Tom Greeves

God and Man

2012-01-13T23:31:00.002Z

God first spoke to him on a Tuesday morning in September. It had been shaping up to be a perfectly ordinary week for a perfectly ordinary man - a week of shuffling papers around his desk, of doing his dull job effectively and well. A week of days which would all end at 5:30 pm sharp and see him return to his bedsit for an evening of reading and a simple home-made meal for one. A week in which, as ever, few people would look twice at a balding man of medium height and medium build. His own neighbours barely knew him, and they were sufficiently incurious as to enquire no further when he told them that he was a civil servant.

The man was quite content to live such an anonymous life. He knew almost all of his friends from school, university, or work. That was nothing to get depressed about: a person could consider themselves lucky if they had five or six really close friends. He took pride in being quietly, almost silently, competent at his work. Those who needed to knew he was completely reliable. His pay was modest, but the security of a civil service job and generous pension arrangements had much to recommend them. He wanted for nothing other than a wife.

He was as aware as anyone that he was a wholly unremarkable man.

Yet God had picked him out and spoken to him, chosen him above all others. And the meaning of what He had said to the man was utterly straightforward. This was not, after all, an obscurantist God who couched His wishes in complex metaphors. What He had told the man was unmistakable. He had told him to kill people.

Naturally, this had come as quite a shock. One moment he had been looking at a spreadsheet, the next God was telling him to kill two people. The man had never, not for one moment, anticipated such a turn of events. It is actually less than likely that a soldier will be asked to kill anybody. It is rarer still for civil servants.

But he had heard God’s wishes as clear as a bell. This was not a suggestion; it was a command from on high. The world needed to be rid of two sinners and it was the man’s solemn duty to do the ridding.

That afternoon he looked around furtively at his colleagues. Travelling home on the Tube (having, as per usual, left work at 5:30 pm) he looked around at his fellow passengers. Could any of them tell? Could they tell just by looking at him what he was going to do?

Of course they couldn’t; he was being irrational. They didn’t know and they didn’t need to know. It was between him and God. They wouldn’t have understood anyway. Not that that mattered either. As long as God was on his side, he had nothing to worry about. And God was on his side – He had made that very clear. The man was an ally of God in the fight against evil.

The man resolved to be calm. That was essential. This was happening. He had to keep it together. He treated himself to a whisky that night, but just the one. He had to keep a permanently clear head. He had to remain sane and sober, not least because God could speak to him again at any time.

It began on Wednesday. One of the man’s colleagues was a woman in her mid-thirties. She was rather attractive. He had never spoken to her, but from time to time they would pass each other in the corridor and she would smile at him warmly. Every time this happened he would feel a little surge of excitement. There was something undeniably life-affirming about being smiled at by a pretty woman.

Even if he had been able to pluck up the courage to chat her up, which was highly doubtful, she was off limits. He had rifled through her file and learned that she was married. But he had also established - by discreetly following her home and watching her from across the road - that she was having an affair. Someone else took the view that she was not off limits, that her marriage vows were meaningless.

This affair had been carrying on for some months. Her lover was a full decade younger than her. He had been born in Bradford to Pakistani parents. A gifted computer scientist, he had moved to London to study and been snapped up by a major consultancy. He was pulling in over £80,000 a year. In his spare time he helped coach a boys’ cricket team.

The man, who was also pretty good with computers, had established all of this within a couple of hours.

On Wednesday lunch-time he left the office with a packed lunch and went to sit in the park. He sat somewhere quiet so he would be undisturbed if God wanted to speak to him again and so he could gather his thoughts. As he nibbled on his cheese sandwiches he watched people around him intently. He liked watching people.

Two runners ran by his bench. They were startlingly fit. They were laughing and joking as they sprinted past – hugely healthy and fundamentally happy in an uncomplicated way. They both wore figure-hugging specialist kit and the man briefly ran his eyes over the woman’s pleasing curves. How agreeable it would be to be married to someone as vital as that.

For now, though, he had another calling.

He went back to work and behaved in as regular a manner as always, albeit that his insides were churning. What he was going to do was God’s will, but it was nonetheless terrifying for that. He left, as ever, at 5:30 pm.

Thirty minutes later he was sitting in a church. It was empty, and he sat in one of the pews looking up to the altar. He wasn’t praying, but he was contemplative. He looked up at Christ on the cross, over to a plaque on the wall which had the names of men who had fallen in each of the world wars, and back at the altar. Perhaps God would speak to him again and give him further guidance. But He didn’t.

Later that night he was dressed in an old tracksuit and was sitting by a commercial dustbin. He was in a dark alley where there were no closed-circuit cameras. He knew that this was part of her route from her lover’s house to her own home. If he waited long enough, she would walk past. She never stayed the whole night, he knew that. Sure enough, some time after one in the morning she came along the alley.

It was foolish of her, he reflected, to walk down such a London street at such a time. Perhaps she was reckless by nature. Perhaps if she were not the kind of person who would risk her marriage she would not be inclined to take this sort of risk. Her infidelity to her husband was going to cost her dearly. She was going to pay with her life.

She walked purposefully down the street; she did at least have the good sense to look confident. She ignored him – unrecognisable under a muddied face - when he asked her for some change. But she was helpless when he stood up behind her and put his arm around her neck. Even an averagely strong man is a formidable opponent when he attacks you from behind.

With one hand over her mouth and nose he squeezed the life out of her before she had time to register more than a moment’s intense panic. She didn’t even get the chance to kick out at him.

He dropped her corpse on the floor and studied it for a moment. Then he bent down and retrieved the keys from her handbag. He waited until his breathing had returned to close to normal and set out for her lover’s house.

Selecting the right key was always going to be the most difficult task. But with God’s command to stay calm at all times he held his nerve and found it by the process of elimination. He knew that her lover was going to be alone – a salary that handsome enabled a bachelor to live by himself even in the capital. If the man kept quiet, he had good reason to hope her lover would stay asleep.

So it proved. The man crept into the bedroom, taking light but deliberate strides. There was some Islamic art on the wall. Her lover was a man of God – but it was not the same god that the man followed. Not at all: her lover was going to die for his perverted, hypocritical beliefs. The man allowed himself a very quick look to confirm that he had the right person. A well-built, sporty man is a tricky proposition in a fight. It was essential, then, to never let him know he was in one.

The man reached over for a pillow and drove it home over her lover’s face. Mounted her lover and pressed with all his might. He died with surprising rapidity.

Then the man made his way out of the house and back to his bedsit. God did not speak to him. But then He didn’t need to ask if the man had done what he had been told to do; he already knew.

The next morning the man did what he knew he must: followed his usual routine. It was late in the afternoon before God finally spoke to him.

The man took the lift to a room on the fifth floor of his office. There sat James Latimer CMG, a senior director of MI5. Officially CMG stood for Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George. Unofficially it stood for Call Me God.

Latimer congratulated the man on a job exceptionally well done. He appreciated that being asked to clean up a mess like this in such a way was a tremendously demanding task. It was however, far better that the general public should never know that a female MI5 operative had been passing state secrets to an Islamic extremist.

Latimer told the man to take some time off and, ideally, to find himself a girlfriend. Latimer felt sure that there was someone nice in the building who the man could ask out – it wasn’t as though all female MI5 agents were corrupt.

The man thanked God for giving him the opportunity to undertake a job of such grave importance and then left the building – it was, after all, nearly 6 pm. As he strode along the Embankment the man smiled for the first time in over a week.

The Iron Lady

2012-01-08T17:23:00.006Z

I had resolved that I wouldn't watch it with left wing friends. There's an article forming itself in the back of my mind about how Norman Mailer was correct to say that political differences inevitably put an intolerable strain on friendships. I've been feeling that quite a lot recently, and with no little measure of sadness. I'm still not absolutely sure he was correct though, so that piece may not get written after all. But I was sure that I didn't want to watch The Iron Lady with anyone who wasn't of the faith.

I can't stand it at the best of times when someone breaks the spell immediately after a film ends (it often happens during the credits!) and offers a comment. If some pinko (and by pinko I mean anyone to the left of John Redwood) had chipped in while I was trying to digest that film I'd have been beside myself. So I watched it with no-one beside myself, because I also couldn't wait until one of my Tory friends was free to watch it.

Ironically, I don't really believe that film reviews have much merit. Typically they give away far too much of the plot; moreover, I think the most valuable response to a film is one's immediate response: that visceral reaction which trumps any and all deconstruction and theorising. It's why no-one can tell me that Commando isn't a great movie or that The Godfather is.

This one was a bit different. I've changed my mind a bit with this one, and I'm afraid that the passage of time makes me less favourably inclined towards it.

Responses to Margaret Thatcher are not binary. She is held to be an utterly polarising figure, but actually an increasing number of people have come to see her in more complex terms. They feel uncomfortable about what happened to former coalmining communities but feel grateful for her toughness in international affairs, for example.

The makers of The Iron Lady purport to see her in more human than hyperbolic terms and to have put aside their political prejudices. Yet surely they deserve at best two cheers for this. It would have been a pretty poor pantomime if they had not. Recognising the essential humanity of the main protaganist in a political film is surely a basic starting point, not an end in itself.

Credit where it is due, however. Thatcher is shown to be a person of conviction, not venality. My non-Thatcherite readers may howl at this, but that is objectively right. Demonising her as wicked has always been farcical, grotesquely unfair and demonstrably wrong. The film also accepts that there was, conceivably, a military justification for sinking The Belgrano and an intellectual one for the poll tax. Reflexively opposed to all that she stood for it is not. And the scenes which show her as a determined but nonetheless up-against-it young women are excellent.

So private political views don't get in the way of how Thatcher is depicted personally. They may, though, get in the way of the plot. For the lengthy portions of the film devoted to imagining Thatcher in her later years are not only questionable as a matter of tact; they leave very little room for some monumentally important real-life events.

That is entirely the prerogative of the writer and director, of course. Few things are more irritating than a critic saying in what direction a film should have gone - in one sense any focus is a legitimate one. This is a work of art and not of history, after all. But it does undermine any claim the film may have had to being considered definitive.

Oliva Colman is splendid as Carol Thatcher, but are not Michael Heseltine and Norman Tebbit of rather more interest? Isn't Ronald Reagan? If Richard E. Grant's work as Heseltine hit the cutting room floor he will have reason to feel aggrieved - it's not a technically accurate impression but it doesn't need to be, and he is very good. Is Norman Tebbit even in the movie - and if not why on Earth not? Why not more of the fantastic John Sessions as Edward Heath?

Ultimately I was left with a sense not of the outrage I feared but of a missed opportunity. The truth, whatever one's political views, is surely far more exciting than the hypothesised and the invented. I would have thought that right and left wingers alike could agree on that. Jim Broadbent is a splendid screen actor. He bears little resemblance, in any sense, to Denis Thatcher. Couldn't we have had more of the 1990 leadership election? That was a moment of immense and intense high drama - were the film-makers perhaps intimidated at the thought that the real thing couldn't be matched?

I know I risk being hypocritical. I would defend to the death the right of an artist to paint whatever portrait they want using whatever colours. It is not that the painting is an awful distortion as so many of us expected- but it is rather boring.

A great deal has been said and written about Meryl Streep's performance. Some of it is preposterously hyperbolic. No-one who has actually met Thatcher (which I have, briefly) could sensibly say, as some of those involved with the film have done, that to see Streep in costume was literally to be in the presence of Thatcher. It is a nuanced and persuasive performance, to be sure ... but it's really not that good. How could it be?

All in all, The Iron Lady is not a film to fall out with friends over - which is good - and it is not an appalling smear on a frail lady - which is even better. Sceptical as I normally am of film reviews, maybe I would do as well to deliver a verdict in the sort of pithy language for which Margaret Thatcher is famous: it could have been better and it should have been better.

Total Politics

2011-11-17T11:41:00.001Z

Here's another piece for Total Politics, in which your humble blogger is very rude about contemporary politicians.

Friendship

2011-10-21T11:31:00.006Z

I'm always delighted to give some space on this blog to my fans - and Serge Lavange seems to be a particularly ardent one. I include in full the text of a charming email that he just sent me. I realise that I risk the appearance of blowing my own trumpet, but messages like this really make what I do worthwhile.

If you appreciate what Serge has said like I do, why not contact him on 0800 098 8516 or drop him an email via sl@jooble.com? You could ask him his birthday, and find out if he really is a Capricorn!!! LOL.

Hello!

I'm so glad to that there are people who understand a lot about good music. I found James Taylor in your profile. That is my favorite one. By the way, I do not know whether you listened to "Kate Rusby", I can recommend it to you, I think you should like it.

I just want to thank you for your wonderful blog bigtommygspeaks.blogspot.com.

I read the post "Total Politics 3" and then I spent another hour on your blog by reading your posts with pleasure :) Every article is interesting and easy to read. I really like the "Dreaming of Teddy".

I work for Jooble company, we aggregate job adverts around the world.

My job is to persuade bloggers to link to our site.

I really love my job! We have a friendly team and good management, but unfortunately I have no idea how to convince a blogger to link to us, I'm afraid I might lose my job because of it :(

And that is why, instead of sending letters to thousands of different blogs, I am reading yours.

Honestly, I am not really sure if the link to our website in United Kingdom - jooble-uk.com, will be appropriate for your blog, but if you believe it will and it is possible to add it, I would be really grateful to you! Our site is really cool, it can greatly help hundreds of people to find a job.

I wish you to have a good day and excellent mood! Thanks again for your nice blog. Write more! Thanks!

P.S. I am a Capricorn by zodiac sign too :)

Best regards,

Serge Lavange
Account Manager

Total Politics 3

2011-09-08T11:21:00.002Z

I have a new piece up on Total Politics - in which I say that MPs are wasting their time.

Dreaming of Teddy

2011-09-07T10:48:00.003Z

I had a strange dream last night.

Kennedy Scholarships are named for John F. Kennedy rather than his appalling brother Teddy, but in Dreamworld anything can happen (I've been quite the swordsman in my time) and last night my subconscious decided that Teddy was both alive and in charge of the programme. And, even more implausibly, a good bloke.

I was with a friend (I'm not sure who it was) and we spotted Teddy (who looked like someone else) across the room. One of us said to the other how much we'd like a Kennedy Scholarship. We wondered how one would go about getting one. Then my friend said "I'll just ask him for one."

Before I could react he went over to Teddy and said, gauchely, "Excuse me, can I have a Scholarship please?" Then we ran out the room and into a lift.

Teddy followed us into the lift. And - to his immense credit - roared with laughter and said "That's one of the funniest things I've ever heard."

He may have been a dreadful IRA-apologist-cum-woman-drowner in real life, but you've got to hand it to the Teddy Kennedy who lives in the darker recesses of my brain - he's a smashing chap.

Brixton

2011-08-09T23:11:00.001Z

From Camden to Clapham to Brixton

2011-08-09T20:08:00.008Z

I got up late this morning.

I'd stayed up into the small hours looking at Twitter, writing a blog piece, feeling sorry for a friend who was attacked last night and trying not to seethe at something a former friend had addressed to me. I had some weird dreams and was knackered after a weekend in Holland.

I was heartened to learn on Twitter that people were gathering at the sites of some of the riots to help clean up the mess. Then it occured to me that there was nothing stopping me joining them.

I admit that I dithered. There were other ways to spend the day. I wasn't aware that anyone I knew was going. I wasn't sure exactly where to go or when. It sounded a bit of a faff. Like all OCD sufferers, I'm not wild about a lack of cleanliness. But I went.

First I needed some kit. So I went to a local hardware store and bought some gloves. And yes, of course I chose the ones that looked like goalkeeper gloves from the 1970s. Then I flagged down a taxi before I could change my mind.

I arrived first of all in Camden, the nearest place that I'd heard had a meet-up. I'd missed it. I made my way to Clapham, having been told that the gang had headed in that direction.

I have a very poor sense of direction and I wandered around in a futile manner for some time, before finally jumping in a cab and asking to be taken to where the action was. There I found a police cordon. I fell into a brief conversation with someone.

He sat astride his bicycle, sipping away on a can of lager with not a care in the world. He had a picture of a cannabis plant on his t-shirt. He assured me knowingly (not that I had solicited his opinion) that the reasons for the riots were many. He called me 'Geez'.

Eventually it dawned on me that there might be a clean-up away from this cordoned area, and I managed to locate it. Alas, I was too late again though, as a large group had done its job brilliantly. I bumped into two friends and we hung around together for a while in the hope that the streets might be opened up for us to get in there and get busy. But they weren't.

I sensed that being there was nonetheless worthwhile. There was a pleasing sense of solidarity in the air, not a smug or triumphant one. I did feel that we were reclaiming our city and doing something positive, something that would contribute to the sum of human happiness. And, let's face it, it was interesting.

Shops had been vandalised indiscriminately. They included sportswear outlets - which had also been raided - and businesses of all sizes. The window of a shop that raises money for a hospice had been broken. The staff in Starbucks, which had been wrecked, were handing out glasses of water.

A boy who may have been no older than ten was also astride a bike, peering into a phone shop that had been worked over. He stared sadly at one of the assistants and said 'I feel sorry for you.' The assistant thanked him warmly.

At another cordon I saw a boy of a similar age, dressed like the first in a grey tracksuit, peer at a handful of litter pickers. 'Thank you,' he said simply.

I hadn't done anything yet, despite having started my adventure several hours earlier. Feeling inadequate, I allowed a possibility I had dismissed to float around my mind. There was a clean-up in Brixton starting at 6.30. Maybe I should go after all.

Brixton has never appealed to me. I take the word 'vibrant' as a synonym for 'ghastly' when it's employed as a description of parts of London. I had shown willing and perhaps I could go somewhere more local tomorrow. But the day needed to be resolved properly, and that meant actually doing something.

Brixton isn't all that far away after all. It's only a few stops from Victoria, nearer still to Pimlico. In short order I was there. I turned left, came out of the station and saw the famous Electric Avenue. I carried on to the meeting point five minutes before call-time and saw four people with brooms. I was struck by how pretty the square was and by the thought that yet again I might not find gainful employment.

More people appeared, but no-one was obviously in charge. It further emerged that the streets were rather a lot cleaner than expected, as the council had done a very good job already. But there was a general agreement to carry on. First we posed for a group photo.

We made our way down the street. I was stopped by two youths in baseball caps and low-slung jeans. They asked me if I knew where they could get bags and where to go. I explained it was all a bit unclear and they thanked me with gentle smiles.

Finally we came upon some wreckage. The windows of a Vodafone shop had been broken, and there were thick sheets of glass in the street. I volunteered to help pick them up, as I had my goalkeeper gloves on. A middle-class man with leadership qualities directed operations and together he and I lifted the glass into a reinforced bag. Then a handful of us swept up.

A Welshman who is a freelancer for the Sky News blog asked me if I would do a quick interview explaining why I was there. I looked directly into his camera until I remembered he'd asked me to look at him. It was over in a flash.

Some of the shops were still cordoned off as they remained crime scenes. We went down a side street which showed no signs of damage but which was covered in litter. We shrugged and figured that there was no harm in removing it. So we did. I picked up a few bits of rotten food and lots of debris.

And that's how I spent the next hour. The streets weren't very dirty, but they are a lot cleaner now. I got chatting, but only a bit, with a couple of the others. One of them said she would send me a tweet of a photo she got a policeman to take of us. The other one and I got on the tube together.

Everyone whom I have mentioned other than those two women, the journalist and my friends - i.e. the boozer on the bike, the two grateful boys in Clapham, the two youths who asked me how they could help and the posh chap who directed the glass removal - was black. So were lots of those who were there to clean up. So weren't lots of other people. So weren't many of the rioters.

I'm home now. I could reflect further on what this all means, but I've already written an article about what I think. I can sum up my views in a nutshell anyway. We don't know the circumstances of the rioters, but we do know they're not poor in any meaningful sense, that they're no worse off than huge numbers of people who would never behave in this way and who only go to the shops when they have earned enough money to pay for what they want, and that they're nothing like as badly off as people in other countries who would insist you had their last scrap of food if you were lucky enough to be a guest in their home. We know what it is to be a human being, that we have free will and can choose not to rob, burgle and beat people up. We know that politicians and the police need to do more to quell and quash these riots.

I didn't want to emote, or pontificate further or even think very much. I wanted to do something. So did lots of Londoners and some people who came from outside.

We were an eclectic bunch. 'Diversity' and 'harmony' were not political buzzwords today. They were thoroughly welcome and viscerally real phenomena.

London

2011-08-08T22:33:00.006Z

I'm going to take a risk this evening.

A phenomenon as serious as the riots in London merits serious thought. This is a time for level and clear heads. Anger is not a worthless or illegitimate emotion, but it should never be the platform on which policies are built.

Yet I want to record NOW my response to coming back to this London after a weekend away. What I am about to set down for cyber-posterity will be honest, even it has not been considered following a good night's sleep and calm reflection.

I increasingly find it useful when faced with complex and daunting political matters to start with what I feel sure of, in the hope that stating the obvious and outlining my premises / confessing my prejudices will shed some light on those areas that are not currently illuminated for me.

This, then, is what I believe:

What's happening is not remotely OK.

Of course there are worse things happening in the world tonight - and worse things have happened to London in recent years. But it is far from trivial that so many of us are feeling unsafe on the streets. I had to walk through a gang tonight. They weren't rioting and there were lots of police around, but it was not a pleasant experience.

And obviously it's gone a lot further than intimidation. These are dreadful, appalling days for London and it is having a scarring effect on the city.

Every politician's primary responsibility is keeping citizens safe.

I don't want to hear about bicycles, bendy buses or climate change for a bit. I want to know how politicians are going to enable and force the police to do what they should be doing, how the right to protest can be balanced against the fact that large groups of angry people are inherently intimidating and cause businesses to lose earnings, what the Justice Secretary is actually going to do about prisons and penal policy and what is going to be done to make the thought of going for a stroll in Brixton in the evening anything other than a ludicrous fantasy.

We are not at peace with ourselves or each other.

Certainly the rioters make up a tiny minority of the population of London. But there can be no serious doubt that it speaks of wider ills. It should distress and disturb everyone that anyone wants to behave in this way. It is fatuous, offensive and wrong to blame it on a moderate slowing of the rate of increase in public spending, which slowdown hasn't even yet begun in earnest. And it's a cop-out.

We all need to ask ourselves why so many teenage boys in London are so divorced from the morals, mores and values to which anyone civilised subscribes.

I came back from Amsterdam today. It may have a notorious red light district and stink of cannabis, yet there is also a little playground wherever you turn and people can sit outside drinking beer while their children sit with them without people vomiting, fighting or seeking out loveless, unprotected sex with a stranger.

It is high time we dispensed with the solecisms that have dominated public policymaking. Some people really are community leaders. Lots of those who call themselves such are unrepresentative, have no genuine authority, and do more harm than good. We should stop talking about 'communities' unless we mean 'localities'. There is no such thing as the black community, only black people.

Language matters because it does so much to shape our premises. Black people do not have a collective guilt for what is going on tonight, and they would not do so even if every rioter were a black person. Middle-class people (of whatever colour) don't have a collective guilt for it either and nor do teenagers. It is horrifying that it should be necessary to point out that this is a matter of individual responsibility.

There isn't time to consult sociologists.

We can't solve these endemic problems overnight. And some people will always remain beyond our reach. So unsentimental thought has to be given to how to dissuade people from rioting. It seems to me that the police have to be trusted to make strategic and tactical decisions. It also seems to me that the most potent deterrent is not public condemnation, being arrested or rational argument.

In the immediate term, the best deterrent is the threat of physical pain. I cannot even begin to imagine sympathising with a rioter or mugger who gets dinged by a plastic bullet or knocked off their feet by a water cannon.

When arrests are made and verdicts passed, there must be no place for empathy, caveats or equivocation. I do believe it is unjust to make an example of someone. I also think that rather than setting up commissions and promising new legislation, our leaders should focus on utilising the full force of the (existing) law. Damage to persons and property alike should, and does in theory, carry a severe penalty.

We can make this right.

Getting through this and reducing over the short, medium and long term the chances of it happening again will not be easy, but it is possible. The best place to start is from a place of honesty. We need to know why a man was shot by the police. We need to understand why some people are so divorced from normal and decent human conduct. And we should look at what does work as well as what doesn't.

Stimulating schools, responsible and loving parents, housing that is pleasant and well-lit, opportunities for hormone-fuelled adolescents to channel their aggression safely, visible, effective policing and community (in the proper sense of the word) groups which bring the neighbourhood together are some of the factors that encourage harmony to prevail. Let's focus on those.

Stay safe.

Total Politics 2

2011-07-18T08:58:00.002Z

I have a new piece up at Total Politics, on why we DON'T need media ownership rules.

Total Politics

2011-07-11T10:17:00.001Z

I am delighted to announce that I have started blogging for Total Politics. Here is my first offering, on ideas in politics.

The Tree That Strangles the Life Out of You

2011-07-09T10:13:00.008Z

Someone, somewhere in the city was dumped by her boyfriend yesterday. Distraught, she did what any rational person does in that situation and turned to a mate. Equally rational, her girlfriend told her “Right! I know what you need. You and I are going to have a girls’ night out. We will go to the cinema and watch The Tree of Life. It’s had amazing reviews and you can forget all about the bastard and ogle Brad Pitt.”

I dread to think what state that poor woman is in this morning. The Tree of Life is epoch-changing in the sheer scale of its awfulness.

Let me be clear: it is not so bad it’s good. It is please-God-let-there-be-a-global-Caliphate-so-that-films-like-this-can’t-get-made bad.

The staggering thing is the acting is actually perfectly respectable. Painful though it may be for the heterosexual male community to admit, Brad Pitt is much more than a pretty face and I had hitherto taken Sean Penn’s presence in a movie to be a sure sign that it is worth watching. Jessica Chastain and the child actors are very good too. The director and producers (one of whom was Pitt) have worked remarkably hard to fashion something so abominable under such circumstances.

The plot, such as it is, revolves around a family, headed by Pitt and Chastain, who lose a son. Penn plays a surviving brother who looks back on his childhood. Nothing wrong with that as a device, obviously, but things get off to an execrable start when Chastain’s character quotes from the Book of Job over a shot of a flickering flame. On investigation I have found that the image is a work of moving visual art called Opus 161 by Thomas Wilfred.

This sets the theme for the rest of the picture: pretentious, tedious and formless. Maybe a more sophisticated viewer would appreciate the genius of splicing footage of phenomena like volcanoes and tidal waves together with representations of meteorites and the dawn of time into what could have been a diverting drama about a 1950s Texan household. But maybe a more courageous studio executive would have said: “I know it sounds like an interesting idea in theory, but in practice it looks like you have made one long advert for a gay brand of aftershave.”

I suppose the idea was to give a sense of man’s place in the world, but that wasn’t at all obvious. So random were the images that it is only by taking a breezy romp through Wikipedia that I have established we were watching the evolution of the universe.

The scene unfolds at punishing length. My friend Murali and I considered walking out at this point, but were grimly fascinated by what was unfolding. Initially it simply looked as though Sir David Attenborough had got drunk and let himself lose in the editing suite – fashioning together admittedly pretty but wholly unrelated footage his team had collected down the years.

Bear in mind that this film is marketed as a sort of inoffensive coming-of-age period piece. Bear that in mind when I tell you that there are dinosaurs. They served one useful purpose only: a reminder that however talented the people behind it are, CGI is still utterly unconvincing and no match for puppetry.

And that, basically, is the film. There is no great reveal as to how the son has died. We see a bit of adolescent angst from the Sean Penn character, to which scenes I clung for dear life as I realised that we were, courageously, going to see this thing out. We had some sense of Brad Pitt’s father as a loving but flawed man. His wife just spoke drivel and cried a lot.

I repeat: it is not so bad it’s good. Jason Statham and Danny Dyer are nowhere to be seen. But I would urge anyone who is interested in writing, making or writing about films to see it. I am going to spend some time reading some of the multitudinous rave reviews that Murali assures me exist. (Inevitably a Guardian scribe enjoyed it, but I am incredulous that they raved about it at Cannes). Quite why so many people are unwilling, even from the safety of their laptop, to tell the Emperor he has no clothes is a mystery.

Hopefully that woman I wrote of will have decided to try some French cinema and seen Point Blank. That is an excellent film. If only so many characters had been gunned down in The Tree of Life.

Directors of Space

2011-05-21T13:18:00.004Z

Check out the website for Directors of Space. The band are close personal friends. Why? Because I'm a rock star too.

Open letter to Fabio Capello

2011-05-13T23:27:00.003Z

Dear Mr Capello,

I understand from my sources in the media (in this case articles published in national newspapers) that the England football team is facing something of a goalkeeper crisis. Two seasoned professionals who have had the honour of donning the shirt in the past have apparently indicated that they no longer wish to be considered for selection.

As you will well know, goalkeeper is not so much a specialist as a unique position and thus pickings are comparatively scarce. I am writing to inform you that I stand able and ready to fill the void.

I first kept goal at the tender age of 8, several years before current contenders (other than dear old David “Calamity” James) first donned a latex glove. It has been some time since I last wore a latex glove - in a footballing context at least – but I think you’ll agree that whilst the years and kilograms may pile up upon one, one never really loses it. Simply put, I AM a goalkeeper and I AM an Englishman (no offence).

A few statistics for you to consider:

Whilst I have let in quite a few goals through my hands (on average one per game) I have never been nutmegged (let the ball through my legs) in a competitive match.

I played for Bloxham Under-12s, badly but with dedication.

I starred, not to put too fine a point on it, for the 2^nd XI at Trinity College, Oxford. Even during a 10-0 drubbing at the hands of some trainee-monks I made a string of saves.

I played, on a handful of occasions, for Westminster Wanderers, a team comprised of conservative politicos. Football can indeed be a unifying force, and I was once congratulated on a typically athletic save by an Irish Republican (non-violent).

I have a penalty saving record of 50%, which is world-class by any standards. (It was 100% until I faced my third penalty.)

I am built along the lines of the famous and highly effective William “Fatty” Foulke. To be perfectly honest, you will find the other players amusingly effete when contrasted with me.

I am highly articulate (this letter is just the tip of the iceberg) and would be a magnificent role model to and inspiration for children (especially fat ones).

I have excelled in a number of other professions – not least politics – and so would bring a certain maturity to the team. (It’s fair to say that this has been a bit of an issue for England in recent years.)

I am a stand-up comedian and I am therefore used to being in the spotlight. I can’t imagine that keeping goal in front of tens of thousands at Wembley is harder than trying to make fifteen braying idiots laugh in a room above a pub. Essentially it’s the same thing – and I am a PROVEN performer.

Of course I know and accept that I would face certain hurdles (although I hope I won’t be asked to jump over any as part of training, as I don’t have very flexible hamstrings). The Lads might object to an outsider being brought in, for example. However, goalkeepers are already seen as a different breed, and I would soon make my presence felt and welcome with witty (but not crude) banter in the changing room.

(Regarding the changing room, might it be possible to shower alone? I don’t much like communal nudity. I may not need a shower at all actually, as I like to wear tracksuit bottoms even during games.)

My weaknesses as a goalkeeper are: average handling skills, lack of playing time, lack of kit (can someone provide this please, as my contract with Puma only extends to trainers), below-par fitness levels, a slight tendency to “lose my rag” and nervousness when dealing with crosses. Also, I’d have to ask one of the centre-halves to take my goal kicks. I’m fine when kicking out of my hands, and I can throw the ball a VERY long way, but can I kick it off the floor? No, not very well at all is the answer to that question, I’m afraid.

But, Mr Capello, the pros outweigh the cons! I would gladly bleed for my country, like Terry Butcher after a meeting with Freddy Krueger after that match where Terry did indeed bleed heavily. I am, all-round, a “tough guy”. I am very good one-on-one; fearless in fact. Many are the 12-year-old boys who came off worse when I dived at their feet! (I was 12 at the time too; I’m not a maniac.)

I’m cerebral as well, but not to the extent that you would need to worry that I would be too busy philosophising to pluck a looping ball out of the air. Admittedly I did occasionally lose focus when I was playing schoolboy football, but I know now how to get “game-ready” from my years of doing stand-up. I would be permanently in The Zone.

Mr Capello, you are a fine manager. The time has come to think outside the box and call up a not-so-young patriot whose admittedly large belly is full of fire and, I’m unashamed to say, not a little love for England and all she represents.

I can be contacted c/o the House of Commons, where I work. Or rather, where I work for now!

LOL, ROFL, look forward to seeing you soon Boss.

With very best wishes and no little admiration,

Tom Greeves

I like to paaaaaaaaarty

2011-05-07T16:28:00.013Z

I have never submitted to the worlds of Internet, speed or blind dating and I never will. I freely admit that unvarnished prejudice is one of the reasons - even though some of my most charming and attractive friends have done it and enjoyed it I know I would find the whole experience excruciating and belittling. No offence and good luck to those of you who feel otherwise.

I nearly made an exception once. In 1998 I went to stay with my buddy Leigh in Canada and the two of us and our friend Andrew wrote a lonely hearts ad for me for a laugh. I don't think they placed it (certainly I never heard from anyone ...), but we spent some time deliberating over what to put in it. The hardest decision was how to address the subject of my having a good sense of humour.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assert that I'm a very funny guy. I have too much respect for you, Dear Reader, to pretend that I don't believe that to be the case. I'm told, and I am finally beginning to believe, that this is a quality people like in a potential boyfriend and thus I wanted to stress it in my ad. However, nigh-on every man had written "GSOH" in their own ad - so how to stand out from the crowd?

I can't remember how we resolved the conundrum because I never had any intention of going through with the project because I was crippled by shyness at that point in my life.

I'm reminded of this episode because I have been reflecting on a night out I enjoyed yesterday. It was spectacularly good fun, and prompted me to realise that when I fill in the Other Interests section of my CV, I really should put "socialising". I'm not sure there is anything I enjoy more than being in the company of friends and interesting new people and I'm not sure that there should be. (I am including family in the friends bracket here, by the way.)

But just as I didn't want to write an anaemic lonely heart ad, so informing potential employers that I like to paaaaaaaaarty would hardly do me justice.* It's probably better to say that I fit well into an office environment and that I am an affable colleague, or something wet like that.

Let me instead share with those of you who are perceptive, thoughtful, intelligent, kind and fabulous enough to read this blog that I am at my most carefree and happy when surrounded by old friends and making new ones (preferably on the same night) and doing little else other than drinking, eating and dancing.

And yes, people like it when you make them laugh.

*Although if I am ever looking to hire someone and a CV is passed to me in which the applicant intones "I like to paaaaaaaaarty" then they will get the job on the spot.

P.S. Someone among you is reading this and thinking "Well I don't find you funny". One day, Sir, we will meet and I will make the girl of your dreams cry with laughter - RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.

Notes on a wedding

2011-04-30T08:17:00.009Z

Two billion people. By pretty much any standard, that is a lot of folk. Prurience or fleeting interest cannot be the reason that fully two billion viewers tune in to an event. Plainly, the Royal Family is held in very high esteem throughout the world.

As I watched the wedding unfold on television and looked at the Internet before and after the ceremony, I was struck by a realisation: cynicism is no more sophisticated than credulous acceptance. They are both default responses which have little merit. Give me intellectual enquiry and true, gut instinct over cynicism any day.

Intellectually, there is a straightforward case to be made for the Monarchy. It provides continuity (and successive Prime Ministers have relied on the Queen's institutional memory). It works for us to have our nation personified by someone who transcends party politics. It is stable. It bonds us with other countries in the Commonwealth and no longer creates a schism with other nations - consider how Americans delighted in what happened yesterday. Even the French did. It is highly cost-effective, and many royals devote themselves to various forms of hugely worthwhile public service.

But, surely, there is a place for a visceral response too, isn't there? To swell with pride that we do pomp and ceremony better than anyone, to be reminded that the Union Flag could never be the preserve of bigots, to gaze fondly at Prince William as he tries not to giggle, to say that yes, Catherine really is beautiful and to smile quietly at the thought that this rainy little island is admired so widely.

I write this in the knowledge that some of you will have a different gut reaction, perhaps of a nauseous nature. Another advantage that our constitutional monarchy affords us is that it is the backdrop to a political system in which dissent is not merely tolerated but welcomed. That Huw Edwards waxed lyrical in his commentary and there was an attempt (unsuccessful! They'd have definitely been shifted in China) to move on the selfish oafs who have colonised Parliament Square makes no odds. We have freedom of speech in this country.

So much of the infantile rejection of what we saw yesterday was so obviously, as it were, pre-scripted. As such it was no more original or valuable than the incessant flag-waving of the dippiest royalist - and a lot less charming. And, literally, unbelievable. Someone who says the same things over and over again is likely seeking the reassurance of others - and trying to convince themselves.

If you reflexively oppose everything that someone does, then you are defined by them. That's not listening to your own gut, it's being a distorted echo. If you are uniformly counter-cultural, then you are one of the crowd. Happily we saw yesterday that one crowd is infinitesimally larger than the other.

A well-rounded life certainly must make room for vigorous debate and deep rational thought. Marching to the beat of your own drum is important too. Equally, we must allow ourselves to experience communal joy and uncritical pleasure. A wedding between our future king and his adorable girl seemed as good an opportunity as any.

Film review

2011-04-28T08:49:00.001Z

There's a nice review of I Am a Great Man in Total Politics this month. I feel I should let you know there's a bit of a spoiler in it though!

Charles Foster

2011-04-25T11:19:00.005Z

Is the word 'polymath' used with excessive abandon these days? I really don't know; but I do know that it applies to my friend Charles Foster. Dive into his work and drink deeply. He writes with great verve, humour and clarity, and his prose is replete with wisdom and learning.

The bastard.

Carpe diem

2011-04-22T21:11:00.005Z

How old is too old? It's a question that probably vexes us all in myriad circumstances once we hit our mid-30s. I'm not overwhelmed by melancholy just yet and indeed in many ways this is the perfect age - at 35 one is still young but old enough to sense that one has to seize the day. Nevertheless, I find myself looking back (calmly, so far) and considering missed opportunities.

I should have learned the guitar as a boy rather than the violin. I'd love to be able to pluck, pick and strum but I struggle to make any sense of a guitar when I find one in my hands. Still, while it would be great if I had known my way around an axe for years, it's hardly too late to take lessons. The same applies to foreign languages.

Sport is a cause for greater regret. A former professional footballer once offered to coach me and some friends. I was giddy with excitement at the idea, but for reasons that still rather pass my understanding, I failed to act on it. I regret that to this day, not least as I fear it may have seemed like a rejection of a real act of kindness. But I don't delude myself that I would have made the England team if only I'd grabbed that nettle. There aren't many Sunday League teams I would have made.

What I really regret is spending all of my twenties overweight and inactive. I would have benefited in multitudinous ways from playing rugby, say, or throwing the discus. But I was put off rugby by the boorishness and casual athletics doesn't seem to exist.

Then we come to those things which I do now but didn't do when I was younger. Foremost among those is stand-up comedy. I look at comedians my age and they've been performing for a decade-and-a-half. That's a lot of stage time, and stage time matters. (Similarly, although he still looks like a teenager, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day was 30 when Shenanigans was released the best part of ten years ago. Those guys have been around forever!)

But, and here's the rub, there was a reason that I didn't do stand-up then. I didn't think I'd be any good at it - and at the time I was right. What I have lost in stage time is compensated for by the fact that I didn't lose heart and quit.

We do miss opportunities, and that's a shame. The game isn't over yet though, and achievements and experiences are all the sweeter when you've waited a long time for them.

Sunshine means quite a lot to me

2011-04-22T12:14:00.003Z

Why should sunshine cheer me up quite so much? Is it an elemental thing? Are we authentically of the sun? Why do some of us find that our happiness depends to such an advanced degree on whether the sun has got his hat on?

These are just some of the questions I will explore in incredibly shallow depth if ever at all. Yet, for whatever reason, the sun makes my spirits soar. It would be preferable, as a proud Englishman and Briton, if I derived as much inspiration from a cold, overcast, typically English / British day. I have friends who adore a cold snap, leaves fallen from trees and a grey hue to the sky. They're lucky.

I try to tell myself that it's better if a sunny day is a rare treat, that it would lose its charm if it was a more frequent occurrence and that we are lucky to experience seasons. But I don't actually believe it.

You don't get me, I'm part of the union

2011-04-21T21:41:00.010Z

I'm very grateful to my friend Abigail for getting me back into rugby union. It's a tremendous game. One of its finest qualities is the diversity of talent on display.

Marvel at the kicking skill of the fly-half, whose drop goals and penalties win a match for his team single-handedly. Pay tribute to the wily old prop, who out-scrummages a larger, younger, stronger buck through experience and guile. Wince at the crunching tackles of the head-hunting centre. Admire the handling skills of the full-back. Applaud the determined Number 8, as he sneakily gouges the eye of an opponent. Celebrate the breathtaking speed of the wing, as he dances along the line to score a try.

Did one of those not sound right? I do hope so.

Rugby is, to be sure, a man's game (as well as a woman's game and a children's game). You can expect to be flattened, to be bent into all sort of unnatural shapes, and to be run ragged. Sometimes there may even be a bit of slap and tickle (aka fisticuffs). But rugby played within the rules is a magnificent test of character and of capacity for physical hardship.

Gouging, biting and raking your studs down someone's back are the behaviours of a cad.

Notes on a village, notes on a nation

2011-04-21T09:16:00.016Z

There is something quite remarkable about the village in north Oxfordshire where I grew up and from where I am typing this post. Near the Cotswolds but not of it, we are something of an undiscovered treasure. The Hornton stone, with its gentle orange hue, is distinctly warmer than and superior to the stone used elsewhere in the county. There is, blessedly, still a great deal of unspoiled greenery.

It is unthinkable when walking though the village not to say hello to anyone who passes. But this is not an insular or gossipy place. It is a community in the best sense. And it has grown organically and proportionately. There are stalwart families who have lived here for generations and provide a backbone. There are also newcomers, perhaps from London or other citites, who have thrown themselves into activities in the village and are part of its very lifeblood.

The concept of social class seems anachronistic here; not because there are no differences in wealth but because there are no differences in status. Everyone mixes unself-consciously and relaxedly.

There is a farm shop which rents out space to holiday-makers in caravans and a lovely pub run by a Cornishman where that uniquely Oxfordshire phenomenon Aunt Sally is played. The village hall stages film nights once a month, a pantomime at Christmas, coffee mornings during the week and various other events.

When the Hardys were living here they flew a union jack alongside the Irish tricolour. Ben, an Ivy League-educated Harley Davidson rider, flew a Ghanaian flag. Each flag was splendid and welcome. Ben and the Hardys loved their countries and loved their village.

This place will always be home for me. It will be home for many more people, including people who are already adults but who don't currently live in the county, or perhaps even the country. And the village will be all the richer for that, just as it is enriched by the collective knowledge, experience, wisdom and love of those families that have been woven into the fabric for generations.

Ronald Reagan compared America to a shining city on a hill. I think we might usefully compare England to a village and seek to emulate what a good village does well.

A village ceases to be a village if it grows exponentially but benefits greatly from a small infusion of new blood and when the newcomers want to embrace village life. Those that don't have the capacity to cause real distress and unhappiness. It's good to live somewhere where, whilst not everyone knows your name, they will greet you with a smile. Trees and grass matter and they are hard if not impossible to replace when they are gone. Privacy and peace are vital, yet so too are human interaction and warmth, drinking and talking and dancing.

If the rest of the country were like the village that raised me, we would be a whole lot happier.

Intercourse

2011-04-19T23:41:00.001Z

Jon Spira has responded to my last post and I in turn have commented on his response. You can read it here.

You're (probably) a hypocrite

2011-04-19T13:56:00.032Z

I understand why Government Ministers and other Coalition spokespeople are so keen to state that the cuts are "not ideological". One reason is that it's true, in that they merely take us back to the public spending levels of a few years ago. The top rate of income tax remains at 50 per cent and expenditure on healthcare, overseas aid and infrastructure improvements has been ring-fenced. Furthermore, Labour would make cuts of about 80 per cent of overall Coalition plans - which made Ed Miliband's recent call to arms (in which he invoked the spirits of Dr King and Nelson Mandela) both hilarious and offensive. There is in fact a broad consensus.

But, of course, there's more to it than that. Front-line politicians are plainly either disinclined or scared to get into philosophical discussion about the size and scope of the state. I think that it is always a good time to ask such fundamental questions. I also think that as things stand modern political discourse is looking at things myopically and one-dimensionally.

We have talk of devolving central government powers to local government. We have some debate about the top rate of income tax. There is a lot of chatter regarding the empowerment of individuals and community groups. There is voluminous and voluble discussion about spending priorities. But precious few people seem to be articulating the view that there must be a limit on what one human being can demand of another.

I want to make clear that I support the principle of progressive taxation. For one thing, I wouldn't work in this town again if I didn't. And it does make economic sense - the wealthiest often are the biggest beneficiaries of the protection of property and enforcement of contracts. It also seems profoundly unlikely that any government could afford not to tax the rich more heavily than others.

Yet it does not flow from this that government should look at a nation's overall wealth and divvy it up according to need (let alone nakedly political priority). Nor is it right to decide what the government should spend and then determine what taxes need to be raised. Ministers should consider what taxation levels are fair and reasonable at the same time as calculating what they should spend - and what they can afford to spend.

Perhaps you are now on the edge of your seat, waving your fist at the screen and bellowing "As long as there are people starving in the world we should soak the wealthy! I wouldn't give a damn if Sir Richard Branson was reduced to owning one very large home and a modest island - he'd cope!"

He would cope. But before you rush to judgement, go home and have a look around. Consider your nice bed. You could trade it in for a mattress and still sleep soundly. Look at your DVD collection - do you really need them all? They'd raise a few quid at a secondhand merchant's. Do you use your dishwasher much? Washing up by hand doesn't take long and is good for the soul. Do you own your home? You could downsize, you know. Truly poor people live five or six to a room (if they're lucky enough to have one). Do you need to spend all that dosh on booze and going out? If you live in London, you really don't need a car most of the time. Sell it!

So what should you do with the change you've pocketed? Why, you could write a cheque to George Osborne, if you really believe he spends your money with infinite sagacity. Or you could send a donation to a reputable charity that works in poor countries. But you're not going to do that, are you? Because - like me, like your friends, like pretty much everyone - you care a bit about people you don't know, but only a bit. John Lennon wrote Imagine, but he didn't mean it. He still had quite a few possessions when he died.

Next time you rag on Richard Branson and Philip Green, just remember that the Exchequer has far more money than it would have done had they never existed or decided that they couldn't be bothered to start a business. They may not feel the pinch like you do, but they've made more hospital beds available than you have. Oh, and they've also provided products, services and jobs to a great many of us.

It's human nature to put oneself and one's family and loved ones first. That isn't going to change, which is why punitive rates of taxation are self-defeating - the wealth creators WILL move elsewhere or cease to do their thing if we hit them too hard. Maybe, just maybe, their yachts matter to them like your widescreen television matters to you.

There are some things from which all of society benefits, and so all of society should be made to pay for them. There are, of course, moral imperatives too. However, although "First they came for the yacht-owners..." is an even worse rallying cry than Ed Miliband's, it has more than a grain of truth to it.

BREAKING NEWS

2011-04-18T21:26:00.002Z

Against all the odds, and my better judgement perhaps, I am now on Twitter.

If I am not a celebrity within six months this has probably been a mistake.

Commentary on commenting (how meta)

2011-04-18T20:42:00.004Z

Do you think I should have comments on this blog? Please email me either way on tommywgreeves@yahoo.co.uk.

This decision won't be taken democratically, but if there seems to be any sort of desire among my readership (whose miniscule numbers might grow if I have comments) for me to allow them I will consider it.

It's cranks and the libellous that I fear most. Shortly followed by the unkind.

Another point on AV

2011-04-18T20:02:00.006Z

This has been explained elsewhere, but please remember that there is no guarantee that the winning candidate will get 50 per cent of the vote under AV.

Firstly, they're not getting worthwhile votes when they get transfers, they are getting sloppy seconds at best. Moreover, as NotoAV has outlined:

When the Yes campaign talk about AV giving MPs ’50%’ of the vote, they mean 50% of the votes still remaining in the count. Because some people’s votes will get eliminated, under AV we’ll still have MPs elected on small shares of the vote – even after cobbling together a mishmash of first, second, third or lower preferences. That’s why academic experts have said that ‘more than four out of ten’ MPs will still be elected with less than 50% support under AV.

There is a lot of drivel being talked about AV. It's not even the case that the winning candidate will necessarily get 50 per cent of the votes cast, as NotoAV also reminds us:

The Electoral Commission’s impartial information booklet also makes this clear, saying: ‘Because voters don’t have to rank all of the candidates, an election can be won under the “alternative vote” system with less than half the total votes cast.’

Maybe you think it's fair to discount the second and subsequent preferences of voters whose first choice candidates come top of the ballot. I think it's a pretty weird, shoddy and unjust way to do business.

More on AV

2011-04-18T19:52:00.003Z

Further to my post on AV, another brief point.

If you think that an MP should have the broadest support possible among the electorate, and that this matters more than who is first choice for the largest number of people, then you should not support AV.

AV favours the second, third and subsequent preferences of the voters whose first choice is least popular. (Because second and subsequent preferences are transferred from the bottom, and not at all from the top.) Why should those voters be favoured over the others?!

The system you should support would see voters giving candidates a certain number of points, and then the candidate with the highest number of points winning.

Update

2011-04-18T14:12:00.004Z

The trainers are doing a good job.

There was a moment of panic when they seemed to be too narrow, but I took the laces out and started again and then decided not to loop the laces through the uppermost eyes. In fact if anything they're a bit loose now.

My trousers are also getting loose. I am making steady progress.

In other news, I am listening to Eddi Reader singing Ae Fond Kiss by Rabbie Burns. Eddi has the honour of being the first version I listen to. I am getting very into Burns.

But gi'e me a canny hour at e'en,
My arms about my dearie, O,
An' warl'ly cares an' warl'ly men
May a' gae tapsalteerie, O!

For you sae douce, ye sneer at this,
Ye're nought but senseless asses, O;
The wisest man the warl' e'er saw,
He dearly loved the lasses, O.

Yes OK, I know it's not an esoteric one

2011-04-18T14:08:00.003Z

Whenever I admit to myself or others - always somewhat sheepishly, always somewhat shamefacedly - that I just don't like classical music, I think of this, which I love.

Any idea, MI6?

2011-04-18T13:44:00.009Z

There have been several viewings of this blog in Iran.

By whom?!

Forwards, not backwards

2011-04-07T12:59:00.012Z

I have just taken receipt of my new trainers. I think you will agree that they are extremely handsome and embody the sort of verve for which I am famous.

If you are interested in the technology behind them (which you are), then you can find out more in this video. They are very comfy and supportive indeed and I simply adore yellow and blue as a combination (as every Oxford fan should). The Jamaican theme is a nice flourish too.

It is also terrifically exciting to realise that by the time these shoes have served with distinction I will have lost all my excess weight. As such they will be taking me on quite a journey.

I should explain that I have not entered into a formal relationship with Puma. Indeed the shoes are named for Usain Bolt, a sprinter whose achievements considerably outstrip my own athletic endeavours. Nevertheless, they are very "me".

Food for thought

2011-04-06T18:45:00.020Z

It's good to see people coming out against private sector involvement in healthcare.

Some things are too important, too fundamental to be left to the market. Imagine if food, say, wasn't completely controlled by the state.

Picture, if you can bear it, the scene. Instead of being centrally controlled by Whitehall, food production and distribution is largely undertaken by private enterprise. You get your weekly groceries not from the National Food Service but from a warehouse on the edge of town or a smaller outfit on the corner of your street.

What motivates the people who run and work in such places? Nope, not pure altruism, as one would hope and expect. Dirty, wicked profit, that's what. That's right - even though we're talking about an essential public good like food. It makes me sick (and so does the organic, ethically sourced, extensively tested crap they sell in "supermarkets").

Prices rise through the roof and quality drops through the floor, which is the inevitable consequence of competition. Those of us whose brains don't explode from having to choose between five different kinds of houmous eventually starve to death because staple items such as bread cost £25 per unit.

Mercifully, that's not the reality. Very shrewdly, we are persisting in this country with a food policy that is modelled on the famed and universally celebrated Soviet system.

We just need to do everything we can to ensure that evil capitalists have no involvement in healthcare. The idea of private companies funding ground-breaking research or increasing capacity in the NHS may seem too awful to contemplate, but we cannot afford to let our guard down.

What we need, what we DEMAND, is no reform whatsoever of a system designed six decades ago.

I Am a Great Man

2011-03-28T09:18:00.011Z

The first feature film in which I had the pleasure of appearing, I Am a Great Man, is now finished. There will be a screening on Monday 4th April, and you can apply for tickets here.

Here is the trailer.

I like to cuddle my housemate

2011-03-19T11:34:00.007Z

One of my housemates is seven months old. Cuddling him is one of my favourite pastimes. We rub noses, Māori-style. I hoist him in the air. But perhaps my favourite bit is when he behaves like a prop forward.

He sort of looks like a prop; although I should qualify that. He has the powerful build of a prop and very short hair. But he's much better looking than a typical loosehead or tighthead.

Yet he has all the sneaky and downright dirty tricks of the front row trade. A vice-like grip, a finger up my nose, drool on my face, a hand slapped on my forehead - all of these and more are standard fare.

I suspect my housemate will end up being a lock if he plays rugby, as his father is literally a giant. But should the height of front row players keep increasing at the rate it has in recent years then he will be more than a match for anyone he faces.

It takes me back to be being sixteen and packing down against opponents who were usually, mercifully, rather smaller than me. However, I never got the urge to kiss them. Come to think of it, THAT would have been a great way of undermining their confidence and winning what is in no small part a psychological war.

But my housemate has the better of me every time.

Yes You Can

2011-02-18T15:44:00.012Z

As the debate on electoral reform starts to rage - or perhaps churn stodgily - I thought I might make a request. Could we - whatever our views on the Alternative Vote - take a moment to infuse this debate with rather more precision in language?

One of the central arguments against the first past the post system is that it is "unfair" on those who live in a seat where "a monkey with a blue/red (occasionally yellow) rosette could get elected". It is taken as established fact that, for example, a Conservative can't get elected in an Islington seat and a Labourite hasn't got a prayer in East Surrey.

But, actually, THAT'S NOT TRUE. It is currently highly unlikely that Labour will win East Surrey at the next general election - but that is emphatically not the same thing as it being systemically impossible.

This distinction is crucial. It might initially seem sloppy but trivial to fail to make it. In fact, that sloppiness could help trigger a change in the way we run elections. And whatever decision we take in May, it shouldn't be a sloppy one.

The factors which make a "safe" seat safe - demographic make-up, the size and efficiency of a party's activist base, the vigour with which an MP has worked to represent their constituents' interests over the years - these are wholly distinct from the system we use to elect MPs. They are not inherently unfair, and it is irresponsible and sloppy to assert that they are.

Such factors may and indeed do often present a formidable set of obstacles for a challenger, but so what? Whoever said politics is or should be easy?

Not Paddy Ashdown, who won Yeovil and helped keep it for the Lib Dems. Not Martin Bell or Richard Taylor, who won as independents. Not Caroline Lucas, who won a Brighton seat for the Greens (in no small part because she is so appealing personally).

Not, for that matter, Barack Obama, whose ascent to the US Presidency would have been impossible if he'd not dared to take on the established Clinton machine in the Democrat primaries. The odds seemed stacked against him. How did he do it? With a compelling narrative and inspired use of new media.

Not everyone can be like Barack - but they can pull their fingers out and say something attention-grabbing instead of just whinging that the system works against them. What they actually mean, if they dare to search their souls, is that the voters work against them.

Simply put, until a vote has been cast every vote is to play for. If people vote along predictable lines blame them, blame politicians, blame apathy - blame anything but the system. The system is very straightforward: each seat chooses someone to represent it, and then a bunch of MPs form a government, at the Queen's request.

Personally I think it works well. I don't want people to vote explicitly for parties rather than individuals, as that makes politicians more distant and unaccountable (their only challenge becomes persuading their party to place them high on the list). I think every MP should have a constituency and that this is preferable to making Parliament more accurately reflect how each party did in the national vote. I also think it's fatuous to take into account a voter's second, third and fourth choices.

These, however, are matters of opinion. They are already being well rehearsed, as are other important arguments (e.g. under AV, in a typical seat the second and third preferences of a BNP supporter would likely be counted when those of a Labour supporter would likely not be).

What is a matter of objective fact is that while there is such a thing as a safe seat, there is no such thing as a 100 per cent safe one. In other words, the system ensures that every single MP has reason to fear for their job security because every single MP can be removed - and a jolly good thing too.

It is for the politically intrepid to go out and win against the odds. Changing the system to make it easier for them through counting sloppy second preferences will do nothing to fix the malaise in our polity.

I'm Having Dinner With This Man Tomorrow

2011-02-17T20:15:00.002Z

If I don't blog again in the next few days ...

... that will follow a fairly predictable pattern of sloth.

But it might also mean I'm dead.

Never Thought THAT Would Happen

2011-02-13T19:30:00.001Z

A shopkeeper just addressed me as "Madam".

Localism Schmocalism

2011-02-07T14:36:00.005Z

Up and down the country (BEFORE spending cuts have even kicked in) local governments are deciding to axe services - and yet central government is getting all the blame.

Councils have considerable control over budget priorities (they could, for example, fire all their chief executives, who for vast salaries do the job that council chairmen should be doing). But we are seeing - as it should always have been obvious that we would - that voters will always, always, ALWAYS expect Ministers to take ultimate responsibility.

It's almost as though localism doesn't and can't and never will work.

No Other Comment Necessary

2011-02-03T11:28:00.002Z

Peter Bonner is available for a variety of acting jobs.

More Edukashion

2011-01-31T12:19:00.003Z

M'great mate David Skelton and I are engaged in a debate about representation in the House of Commons.

Well, I write "debate", but I've commented on an article he has written - a courtesy I don't extend to readers of this blog.

Nick Hornby's Spiritual Son

2011-01-28T14:18:00.003Z

The best blog I have ever read* is Headscissors. This is one of Paul's finest ever posts. It's about football.

*I mean that. I don't just mean it's the funniest (although it is). And I am including political blogs (most of which aren't much cop) and websites run by newspapers. Headscissors is everything a blog should be: unique, insightful, readable (a surprisingly uncommon quality) and true. It really deserves a much wider audience.

A Helpful Contribution

2011-01-27T12:43:00.000Z

What evidence exists that suggests that dinosaurs were particularly sexist?

What To Do With The BBC

2011-01-24T11:22:00.002Z

Despite being a right wing firebrand, I don't want the BBC to be destroyed. It is an enormously important British institution and the fact that there is a great deal wrong with it is no reason to give up on it. Far from it.

I have long favoured subscription. The licence fee is ever more indefensible and anachronistic in a multi-media age, but the absence of adverts during movies and longer programmes is welcome. (Although the corporation advertises itself quite a lot.) So why not let people sign up to a panoply of BBC services if they want to, and not if they don't?

Yet the notion that the BBC flourishes because it is free from commercial pressures is a nonsense. First of all, it chases ratings like the most whorish business. Most of its programmes serve no "public service" ideal whatsoever, and those that do are often inferior to the best that Channel Four has to offer.

And this article by Peter Sissons shows starkly how the corporation has grown fat and self-satisfied (yes, I know I can talk) and needs to lose its sense of entitlement.

The licence fee - collected in a way that would shame the most dastardly highwayman - must be abolished, and the BBC needs an injection of fresh (but not necessarily younger) blood and new (or rather old and conservative) ideas.

And by the way, we can handle seeing middle-aged female presenters on our screens, and would welcome it.

All You Need To Know About How To Do Comedy

2011-01-21T09:58:00.005Z

"I'm not going to apologise for being true to myself. My strategy is to make me laugh. If there's anyone in the world like me, that's a bonus."

Ricky Gervais sums up in a nutshell the approach that every single comedian should take to their craft.

Feel Better About Seemingly Irrational Hatred!

2011-01-19T16:47:00.003Z

I - quite genuinely - find boring people offensive. I don't think that being boring is a morally neutral matter.

Samira Ahmed

2011-01-12T13:47:00.003Z

I worked at Channel Four News last year. (Yeah I know! Me of all people! Ahahahaha!)

M'former senior colleague Samira Ahmed - who is an outstanding newsreader, journalist and correspondent - has a new website. Do check it out. She's a bone fide star.

If Frank Turner Took Steroids ...

2011-01-11T14:20:00.004Z

... he might look rather like Carl Hayman.

We're Half Way There

2010-12-08T11:33:00.005Z

Tommy used to work on the docks

Union's been on strike

He's down on his luck

It's tough

So tough

Tommy reflects that

Maybe collective bargaining

Isn't all it's cracked up to be

The well-fed bosses

Of his so-called union

Earn white-collar salaries

But thanks to them

Tommy and his mates

Never seem to have any work

Gina works the diner all day

Whilst the basic salary isn't great

A combination of overtime shifts

And generous tips from customers

Who appreciate good service

Amounts to a pretty decent income

Inspired by Gina

Tommy decides he's fed up with

Being a docker

And becomes a cab driver

He enjoys being his own boss

And not being at the mercy of workshy colleagues

And because he can set his own hours

He has plenty of time

To pursue his passion for music

(And his customers provide lots of material for songs!!!)

Tommy and Gina's relationship

Has never been stronger

And each of them feels

Much more fulfilled on

An individual level too

Greater London Powerlifting Championships

2010-12-04T23:10:00.001Z

It's not an easy task to write an entertaining report of a powerlifting competition, but I've had a go for the British Barbell website. The report is for the Greater London Championships on 27 November.

A Word On The Ashes

2010-12-01T16:37:00.002Z

In fact this is a word on the broader subject of Anglo-Australian relations.

I make no wider point than this: it is a bit weird that Aussies call us "Poms" when every explanation for the origins of the term seems to refer to English people who settled in Australia - which current Englishmen and Englishwomen did not.

So if anyone is a Pom, it's likely to be an Australian. Therefore the cry "Beat the Poms!" is an exhortation to self-flagellation.

Thoughts, my Aussie friends?

Edukashion

2010-11-04T10:53:00.000Z

Here is a very interesting article by a VERY important educational theorist!

This Is Powerlifting

2010-10-31T11:28:00.001Z

Working The Net

2010-10-17T09:53:00.002Z

I've written an article for Critical Reaction. It's a review (yes I'm cultured) of The Social Network.

I Think I Have A New Musical Hero ...

2010-10-09T09:30:00.004Z

... Ray LaMontagne. Here is on Jools Holland the other night.

I also have a couple of old ones. Using the simply fabulous Sky Plus facility on Sky TV, I recorded a 2007 concert featuring James Taylor and Carole King at the Troubador a few days ago, and watched it last night. It was sheer bliss to see and hear two of my favourite artists doing their thing. They are both surpassingly brilliant. The unalloyed joy of live music (even viewed through the prism of television) is transcendent.

BBC Four is coming up trumps with their Singer-Songwriter season. They had a Carole King concert from decades ago on last night, and Old Stringbean (JT) played guitar on a number. It is startling to see how talented they were even back then, but also to consider how James's (come on, of COURSE I'm going to presume to call him by his first name after all these years of adoring him) stage manner has improved to a revolutionary degree. Where once he mumbled or was silent between songs, today he can have the crowds in gales of laughter just like that. Interesting and - for a stand-up - encouraging. I guess it's evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

I've recorded something with Justin Currie from Del Amitri in it, so I have that to look forward to as well and another Singer-Songwriter programme with among others Kris Kristofferson.

Music makes life worth living.

Excuse The Indecent Haste ...

2010-09-28T15:12:00.001Z

... but I have a piece up on Platform 10!

Platform 10

2010-09-28T12:30:00.002Z

Do you like thoughtful and considered political opinion? ("Of course we do!" I hear you cry, "That's why we used to love your blog, before you started doing the political stuff elsewhere and banging on about lifting weights and comedy".)

If so, you really ought to check out Platform 10. There is a particularly compelling piece by m'great mate David Skelton today. It's about the dangers of underestimating Ed Miliband.

We've not won the next election yet guys, and this chap could well become Prime Minister (Ed or David Skelton, actually).

Do read the whole thing, but take a moment to void your bowels at the realisation that Labour only have to win 30 seats to be the largest party at the next election.

I'm Presuming Ed ...

2010-09-25T19:47:00.002Z

... Miliband won't read it, but I have written an open letter to him with some advice on how to take the Labour Party forward.

Anyone Can Play Guitar

2010-09-23T15:26:00.005Z

Well actually, I can't, but I do want to learn. But more to the point, the above is the title of m'great mate Jon's documentary. Please have a look at the trailer, here.

I have seen some clips from the film and it looks wonderful. Despite not having seen the whole thing I am certain that it will be. Jon is seriously talented at this stuff and his subject matter - the Oxford music scene - is tremendously compelling as well.

You'll learn more about bands you love already, discover new-to-you music that may well be even better (Dive Dive, for example, are superb) and get a unique insight into the music industry.

It is terrifying for an artist of any kind and also for an ideological capitalist to be confronted with the reality that ability alone is no guarantor of success. This film explores this subject matter and more with great skill and beauty.

Update: Oh, and I now learn (given that Jon has mentioned it in a tweet) that I can make public the fact that the documentary is narrated by Stewart Lee!

Standing Up In London Town

2010-09-20T11:05:00.002Z

I am performing at the Red Lion, opposite Big Ben, tonight. Doors open at 7:30pm, show starts at 8.

Debate? Hardly The Best Term

2010-09-19T16:12:00.002Z

I have published my views on the leaders' TV debates, and how they could have gone better for the Conservatives.

Scrap The London Assembly

2010-09-18T10:50:00.000Z

Can you think of a good reason not to?!

I Have A New Nickname ...

2010-09-17T14:02:00.005Z

... Giant Feystacks.

Full credit to Christopher Montgomery for this magnificent invention.

ConservativeHome

2010-09-02T12:31:00.001Z

I have written a shorter version of my defence of William Hague for ConservativeHome. Here it is.

BTW, this is post number 701 on my blog!

And Now For Something Rather More Delightful

2010-09-02T11:29:00.001Z

Herewith a video of my favourite ever footballer, Alan Judge, saving a penalty.

Thoughts On William Hague

2010-09-01T16:18:00.003Z

I made the final of a prestigious stand-up comedy competition at the Edinburgh Fringe this year. I got a good seat too, in the second row. While I was sitting there waiting for the show to begin, a friend texted me to say that William Hague was in trouble over one of his special advisers (SpAds).

This was most unwelcome. First of all I am a loyal Conservative. Secondly I am very fond of William personally, as his leadership persuaded me to join the party and I had a chance to admire his work at close quarters when I was at Central Office. He is an utterly outstanding politician and would have held his own in any Conservative Cabinet of any era.

So what follows must be seen in that context; I'm a fully paid up WH fan. But he doesn't know I am writing this piece and I hope that readers will assess the merits of my assertions as if I were an objective commentator (and as if such a person exists!).

It seems to me that there has been a lot of nonsense talked and written about the whole Chris Myers saga and that with a bit of analysis its nonsensical nature becomes palpable. It was tempting not to do anything to give the story legs, but in my opinion that horse has bolted, especially in cyberspace. Here then, are some of my thoughts.

William's appointment of a third special adviser is not in breach of the Ministerial Code. The code states (see my old employers Channel Four FactCheck for a photostat) that although two SpAds shall be the norm, "Where a Minister has additional responsibility additional advisers may be allowed. All appointments, including exceptions to this rule, require the prior written approval of the Prime Minister".

William does indeed have additional responsibilities to the Foreign Office - he is First Secretary of State - and there is clearly room for manoeuvre. In my opinion every cabinet minister should be allowed several SpAds, but the main point is that William has not broken the rules in appointing a third.

Maybe he does want Chris Myers around for something other than his foreign policy expertise. That is what elements of the media are intimating. It may well be true, but not in the vulgar sense that is being hinted at.

William does not surround himself with morons or even the mediocre. Arminka Helic and Denzil Davidson, his other two SpAds, are razor-sharp and highly experienced in foreign policy. The notion that he would knowingly appoint someone substandard or for non-professional reasons will not be accepted by anyone who knows the man. It beggars belief that he could ever be motivated to do something so crass and idiotic.

However, there might be a very good and legitimate case for having a third SpAd with different skills. With Arminka and Denzil covering policy in their charming wonky way and the massed ranks of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to hand as well, a talented fixer could be just what William needs to round off his private political office. And it seems that Mr Myers does indeed have admirable form in that department.

When it comes to staffing their political office, the minister knows best. The whole point of SpAds is that they are there because the minister trusts them implicitly. There shouldn't and can't be an endless stream of them, but it does not strike me as disproportionate that senior politicians should have the scope to appoint, say, four or five SpAds - i.e. advisers in whom they have total and personal faith. The minister alone should choose who those people are, just as an MP chooses their own secretary. Having the Prime Minister sign off on SpAds is good practice, but American politicians would find it laughable and incomprehensible that senior British politicians have so little ability to buffer themselves with able fellow travellers.

SpAds are vitally important. Be under no illusion, while there are some superb civil servants there are also plenty who are actively hostile to this government and currently working to undermine it. That is not hyperbole but fact. A SpAd is there to ensure that their master's wishes are obeyed. Far from being undemocratic, special advisers therefore play a key role in upholding the democratic mandate which ministers should enjoy.

There are plenty of talented people who are in their mid-twenties. I can't think of a single Oxford don whom I would want as a SpAd, no matter how expert in foreign affairs they are. But if a 25-year-old William Hague were available to me, I'd hire him on the spot. I don't see how most people could be sure that Chris Myers does not have similar talents. Politics is an art form, and only a few people are really effective at it. William is better placed than most to spot them.

On a more trivial note, bald people have to cover their heads in the sun, and we don't all like trilbys. Baseball caps are highly effective. And trainers and jeans are comfortable. That sort of outfit is not an affectation - a suit is. It is also perfectly normal practice to go for a walk with a junior colleague, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

During an election campaign six years ago, I shared a bed with a male colleague. We did it to save on costs and because it was convenient. (Moreover, frugality is not an unknown quality among rich people. One of my very wealthy colleagues on that campaign slept in a campervan instead of taking a hotel room.) Far more frequently, I share a room with male friends. As it happens, I am not remotely gay. Gayness or straightness is not what matters in politics though, professionalism is. William Hague is a consummate professional.

It is far from courageous to make snide insinuations about people. It's rather braver to dedicate yourself to public service, knowing full well that people will seek to belittle and undermine you, with no regard to how it will make you and your loved ones feel.

In over a decade of working in politics I have learned that some well-established rumours have absolutely no foundation in fact. More to the point, I have come to appreciate the rarity of significant ability in British politics. You might think that the country can afford to lose the likes of David Laws from the Cabinet and that it might be for the best if William shuffled off as well, even though there is precisely no evidence that he has done anything wrong. If so, I am here to tell you that you are very much mistaken.

But of course MPs must be held to account. I've worked as a researcher for Peter Oborne on articles and books in which he has slated politicians for their failings and in some cases corruption, and I am mighty proud to have done so. During the last general election I worked for Channel Four News and wrote items that were sometimes very critical of Conservative politicians. So while I have a partisan preference, I completely agree that malevolence and mendacity should be exposed no matter where they emanate from and have worked to help effect that.

Yet Peter has never asked me, not once, to fudge research so that he could smear someone or go on a fishing expedition. If we want to have a polity that is worthy of us, then we have a duty to assess politicians rigorously, clinically and honestly. A combination of innuendo and inadequate research does not pass muster. If bloggers want to be held in the same esteem as the print media, they need to remember that.

We cannot afford to lose our best politicians just because something (arguably) looks bad. The public and the media alike have a duty to look beyond first impressions. That's what I've tried to do here. I'll stake my reputation on this: William Hague is a massively capable man and he would never appoint an official whom he knew to be inadequate.

Update: I gather that Christopher Myers has resigned. Poor guy. I hope he finds a spectacularly enjoyable and well-paid job somewhere else, but I fear that his real love is politics. If so, he must come back. Soon.

Edinburgh

2010-08-25T13:40:00.003Z

Herewith another piece for Critical Reaction, which contains my reflections on Edinburgh.

Additional recommendations if you're there are Doctor Brown and The Boy With Tape on His Face.

Let's Start A Campaign

2010-08-10T10:53:00.002Z

I'm done with being bashful. It doesn't work. I want to be a superstar.

Help me achieve that goal here.

Oxford, ah OXFORD

2010-08-10T01:27:00.018Z

So you're standing around with your friend in college one day, and an eccentric American asks if he can film you for some documentary he's making. He is interested in what it's like to be a student at Oxford.

You figure "What the Hell?", and you also assume that by "documentary" the chap basically means a moving image version of his holiday snaps. Without having time to say to your chum "Let's have some fun with this" you launch into the interview and egg each other on to become more and more preposterous. You take some truths and half truths (I was NOT naked) and twist them into something ludicrous, solely to amuse each other. You think so little of the whole experience that you barely mention it to other friends.

So it comes as shock when over a decade later a friend who is a current Oxford undergraduate sends you an email asking if you can confirm that it's you in the YouTube clip (a clip which to date has had 49,140 hits and which comes top of a search for "Oxford University students").

You laugh heartily and nostalgically. And then you read the comments.

My God - almost everyone has taken this on face value. You find that screamingly funny.

But most of the viewers seem to think that it's not just wholly authentic but contemporary as well, and thus you realise that you have been responsible for actually dissuading people from applying to Oxford.* You feel a bit guilty about this, and for playing a prank on a nice man.

You also realise that even now some people will think that your protestations are an elaborate ruse and that you are being thoroughly revisionist. All I can say is hey, I am a stand-up comedian today and I was one in all but name then too.

Hmm.

Is that really all I can and should say? A thoroughly honest assessment demands that I acknowledge that, just as my onstage comedy character reveals deeper truths even if it is not me as such, Murali and I did give the world a glimpse of our inner selves.

So the intrepid documentary maker hit the mother lode after all: he managed to make his subjects give away more than they planned to, even if we thought we were the ones in control (and even though we honestly weren't anything like as frightful as we were pretending to be). At least I feel less guilty; David Mundstock, aka The Intrepid Berkeley Explorer, had the last laugh after all.

Two years on from seeing this video, I think that the readers of this blog deserve to see it too. It'll be on TV clip shows if I ever make it big (or for that matter if Murali does) and if David is happy to sell the rights!

*Although I like to think that the truly special people (people like Liquidshift and HrmTheNinjaBunny, who both left untypically appreciative comments) will instead be positively encouraged to apply.

Up To Chilly Jockoland

2010-08-09T22:37:00.003Z

Hey y'all, come and see me in Edinburgh at this show! It's started already but I personally will be there from Wednesday all being well. Our last date is 17th August. We kick off at 8:30pm at the Banshee Labyrinth, 29-35 Niddry Street, Edinburgh EH1 1LG.

Here is a link.

I will be doing some other slots up there too. Nick Hodder has invited me to join him for some of his shows. I'll link to those and any others ASAP.

Yeah!

But Then Again, It Might Just Be Alright After All

2010-08-09T17:12:00.010Z

I meant what I wrote in my last post. But I've had a good day so far today, and it's got me thinking.

Blind faith has little to recommend it, but not nothing at all. We all depend on it sometimes, and those who claim to be purely and invariably rational are telling porkies. Moreover, there is one thing we can all do that has a demonstrable and significant effect: positive thinking.

Positive thinking isn't about lying to yourself. It is isn't about ignoring the downside. What it is about is making sure that one acknowledges the upside too. Having done so, focussing on that is usually more fruitful than worry and negativity. And if it doesn't quite create a self-fufilling prophecy, it does take you down the right road. Let me give you a concrete example.

I didn't wake up this morning. I woke up this afternoon. I couldn't get to sleep until about 4:30 in the morning, and having stirred briefly to use the bathroom, I emerged to face the day at 13:10.

There are two ways to address such a situation. One is to effectively write the day off as ruined, the other is to seize it. There are good cases to be made for each approach, but the point is that you HAVE to make a decision. I chose the latter.

I took myself off the gym, and decided to have a hardcore workout. I've been reading very persuasive material online that suggests we can train a lot harder in the gym than we think we can, and go for it every time. It comes from John Broz, a weightlifting coach who runs a gym in Las Vagas, Nevada. His best argument - or at least the most accessible one - is that when manual workers start their careers they find it incredibly draining and difficult, but they can't be effete and decide that they are "overtrained" as they would be fired. Sure enough, they adapt, and while it might still be a tough job, it becomes eminently do-able. Spurred on by this, I hit the weights today.

I felt knackered as I approached the gym. At the squat rack, I contemplated calling it a day for squats after a few sets. And then I decided not to.

Consequently I had the very great pleasure of finding I could handle a weight that I thought borderline with ease. Buoyed up, I switched to partial deadlifts. They were going well, and I thought I'd do some with 160kg. I realised that in fact the bar was loaded with 180kg. I went for it any way. No problem at all.

Then I did some bench pressing. Man, I struggle with technique on this lift. But instead of quitting, I asked a trainer for advice. He came up with an idea that had never occured to me that revolutionised my technique and made the same weight seem half as heavy.

I was going to do some calf work, but my Achilles tendon on my left side felt weak, so I didn't. But I did do some forearm stuff instead. I was in the gym for at least an hour and a half, and I feel full of beans. In fact I was so alert that I came up with a quick witted response to an abusive drunk.

He ambled up to me holding a can of lager and wearing a shit-eating grin as I was walking to the Tube, and I side-stepped him as I presumed he was after money. Instead he wanted to have a pop. "You eat too many hamburgers, you do," he exclaimed. I countered thus: "You drink too much, you old soak. Get a fucking job." It wouldn't win any prizes, and is hardly my finest work, but it was pleasing. Even the drunkard laughed. All too often, one only thinks of the perfect response several hours later (although it is something that can be honed by doing stand-up comedy). But I was bright and bushy-eyed.

Why mention all this? It's not because I think you enjoy my articles on powerlifting. It is because, as dear old Henry Rollins makes clear, we can learn a great deal about life from pumping iron.

Basically, I got the balance just right. I pushed myself by being determined, but I didn't hurt myself by ignoring reality. And rather than giving up I took rational, well informed advice. That beat saying a prayer and hoping for the best.

I think that anyone and everyone can benefit from lifting weights. But even if you're a refusenik (in which case you are probably ignorant and misinformed) please take this little vignette as a life lesson.

It's Not Necessarily Going To Be Alright

2010-08-07T01:18:00.008Z

Loss of faith is famously hard to deal with, but it seems to me that it should nonetheless be acknowledged. Lying to oneself is rarely healthy and perhaps the first stage in recovery, or at least in enduring, is to be honest.

I have never really had any religious conviction, despite not having any great hostility to religion per se. Indeed I support the Church of England for political reasons. Although it is busy tearing itself apart and bedevilled by bigots, it has served as a bulwark against tyranny in its own way. Unfortunately where once I admired Rowan Williams and considered him to have an interesting and important perspective, I now think him an obscurantist ponce who needs to grow a pair.

Fundamentalism is, obviously, a thoroughly bad thing and should be resisted. We should mock and undermine and bully such people as much as possible. The threat of religious extremism requires the government to make clear that far from giving succour or the time of day to those who advocate against the interests of the United Kingdom they will - as necessary - sack them, denounce them, arrest them or slaughter them.

A genuine faith in an all-powerful benevolent God evades me as it evaded Epicurus, and for the same reason. The problem of evil, and of pain, is insurmountable for me. That need not rule out the possibility of an afterlife, but I can't really see any reason to have confidence in that either.

What has always sustained me, though, is a different kind of faith. This one was unshakable and sincere. In no way was it forced. It was a simple but powerful conviction that no matter what, ultimately everything would be OK.

And that assurance has gone. Because there is no more reason to believe that than to believe that we will see our loved ones again after they and we die, or that there is a God that loves us and that can do anything (even though life is beyond miserable for billions of people) or that a man from the Middle East rose bodily from the dead and ascended into Heaven.

Of course we tend to realise these things when we suffer personally. It is inevitable, understandable and forgivable rather than contemptible when someone loses their faith as a result of the death of their child, even though they surely knew that children die horribly every day.

But I suppose that one can think of oneself as luckier than others, and definitely as more fortunate. I know I am more fortunate than huge numbers of people. (I also know that it is possible to suffer desperately even whilst wealthy and physically healthy, and those who do not appreciate that - let us call them left wingers for short - are loathsome idiots.)

So let me say that in both the specific and the general case, there is no reason to believe that ultimately everything will be OK.

I should probably go to bed now.

Cultcha

2010-07-30T10:53:00.001Z

I have penned (well, typed) another piece for Critical Reaction. In it I reference a brilliant play that you really should try to catch:

"If you are uncomfortable about the meeting of culture and politics then I have the perfect prescription. Stuart Barrow – who has worked for Michael Portillo, Michael Howard, Francis Maude and indeed Jeremy Hunt – is a renaissance man. Not only has he been an enthusiastic rugby player, he is also a playwright. Candidates for Change: the Road to Con-Dem Nation is on now at the Gallery on Redchurch Street.

The play is riotously funny, moves along at a cracking pace, has an unpredictable narrative arc, and is greatly enhanced by superbly developed characters and fine acting. I am tempted to see it a second time, but I don’t want to deprive others. This is not hyperbole on behalf of a friend; it was a jolly good show in a very agreeable setting."

Body PERFECTION

2010-07-27T17:13:00.002Z

I am discinclined to believe that you will regret watching this You Tube clip in its entirety.

Ayn Rand

2010-07-20T12:58:00.002Z

This is the best article about Ayn Rand that I have ever read. It crystallises something that I had been groping towards whenever I thought about her: that her true genius was as a novelist, rather than as a philosopher or human being.

It liberates me to largely ignore her ponderous philiosophical writings and return to her amazing fiction.

I Hate Lefties ...

2010-07-20T12:10:00.000Z

... and I have said as much, at some length, on Critical Reaction.

One Word

2010-07-13T15:34:00.003Z

No.

And while we're at it, why did they have to muck around with the club logo a few years ago? The bull, designed by Desmond Morris (yes that one, the famed anthropologist), is a monumentally brilliant piece of minimalist design. The stuff around it merely detracts.

Start again from scratch, lads. It's one thing for Nike to use sweatshops; bastardising the shirt of by far the greatest team the world has ever seen is quite another.

Here Comes Another One

2010-07-13T11:01:00.001Z

Critical Reaction have taken yet another of my pieces! This one is about the Church of England.

Edukation

2010-07-06T19:46:00.001Z

Criticial Reaction have kindly taken another piece from me. This is about my school days and thoughts about education policy.

Maybe The Critic Counts After All

2010-07-05T01:53:00.001Z

I have written a piece for the website Critical Reaction.

Rant Time

2010-06-28T14:15:00.004Z

Having acknowledged that it's not the critic who counts may I nonetheless put the boot in?

I have been appalled at how England played at this World Cup. While the charming Robert Green did not deserve to be pillioried for one mistake his colleagues do deserve approbrium. This was their chance to shine - no-one is guaranteed two chances to play in a World Cup Finals - and they failed. Many of them should not get another shot.

Two things stand out.

Firstly, the players have shown that they were simply overrated, and by quite a distance. Playing out of position is difficult but the very best manage it, just as they cope with being marked by two opponents. Maradona used to dance through whole teams.

We would have been cut to shreds by Argentina. Our boys aren't all that talented - no-one other than Wayne Rooney is on the same plane as the greatest in terms of sheer ability. Rooney alas has been exposed beyond doubt as the possessor of a seriously flawed temperament. Other stars raise the standards of lesser players. He sulks and gets angry. No leader of men is he.

David James gets credit for handling well and staying focussed. But a truly expert assessment, such as that provided by Peter Shilton in the Sun today, would find that he could have done better with some of Germany's goals. He didn't position himself properly and was too quick to go to ground. Who's to say that Robert Green or Joe Hart wouldn't have done better?

The back four were almost comically inept. It isn't just about pace. Bobby Moore had none and he was rarely caught out; they say the same of Sami Hyypia. That said, being hopelessly slow is not an asset. Nor is being fundamentally inadequate.

I haven't believed in one of our centre halves since Tony Adams retired, but at least Rio Ferdinand is quick and athletic. John Terry deserves precisely no credit for being physicaly brave. I used to dive at players' feet all the time. Which of us would not be prepared to do that if given the privilege of wearing the shirt?

What can Steve Bruce - who was never capped by England - be thinking today?

Only Ashley Cole delivered. That's hard to bear a) because we needed everyone to do so and b) because he is a loathsome individual who readily confesses that he doesn't see why he should adjust his behaviour in order to set an example. Ashley, you are a hero to huge numbers of young boys whether you like it or not. It is not very onerous to be civilised.

A final thought on the subject of technique is that Messi and Ronaldo seem to have no trouble at all with the controversial ball.

Second of all, the strategy was maddeningly wrong, and all the more maddening for being so obviously wrong. Gerrard clearly dislikes playing on the left and isn't very good at it. Contrastingly, he is superb down the middle - scoring goals and spraying gorgeous passes with abandon. Shouldn't the shape of a team be built around the best players and take into account what is available to us? Since Beckham retired we have never got much from the wings, so we should have gone down the middle. We could have had a strong spine. Instead we were mercilessly exposed.

Could I have done better? Of course not. And my opinion counts for nothing. But I am owed something as a fan and paymaster: total commitment from the players and tactical nous from a manager who is paid a fortune. Normally I sneer at fans who think they know best. Not this time.

Is there any comfort to be had? Yes. This is still going to be a glorious World Cup. Our fans seems to have conducted themselves well.

And I hate almost all of our players, so I can't weep for them. I've always hated ignorant buffoons who lack class. Why would I make an exception for this team, which offered nothing in return?

Head Up, Greeno

2010-06-13T12:38:00.004Z

Should England have a successful World Cup, do please remember how ready some of the tabloids were to put the boot in at the first sign of trouble and judge their protestations of patriotic delight in that context.

Another thought: no-one understands goalkeepers. The pundits are breathtakingly bad, describing bread and butter saves (such as Green's last night) as brilliant and suggesting that one error (such as Green's last night) reveal a more fundamental flaw.

Robert Green is an excellent goalkeeper. There is no reason to suppose that his mistake last night was down to temperament or nerves. EVERY goalkeeper makes several howlers during their career. Ray Clemence - one of the best ever - once let a shot slip through his hands, down his chest, through his legs and into the goal against a grateful Scotland. It was a shame for us that one of Greeno's had to happen in a World Cup game, but there we have it.

Green's response showed the measure of the man. Contrite but determined, he will take this on the chin. And as Steven Gerrard had the wit to say, Greeno may well end up making a game-winning save in a future match.

As for the tabloids, I'd advise giving them a wide berth. The sadness is that so many of the so called "quality papers" feel the need to embrace populism and pap these days too.

When Scott Carson made his mistake against Croatia, I offered these words of wisdom from Teddy Roosevelt:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Greeno to save two penalties in a shoot-out that England win.

Paul Maynard Makes His Maiden Speech

2010-06-05T19:51:00.002Z

When I read my good friend Paul Maynard's maiden speech in the House of Commons I was moved and impressed. When I watched it I actually found it quite funny in its precocious brilliance.

Do watch it yourself.

ConservativeHome

2010-05-28T15:26:00.002Z

I have posted on ConservativeHome again today. As ever, it is a remarkably witty and thought-provoking piece.

There But For A Few Letters ...

2010-05-27T12:23:00.000Z

... Go I.

Sky News ...

2010-05-26T13:00:00.001Z

... are kindly hosting me tonight, at some point between 7 and 7:30pm.

I'm Back ...

2010-05-10T12:29:00.001Z

.. and have posted on ConservativeHome.

Murali Para

2010-04-12T19:02:00.001Z

Check out this new blog from m'great mate Murali Para. He's a great man, and a splendid writer.

Good And Bad News

2010-04-03T19:58:00.003Z

It's just the one piece of news. I am going to a powerlifting gym tomorrow.

The good news is that I may be getting back into the sport, and doing it properly at last.

The bad news is that I may write about it here.

In Reality, I Want To Go To Carolina

2010-03-11T15:15:00.004Z

I want to take a holiday some time to Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

I want to do stand-up. I want to go and watch the Durham Bulls. I want to hang out with Southern Belles. I want to eat barbecue. I want to look round the campus at UNC. I even want to drink Bud Light.

Anyone wanna come too?

Two Bits Of News

2010-03-08T16:28:00.001Z

Rebecca's Jewelley has another special offer in the run-up to Mother's Day.

And I have the privilege of performing at George's Jamboree tonight. It's at the Chester Arms in Oxford, and I am getting there for 8pm.

Michael Foot

2010-03-03T13:40:00.002Z

I have posted a tribute to Michael Foot on ConservativeHome.

And Tomorrow Ben Foster?

2010-03-02T15:29:00.003Z

Yesterday, in central Oxford, I bumped into a friend called Chris Turner. Today, in almost the same spot, I bumped into the former head chef of my old college, one Gary Bailey.

P.S. I am now (genuinely) panicking, having addressed him as Gary Bailey, that he is fact called Gary Walsh. I know he shared a name with a former Manchester United goalkeeper, but which one?

Message For My Friends

2010-02-24T12:04:00.004Z

Hey y'all,

I'm REALLY sorry that I am being so flaky in regard to meeting up - especially since so many of you have been so kind to me recently.

I've got quite a bit of freelance work at the moment (which is good) and it's also hard to make firm commitments because I need to be available for interviews (which is good and bad).

There is no-one in my life whom I have decided I want to expel from it - promise!

These Are The Kinds Of Circles I'm Moving In Now

2010-02-09T22:38:00.004Z

As I returned to a rather posh hotel to be picked up for Sky News tonight (sorry, sorry, sorry, should have alerted you but will post a link tomorrow), something surreal happened.

A woman turned to Simon Schama and said "I've just given our cab to Helena Christensen, the most beautiful woman in the world."

OK, so perhaps "surreal" isn't quite the word. "Memorable" will do.

Update: Here's a link to the Sky slot.

Valentine's Day Offer

2010-02-08T17:32:00.002Z

Rebecca's Jewellery has special offer on. All you lovers out there can get someone special something special at a 10% discount before 14th February.

Videosyncratic

2010-01-28T12:43:00.006Z

My favourite shop in the world is closing down, and so is its sister shop. The presence of Videosyncratic in Summertown helped persuade me to rent a room nearby a few years ago, and I'm mighty glad I did.

I fell in love with the place straight away. It had a light, airy charm, and as well as hiring out the latest big budget movies, it offered a wealth of indies, foreign films, TV shows, comedy, action and more. I saw almost all of The West Wing and 24 thanks to that place. Moreover, I saw loads of good things it would otherwise never have occured to me to check out.

Then I met Jon, the owner, at a comedy night. We soon became great mates, and I would often spend Sunday evening chatting to him in the shop while he worked. I'd also hang out with him at the Cowley Road store - just as I used to do with Tyrone years before at Physical Presence. (He's gone from strength to strength and owns a gym in Banbury.)

I have to admit, as a capitalist, that such camaraderie would be frowned upon in a chain store. Hell, it would almost always be impossible. Which of those would allow you to sit behind the counter for hours, talking to your friend? And I will miss Videosyncratic for more than that - for the service it provided, and which I would have adored even if I hadn't gotten to know Jon, his father Michael, Ben, Laura and some of the other staff.

The fact is that the free market isn't perfect. I support it, but it isn't perfect. Videosyncratic's absence will leave a big hole in my life. Buying or hiring DVDs off the Internet or from a big store won't plug that gap. Jon and Michael built something really special, and they should be proud of themselves.

Anyway, they're having a sale. Here's Jon:

"We're having a bonanza. Summertown branch will cease trading at close of business on Sunday night. Starting on Monday, at Cowley Road branch, we're selling EVERYTHING off. VERY CHEAP! ALL the DVDs, ALL the comics, ALL the graphic novels, ALL the T-shirts, even ALL the VHS (which will be very, very, very cheap). If you want shelves, we'll sell you the shelves! If you've been looking for a Humphrey, WE'LL SELL YOU HUMPHREY! Always had your eye on our lifesize Gremlin? HE'S YOURS FOR A PRICE. So, a HUGE DVD and comic shop sale."

It's well worth making the trip.

The Trailer

2010-01-26T16:50:00.002Z

Here is the official trailer for I Am a Great Man.

Please forward to all your friends!

And please vote here on what you think of it.

Iain Dale in I Am a Great Man

2010-01-25T10:34:00.001Z

Iain Dale, media star, has written about his involvement in our film.

The Latest

2010-01-21T11:10:00.002Z

Herewith another clip from I Am a Great Man.

In other news, Jewellery by Rebecca has a special offer until 31st January. Buy one piece of jewellery and get £1 off each additional piece ordered.

More soon!