today : I feel (genuinely) sorry for some famous people

What has Tom Cruise done wrong? I ask this because whenever his name is mentioned in the media is accompanied by sneering and sometimes jeering, negative personal comments, innuendo and distaste.

A few weeks ago I was watching a comedy show which had a line of stars' dressing rooms. The presenter walked along pointing to them and mentioning who was supposed to be in them. When the camera reached Tom Cruise's room it dipped low, because the star and Tom's name were very close to the floor. The presenter crouched to address the camera and gave a wink. The audience fell about in paroxysms of laughter that left them literally split at the sides. This was only the fifteen thousandth time that they had witnessed a 'joke' about Tom Cruise being smaller in real life than he appears on-screen. Why him? Has he lied about his height consistently and then been found out?

A week or so ago I watched one of those Entertainment/Celebrity shows that featured the editor of some insider gossip mag (y'know the guys who make Danny DeVitos character in LA Confidential look like Bernstein and Woodward). The guy spent five minutes detailing the fact that Cruise had been dropped by his film studio. Apparently, not only had his latest action epic underperformed at the box office, but the studio head disliked him - nay - despised him. On the same show there was footage of Tom and his wife. They were kissing each other. Now I expect people to say in a whiny teenage voice : "EEEUUUWW. GET A ROOM!", which is exactly what the voiceover said, but the presenter in the studio suggested that Tom and his wife's PDA was a little too much. She implied that it was false.

And this, I perceive, is the basis of almost every negative that is thrown at Tom. Falseness. His religion isn't just an unusual one, but it is false, his marriage is clearly a sham and even his child is apparently false.

Tom started out as a teen star, playing good-looking teenagers at the Michael J Fox end of the brat pack. Then he started to get more and more serious. He took up dramas, action movies, historical epics - everything apart from comedy. Some of this he did very well. Some he did less well. Yet somehow he managed to develop his career. I am not a particular fan of his. I neither watch or not watch films because his name is above the titles. Sometimes I think he is very good, other times he is okay. Rarely is he a bad actor.

Each time I see him he seems to be working hard. I can't say I've ever seen him be less than professional. He doesn't do lots of interviews, but in interviews he pays attention and answers the questions. He makes an effort. On the red carpet the footage shows him spending hours chatting to fans, signing autographs, phoning their grannies on cell-phones and paying them attention. In fact, he does everything a movie star should, and he does it way better than average.

So why do people hate him so? Why is all they want to talk about and talk 'around' is that he is short and gay. Do these gossip insiders and celebrity correspondents know something that we don't? Has he got closets that are bulging with deep dark secrets worse than any other Hollywood actor? The impression given is that he is totally and utterly false in every aspect and only they know about it.

For a 'gay' man he has chosen his beards quite well. I imagine Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz and Katie Holmes could pretty much have their choice of relationship options (any one of them could give me a call whenever they wanted), yet they chose to play beard to Tom. Nicole even chose to adopt kids as part of the conspiracy. Yes, two of those actresses were foreign talent who subsequently broke through into the Hollywood mainstream, and we have evidence that these things do happen, as with David Copperfield and Claudia Schiffer. But so far, in 20 years, nobody has come up with anything other than hints and allegations.

And do you know what? Even if Cruise is closeted, I don't care. Freedom of sexuality is just another branch of freedom, which includes freedom of expression, privacy and personal choice. It's his choice. If he is bearding up with these women, then it's no more hypocritical than people claiming each other were a delight to work with in junket interviews, no more fraudulent than airbrushing and no more dishonest than Hollywood itself trying to sell us bad actors as good actors and bad films as masterpieces.

If Tom is a murderer or pederast who uses his fame to protect him, then please carry on dragging him down until he is exposed and caught. If, however, he is just an easy target who is reluctant to sue, successful, professional and not even particularly interesting outside of his roles, then why not leave him alone?

I would ask the same about Britney, or 'poor Britney' as she is now known. What has she really done wrong? She's yet another rich young star who for reasons of early success, apparently missed out on growing up. So she starts behaving oddly, rebelling against expectations and possibly suffering depression. I read that she has been taking drugs, partying and drinking. Just like the millions of other young women throughout the world who go out on a Friday night. Perhaps, like the millions of other people suffering depression, she's been self medicating with the drugs, alcohol and unexpected behaviour.

During her time as a popstar Britney has made one or two excellent pop records, put on some decent shows and, like Tom, worked hard and professionally. Has she killed anyone? Has anyone caught her banging her babies' head on the kitchen counter? Does she deserve photographers following her around ALL the time? I don't think so. Perhaps some clue lies in the fact that, whilst the public seems to be offering her some sympathy, the celebrity pundits appear delighted by her troubles. I know that many of them are talented and successful in their own right, and don't mean it to appear so, but sometimes it comes across as a little like jealousy.

today : I re-read some books

John Irving is not feted as a novelist as much as Roth, Updike, deLillo, Heller or Pynchon, or any of the other 'giants' of American literature for several reasons. Firstly, he didn't burst onto the scene. His first novel - The Watermethod Man - was pretty rubbish. Well, not rubbish, but just not brilliant. Secondly, he also is not from WASP or Jewish stock, which counts if you are to become part of the literary establishment. He is a rustic New Englander rather than a Metropolitan New Englander. Thirdly, he is popular and on top of that he is seen (even by himself) as a craftsman. Solid, reliable, even arguably predictable. An artisan rather than an artist. Perhaps this is because he sems to have failed to take any of his cues from Modernism, instead preferring sweeping, nineteenth century-ish chunky stories about characters, places and events. Just a look at his prefferred settings reveals an old-fashionedness: woodyards, stoneyards, schools, an old hotel, Vienna, lakesides, apple orchards, orphanages, the baseball field, small rustic towns, woods and swimming holes.

Butf these qualities are why his novels are so entertaining and re-readable. The four novels that saw him soar onto and stay on the bestseller lists: The World According to Garp, Hotel New Hampshire, Prayer for Owen Meany and The Cider House Rules are the very definition of thumping reads, whereas The Crying of Lot 49, for example, isn't really. As a craftsman, Irving chisels his world carefully, sticking to landscapes made from realism and nostalgia. As a craftsman, he hews each of his characters with a defined personality and a recognisable story arc that is satisfying believable. His characters change in such a way as we can easily follow the logic of their changes and go along with it. He also almost never peoples his novels with unsympathetic characters. Even the baddies (of which there are actually few) have enough dimensions that we can understand their badness.

In some ways, Irving avoids themes. Yes, there is some early seventies feminism in The World According to Garp, religious faith in Owen Meany, incest, racism and abortion in Cider House. But his novels are not critical commentaries, or allegorical treatises. They exist outside of modern American politics. By that I mean that peculiar brand of febrile political 'thought' and debate that powers swathes of the American Academe, and informs 'literature' as defined by the Eastern intelligentsia and power elites. He is no Gore Vidal; his conservative and liberal tendencies are spelled with small c and small l.

In fact, I'm not going to use the word novels from now on when talking about Irving. He actual writes stories. These stories, even when they do display complexity are based on very basic old-as-the-hills topics. Love, tragedy, redemption, and fate.

Irving writes in a straightforward way, which is where he gets his reputation as a craftsman. I could not quote you a sentence of his and delight in the construction and the poesy therein. In fact I could not quite you a sentence of his at all. This is because all the words in his stories are there to serve the story and not make a show of what a master of words he is; even though he is.

I can only think of one stylistic point worth commenting on in all of his stories. And that is his choice to have Owen Meany speak in capitals. It is a deviously plain and rather obvious trick, to manipulate the reader into creating a different voice when reading Owen's speech. Yet it is a piece of terrific literary engineering. A simple device that does its job perfectly.

In praising Irving as a rereadable writer I am, of course, revealing my own taste. Previously, when I wrote about Clive James, it was his affection and enthusiasm for his subjects that shines through his writing. Irving has a similar quality. If any of his stories does have a theme, it is the theme of growing up. People finding out how they fit into the real world. It's a pretty unexperimental and uncynical seam to mine, and not the preserve of 'clever' people, who know everything anyway.

today : I go car shopping

i've been thinking about buying a new car. luckily i am in a position to get one and it's interesting looking around to see what's on offer. i'm not a car nerd. if i had millions i would probably buy a ridiculously fast and expensive collection, and i would enjoy them. but i don't buy car magazines or even know anything about cars to any depth. I know a bit, but it doesn't interest me. in fact, even though i enjoy watching top gear on the tv i find the obsession with driving promoted and reflected by that show faintly pathetic. there are, as i see it, two types of drivers : those who see a road network as their own personal race-track and those who see a road network as a way of getting places. again, don't get me wrong, fast driving is thrilling, but not as thrilling as staying alive and not having the deaths of others on my conscience.

none of this is really my point. my point is that i get bored easily when faced with brochures and technical detail. i am also bored by car salesmen. some of them are excellent, but a couple, when i have stated my disinterest in detailed technical description, have treated me like they treat women and patronised me. one guy, when he pointed out features on a very nice car, explained what each feature did as part of the naming and pointing process. this went as far as saying : cruise control: by pressing these buttons you can make your car go at any speed and (drum roll) you don't have to touch the pedals. the best one was: the sun visors, which apparently you can slide down to stop the sun getting in your eyes when you're driving...

so anyway, i was looking at my options. when selling cars in britain, the car companies seem to have this idea that we are roughly 20 years behind the rest of the world technologically. it is only recently that they have started offering aircon as a standard option and then only in mid-price and higher price ranges. They are also obsessed with the tiniest dividing lines between grades of model. the gxsi l model has electric front windows but manual rear windows and a tilting sun roof, the gsxi LS model has the same but a sliding sun roof and a cup holder, the gsxi ls plus has electric windows front and back, a sliding sunroof, a cup holder AND brushed aluminium door bezels. It is also 7 grand more than the gsxi L. well worth it, I'm sure you'll agree, especially for those 8 square centimetres of brushed aluminium that look like high-school-project ash trays

So, as part of considering one model of car, there I was with a brochure containing one of those tables that lists all the standard and optional equipment on different models. it turned out that on the list was a car that comes complete with a radio cassette player. Just a reminder if you've lost track of time: it's 2007. This was basic model, but even the basic models cost thousands of pounds. For an extra 7 percent of the cost of the car you can upgrade to an AM/FM Radio CD player with RDS! Fantastic!

I use audio equipment as an example, but here in Britain you can still struggle to find a car with ABS or electric windows as standard. And the car industry in their unnecessarily thick and glossy brochures still list these features as if they are part of some tomorrows world techno future. As if I can't go to B&Q and buy an air conditioner for my house for a quarter of the price of having air conditioning fitted in my car, as if anything other than grey vinyl as an interior material is so exotic that it is almost beyond the realms of imagination, as if a switch that opens the boot of locks all the doors or

Quite frankly it's bizarre. This kind of attitude redefines the word disingenuous. It is almost as crazy as that of record companies.

Looking at the higher end and newer models I found that hardly any of them has mobile phone connectivity. One model had integral bluetooth and infra red so you can use your phone via the audio system. yet this car offers no charging or cradling options for an actual phone. One of the main brand new models that is apparently packed with innovations offers a CD player that (wait for it) can play those new fangled MP3 CDs. The salesman told me that he didn't understand it, but apparently you can get more songs on a disc, or something. When I asked about iPod (other MP3 players are available, by the way) connectivity his head exploded. A wifi/usb connection - for designers and marketers who think that a radio cassette is more appealing than an empty space in the dash this is tantamount to making a car with a flux capacitor as a standard option.

today : the point

When you have to live with pain every day it is difficult to explain to people who don't. It's like an addiction that you didn't choose. Percentage point by percentage point it takes over your life, until you end up living inside the experience it creates. After that it is like a fog, surrounding you and leaving you no way out. Pain is controlling, relentless and inescapable. You try to bear it, even enjoy it sometimes by wallowing in it but eventually, it becomes the main, and then the only point of your life.

today : technology week: Downloading - the new cassettes?

My nephews and nieces (along with almost everyone their age) have entered the music market at a time when downloading is the norm. Let's face it, if you want a track, then you can get it either legitimately or illegitimately. If they have money they buy CDs, video games and movies. If they don't then they download them.

In the meantime the record, game and film industries are desperate to stop file-sharing and protect their copyrights. A couple of weeks ago they were denied an attempt to extend publishing copyright, alongside their constant whining about lost profits and prosecution of file-sharers both large and small.

I am aware of the fact that there are some people who copy and redistribute digital media on an industrial basis. I have no sympathy for these people. They should be caught and prosecuted for stealing. But in going after individual file-sharers the music industry is simply replaying the failed and stupid home taping campaign, which suggested that, at a time of technological crossover, consumers should buy two copies of an album, depending on where they were playing it.

When I first got into music, home taping was fantastic, and the only way that could get access to new music on my weekend barman wages was to join the local record library and furiously record as much of its stock as I could. I would take out my maximum five items at a time, sometimes three or four times a week, buy ten packs of cassettes and then simply record vinyl albums whilst doing homework or watching TV. By the end of each month I'd have ten or twenty new abums to listen to. Some I would record over, others I would keep. Some I fell in love with and went out to buy for myself. Over the course of a couple of years I gathered hundreds of albums which fed and nurtured my lifelong love of music. There was no way I was going to buy a box-set of Beethoven's Symphonies, or Claudio Arrau (that is he pictured above) playing Debussy. What with all the other teenage drains on my meagre resources I couldn't afford to buy King of The Delta Blues or Electric Ladyland. What little money I had spare for buying records I would spend on stuff that was in the charts.

20 years on I am still buying copies of things I know note for note but were deleted or went down the pecking order.Ironically, despite two more new formats since my taping days, some of them have never become available to buy. I own one album by a fairly mainstream band that I bought from my old record library when they were having a sell off of old stock. It has never been released on CD or for download.

Here's the thing. Music fans, or film fans, or gamers or whoever tend to spend the maximum of their disposable income on music films or games. If file sharing or MP3 ripping occurs with these people it is because their appetites are voracious and they want more than they can afford. The 'lost' profits from file-sharing are mostly bogus. It is just dollar signs spinning in the eyes of industry execs.

today : Scathing political satire!

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly...

today : I apologise for the last ten years (at least)

A red tick - yesterday

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6236463.stm

Forgive me, but I simply don't understand this news item. Since when were teachers supposed to not know about their pupils' progress until exam results come out? Maybe during my time in the classroom I simply got it all wrong by believing that my job was basically to conduct an ongoing skills audit, or 'test' of the effectiveness of my teaching in order to set targets for my pupils rather than simply deliver prepackaged 'lessons' into the ether and simply hope that they would end up being educationally useful. I thought I was supposed to analyse my students' work according to the skills I know they need to learn and improve on rather than just put a red tick at the bottom of each page. To whoever is suggesting that this is a good idea instead of endless pointless testing, I apologise because in the past years I've not been parroting out prepacked exam preparation, but trying to educate my pupils.

For all that time they kept telling me I was wrong, not giving me the time or resources to do my job, questioning my judgement and blindly insisting to me that their way was best. And now - irony or ironies - that exhaustion, depression and disillusionment has led me to quit, they have changed their minds.

today : ouch!

New Years day and the year began with an avulsion fracture of the fifth metatarsal. The picture is not my xray but is kinda similar. So a month in a leg cast ensues.

today : technology week. I peruse YouTube and am underwhelmed

I spent yesterday looking at YouTube. Y'see, everyone goes on about it all the time and I thought I'd check it out. I began with looking at the most popular clips. Such things as someone jumping into a Christmas tree and knocking it to the ground, someone riding a bike into a lake (I wonder if whoever staged this stunt thought they were being original or have they ever seen the opening titles of The Monkees), someone doing what I only assume is a parody of a commercial that I've never seen, a Wayfarer wearing toddler playing the drums and Saddam being taunted and hanged.

After that I typed in some keywords and names to try and find something interesting and worthwhile. I assume that YouTube might be a repository for vast amounts of discarded and forgotten media that I might want to access. An interview with someone interesting. Political speeches, historical footage, nostalgic TV shows.

I was quite disappointed. I don't really want to watch clips from Conan O' Brien when I can watch it on CNBC international, neither am I interested in Morning Musume introducing yet another new member with a performance on a Japanese variety show or someone recording a Happy New Year message from in front of a Goo Goo Dolls poster.

I am sure there are some fantastic things on YouTube. Yet the effort to find them is time consuming and fraught with frustration.

Here's my point. YouTube is another example of technology in search of a use.

I listen to lots of talk radio. Here in the UK The BBC has two dedicated national talk radio stations. Much of the local BBC radio content is news and discussion based. In the past few years the more popular channels like FiveLive have built a lot of their content on interaction . Listeners can text and email their opinions, comments and responses to stories and issues. What happens is that in amongst the volumes of listener comment that pass throught the hands of the producers and presenters, it is the one-line, simplistic, bold and opinionated comments that make it to air. I suspect that it is a game some of the audience play. They can get their message or email read out by making it sensational and confrontational. And the producers and presenters just can't resist thet fact that this will prick up the ears of the casual listener. This isn't exactly the debate between listener and journalist that interactivity is sold as. It's a gimmick. My local BBC TV news show often has a section at the end where viewers responses to the day's stories are read out and shown. It operates in the same way. Opinionated people sit by their computers ready to email the local news. It is the people who feel that their opinions matter who contribute.

The rub is that opinionated people are those most likely to have daft, ill-considered, ignorant and foolish opinions. On top of that, people who feel their opinions matter are deluded. Their opinions don't matter at all. There's a nice scene somewhere in season 2 of the West Wing when (I'm paraphrasing) Bartlett hears that 76% of the public are in favour of some economic policy. His response is that he would be shocked if he could find 76 Americans who understood the complex issues enough to decide anything about it. The mistake politicians and spin people appear to be making is to think that this 'public response' - allied with the results of self selecting newspaper polls equals public opinion. On great philosophical issues - capital punishment for example - the media gives a 25 word SMS composed one-handed by someone stuck in traffic gets the same exposure as hundreds of years of thoughful, scholarly discussion.

Again, an example of a technology that is in search of a use. The gathering of public opinion by email and SMS is complex. You could argue that it is a leap forward, but I think it is looking like just a leap. It seems to be becoming ubiquitous with no discernable debate about the institutions it is undermining. I imagine lots of very clever people are writing about this in academic journals but the debate needs to be on a real level. How is this affecting my trust of the news? How is it remaking 'truth'? How is this reducing the traditional role of factual broadcasting i.e. to inform and educate? How far does this actually affect policy making?

The problem is that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, afraid of being left behind. Journalists and editors are looking to the blogosphere and 'citizen journalists' for content, smugly feeling that they are at the cutting edge of the media whilst incidentally not having to actually resource and conduct proper journalism anymore. *

* I am not here talking about the real use of blogging and citizen journalists to bypass censorship or provide alternative news sources under restrictive conditions. I am talking about Britain, with the best publicly funded independent news source in the world and an excellent broad spread of unslavish national press.

It's Chriiissstmmaaasss! # 6 - I resort to laziness and write a 'best of' list

It's Christmastime and I've decided to be as lazy as the "professional" media and fall back on the end of year list. It's the kind of thinking you can pretty much do whilst sitting in front of the TV, in the pub (even though I almost never go to pubs), in the car or simply laying down.

The 'conventional media is full of these thrown together best and worst lists. So I offer mine. It's a best things of the year, according to me.

1. The bit in The Sun goes Down by The Arctic Monkeys where the guitars drop out and the verse is sung over just bass and drums for a few bars. It's a perfect example of rock dynamics and the rest of the song is pretty good too.

2. My Birthday meal in October. It was splendid - even a tiny shard of crabshell that almost shattered a tooth couldn't spoil it.

3. The 7 foot sunflower that I grew from a seed.

4. Spike Lee's film When the Levees Broke.

5. 12 Stops and Home by The Feeling.

6. The entrancingly sexy woman in a very sexy dress whom I saw in a pub in July.

7. Radio 5's show Up All Night, notably the World Football phone-in on a Friday morning.

8. Maxi Rodriguez's goal in the world cup.

9. Children of Beslan (which was actually in 2005 but I watched it again)

10. Seeing myself in print and thinking that what I'd written was pretty good.

11. The evening of June 19th.

It's Chriiissstmmaaasss! # 5 - I sympathise with the neglected

unfairly neglected

For TV viewers in Britain there is a dead hour on Sunday. It occurs after the footie has finished and before the gentle fish-out-of-water comedy dramas begin. It is the slot that is pretty much targetted at pensioners. Therefore we have yawnsome fare such as Antiques Roadshow, 'nice' safe celebrities like Alan Titchmarsh and Patricia Routledge making appeals for charities, Last of the Summer Wine and the daddy of all public service broadcasting - Songs of Praise.

Today I watched S.O.P. Well, I didn't actually pay attention, but it was on in the background with the sound off, whilst I check out the schedules on the 700 different cable channels.

For some reason it got me thinking about Christmas carols, because there's always a carol concert on on Christmas Eve, and then a televised midnight mass that nobody watches. The carol concert reminds of when I used to sing in the choir when I was a boy. I always enjoyed it I was a good singer and was quite often gven the lead. Unfotunately, genetic necessity intervened and my voice broke. Overnight, what once was the sound of an chirruping angel became the sound of an unoiled derailleur.

Two carols always stood out for me. The first is O little Town Of Bethlehem. For some reason everytime I hear it I am filled with dread. I don't know why, from a very early age, it inspired in me more fear than hope, but it does. So I don't like that one.

The other carol that I always disliked was The Holly and The Ivy. The reason is that it's just so bloody unfair to the Ivy. It gets second billing in the title yet when it comes to it is criminally neglected. Throughout all 53 verses of the song The Holly gets all the attention. It's 'the Holly this and the holly that' and 'the holly has this and the holly has that' and you're waiting and waiting for the ivy to get a turn and it never does. It annoys me so much, like desperately witing for Santa and then finding that he just forgot to visit your house. Why did whoever wrote it even mention the Ivy in the title if they were going to simply ignore it for the whole of the lyric? The disappointment and sense of injustice when I hear this song is similar to that which I felt when I discovered that Alfred Hitchcock didn't actually write any of the Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators stories.

I am suggesting a politically correct revision of the Holly and The Ivy in which the Ivy is not vicitmised by being neglected to the point where it has to ring Shrubline to complain.

It's Chriiissstmmaaasss! # 4 - & I hear music

Its Christmas and everywhere I go I am accosted by Christmas music. I do have a problem with it. Since when was 'A Spaceman Came Travelling' by Chris De Burgh a Christmas song?

The issue I do have is that there are some marvellous Christmas tunes around that never get played. Why don't shops put on The Phil Spector Christmas Album or, even better, Mary Margaret O' Hara's Christmas EP. Instead we get the same maybe 15 songs over and over. Stop The Cavalry by Jona Lewie, Stay Another Day by East Seventeen ( which is another not really a Christmas song at all, just a repetitive and rather boring pop song with some added slighbells and bell sounds. It kind of reminds me of when Blue Rondo a la Turk-lite pop band Modern Romance released a special 'Christmas mix' of their most famous hit The Best Years of Our Lives which featured a short intro of sleigh bells followed by the normal song) and various banal offerrings from the likes of Mariah Carey.

So I walking around Asda (part of the Walmart family) the other evening. It was pretty late - almost midnight, yet Asda (POTWF) radio was still playing over the tannoy and inbetween telling me that I could get four mince-pies for a pound, the hospital radio -quality DJ suddenly shut up and played Fairytale of New York.

The thing is : Fairytale of New York isn't just the best Christmas song of all time, but arguably just the best song of time. In fact I resent the fact that people only consider it a Christmas song and play it to death for one month of the year. Songs that good should be played rarely - so powerful is their effect that they are like very strong drugs. And as, ironically, Shane MacGowan has proven throughout his life, the more strong intoxicants you take the more diluted their effects are and the more blase you are about said effects. Not that I buy into that drunken Oirish poet myth that follows him around. Like all addicts I reckon his work (and dental health) could be even better if he could keep himself straight.

But the fact remains that Fairytale of New York is like all the other great MacGowan songs like Rainy Night in Soho or Aislynn or loads of others, in that it has a melody that seems like it was plucked out of the air rather than written, and evocative, bruised romantic lyrics that sum up in very simple universal terms the precarious nature of the human condition. I could write several thousand words about how beautiful this song is, but let's just leave it at that : it's a beautiful song.

Which is why, for a moment, I stopped in Asda (part of the Walmart family), just near the condiments, ketchup and salad dressings, as the pure beauty of the song struck me. There is something in the loveliness of Kirsty MacColl's vocal too - a lightness that reinforces the irony of the words. And then there's the fact that this is her legacy - and the fact that Christmas is, when it all comes down, about children and childish things. And she died heroically protecting hers. It is all slightly too much to hear over an echoing tannoy.

Passing shoppers must've wondered why this odd bloke was standing by the condiments, ketchup and the salad dressings, just across the from margarine, butter and cooking fats, wiping away what looked like a small tear.

today : we are all profilers and detectives now

The thing about the Suffolk serial murders is that they are the first British post-CSI, post Cracker murders. Yesterday, when the gruesome find of two bodies hit the news, we had journalists asking the police why, given that the first bodies were dumped in water in order to lessen the effectiveness of modern forensics, were these two bodies left on open ground? Was this because the serial killer was moving into the over-confident, chaotic stage of his spree?

The thing is, everyone knows all about serial killers through endless films, books and TV shows. Since Silence of the Lambs serial killers have been a staple of popular culture, as well as the profilers and forensic investigators that chase and catch them. We have all seen a million autopsies and know in great detail the contribution made by bones, blood maggots, dna residues, carpet fibres and bodily fluids to the detecting process. Why ask Quantico to provide a profile. You could ask any old lady walking down the street. We are all profilers and detectives.

I have my own theory. The police are being almost too cooperative with the media. We know that the cops always hold back crucial details and information as part of a cunning plan to draw out the killer and throw the press of the trail. I get the feeling that the cops might catch this guy in pretty quick time

I certainly hope so.

It's Chriiissstmmaaasss! # 3 - My Christmas cheer deserts me.

My neighbours are strange. To the right side of my little house I have had two neighbours in recent years, both of which I would consider friends. I know their names, we stop to chat, do each other the odd favour and get on very well. On the left side, with one honourable exception, I have had six neighbours who have been the opposite. The honourable exception were a nice couple who moved after six months.

I sometimes wonder if it is down to me - that somehow I am an unpleasant neighbour. But actually, no. I am the person who says good morning if I happen to be going out the door at the same time as the neighbours. I'm the person who says hello when I see them at the local shops. I am considerate about parking, don't make a lot of noise (even though the walls are really pretty thick I always turn down the TV after 10-30 at night and only play music at certain times of the day) and generally make an effort to be at, the very least, inoffensive. Yet the five neighbours I have had on the left side have been a hard nut to crack. When I moved in the neighbours were a young couple. I soon found out that, even through the thick walls, I could hear their shouting and violence. It seemed that the guy was beating the girl fairly regularly. I wanted to intervene and did, inasmuch as I called the police a few times and spoke to the domestic violence unit. They told me they were logging the incidents so that when the girl eventually complained they had some history. I did carry on saying 'good morning' and what-not, but both neighbours acknowledged me and then put their heads down and got into the car. They probably were in that peculiar situation where they were embarrassed about what was happening in their house and didn't want to face anyone who might know. Eventually, thankfully, she threw him out. A few weeks later he returned, drunk and furious, broke into the house by smashing the back kitchen window and proceeded to attack her. This time when I called the police I reported an attack in progress and they came and arrested him. Not long after she moved away and I'm okay that she didn't thank me for possibly saving her life. After all she was having a pretty horrid time. The day after the attack her parents came to help fix the window and I had a short conversation with her Mum in which we discussed our relief at the bastard boyfriend's arrest, even though we didn't actually say it in so many words.

All the other people who've lived to my left have been studiedly uncommunicative and insular. Last year another young couple moved in. I am fine if people want to keep themselves to themselves but on the day they moved in, I was coming back from the shops and had a few bags to unpack from the car. So there was a decent amount of time where they were unpacking a removal van and I was unpacking a car. I said hello and they actually said nothing back. They simply ignored me. I figured I wouldn't take offence at this so continued to be polite and friendly. Yet they continued to ignore me completely. I would arrive home at the same time as one or other of them and make some kind of empty overture. Cold out today, hello, must get in out of the rain - that kind of thing. There was no response. They didn't turn away in a huff, it was just as if they didn't know that responding was an option. This meant that they looked through me as if I wasn't there. I felt like walking up to them and waving in their faces like you do to check if someone you have blindfolded can actually see through the blindfold. After a while I gave up.

Which leads me to the subject of my post. Which is Christmas spirit. I am all for it. But yesterday mine deserted me somewhat. A few days ago I was upstairs working when there was a knock at the door. I hobbled downstairs to find a parcel delivery guy. He asked me if I would sign for a parcel for next door and make sure they got it.
"I'll put a note through their letter box telling them it's with you," he said.
"Sure," I said, which meant that he presented me with a large box. I signed his electronic signing thingy. The box was pretty big an unwieldy. Later that evening when I thought my left hand neighbours (I don't know how many of them there are - I DO know that one of them runs heavily upstairs several times a day) were in, I braved the wind and drizzle and took it round.
"I took this parcel for you earlier," I said to the guy, handing it over.
"Yeah," he said, neutrally, taking it off me and then closing the door in my face.

Two days later, much the same thing happened. This time I received two parcels. Smaller, but MORE parcels. I dutifully and neighbourly-ly signed for them and, later in the evening, went next door to drop them off. This time the woman opened the door.
"You had some more parcels delivered today," I said, handing them over. She was more talkative.
"Yeah, we got the note. We decided to get all our stuff on the internet this Christmas. It's easier." This was the most words I'd heard her speak in seven months. However, as she shut the door on me and went inside to run heavily up the stairs, I couldn't help feeling that she was a couple of words short.

Yesterday I was just on my way out and actually heading for the door when there was a knock. It was yet another parcel delivery guy.
"Can you take some parcels for next door?" He asked chirpily.
"No, sorry," I said, and was immediately gripped by guilt over the fact that both my neighbourly and my Christmas cheer had deserted me.
"Oh," he said, standing forlornly in the rain.
"The thing is," I said, "Is that I am not a bad person. Only they've decided to do all their Christmas shopping online and keep getting parcels delivered. Twice this week I've taken parcels for them and they haven't bothered to come round and get them from me. They just waited for me to take them round for them. And then when I took them round they never said thanks or even treated me as if I was doing them any kind of a favour. It was like they just expected me to be their personal parcel delivery depot. And they told me they were expecting all their gifts delivered this year. Yet they never thought to mention that it might be happening and say "Oh, by the way, I've got some parcels coming this week. Would you mind taking them in for me if I'm not here?' because I would do that, except they actually never even say hello or comment on the weather or anything so they'd never get that far. And what sort of person gets all their stuff online and then has it delivered to their house while they're out at work all day? Surely a sensible person would have it delivered to work so they can collect it themselves and then they can be sure they got it. So, even though I'm not a bad neighbour and it's Christmas I'm not taking their parcels any more. They can collect them from the depot."

"Okay," the increasingly cold and wet parcel guy said, "I'll try across the street."

It's Chriiiissstmaaasss! #2 The truth about nuts

It's Christmas and the supermarkets are jammed with food that we don't see for the rest of the year. My question is : If mince pies are that bloody nice then why are they only wheeled out for one month a year? If Turkeys and Cranberry sauce are so tasty and delicious then why only eat them once a year?

And nuts. Let's face it: nuts are made of wood, and eating them is about as much fun as eating wood. Brazil nuts are the worst. They are even coated in varnish fercrissake! Somewhere in Brazil there is a man giggling to himself as he saws the knobs off old mahogany chests of drawers and puts them into red plastic nets to sell to the gullible British come December. There's an awful lot of coffee in Brazil. That's because they keep all the decent brazilian stuff for themselves like coffee, sunny weather, football, bossa nova, girls on Ipanema beach in very small bikinis, and Fernanda Lima.

I don't know this for a fact, but I imagine Brazil nuts and the Christmas nut tradition stems from austere British wartime, when people were sold nuts as some kind of exotic treat to keep them happy in the face of death, depression and rationaing. Did nobody question why the apparently desirable, exotic and delicious nuts were available in such large quantities? i.e. that nobody else in the world wanted them because they are made of wood. They were probably cheap to import too, because, as (de facto) wood, they could be used for ballast.

Everyone complains that they put on loads of weight over the Christmas period. Well, perhaps this wouldn't happen if they didn't reflexively and, like ravenous squirrels, continuously munch on the bloody nuts that everyone feels they need to put out in little bowls over every spare flat surface of their homes. Because, by the way, the other ingredient contained in nuts, apart from wood, is FAT!

There is no point in disguising them anymore by mixing them with raisins. You cannot hide them. There is a reason why, historically, nuts have become synonymous with madness. You know I am right. Eating wood IS madness. The whole thing actually smacks of Milo Minderbinder's chocolate covered cotton.

today : It's chriiiissstmaaasss! #1 I watch films

Because it's coming up to Christmas, it is time for TV channels to show all of their Christmas movies as much as possible. The problem for them is that movies rights are so spread out these days that they struggle to come up with the one big Christmas movie event for everyone to watch. In recent years the BBC has shown both Titanic and Jurassic Park. The only problem is that by the time they appeared on Christmas day, everyone had already seen them about 100 times. I think this year's 'event movie is the little seen first Harry Potter film.

One thing that video, DVD and now movie channels has brought us is the ability to watch things again and again. In the olden days people who saw films several times were considered somewhat eccentric. In one of his plays Alan Bennett jokes about some woman in Leeds who'd seen The Sound of Music 55 times. These days she would be outstripped by almost any young child who has seen Cars or Toy Story or whatever WAY more than that, even before they've reached school age.

So I watched Love Actually again last night. I must have seen it about six or seven times now. I don't know why. Actually I do. When it first appeared on cable it was on heavy rotation and each time I flicked onto it I began watching and then watched it through to the end. Even little old selective me ends up doing this quite a lot. It sort of becomes a film-studies activity and even whilst I know there are probably better things to do with my time, I can't help feeling a little like Marty Scorsese in his screening room obsessively trying to watch every film ever made so I can then make documentaries about them.

The thing about Love Actually is that it is an excellent and fascinating piece of work that I think has been under-rated because it has an optimistic theme in a time when anything serious and feted has to be dark, edgy and downbeat. It kind of manages to jam what amounts to 8 different films into one, and switches wildly between froth, odd psycho-drama, hand-wringing relationship study, sketch comedy. light romantic comedy, slight straight romance, kids' movie, light satire and Christmas movie. Each time I watch it I become more and more interested in how it actually manages to work rather than appear as hideous mess. I am not sure who edited it but they did a brilliant job. Somehow the rhythms of each storyline are maintained, even though the film switches between the stories in a seemingly random way. The Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson story of a fading marriage is given long scenes where the actors can breathe and show off. After all Rickman and Thompson are two of the best, and she in particular as she gets older is quite brilliant at portraying the woman who is holding it all together whilst falling apart inside. Conversely the scenes with Laura Linney feature an equally serious and downbeat storyline yet is configured in short scenes.

The fact is that, for a 'romance' it is closer to Short Cuts or Magnolia than it is to Notting Hill. The secret is to watch it without the sound. Take away the rather syrupy musical montages and you have a character montage movie that skillfully creates its characters ,scenarios and stories in an economic and richly satisfying way.

today : I declare "geef me eten!", and acquire a Polish soul-mate

For reasons that aren't at all sinister but are complicated to explain, I made a new friend this week. Megi is Polish but is actually from The Netherlands. The reason we became friends is that we both have Catch 22 pretty much at the top of our favourite books list (just as an aside I have noticed a move amongst young people to converge the words best and favourite in recent years. If I was a language maven it would annoy me...okay, it does annoy me...but because it makes one of these useful words that I find valuable redundant. But with a chin-stroking David Crystal-like detached interest I find this interesting. That kids will refer to something as my best football team or my best pop group or my best trainers says something about the idea of quality in the current cultural climate. Is this some kind of sign that notions of good and bad and best and worst as relative concepts has finally taken hold, not just amongst academics and cultural commentators but among everyone. Is it something to do with the 'MYwhatever' idea? The notion that what YOU choose and consume is the most important thing in the world, regardless of any previously agreed objective notions of quality).

Anyway, the odd thing is that Megi and I both agree on our favourite scene from our favourite book. In amongst all the wonderful detail, the unbearable death of Snowden, the comic death of Kid Sampson, the old Italian guy in the brothel, the chocloate covered cotton or Clevinger disappearing into a cloud, our favourite scene (also Robert X Cringley's, it seems) is when Major ________ DeCoverley breaks the loyalty oath frenzy by demanding "Gimme Eat!"

How cool is that?* That a Polish girl who's actually from in Holland who reads Catch 22 in what is, effectively, her third language (or if we treat English English and American English as different languages rather than variations on a single language - her FOURTH language), has a favourite scene in an 800 page novel that is same as mine. This was discovered by accident too. It wasn't one of those things where people just agree with each other to be more appealing.

This, basically supports my theory that people are simply not unique, and that the more we find out about genetics, the less unique we will become. In fact, I kind of think that geneticists might put the final kaibosh on the myth that as individuals we are unique and special once and for all, which in turn will have rather serious implications for Myspace, My Favourites, My Media Library and 'My best trainers'. I reccommend that someone copyright OurSpace as a brand name immediately for long term gain.

*there is also the issue, which we discussed, about how Europeans are frequently better at speaking and understanding English than the English. The English (Trevor Brooking, par example) are rubbish at other peoples' languages.

today's unsung cultural icon is...

Penfold
(as voiced by the peerless Terry Scott)

today's iconic and old-fashioned looking food product is...

They're cheap and yummy!

today : I enter the murky world of international espionage

The last days and death of Alexander Litvinenko have been sad. Anyone dying is, really. But the media furore has been typical of lots of stories recently that have displayed similarities.

Earlier this week the assassination of Pierre Gemayel was reported as 'prominent critic of Syria assassinated'. The implication placed inside the headline being that it was the Syrians wot did it. That might well be the case, but I doubt the journalists and newsreader reporting this could provide evidence and sources to back up this assumption.

Similarly, Mr Litvinenko's condition was described as a definite case of poisoning by Thalium. I am reading between the lines here and thinking that Thalium poisoning is a traditional KGB way of offing people, and that someone, somewhere has either planted the story or made assumptions that almost immediately became the truth. It now turns out that it wasn't Thalium, but something else. And actually don't we have a coroner to decide the cause of death in this country? A connection was instantly made to the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. In fact, it appears most of the information surrounding this case was provided by Litvinenko's friends, and eagerly gobbled up by the media, who palpably became excited to be reporting on what feels like a real life episode of Spooks or 24. The media became desperate to run with the story. Spies and shady assassinations are so glamorous ( and for some reason the Sushi bar connections adds something to this glamour. I am guessing it is a Sushi bar know well by journalists, making them feel closer to the story). All the while acting surprised that an ex-KGB officer has ended up dead. I always thought that possible death was something you signed up to when you joined a spy service.

But as yet there is no evidence that Litvinenko was killed by the FSB, neither is there hard evidence that Putin's cronies offed Anna Politkovskaya.

I am not saying that neither might not turn out to be true. But nobody questions the motives of figures such as Boris Berezovsky, another Russian exile, or former Chechen commander Akhmed Zakayev - who all seem reasonably high profile and plugged into the network of media that are reporting the story. Who is investigating their agenda? We know from watching TV and films that not everybody is as they seem. Murk can obfuscate both ways (and almost invariably does). I'm not saying these people are operating on a shady agenda, only wondering if this question has been asked.

24 hour news has created an instant tabloid approach to news reporting. Misbah Rana was kidnapped by her father to be forced into marriage until proved otherwise, MMR causes autism until proved otherwise, Litvinenko was killed by the FSB using Thalium until proved otherwise (Gregory House, of course, would have found out what it really was). In the old days such things were pursued by the Insight team or on TV the World in Action or Panorama team. These days Newsnight might task someone to unpick the murky threads of such a story and separate the real truths from the myths, assumptions, insider briefings and gossip. Weeks, months or sometimes years went by whilst committed and professional journalists found the meat and potatoes of a story and then wrote about it. 24 hour news is Turkey Twizzlers and instant mash by comparison.