Category: People

The T Word

~ kevinrevell ~ 1 Comment

I was listening to Radio 4 a couple of weeks ago, and heard the sort of comment that you’ll only ever get from a listener to the Today programme, who had written in:

‘I feel it’s a crying shame that the term BBC Trust has turned into an oxymoron’

Please bear with me on this, because your first reaction may be the same as mine, ie  slight irritation at the self-serving sort of twit who thinks they’ve turned into the next Oscar Wilde because they know what oxymoron means, and has to prove it on national radio.

But, that aside, OW#2 does have a valid point, and one that I’d like to get some thoughts written down on, because Trust is a word that feels like it needs a bit of attention.

When I grew up, which, in the scheme of things, really wasn’t that long ago, you couldn’t move for parts of the world that you just naturally trusted. If you believed in an order in society, you’d have a natural trust for government and the police force. If you had a faith, or even if you didn’t, you’d probably trust the natural morality of religion. You trusted the media to tell you the truth, and you pretty much trusted the banks or the building societies to do something honourable with your money, like lend it to other people, who, by definition, you trusted. You trusted that your musical heroes were talented musicians, and it didn’t really strike you that sports stars would by default be pumping themselves full of EPO.

You even trusted the stars of light entertainment, in a way that is really quite hard to explain to today’s Generation Y. Being on the TV was so much of a big deal that you’d naturally be in awe of anyone who’d been anywhere near the lens end of a camera. So Operation Yewtree is actually far more of a big deal to those of us who saw ‘personalities’ on the TV week in week out, than it would ever be if it happened (or continues to happen) in the here and now. It’s interesting when you look at where the fingers have pointed on the whole sorry post-Savile mess here, as most of the people being called out are the ones with what you’d call ‘eccentric’ personalities – that’s what got them onto our screens in the first place. And, lo and behold, in a ‘always thought there was something odd about him’ style, we find that their sexual peccadilloes were, well, a little eccentric as well. And, as a result, we’ll head towards a society where you’ll just never trust anyone who displays any eccentricities, which in some ways is kind of a shame.

Anyway, given the list above, I’m scratching around to think of any body or anybody I can trust. I asked a group of friends about this a couple of months back, and we spent a fairly depressing time ticking people off the list. Politicians, policeman, judges, commentators, doctors, teachers, union and religious leaders, all got the chop, and at the end of the evening all we had left were Nelson Mandela and Mother Theresa. And depending on your point of view, you could claim that one of them is a retired terrorist and the other misappropriated funds from, amongst others, Haiti’s hated Duvalier clan.

So far, so depressing, and if its bad from my perspective, then just take a moment to think about it for someone born this side of 1999. Our kids have turned a healthy skepticism into a deep, deep mistrust of anything in power or authority, which you’d do well to understand next time you challenge their choice of role model.* When I ask my own children about this, they’ll fairly politely call out their family as role models that they trust, and then, well, they’re pretty well stuck.

The winners in our future society will be the ones that regain that trust and can use the word in a precious fashion, in the knowledge that trust takes a long time to build, and can take not very much effort (or lack of effort) to lose. The fact that this can happen without us really lifting an eyebrow (last year I’d probably say I had an element of trust in Google and the Co-Op, and I have a different view now), gives the lie to a world where people are completely vindicated by taking a suspicious and negative approach of everything around them.

I’d hope that all is not lost, although in the case of the bigger institutions above, it might take generations to regain credibility. In the meantime, I’m really hoping that one or two companies will be transparent enough to set out a trustworthy stall. If they stay true to their roots, they’ll clear up.

Sorry if this is all a bit downbeat and serious.  Flippant comment on all that is irrelevant will return shortly.

 

 

 

 

* I’m talking to you, Daily Mail reader

On The Settee With Debbie McGee

~ kevinrevell ~ 3 Comments

Latest in the longish list entitled ‘well, I never saw that one coming’, is the exciting news that lanky centre forward and part time womaniser Peter Crouch is to star in a show called ‘On The Couch With Peter Crouch‘. It’s been commissioned by Sky, surprisingly enough, and is set to put the genial freak of nature in front of a number of celebs, to examine ‘what makes them tick’. Our presenter has been justified on the excellent criteria of ‘having a good command of the English language’, although you and I both know that the whole premis really just revolves around being able to produce a few interviews underneath such a cracking series title. So, not to be outdone by our “free-scoring” journeyman giant, the Emu has trawled the depths of his celebrity knowledge to bring you some equally valid programmes. And if any of these get commissioned, remember where you saw them first:

1. Celebrity Furs, with Olly Murs

In which everybody’s favourite grinning warbler tips his comedy trilby to the endangered fur and leather collections of his (ahem) fellow celebrities. In episode one, Paris Hilton explains why she likes to improve her appearance by draping a number of side-stitched chinchillas over her shoulders, then goes on to justify her existence generally. In the Celebrity Furs Challenge, Olly tasks Paris with composing a full sentence without either reference to herself, or the words, ‘like’, ‘totally’ and ‘whatever’.

2. Princess Eugenie’s Olives and Blinis.

In which Princess E shows that there really is life under the fascinator by tracing the cocktail party snack from its humble beginnings in Manhattan, through the halcyon years of the Ritz Cracker and right up to today’s Bruschetta with grilled butterfly wings. The nation’s favourite 97th in line to the throne freeloader will be hoping that the commission will prove that she does, at least, know about what she knows.

3. Crown Green Bowls with Beyonce Knowles.

The producers have clearly taken a gamble here, assuming that Mrs -Z will become plain old Ms Knowles again before the pilot airs. But it’s as nothing compared to the risk in showing the encounter between the pop diva and bowls legend David Bryant. The chemistry between the two, following a misunderstanding where David invites Beyonce to have a suck on his favourite cherry rough shag, leaves a thousand options for future episodes.

4. Makin’ Merry, with Terry & Ferry.

Basically, a documentary of a drinking competition between enthusiastic racist John Terry and 70’s heartthrob and international playboy Bryan Ferry. Expect plenty of fireworks as the evening progresses, as they discuss the best way to park their Bentleys, how best to treat the ladies, and exactly why Bryan spent the first four Roxy Music albums sounding like he had a packet of jelly inside his mouth.

5. Celebrity Stalking with Andrea Dworkin.

Although Ms Dworkin is currently exercising her feminist doctrine in another life, her spirit lives on in a series where her followers travel the length and breadth of the country intruding on the lives of pornographers and misogynists wherever they can find them. In episode one, Peter Stringfellow is ambushed wearing nothing but a pair of speedos and a smile. Hilarity ensues as he makes the mistake of trying to charm his way out of the situation by offering his attackers a chance to work in his new nightclub venture, just outside Luton.

6. Fifty shades of Andy Grey.

Fresh from his exile on TalkSport, Andy is finally able to talk about the many facets of his personality that have taken him through his multiple marriages and affairs, whilst barely pausing to address the capability of women to understand the offside rule. In the pilot episode, expect to see log shots of Andy staring wistfully across a Scottish loch, wondering, perhaps, on his life’s meandering journey, before high tailing it back to the smoke for a lively jabber with Alan Brazil about whether there will ever again be a proper hard man centre back in domestic first flight football.

7. Dennis And Rolf Play Tennis And Golf.

Much like the pro-celebrity programming so beloved of 1970’s TV schedules, this series invites celebrities along to share a round of golf, a set of tennis, and an anecdote or two with our hosts, Dennis Skinner MP, and Rolf Harris. Although at first an unlikely pairing, Australia’s favourite wobble board enthusiast and the Beast of Bolsover relax into their roles quickly, and soon start trading gags like they’re lifetime pals. Episode one features Jimmy Tarbuck and Jonathan Ross. Of course.

8. A Nail Gun, A Pallet, And Our Old Friend Timmy Mallet.

Sponsored by B&Q, this delightful and inspiring series shows that there’s much more to Timmy Mallet than some ill-advised sweaters and ridiculous glasses. Using recyclable materials and his hitherto unacknowledged expertise in DIY, Timmy aims to furnish an entire three bedroom bungalow over the course of six 30 minute shows. In episode one, Timmy fashions a futon out of a pallet, and a colourful bedspread out of some old knitwear.

9. The Osbornes.

Modelled closely on “The Osbournes”, an everyday story of over privileged brats being cared for by a father completely out of touch with the modern  world, this series focuses in on the world of George Osborne, and, in contrast, features some over privileged brats being cared for by a father completely out of touch with the modern world. The pilot episode shows “Boy” George blowing a sizeable chunk of his trust fund on an ill-advised investment based on shorting shares in Greggs the Bakers.

10. Extreme Fishing with Robson Green.

Sorry, obviously that one’s completely ridiculous.

Brutal Youth*

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

When my Sister was 17, my Father, like the kind soul that he was and is, sat her in the car for her first driving lesson.

“Remember”, he said solemnly, “that when you get in a car and drive, you’re basically being put in charge of the most dangerous weapon you will ever control”.

We were keen to remind my sister of these wise words as, over the next couple of years, she emerged relatively unscathed from a number of scrapes and near misses involving cars, boyfriends, trees, whiplash and on one spectacular occasion, two Japanese exchange students. In fact, this last incident caused something of a diplomatic incident where we lived, and it took a good couple of months before the entente cordiale between the North and South ends of the village was re-established. I experience the concept of car as weapon a couple of years later, during my first attempt at hitch-hiking, which resulted in wedging a Mini directly underneath the front of a large lorry in Northumberland.

But all of these stories will have to wait, because this blog is about yesterday morning’s bike ride, and what it tells us about the way the world is turning.

So let me, as Lloyd Cole would say, introduce you to the rest of the crew. Four of us have been training together on Saturday mornings now for a few years. Apart from myself, we have:

1. the mysterious ex-government agent who, for obvious reasons, cannot be named. Let us call him Mr Bean, largely because we do.

2. Chuckle Brother #1, whose athletic ability at the front of the pack is normally limited slightly by a challenging bladder problem

3. Chuckle Brother #2, who combines cycling with gym work and generally lifting heavy objects for a living, which means he’s ideal for the front of the pack, so we can all shelter behind him.

More of CB#2 later, as our interesting tale does rather revolve around him.

So, off we pedal at a bracing speed, heading off towards the coast on the back roads. And worth mentioning at this point, that this was proper idyllic stuff. If you ever want to rattle around country roads in the style of Julian, Dick, George, Ann and Timmy, just get yourself to Norfolk and go off the beaten track. Just don’t go with Bean, CB#1 or CB#2, as they tend to travel a bit faster than the FF. Incidentally, what did they do with Timmy when they were on their bracing bike rides? Anyway, this is yet another meaningless tangent, so back to the bike ride, and about 40 miles in, when we were on the coast road, whizzing along towards Cromer.

This is a brilliant section of road, with views out to the sea, a bit of up and down, and a good surface; the roads can be a little narrow, but they’re open enough. Or so we thought…

On a fairly straight stretch, a couple of cars overtook us; there was nothing coming the other way, so that was fine, and I was surprised to see the second car slow down and drive alongside me. The driver, who was on his own, had the passenger window open, and was pointing and shouting at me. Sadly, years of playing pub-rock, travelling along in the wind, a noisy car and a rather attractive snood that I was wearing that morning rendered me pretty much deaf to what he was saying, but, for reasons best known to himself, he was not at one with the universe and apparently it was our fault. So I gave him what I thought was a special look, which is fairly close to that in the picture at the top of this blog.

CB#2 was rather less controlled in his reaction. Hearing what was going on behind him, he suggested very loudly and very directly that the driver might want to go…off. This provoked an interesting reaction from the driver, who pulled back a bit, made to overtake again, then steered directly towards CB#2. He pulled out of the collision at the last moment, just before CB#2 was forced off the road, and just avoided making contact.

Let’s just play that one again. A car overtakes a cyclist on a clear stretch of road. For some reason or another the driver is unhappy. An altercation occurs between two complete strangers, where neither can actually hear what the other is saying. Then the driver aims a half ton piece of metal, at speed, directly towards a cyclist who is travelling at some pace, held to the road by two narrow tyres and with no protection. Then drives off. It is, frankly, unbelievable. It’s one thing giving a driver possession of a dangerous weapon. It’s quite another when they decide to use it..as a weapon.

Fortunately, CB#2 had managed to retrieve his balance, and somehow stayed on his bike. At which point, rather ambitiously, he chased after the car, shouting in a style that was a lively mix of ‘half-time Delia’ with extreme Tourettes. The car put his brakes on, at which point we rather feared for the worst. There are certain people in my life who I’m very grateful to have as friends rather than enemies, and CB#2 is definitely one of them, and had he caught up with the car I think there’s a reasonable chance that he might have lifted it over the side of the road single-handedly. Pretty quickly, the driver changed his mind and drove off, and I think if I’d seen CB#2 bearing down on me through my rear view mirror like a rabid cage fighter on a bike, I might have done the same.

As regular readers may know, the Emu exists partly to making sweeping generalistic statements about the state of the world from the minutiae of everyday life. And, reflecting on this on the way home, I decided that if we bottled down one thing that is wrong with this country at the moment, it would not be the lack of trust in the establishment, the corrupt politicians, the failing infrastructure or a crumbling economy that seems increasingly based on moving around objects without any intrinsic value. I think it’s that we appear to be breeding generation after generation of irresponsible no-marks who have taken selfishness and a lack of consideration to a whole new level. I really, really, really, hope I’m wrong.

*A very very fine work indeed. And something of a find for the cover photo

Brass In Pocket

~ kevinrevell ~ 1 Comment

Sometimes I fear that this blog is just turning into a whole load of middle-aged, middle-England, middle-class whines at the state of the nation. So the next time I sit down with my laptop and rattle off a few choice thoughts, they will be either about a lifetime experience of pub-rock shenanigans, or possibly why the internet is set to fail us, by virtue of the idiots that seem to have claimed it for themselves. I would very happily take a vote on this, and choose the subject accordingly; just write to me at the usual address.

And speaking of voting, what a huge surprise that the country should have vented its spleen, in the first referendum for years, on what appears to have been a direct vendetta against Nick Clegg. Personally, I’m not ashamed to say that I voted No, which is the first time I’ve ever sided with a Tory policy in an election. Well, I say I voted No. Actually what happened was that my first choice was No, and my second one was Yes, tee hee.

I don’t think I have the energy to go into the missed opportunity that the AV referendum presented for some sort of democratic change in this country. But while I’m here, a couple of thoughts…

I don’t understand why we don’t have some sort of proper proportional representation in England (we manage to do so in Scotland, after all); although I do think we could manage a bit of fun into the bargain. My suggestion would be simply that the number of MP’s be cross checked after each election against the number of votes. For parties not adequately represented by constituency MP’s, a number of reserve MP’s without constituency would be added to parliament. If, on the other hand, a party was over-represented, those MP’s with the smallest majority would be publicly shot. I really think this would make people consider their commitment to politics. Incidentally, I wonder whether we could spice up our more boring athletic races in the same way. The 10,000 metres on the track, for example, is a tedious 25 laps around the track, with usually only the last couple raced at pace. Think how much more fun it would be if the last runner on each lap knew that he or she would be physically damaged for being last. I’m only thinking about an air rifle, although I’m aware that our enthusiasm for extreme sports would cause a bit more of a demand for something more dramatic eventually.

I digress, so on to this week’s blog. For one reason or another, a couple of weeks ago I had to withdraw a reasonably large amount of cash from my bank. So I called them in advance on the morning I needed the money. Three times. Each time the phone rang for several minutes, wasn’t answered, and I hung up. I was phoning largely to check to see if I needed any extra ID to take out five grand in cash, and, of course, to see if the branch was open. I decided to chance it anyway, and cycled down to the bank. To my surprise and pleasure, it was indeed open. So I went inside, where I was delighted to see three tellers, uniformly staring into space, and two other staff, presumably engaged in some sort of meet & greet (or possibly meet, greet and inappropriately sell) role. There were no other customers to be seen.

“Good morning”, I said to the first teller, because largely it was.

“I’d like to withdraw five thousand pounds please. Should I make the cheque out to cash?”

“Good morning”, the teller parried (and at this stage the morning was at its shiny best)

“You don’t need a chequebook for that…I can sort that out on your debit card.” She smiled, and I could hear small birds chirruping outside.

“But you can’t withdraw that amount of money without calling us first.” The small birds stopped their chirruping.

“But I did call you. No-one answered.”

“Well, we’ve been really busy this morning.” I looked around for signs of busy-ness, and saw none.

To my delight, just at that point the phone rang. And rang, and rang. And the four other members of staff in the branch ignored it. The phone, incidentally, was in the middle of the branch, on a table, under a poster extolling the virtue of the bank’s customer charter.

After a certain amount of backward and forwardness, we established that I could withdraw £4,995 without telling them in advance, but not £5,000. So I did. I was tempted to go outside and call the branch number to get the full amount, but was worried that my call wouldn’t be answered.

“Are you doing anything exciting with that money then?”, the Teller asked.

“Not really, just paying off my dealer”, I replied. Which was a joke, and not terribly well received.

And this week, I found myself at an event to discuss the future of digital banking. One of the key messages was around the maturity ‘tipping point’ for successful customer interfaces through internet and mobile devices. And one of the contentions was that this maturity could never be reached until digital transactions could have the same level of personal interaction as that delivered in branches. Well, for all the wrong reasons, it seems to me that the future is already here.

What’s that noise?

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Obviously language develops. And no-one in their right mind wants to get in the way of progress. But it doesn’t stop you being annoyed. Not in a ‘Lynne Truss gets annoyed at market traders (or trader’s, tee hee)’ style. More in a stop making sense style. So, just for readers of the Emu, my top 10 list of irritating things that people say.

1. Any advance on 100%. Very popular with footballers, who are constantly ‘giving 110%’, then get into a battle over the course of a season where this is gradually increased to 150%. Of course, there is always the chance that the benchmark for your average footballer is about half of what they could achieve, so that their maximum capability was actually 200%. But I think it’s more likely to be crap use of language. Actually, the footballer angle doesn’t unduly worry me; it ends up being a Ron Manager-like pastiche. But I think the X-factor style ‘one million percent yes’ is really irritating.

2. The correct use of ‘well’. A particular annoyance at Emu Towers, where the small Emus are fully aware that calling anything ‘well good’ causes their doting father to turn from Bill Bixby to Lou Ferrigno almost instantly. Of course, this turns into good sport, particularly for #3:
“How are you this morning, Felix?”
“I’m well well, Dad”
And so on…

3. I’m not being <<insert code here>>, but…
I used to work with someone who would always start sentences with ‘I’m not being funny, but…’. And they never were.
Pop ‘racist’ into the sentence, and inevitably people think they can get away with the most outrageous slurs, because they’ve defended themselves accordingly. Astonishing.

4. The correct use of literally. I saw a TV show recently where someone said “My heart was literally in my mouth”. No it wasn’t, you daft twit. And more worryingly, #2 recently tried on some headphones that “literally made my head explode”. Just for that, he won’t be getting them for Christmas.

5. To be honest. Also a good one to start off a sentence. It sort of suggests that everything that doesn’t start off this way is a complete lie. Which it might be, for all I know.

6. For my sins. I don’t get this one at all. I got a phone call from someone at work once, who introduced himself with his name, promptly followed by’…for my sins’. As everyone’s favourite diminutive Scottish mackintosh clad popster would say…’it means nothing to me…’

7. …Aah Vienna. Meaningless song lyrics, used to minimal effect, in everyday language. Also see ‘Everything I do, I do for you’, and pretty much anything from the Bryan Adams back catalogue.

8. What’s that all about? Often used as a lazy end to a sentence, if you can’t really be arsed to give it due consideration. In my experience, very popular after a couple of pints by men sporting bad knitwear and worse haircuts.

9. OMG & LOL & ROTFL etc. Aside from the fact that a long time ago I used to be in a band called Laughing Out Loud and we soooo should have patented that name and made buckets of cash, it’s putting abbreviation in to irritate and show off most of the time. Honestly. FFS, how annoying.

10. Not a problem. Apparently this was quite the thing to say in the early 1990’s. I would like to suggest that anyone still using it in 2010 should probably be put in the stocks for not keeping up. In our local Co-op, there’s a sallow youth on the till who uses ‘Not a problem’ as a substitute for saying, well, anything else:
“Can I pay by card?”
“Not a problem”
“And some cashback?”
“Not a problem”
“£30 ok ?”
“Not a problem”
“Thanks”
“Not a problem”
“Bye then”
“Not a problem”

This is slightly irritating to me for two reasons. Firstly, I fear that he’s got so used to “Not a problem” being his stock response, that if his house was on fire, his car stolen, a plague of locusts came into the shop etc, then he’d be straight in with “Not a problem”. Secondly, I’m irritated that, a bit like ‘to be honest’ above, the implication is that there should be a problem in the first place. Which given the circs, means that I’m troubling him every time I go into the shop. Actually, put like that, I’m not overly bothered.

If you see any of these objectionable uses of our language on future pages of The Emu, feel free to pop round to my house and shoot me in the knee with a BB Gun. To be honest, I don’t think you will.

Shock news – knee bone is indeed connected to the thigh bone

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I’m acutely aware that it has become my habit to use this blog as a kind of substitute mother figure for complaining about all my aches and pains. Probably fair enough, as I’m also aware of my real mother’s rather direct view of such things – it goes along the lines of ‘If you stop running long distances, you’re less likely to injure yourself’. And fair enough, but not necessarily what you want to hear when a good proportion of your life revolves around those very distances.

For those of you who are runners, you’ll know what this means. After a couple of days of not running, you get a little, well, ansty. To the extent that, as 60’s pop favourites Peter & Gordon would have it, the birds sing out of tune. A couple more days of this, and your otherwise gregarious and kindly nature turns a little sour. This is a good time to get some advance apologising in to your family. After a couple of weeks, you start to notice that all the runners that you see out and about (and there are far more than there were a week ago…), have cheery smiles on their faces. They’re also running faster than you’re ever likely to manage on your return…should this ever happen. Another week and you feel more Wagner than Cher, as I believe you young people might say.

So, I’m pleased to announce that the Emu is back and running. And the journey back has been an interesting one, which I’ll try to summarise for you.

Running hasn’t been quite right since I did my back in during the summer, and I started to have a problem in my left knee a month later. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a ‘bit of a dull ache that you could run through’ sort of a problem, it was more of a ‘sudden collapse of the left leg leaving you like a dropped puppet’ sort of an affair. It was, as they say round these parts, ‘rarely waird’ as it also managed to come with shooting nerve pains and elephantine-like swellings.

Talking this interesting phenomena through a couple of days later, a friend recommended a masseur who could iron out all sorts of muscular and nerve problems. So a couple of days later I found myself, not for the first time in my life, semi naked on a bench with a perfect stranger with unknown qualifications moving my back about.

An interesting approach to first impressions as well, as Mrs Emu arrived just as we’d got going, after her 12 hour shift a-nursing. Introduced Mrs E, and Mr Masseur announced that he had no time in his life for western medicine. Mrs E mentioned that she’d had to deal with a 12″ blood clot that afternoon. Mr M said that the way to resolve such ailments was to take a little cayenne pepper. So, having isolated 50% of the potential customers in the house, he went on to address the second half. As he dug about in the nether regions of my back, he came across an astonishing discovery, and I heard him whisper faintly…’aha, it’s trapped’. Fearing I’d misjudged him, and that he really did know what he was doing, I asked what he’d found. A trapped nerve, causing all my referred problems? Sadly no. Apparently he’d identified some trapped energy. And it all went a little downhill from there. Towards the end of the session, he was moving some nerves around in my feet, using the faux-science that I believe is called reflexology. I asked why the right foot was so much more painful than the left. Apparently it’s because the right foot represents the past, and the left one the future. To give the man some credit, he did at least have the grace to look a little embarrassed. Anyhow, after about an hour, he prescribed some magnesium crystals.  I tried to bend my left leg and travelled at some speed towards the ceiling.

After a couple of weeks of rest, a visit to a knee specialist, an X-ray, an MRI scan, and a general sense of relief around having health insurance, I ended up on the bench of a fine physiotherapist who looked at my legs, tutted loudly about the muscle tone in my left thigh, and noted that my left leg was about half an inch longer than my right. ‘Funny’, I said, ‘I’d never noticed that’. ‘No’, he said. ‘It’s where you put your back out in August, and the pelvis hasn’t reset properly’. And so, with a bit of manipulation and a loud crack, my legs were restored to roughly the same length.  And so I get back to running.

What does this tell us about life, the world and everything?

Well, as John Lydon once notably said: ‘Never trust a hippy’.

And as the Emu says: ‘The kneebone’s connected to the thighbone…’

Alf’s magic sponge

~ kevinrevell ~ 1 Comment

When I was 11 or 12 years old, in those halcyon days before the world rather took it upon itself to be encouraging my teenage angst, and at a time when the wages from a morning paper round could keep you in sweets, books and regular copies of the Exhange and Mart, my over-riding love was for football. Being born a bit before 1966, I grew up with England being top dogs in world football, and the ’66 world cup squad was so legendary, that when it came to choosing a club to support, I could only ever follow West Ham. After all:

I remember Wemb-er-ly
When West Ham beat West Germany
Martin One and Geoffrey Three
And Bobby Got the OBE¹

Unfortunately, the logistics of getting to Upton Park eluded me for a number of years, and so I ended up following them from some distance, sticking pictures of Trevor Brooking and Billy Bonds on my bedroom wall, and listening out for their results on Saturday teatime with what I thought was the appropriate passion of the die-hard fan. Years later, I finally made it to Upton Park, which I really recommend if you want to see a bizarre building in the middle of the scariest part of London ever…but that’s another story.

Being 11 or 12 and living out in the sticks didn’t leave much option for live football, once I’d readily discounted the prospect of following Watford or Luton Town. Fortunately, help was at hand, in the towering force of Dacorum and District League 2 stalwarts – Little Gaddesden FC. I’ll readily admit that any passion I might have had for following the team was primarily driven by the fact that home games took place on the playing field directly in front of our house, so I could leave the house at 2:55, vault the fence and amble over to the pitch well in time to watch Glen ‘Rise Like A Salmon’ Farney practising his headers, or our trusty goalkeeper Bill Whitman squeeze the last out of his pre-match fag, in the desperate knowledge that he’d not have another for at least 45 minutes.

I could spend a long time here reminiscing about LGFC, and I’m not sure that anyone other than me and my Dad would find it particularly interesting, so I will cut to the character who titles this blog. Alf Sheringham had previously been the village policeman, and still carried with him that air of authority and mild annoyance that village policeman are all blessed with. He would, undoubtedly be called a ‘stalwart of the club’ these days, and operated as Manager, selection committee, line marker, liaison officer and no doubt half a dozen other roles that he was unable or unwilling to foist upon other worthies, such as my Dad.

After Alf had organised someone to run the line (often my Dad, who would occasionally wear tracksuit trousers for just that occasion), and ensured that the invalid carriage that carried his trusty sidekick George Bunting was not actually parked on the pitch, he would monitor the game with a hawk like precision that even Jose Mourinho would envy. Occasionally the odd command would be barked out, often to the complete bemusement of the players, who, I probably should have mentioned, felt that Alf’s role as manager was pretty nominal at best. Alf’s most important role in the game, however, was required for scenes that are not really part of the modern game. Matches were still played with leather balls that laced up (this I remember as our dog had become very unpopular for running on to the field during a game, picking the ball up in her mouth, and running off). These balls got heavier and heavier (and bloody dangerous if you were foolish enough to header one) if it was raining. Which, I seem to remember, it generally was. And the rain made for a muddy pitch. And football then, as it is not now, was very much a full contact sport. Consequently, in each game there were a few crunching tackles which would catapult one of the players several yards into the mud, where occasionally they would let out a single syllable of pain. Or in the case of thundering midfield dynamo Jimmy Alexander, a muttered bid for retribution. If it looked like the player was unlikely to get up (and referees those days liked to be very sure indeed), then the whistle would blow, the ref would click the button on his fancy stopwatch, and, assuming it was a LGFC player motionless in the mud, it was time for Alf’s big moment. With a spring in his step that frankly belied his years, Alf (or ‘Sir Alf’ as he was rather predictably known by the team), would race on to the pitch, carrying his trusty red plastic bucket, containing a few pints of cold water and a sponge.  No matter what the injury, the process was the same – sponge the mud off, slap on a bit more cold water, and the player was mended. There were some exceptions to this, when the player failed to respond completely, and then it was time to race to a house with a phone to call for an ambulance, as there was at least one broken bone to sort out.² But most times, the player would get up, shake themselves off, and prepare for the next challenge (or, in Jimmy Alexander’s case, a well deserved booking for violent conduct).

For several years I marvelled at what magic there must have been in Alf’s sponge. And I mention it now because I have a knee that’s impossible to run on, and I fear I’m about to embark on a whole painful, expensive and time-consuming round of treatment and diagnosis from physios, sports doctors, faith healers, masseurs and no doubt all manner of other witch doctors and snake oil salesmen.

What I need, of course, is someone to deliver an instant solution. If I could just have one go with Alf’s magic sponge…

 

¹If you don’t understand this stuff, look it up. Or, frankly, go away. There’s nothing for you here. Step away now.

² Incidentally, my Dad broke a bone in his foot during the annual ‘Dads v Lads’ match in about 1974, after a late and frankly vicious tackle  from one of the ‘Lads’. He got up, finished the game, went to the pub, came home and took himself to the hospital the next day for an Xray. He probably could have gone on for a couple more days if he hadn’t rather foolishly taken his boot off.

26/10/10 – a stream of consciousness

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment


Am writing this a couple of miles above ground in an aeroplane that should have landed 30 minutes ago.
Our departure from Edinburgh featured a refreshing breeze and clear blue skies, but as we got into East Anglia, the cloud that had settled over that area all day surrounded us. Not a good sign, so when our cheery captain came on the PA to say there was nothing to worry about, our hearts lifted.
So the descent to Nch began, and we finally broke through the cloud at, I would guess, about 500 metres. At which point the pilot decided this was not he landing he wanted, grabbed the stick thing that he has in front of him, and like a WWI flying ace, we pulled out, up, and back into the cloud.
This is a fairly small plane, the wheels were down and we were landing, so I have a horrible feeling that when we came out of the cloud he couldn’t actually see where the airport was. Surely you can’t get lost in a plane these days can you?
Incidentally, this does remind me of the journeys I used to take from Norwich to Edinburgh years ago, in far smaller planes. Pre 9-11, if you sat at the front of the plane, all that separated you from the pilot was a small grey curtain, and you would always see, next to all the controls, the
key navigational guide, which was the AA Book Of The Road. I asked the pilot about this once, and he said that this was indeed what they used to fly with – for Edinburgh to Norwich for example, you follow the A1 and turn off at Peterborough.
Anyway, 30 mins after we should have landed, our pilot tells us that he’s going to ‘have a bit of a think’ about options, but not to worry as he’s got plenty of fuel. And while he’s thinking, he’s going to switch off the seatbelt sign if any of us want to move about. Bizarre.

45 mins after we should have landed, and the scenery (white cloud) hasn’t changed. Mrs Emu will, by now, be slightly irritated. No word from Captain Mannering in the cockpit.

60 mins after we should have landed. Everyone being very calm. Stewardesses wandering up and down not doing much and avoiding eye contact. Fair enough, that’s what I’d do, if I were them, although I’d draw the line at the stupid haircut. I’ve now officially decided that I don’t like flying. Some people do this for pleasure, you know. I understand the message from Captain Crunch now though – he was expecting to be some time in the air.
Just had an update – they were expecting weather improvement on the hour, and this hasn’t happened. I didn’t think weather was so precise as to change on the hour, but you’ve got to trust these people, haven’t you? Well, haven’t you? as Fagin might say. This is something that vexes me a little at the best of times, and it worries me more in these circumstances. Every day we put our trust in taxi drivers, airline pilots, cooks and many more people who we don’t know from Adam. Yet in my darker moments, I feel I can’t trust about 10% of the people I meet, a number that steadily increases in London, in pubs, clubs, or at anything involving the word ‘festival’. So what if Captain Flack is one of them? Or what if he’s having a bad day? Probably best not to think about it. I’ll look out of the window. Update – still white clouds.
80 minutes – the man in the seat next to me is taking an unhealthy interest in the ‘business’ article about Caprice and her lingerie range. With picture of her apparently falling out of her business suit. I think I just heard someone get a text and wonder if I should risk texting Mrs E. Best not. I don’t know technically how such interference works, but apparently mobile phones operating can make planes plummet from the sky, and I wouldn’t like to have that on my conscience. Not that I would, but you know what I mean.
We appear to be climbing again. Got a not good feeling about this; I think we’re headed for somewhere less cloudy. Oh dear. I’ll have a little nap now and hope it all goes away. The bloke next to me has closed his eyes. Probably thinking about Caprice’s fiscal planning.
120 mins – sod it, tried to send a txt to Mrs E. No signal – pah! Curse the
Blackberry.
Captain Fantastic says we’re going to try again in 10 mins! Using a different runway. I’m slightly worried that I thought Nch only had one runway, but the Caprice fan next to me assures me that if you approach from a different direction, it counts as two. So it’s been a rich learning
experience sitting next to him.
Switching Blackberry off as Ms Terrible Haircut glowering as I write that.
130 mins – hit the runway about 90 seconds after coming out of the cloud. Everyone suddenly starts talking. A round of applause for Captain Marvel.
Ms Flock Of Seagulls wishes us well, welcomes us to Norwich and hopes to see us all again soon.
Not bloody likely.

Longman’s AV fails again

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment


I always have a regret or two during holidays in France. Last year I managed to put my back out doing something stupid in the garden. The year before I managed to, well, put myself in a very embarrassing position by thinking I knew more French than I really did. This year, I’ve rather unfortunately managed to combine both experiences, ending up semi-naked in the hands of a man that I’d only met 20 minutes before, and with a very limited grasp of his plans.

But perhaps I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

I had a very good first week running. Clocked up 75 miles, managed a few effort sessions, generally felt at one with the world. Saturday knocked out a fast session in the morning, followed by a very heavy shift in the garden involving a ladder, a 15 foot high hedge and a petrol hedge trimmer. By the evening there was a familiar twinge in the small of my back. Got up for Sunday’s long run, and…well I say ‘got up’ as if I did anything other than try to roll over in bed to get out, followed by an agonising yelp like a Jack Russell being fed into a mangle. (I would imagine.) Anyway, I didn’t get up. I laid as still as I could, then spent the next couple of days feeling very sorry for myself, and slowly shuffling around the house like a 85 year old rickets victim.

So much so, in fact that, by Tuesday, Mrs E had agreed that I ought to see someone, and we looked in the local phone book to find an Osteopath. My experience of the Osteopath profession involves unfortunate memories of being jumped on from a great height, getting a horrendous noise out of my back as a result, and feeling a bit duff…then a bit better. Seemed like a small price for being able to be able to vaguely stand up straight again.

Appointment duly booked for Wednesday, and I made my way up the stairs above the chemist in a small local town; got to the second floor, and onto the lighting scheme favoured by all small continental offices, ie total darkness. So I ended up feeling my way along the wall to the distant door, lit only by a small electric doorbell. Pushing the door open, I was met by a small lithe man who reminded me almost immediately of both George Clooney and Graham Norton. You may have to work quite hard at imagining that bit.

Anyway, ushered into his office, and before too long I realised that my limited grasp of French was going to be no match for what was in store.

I garbled my way through how I had got the injury in the first place. I think this may have come across, however, as being the result of some ‘very high industrial gardening’, as I had forgotten the French for both ladder and hedge trimmer.

George/Graham indicated that I should stand up, and using an international sign language that he was not only comfortable with, but that I also, rather worryingly, immediately understood, he asked me to take my shirt off. And, using the same sign language, that I shouldn’t stop there.

As I lay on the table, feeling exposed in soooooo many ways, I realised how unprepared I was for this visit. A few years of Longman’s Audio Visual French had produced a ‘B’ at GCE (which, Elliot, is equivalent to an A* in today’s money). And, as a result, if M Marsaud, Jean-Paul or Marie-France chose to lance le ballon in my direction at any time, I wouldn’t foresee any problem at all. But unfortunately, this was pretty new territory, untrodden by Longman’s. And as a result, I fear my blatant improvisation may have been rather misconstrued.

At one point, I tried to tell G/G that his technique was much less painful than previous treatments that I’d had. Unfortunately, not knowing the appropriate vocabulary may have held me back. I rather fear that I told him that I found his gentle and kind touch most refreshing. If I’d had the words to apologise, I would have. In fact, had I known the words for awkward, embarrassed, and happily married with four children I might have used those as well.

The session ended with a very confusing conversation where I was asking about whether I’d torn my gluteus maximus, and he was having a completely separate one about whether I’d ever enjoyed kayaking down the Loire. Which will forever be a euphemism in our neck of the woods for being rubbed down by a total stranger.

Not sure what all of this teaches us, other than be prepared for everything. And if you’re not, busk it.

Oh, and always make sure you’re wearing clean underwear.

Walking Back to (GN) Happiness*

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment


A long time ago, the then leader of Bhutan was interviewed, and was asked about his understanding of Gross National Productivity in Bhutan. He replied that he wasn’t particularly interested in GNP, but that he was really interested in something called Gross National Happiness. By all accounts this was a bit of a throwaway line, but ever since, Bhutan has been held up as shining example of an alternative and better way of measuring a country’s state of development.

Just as well, you might argue, as using traditional measures, Bhutan is always going to be looked at as a country in development – it has little going for it in the way of natural resources, has the global equivalent of the neighbours from hell, and generally has an existence that western states would describe as ‘basic’ by traditional measures.

But I’m a big fan of GNH, as I think most people’s satisfaction with their lot is based around far more than average income levels. To illustrate – GNH has been further defined as the following seven measures:

1. Economic Wellness: eg consumer debt, average income to consumer price index ratio and income distribution

2. Environmental Wellness: eg pollution, noise and traffic

3. Physical Wellness: eg severe illnesses

4. Mental Wellness: eg usage of antidepressants and rise or decline of psychotherapy patients

5. Workplace Wellness: eg claimants, job change, workplace complaints and lawsuits

6. Social Wellness: eg discrimination, safety, divorce rates, complaints of domestic conflicts and family lawsuits, public lawsuits, crime rates

7. Political Wellness: eg quality of local democracy, individual freedom, and foreign conflicts.

And if you buy into the whole GNH assessment, then a combination of all of the above feels like a pretty well balanced view of your country.

Of course, the challenge with this is that you need to hang your standard measures somewhere, and that’s where it starts getting complicated. But I think that people tend to wear their GNH on their sleeves most of the time – and it’s influenced by a whole load of non-economic factors – so for example I’d suggest that the weather, MP expenses scandals, the state of the NHS, how well Andy Murray is doing at Wimbledon and many other factors have a far bigger impact on the mood of the UK than any traditional economic measure.

So, how to measure this complicated mess? Well, I’m pleased to say, dear reader, that The Emu can exclusively reveal how to measure the health of the nation, using a single points score, far more accurately than any traditional way, and for a fraction of the cost.

Many years ago, I started doing my long Sunday morning runs with my friend G, who for the sake of this blog, we will refer to as The Flying Postman. Now, TFP and I have pretty much nothing in common. But we seem to knock along fine for a couple of hours every week, arguing the finer points of politics/hamstring injuries/football/families and the like, so that a Sunday morning not spent trying to argue TFP out of his ‘hang ’em and flog ’em’ approach to benefit cheats and shoplifters seems like a pretty empty place indeed. And one notable difference between us is in how we talk to people we meet on those Sunday mornings.

Possibly because I don’t particularly enjoy the actual running element of running, I might just about manage a grunt at the walker/dog-owner/runner coming in the opposite direction. TFP, however, fairly skips into their vision, flashes a winning smile, and calls out a hearty ‘Good Morning’, in a voice that can sometimes be heard across three counties. And it’s the reaction to TFP, who, incidentally looks like a nightclub bouncer, and is normally approaching them at pace, wearing a vest and sweating like a good’un, that interests us here.

So, a few weeks ago, I challenged TFP to a competition to measure GNH every Sunday. Basically, you get a point for every person you meet on the run who says ‘Good Morning’ back to you. There is an increasingly complex system of penalty and bonus scores, which means that a ‘good’ score works out about zero:

1. A point for each good morning back

2. Minus one for each person who ignores you

3. Groups of people must all answer back – so if you only get a ‘spokesman’ response from a family of four, you score a net minus two

4. Dog walkers are excluded. They’re going to say hello anyway. But it does allow a free practice go

5. Fellow runners coming towards you who don’t answer – score minus two

6. And minus ten, for a member of your own running club who ignores you. This really happened a few weeks ago and it led us to practically weep for humanity. Well, sort of.

7. From the agreed position that all cyclists are miserable sods, you may ‘Good Morning’ them with no penalty for no response, but you do get a point for a “Good Morning” back. Which accounted for a fairly high total a couple of weeks back when we found ourselves on the course of the Norwich Triathlon, running against the traffic.

8. Living fairly near the university and running Sunday mornings gives us a fair chance of bumping into students enjoying the ‘walk of shame’ home after a big night out. Wearing last night’s clothes used to be a bit of a badge of honour in my day, but please note, it is no longer acceptable to call out “well done mate”, particularly if it’s a girl. After all, one day, the voice under the hoody will answer back “Morning Dad”. Anyway, double points for a response.

9. Double points as well for young families with pushchairs. If you have a baby, it’s unlikely that you’re going to actually want to go for a walk at 8am on a Sunday, so if they can engage with sweating strangers coming towards them, they deserve to be counted extra

10. If the walker/runner/cyclist says “Good Morning” first, five points. I’m looking forward to a few games of ‘Cheerful Greeting Chicken’ as a result of this rule. Which was, incidentally brought in last week after someone with a voice slightly louder than TFP got in there first. Honestly, it was like being at the deaf glee club.

On our last run, where TFP scored a rather disappointing minus 12, (and therefore summing up Eastern England post World Cup, post Wimbledon, and pre summer holidays,) I asked him why he was so insistent on being so cheery in the mornings. “I don’t know”, he said, “I just like saying hello to people I suppose – and any way if more people did it, we’d all be a lot happier”.

Of course, he’s right. Really must try it myself some time.

*Not often you get a chance to reference Helen Shapiro and John Cooper Clarke in the same heading. More of both in the world would be good. And hello Steph x