Just One More Question, Sir…

Posted on May 2, 2009 by The Ed

So I’m sitting in my garden, soaking up the rays while flicking through the papers, when I’m stopped in my tracks by an advert on page 12 of The Times. Dunno why, as I’ve always felt I don’t look at adverts. As any fule no, adverts are just there to make photos smaller in papers and magazines, or to give you something to doodle on while in morning conference. In these dark days of credit crunch and the collapse of the advertising industry, I suppose we should all thank Evans for small Murphys (some more than others) and embrace whatever adverts actually make it into print, and thus keeping us in the poverty to which we’ve so readily become accustomed, but I do fluctuate between annoyance and agnosticism when I see a dirty great Halfords or Waitrose ad where a perfectly good story, or even better, a photo should be.

howard-with-tash1

Anyway, I digress. So the offending item this time is a Samsung colour half-page ad for mobile phones. An attractive young couple grapple with each other next to insets of two mobiles, underneath the legend “Ourselves. Together” whatever that means. But something struck me about those words—they felt rather familiar. So off I popped to the wonderful web world of Wikipedia. Something in the back of my pickled mind led me to believe that Sinn Féin was a translation of just that: Ourselves Together. Was this electronics giant really a front for Irish Republicanism ? Would Chelsea soon be playing their matches in shirts emblazoned with Gerry Adams’ hairy boat ? As I should have known only too well after the week at work I’ve had, the answer was no. I was wrong. But only just.

Here’s the entry:
Sinn Féin:…The name is Irish for “ourselves” or “we ourselves”,[3][4] although it is frequently mistranslated[5] as “ourselves alone”.

Now given that around 64% of what’s on Wikipedia is a load of old cobblers, I still could be right. Wikipedia is about as reliable as a Jacqui Smith expense claim or an Ant n Dec phone-poll, so perhaps my memory has served me better than I think. Maybe not.

But where did I glean this little nugget of half-truth? Well I knew all those hours on the sofa would pay off in the end: It came to me that there’s an episode of Columbo where he investigates a murder of an Oirish (you should hear the accents in the show) republican sympathiser. The episode was full of begorrahs and to be sure, to be sures and ginger-haired young men, drinking whiskey and stout, wearing aran sweaters. The do-er is an Oirish wroiter who is undone by the fact he inscribes the inside cover of a book at a signing with Together Ourselves (I thought). There, I’ve gone and ruined the ending for you now, haven’t I? No matter— as it’s the wont of the series, you always know who the killer is during the opening credits and the fun is to be had by the in-jokes liberally sprinkled through each episode: his signature whistle of knick-knack-paddy-wack; his endearing habit of ‘just one more question, sir”; his battered Peugeot and the fact that Mrs Columbo is never ever seen on screen. Often she was mentioned in dispatches but the producers occasionally had fun with us by dangling the carrot in front of us that she was about to appear— but she never did. Mrs Columbo is one of man tv spouses who remain unseen: Dad’s Army‘s, Mrs Mainwaring; Rumpole‘s She Who Must be Obeyed; Arthur Daly‘s Er Indoors; Porrige‘s Mrs Barraclough to name a few. What a lovely way to be married— to an anonymous, faceless woman who’s never around. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong?

This old man, he played one...

Peter Falk’s shambolic detective never carried a gun, didn’t even have a truncheon (night stick, y’all) and always showed his badge as identification. Remember those days? The Wire it weren’t. If it wasn’t for his willingness to identify himself, and his lack of violent tendencies Columbo could have joined the Met.
It’s a chilling thought that had Big Crosby not turned down the part when he was offered it, the famous mac might have been replaced by a straw trilby and a pipe, and each case would have revolved around a golf course. Falk, of course, eventually made the part his own (it had been played by 2 other actors in the 60’s) and he became tv’s highest-paid actor for a while. Like Grandpa Simpson and his MacGyver I’ve been addicted to the show for years and was stunned to see one on tv the other day which not only hadn’t I seen before but in which the killer was neither Patrick McGoohan nor Robert Vaughn. McGoohan and Falk were best mates and not only did the former star of The Prisoner win two Emmys for his roles, he also directed quite a few shows. I know there are those who are horrified that USTV has remade The Prisoner starring something called a Jim Caviezel as No.6 and Dame Serena McKellen as either No. 2 or a number 2, it’s not clear. Why do they insist on doing this ? I’m not great fan of the original, but some things surely are sacrosanct ? I’m sure somewhere in managerial meetings within HBO or ABC there’ll be plans to remake Ice Cold in Alex starring Hugh Jackman, or Casablanca with Cate Blanchett as Rick Blaine. If I get a whiff that they’re tee-ing up Owen Wilson to don a scruffy raincoat and play LAPD‘s favourite homicide detective in something called Columbo: the Party-on Years I shall invite you all to join me in a violent bout of civil unrest. Together. Ourselves.

l-r: Hanks, Aniston, Jackman and Ferrell

Shockin’ down in Kent

Posted on April 26, 2009 by The Ed

My sad, silly old mate Dave Sapsted once wrote, “Bealing grew up in the part of Kent which everyone else calls South London”. Well he was half right—which is 50% more than he usually is. I was born in the London Borough of Bexley but went to school in Dartford, which was and still is in Kent. Not so much the Garden of England, more the Allotment. Apart from the Warbler, England fast bowler, Graham Dilley, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, I’m the only thing of note which has come out of this rather unremarkable town. If you do want to come out of it it’ll cost you 30 bob to use the Dartford Tunnel, and you wouldn’t wanna do that cos it’ll take you into Essex. For 59 quid you can hop on the Eurostar at the nearby and romantically-named Ebbsfleet Inernational Railway Station and lose yourself in Paris or Brussels. Or you can do what most Dartfordians do instead and lose yourself in Bluewater shopping centre (and if you can get out of there alive without spending 59 quid you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din). All once-remembered links to Chaucer’s Pilgrims or Watt Tyler‘s Peasants have been washed away by that massive lump of concrete hell, sitting in a disused chalk quarry a couple of miles east. “Oh you come from Dartford? Where Bluewater is?” Yes, I do. Fuck off.

Thurrock, sir? First shithole on your right

Shunning the obvious delights of Dartford, some years ago I made my way 10 miles up the A2 to the last bastion of civilization left in SE London: Blackheath. Civilization, however, is suspended on Friday and Saturday eves as the Eltham Nazis take over the village bars and restaurants, and we now have a black maria which circles the small one-way system in almost perpetual motion, picking-up the knuckle-draggers as it goes. We do get 5 days of relative peace and calm, where you can get a pint and a curry and have a more-than-decent chance of making it home with as many limbs as you came out with. But I do hear often from friends “Oh, Blackheath! Lovely down there, isn’t it?” It’s lovely in the way that Basra is lovelier than Baghdad.

Anyway, back to Baghdad…er Dartford. I always keep half an eye on Dartford— my kids live there for starters, as does The Incumbent, and there are still a few of the lads who never made it over the wire, so I return there every-so-often. But like a favourite testicle after too long in the bath, it has shrunken and shrivelled over the years since I was a schoolboy more than 25 years ago. The streets are shorter, the shops smaller, pubs grubbier and girls uglier (present Mrs B aside, you understand). The town planners seem to have been influenced by Jackson Pollock or Magnus Pyke, the semi-deserted streets (Bluewater sucks the life out of the town on weekends) are the domain of small herds of herberts in hoods, grazing on MaccyDs in forests of triffid traffic signs. It’s an all-too familiar story if you know towns like Barnet, Orpington, St Albans or any of a number dotted around the M25 corridor.

Locals point the best way out of town

As a young man I used to ply my medium-pacers for Wilmington CC, a village team just up the road. Wilmington was a leafy little dingly-dell, away from the bustle of the Dartford ‘metrolopis’, with a couple of proper boozers, a local park with a decent cricket square (complete with licensed pavilion), a couple of schools and lots of tree-lined lanes where on a clear night you could witness fleets of Escort Mark I’s bouncing up and down to the rhythm of young couples at it. Nowadays those same lanes are the natural habitat for middle-aged men taking themselves on long, lonely strolls in the hope of meeting other middle-aged men on long, lonely strolls in the hope that they can have some fun together.

If you go down on someone in the woods today...

If you go down in the woods today, you

Wilmington made a news-item this week. Not for it’s cottage industry, nor for the cricket team’s tight match vrs local rivals Swanley but because of the antics of the headmistress of the local school. At Wilmington Enterprise College the head mistress, Belinda Langley-Bliss (I kid you not) sent 61 pupils home from lessons in one day. Go back and read that again. IN ONE DAY.
Now what, you may well ask, happened on that day? A mass riot? Did the upper-sixth set fire to the science block? Were the school leopard and the caretaker’s water cannon set loose on a noisy session of the Chess Club ? Nope. apparently 46 were sent home for wearing trainers or ‘extreme fashions’ and a further 15 for not having the correct equipment. Sounds like a Daily Mail report, doesn’t it? Sadly this story is true. According to the PA report: “Pupils were also required to arrive at college each day with a pencil case containing a calculator, two pens, two pencils, a planner, a ruler, eraser and notebook to prevent time being wasted in lessons.” The Incumbent tell me that one of her friend’s son was sent home for not having a pencil sharpener. Yup.
You know what I’d do? instead of sending the kids away, I’d get the parents IN. Pin them down and ask them why little Jordan or Wayne have turned up without the required uniform? See if you can help in an installment-plan for a pencil sharpener. Failing that, baseball bats and bricks usually do the trick. Tell you what you DON’T do is give the kids the day off. How many kids do you know would think that a punishment? I’d have turned up with no trousers if I thought I’d have been sent away again (tried that at The Telegraph once—didn’t work). In an ever-depressed economy, where your average school-leaver’s chances of getting a job are dwindling away, why not help parents kit-out the kids in an acceptable manner, with what kit and clothing is readily affordable to non-working families? And if it’s just the case of little Johnny cocking-a-snoop at the school rules and dress like he’s going clubbing, then scare the bejeezus out of him. A bollocking from the old man usually focussed my mind. Ms Langley-Bliss has taken the option of filling up the street corners and KFCs of her local town with teenagers who think they’ve won the lottery. Others will be sitting at home in bits on the sofa because they forgot to take a pencil to school, waiting for dad to come home and rip into them. Is that how to encourage decent 14 year olds? Dartford is depressing enough. It doesn’t need arse-head strategies like this, Miss Bliss.

Just a Minute

Posted on April 25, 2009 by The Ed

freud-clement-081

Inside the mind of Clement Freud.

On sex and the older male…
I am 82 and was indeed fitted with titanium and plastic knees six months ago. When propositioned recently by a woman to “come upstairs and make love”, I had to explain that it was one or the other.

On greyhound racing…
I had coffee with a racing manager who told me that dogs from traps one, two and six narrowly outperformed the mid-trap runners and, if I did forecasts involving the three favoured draws, I would show a slight profit over the season. As “a slight profit” was not what I had in mind, I backed a dog led up by a kennel maid with a huge bust. He came fifth. That system is a good way of showing a slight loss.

On food and wine…
Watercress does funny things to your palate – makes it very hard to appreciate good wine, does a plate of watercress salad. So, look on the bright side, if the wine you have bought is iffy, bring on watercress.

The family name…
In my youth “Freud” was not a household name in Britain. At prep school I was once called to the headmaster’s study to be beaten for talking during class, told to take off my trousers “and your pants, you stupid little boy”, lay across the man’s knee as he fondled my bum with his gnarled hand, whereafter he said: “I am not going to smack you because your grandfather would disapprove.” When people ask whether being related to a famous man is a help or a hindrance, I think of that.

Good Irish folk…
My distinguished Aunt Anna had a house on the west coast of Cork and always spoke with affection of the simple, straightforward decency of the local people. She was in Skibereen for her 70th birthday and received hundreds of telegrams of goodwill from all parts of the world where psycho-analysis rules OK. The messages were telephoned through to the postmistress, who inscribed them on greetings forms and hired a boy to deliver them hourly to the Freud house. During the afternoon she received one which read: “The rapists of Philadelphia send good wishes and best regards.” Over which my elderly maiden aunt puzzled greatly. When she called on the postmistress the next day she asked if they might send off for verification. The postmistress said that she, too, had been shocked by the words and checked them, and they had been right. Therapists is not a word in common usage around those parts.

Wills and the wife…
In October 1950 I left everything to my wife, told her so at dinner; she was too well brought up to ask questions. In fact, “everything” then was under £100, my paternal grandfather’s silk night-shirts, which my grandmother had given me as a 21st birthday present, and some extremely heavy, leather luggage nicked from a German factory that my regiment had “liberated” a week or two before VE Day. Last week, 58 years, five children and 16 grandchildren later, my first wife (we remain together, I call her “my first wife” to keep her on her toes) asked whether I had made a will. Not for a while, I admitted, and determined to do it all over again.

Life’s little pleasures…
If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don’t actually live longer; it just seems longer

Hard-boiled Eggs and Nuts

Posted on April 24, 2009 by The Ed

I had to go to work yesterday. I know that sounds like no big deal, but I had to go to work yesterday. I felt like shit—I was streaming and sweating, coughing and spluttering, couldn’t taste a thing and my hearing was on the fritz. It was the start of a rotten cold and what I should have done was worked from home. I should have done that, however I couldn’t: Yesterday was “Take your daughter to school day” and so I took my eldest into the office. Glad I did in the end cos it was great fun. I’ve done it several times before and it’s always been good. My daughter enjoyed it too I think, even though this time she asked me why I couldn’t work for NME as she has a subscription and “it’d be sooooo cooooolll to work there”. There was a time when whatever I did or said or wherever I worked was “sooo coooollll” but I guess my kids have reached that age when they can make up their own minds as to what they like.

I don't want you to drink, Mr Bond, I want you to diet!

Their unconditional belief in what I say has long gone. No longer do they believe daddy’s tall tales about being James Bond in his spare time (they believed that one for a month when they were nippers) or was dating Rachel Stevens (about a week), and I’ve gone from funny, exotic, cool daddy who lives in London, to the old, fat, bald bloke up the road. Such is the life of an estranged dad of teenage girls. Clever little sods.

In an attempt to sweat-out my cold last night I filled up with a cocktail of chilli con carne and Lemsip and took myself off for an early night. Should have plumped for the hot toddies: I feel dreadful today.

Like most blokes I know, I suffer in silence.

Thumping head, red-raw throat, sore, scabby nostrils and every muscle (sic) left in my body aching like buggery (apparently). Called in sick to the boss who unsurprisingly was unecstatic. Having taken many of these calls from staff over the years you’re torn between the annoyance of being a man down, and the relief that you’ll be spared a day of being covered in snot and germs from a colleague. On the other side of the fence, no matter how ill you are, there’s always the guilt to deal with of not being in work.

Anyway, enough of this martyr talk. What’s more important is I’m bored. REALLY bored. Having no energy to do anything much more than fester, I’m stuck on the sofa looking out at cornflower-blue sky outside, inanely tapping up and down the tv channels with as much chance of finding something interesting to watch as there is of me winning the London Marathon on Sunday. Which is another thing: Sunday’s marathon is one of my favourite days in the calender. But instead of propping up the bar at The Angerstein Hotel, Greenwich on Sunday morning, watching the runners jog by, I shall doubtless be pouring mucus into a box of Kleenex while sat on my couch in front of the box. Even if I manfully struggled down to the pub, I wouldn’t be able to taste my pint, and what’s the point of that?

We’ve been trotting down en masse to The Angerstein (known as The Loony Bin—you’ll find out why when you meet the locals) to watch the Marathon for the last twelve years-or-so. Many of us to soak up the atmosphere of one of the Capital’s great occasions with world-class athletes, huge crowds, the fun-runners and all the colours of the rainbow. Some go down merely to watch the Elite Ladies sprint past, then return home to a warm bed (you know who you are), then there are those who go simply to celebrate the opening of a pub at 8.45 on a Sunday morning. So there’s something for everyone. There was something quite liberating that first year standing in The Loony, pint in hand, next to a copper before 9 o’clock in the morning and there was nothing he could do to stop me. It’s the little things in life that count. A fourteen-hour session of drinking, eating (?) and endless, pointless Jazz one-Sunday-in-fifty-two: that’s not too much to ask for, is it?

As the years rolled by and the various members of our group came and went as they got loved-up, engaged, married, divorced, deported etc, it’s a nice feeling to have been almost ever-present (to my dying shame I missed one year due to a business trip) and still experience the thrill of that first pint 3 hours before I should, copper or no-copper. It’s a boy thing.

But I suspect this year, due to my disabilitating illness, I’ll have to endure the dulcet tones of Steve Cram, Sue Barker et al as I’m forced to watch the race on the Beeb. I wonder if they’ll sober-up Brendan Foster for the occasion? Probably not—just to rub it in.

Go on, my girl!

I’m not the sort of bloke…

Posted on April 23, 2009 by The Ed

…who says “I told you so” but…

Google Street View case rejected
Press Association

The privacy watchdog has rejected a complaint against Google Street View.
Campaign group Privacy International argued that Street View breached the privacy of people accidentally caught on camera by Google’s photo cars.
But David Evans, the ICO’s senior data protection practice manager, compared being captured by the service to passers-by filmed on television news camera or football crowds in the background on televised matches.
It would not be in the public interest to “turn the digital clock back”, he said.

“In the same way, there is no law against anyone taking pictures of people in the street as long as the person using the camera is not harassing people,” he said.
“Google Street View does not contravene the data protection Act and, in many cases, it is not in the public interest to turn the digital clock back.
“In a world where many people Tweet, Facebook and blog, it is important to take a commonsense approach towards Street View and the relatively limited privacy intrusion it may cause.”
He said Google should routinely blur images of people’s faces and car number plates.

The company was responding “quickly” to requests from people to have particular images deleted, he said.
When the service launched, users discovered a man walking out of a sex shop and another being sick outside a pub.

Told you so !

Ernie was Only 52, He didn’t Wanna Die

Posted on April 16, 2009 by The Ed

A poll (why??) released today lists the nation’s favourite ‘pop’ songs played at funerals. Seems to me, if you discount the No1, that my funeral would be the perfect time to play these to me, as I would be unlikely to get up and kick the buggery out of the sound system:

1 My Way – Frank Sinatra/Shirley Bassey
2 Wind Beneath My Wings – Bette Midler/Celine Dion
3 Time To Say Goodbye – Sarah Brightman/Andrea Bocelli
4 Angels – Robbie Williams
5 Over The Rainbow – Eva Cassidy
6 You Raise Me Up – Westlife/Boyzone/Josh Grobin
7 My Heart Will Go On – Celine Dion
8 I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston
9 You’ll Never Walk Alone – Gerry and the Pacemakers
10 Unforgettable – Nat King Cole

In his will Peter Sellars famously requested the Glen Miller‘s In the Mood be played at his funeral. The tune was loathed by Sellars and sent Milligan, Secombe et al into fits of laughter, knowing that it was the one time it would be played when he couldn’t hear it. Like most of us, I’ve often mused about what tunes I’d like not to hear at the celebration of my termination. Elvis’s Old Shep is right up there, Terry Jacks’ Seasons in the Sun too (“Goodbye papa, it’s hard to die” has always been a fave line of mine). terry_jacks1 Neither of these are on my list cos I don’t want to hear them ever again, just cos they’re so bad it may encourage a few of those gathered to join me in my box. I may prematurely throw a seven if I have to listen to the Scouse tones of You’ll Never Walk Alone ever again. I suspect it won’t be too long before the Bish of Liv dusts off his cassock in remembrance of the fallen. I wish Gerry’s Pacemaker would go on the Fritz.

But before I am planted six-foot Down Down, Deeper and Down, I’d like to draw your attention to the very sad demise of Clement Freud: Cook, Liberal MP, Dog-Food Advertiser, Bon Viveur, Wit and All-Round Good Egg. The grandson of the great shrink, brother of a bohemian artist. Funny as Fuck. Those of you (photographers, probably) who never listened to him on Radio 4 missed a real treat, and it is for that type I relate just one of Clement’s stories, as re-told by Stephen Fry this morning, of his MPs junket to China a while ago, on which he travelled with Winston Churchill (the Tory MP of the 1980’s—not the war leader). In China, apparently, one is rewarded for politeness and kind acts as well as revered for achievement. When Freud noticed that his hotel room was rather smaller Winstons, he asked if it was because Churchill’s party was in power in the UK and the Liberals were not? The answer came “No, No! It is because he has a famous Grandfather”. Freud noted that it was the only time he’d ever been out-grandfathered.
PD*1475525

Bob be Nimble, Bob be Quick

Posted on April 9, 2009 by The Ed

Did you know that the managing director of Aintree racecourse is called Julian Thick ? No? Terrible, innit? You’d change that name, wouldn’t you? I certainly would. I was about to write to him and suggest some alternatives he might wanna change to, but I see this morning that one of those has already been taken. Step forward Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick of the Met Police. He was apparently the third most senior officer in London’s finest, and the head of counter-terrorism, but entered the doghouse after giving the press a sneak peek at his top secret counter-terrorist plans (looked like a to-do-list to me). Not very Quick-witted, you might say, even for a copper, and capping a great 10 days for Plod in general (see past rants). But, almost at once, he announced his resignation. That’d be within 24 hours. Now that was quick! Shows there’s still some semblance of duty and honour around:” I fucked up, I put my hands up, I will fall on my sword.” It’s a pity our home Secretary isn’t called Jacqui Imaliarandacheatandimorf, then she might take good heed of her name and act on it, once she’s taken the videos back, of course. Where’s Malcolm Tucker when you need him?

Where are you calling from? Nigeria! Ah yes, my credit card details are...

Sometimes fate sells you a pup which turns round and bites you on the arse. There’s not much you can do if your surname happens to be rather daft, embarrassing or inappropriate (and no, I’m not gonna talk about Neville Neville). There was a contract photographer in London called Denzil McNeelance and yes, you’ve guessed it, he was known as McNeelance the Freelance (and maybe still is). What a great moniker. Family names are family names and we’re pretty much stuck with them.
But sometimes your mum and dad down 3 litres of cheap vodka come up with a first name for you that beggars belief. Jamie Oliver‘s wife Jools has given birth to a baby girl and named her Petal Blossom Rainbow. The couple already have two daughters with floral-themed names – Poppy Honey and Daisy Boo. I don’t really know what to say. When they grow up, I do hope one of their daughters inserts a large kitchen utensil into her dad for being such an arse. Would you ever take orders from your boss if she was named Poppy Honey? Can you forsee a time when there’s likely to be a Prime Minister Petal Blossom Rainbow ? I suppose the UN job’s still open to them (Boutros Boutros Ghali Ghali, U Thant etc).
Given that the public appetite (geddit) for this lisping mockney will surely fade (let’s all hold hands and pray for that day to come soon) one can only hope he’s made enough cash out of Sainsburys that those girls need never go out to look for work. Though the way the Met are losing high-flying officers, there would doubtless be a vacancy for them, they’d just have to wait a couple of weeks for one to come along. It would scare the bejeezus out of Bin Laden (cos they still won’t have caught him by then) if Daisy Boo of the Yard was on his case.

Vile Bodies

Posted on April 8, 2009 by The Ed

Hats off again to Constable Savage. That’s one less defenceless newspaper vendor we need to worry about. As reported by The Guardian this morning a copper, in a move which they call at Hendon “The Belgrano Manoeuvre”, carried out a complete surprise attack with devastating effect on a slow-moving, ageing man, peacefully walking in the opposite direction. Thank Christ England scrum-halves aren’t armed with truncheons or who knows what damage Danny Care would do on the field of play? Savage will doubtless be given the key to the tea-urn back at the station house and a free go on the Taser. Sadly the kin of the victim, Ian Tomlinson, will be more concerned with a different sort of urn. Well done the lads at The Grauniad. Doubtless there’ll be a full and frank internal police investigation.

Charing Cross, sir? Of course, sir: Down the road, second on the left.

There was a lot of bloodshed that day, most of it none-too-serious, though worrying none-the-less. But the cameras did pick up on a protester who’d had his teeth knocked out by the Police. It’s a good thing the lovely Clare Balding wasn’t commentating on the demos— she’d have told the poor guy he looked much better. The perfectly-formed Clare (perfectly-formed, that is, if you like your women to look like Colin Montgomery‘s big sister) suggested on live tv that winning jockey of last weekend’s Grand National, Liam Treadwell, could now afford to get his dodgy teeth fixed. She has since apologised saying she meant no offence. Well nor do I when I say this: Fuck off you fat, charmless, Thelwell, drag-act.

A Mrs Doubtfire Convention: Balding and Monty

Now then, where was I ? Ah yes. Incidents like the above are, of course, keeping the already-stretched NHS on its toes. Imagine therefore my joy when I heard that Johnny Taxpayer is forking out 40 million quid a year to keep our hospitals staffed with chaplains. No, not silent movie actors, but priests. It’s deemed a worthy use of our cash to employ Vicars, Vergers, Rabbis etc so that, in our hour of need, we can repent/confess/convert to a man of the cloth. Wonderful. I wouldn’t want that cash to be spent on nurses or cleaners, Oh No! Let’s have a chorus of Morning Has Broken while I’m on my last legs. The Right Rev who was interviewed by the BBC stated that at his hospital they had at their disposal Catholics, Anglicans, Sikhs, Muslems and Buddah-knows-what-else in case of a religious emergency, and all on my Nat Insurance Stamp. I have in the past screamed out to the Greater Being during the more probing of examinations, but I don’t need to pay for someone to hold my hand and rattle his rosaries while its happening. I’d rather fork out for someone to knock out the doctor who’s got his finger up my arse.
dickemerybbc-998
What do these blokes do while waiting to go into action? Is there a room where they sit and wait for it to all kick-off? Do they play cards or darts together til the alarm sounds like in Thunderbirds? The eyes in a photo of Vishnu on the wall start flashing and a Hindu Holy man leaps into action, scrubs up and off to the isolation ward?
Whoyagonnacall ? DEVIL DODGERS!!

All of this leads me to news of the world’s first face-and-hand transplant—on a burns victim, as it happens. Anyone who has suffered the misery of sitting through John Travolta’s Face Off will realise not only how complicated this operation is, but also how truly awful the subsequent movie will be. Will Nick Cage ever make a decent flick again? I doubt it. But there’s something oddly enticing about a face transplant (especially if you don’t have to endure first-degree burns to qualify for one). Can you choose what, or rather who you want to look like? Now that Monty’s face has been stolen by a horse in jodhpurs (see above), and given that not all operations are a success (Andrew Lloyd Webber’s face was put on inside-out) I wonder if I could apply to look like either Hugh Grant or The Daily Lama? I’d like to hear what a South London accent coming out of their faces would be like. And while we’re at it can I get even smaller hands than I have now? There’re hidden advantages to having small hands. For starters, certain things look bigger when you hold them with small hands.

All together now:
“Pinning in the teeth…
Pinning in the teeth
We shall come rejoicing…“ T-Insert Wires0567265811

How Many Roads Must a Man Walk Down?

Posted on April 1, 2009 by The Ed

You need militants on a demonstration. You need passion and commitment and a sense of purpose. If you’re undecided or wishy-washy your march is never gonna get off the ground. Can you imagine the leader of the Liberal Party (Simon Pegg, I think his name is) organising a demo? It’d be as effective as a solar panel in Salford. “What do we want?: DON’T KNOW; When do we want it?: SOME TIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE, IF IT’S NOT TOO MUCH TROUBLE” is not gonna get anyone excited.

So you need heart. You need drive. Often, some of this passion boils over into violence which is why we see thousands of Plod on the streets of London this morning, having had Knacker cancel all leave. Shame. But we are (up to a point, Lord Copper) exercising our right to demonstrate, and a march without passion or a smidge of violence becomes a ramble— and the Church organises those, complete with kagools and sponsorship forms. No thanks.

I was 13 when my brother took me on my first demo— The Rock Against Racism/Anti Nazi League march from Trafalgar Square to Victoria Park in East London (30th April 1978, for anyone taking notes). Fucking miles! But it was fantastic. Hundreds of thousands (Police estimate:143) of like-minded people marching for a common cause: crush racism in the UK. It was 1978 and the National Front were becoming a little strong for our liking, so we marched in protest. And we sang. “The National Front is a Nazi Front, SMASH THE NATIONAL FRONT“ We sang it all day. For mile after mile. We ALL sang it. It was bleedin tedious.

Google Maps tells me the direct route between Trafalgar Square and the park is 5.9 miles. Well we didn’t go the straight route (Plod diverted us away from the posh bits in the City) and my brilliant 13 yr old mind told me we walked at LEAST 15 miles. 15 miles of singing the same song. It was like listening to a Morrisey Album all afternoon: torture. But it was a thrill for me at a tender age: collecting ANL and RAR badges. AND placards, and leaflets and flyers and pamphlets. Oh! Think of the Trees, Mike, all that wood n paper!!! well this was BGB (Before Geldof and Bono) and no-one gave a monkeys about the planet or the rainforest. A witty cardboard slogan nailed to a lovely bit of 4×2 was the weapon of choice for both pacifist and anarchist.

The Author (back row, third from left), prepares to leave Trafalgar Square. Note bad haircut

I was proud to have my photo taken by the Police snapper when it was my turn to carry the big banner (what DID they think I was gonna do?) waved at the spotters on the roofs, and ran away quickly when some of the bigger boys started lobbing stuff at the police. But on the whole it seemed to me to be a good-natured event, (I swear that copper was smiling as they wiped the blood from his head) and it ended with my first rock concert in the park and my first sight of Joe Strummer and the boys. I was in heaven.
So we had one message and one march. And one song.

Fast forward to today. Sit down, I have something to tell you: One of today’s marches goes from London Bridge to The Bank of England.That’s a distance of less than a mile. I have longer nostril hair than that !!

Come on guys, put a bit of effort in.

And the coalition of beefs these people have is mind-boggling: Anti Banks, Anti War, Anti Welsh, Save the Planet, Reclaim the Streets, Right to Work, Right to Left, Anarchists, Pacifists, Cyclists, Monarchists, Buggerists, Typists the list is endless. What are they gonna sing? Is there a running order? (mind you, by the time the London Bridge mob reach their destination they’d have hardly had time for a couple of lines of We Shall Overcome). As far as I’m aware they won’t be passing a McDonalds, a Shell garage, or a branch of Barclays: all classic targets for the mob (I still mourn the end of South Africa House demos). Perhaps they can get more miles under their belts by marching round and round in circles a la American pickets in episodes of The West Wing, Columbo etc. (Why DO they go round in circles??)

Say Cheese!

So let’s hope for a good clean fight today. We won’t throw lamp posts at you if you put away the CS gas and the horses. We promise not to lynch anyone, if you promise not to lie about the numbers attending. AND if you’re gonna single us out and snap potential “troublemakers” at least make the pics available to us, so that years from now I’ll have a copy of the photo for my blog.
Up the Revolution !!

Camera Obscura

Posted on March 31, 2009 by The Ed

An organization calling itself Privacy International have complained to the Information Commissioner (very 1984) that the new Google Street View infringes people’s privacy because some are identifiable in the photos therein. And? What’s the problem? Every day, all over the world people are innocent bystanders caught a photographer’sviewfinder. Shots of people walking to work, waiting on train stations, shopping in the high street or sitting on beaches are published online ,in newspapers and in magazines to illustrate stories from the state of the economy, the state of the weather.

Now if I could ask you all to sign this form....

It’s common practice and perfectly legal. Those people captured on film are merely part of the landscape of the image. If the good people at PI have their way photo editors would spend more time pixilating or masking-out the faces of those in the frame. The alternative, I guess, would be to have every man jack of them sign a model-release form, allowing their face to be published. Well that’s not gonna happen. It’s not an intrusion of privacy. No-one’s poking their noses into your little lives or keeping track of you. It’s a photo illustrating a scene. Don’t flatter yourself—you AIN’T the subject.

Same goes for the Google bods: they’ve come up with a gadget that let’s you, me and anyone else see almost every street in London, letting us while-away many a dull afternoon in the office, and it gives iPhone owners another chance to bore us rigid with what their new machine can do. And YES there ARE people in some of the images. Of course there are: IT”S THE CAPITAL OF ENGLAND!!!! But that’s not the point of it. And even if it was, WHO CARES???? If you happen to be seen exiting a massage parlour, sitting outside a wine bar, plying your secretary with chardonnay or spewing up on the pavement that’s just tough. Not Google’s problem. If you wanna play-away with Miss Jones or fall over elephants that’s your look-out.

You can almost see the veins in her neck

It’s perfectly acceptable and legal to take photos on a public street OF the public street and almost anything you damn well like. Ok, if you stand outside an army base, or an airport and start shnapping through the barbed wire at people or equipment, you’re liable (and probably deservedly) get your collar felt by Knacker of the Yard. For years Middle England have moaned about photographers and their long, intrusive lenses. Snappers for the redtops sit in bushes or in the back of blacked-out vans, training their lenses on some poor sod or celebrity who they deem to have been up to no good. Street View does nothing of the sort. Google used a 360 degree wide-angle. How much shorter do you want a lens to be????

My local. I must have been at the bar

So who are Privacy International and it’s supporters? It’s website states that they’re “a watchdog on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations”. Surveillance? Google aren’t putting you under surveillance, they’re just photographing the street where you live, in the same manner tourists the world over photograph Pal Mall, Las Ramblas or that quaint little village near the resort you stayed in last year in Thailand. Does this mean Flickr will be shut down too? Is this the end of your neighbour’s boring holiday-snap evenings? Wait a minute: I’m sure a Japanese family took a photo of me outside The National Gallery the other day. I WANT THEIR NAMES, FILM AND SERIAL NUMBERS.

Five will get you ten that the people who subscribe to PI’s views are also Facebook addicts and Twitter junkies (“just had pony, can’t be arsed to wash hands and now walking around with knickers around ankles, talk later”).Something really odd is happening. One hand the world wants to tell me absolutely everything about themselves and what they’re doing IN REAL TIME, show me photos of their friends, what their dog looks like, who they’ve snogged and what they looked like the last seventeen times they went to a party or a club. But take a photo of them walking down Oxford Street, carrying a H&M bag and all hell breaks loose.

Smile, you're on t'internet

It’s not CCTV, it’s not stalking you (most of these snaps were last summer anyway) it’s a bit of fun which may be of some interest to a few, lonely people. Focus your protests on something else. There’s plenty to be scared of out there—it’s just that this isn’t it. So next time you’re out-and-about, make sure you’re not with someone you shouldn’t be, and PLEASE stop picking your nose.

The Sharp Single

All Done

Category Archives: Journalism