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Memento of Sorrento – 1

22 Jan

There is a romance about Italy that neither Spain nor France manages. The Italians don’t do as they are told; they’re charmingly corrupt and inefficient but steeped in a love of music and art and food and wine. They seem to sense that civilisation began somewhere near Rome, way, way back when.

The Italians are not proud of Silvio Berlusconi or the trash which lines the streets of Naples or Mussolini or the Mafia…but they smile knowingly if others try to take the higher moral ground. Let him who is without sin…Having already enjoyed the fantasies of childhood holidays in Diano Marina, the misted hills of Tuscany, the brilliance of Venice, Padua, Verona, Pisa…the lakes – I continued my love affair in the Spring of 2014 with a trip to Sorrento.

What follows is a diarised account which, I hope, captures the whole experience of travel and not just the sexy Italians doing what they do best – crashing cars and ogling women.

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Dragging ourselves out of bed at 3.30a.m. is one of the questionable pleasures of cheapskate package tours. Thomson’s slot on the runway at Gatwick was 6.15 so a quick slurp of tea and we were on the road with that slightly fluey feeling you get when your body is reacting to the Godforsaken hour. We saw no other cars along the A 217 until we neared the M25 at Reigate. Then the London orbital woke us up and we were at the Gatwick Summer Parking Check-in in a trice. A group of early risers huddled on to the Airport bus. They were panicking. Only 15 minutes till check-in closed. A mother was chatting about her daughter needing 3 As for Bristol University. She should get them easily. Easily?! I thought – bloody grade inflation. In my day you were a genius if you got 3 As. Now it’s the requirement for Media Studies.

The Thomson check-in was all efficiency and smiles. Then security. There was some guy complaining about his hand luggage being searched. I wanted to say that that’s what security is all about but my attention was grabbed by a tiny child setting the bleepers off for no apparent reason. His little shoes were taken off for further examination with parents looking bewildered. More weird was the ageing English couple who complained they didn’t know that they couldn’t take a litre of vodka and a similar quantity of whisky through security. Voices were raised as the toxic liquids were confiscated. The grey couple were offered the chance to retrace their steps and recall their luggage to house the contraband but, all things considered, they wisely decided to eat humble pie and enter the departure lounge quietly, without alcohol in their satchels.

An hour to go before the flight. We headed for Jamie Oliver’s kitchen where Jamie is everywhere – on posters and screens and packaging. The display counter was groaning with carbo-loaded goodies:pastries, breakfast croissants stuffed with hams and cheeses – never mind healthy eating for kids in school, this was Jamie-fare for adults and we were in cholesterol city. I loved it and went for a £4.99 vast, ham-stuffed croissant. Magic.

The screens alternated video streams of Jamie in Italy with flight updates and soon enough our gate – 47 – flashed up. The Thomson clan trooped off and, as usual, there weren’t quite enough seats at the waiting area to accommodate the plane’s complement. We were Ok, though,  and that was all that mattered. We had numbered seats so unless something very unusual occurred, our places inside the tin cabin were designated and secure. This didn’t stop half the passengers eschewing what seating there was and standing in a snaked line in front of an unmanned checking station. When the Thomson uniforms arrived a painted woman screeched something that was barely audible because of her high frequency and the ensuing vibration in the speakers which served Gate 47. The gist was that passengers should sit down until the boarding was called. Moreover when boarding started passengers would be boarded in ascending seat number order. She didn’t use the word ascending, of course, but you get the idea. No one moved. Again, you won’t be surprised. The triumph of hope over reality when the Brits are queueing is one of life’s comforting certainties. When boarding actually started several high-pitched seat-number reminders had been barked by understandable irritated Thomson staff (appropriately clad in blue and purple). I counted five couples or groups being sent to the back of the dinner queue for misbehaviour.

I’m not a good flyer so every bubble of turbulence sends butterflies racing round my intestines like Lewis Hamilton at Monaco. As we accelerate towards take-off I start counting, slowly – eyes closed. I don’t sit in window seats. By the time I reach 200 the captain has usually turned the seat-belt sign off which tells me that he doesn’t think we’ll crash for the time being. I open my eyes. On this occasion the suave Captain Harris warbled that we were going to rise to 38000 feet but at that height we would still be just sitting on the top of some cloud, so we ‘Might enjoy a bump or two’. I grimaced at his calm levity but couldn’t find much to smile about as we hopped across the Alps and my coffee slopped over my Kindle. Captain Harris’s landing left a lot to be desired. The disc brakes had to work overtime.  I remembered the emergency stop on my driving test and wondered idly whether the co-pilot had slapped his hand on the cockpit dashboard.

*************************

Safe and sound we arrived to a dull but warm Naples airport and were met by James who was gay in every way. He directed us to a bright blue coach which was to whisk us from the grotty environs of the airport to the romance that would be Sorrento – about an hour around the bay. Sam was to be the rep. on board and she was an eyebrow-pencilled Geordie out of the very heartiest hi-di-hi stable. Say hello to Gennaro, our driver, everybody! No seat belts. Something about this pleased me and made me admire the Italians for their clear disregard of some EU Brussels directive. We rumbled on around the Bay of Naples which was built up and ugly. Every now and then a church or a lemon grove would awaken a thought of what was enduring. The rain came on quite heavily.

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As with most package deals punters are dropped off in hotel sequence and our Hotel Admiral was at the end of the line. So inaccessible by large transport was the Marina Grande in Sorrento, that we transferred to minibus and even this couldn’t take us to the front door. Our smart hotel was perched under cliffs at the furthest end of the improbably named marina, as it is by far the smaller of the two. The other – Marina Piccolo – is the large ferry harbour where jetfoils and other sizeable craft take cargo and humans to Capri, Sardinia and beyond, while ocean liners park offshore and cruise-trippers make their way in to Sorrento for the day.

Hotel Admiral lies right on the water. Directly across the bay Vesuvius rises clearly looming above the city of Naples. As we rumbled our luggage over the typical pockmarked black, large cobbles the last few steps to the door, the sun broke out.

 

I’m resolute: no resolutions this year.

2 Jan

I mean what’s the point? Two days into the new year and resolve is crumbling. All over the civilized world, hapless souls in their millions have thought up life-changing new behaviours or privations to which they have committed. In the steeplechase of 2015 most will fall at the first fence but some will steer through the mess of fallen runners and riders and, as that luckiest of all steeplechasers, Foinavon did in the famous Grand National of 1967 , win against all the odds. At 100-1 and with his owner, Cyril Watkins, giving him no chance, the plucky steed navigated his way through the carnage of the 23rd fence and realised that 3/4 of the field were no longer in the race. Eleven only of 44 starters survived beyond that fence. The odds for new year resolutes are far, far longer. Just a few, a happy few, will be sitting smugly on NYE 2015 in the knowledge that they have scored some sort of victory. Pyrrhic? Probably. And who gives a toss?

I can hear do-gooders carping at my scepticism. They can trot out endless lists of genuinely life-enhancing changes that people can make. Cut out the bottle of vodka a day; phone granny once a week rather than once a month; actually give the Red Cross some money rather than using their Christmas card for free. The list is endless. Gym memberships soar in January, apparently; sales of chocolate, beer and cake plummet. Bicycles pour forth, de-rusted, from asbestos sheds; libraries experience a surge of borrowers; TV ratings fall. Simon Cowell and the Strictly crew aren’t stupid.They know that telly-sloth peaks before the old year is out so all reality and other banal TV fodder must, must, must be done and dusted before Big Ben chimes at midnight on the 31st.

I have friends who have serious faults which they should have addressed years ago. From tight-fistedness to cup-half-empty syndrome; from the unpunctual to the impolite; from sexist to other ‘ists’, I have a pretty full set of flawed acquaintances. The thing is, I like them like that. If any of them resolved not to be annoying for 2015, it wouldn’t be them would it?

Imagine my friend Geoff announcing, “I insist on buying the first beer every time I walk into a pub this year!” Or Gill proclaiming, “I know that I have been unreasonable about immigrants so I’m going to give my spare room, rent free, to a Polish builder.” It isn’t going to happen is it? Moreover Geoff and Gill wouldn’t be the same people if they made such seismic shifts. You might be thinking that my friends don’t sound very nice anyway. Well, as my Dad once told me, “You don’t pick your friends son; somehow they pick you.”

Resolutions should be made when the spirit is resolute, not when we are at our weakest, bloated with turkey sandwiches and midnight champers. The distractions of Ben Haenow, Ant and Dec, Sir Alan and Miranda are lost in the mists of Christmas past. We are prey to that dastardly of all illusions: hope. Now they say that it is better to travel in hope than to arrive. New Year resolutions work counter-intuitively, you arrive on 1st Jan before you’ve had time to travel in hope. Disaster.

 

(ps I hope my friends Geoff and Gill will forgive me)

What are you thinking about? Nothing?

30 Dec

Here is an extract from my much-awaited first novel. Edwin is brushing his teeth on the morning of his birthday and thinking about not revealing his thoughts.

As he pondered mid- brushing, he digressed into that minefield of what thoughts and actions we normal people would never admit to. For example, at 11 this morning when his mother, keen to kill him with conversation,  would ask what he had  done so far today, would he include: contemplating masturbation and not shaving; putting plastic into the green bin; collecting his prescription for statins; the fierce argument with his ex-wife whose birthday call was a poisoned dart masquerading as a friendly pat; putting washer fluid in the wiper system of his car; chatting to Phil next door about how mossy his lawn had become; getting an earful from a hoodie whose snorting gob on the pavement he had tutted at? All these things were to happen in the next two hours but pass unremarked upon.  Ed recalled the times without number that mothers and lovers had asked the unanswerable ‘What are you thinking?’ The word nothing is a shortening of ‘Everything and nothing’ which is a further reduction from ‘Everything that is on my mind at the moment which is of private concern to me and nothing to do with you or anyone else – or if it is, it would be hurtful to say.’ Nothing is a much better way of saying ‘Mind your own fucking business’.

Most of what we think we don’t reveal – and we don’t want to. Practically it would be impossible to convey the information of the teeming synapses of our thoughts anyway. Much of thought doesn’t fit language either so explaining ourselves is clunky, hard. Most thoughts come unbidden and are wildly irrelevant to what we are doing, saying and thinking at the time. Inappropriate even. You know what I mean. With our nearest and dearest, in our most intimate moments, embarrassingly odd thoughts gatecrash the party and create a zeitgeist that’s impossible to share.

So my character Edwin is not alone in his reflections on his inner and outer worlds. And it is true that the most common answer to the question , ‘What are you thinking?’ is ‘Nothing.’ We can’t be bothered to explain the idiocy of our thoughts. We might upset and embarrass ourselves and others. We might reveal ourselves in an unflattering light. The reasons are endless but, perhaps, the main one is that we don’t want anyone to have unlimited access to our private world. We don’t like the idea that someone else might understand us as well as we do ourselves. So we hide, conceal, don’t reveal.

When I was masterminding an internal ‘audit’ of a school’s pastoral system, a pupil questionnaire included the statement: There is an adult at school who knows and understands me well and I would trust. Then the tick boxes ranging from strong disagreement to strong agreement. When we analysed the responses we found that almost all responses waxed lyrical about the school’s care – save for this one. When we delved a little we realised that 14/15 year olds don’t necessarily think adults know and understand them well. We changed the question of course.

We adults are no different are we? We like to think of ourselves as unique. Well we are because we don’t change too much from cradle to grave. My dear mother, who died this year, was an expert in asking the what are you thinking question when we were growing up. She used it at times to provoke; at times to show care. Just a few months before she died I was driving her home after Sunday lunch and to fill our companionable silence, I asked the question: what are you thinking?

She looked at me and smiled and said, ‘Nothing.’

‘Really?’ I asked.

‘Done enough thinking,’ she said and we continued on our silent journey.

Poems of my life. As Kingfishers Catch Fire.

5 Nov

I have written before of the influence of poetry. Not a day goes by without words and rhymes from days gone by forcing their way happily into my consciousness. There are a million triggers – and you would expect an old English teacher to have an extensive store of verses neatly mind-catalogued, cocked and ready to fire into action when the occasion demands. Yet so often it is the words that others put in front of me – or that I sought for myself – that spring into my head.

I first came across Gerard Manley Hopkins at school. An A level teacher, Brian Cope, wanted to introduce us to something beyond our ken; a poetic experience unlike any other. Hopkins wasn’t on the syllabus that year but, in 1968 with no Ofsted or league tables to worry about Copey tried to give his boys a it more of an education.

We struggled, quite honestly, not helped by our giggling immaturity. One or two poems survived our initial indifference  and Brian’s informed and quietly powerful readings stayed with me. Later at university, when a wonderful tutor, David Fussell, asked the group if any of us had tried Hopkins my hand raised itself and I found that I was reading sonnet 34. The first four lines have bounced into my head so regularly. The metaphors capturing kingfishers and dragonflies are just – exciting. Then the tough mouthfuls of sound and alliteration and scrambled syntax that cascade down the octet before the point: What I do is me. The defining actions of nature, the individuality, the uniqueness of all living things proves, for Hopkins, the divine. The sestet nails the argument For me, a  poor atheist being guided by the promptings of Dave Fussell, to tease out the excitement and fun of the language and form and enjoy Hopkins’s commitment to his God – it was a divine lesson and one that has stuck.

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

 

I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

To drool or drule. Depends on how hip your dictionary is.

4 Nov

Within a heartbeat of publishing my last blogoffer, Week-End, a dear friend and pedant called to point out my curious spelling of Drule or, as he would have tapped, Drool. He further guffawed at my fulminating over apostrophes whilst committing certain typos as well as  the Drool/drule faux pas. My explanations, weak as they were, fell on the stoniest of ground. I turn off the spellcheck – it’s untrustworthy anyway. Crap excuse, he said. I tried convincing him that drule was a mere multiple typo. He clutched his sides in mirth. I slammed the phone down and reviewed the rogue blog.

There it was in all it’s awkward glory. If I’d used a fluorescent highlighter it couldn’t have stuck out more. Stubbled men drule looking like cats who will get the cream. What was I thinking? Hoisted with my own petard. Found out. I was desolate. But wait. The Urban Dictionary has come to my rescue before. Might it help recover some pedantry house-points? First things first. Update the entry with drool to keep the masses happy while plotting my escape from ignominy.

The UD came through. I knew it would. Just as scrabblers rely on the OED for xylem, yah and zooid to get them out of tight corners; I raise my hat to the Urban Dictionary to cover my extraordinarily unusual errors. I can’t let that man Humphreys or Lynne Truss or Simon Heffer or the rest gain any greater advantage than they have already in the clarity and correctness stakes.

The word DRULE ( no. 1 definition) means, as I knew it would, : Beyond cool, unnecessarily awesome. Girls rule; boys drule.

Or (no. 2 definition): Beyond rubbish. Just disgraceful. Pure shit.

Or (no. 3): Hip, stylish. Clothes designed on the west coast USA.

Wow! What a dictionary! Check back to my original sentence. Not only does no. 1 def. fit like a glove, but so too def.s 2 and 3. The UD also has helpful link-words/synonyms. This list includes: pecker, rule, awesome, hip, great, dk stains, pecker drule, spittled, pecker stains, stylish, urban, worse, worthless, west coast. It’s an extraordinary array which proves that whatever stupid, fantasy, figment of your imagination you come out with there is an authoritative organ that will support whatever spelling and definition you want. Wikipedia eat your heart out. I’m a he fan of the soon-to-be viral Urban Dictionary. Creationism watch out. I’m heading your way. I fancy scientology too and I might look up that funny bloke who used to be a sports presenter before he developed a hole in his trousers and his marbles fell out.

I’m looking forward to calling my mate the pedant back and putting him right in his place. David Icke, that’s his name.

Week – End

4 Nov

I did say, midweek, that I would return to the Odeon Epsom for more comment. You will recall Gone Girl – the movie, on which I briefly commented. Well the 25minutes of advertising preceding the blockbuster was wearily illuminating. Now I’m not on air-kissing terms with Germaine Greer but the shameless and shameful sexploitation is so much more apparent at big screen venues that on our little flatscreens at home. Loadsamoney spent on lavishly, digitally undressing gorgeous women who look as if they are about to orgasm over the leather seats of their new pink cars. Stubbled men (who invented this silly sandpaper? Do one thing or the other; shave or no shave) drool looking like cats who will get cream. Prudishly and rarely  I thought: what on earth are we doing to ourselves? I got over it pretty quickly, you’ll be glad to know.

Excitingly old buddies from university days came to stay for the weekend. The weather held for a grand Saturday walk along the Pilgrims/South Downs Way above Reigate. Clear and heart-swelling views over the town and, turning 180degrees, there way Wembley Stadium, the Eye and Shard and the rest. Gatton Park was a joy to wander round despite the National Trust’s unforgiveable misuse of apostrophes. Beers at that great pub on Walton Heath, The Sportsman and back to select a feast from The Haweli, Sutton’s finest Indian takeaway.

We moderated our Saturday alcohol intake as Friday’s arrival of old friends had seen quite an assault of various bottles. The evening had taken its usual majestic course:the easy slipping back into college banter; incredulous reflections on how irresponsible fun-junkies of the 1970s became tolerably regarded members of the professional classes; disregard of body clocks and vitriolic contempt of a range of modern mores from the ubiquity of Apple-tech, ‘like’, silly children’s names, political correctness, tattoos, shit politicians, X-Factor, Jamie Oliver…..you get the picture. And fucking apostrophes.

It was Halloween night. That’s another thing. What’s happened to that estimable member of Catesby’s team who planned to obliterate James 1st and the whole rag bag of Parliament on Nov 5th, 1605? In the deeply grey 1950s and early 60s, I slogged for weeks (well days) making gruesome, scarecrow facsimiles of the would-be multi-murderer, to wheel around on old pushchairs extorting money for my personal charity. We’d buy firecrackers from the local tobacconists (that’s another moniker lost to the idiocy of pc) to scare our primary school girlfriends. Our back garden for a few minutes would sparkle with Catherine Wheels and sparklers. My father would put a few impossibly large rockets tiltingly in precariously placed milk bottles. The blue touch paper rarely responded with brilliant ignition so he always risked life and limb returning for another Swan Vestas relight. The resulting take-off and orbit was as unpredictable as Richard Branson’s tourist space rocket, though mercifully not as calamitous. Stories abounded of those who had filled hospital casualty departments on Bonfire Nights. No Sorro ever suffered but there were close shaves aplenty. This mightily wholesome activity has been replaced by wizards and witches and the execrable fraud of trick or treating, not to mention the waste of millions of nutricious pumpkins. You can imagine the bile effused by me and my mates, frighteningly articulate at 2am.

The came a knocking on the door. God, not more T or T’ing at this time. No, there stood a solitary shivering lass, clad in strips of wispy green looking like a  Robin Hood groupie with face paint. She was in some distress – let’s call her Maisie – and a certain amount of drink and/or drug-fuelled confusion. She had escaped, so she said, from a place, up the road, where she was being held captive. Could she come in? Crying, frightened creature she was too. Quite clear in speech but weirdly wired and making little sense. Had she been harmed? This prompted a flood of tears. Was she with friends? More tears. Clutching a completely empty  handbag and shivering rather cold turkily poor Maisie cut a pathetic and sad figure. We erstwhile complaining men sprouted arm hair and bravado. We walked her to where she thought the ‘party’ had been – and where her money, clothes, friends and phone (ie her life) were last seen. An open ground floor window. No sound, no sign of life. We knocked loudly. Nothing. We returned. Phone police.

Within 5 minutes two highly attractive young constables, he a ringer for Jude Law; she Cameron Diaz. perhaps I have just watched The Holiday far too much in my downtime moments – it’s on ALL the time isn’t it? Sorry – digressing. Anyway these guys were brilliant and took Maisie’s plight very seriously.What were the possibilities? Endless unfortunately- rape, rohypnol, mugging, theft, drink and drugs….and, of course -and hopefully- a girl who had got pissed, become disorientated and wandered off in fright but come to no harm.

The PCs wandered down the road to investigate. I contacted mother – in Coventry. She and her partner leapt into a car as I was speaking. A 3 hour drive to Sutton police station or near-hospital, ETA 5.30am? Back came the bravos in blue. The party was going on in the garden shed. Maisie had been put to bed by her friends when she peaked early- she had been ‘out of it’. No one had checked her and they were not a little surprised to hear she had gone AWOL. The blue-brigade decided she had better stay with the authorities (good choice) and await the arrival of bleary mummy.

The delightful constables took the tearful Maisie off and we were left having to revise our opinions of earlier on the quality of young professionals today. Jude and Cameron were quite outstanding.

Oh I forgot to say what Maisie did for a living. She is a 26year old teacher. Well I never.

Strangers on a train from Staplehurst. Up to Town!

22 Sep

Staplehurst is a large and sprawling Kentish village with an enormous commuter car-park. It’s fifty minutes or so from the heart of the Kentish Weald to Charing Cross. The throng on the platform at rush-hour gives way to the blue rinse ‘Let’s go to the V & A’ set after 9. I board the sparsely-populated luxury of the 9.51.

When I was a smog-aware lad in the 1950s we called London,  ‘Town’ or ‘The (Big) Smoke’. The latter has been expunged from Southern vocabularies but I found myself using the former unconsciously when making arrangements with my daughter. London to her the centre of the universe, Staplehurst is part of a strange and shadowy hinterland.

Going up to Town still excites, despite a few years of commuting as a youngster and, more recently, watching humourless faces trudging to and fro Staplehurst. The size of the car park indicates the number of human ants scurrying daily to the mammon mound of the capital city.

As for me, I’m scribbling away in my notebook as countryside gives way to cityscape. Whatever is outside the carriage, occasionally diverting as it is, remains reliably neutral. My attention is taken by activity within.

A woman gets on at Paddock Wood, talking loudly on her phone. She’s late for a meeting and is trying to reorganise via, I’m guessing, a PA or secretary. She is flustered. Her child was feigning illness and refused school. The saga went on; she missed the 9.21. She hadn’t got home until 8.30 the previous night. Could her PA reschedule for midday? Her diary was full for the afternoon and she had promised a 6pm pick-up at the childminder’s. That meant catching the 4.40 – latest. Today (a Thursday) she was supposed to work from home anyway. More information rattled across the airwaves and our carriage. More business chat, some social – all of it wearying for her. All of it heard by the rest of us clutching our travelcards and pretending to read the Times.

A man opposite me has fallen asleep. 10.30am. He can’t have been up that long. Like babies we get drowsy with motion it seems. Now the ticket inspector or, more pompously, the train manager appears. ‘Tickets please!’ Ha! Another call from the inner ear of my 1950s nostalgia. This chap is recklessly upbeat. It’s have a nice day gone mad. The 50s certainly weren’t like this. He cheers his way along making a running commentary on his every interaction. “Travelcard, eh! Have a nice day out, madam;  lovely weather, mind you don’t forget your umbrella; sorry we’re a couple of minutes late everyone, thanks …and thank you..and …”

A smart-suited man can’t find his ticket. Cheery inspector waits politely. Then: “Tell you what sir, I’ll go away and check a few more and come back. That usually does the trick. You’ll find it in a pocket you didn’t know you had. It usually works. See you in a minute.”

It didn’t work. But a receipt was found. Back comes Mr Cheerful. Man in suit shows the receipt along with:”You didn’t believe I had bought a ticket did you?” Mr Cheerful’s rejoinder was a stunner.

“I’m a pragmatist sir. I don’t philosophise  about what might or might not have happened to your ticket but you have clear evidence that you bought a ‘weekly’ on Tuesday. That satisfies me – but wheter that receipt will satisfy my colleagues at the Charing Cross ticket barrier is another matter. You need a ticket to escape the station’s clutches.”

An entertaining riposte. Man-in-suit mumbles something inaudible in response to the elegant setting-out of the train manager’s position.

As I am enjoying this command performance we rumble into London Bridge. It is heavy with crane and concrete as it undergoes a huge facelift. The Shard, just a few yards from my window, rises up to heaven and is surrounded by a burgeoning glass city. At ground level high-vis jackets, cement mixers and building detritus litter the area inside and beyond the station. It is a relief when Southwark Cathedral and then Borough Market hove into view.

A stubbled 30-something who boarded the train at London Bridge is talking into thin air. Wires hang from his ears and he is unabashed as he looks around at his carriage companions chatting to someone in the ether. It’s a ‘Fuck this and fuck that and he’s a wanker..’ type of conversation. Funny and just a little disturbing. He catches my glance. I swiftly replace my rural, senior railcard demeanour of disapproval with a slick ‘shit happens’ sneer. I wish I hadn’t shaved. I’m in Town.

Scoland has decided….now the rest of us have the problems.

19 Sep

I awoke, twelve hours after the last post, to find the UK intact. Now promises must be fulfilled and each part of the federation will be looking to its own interests. The West Lothian question, delivering on ‘Devo Max’, the grumbling from Welsh and Northern Irish and so on. Never mind the General election and Nigel Farage grabbing any high ground he can as the three major (currently) Westminster parties scrabble for disunity in the run-up to next year’s campaign, while having to stick by their  desperate concensus on Scotland’s future.

For all this the energising thing about the night’s events has been the turnout. Over 85% of the enfranchised Scots voted. How brilliant is that? Well done Bravehearts. Well done too to Salmond and Brown, the latter probably swaying things at the death but it appears that there was a silent rump of voters who went for NO to swing the vote firmly that way.

I remain detached as we English are, from the whole thing but I’m pleased that RBS are staying in Edinburgh.

Scotland decides….that’s the problem

18 Sep

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Thursday 18th September 2014. A landmark day for St. Andrew’s people – but not if you live anywhere else. And not a landmark day for the Welsh, the Northern Irish or the English. We have no say if one limb wants to hack itself off and diminish the whole. That’s why I can’t summon up much interest in the whole thing. Wrong, I know but the mistakes started a while ago.

Firstly YES is a more inviting word than NO. Never mind Cameron’s stupidity in ruling out ‘Enhanced Devolution’ as a third way, his first gaffe was in agreeing the question to be posed. Why didn’t he fight for ‘Scotland should remain part of the UK’? Then he could have engaged us more with a YES campaign and Salmond would be fighting the NO. Big mistake. If I were a lass or laddie from 16 to 60, I might be tempted by…

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Scotland decides….that’s the problem

18 Sep

Thursday 18th September 2014. A landmark day for St. Andrew’s people – but not if you live anywhere else. And not a landmark day for the Welsh, the Northern Irish or the English. We have no say if one limb wants to hack itself off and diminish the whole. That’s why I can’t summon up much interest in the whole thing. Wrong, I know but the mistakes started a while ago.

Firstly YES is a more inviting word than NO. Never mind Cameron’s stupidity in ruling out ‘Enhanced Devolution’ as a third way, his first gaffe was in agreeing the question to be posed. Why didn’t he fight for ‘Scotland should remain part of the UK’? Then he could have engaged us more with a YES campaign and Salmond would be fighting the NO. Big mistake. If I were a lass or laddie from 16 to 60, I might be tempted by the tub thumping of the SNP. Yes is what all people want to hear in a response to a question from infancy on.

Daddy can I have an ice cream?

Yes my son of course you can.

Three cheers for Daddy!

There followed a number of other errors, not least in allowing Alistair ‘eyebrows’ Darling to lead the appallingly negative NO campaign. Seeing dear old Gordon Brown rise to the challenge in the last week must make Dave and Nick and Ed rue that decision.

As I mistakenly pressed ‘publish’ I had a frisson of the excitement or panic that voters might have north of the border. A huge turnout, we hear; people engaged in politics more than they ever have been. Hmm, not sure that nationalism is quite the same as politics and I hope that, whatever happens, the Scots will remain as fervent in their engagement. I think we English rather feel the cold wind of dislike. Certainly the Westminster toffs haven’t done much to stem the blue fervour. The sense of disenfranchisement in other parts of the UK is palpable. However, apart from a few observations, I’ll leave further thoughts until tomorrow:

1. Alex Salmond – untrustworthy, methinks. I prefer Nicola.

2. The Cameron, Clegg, Milliband axis spun out of control a while ago. Team Gordon so much better.

3. Andy Murray is a bit of a plonker.

4. Will the Welsh and N. Irish take their deficits and leave us with ours?

A beer is needed. And we won’t be chatting about the vote…much.

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