Quintin Jardine's blog

Found myself idly wondering last night about the implications of  Margaret Paterson, the Edinburgh ‘madam’, being ordered by the court last week to cough up £1m of her criminally acquired fortune.

If it’s true that she was meticulous in paying tax on her activities, as has been reported, does that mean that HMRC is also guilty of profiting from immoral earnings?

Sometimes a TV ad is so bad that it makes you loathe the product, instinctively.

There is one such on the box at the moment, for a very dodgy home-selling website. It features two unpresentable guys pitching a very bad script, and offering an ill-defined proposition. It’s called Purple Bricks: easy to remember, rhymes with Pricks.

Yesterday I had a strange and unsolicited email from a person named Libby Barr, managing director of customer care with BT. She told me that she’d been snooping on my Broadband usage in Gullane and that my wireless connection wasn’t great. That wasn’t news to me. It’s so unreliable that I’ve been using powerline adaptors for almost a year.  She told me also that I could buy a range extender from the  BT online shop. I knew that too; in fact I have a range extender, a better model than BT sell. Its benefits are marginal.

The Libbster’s message also included the following gem:

“We want to make sure you’re getting the best from your BT services so we recently checked the data from your BT Home Hub to see how well everything’s working and saw that you might not be getting the best wireless connection to some of your devices. Don’t worry, we can’t see what you’re using the internet for – only how well it’s working.”

Nice to know, but it doesn’t explain how she was able to do that, since I haven’t been at home, nor used my broadband there, for over a month. Nor does it offer any form of recompense for BT’s self-confessed failings.

When I tried to quiz Libby about the content of her message and to express these concerns, I found that it is impossible to contact her. Instead I was referred to a section of the BT website labelled ‘Contact Us‘, where I was able to key in my questions. I did so, at some lengths, then pressed ‘Send‘, so be advised that missives had to be restricted to 240 characters. Undeterred, I asked a simpler question: ‘Are you a help desk or an extension of Twitter?‘ That led me to be connected with someone named Sweety Pathak, who thanked me for my patience, before I’d even shown any. This cued an even simpler question; ‘Do you speak English?‘  Sweety wasn’t sure, for her only response was further gratitude for my patience, at which point, I decided it was in fact exhausted.

Still on TV and still on Sky; I have confessed in the past to being addicted to Game of Thrones, but Monday’s episode may have turned me off. No, I don’t mean the debate of the value of a dwarf’s appendage as an alternative medicine . . . ‘Okay the dwarf lives until we find a cock merchant!’ That was funny.

It was the scene at the end that did for me, where Sonsa Stark, after surviving heroically for four and a half series finally meets a fate worse than death at the hands of the unspeakably beastly Ramsay. If I carry on watching it will be in the hope that one day, the psychotic bridegroom is handed over to the aforementioned trader in body parts, unless, of course Brienne gets to him first.

Last night saw the end of a Sky original series called Critical. I saw most of the episodes, although there were one or two points when I averted my gaze from the effects department’s latest creation on the operating table. For those of you who only know of a clam shell as a crustacean’s house, best leave it that way.

‘Real-time drama’ they called it, without ever really explaining what the clock was for. Once it got moving, it was all pretty predictable, part from the horrors self-inflicted on poor old Lorraine. In the final episode, you knew from fairly early on that the accident victim wasn’t going leave the scene with two legs. You knew that Glen wasn’t going to drive into the night and out of the action, that he would be back for an enigmatic reunion with Fiona, and probably for a second series.

And yet I watched it to the end. Why? I have Lenny James to thank for that. The man is an absolute star and he can play Skinner any time he likes.

Haven’t heard in a while from the Senator in Arizona. How are you doing, Ma’am?

Fiat 500X TV ad: one of the greats.

I’m not a huge Twitter fan but #waronterrier is pretty funny.

I’ve just had an email from a young lady named Natalia. She’s asking how I’m getting along, and other things besides. In the immortal words of the mortal Willie Ballantine, it’s nice to know I haven’t lost my touch.

If you get to the stage in life when your driving licence has to be renewed, and you have a notifiable condition, for example a cardiac pacemaker, do not leave your application to the last minute, instead use all of the 90-day window. If it winds up in the hands of the DVLA medical team, and most probably it will, they will take six weeks to process it, and during that time your driving status will be uncertain. Should you need to hire a car during that period, forget it, for you won’t have a licence. The old one has to be sent in with the application.

My dad took little notice of music; it got in the way of his reading. I doubt that he’d have liked ‘Wilder Mind’, the third Mumford and Sons album. But I do; it reminds me of the time when the younger Dylan caused outrage among his folkie following by going on stage with an electric backing band. i doubt that we’ll see such fury this time round.

Thirty-nine years ago today, my dad died, suddenly in his armchair, leaving my kids and me with good memories that have been with us ever since. He was reading the Glasgow Herald at the time, but I’ve never held it against that newspaper. At least it wasn’t  the Scotsman. (He’d have laughed at that observation, by the way.) He was laughing the last time I saw him, as he showed me to  the door, and so was I; about what I can’t remember, but I’ve always felt good about it.

Sky News, obsessed as it is by the betting on the name of the Royal child, advise us that the odds against her being named after Daenerys, ‘The unburnt, Mother of Dragons’, in Game of Thrones, are no less than 500-1. Interestingly, these are the same as those against her being named Camilla.

This is the 18th anniversary of the saddest day of my life. I marked it by stopping for a coffee in Riells, where I sat at a table, the only one free in the cafe, next to a couple around my own age. It took me only a couple seconds to recognise them as Toni and RoseMari, from Blagnac, France, neighbours, and friends, from our very first apartment here in L’Escala.

Uncanny that we should meet today, of all days, to bring back some happy memories.

I’ve made a strange discovery. I’m supposed to be taking a break, but I’ve forgotten how to do  that. I needn’t worry, though; Eileen has several ideas for passing my time.

A few hours ago, just before 9am BST, the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to her second child, a daughter.

A couple of hours later, an email hit my inbox: it was from Marks & Spencer. The heading was ‘The Royal Baby has arrived!’ and the message read ‘Shop M&S Baby!’ On principle, I don’t think I will.

That was crass, but no more so than Sky News’ coverage in the hour or so before the birth was announced.

It was fronted by Kay Burley, appearing bravely at around 8am on a Saturday without access to the make-up department. With nothing really to say, the old pro improvised by dragging Sky’s hapless royal-watcher around the assembling media circus. They paused beside the Ladbrokes blackboard, and its custodian, who told us in all seriousness that her employer was no longer taking gender bets but that its odds had been 4-9 in favour of the new arrival being a girl. ‘That means you have to put on £9 to get £4 back,’ she explained, providing living proof that most punters are idiots.

Odds on potential names had been chalked on the board, with ‘Alice’ showing as 6-4 favourite.

Seeing this, I remarked to my wife, ‘Maybe the bookies will be right, but if they’re not . . . could it be down to Roy ‘Chubby Brown?’

She looked at me blankly. ‘Work it out,’ I said. (By the way, I’ll have a £ on ‘Diana’, at 14-1 against, being in there somewhere.)

Moving on from the turf accountant, Kay latched on to the veteran photographer Arthur Edwards. Once he had his little step-ladder in place, she asked him when we could expect the new arrival.

He tilted his head and, even as inside the Lindo Wing Wills was giving one last shout of ‘Push!’, he replied, ‘Oh, we’ll still be here tomorrow.’

As any reporter would tell you, that shows you how much photographers know.

The vote for the most surprised man in L’Escala, and maybe all of Spain must go to a tall, bespectacled, skin-headed bloke, pushing his trolley up the aisle in ALDI this morning, when a little blonde woman dumped a dozen eggs and various other items, a whole armful, in there . . . and then looked up.

No, it wasn’t me.

Best wishes from the wife and me, to Ann and Eric on their Golden, and to Frank and Jenny as they approach that number.