So Prince Harry, 'the coolest royal', makes another gaffe by allowing himself to be snapped butt-naked at some sleazy strip-pool party in Las Vegas, the sleaziest place in the world.
Unlike his older brother who has inherited the awful job of being monarch one day, Harry, following the example of the late Princess Margaret and other redundant members of the Windsor clan, can allay his boredom by being naughty. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with being naughty, especially if one is rich and schooled in buffoonery (Boris, Cameron and Co at The Bullingdon Club at Oxford). We know that Harry was disappointed about being taken out of the firing line in Afghanistan and is desperate to be redeployed with his regiment; but the thing is that the sorry file of young squaddies who have lately returned from the combat zone to help ease the shambolic security arrangements at the London Olympics will not have watched the games from first class seats or relaxed after this onerous duty on a holiday in Vegas, gallivanting and picking up the sort of women who are game about taking their clothes off in front of strange men. At least Prince Harry showed some modesty in hiding his 'crown jewels'.
A few years ago, he was in the soup for allegedly plagiarising his teacher's work at Eton to gain his art A level - a crucial requirement to get into Sandhurst and begin his army officer training. The thought occurred to me today that this might not have been so easy for him under this year's newly-introduced draconian marking schemes for A Levels and GCSEs, resulting in a high percentage of lower grades and thus keeping the less able from taking up university places - a jolly good wheeze from the chaps at the Education Ministry, I should think, those same idiotic jobsworths who have been messing about with the school curriculum for the last thirty years. For several summers, under the old regime, I marked English Language AS level for AQA Board, where examiners were always briefed to see the bigger picture. This meant not penalising candidates for basic English mistakes, such as misplaced apostrophes (it's/its, potato's/potoatoes), inability to distinguish between 'there' (place) and 'their' (possessive pronoun); received usage no-nos such as 'we was' instead of 'we were', etc. The blind have been leading the blind, like the teacher at the local, 'outstanding-rated' comprehensive school, who wrote in my daughter's homework book: please check spelling and AMMEND (sic). That was the school where they corrected up to five mistakes per homework and turned the other cheek with respect to the rest.
Friday, 24 August 2012
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
ISLE OF WONDER
In spite of my misgivings about Britain hosting the Olympics, I watched Friday nights's Opening Ceremony to the Games with something approaching rapture. Danny Boyle's production was a distillation of the nation: a magic - and on Friday night at least - united kingdom where eccentricity flourishes alongside industry and startling creativity - the City didn't get a look in. We had maypole dancing, cricket, Isambard Kingdom Brunel (Kenneth Brannagh reciting from The Tempest), acts of remembrance, Chelsea Pensioners, and good old Paul McCartney doing his crowd-pleasing all inclusive finale with the chorus of Hey Jude.
The spectacle seemed a bit twee at first, with grassy meadows redolent of Hobbit-shire and the London Symphony Orchestra performing Elgar; but when the dark, satanic chimneys appeared out of the grassy sward, culminating in the forging of the Olympic circles by grimy industrial pioneers, the whole thing took on a heroic significance. There was Sir Tim Berners-Lee with two old desktop computers, creating the world wide web, an extraordinary example of intellectual generosity and altrusim, inspiring others to share their knowledge for free and enabling anyone with a computer connection to become a champion of sales.
It wasn't only about the inventions and the industry and productivity: The NHS was represented by hundreds of volunteers from the nursing and medical sectors, all dancing and delving to showcase this jewel in the UK's crown, and remind us perhaps what we would lose if this altruistic institution of 1948 were privatised. Industry and productivity may have been overshadowed in the last thirty years by finance - the towers of the City replacing the smoke stacks, but we can still preserve the NHS. If that was Boyle's leftist warning, then, in the idiom of football commentators, I think the boy did good.
Much of the spectacle would only be recognisable to Britons, and maybe that was the best thing about it, reminding us of how we got here (immigration getting a look-in with the Windrush marchers, inclusiveness with the disabled children's choir) and where we are now. The global message, however, was blazingly, gloriousl clear through giants of the arts: JK Rowling and a selection of rock gods from the past three decades - five in the case of McCartney.
There was also a note of comedy from an unexpected source: as the German athletes paraded their flag around the stadium, their ambassador or whoever he was, gave what looked like a Nazi salute. My daughter's horror was captured on the multinational broadcast cameras in the faces of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and London Mayor, Boris Johnson, who were sitting behind the German officials. After the initial shock, Boris and Camilla, those quintessential examples of old-shire Britishness, burst out laughing.
The spectacle seemed a bit twee at first, with grassy meadows redolent of Hobbit-shire and the London Symphony Orchestra performing Elgar; but when the dark, satanic chimneys appeared out of the grassy sward, culminating in the forging of the Olympic circles by grimy industrial pioneers, the whole thing took on a heroic significance. There was Sir Tim Berners-Lee with two old desktop computers, creating the world wide web, an extraordinary example of intellectual generosity and altrusim, inspiring others to share their knowledge for free and enabling anyone with a computer connection to become a champion of sales.
It wasn't only about the inventions and the industry and productivity: The NHS was represented by hundreds of volunteers from the nursing and medical sectors, all dancing and delving to showcase this jewel in the UK's crown, and remind us perhaps what we would lose if this altruistic institution of 1948 were privatised. Industry and productivity may have been overshadowed in the last thirty years by finance - the towers of the City replacing the smoke stacks, but we can still preserve the NHS. If that was Boyle's leftist warning, then, in the idiom of football commentators, I think the boy did good.
Much of the spectacle would only be recognisable to Britons, and maybe that was the best thing about it, reminding us of how we got here (immigration getting a look-in with the Windrush marchers, inclusiveness with the disabled children's choir) and where we are now. The global message, however, was blazingly, gloriousl clear through giants of the arts: JK Rowling and a selection of rock gods from the past three decades - five in the case of McCartney.
There was also a note of comedy from an unexpected source: as the German athletes paraded their flag around the stadium, their ambassador or whoever he was, gave what looked like a Nazi salute. My daughter's horror was captured on the multinational broadcast cameras in the faces of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and London Mayor, Boris Johnson, who were sitting behind the German officials. After the initial shock, Boris and Camilla, those quintessential examples of old-shire Britishness, burst out laughing.
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| photo by John Scattergood |
Wednesday, 30 May 2012
OPEN SEASON
The Tories did another U-turn this week, this time on their proposed policy to blast buzzard nests with shotguns in the name of 'research'. The real reason for the proposed cull was so that certain sporting gentlemen like millionaire landowner, Richard Benyon, Minister responsible for wildlife, could shoot pheasants to their hearts' content, unhampered by the buzzards for which the pheasant is a natural prey. Since there is nothing natural about a Purdey shotgun, the blast of public opinion has forced the sporting gentlemen to withdraw. Last week, they had to shelve their Pasty Tax -- a victory for bakers everywhere and especially for crimpers of the Cornish 'croust' which, in its humble way, does so much for the local economy, far more than Charles, Duke of Cornwall with his overpriced Duchy biscuits.
Margaret Thatcher once made a famous pun about U-turns: 'You turn if you want to. The Lady's not for turning.' Well, Baroness Iron Pants, they're turning now. Let's hope this heralds an open season on other draconian proposals intended to safeguard the interests of the land-owning class at the expense of the poor and disenfranchised. Bang, bang, and another one bites the dust.
Margaret Thatcher once made a famous pun about U-turns: 'You turn if you want to. The Lady's not for turning.' Well, Baroness Iron Pants, they're turning now. Let's hope this heralds an open season on other draconian proposals intended to safeguard the interests of the land-owning class at the expense of the poor and disenfranchised. Bang, bang, and another one bites the dust.
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| Nesting Birds by Richard Faisey |
Friday, 4 May 2012
TORIES ROUTED IN SOUTH WEST COUNCIL ELECTIONS
The tide is on the turn. South West voters have given the Tories the thumbs down, saying no to the cuts, the pasty tax, and, as one voter put it, the lack of care.
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| On Your Bike by Richard Faisey |
Sunday, 29 April 2012
EXETERFROG CELEBRATES NEW KINDLE PURCHASE
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| ExterFrog by Richard Faisey |
I resisted buying a Kindle for a long time, then I ran out of space to build more bookshelves. Since I bought my Kindle a week ago, I have already downloaded more books than I could have stored on the overburdened bookshelves in my tiny home (I call it The Bunker). Some of the classics were free in e-book format, or almost free (Complete Works of Shakespeare, Donne et al for 77p). New e-books are generally less expensive than tree books (print), although some buyers have cavilled at the price of new e-titles; but It is publishers who set the price and since more and more big publishing houses are developing their e- lists, they are taking full advantage of the market. Sooner or later, these prices will have to be more competitive, but I have not seen any e-title I'd like costing more than £8.00. In fact the most I've paid for an e-book so far is £4.99 - for Doris Lessing's 'The Good Terrorist' I'd searched bookshops for a printed version of Ernest Hemingway's 'A Moveable Feast' but I couldn't find a copy of this cherished novel anywhere, not even in London, where I scrutinised the shelves at Waterstones in Piccadilly, to no avail. Then I saw it on Amazon and dowloaded it direct to my Kindle in less than a minute. It took me back to Paris, that mythical Paris where I like to return sometimes to escape our Big Society-pushers. I've since downloaded thirty odd novels, plus my own three titles in BeWrite Books; ten books of poems, including collections of Keats, Byron, Shelley, Robert Frost and TS Eliot (all 77p); and a book about learning to play the guitar.
There are those, of course, who cleave to the tree-book like Luddites clinging to their spinning wheels. I have a house full of tree-books, some of which I could never bear to be parted from, although I have had to resort to periodic clear-outs. Recently, I had to cart a shed-load of tree-books down from my daughter's loft because cracks were appearing in my bedroom walls (I sleep downstairs). One of my home nurses had been telling me about the joys of owning a Kindle (she hads carpel tunnel syndrome and finds it awkward turning the pages of tree-books in bed); and when a woman at the last Society of Authors meeting I went to told me she had read my novels on Kindle, I thought I should get up to speed with what was happening in the ever-expanding world of E. Now I'm up and running, I can download my own work to the Kindle in document form, which will be handy if I have to go about doing readings - not that I do that very often, although there is one coming up in the summer on local radio. Instead of debating what I should take away to read and carting tree-books on the train, I can take the Kindle. I don't see it as an either-or, tree-book or e-book preference, but this is 2012: The E prefix is here to stay.
Monday, 12 March 2012
TELL ME LIES ABOUT AFGHANISTAN...
Yesterday, an American soldier, a so-called veteran of several recent wars declared by the USA on countries and cultures in the east, took his automatic weapon to some Afghan villages and shot sixteen people dead. Most of them were children. All of them were innocent. Hilary Clinton said she couldn't imagine what their families were going through. Well no, she can't, but she can do something about this outrageous situation by admitting defeat in this longest of all American wars, and by ensuring that the soldier is brought to justice. In the eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth politics that dominate so much of this uncivilised world, this murderer should really stand trial in Kabul, or maybe Peshawar or Jeddah, or in one of those US States where old Governor Bush could apply the ultimate penalty.
If anything positive can come out of this atrocity, it is that finally, finally, questions are being raised in our military-worshipping media about the redundancy and lunacy of the Afghan war. Over ten years of deployment, it has now become an exercise in vainglory perpetrated by vainglorious politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, by vainglorious generals holding on to win a conflict that cannot be resolved, and by vainglorious soldiers who voluntarily enlist in the services and go out to fight in a country they probably couldn't find on a map. These men aren't heroes. They are professional soldiers, doing the job they signed up to do. Who and what are they defending? They have done more damage to ethnic, cultural and religious relations in the UK than the National Front and Islamic terrorist factions put together. David Cameron should stop pontificating about his plans for 'Transitioning' - a slow hand-over to the rightful Afghan authorities, and pull our troops out now. When Obama pulls out, as planned, in 2014 - assuming he can sell this timescale to the American people, there will be civil war in Afghanistan and shame in the USA, just like there was after Vietnam when returning veterans were universally shunned by embarrassed and demoralised US citizens. And thus the ten year deployment of British and US troops in a faraway country will have resulted in nothing but waste and loss, the loss of innocent families like the ones who were murdered yesterday in their own homes. It is time we all stepped up to the Big Society to address the multitude of domestic tragedies overlooked so far in the sentimental outpouring of feeling for the deceased military men who rolled through (Royal) Woolton Basset - soldiers who died doing the job they chose to do, not in some killing spree perpetrated by a man with a weapon against small children.
If anything positive can come out of this atrocity, it is that finally, finally, questions are being raised in our military-worshipping media about the redundancy and lunacy of the Afghan war. Over ten years of deployment, it has now become an exercise in vainglory perpetrated by vainglorious politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, by vainglorious generals holding on to win a conflict that cannot be resolved, and by vainglorious soldiers who voluntarily enlist in the services and go out to fight in a country they probably couldn't find on a map. These men aren't heroes. They are professional soldiers, doing the job they signed up to do. Who and what are they defending? They have done more damage to ethnic, cultural and religious relations in the UK than the National Front and Islamic terrorist factions put together. David Cameron should stop pontificating about his plans for 'Transitioning' - a slow hand-over to the rightful Afghan authorities, and pull our troops out now. When Obama pulls out, as planned, in 2014 - assuming he can sell this timescale to the American people, there will be civil war in Afghanistan and shame in the USA, just like there was after Vietnam when returning veterans were universally shunned by embarrassed and demoralised US citizens. And thus the ten year deployment of British and US troops in a faraway country will have resulted in nothing but waste and loss, the loss of innocent families like the ones who were murdered yesterday in their own homes. It is time we all stepped up to the Big Society to address the multitude of domestic tragedies overlooked so far in the sentimental outpouring of feeling for the deceased military men who rolled through (Royal) Woolton Basset - soldiers who died doing the job they chose to do, not in some killing spree perpetrated by a man with a weapon against small children.
Thursday, 2 February 2012
THE BIG SOCIETY
Her Majesty has stripped Fred Goodwin of his knightly title, so he is no longer Sir Fred, but just Fred. It's a pity Her Majesty's subjects can't strip him of his ill-gotten earnings since the bank he ran down (RBS) was baled out by British taxpayers at the expense, no doubt, of the vital services we are losing as part of the austerity measures. No chance of a refund though. We weren't compensated for the sale of public utilities under the last Tory Government, so compensation for the bungled antics of Fred and his banking band is as unlikely as re-nationalisation of the railways, the water, gas and electricity supplies, and the GPO, which a few of us traded for British Telecom shares, just as poor Siberians in the early nineties traded their shares in the state-owned oil companies that that were issued to them instead of pay.
But enough of that. I wanted to write about good people. Yesterday, I met up with two good people, Sue and Paul Farmer, who are trying to put some heart back into the dying community that is Redruth by offering a number of creative projects designed to offset the hopelessness and apathy that is facing the young people of the town. Redruth has been in decline since the tin-mining industry fell off, but the last few years have seen the commencement of its death throes. It costs 50p to park in Redruth for an hour but that is too much for locals on a tight welfare budget, who can catch a free bus to Tesco. If the falling price of tin took the heart out of the town, then Tesco gutted it and filleted it so that it increasingly resembles an eviscerated corpse. When I saw in the news last week that Tesco's profits are on the wane, I stood up and cheered. Shirley Cohen ), a major shareholder since her father started the supermarket chain, is finally getting some come-uppance. Why doesn't Her Majesty strip that woman of her Dame-ship? Who will be the next to be stripped of their ill-deserved title? I'd vote for (Lord) Julian Fellowes, but I doubt it will be him because he got the gong for reinforcing a status quo that was out of date in 1918.
Sue Farmer's blog
Redruth Community Radio
But enough of that. I wanted to write about good people. Yesterday, I met up with two good people, Sue and Paul Farmer, who are trying to put some heart back into the dying community that is Redruth by offering a number of creative projects designed to offset the hopelessness and apathy that is facing the young people of the town. Redruth has been in decline since the tin-mining industry fell off, but the last few years have seen the commencement of its death throes. It costs 50p to park in Redruth for an hour but that is too much for locals on a tight welfare budget, who can catch a free bus to Tesco. If the falling price of tin took the heart out of the town, then Tesco gutted it and filleted it so that it increasingly resembles an eviscerated corpse. When I saw in the news last week that Tesco's profits are on the wane, I stood up and cheered. Shirley Cohen ), a major shareholder since her father started the supermarket chain, is finally getting some come-uppance. Why doesn't Her Majesty strip that woman of her Dame-ship? Who will be the next to be stripped of their ill-deserved title? I'd vote for (Lord) Julian Fellowes, but I doubt it will be him because he got the gong for reinforcing a status quo that was out of date in 1918.
Sue Farmer's blog
Redruth Community Radio
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