Quintin Jardine's blog

I’m sort of on holiday at the moment. With an hour or two on our hands, we took the grand-dogs (we’re dog-sitting for a couple of weeks) for a longer walk than usual, along to St Marti d’ Empuries, where they, and we, are fairly well-known. Big thanks to our friend Josep Maria, (aka Pep) for making us and them welcome in L’Esculapi, http://www.esculapi.com/index.htm and to Salvador for the tapas. Thanks also to Sunny and Canelo for behaving pretty well.

Pep and I agreed that they’re lovely dogs, even if Canelo can be a little tonto.

A couple of weeks from now, and I will be in Vancouver; my third visit to its writers’, and readers’, festival, one of the friendliest in the planet. I have two gigs scheduled, on the evening of October 21 and the afternoon of October 23, and I am looking forward to both, appreciative of the honour that the invitation does me.

While I’m there, I’ll be dropping into as many book stores as I can, and also, if my schedule allows, visiting Vancouver Island for the first time. My good friend John North, God bless him, spent his last few years there, and his description has me anticipating a very enjoyable trip.

I’d like to thank my recent correspondent, Mr Flynn, (sic) and apologise for the fact that his comment fell into the bin when my back was turned. I’m sorry if that plot was too simple for you, but I’m pleased that your colleagues enjoyed it.

I don’t like to pan things; I don’t recall ever doing a review for money. Even when I was a  very rookie reporter, sent along to cover the local drama society, I always gave the actors ten out of ten for enthusiasm, even when they had no discernible talent. I was much the same as a football reporter. The good was praised, the rest was overlooked. For example I never reported something I saw at Fir Park on a non-match day, a first team footballer stopping for a cigarette break halfway through a training session.

However . . . last night I tuned in to a Sky movie called ‘Damage’. It was set in the alleged world of bare-knuckle fighting, UFC without the subtlety, and it starred ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin. For those who don’t know, ‘Stone Cold’ was a WWE superstar, top man in his time. These days, such guys have to possess microphone skills, and they all play characters. But that doesn’t necessarily make them actors; they can’t all be Duane Johnson, and very few should try. Put it this way. While Vinnie Jones will never appear as Hamlet, ‘Stone Cold’ lacks the skills to play even Yorick. Sorry, Steve, you were a great wrestler.

Why is the public television so obsessed with cooking programmes and who is Claire Reyner’s whelp, to be telling me what’s good and what’s not? Sod all these would-be masterchefs, the big man did his own thing in the kitchen this evening and it was pronounced excellent by the only one-woman jury that counts.

I have this idea for a book called Skinner’s Dinners. What say?

I’ve just tried to explain to Eileen, what’s happening at Liverpool Football Club: not easy, and she’s smart. I have a friend who’s a serious Liverpool fan, and as a Man U supporter (Green and Gold) I feel for him. The whole sorry affair illustrates the dangers of corporate investment in businesses of which the investors have no understanding.

Yes, Hicks and Gillett arrived at Anfield with a reputation as sports entrepreneurs in the US . . . but in a system that is, as I understand it, (correct me, please) almost entirely franchise based. British football doesn’t work that way. Whatever its ownership structure or corporate base, you can’t pick up a club and move it around from city to city. It isn’t even possible to force a move from one part of a city to another, as the owners of Hearts and Hibs in Edinburgh found out a few years ago when the idea of a shared stadium was floated, or even across the street, as is demonstrated in Dundee by the two clubs there. You can’t buy the goodwill of a football club from the owners of its shares, because they don’t have title to it. That  belongs to the fans . . . or fanatics, if you like . . . and it has to be acquired separately. Cash isn’t involved and there’s more to it than simply putting on a scarf and sitting in the directors’ box, or even mingling with the fans in the stands. H & G didn’t get that, nor did the guy at Newcastle until it was too late for him. You don’t have it for life either; it’s a short step from the crowd singing ‘There’s only one (insert name of owner of your choice)’  to the song changing to ‘sack the board, sack the board sack the board.’

For that reason, and another, that you can’t value future performance other than through an earn-out deal, it has to be virtually impossible to put a fixed price on a club as a business, beyond that of its assets, and so, when the two Anfield Yanks decide arbitrarily that their property is worth £600m, that’s sheer nonsense; all the more so when under their stewardship its performances have declined to their present level. They should take the money on offer and run; for my pal’s sake, I hope that’s what their advisers are telling them.

That’s what they called it when my kids were small. Today it’s Child Benefit and it’s causing a hell of a stir in the UK, given the Government’s intention to remove it from people who are higher rate taxpayers. Sorry, but isn’t that a no-brainer? Isn’t a benefit system meant to underpin the needy in our society, rather than dole out cash to categories, regardless?

I kept a promise to myself and watched Gran Torino last night on Sky; enjoyed it very much. Clint Eastwood says it’s the last movie he’ll appear in. With that in mind, I saw a strong nod towards one of my all time favourite movies, The Shootist.  John Wayne’s swansong, in which he played an old time gunfighter in early 20th century America, dying of cancer and going out in a blaze of glory. In GT, Clint’s character is a Korean War vet in Detroit dying of cancer (Hope he isn’t) and the similarities go on to the end. A further connection; The Shootist was directed by Don Seigel, who did a couple of Clint’s early pieces, including Dirty Harry and Play Misty for Me, and who must have been something of a mentor in his directorial career, although Clint went on to greater success.

This is my day for being a clever bastard . . . God Bless and keep Ian Dury. Watched George Gently on Sunday and my pet theory paid off. Go through the cast, work out which guest star (i. e. non regular) is being paid the most, and that’s who done it. In this case, it was ****** ******; funny, when he isn’t playing *******, it usually is.

The Kindle device is working well, for all my misgivings. It discourages users from flipping a few pages forward, and makes them rely on their own deductive skills. I’m pretty chuffed with myself; I wasn’t much more than halfway through ‘Bloodline’, when I’d worked it out without a single flip ahead. (However, I am, as they say, in the trade.) Nice one, though, Mark. I’m still waiting to find out how it goes with Tom and Louise.

Incredible comment. Thank you very much.

Thank God the Ryder Cup isn’t an annual event. The nation’s collective heart couldn’t stand it. I am by nature a fatalist; all day I could see a 14 — 14, USA retain the cup, result, looming, but GMac booked his place in history and Hunter Mahan wound up in tears at the press conference. Yes, it’s a team game, but Mr Mahan will never quite see it that way. For every hero, there has to be a fall guy, and the greater the triumph on one hand, the greater the humiliation on the other. On the other side of the coin, Graeme McDowell seems crowned already as Sports Personality of the Year, but will it work out that way, or will voters realise that the recognition really belongs to the guy who had the guts to send him out there to settle everything with a single stroke of his putter and a shot straight and true, when it really mattered?

It will be interesting to watch how careers develop after this. Will Ricky Fowler win a major next year, or is he one of those guys, like Ian Poulter, who is more suited to match play than medal play? Will Mahan ever recover? Has Tiger found his game again? Will Monty get his back, now that he’s freed to the burden of continental expectation? The next two year cycle begins on Thursday, with the Links Championship. During that period all these questions will be answered, and many that haven’t even been raised yet.

Sir Colin Montgomerie in the New Year Honours List? Now there’s a thought.

I’ve been away for a few days, but it’s been worth it. Primavera 3 is finished and off to the book factory. The publication date is January 5, 2012, by which time I’ll have finished Primavera 4, but all that’s way in the future. Now I have time to clear the decks, rearrange my office and start to plan for the Vancouver International Writers’ Festival, where I am looking forward to meeting up with old friend and making new ones.

I’ve rarely seen anyone who’s as good a television interviewee as Sir Terry Matthews, the owner of Celtic Manor, the man who brought the Ryder Cup to Wales. With Chris Hollins on BBC Breakfast yesterday, at 7:30 BST, under grey skies but in dry conditions, he sparkled as he told the viewers of the three principles that had under-pinned his new course’s construction. ‘Drainage, drainage, and drainage,’ he said. ‘And if in doubt, put a little more drainage in.’

With those words, he demonstrated just how hard it can rain in Wales, for a couple of hours later, play had to be suspended because the course was waterlogged.

But even half a day’s suspension couldn’t kill the atmosphere of the competition. If a sporting event can have charisma, the Ryder Cup has cornered the market. Some years are better than others but very few area total bust, such is the commitment of both teams. Having the right captain helps, undoubtedly. Two years ago, the USA did in Paul Azinger. Europe didn’t, in Nick Faldo. In truth he was never wanted in the role and never welcomed, that he was given it only because the selection committee didn’t have the balls to reject him. (And why should it have? Faldo played in more Ryder Cups that anyone else in history, and scored more points.) Even then he’d have retained the trophy for Europe if his three top players had done what was expected of them.

No problems, it seems, this time. Win or lose . . . and the first four matches aren’t even finished yet, nobody knows how it will pan out, but already the two captains have caught the eye, Corey ‘Crazy’ Pavin for his courageous pairings, and Colin Montgomerie for his attention to detail. The rain delay helped the USA for sure, as they are notoriously poor starters, but that has simply levelled the playing field. Lee Westwood looks hungry, Tiger Woods has his game face on, and we are in for fun.

I’m off to watch it.

That must keep you very busy. May God light up your day.

I started as a Luddite, then I became a Kindle convert, now I’m a Luddite again. Kindle has everything going for it. The device is light, it’s a library in your pocket, and it offers a new reading experience, for ageing eyes in particular. On top of that it has built in a new and massively impressive shopping facility . . . and that’s why it’s very dangerous.

I’m a book-man, all round. I write them, I’m a reader, and to an extent I’m a collector. I like and admire booksellers. I’ve been in book stores in eight countries and four continents, and they all have one thing in common. People work there for love, not money.

The returns for independent proprietors have never been brilliant, and in recent years they’ve come under even heavier pressure, from the fall-out from discounting wars between major book chains and supermarkets, and also from the ubiquitous, pervasive and all too often wholly irresponsible charity shops that are blooming like mushrooms, particularly in Britain.

As for the big book players, shop floor wages are notoriously low, while management expectation can be unreasonably high, especially where re-stocking, display, and the number of tea-bags allowed in the staff-room is tightly controlled from the centre. Yet sensible adults choose to work there, from a sense of pure vocation. They all deserve our support. The last thing either sector needs is for e-readers to take off; that would push many over the edge.

Obviously, I don’t disapprove of internet trading, per se. For some, for example, the house-bound and the geographically disadvantaged, they’re a Godsend. Also, I’d rather people bought books from Amazon than Tesco. But I will always want them to be able go to Simon Kesley, in Haddington, to Sleuths, and Ben McNally, in Toronto, to the new Edinburgh Book Shop in Bruntsfield, to Mysterious Books in New York, and to hundreds like them around the English Speaking world. (Other tongues can fight their own battles.) God help me I’ll even always want them to go to Waterstone, Barnes & Noble and Chapters-Indigo.

I fear for their future, for all of them, in the face of the new Kindle onslaught; for be aware, Kindle is a software based device and that software is available for free download and use on PC, Mac, lap-top, tablet and even iPhone. (Now I’ve told you that I’ll have to kill you.) The threat is real, and traditional booksellers have few defences; only two that I can see.

One, there will always be people like me, who believe that to ripple the pages of a printed book is a special experience, one that through the centuries has taken millions from the darkness into the light.

Two? You can’t have your Kindle signed by the author.

Just watched Panorama and I’m spitting feathers. While I don’t condone the abuse of prisoners, or of any human beings, neither do I find acceptable a half-hour stream of unsubstantiated allegations and insinuations against the British military, by its own public service tax-payer funded broadcaster. This wasn’t even as ignoble as trial by television: it was kangaroo court, courtesy of the public purse. This programme has been run by subversives for the last 30 years; they’re still getting away with it, and it’s time they were stopped.

Here’s a nice football story, about an honest mistake dealt with sensibly.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/scot_prem/9037802.stm

Well done both managers, especially Derek McInnes. How many would have reacted as he did?

Back to normal this morning though. The Golden Family are off on Mia’s first official holiday, and we’re looking after the dogs. If I could, I’d have set them on Yvette Cooper Balls an hour ago, when I saw her on telly, insincerity oozing from every pore as she attempted to praise the new Dear Leader without choking on her words, and on both rejoicing Kinnocks, enriched by Europe and ennobled beyond their worth. One seat on an Edinburgh tram would be one too many for that couple, never mind two in the House of Lords.

Lovely Sunday yesterday. Our two closest friends came for lunch, and the Spanish family, with the lovely Mia as the centre of attraction . . . as you are when you’re three months old. Made me forget all about the relentless soap opera that is British politics, and even ignore Man U’s failure to take advantage of the short-comings of their main rivals. It’s good to be reminded of the things that are truly important in life.