Good Stuff, Bad Stuff, Inbetween Stuff, In Fact Just Stuff

You're English - piss off

Alain Rolland and Steve Walsh - I've berated both these chaps before and here I go again. But before I bore you with it once more, please let me make it entirely clear, I do not in any way contend that South Africa deserved anything less than their victory over England in Johannesburg yesterday. There is nothing remotely so compelling as a Springbok team in full-on smash-mouth mode at the beginning of a test match.

However, however, however, Rolland and Walsh both officiate with a supercilious veneer of infallibility and when you do that you should get it right bloody nearly all of the time. To fail to do so risks looking a twat. Walsh crossed this line aeons ago, Rolland more recently, probably at the precise moment when he decided he should be the decisive influence in a world Cup semi-final.

Je suis plus important que vous

Yesterday? Exhibit A: a scrum on the English line, Rolland stood on the English loosehead side, Walsh touch-judging close at hand on the other. Ball in (fed of course and if Roland had chosen to penalise that infringement none of this would need to be said) - ball out again without passing behind the foot of any front-row forward - ball picked up by SA flanker - the infallible duo look at each other, exchange knowing nods - try given. Bollocks, wrong, wrong, wrong, indisputably wrong. Out of such things are persecution complexes born.  But then again it's only a game.

Hey ho. The Olympics - it was more volunteer training for me on Friday. The day started badly with a sub-amateur prologue of PC earnestness but your correspondent is delighted to report that underlying enthusiasm and optimism overcame the encumbrance of the soul-destroying mumbo jumbo in which any great public venture has now to be encased. I'm looking forward to being a part of it and, done well, I think it can be of importance to a national revival. This is an unusually (one might think unfittingly) innocent attitude for the Overgraduate but pray allow me these occasional childish moments.

Now I shall revert to type. A mere week ago the stock markets rallied as a 'solution' to the Spanish banking crisis was announced. Then markets (the denizens of which do not read this blog) had dawn upon them the realisation that this solution was no less (and admittedly no more) a bag of shite than earlier sticking plasters applied to the Euro farrago. Then for reasons beyond any sensible analysis we had another dead cat bounce. As all of this went on the most intriguing piece of politico-economic commentary came from my Turkish waiter in a Hackney cafe. To him I had entrusted the manufacture of the best sandwich he could come up with - this trust he discharged with distinction and thus we engaged in casual conversation provoked by the feature on the Greek election issuing forth from the ubiquitous Sky News feed. Having first checked that I would not mind his saying so (this is a most peculiar figure of speech because one is expected to assent to the mouthing of an utterance whose character you have no means of prejudging) he opined that the trouble with the Greeks is that in his experience 'they've always been a bunch of lazy bastards.'

Now some praise. The subtler skills of golf are often missing from its modern professional incarnation where the run of the ball has almost been outlawed. The USGA have brought it back to intriguing effect at the Olympic Golf Club in San Francisco this week. Nice job lads. There has also been the treat of watching Tiger Woods yesterday fighting poor form to stay in contention. A treat not because of any animus against Woods but because he is so thoroughly effortful in such circumstances. The rage for perfection is what marks the truly great.

We welcome Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to readership of The Overgraduate, this being the only plausible explanation for Maggie Alphonsi having been recognised in the birthday honours list. My positing of Alphonsi as the world's best rugby player has obviously resonated in the corridors of power. I am however a little bemused that Gary Street has not yet been knighted - what Has Kenneth  Branagh done that Street has not? My point being that Gary could probably play Hamlet but I doubt Branagh could play scrum-half, kick goals, juggle with traffic cones and perform magic.

If I could write like this
do you seriously think I'd be
talking to you lot

Finally, a happy televisual accident last night. We saw again the finest flower of Channel 4's early days, Jack Rosenthal's P'tang Yang Kipper Bang. If you have never seen this film (broadcast as I recall on the second ever night of 4's transmission) you must do so and ponder how the same organisation might also have given us Big Brother. I'm just saying, that's all.  

  

Changing One's Mind

Sometimes one does. Change one's mind that is. But not so very often. However I will confess to a particular youthful indiscretion. Many political ages ago I was engaged in a rugby club conversation about exchange rate policy. This says rather a lot about the rugby club of which I am a member - we will talk about anything and everything and just because it is coarse to say that the single currency is a bag of toss does not of course make it wrong. I digress. The conversation to which I refer predated the euro's creation and was about its precursor the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM or the 'money snake' as I seem to recall it being called). The question was whether Britain should join the snake. My reponse was one of youthful ignorance - yes we should. Poor deluded child I had no idea that when the day came for a right regal pissing contest George Soros could not only urinate further up the wall than our sovereign state but right over the top of the whole bloody building. Nice work George - now see that camel over there, well get it through this needle for me will you.

So here's the thing. I was wrong then. Monetary union, no matter how loose, can only work with political and fiscal union. And the people who tell you otherwise are often mendacious technocrats who think you're stupid and that their intended end justifies this means.

On the subject of people who change their minds, another tale from my youth, this one a piece of the landscape of my teens. Being a somewhat obnoxious youth I was talking politics with a rather stupid adult who admiringly commented that the only contemporary politician who never changed his mind was Enoch Powell. It was at this stage that the penny dropped that maybe a change of mind was other than a sign of weakness, especially when wrong.

Mention of Powell does put me in mind of the rather splendid joke in Jonathan Coe's The Rotters' Club wherein a character posits Powell and Tolkien as two major racist thinkers. The nice in-joke is that Powell and Tolkien both attended King Edward's School Birmingham, as did the extravagantly gifted Coe. I'm firmly of the school that approves of in-jokes so long as I get them. Anything else is self-indulgent.

Egeus. Father of Hermia. A man who believes that his daughter should be put to death if she will not marry the suitor of his choice. Maybe I haven't mentioned this but I will shortly be giving my Egeus in open air Shakespeare. You didn't know? Apologies if I haven't mentioned this. Playbill attached. Anyway the point I'm building up to is this: under some directorial encouragement I am adopting Enoch Powell as my model for Egeus because nothing will make my Egeus change his mind. That is unless the director tells me otherwise of course. I'm not stupid.    

It's A Miracle

In the last three days I have been for a run (very short, very windswept, waves crashing over the Benllech sea wall, mega) and I have been out on the dream machine (20k decentish time, no mechanical failure) and , here's the important bit, I haven't injured myself. This, despite my attention grabbing headline, is not a miracle. There is a scientific explanation - and here it is - I've been wearing my new go-faster Ironman sunglasses. Very swish. I don't look at all like a stupid tit with these on. I look hard and cool at the same time. Which is altogether terrific when you consider I bought them in Sainsbury's.

... Are Brilliant Mark IX

a culinary revolution

The Golden Fry, The Square, Benllech, Anglesey. There are two chip shops in Benllech, but this is the one for the connoisseur. It has the less auspicious  position but this is where you should go. In a tradition defying departure it serves its chips in boxes (I know, who would have thought) which not only helps prevent chip adhesion (sorry but if you don't know what I mean you obviously don't eat badly regularly enough) but also allows compartmentalisation of your chosen fish - I think one will agree that haddock is the gourmet choice but cod will do.

The National Slate Museum at Llanberis. It's free - an edict of the National Assembly, rather like free prescriptions it's one of those boons of devolution about which an Englishman shouldn't think too long. It's really interesting. And if there's one of the slate splitting demonstrations on, you must go because if you get the chap we got , he's a shameless and very effective comedian.

William Selwyn, a North Wales artist. 

Glaslyn Ale. My taste for real ale has been reawakened over the past couple of years, an unexpected benefit from amateur dramatics and the habit of its participants of going for a post rehearsal bevy. An honourable mention here does have to go to the oft derided Witherspoons pubs because they maintain a selection of reasonably priced cask ales.

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Another piece of Shakespeare I had underestimated - how do I keep making this mistake? On close acquaintance with this play (currently rehearsing Egeus - another grumpy old bastard - why do  I always get these parts?) I realise it is, and here as ever I bow to Jonathan Bate, 'one of his [Shakespeare's] truly essential works because nowhere else is his double vision more apparent'. Production details at Shakespeare in the Park Lichfield 

Get Real Lads

Doctors are among the best-paid public sector employees - and as such they also have the most lucrative pensions.
The average hospital consultant retiring today will enjoy a pension of £48,000 a year and a lump sum of over £140,000.
Among public-sector pensions being paid out, doctors account for two-thirds of the top 1% of pay outs.

These are not the words of the Boy Roberts, I do not make this stuff up. Rather this is lifted straight from that paragon of rectitude the BBC website. It's gospel guv, good as.

So what are we to make of today's news that doctors will next month be taking industrial action over the changes to their pensions? This: if you want to live in a fantasy land where you can be financially rewarded twice for the same estimable job, once while doing it and the other while resting afterwards, then try Greece or perhaps Cuba - oh wait, they're both bankrupt. I'm sorry to sound so immoderate about this but really lads we're teetering on the brink here. The entire European credit binge experiment is about to be chewed up and spat out by a wave of Asian endeavour. Wanting something for nothing is immoral. End of. Sad conclusion: we in the West are utterly fucked and the emerging world laughs at us as we blithely pretend the old certainties still pertain. Francis Fukuyama posited The End of History? (the question mark is important and wilfully overlooked by his more voluble critics) but the sad truth is we've already blown it. The peace dividend has long since been invested in a Ponzi scheme whose collapse has elicited the tired and sinful policy of printing more bad money to chase that already wasted. A policy, let us be clear, which unashamedly taxes thrift to subsidise ignorant greedy borrowing.




Cameron lookalike does
 arrogant posh boy
come hither look

 And another thing bugging me - what pray is the point of having a Conservative government if they never do anything meaningfully conservative? I've been charitable and given you 2+ years to get your act together. To what end? Bugger all; zero, zilch; nada. As Kenneth Williams memorably intoned in that veritable classic Carry On Up the Khyber - I spit on your British phlegm.

Feel better now Dave? Much, thank you Matron. Looking forward to the Jubilee weekend when I can at least thank my god that I am spared the blandishments of President Cameron. Vive la difference and freedom for Tooting.

Piece Of Paper II

Did you miss me? You've been waiting with bated breath haven't you? Sorry, been a busy boy, getting most of my work done before embarking on the annual Dunmore golfing festival. I am thus blogging from the comfort of the StenaPlus lounge on the delayed ferry crossing to Dublin - it's going to be a rough one.

complete ******

Now, last time we met I had a whine about Keith Vaz and Polly Toynbee but there is a yet greater ogre in my red ink and I must ask those of a delicate disposition to look away now because the following two words may cause offence: Ken Livingstone. What a dick. If Londoners are seriously about to elect as mayor this mendacious, avaricious, small-minded pygmy then I despair. London, I love you but please, please, don't do it. This is not a plea for Comedy Boris. It's just a plea not to invite derision upon yourselves

Bardic haka

To cheerier matters. I've raved before about Shakespeare's Globe but I saw a performance there last Monday which was awesome - Troilus and Cressida in Maori. Seriously bloody brilliant. Part of the cultural Olympiad, all 37 plays are being presented in different languages. Catch one of them if you can. The Bard transcends even his own language.

One bad thing about the Globe however - they have succumbed to what I take to be a bizarre egalitarian design whereby the gents' toilets contain only cubicles and no urinals. This slows down the whole generally manageable business of a bloke having a slash. Our ability to pee standing up is one of our few cultural advantages and the mass urinal is one of modernity's great space-saving devices. Bring back the pisser!

See that ball in the gorse-
that's mine that is

Beautiful, Beautiful beast. No, not me, nor most certainly Big Willy Macfarlane or John Brain my golfing compadres who sit opposite me as I type. No, I speak of Bull Bay Golf Club where we yesterday battled strong winds in the traditional pipe-owner. The official record will show that John won our contest - what it will not tell you is that Willy and Brain both rode in an electric cart, the pair of inexcusable faggots. They even nearly drove that over a little cliff, pair of clowns.
I remain, indisputably, our finest athlete. This is not a great boast.

My Piece Of Paper I

It doesn't yet qualify as a system but I have been writing stuff down on a piece of paper because at my age I do forget things and that is just not fair on you is it. Some of it may be my best stuff.

Most of the writing on my piece of paper was made during my latest foray into the jungle that is that London. In red ink which is, I think you will find, almost as clear an indicator of a nutter as green. Almost.

Who's your boyfriend?

We start with a couple of astute observations on what you can learn merely by noting the opinions of eminent hand-job merchants. For example we do not need to delve too deeply into the government's proposal for minimum alcohol pricing - suffice to say that Keith Vaz thinks it's a good idea.. I rest my case M'lud. Btw, as you enter the words 'Keith Vaz' into a search engine the predictive results include in fifth place the wonderful phrase 'Keith Vaz is a knob van.' Made this juvenile chuckle.

quod erat demonstrandum

Exhibit B: the views of the reliably barking, achingly serious Polly Toynbee. Good old Pol has been heard to endorse the Chancellor's cap on tax deductions for charitable giving. Because the government is, of course, so much better a judge of how your money should be spent than ever you might be. You have to have a sense of humour about these things. Really you do, because the alternative is horribly depressing - believe me I've been there.

This grumpy old bastard will share some more of his red ink with you tomorrow. Goodnight sweet prince.