Joe Kinnear
My wife is not a great football lover, but she is a Geordie. It took only a few minutes of a radio interview with Newcastle United’s new ‘Director of Football’, Mr Joe Kinnear, in which he poured scorn on the club’s fans, to have her yelling at him to ‘go back to Tottenham’.
For those who would like to hear all fifteen minutes of Joe’s ‘suicide tape’, here’s a link.
Pay up
Something momentous happens in L’Escala in mid-June; overnight it becomes very easy to find a space in the town’s car parks. Why? Because that’s the time of year when the parking meters go up and charges come into effect for the summer. It’s also the time when the locals start to leave their cars at home and walk to work, or to the beaches.
A Catalan and his money are not easily parted.
Home at last
Back in Spain, courtesy of Lufthansa via Frankfurt, the first time I have ever set foot on German soil.
A very slick modern airport, but with the most expensive shops I’ve ever seen.
On tour
With Sue and Chris, the enterprising owners of Atkinson-Pryce, Biggar, Scottish Bookseller of the Year.
Merde
Right now, I should be back in Spain. I’m not. Instead I’ve spent the day on an expensive return trip to Newcastle Airport, where I sat for three hours, until Ryanair finally decided they were going to cancel my flight, something they could and probably should have done 24 hours earlier.
The blame for this fiasco hangs round the neck of French air traffic controllers. It is not easy to discern at these people thought they would achieve by inconveniencing air travellers across Europe, destroying the holidays of many families. I saw kids in tears this afternoon. Whatever their grievance is they’ll have no sympathy from me or any other of their victims. For my part, I hope the jackboot of authority comes slamming down on their necks, good and hard.
What’s that about?
I am as solid a monarchist as there is, but I find myself asking how the hell Camilla, Duchess of Rothesay, is in any way an appropriate choice as Chancellor of Aberdeen University. Is it a stunt?
I’m sure she’s a perfectly nice lady, but she doesn’t exactly bring gravitas to the ancient office.
Newton Mearns
Looking forward to this evening’s engagement in Newton Mearns, in a bistro venue appropriately named ‘Primavera’.
One to remember
You know how Ryanair insist that any duty free you buy at the airport must be put in your cabin bag, max weight 10kg?
Travelling through Girona last week I was interested to see signs all over the terminal advising that Spanish law entitles passengers to take a purchase bag on board in addition to their cabin baggage. I didn’t see anyone try it but i’m waiting for the day when it happens.
Radio radio
Busy guy last three days, and Sunday too. 5pm BST this evening, I’m on our community station, East Coast FM, with a mix of chat and music. You can listen on line or on 107fm in East Lothian.
Garth
We’ve lost another good man in East Lothian. So far, 2013 has been a hellish year.
Sir Garth Morrison, KT, was the county’s Lord Lieutenant, the UK’s former Chief Scout, a one-time submariner, a successful farmer, and a most generous supporter of our community. My heartfelt condolences to Gill and her family.
You can’t go home again
So Jose’s back at Chelsea. I seem to recall that he was fired last time because his football wasn’t attractive enough. What has changed?
Live by them
In the wake of the current ‘scandal’ stories, we are told that our weak-kneed, dysfunctional government is looking at ways of giving constituencies the power to recall their MPs, ie sack them.
No way.
I’m a firm believer in the principle that we should live with the consequences of our own mistakes . . . including those that are made in the secrecy of the polling booth.
Stung
I admit to being slightly underwhelmed by reports in recent days of Parliamentarians and their ‘availability’ to lobbyists. This is old news, and not worth the fuss that’s being made. While it’s all a bit seedy, nobody died, and nobody appears to be lying. Apart from . . .
These stories have been generated by deliberate acts of deception by a couple of broadsheet newspapers and by the BBC’s vicious, morally questionable, Panorama programme. Their reporters posed as lobbyists and lured their targets into setting themselves up. That’s entrapment, pure and simple. How could it be legitimate reporting? The story didn’t exist until they set it up.
How were these people targeted? Is it a mere coincidence that Patrick Mercer MP is one of Dave Cameron’s fiercest critics within his own party? I think we should be told.
The sooner the proposed register of lobbyists is set up the better, to protect the public interest and to protect MPs and Peers from themselves.
See you Thursday?
The Coronation isn’t the only significant event to chalk up a big anniversary this year. It’s twenty years since the publication of my very first novel, Skinner’s Rules. I’ll be celebrating that milestone at the launch of Skinner 23, Pray for the Dying, at an event in Biggar on Thursday, June 6. It’s being organised by the town’s excellent independent bookshop, Atkinson-Pryce, which celebrates its own twentieth anniversary by being named Scottish Bookseller of the year for 2013.
The gig takes place in the Elphinstone Hotel, Biggar, kick-off 7:30pm. Tickets are still available from the bookshop, telephone 01899 2212125.
60 years on
What did you do on Coronation Day? (Always assuming that you were around then.)
I watched it on a twelve -inch black and white 405-line television screen, in our house in Motherwell. My uncle and aunt were there too, as they hadn’t joined the limited ranks of telly owners at that stage. It went on for a hell of a long time, more than the attendance span of my cousins and I, for I remember playing in the rain at one point in the afternoon. A day or so later, our street had a party in a community hall. The kids all did turns. I sang a song called ‘In a Golden Coach’ for which I received a warm ovation; it was the beginning and end of my show-biz career.
The other referendum
In Scotland, the Independence debate is in full swing, and it will carry on until the day that our votes are cast.
In Catalunya, a similar referendum will be held next year, albeit without the agreement of Spain’s central government. Nine months ago there was a great outpouring of nationalist sentiment, when fifteen percent of the Catalan population demonstrated in the streets of Barcelona, demanding a total split from Spain. Today, the independence flags are still flying, but there seems to be little discussion of the subject.
A L’Escala businessman friend of mine gave me an interesting insight a couple of weeks ago. ‘It’s all right asking for it,’ he said. ‘But how do me make it work? Where will the money come from? We need to think about that.’ That’s what the argument here is really about. The Catalans believe they are being ripped off by Madrid; at its heart their grievance is financial. They might vote ‘Yes’, but only if the money is right. They won’t bet the house on sentiment.
I hope we’re above that in Scotland. My mind was made up forty years ago. Next year I’ll vote with my heart and soul, not with my wallet.
Lip service
Always keen to be accountable to the Broadcasting Taxpayer, (let’s be aware of what the so-called ‘TV licence’ really is) the BBC offers its viewers a platform to criticise its news coverage. and take its executives to task. It’s called ‘Newswatch’.
The importance of this programme to the BBC hierarchy is demonstrated very clearly by the time at which it is screened: Saturday morning, 7:45am.
Says it all, doesn’t it?
Cuckoo
There is a predator in Scottish football, and it’s called Rangers. I had hoped that last year’s turmoil would have put a little humility in the soul of the newborn club, and that it would be a little more considerate in its treatment of others. In years gone by, the Old Firm have seen the other Scottish clubs as mere breeding grounds. Celtic seem to have moved on from that, but not so New Rangers.
Even though the club is banned from the transfer market until September, pre-contract agreements are in place already with players poached from four Scottish sides. Trust me, there will be more, even though the Ibrox club will play next season in the third tier of the football league. The club was bust last year and it has still to prove that it is financially stable once more, but the old attitudes and practices of the Murray era remain, and money is being spent that only one other Scottish club could match and no Division Two side could possibly justify.
If that sounds bitter and jealous it probably is, but when our national game needs stability and quality more than ever before, it irks me that the bloody great cuckoo in the nest in Edmiston Drive is doing its best to undermine it.
Stormy weather?
A rare thing in Cataluna this month; a sunny day. The downsides are that more rain is forecast for later and that it’s cold. The natives say that it’s the worst May they can remember. Doesn’t seen too bad to me!
Railing against injustice
I’m going well off BBC Breakfast. More and more it’s a platform for the grinding of axes, and a video box for actors, authors and musicians with something to sell. The presenters are amiably smug . . . apart from Carol Kirkwood and Sally Nugent who should be given the whole show to run on their own . . . and the content is formulaic. Just occasionally, though, something does catch my attention and stops me from switching to Lorraine or to Sky News.
This morning there was a guy on arguing, in all seriousness, without a flicker of a smile, that bus passes should be taken from senior citizens and given to young people. There was also the obligatory guy arguing that they shouldn’t. Neither impressed me. I have a bus pass, but I use it very rarely, because if I have to go any distance I will either drive or take the train. However it isn’t just a bus pass, it’s an entitlement card that is programmed to be my library ticket as well, with the potential to serve other purposes. If Kim Jong-Eck and his Government decreed that I couldn’t have it any longer, it wouldn’t bother me, but I would take up the cudgels for those people who really do need the concession to let them go further than their own front door. Likewise I’d probably support travel concessions for jobseekers, during business hours, when the job centres are open and when interviews are held.
However I’m concerned that the bus pass argument is throwing up a smokescreen for a problem that is threatening the whole economy. Travel costs are becoming prohibitive for many people, but nobody in power is doing anything about it, not even demonstrating that they understand or care a toss.
I have just renewed my senior railcard in Spain, for another year. It cost me €5.35, and it gives me 40% off every journey. It pays for itself in one journey to Barcelona. In the midst of the worst economic crisis in its democratic history, the one thing that the Spanish government is not raising significantly are the rail fares, recognising that if people have to choose between getting to work and food, there is no way back. On the other hand, in Britain rail and bus costs are spiralling. It’s time the lamentable UK government, which can offer only fudge and compromise at a time when strength and clarity of purpose is needed most desperately, realised what is wrong with its own infrastructure and addressed it. Instead of pledging billions to create a high speed rail line between two English cities at some time in the dim and distant, it should be sorting out the shambles that our public transport system has become.
