Thursday 31 December 2009

1848 Reflections and on Christmas viewing

Christmas is usually a time for reflection and reviewing the past year. I have given up sending a review of developments to friends as hearing about achievements or great experiences is usually of no interest to others and hearing about disasters and problems even less so.

And yet I continue to write the Blogs, although not as frequently as before, and which combines notes of how I am using the remaining time of self awareness, with reflections back, often going over and over the same event, from a different perspective, including that of time. I am driven to do this which I regard as a form of Performance art. The similarity between my way of thinking and that of Sophie Calle in terms of approach to output continues to encourage although I know that the quality of the output is so different. The closeness confirms the belief that with the number of human beings existing and with the inheritance of the abilities, visions and experiences of those who no longer possess physical self consciousness, near duplications of thoughts and outlooks will occur more than is usually recognised.

I am still behind in writing catch up with Il Travatore today after some ironing and vacuuming before settling down to the end of the year TV experience, and then a piece on films and then it will be Calle before the Forsyte Saga and a return to the work mainstream. My priority is to get some fresh milk.

I look forward to contacts telling me about their lives and experiences and always have but because of what I do and the way I am, not as many do as I would like. I remain filled with curiosity about the experiences of others and similarities and differences between us. I welcome the interaction with others even in this form of communication.

This year because of the weather and away from home Christmas became even more TV watching than planned and included a wide range of viewing suitable for the whole age range of families from Newcastle at St James to England trouncing South Africa in Durban to Igglepiggle and the Ninky Nonk of the Night Garden with High School Musical 3, Eastenders and the Royal Family with Gavin and Stacey, to the return to Cranford, Dr Who and the Day of the Triffids. On return there was i player catch of Babylon 5 and Spooks.

I do not regret the break away from work and writing. I am refreshed, to quote a line from The Wicker Man seen again on TV last night, although I wish I could have said regenerated in the sense of adding time to that allotted to this body

Traditionally Christmas and New Year were times of family visits to a live football match with Crystal Palace in South London the club where the extended family would go during this season and at Easter. The consequence was that I continued to go to the Palace when I became an adolescent and could travel on my own, leading to getting to know the faces majority of the core 100 or so who would stand on the terraces opposite the centre circle and main stand as the club faced re-selection to the old Third Division South for three successive years and where the total number of supporters was in the hundreds.

This year, for the first time in decades, I have no plans to attend a live game over Christmas New Year and in fact I have not been to a live game since the start of the season in August. I would have returned to St James Park to enjoy the clubs success leading the Championship had it not been for the continuing involvement of the owner Mike Ashley. There is no incentive to make a sale as if the club achieves promotion back to the Premiership the net worth will soar once more. Although to a live football game became traditional Sunderland and Newcastle teams always appeared to have too much Christmas pudding and the games were never brilliant displays and draws and defeats were more common that wins to tell the grandchildren about. Watching the hard fought, boring 0.0. Newcastle Draw on Monday early evening I remembered how cold watching live can get at this time of the year, even with clothing layers and headgear, water bottle and soup in a flask and side flask of something stronger. I was so pleased with myself that I had not invested in any ticket and best of all a season ticket. Newcastle remain six points clear at the top oft eh championship but have played one game more than West Brom in second place. They are however 8 points clear of Notts Forest ion third with the same number of games played and whopping 14 points clear of the fourth and fifth clubs although these have one or two games in hand to play. The crucial game will be between Newcastle at home to West Brom on January the 18th, a game which is also on the TV. Newcastle has the best squad of players in the championship so even with injuries and suspensions they should gain automatic promotion.

Sunderland should also avoid being in the relegation dog fight as the season’s end approaches this April and May. A difficulty winning games at home and away since beating Arsenal has created a gap between them and those competing for a place in Europe although they remain in mid table at 10th. They drew home and away over Christmas. They play next at home after the New Year winter’s break.

England through Paul Collingwood and Graham Onions prevented a defeat against South Africa in the first Test match which did not augur well for the rest of the series. When South Africa appeared to recover from a shaky start at Durban on a good wicket but with changeable weather a draw seemed the best prospect for the second which commenced on Boxing Day. Then over the past couple of days England’s batsmen rose to the occasion with Cook 118 and Bell 141 forming the backbone of a first innings of 575 for 9 which gave a lead of over 200 runs. Paul Collingwood also made 90 on top of his 50 and 26 not out giving him an average of over 80 for the series so far. Then something amazing happened just after I returned from today’s shopping and sorting outing. Swann and Broad brought South Africa to their knees with 50 for six wickets at one point and 76 for 6 at closure. Although some drizzle is forecast for tomorrow it could be all over by the time I get up in the morning. It was, almost, as three further wickets had fallen and the last while I was getting ready to go out. England therefore won by an innings and 98 runs with Swann a match total of nine wickets for 164.

It has been a good day so far with paying off the credit card balance before going out to Sunderland for a repair of my glasses where a frame holding side screw had fallen out. A chips on both lenses was noted, one when the glass lens slipped from the frame, but I do not know how the other ship came to be. Both are at the edge and do not affect viewing which is a relief. I then returned to South Shields where I collected the DVD set of the Forsyte Saga from the post office having attempted to deliver as I set off for the trip. I then visited Argos to check out inexpensive bagless vacuum cleaners after my present appliance packed up for some reason. I favoured one cost just over £40 not the cheapest and then found because of a sale the price was reduced to £29 plus £5 for a three year maintenance replacement insurance. After checking it out on return it works much better than the last, gathering a sock before I could prevent it and having to get out of the flexible tube.

The last call was to Halfords where I found their radio and Sat organiser was not in until tomorrow morning and with his first appointment at midday. Still to do is haircut, sending the information on gas and electricity use and some ironing as well as vacuuming the rest of the house. I will do this over the rest of the week.

There was a time when my evenings were governed by Eastenders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale and even Neighbours. My interest was threefold. I enjoyed considering the extent to which fictional entertainment came close to real life and how contemporary issues were interwoven with the continuing stories and it was a way to relax after the realities of the day. The original soap was The Archers which I listened to from the first episode for several years and then caught up on the week with the Sunday compilations. Over the past five years I have rarely bothered to see a programme but this year I watched the Christmas special as yet another murder occurred at the Queen Vic with the focus on the extended and Butcher families although the original families of the Beales and Fowlers was represented by the one character who has been a constant over the decades, Ian Beale, married four times. He was 16 when he joined the series in 1985 playing a 14 year old so he is now a 41 year old playing 39. He is just one the suspects to have murdered Peggy Mitchell’s former husband Archie who was threatening to expose his recent one night stand with the infamous Janine Butcher, who in turn was in a rage having been thrown of the Vic by Archie who had used her gain possession of the pub from Peggy and who was incensed that Janine was playing around and not just with Ian.

The third candidate for the murder is Peggy Mitchell, played by Barbara Windsor and brought in to the series to boost ratings in 1991, replacing the original actor after three months. The character is brassy, calculating and ruthless and not the Babs we came to love in the Carry on films. She has tried to get her son Phil to murder Archie before. The fourth character is Phil an alcoholic who has returned to drinking. Phil and his brother who was played by Ross Kemp until he decided to make a career outside the soap, are criminal thugs. Phil arranges for an alibi and looks like the prime suspect. However first arrested is one of Archie’s’ daughter who blames her father for the loss of her unborn child. I think that covers the suspects and you will have to watch the programme to find out as I will not.

Christmas day evening viewing on the BBC had an odd feel about it because the Eastenders was followed by the one of the planned last showings of the Royal Family. The Family comprises Ricky Tomlinson of Brookside and subsequent cinema roles. Wikipedia describes the character played by Ricky as sarcastic and temperamental, Jim spends his days in his armchair watching the television and doing as little as possible. Jim has a short temper, and regularly berates his family, and his mother-in-law Norma, though on occasion shows a more caring side, especially in moments when his family needs him. In the Special he resists going abroad on holiday and settles for a caravan on a site where all the facilities are closed, there is no chip pan and the telly is on the blink. He spends the night sharing a bed with his son in law, farting, eating and drinking.

His wife Barbara lives for her family, though her caring nature is often taken advantage of by Jim and Denise. Barbara worked part time at the bakery, and for a time was the only member of the family to have a job. She is often forgetful and a little scatter-brained. She and Denise chain smoke. The character is played by the excellent Sue Johnston also of Brookside as the wife of Ricky and who become a key character in the long running Waking the Dead series.

The couple only have one daughter, the married, Denise, extremely lazy and self-centred. She married to Dave in the first series, and they have two children, Little David and Norma, though she rarely parents her children, instead passing duties onto everyone else. Denise is known for filling ash tray upon ash tray. She is played by Caroline Aherne. the comedian and actress who created the Mrs Merton character. Caroline remains an outstanding writer who has a constant struggle to overcome clinical depression. She co-wrote the series. The fifth core member of the cast is her husband Dave. A nonentity who everyone treats with contempt, He is dim witted but well meaning. The fourth is the son of family who became a successful businessman although he was a figure of fun for the rest of the family and treated as their slave, unemployed and with no prospects. He did not feature in the Christmas special.

The essence of the series was to present the working class as moronic layabouts, looking for handouts and enjoying a life of drink, cigarettes and watching TV. It is difficult to understand the enthusiasm of the working class to watch the programme, especially on Christmas day. What was just as baffling is that the next programme was Gavin and Stacey the work of Mathew Horne and James Corden. Mathew is a product of the Southwell Minister School near Nottingham and James has a long list of credits from and TV credits as writer and actor especially the History Boys. I disliked their double act in Big Brother’s Big Mouth and the episode of Gavin and Stacey follows on in the style of the Royal family but has greater charm.

For the last three years of the life of my mother I played her tapes of the Telly Tubbies a programme designed for infants from about one year through to a hundred year old reverted to babyhood. The Night Garden is made by the same production team and is a worthy successor.

Over the past two nights I enjoyed a contemporary version of the Day of the Triffids, the 1951 John Wyndham story. This apocalyptic story tells of a three ‘legged’ plant able to move and communicate which has been bio chemically engineered in the Soviet union and accidentally released into the wild. On one hand they possess a deadly whip like venom while on the other they yield an extract which is superior to vegetable oil. The main character, Bill Marsden, is in hospital with his eyes bandaged when the world is struck by a meteor shower which renders the majority of people blind, after which he walks around London seeing civilization collapsing round him. He meets a young woman who has also survived and they fall in love and decide to leave London. Before leaving they encounter a group of sighted people aiming to establish a colony in the countryside where polygamy will be practiced to rapidly re building the sighted population. His approach is opposed within the group and by a man called Coker who wants to save as many of those who have been blinded as possible and insists that every sighted person should have a disabled person handcuffed to them for looking after. Mason and his girl friend are captured and handcuffed to such individuals. The practicalities of this is never explained

Eventually Bill and Josella come together again with a sighted young girl who they treat as their daughter and attempt to establish a self sufficient colony in the countryside. The problem is the Triffids who are carnivorous plants and are becoming more numerous. They learn of a successful colony on the Isle of Wight involving a reformed Coker. Their progress is halted by the intervention of a despotic new government led by Torrence, previously encountered in London. They escape the clutches of this organisation and make it to the Isle of Wight where they work to find a way to destroy the Triffids and reclaim the earth for humanity. The writer acknowledged his debt to H G Wells for his similar work, The War of the Worlds.

In 1957 there was the first of two radio adaptations in six episodes with Patrick Barr as Bill Marsden. The second was in 1968, also in six episodes and both directed by Giles Copper. This production also featured the Marjorie Westbury in a supporting role. I remember listening to both.

The 1962 British film had Howard Keel in the role of Bill Marsden with the Triffids depicted as gigantic asparagus shoots. The Triffids are non human manufactured but arrived from a earlier meteor shower. Some of the action takes place in Spain where an escape is achieved by use of music played by an ice cream van. The earth is taken back when it is discovered that the Triffids cannot cope with sea water. Jeanette Scott, Mervyn Johns and Kieron Moore also feature in the film. I have only seen the film once in Theatre at the time and once on TV since

In 1981 the BBC created the first TV adaptation in six episodes, The series closely followed the book. balancing the threat posed by the Triffids by the behaviour of individuals and groups as civilization is destroyed. The creatures achieve ascendancy forcing the surviving humans to live in isolated rural communities and islands.

Each of the Triffids plants was human controlled from inside made up of a frame covered in latex and sawdust, a neck of fibreglass and a flexible rubber head coated with grunge. The series has been shown from time to time since on the BBC1 1984 and BBC 4 2006 and 2009, UK Gold 2004 and 2005 and the Sci-fi channel 2006. I remember seeing this series only once. I say remember in the sense of knowing but I have no visual image to build upon.

The 2009 Christmas to New Year version was reduced to three hours in two episodes and has Eddie Izzard as the calculating and ruthless Torrence with a hankering for Joely Richardson who plays the leading girl and who is a nationally known TV front of camera personality. Brian Cox is the scientist father of Masen and Venessa Redgrave as the despotic head of a Convent prepared to sacrifice the blind to the Triffids in order for her Order of nuns to survive.

The latest production is also more focussed on the theme that the world has created the situation by mismanagement of the planet and failure to work together across country boundaries, languages, political systems and faiths. It also highlights that individuals will exploit situations of crisis for their own ends and that civilized living and democratic process are fragile and not as deeply rooted as most would wish and government’s like us to believe.

The BBC also provided two 90 minutes episodes of Cranford, the Victorian novel of Elizabeth Gaskell first published in 1851 as a serial in a magazine edited by Charles Dickens, although the Christmas special is a fabrication extending the story from that of the novel..

The fictional town of Cranford was written with the Cheshire town of Knutsford in mind. Because of its serial nature the story is collection of episodes about the lives of a number of characters in the town and which today provides a good view of the behaviour and manners at the time of great exhibition and as the industrial revolution commenced to impact on rural England and the other parts of the British Islands. There is a narrator Mary Smith from Manchester (Lisa Dillon) who stays with Miss Matty, Matilda Jenkins played in the TV series by Judi Dench who lives with her dominating older sister the moral Guardian for the town played by Eileen Atkins and who dies early on in the novel.

Among the ladies of the town are Miss Pole, a career spinster and gossip played by Imelda Staunton; The Honourable Mrs Jamieson a widow with aristocratic connections who considers herself superior to the town ladies played by Barbara Flynn and who has a beloved dog; Julia McKensie plays another widow and Betty, a former Milliner who own a cow which she loves as a daughter and where the two characters are combined in the TV adaptation, There is Peter Jenkins, the long lost brother who returns from India at the end of the book and played by Martin Shaw. Thomas Holbrook is an admirer of Matty, a farmer who dies a year after a trip to Paris(Michael Gambon); Captain Brown (Jim Carter) a retired officer dependent on his half pay with two daughters. One of his daughters is played by Julia Swalha who leaves to marry after her sister and father die. Major Gordon is the friend of Captain Brown. Lady Glenmire Mrs Jamieson’s poor but aristocratic sister in law who marries Dr Hoggins and both these characters do not appear in the series. Martha is Matty’s maid who she treats as a companion and equal. In the TV series Martha has a fiancée, a carpenter who has an important role in the specials as his wife dies and he leaves the town in search of work in the city with his young son and this has a great effect on Matty.

Francesca Annis plays Lady Ludlow the local aristocrat with a large house and estate. She has a son with no interest in her or the estate and lives abroad with the consequence that her Ladyship relies on her prudent estate manager with socialist views and who take an interest in a bright poor local boy who when he dies leaves his estate worth £20000 to the boy with £1000 to be used for his education at Shewsbury School and rest to when he is twenty one with the intention of returning to head a school to provide education for the working classes. However the rest of the money is to go to redeeming the mortgage with is required to keep the estate going because the funds have gone to keeping the son in the lifestyle he believes is his right. The money is to be returned to the boy with interest by the time he reaches his majority. There are several other characters where I do not know if they are in the book or not including a magistrates, two doctors, one of who has a relationship with the eldest daughter of the vicar.

The series of five episode commences in 1842 when Dr Harrison arrives to assist the existing doctor and gets into conflict when he refuses to amputate a compound fracture sustained by Jin Hearne, the local carpenter and performs a new and risky operation which brings him the esteem of the townsfolk. Edward Carter begins his interest young Harry Gregson offering him a job and an education and we are introduced to the ladies of the town and some of their ways.

In the second episode there is news of the approach of the railway and development is in the lives and loves of Major Gordon and Dr Harrison. Deborah Jenkyns accuses Captain Brown over deception in promotion of the railway but she dies from what appears to be a brain tumour,

In the third episodes a friend of Dr Harrison arrives and causes great mischief by sending a romantic card to one of two spinsters and this bit of fun causes Dr Harrison great harm. Harry Gregson’s father is arrested for poaching but saved by the intervention of Lady Ludlow following an appeal from Mr Carter. Matty is reunited with Thomas Holbroke. Their marriage plans had been prevented because of family disapproval when they were young and because of scandal involving her brother who fled to India. Sadly Thomas dies following his return from Paris of pneumonia and Matty feels she has become a widow.

Matty loses he income when the bank fails but unbeknown to her friends rally and the bank pretends there has been an accounting error. The railway comes closer to the village and needs to pass through the estate but instead of selling the property Lady Ludlow wants to keep the community as it is and takes a mortgage in order to fund the lifestyle of her absent son in Italy.

Mr Carter finds out about the mortgage and that her Ladyship may not have the funds to meet the repayments and uses his own savings on the understanding his estate will be repaid with interest upon his death if not beforehand. Matty increases her income by selling tea from her home. Dr Harrison’s relationship with the daughter of the vicar is cemented when he saves her from an attack of typhoid. An accident on the railway fatally injures Mr Carter and his Will reveals the bequest to young Hugh. Major Gordon returns from India where his proposal for marriage to Jessie Brown is accepted. He brings back Matty’s brother. The series ends with the marriage of Dr Harrison to the daughter of the Vicar. And that was to have been that as the book was fully covered.

In the Christmas 3 hour special the story is developed from this point with Judi Dench, Julia McKensie, Imelda Staunton, Barbara Flynn and Deborah Finlay playing their original roles and with nine other actors playing original or new roles including Jonathan Pryce.

The son of Lady Ludlow returns but too late to for his mother who dies after waiting all day for him despite failing health. He attempts to trick Hugh out of his inheritance with a bankers note for £5000 after pretending that this will save the estate and the jobs it provides. He then sells the estate to the railway development but his action is thwarted by someone who appears to work for Lady Ludlow or may be a relative who works together with the Vicar. They ensure that Hugh goes to Shrewsbury school where he is the victim of bullying and abuse. He nearly dies in a railway accident when the train hits the domesticated cow but is brought back to good health and is found a place at Manchester Grammar School as a day boy with his protector moving to the city to provide a home for him.
The main story concerns a family known to Matty which leads to the daughter establishing a romantic association with the son, William, of a salt manufacturer Mr Buxton (Jonathan Pryce who has bought a home in the area) and who disapproves of the match because he wants his son to marry into county stock. He abandons his son and takes up with the girls brother who diverts £60 of the £160 paid for the demolition of four cottages in the path of the railway and where the tenants had been promised rehousing. Mr Buxton offers to provide an escape for the wayward brother abroad if his sister agrees to accompany him abroad and give up her relationship with his son. Matty discovering this situation finds William who is working for Captain Brown and the railway development and he arrives as the train his the cow and is derailed. He rescues his fiancée while her brother makes off with the money for the trip and then gets near fatally injured while helping the rest of the passengers. He survivors and the match is eventually approved by Mr Buxton.

There is great excitement when an aristocratic relative, a widow arrives to visit widow Mrs Jamieson, and who upsets the ladies of her circle by suggesting her relative will want to move only with County people because the Cranford ladies do not have the social position. However she has shunned London and the Court and befriends the ladies after being welcomed by Captain Brown who she marries by special licence much to the horror of Mrs Jamieson who shuts herself off the rest of her society. She is joined in this approach by Miss Pole.

Miss Matty decides to use the profits made from her tea selling activities to revive the local community centre and invites a conjurer to provide entertainment after his previous visit had to be cancelled. While one of the ladies argues that it is conjuring by use of hands and devices rather than magic, he confounds her with some of the tricks. The evening ends with a visit from Mrs Jamieson who is brought to the event by Matty’s brother with the suggestion of a close relationship between the two being established.

A key moment in the first episode was when the carpenter left for Manchester with his son and Miss Matty realised that without the railway all the young people would leave. She persuades all the ladies to join her on a special outing arranged by Captain Brown and they are joined by Mr Buxton who is persuaded by the event and the son to sell the land with the four cottages essential for the railway to continue into the town centre. When the town becomes full of drunk navies working on the line and the accident causes death and serious injury she begins to feel she has made a mistake. At the social evening, the magician uses a cabinet in which he makes the sceptic spinster disappear in order for her to reappear holding the baby son of the carpenter who also appears in the audience to say he is returning to Cranford because the railway will enabling him to make a living there. Matty had helped care for his son after the death of its mother. I suspect there are at least a couple of other Christmas specials in the pipeline if the key characters remain available.

There was no feel good ending to the latest series of Spooks as the work of the secret Nightingale Group of security service agents and others funded by the Chinese reaches it climax as it prepares to blow up a hotel where the Pakistan President is staying so as to bring war and nuclear war between India and Pakistan closer. The plot goes even better than planned as the plotters also capture the British Home Secretary, incapacitating him so he cannot leave the hotel when the bomb plot is discovered. In this series we have already experience the death of Jo Portman and now Ros Myers, Head of Section and former senior case officer is also sacrificed as she tries unsuccessfully to rescue the Home Secretary. Fortunately Lucas North manages to bring out the Pakistan President who ensures that the confrontation with India does not escalate. Lucas experiences the assassination of his girlfriend the US agent Sarah Caufield who is shot in the head when recovering in hospital from being shot in leg by Ros. The lead CIA plotter is blown up by the bomb. The MI5 unit is therefore decimated with only Harry, Sir Harry Pearce remaining from 2002 and the return of Ruth Evershed the analyst who features 200202006 and then was brought back in the present series after her faked death and establishment of a new life with a Greek boyfriend and his son. The role call of departed agents, usually killed in the line of duty has to be deliberate story reality writing?

Monday 14 December 2009

1844 Memorable weekend with Miss World the X Factor and Sporting Personality of the year

This has been a momentous weekend for South Shields and Gibraltar although I must confess to having reservations about both events. Joe McElderry of South Shields became the sixth winner of the X factor before an estimated live audience of 20 million while even more are reported to have witnessed the crowning of Miss Gibraltar as Miss World in South Africa.

In fact I had more than one moan about what was on the TV before Ryan Giggs became the public choice as Sport’s Personality of the Year from nine other nominated contestants and I discovered a showing of the ITV production of the Forsyte Saga with Gina McKee. There was also the ubiquitous Piers Morgan introducing the Susan Boyle Story.

I sometimes feel I have missed out on things everyone else seems to possess or enjoy. I have not felt like that about the possession of gold jewellery or gold trinkets although a few gold bars would come in handy at the present time. At present there are constant adverts on commercial TV to sell gold jewellery and trinkets for paper money. With the paper money, bonds and such like becoming suspect because of the speculative investing of the financial institutions and with interests rates down to zero everyone, who can, appears to be investing in gold with the consequence that the price is rising and rising. There is obviously considerable profit in buying up gold jewellery and melting it back down into purified ingots. Recently one advertiser is promising to offer an additional 20% cash over Christmas thus indicating the size of the profits already being made by the buying companies.

As an adult I was never a wholehearted fan of the Miss World competition although it was one of the things watched in childhood and as a youth along with Sports Personality of the year, the Eurosong contestants and other perennials on BBC TV since the time when there was just the BBC in the early part of the 1950‘s. However I was advised on Saturday evening that with a population of around 30000 Miss Gibraltar had won the 2009 event which took place in South Africa. Wondering what to watch next later on the evening I went through all the channels and came across a recording being shown on the Travel Channel for the event which had taken place earlier in the day. Next year the final moves to Vietnam, having been located in China four times during the past decade.

The event commenced in 1951 marking the arrival of the bikini swimming costume and was organised and owned by Robert Morley and his wife Julia who has continued to run the company since her husband’s death in 2000. The immediate financial and publicity success of the venture led to the creation of Miss Universe in the United States subsequently taken over by Donald Trump. Both organisation are therefore commercial enterprises and both donate to charity with Miss World recorded as having given an average of £5 million throughout its lifetime. Miss World lives in London for a year and participates in a year long representation around the world culminating in handing over the crown.

The problem with the contest is that it originally concentrated on a western idea of trophy beauty gave the impression that few contestants possessed or were engaged in higher education or preparing for professional careers outside of modelling. The contest appeared unable to adjust to changes is social attitudes, which is not always a bad thing but commenced to fall foul of those fighting for men in general to treat women in general differently. One candidate was stripped of her crown because it was discovered she was a single mother and it was not until 2001 that someone with a black skin won. No one was successful from Asia until China, won and Muslim countries do not enter. While Argentina and Brazil have won once Venezuela has won the most of any country together with India with six wins. Why this is so is not known to me. It could be that countries have special relationships, especially as the London based organisation has build up a world wide organisations of competitions often with regional and national heats. Controversy over the nature of the event has resulted in the show no longer being screened on UK terrestrial TV. There was a small paragraph and photo in the Journal newspaper inside pages this morning and I expect there was similar limited attention in the national papers.

For the past six years Fast Track international events have been created which enable winners to reach the finals and surprise surprise many are also included in the final 7 from which the winner and her two assistants are chosen, These events include Miss Beach Beauty which was the success of Miss Gibraltar -Kaiane Aldorino, a staffing officer at St Bernard’s Hospital and also of others who reach the last seven. Miss Talent who was from Canada had training as a soprano and sand at the finals. Other are Miss Sports, Top Model and Beauty with a purpose. In the UK there were regional events as well as the national but recently there have been separate competitions for the individual countries who then compete for Miss World and with the highest placed then entered into Miss International Pageant. The UK last won Miss World in 1983 Miss UK has never won Miss Universe although in fairness to the rival event while also giving a special place to Venezuela the winners appears to have been more world wide.

Because of concerns about the way such events influence attitudes towards body appearance and roles a new approach was adopted in 2001 through the United Nations with the Miss Earth contest where as the name suggests the emphasis on the environment. Although the finals have been held in the Philippines other nations host the preliminary competitions. For the first time in 2007 China entered alongside, Taiwan, Hong King and Tibet overcoming previous political difficulties and even Cuba has also entered contestants.

Not withstanding these observations Gibraltar has gone wild with the Chief Minister promising a Royal homecoming. There was front page publicity and editorials in Panorama and the Gibraltar Chronicle rThis is understandable although I wish the international recognition could have been for something different.

The most obvious other categories are popular music and sport and where Gibraltar radio plays an excellent selection of current and recent popular records throughout every day. There are international entertainers born on the Rock with Surianne listed in my front list of 40 friends. The former colony, now a British territory with its own government is able to compete in the Olympic games.

On Sunday evening Joe McElderry of South Shields was voted by the public the sixth winner of the X Factor show which in the UK succeeded the Pop Idol show. The difference between the two series is that the present UK version includes three categories of singers, Groups, and individualists above and below the age of 24 with separate categories for the young male and female hopefuls, and there is also competition between the judges who act as mentors for one of the four categories each of six singers, which are then reduced to three for the live finals which begin with 12 and then follow with weekly eliminations culmination this year with a semi final of three on the Saturday in which Stacey Solomon, the single Jewish sounding single parent from Essex was eliminated. Joe was the firm favourite to win for most of the series, especially by the bookmakers and was the best singer and has a likeable boyish personality and is destined to have the Christmas number 1 with his first single. What he will do after that remains to be determined. Some of the previous winners have quickly disappeared without a trace, although the runners up last year, a group called JLO have had two number 1 chart successes along with the Winner Alexandra Burke. Leona Lewis has gone on to international success in Europe and the USA.

My reservations are about the impact upon the rest of the lives of those who reach the final weeks and have all the media attention and are then brought down to earth after the Finals Tour of the UK in January and February. The other is that the show has become a major industry on its own making a lot of money for ITV with an estimated £80-£100 million from advertising and £18 million over the two nights of the finals which are estimated to have had an audience of 20 million with 10 Million votes cast via telephones and TV Red buttons. This also brings in massive revenue for the telephone companies as well as the production company with pays the fees of the judges and the international entertainers who participate and is the only opportunity for the viewer to see some of great stars perform live for free.

There are reports of Simon Cowell threatening to leave the show unless his financial take is increased for next season. There is talk of some judges leaving and the number being increased to 5 with one Robbie Williams being added. There is even more talk of negotiations for the format to go to the States to rival or replace American Idol while other reports suggest hard negotiations over Simon’s continuing involvement with American Idol and of his setting his sights on Hollywood and Las Vegas.

Meanwhile as in Gibraltar, South Shields and Tyneside has gone bonkers about the success and this is also part of my complaint because it has become a feature for the audience to show their appreciation or lack of it by participating with applause or booing throughout the performance. I attended the tour show at the Metro arena in 2007 and which led to the discovery of MySpace when in preparation for the show I looked up the participating contestants and discovered that a couple listed their sites on MySpace which I then added. The Leona Lewis organisation appears to publish news items as Blogs several times a week most weeks. I went primarily to listen to Leona Live and while she lived up to expectations I found the constant interruptions from the audience irritating and spoiling her performance. While audience participating is a feature of rock concerts for example the loudness of the sound system means that the audience is not heard over the music unless the singer and band stop while encouraging the audience to sing along.

As part of Saturday’s show there was what as become the traditional film of the visit earlier in the week to Joe’s former secondary school, to his parental home and giving an impromptu concerts in the central public areas of the Sage concert halls in Gateshead. In the subsequent media coverage there was a report from the Newcastle equivalent of the Fame Academy where Joe is still officially studying Performing Arts at the Newcastle College and where staff and students were also going bonkers in their excitement at the win. I have been told a great roar was heard from the area of pubs and clubs throughout the town and with dancing in the streets following. It emerged that Joe had acted as a singing waiter at the Custom’s House where the news of the win literally stopped the show, a pantomime.

On Monday although up early for putting out the wheelie bin and for getting the car parked in the street for the trip to Killingworth to visit O.E.S the regional repair agents for Brother printers, I missed the early morning news and chat programmes where Joe was being interviewed on ITV and GMTV to push his winning single, available for download from today and on sale from Wednesday. He will be signing copies of the single from the record store in South Shields High Street at 4pm.

Passing through the Tyne Tunnel on the way to Kiillingworth I noted the progress being made on building the adjacent two lane second tunnel. Using the Tunnel reduces the journey to under seven miles and the small industrial estate is on the main road from the A10 north of the Township. The Office supplies company is at the far end of the main road through the estate and I left the two machines paying the single fee of £25 plus VAT for an engineer to examine when they visited at 2pm.

Before returning I visited the township shopping centre which is a smaller version of that at Cramlington and fortunately with a Wilkinson’s store where I was able to buy 11 work albums in Black and Blue and enjoy a cup of coffee in the Morrison’s supermarket, after buying a copy of the Journal newspaper in the combined Post Office and newsagents. The Journal morning Newspaper which is read throughout Tyneside, the five local authority areas and into Northumberland and Durham, featured Joe’s success on its front pages and with several photographs.

On my return visit mid afternoon having been advised that paper or card had been removed from both machines which were now working without difficulty I bought a copy of the Evening Chronicle which again featured the success emphasising the contagious joy which had swept throughout the area and how proud everyone felt about a nice lad fromt he area winning the hearts of two thirds of the ten million who voted. The Sun newspaper suggested that Simon is negotiating a £5 deal which could take Joe to Hollywood for a teenage musical follow up to the success of High School and Hannah Montana.

I had intended to call in at a newsagent for the Shield’s Gazette on the way home but forgot and had to go out again having parked the car as the rain continued to fall with news of further cold and snow towards the weekend. The paper and a special four page cover and end piece X Static and a eight page centrepiece covering all his appearances in the contest. Tyne Tees TV devoted three quarters of the half hour evening show to the celebration and it is evident the whole community has responded. There were flashing signs at either end of the Tunnel normally used for traffic messages which read Well Done Joe. The feel good factor outweighed news that 1700 steel working jobs look likely to be lost on Teeside, the recent deaths of lads from the region in Afghanistan and the BA cabin staff had voted 92.5 percent in favour of prolonged strike action over Christmas and New Year affecting an estimated 1 million travellers.

One piece of new information is that Joe had performed as a singing waiter in the Green Room at the Customs House. Joe father is a probation officer and although he separated from Joe Mother when he was a child they are said to have a continuing good relationship. He was raised as by his mother, grandmother and her sisters. His grandmother used to perform in a local group called the Dolly Mixtures which I am sure I came across in their day. It was quite something to see the 200 staff and students at the Newcastle College Performance Academy jump for joy as if the local football club had won rhe cup and for once the community was not divided between Newcastle and Sunderland.
One consequence of all the attention on the X Factor is that there was less for the Sports Personality of the Year which commanded my interest until I discovered a showing of the colour remake of the TV series The Forsyte Saga which was originally shown on ITV with a ten part series covering the first two books and a four part series covering the last and which I managed to see the last two episodes alongside the Sports and Pop blockbusters.

As the winner of the Sports Personality of the Year Trophy commented he had been watching since childhood this annual event which reviews what has happened in all British sporting activity over the year although he was not born when it commenced in 1954 when I was already 15 years of age. Since then the format has changed in two major ways. The number of awards has increased from one to three to eight, with attention given to newcomers, to disability sports and to the contribution by volunteers, as well as to team performances and performances by those from other countries. One of the most interesting and moving awards is the Lifetime achievement award which went this year to Steve Ballesteros, the Golfer recovering from surgery for cancer of the brain. There was a major gathering of international golfers in the auditorium to show their support and respect for the golfer who looked still very ill at his Spanish home.

The other change in format is move the show from the BBC studios in London to the large Arenas around the County and this year there was an audience of 10000 at Sheffield on top of the 1000-1500 sporting personalities. Understandably the audience gave a thundering roof raising ovation when a former resident of the city came to the platform as one of the ten nominations, Jessica Ennis winner of the World Athletics Championship Gold Medal for the heptathlon five event.. There are separate award shows prior to the big night in Ireland, Wales and Scotland and 12 Regional events in England.

This year the number of those invited on stage and for whom the public could vote was ten because of the all-round success with Jenson Button the World Racing Champion the bookmakers Favourite and Andrew Strauss Captain of the Winning Ashes Cricket series, and two Athletic Champions who won Gold Medals in the World Championship, another did so in Gymnastics and Tom Daley the 15 year old in High Diving. Andy Murray was nominated for being ranked second in the World and someone who won six stages in the Tour De France Cycle race was another.

I did not expect Tom Daley to win the main award as that is bound to come if he wins an Olympic Medal and other World events. As expected he was the only likely winner of the award for Best Young Personality.

Looking over the records those from Athletics have won 17 Times and Car Racing 6 with Football now 5
Alongside Boxing and Cricket 4. No one has won the trophy twice although a few have been runners up twice and while others have won the trophy as well as being second and third. Two Royals have won Trophies through horse riding which shows public support for the Royals as much as for the sporting achievements as Princess Anne beat George Best although he was also having personal problems at the time. Racing drivers have finished second in the last three years. My money, if I had gambled was on Jennifer Ennis the favourite to win Gold at the last Olympics until injury prevented her from competing at the last moments. Her outstanding win in the World Championship was a great achievement. However while bookmakers had placed Ryan Giggs as the 66.1 outsider, I hoped he would do well. For twenty years he has made an outstanding contribution to Manchester United winning sides with a dozen trophy medals to his credit and he has carried himself with dignity following his marriage and the birth of his children who he sent to bed reminding they had school in the morning. He is unusual in an outstanding way for having played for only one club and for having the same agent throughout his career. They shook hands when he was 17 and have been together without contract since that day. He has scored 100 goals for the club this year and many of his performances have been magical. The word genius is overused but not in his instance. I sometimes criticise the British Public for their choice. To the British Footballing public who voted for him I have to say well done. On Monday morning the was a heated debate on the Five Live News and talk shows with many feeling that the award should have gone to an Athlete who had achieved success at world level for an individual performance. Because of the way these events unfolded adn fthe rediscovering of Forsyte Saga it became a memorable weekend.

Friday 4 December 2009

1837 Long Live the Queen

One of the works of Sophie Calle which attracted my attention was Talking to Strangers. I grew up being afraid of strangers and it has taken over fifty decades to overcome the fear, My childhood was one of controlled isolation where friendships outside the home were discouraged because my mother feared her secret would be found out and the nature of our relationship established which would have damaging repercussions for her employment as a teacher and the financial survival of the family which included a dependent disabled sister, a dependence older sister and a dependent younger sister who had difficulty keeping the most basic of jobs. I never knew the agreement she had reached with my father and the Catholic church over our respective positions. I believe she was also afraid of me, of what I would become.

Later the imposed fear of strangers became complicated with adolescence and then I became committed to an occupation where confidentiality was paramount, one of Father Biestek’s golden principles of social work, and enshrined in the law in various ways. When I last checked the position, which is now over a decade, there were rightly dozens of different pieces of legislation protecting the position of employer’s, colleagues and service users, and it would eb surprising, given the enthusiasm of the Labour administration for legislative action if the position had not been developed and become more complicated as the extent to which information gained by officialdom in all its guises has to be shared and placed on databases in order to protect children and other dependents from abuse and everyone from the terrorist.

In addition to professional and managerial restrictions imposed as a public servant I also agreed to the sign the Official Secrets Act when acting as a temporary government inspector and there was also contracted arrangements when sitting on a committee of enquiry in the early 1980‘s, to subsequently acting as an adviser investigator for the National Lottery Charities Board in the 1990 where the requirement was also to hold documentation for a period of years.

This all has severe repercussions on my social life outside of work because by nature I like not only to talk but to communicate about fundamentals in as honest, direct and frank way as possible. This created further barriers to those developed in childhood and it was only through the creative work of the past decade that I have come to regard sharing oneself as a gift to others while also treating anything shared with me as confidential unless permission is granted to disclose or the matter is already published or made public. The Internet computer has made this possible and immediate. I therefore have enjoyed the freedom to talk within the limitations imposed and self imposed by my work and its aftermath, and talking with strangers has its special characteristics. I suspect there is a substantial difference between my approach and that of Sophie Calle which appears controlled and edited no different from the precision masterpieces of the visual artist times past and where an audience is essential for the work to live. Mine is more inspirational and spontaneous and the writing is rarely reworked more than once so that its imperfections remain intentionally and not

On the way to London, assisting a fellow passenger with their luggage led to conversation, mostly one sided on my part, for the hour’s journey to York where the individual alighted. As people use trains increasingly for short as well as longer trips there is never sufficient luggage space, especially on stopping trains from Aberdeen in the North of Scotland to London and back. There is usually only half an hour turn around time at Kings Cross so with cleaning and restocking and then inserting the seat reservations there is only ten to fifteen minuets for every one to board. On my most recent trip ticket guards formed a chain across the platform which did help to avoid the scramble as everyone tries to find their seat and luggage space at the same time. People lack the discipline to check the seat numbering from outside and thus prevent adding to the struggle by moving within a carriage in the opposite direction to those entering at the correct end.

When relaxing on a settee at the Royal Festival Hall on Saturday afternoon I could not help listening to the conversation taking place on the seating backing on to mine. In one instances a young man was explaining to a young girl that his friends having obtained posts in the provinces after qualification in London he did not visit because of the limits of the cultural life in Northern towns. I could not resist giving him a mini lecture on the virtues of Hull which eh singled out and of Newcastle. He was followed by a trio of young women concerned how the restrictions on the London Underground over the weekend would affect their evening. As it was evident they did not possess accurate information I passed over the full page listing of works and closures which had been published in the London Evening Standard on the Thursday, but not Friday’s edition and which meant that anyone travelling into inner London without access to the paper or to the internet would not know what was happening beforehand. My impression is that the situation has been a regular one as the infrastructure of London Transport is modernised for the 2012 Olympic games.

On the train journey home there was however an example of a helpful intervention which nearly ended in disaster. I had adopted a relaxed approach to the return journey making my way across London on the Thames link train at East Croydon which continued without stopping until London Bridge station and then weaves its way in and out of tunnels to St Pancras. I arrived at Kings cross via the side entrance to hear an announcement that boarding on the 12.30 to Newcastle had commenced and this meant there was no time to buy a BLT baguette. I found that I had been allocated an aisle seat at a table for four which is difficult unless you know the person opposite in terms of foot space and luggage. Fortunately in this instance I spotted a vacant pair of seats close by once the train had set off and moved there after assist the individual opposite at the table to place a bag in the top luggage rack. I had sensed the two women were not talkers and they did not engage in discussion with each other after I had moved

The advantage of the table is that it is easy to use the lap top especially now that every pair of seats has a mains socket whereas my lap top does not fit on the single seat shelf formed from the back of the next seat. I managed by placing by shoulder bag on the spare seat and using this as a surface for the computer.

It was after York as we approached Northallerton that I noticed the young Asian looking young man asking the ladies if he should get of the train for the connection to Middlesbrough. They hesitated and recommended Darlington the next stop, although were a little guilty as we then passed by a sign mentioning that there were trains to Middlesbrough from the station. I was not concentrating on this matter as the train approached Darlington as aware that one of the ladies was getting ready to depart I prepared to move back to the table to use my computer for the rest of the journey, about half an hour of writing in comparative comfort as well as privacy. As we were stationery at Darlington and I had moved into the table corner seat the woman leapt up to remind the young man that he should be getting off the train and as I learnt later he was assisted with his luggage by a member of staff who was working at the adjacent buffet. The woman return to her seat and then cried out in horror as she saw her own main case sitting with his luggage on the platform as the train departed. By the time the train reached Durham twenty minutes later the location of the missing case was not resolved. At Durham I packed up which meant moving to the other end of the compartment where my case was located but on alighting to the platform at Newcastle I walked back to the other doorway to enquire if the matter had been resolved. IT had in so far that it was admitted that the buffet assistant had put out the luggage under the impression that the man who could not speak any English and had a piece of paper on which an address was written, had confirmed it was his. He had then moved with his luggage to enquire about a train to the Boro leaving the woman’s luggage alone on the platform where it had been placed. It was being put on the next train from the Boro to Newcastle and she would have to wait around three quarters of an hour. Being the good Samaritan can have drawbacks.

I had managed to get by BLT a sandwich and a cup of tea soon after the train set off and then managed to spill almost all the contents of the plastic mug. The guard was nearby and went and got me a replacement which when still full and train jerked over some points I managed spill over myself as well as the one of the seats. I felt a fool and was for not taking more care.

Arriving back at South Shields it started to pour with rain so I made a dash to the Wetherspoon’s in time for the afternoon Fish and Chip special with bread and butter and a cup of tea cost only £3.20. The rain stopped sufficient for me to complete the journey in the dry. A young woman was smoking under the porch as I arrived and we briefly chatted. Later I did not recognise her at the bar as I went up to order the food and she had removed her coat until she told the bar I had just got off the train from London and had been caught in downpour which she said had been worse earlier in the day. It was evident from the rest of the conversation with the barman that she was celebrating a birthday with a small group of female friends and that she was disappointed that many of those known to both of them were not coming on this inhospitable Monday night. Later the group moved on with the intention of getting ratted. Another group of different ages and sexes appeared to be having a great time from the laughter which emanated. It was between six thirty and seven as I made my way up the rest of the hill. The night was very young for these revellers

On the Sunday I had watched the first of the five part documentary drama Queen- the Monarchy, which was being shown on five consecutive nights on channel four and set out to reveal the behind the scenes reality of major events during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the second’s fifty years of reign so far. The programme has a good format using original news film from each period plus interviews with former and present insiders and dramatised exchanges involving the Queen to provide the Inside Story. I remained uncertain about the objective of the series throughout.

The first programme covered her role in relationship between her sister and Captain Peter Townsend, the Equerry to the Royal Household, and although an outstanding war hero, he was an older married man and a servant in the royal household. The main point of this episode was to allege that the Queen had played a key role in persuading Princess Margaret that marrying Group Captain Townsend after he had become divorced and she had reached 25 years at which she no longer required the consent of the monarch was not in the national interest or that of the Church of England and the Royal Family. The position taken by the Queen was understandable given that she had only inherited the title from her father because of the abdication of his brother. The programme suggested that without the intervention of the Queen, the marriage would have gone ahead because the government indicated that the marriage would not be opposed as long as the Princess gave up her place in the line of succession. The programme heralded the position the Queen, her mother and Princess Margaret would take in relation to the break up of the marriages of her children and the marriage of Charles to Mrs Parker Bowles two generations later.

While in the 1950’s the majority of the country and further afield had sympathy with the Princess there was a different mood developing about the value of the Monarchy as the 1960’s moved into the 1970’s and an increasing majority refused to accept authority simply because of the positions held. This was not the right time to address the request for an increase in the civil list, that is the money provided by the tax payer for the upkeep of the institution of the monarchy which includes the full costs of pubic engagement carried out and the upkeep of the official residences, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Sandringham and Balmoral for the Queen and the other Palaces and State Parliaments for her children and subsequently her grandchildren.

The Civil List had not been increased during her reign but the move occurred at a time when the Wilson Government contained many who questioned the value of the Monarchy. The request was not helped by the Duke of Edinburgh who said he might have to give up Polo and move into a smaller home. Wilson’s approach was suggest caution and the setting up of all party committee so that any recommendations would command support of a majority. The Queen and members of the family together with Palace official resented the intrusion into the details of their official expenditure. The private income was kept private and the issue of paying income tax was not then under an issue allowed for discussion. Interestingly the programme reveals that the Queen was more comfortable with Labour Harold Wilson than she was with Ted Heath and was pleased when he was defeated in the election which was billed as the state versus the miner’s, and who had gone on strike for the first time in fifty years and where everyone including the palace had restricted electricity supply for several hours every day. On one visit to a university the Queen was subjected to heckling which included chants of Queen Out. I was reminded how strong the Wilson government had become with forceful characters such as Barbara Castle and Michael Foot on the left, Callaghan, Crosland and Jenkins and with the republican Willie Hamilton voicing what many felt was the incompatibility of the British democratic state being run by Monarch led hunting aristocracy.

What turned opinion back in favour of the Monarchy in a period where questioning its value had increased from under twenty percent to forty was two staged events with the Investiture of the heir to the throne Charles as Prince of Wales and the marriage of Princess Anne. However the event which had the greatest impact was the near murder of Princess Anne whose car had stopped and attempt made to abduct her during which her body guard was severely injured. The Civil List was doubled and Republicans would have to wait another 20 years before the issue came to the fore again.

The next event covered by the series was the relationship between the Queen and Margaret Thatcher who adopted the royal “we” although in fairness in the context of her government and emphasising the democratic nature of her position against the heredity position of the head of state.
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Since the ending of the Empire the Queen has regarded herself as more than just a figurehead for the nations participating in the Commonwealth, all former colonies of the British Isles. The issue which was reported to have divided the Thatcher and the Queen was the wish of the Black African states in particular to establish meaningful economic sanctions against Apartheid South Africa. Margaret Thatcher was rightly opposed to sanctions on the grounds that they never worked because friends and enemies would provide materials and services and the impact would be felt both on imports thus causing hardship among the very people the sanctions were trying to help as well as hitting exporters of manufactured goods and services at home. However whereas opposition to sanction is the correct position from the viewpoint of a government elected to progress and sustain capitalism there is the moral problem as opposition to sanctions appears to indicate support for a loathsome regime which had no intention of changing except through military intervention. The queen feared the Commonwealth would break up and is represented in the programmes as wanting a compromise.

The position deteriorated with a significant boycott of the Commonwealth Games held in Edinburgh and where I was able to get a ticket sitting a few rows behind her Majesty on the day of her second visit after the official opening. The situation was eased by the adoption of less effective sanctions by the ECC which Britain could sign up to and a briefing of the newspaper Today by the Queen’s Press Secretary in which he disclosed her concern over the possible break up of the Commonwealth and her concern at the way the police were responding to the Miner‘s strike. That the position of the Queen became known did help avoid the breaking up of the Commonwealth but the constitutional significance cannot be overplayed. The programme suggested that the Press Secretary lied and mislead to save his ski but would eh have briefed the media in such a way if he had not been convinced that her Majesty wanted her view to be known? We have a situation where the head of state is just a figurehead but which in turn supports a feudal system of wealth, power and status and where governments and the Prime Minister in particular is able to act as a President and enjoy all the privileges which political power brings while preparing to create a fortune once they leave office through the connections and alliances which have been formed with power establishment led by the monarch. It is a system which works and it is questionable if there are other systems which work better in the interests of all the people. What is interesting is the Queen appeared to get on with Labour administrations more than the Tory ones of Heath and Thatcher. .

As someone who has witnessed unprovoked police brutality against peaceful demonstrators, it will be surprising and that I also understand the difficult task the police have in any situation where there is a mass protest especially when they are outnumbered. The problem is that there are always individuals and groups determined to create violence both to overthrow the system or to discredit those demonstrating. Recently the report on policing at the economic summit in London concluded that different training was required. At Whitechapel Gallery last Friday I discovered that there was an organisation which had promoted the violent overthrow of a bank and distributed a newspaper promoting the action. I have also witnessed two situations and London underground stations where mobs of violent men associated with individual football clubs not only fought each other viciously but then turned on the police who were attempting to keep the mobs apart. I was also aware that in the Miner’s strike the motivation of the Leader was not just halting the contraction of the mining industry and the protection of jobs and livelihoods but a political desire to bring down the Thatcher Government as happened in relation to Edward Heath, and to impose a Stalinist type of socialist dictatorship. It is never easy and almost impossible to strike the balance between protecting the state and you and me from the criminal, the violent and the terrorist and the right to demonstrate and voice dissent.

In the fourth programme last night Barbara Flynn played Her Majesty during the Annus Horribililis in which the carefully crafted myth of a united and happy Royal Family dedicated to public service was blown part by her children as one by one marriages of the three eldest children fell apart. The programme was explicit over the use of the press by the Princess of Wales and that Charles mislead his mother over his relationship with the married and then divorced Mrs Parker Bowles. The behaviour of Sarah Fergusson was also covered and the break of the marriage of Princess Anne. What shook me and I hope was duly noted by the palace is that the Queen was shown to have become more affected by the fire at Windsor Castle than the behaviour of her children. What was revealed about the relationship between Charles and Camilla appeared to me to make it difficult for him to be accepted as King when his mother dies or for Camilla to gain the affection of the people. The development of the UK as a multiracial and multinational society will have profound effect on the future of the monarchy and the nature of British Government over the next five years of which the effects of the expenses scandal is yet to be realised.

The final programme last night was splendid in that it explained the firm opposition of the Queen, supported by her mother and her sister to recognising the long standing mistress of Prince Charles and how she was persuaded to accept the situation once a decent period had elapsed after the death of Diana, especially when her grown up grandchildren accepted their father’s long standing choice of partner. The programme ended with what appeared to be a very moving and heartfelt acceptance of the marriage and best wishes from the Queen at the wedding day reception.

The programme was revealing in several respects. It showed how Prince Charles set out to force the Queen to accept Camilla as his wife and future Queen for that is what she would be in all but name. He hired a bright young and active media team who defined the problem as the Queen, Queen mother and Princess Margaret being old fashioned and out of touch and unlikely to be persuaded to change their position and 60 million citizens where an increasing number we were divorced, lived with or had mistresses or did not care what the Monarchy did or did nor do as long as it did not affect their lives. He sent out to change public opinion and was exceptionally successful in this.

The message of the series is therefore you can get away with anything as long as you have the right public relations and media team. You will continue to be able to do so in government as long as there are two substantial political parties who broadly agree with the existing economic and financial and political structure and system of the UK. This involves maintaining the role of city, banking and investment system, the Monarchy and the Parliamentary system with the government supremacy aided by a House of Lords and a weak House of Commons. I suspect they will get away with it but as the composition of the society changes, as the further education development takes full effect, I believe no one can forecast what will happen although the next few months could prove crucial. Long may she reign I say, but after her there has to be change.

Monday 23 November 2009

1322 7th 24 with Hannah Hauxwell and the Curse of Steptoe at Easter

12.00 The Bach Saint John Passion is being sung in German. The first receipt is for 20 copies of Guardian Newspaper which had printed my article explaining the general reasons why I had prematurely retired from my work, that the creation of generic social workers within social service department had been a major error as well as original way the departments became organised. This arose because so many unqualified men without any experience or ability to manage the child care services had been put in charge and I blame this for much of the criminal violence, physical and sexual which befell children in care between 1971 and 1991. These men did not understand the nature of public child care or the threats to the children within public care as well as within the community and the need for carefully selected dedicated and skilled officers, in practice, staff supervision and management.

It was over a decade before a subsequent a government adopted my recommendation for the recreation of child care departments but under the umbrella of Education Departments and for the social services concerned with adults to be brought under the health services or more closely allied to them.

14.00 Benianimo Gigli was the classical tenor of my childhood adored by my birth and care mothers and whose records were among the first she ever purchased when she was able to afford a wind up gramophone. It is one my regrets that it was sold along with the gramophone when I was a teenager. I managed to find a version of Schubert’s Ave Maria sung by a young chorister for the creation service of my mother, with a few bars for arrival and then a full rendition at the conclusion. I thought of that and of her and my childhood when listening to Gigli version this morning along with Caterine and Torna a Sorrento, where I was to visit and attend the Film Festival in 1965 along with other adventures as part of a tour through Belgium, Germany Austria, the Italy, Switzerland France and home within three weeks in my second car, a Morris Mini estate, the first was the Ford Prefect bought new for my 18th birthday by my care mother from the money she had received from the Industrial Injuries Tribunal, for the loss of an eye at the factory where she worked. There is also the Angus Dei and many other favourites on disk one, I decided on the Brendel before disk 2 as he plays Mozart’s Rondo in A the Sonata in major, in B Flat major and in C Major

14.15. I have completed a seven set first volume of the self employment receipts for 1992 and 1993 after I registered for self employment 9798 9803 and after a coffee commence work on the second.
15.00 A period of silence

17.00 The second volume of self employment records 1992 1993 had been completed 7804-7809 and I place an order for more blue lever arch files at the price of 69 pence plus VAT. There will now be deliveries on Tuesday and Wednesday so I will not be able to go out on either day until the orders have been delivered. I watch a WW2 1951 made film about the use of Frogmen which centres on the relationship between a special operations group who lose their commander officer and the man appointed to replace him, Richard Widmark, and the Chief, played by Dana Andrews, A young Richard Wagner also has a role in the film It is a conventionally told story of the time in which the new leader proves himself and justifies his disciplined and cool approach which puts their mission first but does not ignore the welfare of everyone involved. Afterwards I watch episode 15 of a series on the last six months of World War 2. In this hour long episode Lord Haw Haw is executed by hanging after capture, the battle for Okinawa continues to take it toll on both sides and the Japanese refuse to surrender despite the bombing of cities with the loss of over a quarter million lives of non combatants. The build up towards using the A bomb is also covered, My complaint has always been on the decision to use the bomb on cities and not on unpopulated area first. Before I had studied history, the events which led to First and second World wars and the nature of the regimes in Germany and Russia, I considered the decision to develop the Atomic and then Nuclear weaponry a disaster for humankind, until and then I understood that wanting to know, curiosity, experimentation, testing, problem solving were all inherent parts of the human experience, and that individually and collectively we had to first understand and then learn how to use the forces within the universe constructively and creatively, or perish prematurely by them. There is always no turning back to a different time, but we can and should study past times with the same objectivity and scientific method as we approach the future. Back in 1945 there was an inevitability about what happened, however awful the immediate and long tern consequences. There was no way the Japanese would voluntarily surrender. It was not within their psyche, and it is understandable the Generals and the Politicians feared that to break the Japanese spirit they would have to repeat Iwo Jima and Okinawa inch by inch over its Empire. I now accept that a warning explosion may not have worked, but it should have been tried. That remains my complaint. In its way it was an appropriate film to watch on this day.

19.00. The second meal of the day comprised two Salmon fishcakes of the quality where you can see large flakes of salmon as well as taste with baked beans and a banana.

20.00 The delight of the day was a programme which reminded of the life of Hannah Hauxwell and her present day life in a village in her eighties and with restricted walking ability. I was one of the millions who was first introduced into this simple but remarkable woman who managed a Dales hill farm after her parents died and who at 46 looked much older. In 1972 she was the subject of a documentary Too Long a Winter was designed to show the live of those who worked in the High Pennines. She lived in the house built by her grandfather, without electricity or running water. The impact of the programme was such that the phones of Yorkshire TV were jammed for several days with people making offers of help. A local factory put up the money so that electricity could be brought to the home and she received thousands of letters, from all over the world as the programme was shown. Then twenty years later the original producer Barry Cockcroft and camera man went back for A Winter too many, as she decided it was time to sell up and move into a cottage, but beforehand she was the guest of honour at the Women of the Year Gala. Books about her life were also produced and she was then taken by Cockcroft to Paris, Venice and Sorrento and on holiday to New York. This evening she was shown in her cottage which had become jammed packed with possessions which she admits she is unable to discard. What was evident is that the person who conquered the nation’s hearts several decades before had not changed, and hopefully would enjoy the renewed attention in her life.

21.00 There is a new USA glossy import, a kind of updated Dallas, set in New York. which merit’s no attention, the suicidal daughter who wants to be an actress but cannot act, the son full of angst who is into drugs and gambling, the state attorney general who has national political ambitions but is into his seventh different relationship with a transvestite, the preacher son who won’t recognise in public his illegitimate son, the wife who has tried hide a forty year relationship with the family’s legal adviser and fixer who has recently died in questionable circumstances, and the head of the family, the wealthy influential Man of America who brings in the son of the family Counsellor, now working as a lawyer for the poor and disenfranchised, after the death of his father, (the body is missing from the helicopter whose mechanism appears to have been tampered with). He is married and seduced by the offer of $10 million dollars a year to do his good works, keeping on his practice and staff while he attends to the needs of the family 24/7, and this possibly includes the needs of the daughter, not previously mentioned, who has a torch for the hero, but manages a succession of disastrous relationships with men only after her money and influence of her father. My thought was the he is the son of the family head in this incestuous mish mash designed to appeal to the jaded palettes of the Dallas and Dynasty soap. The hero is an idiot by the way. He seriously proposed that in exchange for becoming the best paid family counsellor fixer in the land he could work office hours, and remain his own master. If it was not Easter I would be inclined to summon a Biblical plague on them. Then at 22,00, the second brilliant find of the evening, a dramatization of the on stage relationship between Wilfred Brambell and Harry H Corbett and of their private lives. Steptoe and Son proved to be an extraordinary successful situation comedy about a Rag and Bone man and his son, watched by 22 million viewers in the UK alone written by Alan Simpson and Ray Galton of Hancock’s Half Hour, What made the programme essential viewing for a third of the nation was the relationship between the two men, touching the fundamentals of all love hate relationships where people have become interdependent but wish they were not. There were eight series of five to eight programmes between 1962 and 1974 plus a final Christmas special making 57 shows, and unusually a radio series followed from the television success, and also two feature films. The on screen relationship reflected something of the lives of the two men, Harry Corbett was born to a military father in Burma, old enough to serve at the end of World War 2, his mother died when he was three and he was raised by an aunt in Manchester. In one telling moment in tonight’s drama documentary the Curse of Steptoe, his first wife, the talented actress Sheila Steafel declares that for a marriage to work at least one of the couple has to be an adult, as their relationship came to an end when he commenced an affair with an actress met in a film which he hoped would enable him to return to serious acting, but where he was pressed into playing someone who had made it from the working class and still retained his roots, a la Michael Caine. From the second marriage he had two children one of whom became an actress. Harry H died of a major heart attack when only 57, 12 years younger than me, frustrated that he was never able to achieve the acting success forecast for him as the British Marlon Brando. While Harry started life with a void, Wilfred Brambell spent the greater part of his life hiding his homosexuality, and finding it difficult to come to terms with this aspect of his life, becoming an alcoholic with the latter affecting his ability to learn lines and keep to schedules. He was in fact only 13 years older than Corbett, but was able to play an older man several decades than his true age appearing in the Quatermass series on 1953 and 1955 and 1984 in between. He was married but separated after his wife had a son by their lodger, Roger,. Even though homosexuality between consenting adults became legalised he avoided the attention and publicity in the UK by becoming an early sex tourist holidaying in Far East, but established a long term relationship to whom he left a substantial sum when he also died within a couple of years of Corbet aged 73. He was given other opportunities including a Broadway Musical which closed after one night. The drama documentary was followed by an episode from the series, the holiday which emphasised the depth of the two acting performances, something which the two actors in the drama documentary did exceptionally well to match but also underlined the exceptional abilities and special interaction of the originals.

01.30 I go to bed concluding it had been a better Good Friday than anticipated, a day which I had become more focussed on the 101.75 work in translating the 200 boxes of material in cupboard store into sets and volumes before the cost of doing so becomes out of my reach.

09.30 For once I have no recollection of getting up during the night but of prolonged dreaming. I know I resisted getting up with light and went back to sleep again, but did I really pass a whole night without needing to rise? If so I will have to examine the ingredients of the day beforehand.

11.00 Just a coffee has helped me to this point. My mobile phone is being difficult and I will get myself up properly, have a brunch and try and find a new replacement phone. My priority of today. And so it was to be and not as I expected.

Thursday 12 November 2009

1310 About Livingston Stanley and Burton and about me

It is rare that what is planned lives up to expectation so I celebrated my birthday yesterday by drinking several glasses of bubbly and enjoying food when it was fancied, and writing until the early hours and delighting in the humiliation of Chelsea, and the Russian who came over here to prove that money can buy anything, forgetting that even if you buy bodies you will never reach souls. We liked Chelsea only with Murinho because he has soul so all who believe in the great game will join me in wishing further humiliations until he takes his money home and we can begin to regain our Premier league. Of course will not happen. I mean it is like Barnsley or Cardiff winning the FA Cup this year?

To day, getting up too late for breakfast and too early for lunch and feeling like neither, I dabbled in this, and that, for half an hour and then checked my expectation that English cricket was to be humiliated just as English Rugby had been, along with Newcastle Football, and then later in the afternoon the Boro.

Sunderland was not humiliated but just bored everyone for the first half in frustrating the more skilled opposition and put up a little show towards the end when it was evidently too late and we were past caring. Me thinks Roy, and the chairman and their financial backers have begun to lose the plot. You have to remember the soul of this club with its history of glorious defeats. I arrived at what has become my usual parking spot in time to walk into the city centre and obtain a book from Smiths about the basics of acrylic, so that although I had commenced to use the medium, I have progressed in my approach and now want to understand before using further. I want, for once, to be able to create what I feel and see, because the concept alone is not enough and getting others to make it real is cheating contemporary or any other form of art. You can do what you feel and think and call it art as long as you do it.

I say obtained the book because I used a gift card so technically someone else bought, as someone else bought, with another gift card at M and S, both from Christmas, a prawn sandwich and a custard tart for lunch followed by some chocolate covered peanuts kept in the car for the next time I went to the pictures and they had only lasted so long because I had forgotten they were there.

Earlier I experienced ghosts of my time and before. They were mostly good ghosts, some exceptional and engaging beings. I discovered that the film of the search in Africa by Henry Stanley for Dr Livingstone, Forbidden Territory, was being shown which along with a BBC film series decades ago, descriptively titled, the Search for the Nile is about the hold which an idea and an objective can have on the lives of human beings. It is all about what captured the imagination of the British public and their homeland was about to create the British Empire. This film is more about Henry Morton Stanley than Doctor Livingstone, and even though I had seen the film before, I had forgotten of its important chords.
Towards the end of the film when Stanley, having been made the heir to Livingstone's missions to find the source of the Nile and help to bring about the de facto end of slavery, he is reportedly shouted down and ridiculed by the men and some women of the Royal Geographical Society over his claims because he was a journalist and not one of them. I know that experience only too well when I was one of three who voted over the immediate amalgamation of the Association of Child Care Officers into the too quickly generic British Association of Social Workers and I still find it difficult to forgive all those who once they saw the disaster of forcing those dedicated to working with children, working with adults and vice versa, the refused or who then denied the extent to which those employed to care for children, committed acts of physical and sexual violence against them, with the BBC still calling what happened in Jersey abuse. I was once given the opportunity to address a fringe meetings of the Labour Party at its annual conference on subject of mental health along with Barbara Castle David Owen and David Ennals, and saw the chasm open in the faces of those sitting in audience, including some who became Ministers, as soon as I had pointed out there was not one reference to child care or welfare among the hundreds of resolutions submitted by constituencies for consideration (Child care was then a specific service covering children in care or being prevented from coming into care or appearing in the juvenile courts, and provided by social workers, and different from child welfare provided by health visitors and the parents and other relatives).

Stanley was born in the days when you were described as a bastard on the birth certificate (1841) and was placed in the workhouse after his grandfather died and after completing elementary education he was employed as pupil teacher in a national school, a similar situation to my mother half a century later. He is said to have been taken in by a local wealthy man assuming his surname and consequently pretended to be an American when the couple died, denying he was a foreigner. He was reluctantly called up to the Confederate Army and taken prisoner by the other side which he then joined, but did not begin fighting and then joined the navy where he quickly deserted. He took up the cause of Native Americans as a journalist had some adventures in the middle East went to jail but talked his way out of the situation. After publishing a book about his adventure he was taken up by the founder of the New York Herald. How much of his story was been checked by contemporaries is not stated.

Following the succession of the son of the founder of the paper Stanley was able to persuade his employers to fund an expedition to find Dr Livingston who had disappeared into the depths of Africa for a period of six years. He landed at Zanzibar hiring 200 porters, with one internet source mistyping this as 2000, and embarked on a 700 mile expedition during which many died from disease and fighting, and one source suggests that he exaggerated his stern treatment of his entourage to prevent desertion because this was favoured Victorian approach, among the reading public, as even Missionaries were known to flog those paid small sums to help them.

It was on November 10th 1871 then he met up with Dr Livingston, although here are disputes about this, and more so if the famous words, Dr Livingstone I presume was said, or just the make up of the paper's editorial, who to day the whole thing would be filmed on through a Satellite transmitting computer to 24/7 live Although the two men failed to establish the source of the Nile they did prove that it was not Lake Tanganyika. He published a book on this expedition which helped to make the image of Livingstone although the fame also brought to attention his own origins which contributed to his view of events being questioned by the 'establishment' until Livingston's family confirmed that the letters brought back by Stanley from Livingstone were authentic.

Three years later Stanley returned leading an expedition involving 356 people, and which traced the river Congo to the sea, after 999 days, with only 114 survivors including himself as the only European. He published Through the Dark Continent. He then embarked on a new expedition financed by the King of Belgium designed to acquired land under the front of scientific and philanthropic work. His later expeditions were also marked with controversy but he survived attacks and late in life he married, adopted a child and became a Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament. He was knighted and became a legend. Spencer Tracey and Sir Cedric Hardwicke starred in a film about his meeting with Livingston and their lives in 1939. His great grandson is a South African film maker.

I had known more about David Livingston having acquired a 1974 edition of the Tim Jeal Biography. He was a medical Missionary with the London Missionary Society rather than setting out to be an explorer of the African Continent and was the first European to see the Mosi-oa-0'Tunya which he named the Victoria Falls after his Queen.


In his childhood Livingston became an avid reader, which can be a dangerous occupation for a young person as it brings knowledge, curiosity and fires the imagination. His fundamentalist father attempted to stop this but David continued to examine the relationship between religion and science. His first work was in South Africa where as an abolitionist of the slave trade he hoped legitimate work opportunities would bring about its ending, He was badly mauled by a lion, partially disabling one arm and causing him a lifetime of pain. He married the eldest daughter of a missionary in 1845 who was born in Scotland but lived in Africa from the age of four.

He had little heart for traditional missionary work, quickly coming to understand and respect African cultures and his interest became more one of exploration, but whereas other European expeditions were armed with commercial and territorial ambitions, his were small with few porters and paying their way. He returned to Britain to publish a book about his experiences and approaches and this brought him to public attention. This led to British government sponsored Zambezi expedition which he was ill equipped to lead and where during its six years his wife died of malaria, leaving his children effectively orphaned. He then commenced his search for the source of the Nile following on work of Richard Burton, John Speak and others where their findings that the source was somewhere between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria was roughly correct. Livingston's conclusion turned out to be the Upper Congo River, confirmed by Stanley subsequently.

Throughout his life he was a constant opponent of slavery but had little impact given the commercial and other interests involved in turning an open eye to the trade. However he became well known internationally and his disappearance aroused interest and led to the Stanley search. The disappearance was unintentional as only one of 44 letters reached Zanzibar. While his heart was physically buried in Africa, the rest of his body was carried 1000 miles by his close attendants so that it could he returned to Britain where he was buried in Westminster Abbey. Paradoxically his good relations with African leaders helped subsequent colonization. There are innumerable statues and memorials to him throughout Africa, Scotland, in London and Canada and the USA. The most interesting legacy in popular culture occurs in the Get Smart Again film where Max says Dr Hottentot I presume.

The Search for the Nile film led me to Alan Moorehead's book, the White Nile 1972 edition and a particular interest in the extraordinary explorer and man of letters and everything else, Richard Francis Burton where there is general agreement that he achieved success as a translator, linguist, poet and writer, as orientalist and ethnologist, and as a soldier and as hypnotist in addition to his exploring. Some know him more for bringing the Kama Sutra to the attention of Western Europeans and for his unexpurgated translation of the Book of One Thousands Nights and a Night! He is considered to be the first non Muslim European to make the Hajj to Mecca (in disguise) 1853. It was during the subsequent expedition with several British officers that his party was attacked and outnumbered with the consequence that he was impaled in the face with a javelin, one officer was killed and Lieutenant Speke who was to accompany him on subsequent expeditions, was captured and received eleven wounds but managed to escape with a weapon fixed to his head. In 1855 Burton rejoined the army to fight in the Crimea where it is said he was adversely mentioned in relation to the subsequent mutiny.

This did not prevent Royal Geological Society funding an expedition to find the source of the Nile. As with the other explorers of the Day it was only afterwards that the writing of their exploits brought their work to the wider public attention. It was after this expedition that the two men quarrelled and shortly before they were to debate issues at the British Association for the Advancement of Science Speke was killed in a hunting accident, although there is the suggestion that his wounds were self inflicted.

In 1861 Burton married a Catholic but did not adopt her faith and joined the Diplomatic Service serving in Equatorial Guinea, Brazil and Damascus, and after some problems to Trieste (Austria-Hungary) a post which required little work enabling him to write and travel. He was knighted in 1996 and when his travel books were not well received he then made his contributions to the Karma Shastra Society. Much of his work was scandalous and pro Muslim rather pro Jewish and which led claims and counter claims, He died at Trieste in 1890. After his death his wife burned many of his papers to protect his reputation, and action which some subsequently criticised her. Her actions does not surprise given his openness about his interests and reputation for aggressiveness, his drinking, drug taking and general love of shocking people. It could be argue that his placement by the government in a non job in Trieste for twenty years was a splendid way for the British government to try a sideline a problem individual who had become well established in the public eye.

My own interest in Africa and with Missionary work was fired up b the visit of a missionary priest to the John Fisher School which everyone attended around 1953/1954 and led to my requesting to study Latin which had been dropped when I dropped from the A stream to the B for the fifth form year as he had emphasised that before one could go adventuring saving souls, one had to go to university and to study Latin

After all this seriousness I ended my day starting to write by playing chess against the computer, and having some soup at six on return for them match, and then burning to a nice crisp surface a small shoulder of minted lamb with I eat with a glass of red wine, coca cola and a large glass of orange juice, but without vegetables, followed by a small custard tart and strong coffee without sugar. During this I enjoyed the first colour version of The 39 Steps with Kenneth Moore, although the film is inferior to the 1935 Hitchcock Black and White film, subsequently re-shown in a London Theatre (was it the 1980's or 1990's) and which is regarded as one of the great films of British Cinema, but I also liked the 1978 Robert Powell starring edition with John Mills, Timothy West, Eric Porter and David Warner and which is the most faithful to the John Buchan Book.

Yesterday I then became fully engaged with this week's Lewis which was another brilliantly crafted work which takes the relationship between Lewis and his Sergeant to a new and higher level. My only reservation is that as with the villages of Mid Summer's Murders, Oxford is becoming a very dangerous city as the body count from Morse and Lewis accumulates. The episodes concerns four connected deaths by someone who has disappeared and may have committed suicide. However the main focus is with the past of the Sergeant and his knowledge and involvement with those who perish and which brings him into the line of fire with spectacular consequences.