Category: Miscellany 2004

It Was 20 Years Ago

It’s more-or-less twenty years since the beginning of one of Britain’s most bitter industrial disputes.

While I am on the subject of anniversaries, Friday (5th March) was also the day in 1984 that it was announced Cortonwood pit near Barnsley was to close. The men walked out on strike – some would never go back and, those that did go back wouldn’t go back for a year. The miner’s strike was the moment when things changed for Britain’s workers.

My life in March 1984 was quite different. I would have been 13 years old and the pictures of striking miners, horses charging picket lines and Arthur Scargill’s statements seemed very far away. To a middle-class kid it was another world. Oddly, my granddad had worked for the collieries near Wigan, but I have no recollection of his thoughts on the strike at all.

My own world was turned upside down that year. It was the year my father announced the family was all moving to the Midlands and for most of the year that was what pre-occupied me. The striking miners became just another news item.

Looking back, of course, it was much more than that. There were so many changes to the working lives of so many people. Our working lives in the UK today would be very different had the strike not happened.

Related: 1984: The Miner’s Strike at BBC News Online

Happy 10th Birthday Spam

Spam was ten years old yesterday, and look how it’s grown.

If you’re into celebrations, you might be interested to know that yesterday was spam’s tenth birthday. Ten years ago, a message was posted to Usenet, and Usenet was never really the same again. I do remember a time when Usenet was rendered almost useless thanks to the spam, but I am now finding some newsgroups useful – and much easier to manage than hundreds of emails.

The question right now revolves around the future of email. Will email go the way of Usenet? I suspect not. It’s too fixed in our social and working lives to be abolished. At one time, I thought Instant Messenger looked like it might become the de facto online communication method – but, with hindsight, I think that was wrong.

I am pleased to note that a number of my anti-spam measures have started to kick-in. Demon’s filtering seems to be pretty effective (100s of spam down to 10s). I note Phil Gyford is pleased with his Knowspam.net – I am not sure I want to go that far yet because I don’t think it would be widely accepted (although he is proving that theory wrong).

So, in a bizarre way, Happy Birthday Spam – you’re ten. It’s the next ten years – the teenage years – which are going to be your most difficult.

Graffiti Shop

Wandsworth council clean up at a so-called graffiti shop in Clapham Junction.

My local council has just cleaned up what it calls a ‘graffiti shop’ at Clapham Junction. Without wanting to comment on the merits of graffiti as an art form, I think the shop covered in graffiti looks OK. Perhaps not the best thing ever, but it’s not the worst. If you look closely, you’ll see the nice, neat edges to the graffiti, so it doesn’t cross onto anybody else’s wall – which is a nice touch, don’t you think?

You Can’t Hear Yourself On The Tube

Plans are afoot to allow you to use your mobile underground. I hope it doesn’t happen.

Does the thought of being able to use your mobile phone on the tube fill you with dread? Actually, that’s probably a little excessive, but being underground has always been the one sanctuary from the calls (admittedly, you have to switch it on to be reached – which is something that I must learn). At least it’s only on the stations. The thought of people talking on a packed train in the morning really does fill me with horror. It’s bad enough on the overland trains.

South London Jazz

Finally, I found a basement jazz club that I want to go to.

Last night – to end a great weekend – we visited the 606 Jazz Club in South London. This is exactly the kind of place I have been looking for since I arrived in town in 1993 and, for some reason, none of the venues that I have previously tried have come close.

It’s an intimate basement Jazz Club, and last night Claire Teal and Anita Wardell performed. It was an excellent 3-hour-ish set of new Jazz standards, some new songs and some scat jazz (which, I believe, is Anita’s trademark). Both of the women’s voices were superb, and the backing trio fantastic. You sit right next to the stage area. All the musicians were good, but the dexterity exhibited by the drummer was incredible.

The club only has a dinner licence so you have to eat to be able to drink and the menu, if a little pricey, was certainly very good. They do crowd people in – there is very little room between tables – but it added to the atmosphere rather than being uncomfortable.

I shall be going again.

Borough Market: Southwark’s Great Food Home

Borough Market in Southwalk is well worth a visit.

So, this is the 12th Valentine’s Day I’ve spent with PY. We are spending much of this weekend with friends and exploring new parts of the city.

Last night we were in Balham at Dish Dash. We had previously visited the Goodge Street branch (PY had his 30th birthday party there), but had never been out this way. The evening was spent with plenty of little Persian dishes (Swordfish Kebabs & Spinach and Chick Pea Mazza being my favourite). If you are ever in the area, you must go. There were, however, a large number of other, tempting, restaurants in the area Peter Sellars once called ‘Gateway To The South’. It’s an area we must visit more often. Recommendations welcome.

Today we rose early (for a Saturday) to visit the tempting delights of Borough Market. If you have never been, this is a gourmet market to be found as you head eastwards. The market sells some top-quality fresh produce, and it’s a charity, so it should be preserved. It is also a wholesale market at other times of the day/week. There are all types of breads, vegetables, meat and fish sold by proper market traders who, from what I can tell, know their products very well indeed. The Spanish Chorizo stall had the longest queue I have ever seen for a takeaway food stall in London. It must have been superb. We bought ostrich steaks for dinner this evening, and they certainly look very tempting (and apparently almost fat-free).

Borough Market is in Southwark, which must be one of my favourite parts of London. The South Bank from Waterloo and the London Eye via the Tate, Millennium Bridge and The Globe was a deserted riverside area when I first came to London. There was, more or less, no life between the National Theatre and Tower Bridge. Nowadays, it’s one of the most bustling areas for both tourists and locals. I really think a Saturday walk down the south bank of the Thames is well worth it. This is the kind of place that makes all the frustrations of living in a big city evaporate. It restores my faith in London.

Tomorrow, we head for Highgate to visit some American friends. Certainly looking forward to Sunday Lunch.

Five Second Censorship

The Oscars will be subject to a five-second delay this year. Apparently, that’s not good.

I’ve said before that I don’t really understand all the nonsense about Janet Jackson and what happened when she performed with Justin Timberlake. It seems to me that there are so many other things that the American people should be spending time worrying about. I am hoping that something similar happens at The Brits. We are in need of another Jarvis/Michael Jackson incident to spice up proceedings.

Having said that, BBC News reports that Oscar president Frank Pierson is up in arms about a five-second delay on the broadcast of the awards ceremony. To accuse it of a form of censorship seems to be a little unnecessary. I am sure it used to be pretty common for all live broadcasts to have some kind of built-in delay. What’s the big deal? Michael Moore’s acceptance would not have been censored by a five-second delay; no, it was censored by the audience at the time.

I think everybody needs a sense of perspective.

As an aside, I am thankful that I know several Americans living in London who show that not all – nay most – Americans are perfectly rational people. It’s a shame our media does not present them as such. Am I exaggerating all this?

Day At Home

I spent the day at home, but it was not as useful as I had hoped it would be.

I’ve had a day off work which I have totally wasted, but I shall not let that worry me right now. What should worry me is my inability to cope with four glasses of wine last night which resulted in the time-wasting (the day off had long been arranged).

While wasting my day, I have been reading about gay campaigning, all of which has been quite interesting. Tin Man pointed to the Faces of Family site – which, I think, could be a great project if you can get anybody who does not think our relationships constitute family to look at it. The message boards over at OutEverywhere have an interesting (but very long) thread discussing the Brazilian resolution to the United Nations which would have sexual diversity included as an integral part of Universal Human Rights. The discussion considered if it is right (or not) to support and sign the petition. I signed it and, I believe, you should think about signing it too. I guess it’s clear which side of the discussion I came down on.

Janet’s Malfunction

Time to stop worrying about Janet’s boobs.

Is it just me, or is most of the world laughing at America’s reaction to Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe malfunction’ at the Super Bowl? It really amazes me the way people can get so worked up about a little bit of flesh. Shouldn’t we be celebrating our bodies? It’s not as if Janet showed off a great deal. I would agree that people deserve better, but not because I disagree with what’s shown, but because it’s such a cheap stunt.

One of my current favourite reads, The London News Review, has one of the best pieces written on the subject

By thunder, America is one fucked up country. With one eye it ogles the antics of Trousersnake and his bootilicious buddies, while the other eye is screwed shut in disgust. [Source]

Exactly. Calm down people and don’t buy the record. Of course, had it been the Trousersnake having a wardrobe malfunction it would all have been different.

January Interest

A quick look at interest in this site in January 2004.

Traffic to this site in January 2004 seems to have taken a little bit of a leap. I see that Justin Timberlake was the most searched term. Unfortunately, dear Andrew Kinlochan hasn’t scored any comments. February is supposed to see the release of the new Phixx single so I’ll wait to see if traffic to the Man of the Moment section follows other trends where the visits raise with some outside public event concerning the individual. It’s not science but it is interesting to watch.

2003 In Summary

Like Jerry, my final thoughts on 2003.

If I can be allowed to be more self-centred – or inward-looking – than usual, I have found the process of re-reading the year’s worth of entries to be very interesting. Not only have I surprised myself with some of the pieces that I have written, but when viewing them all together, it seems that the site is a lot more coherent than I imagined. There are some key groupings of themes that have emerged – it’s clear I have a fascination with transport – and there are considerably fewer trivial pieces.

Many of the words I have written are, of course, about my life and might be considered to be trivial to some, but I feel I have gained an insight into myself with some of the longer pieces. And, it is those longer pieces which have most startled me on the re-reading: I must make a conscious effort to write more discussion works. Perhaps I should open the comments on the main body of the site to stimulate further thinking.

Of all the other sites I have read across the year, I still come back to my old faithfuls. So, this is the point where I should wish Tom, Jase, Jason, Bart, Meg, Phil, Eric, Chris, Bravo, Nick and Luke a very Happy New Year. Oh, and those are just the top-listed ones in my Bloglines subscriptions.

Bloglines is to be nominated as my tool of the year for 2003, it’s made the whole business of reading other sites so much easier (if only Blogger users would provide nice RSS feeds). Of course, I shouldn’t forget Six Apart who, via Movable Type, make all this possible.

Writing is one of the few creative outlets I have, and I am happy to have it as a hobby – it seems more useful than making a model of St Paul’s Cathedral from matchsticks.

Best wishes for 2004 to all who come across this page.

Love Actually

This is really an inoffensive, somewhat amusing, light-hearted, feel-good British comedy.

Love Actually
Love Actually is not the film I imagined it to be. I guess you can call it a romantic comedy and it seemed like a sensible film to watch on New Year’s Day. The cinema was packed which suggests we wen’t the only ones with that idea.
I should say from the beginning, it’s sentimental and feel-good. If those words put you off then you shouldn’t really see this film. I do think, however, that if you have ever (even once) got a little lovey-dovey then could go and see this movie and get something out of it.

It’s weaves a whole stack of separate stories together about people in love or finding love (and even out of love) with the backdrop of Christmas in London. Richard Curtis (of Four Weddings And A Funeral fame) makes his directorial debut and provides a very well-shot image of 21st Century London at Christmas. There are some really well-done sequences around the city which gives somebody like me – who thinks he’s seen all he wants to of London – something to smile at.

Having said it’s well-shot it is not without problems. Too many stories are intertwined leaving too many questions unanswered. When you leave a cinema questioning some of your understanding about who was who and where things were set you know that at some point this film failed. Why have the whole Wisconsin sequence, for example? And what happened to the Laura Linney parts – I suspect there is something on a cutting room floor that explains all that somewhere.

But don’t let that put you off. Liam Neeson’s storyline is great (even if it stretched believability a little), Emma Thompson is superb (and you will feel for her as she opens a Christmas present) as Alan Rickman‘s wife (he too stands out with a great, typical Rickman performance). Even Hugh Grant is believable as a Prime Minister who falls for his tea lady (Martine McCutcheon).

What I liked, although I have no idea if they will translate to the US, are the really British touches. Ant and Dec are the kid’s TV presenters; Jo Wiley is a DJ and Wes Butters does the chart run down for the Christmas Number One. And there wasn’t an over abundance of red London busses – which must be a first for British films.

This is really an inoffensive, somewhat amusing, light-hearted, feel-good British comedy and I hope it does well. If you read the message boards over at the Internet Movie Database you’ll read about people walking out in shock and disgust – which, if you’ve seen the film, is just as amusing.