Xmas 2010

Christmas is a time when days seem to mege into each other. The world of politics seems to be put on pause, while families come together. Presents are opened and food is eaten. Our Christmas Day was anything but uneventful. With Graham's key breaking in his lock, we finished up calling out a locksmith at 1am. Strange to walk around the village while the bulk of the population slept and Santa made his way to childrens' bedrooms. The next morning the oven failed to deliver a cooked turkey and as a result the meat had to be moved to Caroline's to be cooked. I wondered what more could happen.

The weather cold, frosty and with snow still on the ground put football on hold on Boxing Day.
As a result I put myself on Melbourne time and got up at 4am to watch the 4th Test Match, an amazing first day I was watching the recording and had reached Australia 37 for 3 when Elaine awoke and told me that Australia had been bowled out for 97.

By the 27th December it seemed likely that England would retain the Ashes, a fantastic achievement following a Jonathan Trott marathon effort of 167 not out. The next 24 hours were perhaps one of the best sports days of the year. Arsenal beat Chelsea 3-1 . A result that Gooners have waited some years to see. Phil Taylor made his way into the last 16 of the world darts championship, England pressed on and stood on the verge of an Ashes victory, and finally the Dons, the next afternoon got back into League action defeating Eastbourne 3-0 to ensure that they finish 2010 as Conference leaders.

Ironically there was a major politics issue over the Xmas period. Just days before the holiday the government announced that it was slashing the Bookstrust's funding. The scheme that gives books to disadvantaged children. The sum saved insignificant but once again this government chose to hit those least able to fight back. Fortunately in the next 48 hours authors responded and gained publicity for the campaign against the mindless cut. Within days the government announced yet another u turn. Egg on face time, although sadly it received less publicity than it might have received at any other time of year.

Days

Television in any month produces few memorable programmes. Christmas schedules succumb to the populist,and therefore it was a real delight to see the programme "Imaginary Man" charting the life and musical career of Ray Davies.

Davies was in many ways the English songwriter of the 60s. While Lennon/McCartney and Jagger/Richards developed world reputations, Ray Davies belonged to London. The early Kinks hits were the first 45s I bought. As I listened to him explaining how he wrote "You really got me" I remembered vividly how I took my pocket money to Hurleys in Balham High Road, listened to the disc in a booth and handed over my 6 shillings and 4 pence.

The Kinks singles on Pye have ,when compared to many sixties songs, stood the test of time, many such as Dead End Street and Waterloo Sunset seem timeless. Others were the backdrop to my teenage years. Davies has never strayed far from his North London roots and it is as a London songwriter that he should be cherished.

A fantastic songwriter and an excellent programme.

Tis the season to be jolly

Normally by now politics is closing down for Xmas, but today it's open season on the Lib Dems. Yesterday the Telegraph exposed the fact that Lib Dem /Coalition Business Secretary had revealed to undercover journalists posing as constituents that he was unhappy with elements of the coalition agreement, and could walk away which he described as the "nuclear scenario".

Strangely the telegraph omitted the key news that Vince Cable had "declared war" on Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch, multi media owner is attempting to purchase a controlling chunk of shares in Sky, and Cable's dept have to regulate any such deal. The transcript of this conversation was leaked to Robert Peston of the BBC who made it public on his blog.

Now Cable may well have thought he was being clever, an attack on Murdoch would undoubtedly sure up his position amongst Lib Dems, let's face it his reputation was tarnished almost beyond repair after the student fees bill. However had he had been a Tory cabinet minister he'd have been forced to resign, for the moment because of his place at the coalition table he hangs on to office. His remit regarding the regulation of broadcasting has passed to Jeremy Hunt (no comment).

Cable made his name by stating in Parliament that Gordon Brown had transformed from Stalin to Mr Bean. Today Cable should reflect that in spring he was seen as St Vince, the economic guru who foresaw the banking crisis, yet by winter he resembles Baldrick, he had a cunning plan but in the words of Blackadder "it was bollocks."

Transport

Two stories that conflict. Once again the last 48 hours have shown the weaknesses in the British transport infrastructure. Our major airport has ground to a halt, as snow blocks runways and planes ice up on their stands. Thousands left stranded in departure lounges. Meanwhile some roads are again impassable and delays become near inevitable often as the result of lorries and commercial vehicles being unable to cope with the weather conditions. Finally the rail network is beset with delays and cancellations.

The public are beginning to ask why do we not do better ? The old line about snow catches us ill -prepared because its so infrequent doesn't really wash any longer. How ironic then that today the government have revealed the proposed route for a high speed rail connection linking London to Birmingham. There is plenty of opposition most of which reeks of nimbyism, however it would be worth arguing that what available investment there is should be spent upgrading existing services and ensuring the country moves when snow falls. The high speed train will it is stated sharve 40 minutes off the journey time. Is speed that important ? The bulk of the population would just like to be able to move about the country without delays, cancellations, and with a fare structure that was easy to understand and transparent.Some hope.

Mid December

Strange Days. In the space of three days my mum's 85th birthday and my wife's retirement from work. Inevitably I've been thinking how life comes in stages, and how ours is gradually moving into a new phase. Over recent weeks more and more people ask me what I'll do when I retire. My answer at the moment is to say "watch more cricket". In the back of my mind is the speech John Major gave on resigning as Tory party leader in 1997, when he was asked what he planned to do, and he answered go and watch cricket at the Oval.

That neatly leads me onto the 3rd Test Match and England's defeat early on the 4th day. Our inability to cope with the pace and bounce of the Perth pitch was exposed by the swing of Johnson and Harris. So its 1-1 with two to play. A student said to me on Thursday, its a shame the Ashes are so one-sided. Clearly we underestimated the power of recovery within the Australian camp.The Ashes are just sport at its finest, and once again test match with its ebbs and flows is the game's highest form.

Yesterday the snow returned with a vengence. The sporting calendar was decimated. We travelled to see my mother in Surrey and drove into a snow storm, the return journey after the snow had fallen took 5 hours as all but the motorways were brought to a standstill. This is the second bout of snow this winter,and still the public are being fed it's just a bad winter.

With nearly a week till Xmas there's a chance to listen to some music, and do some reading.

The snow will ensure that we stay local. Currently listening to Great Lakes : Art of Escape, while back cataloguing Ryan Adams while waiting for his new album. As for reading its magazine time - I bought the Christmas edition of the New Statesman ,I'm weighing whether to invest in the subscription so thought getting this would help me make up the mind.

A local snippet - The Times yesterday named our local area as the best place to take a country walk this Christmas . Now expecting groups of Times readers to descend on the village any day.

It's undoubtedly good publicity and may aid the local economy.

Don't count your chickens

The last week saw Arsenal qualify for the knock out stage of the Champions League. A 3-1 victory over Partisan Belgrade who were pointless coming into the game, was anything but convincing. When the visitors equalised midway through the second half, Arsenal were dicing with the possibility of early elimination. An inspired substitution by Arsene wenger bringing on Theo Walcott, who in fairness was simply dire only a few days earlier against Fulham, changed the game. Walcott scored and it was left to Samri Nasri, who has been in inspired form to make the result beyond doubt.

Arsenal as a result found themselves top of the league, in the Carling Cup semi final and the Champions League without playing particularly fluently. The league positioned owed much to the Gunners away form and the inability of others to capitalise on Arsenal's unconsistent home performances.

On Tuesday night I settled down with a beer and a bag of peanuts to watch Arsenal's game at Old Trafford. The passion of the days of Keown/Van Nistarooy is long gone. In the build up I thought about how Arsenal won the league at Old Trafford and how United ended the Invinsibles 49 game unbeaten run. In recent years there's no point arguing Arsenal have not competed on level terms with either United or Chelsea. I suppose as a result I was optimistic that the team could get a result. When United went ahead just before half time the writing was on the wall, and although Arsenal had more possession i the seconmd half, chances were few.

At one level 1-0 was not a bad defensive display and our 19 year old goalkeeper did enough to suggest that he may turn out to be a better prospect than the other keepers in the squad. However United were able to flood the penalty areas with defenders and Arsenal failed to show sufficient guile or craft to back this defensive wall down. Ironically next Saturday Arsenal play Stoke at the Emirates while United go to Chelsea on Sunday, by Sunday night the league table could be all change. It's that type of season.

Talent, what talent ?

This weekend reached the climax of X Factor , a TV talent show. I have never watched this programme, indeed I have worked hard to avoid it. It offends both my musical tastes and represents to me a perfect example of how the media is dumbed down in Britain. Yet in spite of having never seen it, I know who won, because the BBC ( and it's not one of their programmes) announced it on their TV news this morning.

The result was announced on the front page of the nation's largest selling paper, it was one of the most popular topics on twitter and apparently it attracted one of the largest viewing figures of the year. I assume that the World Cup attracted the highest.

Now I'm not a fan of singers who belt out ballads, especially when they have not written the song. Immediately after on TV , Elton John was interviewed, he attacked X Factor culture from the viewpoint of the performer. To Elton, TV appearances and stage managed panels, are no substitute for learning the craft by doing live appearances touring. In music like in many areas of life you have to pay your dues and learn your craft, all the glitz and hype of X Factor can replace the road.

What hope is there ?

Part of political maturity is the realisation that mainstream politics revolves around the short term while the most important political issues inevitably are long term. The last few days have been a wonderful illustration of this.

Now I'm deeply unhappy about the cuts to higher education funding and the withdrawal of EMA from a number of my students, however are these matters more or less important than the UN Climate Conference in Cancun in Mexico ?

Over the weekend the delegates made an agreement to attempt to restrict the rise in temperature to 3.2 degrees. Most people who take an interest of climate studies will be aware that anything over 2.0 degrees will be disastrous for many parts of the world. So I'm left to conclude that while a poor target is better than no target, the representatives especially those representing the world's largest creators of emissions still haven't got a grip on the severity of the problem.

On Thursday Labour leader Ed Milliband refused to pair UK minister Chris Huhme to stay in Mexico. Now Huhme would undoubtedly have voted for the imposition of increased fees for students, but was not the greater interest served by allowing him to stay in Mexico. Would it not have shown some gravitas to have announced on this occasion, the future of the world should come first. No instead the leader of the opposition played parliamentary games.

On Sunday I picked up the Sunday Times expecting an analysis of the Cancun agreement, at first I believed that it had failed to make the deadline, silly me, tucked away on an inside page was a short article saying "nothing much." Even more galling was a larger article on Environment Secretary , Chris Huhme's maritial problems. How ridiculous that the breakdown of his marriage and his domestic arrangements should be given more column inches than the focus of his attention this past week.

The Price you pay

Thursday 9th December may be the day that the Liberal Democrats committed mass suicide alternatively it may also be the day that a generation realised that they were being screwed. By 21 votes the Con Dem government won a vote in Parliament that allows universities to impose fees up to £9000. This is as a result of the government massively cutting the funding of higher education.

Some Lib Dems voted for, some against and some abstained. The manifesto/mandate theory that has bound British politics for generations was effectively shot out of the water. Coalition government ultimately did for it. 21 Lib Dems felt they owed greater loyality to the Coalition than to the pledge they signed before the election. In May they were the only major party that claimed they were anti-fees, no longer they cornered the student vote. In seats such as Norwich south, a four way marginal, it could be argued it was the deciding factor.

The media focussed not surprisingly on the violence that erupted after the vote was announced. Personally a campaign of NVDA would have been strategically better but students are young, frustration and emotions run high and NVDA requires self discipline.

Whether the public lose sympathy with the students is open to debate, based on TV programmes last night , public opinion is split. The funding of higher education deserves a more serious debate and the events in London deflected from the debate. The Green Party can now say that they are the only party that supports universal free education, they support the proposal to fund it from business taxation. This policy needs selling, as mixed with the campaign against tax avoidance it can put the spotlight on the fact that if everybody paid their taxes as those who are on PAYE have to do, there would be no shortage of funds for higher education.

The fall guy in all this is Business Secretary, Vince Cable. The Lib Dem doing the dirty work for the Tories. The one time St Vince, said he was proud of the policy. I doubt many share his emotion today. politics is about perception and at the moment the perception is that this government is hitting those who can least afford it hardest, while their fat cat friends barely suffer.

Testing Times

I can't remember the last night I've had two mancolds inside a month, at times I've doubted whether the first one had gone before the second struck. I struggled through Saturday making it to the Arsenal game, but realising that sleep would be difficult and knowing that I could watch the cricket I decided to stay up. Sunday was a restricted day here, the snow may have all but dispersed but the pavements have turned to ice making walking a dangerous pastime, Feeling sorry for myself I ventured out to get a paper but scuttled back home as quick as I could.

With Monday my day off I could again put myself again on "cricket time". Woke at 4am but for a period few wickets seemed to tumble, and I began to think that Australia might hang on for a draw especially as the likelihood of rain was increasing by the minute. After a rain delay KP changed the game, with the ball, dismissing Michael Clarke with the last ball of the day.

I was cheered during the day by the news that BBC Radio 4 presenter James Naughtie had introduced Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt as Jeremy Cunt. Apparently the error was confounded later in the day when Andrew Marr committed the same error. Not surprisingly Naughtie found it hard to contain himself coughing and spluttering as he tried to read the 8am news. This follows on from the news that students marching on Parliament had adopted the chant of Nick Clegg - Dick Head. It seems that politicians need to look more carefully at their names before they venture into government.

Almost by magic, I received a message to say that school had to be cancelled because an electrical surge had dismantled the alarm system. Immediately I realised that Day 5 became viewable. On Tuesday morning in the UK cricket fans celebrated. England won by an innings in Australia. That's a result that many of us have waited a quarter of a century to see. Graeme Swann who by his own admission had underperformed at the Gabba, produced a spell of 41 overs and took 5 wickets to send the Aussies to defeat.

It's a great time to be an English cricket supporter, the Ashes are very special and the Aussies hate losing. Good to be a Pom.

The Lost Week but a storming weekend

A lost week, in the sense that much of our area shut down because of snow. While the press focussed on England's fail world cup bid and the Wikileaks scandal, the bulk of the population talked SNOW and how major parts of the country became all but paralysed.

Fortunately on Saturday morning the great thaw began. Our road had been clearly a day earlier because of the preparations for the village Victorian Evening, a somewhat more low key event this year I felt.

Struggling with another mancold, I woke up several times during the night, but thanks to the blackberry and twitter I was able to keep up to date with the test score from Adelaide. I thought back to the days of my youth when I went to bed with a transitor radio so I could hear commentary from Australia. On saturday morning I got up in time to see England go past Australia's first innings score for only the loss of two wickets.

I struggled the morning and dropped the idea of making the start of the Climate Change rally & March. My original aim was to go to Hyde Park and then slip away to Arsenal in time for kick off. London transport was at its weekend worst and I went straight to Arsenal. The first twenty minutes Arsenl could have scored five but settled for just one, then Fulham equalised. It seemed yet another home game where needless points would be dropped, but with 13 minutes remaining, Sammi Nasri beat two men and scored from an acute angle. Nasri had earlier scored a contender for goal of the season. Leaving the stadium the chant of "we are top of the league" went up, but still a long way to go.

Listening to all things DBT and Jason Isbell, and dipping into 1980s Steely Dan - "they call Alabama the Crimson Tide, call me Deacon Blue"

Let it snow ?

I'm writing while looking out of the window, for the third day snow has fallen. Work is cancelled, transport across he country is badly affected. On a personal level we've spent three days largely at home, making a swift trip to the shops in the village to get a morning paper and some bread.

I've never been a huge fan of snow, I suppose the fact that it inevitably imposes restrictions frustrates me. Sport , one of my main life interests is obviously badly affected. As I watch it fall and gust outside the window, I see clearly how "cabin fever" can start. The notion of being forced inside.

However amidst media stories of plucky workers taking hours to make a 45 minute journey and stranded commuters, there is one aspect that is completely ignored; snow in late November /early December is very rare for Britain, snow itself was by no means an annual occurance. Arguably we are always ill prepared for just that reason, countries where snow is as common as rain is here, adapt their infrastructure accordingly.

You would think that there would be some discussion as to why our climate is changing, why the prevailing weather patterns are being affected from the east. The public are left to believe that this some freak of nature, like the floods in Pakistan, the fires in Russia, or the tsunami in Sri Lanka. Until more people start to join the pieces together, the argument will always be about whether the buses and trains continue to run rather than the future of the planet.

Which plane to get on Dave

This week the media are devoting column inches and time to England's World Cup bid for 2018 and this week "big hitters" have been flying out to Zurich to harness support ahead of FIFA deciding on Thursday. Now getting the World Cup would be great for the UK economy I have no doubt, and for those younger than me who never experienced 1966 it would be a great occasion, leaving aside our chances of success on the pitch.

The presence of David Beckham clearly gives the bid significance in the eyes of the world media. This week he's been joined by Prince William and PM David Cameron. Now I'm not sure whether William is a big selling point, but for what reason is Cameron there ? To my knowledge he is no great enthusiast of the game, more to the point there is somewhere else he should be.

While the media focus on Zurich across the Atlantic Ocean at Cancun in Mexico the UN Climate Change talks go on all week. 43 small islands are fighting for their history , their right to exist. If sea levels rise they will cease to exist. It is estimated that up to 1 billion people will be adversely affected unless the world reduces global temperatures by 4degrees centigrad. To me this is where the Prime Minister should be,as much as I like football, the lifes of these people and the sustainability of the planet is more important.

Pleased about - Arsenal reaching the Carling Cup Semi Final
Reading: Not a lot but Alastair Campbell's diaries arrived today ( acquired for 59p)
Listening to: New Band - Great Lakes and dipping into Jim White.
Want to watch - the death of Leslie Nielsen at the weekend will no doubt make many revisit the Naked Gun trilogy and Airplane. Not sophisicated humour but very funny indeed. RIP Leslie.