KNIT PICKING

Since the explosion of interest here in Scandinavian thrillers, both written and on television, I suppose it was inevitable that we should start seeing British thrillers based on the same tenets - dark scenes, broody, troubled detective, lots of suspects, every character with a mysterious secret, all the players somehow inter-connected, each episode meandering mysteriously and slowly on, each ending with yet more unanswered questions and maybe a new suspect, women in jumpers, etc.

I watched the 2-part thriller Shetland last week.  It was quite good.  It was set in a bleak landscape (the Shetland Isles unsurprisingly), there were lots of secrets, the community was close-knit, the jumpers were even more closely knit, everyone seemed to have a secret, the detective was broody, but . . . I don't know, it finished somehow rather unsatisfactorily.  I think they missed the point about making it slow.  Two episodes was just not enough.  When we found out whodunnit, it wasn't really such a big surprise and, since there had been little time for many plot twists, it ended with a phut.

There was great scenery though.  And an obscure Viking festival was featured; I had never heard of that and was fascinated that it has survived.  It could have added an even more sinister atmosphere to the context of the crime, but again, it sort of passed by.  The series was as if a producer had demanded a British rival to The Killing and someone had made the leap from Icelandic jumper to Shetland jumpers, but hadn't really followed the thought through.  The disillusioned detective's daughter had the best jumpers and all the best lines - he said to her, 'you can see Iceland over there.'  She responded, 'what the supermarket?  Oh no, I forgot, there are no supermarkets on the islands are there.'  Later she added, 'I can't even go out and climb a tree.  There aren't any!'  Unless you want to see what The Shetlands look like, don't bother to look for this series on catch-up.

I am in the middle of the longer Broadchurch at the moment.  Broadchurch beach is actually Bridport and is based around the high cliffs you may remember I featured in a recent post.  The main actors are David Tennant and Olivia Colman.  If you are a fan of David Tennant, he is brilliant.  If you're not, you might think he acts too hard.  He is the broody detective with a past to hide and, as with others in this genre, he seems to be emotionless.  But it's hard to tell whether he's trying to look like someone who's trying hide something and struggling to suppress his emotions for risk of giving too much away although not being quite broody enough to be charismatic and likeable or whether he's trying to look like someone who's a brilliant impassive detective with a broody nature, but isn't quite succeeding.

But the show is actually all about Colman.  She is just extraordinary.  Knowing all the members of the community well, her character has to help conduct an enquiry that appears to suspect any or all of them.  And of course she still wishes to be one of them and is distraught for all of them and shares all their suffering.  When she looks at the camera, you don't need any words, nor anyone else in the scene, you just feel what's going through her mind and what's going on.  Fabulous!

So far the series has followed all the rules - dark scenes, broody, troubled detective, lots of suspects, characters with secrets, all the players somehow inter-connected, each episode grinding slowly on, each ending with unanswered questions and maybe a new suspect, and a woman, not in a particularity memorable jumper, but in a nice boating waterproof anyway.  I hope it continues to unravel in this way (the series, not the jumper) (although, on the other hand . . .).  Broadchurch will be appearing on US TVs later in the year, so look out for it.

In contrast, I have just finished watching Spiral, the French detective series.  In many respects this series also followed the Scandinavian rules.  In fact it beat Shetland and Broadchurch by also having subtitles.  They both had tricky Scottish accents to contend with, but there's something about subtitles that adds to the mystery.  Or maybe that's just by association with the Scandinavian language thrillers.

Anyway, Spiral also had a woman in a jumper.  Again, not a particularly memorable one, although I might have just been distracted by the fact  that it kept slipping off her shoulder.  All the police here  seemed to interpret 'plain clothes' as down-and-out scruffy blousons.  What a waste of an opportunity for the French fashion knitwear industry.  One of the criminals disguised himself as a policeman at one stage by not shaving and putting on a leather bomber jacket.  Even he saw that it was some sort of uniform.  But I suppose it must have had an element of realism in it, otherwise it wouldn't have been accepted on French TV.  Perhaps all those louche men hanging around on French street corners with cigarettes in their mouths are actually police officers.

Spiral was also a police procedural thriller, like most of the dark, mysterious Scandinavian ones.  I am in the process of reading through the 10-book Martin Beck series, which was the forerunner of all of today's police procedurals.  The main premise there, apart from the gloomy, dedicated detective with a consequent hopeless homelife, was that society was rotten, mostly because of the actions of Government.  So most of the action takes place in run-down public housing, with understaffed police, illegal immigrants living outside the law, citizens with their lives ruined by public servants or wealthy industrialists, etc and most of the criminals evoking more sympathy than the representatives of the law.

Spiral had the dingy, run-down back streets, rather than the grand frontages one is used to in scenes of Paris, it also had the illegal immigrants and down-trodden citizens and uncaring, self-serving authorities.  The police characters too all had the usual personal problems.  But it didn't seem to have the political message of the Martin Beck procedural.  What it did have though was a great premise - instead of the gloomy, bleak, wintry, nocturnal environment of The Killing or Shetland, the atmosphere was built up with intertwined stories of crooks, lawyers and police, and every one of them operating outside of the law with greater or lesser degrees of venality.  Maybe that was the political message ie real life in France is not the one promoted in all the superficial fashion and holiday magazines?  Anyway it was fascinating to watch at every level.

We were not invited to like the thuggish police officers that much.  Nor did I have much sympathy for the criminals, certainly not for the anarchists among them.  But, if the environment revealed in this series was indeed realistic, what a dystopia!  I guess there will be another series in due course.  Watch it!

RAGE AGAINST THIS AGE

I've been so occupied in the last week or so, I've hardly had time even to look in and say, 'hello'.  So, hello!

But I have, with my usual diligence been monitoring life in Britain.  And hasn't it all been going downhill!  I have been getting a bit concerned about this judgement actually.  When I was young and we had to choose whether we were mods or rockers and of course had to go down to Brighton seafront for mammoth punch-ups, I remember my parents saying that it was all terrible and the end of life as we know it.  Every time from then on that fashion changed - long hair, flared trousers, promiscuous sex, biscuits with jam in them, etc, my parents would tut and shake their heads and tell me that the world had gone mad and society itself was in free-fall.  I, on the other hand, would say, 'get with it, daddyo,' or some such catchy, up to date phrase, indicating that my aim was keep up with current trends when my parents didn't.  So, here I am, however, decrying aspects of modern British society.  I suspect I might have turned into my Mum.

Is that inevitable, I wonder.  When we become older and wiser, do we realise that our parents spoke sense and thus do we eventually agree with them?  Or do we just slow down gradually and fail to keep up with a rapidly changing world, as our parents failed to do before us?  Can't be that, because I still keep up with all the latest fashions and dance crazes, like hustling and jacking and that other dance where you just jump up and down.  Can it be that I'm just old - as old as my parents were then?  But it can't be that, I expect to live twice as long as my parents did, so I'm only part way through my life, whereas they were in the twilight of their years.  Weren't they?  Of course it could be that Britain really is going down the drain and my parents were the first to spot it.

Earlier in the week, I took someone to the hospital down in Portsmouth.  While I waited for their treatment, I bought myself a coffee in the waiting lounge.  'Don't bother to fix the plastic cap on the cup', I said.  'I'll drink it here'.  'Oh, we have to put the caps on,' the barista replied.  There's another major change in Britain - she used to be a shop assistant, or if you were really lucky, a waitress.  It's all self-service now though and the shop assistants call themselves fancy names and I pay twice as much for my coffee.

Where was I?  Oh yes, caps on coffee cups.  Actually it wasn't a cup either.  Despite paying twice as much for the coffee,  it was served in a paper cup and I had to stir it with a wooden stick.  'Yes, we have to put the caps on for health and safety reasons,' she said.  Health and safety again!  What do they think I am going to do with it?!  The cup already has HOT written on the side of it anyway.  Of course I had to take the cap off to put sugar in and in fact I threw the cap away before I took the cup to my table.  But did I feel unsafe or unhealthy?

A day or two later, I read in the paper that a teenager had complained of panic attacks after taking a drug called Blue Cheese.  She was complaining either about the sale of the drug or the shop she bought it from; it wasn't clear.  Perhaps if she didn't take drugs, she would be more lucid.  But apparently you can buy this drug legally over the counter without an ID.  So now I really am feeling out of touch.  And maybe old.  Why did I not know before that it is now possible legally to buy and use drugs?  In shock and disbelief, I looked up Blue Cheese on the internet and found myself in a chartroom where they were discussing the merits of various drugs and where to get the best Blue Cheese.  I don't believe it!  Oh no, now I'm turning into Victor Meldrew!!  But, seriously, when did it become legal to buy drugs over the counter?

Today I was reading about the case of Lord Ahmed.  He was arrested for driving his car into the back of a parked car and killing the driver, whilst sending a text on his mobile phone.  My first thought at the time this happened was that this is a very modern crime.  This could not have happened just a few years ago.  Looking at a young lady on the side of the road, instead of at the road ahead, now that's what used to cause accidents.  Of course Lord Ahmed should have been jailed.  He could plead that killing someone was an accident, but hardly that he wasn't driving irresponsibly and making himself a danger to other road users - proven by what actually happened.  Never the less he escaped a charge of causing death by dangerous driving and was given a minimum custodial sentence.  A very modern judgement!  THAT judgement was criminal in my view, but what do I know?

Anyway, Lord Ahmed was then subsequently released by another judge, who accepted his claim that prison would hinder the good work he was doing in the Muslim community.  Ah, the Muslim community card!  It now turns out that Lord Ahmed has been making anti-western broadcasts in Urdu to Pakistan and even claiming that his original driving arrest was somehow the work of a Jewish conspiracy.  Not content with inciting Islamic extremism, in the pretence of fostering goodwill between religions, he actually promotes anti-Semitism.  Well, there's a lot of it about these days.  A very modern phenomenon!  But how does the judiciary ignore the serious crime he has committed and then, adding insult to the injury of you and I, release him anyway?  This is one of the trends in Britain today that I don't understand.  Why does Lord Ahmed get special treatment?  Because he only killed someone accidentally?  Because he's a Lord?  Because he's a Muslim?  Chris Huhne, a Secretary of State in the present Government, was similarly arrested for a driving offence and told the Court a similar string of porkies, but he got 8 months in prison.  And that was basically just for speeding.  And what about all these Muslim clerics we're deporting for preaching extremism?  Surely killing someone, preaching extremism AND anti-Semitism is worse than both those cases put together?
 

BIG SHOT

I was reading an article about Brad Pitt over the weekend.  I quite like him.  I have enjoyed most films in which he featured.  I don't envy him being married to Angelina either; I imagine she's quite a handful.  But I quite enjoyed all the films of hers I have seen too.  In fact I quite like Brangelina as an entity; they have a curious approach to family-creation, but I like what they have done - if you can afford a large family, how nice to adopt several disadvantaged kids.  And they seem to be one of the more stable Hollywood couples (they'll probably split up now I've said that).  And workwise, their moves into direction have been pretty successful too.

But I was quite shocked to read in the interview with Brad the following words, ' I got my frst BB gun when I was in nursery school.  I got my first shotgun by first grade, I had shot a handgun by third grade and I grew up in a pretty sane environment.'  I know what he means.  He means that his was a reasonably normal upbringing in a reasonably normal neighbourhood, and yet he had this exposure to weaponry.  But, I'm sorry, Brad, there will be very few Brits reading this who will think that this is in any way pretty sane or normal.  For us, a sane environment and a normal upbringing would involve anything but real guns.  In fact I suspect very few Brits will ever have held a gun, leave alone fired one.

He went on to say that he and his kids enjoy surprisingly adult discussions about topics in films which they often watch together.  When asked, he said that the last film they wayched together was 'Apocalypto'.  This is an 18-rated epic full of violence and human sacrifice, described by one reviewer as featuring a super-cruel, psycho-sadistic society on the skids, a ghoulscape engaged in widespread slavery, reckless sewage treatment and with a real lust for human blood.

I suppose Mr Pitt must consider that he too is providing a pretty sane and reasonably normal environment for his kids.  This disappointed me more than I would have liked to have been.  Perhaps American lifestyle has moved further away from the British than I imagined. 

NO SIGN OF GETTING UP TO SPEED

There has been a bit of a debate here about speed limits on Britain's roads.  We're not like Texas, where an 85mph speed limit has just been approved on one road, since we don't have long, straight, undeveloped stretches of road of that sort.  But we do have Motorways which are built to accomodate fast driving.

The national limit (on Motorways) is 70mph.  This limit was decided at a time when many cars only just managed 70mph.  The Motorways were also half empty.  I remember driving up the M1, the first Motorway to be built here, soon after it opened, just to try it out.  I did manage a little over 70mph, but then I hardly saw another vehicle.  Nowadays, very, very few drivers take any notice of the 70mph limit.  I recently drove round part of the M25, at speeds rarely under 80mph, and I was overtaken continuously.  But we now have seat belts, disc brakes, obstruction sensors, collision control, engine braking systems, and many other safety devices which make driving at high speed much safer than it was in my young days.  Drivers are far more likely to have an accident from not paying attention (usually because they are on the telephone or playing with their GPS or trying to break one finger off a Kit Kat), than they are from speed alone.

One proposal being discussed in Government is that the limit on Motorways now be raised to 80mph.  This may ease congestion.  But, frankly, all it will probably do in reality is recognise the actual average speed of modern drivers.  The police don't pay too much attention to speeding these days, unless some other element makes it dangerous driving or unless the driver is fleeing a crime scene (such as the Lamborghini-powered Audi the other day that was outrunning a police helicopter at speeds of up to 200mph).  The Deputy Prime Minister is in favour of this change, but many in his own party even are against.  We don't know what the Conservative part of the Coalition thinks about this (if it thinks about road speeds at all at the moment).

I have complained before about frequent changes in the speed limit on certain roads.  The limit is normally 70 on a dual carriageway, 60 on a single carriageway and 30 in towns (occasionally 20).  Vans, buses, goods vehicles, etc have different restrictions.  Occasionally, the limits are reduced because the road passes an area where there might be slow traffic or pedestrians.  In Findon, for example, there is a long stretch of dual carriageway where the speed limit is 60mph because there are slip roads into and out of a school.  I have never understood how 60 is safer than 70 passing a school, but there it is.  And there are 13 changes between here and Petersfield, a 20 minute journey I undertake often.  One minute there is no limit, then suddenly it is reduced to 40mph in a village, then 50 again up to the next village, then 20 for the centre of a small town en route (another proposal has been for all town centres to be restricted to 20mph; the Lib Dem part of the Coalition likes this, but I'm not sure it carries much weight otherwise), then back up to 70 for a short rural stretch, etc.  Needless to say, many drivers either don't understand or don't take any notice.  It is a confusing hotch-potch.

But the main point about these speed limits, which doesn't yet seem to be recognised officially, is that each is accompanied with large signs on both sides of the road, in an attempt to inform and warn drivers.  That's 13 sets of signs on a mostly rural Hampshire road.  And, where the speed limit exceeds 30mph, there will be 'repeater' signs at intervals to remind you of the higher limit.  In some villages, where there is no street lighting and therefore no lamp posts to tell you this is a built-up area, there  will be regular repeater signs right through the village.  That's some 20 sets of signs, or 40 signs in each direction, or 80 signs altogether, on a 20 mile stretch of road.  The entire country is littered with speed restriction signs, 'no limit' signs and repeater signs.  Not to mention signs announcing other road restrictions, warnings, directions, etc.  This is the now famous stretch of the A3 just up the road from here.

Note the speed camera in amongst that lot, as if you'd spot what the speed limit is, as you drove past.  Now consider the improvement if large numbers of these signs were removed.  This is far more important than faffing around with changing speed limits (and presumably adding new signs accordingly).

So, here's my proposal.  You can have it for nothing, Dave and Nick.  Make all Motorways and dual carriageways 80mph, all other main roads 60mph, all rural and minor roads 40mph, and all town centres 20mph.  No exceptions.  There are always signs anyway saying 'pedestrians' or 'hospital' or 'school' or even 'elderly people', so we don't need those backed up with another sign saying 'that means you should drive slowly; ie 40mph'.  In other words, let's take ALL the speed signs away.

As you enter a Motorway, there are signs telling you that there is no speed limit (ie 70mph).  Why?  There are no exceptions on any Motorway in the whole country.  Take them away!  Under my scheme, if there's a main road, no need to post signs all the way along it to remind you of the speed limit; it's 60mph.  If there are likely to be young or especially elderly pedestrians, you are more likely to see the single sign warning of that and to slow down, than if the sign is lost in a sign forest or if you have sign fatigue and have begun to ignore them.

Meanwhile I shall continue to floor the accelerator and let the car's onboard computer do the driving.  In fact this post has been entirely written by the car's onboard computer and not by my driver at all.

IT HAS LEGACY

A desultory discussion has broken out again about the Olympics legacy.  Comments range from one miserable view in today’s Times that ‘the Orbit should be taken down and the stadium razed’ to Lord Moynihan’s (responsible for the British team at the London Games) sceptical, if political, prediction last year that ‘the 2012 London Olympics will fail to deliver any lasting sporting legacy for most young Britons’ to various specialist journals who are less pessimistic about the impact on their discrete sectors.

The first excellent legacy will be the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.  The plan is that, by next year (or the year after), the Olympic Park will become an exciting new visitor destination and community park.  It will certainly look good, if it is properly maintained.  And it will hugely benefit the people of the area and be attractive to visitors, no doubt to foreign visitors, for some years to come.  But it is a major commitment maintaining such a huge area (560 acres).  I visited the 1970 Osaka Expo (a sort of commercial Olympics) Park a few years back to see the site of one of the most successful British promotions.  Sadly, the park is now a bit derelict.  But the proposed usage of the London park, and the overseas interest, suggests it will survive.

The next obvious legacy arises from the commitment to ‘Inspire a Generation’.  Some effort (if not massive funding) has gone into a school sports promotion and the signs are that young people in Britain have indeed been inspired – there are reports from up and down the country of increased memberships at boxing gyms, archery ranges, athletic clubs, etc and reports of major sales by bicycle shops.  There was also a recent survey which found that 5m more adults had recently signed up to sports clubs too.  This legacy was of course the pledge that won the Olympics for Britain, but it was made with no evidence that I am aware of that Olympics do in fact inspire anyone to do anything (except watch more television).  The Sydney Olympics of 2000 has apparently had no such legacy, since Australian athletes won fewer medals this year than athletes from Yorkshire.  The feel-good factor of both the general euphoria at these Games and the pride of the success of Team GB has though it seems inspired many. 

As we struggle with the Olympic hangover (described by one blogger as picking out iced gems biscuits from a dish after someone has eaten all the icing), and in a country beset with obesity in every age group, maybe even the immediate interest in exercise and health is good news and legacy enough.  Of course the adults may have been less encouraged by the toning as by the salacious undertones of watching a succession of finely honed, semi-naked bodies for two weeks.  But even that’s a start.

However, apart from the Olympic Park, it’s clear to me that inward tourism will benefit enormously from the London Olympics.  Security is good after all, the transport works after all, it doesn’t after all rain all the time, the people are wonderful; why shouldn’t foreigners pour into London next year?  The Olympic period has apparently not been brilliant for shops or hotels, although I remain unconvinced that anyone visiting for the Games would stay or shop in Central London anyway, so any hopes of such a bonanza may have been misplaced (pricing may also have had a bearing here), but London theatres seem to have done particularly well in the last two weeks.  And it appears that the Paralympics are also set to be a success too – all advertising slots on TV during the Games has been sold, all ticketed event are sold out.  I’m not sure how much Paralympics I will watch; I will watch the start, but somehow feel awkwardly voyeuristic (in a different way from when I was watching the beach volleyball intently and over and over of course). 

The longish debate before the Games started over this question of legacy hinged primarily on whether the Games would actually offer a return on investment and lift Britain out of recession.  I felt at the time that this was a sterile debate; I don’t think the intention was ever that hosting the Olympics would make a profit and provide an immediate boost to the economy.  Any effect was always going to be long-term.   And the economic forecasts are not bright, particularly with the Eurozone going backwards. 

There was a temporary construction boom of course and unemployment has gone down also in the short term, and there is some optimism in the business world that companies will feel confident enough or will feel that the populace is now self-confident enough for them to expand employment.  And we have seen companies showing growth, Land Rover Jaguar for example have just introduced a three shift round the clock employment to cope with burgeoning demand.  And, once sponsor-imposed advertising restrictions are lifted, engineering, construction, design, etc companies in particular feel that they could benefit from the Olympic venue showcase.

The Olympic Village owner is also introducing creative selling/letting plans which should help first time home owners.  This will be of particular benefit to Londoners, since so many first-time buyers seem to want ‘affordable housing’ near Central London. 

The blue Union Flag segment of Team GB has also become something of a hit around the world too and has been turning up on fashion clothing, bags, etc.  I’m not sure whether any royalties are paid for this, but the interest in the brand is a plus.

And perhaps that’s the most important legacy.  Our confidence and patriotism will not have gone unnoticed around the world.  Coupled, as I say, by evidence that all is well with British infrastructure, this will encourage a new wave, or reassure an old one, of investors in Britain.  Our system of free market enterprise depends vitally on companies investing in the country, both through M&A and green-field start-ups, as well as the employment of British expertise in a range of sectors.  The Olympics has been one of the most successful investment promotion campaigns we’ve ever had.  And this comes at a time, not of British desperation, but of the faltering of the Eurozone, accompanied by unrest, notably in France, Greece and Spain, but even in Germany, as economic measures bite.  Britain must look a good bet in Europe at the moment.

And perhaps the surge in self-confidence and renewed pride in our nation, as it is today, is a legacy to be proud of in itself.  I have seen many comments from members of the public which encourage me in this thought, several from those who have seen the patriotism of immigrant athletes or the camaraderie of different nations’ athletes, and even comments from immigrants about how proud the Olympics made them (including from one who had always thought Madness’ Our House was an anthem of skinheads and racists, but hearing it at the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies now sees it as an inclusivity anthem).   And one has to say that the very natural way in which athletes and performers from all ethnic backgrounds have represented Britain in the last two weeks has been quite remarkable (or maybe I mean not remarkable?).  All this makes one feel that multi-culturalism does have a place in a peaceful world.  What a legacy that would be!  (Of course Peter Hitchens takes the opposite view of international competition.  But that too only encourages me in my view).  Wouldn’t it be wonderful, if the sight of a united kingdom encouraged divided nations – N and S Korea, Israeli and Arab, Syria, Ireland even, to put aside their differences?  OK, sorry, that was a bit of daydreaming there for a second.

But it is true that the foreign athletes and the foreign spectators returning to their own countries will be the best ambassadors we could have.  They had great time, they loved the people, they loved the country.  And maybe the appearance of Iranian athletes at the Games (despite the threatened boycott) and of Saudi women (despite criticism at home) will have reassured some sceptics of the harmlessness of such gestures.

But, one has to say, I still have this sneaking suspicion that the whole Olympics programme may just have been one massive political ploy to convince Scotland that it is better off joined inextricably to England in a sort of Team GB.  In the present wave of mass euphoria, Scottish Ministers must now begin in earnest their campaign for Scottish independence.  Who will now listen?  Can this have been the Government’s first shots across the Scottish bows?  Anyway that’s a whole different question.  But even Andy Murray has shown that he is not after all a miserable git and has clearly now been adopted by English spectators.  The Olympics has, if nothing else, shown one thing – that anything is possible.

MEDAL FATIGUE

I know a little about equestrian events and can even be excited by them, but, while I was watching the Olympics this afternoon, I was totally gripped by the drama unfolding – man and horse welded into one being, raising the dust as they tore across the course (must be some sort of cross-country event I thought), leaping ditches, splashing through rivers (hmmm, must be a kind of steeplechase), then the rest of the team joined him (a team steeplechase?), then they stop to fire their rifles (aha, must be the team equestrian biathlon), the other team were in the distance and didn’t seem to be doing so well.  Then the adverts came up.  ‘We will return shortly to your Saturday afternoon film, Gunfight at Dodge City’.  Oh, I seemed to be watching the only channel that isn’t showing any Olympics.

Never the less, another exciting Olympic day here.  But are we satisfied?  First we were moaning and carping because we hadn’t won a medal, then came the goldrush and somehow we just got used to winning, now there are beginning to be doubts about whether we should be winning so many.  Isn’t that just so British?!  On the other hand, I do wonder whether we place a bit too much importance on the gold medal.  Or on medals per se.  More on that in a moment.  First I thought you might like to see the impartial BBC commentary box as Mo Farah took the gold in the 10,000m.

And here’s the commentary box when he gained double gold by winning the 5,000m.

Not the most exciting races I’ve ever seen, but you can tell that the last laps were electric.

But back to medals.  Originally, winners were given an olive branch.  Not even a special olive branch - just one from a wild tree that anyone could go and pick, if they wanted to, out in the countryside.  Afrter that, winners came to be given an olive branch and a silver medal, while runners-up got a laurel branch and a bronze.  Then, some Olympic hosts started giving cups to the winners.  Finally, in the St Louis games, gold, silver and bronze were introduced.  So now the object is to win a gold medal.  The prowess of athletes is measured in the number of golds they have. 

Of course, some athletes have a better chance of taking medals than others; Mark Spitz won seven gold medals at the 1972 Olympics – a phenomenal achievement – but it was a trickier task for John Williams, another American gold medal winner in those Games, who won one medal for archery.  But what chance did he have to win another medal?   Not even a relay event in archery.  But that’s a debate for another day.  And then look at the reactions of the British silver medal winners, Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase, who put so much into their double sculls race that they had to be carried practically from the boat and could hardly speak.  Of course interviewing them then was bonkers, but that’s another story too.

So we have come from the day, when the honour was simply taking part in the Olympics, to today, when not winning a gold is somehow a total failure.

I don’t think we have too many medals and certainly not too many golds, but sometimes I wish they would devote less of the end of day round-up on television to positions on the medal table and the number of gold medals we have won (actually Russia has more medals than us; but we are above them purely because of our golds).  Maybe we’ve placed too much emphasis on the trophies and not enough on the winning of them?  I watched excerpts of today’s Mo Farah race on the news followed by the display of the medals won by each country to date and the shot of the medals table was longer than the clip of the 5,000m. 

And don’t forget that sometimes the result is not purely based on athleticism.  There were several falls or off-days or rules infringements that cost competitors a medal.  Victoria Pendleton for example was disqualified from two cycling events that she had won, whereas she had never made those mistakes in reaching the same results in training.  She could have taken home three gold medals instead of the one single one she won, all on a technical fault.  And what about the team ball sports?  With very few exceptions, there were no out and out expected winners; they all benefited from the odd fortunate score or fortunate miss.  So is awarding gold medals to the winning team justified?  Who can say?  It’s based on the winning score on the day, regardless of who’s fastest, fittest or strongest in fact, so we accept the result and the medal awards.

But isn’t it wonderful when someone wins an exciting event?!  And wouldn’t you like to have a gold medal for something?  I think, after this two weeks, that I should get a gold medal for bouncing in an armchair and screaming (and, yes, it’s hardly believable, but it’s the closing ceremony tomorrow!  And my spies tell me that it’s to be a celebration of great British music.  So no Lily Allen then.  But they are trying to get the Spice Girls back; apparently, there is too much happiness and smiling after the Olympics and they thought Posh Spice might help make everyone miserable again).  Anyway, if you want a gold medal, I’ve just discovered you can buy one for £6 on eBay.  Maybe that’s like going into the countryside and cutting a branch of wild olive after all?

A LOAD OF MERCHANT BANKERS

So now we have another banking scandal.  I'm not really surprised.  The activities of the banking community has been so uncontrolled, so egocentric, so full of selfish, careless bravura, that they have clearly thought themselves immune to the law, either that defined by Parliament or that moral one followed by most of the rest of us.  It was only a matter of time before the rot led to the collapse of the structure, like a flashy seaside pier beset by rust.  And too many people jumping on the roundabout.

Perhaps one more blatant crime is unimportant; no one has a good word to say about bankers at the moment anyway.  But once, in the not too distant past, if you wanted to get a reliable recommendation or a trustworthy signature, you asked your bank manager.  I don't suppose anyone would bother these days; it wouldn't give much of an impression anyway.  I even heard someone on the radio say that they were now on a par with estate agents!  Perhaps you can't trust anyone these days.  What a mess!

But I don't really care much if bankers get a bad reputation.  I haven't ever had much of a good experience in banks.  But what will be a much bigger problem for us is the impact on the reputation of the banking industry in general and London in particular.

There was a time when we let the bankers get away with near murder and allowed them to draw annual salaries approaching the GDP of a small country.  The reason we allowed this situation to go ahead was that we wanted the bankers to stay here.  'If we don't cowtow to bankers, they'll all move to Paris', was the mantra.  It's very difficult now to see why that would be a problem.  Keeping these people in Britain has made a major contribution to our economy.  But at what cost?

I don't really care about what sort of inquiry we now have into the banking industry.  The politicians will continue to argue about this for a while.  But what none of them seems really to be concerned about is that, whatever the inquiry discovers, the reputation of London will be damaged worldwide and will require more than the sticking plaster of an inquiry to heal.  We already know that Barclays have broken the law and that other banks are being investigated.  It'll take a major political and PR effort to overcome that.  Why don't we let Paris have them?

CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT

I was going to comment eruditely on the popular reaction to HM's Diamond Jubilee celebrations over the last 5 days.  But I think most of it has been said now.

I was constantly amazed.  Not because The Queen is unpopular particularly, but just simply at the gushing outpourings of affection and support.  There is, it must be acknowledged, an anti-monarchist, or Republican, or a purist democratic, movement in the UK, which I kept expecting to see or hear disrupting events.  But there was nothing anti.  Even the official, organised, pro-Republic demonstration could raise no more than 50-odd people chanting 'Down with Liz', as opposed to the millions cheering and singing in support.

We booked our spot on the river to watch the flotilla at 8am, even though The Queen didn't lead the boats past until 2.30 that day.  But there were people on The Mall who had camped overnight to make sure they saw The Queen glide by some 20 hours later.  And that was just a couple of carriages, not the 1,000 boats that we saw. 

After the Buckingham Palace concert, the band struck up the National Anthem and, remembering the chanting at football matches and the silence at other public events, I thought, 'oh no, they're going to dampen the concert euphoria or spoil the success of the event'.  But, no, the crowd sung with gusto and raised three cheers afterwards for The Queen.  They even chanted support for The Duke of Edinburgh who had been taken ill the night before.

With recent royal cock-ups and a succession of PR difficulties since Diana's death, despite a pretty successful Golden Jubilee 10 years ago, I felt that public enthusiasm for the Royal Family had waned in Britain (and in parts of the Commonwealth for that matter), particularly among the young.  But I appear to have been wrong.  It seems to have been impossible for interviewers to find a member of the public willing to say a downbeat word about The Queen.  Far from it - nearly every sentence spoken seemed to include great affection and, not to put too fine a point upon it, loyalty and devotion.
 
There were even frequent spontaneous chants of 'God Save The Queen!', as though we were fanatical subjects in North Korea, rather than democratic and irreverant Britons.  There were plenty of irreverant references too of course, not least the number of masks worn.  But even they showed affection; ridicule was far from anyone's mind.

Of course the story might have been different north of the border, for all I know.  And I'm not entirely sure how the Commonwealth felt.  But I noted that even the Australian Premier's message of congratulation and admiration was gracious in the extreme, when again it could have been more subdued, given her antipathy towards the Crown.

But what really struck me was the way the celebrations had united people.  I mentioned in my earlier post that The Monarchy works much better here than a putative Presidency might.  As was pointed out in one of the newspapers today, there isn't a President that hasn't proved divisive (or totally irrelevant) in their own country in some way.  Yet, apart from a residual minority view that maybe she shouldn't be there at all, there was no sign of any of the divisiveness that our political masters have managed to achieve. 

The second feature was that that unity was formalised under the Union Flag.  It may seem odd to some of you that I say this, but our flag, except maybe in times of war, isn't really held in the same reverence as many other national flags are by the populations of those nations.  We tend to like it as an emblem and, from the swinging sixties onwards, have decorated everything from cars to home accessories with it.  And indeed, this last weekend, most people in the crowds were wearing red, white and blue, if not Union Flag clothing from head to toe, painted faces or nails, etc.  I even saw a Union Flag scarf on a Muslim girl by the river.  This patriotic upsurge is unusual for us in the absence of outside attack or physical national achievement; seeing it to celebate simply the survival of one person, however important constitutionally, was heart-warming, but still a surprise.  If nothing else, this inclusive, non-religious, non-political coming together under the national flag has done more for Britain than any other achievement that might be found in the 60 years of her reign.  And yet it is an achievement purely of passive survival.  We are merely celebrating the fact that she hasn't died or abdicated.

Finally, the other notable point highlighted in the press was the number of children and young people celebrating in the crowds.  I'm not sure many of the very young will have understood exactly what was going on and in fact many of their parents were not that clear either - there were a good many comments such as, 'well, we won't ever see it again', which made me wonder if they were there for the spectacle alone or maybe for the party.  One reporter, trying to inject a modicum of seriousness, asked one lady whether she was there because she supported the Monarchy per se or whether it was simply to recognise The Queen's achievement, but she looked a bit puzzled and just mumbled something about 'once in a lifetime'.  But those kids will be monarchists for life.  I remember even now collecting my commemorative glass at school and watching the Coronation on our new TV.  That event shaped my enthusiasm for the royals for many years.  There is now a new generation of enthusiasts coming through.

So here's to the next 60 proud, patriotic years . . .

Tags: politics, britain, flags, patriotism, royals, jubilee

WHO CARES?

I have been trying to find something sensible to say about the recent spate of sex grooming cases here.  The first convictions in such a case were reported here.

 

For those of you that haven’t heard of these cases, men, mostly in the Midlands, have been systematically plying very young girls with drink and drugs and then taking advantage of them sexually and selling them for sex to friends and relatives.  There seem to be many such cases, but few culprits have been tried and convicted.  There was another conviction of an individual this morning on similar offences, so perhaps investigations are becoming more successful.

Everyone has been trying hard not to say that there is some racial element involved here, mostly because white far right groups have been trying to incite violence against immigrant communities on the back of the scandal.  But the fact is that almost all the men involved are Pakistanis (hence they are mostly found in the Midlands, a major Pakistani community) and almost all the girls involved are white.  A separate issue is that most of the girls live in care homes or are otherwise under care and are therefore particularly vulnerable.

I listened to a chilling account on the radio yesterday by one of the girls involved.  She was 13 when she decided to go into town one night ‘for a bit of fun’.  A Pakistani man stopped in his car and asked her whether she’d like a lift.  She agreed and, whilst he drove, she drank from a vodka mix drink he gave her.  When he eventually stopped, not in the town centre, but at his house, she was drunk and went inside with him.  He had sex with her and then took her home.  From then on she found herself locked into a relationship with him and was frequently picked up and passed around others for sex.

This account was given in such a matter of fact voice that, at each stage, you felt like screaming ‘but why did you do it?’  There was no explanation.  Of course these girls are the victims, but the men’s description of them as willing whores was not at all contradicted by this girl’s account or by others I have read.  Yes, they present themselves as victims, and they were abused and the men were acting against the law, but at no time is there any rationale for what the girls did.

How has this state of affairs come about?  One problem of course (if you accept the premise that there is a major Pakistani involvement) is the culture and practices of Pakistani Muslims, not only in their own country, but transported to UK by immigrants and maintained here by British born Pakistanis.  There are frequent stories in the media concerning crimes committed by Pakistani families, often where daughters do not marry the man chosen by the father.  One in today’s newspaper concerns a girl abducted by her family, despite being married, because she is expected to marry a cousin in Pakistan.  She was apparently betrothed without her knowledge when she was 15.  And it isn’t just the father that commits these acts; she was drugged by her sister and carried off by her mother and father.  In another case, a young Pakistani bride was kept locked in the house by her father in law and subjected to sexual abuse.  And there have been many worse cases where girls are murdered because they get involved with a man the father believes is unsuitable. It is shameful for Pakistani girls to be involved with an 'unsuitable' man.  But the way to overcome that seems to be for Pakistani men to turn to a non-Pakistani for sex.  That seems not to be shameful. 

The point is that, although these crimes take place in Britain, none of those involved seem to think that they are in fact crimes.  There is mixed comment from others in the community about whether such acts are normal in Pakistani culture, but anyway, plenty of members of the community believe they are.  The men convicted in the sex grooming case made it quite clear they didn’t think that they had done anything wrong.  And of course betrothals at a very early age (often to older men) help to sustain the thought that sex with young girls is OK.

What to do?  Clearly there is a problem in the Pakistani community.  I assume that not all Pakistani people believe such practices should be condoned.  Yet, no one from the community came forward and reported the crimes to the authorities.  Community leaders must be instructed to do more to get across to their communities that such practices are unacceptable in Britain, if not everywhere.  But we should do more too.  I am all for multiculturalism, but immigrants and their families (at the time of immigration – many members of these communities were of course born here, which is why community leaders have to take responsibility now) must be made to understand what the laws and culture of Britain are.  Where there is a clash, the law of their chosen country (ie Britain) must prevail.  I hope that increased success by the police in stamping on this activity will help to bring home to others that it is wrong.  That is why working with community leaders must start now before others in the 'business' are pushed underground or deeper into the community.

But we must also do something about the victims and the potential victims.  If children are in care, if the home is called a ‘care home’, then it is the Director's responsibility to ensure that care is applied.  It just won’t do to allow young girls to go wandering off at night.  There is some suggestion that the homes knew the girls were being picked up in cars outside.  If this is true, the duty of care has certainly been lost somewhere and those responsible should be made to understand.  

Care homes are currently the subject of an inquiry, following this recent case, and that is as it should be.  But surely there is more to looking after young, vulnerable girls than just stopping them from going out at night.  Any father of teen-aged girls knows how difficult that is and knows what it’s like sitting up waiting nervously for them to come home.  But, before this moment, the girl will have been given a good deal of education and instruction and advice (probably scorned, but hopefully not forgotten).  I can’t forget the calm way that girl described her experiences, as though they were inevitable, or maybe that there was nothing else to do of an evening, or (can it be) that she didn’t know what was happening.  It is not clear to me that the care homes are offering anything like a parental duty of care, but nor do they seem to be providing education.  There may be something we should be doing to prevent so many girls ending up in care like this, but meanwhile, simply sticking them in a home is not in itself a solution to their problems.

There are many angles at which we as a society should be ensuring education is applied, not only to young people, but also to those of different cultures and to those in positions of authority.  But we seem to have failed to do so in every respect.  The most horrific feature in all this is that so many people seemed to know what was going on – other Pakistanis, families, friends of the girls, shopkeepers and neighbours, care home staff.  Yet no one seems to have cared quite enough to do anything about it.  Maybe we should now make it clear that we care.