Santa, snow, sales, students, sport, spoonerisms, statistics and sprouts

This weekend 17 million people watched the live 50^th Anniversary episode of Coronation Street, another 17 million watched the semi-final of Strictly Come Dancing; the same number that watched the conclusion of 3 months of Simon Cowell’s self-promotion, otherwise known as the X-Factor.  With Channel 5 screening the film ‘Dirty Dancing’ it was reckoned that over 32 million people in the UK watched TV at some point on Sunday evening. Those of you who have simply lost the plot or whose idea of physical exercise extends only so far as a digital workout on the handset will have been only to aware that with it was well within your capabilities to watch all of the action live and still have time to send out for a takeaway. Look at it as a dry run for the 4-day Christmas break box fest.  

Unfortunately, the amount of snow and ice on the roads, part of the reason why so many people were stuck at home this weekend, may have prevented you from ever receiving your pizza/curry/kebab or whatever. If you happen to live in Scotland the chances are that you will have already forgotten the name of the X-Factor winner by the time your meal arrives (sometime next week).

According to the National Retail Consortium trade was down by 22% last week because of the inclement weather. This is the UK, the weather is our national obsession and no amount of bad weather will ever deter a rampant shopper from the right bargain.

You try explaining to a petulant 7 year-old who has talked of nothing but visiting Father Christmas since August that it won’t be possible this year, because Santa has been frozen into his car on the M8 motorway for the past 3 days.

How come in countries like Russia and China where temperatures in various parts can, on the same day,  range from +40 degrees to -40 degrees  yet you never hear of any great disruption to the food chain, factories, schools or the transport systems. Here, in a country only a small fraction of the size, with a climate significantly less challenging, it only takes 2 inches of snow or rain to fall in any region for the entire country to come to a grinding halt.    

  

Approximately  4.2 billion pounds has been lost to the UK economy due to the bad weather over the past few weeks. Considering the number of companies  that are dependent on the increased trade in the run up to Christmas, you can’t help but feel sorry for those who must now be fearing the worst.

Unfortunately the only people who do seem to have got out and about recently are students, the very people who normally have problems getting out of bed no matter what the weather. From the coverage I have seen and heard in recent days I’m not sure that anyone knows exactly what they are protesting about. It would appear that groups with any number of differing causes have suddenly come together for a collective moan. In part they do have a grievance, it is not a particularly good time to be a student. How many of them have been sold the idea that a good degree is a passport to a £40k pa job? Sorry, if only life was that easy. Many employers offer (or used to offer) a management track for graduate employees. With a government target figure of 50% of school-leavers going onto university or further education, that is a huge number of managers that will be looking for jobs, and with a growing number of workers now approaching retirement (if they can afford it) I wonder exactly who these future managers are intending to manage since by the time they graduate there will be no one left in the country with any marketable skills.

Saving the planet or questioning why Nick Clegg reneged on the Lib Dem education policy may be laudable though I don’t think either is a valid excuse to go on a violent rampage around the country. Where I do find a weakness in the student argument is the belief that many of them have that a university education is a right – I am sorry it is not, it is a privilege. Not as elitist as some would have us believe but a privilege none the less. Not everyone wants to, or can afford to, go to university, so why should the tax payer foot the bill for the privileged few that do wish to pursue this path to increase their career prospects. There never was such a thing as a free lunch and if the students who have already found a place at university believe that they should be entitled to a free education then I fear they are too stupid to be there in the first place.   Good quality tuition does not come cheap and not all the universities will be charging the maximum of £9000 pa. No one welcomes the idea of leaving education with a debt but thankfully the mechanism for repaying this amount will not kick in until  a reasonable level of income is achieved. In an ideal world everyone would be allowed to go to university for free, and I would be opening the batting and bowling for England. This is not utopia and I am stuck at home watching the sky darken as further downfalls of snow edge towards the UK from all directions.

Think of all those people whose blushes have been saved through the inability to get to this year’s office Christmas party because of the weather. No staggering home bleary eyed, having assured the colleague who has made your life a misery for most of the year that they are your bestest friend in the  office (if not the world). No ending up in the broom cupboard with the new recruit from accounts. That was always my greatest fear, the dreaded conundrum of knowing you will have to confront  not only that person, but also your other colleagues the next day. I used to feel guilty even when there was no chance of any ‘action’ taking place. Often I would simply grab a couple of beers and a bag of peanuts and lock myself in the broom cupboard until I heard people starting to clear up.  

The run up to Christmas has always been an aspect of life that I have struggled with. How come managers who give their staff a hard time for most of the year only have to loosen their tie and put a bit of tinsel in their hair to suddenly become the life and soul of the party, at least  for a few days. Which part of the Christmas story or pagan celebration involves  photocopying your backside and emailing it to half the offices in Europe? Pantomime didn’t do much for me as a child and it has even less appeal when re-created in a work environment.

Looking back on life, as people tend to do when the year starts to draw to a close it is easy to see now where the dread of Christmas first embedded itself into my psyche – MY FAMILY.  Much of my childhood involved being dragged around various working men’s clubs and bingo halls, spending time with my father’s large array of relatives. The only comments ever elicited in my direction were ‘ere go give this glass to Uncle Bern and ask ‘im to get me another pint of Red Barrel’ or ‘My ‘aven’t you grown’. As if I had grown at all in the week since I previously met any of them. I didn’t grow at all between the ages of 11 and 16, so I don’t know who they were mistaking me for. I just thought I was going to remain 5’ 4”. I grew 7” in between 16 and 17 and not one comment from any of them, very weird, but only if you judge that by other family’s standards. 

At Christmas time we would all descend on the 3 bed-terrace of a particular matriarchal aunt.  The men would always gather in the front room and the women in the back, with the stairs doubling as both  buffer zone and queue for the toilet. I can still taste the rancid air from the back room, a heady mix of Elnette hairspray and Silk Cut. The room was over-packed with grim-faced aunts and family friends all checking each other’s jewellery out across a pile of vol-au-vents and a large salmon mousse.  Perhaps wrongly, I assumed that the mousse was there for decoration purposes since it invariable remained intact throughout the night’s festivities. In the front room my beer-swilling uncles and their friends were hooting and hollering along to a Mrs. Mills Piano Party LP, while cradling a glass of a yellow goo, with a cherry in it!  The air wreaked of Brylcreem and Old Holborn and for some reason that I associated with freemasonry they were all wearing paper hats or silly  masks. It was all too surreal for a young man of my sensibilities, and I sought solace in the only place I knew I could get any peace. Having undergone the first round of ‘my, haven’t you grown’ I would disappear at the earliest opportunity to the makeshift cloakroom and hide under the pile of coats that had been deposited on my aunt’s bed.  If I was very lucky I would remain undetected until the end of the evening.

I think I must have OD’d on the Alphabetti Spaghetti this week since my head is spinning with statistics. Apparently the UK has slipped down the global education league once again – Based on O-level standard English and Mathematics we now rank in the late 20s out of the 65 countries who took part in the study. I am not sure how that fits in with the government’s claims that the number of students achieving higher grades has been increasing year on year for the past 30 years. Whichever way you look at it I am sure that prospective employers are desperately keen to do something to keep the number of unemployed 18 – 24 year olds below 20% unemployment. 

This year has seen more than its fair share of disasters – not only the economic ones but also the natural ones – Oil slicks in Mexico and China, forest fires in America, mining accidents in Chile and New Zealand and devastating floods on most continents. We have also suffered man-made disasters such as England’s woeful performance at the football world cup and their failure to win the bid to host the 2018 tournament following allegations of corruption within FIFA. Given the way the team under-performed in South Africa it wouldn’t surprise me if we even had to bribe our own committee representative to vote for us in Switzerland. 

I would have quite liked to have seen the world cup in this country. I can remember  1966 though my dribbling skills were more slimy than slinky and chances are that I may not be here in 2030 if we are successful next time around.

Much to my delight this week I have enjoyed the feigned indignation of the moral masses at the furore caused by the untimely slip of the tongue when Radio 4’s James Naughtie tried to introduce the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, on the ‘Today’ programme. The intervention of Dr. Spooner ensured that the gaffe made the front page of the tabloids on an otherwise slow news day.  Quite apart from the possibility that Mr. Naughtie may have inadvertantly enunciated the views of a great many of the listeners I fear that the protectors of the public conscience, as is often the case, are too quick to throw themselves in front of a perceived offence. If you happen to be blessed with the surname ‘Hunt’ then Dr. Spooner is an occupational hazard. I like to think that the former  MP for Ravensbourne held a more adult view of his predicament. On more than one occasion I  heard him introduce himself at meetings as ‘Sir John Hunt, the well-known misprint.’  It is both refreshing and reassuring to hear from a politician who doesn’t take themself too seriously. It lends credence to the fact that they might be human after all.

At least this year on television we have witnessed the last hoorah of ‘Big Brother’, until it is resurrected on one of Rupert Murdoch’s more obscure satellite channels. Watching Bruce Forsyth regurgitate his act of the past 60 years throughout ‘Strictly’ is as demeaning as I am prepared to let myself go in terms of TV viewing. ‘Wossie’s’ departure from the Beeb seems to have left the manicured fingers of Graeme Norton and Claudia Winkelman to plunder the spoils of the BBC’s flagship programmes (sorry, still no suitable showcase for Patrick Kielty. Who?). With X-Factor approaching its sell by date and  ‘I’m a celebrity’ struggling to attract Z-listers  it can only be a matter for time before we see Ant and Dec coming the other way.  

What is it that makes schedulers believe that the public are interested in watching fly on the wall documentaries about teenage tearaways, Peter André, Katy Price, Kerry Katona, embarrassing body parts or in particular Kerry Katona’s embarrassing body parts. Its not that I am squeamish, I just don’t find ritualist humiliation very entertaining (except when the English give the Aussies a good thumping at rugby or cricket). I can just imagine the programme makers pitching the idea for ‘I’m a celebrity…’ to Lord Reith. ‘Yes, your Lordship we believe the public will be fascinated to watch the likes of Richard Dimbleby, Alvar Liddell and John Snagge eat a plate of bat pooh in the jungle.’ I somehow can’t see him approving that idea, even if the contestants are still required to appear in full evening dress.   

Many of the plethora of cookery programmes have come and gone, as have a number of the house and property make over shows. Alright, so I accept that cost is a major factor in television production and stations are committed to providing X many hours of output but there is presently a dirth of good quality entertainment both in daytime and peak time programming. Thankfully TV sets still have an off button.   

On the subject of food I can’t help noticing how much food prices have gone up this year, especially fish, meat and dairy products. The weather may account for part of this, as well as increasing demand from the BRIC countries. With so many more mouths to feed, definitely no free lunch there. It should come as no surprise that allotments are so oversubscribed. There is no fear of me turning vegan just yet, though it may be some time before you will catch me drooling over the lamb counter at any butcher.  I am not an avid watcher of where my food originates from, though I will try to buy local produce if it is clearly marked and competitively priced. It is often hard enough to locate the price of things let alone their country of origin or calorific value. As for e-numbers forget it - far too small to read, I wouldn’t know what they meant and I have no intention of paying for a degree just to find out. 

My taste in food is fairly basic, I am pretty easy to cater for, strong tea with a little milk is all I ask for.  I don’t do posh nosh, so widgeon and quail’s eggs will not be adorning the family platter this year.  I was planning to bolster the depleted Christmas turkey  offering this year with a larger portion of vegetables, including  every child’s turn off, sprouts.  There are 2 main varieties of sprout, a derivative of which dates back to Roman times, though  their association with Brussels probably only goes back to the 13^th Century.

Unfortunately the likelihood of the ground being too frozen to allow the sprouts to be harvested could throw a spanner into my preparations, in which case the family will have to make do with a traditional Dickensian Christmas as we pig out on gruel.

Undoubtedly, whatever eventually hits the dinner table will be devoured in its entirety before we settle back in front of the telly with a nice cup of tea and probably fall asleep. My suspicion is that the sprouts will not be the only things being repeated this Christmas. 

Seasons greetings to one and all.

Kalashnikovs and lipstick

My wife and I have just returned from a holiday in Egypt where, among the many enjoyable pleasures of the Red Sea resort, my wife was able to catch up with the delights that are Russian television, available in glorious technicolour on a wide screen TV in our hotel room. Choosing not to subscribe to satellite TV in the UK it is only rarely that she is able to watch television in her native tongue. Being unable to speak a word of the language has never proved an issue for me since I tend to put my own words to the pictures and Lambeth has told me that often my plot lines are better than the actual script.
 

To be honest technicolour is rather wasted on Russian TV since sets generally come in one of two varieties. Either the sets and the costumes are varying shades of brown or the entire screen looks like a psychedelic nightmare which even the most modern TV sets cannot cope with.
 

Let me make it clear that we did not go on holiday simply to watch Russian TV, though it did prove a useful distraction while winding down from a hard day of snorkelling and flopping out on the sunbed.

Russian TV may not be the greatest spectacle in the world though it does have its moments which strike a chord for all the wrong reasons.

Perhaps the makers of ‘Judge Judy’ could learn from their Russian counterpart – not only do the cases invariably descend into a verbal free-for-all but the police guard, toting a Kalashnikov rifle from his hip, stands meekly by looking completely bored by proceedings.

They have their own forensic crime series, The Force, (or as prefer to call it ‘The Farce’) which is just as glossy and high-tech as CSI though the actors seem to be unaware of what they are trying to achieve. No one appears to wear gloves when collecting evidence. Obviously contaminated evidence doesn’t count for much in a criminal system of questionable moral stature. I love the way that one of the senior female investigators routinely turns up at a crime scene in her 6 inch stiletto shoes.

Russian cosmetics must be the best in the world, especially the mascara. Whereas English soaps are predominantly a series of shouting matches linked by a few weak plots, Russian soaps consist largely of people crying. I am not sure whether there is actually any plot or story line, it just seems that each episode focuses on a different member of the cast crying for one reason or another. The strange thing is that this never seems to affect their makeup – no streaks or red eyes and not even a hair out of place. Every expense seems to have been spared on these soaps because not only are the sets very basic but it is not unknown for some of the actors to wear the same costume throughout. I guess it makes continuity easier but it is hard to take a character seriously when they wear the same thick roll-neck sweater in all conditions, be it Summer or Winter, rain or shine. One of my favourite soap characters is ‘Boris’, a middle–aged man who always wears the same black trousers, black shirt and plain brown tie. Even in a passionate love scene the tie would not be removed. He always seemed to be given a hard time by most of the other characters. I guess I felt sorry for him because, when I last stayed in Russia, I almost sent him a new tie because he appeared in a new series in the same clothes as he had worn in every episode of the previous one.

In truth, none of the TV channels was particularly good and the exterior walls of Shanks’ Palace will remain unblemished by cables or satellite dish.

By way of fostering a spirit of entente cordiale, and to pass the time, Lam and I would daily play a game where we would assess the merits or demerits of individual nations in a global tourist league. This largely consisted of nominating 2 particular nationalities to be love and hate figures for the day. We would then spend the day thinking of all the good and bad things about those countries. Initially it was to be restricted to countries that we had visited, though this rule was later relaxed to allow the inclusion of certain countries that we considered worthy of scrutiny. Each country selected was given the opportunity to be assessed as the love and hate figure for a day, those considered favourably in the first week being subject to the reverse assessment in the second. Not only did this provide us with 2 champions as favourite and least favourite nation but a whole raft of other awards to individual countries for selective traits, such as natural beauty, friendliness, transportation, cuisine, historic interest, etiquette, dress sense or culture.

To prevent the Eastern block countries ganging up against the rest of the world only Russia and Croatia were taken into consideration. Belgium was excluded on grounds that (other than giving the world Tintin and Jacques Brel) it is not really a country, just a place that people drive through on the way to somewhere else. This may come as a surprise to most Belgians but could explain why they treat their roads as a race track. 


Australia scored highly as the penal colony of choice, fighting off a strong challenge from Cuba. The natural beauty and number of tourist attractions were a positive selling point though the country lost ground because of bush tucker and the number of creepie-crawlies. While air miles was deemed a bonus travelling to the other side of the world to be insulted by  whinging, tattooed, lager-swilling, sport-obsessed bar staff was considered a trek too far and one that could be experienced for a fraction of the cost in almost any Earls Court pub.   

Our conclusion was that ultimately money talks, which meant that the wealthier nations tended to rank highly in both leagues for all the wrong reasons. The USA may have a great number of worthy attractions though this needed to be offset against the crime of introducing the world to McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken. The fact that the country is a financial powerhouse does not give their citizens the right to behave as if they own the entire world. The Germans may have lost their desire for global domination though their appetite to commandeer the sunbeds remains undiminished. Rich, loud Muscovites, splashing the cash did little to endear the Russian tourist in either league. Needless to say, the England never wins anything; Britain is expensive, the weather is awful, transportation unreliable, and the English are too polite or lazy to argue about the results. Surprise winners of the Hate League for 2010 were, Iceland, on grounds that neither of us has ever met an Icelandic tourist, we have no wish to visit a geyser, glacier or mud pool, and their gifts to the world seem to have been a major banking crisis, a cloud of volcanic ash and Bjork – all of which would lend weight to the argument that they are worthy winners of this accolade.

On a completely different note I must mention the incident that took place regarding a film we purchased for our camera. I was casually relaxing in the sun one afternoon when Lam strolled up dangling the camera from her wrist, disappointment etched across her face. “You would think that you would get more than 27 pictures on a 10 metre roll of film, and why hadn’t I purchased the 30 metre film instead.” Now I may not know my Digital zoom from a Box Brownie but, as I was able to point out to her while suppressing a wry smile, the 10 metres is a reference to the depth at which this underwater camera would operate and since neither of us was ever likely to swim deeper than 10 metres any extra could be considered an overkill. It is always hard to take someone seriously when they are wearing a snorkel and goggles.

Has someone found the cure for split ends?

The fact that I have not seen a TV or magazine advert extolling the virtues of such and such a product for controlling the problem of split ends for nearly a decade would suggest that this condition has now been confined to the annals of medical history. Did someone find a cure for it? I never read about it in the Lancet. Surely such a discovery would make that person a shoe-in for a Nobel prize for Medicine.

I contemplate this weighty issue as I examine the appalling state of my nasal hair. Yes, I know I should really get out more, only it is raining and I don't 'do' rain unless I have to. Have I really gone that grey? Why are my eyebrows and armpits still dark when the rest of my body hair is grey (You will have to take my word on that fact)? Could I end up looking like Alastair Darling – God, please do not make me look like AD – I'll dye my hair green if you do.

To return to my original question – There was a time when the social faux pas of split ends was only surpassed by that other heady issue, Dandruff – and boy did the advertisers love to get under our skins by harping on about these subjects. For years I thought that dandruff was a by-product of friction between strands of hair (OK, I never claimed to be the brightest candle in the church). As a teenager my black school blazer was constantly coated in a layer of snow. Why didn't these white particles emanate from my nose whenever I sneezed? In hindsight I guess that an avalanche from my hair resulted every time I did, so an accompanying blast from the schnoz might be considered to be an overkill. It was only years later that I learned that dandruff was a skin condition that by coincidence happened to appear on one's scalp.

Maybe hair conditions go in cycles, much as washing powders and the like. I grew up in the era of hair gels and perfumed anti-dandruff treatments. Where hair was supposed to remain in place no matter what the weather condition, people washed their locks in natural brooks and no one in their right mind would contemplate taking a shower using a separate shampoo and conditioner. Farrah Fawcett gave us all the volume, bounce and the windswept look. Since then we have been treated to different phases of stiffness, freshness, herbal, organic, medicated, mineral extracts, strengtheners, thickeners, de-tanglers and de-stressers. Currently the buzz words seem to be 'luxurious' and 'lustre', with manufacturers keen to market the idea of routinely dying your hair in an effort to make it 'shine' or 'radiate'. OK Cheryl Cole, Davina Macall, David Ginola, Penelope Cruz et al's locks may glisten like a mirror under studio lights, shimmering like blown corn by an industrial sized fan but ask yourself – is the product they promote really worth it?

Thinking of my father, and my grandfather for that matter, their concept of gentleman's grooming consisted of a safety razor, a comb, a toothbrush, toothpaste, coal tar soap, a shaving brush, talcum powder, a small bottle of Old Spice (for special occasions) and a tub of Brylcreem. I can't recall either of them owning any deodorant or anti-perspirant (either can or stick) though I guess they did use something as they were both fairly active workers and I don't remember either of them as being particularly pungent.

I don't think my attitude has differed so much from theirs. My hair having been subjected to years of abuse through noxious green fixing gel by my over-enthusiastic mother I choose to leave what remains of my hair to flourish or flounder as nature intented, apart from a little assistance from whichever brand of shampoo is on special offer at the supermarket this week. I remain faithful to my trusty safety razor despite the injuries it has inflicted upon me over the years. Personal hygiene demands I use an anti-perspirant and toothpaste and my dentist has convinced me of the benefits of mouthwash (something I readily agreed to on grounds that I am not prepared to argue with someone who has the capability of inflicting so much pain). In addition to soap I also use shower gel, perhaps because my forebears were more used to taking baths than they were showers. I can't remember the last time I used talcum powder and I would hesitate to think how old some of the few after shaves I possess are. In truth, the fact that I keep them in the bathroom cabinet is more a question of staking out my territory, which is forever under threat from my wife's increasing collection of artifacts that now rivals a Superdrug stockroom.

I am sure that there are those who will be horrified by my lack-lustre collection of toiletries. I don't frequent the gym as often as I would wish these days though for some guys it would seem that conveying their collection of essential grooming tools is a more strenuous workout than an hour or so of dumbbells and treadmills.

The very thought of moisturisers, flossing, waxing, manicures and pedicures turns my stomach; As for ex-foliating? Seeing hair growth from one's ears or nose is not particularly pleasant I would agree, but what is the point of waxing or any of the other overrated treatments. What is the attraction of a ‘Brazilian’ or a 'Back and Crack'? Why suffer the pain when there is so little to be gained?

Is it a generational thing? Are we all being hoodwinked by the consumerist society or am I just a natural born wimp with a low threshold of personal vanity?