Quintin Jardine's blog

Well, mate, I’ve read your message, a couple of times, and while I don’t understand too much of it, my guess is that you’re not a fan. I don’t mind criticism, not at all, indeed I welcome it when it’s constructive, but I won’t have hecklers, anytime, anyplace, anywhere. It’s ironic that you should deride Bob Skinner’s view of someone as a coward, when you don’t have the intestinal fortitude yourself to put your name, location, or even your gender to your comment, only a silly nom-de-web. In Scottish ‘howk’ is what one does to rid oneself of an unwanted object, often from one’s nose. You, sir or madam, have got up mine, well and truly, so this is not the ‘Godlike Skinner’, but the Satanic QJ, giving you the metaphorical finger, and inviting you to go fuck yourself.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow, QJ’s Kindle exclusive is still selling (86p and only because Amazon won’t let me list it for free) like churros, as they say in Spain. Currently number 5 in political fiction on the Kindle store. Incidentally, it’s a lot healthier than churros, especially when they’re dipped in hot chocolate. My thanks to all my readers.

The next Skinner’s written. Called Grievous Angel and due for release in June. The one after that is half-way through.

When does a protest movement become a revolution? Usually, it doesn’t when the other side has all the guns and has no compunction about using them. I wonder how Gordon Brown is feeling today about those photographs taken of him not so long ago, smiling beside Gaddafi. After their handshake, did he check to see whether his had blood on them?

I read a report this morning to the effect that the Westminster government is considering seriously, and potentially favourably, bringing UK time into line with the bulk of Western Europe. Can’t come soon enough for me. My main reason for escaping to Spain in the winter is not warmth, for that is not guaranteed, it’s that extra hour of daylight in the afternoon and early evening. Makes quite a difference. We’ll probably hear the old propaganda about the dangers of morning accidents. Fact is, in the dead of  winter most commuters already set out in darkness.

Should I have worried about Crawley Town? No, but it wasn’t pretty.

I switched on the telly this afternoon to find that Chelsea were one up on Everton with four minutes of extra time left; so I switched it off again. Imagine my surprise when I logged on to the BBC website a little later and saw the final score, 1 — 1, 4 — 3 to Everton on penalties. It shows what can happen when a side is built on character, rather than a billionaire’s cheque-book. Should I be worried about Crawley Town? Let’s hope not.

My friend Mike is lucky. He lives on Dartmoor; if he lived just a little further east he’d be in South Somerset, the smallest district council in England, which has just paid its outgoing chief executive a severance package totalling £569,000, enabling him to begin a new career as a ‘consultant’ to other local authorities. On what? Downsizing the senior staff payroll? At around the same time, South Somerset dispensed with two ‘corporate directors’, (What are they, pray, in a local government context?) handing each of them a going away present worth over £300,000. Only 162,000 people live within the council’s area; to save you doing the sum, it means that every one of them has kicked in £7 to the pay-off pot. In return for this compulsory generosity, their council tax is going up by 3.75%, and a range of popular services are being cut. The final irony is the justification for the CEO’s redundancy: it allowed South Somerset to appoint a joint chief executive with the neighbouring East Devon council, indicating, surely, that the newly liberated ‘consultant’ was doing only half a job. I’m wondering, does Eric Pickles, the Local Government Secretary of State in England have the power to remove from office the district councillors who signed off on these outrageous pay-outs? If so, he should use it.

Does money rule? Does it ever. In case anyone hasn’t noticed, currently there is unrest in the Kingdom of Bahrain. This is inconvenient for one Bernie Ecclestone, ringmaster of the circus that is Formula One. (Very highly paid guys driving round and round in very fast cars for no discernible purpose other than to shift shedloads of the products of the companies who sponsor them.) It is inconvenient because in a very few days, the big top is scheduled to go up in the Kingdom of Bahrain, to kick off another round of this elitist nonsense. Peaceful demonstrators are being killed in the streets, shot dead by the forces of the ruling family. And what is the reaction of Bernie Ecclestone? Initially, it was pessimistic. The race might have to be cancelled. Then it became more positive. Maybe it can go ahead. As I write, Bernie’s positivity level has been downgraded to ‘cautious’. This is because, a matter of days before the first elephants start to arrive, people are still being shot down.

Thes are some of Bernie’s quotes:

“Our people there say: ‘It’s quiet, no problems’.”

What exactly were his people watching?

“I’m more hopeful today. I hope we don’t have to do anything. Let’s hope this all blows away. In these parts there’s always been skirmishes. Perhaps it’s a bit more than that.”

Skirmishes? In an iron-ruled kingdom? Dates and details please, Bernie.

“I don’t know what has happened this afternoon because I’ve been travelling but from what I’ve been told it’s a bit different to this morning because of this funeral that’s gone on which is what you would expect I suppose.”

You would expect the security forces to open fire on mourners?

“I don’t fear anything, I just think things have changed and that we should wait and see over the weekend exactly what changes there have been.”

Does than mean, how many more people have been killed?

“I hope we don’t have to do anything, I hope things will just carry on as normal. Obviously some people were killed, nobody’s happy with that, I’m quite sure.”

Least of all, the families of the dead. As for the King, whose will is being done, he probably doesn’t give a fuck.

Bernie’s venality makes me sick, but that’s Bernie. As well as being sick I’m saddened. Why? Because not a single Formula One team, driver, sponsor, broadcaster, not even dear old Murray Walker, has stood up and expressed their solidarity with the victims of the brutality by saying ‘Hell no, we won’t go.’

If this race takes place, it will be because those people who are inconveniencing its planning have been killed, crushed and  swept aside.

In everything I’ve read so far, the only person I’ve seen looking beyond his own wallet has been the chairman of Williams, when he said, “It’s not just about the safety of those involved but being sensitive to what is going on in the country.”

In which case, call it off now; otherwise, it’s tantamount to complicity in murder.

“Bad news for book buyers in Australia. Borders and their parent company, Angus and Robertson, have gone into administration”

That is bad news indeed, Norah, but it is not unprecedented, Borders UK having folded not that long ago. The condition newly applied to your gift card sounds like a stitch-up to me, but if you’re lucky, the in-store offers will be so good you might wind up with A$500 worth and more for the A$100 you have to add to your voucher. Shop wisely, shop often.

If you’ve been commuting through main line rail stations in London . . . Victoria, Liverpool Street, Kings Cross . . . for the last couple of nights you may have seen some people handing out flyers. Hey, you may even have been offered one. If you have, you ‘ll know that what was pressed into your hand were samplers for  A Rush of Blood and The Loner. Several thousand are being distributed in this new Headline initiative and, from what I’ve heard so far, they’re being very well received.

I learned yesterday of the recent death of Charles MacGregor, of Longniddry. In the nine years I spent working in what was then called the Scottish Information Office, Charlie Mac was its director, and as such played a significant influence on my life. I’ve just read Gordon Casely’s generous obituary in today’s Herald newspaper. It told much that I’d never known about the man, and brought back some memories, while expressing a couple of sentinents that I see rather differently. Charles was probably better to  know as a friend than as a colleague, and I’m pleased that I had that opportunity once I left SIO. I’m pleased also that he enjoyed so many years in retirement, surrounded by three generations at the end. My condolences to them all and with those the following: I will always remember him, with gratitude, as the man who changed my life by giving me the opportunity to move to East Lothian, where my family and I remain to this day.

Sun’s shining this morning, but I’m up and almost running. I had a promo email from Easyjet this morning telling me about their latest offers. Every so often I cast an eye over the Easyjet website looking for signs that Stelios might be thinking of introducing a flight from Edinburgh to Barcelona, where he has an established base. So far nothing, but I live in hope. I have no great fondness for the outfit, but at least they’re not Ryanair.

Trevor the farmer was in the fertilised egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called ‘pullets’ and eight or ten roosters, whose job it was to fertilise the eggs. The farmer kept records and any rooster that didn’t perform went into the soup pot and was replaced.

That took an awful lot of his time so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so Trevor could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.

The farmer’s favourite rooster was old Jacob, and a very fine specimen he was too. But on this particular morning Trevor noticed old Jacob’s bell hadn’t rung at all! Trevor went to investigate. The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover.

But to farmer Trevor’s amazement, Jacob had his bell in his beak, so it couldn’t ring. He’d sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

Trevor was so proud of Jacob, he entered him in the Polokwane Country Fair and Jacob became an overnight sensation among the judges. The result was the judges not only awarded Jacob the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pullet Surprise as well.

Clearly Jacob was a Pulletician in the making: Who else but a Pulletician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren’t paying attention.

Do you perhaps know of a Pulletician called Jacob?

Last time I flew Ryanair, the cabin crew were so good that I promised I’d never say anything nasty about Michael O’Leary again. Then I saw the following on the Ryanair website.

http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/ryanair-s-five-year-girona-extension-collapses-as-new-government-backtracks-on-deal

What Ryanair don’t tell you is that the so-called ‘deal’ was all about the amount of public money the former Catalan Government, facing an imminent and probably unwinnable election, was prepared to offer Ryanair to maintain services out of Girona. All it’s doing now is cutting out its loss-makers and trimming costs on the marginals, but it’s convenient to blame it on someone else. Mr Michael Cawley’s weasel words in his press release suggest that the newly elected government had signed off on the deal. That is not my understanding. For years Ryanair has been bullying regional and national governments all over Europe into paying them questionable subsidies. Now someone has stood up to them and  they don’t like it. Maybe Mr Cawley and his friends should realise that theirs is not the most popular nation in Europe right now, and should see the irony in an Irish company trying to screw vast amounts of taxpayer money out of a nation which is itself in economic difficulty. Over could it be that they are playing hardball because of those difficulties? Either way, let us hope that other carriers move in to fill the spare  capacity that the unloved Paddyair has created in an airport recently expanded to cope with the increased traffic that they promised. (By the way while this is happening, Ryanair are expanding services at the seriously underused Barcelona El Prat Terminal 2, where, I suspect, they can still dictate terms.)

Note: I still haven’t said anything nasty about Michael O’Leary. He’s far too good at PR to get himself associated too closely with shit like this.

I note that the US Senate has voted to extend the surveillance powers given to the government by the USA Patriot Act, but it is at odds with the House of Representatives over the length of the extension, so it has limited it to 90 days. As an outside observer, I find the name of the statute disturbing. It’s more than a little jingoistic and smacks somehow of the McCarthy Era, yet it’s actually an acronym, the name of the legislation being, Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act 2001. Someone must have sat up all night dreaming that one up.

Suggestions for Scottish or UK legislation along similar lines? How about a statute to improve public access to woodland?  Name of, Forestry And Recreational Territory Act, 2011? Over to you.

Not too many people in Catalunya are happy right now, given the result at the Emirates, but two who are live right here in L’Escala. Step forward the Bosch brothers, members of a true minority group, in that they are supporters of FC Espanyol. Not so much a Partick Thistle analogy, more Third Lanark, if they were still around. Let them not be too happy, though; that away goal still puts them in the euro seats for the second leg.

The answer to last Sunday morning’s quiz. Starbucks takes its name (in part) from the first mate of the Pequod, Captain Ahab’s whaling vessel in Moby Dick. One of the three founders wanted to call the business Pequod, until his partners pointed out that the pronunciation might not be right for a hot beverage enterprise, so they came up with a compromise. (Yes, it’s also attributed [in part] to a mountain camp called Starbo, on Mount Rainier; I acknowledge that to deter nit-picking.)

All of which leads me to a story this morning that Japan has suspended its annual Antarctic whale hunt, because of the activities of a campaign group called  the Sea Shepherds. Nice name, but don’t they know what happens to most lambs? That said, cynically, we must acknowledge that there is a global instinctive aversion to whale-hunting and that most Herman Melville readers were firmly on the side of the great white whale. Me too. I’m against it, for much the same reasons that I’m against cannibalism. Because of that I now restrict my own diet. I’m too old/lack the moral courage (you choose)  to go completely vegan, but it’s a long time since I had a steak, and baby sheep are absolutely not an option, not even bhuna fashion. My wife is less scrupulous than I am, but she hasn’t touched suckling pig since I pointed out that she was eating Winnie the Pooh’s little mate.

Where do I not draw the line? Shark, swordfish, monkfish are all okay by me for consumption; they would eat me if they could, so game on.

I’ve seen some stuff in my time, but for a professional footballer to attack a member of the opposition coaching team, that’s a first. Any young professional athlete who head-butts a 59 year-old man deserves the severest sanctions. When that almost senior citizen is one Joe Jordan, he also deserves a brain scan. I can only assume that Gennaro Gattuso, of Milan, nutted big Joe in the certain knowledge that everyone around would separate them. If there was any justice in the world they would all have stood back and let nature take its course. Had they done so, the final score would definitely have been Scotland 1 — Italy 0.