as the most shameful thing I have ever so far done. Katie went off to a clinic in Leamington Spa to have her abortion. I can’t remember whether she went on the Thursday (August 28) and was due to come back on the Friday, or whether it was a day trip. Either way, she asked me whether I would be there in at Lincoln station to meet her off the train. I said I wouldn’t be.
At the time I was working for as a reporter on the Lincolnshire Chronicle and was due to take the Friday off to travel down to Henley-on-Thames where my parents lived to celebrate Annette’s birthday with her. Whether or not I told Katie why I would not be meeting her I don’t know. But it really doesn’t matter. To this day I feel completely and utterly ashamed of my selfishness.
I have never told anyone that before but even writing it down here doesn’t in any way ease my shame. And nor should it. I hope to Christ that if I am ever faced with a similar situation I will have the strength of character to behave rather better. A little earlier, I wrote - and thought myself embarrassed for doing so - that I was the kind of chap who was inclined to the ‘right’ and ‘honourable’ thing. At the end of the day, I was, of course, nothing of the kind.
. . .
This might sound like the tackiest idea possible, but just as a year or two ago I listed and wrote about all the cars I have owned, I intend, here in this blog, doing the same with all the girls I have ‘slept with’. This list will be a little bit longer than a list of all the girls I ‘went out with’. The idea for such a blog entry occurred to me a many months ago, but at the time I rejected it as being far too tacky. So what has changed? Well, nothing really, except that having turned 62 five days ago, I feel in the mood for looking back. Then there is the fact that I have not had sex for more than ten years (not my choice) and, since, my heart attack have, unfortunately, not had a hard-on to speak of. I would dearly, dearly, dearly love to go to bed with a woman again (and I am one of those who insists there is a great deal more to ‘going to bed’ than simply having sex), but must sadly admit to myself that the chances of that happening are growing slimmer by the day. And those who ask: what about your wife? all I can say is to remind them of the most ancient of ancient philosophical conundrums: is there life after marriage?
Check back for a ‘that list’. It will feature not only those women who were all the love of my life, but the black girl who spoke impeccable German I briefly met on a train (I was getting off, she was getting on), the girl from the gym I went to who offered to beat me up (I said, thanks, but no thanks) and my fastest seduction ever (or was it hers? Seven minutes from our the exchange of a few words in the pub to bonking away in bed. It helped that my flat was right next to the pub).
I have two children, Elsie, now 15 years and four months old, and Wesley, 12 years and six months old. They are everything to me as and, it has to be said, that is something only a parent will completely understand. There are, obviously, exceptions, but as a rule having a child changes your life, and it most certainly changed mine. I was middle-aged when Elsie was born, and until I met her mother, now my wife, my life was going nowhere and I was not at all happy. The genesis of our union was not the most romantic, although I suspect it was less unusual than the purveyors of romantic fiction would like. I got her mother pregnant. I had not been going out with her. It was no great love match, although it turns out she had had a crush on me for many years, although I did not know that.
To cut a long story short, when she told me she was pregnant, I asked myself whether I would be happy if she had an abortion. I decided I wouldn’t, although had she wanted one, I would not have opposed her. But she didn’t want one. I then asked myself whether I would be happy being an absent father, the sort of chap who turned up every so often carrying expensive presents in the hope that their extravagant cost would somehow compensate for the fact that he had not relationship with the child at all. I decided didn’t. Then I asked myself whether I felt I would be happy asking the woman to marry me. I decided that although I didn’t love her, I liked her well enough and so I would ask her to marry me. I did. She accepted. A few months later, she miscarried the child she was carrying, and, to put it bluntly, I had a ‘get out’ clause. I was now under no obligation to ‘do the right thing’.
But I was 45, lonely, would loved to have had a family, and - to my shame - also realised that I would very much enjoy living in her 16th-century granite cottage situated in a pleasant spot on the edge of Bodmin Moor a quarter of a mile or so out of the village. So our plans carried on, she became pregnant again, our daughter Elsie was born on August 7, 1996, and our son Wesley was born a year and a half later on May 25, 1999, 110 years to the day on which my German grandmother was born. My - our? - marriage is not the most successful, but without wanting to sound too dramatic, I love my children more than life itself. They are no longer the cuddly babies, then toddlers they once were, but they are still the joy of my life.
. . .
Years ago, when I was 25 years old, I got a young woman pregnant, and when she told me she was pregnant, in one and the same breath she told me she would be having an abortion. She was 18 and due to go to university. She did not ask me whether I wanted her to have an abortion, she simply told me she was going to have one. And when Katie, the 18-year-old involved, told me, I remember two strong feelings: I was relieved that she was going to have an abortion and felt dumb relief that she had not considered asking me whether she should have one or not.
To this day, I firmly believe that whether or not to abort an embryo is essentially the choice of the woman. I don’t believe the father of the embryo has any rights at all. On the other hand, a woman who finds herself pregnant and realises she would prefer not to have the child needs as much support as she can get. Had Katie asked me whether she should abort the child or whether she should bear it, I have no idea what I would have said. For when she told me she intended to abort her foetus, I realised that in many ways I did not much like abortion. Hence, my relief that I was not asked to help make a decision. I’ll repeat: I firmly believe that it should solely be a woman’s choice whether or not she aborts the child she is carrying (and many would argue that the ‘embryo’ is not recognisably a ‘child’ for many months after conception). But I do feel a distaste for what might be described as the British abortion industry: having an abortion seems to have become a means of contraception. The difference is, of course, that there is a huge difference between ensuring that no life is created and terminating a life which is unwanted.
Many years ago, I was trying to flog feature ideas to magazines and I came up with the idea of whether or not a man should have any say in a woman’s intended abortion, the particularly ‘angle’ to the feature being whether or not a man had a right to demanding that a woman did not have an abortion. I interviewed various women in preparation - those ‘pro choice’ and those ‘pro life’ - and neither camp supported the idea that a guy had the right to such a demand. But what I particularly remember was an interview with a Scottish woman who ran a ‘pro life’ group.
First of all, she was no fanatic. We have a tendency to pigeonhole folk, and many ‘pro life’ activists are portrayed as right-wing religious nutters. Perhaps some are, but this woman most certainly wasn’t. She told me that when she was younger, she had had an abortion and subsequently felt a huge loss. She told me that gradually she had become active in counselling women who were considering having an abortion and that although she did not try to change the minds of those who were intent on aborting their child, she did warn them that, like her, they might subsequently regret it. I shall repeat: she did not strike me as a fanatic. Perhaps her ‘pro life’ views were shaped by her upbringing (whatever that was), but then that cannot be regarded as a drawback, for who is to say that it is ‘wrong’ that our upbringing should not influence what principles we espouse. Exactly why should the intellect hold the whip hand when it comes to deciding what we feel is ‘right’ and what ‘wrong’? And who can guarantee that those who espouse more ‘liberal’ and more ‘progressive’ principles aren’t ultimately equally influenced by their upbringing?
When Katie told me she was planning to abort the foetus, I was relieved. For I realised then and there that had she wanted to keep the child, I would have gone along with her wish. Furthermore, being (this is a very, very difficult admission but) inclined to doing the ‘right’ and ‘honourable’ thing (did I really claim that? Yes, I did. Please don’t think me a completely conceited toe-rag. It might well not be true), I would at the very least have acknowledged the child and supported it. But it never got that far. Katie told me that she was going to have an abortion and I was very, very relieved. (She had it on August 29, 1975, a date I remember especially well, as it was also the birthday of Annette, the girl I was going out with who lived near my parents in Oxfordshire. And it is also the day I did what I regard as the most shameful thing I have ever so far done. Katie went off to a clinic in Leamington Spa to have her abortion. I can’t remember whether she went on the Thursday (August 28) and was due to come back on the Friday, or whether it was a day trip. Either way, she asked me whether I would be there in at Lincoln station to meet her off the train. I said I wouldn’t be.
At the time I was working for as a reporter on the Lincolnshire Chronicle and was due to take the Friday off to travel down to Henley-on-Thames where my parents lived to celebrate Annette’s birthday with her. Whether or not I told Katie why I would not be meeting her I don’t know. But it really doesn’t matter. To this day I feel completely and utterly ashamed of my selfishness.
I have never told anyone that before but even writing it down here doesn’t in any way ease my shame. And nor should it. I hope to Christ that if I am ever faced with a similar situation I will have the strength of character to behave rather better. A little earlier, I wrote - and thought myself embarrassed for doing so - that I was the kind of chap who was inclined to the ‘right’ and ‘honourable’ thing. At the end of the day, I was, of course, nothing of the kind.
. . .
This might sound like the tackiest idea possible, but just as a year or two ago I listed and wrote about all the cars I have owned, I intend, here in this blog, doing the same with all the girls I have ‘slept with’. This list will be a little bit longer than a list of all the girls I ‘went out with’. The idea for such a blog entry occurred to me a many months ago, but at the time I rejected it as being far too tacky. So what has changed? Well, nothing really, except that having turned 62 five days ago, I feel in the mood for looking back. Then there is the fact that I have not had sex for more than ten years (not my choice) and, since, my heart attack have, unfortunately, not had a hard-on to speak of. I would dearly, dearly, dearly love to go to bed with a woman again (and I am one of those who insists there is a great deal more to ‘going to bed’ than simply having sex), but must sadly admit to myself that the chances of that happening are growing slimmer by the day. And those who ask: what about your wife? all I can say is to remind them of the most ancient of ancient philosophical conundrums: is there life after marriage?
Check back for a ‘that list’. It will feature not only those women who were all the love of my life, but the black girl who spoke impeccable German I briefly met on a train (I was getting off, she was getting on), the girl from the gym I went to who offered to beat me up (I said, thanks, but no thanks) and my fastest seduction ever (or was it hers? Seven minutes from our the exchange of a few words in the pub to bonking away in bed. It helped that my flat was right next to the pub).
Friday 18 November 2011
Don’t panic, Mr Mainwaring, don’t panic. And please, please, please lay off the Germans
I thought I might start this entry with a cartoon (UPDATE: picture - couldn't find a useful cartoon) which strikes me as wholly apposite given the latest news on the euro crisis. Years ago when I still used to lie (I came to realise that in the long run lying is actually pretty pointless and self-defeating). I would find myself, as others did and those who are foolish enough to carry on the practive, always will, in an ever more complex, ever more unmanageable tissue of untruths. It was all very easy at first: the first lie would get you out of a fix, and the second lie would tidy up matters. Then came a third lie which became necessary because of an inconsistency between the first and second lies. This was usually swiftly followed by a fourth and fifth to iron out further problems, while the second lie was recalled to base because of a design fault. In no time at all, lies six, seven and eight were launched to give the whole fabrication some kind of cohesion, but they, of course, also brought further confusion as at this point exactly what was said became wholly unclear and the reason for telling that first lie was completely forgotten. You can see why I gave up lying.
I am not suggesting that Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, David Cameron, Enda Kenny, the two chaps from somewhere or other who have been parachuted in to run Italy and Greece and the rest of the stalwarts intent on saving the world (no, sorry, that’s global warming, on saving Europe) are lying. But what they are doing is fire-firefighting on a grand scale, scurrying here, there and everywhere from one small blaze to another to keep each under control, but don’t seem to see that each measure is simply adding to the overall conflagration and that the overall conflagration is way beyond control. And, yes, I do realise that as a simile ‘fire-fighting’ sits rather uncomfortably with the simile in the cartoon with which I started this entry, but if it really does bother you, you can bugger off and read someone else’s blog.
There is a relevant piece of bad news every morning, and today’s bad news is that those investors and banks in Asia have decided that enough is enough and are selling any bonds they hold issued by European countries. (Incidentally, ‘selling’ would imply that someone is ‘buying’, but in view of the almost total fuck-up this has now become, I should imagine that no one in their right mind is ‘buying’. How someone is able to ‘sell’ when no one wants to ‘buy’ has always baffled me, although I realise it is perfectly possible, and I can only blame my confusion on this particular aspect of ‘the markets’ on the fact that my ‘knowledge’ of economics was gleaned over the years from breakfast cereal packets and suchlike, and what I don’t actually ‘know’, I make up. In my defence, however, I must stress that it doesn’t necessarily make me at all unrelieable: one of the better definitions of ‘an economist’ I’ve come across is that he is someone who can convincingly explain today why what he predicted yesterday didn’t happen.)
There are several entertaining sideshows to the Asian shrugging of shoulders and getting the hell out of it: Germany now sees salvation in speeding up plans for ‘full political and fiscal integration’ of the eurozone area. And, on paper, they have a point. But I stress ‘on paper’. Given that Germany is now pre-eminent in the EU - and given the geography of Europe, that was pretty unavoidable - it is pretty certain that if ‘political and fiscal integration’ did come about, Germany would once again be the loudest voice. And here I must come clean: granted that I think the question is wholly hypothetical, I really don’t think that would be a bad thing. Many might see the Germans as ponderous and unimaginative, and broadly they might have a point. But there’s no denying that they are at heart far better at organising themselves than many other countries and if there is a secret to their prosperity, that is it. If anyone were to run the show, I would be far happier if it were the Germans than, say, the Italians or Greeks. But, of course, that is pure fantasy. It well never get to that point and all talk about it is pie in the sky. Trying to establish ‘political and fiscal integration’ in Europe - or rather the eurozone - would be as futile as trying to herd cats.
Sadly, despite all the original hullabaloo of peace on Earth and goodwill to all men, every European country is reverting to the role ordained for it by history and geography. And that is especially true of what might crassly be seen as The Big Three: Britain, France and Germany. I know we Brits make jokes in poor taste about The Teutons, but when push comes to shove we get on rather better with them than with The Frogs. They in turn have been cosying up for these past 30 years with Les Boches, but that was always only a summer romance and the tiffs are now getting ever more spiteful. And The Frogs, in turn, still can’t - Lord knows why not! - drum up much trust in the treacherous Rostbifs. Time for a cliché? Of course, never one better: Plus ca change, plus la meme chose.
. . .
It might be that although I sprang from the loins of a stout Worcestershire man, I was nurtured in and emerged from the womb of a stout German woman, but I must come clean: in this whole very sorry saga, my sympathies are with the Germans. As far as I am concerned, a sober, not to say cold-blooded analysis of who has done what would be forced to conclude that they haven’t done much wrong. And the worst charge that can be levelled against them is that they are sticking to their guns and insisting on not doing the stupid thing.
From the dust and rubble of World War I and the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic, they emerged to resume a reasonable existence, although one in time blighted by the jumped-up little corporal from Linz (where, bizarrely, he went to the same school at the same time as one Ludwig Wittgenstein), only for it all to got to pot again. Yet once again, they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, re-established themselves and now once again live in peace, comfort and prosperity. And they are utterly paranoid about inflation.
They are also very put out that - well, the only appropriate word here is ‘feckless’ - Med types should threaten it all and all and sundry are now demanding that they should now do what they sincerely regard as utterly, utterly stupid to rescue nations not half as neat and tidy as themselves. What exactly have they done wrong? How exactly is the vilification which is now coming their way justified? Answers, please, on a postcard or even in an email. I should like to be enlightened.
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