Duplicitous
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1jrld1kjp3t
When I joined the Tory staff in 1980, colleagues had Reagan/Bush bumper stickers on their staff cars. Some had been, or were in the US campaigning. Trump must know that.
Eh?
Long time fan of Steely Dan. I’m playing Aja on my new system with words displayed. Wonderful music, unintelligible lyrics. What the fuck are you saying, guys?
No joke
All the publicity surrounding Joker a Deux made me feel guilty about not having watched the first one.
So I did. Wow.
First, Joaquim Phoenix is a genius, on the same level as de Niro, Nicholson and Pacino. Second, the film is maybe even better than Rotten Tomatoes says.
But. If The Batman was dark, The Joker is inky black, without a vestige of hope at the end. So, why make another?
RIP Chairman
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp39q43976po
When I joined the Scottish Conservative Party in 1980, as its press officer, Michael Ancram was its chairman. I was 34, and so was he, a week younger than me. He smiled his way through the interview, because that’s how he was; an aristocrat, yes, a man of influence, yes, but without any side to him. He wasn’t simply a chair, he was a leader whom his entire staff, the Scottish backbenchers and most of the voluntary side, were happy to follow. He didn’t simply talk the talk. He put it on the line when he had to. At that time, the hot issue in Scotland was the future of the steel strip mill, Ravenscraig, in Motherwell, my home town. London would have pulled the plug on it in heartbeat but we had an election to fight in 1983. The STUC held a rally in protest against the feared closure. Michael went along; I was with him. We listened to the speeches, the fire, the brimstone; they had a case, in the short term at least. Michael whispered to me, ‘I’m going to do it.’ He stood up, was invited to speak, walked to the podium, and pledged his support and that of the Scottish party, to saving the plant. He put his job on the line, but he kept it. We went into the 1983 General Election with 21 Scottish seats, and we came out with 21. We knew that was a phenomenal resulting that climate, but it wasn’t good enough for Maggie, who had spent a total of 18 hours in Scotland in the entire campaign, and consequently knew as little about it as clearly she cared. Yes, she gave Michael a job in government in the aftermath, but on the lowest rung of the ladder, Parliamentary Under-secretary of State. Those of us who had worked for and with him saw that as an insult. Looking back, I believe was her way of controlling someone she knew would never be a yes man. Or maybe she was getting even for Ravenscraig.
Four years later, Michael lost his Edinburgh seat, which had always been marginal. By that time, I was out of politics and a director of a corporate communications firm in Edinburgh. I persuaded my colleagues that we had a need for the right non-executive director. They agreed, he and I had lunch, and he joined our board. Not long afterwards, he became our chairman too.
In 1992 politics called him back, inevitably, to a safe seat in England, a different Prime Minister, a proper job, and the respect his talent deserved, although not quite enough to see him win the leadership in 2001, when his colleagues made the mistake of choosing Ian Duncan Smith. Michael gave a lot to his country and he could have given a lot more.
My deepest sympathy to Jane, and to his family.
Stereotypical
Continuing my Tolkien theme, I have been watching the Prime Video prequel to Lord of the Rings. I find myself wondering why in the minds of its creators, dwarves have Scottish accents while their even smaller neighbours, hobbits, have a fine Irish brogue.
How the hell can Amazon be simultaneously xenophobic and sizeist?
Elves? Public school and perfectly groomed. Men? Not quite as posh, but they wouldn’t affect property values.
Tolkien
Why is it that every time I see Orla Guerin, I think of Gandalf Stormcrow, who never turned up bearing good news?
Dire
Watching Man U this afternoon I’m wondering, ‘How did they get seven points?’
The Dutch guy must go.
Why …
when a guy is blessed with a voice like Rory Graham does he bother calling himself Rag ‘n Bone Man?
Please explain.
Duplicity
Enough about the black hole, Sir Keir. You and your Chancellor chose to give the winter fuel payments to train drivers and doctors,
Split decision
Almost as big as AJ v Dubois is the scrap between Prime and Netflix over their version of the Prince Andrew interview saga.
I’ve watched Scoop, the Flix movie and also A Very Royal Scandal, the Amazon series, and my favourite is …..?
For all that Ruth Wilson and Michael Sheen can outact Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell any day of the week, I have to go with Scoop. There’s less extraneous material, plus Billie Piper gives it added value, while her character is almost peripheral in the other.
Player power
When I started to watch football, the Scottish First Division had sixteen clubs. Top team members were expected to play thirty league games, six in the League Cup preliminary round, plus knockout ties through to the final and a minimum of one cup tie.
There were no European competitions; occasional mid week friendliest, but that was it. As for international competition, the home nations played each other once a year. World Cup qualifiers did happen but not many, and the European Cup was little more than a twinkle in the eye of Santiago Bernabeu.
How the world has changed, to the extent that elite footballers are now expected to up to sixty club matches a season. And the demand is growing. UEFA now runs three competitions and is making them bigger this year. At international level it has not only the European championship but a thing called the Nations League, giving Scotland yet another opportunity to be humped by its European neighbours. As for FIFA that has gone beyond avarice.
Little wonder that the top players are beginning to demand a say in the level of expectations that are being laid upon them. Expansion simply cannot go unchecked. If it doesn’t I foresee that one of two things will happen. Either agents will negotiate player contracts that stipulate the club competitions in which they will play … for example no more domestic cups … or the top teams will walk away and the heralded exclusive super league will become reality.
The top clubs would remove themselves from domestic football? As everything is about money, if the sponsors followed and the numbers stacked up, of course they would. Games would be streamed on Prime , Netflix etc. Match tickets would be relatively cheap, to ensure capacity crowd atmosphere. Frankly, I can’t wait.
Top gig
Big thanks to Bob McDevitt and the team for an excellent event at Bloody Scotland 2024.
Thanks also to the outstanding Caro Ramsay, a queen of the craft for her mastery (mistressy?) as a chairperson, and to Neil Lancaster, an affable co-panellist.
I was in at the start of Scotland’s national festival of crime fiction. It was good to be back.
Great expectations?
In common with many among the 80% of the electorate who did not vote for the incumbent administration, I was and still am prepared to give the Labour government time to fulfil its lavish promises before taking to the streets.
In common with what I suspect to be the majority of the population I did not actually need the Winter Fuel Allowance. However I did expect honesty and common sense in addressing the problems that we face as a nation.
So far all I am seeing is finger pointing and much of what I am hearing is bullshit. The so-called ‘black hole’ is unsubstantiated. The claim that winter fuel payments would have bankrupted the nation is manifestly untrue.
This morning the PM is addressing the NHS. He has been rabbiting on about ‘fixing the plumbing before turning on the taps.’ (Keir, lawyers can’t do metaphor.) He says that his administration will produce a ten year plan by next Spring, begging the question, ‘Why didn’t you produce it during your 14 years in Opposition?’
There is another health service. It’s provided by private insurers, and it’s accessible to those who can afford it. Many people have it as part of their employment package. Problems with that, it costs employers in national insurance, and employees through income tax.
Radical it may be, but if those who could afford to opt out of some or even all of NHS provision were incentivised to do so, would it ease current pressures and improve the service for those who can’t? Is anyone in government even looking at that?
Dalmatians
Looking at an inflight magazine that’s meant to sell me Lancôme (for my wife), I find myself thinking that the older Julia Roberts grows, the more she resembles the alternative glam of Cruella deVil. (I’m not being unkind here; I’m a fan of hers.)
Job destruction
A couple of days ago I ventured into my nearest German supermarket: you know the kind I mean: own label foodstuffs, full range of fruit and vegetables, and some household items, randomly arranged, famous for employing the minimum staff to allow them to operate.
Once I enjoyed shopping there. The quality was decent and value for money, and most of all the till procedure suited me; pile everything back into the trolley, pay for it and pack it at my own pace.
It was fine, until they installed self-operated check-out machines, and stopped calling everyone’Dear customers.’ We ain’t, not any more.
The point of these auto things is not customer convenience. They are a means of reducing payroll costs, allowing Aldidl to employ even fewer people. They are also a pain in the fundament, in that they throw too much information at the customer at once.
I find them exasperating, and I said as much to the person overseeing the operation. The response staggered me: ‘I don’t care. I have a job here and I’m not going to get into an argument about it.’
Fine. You won’t get an argument from me, not least because I don’t plan to repeat the experience any time soon.
Don’t be so sure.
A forecast that I read this morning: ‘Pointing to a ConservativeHome pollwhich shows Mrs Badenoch beating all other candidates among Tory activists, the source added: “She is clearly the favourite with the members, and MPs will want to make sure that the members’ favourite is in the final two.”’
Oh yes? I might hope that MPs might be smart enough to remember that Liz Truss was the members’ favourite, and before her, Boris.
Outpointed?
Yesterday evening I watched a golfer win $25m, and two trophies, after finishing third in a 72-hole stroke play tournament. If I was Collin Morikawa, while respecting that Scottie Scheffler had been the outstanding golfer of the season and deserved to win the FedEx Cup with its pot of gold, I would be a little pissed off that my name isn’t on the Tour Championship trophy, having won that event by two shots.
When Tiget Woods won the Tour Championship in 2018, Justin Rose won the FedEx Cup, under a valid and understandable point system. A year later that was scrapped in favour a system imported from Nordic Combined, which is less clear and which has turned the year’s most prestigious tournament into a handicap event.
Why did they do that? For money, I guess. For me, though, they have ignored a fundamental principle of life: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Cut this tax for the public good
As part of his grand strategy of blaming everything on the Tories, in particular the NHS, which he and his mate Wes says is broken, Sir Keir is avoiding a fundamental truth. It’s his fault.
When the Service was created, the world was fundamentally different. The population was smaller and we had only just entered the age of antibiotics. Since then everything has grown exponentially, the population, and alongside it, a vast range of treatments and therapies, many of them significantly costly. The assumption has always been that the public health system should provide, for everyone.
The fact is that the expectation of the population is no longer realistic. And yet it has been stirred by cynical politicians.
Those who can afford private health insurance should be incentivised to use it rather than being stigmatised as queue jumpers.
If the new government wants to heal public health provision it should do what it can to reduce the demands upon it. Removing benefit in kind taxation for occupational insurance would be a good start.
Divided nation
You don’t have to be a pioneering researcher to work out that most people expect to pay for dental care. Try finding an NHS dentist.
And try to find a consultant physician or surgeon who doesn’t have a private practice alongside his NHS work.
