CARRY ON CAMPING

Fitting – that’s the word that sprang to mind when it came to 2024’s host nation for the annual camp carnival that is the Eurovision Song Contest; half-a-century on from Abba’s historic victory in Brighton, Sweden was the venue thanks to the triumph of Edwina Scissorhands with a song everybody forgot the day after last year’s shindig in Liverpool. And, amidst an avalanche of TV shows marking the 50th anniversary of ‘Waterloo’ – which I’d always foolishly imagined had happened in 1815 – we came full circle and hopefully drew a line under any further documentaries about Bjorn, Benny, Agnetha and Frida. Besides, another element has come to dominate Eurovision since the innocent, distant days of 1974, and that is politics; I first noticed it 21 years ago, when Russian lipstick lesbians Tatu were booed during their performance, the same year when Europe made its feelings known about the invasion of Iraq by giving the UK entry its first-ever ‘nul points’, even if the tone-deaf vocals of Jemini quite possibly played their part. This year, Israel was cast as the pantomime villain. With the War in Gaza being the cause célèbre of the moment amongst all Bright Young Things with a social conscience – the latest fashion accessory for the dedicated collector of causes – it was only natural that Eurovision disciples on ‘the right side of history’ would demand Israel’s expulsion.

Ireland’s gender-neutral entry, Bambie Thug, apparently ‘broke down in tears’ when Israel qualified for the Contest; wearing a pro-Palestine keffiyeh around his/her/their neck (this season’s must-have), he/she/they/it said, ‘It goes against everything Eurovision is meant to be’. Indeed, Israel making it to the final on the strength of a performance and not being judged by the policies of its country’s government – how very un-Eurovision that is. In the end, however, it wasn’t the designated pariah state of the year that was ejected from the Contest on ‘moral grounds’, but Holland. The Dutch entry, a wacky rapper with the kind of shoulder pads unseen since David Byrne circa 1986, was disqualified just hours before the show began following an allegation of inappropriate behaviour with a female crew member backstage; speculation mounted that something was afoot when Joost Klein missed Friday’s dress rehearsal, but the story of his absence wasn’t revealed until yesterday afternoon. At least his disqualification reduced the number of participating countries, even if only by one. Anyway, those who remember last year’s Winegum post on the Eurovision will recall I gave a brief summary of each act, having jotted down my immediate impressions as I watched; this was then later incorporated into the post. I thought it worked quite well, so I’m repeating the exercise. Bizarrely, the show opened with host nation Sweden, so that’s where we’ll begin.

SWEDEN: A pair of Norwegian twins with over-familiar nasal vocals; routine electro beat; performance feels more like a promo video than live, with video effects guaranteed to induce epileptic fit/UKRAINE: Female duo – one fat, one thin; thin one sings, fat one raps – in her mother tongue. Non-rap part of song not bad; surreal shot at the end, with the two superimposed over ‘bodies’ beneath their feet, an unsubtle reference to current events back home/GERMANY: Song resembles one of the UK’s many flops over the past 20 years, sung by a plump young man who looks like he works at Specsavers/LUXEMBOURG: Girl with pigtails surrounded by muscle-bound male dancers; could have been performed at any Eurovision in the last couple of decades. The way vocals are treated these days, no vocal sounds live now/ISRAEL: Original lyrics apparently altered due to references to October 7 massacre; ballad – bland, but not bad; audience whistling audible; anyone with a sense of mischief willing it to win/LITHUANIA: Back to Europop beat again; male singer’s ‘nose-cuff’ piercing distracting – looks like he’d head-butted a door the day before; routine sound trademarked by Eurovision in the 90s.

SPAIN: Female singer slightly older than one would expect, a touch of the middle-aged Kylie as well as the gay disco act Amanda Lear did in the 80s; male dancers also look like rejects from the ‘Relax’ video; repetitive 90s electro beat; crowd already familiar with song/ESTONIA: Old guys in black and shades giving shouty performance to usual electro backing; comedy dance routine/IRELAND: Gender-neutral singer who cried because Israel qualified. Visually reminiscent of Lene Lovich/Hazel O’Connor, with a touch of Bjork thrown in; song strange, but a bit too odd even for Eurovision; despite off-stage crap from the Goth princess, a genuinely weird and welcome change/LATVIA: Male solo singer who looks like a clean-shaven Pep Guardiola sings a slow ballad/GREECE: We receive the night’s first of many outings for that electronically-processed, Middle Eastern ‘ethnic’ sound/UK: A solo singer with a video backdrop that makes it look like he’s singing in a gents’ urinal; dancers dressed like gay boxers. Song sounds like something you’d hear playing in the background in Superdrug; the whole spectacle reminds me of the ‘I Love Willies’ number in the gay musical episode of ‘The IT Crowd’.

NORWAY: An alleged rock band, lumbered with same old ‘trance’ dance rhythm yet again; big sound, but has all the soul of an empty aircraft hangar/ITALY: Ever heard Italian rapping? You have now, but it’s that ‘ethnic’ beat again; female dancers with the size of thighs unseen since the heyday of Chaka Khan/SERBIA: Female singer sat on a polystyrene rock like the statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen; slow and a bit too self-consciously moody; doesn’t go anywhere/FINLAND: Comedy interlude; same old electro beat, sounds like it’s playing at the wrong speed; Mr Windows 95 seemingly forgot to wear his trousers and runs round the stage like an out-of-shape, middle-aged streaker/PORTUGAL: Female singer dressed all in white with matching dancers who look to be wearing stockings over their faces in 70s bank robber style; song a forgettable plodder/ARMENIA: Yes, here we go again – it’s that ‘ethnic’ beat once more, with a girl singer who almost looks to be dressed in national costume/CYPRUS: Nasal vocal returns for first time since opening act. Singer like a dozen female pop stars in terms of presentation; touch of that ethnic beat again, but could’ve been at any Eurovision this century.

SWITZERLAND: Non-binary boy in a skirt; again, looks more like a video than a live performance; reliant on props, but moderately catchy/SLOVENIA: Blonde with the once-ubiquitous Britney Spears mic attached to her cheek, wearing an outfit the Daily Mail would probably call ‘revealing’, but reminds me of Legs & Co circa 1981; forgotten song already/CROATIA: Someone else who looks like he’s wearing national costume; horrible, Bon Jovi-like, Stadium Rock ‘woah-oh’ in chorus of otherwise annoyingly catchy tune/GEORGIA: Same presentation as Cyprus – girl singer with muscle-man dancers; we can hear echoes of that good ol’ ethnic beat for the umpteenth time this evening/FRANCE: Shares same title as a song I came up with for a spoof Eurovision video a decade ago, but mine was funnier; ‘Mon Amour’ an OTT ballad sung by a man who looks like the owner of a Turkish restaurant/AUSTRIA: High-speed electro-pop’s final outing of the evening; same old dance routines and lap-dancer persona obligatory for all post-Madonna female pop stars.

So, after the always-entertaining voting segment, the UK’s lavatory cowboy improved upon last year’s dismal second-from-bottom placing by finishing 18th out of 25 (success!). Israel couldn’t quite provoke further tears on the part of other contestants by finishing fifth, but those calling for Eden Golan to be banished will have felt extremely smug that the crown went to Switzerland’s non-binary boy as the MSM adhered to his demands by referring to him as ‘they’. I’m sure they is very happy today, for at least they is probably the only person in Europe able to remember a number all about their stunning and brave battle to celebrate their mental illness. Bet you’re sad you missed it, eh?

© The Editor

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WHEELS ON FIRE

A year or so ago, the main road I live on was subjected to road-works of the kind that severely disrupt traffic and provide additional headaches for the pedestrian when each day brings a temporary crossing somewhere different from where it had been the day before. This disruption spanned pretty much the first six months of 2023, interrupting the flow of one of the country’s most congested thoroughfares outside of the capital. Even a non-motorist such as myself found it an inconvenient annoyance, so I can’t imagine how tedious it must have been behind the wheel; yet, once the hi-vis./hard-hat brigade finally vacated the neighbourhood, what was the result of their extended endeavours? A cycle lane. Now, although this is a locality where ‘Vote Labour’, LGBTXYZ flags and BLM banners are not unusual sights to see in windows, the eco-warrior roadster is not as commonplace as one might imagine, so unnecessary concessions to a lobby whose loud voices far outweigh their numbers have left us with a farcical alteration that has reduced the width of a road already notorious for its nose-to-tail traffic. And the cycle lane’s main purpose appears to be a handy extra space for the pedestrian hampered by the obstacle course of wheelie-bins on the narrow pavement, for one rarely spots a cyclist using it during peak traffic hours.

I only bring this up as a neat scene-setter that emphasises how much cyclists have disproportionately become a pampered elite amongst road-users in a climate that bows to their every demand due to the desperate and opportunistic, greenwashing tactics of government both local and national – and it certainly seems to have worked if the facelift of the road I mentioned is anything to go by, not to mention the recent alterations to the Highway Code. Yet, at the same time, one can’t help but wonder if the occasional arrogance of these somewhat smug, ring-fenced aristocrats of the highways and byways of this green and pleasant land is aided and abetted by antiquated laws that enable the worst of them to evade justice. In law, a cyclist is not required to abide by speed limits as enforced by road-signs, because the legal speed limit doesn’t apply to them in the way it does to ‘mechanically-propelled vehicles’, a hangover from the Victorian era that means any reckless cyclist who fatally mows down a pedestrian can look forward to a prison sentence of barely two years on a ‘wanton and furious riding’ charge at worst, unlike motorists convicted of death by dangerous driving.

The police figures for 2022 – the most recent stats available – reveal there were 462 recorded collisions between cyclists and pedestrians during that year, which is an increase of 33% on the previous stats from 2020. However, what is known as the ‘Stats 19’ recording system is not faultless, due to it excluding those killed and/or seriously injured in public spaces where non-motorised vehicles can be ridden at increasingly high speeds; it also fails to take into account pedestrians whose fatal injuries from a close encounter with a pushbike could take over 30 days to do their business. The Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 remains the criteria by which the worst cyclists are judged, facing little more than an involuntary manslaughter charge should they actually kill someone on the roads; a motorist, on the other hand, can receive life imprisonment should they commit the same crime. The lesser charge via the aforementioned 1861 Act has been a canny ‘get out of jail’ card for many a cyclist of late, something that was brought home by a case last week, in which a speeding cyclist involved in a fatal collision with a pensioner in Regent’s Park wasn’t prosecuted due to this archaic law in need of updating.

81 year-old Hilda Griffiths was walking her dog in June 2022 when she inadvertently gatecrashed what a group of cyclists seemingly regarded as an Olympic event being held on the King’s Highway. The Muswell Hill Peloton Cycling Club were doing timed laps of the London locality, treating the neighbourhood as their own personal velodrome as they travelled round the 20mph circuit at speeds upwards of 29mph. Any driver stuck behind such an arrogant and entitled squadron would find them an undeniable irritant – and I’ve certainly experienced that sensation as a mere passenger in a car; but any vulnerable pedestrian, from child to pensioner, would find attempting to cross the road a dangerous exercise – and it proved to be precisely that for Hilda Griffiths. She’d already complained to her son about organised cycling clubs exploiting their privileged status under the law, zooming around Regent’s Park in pace formation and expecting those on foot to simply stand aside like forelock-tugging peasants in the presence of their lord and master. The absence of a zebra crossing as Mrs Griffiths did her best to reach a pedestrian island didn’t help, but neither did the fact this old lady had to navigate a racetrack in order to get from one side of the road to the other. A quartet of lycra-clad, middle-aged and middle-class ‘boy racers’ sped along the same stretch of road, with three managing to avoid Mrs Griffiths; the fourth didn’t.

Hilda Griffiths’ collision with a cyclist named Brian Fitzgerald left her with multiple fractures and bleeding on the brain. It took her 59 days to die from her terrible injuries and therefore the horrific accident that ended her life was not registered in the official ‘Stats 19’ data due to her long and painful death exceeding the 30-day qualification as a road fatality. In his defence, Mr Fitzgerald claimed Mrs Griffiths had stepped out into the road without looking, a claim backed-up by a witness who turned out to be another of those ‘entitled’ characters the ordinary pedestrian tends to encounter on a daily basis, the jogger. However, a police photograph taken after the accident revealed a ‘SLOW’ sign before the pedestrian island Hilda Griffiths was aiming for, a sign Brian Fitzgerald evidently either didn’t see or chose to ignore. As Ellen Robertson, the Griffiths’ family barrister at the inquest held at the Inner West London Coroners Court last week said, the difficulties faced by pedestrians when surrounded by swarms of speeding cyclists ‘makes it very hard for pedestrians, let alone children or the elderly, to judge the distance where they would think 20mph is the likely speed, particularly as cyclists are harder are harder to hear and see.’

The Coroner recorded an ‘accidental cycling collision death’ and Brian Fitzgerald is a free man because the police found there were no criminal acts which would allow prosecution for cyclists who exceed speed limits. Mrs Griffiths’ son Gerald said, ‘I firmly believe my mother was killed by the culture of cycling that has grown up around Regent’s Park over the last few years. Many neither have the will nor obligation to slow or stop if someone, be they young or old, is crossing ahead of them. The laws are inadequate and need to change. If any other vehicles were travelling over the speed limit in that same formation – essentially tailgating – they would be committing an offence.’ Chris Boardman, the Government’s ‘Active Travel Commissioner’ last year dismissed calls for the law on cyclists to be updated because ‘there are more people killed by lightning and cows than cyclists’.

It does seem somewhat perverse that we live in an age when so many of our residential areas have had their speed limits reduced way beyond the wildest dreams of Tufty or the Green Cross Man in order to minimise the likelihood of road accidents involving pedestrians, yet at the same time we appear to have exempted cyclists from the limits imposed upon motorists and have given them carte blanche to ride roughshod over both the law and the pedestrian. I remember once crossing the road when the green man indicated it was fine for me to do so, and came within a whisker of being hit by a cyclist who sped past with no care for which of us had right of way; I’d witnessed a similar incident happen to someone else at the same crossing not long before, and then the raised voice of the pedestrian received a reply from the cyclist along the lines of ‘F**k off’. And cyclists wonder why so many people hate them.

© The Editor

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A VERY GOOD RIDDANCE

Choosing a title for a post on here and occasionally coming up with an old-school Fleet Street pun of a one can often take more time than penning the post itself. As with selecting an accompanying image I feel best illustrates the piece (or will provoke a titter), getting it right sometimes means a longer delay between writing and posting than I’d care for. It’s not always the case, of course – a title and image that fit can just as easily appear before me as soon as I’m writing the first paragraph; but another factor I now have to contend with is the possibility I’ve used the same title before. Due to the fact the Winegum has been in existence for eight and-a-half years, there are over a thousand posts on here and the odds of me coming up with the same title every once in a while are quite strong. It shouldn’t really matter, and I’m pretty sure few if any readers see a new post and think, ‘Hold on a minute – he’s used that before’; but I confess it does annoy me if I stumble upon an old post and there it is again. Anyway, I digress (what’s new?); the fact is I was convinced the title of the previous post, ‘Living on Borrowed Time’, was too obvious not to have been recycled, but I went for it anyway because it fitted. And it proved to be perfect, even if I didn’t realise the borrowed time upon which Humza Yousaf was living would expire within 48 hours.

The self-pitying crocodile tears that fooled no one when summoned-up by Mrs T and Theresa May as they fell on their own respective swords were in evidence once more when the Scottish First Minister – nicknamed ‘Humza the Brief’ by Andrew Neil – announced his resignation yesterday. Walking the plank before having to endure an expected and humiliating defeat in a no-confidence vote this week, Nicola Sturgeon’s doomed successor enjoyed a mercifully short time in office, serving just thirteen months as Scotland’s unelected dictator. For a man with such a piss-poor record as an SNP Minister – first in Transport and then Health – it’s hard not to wonder how it was he managed to get the gig in the first place; one hesitates to suggest he achieved his goal simply because he ticked all the right boxes that a ‘Progressive’ Party like the SNP prize so highly, but he evidently didn’t get there on the basis of competence or capability. This pompous, humourless, arrogant and egotistical individual has shown the Scottish people the grim reality of what happens when Identitarian zealots grab the reins of power; we’ve already seen what a disaster this has proven to be in Canada and Ireland, but the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reign of Humza the Brief has provided the UK with a nightmarish vision of the kind of leader that awaits the rest of the nation if the dogma that has captured the country’s corporations and institutions is allowed to seize the throne.

A country run by a man who hates the country and its people is not a country in a fit and healthy state, and Humza Yousaf gave every impression from the off that he was ashamed of his nation and its history. Like Brian Clough arriving at Leeds United and hardly endearing himself to the players by telling them to throw their medals in the bin because they hadn’t earned any of them fairly, Humza Yousaf didn’t even bother to disguise his contempt for the Scottish people, exhibiting all the worst traits of the privileged metropolitan snob; tapping in to the cult of victimhood crucial to the Woke mindset, he also rarely wasted an opportunity to wear his oppressed minority credentials by denouncing Scotland’s ‘whiteness’; would he, one wonders, have visited Nigeria and denounced its ‘blackness’? It’s a curious way to introduce yourself to the people you’re supposed to be leading, to play the race card to 96% of the population and say it’s because of them that a Trans Muslim of Colour with Mental Health Issues isn’t managing the Scotland national team. Beyond the SNP inner circle, I should imagine there won’t be a moist eye in any house north of Berwick following Yousaf’s exit – unlike his own tearful resignation performance. Mind you, had Humza the Brief had his way, he could’ve received reports on the private conversations taking place in those houses and dispatched McKnacker to the door should he perceive them as potential ‘Hate Crimes’.

We seem to reside in an age in which those utterly incapable of doing the top political jobs somehow end up with them; Corbyn, Biden, Boris, and Liz Truss spring to mind, but perhaps Humza the Brief is the best/worst example of this depressing trend. The only saving grace to it is that it doesn’t take long before their incompetence is exposed, and Scotland’s outgoing First Minister was gifted with a talent akin to (as The Hollies once memorably put it) King Midas in reverse. From being caught driving without insurance when Transport Minister to calling a striking nurse struggling on a pittance ‘patronising’ when Health Minister to the infamous incident when he publicly accused a nursery of ‘Islamophobia’ because they wouldn’t accept his infant daughter – how dare they? – Humza Yousaf already had a track record of gaffes and bungles that made it blatantly clear he wasn’t cut out for high office, not to mention numerous examples of his vain, entitled hubris that that revealed what a complete c**t he was. However, as Wee Ms Krankie’s anointed heir, Yousaf was earmarked for the post he duly proceeded to spend a year blundering his way through, and ending the power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens that precipitated his swift downfall was a characteristic misfire destined to end in tears.

According to reports, the decision to curtail the Bute House Agreement was greeted with cheers by many SNP members who had grown weary of a Party that had tested even the SNP’s twisted ideological agenda. The Scottish Greens are England’s Green Party turned up to eleven; the SNP entering into a coalition with them was like a governing Labour Party entering into a coalition with Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion in England; they’re that extreme when it comes to living their lives by the diktats of St Greta. Giving a collection of middle-class eco-fear mongers a slice of power was disastrous for the Scottish people – not to mention the SNP’s poll ratings – so one can understand the desire of Humza Yousaf to bring the arrangement to an end; the problem with this decision was that Yousaf had not exactly endeared himself to anyone outside of his Holyrood court, and the fact the SNP had depended upon Green support to ensure their own survival in government meant the end of the coalition left both the First Minister and his Party in a perilous position. It goes without saying Yousaf will be replaced via another internal election in which the Scottish electorate have no say; but the Scottish electorate, as with the UK as a whole, deserve better.

READER’S DIGEST (1938-2024)

Magazines – remember them? I used to buy quite a few at one time, everything from music mainstays like Uncut and Mojo to Vogue (which I liked because of ‘the articles’, obviously); then, with the exception of Private Eye and the Radio Times, I just stopped buying them at some point around a decade or so ago. It didn’t help that they were becoming increasingly expensive, but I guess, like a lot of people, I found the information contained within their pricey pages was easier (and cheaper) to access online. Long after one ceases to fork out for such items, it’s strangely comforting to realise they still exist; therefore, when one abruptly folds, one is overcome with a sudden rush of nostalgia. The news that the UK edition of Reader’s Digest is to end after 86 years comes as something of a shock in that I didn’t realise this one-time fixture of the waiting rooms in GP’s surgeries (not to mention my grandparents’ shelves) was still being published. Collecting articles from periodicals around the world and reproducing them in a convenient, bite-size compilation, Reader’s Digest hit on a winning formula that made it a familiar sight in households that harboured modest intellectual aspirations back in the 50s, 60s and 70s; along with National Geographic, it was a handy window into a world its readers weren’t prepared to invest in any further than a mere monthly sample at an affordable price. As relatively recently as 2000, Reader’s Digest could still sell over a million copies in the UK a month, but that world, along with Reader’s Digest itself, is now evidently gone.

© The Editor

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2’s COMPANY

Despite the opportunistic rebranding of tat as ‘vintage’, charity shops still occasionally unearth little gems that sneak under the eBay radar and are picked-up by grateful punters bereft of an ulterior motive; a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon an entry in the long-running and collectable ‘Observer’s Book of…’ series, a 1980 reprint of 1973’s ‘London’, complete with a suitably avuncular Yeoman Gaoler on the cover. These nifty little pocket book guides were published on a variety of subjects between 1937 and 1982, with a one-off revival as recent as 2003; this particular copy cost me a quid. It reminded me that, even now, it remains possible to locate such items for next-to-nothing, regardless of the change in approach that came via the negative impact of Mary Portas and her reality TV assault on the charity shop ethos around 15 years ago. When I first began to frequent high-street bargain-bins in the 80s, it seemed everything on sale was a giveaway because nobody really wanted anything in there (bar amateur antiquarians such as myself), and one fascinating fossil I found back then cost me 70p, an item that had originally retailed at 6/- when published in 1963. It was the BBC Handbook 1964, looking ahead to an especially eventful year as the Corporation prepared to launch its second television channel.

The early 60s had been tough for the BBC. Not only had the arrival of ITV in 1955 broken the Beeb’s 20-year monopoly of British television, but the populist manner of commercial TV’s instant connection with a viewing public eager for choice had seen a mass defection to the other side; there was also a blow dealt to the BBC’s three radio networks with the arrival of pirate radio, playing non-stop contemporary pop rather than serving listeners tantalising rations of it sandwiched between hours of archaic Light music aimed at middle-aged housewives. The BBC’s first response to this attack on its dominance was to shake-up its TV output by calling time on the 50s with adventurous new programmes like ‘Z Cars’, ‘Steptoe and Son’, ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘That Was The Week That Was’; its next move was to launch a second television service, albeit one that wasn’t intended to compete with the huge viewing figures of ITV. The aim of BBC2 was to offer a highbrow option compared to what was largely perceived as the downmarket ‘Americanisation’ of British television by the Beeb’s rivals. The 1964 BBC Handbook says, ‘BBC2 will be complimentary to BBC1 (as the existing service will come to be known) in the sense of providing an alternative and different programme for the viewer at any time when both services are on the air. Its scope will be as wide as BBC1 and will cover the whole range of what the public has come to expect from a comprehensive and national television service.’

One of the main difficulties the BBC faced with the advent of BBC2 was their intention for the second channel to transmit on the superior 625-line system as opposed to the standard 405-line system both BBC1 and ITV used (and the system the majority of the nation’s sets were produced to receive). 625-line TV was already fairly standard in Europe, but in the UK it meant transmitters would have to be altered to accommodate the UHF band that 625-lines were broadcast on, as opposed to the VHF band that handled 405-line TV. The BBC were looking to the future, primarily of colour television; but in 1964 625-line TV was an expensive luxury requiring the kind of investment on the viewers’ behalf that needed enticing programming, something that BBC2 didn’t appear to have as far as the average TV audience was concerned. The eccentric schedule for the station’s intended opening night on 20 April 1964 included a production of ‘Kiss Me Kate’ starring Howard Keel; 45 minutes of a fellow called Arkady Raikin – who was billed as ‘the Soviet Union’s leading comedian’ – accompanied by The Leningrad Miniature Theatre Company; there was a live fireworks display from Southend Pier; and there was also ‘The Alberts’ – a surreal comedy/musical ensemble who were associates of both Spike Milligan and Ivor Cutler and who were fresh from a West End show titled ‘An Evening of British Rubbish’.

An additional hurdle hampering the launch of BBC2 was the fact its initial transmissions were restricted to the Crystal Palace transmitter in South London. As the 1964 Handbook admits, ‘It will be some years before complete national coverage of BBC2 can be achieved, but it will be extended from London and the South-East to the Midlands in 1965 and it is hoped to cover some 75 percent of the country’s population by 1966/67.’ A map in that week’s issue of the Radio Times shows the signal from Crystal Palace radiating as far north as Saffron Walden in Essex, but no further. So, not a lot there that promised to challenge the BBC’s reputation as an elitist, middle-class service catering for the Home Counties; I doubt ITV’s franchise holders felt threatened by its arrival. Then, come the opening night, the final disaster struck. About half-an-hour before BBC2 was scheduled to begin broadcasting at 7.20pm, there was a huge power failure caused by a fire at Battersea Power Station; most of West London experienced a blackout, including the Underground Central Line and – more importantly from the BBC’s perspective – Television Centre in Shepherd’s Bush.

At the time of the blackout, BBC1 had already switched to its regional centres for local news programmes, so the senior service continued to be received by viewers outside of London; once everyone realised what was happening, network broadcasting then switched to Alexandra Palace, the site of the BBC’s TV beginnings 30 years before. Periodical bulletins were issued on BBC2 from Alexandra Palace as the few who could receive it waited for programmes to begin, but the decision was eventually taken to postpone the launch till the following day. Rumours swiftly circulated this had been a dirty trick by ITV, a revenge attack for the BBC stealing the headlines on ITV’s launch night in 1955, when the dramatic death of Grace Archer shocked the-then far larger radio audience; but nothing was ever proved. With the intended opening a write-off, a new children’s series aimed at the pre-school viewer, ‘Play School’, therefore became the first-ever BBC2 programme by default when it went ahead at 11.00am on 21 April 1964. When the service belatedly began proper at 7.20 that evening with ‘Line-Up’, the first image viewers saw was a candle that was then blown out by presenter Denis Tuohy before uttering the immortal words, ‘Good evening. This is BBC2.’

The new channel’s commitment to innovative programming was soon reflected in two contrasting successes – the heavyweight documentary series, ‘The Great War’ (which benefitted from the fact there were still plenty veterans of the conflict alive in the mid-60s) and ‘The Likely Lads’, a sitcom that put the vogue for The North on the small-screen in a comedic context for the first time. But it wasn’t until David Attenborough accepted the offer to step back from the camera and become BBC2 controller in 1965 that the landmark programmes for which the channel’s eclectic early years remain defined by were produced. Amongst those that appeared on Attenborough’s watch were ‘The Forsyte Saga’, ‘Civilisation’, ‘Alistair Cooke’s America’, ‘The Ascent of Man’, ‘Man Alive’, ‘Call My Bluff’, ‘The Money Programme’, ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’, ‘The Goodies’, and ‘Pot Black’. The latter series, as with BBC2’s Wimbledon coverage, couldn’t have happened without 1967’s shift into colour broadcasting, another innovation Attenborough oversaw.

BBC2 today, as with the television landscape as a whole, is a very different beast indeed; a cursory glance at the channel’s schedule on the day of its 60th birthday finds a trio of lunchtime cookery programmes, live snooker and women’s rugby, and a glut of repeats intended to mark the anniversary. Part of me wishes ‘the Soviet Union’s leading comedian’ was amongst them, but not so, alas. Happy birthday, then, BBC2; I knew you when you were worth watching.

© The Editor

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THE RECKONING

If the current trend for everyone who ever lived before us being judged on the social and moral mores of our times rather than their own continues, one wonders how the present day will fare in the future’s cultural courtroom. How many individuals and attitudes will be found not guilty and how many will be condemned to eternal damnation without the hope of redemption? I’ve long suspected some of these individuals and attitudes will eventually be cast in the same negative light as those they themselves retrospectively demonise, yet for the vast majority of folk – who don’t control the means of mass communication or run corporations and institutions – the insanity of this ascendancy to positions of power and influence was both baffling and concerning from the off. Most of us already knew this wasn’t a good idea, but the sheer weight of propaganda relentlessly streaming from the platforms the masses depend upon – along with the vicious attack dogs those platforms can summon – has marginalised and suppressed dissenting voices and encouraged self-censorship. But were one to look into the crystal ball, it’s evident that today’s indulged ideologues are tomorrow’s slave-traders or eugenics advocates; today’s dogmatic mantras are tomorrow’s discredited belief systems.

One day, all but a diminishing smatter of nostalgic fanatics will look back to now with a shake of the head and wonder how it was that the leader of a major political party couldn’t define a woman when asked point-blank to do so during a radio interview or that another declared women could have penises; or that men would be allowed to enter women’s sports and unsurprisingly wipe the floor with the competition; or that the BBC could broadcast an educational film telling children there were over 200 genders; or that convicted rapists could simply proclaim they identified as female and be admitted to women’s prisons, or that the MSM, the police, the judiciary and the victims of such men would be forced to refer to them as ‘she’ in order not to offend their human rights as the female stats for sexual crimes would soar due to the addition of men posing as women. How will tomorrow’s jury view terms like ‘bleeders’ or ‘birthing persons’? How will they judge a self-proclaimed oppressed minority composed largely of middle-class men with a fetish for aping the stereotypical tropes of the opposite sex and erasing its hard-won rights in the process? How will they react to the fact that men were given a free pass into women’s and girl’s private spaces such as toilets or changing rooms, and that any women raising an objection would be branded bigots and hounded on social media?

How will they regard an age that aggressively policed Hate Crime yet turned a blind eye to women subjected to rape and death threats simply for having the gall to air an opinion contrary to the consensus, or that lesbians could be discouraged from participating in Pride events or be barred from holding speed-dating evenings because they refused to admit men in drag, or how prominent gays in the village could be cast out into the wilderness for questioning the wisdom of butchering children, of brainwashing sexually-confused adolescents into believing their nascent symptoms of homosexuality were an indication they needed to transition? This sinister and grotesque conversion therapy, promoted by ghastly parents desperate to signal their virtue, by immoral organisations like Stonewall and Mermaids, and – most unforgivably of all – by our glorious NHS, is at the heart of the most comprehensive study into the madness of the moment and one that will hopefully help reset the controls for common sense, the Cass Review.

This 388-page report into England’s gender identity clinics for the under-18s by Dr Hilary Cass was published last week; although dealing with a specific area of the issue, the findings of this landmark review will have far wider consequences as the scandal of the state-sponsored sterilisation of children finally, belatedly, goes over-ground and people are able to speak out against it without fear of losing everything in the process. The first whistleblower to expose the truth of what was going on in the notorious, now-closed Tavistock Clinic was mental-health nurse Susan Evans as far back as 2004. 20 f***ing years ago! Since then, the infiltration of our institutions by this dogma has enabled the ideologically-driven heirs to Dr Josef Mengele to experiment on vulnerable teens pushed into places like Tavistock following constant exposure to the fallacy of ‘gender affirmation’ via the online foot-soldiers and numerous non-binary salespeople, prescribed puberty blockers and eventually submitted for castration. Around 50 kids, mostly boys, fell under the radar of the Gender Identity Development Service at Tavistock in 2009; just seven years later, this number had risen to nearer 2,000 – with girls beginning to outnumber boys. The Cass Review has calculated 89% of girls and 81% of boys referred to this disgraced service were either gay or bisexual, earmarked for a transition their leanings never warranted. This was something – to use a hackneyed phrase – ‘hiding in plain sight’ for the best part of two decades, yet it has taken a measured, rational report of unarguable, detailed data by a medical academic to wrestle this subject free of the ‘bigotry’ that any opposing voices have been besmirched with by the dominant narrative for far too long; and its impact is already seeing many an about-turn by those who either said nothing or went with the flow.

To Trans Activists, the Cass Review will be held up as yet one more example of persecution that emphasises their imaginary oppression and thus preserves their precious faux-victimhood. To the rest of the world, it’s the long-overdue voice of reason that has the official seal of approval, unlike those brave souls who dared to pop their head above the parapet in isolation and were bombarded by the slings and arrows of entitled zealots without any support from their cowardly colleagues, who ducked down in shameless self-preservation and abandoned them to the wolves. The likes of Graham Linehan, creator of some of the most successful sitcoms of recent decades such as ‘Father Ted’, ‘Black Books’ and ‘The IT Crowd’, was a self-confessed Liberal Leftie who felt the full force of the lunatics promoted to the running of the asylum when he questioned the direction his long-time political position was heading in; disgracefully dumped by those he’d long imagined to be his ideological allies, Linehan saw his career grind to a full stop and has spent the past few years battling on alone.

Then, of course, there’s JK Rowling – another celebrity Leftie that the Left’s embrace of this toxic social engineering has exiled from the fold. In its perennial hunt for oppressed victims to patronise, the Left found a self-manufactured minority and anyone who quickly discerned the flaws in this ‘stunning and brave’ new world was dispensed with in the kind of purge even Stalin would have thought a bit severe. Rowling’s response to the opportunistic change of tack by certain guilty parties in the wake of the Cass Review’s publication has been delicious to witness, particularly her reaction to the prospect of those ungrateful little shits Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson seeking some sort of rapprochement. Basically, Rowling will not be crossing over any burned bridges in the event of those who owe her everything rebuilding them. She has been equally determined in her fearless stance against Scotland’s ludicrous Hate Crime bill. Good for her.

Similar to so-called ‘Anti-racism’, which advocates racial segregation without a hint of irony, the hardline Trans lobby claims to be all about ‘women’, yet it is bona-fide women who have the nerve to stand up for their rights that receive the most blisteringly misogynistic bile from these demented chicks with dicks – and its inherent homophobia has equally alienated gay men and women who could previously rely on the likes of Stonewall to act on their behalf. Just as militant vegans give vegetarians a bad name with their utter inability to refrain from lecturing and hectoring or refusal to accept that not everyone will automatically fall in line with their thinking, Trans Activists have done nothing but damage the progress of genuine transsexuals within society towards quiet acceptance, the majority of whom merely want to get on with their lives. The Cass Review will not affect overnight change of the prevailing trend dictated by the captured establishment – the trend is too deeply embedded for that; but it’s one hell of a good start.

© The Editor

Website: https://www.johnnymonroe.co.uk/

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IN THE DOCK

Talking Pictures TV, that dependable repository of cathode ray classics, has recently added another neglected gem to its nostalgic roster by giving a welcome repeat outing to one of the most unfairly-maligned British shows of the Golden Age, ‘Dixon of Dock Green’. Routinely – not to mention sneeringly – labelled ‘cosy’ (usually by those who’ve never seen it), the everyday stories of a London policeman originally ran for an impressive 21 years, which was no mean feat considering the lead character of Sgt Dixon (Jack Warner) was 81 when the series hung up its truncheon in 1976. This police procedural has a poor survival rate in the archives, but enough early episodes exist to keep the TPTV run so far strictly monochrome. And what the episodes from the 1950s and 60s undoubtedly convey is the look and feel of a soap opera – or ‘ongoing dramas’ as the BBC used to call them back then; some even contain a Light Programme-style arrangement of the theme tune that sounds like it belongs on ‘Music While You Work’. Unlike the later episodes from the 70s, these feature multiple scenes of Sgt Dixon at home and the family element is strong thanks to his daughter being married to DI Andy Crawford, with all three sharing the same residence. Ironically, soaps today feature an inordinate amount of criminal activity, largely thanks to the corrosive influence of Phil Redmond, though far more than can be seen in yer average episode of a literal crime series like ‘Dixon’. This is drama mercifully free of melodrama.

A decade ago, three DVDs were released that featured the surviving episodes from the last five years of the series, and these have a different feel to the ones TPTV has screened to date. There’s a poignant strain of melancholy running through the early 70s stories that is mirrored in the ageing, past-retirement and eternally avuncular figure of Sgt George Dixon. But Sgt Dixon is a man so indestructible that he cheated death at the hands of Dirk Bogarde (in the movie that inspired the series, 1949’s ‘The Blue Lamp’). Trailing Dixon pounding and plodding his beat along pavements straddling boarded-up properties is like watching a world pass away before our eyes – the post-war Ealing idea of England that trained Dixon to do his job hard but fair. And we trust him to uphold that principle as he criss-crosses a remarkable amount of waste-ground which wildflowers are already reclaiming as nature capitalises on the gap between the recent disappearance of one building and the distant erection of another. Dixon is oblivious of the goldmine his community is sitting on, but those that constitute the community will never benefit from the invisible gold once it comes to be mined; they, like Dixon himself, will be gone by then, edged out by prospectors.

The transition from monochrome to colour was largely on the surface when London was designated the cultural centre of the universe; the 60s never really swung in Dock Green aside from the odd visual flourish via the younger members of the community, and even then this flourish was a slow burner, not really showing itself until one decade had seamlessly morphed into another. Besides, the likes of George Dixon took it all in his seen-it-all-before stride; and it’s worth remembering this is a man who didn’t just emanate from a different decade, but a different century. He could recall every teenage tribe from Victorian hooligans through to cosh-boys in zoot-suits, never mind Teds, Mods and Rockers; it took more than yet another adolescent fad to faze him. Dixon is the physical embodiment of continuity with an era that is clinging on against the odds and under the radar; but everyone sensed it would all go when he did.

A man with the kind of gentle touch we were brought up to believe is a hallmark of British policing via the Ladybird manual, Sgt Dixon is the father figure overseeing a very human drama dealing with the little people who don’t stage audacious blags with sawn-off shooters. More often than not, he encounters life’s failures and does so with great humanity and sympathy. The streets of Dock Green can contain characters inhabiting the same rented accommodation, as in the wonderful 1976 episode, ‘Alice’ – including a burly northerner who once held ambitions to be a world-champion boxer, now reduced to wrestling every night to make ends meet; a small-fry businessman who talks the talk but is still stuck in a poxy little office; then there’s his West Indian secretary, over-qualified for her post, but presumably unable to get a better one because of her colour; and the socially diffident loner who gives the episode its title – a touching performance by Angela Pleasence as a girl with holes in her stockings, convinced she has what it takes to be a great violinist, though the viewer knows she’ll never make it.

Even in the bleaker 70s, Dock Green nick remains something of a comforting family firm – with the sergeant’s son-in-law DI Crawford overseeing a fluid squad of here today/gone tomorrow officers that the archive failed to preserve the complete careers of. But DI Crawford, like his father-in-law, is a static rock of stability in a landscape that is crumbling around him. Yes, he’ll get heavy with the bona-fide villains, but when confronted by innocents caught up in events born of their limited social circumstances, he recognises the signs and goes easy on them. The aforementioned apprentice violinist, name of Alice, is one such character. She possesses a damaged and delicate vulnerability, but the reasons behind why she’s the way she is remain unrevealed even as her sad story unfolds; gradually, however, we are exposed to a steely determination in Alice not to be walked over, something that is often the hallmark of the unlikely survivor and explains how they manage to cling onto the fringes of society, invisible and ignored, but ultimately defiant.

Dock Green is abundant with Alice’s, but the alienating elements of the big city are something the local Force is familiar with, and the causes of crime on the manor are often all-too evident. Even the genuine crooks are still recognisably Ealing-derived, most being the products of traditional criminal families stretching back generations, as much a part of the community’s fabric as Sgt Dixon himself (who has, in his time, nicked father, son and grandson). Innocent observers see the bad in them, but appreciate the nick will slap them on the wrist and send them to the Scrubs for a couple of years without fear of their criminal aspirations ever exceeding the low-level ambition their upbringing aims for. Their future heirs will not settle for that. No, when old coppers who can no longer handle their drink light their pipes and cluster round the Joanna for a run-through of archaic music-hall standards they know off by heart, you realise you’re watching one late, lamented incarnation of England in its elegiac death-throes.

The streets Dixon patrols are being eradicated and obliterated; where the Luftwaffe floundered, the town-planner has triumphed. A sense of place is as much about bricks & mortar as it is about people; when the bricks & mortar have been reduced to rubble, the people are reduced with them, and place is displaced for an entire generation – one which will never reclaim it. Hell, you think the crop that rule the roost as Dixon is on his last lap are bad – wait till you see their children and grandchildren when they get their chance. Schooled in the free-market casino that renders the little people Sgt Dixon has always striven to serve as collateral damage, morality will be a major casualty, as will any sense of shame as they fight to protect their self-interests at the expense of the rest. Their community is the community of Me. They will build towers that burn and evade prosecution at every turn because they can buy immunity, creaming their ill-gotten millions off each institution founded for the public and flogged to the private. They won’t give a flying f**k for the little people, and they won’t even have the decency to hide the fact or even feel the need to hide it. Is it any wonder the allure of the era before their abominable breed stained the surface of Albion retains its pull?

© The Editor

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LONG WAVE GOODBYE

‘Evolution, not revolution’ – so spoke Tony Hayers of his mission at the BBC in his role as the nemesis of Alan Partridge when Hayers was BBC Commissioning Editor in the 1990s sitcom, to which a Partridge desperate for a second series of his TV chat-show reacted enthusiastically by declaring, ‘I evolve…but I don’t revolve’. The character of Tony Hayers (played by David Schneider) represented the post-Birt BBC executive class at odds with the populist approach of the Norwich-based broadcaster (played by Steve Coogan); in the real world, the BBC has been inherited by Tony Hayers rather than Alan Partridge, and we – as licence-fee payers – have seen (and heard) the end results of this evolution over the past 20-25 years. The increasing move towards digital platforms for receiving Auntie’s output may well suit anyone under 50, but for an ageing audience not tuning in to ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’, the sudden transformation of BBC services to wholly accommodate a younger demographic whose viewing and listening habits have been entirely shaped by online activity has left loyalties severely tested for some. As of April Fool’s Day, Radio 4 will no longer have opt-out wavelengths for different programming, and – as usual – the hardcore audience accustomed to a traditional switch from FM to Long Wave and back again have had no say in this decision.

An opt-out slot is, in a way, a legacy of the old BBC Home Service, which would routinely pause for regional matters at various points during the day – not dissimilar to the manner in which the individual ITV franchise holders used to operate up until ITV’s transformation into a London-based, 24/7 networked entity around 20 years ago. The change from the Home Service to Radio 4 in 1967 didn’t eradicate this formula either; the content of Radio 4 could differ wherever you happened to be listening in the country till 1978, with the gradual spread of BBC local radio negating this aspect of the Home Service remit from the late 60s onwards. The South-west was the sole region immune to the 1978 overhaul, clinging onto the opt-out as late as January 1983, when the twin launches of Radio Devon and Radio Cornwall belatedly called time on a time-honoured practice. However, whilst regional opt-outs may have come to an end in the early 80s, wavelength opt-outs remained. Back in the now-unthinkable era when BBC Schools broadcasts dominated the daytime R4 schedules, a split between FM and Medium Wave (which the station then occupied) was necessary, but when Radio 4 swapped its MW band with Radio 2 in 1978, the old R2 Long Wave band became Radio 4’s opt-out option.

BBC radio has been transmitting on Long Wave for 99 years, beginning with its transmitter in Daventry, Northamptonshire, in 1925; there are still a trio of transmitters broadcasting Radio 4 LW on 198 kHz, though now owned by the private company Arqiva, which says significant investment is required to keep them going. However, with the Long Wave platform earmarked for eventual closure, it’s likely these transmitters won’t be maintained indefinitely. Since 1978 Long Wave has been a handy tool for niche programming where Radio 4 is concerned. The Shipping Forecast first aired on Radio 4 when the AM wavelengths were swapped between Radios 2 and 4, remaining in the same place on the dial as a result; the evergreen nautical recital is broadcast four times a day across FM and LW, though come April only the two daily FM broadcasts will still be heard, albeit with an additional edition at weekends. Other programmes that have benefitted from the two-way split include The Daily Service – and it’ll certainly be strange not hearing that mentioned at 9.45am just before Book of the Week – as well as Yesterday in Parliament’s extended version, both of which will henceforth only be found on Radio 4 Extra and BBC Sounds.

One already-notable absentee from Long Wave now is Test Match Special, a programme that has been shunted about a fair bit in recent decades. Launched in 1957, this Great British Institution took advantage of the empty afternoon airwaves occupied on an evening by the Third Programme and stayed in the same place – on Medium Wave – when the Third was rebranded as Radio 3; it remained on R3 up until the early 90s when the new MW-only station Radio 5 arrived as an intended home for all of the BBC’s radio sports coverage, and Test Match Special duly moved in; however, due to the somewhat…erm…lengthy duration of Test Cricket, the show also retained a presence on Radio 3 FM. It eventually found a fresh home on Radio 4 LW when Radio 5 was re-launched as the news-heavy Radio 5 Live in 1994, even if the Shipping Forecast, the Daily Service and Yesterday in Parliament – rather than rain – tended to routinely stop play. Despite extended coverage on the digital station Radio 5 Sports Extra avoiding these interruptions, LW broadcasts continued until the conclusion of the 2023 season.

I can completely understand listeners revelling in the crystal-clear haven that is a digital station, though I can’t deny the unique background sounds of mushy old Long Wave added a distinctive analogue accompaniment to the fine wine richness of the show’s legendary voices in the same way a vinyl crackle was integral to the ambience of a classic album from the 60s or 70s; it often used to sound as if TMS was being phoned-in from some distant village green in an imaginary Albion upon which the sun had yet to set. Perhaps that’s part of the nostalgic attachment to Long Wave, for all its failings at passing this century’s sonic quality test; its audio imperfections are so engrained in the listening experience that they have become part of that experience. When they are cleaned-up and ironed out by the digital transformation, something just seems to be missing. Of course, it depends what one happens to be listening to; I certainly couldn’t imagine enjoying Radio 3’s musical content in quite the same way on MW, for instance; but when it comes to the spoken word, especially one spoken with such mellifluous elegance as the ear masseurs of old on TMS, Long Wave undoubtedly guided the brushes painting the pictures in the listener’s head.

One can understand why some still preferred to listen on Long Wave long after the takeover of the superior soundscapes of the digital medium that superseded it, even if the choice of devices with which listeners can now access their favourite radio shows has multiplied way beyond the archaic trannie, and the bewildering amount of additional stations these new devices offer does make it hard to resist upgrading one’s audio equipment. The current issue of the Radio Times helpfully informs readers that if the listener doesn’t have a digital radio, a TV set or a smart speaker though which to access digital radio, or a Smartphone, or desktop computer or tablet, the listener will no longer be able to tune in to the listed programmes ‘as the schedules are unified’; it also points out older car radios with LW will be similarly affected. I don’t doubt that the more, ah, mature audience liable to be listening in to these particular programmes has already invested in the necessary gear and may well have been taking advantage of the proliferation of digital stations for quite some time; but, as always with the BBC, it’s hard to come away from this news without feeling yet again that a decision has been taken from on-high with no consultation with the audience that stands to be most affected.

One could accurately cite the disgraceful discarding of BBC4 as the sole BBC TV station still upholding the best Reithian traditions as a more extreme example of the contempt in which the Beeb holds some of its subscribers, and the binning of Long Wave is merely one small step in that ongoing process we call progress. After all, to paraphrase the great Alan Partridge, we evolve, but we don’t revolve.

© The Editor

Website: https://www.johnnymonroe.co.uk/

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CROWN PRINCE OF WALES

Okay, let’s get it out of the way straight away: Wales will shortly be led by a black man, something that happens whilst Northern Ireland is currently led by a Catholic woman, not to mention the fact that Scotland is now led by a British Asian Muslim, and Britain as a whole is led by a British Asian Hindu – at least for a few more months. How’s the oppressed minority narrative going, then? Much is naturally being made about the fact none of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom are headed by a white man anymore; so, does this represent the ultimate triumph of multiculturalism? Does it spark the latest chapter in the demise of the indigenous population? Well, only if one concludes the indigenous population are best represented by a privileged clique of ex-public schoolboys; they’re the ones conspicuous by their absence from the premier political map of the nation at the moment, so if anyone feels the lack of white males in positions of power means the majority are no longer accurately represented, it’s not as if they were anyway. And whilst skin colour may have been elevated to a defining characteristic of a person’s value and worth thanks to the odious cancer of Identity Politics, it’s not exactly an accurate barometer for measuring whether or not someone makes a good political leader.

When Barack Obama was first elected US President in 2008, the novelty of a black man reaching the pinnacle of power was something that barely spanned the gap between election and inauguration. Once sworn-in, Obama then had to get down to work just like every other American President before him; the colour of his skin wouldn’t be the determining factor in his success or failure. Indeed, if I was Welsh myself, I think I’d welcome the election of Vaughan Gething as First Minister not because he’ll apparently be the first black political leader of a European nation, but because he’s not Mark Drakeford. The outgoing Tsar of Cymru was one of the UK’s worst lockdown zealots during the pandemic, pursuing Project Fear with a maniacal fanaticism that made Nicola Sturgeon resemble an anti-vaxxer; every additional curb on civil liberties demanded by the Labour Party in England was enthusiastically embraced and implemented by the Party’s man in the valleys. And, of course, when he was imposing 24/7 mask-wearing on the downtrodden Welsh population, he himself was caught on camera mask-free, doing his bit for diversity at a Diwali shindig as he blithely ignored the social distancing rules the plebs had to abide by – funnily enough, just like all the top Tories did at the same time.

Embodying the worst authoritarian aspects of the Left when it comes to the Lower Orders, Mark Drakeford actively pursued a green policy that has left many Welsh farmers up in arms, whilst his unworkable 20mph default speed limit in built-up areas confirmed the anti-motorist agenda at the heart of the political class governing these islands. Drakeford has run Wales since 2018, and it’s hard to imagine anyone echoing Mrs Thatcher come his retirement, concluding that he’s left the country in a better state than when he found it. Drakeford’s successor steps up from his role as Minister for the Economy, having won 51.7 percent of the vote in the leadership contest against Education Minister Jeremy Miles. With shades of Ford pardoning Nixon, Vaughan Gething paid tribute to the outgoing First Minister, describing Drakeford as ‘the right leader at the right time in the pandemic’, adding ‘we will be forever in his debt’; well, Gething himself probably will be, but it seems a bit presumptuous to include the Welsh people in his gushing obituary.

But, of course, little attention is being given to Mark Drakeford or his record as First Minister today; all eyes are focused on the new man, and (it goes without saying) the colour of his skin. SNP leader and Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf was predictably quick off the blocks. ‘What an incredible achievement,’ he declared, ‘to become the first black leader of a European country.’ Keir Starmer wasn’t far behind. ‘His appointment as First Minister of Wales, the first black leader in the UK,’ said Sir Keir, ‘will be an historic moment that speaks to the progress and values of modern-day Wales.’ Vaughan Gething himself wasted little time in noting his own achievement in his acceptance speech upon being elected. ‘Today we turn a page in the book of our nation’s history,’ he proclaimed. ‘Not just because I have the honour of becoming the first black leader in any European country, but because a generational dial has jumped too. Devolution is not something I have had to get used to or adapt to, or apologise for. Welsh solutions to Welsh problems and opportunities, is in my blood – it’s what I have always known throughout my adult political life.’

Gething’s life actually began in Zambia fifty years ago, though he is of Welsh descent, with his father being a vet from Glamorgan who met Gething’s black mother when working in the African nation. The family relocated to Monmouthshire when Gething was aged two, though the unpleasant experience of his father’s job offer being withdrawn upon his arrival with black spouse and child was a not-uncommon occurrence in less-enlightened times, and one worth remembering without being revived as an Identitarian marketing tool. Unfortunately, one suspects it will be weaponised to some degree, if only to uphold the discrimination storyline expected of any non-white figure on the Left, where exposure to racism forms a core feature of their profile. Even if the Gething family had experienced no prejudice whatsoever, the racism question would still be asked of the new First Minister and he would be expected to provide the correct answer.

As Keir Starmer’s representative in Wales, Vaughan Gething quickly toed the Party line by bigging-up the Labour leader when the subject of the impending Election was raised. ‘I know that we can win,’ he said. ‘We can win if we stand together, linking arms to defeat the narrow forces of division that seek to make a warm country turn cold. That only happens if we sweep the Tories out of office and send Sir Keir Starmer into No.10.’ If/when that happens, the brief exclusion of white male faces from political leadership in the UK will come to a swift end, even if Sir Keir presides over a Cabinet as racially diverse as the one Boris Johnson headed from 2019 – one that the ‘rainbow nation’ cheerleaders were mysteriously quiet about. Perhaps the likes of Priti Patel, James Cleverly, Suella Braverman, Sajid Javid, Kwasi Kwarteng, Nadhim Zahawi, and of course, Rishi Sunak didn’t see race as a selling point; indeed, their respective failures could no more be attributed to the colour of their skin than their limited successes could. Most of that, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, was down to the content of their character.

STEVE HARLEY (1951-2024)

One of the most intriguing and inventive acts to emerge from the ‘Art School’ strand of Glam in the early-to-mid-70s, Cockney Rebel – along with Bowie, Roxy Music, Sparks, and Be-Bop Deluxe – helped give a much-maligned musical movement the kind of intelligent, stylish flair lacking in the likes of Gary Glitter or The Sweet. Cockney Rebel were led by Steve Harley, a charismatic singer-songwriter with a distinctive London drawl who fronted what was essentially a backing band; indeed, between the release of their second and third albums, Harley was abandoned by the bandmates who resented his dominance and he was forced to recruit a fresh batch. With the old band having enjoyed top ten hits with the curiously camp ‘Judy Teen’ and ‘Mr Soft’, Harley’s new line-up scored their only chart-topper, the evergreen ‘Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)’ in 1975 – the lyrics of which were a barbed attack on his ex-colleagues. Like many artists of his generation, Harley found himself out in the cold when Punk exploded and struggled to recapture commercial success for the best part of a decade, only eventually returning to the top ten in 1986 – a duet with Sarah Brightman on the title track of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, ‘The Phantom of the Opera’; he went on to play the role of the Phantom on stage before being replaced by Michael Crawford.

Steve Harley continued to make music both on his own and in various collaborations, and was often a go-to interviewee when seeking a more erudite perspective on the era of pop he helped illuminate with his quirky, eccentric talent. He passed away at the age of 73, yet one more victim of the disease that forever seems to elude a cure.

© The Editor

Website: https://www.johnnymonroe.co.uk/

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A BED AND BREAKFAST SERIAL

Ever since its inception as a prime-time fixture of mainstream channels, reality television has proliferated not (one suspects) because the TV audience demands it above all other entertainment, but because in comparison to what preceded it at peak-viewing time it cuts a lot of corners. For one thing, beyond the fee paid to the celebrity host, there are none of the expenses required for the kind of programme previously airing in a similar time slot; participating members of the public or has-been household names desperate to resurrect their careers do not cost the same as the star performers that used to tread the television boards on old-school variety shows. An Ant or a Dec or a Graham Norton or a Claudia Winkleman to front the series is usually as far as the budget stretches. Such programmes are also far cheaper to produce than the sitcoms that coexisted with the aforementioned variety shows and illuminated the evening schedules on BBC1 and ITV half-a-century ago, which is why the likes of ‘Porridge’, ‘The Good Life’, ‘Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?’, ‘Dad’s Army’, ‘Steptoe and Son’ and ‘Fawlty Towers’ remain on a repeat loop; they have no contemporary equivalent, and they’re still funny.

However, whilst the Saturday night series which cost a pretty penny to stage – i.e. ‘Strictly’ – are dependent upon large viewing figures and social media traction to justify the expense, the lingering vestiges of the big-budget ‘Sunday Night at the Palladium’-type shows that can still be seen in these are utterly absent from series in which further corners have been cut by dispensing with the celebrity host and studio audience altogether. Something like ‘Bake Off’ is in no way a production number on the ‘Strictly’ scale, but it still has the famous faces fronting the brand as members of the public do all the work; ditto ‘The Apprentice’ and – to an extent – ‘Dragon’s Den’. Yet take one further step away from the formula and you have something along the lines of ‘Come Dine with Me’ or ‘Gogglebox’, both of which have put members of the public centre-stage, with the celebrity host replaced by a bog-standard voice-over to link the scenes; yes, ‘Big Brother’ used this tactic, though it still had its celebrity host presenting the opening and closing nights as well as staging the interview with the evicted contestant once a week – something the likes of ‘Love Island’ has carried on. The audience participation that comes via the phone vote is a factor in such contests that is absent from the less sensationalistic incarnation of reality television, and whether or not this is purely coincidental, the shows belonging in this category are a far easier watch.

Such is a series called ‘Four in a Bed’. Despite its deliberately provocative title, this Channel 4 take on the more preferable format of reality TV is so inoffensive that old episodes air back-to-back in the middle of the day on Channel 4’s digital sister station, ‘More 4’. This is mainly how I’ve seen it, and as fashions haven’t altered in the last 20 years, I’m often quite surprised when the date at the end of the credits sometimes reveals the one I’ve just watched can be from as far back as 2017. Anyway, this show has no celebrity host, no audience participation, and is shot entirely on location. The locations in question are four bed & breakfast hotels of various types, everything from the upmarket ‘boutique’ brand to traditional seaside B&Bs to ‘glamping’ sites; each residence is represented by either an owner or a manager, often – though not always – coming as a pair; it could be husband and wife, father and son, mother and daughter, bezzie mates and so on. There are four B&Bs featured and each is visited by the other B&B owners in the contest; at the end of their one-night stay in the B&B, the visitors mark the venue out of ten via a questionnaire relating to their brief time there. These anonymous feedback forms are then perused by the hosts once the guests have departed; the visitors also place money in an envelope that reflects what they think their stay was worth, though this is kept secret until the final episode.

‘Four in a Bed’ is undoubtedly a competition – which provides the series with a light touch of tension; but it has none of the unenlightening nastiness that permeates the prime-time programmes and can make them an uncomfortable viewing experience as the worst traits lurking in most people are cajoled to the surface. What we see is people passionate about their particular brand of one of the most beleaguered businesses of recent times – the hospitality industry – and who are eager to prove theirs is the best of the bunch; whether or not this exposes any latent ruthlessness depends upon the individual contestant and how they react to the feedback of their fellow contestants. When they arrive and are shown to their rooms, each guest then embarks upon a forensic examination of the fixtures and fittings. Cleanliness is the first of the three factors that can determine how the B&B under the spotlight will fare at the end of the contest, and it’s one of the series’ numerous humorous clichés when a stray hair is discovered on a mattress or pillow and the camera struggles to hone in on it with the same precision as the person who gleefully uncovered it. Grout on bathroom tiles, cobwebs, faulty shower units, and skid-marked toilets all figure highly on the list of low marks afforded the facilities, but nothing rates higher – or lower – than dust. Fingers run along surfaces – picture frames, TVs, skirting boards, windowsills, curtains – in the desperate hope of coming away from them with a hefty clump of dust to display.

After cleanliness, what counts is a good night’s sleep; then it’s a hearty breakfast. All play their part in deciding if the B&B in question has a chance of winning the contest. Usually, B&Bs bereft of en-suite bathrooms are in for an uphill struggle to win, as are self-catering venues or those that dispense with the seemingly compulsory ‘Full English’ on a morning in favour of a poncy continental breakfast or the dreaded ‘vegetarian’ option. Prejudices and set-in-their-ways narrow-mindedness are often exposed when any deviation from the norm is presented to the contestants, and personalities can emerge more forcefully when the first batch of feedback forms are received. If a B&B owner gets bad marks for something on which they pride themselves – such as cleanliness or the quality of their breakfast – vengeance rears its ugly head and they arrive at the B&B of their most cutting critic determined to find fault with it. The final question on the feedback form is ‘Would you stay here again?’, and it’s rare for an injured party to put ‘yes’ when the chip on their shoulder is firmly settled. A good drinking game could be entered into when watching as the viewer waits for the first contestant to say ‘game on’ (usually when reacting to bad feedback), a phrase as repetitive as a contestant referring to another as ‘a dark horse’.

There are five episodes in each instalment of ‘Four in a Bed’ – with the first four seeing a different B&B host each episode, and then the final episode being ‘payment day’, in which the contestants sit around a table and get to quiz one another on their comments in the feedback forms. These can sometimes be quite explosive encounters as grievances nurtured over the episodes come to the fore; similarly, when the envelopes are opened and the contestants discover how much they’ve been paid, the comments already aired can lead to expectations of underpayments. At the same time, if a guest enjoyed their stay, they can make an overpayment. Some participants seem to ‘game-play’ by deliberately underpaying everyone else in the hope of neutralising the competition, but this doesn’t always work out how they intended. Whether a contestant has the status of hero or villain is largely down to the viewer’s preferences, but there’s none of the cynical manipulation by producers to engineer a pantomime baddie in the vein of a ‘Nasty Nick’. The stakes for viewers are not so high, and as far as easy entertainment goes, I admit I quite like ‘Four in a Bed’. No, it’s not ‘The Singing Detective’ or ‘The Forsyte Saga’; but in its own way it’s a guilty pleasure as much fun as ‘Jeux Sans Frontières’. Nothing wrong with that.

© The Editor

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LET ME ENTERTAIN YOU

One of the most consistently enjoyable YT channels for me over the past three or four years has been The Critical Drinker. This consists of author Will Jordan adopting the persona of a moderately inebriated Scotsman narrating subjective movie reviews and amusingly incisive dissections of the way in which Hollywood works these days; his series, ‘Why Modern Movies Suck’ is amongst the most thorough – and thoroughly entertaining – studies of the contemporary film industry and its cultural corrosion as any you’ll find on any medium today. His videos are often very funny, but nine times out of ten he nails it with intelligent and enlightening logic. Although he never appears on camera on his own channel, the Drinker’s reputation has grown to the point whereby he’s now beginning to routinely turn up on other YT channels to discuss his specialist subject; one such appearance was in a new Triggernometry video, during which Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster quizzed him on the death of the movie star – that larger-than-life personality who could put bums on cinema seats on the strength of his name alone. His demise was attributed to several factors, though an anecdote referencing Richard Burton, who disappeared for a week when making ‘Where Eagles Dare’ simply to go on a bender (without informing anyone else involved in the film where he was) was used as an example of the kind of characters that used to inhabit the movie business and no longer do. But this isn’t something exclusive to acting; one could similarly apply that to the music biz and sport.

All the revered rock stars who continue to provide source material for endless books, biopics, articles and documentaries are either dead or in their 80s; likewise, where be the Ian Botham or the James Hunt or the John McEnro of 2024? It’s hard to imagine the dullard sportsmen or women of today still being talked (and written) about 30 or 40 years from now, just as it is our current authors, artists or actors. This either suggests society no longer produces such figures or that such figures just don’t go into these fields anymore because they’ve become so sterile and corporate they’re no longer open to them. Another factor which came up during the Critical Drinker’s Triggernometry interview in relation to movie stars is the loss of mystique that has come with social media; at one time, we’d have to wait till movie stars were past retirement age to get an insight into what they were like as people via an appearance on ‘Parkinson’. Today, we’re now exposed to every dim thought that enters their unscripted heads via Twitter; it’s almost as though it’s written into their contracts that they have to issue opinions on everything from climate change to LGBTXYZ matters – and it has to be the ‘right’ opinion, of course; in the case of football, that’s no problem if you’re Gary Lineker, less so if you’re Joey Barton.

Perhaps the timing is sadly apt, then, to bid farewell to the kind of character whose undoubted talent would certainly still be craved by any football team today, but whose considerable baggage most likely wouldn’t. I’m talking about Stan Bowles, the former footballer whose glory years came at Queens Park Rangers in the 1970s and who passed away over the weekend. Like several players of his generation, he’d been struggling with Alzheimer’s for the last decade and the debilitating disease finally claimed him at the age of 75. The generation Bowles belonged to contained several footballers routinely referred to as ‘mavericks’ – hugely gifted individuals who nonetheless combined their talents with personality traits that managers found hard to rein-in, meaning the bigger and more successful clubs largely avoided signing them. Naturally, they all followed in the footsteps of George Best, the original footballing rock star; and when Best’s drinking and love of the bright lights curtailed his career at the highest level, there were numerous flair players emboldened by Best’s example who quickly filled the void; Frank Worthington was one, and Stan Bowles was another.

Hailing from Manchester, Bowles was signed by the blue half of the city as a teenage apprentice but made only a handful of appearances before a bust-up with Man City coach Malcolm Allison led to him being dispatched to lowly Bury; Bowles then dropped into the Fourth Division, joining Crewe Alexandra, and his nascent career was already beginning to take on the shape of a journeyman when he moved to Second Division Carlisle Utd in 1971. However, it was his year at Carlisle – where he scored 18 goals in 51 games – that helped him catch the eye of fellow Division 2 club Queens Park Rangers, who were eager to find a replacement for star man Rodney Marsh, recently lost to Manchester City. Bowles wasn’t intimidated at the prospect of filling Marsh’s No.10 shirt and his skills as well as his humorous, devil-may-care approach to the game quickly won the fans over. QPR, like many of the capital’s clubs, languished in the all-conquering shadows of Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea, and it wasn’t until the club achieved promotion in 1973 that the First Division got to see what Stan Bowles could really do. The arrival of ex-Chelsea boss Dave Sexton in 1974 galvanised QPR into an unprecedented period of success, with Bowles at the centre of it.

Something of a ‘London All-Stars’ team at the time, QPR also included former Arsenal captain Frank McLintock in their ranks as well as ex-Chelsea teammates David Webb and John Hollins. Bowles gelled best with club captain Gerry Francis, forming a close bond on and off the pitch; however, whilst Francis was something of a model professional whose natural leadership qualities made him a first choice for England, Bowles was what one might call a ‘wild card’, and he consequently only played for his country on five occasions. Bowles could – and should – have earned far more international caps, but he was regarded as a bit of liability due to his antics, and stories of Stan Bowles are the stuff of laddish legend. Fond of placing a bet, Bowles would often sneak round the corner to a nearby bookie’s on a match day at QPR’S Loftus Road ground shortly before kick-off, usually wearing his full kit; Gerry Francis recalled visiting Stan at home for dinner and the meal being interrupted by the bailiffs, who proceeded to cart away the furniture, leaving dinner to be completed sitting on the floor; and there was the famous occasion when Bowles appeared alongside a group of dedicated athletes on the BBC’s popular ‘Superstars’ TV series whilst nursing a hangover; he ended up with the programme’s all-time record low score. Never a dull moment with Stan.

Whilst it might have seemed winning was secondary to entertaining for Bowles, QPR nevertheless came within a whisker of being League Champions in 1976, only just pipped at the post on the last day of the season by Liverpool. The club has never come so close to winning the title ever again, and most likely never will. They did qualify for Europe due to their runner-up status, though, and Bowles dazzled in QPR’s UEFA Cup campaign the following season, scoring a record eleven goals as the club reached the Quarter Finals of the competition, only to lose a penalty shoot-out to AEK Athens. QPR never reached the heights of the mid-70s again, and Bowles left the club in 1979, briefly signed by Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest before resuming journeyman status at Leyton Orient and Brentford, where he hung up his boots in 1984 – not exactly retiring with the kind of nest-egg today’s players can look forward to, though his gambling didn’t really help.

Stan Bowles never lost any sleep over the opposition. He wasn’t a thinker when it came to the game; he just let his natural talent get on with it. A shrug of the shoulders if he lost, and then it was off down the boozer, or the bookie’s, or the boudoir. Probably not abundant in the qualities that make an ideal husband, the happiest marriage Stan Bowles ever had was with the fans at Loftus Road, who could forgive him anything for bringing them such joy every Saturday afternoon. A man very much of his era, then – an era that (like the man himself) is out of time and out of step with where we are now; more’s the pity.

© The Editor

Website: https://www.johnnymonroe.co.uk/

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