Quintin Jardine's blog

Eileen and I have fallen into a routine. Every evening around six:thirty we go down to the bar in the Club Nautic and watch the sunset. We call it ‘going for our tea’, a phrase beloved of a late and much missed friend, used in his honour and memory. She has a glass of cava, and I have three beers, one, two three. (She sips, I drink.) ‘Siempre tres?’ the barman asked me a couple of evenings ago. ‘Si, siempre tres.’ These are not large beers, understand, and they are not what I would normally drink, but they don’t stock Saaz.

I should know by now, but does anyone have any ideas on how to shift a really annoying head cold, apart from  paracetamol and Strepsils?

There’s a debate I have with myself every so often, about  the best band ever to come out of Scotland . . . apart from Jimmy Shand and Louis Freeman. Some days it’s Texas, others Alex Harvey, occasionally Deacon Blue, and absolutely never, the Bay City ******* Rollers. Other times, I recall Travis, or Franz Ferdinand. But when I really think about it there’s only one winner. I say this having just spent an hour of my work break listening to the best of Del Amitri on my clever wee iPod. Different class. We’re lost a couple of great Scottish musicians lately, in John Martyn and most recently Gerry Rafferty. Happily Justin Currie is still working away quietly, more or less completely overlooked as those two were in later life. He has a new album scheduled for release in May; it’s in my basket already. Oh that people like him, who stay and work in Scotland, received more recognition, ideally at the expense of a bearded sage who bailed out of his home city 25 years ago, and is now globally famous on the back of nothing much more than his own garrulousness. (You know who I mean.)

My friends in L’Escala, and in particular those who have the good fortune to be Welsh, make an assumption about me, namely that on five out of six winter Saturdays I will be found in front of a television set glued to the Six Nations Rugby Union championship. There was a time when I would have been, if I wasn’t actually at a match, but somewhere along the way, something happened. Or maybe several things; the start of the professional era when everything had to be staged, with pre-match entertainment and pyrotechnics that bore no relation to what was about to happen; the constant tinkering with the rules that seem to make the game confusing even to the referees, let alone the players; the prevalence in both codes, League also of on-field coaching, with characters not-very-cunningly disguised as water-carriers allowed pretty much free access to the field at every breakdown. Whatever, it’s a hell of a long way from the game played by K J F Scotland, Barry John, Andy Hancock, Mike Gibson, etc, and it’s one with which I no longer feel connected. (The fact that we now struggle to beat Italy doesn’t help either.) Remind me, who are we playing on Saturday?

It’s official.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12531837

Heard this morning from a friend in Auckland, New Zealand. It’s a small country and interconnected, so I’d been worrying about her and hers. Thankfully she and her family are all safe, but a close colleague of hers, a lady I may have met myself, was trapped in the CTV building, where rescue operations have now been suspended. On the plus side, by the wonders of Facebook I’ve just heard that another young friend is unscathed.

This should remind us all that no matter how great we may seem individually, none is greater than the planet to which we are all clinging, and which occasionally does its best to throw us off. It makes it all the sadder that the deaths of good people in Christchurch are reported along side the stories of the mad and bad Gaddafi, vowing to shed every last drop of other people’s blood to cling to power in Libya. A form of justice might be for him and his family, and all those like them, to be forcibly removed to Christchurch and made to help in the rescue operations, to show them that its better to be a fully paid up member of the human race than a parasitic growth upon it.

Just found this on the BBC website.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12535581

WTF? I await the comments of my friends in Oz.

I also note this,attributed to the Defence Minister … a plan had been developed to try to ensure such incidents could not be repeated.

It had better be a very cunning plan.

I note that Bill Aitken has resigned as chair of the Scottish Parliament’s justice committee in the wake of some ill-considered remarks about a rape victim. Mr Aitken has been around for a long time, and should have known better than to let his mouth run ahead of his brain, but now he’s even being criticised for the nature of his departure by the man whose parliamentary motion prompted it, one Patrick Harvie, of the Green Party. I’ve never been one of Bill’s biggest fans, and I’m surprised he was ever given the chair of that committee, given that his political views tend to be well away from the left of centre blanket that could be thrown over most Holyrood MSPs. However I have a lot more time for him than for those of Harvie’s ilk, who can’t resist taking one last kick at a wounded man as he tries to leave the scene with some of his dignity intact.

Woke up this morning to more terrible scenes in Christchurch; lightning may not strike twice, but it’s in the nature of earthquakes that they do. I’ve been there, loved  the genteel beauty of the place, and enjoyed every minute of my trip, so when I saw those pictures I felt the tragedy even more keenly. Right now, all I can do is hope that by some miracle, the death toll rises no higher.

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year’s “winners”.

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

14. They lived in a typical suburban neighbourhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

15. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

16. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

17. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

18. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

19. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

20. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

21. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

22. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

23. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

24. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

My thanks to Angela Stone for the following, sent as a comment to a recent post. It’s well worthy of a wider audience, and so . . .

‘As I nicked your joke to send to my brother I thought I would send you one.

Proposed cuts to the National Health Service.

The British Medical Association has weighed in on the new Prime Minister David Cameron’s health care proposals.

The Allergists voted to scratch it, but the Dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves.

The Gastroenterologists had a sort of a gut feeling about it, but the neurologists thought the Administration had a lot of nerve.

The Obstetricians felt they were all labouring under a misconception.

Ophthalmologists considered the idea short-sighted.

Pathologists yelled, “Over my dead body!” while the Paediatricians said, “Oh, Grow up!”

The Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, while the Radiologists could see right through it.

The Surgeons were fed up with the cuts and decided to wash their hands of the whole thing.

The ENT specialists didn’t swallow it, and just wouldn’t hear of it.

The Pharmacologists thought it was a bitter pill to swallow, and the Plastic Surgeons said, “This puts a whole new face on the matter….”

The Podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the Urologists were pissed off at the whole idea.

The Anaesthetists thought the whole idea was a gas, but the Cardiologists didn’t have the heart to say no.

In the end, the Proctologists won out, leaving the entire decision up to the arseholes in London .’

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.