Quintin Jardine's blog

This is my day for being a clever bastard . . . God Bless and keep Ian Dury. Watched George Gently on Sunday and my pet theory paid off. Go through the cast, work out which guest star (i. e. non regular) is being paid the most, and that’s who done it. In this case, it was ****** ******; funny, when he isn’t playing *******, it usually is.

The Kindle device is working well, for all my misgivings. It discourages users from flipping a few pages forward, and makes them rely on their own deductive skills. I’m pretty chuffed with myself; I wasn’t much more than halfway through ‘Bloodline’, when I’d worked it out without a single flip ahead. (However, I am, as they say, in the trade.) Nice one, though, Mark. I’m still waiting to find out how it goes with Tom and Louise.

Incredible comment. Thank you very much.

Thank God the Ryder Cup isn’t an annual event. The nation’s collective heart couldn’t stand it. I am by nature a fatalist; all day I could see a 14 — 14, USA retain the cup, result, looming, but GMac booked his place in history and Hunter Mahan wound up in tears at the press conference. Yes, it’s a team game, but Mr Mahan will never quite see it that way. For every hero, there has to be a fall guy, and the greater the triumph on one hand, the greater the humiliation on the other. On the other side of the coin, Graeme McDowell seems crowned already as Sports Personality of the Year, but will it work out that way, or will voters realise that the recognition really belongs to the guy who had the guts to send him out there to settle everything with a single stroke of his putter and a shot straight and true, when it really mattered?

It will be interesting to watch how careers develop after this. Will Ricky Fowler win a major next year, or is he one of those guys, like Ian Poulter, who is more suited to match play than medal play? Will Mahan ever recover? Has Tiger found his game again? Will Monty get his back, now that he’s freed to the burden of continental expectation? The next two year cycle begins on Thursday, with the Links Championship. During that period all these questions will be answered, and many that haven’t even been raised yet.

Sir Colin Montgomerie in the New Year Honours List? Now there’s a thought.

I’ve been away for a few days, but it’s been worth it. Primavera 3 is finished and off to the book factory. The publication date is January 5, 2012, by which time I’ll have finished Primavera 4, but all that’s way in the future. Now I have time to clear the decks, rearrange my office and start to plan for the Vancouver International Writers’ Festival, where I am looking forward to meeting up with old friend and making new ones.

I’ve rarely seen anyone who’s as good a television interviewee as Sir Terry Matthews, the owner of Celtic Manor, the man who brought the Ryder Cup to Wales. With Chris Hollins on BBC Breakfast yesterday, at 7:30 BST, under grey skies but in dry conditions, he sparkled as he told the viewers of the three principles that had under-pinned his new course’s construction. ‘Drainage, drainage, and drainage,’ he said. ‘And if in doubt, put a little more drainage in.’

With those words, he demonstrated just how hard it can rain in Wales, for a couple of hours later, play had to be suspended because the course was waterlogged.

But even half a day’s suspension couldn’t kill the atmosphere of the competition. If a sporting event can have charisma, the Ryder Cup has cornered the market. Some years are better than others but very few area total bust, such is the commitment of both teams. Having the right captain helps, undoubtedly. Two years ago, the USA did in Paul Azinger. Europe didn’t, in Nick Faldo. In truth he was never wanted in the role and never welcomed, that he was given it only because the selection committee didn’t have the balls to reject him. (And why should it have? Faldo played in more Ryder Cups that anyone else in history, and scored more points.) Even then he’d have retained the trophy for Europe if his three top players had done what was expected of them.

No problems, it seems, this time. Win or lose . . . and the first four matches aren’t even finished yet, nobody knows how it will pan out, but already the two captains have caught the eye, Corey ‘Crazy’ Pavin for his courageous pairings, and Colin Montgomerie for his attention to detail. The rain delay helped the USA for sure, as they are notoriously poor starters, but that has simply levelled the playing field. Lee Westwood looks hungry, Tiger Woods has his game face on, and we are in for fun.

I’m off to watch it.

That must keep you very busy. May God light up your day.

I started as a Luddite, then I became a Kindle convert, now I’m a Luddite again. Kindle has everything going for it. The device is light, it’s a library in your pocket, and it offers a new reading experience, for ageing eyes in particular. On top of that it has built in a new and massively impressive shopping facility . . . and that’s why it’s very dangerous.

I’m a book-man, all round. I write them, I’m a reader, and to an extent I’m a collector. I like and admire booksellers. I’ve been in book stores in eight countries and four continents, and they all have one thing in common. People work there for love, not money.

The returns for independent proprietors have never been brilliant, and in recent years they’ve come under even heavier pressure, from the fall-out from discounting wars between major book chains and supermarkets, and also from the ubiquitous, pervasive and all too often wholly irresponsible charity shops that are blooming like mushrooms, particularly in Britain.

As for the big book players, shop floor wages are notoriously low, while management expectation can be unreasonably high, especially where re-stocking, display, and the number of tea-bags allowed in the staff-room is tightly controlled from the centre. Yet sensible adults choose to work there, from a sense of pure vocation. They all deserve our support. The last thing either sector needs is for e-readers to take off; that would push many over the edge.

Obviously, I don’t disapprove of internet trading, per se. For some, for example, the house-bound and the geographically disadvantaged, they’re a Godsend. Also, I’d rather people bought books from Amazon than Tesco. But I will always want them to be able go to Simon Kesley, in Haddington, to Sleuths, and Ben McNally, in Toronto, to the new Edinburgh Book Shop in Bruntsfield, to Mysterious Books in New York, and to hundreds like them around the English Speaking world. (Other tongues can fight their own battles.) God help me I’ll even always want them to go to Waterstone, Barnes & Noble and Chapters-Indigo.

I fear for their future, for all of them, in the face of the new Kindle onslaught; for be aware, Kindle is a software based device and that software is available for free download and use on PC, Mac, lap-top, tablet and even iPhone. (Now I’ve told you that I’ll have to kill you.) The threat is real, and traditional booksellers have few defences; only two that I can see.

One, there will always be people like me, who believe that to ripple the pages of a printed book is a special experience, one that through the centuries has taken millions from the darkness into the light.

Two? You can’t have your Kindle signed by the author.

Just watched Panorama and I’m spitting feathers. While I don’t condone the abuse of prisoners, or of any human beings, neither do I find acceptable a half-hour stream of unsubstantiated allegations and insinuations against the British military, by its own public service tax-payer funded broadcaster. This wasn’t even as ignoble as trial by television: it was kangaroo court, courtesy of the public purse. This programme has been run by subversives for the last 30 years; they’re still getting away with it, and it’s time they were stopped.

Here’s a nice football story, about an honest mistake dealt with sensibly.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/scot_prem/9037802.stm

Well done both managers, especially Derek McInnes. How many would have reacted as he did?

Back to normal this morning though. The Golden Family are off on Mia’s first official holiday, and we’re looking after the dogs. If I could, I’d have set them on Yvette Cooper Balls an hour ago, when I saw her on telly, insincerity oozing from every pore as she attempted to praise the new Dear Leader without choking on her words, and on both rejoicing Kinnocks, enriched by Europe and ennobled beyond their worth. One seat on an Edinburgh tram would be one too many for that couple, never mind two in the House of Lords.

Lovely Sunday yesterday. Our two closest friends came for lunch, and the Spanish family, with the lovely Mia as the centre of attraction . . . as you are when you’re three months old. Made me forget all about the relentless soap opera that is British politics, and even ignore Man U’s failure to take advantage of the short-comings of their main rivals. It’s good to be reminded of the things that are truly important in life.

Okay, two days off, now back to work. Big edit looming on Primavera 3, polishing, improving, expanding where necessary and locating and removing dead chauffeurs. Once that’s done, I’ll . . . take another couple of days off.

What’s that you say? ‘…creepy Ed Miliband, … has the look of a perverted vampire’ Perhaps that is taking it a little far. There is no reason to assert that Ed is perverted in any way, Mary. His party is, yes, in electing him to lead it after he wrote its last, disastrous, manifesto, but that needn’t apply to him. Creepy? Again, no evidence, although his apparent lack of commitment to the family unit, as witness his readiness to shaft his older brother, and some other stuff that’s in the Telegraph this morning might strike some people as having a little of the weasel in it. Vampire? We won’t really know that until he smiles properly.

Six matches gone, Motherwell have won all their away games and none at home. Funny how, every time Hearts lose at Tynecastle it’s always the referee’s fault.

The bookies got it right, then. Too bad for the Labour Party that it’s got it wrong; it’s now led by someone who wasn’t the first choice of either the Parliamentary party or the membership at large.

Only seven hours until we know the name of the new Leader of the Opposition, (I can hardly wait) and the bookies are telling us it’s going to be Milipede the Younger, Ed rather than David. Since the voting system is so complicated that nobody understands it, this has to be based on chatter rather than analysis. I hope it’s wrong, because I find him a creepy character and he’d be my second last choice, preferable only to Ed Balls. I’m not a member of any part of the fractured organisation that’s holding the ballot, but if I was I reckon I’d have voted for Diane Abbott. She has more charisma than all the other candidates put together,  she once appeared in Romeo and Juliet with Michael Portillo, and she’s also the oldest by some years, and so has significantly more knowledge of life. She strikes me also as someone who’s prepared to fight for what is right, not simply for that which is considered electorally acceptable. My only problem with her is that apart from her time at Cambridge, she doesn’t appear to ever have set foot outside London. But on the plus side she’s the only one of the five to have on her CV any real experience outside the secretive and disreputable Westminster community. How can you aspire to govern a country when all your knowledge of it is second-hand? How can you presume to  preside over an economy when you’ve never actually contributed to it?

Chicken curry and a shared bottle of Protos Rosado  in La Clota last night, followed by an interesting discussion with a retired gynaecologist, and a chat with a newly married couple, Kim, whose mother was a Rudyard Kipling fan, hence the name, (could have been Mowgli) and Pilar, who’s from Venezuela. Live long and prosper, folks

A little while ago I referred in a post  to ‘the brilliant new Kate Atkinson novel’. Then I went back to it, and came upon a line where Margaret Thatcher is grouped alongside Hitler and Pol Pot. I’m prepared to accept that might be the view of her character rather than the author, but if I’m wrong, I’m left wondering how someone can be supremely talented, yet, simultaneously, spectacularly fucking stupid. I’m no Thatcherite, by definition because I’m Scottish, but the lady won three general elections; to my mind that entitles her to a degree of respect.

I am by nature a Luddite. I like CDs rather than downloads and, going further back, I still have 400 vinyl albums in storage somewhere. I also take pleasure in having a bloody great pile of books beside my bed. Thus, I wasn’t a likely buyer for an e-reader. So, when my son and daughter-in-law bought me a new generation Amazon Kindle for a recent birthday, they were either being provocative or they were taking a chance, or both. Well, I’m a convert. It arrived a few days ago and I’ve hardly put it down since, so thanks, Kyoko, thanks Al. There is something about walking around with a thing that’s slimmer than my Filofax even in its case, knowing that it contains, among other things, the Complete Works of Shakespeare. My first proper read on it is the brilliant new Kate Atkinson novel. When I’m through with that, I might try Twelfth Night.