Sorry Seems to be the Easiest Word.
3
Author Archives: The Ed
To Know Which Way the Wind Blows
Just in case you , like me, suffer from the bewildering confusion of not knowing if you are watching a regular BBC weather forecast, or one during the Sunday night farmer’s magazine Countryfile, here’s a handy cut-out-and-chuck-away guide to how BBC weather men are told to dress during each.
Thanks. That’s cleared that up.
Just one way which the BBC help you understand the world around you. Like letting you know that photos of The Duchess of Penge’s tits are a news story, while mass slaughter in Syria is a filler.
It Goes Everywhere, Involves Everyone.
Welcome back. And if you’ve just joined us, a quick recap the main points of the news again:
2008- to date: Bankers and the city bring down world-economy, selling toxic mortgages, mis-selling insurance; fiddling PPI; awarded huge bonuses for failure while ordinary citizens went bust; laundering money for pariah states, fixing lending rates etc etc: As yet, not a single solitary Banker (bangster?), not one person has ben charged with anything, though the PM says they face “serious questions”. Oooh, nasty.
At the time of publication one man – a former UBS trader who stole from the banks (as opposed to them stealing from us) is appearing at Southwark Crown Court. They don’t like people stealing from them, do they ? Stealing from customers is nothing to faces charges over, on the other hand.
May 2009: MPs expenses: The Daily Telegraph exposes parliamentarians of claiming for Moats, Duck houses, Electrical goods, family members salaries, second homes, flats/jobs for the boys/lovers. MPs vigorously tried but ultimately failed to stop publication of information via the Freedom of Information Act. 3 MPs convicted (subsequently a judge lets them off paying legal costs, bless him).
Police told to open inquiry into corruption during the investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. 19 years after which, just 2 men are convicted in 2012. As yet, no Police officers have been convicted of any misdoing.
2011:- Operations Elvedon and Weeting (investigation payments from Journalists to Police Officers and other public officials) 47 arrests at time of writing, including journalists secretaries and “legal advisors” from News International, hacks from the Sun, the Mirror and the Star.
2011:- Operation Tuleta instigated (investigation into phone hacking by journalists) to run along side the other inquiries into the behaviour of journalists. 13 arrests as we speak.
Leveson Inquiry into the “culture, practices and ethics” of the British press. (good luck with that one then) opens. Scores of TV celebs, politicians, sportsmen, film stars and ‘ordinary’ people give evidence of being hounded, abused and wrongly accused by the press. Rupert Murdoch is hauled in front of the beak and the cameras. His son shows the world what a buffoon he is (before taking the getaway jet to The States): Report expected in November.
July 2012: A police officer was cleared of killing newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson who died after a G20 protest in the City. PC Simon Harwood was found not guilty of unlawfully causing death in the course of his duties after he was filmed during the G20 protests clearly striking Mr Tomlinson in the back of the leg and pushing him to the ground.
September 2012: The Hillsborough Disaster Independent Panel Inquiry Publishes findings. After numerous governments have ignored the subject, David Cameron reads the findings of the public inquiry, and immediately apologises in the House of Commons to the families of the victims, thus making him possibly the only one of 2 politicians (sitting or otherwise) to emerge from the saga with any credit at all.
The then Prime Minister in 1989 (I forget her name – as does she) was told how appallingly the Police had acted on the day of the slaughter and throughout the subsequent inquiry. She chose to ignore this, as did Tory and Labour governments after her). Only when Labour’s Andy Burnham, an Evertonian put in place an independent inquiry did the process start in earnest.
Questions are directed at the Football Association, the Football Club and Sheffield City Council for the fact that the ground did not have a valid safety certificate.
The media have to hunt down former Sun Editor Kelvin MacKenzie before he finally apologises for the newspaper’s coverage of the events – blaming drunk, thieving Liverpool fans for their own deaths. The current Editor of the Sun, Dominic Someone, also says sorry. (It’s not been a great year for The Current Bun).
The MP for Sheffield Hallam in 1989, Sir Irvine Patnick, was identified by the Hillsborough Independent Panel as one of the main sources for these inaccurate stories in the press that sought to blame Liverpool fans for the deaths of 96 people. He admits his error/lies but remains at liberty.
Senior lawyers at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) were handed detailed analysis of the police cover-up of the Hillsborough disaster 14 years ago but decided to take no action against any officers involved, reports The Independent newspaper.
Former (Labour) Home Sec, Jack Straw, on BBC expressed regret that a review of the Hillsborough disaster he ordered in 1997 failed to “get to the bottom” of what happened or expose the police cover-up. A small understatement, and half-hearted effort even by Straw’s standards.
Report shows 116 police statements were altered/”amended” so as to conceal the actions of the South Yorkshire Constabulary that day. Ambulances were held back from the scene. Medical reports find that 41 victims could have survived had the emergency services showed up. The coroner at the time ordered that all of the deceased – adults and children alike – should be tested for alcohol in their blood – in an attempt to perpetuate the “drunk fan” theory. That Coroner is still walking around a free man.
It is revealed that the police ran checks on all the dead, to see if any had criminal records – another attempt to tarnish the reputations of the deceased. On the BBC on the day of the release of the inquiry’s findings, officers serving that day at Hillsborough were queuing up to vent their anger over the fact their statements had been changed by ‘person or persons unknown’, presumably higher management within the force.
It is self-evident that the cover-up was ordered, organized and carried out by senior serving members of the Yorkshire Police. Aided and abetted by who else is, as yet, unknown. There will always be questions, however that in 23 years, how is it that not one single rank and file member of either the Ambulance or Police Service came forward to “whistle blow” ?
When the shocking facts were released, (and not one revelation denied), Sir Norman Bettison, the most senior serving police officer who was involved with South Yorkshire Police‘s discredited Hillsborough operation, said of the revelations that he had “nothing to hide”. 2 days later, he was forced by sheer weight of numbers against him to apologise.
Bit by bit, one by one, the apologists for the Police, the Press, the Bankers the Government, the racists, the bigots go silent.
We really are All in it Together
A London Girl
I have some bad news to depart. I also have some good news for you.
The bad bit is that I will no longer regale you with “Tales from the Shovel : A Simpleton’s Life in a Rural Pub” . No, no. My love affair with the aforementioned (and often mentioned) local boozer has ended, and that situation will not alter up to and until I receive an apology from an offending regular. He knows who he is.
You’re probably thinking something along the lines of “Oh God, Bealing has hd a row about the Police service, or George Osborne‘s political genius, Robin Jackman‘s mincing run-up, or the state of the BBC. Why else would he leave The Shovel ?”
No. None of that. I cannot go into exactly what happened, but suffice to say, I shall not darken that door for a very long time. I may even start using The Liniment and Poultice, as a regular haunt, even though The Incumbent says no, we won’t.
So it being a Friday night, and one of the few in the month which coincides with me having a couple of bob in my pocket, we went up to our old haunts to see what we could see.
We saw a couple of old mates, that’s what we could see. And we drank. And we had fun. And we spent money in Old Greenwich Town, in an Old Greenwich Pub: just like, not only had we never left but ,that both of us were working. And working for firms who paid the proper rate. I can’t remember back that far. Back when I was still allowed to drink in The Shovel (I’ll tell you later) the biggest round I ever bought was £9.50 – and that was only if the Fleet was in. Here I paid (with gay abandon, I might add) £19.50 for the odd cider and a pint-or-two of lager.
But it mattered not one jot. My very old (and in some cases, very drunk) friends had brought me to a pub where Chas Hodges and his band were playing. You know who Chas is. Chas is the Chas of Chas and Dave. I may have mentioned my love for them before. I’m sure I have.
So I am standing in a pub in South London next to the Pearly King and Queen of the Royal Borough of Greenwich (I kid you not), I have a pint of cider in my hand, and one half – the half that writes and owns the songs – of Chas and Dave is but a few feet in front of me. What do I do ?
I wanted to call you all up to ask if you wanted to join me and The Incumbent in this marvellous evening. But I was too excited/drunk to do so.
The best I could do is to record the evening in the best I could. There is video, and one day I’m sure it will be available. Not that there will be a huge call for it.
But there is this:
I may or may not have known all the words to all the songs but me and my new best mate Chas are getting on just fine. Not sure who the Doris on the left is though.
Long on Lens, Short on Standards
Thought this might be worth keeping handy for when the British press start weighing into the French magazine, Closer, for publishing the topless photos of Kate, Duchess of Cambridge.
This from the current edition of Private Eye:
Oolamalawaladollar, That’s what the Fez he Sing
While it’s all gone quiet, I thought we’d have some music.
A long time ago at a Rugby Club far, far away, me and a young Julian Holland sat down and sang the following. He sang lead and did most of the work on the keyboard, and I was on harmonies.
In truth it wasn’t just me who accompanied him, but a hundred or so privileged drunks, their wives and girlfriends.
Mr Holland had been bought by the local coppers. Or rather, he’d put himself (and his talents) up for auction and would play at a venue of the bidders’ asking for an hour – ish. To cut a short story long, a local Nick won, one of the bidders, was both a copper and a player down our club and so Jools took time out from Squeeze, or The Tube, or whatever he was doing at the time and came to our club to sing.
With me.
Well that’s how I remember it, anyway. Mind you, such was the drunken state of many of us at the time, the lyrics to this song sounded perfectly sensible.
Give me iko
I wanna ball the wall here
Shuffle in Dumaine
Hear the hookacumbi
Meet my tipatina
Love her hold her tightly
Wanna see her swaying
In New Orleans nightly
.
You know I wanna be there
Drinking in the morning
Holler in the evening
Dr. Jazz Dr. Jazz
Bake my jelly roll
You quicken my pulse
You make my rhythm slow
.
Crawfish gumbo
Rhythm from the jungle
Big chief rocking
I follow the voodoo king
Oolamalawaladollar
That’s what the fez he sing
.
How long must it be
How long must I wait
Till Highway 49 takes me to your gate
I eat a bowl of gumbo
That creole child will serve
Sit on the verandah
Happy in a dixie world
.
Maybe on Sunday
Head for Baton Rouge
Dancing with the cajun
Twist away my blues
Then a drop of rain
A trickle in my eye
I look up and smile
At the rhythm that never, never dies
No Closer: The Topless Photos they Dare not Publish.
There are times when you try to get away from it all. If, like me, you live in the public eye those times are rapidly becoming few and far between.
I am like everyone else in that I do like to have time to myself. While I fully appreciate that it is you, the fan and the reader who have made me into what I am, I do expect the press and media to respect the difference between my public life and my private one.
The editors at French magazine Closer saw sense and decided not to publish topless photos of me, on the grounds of good taste and for the public good. No-one wants to see that over their cornflakes.
One can only hope the British press – following the unfortunate incident with the Prince Harry photos earlier this month – decide to heed Lord Leveson’s directions and leave these snaps where they should be left : in the back of a camera, in the bottom of a forgotten drawer.
Just like “Waity” Katy, my body betrays my eating habits (I’m more “Weighty” than waity, and it may not be a sight to everyone’s taste. In the past, this seems to hold no sway with the picture editors of Fleet Street. But please, I beg of you, think of the children and say “Non” to paparazzi pics.
Thank You.
And now, some music.
(Picture below taken with a very short, wide lens)
I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost
Paint it Black. Or Whatever You Think Best.
In my short sweet experience, a bloke from Dartford should never ask one from New York how much money he would like, unless one like the answer “Lots”.
Thanks to Simon Robinson for finding this one.
Death of a Craftsman.
Sorry to have to report the news of yet another great man who has passed on. Seamus was another in a long line of working and drinking buddies who will be sadly missed. He was wonderful to work with, hilarious to listen to and a pleasure to stand at the bar with. He called a cvnt a cvnt (and we worked with plenty of them at The Telegraph) and always stood his corner in The Cat and Canary afterwards, bless him.
Here’s the Evening standard from yesterday:
Fleet St veteran Seamus Potter dies at 57
Seamus Potter, chief sub-editor of the Evening Standard’s international pages, has died at the age of 57.
A Fleet Street veteran who enthusiastically upheld all its traditions, Seamus was the eldest son of Daily Mirror features executive and author John Deane Potter and Mirror fashion editor Eve Chapman, who was also the News of the World’s agony aunt in the Eighties and Nineties.
Brought up in Chelsea, Seamus added a literary and arty elan to the Evening Standard on his first tour of duty in the late Seventies.
In 1987, he was transferred from the middle-bench of the paper to become deputy editor of the revived Evening News, as Lord Rothermere sought to squash Robert Maxwell’s newly launched London Daily News. The move was a success — and the Evening News was closed soon after it had helped the Standard successfully scupper the opposition.
After a stint heading production at the Sunday Telegraph under Charles Moore and Dominic Lawson, and spells on the Daily Telegraph’s back-bench and then as Scottish editor and City chief sub-editor, Seamus launched The Sportsman as production editor.
When the paper ran out of cash and folded, he returned to the Standard and supervised the foreign pages, dispensing wit and wisdom and offering friendship and support to younger sub-editors and editors alike.
In his early days on the Western Daily Press, he was a founder member of the “Hole in the Head gang”, a group of maverick young Turks. He jumped off a ferry in the Irish Sea miles from Liverpool to save a cartoonist fellow member who dived overboard for a wager.
In his early twenties, Seamus was named among the top 20 most eligible bachelors in London by a society magazine.
A man of firm views, Seamus was a loyal and committed journalist and friend who accepted the onset of throat cancer with dignity, stoicism and a complete lack of self-pity.
His son Luis and his sister Lucinda were by his bedside during his last weeks in Trinity Hospice, Clapham.
A private family funeral service will be held. The Evening Standard is planning a memorial service later in the year.
The Sharp Single 