Advent #1

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas
The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: dec1.jpg

So… when does Christmas start?

December 1st? The first Sunday in Advent (which, this year, is December 1st)? In Holsworthy it started last night with the switching-on of the town lights. Down the road in Tavistock, at least based on a conversation I had yesterday, it starts with ‘Dickens day’ which this year is December 6th – “the whole town goes mad for it… guys selling chestnuts out of dustbins” was how I had it described to me (but lovingly). In the supermarket game it apparently starts somewhere between Halloween and Fireworks night. So really, who knows?

Actually I do: it started at about 2:30 in the afternoon on Saturday 12th October. That was when we did our first bit of Christmas shopping, and I’m unilaterally taking that as the starting pistol for the whole shebang.

I realise there are people who start stocking up on cards and tinsel in January, and to whom October will seem scandalously late. Even my daughter, while not subscribing to the ‘January Sales’ approach, has had an army of presents gradually annexing her sitting-room carpet since the Summer.

But for me, October is extremely early. Granted it was only some tiny blown-glass trinkets; but having started the ball rolling we’ve slowly but surely continued. A Lego set here, an Annual there, some haberdashery and light furnishings along the way…

The upshot of this unexpected and certainly-uncharacteristic organisation is that much of our Christmas present-buying (usually done in an increasingly-frenzied panic around the middle of December) is already done. This is very much new territory for us – but I’m hoping it might mean a less frantic December.

That remains to be seen… as does whether I have another twenty-four thoughts about Christmas. I doubt it. Although, this is one of them…

So, that’s a start.

It’s Not The Size, It’s What You Do With It

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Little Bit Of Politics

With which appalling title, and if you don’t want to know the results of the General Election look away now, I can say that Labour has had a huge win.

But if a week is a long time in politics then even just a couple of days is quite a while, so with thoughts already looking to the next election (“not another one?” as Brenda from Bristol would say) the experts, and also lots of people on Twitter, are digging into the actual numbers to point out things like: Labour has won a lot of seats but their actual number of overall votes is very similar to 2019 when they had a huge loss. And that it’s an election the Conservatives have lost, rather than one that Labour has won.

Indeed, even bleary-eyed at half past five on Friday morning, my mental arithmetic was up to working out that, taking the stats for three Welsh seats that scrolled across my TV screen, in each case the combined votes for Tory and Reform was more than the total Labour had just won with. I would expect the Tories, as they pursue the long dreary post-mortem that is no doubt already underway, will be trying to identify how much of the Reform vote came from people who would normally vote Tory, didn’t want to do so this time, but also didn’t want to go so far as to vote Labour. If they think that sort of voter constitutes the lion’s share of Reform’s support, then their first port of call will surely be to claw back as many of those votes as possible.

Indeed, several pundits have already suggested Labour, huge win or not, could be just a one-term government this time. (Although I have to agree with the logic of it, I sort of feel Monday would have been time enough to point it out, let Starmer & co at least have the weekend – it’s a little bit like being that guy reeling off the divorce statistics at a wedding reception.) Their only hope, it would seem, their one desperate ploy to hold on to power, would be to improve the state of the country and to actually help people. Crikey.

I’d like to think that might be the plan anyway, and not just to try and win the next election. (Sorry Brenda.) With the cynical qualifier that the most recent time I heard the slogan ‘Country First, Party Second’ was in the sentence “Country First, Party Second isn’t a slogan”; and with the additional, even more cynical, qualifier that no doubt, as they all do, Labour will soon come to think that since they are the best thing for the country, then what’s good for the party must ipso facto also be good for the country; with all that said, it would be nice to think that, at the moment at least, their aspiration is to try and make things, lots of things, better.

Of course, Labour have as much chance as any other party of making a complete hash of it – but as I pointed out to a work-colleague inexplicably mourning the surprise defeat of the Conservatives on Friday morning, the choice here was surely between a party which might or might not be rubbish, or a party which has demonstrated that they definitely ARE rubbish. I was never very good at probability ratios, but I think that’s a 1 in 3 chance of a good outcome?

I don’t understand quantum physics either, but to fumble another analogy, it was a choice between Schrodinger’s Labour Party, or the “Your cat is definitely dead” Tory Party. (In fact, given how things have been going recently that should probably read “Your cat is definitely dead. But don’t forget, under the Conservatives there are more taxidermists than ever before.”)

So we wait and for a short while at least we can maybe even hope (perhaps naively, perhaps foolishly) that things will improve. That any new start is better than none. And if not… well, no doubt sooner or later there’ll be another election.

Sorry Brenda.

Waking Up With A Huge Election

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1990s, Little Bit Of Politics, TV

Not that I want to suggest all I do is watch TV. But…

…I’ve watched far more election-based programming this time round than ever before, although I don’t know why. Maybe I just don’t have enough DVDs?

From the moment the election was announced in the pouring rain, it felt like an inexorable move towards the inevitable outcome of a Labour win; and yet despite that, and although I would by no means say I’ve sought out everything (because, I don’t mind admitting, I do at least have some DVDs) I have watched a lot. The first of the ‘Sunak/Starmer’ head to heads. Sky’s ‘one at a time’ version of the same. The BBC’s ‘seven at a time’ debate, a mixed assortment of prominent figures lined up as if in some bizarre quiz show (“Angela Rayner, come on down!”). I even sat through the Question Time specials where six leaders each got half an hour (alas, none of them a patch on Tony Hancock’s).

I am not, however, if there was any uncertainty on the question, any kind of political heavyweight, so given that I almost dozed off at a petrol pump the other day there was never any chance I was going to stay up to watch the whole kit & caboodle on Thursday night. I surfaced about 4am Friday though (surprising my dog who usually makes me surface about 5am) so was still up and watching in plenty of time to get the flavour of things.

The last election I can remember being properly interested in was in 1997. That was of course the year of Tony Blair’s landslide, the night of the famous ‘Portillo Moment’, a phrase still used to describe the toppling of a prominent, but deeply unpopular, MP.  Given that he’s spent the subsequent quarter of a century reinventing himself as a sort of poor man’s Michael Palin (well, rich man’s I suppose) I wonder how Mr Portillo feels about giving his name to this phenomenon?

Whatever he feels about it, there were certainly some Portillo Moments to be… Would it be unkind to say ‘enjoyed’? Oh, what the heck – there were certainly some of them to be enjoyed on Friday. Of all the ghastly things he’s done, Jacob Rees-Mogg finally sealed his reputation as a wrong ‘un, causing a furore online by misattributing a quote from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in his speech. (I have to admit I was amazed he’d even seen it – although I suspect he thinks it’s the story of the much-maligned, misunderstood child catcher who is cruelly brought down by a bunch of bloody peasants).

But, to be fair, he did at least make a speech. Compare that with Liz Truss who not only had the appalling bad manners to keep her returning officer and fellow candidates waiting for ages, she then stropped off without a word. She seemed to then spend some time circling the venue looking for the exit before being briefly cornered by a BBC reporter, thoroughly declining to take any responsibility either for her personal defeat, or for that of the party as a whole. After which she wandered off very much with the air of somebody deluded enough to think they’d be back. To paraphrase her own famous comments on cheese imports, She Is A Disgrace.

So, there were winners, there were losers, there were gracious speeches admitting defeat, there were magnanimous speeches accepting victory. There was something from Nigel Farage (but isn’t there always). There was an over-excited Jeremy Vine with yet another over-complicated graphic. There was the controversial co-hosting of Clive M and Laura K on the BBC; and the inexplicable co-hosting of Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Emily Maitlis and (this is the inexplicable bit) Nadine Dorries (!) on Channel 4. There were a few old faces popping up to comment (although I’m pleased he never became PM, still I find it oddly reassuring to see Neil Kinnock pop up). There were tears, there were laughs, there were surprises.

It could maybe have done with a big song & dance number to finish but other than that, yes, a good evening’s viewing!

Get Ready, Here Comes The Election

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Little Bit Of Politics, Trump

No, not that one.

Not the surprise French one either. Funny really – like buses, you wait ages for one and then three elections come along at once. France on Sunday, the UK next Thursday (which I appreciate is sounding a bit like Hitler’s ‘To Do’ list) and the US after that.  Granted it’s not actually till November but it feels like it’s been looming for months already, if not years.

The American election has been brought to the forefront, for the moment at least, by last night’s first TV debate in which Joe Biden needed to prove he was focussed and dynamic and absolutely up to the job… and sadly didn’t. I appreciate that his camp this morning is pointing out how ‘the other guy’ spent a lot of his time telling lies, but I’m afraid the nature of these TV debates is to impress at least as much with the candidate’s demeanour and presentation and delivery as it is with the actual content coming out of their mouths. Which may be an unpalatable truth, but if you’re on a presidential media team in 2024 you should already know it.

Maybe if Biden had been the candidate instead of Hilary Clinton in 2016 it would have been very different. He might well have won that and Trump, the out-of-left-field surprise candidate, would never have become President… and chances are, after a few weeks of sober reflection, even the Republican party would have reached the, “What were we thinking?!!” stage and we would never have heard from him again…

But that didn’t happen, and from last night’s showing it seems likely that Trump’s going to make what he’s presumably already calling the Greatest Comeback in the History of the World Ever. He doesn’t even really need to win, not properly, he just needs the other side to lose.

I’m sure, even allowing for my youthful apathy, that the UK in general never used to be all that bothered about American politics when I was  younger. I would have known who was President, but other than that I don’t think I could even have told you which party was in power. But now, we seem to know (and hear!) all about caucases and the mid-terms and… That’s mainly the Trump effect. For all sorts of reason he’s so ‘newsworthy’ that it’s meant US politics has become a big part of UK news..

But it’s a shame for America. Trump, as far as I can see, is likely to spend most of a second term trying to dramatically reform the courts that dared convict him, the electoral system that dared vote him out, and indeed the Constitution that says he can only have two terms. I suspect anything more germane to actually running the country for the actual voters will come a very distant second to his ever-growing list of vendettas.

Maybe there’s still time for the Democrats to field somebody else. Somebody younger, more dynamic, more focussed and enthusiastic (frankly if they can find somebody like that, half the job of winning the election is already done). But presumably, based on him having the most nominations or however the heck their system works, they can’t not choose to accept Biden.

Unless he decides to take himself out of the race of course. I appreciate that seems very unlikely, but it could happen. Roger Moore pulled out for example (that’s not a mid-seventies Bond innuendo, I’m recalling him being cast in Aspects of Love but exiting the role with no more than a fortnight till curtain up). Maybe Mrs Biden will have spent breakfast trying to suggest to her husband that it’s time to hang up the… whatever it is that Presidents get. Robes of Office? Crown? Nuclear briefcase? Well, whatever.

But I don’t expect that’s going to happen. So the US outcome seems, to this cross-Atlantic observer at least, a dead cert for the Republicans.

I guess it must be rather disheartening to go into an election with a choice between just two candidates, neither of whom is very inspiring, and with a result that seems already clear.

Yes, poor America…

The Easter Mystery

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Confused, Moaning, Pets

To misquote Noddy Holder, It’s Eas-ter!!!!!!!

There are of course two Easters, just as there are two Christmasses – that is to say, there’s the actual religious festival and then there’s the commercial event. And I think, whether wholeheartedly or begrudgingly, we just have to accept that.

It’s inevitable really, given that of all the many religious festivals only those two prompt Bank Holidays and all that go with them. No doubt there’s mutterings in some corners that even this simple fact is yet another example of how fundamentally discriminatory and just plain awful the British are… but in fact no, that’s just how our particular society has evolved. (Personally I’ve no objection whatsoever if anybody wants to get us an extra few days off work for Eid or Diwali – I often think that if Rishi Sunak promised three extra bank holidays (and to fix all the potholes) even he could still get re-elected.)

It would be foolish to expect an entire society to be of one mind, most of the time we can’t even agree on who should win Strictly; so it’s not unreasonable that for those who, to misquote Shakespeare, have Easter thrust upon them, there should be a secular element to give it some identity. Not that I’m suggesting the manufacturers of Easter Cards, and chocolate eggs, and the not-to-be-confused-with-Playboy bunny ears, are doing it out of a sense of civic duty. I’m guessing, to be blunt, they’re mainly in it for the money.

This was made very obvious to me today when I ventured into our local Morrisons to find that the Easter aisle has already been cleared out. No doubt come Monday it’ll be full of buckets and spades and other Summertime paraphernalia (which will be there until about mid-July when they’ll be replaced by new School uniforms and Halloween stuff). For the merchandisers, even before Easter has actually arrived it’s time to dump all that and move onto the next thing.

I’ll be honest, I don’t really mind that. I do, though, have a bit of a problem with the insidious playing down of Easter itself. Actually no, I think insidious is unfair – that suggests strategy, which suggests conspiracy. When, for example, Iceland bizarrely removed the cross from their hot CROSS buns, I don’t believe it was a calculated move to eradicate Easter. Much more likely it’s another example of this infuriating modern trend of trying to pre-empt somebody taking offence, and in the process offending many more people.

I’ve done no research but I’m prepared to go out on a limb and say nobody, nobody, has ever objected to having basic Christian iconography pushed on them via the medium of baked goods. I’d go so far as to say if anybody has objected to it, well, the problem probably isn’t with the bun.

Even the word itself, Easter, seems to be an embarrassment in some quarters, as though there’s a worry that poor innocent consumers might unwittingly come over all C-of-E simply by reading it. Just taking a quick straw poll of the five-and-a-half chocolate eggs currently in our house, the word Easter is only prominent on the two that my wife felt strangely compelled to buy for our dogs – the eggs intended for human consumption mention Easter only once and only in the small print.

All of which seems very odd to me. Of course we are a multi-faith culture now, which is a tremendously encouraging thing to aspire to (even if, as has been pointed out, ultimately only one of them can be right (possibly not even that many)) but at the same time you can’t unwrite the country as it has evolved and you can’t rewrite history. Nobody would visit Vatican City and complain that there are too many Catholics, or open a gift shop there but play down anything that was “a bit too Pope-y”.

So maybe the UK shouldn’t worry so much. Leave the cross on the hot cross bun, leave Easter on the eggs. Anything else, we leave that to your own beliefs.

To not misquote Dave Allen: Goodnight, and may your God go with you.

Happy Easter.

Mr Bates: First Class Male

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Little Bit Of Politics, TV

I’ve recently been outraged by the real-life injustice portrayed in an ITV drama.

Not, to avoid confusion, the sacking of Noele Gordon; but rather, the almost-unbelievable saga covered in Mr Bates vs The Post Office. I thought, going in, that I already knew the gist of it: computer system not working, Post Office says it is, legal shenanigans ensue. If I’m honest I wondered how they were going to pad it out to four hours.

As it turned out there was more than enough to fill the timeslot, each episode presenting numerous moments where if I hadn’t known it was true I would have scoffed at the writer for losing touch with reality. But I didn’t scoff – instead, like most people, I watched with a mounting sense of outrage.

I’d been outraged about it before of course, every single time it had featured on the news. But that only lasted while I was hearing about it; after which I pretty much forgot and carried on with my life. I never felt the urge to find out more about what was happening, I certainly never felt exercised enough to, for example, write to my MP. I appreciate that even that would hardly be storming the barricades or blocking the M5 – although, if we’d ALL written to our MPs about it, no doubt the thought of a headline-grabbing, vote-winning wave of opinion might have got the government moving…

…as indeed is now the case, one drama giving the whole scandal a higher profile than two decades of news coverage. Given my own fickle outrage, maybe I’ve got a bit of a nerve moaning about politicians who are now thumping the table and making grand pronouncements simply because the story is suddenly in the public eye.

On the other hand, and maybe I’m just naïve as well as fickle, but in a vague sense I’d always assumed that if a compensation scheme has been approved then somebody is responsible for ensuring it’s administered correctly and promptly. I’d always assumed too, that if there’s accusations of a miscarriage of justice, or of fraud, then it would automatically fall to somebody to investigate the matter. I’d even assumed that somewhere in government, somebody is responsible for ensuring that this whole business remains constantly and continually under scrutiny by government!

In the last case at least it turns out, yes, there IS a Minister whose responsibilities include the Post Office. He’s been very outspoken this past week that the people responsible for this scandal should be held accountable – which is absolutely correct, although disappointing that he doesn’t appear to have been interested in that during the preceding fourteen months in the job. It’s staggering (to naïve, fickle, outraged old me) that it’s gone this far without there being even the whiff of a suggestion that somebody really ought to be held accountable for all this.

Because, although it’s apparently “the Horizon Scandal” the computer itself isn’t actually responsible. People are. Somebody, some human being (possibly several) very early on has decided that if the computer says there’s a shortfall then the postmasters must be stealing it – somebody has taken that viewpoint, rather than considering that these people have worked for them for a long time and that therefore they ought to start from an assumption that they’re telling the truth.

Somebody has viewed the results of investigations which found no evidence of theft – but decided to pursue prosecutions anyway. Somebody has instituted a policy of silencing individuals, offering settlements alongside NDAs in an attempt to suppress criticism of the computer system. Somebody has decided that each individual be told they are the only one experiencing problems. Somebody has, in other words, decided on a lie, and decided that every action that follows must protect that lie.

So I hope this sudden galvanising of the powers-that-be produces results, and promptly; and I hope the individuals who have been variously sacked, or ruined, or prosecuted, or jailed, get compensation and lots of it. But there’s only so much money can do, and the reality is that an awful lot of the damage simply cannot be undone.

And, well, that is an outrage.

Advent the Last

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas, Family, Friends

One thing I especially like about the new Beatles song is that it comes to a definite end. Compare that with, say, Hey Jude where the song proper finishes, but there’s still time to go and make a cup of tea, answer a couple of emails, walk the dog even, before the song finally fades away.

Real life of course isn’t like that, not even at Christmas when maybe we’d like to think the everyday hustle and bustle comes to a definite end for everyone. When I casually dropped in on my brother this morning, in full-on holiday mode, my sister-in-law was busy cooking for Christmas because she’s working tomorrow (and Boxing Day (and Wednesday)).

For all that it’s not a full stop, there is a definite and unavoidable suspension of normality about Christmas, and it gives us the opportunity to wish friends, family, colleagues, a Merry Christmas. I like to think, behind and beyond that, we’re not just hoping they have a good day on December 25th –  we’re, without articulating it properly, telling them that they mean something to us, and that we’re thinking of them.

I’ve friends who’ve lost their Dad recently. Friends who had a rough time of it last Christmas but are hoping, and deservedly so, for a better one this year. Then there are friends who are recently married, or have had a baby this past year, and I’m pleased for their excitement. But then again, there’s at least one friend who I suspect is struggling more than they’re saying.

It isn’t just about (to quote if not THE Beatles, at least A Beatle) “simply having a wonderful Christmas time.”

So with that in mind, what else can I say but….

Merry Christmas

X

Advent #23

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Childhood, Christmas

My work colleague has been on holiday this past week so with the charitable but slightly-flawed logic of a child, my boss’s nine year old daughter has been in the office to help me out. We’ve sorted out drill bits, we’ve unpacked deliveries, and she’s demonstrated the correct way to flatten cardboard boxes for recycling (which is, apparently, to jump on them until they give in). We’ve also discussed numerous hot topics of the day: what sort of person likes Ketchup; where the Penguin sits in the ranking of chocolate biscuits; and whether Health and Safety is two words or three. I have, however, avoided the topic of Father Christmas.

EITHER she’s at the wavering stage, and would have bombarded me with questions (How can he do it so quickly? Can reindeers really fly? Why’s he on the Zoe Ball breakfast show when he should be busy in the North Pole?). I don’t know if it’s possible to get a written warning for shattering the dreams of a child, but I didn’t really want to find out.

OR—she already knows he’s not real, and when I pretended he was would have given me SUCH a look.

On the other hand, aren’t we’re all Father Christmas? Not in an “I am Spartacus” way; but because we’re the ones whokeep it going. All the time I knew him my father-in-law said he wanted nothing for Christmas. And of course we always bought him something – because crucially although we know there isn’t a Father Christmas, I think deep down we’d all like it to be true.

Anyway, both me and the nine year old have clocked off for the week and excitement is starting to build. Come tomorrow evening Father Christmas may (OR MAY NOT) be on his way.

Advent #22

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas, TV

As per usual our daughter has been more organised than us again this year, and got the tree up in her flat several weeks ago. Which is all very laudable, but I must confess to being surprised (maybe even a little horrified) when I discovered she’d put it in front of the TV. This is not, let me tell you, a position that I would find in any way acceptable, and indeed if we had no option but to do likewise then I suspect the tree would not be going up at all!

I’m not feeling in the least bit Christmassy – I won’t bore you with that, but my point is that even with that being the case, I’ve enjoyed a run of Christmas specials this past week. I missed last weekend’s repeat of Dad’s Army’s 1975 episode, where Arthur Lowe plays not just Captain Mainwaring but also his alcoholic twin brother; but on Monday we caught the brand new QI Christmas special, as well as most of a slew of ‘new to Dave’ QIs from previous Christmasses (tonight’s was the 2010 one, which ends with Graham Norton apparently killing off Harry Potter (spoiler – he doesn’t (or does he (no he doesn’t)))). Yesterday we not only watched The Great British Sewing Bee but also (I’m beginning to feel a trifle embarrassed now, maybe we SHOULD put our tree in front of the telly…?) 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.

Over the next few days there’ll probably be a Bake Off, possibly a Pottery Throwdown, and definitely a Doctor Who. I’m quite looking forward to all of those, so I hope nothing gets in the way – and especially not a Christmas tree!!

Advent #21

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in Christmas, Family, Pets

I’m beginning to think that simply by mentioning Connie Francis’ Baby’s First Christmas I’ve invoked some kind of curse. First Radio 2’s Sara Cox plays it at peaktime, improbable enough – and now we find ourselves with an actual baby’s first Christmas situation.

Well, sort of.

If you’re picturing me stood on the steps of Curnow Towers a la Mrs Thatcher (“we are a grandfather”) you’d better back up the truck. Our daughter is responsible, but only in the sense that as of last Thursday she has acquired a three-legged friend (and yes, that is 75% of a Roy Rogers song).

Her dog is called Rikki and he’s a Podenko (no, me neither) and somewhere in his past he’s lost a leg. He’s four, so it’s his first Christmas WITH US, in the same way that TV programmes are ‘new TO DAVE’. He’s very quickly warmed to both my daughter and wife but he’s not all that keen on men so as yet he’s only got close enough to tentatively smell me. (You can decide for yourself how close that is depending on how pongy you think I am.)

Getting a dog as a single person is a bit like Brexit in that it restricts free movement; but in fact I think our daughter will be glad to have some company around the place. Having moved from our ‘home complete with menagerie’ it’s probably been rather quiet living on her own this past year. I can’t, to be brutally honest, see Rikki fulfilling any kind of ‘guard dog’ role given how timid he is – but on the other hand, missing leg or not, as soon as he twigged he could jump on the bed he appears to have really found his calling as a hot water bottle.