So, the grand finale of the once only performance which has been AD2004 beckons. November takes a beaming bow, a smile on his 30-day old face belying the reputation of this month so aptly summed up by Thomas Hood: http://www.firstscience.com/SITE/poems/hood2.asp
It's true, November is often a month I am glad to see the back of. It creeps up on you so suddenly: plunged into afternoon sunset before even the working day is finished (at least, when I am working!), then enrobed in gloom for much of the month. The constant cloudiness of just two days last week felt really oppressive. There is little motivation to do anything, all you want to do really is curl up and sleep. I am sure our troglodyte ancestors had the right answer for what to do with this time of the year, and a considerable part of the animal kingdom still does!
And yet, when the gloom is lifted, it can still be glorious, a sign maybe of the hope and expectancy we now move into as Advent gets into gear properly. Today saw almost uninterrupted sunshine here in Sussex from dawn to dusk. Our life-sustaining star's brightness brilliantly broke through the eminence grise which was the cloud of yesterday and in an instant, everything was changed.
Apart from lifting the gloom, it lowered my electricity bill! Who needs a fan heater on during the day when, for a couple of hours at least, the southern daylight streaming through the window provides nature's free energy. It was a joy to behold, and I could not resist taking a trip out mid-afternoon to make the most of it, having got my car back from the garage at last on Saturday-another source of November nuisance was being without my personal transport for most of the month. I'm still not convinced the underlying electrical problem is fixed, as the lights still seem to be shining brighter than they should be, but for the moment at least the faulty fuel pump which I thought might have masked a terminal problem with the Volvo has been restored to life!
ON EATING THE FIRST MINCE PIE OF ADVENT
I almost feel as though Delius ought to have composed a wonderfully English idyll to celebrate this most Anglo-Saxon of seasonal pleasures! Sunday 28th was of course Advent Sunday this year, or more properly the first Sunday in Advent. This is the time of preparation for Christmas, and also the beginning of the church year in most traditions. It's liturgically logical, even if not calendrically: Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Therefore, as we end the year according to the civil calendar, so also we prepare to celebrate again his coming at a particular point in time around two thousand years ago but perhaps more importantly and his so yearned for coming again.
The world at the end of November 2004 is the same mixture of the praiseworthy and the profane that it ever was, I guess. Palestine stands at a crossroads, and the chance to be grabbed for lasting peace is perhaps more possible now than at any time in the last forty years. In Northern Ireland, even Ian Paisley seems prepared to consider talks in some form with his erstwhile bitter enemies and there is the real prospect of a return to devolved government in the province. Yet while these seeds of hope are being sown, war of course wages on in so many unreported corners of our world and the prospect of new conflict is ever near us. These last ten days have seen crisis in the Ukraine, as the result of the election on November 21st is contested with far more vitriol than ever accompanied the questionable result in the world's "greatest democracy" the USA four years ago.
Meanwhile, what is still a world of such indescribable beauty groans, as the Bible puts it, awaiting the Saviour's return. The leaf fall in this part of England this year seems to be later than ever, adding weight to concerns that global warming is having a lasting effect on our seasons and the threat of permanent, catastrophic effects on low-lying landscapes when seas rise. But still in the sky, the moon shines as does the sun. One night last week, I saw what looked almost like a celestial projector beam from earth's satellite, casting a path of milky white light across a shimmering sea. The starlings continue to perform their nightly aerial ballet in such a fashion as no war hero pilot could ever emulate; six tree tree squadron I like to call them! And today, watching the sun set to the west I understood what Louis Armstrong meant when he sang those memorable words "What a wonderful world". We would do well to remember that.
But what of my fruitful delights that I began with? Well, on Sunday evening, I went along to what was billed as a "welcome tea" at the church I attend here in Eastbourne, Ceylon Place Baptist. Now the name might suggest they are actually in my road- and they were til the beginning of this year. However, a bold decision was made to sell the 130 year old building to a developer, who is now converting this Victorian edifice into luxury apartments, very sensitive to the original architecture, it has to be said. This has meant a move into temporary premises (or is it? God knows- literally) sharing the huge castle-like Central Methodist Church premises. The interesting thing is, this move which many worried about at first seems to be having a remarkably revitalising effect on the life of the church, and I have become increasingly keen to play a part in it.
Anyway, as I've previously remarked in these blogs, normally Sunday evening is a time of comforting goggling, with such fixtures as the Antiques Roadshow and Heartbeat. But the enticing combination of fellowship and food were too much to resist, and the perfect opportunity to actually make use of the video recorder Dixons have now decided to stop stocking. The tea turned out to be open to all in the church, but this was a help rather than a hindrance and it proved to be a great evening. I'd mentioned when replying to my invite how much I liked eating mince pies in Advent, so I was delighted and touched when Rosina, one of the church's tireless servants, arranged a special duet of mince pies just for me. Needless to say, they were very, very tasty- and all the more so for being my first of the year.
DECEMBER DAWNS
So, St Andrew's Day draws to a close too and tomorrow, out come the Advent calendars and it's time too to put up my electric Advent Candle Branch. These are a relatively new part of the Christmas scene here in Britain; my first encounter with them must have been about thirteen years ago in Hove. As there is a large Jewish community there, at first I took them to be a modern menorah, the candle branch lit for the festival of Hannukah, which usually occurs around this time too. Since then however they have become much more common, and it appears this lovely tradition actually originates in Scandinavia. We all need a light to guide us, and the increasing colour of front rooms and public buildings, offices and squares is a joy to behold as the month moves on. Eastbourne seems to have made much more of an effort this year with it's own town centre lights, though they remain static. 8 marks out of 10, I'd say. But the real light that matters will be the one we celebrate in 25 days time. Christmas is coming-alleluia!
Tuesday 30 November 2004
Friday 19 November 2004
Children Indeed
Now I KNOW it's nearly Christmas: once again a huge bear with the worst case of jaundice I've ever seen is the inescapable presence on everything BBC today- websites, television, radio. It's the 25th anniversary of the previously rather low key annual BBC charity appeal, started on the "Children's Hour" on radio back in the twenties, becoming the annual November niceness multi-media mega-bash it now is.
I wonder what the residents of a pleasant Bradford suburb think of the bright spark of a BBC designer born there who, around twenty years ago now, decided that naming the Beeb's new ursine star after their town was a good idea? Perhaps they think less kindly of that corporation servant than most folk do of another former employee of Auntie, Michael Bond, the cameraman-turned-writer who created my favourite childhood bear who hailed from darkest Peru. I seem to recall there's even a statue of Paddington Bear on the concourse of the eponymous London station where he was discovered, complete with marmalade sandwich and luggage label politely requesting "please look after this bear".
The Children in Need mascot, by contrast does not get looked after in the Pennine backbone of England, probably because of the threat of corporate litigation. He gets little mention on the websites discovered on a quick Google exploration and I blame the Beeb. For them "Pudsey" is a trademark; for proud Northern folk it's a grand name for a special place which they laid claim to long before the yellow fellow ever developed what seems to have become an incurable eye condition. It seems to mean that every reference to the town on the web has to be suffixed with "West Yorkshire" for clarification: I bet Network Rail don't have this problem with Paddington train station and the 'smokey' bears at Paddington Green Metropolitan Police nick (rumoured to be the inspiration for Dock Green Dick as Victor Maddern so famously fluffed it) certainly don't.
At first glance on the "proper' Pudsey websites, you find few of the bear necessities of life in the town bearing his name. Oh dear, I seem to have left the pun filter off again- sorry. There does however appear to be a children's facility with the homophonic name of "Buddy Bear's nursery", but I think it's a reet shame that one of the most popular teddys in Britain can't be marketed and used more for the benefit of the little ones in his home town.
GIVE 'EM THE MONEY BARNEY
It was another famous Yorkshireman who made this his catchphrase on "Have A Go", long before Yogi Bear's- sorry, I mean Logie Baird's- great invention really caught the public eye. "Have a Go" was the quiz show on radio where Wilfred Pickles used to hand out the readies to his eager post-war contestants and Ena Sharples, aka Violet Carson, played the old joanna. The prizes must have been miniscule by today's standards: TV abounds with gameshows and easy money and numerous opportunities to make a fast buck with questions even an infant could answer these days.
However, I don't wish to be churlish about the benefits of mass media in raising awareness and getting us off our butts to do something. It is more blessed to give than receive (Jesus' saying reported in Acts 20 verse 25). Children in Need is undoubtedtly an amazing charity and much-needed, again pardon the pun, in an age when the requirements for care of our most vulnerable citizens are as pressing as ever.
This week has seen the resignation of the boss of the much-beleagured Child Support Agency, amid calls for its abolition and for its functions to be handed over to the Inland Revenue. Would that solve the problem? Knowing government these days, probably not; it's been computers, not people that have been blamed for the failure of the CSA to get proper payments of what used to be called "maintenance" to the main carer of the sad casualties of the ever-rising divorce rate in British society today. I can't somehow believe though that someone at the burgeoning Inland Revenue departments will be any the better at automating payments of these essential resources for so many Mums and, let us not forget, Dads too in many cases.
You have to be wary of too much government involvement in helping charities attend to the need of others. Gordon Brown, that great son of the manse, is to be commended for his many efforts already to aid the aiders; the extension of the Gift Aid scheme, an apparent commitment to free the third world from the chains of debt and even the refund of VAT on a forthcoming megastar CD (more on this shortly) Nevertheless, the sceptic in me was a little uneasy about Tony Bear, I mean Blair- oh dear, see what it does to you!- fraternising with the timeless Teddy and a selection of needy littluns this morning outside Number 10. Pudsey needs an eye doctor, not a spin doctor. Incidentally, shouldn't we be doing something about the national scandal which has kept him visually challenged for the best part of 20 years? He must set the record for having to bear the longest wait on an NHS waiting list. Perhaps he ought to try Bearsden Hospital :-)
I shouldn't be too unkind on our PM though. He has an under-five of his own to father alongside the great demands of state, so he knows what it is like for parents and carers today. Suffer the little children to come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. This has been a recurring theme in some of the thoughts and prayers I've heard and read this week, alongside some encouragement to do that other thing which loved and cherished children do so naturally, laugh. It's the best medicine, and a child's laughter is the most hauntingly beautiful sound in an all too dark world.
BAND AID JUNIOR
Sadly, it will take much more than a sticking plaster or a bandana to cure the worst of the world's ills and give all the world's children a future of hope and promise rather than one of despair and dysfunction. Any mortal with a heart looks at the tragedy which is Africa and is tempted to think "what can I do"? Certainly, as mere individuals this is an understandable reaction. The problem seems so vast, there is so little we can do. But this is defeatist talk, not at all becoming of soldiers in the war on want.
A collection of luminaries from the world of rock and pop gathered together in a North London recording studio last weekend as the first step towards their aim to lift Africa out of the slimy pit, and to make a difference as the original Band Aid did so notably two decades ago now. The twelve inch of the original single remains in my record case and I will surely dig it out regularly in the next few weeks. It is a classic of music and a champion of charity. The legendary worldwide concerts which followed in the Summer of 85, and which I heard on the way back from a memorable holiday in Northumberland the year I became a Christian, have deservedly been committed to DVD and are a tempting item to add to my Christmas list.
However, the efforts of "Band Aid 20", as the latest gathering have been rather uninspiringly called, are rather harder to get to like. Last night saw an unprecedented media event: all five UK terrestrial TV channels, together with about 20 satellite and cable stations, simultaneously screened the video of the single at 5.55 p.m GMT. Pudsey may well eclipse Poverty on the Beeb today, but this was undoubtedly tear-jerking television. Images of suffering little wretches in Darfur, Sudan and their helpless parents cannot but bring any feeling soul to the point of wanting to do whatever he can to help the helpless. Unfortunately, though, twenty years of satellite soul-searching scenes have probably dulled our capacity for the kind of reaction that Michael Buerk's epoch-making reports had in the eighties. It's rightly or wrongly called compassion fatigue.
The new cover of the song has its moments- some brilliant guitar work by Macca for intance and, of course, Bono had to deliver the classic line from the original "and tonight thank God it's them, instead of you". I'm sure, financially challenged though I am myself at the moment, that I will buy or download the single just to do my bit, but I'm not convinced this is my "best bit". We need a new world order (isn't that the name of a band too-so where were they last weekend then?) and until all hardened hearts are softened, all swords turned into ploughshares, all pursuit of greed turned to the provision of need, that ain't gonna happen, I'm afraid. Telethons, telly songs, tele-banking. Use it and give it-but remember the real sacrifice has to be one not of metal money but of mental mercy- of love in action. That's a message as much for the pundits as the politicos, for the priests as for the people. Jesus didn't have any money to give, but Jesus saves, amen!
I wonder what the residents of a pleasant Bradford suburb think of the bright spark of a BBC designer born there who, around twenty years ago now, decided that naming the Beeb's new ursine star after their town was a good idea? Perhaps they think less kindly of that corporation servant than most folk do of another former employee of Auntie, Michael Bond, the cameraman-turned-writer who created my favourite childhood bear who hailed from darkest Peru. I seem to recall there's even a statue of Paddington Bear on the concourse of the eponymous London station where he was discovered, complete with marmalade sandwich and luggage label politely requesting "please look after this bear".
The Children in Need mascot, by contrast does not get looked after in the Pennine backbone of England, probably because of the threat of corporate litigation. He gets little mention on the websites discovered on a quick Google exploration and I blame the Beeb. For them "Pudsey" is a trademark; for proud Northern folk it's a grand name for a special place which they laid claim to long before the yellow fellow ever developed what seems to have become an incurable eye condition. It seems to mean that every reference to the town on the web has to be suffixed with "West Yorkshire" for clarification: I bet Network Rail don't have this problem with Paddington train station and the 'smokey' bears at Paddington Green Metropolitan Police nick (rumoured to be the inspiration for Dock Green Dick as Victor Maddern so famously fluffed it) certainly don't.
At first glance on the "proper' Pudsey websites, you find few of the bear necessities of life in the town bearing his name. Oh dear, I seem to have left the pun filter off again- sorry. There does however appear to be a children's facility with the homophonic name of "Buddy Bear's nursery", but I think it's a reet shame that one of the most popular teddys in Britain can't be marketed and used more for the benefit of the little ones in his home town.
GIVE 'EM THE MONEY BARNEY
It was another famous Yorkshireman who made this his catchphrase on "Have A Go", long before Yogi Bear's- sorry, I mean Logie Baird's- great invention really caught the public eye. "Have a Go" was the quiz show on radio where Wilfred Pickles used to hand out the readies to his eager post-war contestants and Ena Sharples, aka Violet Carson, played the old joanna. The prizes must have been miniscule by today's standards: TV abounds with gameshows and easy money and numerous opportunities to make a fast buck with questions even an infant could answer these days.
However, I don't wish to be churlish about the benefits of mass media in raising awareness and getting us off our butts to do something. It is more blessed to give than receive (Jesus' saying reported in Acts 20 verse 25). Children in Need is undoubtedtly an amazing charity and much-needed, again pardon the pun, in an age when the requirements for care of our most vulnerable citizens are as pressing as ever.
This week has seen the resignation of the boss of the much-beleagured Child Support Agency, amid calls for its abolition and for its functions to be handed over to the Inland Revenue. Would that solve the problem? Knowing government these days, probably not; it's been computers, not people that have been blamed for the failure of the CSA to get proper payments of what used to be called "maintenance" to the main carer of the sad casualties of the ever-rising divorce rate in British society today. I can't somehow believe though that someone at the burgeoning Inland Revenue departments will be any the better at automating payments of these essential resources for so many Mums and, let us not forget, Dads too in many cases.
You have to be wary of too much government involvement in helping charities attend to the need of others. Gordon Brown, that great son of the manse, is to be commended for his many efforts already to aid the aiders; the extension of the Gift Aid scheme, an apparent commitment to free the third world from the chains of debt and even the refund of VAT on a forthcoming megastar CD (more on this shortly) Nevertheless, the sceptic in me was a little uneasy about Tony Bear, I mean Blair- oh dear, see what it does to you!- fraternising with the timeless Teddy and a selection of needy littluns this morning outside Number 10. Pudsey needs an eye doctor, not a spin doctor. Incidentally, shouldn't we be doing something about the national scandal which has kept him visually challenged for the best part of 20 years? He must set the record for having to bear the longest wait on an NHS waiting list. Perhaps he ought to try Bearsden Hospital :-)
I shouldn't be too unkind on our PM though. He has an under-five of his own to father alongside the great demands of state, so he knows what it is like for parents and carers today. Suffer the little children to come unto me, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. This has been a recurring theme in some of the thoughts and prayers I've heard and read this week, alongside some encouragement to do that other thing which loved and cherished children do so naturally, laugh. It's the best medicine, and a child's laughter is the most hauntingly beautiful sound in an all too dark world.
BAND AID JUNIOR
Sadly, it will take much more than a sticking plaster or a bandana to cure the worst of the world's ills and give all the world's children a future of hope and promise rather than one of despair and dysfunction. Any mortal with a heart looks at the tragedy which is Africa and is tempted to think "what can I do"? Certainly, as mere individuals this is an understandable reaction. The problem seems so vast, there is so little we can do. But this is defeatist talk, not at all becoming of soldiers in the war on want.
A collection of luminaries from the world of rock and pop gathered together in a North London recording studio last weekend as the first step towards their aim to lift Africa out of the slimy pit, and to make a difference as the original Band Aid did so notably two decades ago now. The twelve inch of the original single remains in my record case and I will surely dig it out regularly in the next few weeks. It is a classic of music and a champion of charity. The legendary worldwide concerts which followed in the Summer of 85, and which I heard on the way back from a memorable holiday in Northumberland the year I became a Christian, have deservedly been committed to DVD and are a tempting item to add to my Christmas list.
However, the efforts of "Band Aid 20", as the latest gathering have been rather uninspiringly called, are rather harder to get to like. Last night saw an unprecedented media event: all five UK terrestrial TV channels, together with about 20 satellite and cable stations, simultaneously screened the video of the single at 5.55 p.m GMT. Pudsey may well eclipse Poverty on the Beeb today, but this was undoubtedly tear-jerking television. Images of suffering little wretches in Darfur, Sudan and their helpless parents cannot but bring any feeling soul to the point of wanting to do whatever he can to help the helpless. Unfortunately, though, twenty years of satellite soul-searching scenes have probably dulled our capacity for the kind of reaction that Michael Buerk's epoch-making reports had in the eighties. It's rightly or wrongly called compassion fatigue.
The new cover of the song has its moments- some brilliant guitar work by Macca for intance and, of course, Bono had to deliver the classic line from the original "and tonight thank God it's them, instead of you". I'm sure, financially challenged though I am myself at the moment, that I will buy or download the single just to do my bit, but I'm not convinced this is my "best bit". We need a new world order (isn't that the name of a band too-so where were they last weekend then?) and until all hardened hearts are softened, all swords turned into ploughshares, all pursuit of greed turned to the provision of need, that ain't gonna happen, I'm afraid. Telethons, telly songs, tele-banking. Use it and give it-but remember the real sacrifice has to be one not of metal money but of mental mercy- of love in action. That's a message as much for the pundits as the politicos, for the priests as for the people. Jesus didn't have any money to give, but Jesus saves, amen!
Saturday 13 November 2004
Please to remember, the thirteenth of November
surefish.co.uk: news - Halloween
I'm a bit late with this posting really, I suppose, but I couldn't let this time of the year pass without a reference to one of my favourite autumn traditions. Whee, whizz, bang, pop: the onomatoepians will have had field days with their sounds-like descriptives this week as they like me mused on the joys of FIREWORKS. No matter how old I get, I still adore pyrotechnic pleasures and almost can't get enough of them!
Although Bonfire Night itself was of course on the Fifth of November- click on the link to find Surefish's homage to the tradition- you can guarantee the ancient association of fireworks and celebrations, and man's primitive fascination with fire on dark winter nights, will ensure plenty more of them from now through to New Year's Eve. In multi-cultural Britain particularly, the origins of the celebration in the foiling of the "Gunpowder Plot" (what a glorious "Fifth" it will be next year when the 400th anniversary is commemorated!) are gradually being supplemented by celebrations for other events, including ones with a religious link even if the grisly origins- or should that be end- of Guy Fawkes and his fellow plotters are often forgotten. Last night was the climax of Diwali.
I bet somewhere or other there's an Indian celebrating it right now, and though I could not see much of the colour, I could surely hear the wonderful sounds of the celebrations rising skyward last night even here in ultra-conservative Eastbourne. A good starting point for information on one of the Hindu and Sikh community's favourite festivals is The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/921413.cms
though I can't imagine them being so ready to ditch centuries of tradition as the Times of London did on the first of this month by going from broadsheet to "compact" format. Though it's not my favoured paper personally- I'm afraid I have a certain inbuilt aversion to most products of the Murdoch empire- I suppose it is just one of those things we will get used to.
That's the thing about "tradition". There are times when it is right and proper to "do it the way we've always done it", and others when no harm is done by allowing new ideas and other associations to meld with it. Once the smell of brimstone and treacle toffee dies away for another year, I've always felt the run-up to Christmas begins, and what a pudding of a tradition is that. Throw in as many different ingredients as you can think, and let us keep the feast! But as even Advent Sunday is still a fortnight away, we won't go too far down that road just yet! As it says in the Hebrew scriptures, aka the Old Testament, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under Heaven"
NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM?
While commemorations like Bonfire Night and Diwali are largely enjoyable annual events, the problem with tradition can be that one man's celebration becomes another's mourning. The end of Ramadan, or Id, dependent on the sighting of the moon this weekend, will be a muted affair in many parts of the Middle East so torn by trouble. Weeping and wailing- and gunfire- were the sounds that pervaded Ramallah as the Friday sun fell yesterday and the people of Palestine buried their leader of forty years inside his compound, in the hope that his body, or at least its remains, would rise again to be re-interred beside the Dome of the rock in Jerusalem. Yasser Arafat has passed on, at the age of 75. Though expected for the past fortnight, his death does leave a massive void in the hearts of his people even though many saw him as an arch-terrorist scarcely to be eulogised. That was certainly the view of the Israeli government, who sent no representatives to what was a wholly diplomatic, low key funeral in President Arafat's birthplace of Cairo before the body was airlifted to the Palestinian homeland for the people's farewell.
Certainly, it is hard to imagine a world without this ever-present figure in the ongoing tragedy which is the story of the Palestinian people. As a man of peace, I cannot condone their acts of terror which pervaded the headlines for much of the earlier years of Arafat's leadership, but neither can I wholly understand or support the lack of love and mutual support which still causes the Palestinians to be seen as Pariahs by one side and freedom-fighters by another. Why can't people just get on together for heaven's sake: we are all human beings sharing a miniscule patch of a vast and awesome universe. Or am I just being naive?
There was chaos in the streets around the Ramallah compound as Arafat's body made what for the moment is its final journey to its resting place. It's so ironic that troops had to fire gunshots into the air to disperse the mourners. But somehow, the sense of loss to those people is palpable. What will the future hold, now that Arafat who groomed no successor, has gone? It has obviously left a power vacuum and as with all such battles for succession in the past, it's a worrying time. What can we do but pray to God that sanity will prevail and peace will be given a chance. Violence must not have the upper hand.
TURN AGAIN WHITTINGTON
Back to happier matters in concluding this posting before even the sparrows get up for breakfast. Another sign that Christmas is on the way are all the posters appearing for the Christmas pantos. This year's in Eastbourne is I believe to be Dick Whittington, that great traditional homage to Richard Whittington and his feline companion as they made their way to the streets of London, paved with gold and to destiny as Lord Mayor of London, thrice. Well, figuratively at least maybe those streets are paved with gold, though the move to Docklands for some has perhaps increased the bounds of the traditional square mile of the City. Later today, however, it will be time to turn again, Savage, to BBC ONE for the televising of THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW http://www.lordmayorsshow.org/index.shtml, another of my favourite November traditions.
Never mind four hundred years for the ill-fated Guy Fawkes, this celebration dates back double that timespan. The above link to the official website of the City of London's grand day out,- which may be time-limited for the duration of the event- contains lots of fascinating facts about this introduction of the new Lord Mayor to the people. I didn't know until this morning, for instance, that it was the first event to be televised live on television in the 20th Century! Quite rightly so though, although being the colourful spectacle it is, so much had to be left to the imagination before the arrival of colour TV.
It's an event the gregarious extrovert in me loves to see "in the flesh" really, and just as much the typically over the top fireworks which aldermen (and all da women as my dear Dad used to say! groan) arrange to climax the welcome celebrations for their new first citizen each year. However, more often than not my efforts to get up to the Square Mile to watch it pass seem to be dogged by hassle and transport traumas, at least since I have been living in Sussex. I could go up to see it in person today, but it's also the season for engineering works on the Southern- little to do with leaves on the line this time though- and to do so would take on nigh on 2 1/2 hours by train as opposed to the usual 80 minutes or so. I'm torn really, as life is feeling a bit lonely here at the moment and I would also love to be back in Feltham to watch the culmination of the Remembrance celebrations with Mum and Matthew. The Royal British Legion always put on a stirring show too, later in the day, with the Festival of Remembrance from the Royal Albert Hall, and it's always nicer to watch such events with somebody.
However, sometimes one just has to make sacrifices. With still no money coming in from gainful employment, and my dream career remaining just that, I guess the sensible thing is to remain here on the coast this year and let the cameras do the walking. Once again, we're back to tradition aren't we. All human life is here in Britain this weekend, with its mixture of joys and sorrows, laughing and crying, delighting and debating. Which brings us back again to those famous lines from Ecclesiastes, one of the few passages of scripture ever to have made it to a popular song: "For everything turn, turn, turn, there is a season turn, turn,turn". The writer may have been a bit of a Victor Meldrew, but he sure understood the rhythm of life and ultimately, he knew that all humanity needs to remember its maker, for our days on this Earth are far too short. Eat, drink and be merry by all means but never forget that life is precious and is a gift for which we must all be constantly thankful. The riches of Croesus, let alone of the London Stock Exchange, the worshipful company of thisnthat and the tricorned hat should never let us forget that. Choose Life, in all its fulness, but remember the one who made the greatest sacrifice, on a shameful cross in Calvary, that WE might live, eternally!
I'm a bit late with this posting really, I suppose, but I couldn't let this time of the year pass without a reference to one of my favourite autumn traditions. Whee, whizz, bang, pop: the onomatoepians will have had field days with their sounds-like descriptives this week as they like me mused on the joys of FIREWORKS. No matter how old I get, I still adore pyrotechnic pleasures and almost can't get enough of them!
Although Bonfire Night itself was of course on the Fifth of November- click on the link to find Surefish's homage to the tradition- you can guarantee the ancient association of fireworks and celebrations, and man's primitive fascination with fire on dark winter nights, will ensure plenty more of them from now through to New Year's Eve. In multi-cultural Britain particularly, the origins of the celebration in the foiling of the "Gunpowder Plot" (what a glorious "Fifth" it will be next year when the 400th anniversary is commemorated!) are gradually being supplemented by celebrations for other events, including ones with a religious link even if the grisly origins- or should that be end- of Guy Fawkes and his fellow plotters are often forgotten. Last night was the climax of Diwali.
I bet somewhere or other there's an Indian celebrating it right now, and though I could not see much of the colour, I could surely hear the wonderful sounds of the celebrations rising skyward last night even here in ultra-conservative Eastbourne. A good starting point for information on one of the Hindu and Sikh community's favourite festivals is The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/921413.cms
though I can't imagine them being so ready to ditch centuries of tradition as the Times of London did on the first of this month by going from broadsheet to "compact" format. Though it's not my favoured paper personally- I'm afraid I have a certain inbuilt aversion to most products of the Murdoch empire- I suppose it is just one of those things we will get used to.
That's the thing about "tradition". There are times when it is right and proper to "do it the way we've always done it", and others when no harm is done by allowing new ideas and other associations to meld with it. Once the smell of brimstone and treacle toffee dies away for another year, I've always felt the run-up to Christmas begins, and what a pudding of a tradition is that. Throw in as many different ingredients as you can think, and let us keep the feast! But as even Advent Sunday is still a fortnight away, we won't go too far down that road just yet! As it says in the Hebrew scriptures, aka the Old Testament, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under Heaven"
NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM?
While commemorations like Bonfire Night and Diwali are largely enjoyable annual events, the problem with tradition can be that one man's celebration becomes another's mourning. The end of Ramadan, or Id, dependent on the sighting of the moon this weekend, will be a muted affair in many parts of the Middle East so torn by trouble. Weeping and wailing- and gunfire- were the sounds that pervaded Ramallah as the Friday sun fell yesterday and the people of Palestine buried their leader of forty years inside his compound, in the hope that his body, or at least its remains, would rise again to be re-interred beside the Dome of the rock in Jerusalem. Yasser Arafat has passed on, at the age of 75. Though expected for the past fortnight, his death does leave a massive void in the hearts of his people even though many saw him as an arch-terrorist scarcely to be eulogised. That was certainly the view of the Israeli government, who sent no representatives to what was a wholly diplomatic, low key funeral in President Arafat's birthplace of Cairo before the body was airlifted to the Palestinian homeland for the people's farewell.
Certainly, it is hard to imagine a world without this ever-present figure in the ongoing tragedy which is the story of the Palestinian people. As a man of peace, I cannot condone their acts of terror which pervaded the headlines for much of the earlier years of Arafat's leadership, but neither can I wholly understand or support the lack of love and mutual support which still causes the Palestinians to be seen as Pariahs by one side and freedom-fighters by another. Why can't people just get on together for heaven's sake: we are all human beings sharing a miniscule patch of a vast and awesome universe. Or am I just being naive?
There was chaos in the streets around the Ramallah compound as Arafat's body made what for the moment is its final journey to its resting place. It's so ironic that troops had to fire gunshots into the air to disperse the mourners. But somehow, the sense of loss to those people is palpable. What will the future hold, now that Arafat who groomed no successor, has gone? It has obviously left a power vacuum and as with all such battles for succession in the past, it's a worrying time. What can we do but pray to God that sanity will prevail and peace will be given a chance. Violence must not have the upper hand.
TURN AGAIN WHITTINGTON
Back to happier matters in concluding this posting before even the sparrows get up for breakfast. Another sign that Christmas is on the way are all the posters appearing for the Christmas pantos. This year's in Eastbourne is I believe to be Dick Whittington, that great traditional homage to Richard Whittington and his feline companion as they made their way to the streets of London, paved with gold and to destiny as Lord Mayor of London, thrice. Well, figuratively at least maybe those streets are paved with gold, though the move to Docklands for some has perhaps increased the bounds of the traditional square mile of the City. Later today, however, it will be time to turn again, Savage, to BBC ONE for the televising of THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW http://www.lordmayorsshow.org/index.shtml, another of my favourite November traditions.
Never mind four hundred years for the ill-fated Guy Fawkes, this celebration dates back double that timespan. The above link to the official website of the City of London's grand day out,- which may be time-limited for the duration of the event- contains lots of fascinating facts about this introduction of the new Lord Mayor to the people. I didn't know until this morning, for instance, that it was the first event to be televised live on television in the 20th Century! Quite rightly so though, although being the colourful spectacle it is, so much had to be left to the imagination before the arrival of colour TV.
It's an event the gregarious extrovert in me loves to see "in the flesh" really, and just as much the typically over the top fireworks which aldermen (and all da women as my dear Dad used to say! groan) arrange to climax the welcome celebrations for their new first citizen each year. However, more often than not my efforts to get up to the Square Mile to watch it pass seem to be dogged by hassle and transport traumas, at least since I have been living in Sussex. I could go up to see it in person today, but it's also the season for engineering works on the Southern- little to do with leaves on the line this time though- and to do so would take on nigh on 2 1/2 hours by train as opposed to the usual 80 minutes or so. I'm torn really, as life is feeling a bit lonely here at the moment and I would also love to be back in Feltham to watch the culmination of the Remembrance celebrations with Mum and Matthew. The Royal British Legion always put on a stirring show too, later in the day, with the Festival of Remembrance from the Royal Albert Hall, and it's always nicer to watch such events with somebody.
However, sometimes one just has to make sacrifices. With still no money coming in from gainful employment, and my dream career remaining just that, I guess the sensible thing is to remain here on the coast this year and let the cameras do the walking. Once again, we're back to tradition aren't we. All human life is here in Britain this weekend, with its mixture of joys and sorrows, laughing and crying, delighting and debating. Which brings us back again to those famous lines from Ecclesiastes, one of the few passages of scripture ever to have made it to a popular song: "For everything turn, turn, turn, there is a season turn, turn,turn". The writer may have been a bit of a Victor Meldrew, but he sure understood the rhythm of life and ultimately, he knew that all humanity needs to remember its maker, for our days on this Earth are far too short. Eat, drink and be merry by all means but never forget that life is precious and is a gift for which we must all be constantly thankful. The riches of Croesus, let alone of the London Stock Exchange, the worshipful company of thisnthat and the tricorned hat should never let us forget that. Choose Life, in all its fulness, but remember the one who made the greatest sacrifice, on a shameful cross in Calvary, that WE might live, eternally!
Thursday 11 November 2004
For the Fallen?
11/11. A date as seered in western memory as another equally chilling "11" date was to become 83 years later. At 11.00 a.m. on the 11th November, 1918, the guns fell silent as the "war to end all wars" came to an end.
Nearly ninety years after that most terrible act of collective youthful slaughter finally ended, we still remember Armistice Day on this date every autumn. Although the national remembrance commemorations now culminate on the nearest weekend to it , it has been touching and humbling how the 11th has once again taken on a significance of its own in recent years.
Across Britain today, people will have gathered in shops, offices, factories, schools, churches and streets to take just two minutes out of the timespan of eternity to remember those who lost their lives in the defence of others. With war in Iraq seeming no nearer its end, and casualties continuing to haunt the headlines on all sides, somehow the grief of remembrance takes on an even more poignant feel even for those of us untouched directly by war. Lawrence Binyon's famous words, quoted this morning and a thousand times over during this Remembrancetide, are as moving as ever.
And yet, this morning as I decided to watch the BBC coverage of the Field of Remembrance service attended by the Queen outside Westminster Abbey, the silence was shattered not by the dolesome toll of Big Ben chiming the eleventh hour, but by the insistent ringing of my telephone. Given the timing, I felt sure it could not be something or someone who could not wait. When the call transferred to my mobile and displayed "Unknown", I knew I had even less reason to answer it.
Actually, there was a certain irony in this. To quote another great poet :" send not to ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee". As this irksome shattering of the silence invaded my consciousness, the TV pictures were showing the inscription on the tomb of the "Unknown" warrior inside Westminster Abbey. However, it goes on to eulogise the "freedom" for which he and countless millions died in four bloody years early last century and yet which so many others have suffered the same fate since. So much for the "war to end wars".
War makes me angry. It should make any sane soul seathe with anger not at the alleged aggressor or the foreign foe, but at the senseless cruelty of it all. The questionable motivation of the present conflict in the Gulf only highlights just how awful for ordinary souls with little care for the great affairs of state is man's continued inhumanity to man. I could not say that war is never justified, even though my natural inclination has always leaned to pacifism. Nevertheless, the causes for which it is prosecuted these days seem geared ever more to a balance of payments than a balance of power and it sickens me.
Despite the interruptions, I tried to observe the silence as solemnly as I could, and reflect on young lives so mercifully ended. Today's forces in Britain are at least volunteers with some comprehension of the horrors they may face, but the combatants of World War I and II were largely conscripts, with little choice in the matter. But why did they die? Was it for "freedom"? Freedom from what? A freedom from breeding bleeding or a freedom for breeding greed?
When I listened to the voicemail message my failure to answer the phone had led to, I was livid! It turned out the call was an appeal to little more than my basest avaricious instincts, to inform me that I have "won a holiday" and needed to key 9! To quote the late John Junor: "pass the sick bag, Alice". This was an insult, to the fallen and the surviving. What crass soul in some corporate ivory tower the other side of the pond deemed it necessary to set an auto-dialler to call my number at the very moment those who breathed their last were being remembered? Did they die wielding bayonet and bullet so he could live touting Visa and MasterCard? The cause of freedom is ill-served by such thoughtless manifestations of our riches-obsessed society. If the nation's largest retailers can have the decency to remember them, who the years will not condemn, could not the unknown corporate moguls who perpetrate this automated telephonic nonsense have the humanity to do so too.
Nearly ninety years after that most terrible act of collective youthful slaughter finally ended, we still remember Armistice Day on this date every autumn. Although the national remembrance commemorations now culminate on the nearest weekend to it , it has been touching and humbling how the 11th has once again taken on a significance of its own in recent years.
Across Britain today, people will have gathered in shops, offices, factories, schools, churches and streets to take just two minutes out of the timespan of eternity to remember those who lost their lives in the defence of others. With war in Iraq seeming no nearer its end, and casualties continuing to haunt the headlines on all sides, somehow the grief of remembrance takes on an even more poignant feel even for those of us untouched directly by war. Lawrence Binyon's famous words, quoted this morning and a thousand times over during this Remembrancetide, are as moving as ever.
And yet, this morning as I decided to watch the BBC coverage of the Field of Remembrance service attended by the Queen outside Westminster Abbey, the silence was shattered not by the dolesome toll of Big Ben chiming the eleventh hour, but by the insistent ringing of my telephone. Given the timing, I felt sure it could not be something or someone who could not wait. When the call transferred to my mobile and displayed "Unknown", I knew I had even less reason to answer it.
Actually, there was a certain irony in this. To quote another great poet :" send not to ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee". As this irksome shattering of the silence invaded my consciousness, the TV pictures were showing the inscription on the tomb of the "Unknown" warrior inside Westminster Abbey. However, it goes on to eulogise the "freedom" for which he and countless millions died in four bloody years early last century and yet which so many others have suffered the same fate since. So much for the "war to end wars".
War makes me angry. It should make any sane soul seathe with anger not at the alleged aggressor or the foreign foe, but at the senseless cruelty of it all. The questionable motivation of the present conflict in the Gulf only highlights just how awful for ordinary souls with little care for the great affairs of state is man's continued inhumanity to man. I could not say that war is never justified, even though my natural inclination has always leaned to pacifism. Nevertheless, the causes for which it is prosecuted these days seem geared ever more to a balance of payments than a balance of power and it sickens me.
Despite the interruptions, I tried to observe the silence as solemnly as I could, and reflect on young lives so mercifully ended. Today's forces in Britain are at least volunteers with some comprehension of the horrors they may face, but the combatants of World War I and II were largely conscripts, with little choice in the matter. But why did they die? Was it for "freedom"? Freedom from what? A freedom from breeding bleeding or a freedom for breeding greed?
When I listened to the voicemail message my failure to answer the phone had led to, I was livid! It turned out the call was an appeal to little more than my basest avaricious instincts, to inform me that I have "won a holiday" and needed to key 9! To quote the late John Junor: "pass the sick bag, Alice". This was an insult, to the fallen and the surviving. What crass soul in some corporate ivory tower the other side of the pond deemed it necessary to set an auto-dialler to call my number at the very moment those who breathed their last were being remembered? Did they die wielding bayonet and bullet so he could live touting Visa and MasterCard? The cause of freedom is ill-served by such thoughtless manifestations of our riches-obsessed society. If the nation's largest retailers can have the decency to remember them, who the years will not condemn, could not the unknown corporate moguls who perpetrate this automated telephonic nonsense have the humanity to do so too.
Wednesday 3 November 2004
Too Close, Too Cool
I struggled to find a suitably Savagian title for today's blog, which is very much the morning after the night before. Not that I have been indulging in strong drink, you understand, but I did feel it an amusing diversion to buy a bottle of Marks and Spencers US-Style beer (brewed in the EU- bizarre!) to enjoy while awaiting the outcome of what Blogger calls NaPreVoDa. This is, of course, their rather silly Russian-sounding acronym for "National Presidential Voting Day", 2nd November 2004.
Like it or loathe it, you cannot ignore an American presidential election. Yet I'm sure that the British media seem to have been taking more of an interest in this contest and its final outcome than they have in earlier ones. Could it be that we are subtly becoming the 51st state, the one with no electoral votes? God help us all if we are, but I do hope that God's hand is on the final winner of this contest which seems to have been going on forever.
Certainly for most Americans, it's a tacit assumption that their nation is guided not by the divine dollar-as often seems the case- but by the God of Gods. So inherent in the national psyche is this assumption of God's existence- a trait to be admired and encouraged- that it is actually THE official motto of the USA, though suprisingly only supplanted "E Pluribus Unum" in the mid fifties of the twentieth century. More info on the history and background of the "Great Seal" of the United States at http://www.usscouts.org/flag/sealmotto.html
The American political process is seriously weird and yet oddly fascinating, like the nation itself. Rather than doze with Dimbleby or snooze with Snow last night on BBC ONE TV, I decided it would be a nice idea to take it from the top, as it were, with WTOP, a news radio station in Downtown Washington DC (www.wtop.com) What a marvellous world-shrinker the web is to enable me to do this! I listened for a few minutes to their mid-evening coverage before tiredness got the better of me in our wee small hours. I returned to the more familiar cultural style of BBC Radio5 Live, and the comforting and familiar Scots tones of Naughty James- Jim Naughtie of the BBC's Today radio show sent me off into the land of nod but the land of the free pervaded my light sleep as the "projected" results started to come in.
The dawn's early light brought the news that George Dubya seems set for another four years in the White House, much to my personal disappointment. I decided it was time to forsake the analysis and speculation of Messrs Humphries and Naughtie though and returned to WTOP, surprisingly still there on the cordless speaker as I had expected the PC to crash at some point during the night. It's a wonder drivers in WTOP's catchment area don't collide though, if they try to concentrate on the motormouth pace of the information delivered on their chosen station. Broadband may be able to tell it like it is ever faster, but to take all this stuff in you need broadbrain!
Mind you, it was of course only 3.30 in the morning on the East coast when I tuned in. I presume even in the capital of the most powerful nation on Earth, there's not much traffic about at that time of the day, or am I wrong? It was Americans who invented 24/7 life, after all. Not necessarily a good thing. OK, someone has to keep the essential services running while the majority sleep, but surely mankind has managed to survive many millenia of civilisation without needing to buy a bagel or a bog roll in the middle of the night?
Which reminds me: whatever happened to 7-11? Somehow, I think they would have changed their name by now as I can't imagine many stores thriving on those hours alone now. I was reminded of the convenience store phenomenon last night, when on a whim I decided to do a Google on "Fort Myers Beach", the lovely Gulf destination I holidayed with my family in back in Septemember of 82. FMB, on Estero Island, was I believe badly hit by Hurricane Charley in late summer, but it's re-assuring to see that the "Sandpiper Gulf Resort" seems to have escaped unscathed. Judging from the website, it is much the same as it was when we visited it two decades ago, which is suprising. Been there, seen that, got the T-Shirt. Er well I have, actually. Still.
(BACK) ON THE RADIO
One of the most fun things about listening to any international commercial radio service, but particularly US stations, is the strange range of adverts they carry. In a few seconds of sound byte, a whole cultural education programme could be delivered to would be migrants seeking a green card. Want to remember ex-servicemen and women, or veterans as they are increasingly being called even in the UK? Well in the US you don't need to wear your poppy with pride, as millions of Britons will be doing for the next twelve days or so. Instead, why not give make the ultimate sacrifice and let them have one of your gas guzzlers?
Yes, really! Seems the latest American charity wheeze is for folk to give their car to some good cause, either a veteran's charity or one for special needs, to quote just two examples I heard this morning. Can't quite see it spreading to Britain, somehow, though it might appeal to the good Christian souls of Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, who apparently have the highest proportion of two-car ownership in the UK and also one of the most evangelical Anglican congregations.
BEATING ABOUT THE G W BUSH
Coming back to my title brings me back to what must be the most maddening cliche of the last eighteen hours or so of media blasting from across the pond. Even the venerable Wogan himself made reference to it before Pause for Thought this morning. Where on earth did "Too Close to Call" come from? I've been unable to find any suitably succinct web definition of its derivation, so if you have the answer, do let me know please! As far as I can gather, though, it has something to do with the prevailing trust not in the good old "returning officer" as it would be here in Blighty, but in the manic efforts of CBS, MSNBC and ABC (not to mention 21st Century Fox, CNN etc etc) to be the first to bring the final election results to a salivating audience. It makes the efforts of Basildon or Basingstoke to get the first declarations out fairly tame by comparison!
What a strange manifestation of democracy this media madness is. As the future not just of the US but of the free world hangs not on a chad but the Buck-eyed state (eh?) of Ohio, where "provisional results" cannot be released for eleven days (why, in the name of sanity?) isn't it about time we stop all this "will he, won't he" over the result? Meanwhile, senator Kerry can go back, sadly, to doing his stand-ins for Herman Munster (as one wag described him this morning) and the presenters on WTOP can stop mistaking him for Kennedy, even if he does bare a striking similarity to the last Catholic Democrat for president. But look what tragically happened to him. Maybe he's better off back in Boston.
Finally, my mind thinks back to the thrill of an earlier election, to 1992, when William Jefferson Clinton (hopeful parents must have named him!) stopped selling over-priced greeting cards (joke!) and became the answer to life, the US and everything as president number 42! BBC Radio Sussex, where I was then happily working, took a very keen interest in this contest, especially since they had a "special correspondent" in Iowa who came free of charge. He was my good mate Andrew, then a BBC engineer visiting relatives in Iowa, but was somewhat phased when mid-morning presenter Julian Clegg, using the trans-Atlantic link I had just set up, asked him "So it's too close to call"? Well, wouldn't you be a bit slow on the uptake if you'd been got up from your bed at 5 a.m in sleepy Des Moines? Ah, Bill Bryson where are you now?
Like it or loathe it, you cannot ignore an American presidential election. Yet I'm sure that the British media seem to have been taking more of an interest in this contest and its final outcome than they have in earlier ones. Could it be that we are subtly becoming the 51st state, the one with no electoral votes? God help us all if we are, but I do hope that God's hand is on the final winner of this contest which seems to have been going on forever.
Certainly for most Americans, it's a tacit assumption that their nation is guided not by the divine dollar-as often seems the case- but by the God of Gods. So inherent in the national psyche is this assumption of God's existence- a trait to be admired and encouraged- that it is actually THE official motto of the USA, though suprisingly only supplanted "E Pluribus Unum" in the mid fifties of the twentieth century. More info on the history and background of the "Great Seal" of the United States at http://www.usscouts.org/flag/sealmotto.html
The American political process is seriously weird and yet oddly fascinating, like the nation itself. Rather than doze with Dimbleby or snooze with Snow last night on BBC ONE TV, I decided it would be a nice idea to take it from the top, as it were, with WTOP, a news radio station in Downtown Washington DC (www.wtop.com) What a marvellous world-shrinker the web is to enable me to do this! I listened for a few minutes to their mid-evening coverage before tiredness got the better of me in our wee small hours. I returned to the more familiar cultural style of BBC Radio5 Live, and the comforting and familiar Scots tones of Naughty James- Jim Naughtie of the BBC's Today radio show sent me off into the land of nod but the land of the free pervaded my light sleep as the "projected" results started to come in.
The dawn's early light brought the news that George Dubya seems set for another four years in the White House, much to my personal disappointment. I decided it was time to forsake the analysis and speculation of Messrs Humphries and Naughtie though and returned to WTOP, surprisingly still there on the cordless speaker as I had expected the PC to crash at some point during the night. It's a wonder drivers in WTOP's catchment area don't collide though, if they try to concentrate on the motormouth pace of the information delivered on their chosen station. Broadband may be able to tell it like it is ever faster, but to take all this stuff in you need broadbrain!
Mind you, it was of course only 3.30 in the morning on the East coast when I tuned in. I presume even in the capital of the most powerful nation on Earth, there's not much traffic about at that time of the day, or am I wrong? It was Americans who invented 24/7 life, after all. Not necessarily a good thing. OK, someone has to keep the essential services running while the majority sleep, but surely mankind has managed to survive many millenia of civilisation without needing to buy a bagel or a bog roll in the middle of the night?
Which reminds me: whatever happened to 7-11? Somehow, I think they would have changed their name by now as I can't imagine many stores thriving on those hours alone now. I was reminded of the convenience store phenomenon last night, when on a whim I decided to do a Google on "Fort Myers Beach", the lovely Gulf destination I holidayed with my family in back in Septemember of 82. FMB, on Estero Island, was I believe badly hit by Hurricane Charley in late summer, but it's re-assuring to see that the "Sandpiper Gulf Resort" seems to have escaped unscathed. Judging from the website, it is much the same as it was when we visited it two decades ago, which is suprising. Been there, seen that, got the T-Shirt. Er well I have, actually. Still.
(BACK) ON THE RADIO
One of the most fun things about listening to any international commercial radio service, but particularly US stations, is the strange range of adverts they carry. In a few seconds of sound byte, a whole cultural education programme could be delivered to would be migrants seeking a green card. Want to remember ex-servicemen and women, or veterans as they are increasingly being called even in the UK? Well in the US you don't need to wear your poppy with pride, as millions of Britons will be doing for the next twelve days or so. Instead, why not give make the ultimate sacrifice and let them have one of your gas guzzlers?
Yes, really! Seems the latest American charity wheeze is for folk to give their car to some good cause, either a veteran's charity or one for special needs, to quote just two examples I heard this morning. Can't quite see it spreading to Britain, somehow, though it might appeal to the good Christian souls of Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, who apparently have the highest proportion of two-car ownership in the UK and also one of the most evangelical Anglican congregations.
BEATING ABOUT THE G W BUSH
Coming back to my title brings me back to what must be the most maddening cliche of the last eighteen hours or so of media blasting from across the pond. Even the venerable Wogan himself made reference to it before Pause for Thought this morning. Where on earth did "Too Close to Call" come from? I've been unable to find any suitably succinct web definition of its derivation, so if you have the answer, do let me know please! As far as I can gather, though, it has something to do with the prevailing trust not in the good old "returning officer" as it would be here in Blighty, but in the manic efforts of CBS, MSNBC and ABC (not to mention 21st Century Fox, CNN etc etc) to be the first to bring the final election results to a salivating audience. It makes the efforts of Basildon or Basingstoke to get the first declarations out fairly tame by comparison!
What a strange manifestation of democracy this media madness is. As the future not just of the US but of the free world hangs not on a chad but the Buck-eyed state (eh?) of Ohio, where "provisional results" cannot be released for eleven days (why, in the name of sanity?) isn't it about time we stop all this "will he, won't he" over the result? Meanwhile, senator Kerry can go back, sadly, to doing his stand-ins for Herman Munster (as one wag described him this morning) and the presenters on WTOP can stop mistaking him for Kennedy, even if he does bare a striking similarity to the last Catholic Democrat for president. But look what tragically happened to him. Maybe he's better off back in Boston.
Finally, my mind thinks back to the thrill of an earlier election, to 1992, when William Jefferson Clinton (hopeful parents must have named him!) stopped selling over-priced greeting cards (joke!) and became the answer to life, the US and everything as president number 42! BBC Radio Sussex, where I was then happily working, took a very keen interest in this contest, especially since they had a "special correspondent" in Iowa who came free of charge. He was my good mate Andrew, then a BBC engineer visiting relatives in Iowa, but was somewhat phased when mid-morning presenter Julian Clegg, using the trans-Atlantic link I had just set up, asked him "So it's too close to call"? Well, wouldn't you be a bit slow on the uptake if you'd been got up from your bed at 5 a.m in sleepy Des Moines? Ah, Bill Bryson where are you now?
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