...ruffles...

It all started simply enough; I took my phone out of my laptop rucksack – as I do every day. The screen was three-quarters blank. I looked closely and could see a tiny crack on the inside of the screen. The outside of the phone itself was completely untouched. Nothing else in the rucksack; iPod, another phone, laptop, was damaged. The laptop had been on the table all night and not moved.

I knew straight away it would be awkward – I didn’t have the receipt and I bought it online from the Orange website. Luckily, mobile phone companies are meticulous in registering your products with them. I knew, therefore, with a bit of attentive service and a quick search of the database that they would be able to establish that it was my phone and that I hadn’t broken it. I’ve had similar things with Apple and Mazda in the last few months and although it’s all a bit awkward, they do get you on the sausage machine and get it sorted out.

I phoned the help line on the website and was scooted to a call centre somewhere around the world. They told me that there wasn’t a lot they could do about it because they couldn’t see the damage. They told me to go to an Orange shop. This didn’t seem unreasonable.

I went to the Orange shop in Wycombe, explained my situation and was told that they couldn’t/wouldn’t do anything about it because I didn’t have a receipt. It was like trying to penetrate the outer rim of a giant planet – or the peel on an orange, perhaps. They were totally disinterested in the problem. I pointed out that I had every other piece of information about the purchase – my debit card, the original box with endless barcodes, purchase date, delivery address etc.

To get me onside, pretty much the first thing I was told was that ‘for all we know you could have bought it from the market’. Brilliant. I was told to go to the call centre/website, because the shop had nothing to do with the website. The website told me to come to you, I told them, you’re all Orange, I told them, I don’t care how you’re organised, you’re all part of the same operation as far as I’m concerned. We’re not, she said, you are, I said, your t-shirts have the same logo as the one on my phone, where does it say that you’re different companies? We have different stock, she said, I don’t care, I said.

Eventually they called the help desk, and after several attempts they finally established it was my phone. Craig in the Wycombe branch of Orange, came out from the back of the shop, looked at my phone and said that it wasn’t customer damage. He even said he’d seen similar problems before and thought it might be something to do with a voltage surges. We were getting somewhere.

It didn’t help that the girl who served me insisted on serving other people whilst serving me; she was generally inattentive and even dropped the phone at one point because she was filling out some other form for some other poor bugger, cutting off the call centre meaning we had to start again.

Eventually she came off the phone and said that they wouldn’t fix it because it was customer damaged because it had been in my laptop bag. This is a bit like saying the cause of death of someone dieing in their sleep was ‘going to bed’. They couldn’t explain how I’d managed to break into a sealed unit and break the internal workings of the phone.

So, the shop people told me to call the call-centre, after some exasperation I left (the girl at one point going back to the fact I didn’t have a receipt and something about buying something from Comet – at which Craig interrupted and said ‘we’re beyond that’). Craig also admitted that I was stuck in the middle of their corporate shitehouse (last bit added by me). I went back and called the call centre and 45 minutes later I was in the same position – the phone was broken by me so they wouldn’t fix it.

I finally asked who it was that regulated Orange – e.g. who do I need to complain to. “Orange” said the operator. I said – no, who is your regulates your industry (Trading Standards? OfCOM?). She didn’t know. Can I talk to someone who does? You can talk to my supervisor. Thank you, I said. Then she cut me off.

What we’ve established that a phone bought legitimately by me from Orange is broken. The only person in the Orange corporation who has actually seen the phone says it’s not been damaged by the customer and it’s under warranty. Oh, and according to Craig, the people who sold it to me have a ‘six month duty of care’, whatever that is. It’s a recipe for getting it fixed, is it not?

Computer says no. It’s not going to be fixed because the person in the call centre who is hundreds, possibly thousands of miles away has, through ESP or some equally mystical power, managed to see the handset, calculate (possibly by going back in time and visiting my house in a ghostly form) that my stationary rucksack has maliciously attacked my phone (and only my phone). Presumably, therefore, I’m responsible for my rucksack and its wild ways – perhaps I should buy it a muzzle, especially with Millie in the house. Oh, and I’m £130 in the hole without a functioning mobile phone. And now they’ve raised the drawbridge. I can go through Trading Standards; which I think I will anyway, but ultimately I’m the one left without a phone, and though it is not my most treasured possession, I really do need it.

Ever feel you’ve been cheated?

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Labels: Technology

Tim Lovejoy has an interesting theory about TV production nowadays - basically all the people who were breaking ground with things like The Word and The Tube are the people making TV programmes today. Hence the reason we've gone through decade of programmes about doing houses up, then having children, coping with toddlers, buying second properties, then coming to terms with expanding waistlines and waning sex lives - basically as these producers grow up, they make programmes that suit them and their situation in life.

The Brits felt a bit like that; it wasn't the worst winners' roster ever; at least Annie Lennox's grip on best female solo artist is apparently loosened forever. But it was all very cosy and comfortable.

The production had very 30-something edginess - live (ooh what might happen), Russell Brand (ooh former drug addict, bit weird), and with swear words (bleeped out - you never know if children are watching). A lot was made of the fact it was live for the first time since the Mick Fleetwood and Sam Fox debacle, but that was 18 years ago, which probably says a lot about the target audience.

The performances were all very slick but uninspiring, which is something we've learnt from the Americans - put on a shitload of lights and video screens, then nobody will notice that the songs are a bit lame. Oasis were the exception, they were neither slick nor inspiring - it's a fine line with Liam, but he never used to shout like that, I'm sure.

And, isn't it terrifying what America has done to Joss Stone? Gone is the kooky Devonian with a voice like Aretha Franklin. She now seems to speak like she's reading from an auto cue, does that annoying 'born to sing' thing where she breaks out in song in the middle of sentences and puts a 'd' on the end of alright. It makes you shudder.

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Labels: Music

It's awards season, so it's about time to reveal the winner's in the third annual Ruffs - the top 10 albums of the year. Last year, that is.

1. Costello Music - Fratellis
2. Whatever People Say I am is What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys
3. Live on Bondi Beach - Fatboy Slim
4. FabricLive 30 - Stanton Warriors
5. The Warning - Hot Chip
6. Sexor - Tiga
7. Itchy Scratch Radio - Basement Jaxx
8. Sam's Town - Killers
9. How to Get Everything You Ever Wanted in Ten Easy Steps - Ordinary Boys
10. Eraser - Thom Yorke

And, at risk of getting too much like the Grammy's, I'm introducing a second award this year, the tune of the year.

1. Creeping up the backstairs - Fratellis
2. Run 4 Cover - Basement Jaxx
3. Louder Than A Bomb - Tiga
4. Young Folks - Peter, Bjorn and John
5. Standing in the Way of Control - Gossip
6. Shake That Ass Bitch - Splack Pack
7. Touch It - Busta Rhymes
8. Empire - Kasabian
9. Monster - Automatic
10. Over and Over - Hot Chip

Well done the Fratellis.

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Labels: Music

Our house has something in common with the National Grid; they are both barometers for national activity. Those on the grid can assess what the country is up to by the surges in power they experience; our house is on such a busy road it only takes a quick glance out the window to know what the world is up to.

I can confirm that the schlep to work was a tentative one this morning. This helps, because on the rare occasions it does snow, we both endure quite a lot of hand wringing over whether we should head out to work or not.

Emma has a harder job than me, she is part of the team that decides whether the school stays open or not. She then has to contact the local radio - with a coded message to ward of cheeky tykes – to tell them the news.

The impact of the decision is enormous; all children and teachers are sent home, the parents of those children have to arrange alternative childcare, or take time off work, their work is affected and so on. You really don’t want to close the school only to find that the snow has melted before elevenses.

My decision is slightly easier; especially this morning because I’d already planned to work at home. Rather than crawling into the office, I spent the day sending out emails into the ether not knowing who was in the office and who was buried in a snowdrift. Occasionally a reply popped into my inbox. It was like we’d just emerged from a nuclear attack and I was making tentative contact with survivors through a fierce nuclear winter.

One email suggested that people were wimps for cancelling meetings. On the radio, the bloke from the CBI came out and said the snow would cost the UK economy £400 million. There’s probably an office deep in the CBI which dreams up such pointless and blatantly inaccurate statistics by throwing a dart at a specially made board. As they said on Radio 5 when they read it out – so what are we supposed to do about it?

It’s true we probably over react to adverse weather, but without decent religious fervour in this country, we don’t have enough bank holidays and saints days to take off work. With weather a national obsession, we should have ad hoc weather based bank holidays. My family occasionally announce ‘Oh bugger it’ times, which is basically when crisis has gone beyond the point of salvage. I think we should have national ‘Oh bugger it’ times.

Rather than toiling over the should I shouldn’t I decision as to whether to head out or not, why not simply have, er, Shilpa Shetty come onto the telly to announce a national oh bugger it. The nation would rejoice and head for their duvets. We can but dream.

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Labels: General me

A Welsh contractor I work with wished me well in the Six Nations and commented that it was good to see Johnny Wilkinson back. When he said 'me' he meant 'us' and by 'us' he meant England.

Although i was born in England, and speak with an English accent, I'm half Scottish. I feel Scottish. Perhaps its some kind of underdog spirit, maybe its my tough working class Broxburn ancestry feeling more 'real' than my comfortable south-east middle class upbringing, maybe it's simply that Scotland had a better football team in my formative years. Whatever it is, I am more spiritually aligned to the Scots.

I don't feel English, I don't subscribe to the English way. I don't want to be known a jumped up little twerp who expects to have a seat at the global top table. In essence this is what it means to be English; whether its the overpaid, arrogant, under performing football team or their increasingly hysterical cricketers. I've never wanted the rugby team to do well; which has a lot to do with Will Carling who is the classic English nob end, and I constantly find myself hoping that the cricketers can find new depths of awfulness on the current Ashes tour. I dream of seeing them all out for 6 runs or something. None of which is particularly patriotic.

On the football pitch I follow the fortunes of both countries, but when they come together, I follow the Scots. This is not the most rewarding of strategies, it must be said. In fact, this half and half split does leave me somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I would never be accepted by the Tartan Army but I cannot assimilate myself to the Barmy Army. I'm like an ignored minority, I feel isolated and persecuted, I could roll my eyes and frown with some vigour such is the institutionalised racism I face every day of my life.

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Labels: General me

Strategic away days are called for two reasons; either the leadership has lost its way, or a new broom is in place needing a bit of head space. Thankfully the purpose of ours was the latter rather than the former.

Having been through a few of these things, it’s obvious that most fail. If your only purpose is to look at the stars without considering what you’re standing in, chances are that you’ll be up to your ankles in shit. Shit before and shit after. In fact, if you stare at the stars long enough, you’ll find the shit gets deeper and really starts to smell.

When mentioned to the facilitator of the day he assured me that because he was in charge, it wouldn’t fail. I said that the person to say that to me was the facilitator of the last strategic away day I’d been on. Facilitators and consultants are programmed to assume that the reason things fail is because everyone else is more stupid than they are and not because these things are, in there very nature, more likely to fail than succeed.

Confusion began at the start; on arrival; sartorially speaking, nobody really knew what the approach should be. Some arrived in suits, presuming it to be a working day, others appeared in IT consultant chic of beige Dockers, boots and a pressed shirt – IT software house logo optional. Those, like me, saw it as a Sunday and turn up in jeans – albeit poshed up slightly with boots and a shirt - not trainers and a hoodie. One turned up in what can only be described as the semi-professional darts player look; shiny polo shirt coloured piping and a logo on the breast pocket – no nickname on the back because he’s semi-pro. The sleeves end halfway up the biceps. Matching black slacks that are too a bit too tight, slip on shoes and a big gold watch.

Thankfully the management centre wasn’t that far from home so I didn’t have to stay over; those who did had been drinking all night like it was a boys’ weekend away. The predominantly male group had set themselves a particularly macho 13-hour agenda, You can imagine the group planning the day; upping the ante an hour at a time poker style waiting for someone to break.

In truth, despite the bravado, by lunch practically everyone was flagging and the whole purpose of the day was beginning to lose its way. Everyone’s brains had been appropriately stormed and the outputs were so wide and varied they couldn’t be shoehorned into the remaining agenda, especially not with the musk of the night before hanging around in the air. Even the most clear headed were struggling. It’s always the same, the assumption being that people are afforded the luxury to dream broad conceptual thoughts in the morning, then compartmentalise them into a series of actions after lunch. It’s like having a orgy with a hoard of dwarves in a vat of jelly in your living room then being told that you have an hour to clean up because the Queen is coming for tea.

Eventually the facilitator gave up the agenda and threw it open to the floor ‘How shall we tackle this?’ he said – which is the facilitatory way of saying 'Sorry I haven’t a clue'. At this point it was obvious we were approaching the end game. People started checking their phones which were all turned on despite being asked not to, laptops were opened and fiddled with (blogging, probably) others disappeared off to the toilet and were found like a hypnotized toddler checking the football on the lounge TV downstairs. Someone was found flipping through one of the complementary papers uttering something about needing some time to think, or waiting for an important call.

This is where everyone starts stating the bloody obvious. It’s important that this is stated with vigour to ensure that it retains a level of gravitas – ‘What we need is a plan, a budget and appropriate resourcing’, ‘We need the appropriate people with the appropriate skills in the appropriate positions’. It’s appropriate to nod sagely at these ground breaking insight.

At the end everyone congratulated themselves on a job well done. The post-it notes and flip charts were folded up and taken back to be written up and everyone leaves with a renewed sense of vigour. In the wash-up in the bar the real world begins to leak back in; the wine flows and discussions which start celebratory, in a ‘we’ve cracked it’ style, gets louder and more lairy. Eventually war breaks out ‘The thing is he’s a cocking nob-jockey’. After a series of painful circular discussions, people seep away home or to their room, looking at their feet and realising they have still have shit on their shoes.

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Labels: Work

The snow this morning, and hopefully this doesn't sound too incriminating, aroused the schoolboy within me. My instant reaction was; 'day off!'. Sadly, my school wasn't one of those that was closed due to frozen pipes - because I don't go to school anymore - and apart from Millie looking out and giving me a look which said; 'Wow, snow, now I know I've seen everything', the day continued as planned. Boo.

About 17 years ago the snow came, and if I remember it rightly there were snow drifts which were 200 feet high. OK, so maybe I haven't remembered it rightly, but I know that a handful of us scrambled through the chaos into school only to find that it had been closed. The valiant few decided to head for Brill in a 2CV and an old style VW Beetle.

Brill is quite famous around these parts for having a converging gene pool, and if you look at the locals in the eye - one eye, in the middle of the forehead - you can see why. Because of the high risk that you are likely to end up marrying your own cousin if you stay, some of its inhabitants are smuggled out under the cover of darkness and deposited in safe houses around the country. This is all a front, however, because Brill is the gateway to nirvana; a convergence of all that is marvellous and great.

It's called Brill, which is like brilliant. It's on a hill, which rhymes. In the middle of the village is a common; which has abandoned clay diggings. These are formed into perfect sledging runs; from beginner to black runs for the more kamikaze. It offers perfect panoramic undisturbed views of the Cotswolds, which also means the the wind whistles around the common; perfect for flying kites. You cannot not have fun in Brill.

In the middle of the common is a windmill; Brill on the hill has a windmill. Come doomsday, Brill, as the home of all things fun and good, will host the exodus to nirvana. We'll all climb aboard the 'windmill' and once safely inside, we will take off to a far off planet to fly kites and sledge until the end of never.

Then I decided that the idea of a portal from which we can escape The End was fanciful nonsense... but then having written this, I looked for some decent Brill on the Hill Windmill references; and came across this one, which rather spookily, and totally independently from my own thought processes, alludes to the same perfect tobogganing/kiting opportunities offered at Brill on the hill. Maybe, just maybe, my suspicions are correct.

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Labels: General me

Emma and I get things done in different ways. Emma has a list written on a small bit of paper which is usually a stream of consciousness; everything she can think that needs to be done for the rest of time. There's also a second list that isn't written down, a series of observations; 'the bird bath will need moving in March', 'that crack needs some pollyfilla', 'the cat could do with a harness for when it jumps on the table'. These jobs are either started in favour of the written down lists or not started at all and serve only to clutter and lengthen the to do list which increases stress levels.

On Saturday night, whilst I dropped my mum and dad off at the airport, Millie was in bed and she had a couple of hours of spare time to kill, so she built a bedroom wardrobe in the living room. She seemed surprised, on a Saturday night which is usually reserved for seeing friends, watching films or eating takeaway, that I wasn't awash with enthusiasm to find a six foot wooden cabinet sitting in the middle of the living room floor.

This list-focussed thing comes from her mum who obsesses with two things; 'jobs' and 'sorting'. She also has lists; they all start with "bed, breakfast, bath..." as if she'll forget. If your life is a list, there's not much time left to do anything else. I'm sure this is some sort of self-validating process; if you have things to do then you are useful and valuable; therefore you are good.

I am more goal oriented; I prefer to set a small number of objectives which we both know about and can be arranged around the real purpose of the weekend; socialising and rest. Emma will rest once the list is complete. But because there's always more things to add, the list is never complete.

Quite often Emma will ask me to do something from the list; or the second list, or the magic third list (this is a list of quickly dreamt up activities that are assigned when she has something to do and I have nothing). 'You've got nothing to do? Can you, um, start a giraffe sanctuary in the garden?'.

Because of Emma's constantly replenishing lists she is not good at resting. She feels guilty about doing nothing. We are taught that doing nothing is bad and wrong, so it's very easy to spend all your time flitting from one chore to another. Today I've booked off a day to do nothing. Although there is temptation to plan something, I've been resistant; I will wait until something takes my fancy and do it. If I sit in bed all day, so be it.

I don't think I've ever taken a day that has been so precisely set aside to do nothing. 'Don't you feel guilty doing nothing' said my club promoting, hill walking, eco-warrior colleague. I explained that typically our day starts between 4am and 6am when Millie wakes up for a feed, I go to the gym at 6.30am or dress Millie, go to work at 7.45am get back at 6.15pm, put Millie to bed at 7pm, eat, tidy, wash bottles, prepare for the next day, settle down about 8.30pm go to bed about 11pm all in preparation for 4am the next morning. It's just one day, and I'll be back on the clock when Emma and Millie get back tonight, so nope, I'm not feeling guilty doing nothing.

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Labels: General me

I know, it's not healthy, but just one more thing on this racism debate. On Newsnight last night Paul Morley made a point that the whole thing had triggered a plea from the nation to define what is and isn't racism.

There isn't a single definition and interpretation; it is different calling someone a 'ginger' to calling someone a 'paki' even if both are discriminatory in some way.

One thing is for sure, however, much easier to avoid walking into a racism storm than not. Nobody, least of all Channel 4 who are £3 million poorer for it, saw Jade and thought 'we need someone to get hammered over racist remarks, she'll do.' Nobody was lying in wait, her tirade couldn't have been engineered.

In other words, whether she's racist or not, there was no compulsion for her to go anywhere near the issue. After all, the best way of avoiding being hit by a car on the motorway, is to avoid standing on motorways.

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Labels: TV and radio

More refined thinking on the Jade/Shilpa debate seems to conclude that Jade hasn't (yet) been conclusively racist. Racism is a rather inflammatory way of describing something that is more likely simple ignorance and stupidity. It's likely that Jade is incapable of anything as sophisticated as racism; which involves the development of a pretty thorough, if warped, ideology. It is not easy to hate an entire race. More likely; Jade is a simpleton and a nasty piece of work who is ferociously cruel when crossed. This is no lesser charge.

We could create a meritocratic society based of age or height, which would be OK for me. But we live in a society based on transactions; when you do something good; you get rewarded for it. The more talented and good you are, the more you are likely to benefit.

Millionaire Jade seems rather overcompensated for whatever talent she is selling. She is not very bright, funny or attractive. She has no capacity for strategy or politics. But she is neither thick, dull or ugly. She's a successful, strong independent woman and a caring mother. Her talent seems to be that although she's like no other woman at the same time she's like every woman. She is rewarded handsomely for her, em, normalcy.

But she can't represent the average woman in the street now she's been exposed as a viscous bully with an ugly ruthlessness. She is stripped of the only talent she has, and so her marketability has plummeted, which is presumably why sponsors are turning away in their droves. It always seemed unlikely that Jade could sustain such a profile and riches in return for such flimsy talents. It seems that the celebrity market is on the verge of an adjustment.

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Labels: TV and radio

Oh Leo, Leo, Leo, Leo, Leo, Leo. What did you do?

When Leo Sayer walked in to Celebrity Big Brother, it was his to win. H from Steps, Jo from S'Club, Danielle Lloyd were fame seeking desperadoes, Dirk and Jermaine the Hollywood weirdoes, Shilpa was the wrong class, sex, nationality and, let's face it, race to really garner a groundswell of support. Cleo had a chance, but it was Leo's to lose.

He fitted the bill perfectly; just enough profile for people to know who he was, but he'd been out of the limelight long enough to avoid accusations of fame seeking. He'd been successful, had his time, left his legacy and was now able to drift around the outer rim of the celebrity world like a kindly uncle. He knew everyone; Donny Tourette had been to his house, he greeted Jermaine with 'Hi Jermaine, how's Michael', even Kuddly Ken Russell knew him. All he had to do was hang out in the house for three weeks being small and curly wearing that bemused look on his face. Then he could come out (and not in an H way - H from Steps, gay, who knew?), release a Greatest Hits compo and enjoy a little Indian summer.

Then he revealed the monster. It's not just his slow mental breakdown, that could happen to anyone; it's the inner feelings he revealed. He is Leo; no surname required and he is Legend. He hated celebrity, then dismissed Jo from S'Club as a non-celebrity because she didn't wear expensive clothes and didn't have a car. S'Club are has-beens, according to Leo. Now, the concept of a has-been is entirely subjective, but it's been 23 years since Leo had an original hit whereas at least Jo saw chart action in this millennium. Then he flounced out due to a percieved lack of respect; when the key to winning Celebrity Big Brother is to demonstrate that you don't need anyone to validate your celebrity through fawning respect.

One thing for certain about this year's Celebrity Big Brother is that it's crushingly dull, the other is that Leo Sayer leaves the show a damaged man.

Whilst I'm at it; when Jack (Jade's boyfriend) entered the house he introduced himself as a football agent. Fair enough, at least he didn't want to be his legacy to simply be Jade's Boyfriend. I would wager that he's not a very good football agent given that he's entered a house cut off from the outside world just as the January transfer window opens.

Look, I've never pretended to be vying for a job with The Telegraph.

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Labels: TV and radio

For those of you who visit regularly, you'll notice that I'm looking a bit different. For those arriving via searches like; 'Nigella's red satin dressing gown', 'Kate Garraway eating a banana' (no, I can't find my link either) and 'Fern Britton's tights' you probably won't know that anything has changed, but honestly, we're not going to see you again, are we?

I started blogging four and a half years ago when you had to insert your html coding for bold, italics, hyperlinks and such like. Comments came from an external service, pictures were difficult to upload, lists of categories and RSS feeds didn't exist.

The old site was a Frankestien's monster, so now Blogger is all new and sparkly I thought I'd return to its womb. The old comments have gone but the address stays the same. Those of you smartypants enough to use such things, you'll want to update your RSS feeds.

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Labels: General me

Not much happens at a car dealership during the week. Well, not judging by my hour long wait at the Mazda garage this morning. My car needed a service, so I sat drinking weak complimentary coffee reading car magazines I didn't understand waiting to pay them £123 for the privilege of being told that everything was fine. I really wanted to browse through the copy of Heat but it was a bit too blokey a place in which to reveal my latent campness.

People wandered around at 9am arranging who was going to lunch and when. People would phone up to book in services for 'first thing next Tuesday, OK see you then, bye'. Saleman Number 1 stared out the window he must stare out of every day whilst Salesman Number 2 was on the phone reassuring his Grandma about something. Someone turned on a computer.

These people work together for five or six days a week, 7 hours a day and nothing much happens for most of that time. Occasionally they'll engage in well rehearsed skits; when the postman arrived complaining how wet it was, Salesman Number 1 replied with 'that might have something to do with the rain'. Nobody laughed.

After an lengthy silence; Salesman Number 1 walked up to Salesman Number 2 - 'that's an interesting sandwich you have their young James, what kind is it?' That'll be a tomato and cheese sandwich on crusty bread. 'Mmm I do like sandwiches with crusty bread'. They parted in silence, back to their own thoughts.

This may have been for my benefit as I was the only other person there, but I suspect it was just them putting on a mental screensaver, a little routine to prevent their brains from closing down completely.

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Labels: General me

TV gave up on Christmas. The big Christmas film has been gazumped by Sky Movies, and plugging in your brand new Nintendo Wii is always going to be preferable to watching Noel Up The Telecom Tower.

Focus has switched to New Year; schedules have been finessed to offer some comfort in the bleak mid-winter. This Life +10 aimed to take us back to the dog-days of Britpop. This Life was all terribly zeitgeist-y apparently; 5 lawyers who lived in London, did drugs, had sex and listened to Portishead. A reflection of my generation indeed, well I do have a Portishead album.

It did make me feel a bit sick that Egg was seen writing on his Mac Powerbook whilst listening to his iPod docked in a Bose speaker system. Turns out My Life is a bit of a thirty something cliche.

Celebrity Big Brother is the ultimate in carbohydrate TV offering comfort that's both unchallenging and soporific. How do they put together the Celebrity Big Brother contestants? Do they all sit down at a early production meeting and pick their ultimate wish-list...

"So, who do we want?"
"What about Nelson Mandela, Madonna, Khazakstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Pele?"
"Great, let's get to it."

Three weeks later...

"So, how did we get on with tracking down Pele?"
"Pretty good, it's taken a bit of researching, he first played in the World Cup in 1958 in Sweden. Well, in the Swedish squad that year was Sigge Parling."
"And he's friends with Pele?"
"No. Sigge Parling played for Djurgardens IF Fotball in Sweden; which is the same club that Jesper Blomqvist played for before he went to Manchester United as an understudy to Ryan Giggs."
"You've got Ryan Giggs?"
"No. But Ryan Giggs won the Champions League with another player of note from Djugardens; Teddy Sheringham, this is where I came up trumps."
"You got Teddy Sheringham!?"
"Not really."
"Who then?"
"His automaton girlfriend and disgraced Miss Great Britain; Danielle Lloyd."

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Labels: TV and radio

Like every good New Year's Day we're all pyjama'ed up at Ruffles towers. It's an opportunity to reflect on what's been a great 2006. We've had Millie, of course, and babies were popping out all over the place; Lottie, Elliot and Joe. We've also got a bunch of new friends through having Millie and a whole new dimension to our social life. We've had Katie's wedding and Spanx has gone all domestic, which everyone is delighted about. Not only that, but Katie and James are have come home from Australia, and Jo and Brian will be back from the end of January.

It's been a great Christmas too; from kite flying in a hurricane whilst a battalion of wind battered toddlers cowered and wet themselves in the car to having everyone over for dinner and Emma setting the table for six and ten turning up.

New Year was the quietest on record; we had an invite to a party, but the Millie factor complicated things and in the end it was decided that we'd opt out this year. To be honest, we didn't take much persuading. We weren't the only ones; it seemed to be a universal trend to stay in for a quiet one. Perhaps, after years of pressure trying to find that big night out everyone has agreed that New Year is the biggest emperor's new clothes and did the thing they've always wanted to do; stayed in.

Either that or following Pinochet and Saddam's deaths, the collapse of the careers of Blair, Prescott, Rumsfeld and surely soon; Bush. And faced with the global jihad and environmental catastrophe they leave behind we've all realised that we're the ones who have to sort this mess out now and really we need to buckle down, put away the ironic t-shirts and combat trousers and get serious.

Or, they all had a party together and we weren't invited... bastards.

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Labels: General me

Christmas is like collective autism. A tight cycle of intricate routines and traditions. It's for family, but not through any particular deep love of its kinship, but because only the family understands the logic paths that have imbedded these traditions into its culture. Nobody likes to be away from their family on Christmas day because, psychologically, it's such an uncomfortable place to go.

Whilst to the outsider these traditions are impenetrable; for those inside they're a norm. I was trying to work out our family's traditional Christmas day, but found it really hard to think of anything I didn't consider to be entirely normal. We get up and open presents, this is the main focus for the day and lasts about 20 minutes. Then we'll have breakfast, usually involving salmon. The rest of the day drifts along towards lunchtime with my dad remembering various food treats he's picked up in the previous few weeks. "Oh, we've got some pear brandy, does anyone want pear brandy?".

This contrasts with Nobby's Germanically regimented Christmas day; bucks fizz for breakfast, stollen cake mid-morning, traditional lunch and card games with the family in the evening. At the other end of the scale, I know of people who sleep in until mid-morning, might have a roast chicken lunch and then dissolve the family unit to allow the individuals to do their own thing for the rest of the day. Presents are unlikely to be anything more than an exchange of cheques.

What with it being Millie's first, Emma and I broke with a tradition and had Christmas lunch together with Emma's family. The close proximity of our families have traditionally meant we've been able to shuttle between the two, but have always stuck to the routine of having lunch apart. This meant I was able to observe their traditional Christmas which after church is an avalanche of present giving punctuated only by a traditional lunch with all the trimmings. Now, I've never previously known what 'all the trimmings' meant. At what point do you know that you have the complete set? We must have been close as excluding the turkey and assorted sauces, there were no less than 16 different trimmings* and I've yet to hear of a Christmas lunch which has more.

You know that you're getting deep into tradition over true value when you're opening a present of a set of second class stamps whilst everyone around you ignores your attempts to be surprised and delighted. Emma got me a Gemini iKey; although I wish I'd asked for a Ninetendo Wii. Emma's grandma was describing what the Wii did as one of her relatives was getting one, Emma's mum looked on blankly until eventually interrupting; 'Is this one of those double-u-one-ones?'

Later in the afternoon we again departed from a Ruffles family tradition and broke the isolation by venturing into the outside world. This tradition was maintained to an extent, I was divorced from broadband for the day, which meant I missed an e-bay auction when it took 14 minutes to download a single page on the household's dial-up connection. So what if the item went at a price some £20 below the ceiling price I'd set myself. I know I know, ebaying on Christmas day... bite me.

Emma's family are very close to two other families on the road and their Christmases have always been closely knitted together. So much so that they can actually spend Christmas together without sullying each others' traditions. They can have a traditional Christmas day regardless of where it's held and who is there; it's like the total football of Christmas day. We popped along the road to find the two families watching a slide show of a holiday they'd taken together back in 1980. To them it was entirely normal, to me, entirely different.

As we get older, children are coming along, grandparents are less mobile, partners expect to see their own families with their own traditions so like a glacier; always moving, but always invisible to the eye the Christmas norms shift. In ten year's time it will all have changed again, who knows where we'll be?

*roast potatoes, boiled potatoes, pommes noisettes, leaks, parsnips, swede, peas, bacon, sausages, cauliflower cheese, onion rings, breadcrumb stuffing, peas, pork stuffing, carrots and brussel sprouts

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Labels: General me

If you're a celebrity cook and want to avoid the purgatory of UKTV Food, you've got to have A Thing. Jamie Oliver had his gastro-pub Brit Pop thing, Gordon Ramsay is all about The Swearing, Rick Stein's thing is The Fish, Heston Blumenthal is supposedly about The Science.

Nigella Lawson's thing is as a middle class 1950's saucepot; perfect for Yuletide. What's not to love about a woman who's first reaction after jolly good rogering is to marinade a turkey in a festive brine before giving the children hand whittled wooden toys and feeding them a pomegranate merigue mountain? Certainly that's what it looks like in the painstaking re-enactment of a Lawson family Christmas on Nigella's Christmas Kitchen. You never see her husband, however, he's probably upstairs smoking a big fat cigar wondering where it all went wrong.

Nigella is a woman who sees nothing wrong with emphasising the words 'breast', 'squeeze' and 'come' in a sentence about the perfect Christmas panchiporan aloo and she's never far away from her vampish red satin dressing gown. However, not all might be what it seems. She's always shot in a dreamlike soft focus, swaithed in floodlights, this may be to emphasise her perfect womanly ways, or it could be to hide the fact that she probably really looks more like her dad.

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Labels: TV and radio

‘Tis without doubt the season to be jolly, not least in the offices of womens magazines and day time TV shows. For eleven months of the year these editorial teams toil for new features, but once December arrives it’s, well, like Christmas. Time to dredge out the Christmas party frock/new take on the little black dress type articles.

Now, I don’t consider myself to be abnormally unsociable. Even with a seven month old baby, our social calendar is a busy one. However I don’t and never have had the kind of Christmas that involved needing a new wardrobe of party wear, and certainly not the special formal partywear.

Yes, I know, I am A Man and it’s alright for me because I don’t have to worry about these things blah blah blah. But my Christmas calendar this year will be abnormally busy; the weekend before last we had Willy’s Christmas party, on last Thursday was our departmental party, on Friday our work do, Sunday was (look away now single people and those not predisposed for such things) our NCT party for the babies, Saturday is a big night out with friends, Sunday could be the traditional Christmas eve trip to the pub; though we’re not going, on Christmas night it’s the traditional mayhem party, Boxing day is another party, New Year’s Eve is sorted.

Now I reckon that’s eight parties in two and a half weeks, but even if I was a woman I wouldn’t need a party frock for each one.

I don’t know, perhaps I’m altogether too casual, maybe just a bit too Southern (a colleague from the North East frequently laments the lost art of dressing up down south… and I don’t mean wearing a merkin).

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Labels: General me

Love It! magazine is exclusive to Tesco, apparently. It's a women's weekly magazine 'celebrating love, life and laughter' according to the promotional blurb. Can't you tell? It has an exclamation mark at the end of its title.

A good branding strategy gives a product a name which captures its values. It wouldn't seem unreasonable to think that Love It! has lots of things you might love; celebrity gossip, fashion tips and all that kind of thing.

Magazine publishing strategy might also suggest that the best article, the one that most matches the spirit of the magazine, should be on the front page. Ergo; in Love It! the cover might lead with something the reader might love the most. You would think.

This week's lead story in Love It! is 'Raped at gunpoint'.

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Labels: General me

The Christmas party was OK, a distinct improvement on the lunches we used to have where the silences were punctuated by the sound of knives and forks chinking against cheap plates. Yes, we've had worse.

It wasn't totally without its flash points. Old Man, whose defining characteristic is his one finger jack hammer typing style, suddenly, apropos of nothing, decided to tell us he 'didn't like deviousness'.

He admitted he didn't know one of the women standing with us and described the other as 'not devious, cunning' (an argument ensued). The comment may have been a general point he wanted to get off his chest, it could have been directed at me; the only other person listening to him. I moved onto another group rather than find out.

I'm competitive and will challenge anything I don't see as being correct, I will defend my position fiercely and make comment whether it's mine to make or not. I expect others to do the same. I'm not devious; I have no grand plan or strategy. If I'm inconsistent with my views its because I'm forgetful, not because I'm involved in some deed of sinister derring-do.

The other flashpoint was when Drunk Finance Person suddenly had a moment of clarity and started fretting that she had upset people with her boisterous ways. She was really worried and has apparently made efforts to contact people today to make an apology.

In truth, I don't think anyone really cares that she was drunk; she was loud and a bit random, but she certainly wasn't offensive.

Perhaps people give others way too much credit for the depth to which they think about things. Do people really sit and plot a long term strategy, systematically removing the obstacles in their way (rubbing their hands with sinister glee every time another blockage is expunged). Likewise, are people's lives so empty that they have time to sit and be repeatedly offended by someone who loses a bit of control on a night out.

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Labels: Work