G&P review of the year

It’s traditionally the time of year where there are reviews of the past twelve months, and awards and honours are handed out to those that have made a positive contribution to society in general or the lives of the rich and influential in particular. So why not?

The Gentleman and Player review of the year.

It started off cold, with snow and stuff. It then got very warm very quickly. In May the temperatures were such that one was knocking around in shorts and tee shirts while away from the playing field or exercise class. Was this unseasonably warm weather early in the year the ‘Arab Spring’ that everyone refers to? Or is that because it made everyone dress like Mediterraneans? Either way, it was warm.

Which was good, because Summer itself, although not cool, did not live up to the expectation. I had enough barbeque gas stock piled in my shed to fuel a space shuttle launch, had NASA decided to continue with the programme. They didn’t and mankind took a giant step backwards, the space shuttle joining Concorde in the cabinet of things we used to be able to afford to run but can’t any longer. We now have to rely on the Russians to get stuff into space. This is the same people that we rely on for our supply of gas and, if their success at launching rockets is any indication of the quality of their products, it’s probably a good job I never got round to using any of the stuff to cremate some chicken legs.

Later in the year we had riots in England. The media at the time and since tried hard to suggest that the trigger for this was anger. Anger at the police, anger at the ‘haves’ by the ‘have nots’ and anger at society generally. What it seemed to be most of all was anger at plate glass windows of J B Sports shops.

The year rounded off with protest camping. Interestingly, the growth in protest camping and the need for equipment was not enough to stop ‘Blacks’, the high street camping retailer (and so presumably best placed of all to sell you stuff that would allow you to camp on the High Street) going into receivership. This demonstrates that either the campers were actually so angry with society that they looted their equipment, or they bought on-line, just like everyone else.

Oh shit, just realised that Blacks is where I buy my barbeque gas. Good job I stock-piled.

Pramping in St Paul's

It's Occupied London are, I suppose, protesting about the dire dearth of decent public loos in the capital, and quite right too. It's bad enough that public loos are few and far between, with those super-loo monstrosities dotted around the place like, literally, a shit TARDIS, but one can't even be assured of a decent loo if one employs the popular tactic of dodging into a pub, pretending to be a customer and using the facilities. Even perfectly decent boozers seem seem unable to maintain a perfectly decent gent's. In the case of the place I was in last week, going to the gent's was like wandering into a coastal cave at low tide, it was gloomy, the floor was wet and there was a prominent odour.

Of course, there is also I believe a faction within the protesters who represent Occupy London. Like their hipster brethren across the Atlantic in New York, they are protesting that the banks have all the money and won't give it to people like them to, presumably, buy bigger tents. They are angry, but not as angry as the people who think that the architectural and spiritual magnificence of St Paul's cathedral is really not improved by being surrounded by quite a lot of nylon in jolly primary colours.

The prampers outside St Paul's cathedral are doing a fantastic job of drawing attention to how crap the Church of England are at taking a hard line on using a holy water cannon to wash the protesting scum off the streets, while at the same time neatly deflecting attention away from the bankers down the street who are fucking up the economy through their trademarked working methods of greed, stupidity and spending the afternoon wandering round in a coked-up daze after doing a couple of lines off of a sweaty hookers arse in the company car park during lunch.

The media has made much of the prampers. Apparently they go home in the evening, leaving their tents behind. I trust that the local homeless population are aware that a load of comfy middle class tents, presumably with iPod docks and cool boxes full of sustaining snacks and indifferent wines, are available for occupation at St Paul's. Let's see if the protestors are quite so happy to occupy a tent that has been used overnight by Dosser Dave and his incontinent dog Digger. And I hope that when the protestors do eventually pack up and leave, they check the tents first. Nothing would put a crimp in your first day at the Glastonbury festival quite like shaking out your two-man 'Mountain Master 4000' and discovering a desiccated tramp. And his dog.

Whatever you think of people who camp in the centre of the city, they are bloody irritating. The council, police and church all appear powerless to get rid of the tents. In my experience, the best way to remove campers is to start charging them exorbitant rents for their pitches. All St Paul's needs to do is become a National Trust property and it's problem solved.

The other way to remove tents is of course for the weather to turn bad, although I expect that foul weather in England in November is too much to ask for (and the ongoing mild weather could be taken as a sign that the protest has some sort of higher approval). Maybe they need an act of God. A few days of rain and I don't care how committed the protestors are, they'll soon beat the twat singing Coldplay to death with his own lute and buggered off to the nearest decent pub.