I was wrong, boy was I wrong? If you had put no limits on the number of verses Leonard Cohen had sung when he first recorded Hallelujah in 1984 then we might have had all 80 that he had apparently written. If a novel could have no finite size, who knows how much more our celebrated authors would have written. The problem is that if that happens, there can be an awful lot of dross in between the really good stuff.
We now have 24-hour news channels, certainly on the BBC and SKY in the UK. If you have to fill 24 hours with news then you also end up with an awful lot of dross but you find news broadcasters needing to drag out every little scrap of news in order to fill their schedules. Instead of telling us it was snowing, life was being disrupted but we would eventually come out the other end smiling, they had to send reporters all over the country to show us.....................snow. In most cases it was white; I knew that. In some cases it had drifted in strong winds; I knew that happened. Cars got caught in jams; always did.
I always felt that news had to show me something I didn't know about (hence new) not laboriously drag out and repeat facts most of already were aware of and expected in the weather we had. They say you cannot have too much of a good thing but you can certainly have too much of an unnecessary thing.
The most cringe worthy segment appeared on the BBC when they sent a reporter into an old man's home with his meals on wheels delivery. Firstly, there is no way that it was the surprise performance they tried to convey. Reporters do not suddenly arrive in your lounge with a camera crew and you express no surprise. That was bad enough but the questions the reporter put to this poor man were trite, bland and, frankly, ridiculous. “What would happen if you didn't get this hot meal” or something along those lines? “What would happen if someone didn't get in to see you?” Are we all to be taken as idiots that we couldn't work this out? The useless idiot even had to prompt the old guy with one answer. I think that, more than anything, shows the level of journalism we were watching. If you have to provide the answer to your own question, it's not much of a question. Maybe this spontaneous meeting had not been properly rehearsed and the elderly gentleman had forgotten his lines.
In the same way that we now have too much time to fill with news and it becomes excessive, I suppose we have to put up with the fact that these news channels, in order to fill their spaces, have to employ the lower level of journalists to report it.
March 12 2018
What is feminism.....really?
Several unconnected things have brought this week's grump to print. Firstly I have been writing a few paragraphs about Mary Wollstonecraft who wrote what seems to be accepted as the first feminism book back in 1792. However, it was at a time when, as Wollstonecraft admitted in the book, many women were silly and superficial. She put this down to them not being allowed, by men, to have a proper education and nothing to do with women being born as different souls to men.
Then a lady called Carmen Jorda, who can really only be described as a failed racing driver, said she thought women should aspire to race in Formula E, the formula for electric cars, and not Formula 1 because Formula E cars were easier to drive.
Finally there is still all this stuff going on about equal pay in the media and, indeed, the way some of the men in power use, abuse and/or manipulate women.
I have a very simple opinion. I believe in equality, gender and racial. However, I also believe we are all different within those genders and races. What worries me about feminism is that if you believe in equality, feminism can't exist. If we are all equal then you cannot hold a view that your gender is different, needs support or is treated as the weaker one. I cannot see how feminists can also believe in equality. I suppose, though none have tried to tell me this, that feminism is just a step on the road to equality but I have always dealt in leaps and bounds.
I am not talking here about any specific area. If, for example, the BCC has two journalist, with similar experience, similar roles then the pay they should receive should be very similar too. The gender of said journalists doesn't matter and shouldn't matter. There is no justification in them not being paid the same if you believe in equality.
There is, though, a fundamental biological difference between men and women. In most cases, on average, and these are proven facts, women are shorter than men, women live longer than men, women have less physical strength than men. I repeat I said on average. The top eight women tennis players would not regularly beat the top eight men; the top women who play as rugby union forwards would not be able to compete against a scrummage comprised of the top eight men,
I don't, though, want this taken the wrong way. Women's rugby, women's tennis is just as entertaining, skilful, exciting as when men play the sport. In fact I prefer to watch women play tennis as, again on average, I see more finesse, more guile, more thought, go into the women's game. The difference is purely biological. In motor racing, a sport I have followed for over 60 years, while strength and fitness are important, they do not, in my considered opinion, preclude a female taking part at the highest level.
sometimes those purporting to champion feminism are their own worst enemies. Statements, like the one Jorda made, do far more harm and, having watched her when she had a season in GP3, driving like hers does harm also. If you want to be thought of as a good racing driver then how you look is immaterial. And that can sometimes be the problem. The women who get noticed, who sponsors or teams feel could be useful, are the ones the press, media, will single out for their looks because most of the press is male dominated. However, if trying to bring forward equality, even Mary Wollstonecraft didn't do herself all that good. While saying girls should have the same education as boys, even in co-educational schools, she also said that once children got to nine, the poor ones, unless they were brilliant, should be sent to a different school. Not really an equal chance for all.
March 19 2018
Einstein, get your hair cut.
There was a story a few weeks back on the BBC website about a school in Norfolk. The school had banned a series of "extreme hairstyles", including one known as "Meet me at McDonald's". The style was one of six deemed "unacceptable" for boys at Great Yarmouth Charter Academy.
The school wrote to parents and said that "Uniform and appearance are a key part of developing school ethos." The letter also said boys whose hair had not been re-styled would be put in isolation or sent home.
The principal, Barry Smith, produced a PowerPoint of styles to avoid which included:-
Overgrown, heavy fringes brushed forward onto the face
High-top styles of excessive height
Shaven parting lines
Hair that is teased to give excessive height
Any variation on the Mohican style
Mr Smith, who was installed as headmaster last year when the school was taken over by the, wait for it, Inspiration Trust, said his rules would ensure
pupils leave achieving really good exam results but failed to add, “and no individuality or personality.” I am all for a level of acceptablility but we
must accept how times changes and so does acceptability. My long hair in the sixties would have resulted in isolation while Einstein wouldn't have been
approved of by Mr Smith, who may have grown up singing the Malvina Reynolds song “Little Boxes”.
Sing along Smithy
March 26 2018
The purpose, to me, of any sport, any game, any competition, is to win. That is it first and foremost. If you don't win, once the competition is over, then winning no longer matters. You can step back, do a little bit of analysis and see if you did all you could to win. If you did, and you lost, so be it. You tried.
I do not see how anyone can gain any satisfaction from winning but knowing they cheated or even bent the rules. What is the point? If you have cheated, you can no longer feel inside that you won.
When I was younger and we played a game, a sport, whatever, I was always highly competitive. My little sister would always claim I won because I cheated and this hurt me because I knew I hadn't. I suppose my level of concentration, my intensity, may have convinced her that I would win at all cost but that wasn't true. I believed all I have written above. If I had cheated, I wouldn't feel a winner.
I am still the same even today. My children will tell you that, when they were young, I would never “let them win”. I wanted them to feel they had achieved something when they did not that it was handed them on a plate. Funnily enough when today we have a family quiz, a treasure hunt or even a game and my sister is involved, it is she who invariably cheats and maybe she thinks that is how you should be. I have no idea but if I am going to cheat in a game, a sport or a competition, then I might as well not even take part.
I write all this a day or so after members of the Australian cricket team have actually admitted cheating. I find it disgraceful and will wait for the full story to emerge before I make any further comment except to say that I hope, if it turns out to be true, that the authorities come down on any players who did it, in the harshest possible way. Cricket used to be my second favourite sport. I have been a great champion of Steve Smith's ability since long before he became a regular in the Australian team, let alone captain but not at the moment.
My favourite sport has always been motor racing and Formula 1. That sport failed to act properly when two of the most disgusting displays of unsportsmanlike behaviour were committed by Ayrton Senna and later Michael Schumacher. In my mind not only were these two men seriously flawed as human beings but they were also not sportsmen and would never find a place in any ranking I would give of the greatest drivers. My sadness is that our current world champion sees one of them as his hero.
Oh, and leading on from previous posts, an unreserved apology will mean nothing to me.
Mr Smith, who was installed as headmaster last year when the school was taken over by the, wait for it, Inspiration Trust, said his rules would ensure
pupils leave achieving really good exam results but failed to add, “and no individuality or personality.” I am all for a level of acceptablility but we
must accept how times changes and so does acceptability. My long hair in the sixties would have resulted in isolation while Einstein wouldn't have been
approved of by Mr Smith, who may have grown up singing the Malvina Reynolds song “Little Boxes”.
Sing along Smithy