Quintin Jardine's blog

Most of the time, the BBC’s Charlie Stayt is a very polite and considerate interviewer, most of the time being when he isn’t faced by a member of Her Majesty’s Government. When he is, he seems to feel obliged to turn into Jeremy Paxman. It happened again this morning when the Coalition’s Education Secretary, Michael Gove, came in to discuss the Cabinet’s plan to give head teachers more power  to fire under-performing teachers. I don’t agree with this policy, BTW. It’s populist and as such has been given the headline treatment. The way I see it the Government’s aggression can only undermine teacher morale, and therefore will do more harm than good.  That’s the point that Charlie tried to press also, forcefully, until Gove turned on him and asked him, ‘How would you feel if your child was under achieving in school and was not improving as they should?’ He had no counter, only silence that implied a concession on his part. No doubt his next report card will be marked, ‘Must do better’.

Quote of the day:

‘Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.’— Isaac Asimov

Maybe if you’d engaged your brain also, Isaac, more people would have understood you.

Ever heard of Margrethe Alexandrine Þórhildur Ingrid? Me neither until this afternoon, and now I feel very conscious of my insularity. She’s Queen of Denmark and she has been for the last forty years.

Settled into Spain now, where the sun is shining and it doesn’t get properly dark till after 6pm. That’s today; tomorrow, God knows.

A Homer Simpson moment. You go back to my website, click the Bob Skinner button and they’re listed there, in chronological order as requested.

I’m not sure what I enjoyed more in my youth:  reading about girls or reading to them. No, I don’t have a Twitter account but Bob Skinner does. @CCBobS

Almost thirty years ago, I spent some time in a town called Darlington, in the north east of England. It had every thing you’d expect of a community that was a mix of rural and industrial, the latter based  largely on its proximity to a main railway line. It was a bustling place, particularly on market days, and it had a football team. They were known locally as the Quakers (I never did find out why) and played in an old-fashioned riverside ground called Feethams. (Again, don’t ask me why.) When I was there I went to see them play a friendly against Fulham, then managed by Malcolm ‘Supermac’ Macdonald, who turned out as a player that night, although he had retired, and I’ve had a fondess for them ever since. The Quakers were fine then, owned and run by local people who knew their place in  the natural order of things, but in 1999 control of the club was acquired by a businessman who made the colossal mistake of building a new, expensive stadium before building a team capable of sustaining its cost.

 He and his big dreams are long gone, and since then the aftermath of his malign intervention has seen Darlington FC in and out of the Football League and in and out of administration. They returned to that state recently, and this may be the end. There is a real danger that they will go out of business this week, unless a benefactor can be found. I use that word because no sensible investor would put a penny into  the business with any hope of return. If it happens, I’ll be very sad, and also I’ll have one less score to check on a Saturday evening.

Like the rest of Scotland, I awoke to the news today  that the Coalition is moving towards giving the Scottish Government the power to hold a binding referendum on independence, with both the timetable and the question on the ballot paper set by Westminster. Bring it on, Dave, the sooner the better.

Couldn’t help but laugh this morning at the news that the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee is recommending that we should all have at last two alcohol-free days per week. I donlt have a problem with that idea, but I find it hilarious that it should be proposed by a group of MPs.

Thanks Norah. My cold is still there. The nice lady doctor advised me to keep it until it goes away. As for Andy, yes, well done our man, and I know he has a record of getting to Australian Open finals, but I fear his hopes must rest on being in the other half of the draw from Djokovic, and also on his having a bad knee or some other physical ailment. I hope he does it, but to be honest I haven’t been very interested in tennis since Steffi Graf retired. Wonder what he’ll get honour-wise if he does win a major? If Chris Hoy was knighted for pedalling his bike fast, then Wimbledon’s got to be worth a K also. Yes?

We have a traffic problem in East Lothian, one that I’ve mentioned before, and it isn’t getting any better. Cyclists. My son is one of them but when he goes somewhere on his bike, he’s on his own, unlike the swarms of enthusiasts who descend on us on any decent Saturday or Sunday, in groups that can be as large as thirty. They’re almost invariably male and too often they are lacking in consideration for other road users. They frustrate motorists to the point of recklessness and if a service bus comes up behind them then its driver is in trouble. I have a suggestion for the Scottish Government. Legislate to limit leisure cyclists to groups of three, maximum, class anything more than that  as a disorderly crowd and giv ethe police poweres to stop them and break them up. And here’s another proposal; any cyclist who ignores a light-controlled crossing should have his bike seized and fed into a crusher, or better still, exported to a third world country and given to someone who would put it to a useful economic purpose.

. . . for having to pull out of my weekend signings, due to  the mother of all colds. I’ve never had to do such a thing before and I hope that I never will again, but trust me, you wouldn’t have wanted to know me today. I’m hoping to reschedule the Gyle event for 1pm on Tuesday.

Ah, the ‘Who should play Bob on telly?’ question. My current choice is Idris Elba. In the likely event of him being unavailable, Dominic West might come into the frame. Also, and becoming more of a possible the older he gets, is the brilliant Daniel Mays. As for the author you mention, no, I’m sorry, I’m not aware of any of his work.

Hello, Braveheart. The next Skinner, Funeral Note, is out in the UK in mid-May. As for the general Amercian market, I’m not so sure, but http://www.campbellreadbooks.com will fill US orders as soon as it’s available.

That’s right you did read that DC Haddock’s nickname is ‘Sauce’. if you go back to that book, you’ll find out why, because I explain its origins frequently, for new readers.

Almost twelve years ago now, I had an incident that led me to discover the hard way that I suffer from a condition called sick sinus syndrome. It has nothing to do with the nasal passages, but with the regulation of the heartbeat. As a result, I had a pacemaker fitted. (Strangely, so did Bob Skinner a couple of years later.)  In an hour or so, I’m off to the clinic for my annual check-up, which will probably show that the battery life is running down and that I’m going to need a replacement within a couple of years. If that’s the case I’m not going to worry about it, just as I would advise anyone who is facing the need for a similar implant not to hesitate for one second but to go for it without fear. I played five-a-side football for over ten years with mine in place, and lots of other stuff beside, while barely remembering that it was there. Call this a public service announcement if you like, but I mean it. My pacemaker is my pal.

Oz Blackstone went to the great Hall of Fame in the sky somewhere between For the Death of Me and Inhuman Remains, having somehow evolved into a sociopath while I wasn’t looking. His demise took place off-page; in other words, nobody saw it happen . . . not even me. People have suggested to me that actually he is in the shower, a la Bobby Ewing, but trust me, he’s not. If, somehow or other, he has escaped the Reaper he’ll have done it in a more original way than that.

I watched a DVD yesterday evening that I’ve had on my rack for a while waiting for the right moment. It ‘s called The Expendables, and it’s a Sylvester Stallone project, (starring, co-written and directed) also featuring Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Bruce Willis, and for no obvious reason, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Search through that cast and with the exceptions of Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis, you will be struggling to find anyone who can act for toffee, and will deduce that it’s mainly about killing people and blowing things up. It sure does that, to a greater degree than any movie I can recall seeing before, and you don’t want to know what happens to the guys who are about to have their evil way with the heroine. If that’s your thing, go for it. If not, don’t let all those names lure you in there. There is however one marvellous exchange, after Sylvester has gunned down Dolph Lundgren, after an enormous car chase and fight.

Dolph: ‘Am I dying?’

Sylvester: ‘I shot you two inches above the heart.’

Dolph: ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

Expendables 2 is currently in production, with most of the guys listed above and the addition of Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Chuck Norris who is legendary for something, although I’m not sure what it is. Since these are action movies it is worth noting that the youngest of the leading players waved goodbye to forty some three years ago, and that the oldest, the legendary Chuck, is a few weeks off seventy-two.

I note from a report today that the Burmese opposition leader and national heroine, Aung San Suu Kyi, hopes that she will see fully democratic elections in her homeland in her lifetime. In theory, that country now has a democratic government. However, the recently elected president is a general who set his commission aside so he could run for office, and the state is still denying that it holds any political prisoners, as the world knows it does. I hope that ASSK achieves her ambition, but it’s a  concern that in a nation recently famous for its secrecy and brutality, there is a very obvious way of ensuring that she doesn’t.

Interesting news from John Lewis, reporting big increases across the board in sales during the Christmas period. Maybe the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t an approaching train after all.