IF YOU HAVEN’T YET bought all your Christmas presents, bad luck, it’s now too late, although you can still purchase half-price cards and wrapping paper for next time.
This is the month for returning that awful coloured tie, the socks that will only fit midgets feet; the perfume that is eau-de-Polecat and two, of the three identical copies of Jilly Cooper you received. The battery counters will traditionally be at their busiest, because countless kids will have been given toys by adults who haven’t a clue how they work. There’ll be puppy dogs that don’t wag their tails, racing cars that can’t race, talking dolls that remain dumb, toy telephones that never ring, Transformers that won’t transform, trains that never run (just like the real thing), Power Wheels that are powerless, helicopters that remain grounded and mini-keyboards that are tuneless.
So the plan that these gadgets would keep the kids amused whilst the adults over-indulged and laid around with hangovers, comes unstuck, because they hadn’t read the instructions on the box. They’ll learn in time!
FOOTBALL CRAZY. England’s latest soccer defeat comes as no surprise to me. I have always maintained that this bunch of prima-donnas have too high an opinion of themselves, which makes it even harder for them when they fall from grace. The root cause of their downfall is of course money; too much of it. This becomes quite obvious when they play against minor European ‘underdogs’ who are paid a mere fraction of the England players wages. Many of our opponents are literally hungry and desperate to be chosen for their national team, whereas our lot are grossly overpaid, overfed and over-indulged. Not for them the pride of being picked to represent their country – but only “what’s it worth?”
Managers cannot take ALL the blame for a team’s lack-lustre performance, but the latest failure has not done too badly, being rewarded with £2.5 million for his lack of success.. Imagine what it might have been had he been a success! The F.A., football’s governing body has ordered a ‘root and branch’ review of this latest fiasco, but it has to be said that they also have failed considerably, by continually appointing the wrong people for the job and have thrown unbelievable sums of money around, as if printing their own banknotes.
In future, a strong disciplinarian has to take charge (remember the late Brian Clough) and the players signed up on the basis of expenses only plus a bonus payment for a winning result. This will sort out those who are proud just to represent their country, from those who are only in it for personal riches and fame.
In many ways, professional football mirrors politics, where catastrophic failures so often walk off into the sunset with huge rewards.
THE ARMED SERVICES have a word for it – ‘skiving’. That’s exactly how I would describe a suspected large number of the 2.7 million claimants who say they are too ill to work, costing taxpayers £7.5 billion a year in benefit payouts. That’s one hell of a lot of bad backs and stress and one has to ask how so many of these people are only fit enough to struggle to the bookies and the pub to fill their idle days? And then there’s the more enterprising ones who may be able to stand upright long enough to work in the so-called ‘black economy’ for undeclared income.
Former Social Security Minister Frank Field referred to this as a racket, so who am I to disagree? There are 116,000 people claiming anxiety disorders, costing us £276 million a year. I would suggest that many of these may be anxious that one day there will be a knock on the door by a Social Services investigator. The current Work and Pensions Secretary has promised a crackdown on malingerers and ‘hopes’ to weed out 20,000 of them and get them back to work. Oh yes – and the proverbial pigs might fly!
A FEW YEARS AGO I decided to take up art and spent a small fortune equipping for the task, ready to challenge Renoir and Monet. My landscapes are passable, but some way from competing with these French masters of the late Victorian era. But I wonder if I have the right approach? Some of the recent exhibits in our national art galleries have given me cause to rethink my concept of what constitutes art. A crack in the floor at the Tate Modern recently drew crowds of admirers and was hailed by the critics as a masterpiece. Stuffed animals in formaldehyde have also created great interest and have sold for ridiculous sums of money.
Last year’s Turner Prize was won by a shed and this year’s offering was even more bizarre than the previously unmade bed and a flowing water tap. It was a movie film of a man wearing a bear suit, peering through a window at passers-by. So if this now constitutes art, then I might as well invest in a taxidermist’s kit.
DOES ANYONE KNOW why the ubiquitous tentacles of Health & Safety don’t appear to extend to unclean hospital wards?
UNLIKE SOME MALES, I’ve never envied ‘Pop Croaker’ Rod Stewart, his millionaire lifestyle, his glamorous blonde companions, or the vacuous life he leads flitting between his luxurious homes. That is until now. Because I am definitely very envious of the model he keeps at his Beverly Hills mansion. It’s a railway layout of New York Grand Central Station in the forties. At the risk of being considered childlike, I believe my dream of playing trains is shared by thousands of adults who have managed to conceal their guilty secret. I gaze longingly at advertisements for the latest Hornby locomotives and track layouts and am often tempted to invest in this childhood dream.
Only the lack of available floor space and Rod Stewart’s wealth prevents me.
THE POST OFFICE is widely promoting its Broadband services across the media. This must be a great comfort to the elderly, who have seen their local Post Office closed down and now have to travel great distances. To most pensioners, they might as well be publicising Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, as the mysteries of the Internet.
THE RESULT OF the trial into the Health & Safety issues relating to the Metropolitan Police’s mistaken shooting of an innocent man, is a fine of £175,000 plus £385,000 costs. No individual officers were blamed for the catalogue of blunders on that fateful day and indeed, the senior officer in charge of operations at the time, has since been promoted.
Apart from deceased victim, the only other losers are the people of London. There is now £560,000 less in the police kitty for keeping us safe. Surely there has to be a better way of punishing an organisation than making the public and the taxpayers suffer.
AT THIS TIME it is natural to look back over the past year and there seems to be a lot more nostalgia for the past than in previous years. This form of escapism of course has much to do with the state of the country and indeed the world, today.
In music, fans of Glen Miller are being treated to re-issues of his early records; Tribute Bands are filling venues with their look-alike and sound-alike performers; London theatres are alive with staging old musicals and even long-dead classical composers are being resurrected for a new generation to enjoy. Cinemas are also showing remakes from the past, although it’s a shame that it is now too costly to re-create those stunning Busby Berkeley dance routines from the thirties. Personally, my collection of Laurel and Hardy and Will Hay takes pride of place in the video cabinet.
Fashions now turn full circle, with the ‘flapper’ and ‘forties’ looks returning to the catwalk; film documentaries on the first and second world wars have seen a revival, with national newspapers giving away free DVD’s. TV shows are now mostly trite rubbish compared with a few years ago. Eating strange insects in the Australian jungle can no way compare with Sunday Night at the Palladium, or the mid-week play. Bring back Muffin the Mule, and the Potters Wheel I say.
There is pressure to reinstate the Matron in hospital wards, that harridan who terrified nurses and doctors alike – and would certainly not tolerate the filthy conditions and killer bugs of today.
Many parents look back longingly to the days of strict discipline in schools, when pupils sat facing the teacher and only spoke when asked a question. When hard work was rewarded with a place at a Grammar School, sometimes followed by a meaningful degree course at University. When school uniform was de rigueur and teachers wore their academic gowns as a sign of authority. When unruly pupils who disrupted the concentration of the rest of the class were punished with ‘six of the best’ from a bamboo cane, kept on view on the teacher’s desk. When good manners and courteous behaviour extended to outside of school hours and in public places.
Nostalgia for the days of the corner shop, that served unwrapped tasty bacon and ham sliced from the bone; when independent family businesses lined the high street which included a Post Office in every town and village. And mail deliveries and collections were timed to suit public needs. When seaside holidays were not blighted by drug-ridden thugs and filthy beaches. And the excitement of travelling by steam train, when station staff dressed in smart livery and porters were on hand to help with the luggage. What a contrast to the cheap flight holidays to foreign sunspots of today and the overcrowded airports where travellers are treated like cattle by over-officious jobsworths.
Thoughts of Christmas past, before commercialism took over and artificial trees that don’t shed their needles. Of Christmas stockings containing such surprises as an orange, a kazoo and a miniature compendium of games. The ritual stirring of the home-made plum pudding with a silver sixpence secreted inside and making a wish. (What a fuss this would cause from the Health & Safety zealots today!). Paper chains manufactured on the kitchen table from coloured strips of gummed paper; happy family gatherings seated around the dining table to enjoy a traditional sumptuous early dinner, in time for the monarch’s annual address to the nation. A time when pulling a cracker had a whole different meaning.
When Empire Day was celebrated by street displays of bunting and children were allowed to wear their Scouts, Boys Brigade and Cadet uniforms to school. When soldiers proudly marched down the street, wearing their best uniform, coming home on leave and being admired by friends and neighbours. When transatlantic liners fiercely competed for the Blue Ribband trophy, by crossing the Atlantic in record time. When politicians were respected and honourable pillars of society and local councillors felt honoured to give their time free to serve their community, in the days before they became paid agents for government policies.
When Hornby, Meccano and Airfix were household names and fathers’ competed with their sons to get at them first. A time when the local ‘Bobby’ would know personally all the people on his beat, particularly any villains and would dish out his own form of instant punishment for minor misdemeanours, sometimes marching a young culprit home to his parents to meet the wrath of an angry father. No form-filling nonsense, fingerprinting and DNA, or a criminal record for the young miscreants; just a stern lesson they would not forget in a hurry.
The time when you could dial a direct telephone number and speak to a human being, without having to listen constantly to a Mozart quintet. When you could travel on public transport in relative peace, without the inane chatter of mobile telephone morons loudly informing someone “I’m on the bus!” The days before CCTV watched our every move and speed cameras caught the unsuspecting motorist travelling a few mph over the speed limit. When you could go into hospital and reasonably expect to come out alive. That’s nostalgia for you.
A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY READERS.