We’ve had interesting starts here in Nairobi for the first two days of the Magical Kenya Open golf championship. Going in at 8 a.m. the traffic is nose to tail wherever you look. The TV crew travels in a large coach with a police escort. The road to the course is a relatively narrow ribbon of tarmac with bright red dirt on either side. Without the escort it would probably take forty five minutes rather than the twenty it does, with the police heroically driving down the wrong side of the road inviting the opposing traffic to take to the dirt, like Moses parting the Red Sea. The key for the coach driver is to stick close to the motorcycle or whatever gaps that have appeared may close rather suddenly. There is a hostess handing out blindfolds for anyone wanting one boarding the bus….in my dreams. You certainly need a steely nerve to keep looking out. It’s actually fairly routine for life on the European Tour, which takes in the thrills and spills of motoring in India, China, Malaysia, South Africa, Thailand and many other destinations where taking to the blacktop requires close communication with your guardian angel to ensure a safe return home.

Golf has a reputation for being a gentleman’s game with players being required to police themselves more often than not. The vast majority of professionals are as straight as the day is long, but there always have been cheats and I guess there always will be. Generally those that stretch the rules with monkey business pretty quickly get a reputation amongst their fellow pros and when it gets bad the player responsible for marking the card of the known naughty boy will keep a very close eye on what he’s up to. I’ve been walking the fairways for thirty years and have sucked my teeth on plenty of occasions as both the spirit and the actuality of the rules are broken. Occasionally players really get caught out, often by tv cameras, and a few have been either banned for months or fined very heavily. I witnessed another trés dodgy moment today from an Indian player who tried it on with an experienced Tour referee and amazingly was given a free drop when it never should have been allowed. It’s too complicated to explain the detail of it, but suffice it to say that he knew exactly what he was doing and it was undoubtedly without the spirit of the game. Of course, if you watch football on a regular basis, players cheating is an everyday occurrence, but golf is supposed to be an honourable game. I have been disappointed on a few occasions to see players that you really thought wouldn’t dream of cheating, doing just that. Today was one of those times.

Putting that aside, it’s a real pleasure to be in Kenya for the first time. The people here are just wonderful. Any concerns that we might be coming to a dangerous place have been rapidly dispelled in the most positive way. When you then hear of the Mosque tragedy in New Zealand, supposedly one of the safest countries in the World, it makes you realise that disaster can strike anywhere, anytime in what feels to be an increasingly ugly world.

For those of you who read No.36 and are waiting with bated breath for news of why the Kenyan Open is “Magical”, the answer is rather boringly simple. The tournament is being heavily sponsored by the Kenyan Tourist Board, who not unnaturally would like us all to think of Kenya as magical and that isn’t difficult. Even with my very limited experience of it so far, it certainly is. The thing that has really struck me is the friendliness of the people, who simply couldn’t make you feel more welcome. However, the whole scene at the golf club is slightly surreal. There is a heavy military presence with combat clothing clad soldiers at every turn, most of them carrying the ubiquitous AK47, the Kalashnikov. It’s reasonable to presume that the magazines are loaded with live ammunition and presumably they are briefed to make use of them in given circumstances. I’m not sure whether to be reassured by their presence or alarmed that its considered necessary! I am certain though that I won’t be testing their patience or attempting to discover what the line is that mustn’t be crossed.

That reminds me of one of the most embarrassing incidents of my early life, which occurred when I was a very young officer in the RAF Regiment in Northern Ireland, back in 1972. My Squadron was responsible for the defence of RAF Aldergrove next to Belfast Airport. One dark evening I thought it would be highly amusing to test the airfield’s defences by trying to get through the perimeter wire. I thought I had found a hole in the barbed wire on the road that lead to the Officers Mess. I was halfway into the entangled mess when I heard a Land Rover approaching. I was convinced that in my camouflage kit and in the dark I would be safe, but it was an army patrol returning from another very unpleasant night in Belfast and a sharp-eyed soldier spotted this illegal intruder. They came to a screeching halt and challenged me. As I crawled back out from the wire and explained who I was and what I was doing I felt smaller than Tom Thumb before he’d reached adolescence. It was hideously embarrassing and took me a long time to live down. Fortunately my fellow officers on the Squadron never heard about it (until now!), otherwise life would have been truly unbearable. It’s amazing how so many of us very junior officers thought we knew everything about everything, when the reality was we knew almost nothing about very little. Now I come to think about it, there are a few of my young colleagues on the TV crew who possibly fall into the same category!

An essential part of my military life, both on the ground and later in the air, involved using radios a lot, with good communication an essential part of daily life. In that regard, not much has changed since I got into broadcasting thirty six years ago. It doesn’t matter how well you speak, if the kit doesn’t work you are helpless. Sadly I spent much of today wandering around a beautiful course watching some good golf, but unable to transmit my extraordinarily wise and entertaining words to the viewing and occasionally listening millions because the bloody equipment refused to play ball. It’s not that I’m frustrated but………where’s that bottle.

Kwaheri na nakupenda.

 

Hibari yako? Which all you Kenyan ex-pats will know is Swahili for “How are you?” My question is prompted because I am currently in the Tamarind Hotel in the Karen suburb of Nairobi, having journeyed here yesterday on “My Least Favourite Airline”, if not the World’s. Nothing much happened on the flight from London Heathrow to Nairobi to deflect my opinion, although I confess that it was marginally less awful that I have known in the past. The Tamarind is a comfortable establishment only fifteen minutes drive from the Karen Golf and Country Club, which this week stages the Magical Kenya Open. It’s too early to say just how magical it is and I’ve yet to find out who Magical are; or is. I shall report as soon as I know, because I’m aware you will be waiting with bated breath for this important information. Our hotel sports an attractive bar and cafe called the Dawa Lounge. Dawa is Swahili for “medicine” (I now know four words in the local lingo) and there will undoubtedly be many members of our TV crew who will be partaking at the bar, purely for medicinal purposes; although doctors of a conventional and witch variety may question the value of the fourteenth pint of Amstel. I can confirm that the cafe latte supplied in Dawa will not be the cause of my surrendering my season ticket to Barley Sugar, Blackwater Road, Eastbourne, although I have tasted worse. It’s only very late in life that I have come to realise the complexities of making a really good cup of coffee, to which I am indebted to Barley’s Barista.

I’m now in my thirtieth year as a golf commentator on both radio and television. Inevitably, with the passing of the years, fresh talent arrives on the scene and the old farts are gently wheeled off in their Bath chairs to reflect upon life’s trivialities from the comfort of the old people’s home. If you’re very lucky and I hope I am, the chair’s arrival occurs in stages, allowing the veteran broadcaster a few final laps of the circuit before submerging completely under the blanket. This week is a classic example. Whilst the world’s golfing eyes (or I suppose more correctly the eyes of the golfing world) are focused on Sawgrass in Florida for what’s often known as the Fifth Major, The Players’ Championship, we humble backwaterists are trying to recognise who the hell is playing in this delightful, but somewhat minor European Tour tournament, which is being played for the first time. The good news is that it’s a charming old-fashioned course at a really lovely old Colonial country club with wonderful facilities, where everyone is most welcoming and friendly, the sky is blue, the sun hot and with a bit of luck my bank balance will reflect a successful week, albeit not quite to the same extent as the eventual winner.

I started my golf broadcasting career commentating on BBC Radio. Radio might sound a strange medium for golf, but there have been many occasions where the drama has been intense, not least at The Ryder Cup. My first Ryder Cup in America was at Kiawah Island in South Carolina in 1991. It was the first time that a full all-day Outside Broadcast had been attempted on a telephone line, albeit an enhanced quality one. Amazingly it worked without a hitch and such was the drama on Sunday evening that cars were apparently stopping all over the UK, the better to appreciate what was happening. It concluded with Bernhard Langer’s infamous six foot missed putt that gave the Trophy to the USA. I was green side only a few feet behind Langer, who had battled so intensely against a severely choking Hale Irwin. I don’t say that critically, merely as a matter of fact. For anyone who has not experienced that intensity of competition, with so much on the line, it’s impossible to know just how difficult it is or how one would react. Irwin and Langer have both gone on to enjoy incredibly successful senior careers and Langer is still a prolific winner on the Champions Tour in America at the age of 61, an extraordinary character.

In a perfect world I would sign off with auf wiedersehn or ya tebya looblyoo in perfect Swahili, but thus far that is a bridge too far. By tomorrow I’m sure I’ll have it cracked though.

My plan for today has been upended by a most distressing and unusual event that happened before my eyes this afternoon. I was driving on a local road in Eastbourne when I saw a woman aged probably late 20s/ early 30s staggering along the pavement, covered in blood and clearly distressed. It was impossible to know what had happened. Had she been in an accident? Was she high on drugs and been in a fight? Was it a domestic? I stopped and asked if I could help but she just shrugged and walked away. She went into an archway with her back to me and I thought perhaps she was being sick or just wanted to be alone. She’d left four or five bloody handprints on the wall of the doorway. I then watched her stagger off again and some other people tried to help. All this occurred outside a friend’s restaurant, so I went in to get some water to wash the blood off the walls….it was a bit gruesome to say the least and not a great marketing tool for the restaurant. It was as I was doing this that the guys who had tried to help the woman came back to explain what had happened. I had been slightly curious about a few orange plastic handles on the ground, but they also pointed out that there were razor blades there, a type that I’d never seen before, that looked like miniature weapons of war. She had been self-harming by taking great gouges out of her face. It was only at this point that I fully realised what had happened and that I had innocently watched her doing it. I’m normally pretty good at stepping in during emergencies and accidents and doing the right thing, but on this occasion I had totally failed this poor woman. I’m not sure what I would have done if I’d realised what she was doing, it would have been a very awkward decision. But as I write this a few hours later I feel sick to the stomach; mainly for her and the awfulness of her situation that she felt the need to do that, but also at my inaction and failure to help somebody in dire need. Ironically, so much has been in the news in the last day or two about the dramatic increase in self-harming, particularly amongst girls and young women, but I had never witnessed it first hand  and certainly nothing like this. I’ve seen a lot of pretty terrible sights around the world, but this will take quite a while to get over. It was the savagery and pointlessness of it that’s really shocked me.

Anyway, I was going to write on a lighter note, so let me lift the veil of gloom with a pet hobby horse. I heard the sports presenter on Radio 4’s today programme this morning talking about England’s chances in The Ashes. She was talking about the England women’s team. I shall no doubt be accused of misogyny, sexism and a whole load of other ‘isms, but there is no truth in that. More often than not, I would rather spend my time with women. I love everything about women. The differentiation surely isn’t between sexes but between qualities. Like men, women can be highly intelligent or extremely stupid; stunningly beautiful or (sorry Callie) dog ugly; brilliantly athletic or fat and cumbersome; would be Mozarts or tone deaf; potential Picassos or creative dunderheads. So I am not being sexist when I say that they are not playing for The Ashes. That little urn is a very specific trophy that recognises Australia’s first win in England at The Oval in 1882. The Sporting Times published a satirical obituary saying that English cricket had died and “the body will be cremated and the Ashes taken to Australia”. It’s not just cricket. Rugby League has also purloined the phrase to reflect matches between Gt Britain and Australia. Some irritating PR person has thought it clever to pump up their sport by this barbarous act. There is only one Ashes and it’s a series that’s taking place on the playing fields of England this summer. If that sounds truly pompous it’s because I’m wearing my MCC blazer, Panama hat and bacon and egg tie. By all means dream up some other clever trophy or title, but leave The Ashes where they belong. Please.

Just forty six days till Easter; luckily the shops are already well stocked with chocolate eggs to avoid any chance that someone might miss out. Having gorged himself on pancakes yesterday my son is refusing to acknowledge Ash Wednesday, the formal start of Lent, the first of forty days and forty nights when we won’t be wandering in the wild, but some will deprive themselves of a much-loved pleasure in memory of Jesus Christ’s sturdy resistance to all the temptations thrown at him. It does seem to me, hopefully without being blasphemous, that he had quite an advantage. Being an integral part of the Holy Trinity would, you would think, give him more than a head start. Still, he made it through unscathed, which is just as well. How different things might have been had he not…….

I didn’t realise, despite being a Confirmed member of The Church of England, that the Ash in this particular Wednesday, refers to the practice of making the sign of the cross in ash on people’s foreheads, with the embers of burnt palm leaves used to celebrate last year’s Palm Sunday. I am so ignorant.

So now we’re encouraged to make a Lentern sacrifice. My first inclination is to give up giving up things, but that may not be entirely in the spirit of the occasion. What then? I give up chocolate on a daily basis, so I know any chance of success in that direction is remote, verging on non-existent. Alcohol? I can’t help thinking that if the senior member of the Holy Trinity had intended us not to drink, he wouldn’t have invented grapes. It would be an extremely good mental discipline and probably highly beneficial for the liver. OK, put that one on the back burner for a minute. Watching television? Personally I wouldn’t find that especially hard, apart from missing certain major sporting occasions. Perhaps if I put a total hours limit on, of say ten hours? Another one for the back burner. Pigging out on thickly buttered malt loaf at tea time? It’s an occasional treat but definitely one that I could do without and vowing to give it a miss would give me the incentive needed to stop this egregious habit. A definite possibility. This might sound a bit sad and/or arrogant, but I can’t think of anything else I do that the Good Lord or anyone else in a supervisory role would find remotely offensive. How about driving too fast? Obey, Julian, every single speed limit for the next forty days. That would not only be a most socially responsible act, but also one that would require enormous self-discipline. Since attending my second Driver Awareness Course a few months ago I am much better at being totally aware of the limit all the time. There is, however, a difference between awareness and compliance. From a young age and I know that I am not alone in this, every time I close the driver’s door and depress the accelerator, I have this uncontrollable urge to get to my destination as quickly as possible, regardless of whether there’s any time pressure or not. Did you know by the way, that street lights (other than on motorways) indicate a 30 mph limit, in the absence of any other signs? I didn’t, before my day at the DAC. There are others I know who could equally benefit from this particular forfeit. Maybe we should make it a competition? See who can last longest without breaking any limit. There would have to be large dollops of honour involved in this needless to say, but that’s ok. The sheer guilt involved in not owning up to a transgression would demand considerable time spent at the altar of remorse. I like this idea. The back-burners can remain at the back, I will endeavour to spend the next forty days within every speed limit and will enjoin friends to accept the challenge, with a handsome prize for the person who makes it to Palm Sunday without infringing.

Messages are going out even now to those who I know have a bit too much lead in their right foot. This could be a very good challenge which my competitive friends might struggle to adhere to, I’ll keep you posted……

Isn’t it odd how people often think that translucent bathroom windows will conceal them from prying eyes outside. As I sit in one of my favourite spots in Eastbourne, a window seat in the lovely Barley Sugar Cafe and Deli, directly in my eyeline on the fourth floor of a nearby block of flats a couple (and for transparency it’s a man and a woman) are clearly visible as they stand close to the window, doing things to each other that men and woman have done to each other since Adam met Eve in the Garden of Eden and that wicked serpent persuaded them to do the things that men and women have been doing ever since. Does this qualify as public indecency? After all it is in the comfort, or discomfort, of their own home; not in an archway overlooking Bath Rugby Club’s Recreation Ground or in a secluded spot at the back of the Parish Church or any other such populated place. I mean, who would do that! But if it has the potential to cause offence to members of the public is it an offence? Is standing totally naked in a large picture window overlooking Eastbourne pier, as a friend of mine witnessed recently with coy interest, an affront to public decency? In my time before the Colours, which admittedly was over thirty years ago, PDA or Public Displays of Affection were seriously frowned upon and that included the joining of lips where tongues were involved. Seemingly now pretty much anything goes. Well, maybe not the Full Monty, although Alison (my wife) did happen upon a couple of blokes, at unexpectedly close range, going at it hammer and tongs in our local dog-walking woods recently. I’m not sure who was more surprised. Whilst it’s great that people of any persuasion can now do what they like with consenting adults, has the pendulum perhaps swung a little too far in terms of PDAs? I heard tell recently of a couple on a train (and I’ll avoid being too specific to protect the innocent) who were clearly having sex, covered only by a skimpy raincoat. The curtailed squeals of orgasmic pleasure from the blonde apparently left little to the imagination; and that was the bloke. On the other hand, who doesn’t like outdoor sex? The feel of a warm sun beating down on bare bottoms, chilled Chablis in hand, with gradual titillation turning the day ever hotter….what could be better. I guess the key is to be inventive about location and avoid the secluded woodland spot where a curiously sniffing dog might attract its owner in your direction. Needless to say for some the danger of being caught adds a frisson of excitement to the adventure. It would make a fascinating survey to know what percentage of the population have never done it outdoors? How many just once? How many are regular practitioners? Have you?…….be honest!

The couple who fired my imagination have long since retired, whether to bed, bath or kitchen table I can only surmise, so it’s time for another of Daisy’s unsurpassed almond lattes and a chat with the landlord about hockey sticks. You wouldn’t believe how much you can pay now for a one hundred per cent graphite stick; even without the gold trimmings the top of the range comes in at £230, unless you have a crafty, barely teenage son, who can negotiate a serious discount, or even a sponsored freebie. It’s amazing how some people have that happy knack.

If you’ve been following my previous blogs, you will probably have picked up on the fact that as I start out, I haven’t got a clue where I’m going or where I will end. That is certainly true today. It’s also the case that I try to bring a certain levity to even the most serious of subjects. However, my opening gambit today is deadly serious. I’ve just been reading about 77 year old John King who ended his own life by removing a mask from his face that was essential to life. His wife was at his hospice bedside as he did it. He was suffering from Motor Neurone disease. I’ve personally known four people who had this awful disease. Three were colleagues and one a friend. One is still alive and battling extraordinarily bravely. For the other three, death was a very welcome release from a hideous ending to their lives. From the moment you are diagnosed, you know there is only one way to go and it will be excruciating and horrible both for you and for your friends and family as they watch you decline and deteriorate without any hope. There is no question in my mind that anyone in this position should have the right to say “that’s it, I have had enough” and to do whatever is necessary to either end their own life or have somebody help them to do it.

We were predicted to be whiplashed and drowned by the remnants of Storm Freya today, but as is so often the case on the Sunshine Coast the reality was rather less vengeful than predicted. However, there was a fleet of madman practising their windsurfing art in The Channel as the wind whipped up the breakers into a seething maelstrom of danger; or so it seemed to my inexpert eye. They were coping admirably though. I tried to learn how to windsurf  on Lake Moehne in Germany, when I was based nearby in the early ’80’s. It’s dam, of course, was the victim of  Sir Barnes Wallis’s famous bouncing bomb in the Dambusters Raid, but by then the dam had been rebuilt and the enormous reservoir behind it, which was long and relatively slim, created a fantastic wind tunnel effect for those who favoured sail over engine power. Having tried most sports and leisure activities at some point in my life I was disappointed to have to concede defeat. I was rubbish and quickly retreated to something involving a bat and ball. Although it was during my three year stint in Germany that I got seriously into Enduro motorcycling. I had a German made Maico 440cc single cylinder beast that would comfortably do 90 mph across country over rough terrain and fly through the air with the greatest of ease over big jumps created for the purpose. Amazingly I escaped with only minor strains and bruises, a cracked rib being the worst. I belonged to a Squadron of expert bikers, with many of my colleagues owning hairily speedy road bikes as well as the off-roaders. While I was there we converted from the very long in the tooth Scout helicopter (basically a flying Land Rover) to the much more sophisticated twin engined Westland Lynx. This required a massive upgrade in hangar facilities and the laying of acres of high grade concrete dispersals. The Regiment had a big party in one of the new hangars to celebrate its completion and well into the celebrations one or two fellow officers decided that a quick burn-up round the dispersal was called for. What they had forgotten (or hadn’t appreciated) was that the work wasn’t quite finished and there were still some drain covers standing proud of the surface. In the descending gloom and with the benefit of an alcoholic intake above the recommended maximum, a Naval colleague on an exchange tour with us, hit one of the aforementioned drains at some speed. Miraculously, he survived largely uninjured (no doubt thanks to the excess of alcohol) but his front wheel looked like something out of an early Flintstones movie. The shiny new Lynx arrived fairly soon after this disgraceful affair and life became a whole lot more serious.

The sister of one of my fellow Army officers was one of the four I talked about earlier. She was an incredibly vibrant, lovely, kind person which made her sickening demise all the more hard to bear.

 

To those tired of Winter, March has a much more appealing ring than February. Except that this year February has been such a stunning month that March can only be a disappointment. My month got off to a bad start when the postman knocked, wanting a signature for one of those letters that you just know are going to be bad news. My job requires me to spend a lot of time driving hire cars in Europe. There is now a pretty efficient system (in most countries) for tracking down the drivers of rental machines that have offended the law. I confess that I have, once or twice, received letters from Germany or Holland politely requesting that I part company with ridiculously large quantities of money as recompense for that moment of fun/frustration/lack of awareness when I may have inadvertently crept over the legal speed limit. This morning’s correspondence had a slip attached saying that I should acknowledge receipt by returning said slip to somewhere in the Netherlands. As I haven’t been in Holland for well over a year this gave me hope that it was either a case of misidentification, or it was a missive from the Euromillions Lottery telling me that I’d got the ‘Big One’. In fact, as I haven’t driven anywhere in Europe for well over six months, it had to be the latter…..surely? Unfortunately, upon opening, the letterhead read ‘Provincia di Brescia’, which I happened to know was where the Italian Open had been played last June, an event at which I had commentated….and driven. Sure enough, a mere nine months later the highly efficient Italian Police require me to cough up Euro 59.20 for doing 102.4 kph in a 90 kph limit. That’s the equivalent of 63.6 mph in a 56 mph limit. I am actually struggling to write, so overwhelmed am I with guilt and gratitude for the efficiency of the Italian State in allowing me this opportunity to make a significant dent in their mind-boggling National debt. My only concern is whether they will still be in the Euro by the time I pay this on Monday. Indeed will the Euro still exist? Will Italy? Will Europe? Will there be anything for Britain to Brexit? Our news media is so fixated on Brexit that we don’t hear too much about what’s happening on the other side of The Channel, but by all accounts it’s an unholy mess.

You will no doubt have seen, or heard reports of, the fire in Ashdown Forest, AA Milne’s inspiration for Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood, as the unseasonably dry weather creates problems more often associated with August. It brought to mind the first poem I ever learnt from”Now we are Six”, which I had to stand up in front of my class as a six year old and recite. I’ve never forgotten it.

“If I were John and John were me, he’d be six and I’d be three. If John were me and I were John, I wouldn’t have these trousers on”. I was so nervous doing it, I think I needed clean trousers afterwards anyway. Now I do it for a living…..and still get nervous.

Where’s John…..

Summer, Summer, wherefore art thou Summer, as I’m sure the Noble Bard would have written had he been alive today. Whilst walking Callie (the whippet) this morning in freezing, blinding rain, (well, ok it was ten degrees and drizzling) I happened upon a group of teenage orienteers. As I suspect has been the case since time immemorial there was a group of girls and a group of boys and ne’er the twain shall meet. It did bring to mind the news that the Editor of the Henley Standard (see Blog 26) has revoked his decision to discontinue the use of ‘Sir’ or ‘Dear Sir’ on his letters page, after a volley of abuse from offended readers. Judith, Lady McAlpine wrote that “You cannot alter convention for the sake of one misguided reader. If you do this, you are opening the floodgates to all manner of sexist nonsense”. She signed her name with the addendum “female, feminine and with no interest whatsoever in being regarded as ‘unisex’….whatever that is”. I suspect that a large majority of the population would probably say a hearty “here, here”. It’s great, for those that prefer members of their own sex, that they are now allowed (nay encouraged) to show those feelings in public. But please let’s not throw the baby (of either sex) out with the bathwater. Most men cherish the fact that women are physiologically, biologically and emotionally different to us and presumably most women feel the same way about men? Its been a source of mild amusement recently, whilst umpiring ladies (and they do call it ‘ladies’ and not ‘womens’) hockey matches, that the standard warning cry when danger threatens is “man on”. Mainly, I suspect, because it’s quick and easy. How long before that becomes ‘person on’?

It’s February 28th and not a Leap Year. How disappointing for those born on 1st March, who every four years get a tantalising extra day as a forty five year old or whatever. Further extensive research has revealed the ‘fact’ that there are about four million Leapers in the world,  i.e.  people who were born on 29th February. If you were one of those, would you celebrate every four years, or on 28th Feb or 1st March? Or perhaps both?!

According to the meteorological calendar, tomorrow is the first day of Spring. What a happy day to be born on. The dark, short, grim days of winter are behind us, with nothing but the sunny uplands to look forward to; lambs gambolling on green downland, tulips and crocuses like a floral Axminster beneath our feet, even early rhododendrons bursting forth in wild profusion. However, astronomically we must wait until 20th March for the spring equinox, at which point, any hint of fog, frost, snow etc will be banished for another eight months at least. Possibly.

I raise my hat to Leapers everywhere and wish you a Happy Birthday and good leaping.

You have to feel sorry for Wales. The Country’s proud boast that it held the record for the hottest Winter day lasted barely twenty four hours. A staggering 21.2 degrees C. was recorded today at Kew Gardens in London. In old money that’s 70 degrees F.

Talking of money, I was reminded of an old formula today that helps to put into perspective our various personal and national debts. One million seconds is about eleven and a half days. One billion seconds is roughly thirty two years. One trillion seconds is approximately thirty two thousand years. (That’s 32,000!). Multiply that by twenty (640,000ish years) and you’re getting close to the size of America’s National Debt. Those are eye-watering figures. At what point does it all go BANG…..?

With Brexit eating an ever bigger hole in our national and corporate purses I fear our future isn’t so rosy either. Until recently I had to do the much loved and highly anticipated quarterly VAT return. Is there a bigger pain in the posterior in Christendom…..or any other Dom? Our tax regulations are now so complicated the cost of collecting tax must be huge. Every attempt at simplifying them merely seems to add to the burden. (Thanks Gordon.)

The masters of the golfing universe, The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews (R&A) and the United States Golf Association (USGA) have just gone through a four year project of re-writing golf’s arcane and hysterically complex rules with a view to dramatically simplifying them. Not only did golf have a rule book that was thicker than the dunce in Class 6E, but it also had another tome that was as big as a bible (bigger than many) called “The Decisions on the Rules of Golf”. This was an official record of decisions (effectively precedents) that had been taken by the ruling bodies in instances where there had been confusion or ambiguity over a specific ruling and they had been called upon as the final arbiters. The job of a rules referee on the professional Tours requires incredible diplomacy, tact, patience, a firm hand and membership of Mensa.

To we simpletons who merely play the game and have the privilege of commentating on it, the prospect of a significant simplification had us drooling in our gin and tonics. They would rip up the existing rule book and start with a clean slate. Go back to the origins of the game, ten simple rules that everyone could understand; hit it, find it and hit it again. Ha! No such luck. A committee of exceedingly good men, hugely well versed in the Laws and immersed in the playing of the game, tried to be radical. But seemingly, they found that at every attempt at simplification there was an “ah yes, but what if…..?”. The end result then is certainly different and I suspect most would say that some things are definitely better, but overall is there a massive change that validates all the time and energy used up? In my very humble opinion….Nope! Maybe, just maybe, the job should have been given to a small group of men and women who knew nothing about the game at all and came at it with fresh eyes, starting with a blank canvas?

Perhaps they could try the same thought with our tax laws. Get together a group of Einsteins, with no previous knowledge of taxation, give them the basic requirements of raising X amount of money, using the smallest number of people, with the least inconvenience to corporations and citizens alike and see what they come up with. Mmm, there goes another squadron of pigs.

This extraordinary spell of summer in February is about to come to an end. Armageddon will no doubt arrive sooner or later and it may not just be meteorological. Batten down the hatches.