The stroke of midnight

I'm definitely getting too old for seeing in the New Year. For the second year in succession, the chimes of midnight and the cries of "Happy New Year" were probably drowned out by our snores as we slept our way into 2015. The musical delights that make up Hootenanny were, once again, insufficient to stave off the tiredness resulting from wine at lunchtime and meeting with friends at the pub earlier in the evening. Alcohol, a warm room and a comfortable sofa combine to make a powerful natural sedative that gets me every time...

Lunchtime, on the other hand, more than made up for missing out on toasting in the New Year. For the first time in forever, Elaine did not have to work on New Year's Eve so we decided to treat ourselves to a few tapas at Levanter, a little gem of a place in Ramsbottom. Aubergine fritters with saffron and honey, chorizo cooked in sherry and Moroccan-spiced belly pork ribs were among the dishes that we saw off with gluttonous gusto. I love that place: the food is heavenly and the atmosphere is perfect. It could do with being just that little bit bigger as, by the time we left, customers were waiting at the bar to be seated to eat. Perhaps if they expand some of the magic will go. It is a fine line between intimate and impersonal.

On balance, I'd call it a good New Year's Eve: no, we weren't awake for the midnight toasting, but we were together, happy and full of nice food and laughter shared with friends earlier in the evening. I'd definitely call that a "glass half full" situation. In fact, it literally was glasses half full of flat champagne in the morning. Didn't stop me finishing them off though...

Have a happy, healthy and peaceful 2015.

Breaking up with Breaking Bad is hard to do

Like the West Wing before it, I had completely missed out on the phenomenon that was Breaking Bad as its story unfolded over five seasons. As I notice that friends have only recently caught up with it, I can only assume that this was the reason no-one in my acquaintance was telling me about this much-watch program from the US. Better late than never I say, so, over the course of a couple of weeks enforced TV consumption facilitated by a broken ankle, I positively gorged on BrBa, gulping down episode after episode. And now, here I am on the other side of the journey and, I have to say, what a journey it was!

In Walter White, his creator, Vince Gilligan, has found a character that, whilst growing more ruthless, more egotistical, more selfish as we traverse the arc of the story, still retains a massive attraction for the viewer. Whilst Walter becomes a monster, causing heartache, destruction and death all around him, there is still something recognisably human there: even when he has just lied or sold a friend out to the 'bad' guys (a very relative term in BrBa), I still never completely lost sympathy for Walter. He is a modern-day Frankenstein's monster, whose genesis (it would seem) lays in his memory of a youthful indiscretion where he sold a future fortune for s few thaousand dollars in rent money and whose growth is triggered by the diagnosis of terminal cancer: years of frustration and bitterness held in check through respectable normality suddenly break loose and Walter sets forth on a mission to reclaim the crown.

Whilst amorality - or, at least, severely twisted morality - seems to run throughout the story, most of the characters are not completely bad, but instead find themselves wrestling with their consciences when they should be truly 'bad'. Nearly every character will make at least one very key wrong decision during the story because of a sudden burst of humanity or because they let a trait such as pride or greed influence their choices. Similarly, there are no simple 'good' characters: the real world is too complicated for anyone to simply don a white hat and be the hero. Even the figures of authority are shown to be flawed and conflicted. I guess it comes down to 'compromise': whilst a character should fully commit to certain actions, too often, they take into account other factors and try to implement a compromise action. As the dead-eyed Mike observes, you need to be going in full measure, not half measure. Compromise causes so many problems…

Apart from Walter, there is a truly great bunch of key characters involved in the story who all have proper meat on their bones so as to make them integral to the richness of the story-telling and not mere cogs designed to propel the story forwards: Jesse, Walt's right hand man, all cocky and full of bravado but, as we find over the course of 5 seasons, is actually sensitive and not cut out for the world that Walter creates; Gus, the drug kingpin who appears calm and calculating with a backstory that is hinted at but never fully explained (the scene which involves him getting undressed before donning protective gear is absolutely riveting in its precision - what is about to happen?); Skyler, Walt's wife who is, in turn, kept in the dark, then finds out about Walt's 'other' life as a drug lord, becomes a participant in Walter's world before, finally, rejecting Walter and choosing to protect her children; Saul, the clown-like but effective lawyer who keeps the shaky enterprise and warring factions on course throughout. The list goes on…

On top of the great writing and the great characters, however, I have to mention three other aspects which make BrBa very special. The production design is brilliant - use of different colour pallates for different characters at different points in their stories or to signal their emotional state at a point in time. The direction and editing are top notch with many memorable set pieces and use of objects to frame the action. Special mention here, too, for the pre-title vignettes, some of which were straightforward, but others were absolutely and gloriously out there (I'm thinking especially of the narcocorrido about Heisenberg - genius!). Which brings us to the music used throughout the series. The choices used for various scenes were almost always spot-on and often used tunes that are a little more 'off the beaten track' rather than using overworked standard selections. Tommy James and the Shondells "Crystal Blue Persuasion" anyone?

All in all, a very involving and satisfying story which for me, in it's 4th and 5th seasons and, especially, the finale, demonstrated a brilliance that came across like an explosion happening in ultra slo-mo: an inevitable conclusion, but a thing of terrible beauty while it unfolds before our eyes. I'm really glad I finally caught up with it but, as with most things that are enjoyable, there is a sadness that it is now over, even though it was right to stop where it stopped and in the way it stopped. Pretty much perfection.

The sins of the father

Unsuprisingly, I have never cared for the Daily Mail. It is not just about its politics, it's about the whole package, the whole ethos it seems to embody. If the Telegraph is the house magazine of the Tory party, the Mail must hold the same position for UKIP supporters. It epitomises Little England values, pining constantly for a world it believes is slipping away although, in fact, it probably never existed. The Mail has probably been complaining about the loss of 'traditional British values' since the Normans invaded - it certainly feels that way. More recently, it has become like every other tabloid: completely obsessed with 'celebrity', especially in its online incarnation. The infamous "Sidebar of Shame" is filled with pictures of actresses from US soaps displaying their "beach-toned" bodies in bikinis, lovingly relayed to middle-aged middle class voyeurs - sorry, 'readers' - via multiple luridly papped photos. The Mail just never appealed to me. Its rubbishing of any politician anywhere to the left of Genghis Khan was to be expected and pretty much par for the course.

However, on Saturday, the Mail ran a piece on the late Ralph Miliband, the father of the Labour party's David and Ed. Under a lurid headline (The man who hated Britain...So what did Miliband Snr really believe in? The answer should disturb everyone who loves this country) it went on to denigrate the service of a man who fought for this country in WWII on the basis of a quote made ina diary written when he was 17 years old. The quote read:

'The Englishman is a rabid nationalist. They are perhaps the most nationalist people in the world . . . you sometimes want them almost to lose (the war) to show them how things are. They have the greatest contempt for the Continent . . . To lose their empire would be the worst possible humiliation.'

That this is the 'evidence' that Ralph Miliband 'hated ' Britain is spectcularly piss-poor. What makes it better though is to replce the word "Englishman" with "Daily Mail" - that is almost a perfect fit! The little Englanders who still belive that we have some Imperial 'right' in the world and haven't noticed that we have, indeed, lost the empire. That is not 'hating Britain' - that is telling some difficult truths to people who refuse to notice that the world is changing. And what does attacking the (dead) father of the Labour leader prove? a) Political ideas are genetically inherited? b) Jewish contributions to the war effort count less than others? or c) the Mail is worried that Labour and Ed Miliband are pulling ahead in the polls? Hmmm - I'll choose 'c".

The Mail's conviction that Miliband has embraced his father's politics wholeheartedly also needs to be challenged. Ralph Miliband was an awowed Marxist. Whatever Ed may or may not be, he is NOT a Marxist. A standard tactic of the right is to refer to anyone with a view to the left of theirs as a 'Marxist'. Wrong, wrong, wrong! And insulting to boot! I'm absolutely certain that Ed learned much from his dad, but he is certainly not a radical Marxist and anyone who thinks he is must surely write for the Mail. What Ed belives is what Ed believes and citing the father as a guide to that is, at best, a pretty hazy connection. After all, absolutely no-one has pointed out that the great-grandfather of the current owner of the Mail thought Hitler was doing great things in Europe and loved the idea of the Blackshirts in Britain! So, it seems that if you are Marxist, you are cursed and your progeny are to be derided, but if you are Rothermere, your buddies in the Establishment turn a blind eye to the views you espoused before the war and you get to keep your newspaper which you hand on to your progengy to carry on the dissemination of poisonous bile.

In the course of a few days, the actions of the Mail and their apologists (yes, YOU, the guy on Newsnight tonight) have turned me from a "Oh, the Mail - so what?" kinda guy to a "This shite should be swept from the face of the Earth" kinda guy. Journalistically worthless, whay does any thinking person buy it? One more thing: I hate passionately the stance that the Mail takes on "our" values. It constantly refers to "our" values as if they speak with the voice of Britain. Let me tell you, Daily Mail, I love my country, but I hate you with every fibre of my being. You represent nothing that is good about Britain. In fact, you are contributing to the meanness and bigotry that is dragging this nation down. If it wasn't so tragic, it would almost be funny...

I wanted to dissect more, to rail further against the blithe assassination of a man's character that this filthy rag thinks it can get away with, but it is late and I'm tired. In the meantime, this is interesting (or is it terrifying?) food for thought http://t.co/BTm5lNc4oc. The Mail is firing the first salvos in a war to destroy the Labour party by any means possible and that means it is scared. Take heart!

Edit: I forgot to mention one further piece of crap in this whole 'story'. Ed Miliband was so upset by the denigration of his late father that he asked for a right of reply in the Mail. They duly allowed him the space to give us his version of his father. This prompted the Mail to reprint the offending article and to run a piece that staunchly defended character assassination whilst further rubbishing Ed. Also it veered off at a tangent to note that Ed supports statutory press regulation, another reason we should all hate him as it means the end of free speech. Well, if free speech is to be squandered on the politically-motivated smearing of a dead man and the snide and cynical hijacking of the defence of that man's reputation by his son, then the Mail is doing a brilliant job of pissing it away and further cheapening the British 'values' it bangs on and on about.

A dysfunctional relationship

On Thursday, the British parliament did something wonderful: it not only put the brakes on the juggernaut trundling to war, but it went further and forced the PM to concede that, certainly at this time, the British people did not want to get involved in another ill-thought-through Middle Eastern escapade. Since then, some people have been banging on about the damage done to the "special relationship" we supposedly share with the US. The Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, was among this sorry chorus chanting "Woe, woe and thrice woe!". But hold on - if we have any kind of 'relationship' and if we are supposed to be friends, doesn't that mean that we should be able to speak openly, to disagree, to hint pretty loudly that we think the route being pursued by our friend is wrong? Surely true friendship isn't about the bigger, richer friend being allowed to make all the decisions while the weaker, poorer friend merely tags along for the ride, hoping that, if things turn out well, some reflected kudos will maybe come their way? In my book, a true 'relationship' or 'friendship' would mean that each party can say what they feel without fearing that a wrong word will cause a spiteful reaction from the other. If we are in a 'relationship' of any sort - special or not - with a power that might arbitrarily cut us off because our elected representatives had the temerity to listen to the people who put them there, then that is no relationship that we should want to be part of.

The other thing to come out of the vote in Parliament was the story that Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, stood and hecked the Tories who voted against the government by screeching at them "Your'e a disgrace!". No Michael, actually, they are a refreshing change: MPs who were not prepared to cow-tow to the party whips when their constituents had voiced concerns over our getting involved in another war while our troops are still being killed in Afghanistan. What those MPs were doing, Michael, was called democracy as it should be: we, the people, elect representatives to represent our wishes in Parliament. MPs are elected by people within a constituency. Due to the complexities of the British voting system, most people end up voting along party lines but but they are still voting in the belief that, whoever they elect, that person is going to look after the interests of their town, to promote and defend it at a national level. When those MPs voted against the motion last night, perhaps they actually showed that some in Westminster still understand the relationship between the electorate and the elected. Mr Gove's relationship with the democratic process in pouring scorn on their actions would seem to be just a little dysfunctional.

Wrong Comparison

Recently, the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Bruce Keogh, published his report into what might be done to turn around 14 hospitals deemed to be 'failing'. It was a very good report: clear, concise and featured eight actions that, if put in train, might improve not only the 14 hospitals in question, but many other providers that are teetering on the brink of joining them. Then, a few days later, he said this about the need for the NHS to do more with less resources:

“If you go down to PC World or Dixons, each year you would expect to pay less for a PC and you would also expect the specifications to improve. I have all sorts of people [in the NHS] saying to me: ‘Give me £1,000, give me £200,000; I can improve our service’. My challenge is: every other aspect of industry has to improve the quality they offer for less. So we need to change that mindset.”

Now, I don't necessarily have a problem with his stating that we (the NHS) will have to do more for less: that is, like it or not, a fact. With savings of £20 billion already fracturing the service and a further £30 billion that wiil, potentially, need to be found down the back of the sofa coupled with increasing demand, the NHS is going to have to do more with less. What I find a bit misguided is his use of the 'PC World and Dixons' analogy. Dixons disappeared from our high streets some while ago (are you trying to tell us something, Bruce?) and PC World...well PC World are hardly the business that I would like to be compared with. PC World is staffed by too many people who know little about the products they are selling, they are just interested in shifting units. On top of that, their aftersales service, unless it has vastly improved, is awful. As I say, it's about shifting units, not customer care, entirely the opposite to the model I would hope Sir Bruce would want the NHS to employ.

In addition, PC World merely ells the gadgets: it is not responsible (in the main) for the unit cost of those gadgets. That the cost of computer memory has dropped like a stone in the last ten tears is not down to PC World. The technology that PC World sells is getting ever cheaper. The technology that the NHS employs, whether it is drugs, devices, scanners of radiotherapy units, is getting ever more expensive. The costs of training the doctors and nurses to deliver healthcare is, I would suggest, increasing at a rate that far outstips the rise in the wage bill at PC World. To me, comparing the NHS to PC World and Dixons is about about as useful as all those people who say "Running the economy is just like managing a household butdget". It isn't, not even close. And the coming/current NHS funding crisis is going to take rather more to solve than staff rolling their sleeves up and 'piling it high and selling it cheap'.

Pause for Thought

We are in a slight pause in the social storm surrounding the death of Margaret Thatcher: finally, news programmes seem to have moved her death off the top slot of the agenda (or, in reality, the top slot, second slot, third slot etc.), other news is being reported and 'reality' has returned. That is, until her funeral on Wednesday when we will have three hours of coverage on TV, there will be demonstrations against it and things may possibly get out of hand. But then division and strife were never strangers during her time as PM, so plus ca change.

When I heard the news that she had died, I actually felt very little. I might have felt differently had she died at the height of the Miners' Strike or during the introduction of the offensive idiocy that was Section 28 of the Local Government Act of 1988. There might have been a spring in my step had she departed during the inappropriate triumphalism of the return of forces from the Falklands Conflict (only around 900 servicemen died after all, so let's rejoice!) or during the introduction of legislation that allowed the sell-off of social housing but, crucially, failed to allow councils to replace that stock because, in the new world of the free market, we would all have our own homes bought with our well paid jobs so why would anyone need a council house? When she was PM, that was when I was angry with her, that was the time I wanted her gone. Now that it has happened, it's almost too long after the fact. We have the current Tories in the form of the clear and present danger that is Cameron and Osbourne to worry about. Her passing is not going to make their awful government any more palatable.

I have also worried about the type of vitriol that has been directed towards her - some cruelly misogynist, some just rather OTT. Although I hated so many things that she held so dear, I guess I can't help but also consider that she was a living, breathing person who is now no more and, in the moment of death, deserves something more considered than a tirade of abuse that she won't hear but her family will have to endure. Just as I think we can never descend to the level of those who would wish to destroy us (and using drone bombing raids in densely populated areas is getting perilously close to acting as terrorists), I would like to think that we can be better than the baying mob of the right: I have no praise for Thatcher but it does not mean that I have to abuse her. We should not present the right with the stereotype 'lefty' (a word recently rehabilitated by newspaper editors - how quaint!) as they will use it as a weapon to beat us. I like the approach of those Labour MPs who stayed away from the Commons 'Thatcher remembered' session this week: if you have nothing good to say, say nothing.

I will be clear that I hold no candle for Margaret Thatcher as a politician. As far as I am concerned, her achievements as Prime Minister begin and end with her being the first female PM of this country. For her to be lauded as the most significant Premier of the 20th Century is hugely disrespectful to the memory of Churchill and, even more so for me, Attlee.

Having said all of the above, however, I can understand why there are people out there who would use her passing as a moment to celebrate and I am amazed that the right-wing press and politicians can't see it. Everything the Tories love about Thatcher - her decimation of the Unions, her overly-enthusiastic crushing of the miners, her willingness to put up with millions unemployed and the destruction of communities in the pursuit of political dogma, her stubbornness - had such a significant negative impact on hundreds of communities, thousands of families and millions of individuals, that their personal hate for her has finally found an outlet: the reasons why the right love her are exactly the same reasons why the left hate her. So there is no point in my trying to pick out the 'good' bits of her legacy: for me there are none. However, I won't be dancing on her grave at any time in the near future.

What it means to be poor: by an MP

There was an article on PM on Radio 4 tonight about how an anonymous survey of MPs had found that they thought they should have a pay rise of - wait for it - 32%!! Amazingly, nearly every MP the programme contacted for an interview to discuss this story was too busy to talk (whereas they normally inflict their views on us at every opportunity).

However, one MP did agree to talk. This guy, a Tory MP as it happens, (although I'm sure plenty of Labour MPs were also in favour of a pay rise) actually had me spluttering and shouting at the radio with the assertion that many MPs were becoming increasingly "poor" and that it was terrible that they might not have been able to afford the presents their children wanted this Christmas.

Let's just point this out here: MPs earn in excess of £64,000 p.a. which, of course, excludes the generous package of expenses that covers virtually all of their day-to-day costs. "Poor"?

He then went on to explain that many MPs are qualified doctors and they could be earning a lot more by practicing medicine (well get back to treating patients or give back the costs of your medical training!) or had left industry to enter Parliament. Fine, I have no doubt they could have been making a whole heap more as straight out capitalists, but no-one made them become an MP. Using their own free will, they chose that particular path and, presumably, also bothered to check what salary came with the job, so they knew what to expect.

The kicker came for me when he said that at £64,000, an MP's salary was no better than the headmaster or headmistress of a junior school. If that is the case, I know which one deserves that level of pay AND should get the pay rise (and it's not the one who goes to "work" in the House of Commons!).

Somebody needs to give this guy a talk on just exactly what "public service" means.