The Post of Christmas Present: Part 1

It’s that time of year again. Local newspapers carry a myriad of stories of councils removing all references of ‘Christ’, ‘Xmas’, ‘Christianity’ and ‘Jesus’ in the name of political correctness. Of course, if it were true, all you’d be left with is the holiday season of ‘_[blank]_’, and the Daily Mail would probably come up with a headline about immigrants living in gap left by the removal of the word ‘Christmas’ in homes built by Polish builders.

The official start of my little Christmas series is marked by tales of woe from members of the public visiting ‘Lapland village’. The BBC has been awash with consumers venting their anger that the huskies weren’t cute enough, the snow wasn’t deep enough, the elves seemed a little grumpy, and Santa wasn’t jolly enough.

Of course, their first mistake was going to Lapland on the Dorset-Hampshire border. Dorset’s not really known for deep snow, reindeer and husky-racing. I’m sure as a small child I’d have saved on postage if I’d know Lapland was really just a little way down the road from Hythe. To be honest, I’m impressed these poor little naive Nigel’s didn’t end up in a Stringfellow institution by just blindly going to any old Lapland. You’d need to be careful about sitting on Santa’s knee in that situation I suspect.

It has, of course, been of amazing benefit to raising everyone’s Christmas spirit. If there is such a thing as a national pastime, I’d put moaning well above cricket and tea-drinking any day. We didn’t win the war because of Spitfires or bombs, we won it because those people in Anderson shelters were so desperate to finish their arguments and have a good moan with Mrs Jones at No.48 that there was no way something like the Blitz was going to stop them.

So, here’s a bit of advice: Leave the children at home and go and do something tacky to kick-start your Christmas. It’s not just the turkey that needs a few hours somewhere warm before it’s ready for Christmas, start the arguing early and the temperature will be just right by December 25th.

Bah! Humbug!

PS If you’re taking part in my Christmas Day cookalong, it’s now time to start the sprouts simmering if they’re going to be ready by 2pm on the 25th.

Spooky

It must be a difficult life being an MP. Over the last week alone MFI has collapsed meaning they’ll have to go to Ikea this year to get their new kitchen on expenses. I probably spend approximately 60 seconds a day panicking whilst I try to find a pen, but the average MP spends thousands of pounds a year of our money buying stationary, so think of all of those minutes they waste agonising over whether to use the Waterman or the Parker to sign the letter some underling has written on their behalf.

No wonder then that ‘the people’ have become a little disinterested in them. In  a 2002 survey published by John Denham, then secretary for Children and Young People, teenagers tried to illustrate ways of making MPism more appealing. Cringingly top of the list was using easier to understand words, presumably ‘gr8’ and ‘minger’, but there were some truths. 60% admitted having little or no interest, suggesting that MPs try to reach them through music events. A third suggested parliamentary and electoral story lines in soap operas – presumably there’d be an MP on Eastenders in the Queen Vic whilst Peggy Mitchell shouts ‘Tory foreign policy? Get out of my pub’, and for balance a Labour MP will be killed by a ferry disaster in the Emerdale Omnibus.

It’s hard to deny MPism is boring though, which might be why everyone’s making such a hoo-hah about Damian Green’s arrest. Newspapers are making claims about Tory offices being routinely swept for bugs. MP’s are talking about a Stalinesque state. Suddenly politics is exciting. It’s George Orwell. It’s cool.

In reality it’s about information which would ultimately have ended up in the public domain getting into the public domain before those supposedly serving the public in a public office want the public to know the publicly available information. Yes, Sir Humphrey is alive and well.

There are lots of emotive words being thrown around all in the Venn diagram with Cold War cliches and Andy McNab novels, and it can be no coincidence we’re in the middle of a series of Spooks. They want us to believe there are men in black suits sneaking around after dark, secret codewords, surveillance ops and men in long dark anoraks.

In reality, no one cares. And I think they know it.

In reality it’s Golf clubs not fisty cuffs. Jack Bauer would die of boredom doing the cryptic crossword in the members bar whilst his contact talked about the latest onyx table outlet to open and the latest Joanna Trollope. It’s M&S not MI5.

Robert DeNiro’s Waitering: Talking Italian

It was around 10pm and we were somewhere in Bristol.

“I’m hungry”
“Me too”
“Let’s try this Italian Place”

And, quick as a flash, there we were in ‘Zzz’ (Obviously that wasn’t it’s actual name – who’d think that was a good choice for authentic Italian cuisine? – I’ve removed a vowel or two to protect the innocent and as Lloyd Grossman used to say on Through the Keyhole – now there’s a creepy idea for a reality show – ‘The clues are there’).

I’m not sure if I’m alone in this, but I always seem to end up being seated at the back of restarant. The tables reserved for Hen and Stag parties, the Hitlers, and men in long anorak’s called ‘Nigel’. You’re led on a walk of shame, compelled to stare at the floor, as the waiter leads you through row after row of empty tables and groups of young people wearing trendy plastic-rimmed glasses. You walk passed the tables, through the kitchen, passed the bins, down an alleyway and into the greasy spoon on the corner of the next street.

Okay, so it wasn’t that bad. But you get the idea.

“So guys,”, said our waiter with too much chirpiness and familiarity, “what is it tonight? Shopping or of out on the town afterwards?”. I looked at Sarah’s nice, but clearly not Friday-night-on-the-town-material thick red jumpers, and my wooly fleece worthy of Val Doonicon, our huge pile of shopping bags, and tried desperately to hold in a chuckle. Perhaps he thought we were off to see the band of the Royal Scots Guards, or Emerdale Farm:Live or something.

“Bit of shopping”, replied Sarah trying not to meet my eye.

All was going well at first. We were presented with our drinks in an orderly fashion (Italian beer, if you’re interested: like Belgian beer, but oranger), and treated to a brief appraisal of our Italina pronunciation whilst ordering. Then the waiter gave us a brief history of his Italian friend, who’d taught him how to prounounce the entire menu when he’d started working there.

It’s an interesting combination of the human senses that creates our impression. Thankfully hearing isn’t one of them. With film-score timing, the fire alarm started just as the waiter tilted my plate onto the table and covered my thumb in boiling pasta source.

We debated whether we should leave – we were hungry, yes, but hungry enough to burn alive in the process?

“I’ll just go and find out what’s going on. This hardly ever happens”, smiled waiter-boy. I suspected that there was probably a fire somewhere and that someone had incorporated a great system into the design of the building that alerted people to this fact, but I let it go. Instead my mind wandered, as best it could to the soundtrack of a 120 decibel siren, around the phrase ‘hardly ever happens’.

And so this went on some time. Mouthful of food, deafening noise, fight the instict to bash head against the table, swallow, repeat.

“Deserts?” chirped over-eager Waiter. He was hopeful. But, being English, we ordered them through politeness.

“I’m definitely going out for a drink in a bit”, Puppy-waiter informed us, “it’s been a night of complaints”.

Really? You mean I wasn’t the only one who thought trying to eat whilst fighting the urge to do a Reservoir Dogs job on my own ears just to silence the fire alarm? And then I started to feel bad. Sarah had complained about her meal just a bit – it didn’t have even one piece of chicken in it, which isn’t usually what is expected of a chicken and pasta dish.

I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to point out that his over-eagerness to serve his customers had meant I’d spent the entire meal feeling like I had to eat whilst smiling and going ‘mmm, nice’. I wanted to point out that speaking Italian is not necessarily a prerequisite to eating pasta. I wanted to point out that a fire alarm is a pretty universal thing, and shouldn’t be treated like a minor irritation like a Leona Lewis song on the radio.

But I’m English. So we left him a £5 tip to go and drown his sorrows.

Pulling Teeth

“Why don’t you just change your dentist?” is a phrase heard frequently around our house. Or at least it was. Last week it was replaced by ‘What?!? You mean you still haven’t changed your dentist’.

Like all of life’s unpleasant but necessary interactions (doctors, mechanics, opticians etc), there is a lot to be said for using the same one time-after-time for convenience. For example, using the same mechanic for years so that you don’t have to explain to a new one why you put up with a car which doesn’t unlock properly and smells of haddock (not from experience, obv.). Women in particular will spend years with the same GP safe in the knowledge that they’ll ignore any minor side-effects short of death where a new GP might insist on a full medical.

There is, of course, a limit to how far this need for a familiarity of convenience can be stretched, and many would argue that having a dentist in a different country is perhaps a little eccentric.

I’ve only had 3 dentists in my life.

The first I can only remember bad things about. They were a nice person and I’m sure they gave healthily to charity and walked little old ladies across the street and everything, but I can only associate them with badness. Vomit-inducing braces for one, which left me returning to school immediately after they were fitted and as an eager 9 year-old putting my hand up to answer a question on what koala bears eat. Have you ever heard a 9 year-old trying to say ‘eucalyptus’ with a new brace? It’s a glottal sound mixed with a smattering of lisp and a splattering of saliva. Then there was the infamous ‘extra-tooth’ fiasco which resulted in a day in hospital and a memory of being asked to count to 10 as the anaesthetic kicked in and a nurse forced my jaw open with some victorian device.

The second one was clearly a perfectionist and frustrated Sherlock Holmes. The initial mention of my previous hospital treatment led to every check-up involving at least 2 x-rays of that area of my mouth. Within 3 years I probably had more radiation projected onto me than your average Russian defector. Either he saw it as his mission to cure my extra-teeth-growing-genetics, or he missed his calling as the next David Bailey.

And so finally we get to my current dentist. He’s laid-back and easy going with a Heath Robinson attitude towards teeth. You know how everyone had a Grandad who would use tools that were so worn or broken that they were more glue and tape than metal? Well this guy’s that, but for teeth. I know I have odd teeth. I know some are chipped. I know one is 80% filling now. But I keep them clean and fresh, and that seems great for him. ‘No need to do anything there, Mr Loveridge, they’re all being kept very clean and tidy’, he’ll say. And I believe him, because it’s always nice to be flattered and complemented. Even if it is on your slightly aging teeth.

It’s a great transaction. He avoids doing any fillings or treatments on my teeth and I merrily hand over £12 and go on my way for the next 6 months. More services should be offered like that. A GP who says that dislocated shoulder is just resting, for example, or a mechanic who says engines are over-rated these days and all make a noise. The fact that I have a 100 mile round-trip to get to his country is neither here nor there. It’s not like it’s all easy for him – today I could tell he was just tapping his little implement around my teeth to try and make my check-up last 2 minutes.

Keep Aunty Mavis out of the kitchen

Today it’s November 17th, which means that there are only 38 days until Christmas Day, which means in 37 days and 12 hours millions of men across the country will be piling into department stores to start their Christmas shopping. I know, I’ll probably be one of them.

Whilst women scorn this genetically-programmed lack of planning, there are numerous benefits. With all of the women safely at home doing last minute wrapping, the aisles are free from people actually looking for something specific. A woman, you see, will only enter a shop if she knows what gift she is looking for. Her brain will be running a littany of algebraic equations to work out the best price in relation to the gift received from the recipient last year. Her eyes will be scanning every shelf for offers, emergency alternatives whilst words appear before her eyes like Robocop or The Terminator. Men, on the other hand will work with a completely different efficiency: How little distance can I travel into the shop, how quickly can I get out again, how few shops can I actually need to go in? All in all, this ends with a man buying a last-minute gift well-beyond his predetermined budget aimed solely for the benefit of its recipient. Perfume in other words.

The real danger, however, is neither of these shoppers. It’s the planners.

The planners of the gift-giving world are those for whom Christmas shopping starts on December 27th. The ones who buy their Christmas cards in January sales. The ones who will buy soap in March and think, ‘that’ll be great for Nick’s Christmas present’. The ones who buy gifts for the milkman, the postman, the doctor who dealt with Uncle Lucy’s bunyans in 1982 and the people they lived next door to in 1972, who may not necessarily be alive let alone still living at number 64.

To this end, can I categorically state now: I like my blender, coffee maker, toaster and doughnut maker, but please don’t give me any more kitchen gadgets.

A brief look online reveals a cataclysm of kitchen-tack. Mugs are a big market. Every house in the country has at least 12 times as many mugs as occupants, and you’d need a teapot the size of Canary Warf to put them all into use. I think the world could stop making mugs entirely and we’d still never be short of something to serve coffee in. Yet you can buy mugs you can write on in chalk, mugs which tell you whether or not the contents are hot (can you not just touch it?) and a mug with a crossword on it that even someone with the IQ of a kiwi fruit couldn’t possibly enjoy completing twice in a lifetime.

Add to this a variety of other delectable novelties. There’s the little plastic man who looks like Tony Hart’s ‘Morph’ that you can keep you knives in like an unfortunate rambler with a Bill Oddie-like appearance who finds himself in the Bronx. There’s the electric, yes electric, wine breather which claims to be the world’s first device that can do two hours’ breathing in 2 minutes. There’s the toaster-poacher, which toasts bread whilst poaching an egg. There’s a myriad of masterful egg cups, magnetic bottle-openers, battery-operated can crushers. All before you even get to sporks.

The world isn’t getting smaller because of the internet and global communications – it’s because so much of it is filled with unecessary kitchen appliances given as gifts. Thousands of acres of greenbelt are taken up by housing developments so that people can move to bigger homes because Aunty Noreen has given them another fondue set. I wouldn’t be surprised if estate agents and home-builders weren’t funding these kitchen gadgets. There are 60m people in Britain, and I would bet Surrey on the fact no more than a dozen of them have used a fondue set since 1978.

Think about it. Is there a kitchen in the land which has space in its cupboards? Go to a friends’ house and you’re forbidden to open a kitchen cupboard – they’re all crammed full to the top with dusty clutter and faded boxed gadgets. With every house expanding in a linear fashion, you’ll pretty soon be able to walk to Boston on a bridge of fondues, bottle-stoppers, electric corkscrews and grills. Sea levels aren’t rising because of global warming, it’s just the only place the human race has found to hide their unwanted kitchen appliances. Gordon Ramsey’s ‘F-word’? It’s fish – they’ve got all the appliances and utensils down there and he’s jealous.

So, people of the world let’s make an effort to save it. Ring your Aunty Mavis now and tell her that you just want some socks. Tell Granny Betty that you just want a donation to charity and a plant pot. Stop the Christmas-gift planners and make the world a better place, and you kitchen will feel bigger for it.

I bet Bruce Willis didn’t have to deal with bombs in nappies

Have you ever seen that picture sketching the evolution of man? The one where they start with a PGTips monkey on the left, progress through knuckle-dragging footballer, through Bernard Manning (now there’s a terrible image) to present-day man?

Well the same thing happens with conversation as you get older. You start off talking about bogies in the playground, move on to the latest bands in NME and then suddenly, Bang!, it’s the latest exploits of the columnists of The Guardian. You can check your social diary all you like, but you don’t do parties anymore, they’re dinner parties. And that means endless discussions about holidays in trendy ethnic places (oh, you’ve not been to Cuba? You simply must pop over there. We went last year and built 4 orphanages and a small testing station for their new space programme…). Or Mortgages.

But don’t worry. The next step along the progression is babies and, trust me on this one, there’ll be no talk of fairtrade organically grown carbon neutral holidays. In fact there’ll be no talk at all.

Babyists are easy to spot – they’ll be the ones with faces  like Deputy Dawg. Their youthful complexions coated in BodyShop crafted-by-elves all-cocoa joba oil make-up will drain to a pasty grey.

They’ll also be the ones who come for a walk with 68 pieces of baggage, all baby-related. They cancelled their membership of that trendy gym that sells extra-skimmed lattes long ago because now they have to carry around 30kilos of stuff just to pop down the road for a pint of milk and a Yorkie bar. They have everything in there. There’s the favourite toy, six kinds of powdered milk, 3 changes of clothes, half the mothercare equivalent of the Bodlean library, and enough nappies for the population of a small island. And that’s not all. There’ll be some baby food, a baby spoon and a few ointments. Oh, and a small chemistry set and a contraption that looks like it attaches to a combined harvester so that they can sterilise any baby item that may have touched some part of your house.

As well as the physical evolution, there are also a few changes in their personality and senses. For a start, they lose all sense of being humiliated. Suddenly, people who wouldn’t be seen dead in anything but Prada in a box at the Classic FM awards are wandering around in green and pink tracksuits with Jackson Pollock-inspired stains down the leg. Where they once only held conversations stocked with borrowed words from French and German, they’re now quite happy to launch into ‘baby-speak’ at a moments notice.

And they lose all sense of hearing. If a tree falls in the wood and no one’s around would it still make a sound? One thing’s for certain: these guys wouldn’t hear it if it fell on them. Weddings, christenings, concerts – to them their baby is as quiet as a mouse. Unfortunately, the rest of us haven’t had our hearing removed by raising offspring, so we can still hear their baby. We can hear it screaming in the quiet moments of life. We can hear it throwing things on the floor. We can hear in doing that annoying Teletubbies giggle. We can hearing it making so much noise that if this were a workspace we’d be required to wear earplugs for fear of long-term damage. Yet they smile and look forward as if nothing’s happening, whilst around them 100 people strain their ears in concentration in the hope of hearing something of what’s going on.

And that’s before you get to the bomb moment. You can see the tension rising. It’s been quiet. Too quiet. There’s an ominous silence and then a little bit of sniffing. The parent’s eyes widen in panic. They look at each other, and then at the floor. Nobody look at the baby for heaven’s sake, it’ll see your fear. They gently rock it, but it’s too late, she’s gonna blow. Then there’s the quick exchange. The child is passed between them like it’s ticking. Who’s gonna get the full force of the blast when suddenly those tiny lungs turn the volume all the way up to 11?

When you’re 12 you think your life’s over because you’re too grown-up to talk about bogies. By 18 you can’t make jokes about bodily functions unless you play rugby. By 22 you realise that you’ll never be able to talk about the cool bands again because people are talking about bands you’ve never heard of. At 24 you realise you’ll never be able to talk about anything except mortgages and fuel economy. But as I’m just realising, by 30 most of the events you attend will have babyists in the mix, so maybe it’s best just to become a social recluse – that or contact Bruce Willis and take a course in baby bomb disposal.

Possibly the only Blog to compare US Presidents to Rock Stars

This week something big happened for quite a few people. Something huge. Something that would alter their entire world.

Nick Mason and Slash tutored at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp at Abbey Road. 42 people paid £6000 each to attend the week-long course. A testing schedule of 10 hours of rehearsals a day allows them to be coached on all aspects of their music-making by rock idols and seasoned professionals, culminating in a concert in which Mason and Slash (there’s a good name for a Solicitor’s) take a starring role.

Yes, they are momentous figures in the world of rock, but they’re not really the main men. Surely Syd Barrett or Dave Gilmore were the frontmen of Floyd, and I seem to remember Slash just standing around in the background looking grumpily at his feet whilst Axl did all the interviews and riot-starting.

But then, if you look closely you begin to realise that all you can see these days are pale imitations and tribute acts. The Who are touring with a new bassist and Ringo’s son completes the sticky-plaster rhythm section of the group whilst Daltrey and Townshend wave their hands about. Even then, they’re not smashing up their instruments as these days you’d need a second tour bus just for the Health & Safety and risk-assessment teams let alone the goggles and safety boots. Led Zepplin are considering a tour, but Robert Plant’s too busy singing to a bunch of real ale drinkers about coal miners in folk clubs to wail-out Immigrant Song these days.

The truth is the real icons, the ones who truly rocked this world, are all dead. Sid Vicious, Jim Morrisson, Cobain and Hendrix: All gone. Barry White and Otis Redding aren’t making any new songs and James Brown won’t be taking us to the bridge any time soon. Even Jonny Rotten’s advertising middle-class butter in burberry rather than spitting on royalty.

Of course, I hear you say, there’s a whole new generation of hell-raisers. Yes, but Britney Spears showing her lady-topiary and Chris Martin singing about poverty whilst his mansion is decked out in Gold records aren’t exactly novel or innovative. Dave Grohl could be growling so hard his lungs explode on stage in a kaleidoscope of intestines and bilious humour but I guarantee I would be able to find you someone who’d done it louder and in paisley.

The world woke up this morning to news of Obama’s success in the US polls. Kenya are having a national holiday tomorrow in his honour. Regardless of your political views, you’d have to admit it would be difficult for things to get worse. With everything becoming more expensive and most currencies being worth less than the average postage stamp, it’d be hard to imagine anyone invoking less confidence than a chimpanzee wearing incontinece pants and wellingtons giving a ‘State of the Nation’ address. Or good old Dubya.

But I can’t help thinking unless Obama has some serious tricks up his sleeve people are going to be slightly disappointed. I hope I’m wrong, but unless he can wiggle his ears and bring about peace in everyone who sees it and has a spare world economy hidden away in his attic that we can borrow it’s going to be hard for him to live up to expectations.

But then he is the presidential equivalent of the Kaiser Chiefs. Yes he’s got a few catchy tunes to grab our attention, but does he really have anything new to offer? Does he have the staying power of the Rolling Stones, or can he revolutionise the world like Chuck Berry plugging his guitar into an amplifier?

Maybe it’s just because we’ve got a few hundred years of experience over the US, but in the UK we know that just like we’ll never see The Who or Led Zep in their original glory, no elected leader is going to have the same impact as those who are long gone.

George Washington brought about the American Constitution, and what’s more he refused to accept any salary for his two term’s in office. Today’s president can expect a $400k salary each year, a $50k expense account, $20k for entertaining and $100k travel fund. Daltrey admits that in the early days of The Who, they made a loss at every gig just from replacing the instruments they smashed at the end of their sets in the name of spectacle and innovation, whereas today you’d need to sell all of your pets and children to get a ticket to see half of the original line-up sing Pinball Wizard.

Washington wrote all the best tunes. He had a revolutionary sound. He had a real presence on the world stage. 120 years down the line and I suspect there’s no one on the planet who could walk into the White House and not look like the Kaiser Chief’s next to Washington’s Hendrix.

I hope I’m wrong. I tip my hat to the new constitution. I’ll take a vow to the new revolution. I’ll smile and breathe the change all around. But I’m going to watch cautiously. Whilst he certainly won’t dribble, mince his words or leave a press conference by walking into a cupboard, I suspect the new boss won’t be all that much different to the old boss.

Busy Busy

Sorry, I’ve been busy driving a lot and building a website for someone.

If you’re looking for Latin Piano lessons in Bristol, give it a visit.

Latin Piano Lessons in Bristol – www.thelatinpianist.co.uk

Jane Austen’s in the Bath

“Do you have any books by Jane Austen?”, asked the customer at the till beside mine.

The sales assistant who, although only 12 inches away from her physically, suddenly found himself a lighty-year away from his customer in every other possible dimension. You see, this was a bookshop. In Bath. One-time home to a Ms Jane Austen. Who set two of her books here.

“Yes. Madame. Which one do you have in mind?”

“Uh. I’m not sure what it’s called…”, replies the lady. Expectantly.

[awkward pause]

“Okay Madame. What is the book about?”

“Um. I’m not sure exactly. I had it when I was in Germany”. Clearly this lady was expecting all Waterstone’s shop assistants to be omnipotent as well as psychic. Clearly what she needed was some kind of existentialist bookshop. I’m sure Bath has one of those. It has everything else.

“Okay. But you don’t know the name or what it was about?”, he asked innocently. To a woman who had made the effort to queue in a bookshop for some considerable time, to ask about a book. I say ‘a’ book here in the sense of ‘any’.

“No. It was a Jane Austen book. Do you have any?”

“I’ll show you the Jane Austen section and then maybe something will jog your memory”, he said leading her off either genuinely to the Jane Austen section of the shop, or else to a specially screened-off section manned by people in white coats.

I’m not sure who I admired more in this situation: The assistant for his patience and steadfast observance of the mantra ‘the customer is always right’ (even if there is, in fact, no actually statement of fact in any of her utterances), or the customer for her ability to set about a task armed with no details or facts with which to complete it.

Defence Cuts

A couple of the better images from our visit to La Defense, Paris