Silly season

The media has, since Parliament packed up it's bucket, spade, moat filter and duck rented villa and buggered off on holiday, been in the grip of an annually recurring culture so profound that it actually has its own term: silly season.

Silly season occurs as a result of a combination of factors; the lack of political shenanigans handily concentrated in one spot, the ongoing need by newspapers to print a newspaper, the inability of hacks to actually seek out stories rather than have them arrive via a press release from a PR company, the lack of interest by editors in foreign news and, of course, the tabloid desire to paint somebody or something as a villain, be it a mum who leaves her kids at hone to bugger off on holiday, a virus or a new EU directive banning those photographs of kittens playing with balls of wool.

The only sort of story that seems missing of late is 'beast of...' sorts about big cats. I bloody love those stories, illustrated by blurry photographs of what even I can see is a gorse bush, captioned 'is this the big cat of the moors', about how a feral moggie has been terrorising the inhabitants of some distant moor. Possibly this is because the focus has shifted to foxes terrorising our neighbourhoods, possibly because such stories are easier to research from atop a bar stool in a city boozah.

Silly season story of the week is that of a woman who was caught on CCTV putting a cat in a wheelie bin. OK that's pretty grim but this has made the front page of the red tops. The. Front. Page.

If you drink as much as I do as often as I do in as many places as I do you'll know that pubs love front pages. You can also appreciate how important the front page is when you watch a tee vee programme or film set in a bar, or a newspaper, or a bar in a film about a newspaper and you will see framed front pages. Like 'we win', or 'War over', or 'Man walks on moon'.

Not 'we find feline felon'. Get a grip guys, I know that newspaper front pages must be difficult to write but hey, surely somewhere in the world something important is happening. We're still fighting a war aren't we, or is Sangin now trouble free?

It's not that I blame the newspapers, they have to print something to wrap chips in. What amazed me was, when the story appeared on the Guardian's web-site, the number of people who commented on it. And then commented on each other's comments.

A woman, for whatever reason, put a cat in a bin...this is not cause for endless speculation about motive, her mental state of, a favourite, comments about how the media treat women who put cats in bins (a demographic so niche I would have thought their views could be safely ignored). Do these people really not have anything better to do? Have they not heard of lego?

And now I'm doing it. Whatever happens to cat bin woman, the public have evidenced a level of buy-in to silly season stories that's frightening. Comments about a bin cat? Pah! Comments about a big cat, that's more like it. I'm off to take a blurry picture of some threatening looking gorse, e mail it to the tabloids and get that debate rolling.

Worcester beer festival 2010

Desks equal dignity

We have gone to hot-desking in the office. This has gone better than expected – nobody has tried to kill anyone yet, but as everyone was expecting it to be tremendously shit, our expectations have been met.

There are a couple of issues. The first is the ‘you snooze, you lose’ principle that sees early birds rewarded with the pick of the desks, while latecomers have to wander the floor like the flying Dutchman, forever seeking port, or sherry or any kind of fortified wine.

The other issue is that we have been issued with lockers. Not the sort you might get in a gym or have seen many a hapless teen pushed into in an American comedy film. Rather, these are lockers such as you might expect to give to a primary school child. I fully expect that our next initiative will result in our being allocated our own peg, possibly shaped like the face of an animal.

I am strongly tempted to decorate my locker, both outside and in. For the outside, some sort of sticker I think, ‘I’ve urinated in the Grand Canyon’ or something. For the inside there can only be one decoration; porn.

And not just any porn, no, I want the stuff you used to see in garages. Soft core with the young lady in question possibly sitting on a tub of swarfega. I think that sets the right tone.

Either that or I’m going to turn my locker into a mini-bar! Alternatives that spring to mind include putting a golden light source inside so that when you open it there appears to be some fabulous treasure in there when viewed from the side. Or maybe a white strobe light, dry ice and a ‘wooshing’ sound effect, leaving one to mutter about ‘bloody dimensional portals’ every time you open one.

Or a simple ram’s skull and black candles.

Surely there’s scope for mischief making here too, would it be fun to start spreading the urban myth about a locker being haunted? Or cursed? ‘Hey, you’ve got 318? That used to be Geoff’s, terrible what happened. Still, I’m sure that what they say can’t be true…you’re not superstitious are you?’

Or, I can just keep loads o’ crap in there. That’s what everyone else seems to do.

Britannia Week – more booze

As for defence, the Britannia came compete with a complement of marines who, because they bunked next to the bar below decks, were kept short of sleep, drunk and surly. Just the thing to have if some joker pitches up and tries any high-seas jiggery-pokery.

With so many armed men living in an enclosed space, it was important to observe protocols and manners. The last thing you want is to offend anyone who you have to share a small cabin with for month’s on end. One of the innovations on the ship was the ‘Gin pennant’, a small mast, about ten inches tall, with a small pennant attached to it. The officer who was buying drinks that evening would run up the gin pennant and so misunderstandings about rounds would not happen. An excellent idea that should be adopted more widely, if only because pennants are not used as much as they should be and, given the way that English people like to cover their cars, houses and selves with flags whenever the football team are engaged in some tournament, there would seem to be an appetite for flag or pennant related pageantry.


While the ship had its own laundry, post office and sweet shop, it lacked its own printing and engraving workshop. Hence, all the menus for the dinners were printed before the Britannia left England. No pressure on the chef then, who I bet became amazingly adept at adapting local cuisine for his own ends to make sure that what was put in front of the Royal family and guests closely resembled what was on the menu. I bet the guy could carve almost any vegetable out of a potato, and season chicken so that it could resemble anything, up to an including blamange.

The Britannia is more relaxed than the most boutique of boutique hotels, more stately than any stately home, more booze-enabled than a nightclub in a distillery and, best of all, comes with its own monarch and small army. I’ll drink to that.

Britannia Week – the solution to holiday car hire

Of course, once you get to the island you have to be able to get around. This is the 1950s remember and the motor car had not yet extended its polluting reach to every corner of the globe. Like decent booze, if you wanted something, you had to bring it from home. And what could be more practical to carry on a ship and use to ferry Royal passengers around dirt roads than a Rolls Royce Phantom.

You may have been impressed by the ship, but just imagine if the first car you ever saw was a Rolls Royce Phantom. Anything after that is going to be a massive anti-climax; if some joker rolls up in a jeep a few years later and tries to impress the natives about the wonders of civilization, they might politely point out that yes, your toy car is very nice, but it lacks a walnut dashboard and where the hell is the decanter in the back?

Britannia Week - purpose

What nation would not be proud to have Britannia off their shore? Tropical island paradises with blue skies, clear water and white beaches are all very well, but what you really need to set off a view is a fine ship in the middle of it and, letting you know that the Empire is looking after you, no doubt a bloody big destroyer lurking a few hundred yards beyond.

Doesn't it make you feel safe, secure and, best of all, ruled? I should jolly well think so.

Britannia Week - booze

Paradoxically, there’s enough booze on board to float the ship. Let’s start with the staterooms, cabins and function rooms, when the ship was acting as a floating palace (gin or otherwise) the Queen would be entertaining the great and the good of the nations being visited and to do that you have to have plenty of liquor. The booze doesn’t just circulate at parties, the cabins have cabinets of the stuff, the sun deck has a cocktail bar and as for below decks…each rank have their own bar!

The officers has an officer’s mess, with a bar and a lounge area, resembling a comfortable bar at a golf club (complete with a toy wombat that was used in high-spirited games of 'catch the wombat'). The non-commissioned officers have a respectable sized bar, like the bar and function room at a working man’s club with aspirations. Finally the ordinary sailors have their own little bar, cramped, comfortable and cosy this is the least pretentious, most honest and by far the most welcoming of the bars on board, it’s the sort of wee snug country pub that you might find at the end of a walk in the Lake District – except it’s squeezed in below decks next to the sleeping quarters – it’s OK though, there’s a curtain to separate dozing sailors from revelling crew.

Britannia Week - the ship

The Royal Yacht Britannia is now moored at the Port of Leith, in Edinburgh. I suppose that, officially, it is decommissioned. Such an odd word, used to describe nuclear warheads when their plutonium heart is removed, but not, I think, appropriate here. The purpose of Britannia was, secondarily, to convey the Queen of the greatest country on the face of the planet around the world (well, the bits accessible by water) in an appropriate style but the primary purpose was to sit anchored in the bay, looking fabulous and representing a bit of Great Britain come to visit your country (and oh, is that a type 42 destroyer behind it, don’t worry, that’s just here for your protection, now sign those mineral rights over and you can come and meet the queen).

If the purpose of Britannia is to convince people that Britain is indeed Great, then it has not been decommissioned in any sense. I walked onto that ship a staunch republican, a view formed by many years careful consideration and one that has been baked to the point of bullet-proof hardened opinion by years of debate, revisitation and assuaging of doubt about whether it was possible to be a patriotic republican.

I walked off a Monarchist and an imperialist. In my defence, I’m pleading seduction.

There’s much to be seduced by. Firstly, the ship is beautiful, not like those huge white private yachts you see in the papers these days, which come with their own helipad, swimming pool, tennis court, greyhound track and missile defence shield (BTW: if you are sold something as an optional extra that you have only previously heard of on ‘Star Trek’, it is because your gullibility is only exceeded by your wealth) and, no doubt, a troop of heroin-addled sex trafficked eastern Europeans below decks.

No, if you’re going to have a big white yacht, it needs to be crewed entirely by lesbians and have a hope port of your secret volcano base where you plan to take over the world.

Britannia’s lines are beautiful. It has no helipad, it has launches. It also comes with quite a few extras, of which more later.


Inside, it’s understated, designed to look like an English country house. Indeed it resembles Churchill’s home; Chartwell and is also reminiscent of Hemmingway’s home in Cuba. Can it really be true that all you need is a sofa and a table, and a bloody huge well stocked drinks cabinet? It may be that the three are reminiscent because the style is early 20th Century. The reason for this is obvious, if you are the Queen, you only need to buy stuff once, because it never wears out. The telephones still in use are the same as those used at Buckingham Palace and are delightful wood and bakelite affairs. One thinks them quaint until one realises that they have a button on them that reads ‘the Queen’. Got an app for that? Thought not.

Modern houses, with their flat sceen tellys and games consoles and so much crap could take a lesson from Britannia. Elegance is a few seats and a piano. Okay, so HMQ was able to have Noel Coward at the ivories, but the point is Ikea and clutter is not the way forward.

The science of chance

I am walking, in my normal jaunty fashion, from the train station to home, looking forward to uncorking dinner, listening to 'a history of the world in 100 objects' on my iPod. The episode I am listening to is about a golden statue of a goddess, from Sri Lanka.

It's pretty racy stuff. The goddess is described as a two thirds life size female figure, with an hourglass figure, wearing a sarong on her lower half and topless with 'perfect' breasts. Rather than an object of titillation, she's an object of veneration, the narrator explains.

And just as he's describing her, I mean to the very second, I walk past the window of just about the only clothes shop in the village and the mannequin in the window is wearing a skirt but has her top half exposed.

Why? I'm not sure. I assume that the window dresser is back of shop, looking out a new top (it's way after closing time and, as odd as this may sound, seeing a topless mannequin makes me somewhat embarrassed for the plastic woman I the window.
Has she been forgotten, has the window dresser left in a rush or, god help us, is the shop trying to be controversial or trying to really hit that giggling schoolboy demographic? The mannequin stands in a typical cocktail party pose, glass in one hand, the other hand on hip, wearing a long skirt. Her head is cocked as if half listening to somebody enthusing about Star Trek while looking for somebody more interesting and better looking to talk to - it's a pose I recognise - and totally unselfconsciously unaware that she's topless. At a party it's bloke's dilemma number eight; at what point do you tell a woman you are talking to that she is experiencing catastrophic blouse failure (answer - you don't, there is no way that woman is ever, ever going to speak to you again, the atmosphere simply cannot cope with the heat generated by frequent meetings of somebody that embarrassed; so you just have to stand there trying desperately to think of a tactful way of explaining that you're catching an eyeful while simmering in the social hell that you've already delayed too long and she'll think that you're some sort of leering pervert. If you must, the correct way to deal with this is to mention the situation as early as possible in the conversation and do so by commenting either on her tattoo or lack of. Simple.).

What are the chances of that happening?

There are two explanations. The first is that the probability of seeing something related to something I am listening to is actually quite high. '100 objects' is my podcast of choice for my walk home and as my route takes me past a number of shops, and in particular charity shops, it's reasonable that in a podcast about artefacts I'd be walking past something that bears a resemblance to the object being described.

The alternative is that, along with all the other laws and rules that govern the smooth running of the universe, from the way electrons orbit atoms to the way that steam wafts from the open window of a burger van on a cold winter's match day, there's room for a set of rules governing the lives of individuals and the universe ordered the events that led to the circumstance we call 'coincidence'.
And don't worry, that doesn't mean that everything is predetermined - quite the reverse - it means we may possibly have been missing stuff that's been organised for us, like a bloke who nips out for a fag at a stag do and misses the stripper. Everything from missing out on meeting someone significant because you went to the doughnut shack rather than the cafe for breakfast, all the way to missing being centre stage in a natural disaster because you decided not to visit a small Pacific island during asteroid strike season.

Marinade musings

Weatherwise, it's been hot and sultry recently. Over the weekend this was very good as it allowed me to sit in the back garden all day not taking the opportunity to read Tennessee Williams in the sort of soupy, southern atmosphere he manages to evoke even if you're reading him on a freezing railway platform in December but instead listening to Test Match Special, reading the papers, swearing once again never to buy the papers as they just irritate the hell out of me, and alternating refreshing hot drinks (tea) with refreshing cool drinks (cola) before, wired to the eyeballs on caffeine, I decided that it was a respectable hour to switch to alcohol (five o'clock, red wine, it’s acceptable, and there’s an end to it).

The other benefit of the hot weather is being able to use the barbeque on a regular basis. This has resulted in what I am pleased to describe as a well-seasoned grill, what the Food Standards Agency would call a type two health hazard and what the local fox population probably describe as the second most tempting smell in the postcode (the first being the bins of the family a few doors down, but only because they don't use that ultra-spicy marinade that I favour).

Cooking over fire though is, without doubt, the most satisfying of all the culinary arts. Possibly because it taps into a primal urge, possibly because it's associated with good weather and probably because you need a dousing agent on hand at all times and a large glass of red is ideal.

Even vegetables taste good, this is essentially because they have been cooked on a grill that retains the ghost of a thousand meaty dinners. God knows how I'm going to cope when the weather changes but dousing anything green on my plate in gravy has to be an option. Either that or simply crumbling an OXO cube over my salad.