Blog

My life these days, is rather like a ride on a Big Dipper, I’m fit and well one day, suddenly out of the blue I am trapped in my house, by some monstrous inability. Just over a week ago I went to a hospital for a check-up, and it is a good thing I was there, because suddenly the room I was in rotatation about me, and I hit the deck with such force that I got whiplash, followed by Meneir’s disease, which is a clever name for being totally unstable, and having to resist falling about the place. In consequence writing has been out of the question, as indeed is practically everything else. Hence the apology. But when you’re in that condition one tends to dose, and when not dosing, cogitating on some of the most abstract and irrelevant considerations.

Physical contact
The era I was born in was a hang-over of the Victorian psyche, and physical contact, even in families was not as common by a mile, as it is today. I cannot ever remember my mother kissing me, even, to my surprise and disappointment, when I came back from a stint on convoy in the North Atlantic. All nature requires contact between the newly born and the mother. From that point contact between relatives and individuals is an essential part of learning and security. Put briefly, there is nothing like a hug, and at times of stress, loss and injury, physical contact is reassuring. The handshake, as we all know from our schooldays, has come down in time from the days when knights were bold, and the handshake indicated that there was no hidden agenda, such as a dagger up the sleeve. But the handshake today has all sorts of nuances, from a reawakening of a past friendship, to the closing of a deal.

We all know that physical contact can also be abrasive, as on the field of sport, or behind the cycle shed at school. I have found it interesting to think of all the different ways in which we communicate between ourselves, and to some extent with the animal kingdom, all by touch. The passing pat on a shoulder, at a function, signifying friendship and acknowledgment. The touch of the schoolmaster’s hand, and again on the shoulder, after looking at some work, noting approval. Contact has its own language, which is related to circumstances and geography, but today, when I see so much hugging and kissing between total strangers meeting for the first time, bearing in mind my own history, I find it totally over-the-top, and meaningless. In the entertainment world hugging and kissing has totally different nuances, it can be used by an individual to draw attention upon themselves, to give the appearance of being on equal status, and very often is just as meaningless

If you were to ask my family what I know about sport, and football in particular, they would laugh, and they would be right, because I gave up playing soccer when I was 10 years old. However, that doesn’t stop me from having a view on the way the Germans have been playing. I am firmly convinced that what they have been doing has been a matter of set pieces, derived from an incredible amount of research, and a lot of training and discipline. I have listened to the pundits on television, and to the best of my knowledge no one has suggested this. I set myself a problem of how I would approach making a team world champions, and decided that the only way to do it is by analysis and training’

Initially, I would take a number of mathematicians, a vast amount of recorded video of the games of the top teams in the world. These would be carefully examined with respect to defence, and attack. A study of about 10 of each of the best systems would emerge, these would then be analysed, set pieces derived, the players of the Cup team would rehearse them, until they wwere second nature, and then they would be made to play against some of the top teams in the country, and the results of these matches analysed again.

That goal that Germany scored against England, where the goalkeeper kicked the ball the length of the field, almost to the toe of a member of the attack, was not luck, it was a well practiced set piece. In the match with Argentina two of the goals were almost identical, the ball was taken down on the outside, a pretence was made to appear to be attacking goal, but what they were doing was playing back to a man standing on a 10 yard line, in the centre of the field to take the ball and score, with the goalkeeper taken off guard by this system. The fact that it was done twice successfully convinces me it was a set piece. Similarly the goal which was scored from a place kick as a result of a foul, was also a set piece. It is not difficult to engineer a foul in such a way that the opposition are blamed for it. In this case the man taking the kick was not looking at the goal but at the far side of the field, and consequently the Argentineans were also. I believe that that man had practiced that kick time and again so he could do it with his eyes shut, and curl the ball to within feet of his colleague standing in front of goal.

By the same token, it was rare for more than four men to be in the attack, while there would be seven well-versed in positions necessary to form a phalanx that would inhibit any attack. If you can stop the opponents from scoring you have any two to one chance of not being beaten, you will either win, or draw and then be faced with shots at goal. So it is safer to maintain a highly trained defence team with many options of the pattern of where and how they stand or manoeuvre. I am firmly convinced that this is a totally new, and highly technical approach to training a football team. With this in mind it will be interesting to watch the Germans in their next match.

Today we are very busy, our lives are so full we tend to accept what people say without question. Very often what they have said is a half-truth or even a downright lie, but we don’t question it. These advertisements that keep reappearing on television are a case in point, in that they make broad statements of the efficacy of the product that is totally spurious. They make protestations about the necessity to keep germs away from toilet bowls. As far as I’m concerned the only time I ever touch a toilet bowl is when I’m cleaning it or carrying out a repair, normally I don’t touch it at all, or I sit on it and my buttocks touch the edges, so what is all the fuss about? They always bring children’s health into the equation as a sort of spur, when it is nothing more than a form of blackmail. They make statements like, ‘this is the only product which clears all the germs. A bucket of bleach would probably be an awful lot better. In other words, by not questioning we are taking for granted anything people like to tell us, and the problem is that we act on it.

By the same token, governments tend to take for granted what they say goes, and it generally does, but from time to time they have to have U turns, because the public has woken up. People like myself, a lot of them a lot more wise, draw attention to statements made by politicians that are woefully inaccurate, but as I said above, we are so busy we tend to take note, but not act. Certain members of families are taken for granted, Mum for certain, Dad as a general rule, and it is the children who are generally in focus. Being taken for granted, on a daily basis can be psychologically debilitating, where the subject begins to consider him or herself virtually worthless. I have seen this happen, and I believe that it is our responsibility within the family to see to it that it doesn’t happen.

I would like you to read this opening paragraph because it’s approximately what I wrote in February 08, and I am now of the opinion that the situation is far worse, and I propose to demonstrate this fact, because I believe that the Charities Commission should be monitoring this. I will enlarge on this, further on.

Sophie and I have subscribed to some charities over many years long term and also one off. Now we are on a mailing list which is passed from charity to charity, and we are receiving junk mail and presents that we have no need of, but overall costing a fortune to purchase in the sort of quantities that would make it worthwhile, and wrap and post. Therefore, this process has long ago used up almost immediately, the small sum that we sent. I make this statement again because I am convinced that the maintenance of charities is now a marketing industry, supporting not only the charity’s staff but a number of marketing specialists. The nightly advertising on television, and the vast quantity of paper that comes through the letter-box, justifies this statement. What amounts to blackmail of the conscience should be outlawed, especially as it must, by its very nature, waste charity funds, and cause generous hearted people, often poor themselves, to part with money that may never reach the assumed destination, either through waste or through diversification at the other end.

We could not have avoided seeing the terrible photographs of children with deformed faces in I think, Africa. The voiceover said only a small amount of money for child was required to complete the operation, and make these children happy. I am of the opinion that the photography, script writing, travel and advertising rates on TV, if added to the cost of the office work and the operation, the overall number of children who would be treated might be a lot smaller than appears from the advertisement. There is no doubt that the picture of the children was heartrending and you have to be tough to decide that your money would be wasted if you subscribed. Today I had an interesting sideline on obtaining money for charities. A young friend of mine, going to a very forward-looking school, ran a sort of a short marathon for a particular charity and her friends and relatives coughed up, and she sent off quite a good amount. Almost immediately she was deluged with different approaches of collecting money, by the firm that she had sent the money to. This went on for a long period, and then she received a letter suggesting that she should make a sort of codicil in her will for the benefit of the charity. She was 12 years old.

Someone the other day was saying that they had a charity, I’m assuming they meant that they were contributing to a charity, as I can’t see the Charity Commission having to deal with hundreds of people setting up their own charities. This person had collected a four figure sum from friends and relatives as part of the cost for going out to this place where the charity was operating, presumably, to check up on how it is functioning and any problems. The total sum of the trip would be about four times what they had collected. In my experience a lot of these oversee charities seem to be the burden of a local senior religious figurehead. I would have thought that in the initial stages some member or members of the committee would have settled the way the charity was run in the foreign country, with triggers that would demonstrate if things were not right. I find that I hear regularly of people going abroad to check things out. However, to me, it would seem better that a system, run by a government agency, such as the Charities Commission, would have roving representatives, checking up on all charities. They would be more aware of any problems and how to solve them, and the costs to any individual charity would not run into four figures each time.

I was thinking about the last election, and my own take, which I posted, and how there was no real standard requirement that the politician had to pass through to determine his or her experience and ability for the job. In the very old days it was a sort of gentlemen’s club where people of the same ilk were virtually brought up together. Today people go to university to get a degree in political science, but how much experience they have other than the theoretical is something the committee of a constituency needs to know if they wish to adopt a particular person. Over these last few years we have seen some incredible mistakes being made, improper decisions, and self-aggrandizement at any cost. So I went right back to childhood as the basis of discovering experience and the way that this has changed over generations.

I have been fortunate enough, through marrying early, to have had the pleasure of seeing three generations growing up, and it is interesting that each generation has shown different responses to stimuli, than the others. Some time ago I wrote that the relative sophistication of generation upon generation was probably due to information being carried down collectively, through the genes. Thinking upon the statement further, and realizing that in my generation, married couples had their children early, and each subsequent generation, possibly through increased opportunities of leisure and pleasure, have had their children at a later age, I realized that the amount of information and the quality of it, passed on to the next generation, has increased generation by generation. I can only speak about those children that I have had considerable contact with, and I find that each generation has appeared to be more self-reliant at a very early age, and in general so interested in what they’re doing, that they are not bored enough to make nuisances of themselves.

Today, there is a demand by employers for people to have some sort of diploma. A diploma is only a certificate to say that a certain level of education has been reached, not necessarily at a very high level, and has no reference to experience. Whereas experience in his or her particular field, which is the vital element in an individual’s use to an employer, seems to be totally ignored except in the case of professional qualifications related to institutions, and were once also jealously guard by the trades, but now with people learning trades in colleges, rather than on the workbench, standards have fallen. So how does a constituency determine whether an individual is competent to carry out the complex work of the House of Commons? Today so many jobs require some form of diploma or degree, and yet people in the House, who are handling extremely vital, complex and in some cases shatteringly expensive decisions as mandatory, have no similar yardstick. From reading the handbills of the little band that I was offered in this constituency in the last election, there was obviously only one contender, and if that one had not been available, I shudder to think what we would’ve been getting.

I’ve been too long out of touch to comment on working hours of most of the trades, in my day it was eight o’clock in the morning to six at night, for the trades, nine to five for civil servants, posh offices like solicitors, accountants, and the rest had their own rules. Shops varied considerably, from a corner shop that opened at seven to sell newspapers to the men going to the yards, to 11 o’clock at night to catch the men leaving the pubs and wanting to buy cigarette. I often used to have to work nine to five, only the other way around, nine o’clock at night to five in the morning, when the roads were empty, and we could open up manholes, repair pipelines, and other work when the traffic was virtually nonexistent.

I expect you wonder what started this latest tirade, I’ll tell you. I visit Sophie in the Care Home at the same time on all days but Thursdays and Sundays. On Thursdays she has music and dancing, which she finds tiring, and Sundays others like to visit her. So that she knows when to expect me, I arrive every day before two o’clock, and leave about three fifteen. The roads are empty and I have an easy run in both directions. Today however I didn’t leave until three thirty, and the roads of the dual carriageway, in both directions, were head to tail as far as I could see. When I worked as a civil servant, just before I took retirement, the government introduced flexible working, which was intended that within certain bounds a man or a woman could adjust their working hours so they fulfilled their statutory hours, but in a different pattern. The limit in the evening was that you could not leave before four o’clock. I just wonder where all these cars came from, none that I saw contained children, so it wasn’t the mummy-run. I find it fascinating. At a time when we are in such financial difficulties I would’ve expected people to have their noses to the grindstone well after five o’clock.

Last night I was watching something or other on television and dropped off to sleep. Now I live alone, I tend to do this because the conversation is so dull. When I awoke I found that Newsnight was having a go at poor old Charlie, for having commented to a friend that he didn’t appreciate the architecture his friends was proposing. I will not go into the details because they are on the Internet. The architect in question, and presumably others, are proposing to sue Charlie for using undue influence in an area where he had no technical qualification, or something along those lines. These people anyway, were after his piggybank.

I have always liked and respected Charles, he has a tough life with people picking on him at every turn, and all he is doing mostly is voicing what most of us thinks. As you probably know I was a civil engineer, and the sort of work that we do doesn’t exactly lend itself to flights of fancy, it is reasonably impossible to try make a sewage Works look other than what it is. Architects on the other hand, like interior designers, if they are any good, obtain their work through word of mouth, which means that they are in competition with one another, which in turn means that they’re designs too must be original and eye-catching if they’re going to be successful. This in turn leaves the whole system open to people trying to out-do others of the same ilk. It’s not surprising that Charles has complained often, I have myself, but nobody will sue me because I have no influence.

So what is influence? Influence is only likely to be successful if there are financial considerations involved, for which the person doing the influencing stands to gain, or that what he says is seen to be reasonable and fair. From my reading of this case, the furore is concerned with itself losing money, and trying to blame it on Charles. I cannot see any reason why Charles cannot write to a friend giving his own views on what his friend is doing. It’s beyond belief that Charles has any financial interest in stopping the project, merely that he likes common consideration, not competition, to dictate planning policies in the interests of Great Britain. On the contrary he is well known for his concern about many things in this country, and voices them at regular intervals, to the approval of his many admirers. I tell you this, I would sooner have my backside rubbed with a brick than be a Royal!

I am of a generation who looked upon sport as a pleasure, for those on the touchline and for those playing, not something that was so important that it had grown men crying in public. When I was younger I played in amateur games, went to matches as a spectator, and watched sports on television like any normal person. Now, I rarely look at contact sport because firstly it is all too serious, secondly the level of dirty play has become unacceptable and vicious.

I was watching the Italian match yesterday and two things came out of it, the first was that the Slavs were highly trained, controlled and very fit. By contrast the Italians seemed to have no serious game plan, and also to operate on the basis that anything goes if you can get away with it. This is not the only match that I have watched, but I have come to the conclusion that the level of refereeing on such an important occasion as the World Cup, is blatantly abysmally low.

I therefore, stupidly, because no one will agree with me, offer a solution. The number of people involved in refereeing would need to be increased. Firstly there would need to be a panel of three experienced professional footballers high in the stands, watching the game, and portrayed on television, and reporting any adverse occurrences. Secondly there would need to be about two extra people on the two touchlines, in communication with the three in the stand, and with the referee, who, among them all, could then perhaps bring order to the conduct on the pitch.

There will always be people who don’t play by the rules, but sport is not that important that people’s health, and in some cases, their lives, need to be put in danger by some vicious, hot headed hooligan. Both systems of rugby are a prime example.