Archive
Let’s be non-**
I’m planning to start a campaign against PC in the media.
I’ll begin by targeting the infuriating newspaper habit of adding words in brackets in the middle of direct quotes, words that the speaker didn’t actually say. This is done presumably to make the meaning clear to all readers, but let’s face it, if a person is that dumb, he’s unlikely to be able to read the damn paper in the first place.
Then there’s the asterisk craze. The BBC website quotes Bradley Wiggins this morning as saying he might be ‘p***** off’ about something. For those in doubt, be might be ‘pissed off’. So?
Finally, there is the terrible compulsion TV has to apologise for every minor breach of the language code. During the Open last weekend, Ken Brown jokingly called a co-commentator ‘a smartarse’, for which he apologised a few seconds later, undoubtedly under orders from the production box. On several other occasions commentators apologised on air for golfer expletives after bad shots. Tell you what, guys. Try moving your effects mikes a little further away. If not, accept that if Tiger, etc., hit a bad shot, they may let one go, and live with it.
Heroes
Having been off the reservation for a week or so, the first thing I have to do on return is to thank a few people: specifically, Dr Agnes Durie of Gullane Medical Practice, Mr David Lewis, consultant vascular surgeon, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, and his theatre team, and the staff of Wards 105 and 118, RIE, for the unsurpassable care that all of them lavished on my lovely wife, and most of all for giving her back to me.
You are all special.
I’ll see you outside, Charlie
BBC Breakfast has become so bland that there is little in it that anyone could find annoying, but this morning the colourless Charlie Stayt managed it, in spades. A brief report on Glastonbury was topped off by the fact that the most popular performer was not some dire cloned heavy metal outfit, but Dolly Parton, who drew a bigger crowd than anyone else. When the piece was over, read by his colleague Naga Munchkin, the idiot Charlie chipped in, portentously, ‘And she’s 68 years old.’
Having celebrated yet another birthday yesterday, I found myself perched on the edge of my chair, shouting ‘So f*cking what?!?’ at the telly. I am against most things that end in ‘ism’, but ‘ageism’ is right at the top of my list. Here’s a suggestion for the Breakfast production team. For a couple of weeks, replace Charlie with Ken Dodd . . . ‘And he’s 86 years old.’ . . . and see what happens to the viewing figures.
Cybernuts
Having read this morning’s press on the reaction to JK Rowling’s donation, I want to make it clear that I have nothing but contempt for those who posted some of the stuff that’s been quoted. Social media can do great things, but when it’s abused by cretins, it can be anti-social in the extreme. A few years ago, I was on the end of some of that stuff, courtesy of that mighty organ, the Daily Mail; I reported it to the police straight away. My only regret was in my inability to sue the Mail for providing the platform. This morning I’ve edited a comment on this blog. There was nothing obscene about it, and most likely it was tongue in cheek, but I felt that it crossed a line. Recently the courts have started cracking down on cyber-abusers. That’s a good start, but if they could find the facilitators equally guilty, by association, that would be even better.
Pause for breath
Jordi Maso and Dom Abernethy, (l-r), part of the powerhouse that drives Arrel de Vi, the annual St Marti wine fair.
The art of wine
Arrels de Vi, the annual St Marti wine fair is now under way, until it closes tomorrow evening, Sunday June 8.
Go if you can, and when you do don’t miss out on a range of unique painted ceramic wine coolers, the work of the celebrated Spanish artist, Manolo Sierra; I’m lucky enough to be able to call him a friend.
Betrayal
Until tonight, I was a big Obama fan.
Tomorrow, I burn the T-shirt. I never had him down as an Imperialist, as another Bush, but he is.
However, his betrayal of democracy will have a silver lining. In doing his chum Dave a favour, he has misunderstood one thing, that Scotland as a nation, the place where the Polaris nuclear subs were dumped, until the US made Tridents replaced them, is anti-American and anti-Imperialist in its soul, a position that will be underlined by his interference in our affairs.
Hear this, Mr President: ‘Yes, we will!’
Ta
Thanks to Shirl and David for a very nice evening. Down the hill next time.
Happy return
Sunny day in L’Escala with a touch of Tramuntana, but nothing too bad. Today we went up to St Marti, which is not quite the same now that the wine shop isn’t there any more, but still the nicest place I know. We may go back to eat this evening.
Up themselves
This is classic. I called my bank today to discuss a piece of potential business, and spoke to what they call these days ‘a relationship manager.’ (Bank Managers used to be important people; now they’re sat at desks in call centres.) He told me that before we could go any further, he would have to obtain ‘cross border authority’ to talk to me, since I was calling from Spain. Still trying to get my head round that one.
Still I rise
Two Americans born in the same year, 1928, died yesterday: Dr Maya Angelou and Malcolm Glazer. I know which one I’ll miss.
Music while I laze
Caustic Love : Paolo Nutini. I’ve been waiting around five years for young Mr Nutini to make a great album. He has now.
Liberation
Back in L’Escala for a few weeks, I join a band of Brits dismayed by the disappearance of UK Freesat TV, after a recent satellite move to one with a smaller footprint. Sky is still there, but BBC, ITV1 etc are gone from that platform too.
Sure, there’s a school of thought that says, if you move to another country you should embrace all of it, and leave your former culture behind you. There’s an alternative school of thought that says, bugger that for a game of soldiers. And there’s another, one that I intend to promote actively, that poses a question. If citizens of European Union nations can move freely across its internal borders, where is the logic that denies the same flexibility to television signals?
Vale of tears
Last weekend, Olivia Colman picked up a merited best actress TV BAFTA for Broadchurch. You’d get very short odds on Sarah Lancashire picking up the same gong in 2015 for Happy Valley. I know, it’s violent, too violent for many; even I find myself thinking about it well into the night. I know also that British TV drama stands accused of being infected by the wave of ‘Scandi-noir’ that has swept across our screen in the last few years. However an actor can only do their best with the script that he or she is given.
Of all its virtues, I’m most impressed by the fact that it is the work of Sally Wainwright. The same mind that gave us Last Tango in Halifax also created Happy Valley, a diametrically different vision of the same location: astonishing.
Political incorrectness
I have been following, from a distance, the Richard Scudamore affair, in which the chief exec of the English Premier League has been pilloried for forwarding allegedly sexist emails.
Here’s my take on the MPs and others who have been stirring this: Get a ******* life.
The Street
Thanks to Marina, and everyone else who turned out at Waterstone’s Sauchiehall Street today. Glasgow’s changing; needs a dose of Skinner.
Same bookstore different town tomorrow evening. Almondvale, Livingston, 6:30pm. There may be refreshments!
Wild west
Quiet Monday, then tomorrow I’m looking forward to a visit to Waterstone’s in Sauchiehall Street, 12:30pm.
PC DC
I heard Dave Cameron quoted as morning as expressing his support for a woman as the next chair of the BBC Trust.
Would that be any woman? I hope that the choice will be the best person for the job, regardless of gender.
Location location location
Halfway through the Hour of Darkness tour, I’d like to thank all the kind people who have turned out at my events . . . even the lady in WHS at the Gyle who was grumpy about Skinner’s move to Glasgow. As I told her I don’t do tourist manuals; my books are about people first and places second.
Quintin Jardine's blog 