Quintin Jardine's blog

All my titles should be available in the US as e-books; if they ain’t they will be very soon. I will rattle some cages. As for the audio versions, 24 titles are available on Audible.co.uk, and most of them on Audible.com. These are downloadable, unabridged and retail for less than US$8, or around GB£4.

My pleasure. AJ thanks you also.

Yes.

Please let me draw breath! We haven’t reached the official publication date for Funeral Note yet. The Skinner books are annual events, so the next will be published in the summer of 2013.

I like to believe that you’re never too old to learn, and every so often I prove it to myself.

Today, for example, thanks to an ad in the Herald, I have discovered that there are entities known as ‘third sector interfaces’. According to Voluntary Action Scotland, which is looking to recruit a chief executive, there are 32 of them. But what are they? I’ve read the ad and I’m still not clear about that, only that they handle an annual £50m in turnover. This takes me back to my Scottish Office days in the 70s, when institutionalised Social Work was in its infancy, but advanced enough to have formed its own cabal of central government advisers, who took themselves very seriously. It was very obvious to me then that those people carried their own secret dictionaries around with them, filled with words and phrases that nobody else understood, a smokescreen of bullshit behind which they could hide. It is obvious to me today that nothing has changed.

Just back from the Bloody Scotland Crime Festival launch. God preserve us all from imaginative photographers. I may not watch BBCtv’s Reporting Scotland tonight, just in case I’m in it, making an arse of myself.

Kenneth Roy concludes his examination of a tragedy and reaches some damning conclusions:

http://www.scottishreview.net/index.shtml

Please support the Scottish Review. It deserves it.

Off to Stirling tomorrow for the launch of Bloody Scotland, our very own crime writing festival, the brainchild of Alex Gray and Lin Anderson, God bless them both. We’re all bidden to a photo-call in the Old Town Jail. That should be fun; hopefully BBC and STV news will be persuaded to take the perilous road out of Glasgow rather than follow their usual practice of ignoring things that don’t actually happen on their own doorsteps. If they do, I will be the guy in the black hat.

Part two of the shameful story of the girls on the bridge, courtesy of Kenneth Roy and the Scottish Review:

http://www.scottishreview.net/index.shtml

Thanks to Roanna and everyone else at Blackwell’s, Edinburgh, for putting together an excellent event last night. A full house on a Tuesday is pretty good, so thanks also for those who turned out on an evening when there was a fair chance of being soaked, there and back.

My gigs always feature a discussion session. I like to interact with readers and find out what they’re thinking. Normally there is a range of around a dozen potential questions, but yesterday there was a new one. As soon as I threw the floor open, a lady in the front row asked, simply,’Hearts of Hibs?’ I had to explain to her that when it comes to next Saturday’s Scottish Cup Final between the two Edinburgh teams, I am genuinely neutral . . . almost.

One more from the Brooks TV coverage and this time a couple of questions. Given that the taxpayer is footing the bill for the shambolic and grotesquely expensive Leveson Inquiry, 1) what was the cost to the public purse, of the inquiry counsel asking Rebekah B how Dave Cameron signs off his text messages and 2) was it in any way, shape or form relevant to the tribunal’s remit?

Just seen the oddest thing on the One O’Clock News: a black-clad solemn woman from the Crown Prosecution Service announcing, against a background would have suited any North Korean TV studio and with the gravitas of a Taliban executioner, that Rebekah Brooks, her husband, her secretary, her security guys, her chauffeur, and the family cat (I may have misheard the last part) have been charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice, an offence that can earn its perpetrators up to ten years in the slammer. I can’t recall such a staged intimation of a prosecution before, and I cannot help wondering how it was meant to serve the interests of justice, and how it can contribute to the right of the individuals involved to a fair trial.

After the very expensive Harry Redknapp shambles, the CPS has surely laid its head on the block with this one. Did it do so because the principal accused are good friends of  the Prime Minister, or in spite of that fact? Either way, it had better win, or a few heads will be falling into the basket.

This is a sad, sad story, but a great piece of journalism, all too rare in modern Scotland.

http://www.scottishreview.net/index.shtml

If you’re Sco’ish and  care about our nation, please be a Friend of the Review, but not by clicking a box on Facebook. Send them a donation to support their work, and spread the word.

So the Rangers saga moves into yet another phase, and we have a second preferred bidder. I’ve just watched Mr Charles Green’s interview with BBC Scotland. He seemed to say all the right things, he praised all the right people, and he spoke quietly and positively. Maybe he is the real deal. He’ll have to be, if his quoted claim to have bought Craig Whyte’s shares in Rangers PLC is correct, for that would make him already the de facto owner of the business, and its debt.

We know who Mr Green is, and his business CV is on the record. It’s not great, and his previous venture into the football business did not end all that well. Let’s accept that he has learned from that experience, but even then, we don’t know anything about his backers, the sources of the money he’s fronting for, the £8.5m that will be offered to creditors (after Duff & Phelps, the administrators have had their whack). Who are they, and what if any personal and business baggage do they carry? We’re told they’re from the UK, China, Indonesia, Singapore, and the Middle East, but so far no names have been put forward. That being the case, how can the new regime hope to pass Scottish football’s ‘fit and proper person’ test, the one that Mr Craig Whyte failed, about a year too late?

Then there’s the Creditors Voluntary Agreement itself, the legal device under which all those owed money are offered a hatful of cash and agree to divvy it up in a p in the £ settlement, leaving the debtor entity to carry on with its slate wiped clean. The target for acceptance in June 6, three weeks away, but forgive me, folks, how can any date be set before the Mills of God Tax Tribunal delivers its verdict on Rangers alleged misuse of employee benefits trusts and the tax consequences that will flow from it? If HMRC wins it will control the outcome of any CVA, and if my sums are correct, the money available to the other creditors will  be more or less halved. We are told that a decision is ‘imminent’, as it has been for the last six months. If it’s suddenly spat out now, to suit the HMRC timetable, it will spark serious doubts about the Tribunal’s impartiality. The administrators say this doesn’t matter. They say that if the CVA fails,  the deal with the Green consortium obliges it to go down a newco route instead. So, why not end the whole soap opera by going straight to that option?

Is it all over bar the shouting? I doubt it; if I was Ally I’d be taking my mobile with me on holiday.

Finally, has anyone yet commented on the ultimate irony, the prospect of Rangers  being chaired by a man named Green?

Three months ago, I made a public pledge to foreswear alcohol. Foolishly I pledged also to post regular bulletins. I’ve just been reminded of this in a comment by Nick. The question is, ‘How regular is regular?’ For me every three months is okay. Thus, I have to report that my record has been mixed, but that overall I am doing okay. I would add that any progress I have made has been against the background of  breaking my buns to finish Skinner 23, and other factors too numerous and personal to mention. Another big test is looming on Friday when I meet up with a group of friends for one of our regular lunch engagements. In the past these have been fairly liquid affairs, but this time I will pass; you  may take that to the bank.

The medical view of giving up the bevvy is interesting. When I discussed the subject with my doc, he suggested that the most important thing is not necessarily giving it up altogether, but being able to abstain every week for a few days at a time. Fine, but when does that become binge drinking?

Perhaps the best approach is that of a good friend of mine, sadly gone to Jesus, who took an executive decision that when it comes to alcohol abstention, white wine doesn’t count.

Having touched on the legal profession  in my previous post, I’m going to go back there. A few nights ago I saw a TV ad that grabbed me by its sheer artistry and made me watch it all the way to the end. You may have seen it. Built around a song by Rachel K Collier, it features a series of images of people  at significant points in their lives. It’s not until the very end that the viewer is told that the product being plugged is a brand called Quality Solicitors.

My first reaction was to yell disappointed abuse at the telly. There was a time when solicitors were forbidden, strictly, from advertising their services in a competitive marketplace, but somewhere along the line that was forgotten. In recent years we’ve been bombarded by the likes of Accident Lawyers 4 U, the Accident Helpline, Quantum Claims and all the rest, every one of them out to turn us into an aggressively litigious society by lighting up the £ signs, that most of us have somewhere in our peripheral vision. I detest them, and I was prepared to detest Quality Solicitors too, until I thought about what the ad was actually saying and how it was saying it. A little research informed me that Quality Solicitors is a network as are most of the ambulance chasers. However its pitch is different; it isn’t aggressive at all, and money is never mentioned. It’s saying to the viewer, ‘Look, at some point in life, you will need legal services. These are ours; we are sympathetic and we will be on your side.’

So now I’m fine with it. I’ve even bought the song, ‘A hard road to travel‘  on iTunes. That’s said, it’s still a competitive ad, and only those people who are within the QS network will benefit. So, might there not be a case for the Law Societies in Scotland and England to to a little generic advertising on behalf of the profession as a whole?

By now, I’m finding that my eyes go indistinctly bleary whenever the name Leveson is mentioned. As a chum of mine remarked in  the pub  last night, I wonder how much the lawyers are making out of all this. However I was struck by part of Rebekkah Wade Kemp Brooks’ evidence, her story of her disagreement with Rupert over her insistence on ramping up celebrity content over serious matter, and her reason for doing so. She looked at the audience for TV talent shows and other such crap, and determined that if there was such a public taste she was going to feed it for  the purpose of selling more newspapers. Commercially that can’t be faulted. Journalistically, it’s crap. It was based on following trends not setting them, and that to me is the death knell that is being rung over the corpse of most of British journalism. Our great newspapers have always been leaders. They used to call The Times, ‘The Thunderer’, and its editor was a great figure on the land. Today, along with the other broadsheets, its tone of voice is whinge, whine and whimper, and very few people have a clue who its editor is.

The Funeral Note ‘tour’ starts tomorrow with three public signings around Edinburgh, and more running through next week.

Check the ‘Events’ page for details.

The guy who performed my first wedding ceremony, 46 years ago was called Ian Forbes also. Any relation? As for your question, no it isn’t strictly necessary to read the Skinner series in sequence, but it helps, as the characters evolve, develop,  and on the odd occasion die.

On Sky TV last night, after a chicken, wearing Blackburn Rovers colours  released on to the pitch by fans, had been recaptured by the visiting goalie, commentator Alan Parry declared, ‘Well, there’ll be no eggs from him in the morning.’

But if there are . . . global religions have been founded on less.