Quintin Jardine's blog

The answer to your question is Death’s Door. Loch Lomond to Canada? Do you live  by a lake?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/13387966.stm

I’ve just been having a discussion with my friend John, in which we agreed that the people who run major British sport at top level are, basically, idiots. According to this report on the BBC, the clowns who are in charge at the Football Association have proved us right. Indeed they have gone further; they’ve proved that they are vindictive idiots with a clear and open bias against one football club and one manager in particular. We seem to have reached a point at which British, no world football’s most eminent, most successful and  longest serving managers can’t open his mouth in public without the FA slapping a charge on him. That it should be done on the day before his club’s most important  game of the season, and more then a full week after the alleged offence took place seems to me  to demonstrate premeditated malice.

I hope that Sir Alex’s club, and his own professional association, will defend him with all the resources at their disposal.

There is a degree of truth in this satirical piece from the Daily Mash.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/cyclists-to-create-bike%11themed-superstate-201105123805/

I’m as green as the next bloke. I don’t have a bike, but my son and step-son do and they use them responsibly; keeps them fit, and get them from place to place. Cycling is good.

But try being a motorist in East Lothian, or, I suspect in many another rural community that happens to be close to a cycling club. See how you feel on any given weekend, when you find yourself, as my neighbours and I often do, driving behind thirty or forty of the buggers, in convoy on a single carriageway main road, showing not the slightest consideration for other road users, be they private motorists or public service bus drivers struggling to keep to timetable. The Highway Code says that cyclists should never ride more than two abreast, and in single file on busy roads. Our lot don’t bother with that; they’re  quite happy to block the road all the way to North Berwick, like a very slow version of the Tour de France peloton. They are a menace and action needs to be taken to make them behave responsibly.

Also on the telly last night was one Michael Kelly, wheeled out for  the cameras to make fun of the aspirations of millions of his fellow Scots that their country should be a nation again.  Thirty years ago, Michael was a famous man in the west of Scotland. He was Lord Provost of Glasgow when an advertising genius called John Struthers came up with the slogan ‘Glasgow’s Miles Better’, three words that helped transform the city when they were allied in a publicity campaign with Roger Hargreaves’ ‘Mr Men’ cartoon faces. The Lord Provost had the good sense to run with it, and that was the highlight of his career. When he left office he became a PR consultant and a newspaper columnist. Fourteen years ago he wrote a piece for a Scottish newspaper which was highly critical of teachers and their profession. My parents were both teachers, as was Irene, my first wife. She had died a few weeks before, and I felt compelled to share my opinion of the article with its author, in a  short, explosive telephone conversation. I shouldn’t have done it, but I couldn’t help myself.

Seeing Michael on  the box last night brought it all flooding back. I regret losing my temper; I should have told him simply that I thought his view was offensive and idiotic, and left it at that. Last night I didn’t come close to blowing up; instead I shook my head at his ineffectual arguments and at what was probably meant to be a wistful smile, but which came across as merely patronising. I even felt a little sorry for him, as I realised that very few viewers who are under forty-five and don’t come from Glasgow would have any idea who the hell he is.

But all that said, this morning I find myself thinking again about his golden years and the Glasgow’s Miles Better campaign, and coming to the conclusion that in the debate that is to come in Scotland, the most important  in our nation in three hundred years, the pro-independence camp would do well to find its own John Struthers.

Just seen our deputy First Minister being quizzed on Newsnight by the overbearing balloon that is Jeremy Paxman. Score, Nicola Sturgeon 5, Jeremy 0.

It’s commonly accepted that Philip Hammond is pissed off because he wasn’t appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the coalition government, and had to settle for being Transport Secretary instead. But that’s no excuse for taking his frustration out on the rest of the nation. Mr Hammond announced today that he plans to give police officers the right to impose on the spot fines for careless driving, making them complainant, prosecutor and judge all rolled into one.

A step too far, surely. Spot fines for parking, fine. Fixed penalties for speeding, fine. Neither of those offences requires a subjective judgement. But careless driving, surely that does, and it begs the question: how well qualfied are the police to exercise such authority over their fellow road users?

I’ve just done a small piece of research into stats available under freedom of information provisions. I looked at police collisions in London Boroughs from April 2009 to March 2010. During that period there were a total of 1627 compensation claims made following accidents, leading to payments totalling £1,703,983. These incidents resulted in 197 police officers and 249 civilians being injured and to six members of the public being killed.

I ask again. On what basis are the police qualified to determine what is careless driving and what is not?

Do not worry. I’m continuing.

There is a movement in my nation towards the creation of a single Scottish police force. The proposal had the support of both main parties in the run-up to last week’s Holyrood parliamentary elections, and given the SNP landslide, there’s every reason to believe that it will happen. Although I’m a fervent Nationalist, I’m deeply opposed to this. I believe that if anything Scotland has too few chief constables, not too many, and I’m appalled by the prospect of top-level decisions on the policing of our northern communities, and of the islands being taken by a silver-braided figure hundreds of miles away, with no idea of local needs, priorities and conditions. There’s also the potential for the politicising of the police service, something we should all oppose.

If I’m against this, then in all conscience, Big Bob has to be also. The twenty-first Skinner novel, “Grievous Angel”, has been on the stocks for months, and is published in four weeks. It takes a look at the hero’s past life, but next year’s will be set very much in the present and will tackle this issue head on. It’ll make it very clear that for Bob, this threat in my world is a resignation issue in his. I don’t want him to leave the force, but make no mistake, if this proposal comes to pass, he will. This is no bluff. This dangerous idea needs to be opposed and my man is in the vanguard of the protest movement.

Would that be the end of him and the series?

No way! There are many alternative career options for him to explore. I’m already planning for his life outside the force, and I’m looking forward to extending the series to at least thirty books . . . preferably with him as a serving police officer, God and Alex Salmond willing. Or are they one and the same, after last week’s election result?

Thirty-one years ago, the Open Championship was played at Muirfield, a few hundred yards from where we lived. It was won, for the third time, by Tom Watson, then at the height of his powers. But the great crowds who turned out, in dodgy weather, didn’t come to see him, or even Jack Nicklaus. Most of them came to watch the young guy who had rented a house a few doors along from ours for that week, the defending Open champion and reigning Masters champion, Severiano Ballesteros Sota.  Seve was only twenty three years old at that time, but he had already won sixteen major tour events around the world. Today a golfer of his status would probably hole up in a secret location surrounded by security, but he hid in plain sight, in a three bed house in our street and was noticed on occasion loosening up by swinging a club in the front garden. Nobody bothered him. His privacy was respected and there were no gawpers hanging around. You didn’t have to with him; you could see his aura from miles away.

Irene and I had seen him in action a year before, in the European Open at Turnberry. He had a lousy cold and he didn’t win, but still he carried himself with grace and played with a smile. I remember, he stood on one tee raised above the fairway and he looked around. I’ll swear that everyone in the crowd thought he was looking at them.My late wife was not one to ogle m0vie stars and the like. She had no time for cheap celebrity. But she fell  in love with Seve that day and if she was still around today she’d be inconsolable.

There is much talk in the game of golf of who is or was the greatest player ever. Look at the career record books and you might well say Jack Nicklaus. Make that sort of judgement over a fifteen year period and you would certainly say Tiger Woods. On neither basis would you ever say Arnold Palmer, and yet who do the Americans call ‘The King’? For greatness in sport is more than numbers, it encompasses what you are as well as what you do. That’s why a very few special people stand out from the rest beyond their physical gifts, the likes of Pele  and Beckham, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, Muhammad Ali and Manny Pacquaio,  Haile Gebreselassie and Usain Bolt. And that’s why Seve will always be number one in my golfing book.

When you get to my age, you start to look at the people you’ve outlived. Then, if you have any soul, you understand  that the word poignant, and its many synonyms, don’t go far enough. For deaths as premature as those of Seve, and of Irene, our language doesn’t have a word that conveys adequately the sense of sadness and injustice they evoke.

Glad you enjoyed it. I wouldn’t call The Loner a change. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but it had to be different, to distinguish it from my other work. As the title suggest, it’s a one-off; for now.

Speaking of those caught in the headlights, I have just done a morning catch-up of the Scottish election results, to find that my friend Dave Berry, the SNP candidate in my home constituency of East Lothian, fell only 151 votes short of defeating the incumbent, Ian Gray, the Scottish Labour Party leader. Condolences buddy, you fought a great campaign; the narrower the defeat the greater the pain. I am quite certain that it was only Mr Gray’s national profile that kept him in place, but even at that, there must be a couple of hundred Tories around the county who are scratching their heads this morning and thinking, ‘If only’. That doesn’t mean that I bear any personal ill-will towards my re-elected MSP, decent man that he is. For sure he’ll be ousted from his party post, but when he is he’ll be a victim of the most seismic event in Scottish politics in my lifetime.

The mandate which Alex Salmond will have, even if he falls a couple of seats short of an outright majority when all the results are declared, will lead inevitably to a referendum on Scottish independence. When that happens, I’ll vote ‘Yes’. Will my side prevail? Not a chance. Scotland is still predominately unionist and many years away from embracing the notion that it is possible to turn the clock back to 1706, and return to a full autonomous parliament within a United Kingdom, the outcome I’d prefer. But if I was David Cameron, which I’m not, when the referendum comes, I’d be taking a neutral stance, while quietly encouraging my Scottish troops for the proposition. Why? It’s only relatively recently,within the last 50 years, that the party has campaigned in Scotland as ‘Conservative’, rather than ‘Unionist’. In England, it does not give a damn about the Union, it has does not understand the inherent nationalism of the Scots and the Welsh, (largely because we don’t express it by blowing things up) and now, it stands to gain in Westminster parliamentary terms from an independent Scotland, by eliminating the solid block of Labour and other anti-Tory MPs. If I can work that out, do you think Dave hasn’t?

I thought I’d be keying this post into my lap-top at Heathrow, while  waiting for a flight to Barcelona. But that was not to be. For various reasons, the Wee One and I made a last minute decision to delay our departure, opting instead to soak up some more Scottish sun, ensuring thereby that within the next 48 hours it will start chucking it down and that will be that for the summer. We’re now booked on O’Leary’s Irish Jaunting Car from Prestwick (which is not in Glasgow, whatever Michael suggests) to Girona (which is not in Barcelona) on May 17, well in time for the Scots night in La Clota on May 21. (Table for two please, John.)

I am known to watch television drama from time to time to time to time.

Recently, I’ve seen a couple of productions on our public broadcasting channel in which the name of a former UK Prime Minister has come up in the script, and has been the subject of unchallenged and uncountered verbal abuse. Yes, these are works of fiction. No, dramatic characters should not be given, of necessity, politically correct views. However none of that should give playwrights and producers the right to vent what is pretty obviously their personal spleen.

I’m not talking about Tony Blair here, by the way. It hasn’t yet become fashionable for Sue Johnson’s character in Waking the Dead and others similar, to vituperate against him, although if he lives long enough it will. No, I’m talking about Baroness Thatcher, an 82-year-old lady who is still alive and possibly in good enough health to hear what is being said about her, without the BBC’s drama department making any attempt to counter these slurs. Whether you liked her or not, and I didn’t find the  few occasions on which I met her to be heart-warming experiences, she was elected Prime Minister three times, she was the subject of a brutal assassination attempt which she barely survived and which others did not, she oversaw a difficult military operation, in response to aggression, with no outside military assistance, and brought it to a swift and successful conclusion.

Maggie provokes extreme reactions, no doubt about that, in my country in particular. She is responsible single handedly for the destruction of the Scottish Conservative Party. But three times she was the people’s choice, and would have made it four for certain, if her party hadn’t been stupid enough to tip her over the side. No censorship in drama, no way, but when it’s publicly funded, let’s have a degree of respect.

I’m sure this post will upset a few people, the kind who consider her the devil incarnate, and view the nonentity that was Arthur Scargill as some sort of class warrior. Tough.

It will become a Kennedy moment for all Americans and for many others. Where were you when you heard of Osama bin Laden’s death? Me? I was checking the morning’s news headlines on my Blackberry, in my in-laws’ house, and the end of a celebratory family weekend, which I spent compiling Brownie points none of which can ever be cashed in, since I am male and fur us guys they are almost entirely symbolic and will get you about as far as the air miles attaching to the average Tesco shop.

I was surprised when I saw the headline, because hitherto I was convinced that he had been a smear on the wall of a cave in Tora Bora since the early days of the Afghan campaign. Did I punch the air when I heard? If I did then it wasn’t very hard, because I can’t find it in me to rejoice in any death, and because the execution was marred by the killing of bin Laden’s youngest wife. That said, I’m happy for my American friends, for whom the only kind of justice that was ever going to be possible, and a degree of closure, have finally come. I’m happy for them also, for the way in which their elected commander in chief conducted himself afterwards, and for his self-control in the period leading up to the operation.

I spent twenty minutes this morning watching the YouTube post of his address to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, in which he used the deadliest of all verbal weapons, humour, to wipe the floor with his opponents, past, present, and possibly future in the case of (The) Donald Trump, who will never be taken seriously as a political candidate until he comes clean and gets himself a proper haircut. (But maybe he’s too busy vandalising Aberdeenshire to have time for such trivia.) The President’s performance was all the more awesome when one realises that all the time he was up there, he knew that the Pakistan operation was imminent, and that the lives of his troops (not to mention his own political future) would be on the line.

Hail to the chief.

You ain’t holding a barbie for me unless I’m there, promise. May the sun shine as brightly on Oz as it is on Scotland right now.

That’s a fascinating comment. I’d be very interested to learn the basis for your assertion.