Quintin Jardine's blog

Is it my imagination, or is global sport being a wee bit racist over the state of facilities for the Commonwealth Games in India? I seem to recall that the preparations for the Athens Olympics were every bit as chaotic, but I don’t recall any rush to boycott them.

Just finished The Third Man, the autobiography of Peter Mandelson; to an extent it was a loyalty purchase, as we have the same agent, but I came away liking the man a lot more than when I began it. (Still don’t like Captain Barbossa, though.) I heard of him first in the mid 80s, when he was beginning to make his presence felt in the Labour Party organisation and I was in the process of leaving the Tories. My dear friend Harvey Thomas had him marked down as a man to be watched, so I have done, from that point on. Having had his perspective on Blair and Brown it will be interesting to read theirs on him. He’s done a great deal for his party over the last quarter of a century, and stood by its leaders with a greater loyalty than they showed him, at those times in his career when he could have used it. One thing is certain; he’s too young to fade away. Wherever he pops up next, I’ll still be following Harvey’s advice, and keeping an eye on him.

Beehive housing? It’s the contemporary description that was given to the distinctive ‘colonies’ houses built for working families in Edinburgh in the Victorian area. Their history’s easy to find if you look on line.

Around half an hour ago, I reached the two magic words on Primavera 3, those being ‘The End’. There were times when I thought I’d never reach them, but I have done, and pretty much on schedule. A week or so 0f rigorous edit and then it’ll be off to the book factory. Publication? January 2012, would you believe.

It’s nice to know that you’re a fan, so it’s going to be tough for me to say this. I accept that you’re trying to be helpful, but you’re not getting there. In fact, you’ve done the opposite; you’ve hit the ‘Annoy QJ’ button, at a bad time. So here it is, on the line, with my sincere regrets: on occasion, Bob Skinner uses ‘for’ rather than ‘because’, okay. Why? Because he f**king well does, so please, live with it, or not, as you choose. Bob doesn’t walk around with Fowler’s English Usage up his arse, or even constantly consulting it on his iPad. If, as you say, this choice between words drives you nuts, I have to assume that you’ve had a very short journey. If it really is a problem for you, then everything must be a problem, from your first waking moments. Is your life really so precise? If so, I can imagine you ensuring that you have the correct sock on each foot, before going to breakfast and checking the number of raisins in each scoop of muesli. I must suggest that you work on this; perhaps you could you begin by going out and meeting more people.

I love to get feedback from serving cops; does me the world of good. When you get to Fatal Last Words you’ll find Bob venturing on to your patch. Look out for him.

Thanks, on Oz’s behalf. My link to Australia? I believe that I have some distant relations there from my great grandfather’s second marriage, (If any of them know of it and would like to get in touch I’d welcome it.) but that’s all . . . other than the fact that I’ve been there.

As my bio says, I started my working life as a journalist. Occasionally, I’ve found myself regretting that I didn’t stay in the profession, and go down a specific path, politics, for example, or golf. Most days though I’m glad I got out. I may have missed some excitement, but the upside is can look myself in the  eye every time I face a mirror.

I have no brief for Wayne Rooney, although I’m sorry for his wife, who’s having his misdeeds slammed in her face, and I’m outraged by the whores who took his cash and are now apologising to Mrs R for practising their profession. (Akin to Wayne apologising to the people of Switzerland for stuffing one in their net last week.) I’m deeply opposed to betting, and it’s on those grounds that the allegations against Pakistani cricketers concern me, but if they are as poorly paid as is said, those who run their sport should be condemned for putting them in harm’s way. I’ve always liked what I’ve seen of Ricky Hatton, while worrying also that his proclaimed fondness for Dom Perignon and Guinness didn’t quite fit with the example that a successful sportsman is expected to set, yet I can’t for  the life of me see why he should be able legally to pour those down his neck and yet not sniff some powder up his nose.

Still, the things that all these people are alleged to have done are, if true, blameworthy, in a domestic or criminal context. But in my book none of them matches up to what my former profession has done to them. If I could be David Cameron for a day (Insert the head of government of your choice; Barack, Julia, Stephen, John, etc) then I would table a new statute which would make it a crime  to film or record, for commercial purposes, any individual without their knowledge. I don’t mean a misdemeanour either: I’m talking about an offence punishable by a minimum of two years in the slammer for every one involved in its commission,  up to and including the editor of any newspaper, broadcasting station or website  that makes use of material so obtained.

No, you are not wrong. You are either a genius for detail, or the reader from hell, or both. The same thought did occur to me, late in the day, but I decided that he owned more than those purchased by Tony Z, as indeed he did. The lady in question has evolved as the series has progressed, and I’m sure you’ll agree that its best if she isn’t remembered as a keeper of bawdy houses, Let’s put that part of her career behind her. Incidentally, thanks. Your comment has helped me reached a decision.

As of this moment, ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ will be a Kindle exclusive. But few things change faster than my mind, so you never know.

Ah, so you think you know the poor bloke’s fate? That’s more than I do.

Yes, Lynne. You can tell your mum that Skinner 21 will be published next June. Before then, something different, a stand-alone work called The Loner.

Some times stand out. Every so often you have one, and afterwards you can’t pick holes in it at all; not a flaw to be found. Try this one, my yesterday:

You awaken  in a nice spa hotel, hidden  five kilometres along an old camino from the nearest town, in a deep, tree-lined valley that stays mostly in shade until around nine. A leisurely breakfast is allowed to settle, and then you set out, under the September sun. You walk up a zig-zagging dirt road for an hour or so, (not too fast, no point tiring yourself out) until at the top of the small mountain that you’ve climbed, you find a sign-post. You take the direction marked ‘restaurant’ and you walk on until you reach it. By the time you’ve rehydrated, lunch seems like a good idea, so you eat, Catalan tipic, tomato bread and anchovies, then butifarra and chips. When that’s done, you walk back: there’s a bonus, in that most of it’s downhill; you did the hard work earlier. Back at the hotel it’s mid-afternoon, a nice time to sit on the terrace and absorb a couple of beers, and then to find a sun-bed in the garden and doze at the river’s edge, vaguely aware of Tomasz Stanko, and Jose Padilla, and Natalie Merchant on your iPod. You’ve walked about ten clicks earlier; you don’t want to stiffen up, but fortunately the spa has a sauna and a salt-water jacuzzi. There couldn’t be a better preparation for dinner, and a nice chilled bottle of Anna de Codorniu, to round everything off.

You see, Lou Reed’s not the only guy who can have perfect days. And did I say, Eileen, I’m glad I spent it with you?

Heading off this afternoon for a couple of days in the foothills of the Spanish  Pyrenees, in a very nice little spa hotel called La Central, which could not be further from the Central Hotel of my youth, the one in Glasgow that was too posh for me to enter save once, at the only Former Pupils’ dinner I ever attended, a black tie job with a bottle of whisky on every table, dangerous fare for an eighteen-year-old. Happily I didn’t see much of ours, and  anyway, the train home was only a short totter away.

Anyone else remember Glasgow Central Station in the 60’s? Those who do will remember The Shell, the casing of a howitzer projectile on a plinth which was used as a charity collection box. However in all the hundreds of occasions that I passed through the station, as I did every school day from the age of 10, I never saw anyone put even a halfpenny in the slot. No, its real purpose was as a place of assignation, where you met your girlfriend for a night at the movies. It was right in the middle of the concourse in those days, a good position tactically for boys and girls in the event of a first date, following an initial meeting in a dance hall that might have been better lit, for it allowed either party to hide behind the newspaper stall for reappraisal, as it were, and if such was the judgement, to slink quietly back on to the train, or out through the side entrance. (I never heard of both he and she hiding behind the same stall, but it must have happened.) I rush to say that I never did such a thing to a young lady. I took centre stage every time. But it was probably done to me once or twice.

There is no newspaper stall in the Central that we will visit in a few hours. Nor is there a Shell, nor  trains, nor even passing traffic. But there is a very nice dining room, a match for the Malmaison, or La Fourchette any day of the week.

She’s fine; leave her alone. He’s the one with the problems. Mind you, I’d love to hear your definition of ‘growing up’, for the benefit of the ladies in my family. As it turns out, in the next book,the girl in question will be growing in the other direction.

I’ve been saying for a while that I’m glad I have no new work publishing in the last half of this year. The book scene is dominated currently by political autobiography. First Mandelson, now Blair, next Bush. We watched Tony a couple of nights ago, in what was more of a conversation with Andrew Marr than an interview by him. You have to give it to Random House; they got their launch strategy spot on. No review copies, no leaks, no serialisation. You want to read it, buy it.  BBC interview on day one. Day two, the media’s full of ex-Captain Barbossa’s friends (no, scratch that, former acolytes, for he doesn’t have any friends) scrabbling to pull something from the wreckage, thus generating even more interest and more sales.

Overall, I’ve always liked Blair more than I’ve disliked him. Still do. But . . . he’ll always be  a pale pink shadow of Thatcher in my eyes. Thatcher? Yes, for he’s convinced me that he’s a Tory at heart. When  Marr put that to him, gently, he said ‘I’m not, I’m a Progressive.’ But, in Northern-speak that’s the same thing, and Tony is essentially a man of the north. No, it’s not just a label. My wife’s dad, a tanker captain, was a Progressive councillor, as was the ruling right-wing group in Edinburgh for decades. Politically, Tony Blair is me; he’s no more a socialist than I am. Personally, he’s damned himself forever as weak, maybe even cowardly. He will be accused of weakness in going along with Bush on Iraq, but I don’t buy into that. Iraq was a cabinet decision, and responsibility must be collective. Only Robin Cook resigned over it. Even Clare Short backed it, initially. No, Blair was weak in not sacking or moving Brown, regardless of the consequences. Every contemporary account agrees that the man sought to undermine Blair as leader and as PM from Day One. To  say now,  ‘Yes he was a shit with no political judgement, and he knifed me in the back, but I kept him because he was a good Chancellor,’  just doesn’t wash. Every Chancellor has behind him a deputy of cabinet rank, the Chief Secretary, who could take over at a stroke of the pen. As I read the emerging histories of the period, it’s clear to me that TB should have moved Brown to the Foreign Office, or even the back benches, after the ’01 election and put one of his own in next door. He wouldn’t have resigned over it, not immediately; his overt greed for power wouldn’t have let him. But he’d have been emasculated. If only Tony himself hadn’t lacked the balls to do it.

Woke up this morning to the sad news of the New Zealand earthquake. Thankfully, there seem to have been no fatalities. We visited Christchurch a few years ago; I’ve maintained ever since  that it’s the most English city I’ve ever seen, including any in England. I hope that it and its inhabitants recover quickly and that  the damage proves to be superficial rather than irreparably severe. Good luck, one and all.

I take it you’re on US time, Lorraine. Yes Skinner 19 is out, but so is Skinner 20, ‘A Rush of Blood’. Checkout http://www.campbellreadbooks.com for details and availability.

You are a very meticulous reader. To answer your question, no I donlt have a story-board, but I have a large database. Now one of mine. Who’s PC Pyle?

It’s lunch-time and I’m knackered already. I have some excuse though; we were up at 5 this morning to catch the 07:50 flight to Girona. Just had lunch and it’s bloody hot. Wish I was back in East Lothian already. Since last I flew out of Edinburgh Airport they’ve greatly increased the size of the security area. Did it speed the process? No chance. If anything it took longer; larger facilities are no damn good if you don’t employ any new people to staff them.

I don’t know about you, but whenever I have to set my alarm for a seriously early hour, I might as well not bother, for I always waken at least two hours before it’s due to go off. But if I relied on that . . .

The saving grace is that I am now in the land of the siesta, for which I am now bound. Adios.