Thursday, 11 June 2015
Lee Enfield - Forty Years
I make music sometimes, with my friend Paul Thomas, under the collective name of Lee Enfield. This is a video I made of one of our songs, 'Forty Years', which owes something to the likes of Johnny Cash:
School sign's out
In 1955 John Boyd-Carpenter, transport minister in the Conservative government of Anthony Eden, introduced some new road signs to Britain. They weren't destined to last long - superseded in just a few years by the celebrated work of designer Margaret Calvert - but they did mark a significant change in British signage.
In particular there is the one illustrated here, extracted from the Daily Express in September 1955. The old symbol for a School - a flaming torch - was replaced by a much more literal depiction: probably safer, but perhaps lacking in poetry?
What I hadn't previously realised is that this change was an attempt by Britain to fit in with the ways of our continental cousins. Which just goes to show that you really can't trust the Conservatives on Europe: Britain entry into the Eurovision Song Contest, decimal currency, the Single European Act, and now this - all on the Tory watch.
Sunday, 7 June 2015
The horror, the horror
'The best horror stories,' writes Charles Moore, 'are the ones where the monstrous, frightening thing never quite takes a clear shape.'
And somehow you know that he's talking about The Turn of the Screw and a couple of M.R. James stories. Because people who make that argument always are; they're never talking about H.P. Lovecraft. Which is why it's such an irritating thing to say. It's also not true: the monstrous takes a very definite shape indeed in a great deal of the best horror fiction.
The rest of the article, incidentally, is yet another moan about the 1960s, the decade that some on the right view as the source of all that's wrong in the world. (Just as some on the left view Thatcherism.) How many more of these do we actually need?
And somehow you know that he's talking about The Turn of the Screw and a couple of M.R. James stories. Because people who make that argument always are; they're never talking about H.P. Lovecraft. Which is why it's such an irritating thing to say. It's also not true: the monstrous takes a very definite shape indeed in a great deal of the best horror fiction.
The rest of the article, incidentally, is yet another moan about the 1960s, the decade that some on the right view as the source of all that's wrong in the world. (Just as some on the left view Thatcherism.) How many more of these do we actually need?
Friday, 5 June 2015
Yesterday Once More: Tougher sanctions are needed
This just in...
'Welfare reforms which will compel lone parents and the disabled to attend repeated job advice interviews or forfeit benefit will confront head-on the "poverty of expectation" sidelining thousands of Britain's poorest people, the government insisted yesterday...
'Ministers argue that it is reasonable to make a job advice interview a condition of claiming benefits, since many claimants are unaware of support the state can provide to help them avoid the poverty trap. Tougher sanctions are needed, they believe, to encourage the one million lone parents on income support and 2.8 million people on disability benefits back into work...
'He added: "It is the poverty of ambition and poverty of expectation that is debilitating. If you are going to crack that, you have got to confront it and do some things which people think are tough..."
'Mencap and the mental health charity Mind yesterday claimed compulsory interviews would leave millions of vulnerable disabled people in fear of losing benefits.
'There was anger from disability campaigners over plans to tighten the criteria for incapacity benefit, which ministers suspect is abused as an early retirement subsidy. Campaigners fear many genuinely disabled people will no longer qualify...
'The Tories accused the government of "talking tough" but not "acting tough". Shadow social security secretary Iain Duncan Smith said the whole success of the welfare-to-work programme depended on new jobs being created. But new employment legislation was boosting the burden on business.'
Note: The 'He' who is quoted in the third paragraph is Alistair Darling, then social security secretary in Tony Blair's Labour government.
'Welfare reforms which will compel lone parents and the disabled to attend repeated job advice interviews or forfeit benefit will confront head-on the "poverty of expectation" sidelining thousands of Britain's poorest people, the government insisted yesterday...
'Ministers argue that it is reasonable to make a job advice interview a condition of claiming benefits, since many claimants are unaware of support the state can provide to help them avoid the poverty trap. Tougher sanctions are needed, they believe, to encourage the one million lone parents on income support and 2.8 million people on disability benefits back into work...
'He added: "It is the poverty of ambition and poverty of expectation that is debilitating. If you are going to crack that, you have got to confront it and do some things which people think are tough..."
'Mencap and the mental health charity Mind yesterday claimed compulsory interviews would leave millions of vulnerable disabled people in fear of losing benefits.
'There was anger from disability campaigners over plans to tighten the criteria for incapacity benefit, which ministers suspect is abused as an early retirement subsidy. Campaigners fear many genuinely disabled people will no longer qualify...
'The Tories accused the government of "talking tough" but not "acting tough". Shadow social security secretary Iain Duncan Smith said the whole success of the welfare-to-work programme depended on new jobs being created. But new employment legislation was boosting the burden on business.'
- extracted from Lucy Ward, '"Harsh" rules to benefit poor',
Guardian 11 February 1999
Thursday, 4 June 2015
Radio Times
The traditional way of presenting a radio show in the early hours of the morning is to adopt a slightly laid-back tone, assuming that many of those listening want to be lulled to sleep. That's not the approach favoured by The Two Mikes, broadcast on TalkSport from 1 am on weekdays.
Presented by ex-tabloid journalists Mike Graham and Mike Parry, the show features the two men talking at high volume, mostly simultaneously as they try (in vain) to bludgeon the other into silence and submission. They fight, they bicker, they hurl insults, they pick up on every little slip and error, they interrupt, they try to distract the other's train of thought, and they're the best comedy double-act I know of on British radio.
The main attraction, of course, is Mike 'Porky' Parry, who is an extraordinary broadcaster. His most obvious characteristic is the way his mouth always operates at least a sentence-and-a-half before his brain. This produces a relentless stream of Spoonerisms, mixed metaphors, contractions ('the Beefa, er, the FIFA Board') and malapropisms: 'We all know Billy Bremner was an avaricious drinker.'
It also means that he'll start down a path without the faintest idea of where he's headed. So he'll try to make a passing comment about poachers turned gamekeepers and then tie himself in knots trying to work out where he stands in this equation, before catching up with himself and declaring in triumph: 'I'm a poacher - by profession, by nature and by instinct.' By which stage, of course, he's forgotten the point he originally intended to make.
He also has the ability to run in several different directions simultaneously. So in the first hour last night (all the comments in this post relate to that one hour), the agenda was clearly that they would cover three subjects: Jack Warner threatening to spill the beans on FIFA, Jack Wilshere's behaviour at Arsenal's victory parade, and the appointment of Rafa Benitez as the manager of Real Madrid.
What we actually got was Parry rambling about everything under the sun, from how he was once reduced to poverty after a tax demand, right through to his account of how Chester (his home town) used to be the world's biggest port until 'a guy from China' threw some seaweed in the River Dee.
He also told us that he regretted the time when he described Spain as being full of peasants with bread under their arm, walking alongside donkeys wearing straw hats. And he insisted that he could speak with some expertise on the subject of badgers because: 'I've got a mate who once went to Cirencester Agricultural College.'
And all the way through, Mike Graham - the straight man of the outfit - is taunting and teasing and mocking Parry's doomed battle with the English language, his imprecision with facts, and his inability to follow a train of thought. 'You're talking absolute cobblers,' Graham concluded at the end of the first hour. And he was right.
Interrupting this endless squabble, they managed to take one phone call from a listener, who also talked non-stop, adding his voice to the two already fighting to be heard. And they spent a few minutes on the line to a Russian journalist, who was trying to make some points about FIFA, though it was hard to tell quite what he was saying, since his contribution simply gave Parry the chance to share his thoughts on what a beautiful country Russia was: 'I love the architecture of Moscow and Leningrad and St Petersburg...'
If Parry is the star, then Graham deserves a great deal of credit as well. Parry's had other partners before. Many have fond memories of his double-act with Andy Townsend, an ex-footballer whose nagging suspicion of his own intellectual shortcomings meant that he never quite knew when to challenge Parry's flights of contorted rhetoric. But Graham - a good, opinionated broadcaster in his own right - is the perfect foil.
And despite all the squabbling, there's a genuine affection in there. On occasion, normally later on in the night, they can get into dewy-eyed reminiscences of the old days of journalism, proving yet again that there's nothing quite as sentimental as an aging tabloid hack.
Although all the above quotes come from the first hour of last night's show, I can't resist including the all-time greatest Parryism, as revived regularly by Paul Hawksbee and Andy Jacobs, in which the great man described Bordeaux: 'You know, where the tapestry comes from.'
I'm not saying that Mike Parry is a genius. But he might just be a work of genius.
Presented by ex-tabloid journalists Mike Graham and Mike Parry, the show features the two men talking at high volume, mostly simultaneously as they try (in vain) to bludgeon the other into silence and submission. They fight, they bicker, they hurl insults, they pick up on every little slip and error, they interrupt, they try to distract the other's train of thought, and they're the best comedy double-act I know of on British radio.
The main attraction, of course, is Mike 'Porky' Parry, who is an extraordinary broadcaster. His most obvious characteristic is the way his mouth always operates at least a sentence-and-a-half before his brain. This produces a relentless stream of Spoonerisms, mixed metaphors, contractions ('the Beefa, er, the FIFA Board') and malapropisms: 'We all know Billy Bremner was an avaricious drinker.'
It also means that he'll start down a path without the faintest idea of where he's headed. So he'll try to make a passing comment about poachers turned gamekeepers and then tie himself in knots trying to work out where he stands in this equation, before catching up with himself and declaring in triumph: 'I'm a poacher - by profession, by nature and by instinct.' By which stage, of course, he's forgotten the point he originally intended to make.
He also has the ability to run in several different directions simultaneously. So in the first hour last night (all the comments in this post relate to that one hour), the agenda was clearly that they would cover three subjects: Jack Warner threatening to spill the beans on FIFA, Jack Wilshere's behaviour at Arsenal's victory parade, and the appointment of Rafa Benitez as the manager of Real Madrid.
What we actually got was Parry rambling about everything under the sun, from how he was once reduced to poverty after a tax demand, right through to his account of how Chester (his home town) used to be the world's biggest port until 'a guy from China' threw some seaweed in the River Dee.
He also told us that he regretted the time when he described Spain as being full of peasants with bread under their arm, walking alongside donkeys wearing straw hats. And he insisted that he could speak with some expertise on the subject of badgers because: 'I've got a mate who once went to Cirencester Agricultural College.'
And all the way through, Mike Graham - the straight man of the outfit - is taunting and teasing and mocking Parry's doomed battle with the English language, his imprecision with facts, and his inability to follow a train of thought. 'You're talking absolute cobblers,' Graham concluded at the end of the first hour. And he was right.
Interrupting this endless squabble, they managed to take one phone call from a listener, who also talked non-stop, adding his voice to the two already fighting to be heard. And they spent a few minutes on the line to a Russian journalist, who was trying to make some points about FIFA, though it was hard to tell quite what he was saying, since his contribution simply gave Parry the chance to share his thoughts on what a beautiful country Russia was: 'I love the architecture of Moscow and Leningrad and St Petersburg...'
If Parry is the star, then Graham deserves a great deal of credit as well. Parry's had other partners before. Many have fond memories of his double-act with Andy Townsend, an ex-footballer whose nagging suspicion of his own intellectual shortcomings meant that he never quite knew when to challenge Parry's flights of contorted rhetoric. But Graham - a good, opinionated broadcaster in his own right - is the perfect foil.
And despite all the squabbling, there's a genuine affection in there. On occasion, normally later on in the night, they can get into dewy-eyed reminiscences of the old days of journalism, proving yet again that there's nothing quite as sentimental as an aging tabloid hack.
Although all the above quotes come from the first hour of last night's show, I can't resist including the all-time greatest Parryism, as revived regularly by Paul Hawksbee and Andy Jacobs, in which the great man described Bordeaux: 'You know, where the tapestry comes from.'
I'm not saying that Mike Parry is a genius. But he might just be a work of genius.
Tuesday, 2 June 2015
Charles Kennedy and Tony Blair
Much of the coverage of Charles Kennedy's death has focussed on his drinking and the end of his tenure as leader of the Liberal Democrats. By way of balance, this is an extract from my book A Classless Society, about the fine start he made to his leadership, immediately distancing himself from Tony Blair:
In
1999, after eleven years in office, Paddy Ashdown announced that he was
stepping down as leader of the Liberal Democrats. From the messy wreckage left
behind by the 1988 merger of the Liberals and the SDP, he had managed to
salvage a workable third party, and to build its representation substantially in
the Commons. His association with Blair had yielded some fruit – legislation on
human rights and freedom of information were partly due to Lib Dem campaigning
– but the ultimate goal remained as elusive as ever.
The
party, in its various guises, had been waiting to achieve a share of power
longer than Britain had been waiting for a men’s singles champion at Wimbledon,
and still it hadn’t materialised.
Perhaps
his successor, the much younger Charles Kennedy, might be the one to make the
breakthrough, though Ashdown didn’t seem very convinced. Kennedy was ‘a very
attractive personality but he could be lazy and foolhardy’, was the verdict he
delivered to Blair, who was later to come to the same conclusion: ‘All that
talent. Why is he so idle?’
On the day he was elected leader, Kennedy received a phone call from Blair with an invitation to a private dinner that evening. His casually unimpressed response set the tone of his new style: ‘Terribly sorry; I’m already fixed up.’
When he did finally meet Blair in Downing Street, his first question was, ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’, deliberately breaking the ban on cigarettes imposed by Cherie. He subsequently began to pull away from Labour, opening the possibility that the Lib Dems might now return to being a party of opposition...
Charles Kennedy: some quotes
Some of my favourite quotes from the late Charles Kennedy:
On aggression: 'The Liberal Democrats are nobody's poodles. But we are not Rottweilers either.' (1999)
On Tony Blair's government: 'An illiberal home secretary, an unethical foreign secretary, a conservative chancellor and a chameleon prime minister.' (2000)
On leadership: 'You never quite know what's going to happen next, but you try to give the impression that you do.' (2000)
On turnout: 'I don't think voter apathy is a problem for us.' (2001)
On smoking: 'After prime minister's questions, one of my first thoughts is that it would be nice to have a puff.' (2002)
On changing policies: 'What we go into the next general election with may not obviously make sense in terms of what we were saying at a previous general election.' (2002)
On lifelong heroes: 'There are some perks of this job - getting to meet David Bowie was one of them, I can tell you.' (2003)
On aggression: 'The Liberal Democrats are nobody's poodles. But we are not Rottweilers either.' (1999)
On Tony Blair's government: 'An illiberal home secretary, an unethical foreign secretary, a conservative chancellor and a chameleon prime minister.' (2000)
On leadership: 'You never quite know what's going to happen next, but you try to give the impression that you do.' (2000)
On turnout: 'I don't think voter apathy is a problem for us.' (2001)
On smoking: 'After prime minister's questions, one of my first thoughts is that it would be nice to have a puff.' (2002)
On changing policies: 'What we go into the next general election with may not obviously make sense in terms of what we were saying at a previous general election.' (2002)
On lifelong heroes: 'There are some perks of this job - getting to meet David Bowie was one of them, I can tell you.' (2003)
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