It has long vexed me that if you chip away at the hard, flinty exterior of my heart you are are only likely to encounter a hard, flinty interior. I know this because this is what people tell me.
People don't change and so perhaps I should accept this is the way that I am - because that's the way people see me - I don't think I'm as impenetrable as that but you are the person that people see you as, not how you see yourself.
So at this time of year - or whatever time of year you find appropriate - I urge you to embrace those that you love because people fade away without you noticing. It's a slow process which is why you don't see it happening. Sometimes it's only when you look back that you notice they're gone and what was unsaid will now forever remain that way.
Nuff said - have a wonderful Christmas. Remember those who have touched you and try to reciprocate in some small way. It will be noticed. I embrace you all and wish you all that wish for.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Ashes to Ashes
English is a wonderful language. If a word has not been invented in English to express something and a perfectly good foreign equivalent already exists, then we just pilfer that word and assimilate it into the language. So far Finnish has only contributed one word to the English language but I'm sure they will come up with more. It's "sauna" by the way.
Two of my favourite imported words are hubris and schadenfreude.
Hubris - this is generally described as the comeuppance experienced following a display of misguided confidence. The "unsinkable" Titanic is a good example of hubris (although not for the poor souls who died upon it).
Schadenfreude is a cruel (but often satisfying emotion) and is the ability to take pleasure in the misfortune of others. I don't think it's intended as a vindictively cruel word - you would not, I think, experience schadenfreude seeing someone endure unnecessary pain however you might experience it upon seeing a particularly irritating colleague caught outside in the office car park in a torrential rainstorm whilst you are watching from a position of warmth and comfort. You might even be in a position to help them....but choose not to.
On the eve of an Ashes series against Australia these words may well soon be seeing plenty of use.
There is a worrying excess of confidence regarding the prospects of the English. We've not won The Ashes in Australia in 23 years. This is no walk in the park. You do not beat the Australians in their own back yard. They are a great team and could easily duff us up.
This is a pre-emptive post to announce that despite the confidence of the English team, the English press and various TV pundits, I am not expecting anything but the toughest of scraps from the Australians. I would expect nothing less and I am confident they will deliver.
Here's to a great series.
For those who don't know what I'm talking about - it's cricket.
Two of my favourite imported words are hubris and schadenfreude.
Hubris - this is generally described as the comeuppance experienced following a display of misguided confidence. The "unsinkable" Titanic is a good example of hubris (although not for the poor souls who died upon it).
Schadenfreude is a cruel (but often satisfying emotion) and is the ability to take pleasure in the misfortune of others. I don't think it's intended as a vindictively cruel word - you would not, I think, experience schadenfreude seeing someone endure unnecessary pain however you might experience it upon seeing a particularly irritating colleague caught outside in the office car park in a torrential rainstorm whilst you are watching from a position of warmth and comfort. You might even be in a position to help them....but choose not to.
On the eve of an Ashes series against Australia these words may well soon be seeing plenty of use.
There is a worrying excess of confidence regarding the prospects of the English. We've not won The Ashes in Australia in 23 years. This is no walk in the park. You do not beat the Australians in their own back yard. They are a great team and could easily duff us up.
This is a pre-emptive post to announce that despite the confidence of the English team, the English press and various TV pundits, I am not expecting anything but the toughest of scraps from the Australians. I would expect nothing less and I am confident they will deliver.
Here's to a great series.
For those who don't know what I'm talking about - it's cricket.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Winter's Bone
Before 2010 is over, go and see this film and I promise you it will be the best you see this year.
A proper film. It has a real plot, and so doesn't need millions of dollars worth of special effects to disguise the lack of one. It has real actors who are completely, and in many cases, terrifyingly plausible - not the usual bunch of cute twentysomethings that pass for a movie cast these days. Just see it.
A proper film. It has a real plot, and so doesn't need millions of dollars worth of special effects to disguise the lack of one. It has real actors who are completely, and in many cases, terrifyingly plausible - not the usual bunch of cute twentysomethings that pass for a movie cast these days. Just see it.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
The Unbearable Shitness of Everything
I have been very quiet lately. Apart from passing comment on my favourite blogs (you know who you are and your good humour has kept me sane - thank you) or a couple of one-line blogposts I've done very little to show my presence on here or anywhere. I've never been a particularly regular or frequent poster on this blog but I've tried to keep it going as I always think I might have something useful to say just around the corner.
The reason? My ability to concentrate on anything for more than about one minute has been completely destroyed. I've been a lifelong smoker and a month ago I stopped. I'd been building up to it in the preceding month and finally stopped for good on 13th September. I stopped about six years ago for about three months and somehow managed to start again. It was time to try again. I've had a few brief relapses in the last month but to all intents and purposes, and relative to the amount I smoked before, I've stopped.
Has anyone out there ever tried to give up smoking? It's fucking horrible. You spend every waking moment with a gnawing empty feeling in every part of your body. Add to this a constant headache (occasionally throbbing), relentless hunger, irritation, mood swings, disturbed sleep patterns, inability to concentrate and host of other crap.
Do you know what it's like to think, every two to three minutes of your waking day, of something you'd like to do, and then have to tell yourself that you cannot do it. I reckon I think about having a cigarette, and then denying myself that cigarette, several hundred times a day.
I've never been a heavy smoker but I've always been a regular smoker. I've been lucky I suppose. Smoking has never appeared to have any effect on my health. Yes I know, the consequences of smoking creep up on you slowly without you noticing but god it was good.
I enjoyed smoking. It allowed me to slow down, to pause for thought, and moments of quiet reflection are not, on the whole, a bad thing. Just because I enjoyed a smoke at the same time was just my way of getting through the day. I often think the world would be a better place if people had a compulsory 10 minute break from whatever thay are doing every few hours.
I absolutely understand people who dislike smoking. I completely accept a smoking ban in pubs, restaurants offices etc. I find it perfectly understandable that my smoking might be distateful to other people. Smoking doesn't make sense and I know it, but it's a personal choice and I choose (chose?) to do it.
What are the plus points of not smoking? They are precious few and hard to find. I get no pleasure from people complimenting me on how well I have done in the last month as quitting has not made me feel any better in ANY WAY AT ALL. I don't really respond to the "Well done" type of motivation any more than people telling me I shouldn't smoke motivated me to want to stop in the first place. I find all that a little irritating which is rather ungrateful of me but that's how my mind works on some things. I like to reach decisions on my own terms and not because of what other people expect of me.
Healthwise, for the most part I feel exactly the same except for one thing - I have gained 10kg in the last six weeks and I now look like Jabba The Hut. That's actually quite an achievement I suppose but not something I want to repeat over the next six weeks. I get no satisfaction from having stopped because I know having a cigarette would make me feel so good RIGHT NOW. Yes, RIGHT NOW.
I am getting nothing done at work. Either I have a compassionate employer who notices I'm somewhat off the pace recently and is giving me the benefit of the doubt...or I never did anything of use there and my whole career so far has been a sham. Which is worse? I really don't know.
So that's why I've been quiet. I'll try and get back into this but when you can't keep your mind on the same thing for more than a minute it's bloody difficult.
The reason? My ability to concentrate on anything for more than about one minute has been completely destroyed. I've been a lifelong smoker and a month ago I stopped. I'd been building up to it in the preceding month and finally stopped for good on 13th September. I stopped about six years ago for about three months and somehow managed to start again. It was time to try again. I've had a few brief relapses in the last month but to all intents and purposes, and relative to the amount I smoked before, I've stopped.
Has anyone out there ever tried to give up smoking? It's fucking horrible. You spend every waking moment with a gnawing empty feeling in every part of your body. Add to this a constant headache (occasionally throbbing), relentless hunger, irritation, mood swings, disturbed sleep patterns, inability to concentrate and host of other crap.
Do you know what it's like to think, every two to three minutes of your waking day, of something you'd like to do, and then have to tell yourself that you cannot do it. I reckon I think about having a cigarette, and then denying myself that cigarette, several hundred times a day.
I've never been a heavy smoker but I've always been a regular smoker. I've been lucky I suppose. Smoking has never appeared to have any effect on my health. Yes I know, the consequences of smoking creep up on you slowly without you noticing but god it was good.
I enjoyed smoking. It allowed me to slow down, to pause for thought, and moments of quiet reflection are not, on the whole, a bad thing. Just because I enjoyed a smoke at the same time was just my way of getting through the day. I often think the world would be a better place if people had a compulsory 10 minute break from whatever thay are doing every few hours.
I absolutely understand people who dislike smoking. I completely accept a smoking ban in pubs, restaurants offices etc. I find it perfectly understandable that my smoking might be distateful to other people. Smoking doesn't make sense and I know it, but it's a personal choice and I choose (chose?) to do it.
What are the plus points of not smoking? They are precious few and hard to find. I get no pleasure from people complimenting me on how well I have done in the last month as quitting has not made me feel any better in ANY WAY AT ALL. I don't really respond to the "Well done" type of motivation any more than people telling me I shouldn't smoke motivated me to want to stop in the first place. I find all that a little irritating which is rather ungrateful of me but that's how my mind works on some things. I like to reach decisions on my own terms and not because of what other people expect of me.
Healthwise, for the most part I feel exactly the same except for one thing - I have gained 10kg in the last six weeks and I now look like Jabba The Hut. That's actually quite an achievement I suppose but not something I want to repeat over the next six weeks. I get no satisfaction from having stopped because I know having a cigarette would make me feel so good RIGHT NOW. Yes, RIGHT NOW.
I am getting nothing done at work. Either I have a compassionate employer who notices I'm somewhat off the pace recently and is giving me the benefit of the doubt...or I never did anything of use there and my whole career so far has been a sham. Which is worse? I really don't know.
So that's why I've been quiet. I'll try and get back into this but when you can't keep your mind on the same thing for more than a minute it's bloody difficult.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
In Touch With My Feminine Side...
A recent post at Really Quite Useful led me to urlai.com which is a website which will analyse your blog and tell you the age and gender it believes the blogger to be and a general analysis of the blog...
"kingofscurf.blogspot.com is probably written by a female somewhere between 26-35 years old. The writing style is personal and happy most of the time."
"kingofscurf.blogspot.com is probably written by a female somewhere between 26-35 years old. The writing style is personal and happy most of the time."
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Malaysian Food in London
And I can't go...dammit...love dat Malaysian food...
http://blog.city-eating.com/2010/08/trafalgar-square-to-host-malaysian-night-market.html
http://blog.city-eating.com/2010/08/trafalgar-square-to-host-malaysian-night-market.html
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
French Films
I'd heard a few informal recommendations for a film. It's a French film and I'm a sucker for French films. I don't know who said it but it's a great quote "Hollywood makes movies, but only the French make films." I like to flatter myself I can speak a bit of French and it's fun to watch great films and also to congratulate myself occasionally when I can match the subtitles to the dialogue.
What these informal recommendations failed to point out to me was the one major thing in a film that would be likely to stop me watching it. The entire film is sung. Every. Single. Word.
So I settled down to watch it last night and pretty quickly realised I was in musical territory. But the singing didn't stop although it's not a musical in the normal sense of the word. But they just kept on singing. Every. Single. Word. I stuck with it.
And you know what? I loved it. I've never watched such a vibrantly coloured film. Every single shot seems to be immaculately constructed to stimulate the eye. Even the mundane is made to look gorgeous. It's minimal yet so rich. The dialogue is sparse but leaves you wanting so much more and imagining so much more. The plot is simple and perhaps even implausible but that doesn't matter.
Everyone is beautiful, particularly the women who are all exquisite beyond description. Catherine Deneuve is always beautiful but I'd never even heard of Ellen Farner and she seems to have disappeared without trace. How can somebody not have a Wikipedia page?
And it's got a stunning Michel Legrand (Windmills of Your Mind) soundtrack that just works on every level with the film.
The film? It's called The Umbrellas of Cherbourg / Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. The clip below is the closing scene. How can a simple petrol station be beautiful? I'll just say the two people in the second half of the clip (2 mins. to end) are, even by saying very little of any substance, perhaps regretting a greater relationship that circumstances dictated they were never to have. Watch it full screen. It's a feast for the eyes.
What these informal recommendations failed to point out to me was the one major thing in a film that would be likely to stop me watching it. The entire film is sung. Every. Single. Word.
So I settled down to watch it last night and pretty quickly realised I was in musical territory. But the singing didn't stop although it's not a musical in the normal sense of the word. But they just kept on singing. Every. Single. Word. I stuck with it.
And you know what? I loved it. I've never watched such a vibrantly coloured film. Every single shot seems to be immaculately constructed to stimulate the eye. Even the mundane is made to look gorgeous. It's minimal yet so rich. The dialogue is sparse but leaves you wanting so much more and imagining so much more. The plot is simple and perhaps even implausible but that doesn't matter.
Everyone is beautiful, particularly the women who are all exquisite beyond description. Catherine Deneuve is always beautiful but I'd never even heard of Ellen Farner and she seems to have disappeared without trace. How can somebody not have a Wikipedia page?
And it's got a stunning Michel Legrand (Windmills of Your Mind) soundtrack that just works on every level with the film.
The film? It's called The Umbrellas of Cherbourg / Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. The clip below is the closing scene. How can a simple petrol station be beautiful? I'll just say the two people in the second half of the clip (2 mins. to end) are, even by saying very little of any substance, perhaps regretting a greater relationship that circumstances dictated they were never to have. Watch it full screen. It's a feast for the eyes.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
What Woman Could Resist...?
Mmmmm take my hand
Come with me baby to Love Land
Let me show you how sweet it could be
Sharing love with me
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Living in London
I had to return a rental car to Central London at 10am on Sunday morning. I don't often find myself in Central London on a Sunday morning at this time of day and it seemed foolish just to go home so I thought I'd make the most of it and go for a bit of a walk.
You may think it's unusual that I live in London and say that I don't often find myself in this position but this is the reality for most Londoners. They tend to go into the centre for work and maybe go out once or twice in the evening after work but tend to avoid the place at weekends, and especially in the Summer.
The main reason for this is London is full of tourists at the weekend so the actual residents tend to stay at home or are content to go somewhere closer to home to find their fun. It's not that we dislike tourists but there is the distinct feeling that, when thrown into this collective polyglot maelstrom you rapidly become part of it and end up feeling, rather uncomfortably, like a visitor in your own house which has been strangely taken over by foreigners.
It's funny that most Londoners, when they have vistors from abroad or from out of town, are at a loss with what to do with them. Vistors arrive, goggle-eyed and anxious to see the sights but their hosts can think of nothing more uninvigorating than visiting tourist attractions in their own city.
It's a constant source of amazement to Londoners why anyone would want to visit Madame Tussauds or the Tower of London. Sure we'll take you on The London Eye and take you to our favourite pub and maybe even a visit to the theatre but likely as not, we'll send you out of the house in the morning with a tube map and a prepaid Oyster Card and tell you to go off and find your own entertainment and be home in time for tea.
This, I admit, is a poor state of affairs. We live in one of the world's greatest cities yet feel like strangers there at the weekend.
What did I end up doing on Sunday morning? Well, I walked along Oxford Street - the shops were closed at that time on a Sunday morning. I wandered down a few side streets I was unfamiliar with - London is big and there are plenty of these. I then went down Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus, then into Leicester Square which was already crowded and then down towards Trafalgar Square where I dived into the National Portrait Gallery which I have never visited in all the time I've lived here.
The National Portrait Gallery is crammed with about 500 years worth of mostly paintings and a few photographs of variously, royalty, aristocracy, military heroes and assorted other great and good characters who have made contributions to the nation. Explorers, scientists, writers etc. You get the idea. Whilst the various realisations were interesting enough and I learnt a great deal reading the condensed history of each picture I have to report that this nation is founded on a spectacularly unattractive gene pool. The men looked invariably portly, humourless and brutish and the few women portrayed were variously bug-eyed, doe-eyed or cross-eyed. I actually find cross-eyed women incredibly attractive but I'm prepared to admit I may be unique in this particular peccadillo.
I spent a good two hours in there and despite the slightly negative sounding above paragraph I rather enjoyed it. I actually behaved like a tourist, enjoyed the paintings (not so much the 20th century stuff) and believe I blended in quite nicely with all the other visitors, none of whom were from London. I then went walking again - Trafalgar Square, The Strand, Covent Garden, Charing Cross Road before hopping on a bus to go home as I was getting hungry.
I wonder if this feeling of mild alienation in your own city is common to urban dwellers all over the world or is it unique to London. I'd be interested to know. Whatever happens, next time I have visitors I promise to make more of an effort.
You may think it's unusual that I live in London and say that I don't often find myself in this position but this is the reality for most Londoners. They tend to go into the centre for work and maybe go out once or twice in the evening after work but tend to avoid the place at weekends, and especially in the Summer.
The main reason for this is London is full of tourists at the weekend so the actual residents tend to stay at home or are content to go somewhere closer to home to find their fun. It's not that we dislike tourists but there is the distinct feeling that, when thrown into this collective polyglot maelstrom you rapidly become part of it and end up feeling, rather uncomfortably, like a visitor in your own house which has been strangely taken over by foreigners.
It's funny that most Londoners, when they have vistors from abroad or from out of town, are at a loss with what to do with them. Vistors arrive, goggle-eyed and anxious to see the sights but their hosts can think of nothing more uninvigorating than visiting tourist attractions in their own city.
It's a constant source of amazement to Londoners why anyone would want to visit Madame Tussauds or the Tower of London. Sure we'll take you on The London Eye and take you to our favourite pub and maybe even a visit to the theatre but likely as not, we'll send you out of the house in the morning with a tube map and a prepaid Oyster Card and tell you to go off and find your own entertainment and be home in time for tea.
This, I admit, is a poor state of affairs. We live in one of the world's greatest cities yet feel like strangers there at the weekend.
What did I end up doing on Sunday morning? Well, I walked along Oxford Street - the shops were closed at that time on a Sunday morning. I wandered down a few side streets I was unfamiliar with - London is big and there are plenty of these. I then went down Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus, then into Leicester Square which was already crowded and then down towards Trafalgar Square where I dived into the National Portrait Gallery which I have never visited in all the time I've lived here.
The National Portrait Gallery is crammed with about 500 years worth of mostly paintings and a few photographs of variously, royalty, aristocracy, military heroes and assorted other great and good characters who have made contributions to the nation. Explorers, scientists, writers etc. You get the idea. Whilst the various realisations were interesting enough and I learnt a great deal reading the condensed history of each picture I have to report that this nation is founded on a spectacularly unattractive gene pool. The men looked invariably portly, humourless and brutish and the few women portrayed were variously bug-eyed, doe-eyed or cross-eyed. I actually find cross-eyed women incredibly attractive but I'm prepared to admit I may be unique in this particular peccadillo.
I spent a good two hours in there and despite the slightly negative sounding above paragraph I rather enjoyed it. I actually behaved like a tourist, enjoyed the paintings (not so much the 20th century stuff) and believe I blended in quite nicely with all the other visitors, none of whom were from London. I then went walking again - Trafalgar Square, The Strand, Covent Garden, Charing Cross Road before hopping on a bus to go home as I was getting hungry.
I wonder if this feeling of mild alienation in your own city is common to urban dwellers all over the world or is it unique to London. I'd be interested to know. Whatever happens, next time I have visitors I promise to make more of an effort.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Holidays
I'm braw scunnered wi' London so I'm awa' tae Scotland fir th' next ten days.
Fare thee well. Back soon.
Fare thee well. Back soon.
Monday, June 07, 2010
Fantastic Service
I'm impressed.
My wonderful dentist (I must blog one day about her wonderfulness sometime) recently referred me to a hospital specialist to investigate a tiny lesion in my mouth that would not go away. The hospital consultant duly inspected it, pronounced it a minor and treatable condition and said she would send me a letter in a few days time with a fuller diagnosis pending a few tests they had to run. The comprehensive and well written diagnosis duly arrived a few days later explaining I needed a prescription which I would have to collect from my GP (family doctor).
I dropped off the letter at the GP's surgery a few days ago and duly collected the prescription this afternoon and took it to my local pharmacy which is actually a major chain store with a branch in every town in the country. They told me they did not have the medicine in stock but they'd order it and I could collect it a few days later.
The pharmacy just 'phoned me (I didn't even know they had my number) to say the product I needed was no longer available. My mind raced ahead at this point and I thought to myself I'd probably have to go back to the pharmacy, collect the unfilled prescription, then take it back to the doctor, I'd probably have to make an appointment, the doctor would then have to sort out another prescription and then I'd have to go back to the pharmacy to have the new prescription filled. Tiresome but you kind of expect this sort of thing.
Not so. The nice lady pharmacist said she had already 'phoned my doctor and they had agreed an alternative treatment. The pharmacist would personally go to my doctor tomorrow, collect the new prescription on my behalf and I would just need to go back to the pharmacy any time after midday tomorrow to collect the treatment.
Isn't this a fantastic level of service and all for the state-regulated cost of my prescription of £7.20 (about $10 US)?
It has restored my faith in our much-maligned state-run health system and also given me a nice feeling about the good people at Boots as well.
My wonderful dentist (I must blog one day about her wonderfulness sometime) recently referred me to a hospital specialist to investigate a tiny lesion in my mouth that would not go away. The hospital consultant duly inspected it, pronounced it a minor and treatable condition and said she would send me a letter in a few days time with a fuller diagnosis pending a few tests they had to run. The comprehensive and well written diagnosis duly arrived a few days later explaining I needed a prescription which I would have to collect from my GP (family doctor).
I dropped off the letter at the GP's surgery a few days ago and duly collected the prescription this afternoon and took it to my local pharmacy which is actually a major chain store with a branch in every town in the country. They told me they did not have the medicine in stock but they'd order it and I could collect it a few days later.
The pharmacy just 'phoned me (I didn't even know they had my number) to say the product I needed was no longer available. My mind raced ahead at this point and I thought to myself I'd probably have to go back to the pharmacy, collect the unfilled prescription, then take it back to the doctor, I'd probably have to make an appointment, the doctor would then have to sort out another prescription and then I'd have to go back to the pharmacy to have the new prescription filled. Tiresome but you kind of expect this sort of thing.
Not so. The nice lady pharmacist said she had already 'phoned my doctor and they had agreed an alternative treatment. The pharmacist would personally go to my doctor tomorrow, collect the new prescription on my behalf and I would just need to go back to the pharmacy any time after midday tomorrow to collect the treatment.
Isn't this a fantastic level of service and all for the state-regulated cost of my prescription of £7.20 (about $10 US)?
It has restored my faith in our much-maligned state-run health system and also given me a nice feeling about the good people at Boots as well.
Sunday, June 06, 2010
South Africa 2010
Well, we're one week away from the mildly interesting but on the whole, mostly risible spectacle that is the football World Cup. There will be some good, possibly wonderful football - I really hope so. There will certainly also be a lot of average or poor football as well. I'm mostly indifferent to the game but can appreciate the skill and pleasure it can bring. However off the pitch - and very often on - the situation is becoming faintly ridiculous and often rather unpleasant.
Teams rarely lose gracefully. Very few coaches will state in the post-match interview that they were beaten by a better opposition. They will usually complain that the referee made a bad decision or that an opposing player cheated to score a crucial goal. Being a bad loser is rarely considered unsporting. It is expected.
It's a cliche that football can bring out the best in people. A little bit of patriotism is good but this can easily descend into jingoism, xenophobia and simmering, ill-informed resentment.
England have a few teams we traditionally consider our greatest rivals. The French are traditionally disliked, often for no other reason I can fathom other than they are French. We consider we saved them in two World Wars (singlehandedly you might believe if you read some of the rhetoric written in the popular press) and some people seem to expect them to therefore simply roll over and let us win. Some will claim a lack of fighting spirit is an inherently flawed trait of the French national character. This is in direct contradiction to the fact that France is the number one holiday destination for the English and for the three years and eleven months out of every four years that do not involve a World Cup we secretly admire the French for their nonchalance, indifference to authority and spectacularly good food and wine.
We consider Germany our greatest rival. Germans are invariably portrayed as unemotional automatons who play the game with ruthless efficiency. We consider that having beaten them in two World Wars (singlehandedly again) that it is our right to beat them at football. Interestingly, Germany are indifferent to matches against the English and usually somewhat surprised by the degree of emotion the English invest in a fixture against them. Their true rivals are the Dutch.
Argentina are particularly disliked. A war with Argentina (are you noticing a theme here?) in 1982 in which we drove a mostly poorly-equipped and demoralised conscript army out of The Falkland Islands means we now consider the Argentinian people and players mere pawns, manipulated by an inherently corrupt state. They are not and we are the fools for ever imagining this to be true. We played Argentina in 1986 and as a nation, we still resent a goal scored by one of their players in which he illegally manhandled the ball into our goal. This goal is replayed on television whenever Argentina is mentioned even if the subject is not football as if we want to imply that foul play is endemic in the Argentinian psyche. If one of our players had done the same thing to Argentina he would have been feted as a national hero. We lost again to Argentina in 1998. David Beckham was personally blamed for the defeat when he was sent off for retaliating against a foul on him. It was a harsh sending off resulting in some particularly nasty behaviour directed at the referee, the Argentinians and also Beckham whose effigy was hanged in public. To his credit, Beckham came back the following season and went on to become a hero for club and country and for that he should be admired. He could easily have just walked away but he was determined to prove he was a stronger man than many would wish to portray him.
Invaribly, because the press whip up an emotional and sometimes worryingly jingoistic fury, whenever we meet any of the above teams we lose against them. Anger and barely concealed hatred get the better of everybody and whilst passion and emotion are important in football, an excess of these usually produces poor football and the wrong result. We lose significant matches because of the ridiculous national pride we invest in them and rarely win them because we believe we can play better football.
By far the most ridiculous and contrived spectacle you will see in this World Cup is the sight of grown men weeping at the outcome of a fixture. If a team is defeated having reached a significant stage (usually any match beyond half way through the competition) their players will be expected to weep openly on the pitch after the final whistle blows. The supporters expect this or they will consider the players did not care enough about the outcome. The players oblige because fundamentally they are performers, it is expected of them, and they know a few crocodile tears now will enhance their reputation on their return.
The cameras will also scour the terraces for evidences of weeping supporters. Ever since the death of Diana, melodramatic and over-emotional displays of collective grief have become commonplace. Since genuinely distressing events are thankfully rare, major football matches are now used as a barometer of the national mood. Invariably politicians get involved as well.
This time the English team has an Italian coach. He seems a mostly unflappable, enormously sensible and pragmatic individual. His monosyllabic post-match pronouncements are beautifully concise, mostly due to his poor English vocabularly. This is refreshing in a game that is ridiculoulsy over-analysed. I hope, despite his limited lexicon, that he motivates the team to believe they're playing a game of football and not out there to prove anything other than that. This has been the downfall of previous English born coaches who believed football to be a metaphor for national pride and not just about simple, good, honest sporting endeavour.
I hope England do well in the World Cup. I hope we win. But it's only 22 men running around on a field playing a game. Nothing more, nothing less. It's about time a few people realised that.
Cricket is far more important.
Teams rarely lose gracefully. Very few coaches will state in the post-match interview that they were beaten by a better opposition. They will usually complain that the referee made a bad decision or that an opposing player cheated to score a crucial goal. Being a bad loser is rarely considered unsporting. It is expected.
It's a cliche that football can bring out the best in people. A little bit of patriotism is good but this can easily descend into jingoism, xenophobia and simmering, ill-informed resentment.
England have a few teams we traditionally consider our greatest rivals. The French are traditionally disliked, often for no other reason I can fathom other than they are French. We consider we saved them in two World Wars (singlehandedly you might believe if you read some of the rhetoric written in the popular press) and some people seem to expect them to therefore simply roll over and let us win. Some will claim a lack of fighting spirit is an inherently flawed trait of the French national character. This is in direct contradiction to the fact that France is the number one holiday destination for the English and for the three years and eleven months out of every four years that do not involve a World Cup we secretly admire the French for their nonchalance, indifference to authority and spectacularly good food and wine.
We consider Germany our greatest rival. Germans are invariably portrayed as unemotional automatons who play the game with ruthless efficiency. We consider that having beaten them in two World Wars (singlehandedly again) that it is our right to beat them at football. Interestingly, Germany are indifferent to matches against the English and usually somewhat surprised by the degree of emotion the English invest in a fixture against them. Their true rivals are the Dutch.
Argentina are particularly disliked. A war with Argentina (are you noticing a theme here?) in 1982 in which we drove a mostly poorly-equipped and demoralised conscript army out of The Falkland Islands means we now consider the Argentinian people and players mere pawns, manipulated by an inherently corrupt state. They are not and we are the fools for ever imagining this to be true. We played Argentina in 1986 and as a nation, we still resent a goal scored by one of their players in which he illegally manhandled the ball into our goal. This goal is replayed on television whenever Argentina is mentioned even if the subject is not football as if we want to imply that foul play is endemic in the Argentinian psyche. If one of our players had done the same thing to Argentina he would have been feted as a national hero. We lost again to Argentina in 1998. David Beckham was personally blamed for the defeat when he was sent off for retaliating against a foul on him. It was a harsh sending off resulting in some particularly nasty behaviour directed at the referee, the Argentinians and also Beckham whose effigy was hanged in public. To his credit, Beckham came back the following season and went on to become a hero for club and country and for that he should be admired. He could easily have just walked away but he was determined to prove he was a stronger man than many would wish to portray him.
Invaribly, because the press whip up an emotional and sometimes worryingly jingoistic fury, whenever we meet any of the above teams we lose against them. Anger and barely concealed hatred get the better of everybody and whilst passion and emotion are important in football, an excess of these usually produces poor football and the wrong result. We lose significant matches because of the ridiculous national pride we invest in them and rarely win them because we believe we can play better football.
By far the most ridiculous and contrived spectacle you will see in this World Cup is the sight of grown men weeping at the outcome of a fixture. If a team is defeated having reached a significant stage (usually any match beyond half way through the competition) their players will be expected to weep openly on the pitch after the final whistle blows. The supporters expect this or they will consider the players did not care enough about the outcome. The players oblige because fundamentally they are performers, it is expected of them, and they know a few crocodile tears now will enhance their reputation on their return.
The cameras will also scour the terraces for evidences of weeping supporters. Ever since the death of Diana, melodramatic and over-emotional displays of collective grief have become commonplace. Since genuinely distressing events are thankfully rare, major football matches are now used as a barometer of the national mood. Invariably politicians get involved as well.
This time the English team has an Italian coach. He seems a mostly unflappable, enormously sensible and pragmatic individual. His monosyllabic post-match pronouncements are beautifully concise, mostly due to his poor English vocabularly. This is refreshing in a game that is ridiculoulsy over-analysed. I hope, despite his limited lexicon, that he motivates the team to believe they're playing a game of football and not out there to prove anything other than that. This has been the downfall of previous English born coaches who believed football to be a metaphor for national pride and not just about simple, good, honest sporting endeavour.
I hope England do well in the World Cup. I hope we win. But it's only 22 men running around on a field playing a game. Nothing more, nothing less. It's about time a few people realised that.
Cricket is far more important.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Body Perspectives
"Ever wondered why a man can look at an advert featuring a six-pack and laugh, while a woman might look at a photograph of female perfection and fall to pieces?" A mildly interesting opening line to an intriguing article about the different perspective men and women have on body images.
The basic premise is that women are constantly bombarded with pictures and magazine articles telling them how they can have the perfect body. This makes them vulnerable and insecure because they know they will probably never attain that body. It's not enough that their partner may love them them just way they are. In fact, being told "I love you just the way you are" whilst intended as a compliment from the man could easily be taken as an insult by the woman.
A man is in a more fortunate position knowing that although he may never look like Brad Pitt, his body is merely a machine. If he gets fat and out of shape then that can be fixed by exercise and that's as good as it'll get. He'll still not look like Brad Pitt but he's looking as good as he'll ever look. There's no pressure to achieve the unattainable.
It's a sad state of affairs and although I was aware of the above contradiction I'd never really thought about. Perhaps we haven't really moved on that much in the last thirty years. Society still places unreasonable expectations on women - probably even more now than ever, and men still get the easy ride.
It's rather more depressing to read some of the misogynistic views in the Comments section suggesting that women who are susceptible to this are shallow or stupid or lazy.
Read the whole article here but I don't suggest you bother with the 200+ comments - the ones I read didn't really add much value.
The basic premise is that women are constantly bombarded with pictures and magazine articles telling them how they can have the perfect body. This makes them vulnerable and insecure because they know they will probably never attain that body. It's not enough that their partner may love them them just way they are. In fact, being told "I love you just the way you are" whilst intended as a compliment from the man could easily be taken as an insult by the woman.
A man is in a more fortunate position knowing that although he may never look like Brad Pitt, his body is merely a machine. If he gets fat and out of shape then that can be fixed by exercise and that's as good as it'll get. He'll still not look like Brad Pitt but he's looking as good as he'll ever look. There's no pressure to achieve the unattainable.
It's a sad state of affairs and although I was aware of the above contradiction I'd never really thought about. Perhaps we haven't really moved on that much in the last thirty years. Society still places unreasonable expectations on women - probably even more now than ever, and men still get the easy ride.
It's rather more depressing to read some of the misogynistic views in the Comments section suggesting that women who are susceptible to this are shallow or stupid or lazy.
Read the whole article here but I don't suggest you bother with the 200+ comments - the ones I read didn't really add much value.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Election Retrospective Blogpost Part Three (The Last One)
"No overall majority" is the correct definition of the outcome I believe. A hung parliament had been discussed in the run up to election day and now we had one. Despite it being on the cards, the political commentators and pundits seemed ill-prepared for this and there were numerous people expressing varying opinions about what would happen next.
"Constitutional Experts" were consulted. This is kind of ironic because we don't actually have a constitution. We have a series of agreements, rules and statutes that are referred to at times like this and are often officially described as the "unwritten" constitution.
Some said the Conservatives had won the most seats and were the defacto winners and Cameron had to be the next prime minister. Others said another election would be required as a minority government cannot function effectively. Others said Gordon Brown had to walk the plank immediately as his position was untenable.
The actuality that was finally agreed was that Gordon Brown had to remain as prime minister and Labour remain as the goverment as nobody else was in a position to take the job and somebody had to stay and do it until a solution was found. This irked many people who were hoping to see Gordon Brown unceremoniously frogmarched out of 10 Downing Street as soon as possible despite it being correct that he should for the moment stay. They vociferously shouted that he was hanging on by his fingernails and was in denial by refusing to accept that winning less seats than another party actually constituted a defeat.
Cameron and the Conservatives, as the party with most seats would have the first shot at forming a government. This could take one of two forms. They either had to create a formal coalition with one or more other parties that would give them a majority of seats or they had to gain at least a formal agreement (officially called "confidence and supply") from one or other parties that they would support the Conservatives in votes in the House of Commons. This would allow them to operate an effective majority. If neither form of agreement could be gained then they could not form a goverment because all the other parties could (and probably would) always vote against them meaning they were a lame duck and a goverment, only in name. If no coalition or agreement could be made then The Labour Party, having gained the second highest number of seats, would try to make a similar arrangement that gave them a majority.
A coalition formed with The Labour Party taking the lead seemed to confuse a lot of people (myself included). How could a party that had not gained the most number of seats get together with other losing parties and be allowed to form a government? This rapidly became known in the media as the "coalition of the losers". However strange it seemed to people, this would be a legitimate government.
Simply by historical reputation alone the Conservatives are on their own in parliament. Almost all other parties of any size feel ideologically opposed to them. They are not natural coalition partners to anyone. The mathematically obvious arrangement they could make would be with the Liberal Democrats who although they had had a bad election had sufficients seats to give the Conservatives what they wanted. The Liberal Democrats however were formed by a merger of The Liberal Party and The Social Democrat Party. The Social Democrats were formed in the 80s by a splinter group of disilliusioned Labour politicians. Not natural bedfellows to the Conservatives at all. If the Liberal Democrats were to align with any other party it would ideologically be with The Labour Party.
Whilst the above is true, the reality is that our major political parties are much more closely clustered around the centre of the political spectrum than ever before. The Labour Party throughout Thatcher's period in office had made themselves unelectable through a combination of infighting and ill-conceived policies. Throughout Tony Blair's period in office the Conservatives had done pretty much the same thing and both parties, having realised this, had subsequently moved towards the centre ground. The centre ground was always held by the Liberal Democrats who I might uncharitably suggest gained a lot of their votes by just not being Conservative or Labour.
The weekend following the election saw a period of intense discussions and political dealings. These were centered around the initially unlikely possibility of some sort of arrangement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Many people believed that even if the Liberal Democrat leadership could thrash out a deal with the Conservatives, their membership would find any sort of arrangement with them unacceptable.
The Liberal Democrats were also furtively but legitimately double-dealing with Labour and seeing what their options were if a deal could be made there. One of the Liberal Democrats non-negotiable conditions of any sort of arrangement with Labour was that it must not involve Gordon Brown as leader and ongoing prime minister. He was therefore required to announce his resignation as leader of the Labour Party in order to allow discussions to progress. The problem with making a deal with Labour was that the sums still did not add up. Even if they had an agreement they still would not have a majority unless they could could also gain the support of all the minor parties as well. The minor parties comprised of Scottish Nationalists, Welsh Nationalist and the parties representing Northern Ireland. You may be interested to know that there are a group of MPs representing some Northern Ireland constituencies who refuse to attend the House of Commons as their political objective is to unite with the Republic of Ireland. They therefore refuse to pledge allegiance to the Queeen and because of this, cannot take their seats in parliament. Even if they could have been lured into a coalition, their support could not be relied upon as they have never been seen in parliament. Getting this incredibly broad coalition to agree on anything would be almost impossible, and politically, probably highly unstable.
The outcome of the above wranglings was a full-on Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government. On initial assessment, The Liberal Democrats seem to have been the winners. They gained a poor third place in the election yet appear to have gained considerable political influence in the new government. It is also however speculated that if the coalition fails The Liberal Democrats will have the most to lose as people will believe they made the deal only to gain power and in the process abandoned their political integrity. It is thought that a small but influential hard core of both Conservative and Liberal Democrats parties are deeply uncomfortable with the coalition and may actively seek to undermine and destabilise it. The phrase "won't last till Christmas" is freqently bandied around.
It's often been said that the coalition we have is the worst possible outcome because nobody voted for this sort of compromise government. It's true to say that nobody voted for a coalition because coalitions do not appear on the ballot paper but I personally believe that, as with most of our elections, relatively few people vote for a party because they believe unconditionally with everything that party says. They generally vote for the party with the most number of policies that they agree with, or for the party that has the least number of policies that they disagree with. Politicians hate to think any vote for them is anything less than a ringing endorsement of everything they believe in but you only have look at potential voters interviewed on TV to realise that very few are blindly affiliated to one party alone. Many people vote for the party that they least object to or they vote for a party simly because it is not one of the other major parties. If all the people who voted believed passionately in the party that they voted for then party membership would be considerably higher than it is. Only a small minority of the population is actually a paying member of any political party. In that respect, I think many people find some sort of coalition acceptable as long as it acts in the country's best interest which is really all that you ask from a government in the first place.
My normal, intermittent, and non-political blogging will return shortly. Thank you for listening.
"Constitutional Experts" were consulted. This is kind of ironic because we don't actually have a constitution. We have a series of agreements, rules and statutes that are referred to at times like this and are often officially described as the "unwritten" constitution.
Some said the Conservatives had won the most seats and were the defacto winners and Cameron had to be the next prime minister. Others said another election would be required as a minority government cannot function effectively. Others said Gordon Brown had to walk the plank immediately as his position was untenable.
The actuality that was finally agreed was that Gordon Brown had to remain as prime minister and Labour remain as the goverment as nobody else was in a position to take the job and somebody had to stay and do it until a solution was found. This irked many people who were hoping to see Gordon Brown unceremoniously frogmarched out of 10 Downing Street as soon as possible despite it being correct that he should for the moment stay. They vociferously shouted that he was hanging on by his fingernails and was in denial by refusing to accept that winning less seats than another party actually constituted a defeat.
Cameron and the Conservatives, as the party with most seats would have the first shot at forming a government. This could take one of two forms. They either had to create a formal coalition with one or more other parties that would give them a majority of seats or they had to gain at least a formal agreement (officially called "confidence and supply") from one or other parties that they would support the Conservatives in votes in the House of Commons. This would allow them to operate an effective majority. If neither form of agreement could be gained then they could not form a goverment because all the other parties could (and probably would) always vote against them meaning they were a lame duck and a goverment, only in name. If no coalition or agreement could be made then The Labour Party, having gained the second highest number of seats, would try to make a similar arrangement that gave them a majority.
A coalition formed with The Labour Party taking the lead seemed to confuse a lot of people (myself included). How could a party that had not gained the most number of seats get together with other losing parties and be allowed to form a government? This rapidly became known in the media as the "coalition of the losers". However strange it seemed to people, this would be a legitimate government.
Simply by historical reputation alone the Conservatives are on their own in parliament. Almost all other parties of any size feel ideologically opposed to them. They are not natural coalition partners to anyone. The mathematically obvious arrangement they could make would be with the Liberal Democrats who although they had had a bad election had sufficients seats to give the Conservatives what they wanted. The Liberal Democrats however were formed by a merger of The Liberal Party and The Social Democrat Party. The Social Democrats were formed in the 80s by a splinter group of disilliusioned Labour politicians. Not natural bedfellows to the Conservatives at all. If the Liberal Democrats were to align with any other party it would ideologically be with The Labour Party.
Whilst the above is true, the reality is that our major political parties are much more closely clustered around the centre of the political spectrum than ever before. The Labour Party throughout Thatcher's period in office had made themselves unelectable through a combination of infighting and ill-conceived policies. Throughout Tony Blair's period in office the Conservatives had done pretty much the same thing and both parties, having realised this, had subsequently moved towards the centre ground. The centre ground was always held by the Liberal Democrats who I might uncharitably suggest gained a lot of their votes by just not being Conservative or Labour.
The weekend following the election saw a period of intense discussions and political dealings. These were centered around the initially unlikely possibility of some sort of arrangement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Many people believed that even if the Liberal Democrat leadership could thrash out a deal with the Conservatives, their membership would find any sort of arrangement with them unacceptable.
The Liberal Democrats were also furtively but legitimately double-dealing with Labour and seeing what their options were if a deal could be made there. One of the Liberal Democrats non-negotiable conditions of any sort of arrangement with Labour was that it must not involve Gordon Brown as leader and ongoing prime minister. He was therefore required to announce his resignation as leader of the Labour Party in order to allow discussions to progress. The problem with making a deal with Labour was that the sums still did not add up. Even if they had an agreement they still would not have a majority unless they could could also gain the support of all the minor parties as well. The minor parties comprised of Scottish Nationalists, Welsh Nationalist and the parties representing Northern Ireland. You may be interested to know that there are a group of MPs representing some Northern Ireland constituencies who refuse to attend the House of Commons as their political objective is to unite with the Republic of Ireland. They therefore refuse to pledge allegiance to the Queeen and because of this, cannot take their seats in parliament. Even if they could have been lured into a coalition, their support could not be relied upon as they have never been seen in parliament. Getting this incredibly broad coalition to agree on anything would be almost impossible, and politically, probably highly unstable.
The outcome of the above wranglings was a full-on Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government. On initial assessment, The Liberal Democrats seem to have been the winners. They gained a poor third place in the election yet appear to have gained considerable political influence in the new government. It is also however speculated that if the coalition fails The Liberal Democrats will have the most to lose as people will believe they made the deal only to gain power and in the process abandoned their political integrity. It is thought that a small but influential hard core of both Conservative and Liberal Democrats parties are deeply uncomfortable with the coalition and may actively seek to undermine and destabilise it. The phrase "won't last till Christmas" is freqently bandied around.
It's often been said that the coalition we have is the worst possible outcome because nobody voted for this sort of compromise government. It's true to say that nobody voted for a coalition because coalitions do not appear on the ballot paper but I personally believe that, as with most of our elections, relatively few people vote for a party because they believe unconditionally with everything that party says. They generally vote for the party with the most number of policies that they agree with, or for the party that has the least number of policies that they disagree with. Politicians hate to think any vote for them is anything less than a ringing endorsement of everything they believe in but you only have look at potential voters interviewed on TV to realise that very few are blindly affiliated to one party alone. Many people vote for the party that they least object to or they vote for a party simly because it is not one of the other major parties. If all the people who voted believed passionately in the party that they voted for then party membership would be considerably higher than it is. Only a small minority of the population is actually a paying member of any political party. In that respect, I think many people find some sort of coalition acceptable as long as it acts in the country's best interest which is really all that you ask from a government in the first place.
My normal, intermittent, and non-political blogging will return shortly. Thank you for listening.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Election Retrospective Blogpost Part Two
Come election day the pollsters were predicting a hung parliament. Well hung. This will require some explanation - stop sniggering at the back.
A General Election elects the Members of Parliament (MPs) for the House of Commons based in Westminster, London. The election is held across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland which make up the United Kingdom. The House of Commons has approximately 650 MPs each one representing a constituency - a particular area of the UK. The winner of the most votes in each constituency wins a "seat" in the House of Commons.
There is a second unelected house called the House of Lords. Historically the House of Lords was supposed to be made up of made up of individuals who although unelected were expected to be sufficiently wise as to always operate in the country's best interest and act as a counterweight against the possible excesses of a rogue House of Commons. This has always been a controversial state of affairs and House of Lords reform is always a subject under discussion. Currently the House of Lords contains a mix of individuals nominated by the major political parties via the prime minister and the monarch( life peers), twenty six senior bishops (the Lords Spiritual) and a small number of hereditary peers (family connections). Yes, you heard me right, God has a say in our political process and also if an ancient ancestor of yours went into battle for the monarch and pleased him/her that may well entitle you through birthright to have a say in running the country. Controversial in a modern democracy I'm sure you would agree. Members of the House of Lords can be appointed to government posts and many are definitely politically aligned. Although life peers are chosen from across the political spectrum, as a whole The House of Lords is generally considered more inclined in favour of the Conservatives. But let's get back to the election.
In the UK we operate an electoral system called First Past the Post. This is actually a slightly misleading name but in the way of many things in the UK - we've always called it that so why change?
First Past the Post means the candidate with the most votes wins the seat. When the winner is declared, all votes for any of the losing candidates are effectively dead and lost. We don't do proportional representation (PR) which allows for the seats allocated in parliament to more closely represent the percentage of votes received nationally by each party. A system of PR has always been resisted by the Labour and Conservative parties as it has the potential to create a fractured parliament of minor parties. First Past the Post almost always creates an outright winner and this should make for a stable government. We don't want to end up like Italy which changes its government more often than the average Pom changes his grundies. The mathematicians amongst you will realise that under this system it is entirely possible that a political party could win a disproportionately higher percentage of seats relative to the percentage of votes they received as whole across the country. This happens. It also means that a smaller party who may gain perhaps five or ten percent of votes across the country wins no seats at all. The smaller parties consider this unfair and I can see their point. We have a long tradition of minor political parties and independent eccentrics trying their hand at getting elected. Even if they were to gain only 1% of votes across the country, PR would give them a small place in parliament but First Past the Post effectively shuts them all out.
At 10pm the polling stations closed and the exit poll was announced. The exit poll is the first indicator of how the election may pan out. On election day the media are only allowed to report on the barest of details concerning the events of the day. No politicians are interviewed and media speculation on the outcome is not permitted. A bit of a news blackout really which is a relief for the poor voter who's seen nothing but this for the previous month or so. The main news story reported on election day this year was actually about the leader of one of the minor political parties who was lucky not to get himself killed in a light aircraft accident - election day news reporting is rarely this exciting. The exit poll predicted a hung parliament.
To properly win an election a party must gain a majority. This does not simply mean they must win more seats than the second placed party. A majority means winning more seats than all other parties put together. First Past the Post makes this more probable than any system of PR. If a party wins more seats than anyone else but does not win a majority then this is a hung parliament and the shenanigans begin.
Come Friday morning we had a hung parliament. The Conservatives had won 306 seats, Labour 258, Liberal Democrats 57 and other parties gained 21. Politicians hate hung parliaments. Politics in the UK for the last 18 months or so have been dominated by two things. The failing economy and the way our MPs have claimed their expenses. As an electorate we had managed to upset almost all politicians in all parties. We had just reason to be proud of ourselves for delivering this ambiguous message to the political class who, because of the scandal over their expenses were viewed as little better than money-grubbing opportunists who seemed to think that charging for porn movies, garden landscaping, non-existent mortgages and state of the art plasma TVs were legitimate occupational expenses that should be financed for them by the taxpayer.
Trying to create a working government from this election outcome would mean the politicians would have to scrap it out like ferrets in a sack.
Final instalment later this week - if you want me to.
A General Election elects the Members of Parliament (MPs) for the House of Commons based in Westminster, London. The election is held across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland which make up the United Kingdom. The House of Commons has approximately 650 MPs each one representing a constituency - a particular area of the UK. The winner of the most votes in each constituency wins a "seat" in the House of Commons.
There is a second unelected house called the House of Lords. Historically the House of Lords was supposed to be made up of made up of individuals who although unelected were expected to be sufficiently wise as to always operate in the country's best interest and act as a counterweight against the possible excesses of a rogue House of Commons. This has always been a controversial state of affairs and House of Lords reform is always a subject under discussion. Currently the House of Lords contains a mix of individuals nominated by the major political parties via the prime minister and the monarch( life peers), twenty six senior bishops (the Lords Spiritual) and a small number of hereditary peers (family connections). Yes, you heard me right, God has a say in our political process and also if an ancient ancestor of yours went into battle for the monarch and pleased him/her that may well entitle you through birthright to have a say in running the country. Controversial in a modern democracy I'm sure you would agree. Members of the House of Lords can be appointed to government posts and many are definitely politically aligned. Although life peers are chosen from across the political spectrum, as a whole The House of Lords is generally considered more inclined in favour of the Conservatives. But let's get back to the election.
In the UK we operate an electoral system called First Past the Post. This is actually a slightly misleading name but in the way of many things in the UK - we've always called it that so why change?
First Past the Post means the candidate with the most votes wins the seat. When the winner is declared, all votes for any of the losing candidates are effectively dead and lost. We don't do proportional representation (PR) which allows for the seats allocated in parliament to more closely represent the percentage of votes received nationally by each party. A system of PR has always been resisted by the Labour and Conservative parties as it has the potential to create a fractured parliament of minor parties. First Past the Post almost always creates an outright winner and this should make for a stable government. We don't want to end up like Italy which changes its government more often than the average Pom changes his grundies. The mathematicians amongst you will realise that under this system it is entirely possible that a political party could win a disproportionately higher percentage of seats relative to the percentage of votes they received as whole across the country. This happens. It also means that a smaller party who may gain perhaps five or ten percent of votes across the country wins no seats at all. The smaller parties consider this unfair and I can see their point. We have a long tradition of minor political parties and independent eccentrics trying their hand at getting elected. Even if they were to gain only 1% of votes across the country, PR would give them a small place in parliament but First Past the Post effectively shuts them all out.
At 10pm the polling stations closed and the exit poll was announced. The exit poll is the first indicator of how the election may pan out. On election day the media are only allowed to report on the barest of details concerning the events of the day. No politicians are interviewed and media speculation on the outcome is not permitted. A bit of a news blackout really which is a relief for the poor voter who's seen nothing but this for the previous month or so. The main news story reported on election day this year was actually about the leader of one of the minor political parties who was lucky not to get himself killed in a light aircraft accident - election day news reporting is rarely this exciting. The exit poll predicted a hung parliament.
To properly win an election a party must gain a majority. This does not simply mean they must win more seats than the second placed party. A majority means winning more seats than all other parties put together. First Past the Post makes this more probable than any system of PR. If a party wins more seats than anyone else but does not win a majority then this is a hung parliament and the shenanigans begin.
Come Friday morning we had a hung parliament. The Conservatives had won 306 seats, Labour 258, Liberal Democrats 57 and other parties gained 21. Politicians hate hung parliaments. Politics in the UK for the last 18 months or so have been dominated by two things. The failing economy and the way our MPs have claimed their expenses. As an electorate we had managed to upset almost all politicians in all parties. We had just reason to be proud of ourselves for delivering this ambiguous message to the political class who, because of the scandal over their expenses were viewed as little better than money-grubbing opportunists who seemed to think that charging for porn movies, garden landscaping, non-existent mortgages and state of the art plasma TVs were legitimate occupational expenses that should be financed for them by the taxpayer.
Trying to create a working government from this election outcome would mean the politicians would have to scrap it out like ferrets in a sack.
Final instalment later this week - if you want me to.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Election Retrospective Blogpost Part One
I have a strange desire to relate an account of the recent General Election here in the UK. It seems to have piqued the interest of people around the world and unusually as voters, even we were quite interested in it this time.
For the first time in 13 years we've had a change of government. Prior to the 13 years of Labour we had 18 years of Conservative government. This actually says less about our ability to form stable long-term governments and more about the inability of non-governing parties to form an effective oppostion to an incumbent government. Invariably whilst out of power, opposition parties spent more time fighting within themselves rather than trying to form an effective alternative to the current ruling party.
This time the country was ripe for change. Gordon Brown coveted the job of prime minister all the time Tony Blair was in the role. When he was finally handed the job on a plate 3 years ago he proceeded, in the most part, to cock it up big style. Convinced that he would and could impose his vision he was unable to cope with people being underwhelmed by his plans. His stewardship was marked by ill-judged, knee-jerk reactions to events or indecisiveness at critical moments. Despairing at his falling ratings he succumbed to the PR people who tried to teach him how to smile and appear engaging and approachable. These were characteristics he himself admitted he had never possessed and believed were trivial and irrelevant to a man of substance such as he. When he tried it, small children hid behind the sofa in fear. Adults laughed out loud in derision. He was encouraged by his handlers to pontificate on the outcome of popular televison game shows and talent contests. His unfamiliarity with these subjects was painfully apparent.
The low-point of Gordon Brown's election campaign was meeting a woman who proudly declared she was a staunch supporter of his party but raised some reasonable questions about his policies during the brief opportunity she had to meet him. He reassured her of his resolute intentions and that he alone was the man best able to represent her in the years to come. Immediately out of earshot he described her to one of his advisers as a bigot. He had however forgotten he was still wearing a TV microphone and his "bigot" remark was replayed relentlessly throughout the rest of the campaign.
The Conservative opposition went into the campaign looking to capitalise on recent record ratings. A few months earlier the polls had predicted a landslide victory for their party. Despite having the most money to spend they ran a confusing and unremarkable campaign and their initial popularity steadily ebbed away. The Conservative leader David Cameron's privileged upbringing was constantly used against him calling into question his ability to relate to the lifestyle and needs of the ordinary voter.
Stuck in the middle were The Liberal Democrats. Perennial bronze medallists in every election campaign within living memory, they suddenly and unexpectedly became popular in the polls. Many people believed this popularity was simply down to them being neither Labour nor Conservative. The Liberal Democrats woke up on election day morning convinced that although they would not gain outright victory they were going to sweep up like never before and become the genuine third force in British politics that they considered their birthright.
OK dear readers - if you're still with me (and if you are, I take my hat off to you), I'll stop for now. I've set the scene. Later this week I'll describe how our electoral system works and how the above events panned out on election day. Betcha can't wait.
For the first time in 13 years we've had a change of government. Prior to the 13 years of Labour we had 18 years of Conservative government. This actually says less about our ability to form stable long-term governments and more about the inability of non-governing parties to form an effective oppostion to an incumbent government. Invariably whilst out of power, opposition parties spent more time fighting within themselves rather than trying to form an effective alternative to the current ruling party.
This time the country was ripe for change. Gordon Brown coveted the job of prime minister all the time Tony Blair was in the role. When he was finally handed the job on a plate 3 years ago he proceeded, in the most part, to cock it up big style. Convinced that he would and could impose his vision he was unable to cope with people being underwhelmed by his plans. His stewardship was marked by ill-judged, knee-jerk reactions to events or indecisiveness at critical moments. Despairing at his falling ratings he succumbed to the PR people who tried to teach him how to smile and appear engaging and approachable. These were characteristics he himself admitted he had never possessed and believed were trivial and irrelevant to a man of substance such as he. When he tried it, small children hid behind the sofa in fear. Adults laughed out loud in derision. He was encouraged by his handlers to pontificate on the outcome of popular televison game shows and talent contests. His unfamiliarity with these subjects was painfully apparent.
The low-point of Gordon Brown's election campaign was meeting a woman who proudly declared she was a staunch supporter of his party but raised some reasonable questions about his policies during the brief opportunity she had to meet him. He reassured her of his resolute intentions and that he alone was the man best able to represent her in the years to come. Immediately out of earshot he described her to one of his advisers as a bigot. He had however forgotten he was still wearing a TV microphone and his "bigot" remark was replayed relentlessly throughout the rest of the campaign.
The Conservative opposition went into the campaign looking to capitalise on recent record ratings. A few months earlier the polls had predicted a landslide victory for their party. Despite having the most money to spend they ran a confusing and unremarkable campaign and their initial popularity steadily ebbed away. The Conservative leader David Cameron's privileged upbringing was constantly used against him calling into question his ability to relate to the lifestyle and needs of the ordinary voter.
Stuck in the middle were The Liberal Democrats. Perennial bronze medallists in every election campaign within living memory, they suddenly and unexpectedly became popular in the polls. Many people believed this popularity was simply down to them being neither Labour nor Conservative. The Liberal Democrats woke up on election day morning convinced that although they would not gain outright victory they were going to sweep up like never before and become the genuine third force in British politics that they considered their birthright.
OK dear readers - if you're still with me (and if you are, I take my hat off to you), I'll stop for now. I've set the scene. Later this week I'll describe how our electoral system works and how the above events panned out on election day. Betcha can't wait.
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