Victimless crime, surely
Sometimes CCTV has a lot to answer for.
This story is pure comedy, I know, but it throws up a valid question. Each of the accused, on conviction was given a ‘victim surcharge’, on top of other penalties. I can only assume that the ‘victim’ was the security guard whose instructions were followed to excess. Does that mean that he was paid £35 compensation the trauma of two lumpy ladies exposing themselves? If that’s the case and it works in Spain, a chap could make a fortune simply by spending a summer morning on L’Escala town beach.
Unfit
Awoke this morning to the inevitable buzz over Spurs’ ridiculous decision to allow their goalie to stay on the field vs Everton after being knocked spark out for quite some time. Thankfully, the guy seems okay, but he should have been protected from his own bravery.
In the furore everyone seems to be overlooking another scandal, namely the ref’s decision to book the Everton player involved in what was beyond any shadow of a doubt an accidental collision. When the crowd sang ‘You’re not fit to referee’, they were absolutely right.
Oh dear
Continental drift
I follow golf on the telly; it’s one of the reasons why I have Sky Sports. Currently the European Tour is in what it calls ‘The Final Series’, a device introduced this year to ape the American PGA tour’s successful and very lucrative Fedex Cup series; four big money events, not open to all Tour card-holders, but only to those who have qualified by earning enough through the regular season. Since it is the European Tour, it would be reasonable to suppose that these tournaments would take place in Europe. How wrong could you be? Have I been watching it live? No, because I don’t fancy getting up in the middle of the night!
Of this quids-in quartet, the first took place in China, and the field included local talent and invitees, in addition to the European qualifiers. This week’s event is also in China; it’s a World Golf Championship event, which means that only a minority of European Tour card-holders have any hope of playing in it. The third event takes place next week in Antalya, Turkey, which is, I believe, in Asia Minor, and whose guest star is Tiger Woods. Thanks to co-sanctioning, the Tigger has actually won more European Tour events than anyone other than Seve and Bernhard Langer, but he has never held a tour card in his life, so he’s taking a spot from someone with legitimate aspirations of a place in a restricted field. The last event, the grandly titled DP World Tour Championship, will be held, as always, in Dubai, over a course designed by that well-known European, Greg Norman. So there you have it; not one of these bonanza events, the crown of the European Tour season, will actually take place in Europe. You might think that’s daft, but it’s not when you realise that in the 2013 series only twenty of the forty-six listed events took place in the what is supposed to be the home continent.
Agreed, you cannot play tournament golf in Europe 52 weeks a year. To give its members earning opportunities, the Tour managers have to go far and wide, to Australia, to South Africa and to the Far East. But they do not need to sell out completely. For years now, the schedule has overlapped calendar years, so what is to prevent them copying the Americans once again and staging The Final Series in the European summer, with one event each in Britain, France, Germany and Spain? Only, I suspect, a little imagination.
One to watch
When Steve Jobs was alive and running the show, Apple had a reputation for being customer friendly. The times they are a-changing.
A few days ago I downloaded the latest version of iTunes and thought no more of it. When I switched it on today, all I could see in my library was music that I’d actually bought from the ITunes store. Everything else, the vast majority of the 2000+ albums that I had stored there, had vanished. On the basis that not even Apple can delete files from someone else’s hard disk, I went looking.
For anyone else who’s fallen into this trap this is what you do; in your User folders open ‘Music’, then open the sub-folder ‘iTunes’. In there you’ll find another folder, ‘iTunes Media’. Go into that, choose ‘Music’ and you’ll find it all there. Once you’ve checked it out open iTunes itself, click on ‘file’, select ‘Add to library’. Once you’ve done that, select the ‘Music’ folder within ‘iTunes media’ and click ‘Open’. You’ll get your stuff back but any playlists you had compiled with be gone for good and will have to be rebuilt.
Why have those f*ckers in Cupertino done this? Who knows? It may be part of their on-going war with Amazon, or it may be a ruse to panic people into using iTunes Match for which there is an annual fee. Either way, it’s not going to win them any friends.
Off colour
You hear some different music on Catalan local radio; it’s much more eclectic than the British equivalents, and it’s usually on in the car, when I’m driving. A few days ago I heard a track by a woman singer who was right up there with Cyndi Lauper. The presenter billed her as ‘Peenk’, so next time I was online I went looking for her.
Seems that P!nk (sic) has been around for a few years, and yes I had heard of her, but never regarded her as being up there on the level of La Lauper, or old Madge, or even the bloody awful Lady Gaga. A quick look at iTunes gave me a clue why. It turns out that P!nk is more than a little B!ue, since quite a few of her tracks have red ‘Explicit!’ warnings beside them. Not to be deterred I downloaded a couple, one called ‘True Love’, where ‘as*hole’ is the potentially objectionable word, and another, where there is no doubt, since its title is ‘F**kin’ Perfect’.
‘What the hell is that?’ Eileen demanded when I played it. I looked at her, all innocence. ‘It’s your song, honey,’ I said. (I give lessons, guys.)
Brand X
Like many people of my generation who’ve actually heard of Russell Brand (probably a minority) I’ve always considered him to be an irrelevance, a complete prat. Until now.
In fact, Russell is a demagogue in disguise; like many of that breed, there is a core of sense in some of his outpourings, and for me that makes him dangerous
Another
And this.
Got home the other night to find my bags on the doorstep.
‘That’s it,’ she said, ‘you’re out of here for good I’ve had enough!’
As I trudged wearily down the path dragging my meagre possessions behind me, she shouted,
‘And I hope you have a miserable and lonely life, you Bastard!’
……’Oh,’ I said. ‘ You want me back now do you!’
Ouch
Blame Michael Jecks for this one, not me.
Robert, 82, married Jenny, a lovely 25 year old. Since her new husband is so old, Jenny decides that after their wedding she and Robert should have separate bedrooms, because she is concerned that her new but aged husband may over-exert himself if they spend the entire night together. After the wedding festivities Jenny prepares herself for bed and the expected knock on the door. Sure enough the knock comes, the door opens and there is Robert, her 85 year old groom, ready for action. They unite as one. All goes well, Robert takes leave of his bride, and she prepares to go to sleep. After a few minutes, Jenny hears another knock on her bedroom door, and it’s Robert. Again he is ready for more “action”. Somewhat surprised, Jenny consents for more coupling. When the newlyweds are done, Robert kisses his bride, bids her a fond good night and leaves. She is set to go to sleep again, but aha, you guessed it, Robert is back again, rapping on the door and is as fresh as a 25 year-old, ready for more “action”. And, once more they enjoy each other. But as Robert gets set to leave again, his young bride says to him, “I am thoroughly impressed that at your age you can perform so often. I have been with guys less than a third of your age who were only good once. You are truly a great lover, Robert.” Robert somewhat embarrassed turns to Jenny and says: ‘You mean I was here already?”
To tip or not?
There is a crisis in Spain, beyond any doubt. In truth there are several, with corruption in politics continuing to grab the headlines, but there is no doubt that the economy is in a pretty ropey state. In Madrid a couple of weeks ago, I was struck by the number of beggars on the streets, and even going round the tables in some cafes, (I saw one man begging food from a couple of tourists) and by the lack of Spanish people in the restaurants and bars that we visited.
Mind you, the latter may have had something to do with the prices in most of the places in and around Plaza Major. One in particular came to mind, an outdoor evening cafe in which the bill for a gin and tonic and a couple of miserably small beers came to a teeth-sucking amount.
When I looked at it, I had a moment of revelation. Our waiter had been disinterested all night and he was being paid anyway, so when my change arrived I suddenly knew exactly what I should do. Instead of tipping the guy, I put the lot into the cup of a man who was sitting in a doorway nearby, and who looked as if he really, really needed it. I hope he felt as good about it as I did.
Nerveless
This is true: an old school chum told me a worrying story this morning. I quote him directly:
“I woke up swathed in bandages, in a hospital ICU, tubes entering different
parts of my body, wires monitoring every function, a gorgeous nurse
hovering over me.
“It was obvious I’d been in a serious accident.
“I heard her say, ‘You may not feel anything from the waist down.’
“I managed to mumble in reply, ‘Can I feel your tits, then?'”
Long may they run
A few years back Don Winslow, one of my favourite writers, published a novel called The Dawn Patrol, about a group of surfers near San Diego. This is the St Marti equivalent, on a Sunday morning. The Beach Boy on the extreme right is Dom, my step-son, who is old enough to know better but doesn’t: a lot like I was with five-a-side football. I hope he lasts as long in the water as I did in the sports centre.
Harmonic
I don’t often plug music on this platform, but I’ve just downloaded The Bluegrass Album, by Alan Jackson, and it’s terrific.
Not good
1 — 1 at home vs Southampton. Moyes would have been better playing 11 men rather than 10 plus Fellaini.
Roy and Peter
Roy Hodgson is probably one of those guys who shouldn’t tell jokes, anytime, anywhere. But he chose to at half-time, in the most important football match of his life, probably to ease the tension that must have been filling the room at the time. The gag he pulled was an old one, told a million times before and never, I’ll bet, has it been construed as racist. Thanks to a treacherous member of his squad who ran to the press, that label was hung round Mr Hodgson’s neck, briefly, until it was laughed out of court by every other person in the room at the time, and firmly squashed by the FA.
Yet there are people who still won’t let it lie. A complaint has been made to the FA by something called Race for Sport, which has been described as an offshoot of the Society of Black Lawyers, which is run by a man named Peter Herbert. ‘You’re kidding, QJ’ I hear you gasp. Well no, I’m not; it really does exist and it is given credence and airtime by our media in its endless search for headlines. Here’s what I believe: any organisation that is based in ethnicity alone is potentially racist in its outlook and should be prohibited. Anyone who thinks that’s extreme should imagine the reaction if a few barristers . . . I resist the urge to call them ‘baristas’ . . . were to get together and establish the Association of White Lawyers.
There are people, possibly Mr Herbert among them, who will brand me as racist for committing that thought to print. I can assure them that I’m not. All I want is a level playing field; I want Martin Luther King’s dream world, where we are judged not by the colour of our skin but by the content of our character. Those who foster and play upon ethnic distinctions are blocking the road to that goal.
Persecution
If I was a young man today and faced with a choice between being a professional sportsman and a traffic warden, I’d probably opt for the peaked cap. Why? Because traffic wardens are treated with more dignity and respect.
Take the case of Andy Murray as an example. Andy has had back surgery recently. He is in the early stages of rehab, still many weeks away from resuming his tennis career, but mobile enough to keep an important appointment this week. There he was, spruced up and ready to go to the Palace, with his partner and his parents, to pick up his OBE, when there was a knock on his front door. He opened it and there was a man, a stranger, demanding that Andy piss in a bottle, and that he witness him doing so. And he had to, no choice, even though it made him late for his investiture. It’s called out of competition testing, it’s compulsory and those who do not make themselves available are labelled ‘drug cheats’ and banned from their chosen sports. Human rights? They don’t have any.
Such is the crazy world of any modern professional athlete. If I picked up a squash racket again, even at my advanced age, maybe there’s a Masters’ circuit I could play on. Would I consider it? Only if I could give the man with the bottle a simple message when he turned up at my door.
How to embarrass oneself
Som
e guys invite you to play in a bounce game, and you’re photographed in their shirt, something your Barça pals will never let you forget.
