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