For the first time that I can remember I switched on PM at 5pm on Radio 4 this evening and almost immediately switched it off again in a fit of contemptuous rage. I am a political animal. I find it all fascinating and intriguing, but even I have finally blown a gasket at BLOODY BREXIT. Our news media seem incapable of talking about anything else. OK, it’s important and our elected representatives have made a complete horlicks of it, but there must be something else going on in the World? There was a very strong temptation to take a sledgehammer to the offending transmitter but as it was my car radio  the family transport would have taken quite a beating too, so common sense prevailed and I just switched to Classic FM for some calming Mozart. The really depressing part of the latest Brexit chat is that the whole Irish problem is rearing its ugly head again. Many people won’t remember what “The Troubles” were like in the 1970’s and ’80’s, both for Ireland and mainland Britain, but those that can will know full well that we don’t want to go back to those hideous days. That said, there was the odd lighter moment (in retrospect!). In 1972, I was based at RAF Bishops Court with the RAF Regiment. It was an old disused airfield and a real sleepy hollow whose main purpose then was housing Ulster Radar, which was responsible for the airways coming into the UK from the Atlantic. I had fallen passionately in lust with one of the gorgeous air traffic controllers and spent many an hour looking at her screen.

I was there on a three month detachment and had left my lovely shiny, brand new, bright red MGB roadster back home in Yorkshire. By chance she (Mary, name changed to avoid embarrassment!) was heading that way for a few days and (being trustingly hooked) I suggested she should pick up the gleaming beast and  bring it back to Bishops Court where we could happily race it round the old runways and taxiways. I was breathless with excited anticipation of her return when I got a call from the docks. It was one of those Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy type calls where someone comes on and asks your name and there are a few clicks, then you’re told there’s someone on the line to speak to you and then a few more clicks and there’s Mary’s lovely voice, sounding a little stressed and clearly not saying what she wanted to say. Not being a Mensa member, it took me awhile to realise that someone was listening in. We exchanged a few platitudes and I asked about the trip and was the car ok etc, then another voice came back on and double-checked my identity and that was it. Sometime later Mary and the Roadster blew into the Officers’ Mess car park, with a somewhat frazzled but deliciously sexy blonde pointing an irate finger at me for causing her such hassle. What I had forgotten was that I had left a classified document in the boot. It was only “Restricted” which was the lowest security classification, but it was a manual for the General Purpose Machine Gun, which not unnaturally had set a few alarm bells ringing amongst the Border Guards!

I love the colour green and it may well have come from my time there. I spent a fair amount of time being green, whether it was being skinned alive at poker by a hoary old bunch of  Air Traffic Controllers or sailing an Enterprise yacht down to Southern Ireland to visit one of their mothers. It was so choppy I was green for three days afterwards. The only saving grace was that Mother produced the BEST Irish coffee I have ever tasted; perfect before setting off on the return journey through the cascading tidal waves of the Irish Sea that played with a small dinghy in the way that Callie (the whippet) triumphantly tosses her latest bunny kill around.

I have many happy memories of service in a beautiful but terribly troubled country. Please, please, please don’t let all that kick off again.

Another weekend passes in a blur of sporting action and tantrums. Whilst contemplating the futility of expecting one’s children to do anything asked of them and whilst searching for the basis of my next blog, it occurred to me that it’s one of those words that I just know, without knowing why I know. As ever, a quick recourse to Google and Wikipedia reveals the simple answer. It was originally a weblog (web log), which twenty years or so ago was bastardised to become “we blog” and thence “blog”, “bloggers’, “blogging” etc. So strictly speaking I am a Web Logger, which brings to mind those wonderful cold and frosty winter morns when the spiders’ overnight work is clear for all to see, strung between the trees. A slightly warped mind is essential for blogging!

Part of my sporting activity at the weekend, involved managing a team of young hockey players, that my daughter plays for, in the absence of the regular manager. Without five or six of our better players it was always going to be an uphill struggle against the best team in the League. In my finest Churchillian tones I recalled the great Europe-conquering Nottingham Forest side under manager Brian Clough that was far greater than the sum of its parts thanks to teamwork, discipline, and determination. Sir Winston would’ve been unimpressed, as the first two disappeared into the abyss of uncertainty, although full credit for their Dunkirkesque determination in the face of far superior ability. I must remember the Eden hat and thick Havana if asked again. (Unlikely. Ed.)

I’ve always been fascinated by the significance of teamwork. Right from the start of my military service its importance was drummed into us. From coping with the muck and bullets of battle, to guiding one’s entire squad over the line in a twenty five mile route march, selfless determination to put your body on the line, to put colleagues’ welfare first, was the invariable order of the day. One of the Army’s most successful and simple methods for achieving team cohesion was Arms Drill. My father always said that if morale was suffering during the war, a few hours on the Drill Square miraculously restored spirits. It sounds odd but to be part of a well oiled body of marching men, working in greater harmony than the Royal Ballet, can be tremendously uplifting. Most sports teams function better when everyone plays for each other. In my Richmond Hockey Club days, many moons ago, I recall a lovely man who would dribble and dribble until he disappeared up his own backside. One day I got so frustrated I screamed at him “Roger PLEASE pass the …… ball”. To which came the simple response, “why should I”! Ermmm…..

When it comes to selfishness, there are few to beat professional golfers. It’s a lonely and intensely demanding life on Tour and it’s you against the rest. Generally in life I suspect most folk like to be part of a herd. It’s not difficult to surmise the background and purpose of the smart gentleman in deerstalker, Norfolk jacket and plus fours, or the old -fashioned City gent in pinstripe suit, bowler hat and rolled umbrella. Beards are the latest manifestation of this desire.  It’s weird how even the pro golfer follows this trend. Over the past year or three, more and more have discarded the Wilkinson Sword in favour of the grooming clippers. If you spot a clean-shaven player on the fairways of PGA and European Tour golf now it’s tempting to think they should be on the Ladies Tour. I’m so glad I don’t have to compete. Dulux on an oily wall dries faster that my beard grows and even after weeks of trying, it just looks like a dog with mange.

Talking of which, we’ve just walked Callie (the whippet) along the Prom here in Eastbourne. Compared with yesterday’s cloudless, icy blue sky, and flat calm in The Channel, the scene couldn’t be more different. A twenty mile an hour wind is whipping up the dirty white rollers amidst a sea of swirling, grubby, grey bleakness, where the horizon is indistinguishable and driving rain pierces the eyeballs. All the more surprising then to see a windsurfer out amongst the breakers. It merely confirms my previously held view that such creatures really are completely bonkers…..and definitely not team players.

 

Good God, it’s nearly February. How time flies. The best is passed the past is best. Continuing my thoughts of No.10, which are hopefully less confused than THAT Number 10, I might just drift into some politically extremely incorrect areas. So fasten your seat belts, tighten your chin straps and raise shields. No.10 Part 2.

Britain. For those of us who knew this green and pleasant land in the 1950’s and ’60’s, the urban and rural environment has changed almost beyond recognition. For the better? It’s a much more crowded Island now, with too many people, too many cars on groaning roads, multiculturalism that we didn’t need and I suspect if we’re all being totally honest many didn’t want, ……..

Unlike Magnus Magnusson and John Humphreys I started but I didn’t finish! No mastermind in this chair. It’s now 1st February and I’m depressed at the road I was going down so here’s a change of subject.

Twice in quick succession this morning I was hit by “Chelsea”. Not a Clinton protege, rather two very diverse, but British “Chelseas”. The first was as I wandered lonely in the crowd. (with apologies to William Wordsworth) Sticking out from the busy shoppers was an unmistakable apparition; the archetypal football fan. Sporting a closely shaven haircut and a gut big enough to hold twins, it was the all engulfing blue jacket with the distinctive Chelsea Football Club badge that gave him away. Like most football clubs Chelsea have long since cleaned up their act since those grim days when Stamford Bridge tried to re-enact the 1066 battle on a regular basis. I still can’t help feeling a slight shudder though when I see that badge. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is synonymous with style, quality, chic and fun. Harrods, Peter Jones, Harvey Nicks, The King’s Road, Sloanes, great restaurants, pubs and clubs, you name it, you can probably find it there. But a decade or three back, Saturday shopping was limited to Chelsea FC away games. The Blues at home almost invariably meant trouble and if you weren’t particularly attracted by the thrills of gang warfare a nice quiet day in North London was probably a better option. Unless Arsenal were at home to Spurs of course.

Whether this vision of loveliness, who was unleashing his expert opinion on anyone who wanted to listen, was a genuine supporter or just an armchair fan who will talk all day about “we”, despite never having kicked a ball in anger, let alone played for the Reserves, I have no way of knowing.

The second Chelsea, which happened along only a few minutes later, relates to boots. I was admiring a natty pair on a stylish friend when it occurred to me that they must be a foot fashion item with greater longevity than almost any other. I remember when they first hit the shelves, in the 1960’s I think although it may have been earlier, causing quite a stir with their simple elegance allied with practicality, comfort and durability. I supposed they’ve drifted in and out of fashion a bit, without ever really going away. I still have a beautiful tan pair that I’ve had for about thirty years. That’s peanuts though compared with a pair of patent leather dress shoes I acquired in 1970 and they’re still in perfect shape. I also still have a lovely set of white tie and tails that belonged to my Grandfather, so probably made in the 1930’s. Sadly, with so much built in obsolescence these days I suspect such feats of sartorial fortitude will not be repeated.

Whether it’s soccer or boots, Chelsea continues to play a significant role in our daily lives. Anyone for a bun?

 

Every now and then whilst walking the cliff path to Beachy Head, the unmistakeable purr of a Merlin engine can be heard as a Spitfire roars overhead evocatively recalling a sight that the local inhabitants must have witnessed so often in 1940. Ironically it happened today, the very day that the new Biggin Hill World War II Museum was officially opened. RAF Biggin Hill was at the heart of the Battle of Britain and for generations was familiar to all aspiring RAF Officers as the home of the Officer and Aircrew Selection Centre. I went there in 1969 in my bid to follow in my adopted father’s footsteps and become a fighter ace. Prior to the medical, you were required to fill in a form detailing any conditions that might be an issue, including eyesight. Stupidly, I confessed to needing glasses, as I was very slightly short-sighted. Those that didn’t, were wheeled in by the ageing and cavalier ophthalmologist three at a time. He would say “the bottom line is XYZ isn’t it?”, they’d all say “Yes”, and he would give them the required tick and send them on their way. Worryingly this is absolutely true! However, as I had admitted to fallibility I was given the full going over and failed. It didn’t stop me becoming a helicopter pilot at a later date, but that’s another story.

Much later in life I went on to commentate on Airshows for the BBC, including a VE Day commemoration airshow one year at Biggin with David Dimbleby, who despite his limited aviation knowledge was superbly professional. In 1995, there were numerous VE Day 50th Anniversary celebrations. Having served in both the RAF and the Army, I was a natural to commentate on the Review of The Fleet at Spithead by Her Majesty The Queen. I knew that ships had a bow, not a front end, that submarines didn’t like depth charges and that torpedoes weren’t just a rugby pass, but it would be wrong to say that my knowledge of the Senior Service was extensive. On the other hand Raymond Baxter (of Tomorrow’s World fame) who had been a WWII fighter pilot, was also Commodore of the Little Ships Association, being the proud owner of Sundowner, a gorgeous little cruiser that had determinedly sailed the Channel in the heroic evacuation of Dunkirk and he had a pretty good understanding of matters nautical. He then, was chosen to commentate on the re-enactment of Pegasus Bridge where many of my former Para and Army Air Corps colleagues were involved. I’m sure my bosses at the BBC had their reasons….

(Historical note of interest: Sundowner had previously been owned by C.H. “Lights” Lightoller, who had been Second Officer on the Titanic and the most senior surviving officer)

Anyway, I was working at Portsmouth, with a naval expert who’d never broadcast before alongside me and with the late lamented and much loved Jill Dando as Presenter. I was just about keeping my head above water when we went into a rather quiet phase with not much happening. The Producer suggested that Jill should go outside and do a VoxPop with some of the assembled masses. This was, of course, all live and she asked the first couple she came across whether they were enjoying it. “Yes very much zank you” came the reply in a strong German accent. “Ve hav come especially from Hamburg to vatch”. Needless to say we all descended into peels of laughter off mic, whilst trying to maintain a modicum of composure. Jill was highly professional as you would expect and continued undeterred.

It was a long broadcast and because of my lack of knowledge of the subject, had required an enormous amount of research. I reckoned I had done just about enough but I knew that I hadn’t done the necessary preparation for the next phase, should things go wrong. Having Reviewed the Fleet, the Royal Flotilla set sail into mid Channel, where a Service of Commemoration was to be held with many wreaths thrown onto the choppy waters. Brian Hanrahan (of Falklands War, “I counted them all out and counted them all back” fame) was the on-board commentator, with his words of wisdom, along with the pictures, being relayed via a helicopter, some string and tin cans back to TV Centre and thence around the world. They had warned me that technically it was quite complex and things could go wrong so I should be on standby to pick up, if we lost Brian. I was trusting to luck that the magnificent BBC engineers would have it all in hand……

After about two minutes, I got the dreaded words in my ear. “Pick up Julian, we’ve lost everything”. Everything that is apart from a recording (known as VT) of the first two minutes of ships bobbing on the oggin, surrounded by rapidly drowning wreaths, with men in ecclesiastical robes waxing lyrical in pious tones that we weren’t actually privy to. HM and the gang were also in evidence. So yours truly then had to try to make intelligent comment as they played this two minute loop over and over again. I failed. Miserably. I wouldn’t have got as wet standing under the Niagara Falls as the perspiration cascaded down my back. The seven P’s…..Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance applied. There was nothing proper or prior about my preparation. Needless to say that bit is not on my Showreel.

It wasn’t a Spitfire engine I needed at that point. It was Merlin the Magician.

 

Whilst cruising at a just about legal 78 mph up the M3 towards London today, I realised that I was on a relatively new ‘smart’ motorway. It made me contemplate what a very useful , if somewhat unexciting word it is. Smart that is, not motorway. It’s a very trendy word with so much of our future being ‘smart’. The Internet of Things is dependant on smart technology; i.e. the ability to control everything, from getting your lazy son/daughter out of bed on time, to opening the garage door from Tasmania, to turning on the oven on the way home from work. All with the flick of an app on your Smart phone. Televisions are ‘smart’. Washing machines, fridges and dishwashers, even whole houses are ‘smart’. In fact about the only thing that isn’t is me. Even Callie the Whippet is quite smart.

Then there are the more traditional meanings. The word could have been invented for a friend of mine. She is never anything other than smartly turned out whether going to a wedding, the office or a muddy dog walk. She is also very smart in the street-wise sense, with bundles of common sense and business savvy. But she is also intellectually smart with an impressive command of five languages and a daunting array of academic qualifications. What she definitely isn’t is a smart Alec. What other five letter word has such multifarious and extremely useful meanings? By chance, as I was listening to the car radio (which doesn’t qualify as smart at all) ‘smart’ cropped up again. What used to be known as The Institute of Advanced Motorists (an august body which upheld high standards of driving) has apparently now morphed into IAM RoadSmart. I suppose in an irritatingly logical way that’s quite clever, but it doesn’t have the same authoritative ring.

The final part of my journey, having waved cheerily at the five miles of stationary traffic on the northbound carriageway, was to turn off the M25 onto the M23 towards Gatwick, with its very smart aeroplanes. For the next fifteen years there will be a 50 mph limit on this section while it’s upgraded to ‘Smart’ status. I have already conceded that my intellectual ability doesn’t merit the accolade ‘smart’, but I don’t believe I’m the only person on this planet who still doesn’t really understand what a ‘smart’ motorway is/does? Does it mean that the tarmac will record my speed and send gleeful messages to  the Beak when I’ve (most unusually) drifted a hair over the legal limit? Or perhaps it has sensors at regular intervals that will recognise one’s very dry throat and send a drone swooping down to your window with a bottle of Speckled Hen? Maybe it detects when one of those Herberts has got bored with tailgating to no avail, undertakes on the inside  and then gets taken out with an AI laser beam that steers it onto the hard shoulder (that no longer exists!) and holds it there until the long arm of the law arrives to administer summary justice? My personal hope is that what it really means is that the flow will somehow be magically controlled to prevent any delays or holdups and when an accident looks imminent an unseen force will intervene to restore sanity. Who knows, perhaps in 2060 all of those things might happen. For now I think it means, use what used to be the hard shoulder as an extra lane until it’s blocked and then pull out rapidly in front of the approaching leviathans to avoid rear-ending the broken down jalopy. However, I could be completely wrong because there do not seem to be any signs, notices or banners being dragged behind light aircraft to explain what the hell a ‘Smart Motorway’ is.

I know it’s not quite the same, but I think a tube of Smarties might help.

I am dying to meet Larry. He must be the happiest person in the world. But who was he? Why is it that anyone who appears to be overly content with life is described as being “As happy as…”. Larry Grayson? He used to laugh a lot, but I suspect the saying pre-dated him. Larry Olivier? Unlikely. Larry the Lamb? Even less likely. The prospect of a permanent wave of giggles on the Welsh hillsides seems remote. Larry of Arabia? Only if irony has taken over the world. I’m running out of Larry’s. Answers on a postcard please to…….

I merely bring it up because Woman’s Hour on Radio 4 today ran a feature about breast-feeding and spoke to a number of ladies who have had very different experiences. One was thrilled that she was simultaneously still feeding a three year old as well as her ten monther. She was described as being “as happy as” you know who. A number of the women had experienced awful sagas of not being able to breast-feed despite their very best efforts. Mostly it left them demoralised and guilty, feeling that they were “bad mothers” as a result. There was one mother in particular whose son was losing weight fast so she was taken into hospital to get supervised help. It sounded an absolute nightmare. The various day and night shifts, nurses and midwives all gave her different advice to the point where she left kicking and screaming with a few bottles of Formula. I give eternal thanks to Michael (my Archangel) that Mother and Father aligned the chromosomes in the right order to ensure that I came out with balls. I do know that some women have such pleasurably sensitive nipples that they can almost orgasm when supplying their little darlings with his/her daily ration. I don’t recall whether I had that effect on Mother?

It’s been interesting (well to me anyway) watching, listening to and reading the reports from the Caribbean these past few days. England’s cricketers  have apparently been “humiliated” by the West Indies according to the BBC and the Times amongst many others. Is that not a massively arrogant, condescending and probably racist description? The implication being that the all-conquering (predominantly) white English should expect to reign supreme against our former colonial brethren and anything less than a great and glorious victory is “humiliating”. Ok, our brave boys batted like outcasts from the kindergarten third eleven, but maybe we should give credit to a really impressive and resurgent WIndies team who certainly “humbled” the Might of Albion. Having witnessed first hand (well from the Stands anyway) the might of the Holding, Roberts, Richards era it’s been depressing watching their successors struggling to remain in the top flight. It would be lovely to listen to Michael Holding’s wonderfully gravelly tones describing a current speedster who could scare the pants off today’s be-helmeted, padded batters in the way that he did against brave men like Brian Close and David Steel, who stood there without helmets and body armour and withstood the battery of grenades hurled at them with all the venom of a spitting cobra. Cricketers talk about “that was a good Jaffa”. If ever there was anything less like an orange coming at your throat at ninety miles an hour I’d like to know what it is. If it’s not a “Jaffa” it’s a “cherry”. I guess irony is alive and well. It’s probably why Americans generally don’t understand cricket, amongst the many other worldwide pleasures that pass them by.

It is with considerable surprise and no little remorse that I discover it’s four days since I last lifted the lid on my laptop to burst into bloggish print. I can only apologise to my legion of followers and explain to both of you that sometimes the trials of teenage children usurps all else and that, combined with frenetic partying, has caused my lapse. Pathetic I know, but after the Safari Supper on Friday night when far too much very rich food was consumed, combined with an equal excess of alcoholic refreshment, mind and body needed longer than normal to regain their equilibrium. If you’re not familiar with the ritual of a Safari Supper (and I wasn’t), it doesn’t mean chasing wildebeest in a hot air balloon across the Serengeti with some chilled bubbly and a Fortnum and Mason hamper at the ready, but more prosaically it’s a large group of people being split up into smaller groups to dine in different people’s houses. You change venue and group for each course, starter, main and dessert, before all meeting up together in one place for cheese, port, more wine and the final nail in the coffin. We, Alison (my wife) and I, had volunteered to host pudding, which is a bit of a speciality of Alison’s. She served a ridiculously rich chocolate mousse which all went, some delicious lemon posset, which nearly all went and her very own trademark speciality, a Strawberry Crump. This is billionaire rich and those greedy pigs who had two helpings deserve no sympathy for the severe ill health they suffered later. Personally, I have spent the last two days, walking, umpiring hockey and asking Michael (my Archangel) for absolution and forgiveness, which thus far has not been forthcoming.

Another really interesting thing that’s happened this week is that I’ve joined a choir, after hearing about it from a lovely friend. When I was young and in my salad days I sang in Ely Cathedral and later with the Brompton Choral Society in London. The latter required you to pass an audition which I just about scraped through. They must have been short of basses at the time. In the intervening thirty plus years my musical contribution has consisted largely of belting out the melody of Christmas carols an octave below the intended. With creaking voice box and and a deteriorating ear I had rather thought that was it. So what inspired this Damascene transformation? Mainly I suspect the need for social interaction and the fact they don’t audition! The delightful Director of Music, Jane by name, announced my arrival to the expectant masses in eulogistic tones, “and he’s a Bass”. To which the rows of blue rinses (and the odd beautiful blonde) responded with a hearty cheer and slight note of surprise. Needless to say I was overwhelmed and not a little embarrassed. Particularly as I knew and they didn’t, that my contribution was liable to be imperfect at best and tunelessly cringeworthy at worst. They are preparing for a “crossover” concert of works by Vivaldi, Handel, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Abba and Queen. From “Gloria” to “Bohemian Rhapsody”, from “Phantom of the Opera” to “Dancing Queen”, the potential for disaster is apparent at every turn. The good news is that the rehearsal room is conveniently located a mere fifty metres from the pub, so any damage sustained in the preceding two hours can quickly be repaired with a bottle or two of vin rouge extraordinaire. I actually survived the first rehearsal with the help of some talented performers around me and a box of Nigroids. Lest you think I am being politically incorrect, heaven forbid, these are little black, liquorice tasting pellets that are much used by opera singers, which seem to oil the inner workings of the larynx. I confess that I’ve had this box for quite a few years so there’s every likelihood that they have since been rebranded. If Wing Commander Guy Gibson’s real life lab ended up on the ‘Dambusters’ cutting room floor, what chance for Nigroids? Interestingly, (no this is really interesting) in my RAF days I was based for a while at RAF Scampton, home of 617 Squadron, who’s predecessors had undertaken that breathtakingly daring raid and it’s a historical fact that their Commander really did have a black Labrador called “Nigger”. Perhaps we should rewrite our history books to delete any mention of Henry VIII beheading his wives. We shouldn’t allow our children to be subjected to such violent, mysogonistic, chauvinist, sexist behaviour after all.

Now that the cobwebs have been cleared from the typewriter and words assembled in roughly the right order, it is my intention to bore you with my mindless drivellings on a daily basis. However, the reality is that there may be the odd day when inspiration takes off like a saturated firework and the muse remains gated and locked in Eastbourne’s equivalent of Fort Knox. With that shameful admission, I’m required on bar duty.

 

What’s going on on Cloud 9, or wherever it is the angels and archangels meet for their daily met briefing from the Big Cheese? (For those unfamiliar with the term, ‘met’ stands for ‘meteorological’ and it’s what military pilots, amongst others, routinely get every day). I merely ask because since the Summer of Sun 2018, the weather has been uncharacteristically beautiful. Ok, there’s been the odd day here and there where Thor has lobbed thunderbolts, or some other unnamed heavenly body has had hiccups or indigestion, or both, but for the most part it has been stunning. As a relative newbie to Eastbourne perhaps this is unexceptional? Maybe there is a Camelotian microclimate here where, in the apocryphal words of King Arthur, “the climate must be perfect all the year”? Where “the rain may never fall till after sundown, by eight the morning fog must disappear”? Somehow that doesn’t seem plausible though. Maybe it’s just the swings and borrows of outrageous fortune, or could it be that Sir David (National Treasure) Attenborough’s worst fears are already being realised and we are about to be submerged by an ENGLISH Channel overflowing from the melting icepack, with the landmass turning brown and parched as the Sahara spreads rapidly northwards, scorpions and tarantulas crawling out from every crevice and we yearn for the days when Summer occurred on July 31st and the only noticeable difference between summer and winter was how green the trees were? I’ve tried to call up Michael, (according to a psychic I once saw he is my guardian arch-angel) but the line is very crackly, on those rare occasions that he bothers to answer at all. It may be that goings on in Davos, Brussels, Westminster et al are distracting the Heavenly Body. Generally you get the answerphone saying that “we’re experiencing an exceptionally high number of calls. If your query is urgent…..”.

Harking back briefly to yesterday’s blog, am I alone in thinking that the incredibly hi-tech, low maintenance, low manpower, automated answering service now employed by most large companies and Government agencies that invites you to “press 1 for bananas, 2 for rotten apples, 3 for problem children, 4 for civil disputes, etc etc”, is a distressingly backwards step compared with the charming young telephonist who would come on after three rings with “Good morning, this is Arnold and Merryweather, Rachel speaking, how may I help you?”. Didn’t that immediately make you feel warm and fuzzy and much less likely to rant at Mr Merryweather, than going through fourteen levels of irritatingly obtuse options, none of which really apply to your simple problem, before you finally get through to an almost incomprehensible voice in Kolkata, who is trying terribly hard to please but hasn’t really got a clue what you’re talking about?

Whilst I’m going nowhere on a diversion, that psychic I mentioned wasn’t some crazed, unshaven weirdo in a kaftan and knotted handkerchief chanting incomprehensibly, but an incredibly attractive thirty something who’d given up a successful financial career in the City to advise on diet, based on an extraordinary ability to ‘read’ your ‘aura’. If you wanted, she would go deeper into your inner being; I apparently had been a Samurai warrior and a great leader of men in Ancient Greece in former lives. I confess my memory is a little hazy of such events but who knows? She did say that if I doubted her, next time I was looking to park somewhere where parking is notoriously difficult, I should call on Michael a minute or two in advance and there would magically be a space where I needed it. Being the eternal optimist I tried. Never had a problem parking since!

But back to the unusual weather to finish. I haven’t actually consulted Michael on this one at all, but I can only surmise that the Board of Governors upstairs has taken pity on a Britain racked by indecision and ruled that at the very least we’ll not suffer from SAD whilst trying to decide whether it’s Deal or No Deal. Has anyone asked Noel Edmunds? Perhaps we’re just all in Cloud Cuckoo land.

I was about to start this with “In the good old days…”. But it struck me like a clumsy scaffolder’s discarded hammer (on the rare occasion I’d gone out without my safety helmet) that perhaps that is a rather well-worn cliche with little basis in fact. Take the railways for example. People love to whinge and moan about another cancellation from Eastbourne to Gatwick on Southern Rail and look back with spectacles still covered in grime, never mind rose-tinted, at the halcyon and romantic days of steam when British Railways ran with Swiss style punctuality, with carriages of luxury, pristine seats and immaculately clean and lovingly cared for stations. They didn’t, they weren’t……any of the above. The trains were dirty and smelly and rarely ran to time. The stations were grimy and choking and the staff discourteous more often than not. We’ve never had it so good.

Cars. Absolutely no contest. Whilst there might have been some really fun old Lotuses and Morgans and such things, the run of the mill Cowley or Dagenham jalopies were hideous. In my memory the Morris Marina was probably the worst of the lot, but compared with todays Fords and Vauxhalls, never mind BMWs and Mercedes……well, there is no contest. We’ve never had it so good.

Aeroplanes. We, with very considerable justification, might moan about Ryanair (you don’t HAVE to use it), but in general air travel is light years better than it was forty years ago. With one caveat; ‘The World’s Favourite Airline’, which used to be a fair nomenclature, is now ‘The World’s Most Expensive Low Cost Airline’ and the largely embarrassed staff know it full well. I’m afraid I now actively seek out foreign, mainly Dubai based, air transport rather than ‘flying the flag’. It actually makes me very cross that the national carrier has been allowed to plumb such depths. It’s an embarrassment. For the most part though, we’ve never had it so good.

Buses. I really am not sure about this. As a kid it was such good fun running for the open-backed double decker, grabbing the upright pole, with the hand that wasn’t holding a tennis racquet and a box of balls and leaping on as the driver accelerated away in the hope we’d rub our grubby little noses in the dirt. Dismounting was equally challenging. The game was to jump from the open back deck when the bus was just about going slowly enough that a parachute roll wasn’t required, but well before Grandma felt able to climb down in safety. There was always a conductor, shouting “hold very tight please” and whirring those magnificent ticket machines that were held firmly in place on the chest with Playtex ‘cross your heart’ straps. (To see such things younger readers will need to visit The National Traction Engine and Omnibus Museum in……now where is it?) Of course they always used to show up three at a time after a thirty minute wait and there was no electronic board at the bus stop to tell you that there’s one due in twenty three minutes, but I just have a sneaky feeling that this is one area where ‘the good old days’ might be appropriate.

Cinema. If that’s true of buses it most certainly isn’t of the Moving Picture Theatre. They talk about the ‘Golden Era’ of Hollywood in the ’30s, 40’s and 50’s but there is nothing more golden than the modern multi-screen, 3D, surround-sound, vibrating seat, all action Cinematic Experience. There is no comparison with the old single screen flea-pits of yesteryear, although that twin seat in the back row for two and sixpence took some beating for breaking the ice (or something) with the latest young conquest. We’ve never had it so good.

Food. The arguments are a little more mixed here. My grandparents owned a fabulous Victorian walled garden, from which they ate happily and healthily all year round. Fresh, delicious produce straight out of the ground and off the bush and they all lived well into their nineties. But the less well off ate a hugely inadequate diet in those austere post-war years. In general though we ate good quality, seasonal food that hadn’t been transported around the world. You ate strawberries in June and July, and delicious little yellow seedless grapes for all too brief a spell in July and August. Now you can pretty much get whatever you want, when you want it, including a vast tonnage of hideously processed junk food that is keeping the global population under control. The Scales of Justice definitely tilt on the side of “never had it so good”.

It strikes me this is a big subject and worthy of Part 2 another day. As they used to say in the good old days…..”to be continued”.

 

 

 

It’s the middle of the bleak mid-winter, but you will hear no frosty wind making moan here. As I de-iced the chariot at 7am to take a sleepy daughter to early morning swimming the joyful journos of the Today programme reminded us that it’s Blue Monday. Not that I needed the reminder. Every exposed inch of flesh had already turned that colour. But apparently this is generally considered to be the bleakest day of the year. The day when more sickies are thrown, more arguments had, more anti-depressants consumed and more wardens are on duty on Beachy Head. (Actually I’m not sure about that but it seems likely). Driving along the Eastbourne seafront though, under an icily blue, clear sky it was difficult to feel anything other than elated; the Red Moon having given way to a dazzling, almost white sun climbing north to lord it over an unusually placid English Channel, or La Planche (The Sleeve) as the French call it. Perhaps, as part of the deal to stay in Europe (after the Second Referendum that has yet to be announced) we could reach an accommodation avec Les Miserables? After all it’s more our moat than theirs. Remember that splendid wartime headline? “Fog in The Channel, Europe cut off”! Oh for those heady days of Empire when ‘Great’ and ‘United’ really were appropriate titles for Britain and Kingdom.

Alison (my wife) and I will spend the day on tenterhooks as the son and heir (Oliver by name) undergoes stringent and examining tests and torture at Eastbourne College to ascertain whether or not he is worthy of a Sports Scholarship to said establishment. We (Alison and I) feel, without a hint of parental prejudice, that he has the talent. He will have to prove that he has the desire. Time will tell, as it so often does….especially the speaking clock. To while away the long hours of nail-biting anticipation the G&F (grace and favour) apartment is about to be given a ‘deep clean’. Not by some hired, highly trained and fully qualified professional, but by your ageing correspondent, who’s already got housemaid’s knee, butler’s elbow, footman’s ankle, scholars hip and a lack of backbone…..especially when it comes to housework. ‘Deep’ means hoovering all the extensive carpets, followed by washing all the floors, then scrubbing the kitchen and all its appliances to within an inch of their lives, before donning the Marigolds (if not already donned) and setting to with a bucket of bleach to bring the bathrooms (well bathroom and loo) up to Inspection standard. The Commanding Officer has already pointedly run her finger along the top of a few pictures and looked in disgust at her dusty digit. I fear a high standard will be demanded when she reviews my work later in the day. To think I could be out earning £800 a day in the Dubai Desert talking knowledgeably and interestingly about golf; to the limited number of people who find golf interesting. The good news is that the frozen ground is so hard that it would be futile to attempt the much needed digging of the flower beds.

A final thought; if today is Blue Monday what and when is its opposite number? Where  falls the day when everyone rips their clothes off under a sparkling sun and dances in joyful merriment with total strangers? And (I know you shouldn’t start a sentence with ‘and’ but this is my blog and I make the rules) what is it called; Gay Sunday? (With apologies to the LGBTQXYZ community)