Friday, 5 December 2014
Friday, 28 November 2014
Complacency and the Death of Phil Hughes
The complacent response of the media to the death of
Australian batsman Phil Hughes, not least from the BBC’s Jonathan Agnew, is
perhaps to be expected. “It’s all part of the game,” seems to be the most common
reaction.
The felling of Hughes in Sydney by a fast, rising ball
highlights the appalling design deficiencies of protective helmets.
I was there in 2002 at the WACA in Perth when England’s Alex
Tudor was poleaxed by a 90mph delivery from Brett Lee. It was sickening. Poor
Tudor was never the same again.
That one went through the front of the visor, whereas the
Hughes blow struck him on the completely unprotected back of the head. Both
injuries happen not frequently, but on a pretty regular basis.
It seems that helmet manufacturers are more concerned with
turning out a product that looks cool than with real effectiveness. Perhaps the
death of Hughes will prompt the cricketing authorities and those manufacturers
into producing something that’s actually fit for purpose.
Wednesday, 26 November 2014
What Charles means is…
Stimulated by some photographs of the early days of Saatchi
& Saatchi, the first meeting of the Garland-Compton board with them after
the ‘merger’ in 1974 came back to me.
At the head of the table at 80 Charlotte Street was Charles
Saatchi. On his right brother Maurice and on his left Tim Bell.
It fell to Charles to speak to us. He mumbled for five
minutes or so. I don’t recall anything that he said – I’m not sure that I could
decipher a word of it. Not his thing at all.
Silence fell over the room. What had we got into? This
seemed like a visit from Cosa Nostra.
Then Tim spoke up.
‘What Charles means is that Saatchi’s is the fastest
growing, most creative advertising agency in Britain. And our intention,
together with you guys, is to become the biggest, most creative agency on the
planet.’
Oh, well that’s all right. And that’s what happened.
Sunday, 23 November 2014
Immigration and UKIP
Dennis Skinner, the Beast of Bolsovcr, says it like it is about immigration and UKIP:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30141159
Never thought the day would come when I'd be cheering him on.
Wednesday, 19 November 2014
Trolls ‘R’ Us
Confronted by the latest trolling scandal, Sophie said to
me: ‘Of course, we just used to shout at the radio or the tellie when people
said things that annoyed us.’
And it’s true that the situation has been transformed by the
availability via social media of direct access to the targets.
So, while threatening dire retribution on some public figure
is horrible in all circumstances, at least in our own lounge rooms no one else
is affected (aside from our own immediate family, who know already what loud-mouthed
bigots we are).
Sunday, 16 November 2014
Getting to Yes in Europe
David
Cameron talks about reforming the European Union and getting a better deal for
Britain. But it seems that his only negotiating skill on view is to use
“strong-arm” tactics ‒ grandstanding, making unilateral demands and threats ‒ and
then to appear surprised that other countries are failing to fall into line.
If he
were to make any progress at all, on any of the issues that matter, he would
have to build alliances founded on mutual interest and mutual trust. This
could only be achieved behind closed doors, not in open session. In reality,
he seems to have no friends in Europe at all and minimal leverage.
The
fact that he seems either unwilling or unable to build these alliances suggests
that his real agenda is to create a situation where Britain’s exit from Europe is
inevitable.
If this
is not the case, perhaps a basic course in negotiating skills would be
appropriate. I’d suggest starting with a close reading of Fisher and Ury’s
Getting to Yes*.
*Getting to Yes:
Negotiating an Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William Ury
Saturday, 8 November 2014
White Horse – Number 1
I wrote about the new management of our local pub in King’s
Sutton (or gastro-pub I should say), the White Horse, not so long after they
moved in and transformed the place – food, drink, service, value, ambience etc.
I walk past just about every day, and we go in to eat there
with pleasure on a fairly regular basis, so it’s become clear that business has
steadily grown under the watchful eye of front-of-house Julie and chef Hendrik.
What I hadn’t realised is that they are already Number 1 on
Tripadvisor out of no less than 147 eateries in the Banbury area. What a gift for our
lovely country village.
Wednesday, 5 November 2014
Slooshying Schubert
Richard Sykes writes to me in response to my question (following
the Schubert Project at the Oxford Lieder Festival): "Where were all the students in this great city of
learning...?"
Roger, have you read A Clockwork Orange? Alex, reformed by
the drugs and aversion therapy to which he is subjected, finds that his musical
tastes have changed:
"It was like something soft getting into me and I could not
pony why. What I wanted these days I did not know. Even the music I liked to
slooshy in my own malenky den was what I would have smecked at before,
brothers. I was slooshying more like romantic songs, what they call Lieder,
just a goloss and a piano, very quiet and like yearny, different from when it
had been all bolshy orchestras and me lying on the bed between the violins and
the trombones and kettledrums. There was something happening inside me, and I
wondered if it was like some disease or if it was what they had done to me that
time upsetting my gulliver and perhaps going to make me real bezoomy."
I rather suspect that this is Burgess reflecting on his own
experience of evolving musical tastes and the ways in which we experience some
musical revelations only as we age. Certainly that was my experience with
Lieder. As an Oxford undergraduate I loved "classical" music, and
attended concerts in the city. But I would not have seriously considered attending
a Lieder recital. Now, in my late 40s, something has happened inside me, few
things give me more pleasure, and I love to slooshy Lieder in my own malenky
den and in Oxford's malenky concert hall too. In years to come, I'm sure some
of those students will, too.
So good
to be reminded of the extraordinary polymathic Anthony Burgess, who regarded
himself as both composer and writer, although his compositions have rarely been
given airtime.
I came to lieder rather earlier than Richard Sykes – in my early twenties ‒ but if
I’d been a student in Oxford before connecting with the genre, I’d have missed
out too.
My own
epiphany came when I bought Saga’s 1966 recording of Janet Baker singing
Schubert, Schumann and Brahms. Still essential listening. Here she is with
pianist Martin Isepp in Schubert’s ‘Der Musensohn’:
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