Midlife crises for Gervais and Others

New films (Cemetery Junction)

Released today, I thought this film was a rather clichéd story about growing up in the UK in the late 1960s and early 70s, stocked with stereotypical characters and an undemanding ending. There were one or two good laughs along the way, but most of the jokes seemed to be rather old and/or puerile. I quite liked the remark early on that the teenage hero should stop listening to music produced by poofs (i.e. classical) and start listening to Elton John instead, - although I can’t imagine anyone at the time saying anything like that, T Rex would perhaps have been a more accurate comment. (At least, no-one mentioned that the cemetery was in the dead centre of town.)

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant will have to think of something else. Actually, I only found “The Office” mildly amusing, but definitely very toe-curling. “Extras” was embarrassing too, rather like Gervais’s and Merchant’s recent preening appearances on TV. Well, at least they’re not James Corden.

On a separate timeline note, I remember “birds” very clearly from the 1960s, but don’t remember them being described as “fit” until recently. That could be just me not going out more. This film won’t help me to achieve that aim.

Another Book (East Fortune)

Today I finished “East Fortune”, a book about three very different middle-aged, middle class Scottish brothers facing various midlife crises and trying to adapt. Unfortunately, it is mainly about the middle brother, who is comfortably the most boring and pedantic, whereas the oldest is coming to terms with being sacked and the highly dislikeable youngest is having an affair via “dirty weekends” all over Europe. Due to this, and for various other reasons, in the text we have sprinklings of Polish, German, Italian and Latin! I was just thinking, as I’m currently learning the language, “It’s just a pity there’s no Russian for me to practise on..”, when, wow, the cheating couple are off to Moscow for a date (!) and the youngest brother is contemplating how he’s going to get by just being able to say “hi”, “thank you” and “goodbye” for a few days. That’s definitely Lesson 1 stuff, except from learning the Cyrillic alphabet, but Page 1 of the phrasebook. He receives a letter from his girlfriend telling him there’s a German band in the background playing “Zip–a-Dee-Do-Dah”. Unfortunately, and for a change, this doesn’t appear in German, which is disappointing, as I do have a largely untouched “Teach Yourself” German as well. I’m sure I could have impressed Berliners with that on my next trip, but I guess I’ll stick with “Yes, we have no bananas”, which was a fantastically popular hit there in the 1930s. Bigger than the brownshirts (well, some of them).

More Campaign Notes

From their manifesto, the Tories wish to reward “strivers”, whereas their high priority inheritance reforms would seem to reward spongers or shirkers.

Let me get this right. Gordon Brown actually asked the bankers if they wanted to be regulated???!!!

Etonians and Estonians

Manifestos, how I came to love them

I was really joking when I blogged earlier about making all education private because I didn’t have any offspring to educate. Now, according to their manifesto, it appears that the Tories want to do just that and everyone is to be encouraged to go out and create and run their own schools. Great!

Also, I think it’s nice to see all these Old Etonians around. It takes me back to the 1950s of Harold Macmillan and Lord Home, plus a supporting cast of thousands. They are rather classier than the clutter of estate agents and car salesmen that seemed to be ushered into parliament in Maggie T’s time.

Crikey, all the parties seemed to have ruled out all tax rises – income tax, council tax, VAT. The next five years are gonna be a doddle!

(Interesting: my Spellchecker thought I was on about “Old Estonians”. See “Books” below.)

MI5 (An enigma wrapped in balderdash)

There was a story on the BBC News website yesterday about MI5 getting rid of staff who didn’t have IT skills. How did these people get by in the past without them? Why didn’t they get trained in the appropriate skills? How come they are untrainable now and must be sacked? Where are we recruiting from these days? Gay art historians from Oxbridge still, as in the 30s, or media studies oiks from ex-polys?

Books

I have just finished an excellent book called “City of Thieves” by David Benioff. It’s a great adventure yarn, very funny, sad and violent and hinges on the relationship between two very different young men in wartime Leningrad. (At one stage, after being captured by the Germans, they are on their way to gainful employment in the steel mills of Estonia.) I have already reserved “The 25^th hour” by the same author – a movie too, I believe, but somehow I missed its 2002 release.

Cycling with Wax in my ears

Gym

It was tough motivating myself to go down the gym this morning after nearly a couple of bottles of wine last night, but I made it. I just went through the usual programme, but slightly reduced, down to just under an hour, rather than my usual hour and a half. As it was Sunday, I didn’t cycle along to “Frasier” on TV, but blasted, totally annoying Ruby Wax reviewing the newspapers on the Andrew Marr Show.

Ryanair

In Starbucks - continued after in McDonalds – I read that the adorable Victoria Coren also hates Ryanair. I was planning to fly with them a couple of months ago, but what started as a 40 quid fare, was fast approaching 70 with those “little extras” we all like to pamper ourselves with! So, I said “Sod It” and booked with Monarch for 90 quid, Birmingham to Malaga. The weather wasn’t so hot in Benalmadena, but they speak English like natives! (of Liverpool, Birmingham, Derby, etc.) I was amazed that Ryanair wanted a “web booking fee”, surely the whole point of online booking is that all the work’s done by the booker. My local library seems to have it right. (It doesn’t always.) Making a reservation costs 60p if you want to write it out down in the library, but free when you do it online. Currently, I have 8 free reservations lined up in their system.

Painless Cuts?

On today’s “Daily Politics” show some woman asked me old mate, Vince Cable, something like, “How can I be sure that the cuts won’t affect my family?” Jesus! Yeah, me too, I’m all in favour of cuts as long as they don’t actually affect me. So, please expand the library services, offer free gyms too, but make all education private.

Caine mutinous

I was surprised to see Michael Caine (aka Maurice Micklewright) at a recent Tory gathering. No, not the Tory bit, the fact that he’s made so many threats to leave this country I thought he must have carried through at least one of them during these years of “rampant socialism”, as he probably calls it. This country just doesn’t appreciate Cockney millionaires with dubious acting skills, does it? Pray arise, Sir Maurice M! We salute you.

Worcestershire victory!

As a Worcestershire cricket supporter I was amazed and delighted to see the county actually win a game against Middlesex today. The first victory since 1864, in fact, when Sir Thomas Graveney and Sir Basil d’Oliveira were delighting the yokels with their exquisite artistry with the willow on the frequently-flooded greensward.. Yokels in Worcestershire are simple folk, as indeed are yokels everywhere. We salute you too.

Reading, Drinking and Gambling

Books

I have just re-read “Little Man – What now?”, a story about a young couple struggling to make a living in Germany in the early 1930, prior to the Nazis taking over. There are no jobs around, the bosses are in charge, and the Nazis and communists are having punch-ups everywhere. This is a different, newer translation from the one I read before, and seems to be more modern in attitude, and is more liberal as to what is included. It was probably very shocking in 1932! There is an interesting moment when the man’s girlfriend tells him that her brother and everyone at her school always told her that she was unattractive – and he thinks she’s very beautiful, but this makes him think. Perhaps, no matter what we may say to the contrary, we are, to some extent, influenced by other people’s views? He also quotes a “silly expression” which is used by the people in his cold windy part of Germany, “It’s good that houses are hollow, otherwise we would not be able to live in them.” In fact, it was just so silly that it made me laugh. :)

I have also recently read “The Crossroads” by Niccolo Ammanti, a strange story of three alcoholic lowlifes and one of them’s 13 year old boy in a small Italian town earlier this century. Apart from the boy, none of the characters are sympathetic and the novel was rather violent, drunken and very depressing. I seem to have read several books involving heavy drinking recently, including the classic “The Lost Weekend”, “The Drinker” by Hans Fallada and “The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce”, which I actually bothered to review on Amazon and started, “I rather enjoyed the early parts of this story with Wilberforce's casual acceptance of ordering a bottle of wine worth £3,000 and knocking out the restaurant staff with his casual acceptance of this figure, plus a few additions of other "minor" wines. I was further impressed with his easy calculation of the number of units of alcohol he was consuming, when questioned, based on his four bottles of wine per day consumption.”

The Drinker? Well, he drank quite a lot too.. I also very much enjoyed reading Hans Fallada’s “All Alone in Berlin”, when the Nazis were actually in power, a frightening story. Not many people drank too much in that.

Politics

Just can’t keep away from ‘em! I just emailed Vince Cable to congratulate him on today’s remarks about “nauseating businessman”, “Brown kowtowing to the City”, etc. Excellent stuff! Of course, we’re now kowtowing to the credit rating agencies too- the guys who gave AAA ratings to bundled sub-prime loans!

Summer has officially arrived!

Today is the first day since last September that I’ve worn my lightweight jacket over my T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms down to the gym instead of my heavyweight black anorak! :) Heavyweight black anorak? Probably Mike Tyson with his pigeons.

Golf

Crikey! US Masters has now gone completely mad with two English blokes in front, neither of whom is old or fat! (Although Lee Westwood used to be quite rotund.)

Grand National on BBC and other gambling

3.45: Clare Balding has just said that “this year there are just so many good stories about the Grand National”. Just a pity, Clare, that you don’t seem to have any of them.

4.30: Four horses backed and none of them in the first four! Bugger! I made a profit of over 100 quid at the Cheltenham Festival.

Honestly, it’s not sour grapes, but why did the commentators have to shout their way right through the race. Surely, the first three miles (!) aren’t that exciting? Those fences look pretty horrendous though. They looked pretty bad at Wolverhampton when I was playing hockey at the racecourse there many years ago. To be fair, I’m not sure whether anything actually looks good in Wolverhampton.

Anyway, why should I care? Yesterday I won £5.50 in the Euro Millions (?) Lottery from just a £10 investment. More annoyingly, I had the first two out of the hat, out of the bag, electronically indicated, ball rolled, or whatever it is. Oh, the agony. 44 and 23, since you ask. Which, coincidentally, happen to be the same ages of me and my second wife when I got married again.

Total Quality

Election fever (I’m Sick from/of it Already)

At least, constantly talking in terms of a deficit of billions makes my own debt level seem paltry. These much-promoted “efficiency savings” are surely nonsense. Many years ago I thought there was a great idea called Total Quality Management, which included within it the concept of permanent review of systems and procedures, constantly seeking further improvements and efficiencies. At the time it appeared to be widely adopted in both the private and public sectors. What happened to it?

I laughed at the prospect of saving money by cutting IT projects. In my innocence I had always thought that these were aimed at improving efficiency. However, past records seem to show, again for both private and public sectors, that these projects have been totally mishandled by project managers and just proved to be wallowing grounds for those dreadful management consultants. There is usually a substantial cost to maintaining outdated systems, which may involve retaining ancient computer systems, not meeting changed legal requirements, etc. etc. – not a good idea, unless you have special Bernie Madoff style reasons for so doing! http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/24/news/newsmakers/madoff.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009042406

Of course, my simple answer to the deficit – based on a year’s Economics study at Manchester many years ago – is to increase income tax, rather than cut services. Then we all share the grief equally. Personally, I would like the highest-paid to get more of their fair share of grief. Do we really want our education, health, police and library (personal again) services to decline? Increases in income tax, however, are always referred to as “politically unacceptable”, so governments mess around with the more regressive national insurance and VAT. It’s the buffalo in the bathroom cracking wide the porcelain, or possibly the 800lb gorilla in the garden terrorising the roses. (I can still remember the first question of the Economics exam: “1. Economics is a science, but an inexact one. Discuss.”)

Pompous, aggressive interviewers

I mean those interviewers who don’t even give the interviewee the chance to give a perfectly reasonable qualifying clause, before starting the answer. Recently, I have noticed that they even interrupt their own long questions, to re-phrase it into an even longer one, and then immediately interrupt as ever.

They are always demanding a “straight yes or no”, when increase) can “be ruled out” when it’s clear that if circumstances change – which they do a lot in economics! – it may well have to be ruled back in again.

Yes, it’s Andrew Neil, Jeremy Paxman and John Humphrys. Neil is probably the worst, but Humphrys has the silliest, most pompous voice.

PM’s Questions

Why is anyone interested in this circus?

Golf – A “Sport” for the Old and Obese (and occasional Sex Addict)

I see that the US Masters has just started, and up there at the top of the leaderboard are 50-year old Fred Couples and 60 year old, Tom Watson.

Well, I suppose it’s their turn, as last year it was the turn of the over-40s fatties to dominate in the shapes of Angel Cabrera, Chad Campbell and Kenny Perry.

If the game wasn’t so boring and I could put on another 120 pounds, I reckon I could be up there with the Tiger for the next 10 years and make a fortune, and meet girls.

For Seinfeld nerds only

I was planning to ask on an internet forum where anyone had the complete activities of Bob Sacamano, Kramer’s non-appearing friend from the show, but luckily I found all the references to Bob in a short Youtube video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENY7qCkDYL0

From the references we learn that Bob produces beautiful invitations to his parties, he once had rabies, he sold Russian fur hats for 40 bucks, got a job in a condom factory in Edison, but had a hernia and then finished up in a vegetable state in a wheelchair. I’m still checking through the mythical Art Van Der Lay, world-famous architect.

I saw a review of the new film “I Am in Love” today and the headline was “Tilda Swinton plays a Russian in Milan…”. I wonder if it’s a sequel to “Rochelle, Rochellel” (“the story of a young girl’s journey from Milan to Minsk”). Perhaps she returns, Minsk is quite close to Russia? I liked Bette Midler in the musical version on stage. is clearly not possible; or to be given a “cast iron 100 per cent guarantee” (for, e.g. against a possible terrorist attack on Heathrow) which is always impossible; or asking if something (e.g. a VAT

First Post - 8 April 2010

Hi, just starting this blogging lark today, I hope it’ll be fun and that I don’t upset too many people and don’t make too many idiot mistakes. I have ignorance and stupidity in clubs! (Sometimes in bars and restaurants as well.)

Introduction

A bit of background. I’m a bloke somewhat over 50 and a very early user of computers, starting with “mainframes” of around 64k, yes “k”! Being now unemployed, I read a lot of books, mainly history and crime novels, and have just ended a fixation with the city of Berlin.

I used to play a lot of hockey, but now just lumber around the gym, doing ab curls and cycling along to “Frasier” on early-morning TV. Actually, I’m a big fan of Seinfeld, and have even written a couple of disastrous sit-coms of my own, which went absolutely nowhere.

I have flirted briefly with learning various languages, e.g. French, Italian, Russian. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say that I made a furtive, indecent approach to them, but I still frequently flick over my Russian notes.

I have lived in several parts of the country, but as I suffer from the rare disease of “alphphobia” it means that I can’t live anywhere beyond the letter “E” in the alphabet. So, amongst other places, I have lived are Bath, Banbury, Birmingham, Chester, Darlington, Exmouth and Aurora (Colorado), but I would struggle in Falmouth, and certainly couldn’t cope at all with Gateshead.

BBC goes horse-racing at Aintree today

I was listening to Radio 5 earlier this afternoon and heard Richard Bacon say that there was going to be some “interesting racing here at Aintree today”. Apparently, this was because there were some horses running owned by footballers! For BBC TV, horse-racing is more of a celebrity event than a sport, and is incomplete without either The Queen, Ricky Tomlinson or John Parrott, preferably all three. Luckily, with half an hour between races – rather than just a quarter of an hour on Channel 4 – there’s plenty of time left to talk to all these celebs, and, if you’re at Ascot you can wear silly clothes for a week as well.

Great! It's another Election!

Why does everything else in the media have to be so dominated by a British (or US) election? It’s just a vote – usually meaningless, as more that two thirds of the constituencies are “safe” – every 5 years and Ill be voting the same as last time around. That’s unless a feel a sudden, frivolous urge to go Monster Raving Loony. I’m informed the whole thing’s going to be decided by the grey vote, or the women’s vote, or Motorway Man, or possibly The Headless Horseman. Anyway, before calling the damned thing shouldn’t Gordon have checked that ER was in Buck House, rather than dragging back the dear old soul from her Easter hols in Windsor? Incidentally, why do the Royal Family have (some of) their homes in boring places such as Norfolk or Scotland? Someone reliably informed me that when they’re up in Balmoral over the Christmas hols, they only have coal fires: always have just porridge (made with water and a single pinch of salt) for breakfast; but insist on fresh strawberries (and cream) for tea, which are specially flown in from South Africa every day.

Why is there no interest in European elections, especially if we are now ruled from Brussels as everyone on the right says? I would find it fascinating – and almost certainly so would UKIP – to find out what fascist Italian porn stars and wishy-washy Belgian bookkeepers were governing us.

Eggheads is on TV

Interesting. On TV tonight a team from the Isle of Wight is challenging “The Eggheads”. They should do OK unless they get asked about anything that’s happened after 1959.