Just Leave Things Alone, Please!

I’m in a very huffy mood about Bassett’s Liquorice Allsorts. I’ve always liked the things, despite the groaning noise that comes from the depths of my stomach whenever I open a bag. But they keep changing the things, adding new allsorts (not good) and taking away old favourites (worse).

Needless to say Bassett’s are a division of Cadbury Schweppes PLC along with Dentyne, Trebor, Stimorol, Halls, Maynards and others. The company boringly states that “Bassett's three most important varieties are: Liquorice Allsorts, Jelly Babies and Wine Gums. Also greatly enjoyed are Bassett's Bags in a number of well-known flavours including American Hard Gums, Murray Mints, Sherbet Lemons, Pear Drops, Everton Mints, Imperials, Mint Creams, and Fruit, Lemon, Strawberry or Toffee Bon Bons.”

Not content with Liquorice Allsorts, Bassett’s have developed “liquorice-free” Fruit Allsorts. Bah, where’s the world going to? What was wrong with the original 1899 sweets which George Bassett accidentally dropped on the floor (thus “inventing” the allsorts range)? Why did they have to add a blue “Michelin Man” to the mix? Etc, etc.

Thank heavens that there are still people around such as (on the web) http://www.thepinksugarmouse.com/SWSTLIAL. Long may they flourish!

All Choked Up

The big problem with “re-instating” around 2,000 book titles on Amazon (see previous post about the Internet hijacking) has been the huge blockage suffered by our email server. Every time a book is re-listed an email is automatically generated by Amazon and sent to my company’s email server. The email server then copies the email to several different addresses including my personal Hotmail account. You can do the maths! That’s at least 6,000 emails swimming around in a short period of time. Result – online indigestion. Like a blocked drain we have had to repeatedly switch the thing “on” and off”. Only now (a full three days after we finished the re-listing process) are we beginning to get a free flow of regular spam - intermingled with the occasional order - again.

Anyway, enough of technology! I’m still choked up with my coughing fits (now in their third week). The blazing straw-stack has eventually been extinguished after the better part of seven days. The wife has been given a Star Wars “storm trooper” boot by the local hospital in the hope that it will clear her tendon trouble. She clumps about the house in this thing (occasionally pausing to inflate it with a special pump), terrifying the cat and the bantams, and giving everyone plenty of warning about impending appearances. The daughter who is still in residence has decided to diet (so no more sloping off to the pub). It’s all too much. I feel in need of a wholly undeserved holiday

The Fire’s Gone Out and I’ve been Hijacked

It’s Sunday morning and after burning for three nights our straw-stack fire has stopped blazing. Like the Ranting Nappa it is sure to be still smouldering somewhere deep down, but the flames are gone and I think I’m cured of Hiawaffling at last.

However I’m not cured of the wretched cold and cough that have been my companions for over a week now. I’m still coughing something horrible and, last night, blew out half a tooth during a hacking fit.

I would have stayed away from work on Friday had I not been successfully hijacked on the Thursday evening. No, not by the daughter (who has been in residence and who did lure me down to the local after supper for a couple of pints), I was well and truly hijacked by an Internet fraudster.

What the nasty person did was to figure out (somehow) the password that accesses my little company’s seller account on www.amazon.co.uk. Having hacked his way in he changed various details so that I could no longer access the account which lists around 2,000 different books that I offer for sale through Amazon. He (or she) then listed some new items like state-of-the-art plasma-screen TV sets at ridiculously cheap prices (like £1,3000 each) with a footnote that potential customers should contact the fraudster direct for an even better deal. I guess that my site had been targeted because I have a good “feedback” rating with very positive comments from nearly 500 customers in the last 12 months. Thus the customer would feel that my business was to be trusted whilst being lured into giving credit card details directly to the hijacker. Yucky, eh?

Anyway, in the end little damage has been done, except that my “account” had been closed down as soon as trouble was suspected (by Amazon) and the wife and I have had to spend the weekend manually re-listing the two thousand books.

Cough, cough, splutter, splutter!

Burning Wigwam

From his windows, through the summer,
Nappa watched the farmers working.
Sussex downlands rich with barley,
Harvested with skill and caring,
Bales of straw like buildings climbing,
Higher, wider, plastic covered.
Then came youngsters playing loudly,
Hurling down the great bales of straw.
The farmers then built stronger stacks,
Larger yet to foil the youngsters
Difficult to climb and tamper,
Ready for transporting far away.
Then last night the mists descended,
From his windows no fine vistas,
For the Nappa to consider.
Then in morning came the knowledge,
Something burning amongst the mists.
Nappa walking for his papers,
Quickly came to understand:
Policemen out directing traffic,
Firemen using Main Street hydrants,
In the mists the stack was blazing,
Local lads had done their torching.
Through the long day the Nappa toiled,
Books to Cyprus, bills to be paid.
When in evening home he drove,
No more mist but clearly showing,
Was the farmers stack still blazing.
Firemen watching, waiting, patient,
As again the mists rolled downward.
So the Nappa closed his windows,
To stop cold air and insects both,
And more, the acrid smoking straw.

Like my cold and cough, I just cannot shake off the Song of Hiawatha. Longfellow took a year and a half to write his thing, so that's my excuse for this appalling doggerel.
Maybe tomorrow I'll have shaken it all off.

Hiawatha-Speak

I sloped off early from work yesterday afternoon, and while driving home listened to part of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha being read (brilliantly) by Geoffrey Whitehead on Radio 4. Everyone remembers the haunting rhythm of the thing:

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.

Apparently the 8-8-8-8-8 meter was nicked from the sacred Finnish epic poem Kalevala which in English goes like this:

In primeval times, a maiden,
Beauteous Daughter of the Ether,
Passed for ages her existence
In the great expanse of heaven,
O'er the prairies yet enfolded.
Wearisome the maiden growing,
Her existence sad and hopeless,
Thus alone to live for ages
In the infinite expanses
Of the air above the sea-foam,
In the far outstretching spaces,
In a solitude of ether,
She descended to the ocean,
Waves her coach, and waves her pillow.

Maybe not so gripping as Hiawatha, but still there’s the lilting rhyme again which Mike Oldfield also used in his 1978 album Incantations with Maddy Prior singing Hiawatha.

Like a popular jingle it sticks in your head. So much so that I woke up this morning thinking in Hiawatha-ese:

Ipswich-Norwich so distressing,
In Coca-Cola’s football league,
Sunday’s game, a one-nil beating,
The goal from Darren Huckerby.
Tearful mother, distraught brother
Angry at the ref’s decision
Sito shown the unfair red card.
Then on Tuesday, lowly Grimsby
Smash the smug and smarmy Spurs,
Huge delight for Haddock-lovers.
A single minute from full time,
Kalala strikes a goal sublime.
Wednesday’s treat, more the pity
Ain’t good news for proud Man. City,
Doncaster Rovers this time up
Show penalties can win the Cup.

Anyhow, I'd better get back to my wigwam and smoke a pipe of peace....

Women!

I don’t think I’ll ever understand how women's minds work. Getting dressed yesterday morning I put on clean underpants. I was, after all, going to a memorial service and wanted to look my best. Furthermore they were my favourite red and white striped boxer shorts – a gift from none other than the wife.

“I don’t want to make you angry,” she ventured from across the bedroom, “But wouldn’t it be more sensible to wear darker underpants?”

I looked at her in bewilderment.

“You’re wearing your suit, you see, and you haven’t worn it for months. It will be full of moth holes. People will see your pants through the holes….”

Damned Weather, Ken Clarke and “Yes, Dear”

Crisp blue sky, a beautiful sunny Sunday morning and so much to be done - cars to be washed, grass to be mown, excursions to be made (and that’s before one even starts to think about golf). And so what do I do? I spend the whole damned day feeling sorry for myself as I sweat through “the last of the summer colds”. The excursion is to Petersfield to buy Kleenex tissues, Benylin Day & Night and LemSip powders (Max Strength). The grass gets neglected, the cars get neglected, and I feel lousy.

It’s time to rant about Ken Clarke. Obviously he’s the best qualified candidate to lead the Tories – that is if you judge these things on experience and the well-tested law of “Buggins’s turn, next”. Well, it would be a calamity for the Conservative Party, probably a near-terminal calamity if he were to be elected. Watching him on TV this morning he carries all the scars and baggage of the last Conservative government (all those years ago), and is palpably the wrong man for the job. He just doesn’t have the charisma (or youth) to stand any chance of winning an election. The Tories must produce a new Disraeli, a top-class statesman to bring a sense of vibrancy to Parliament and put an end to the stagnancy and cynicism of the “New Labour” epoch in British politics.

Who else to rant about? Kate Moss and Wayne Rooney are way outside my league. If I made as much money as them at their respective ages, and was as good doing what I do as they are doing what they do (wow, that’s a bit convoluted), then I might be qualified to comment. They’ll both end up with peerages for distinguished service to British football/fashion and people will laugh at their youthful misdemeanours.

I’ll end on a cautionary note – on the dangers of auto-response. You know, you’re sitting watching TV or trying to do a Sudoku puzzle and the wife fires a series of questions at you – mostly trivial and unimportant. Lulled by a sense of false security you switch on auto-response and reply “yes, dear” to every question while paying more attention to other matters. Suddenly (as happened last night) I found that I had agreed to go on a research project “boot camp” to lose weight. Oh, strewth. I know that I have a Pickwickian problem holding my trousers up nowadays (Humpty Dumpty wore bracers), but this is ridiculous.

Writing Skills and Social Graces

I was a bit glum yesterday having experienced considerable difficulty trying to write a letter of condolence. However hard I try the result always seems unsatisfactory and unlikely to bring much in the way of comfort to the bereaved. It is just not one of my social graces (in the same way as the Cha-Cha-Cha is not one of my social graces).

Maybe I’m not built to be a writer. The Great British Novel is still my ambition but my attempts at putting pen to paper have not been going brilliantly well. My non-fiction debut was to have been the ultimate guide to running a business (written by someone who has made so many mistakes in this area that he knows it all). But it is very tedious penning predictable chapter after chapter. It’s rather like writing a school history essay where you are meant to use a formula to produce a passable result by plotting each paragraph to a specific theme (introduction, political impact, social impact, economic impact, etc., through to conclusion), so whatever the subject matter you have enough of a framework in place to scrape through your history A Level (as I did).

I’ve been studying prose styles and listening to interviews with contemporary authors who go on interminably about the months of careful planning, preparation, research, etc. Oh, how dull!

And then up popped Minette Walters on the radio yesterday. She was talking about her new book The Devil’s Feather and was asked about how she planned her books. She replied that when she wrote she had no idea how the plot would turn out, and that it would be extremely dull if she did. Her books just develop as she writes them.

That’s my kind of writing – utterly spontaneous. Now all I have to do is to get round to doing it.

Good days for St George

Not only a terrific Last Night of the Proms on Saturday night with extraordinary performances from the likes of counter-tenor Andreas Scholl and guitar legend John Williams, but also all the fun of having people in Glasgow, Belfast and Swansea involved in a complex TV link and trying to figure out exactly why they were singing England’s adopted anthem – Jerusalem? But the Ashes as well! Three or more cheers, please, for the triumphant English team, and a deserved pat on the back to the Australians who put up some brilliant opposition. More pats on the back for those members of the England squad who kept pace with Andrew Flintoff (still celebrating at 6.15 the following morning).

When St Peter gets to ask me a few questions I hope he doesn’t delve too deeply into matters ecological. You see I have been a shopkeeper in my time and, by a modest reckoning, I have purchased over 100,000 plastic carrier bags which have been given freely to my bookshop customers. That’s a lot of nasty plastic.

French supermarkets, bless them, no longer give out flimsy plastic carriers. The things are now outlawed in France! You make your purchases and you make your own arrangements as to how you are going to cart them home. Certainly you can purchase at the till a reusable bag, and some “hypers” will go through an elaborate procedure of charging you for one, and then giving you credit due to the size of your purchases (Auchun does this).

How long, then, before we Brits show a spark of environmental awareness and try to pull off a similar coup. Ages, I guess, before the Asda’s, Sainsbury’s, Tesco’s, and Morrison’s and their political advisors and lobbyists can collectively agree on a start date for an experimental phase to be launched in a test area (my guess will be Sunderland) in 2007 for a three month period with counselling laid on for suffering shoppers, and a special dispensations being awarded to the local police and social services for associated trauma and suffering.

Meanwhile the daughter reports of the difficulty in renewing Car Tax nowadays. She got the letter from the DVLA, assembled the documents (and cash), and patiently waited for 15 minutes in the queue at her local Post Office.

“No!” came the answer from behind the counter. You’re too early. We cannot issue October car tax until the 15^th of the month, but I’ll check your documents all the same. The Ranting Nappa surprisingly refreshes his Car Tax online. No need for “documents” as Big Brother examines your MOT and Insurance details via the National Database and you get the Tax Disc three days later (by mail).

Ho, hum! I think I’d better get the car out and fill her up with fuel. I haven’t done so since yesterday. Not that I’m panicking….

French Leave

We’re spending a few days in France. There are plenty of cows, not much sign of the sheep, a new wild cat trying to adopt our house (white with black blotches), and, to the amazement of the wife, a nuthatch. This is a small and apparently rarely seen bird that picks nuts from trees and then attempts to smash them outside our kitchen window.

We crossed the channel by a hovercraft operated by Speedferries. This is the no-frills, cheap-ticket way of crossing and you go from Dover to Boulogne which saves a few miles on the journey as well. Customer service however is pretty much non-existent (you amend your booking at your peril – and you are made to pay an “amendment surcharge” if Speedferries ever reply to your email). Speedferries also have a strange sense of timing. Our crossing was scheduled to depart at 14.45 and to take 45 minutes. We arrived at Dover Western Dock (the busy one with P&O et al.) at 14.15 and had only just boarded before the big, Australian-built craft set off. By 14.45 we were well clear of the harbour and enjoying the view of the fast-receding white cliffs. At 15.30 English time we were docked, on schedule, at Boulogne, but in reality the journey-time was an hour – we had weighed anchor, or whatever hovercraft do, by 14.30.

For the second year running my cousin Tim (see photo and note gaudy shirt and badge) is doing the Royal British Legion bike ride from London to Paris (see the dedicated website http://www.poppybike.org.uk/events/paris2005.asp for more information) and again we intercepted him at his refreshment stop just a few miles from our village. He is getting wiser in his old age having mastered the art of slipstreaming behind well built ladies. This way he saves himself a lot of pedaling and has time to enjoy the view. I thought that I was doing him a favour by reporting the latest Test Match news from the Oval but found that several of his fellow cyclists were wearing earphones with radios tuned to Test Match Special.

Tim invited me to join them for a few kilometers or so on my own bike but, having sweated up a few hills on the short journey to buy baguettes and croissants each morning, I know my place. Poor Tim would probably be a day late arriving in Paris if he had to hang around for the Ranting Nappa to fight with his gears on the uphill bits, even for “a few kilometers”.

Mugged by Lawrie Sanchez – Again!

I warned the wife before England’s football World Cup qualifier that Northern Ireland wouldn’t be a pushover, especially with Lawrie Sanchez in charge. How right I was!

Back in 1987, when I first became a Wimbledon supporter, Sanchez was a regular first team player. He came from a strange background (Irish mother, Ecuadorian father, but born in London) and was already a Wimbledon favourite, especially as it was a Sanchez goal that had taken Wimbledon into the First Division a year earlier.

He had come to Wimbledon on a £30,000 transfer from Reading where his main claim to fame was as the first footballer in the English league to be sent off for a professional foul.

In 1988 I was fortunate enough to be at Wembley to watch unfancied Wimbledon’s notable FA Cup Final victory against Liverpool. On that occasion, of course, the only goal was scored by Lawrie Sanchez.

Thirteen years later in 2001 the boot was on the other foot. I was still a Wimbledon supporter but Sanchez was now manager of lowly Wycombe Wanderers – very undistinguished performers from the Second Division.

I remember being at Selhurst Park on the bleak February evening when Wycombe played for a place in the Quarter Finals of the FA Cup. The Wycombe underdogs famously beat Wimbledon in a penalty shoot-out, and then Sanchez’s team went on to beat Leicester at Filbert Street in the next round before losing to Liverpool (just) in the Semi-Finals.

John Motson was with the Northern Ireland team on Tuesday when they were training for the match against England (on a “player identification” mission before doing his BBC TV commentary). "Lawrie's team talk was magnificent, stirring and made the hair stand on the back of my neck" said Motty. "It was a real battle cry to the troops."

So beware the underdog, particularly if a man of Irish-Ecuadorian parentage is in any way involved.

Caught on Radar

It happened on Friday afternoon. A nice sunny day and a short hill to climb in my noisy old Ford Fiesta on the road from Bordon to Petersfield. At the top of the hill that splendid road sign which denotes the end of a speed limit and beside it, a police car with camera. Bollocks! If I get a ticket I think I’ll appeal on the grounds that it is mechanically impossible to get my car’s ancient diesel engine over 30 mph in the distance between the mini roundabout and the top of the hill.

I was caught again on Saturday, but in a rather different way.

I took the day off to watch Hampshire versus Warwickshire at Lords. A great day for quaffing wine and champagne, lager and Guinness, eating lots and, given the amiable company of the older brother and his ex-lodger, every opportunity to rant away on any number of subjects. I recall the following in particular:

Whatever happened to Cheeselets? For years we used to munch Cheeselets with our midday glass of wine at cricket matches, and then a dreadful thing happened. Europa Foods (purveyors of Cheeselets to the gentry) were bought out by Tesco. The product range at the shop accordingly had to conform to supermarket rules and one of these is that Cheeselets are only sold at Christmas. Bollocks, again! At least my village pub still manages to sell them, but they’re damned difficult to find anywhere else.

Whatever happened to Warwickshire Supporters? I got really angry when, ten overs before the end of the match, the Brummies decided that they had lost and all went home. By the time poor Douggie Brown came out to bat (at number 7) he was greeted with almost total silence. Nick Knight’s impressive innings was warmly applauded, but mostly by Hampshire supporters and MCC members (I learned later that even the “dangerous looking crowd from Southampton” stood for him).

Business Rates were another rant. I had gone to Lords via Holborn and had detoured past my old shop in Sicilian Avenue – still empty and sad eighteen months after I vacated the premises. The landlords have money and can afford to hold out for exorbitant rents from the next tenants, while the London Borough of Camden allow them to go rate-free because the premises are unoccupied. How darned stupid. No wonder property prices are so inflated.

Being English, and yet all three of us avid readers of books by of Robert B Parker, the older brother and I challenged his ex-lodger to get his mind around “Box Scores”, we both having finished Parker’s book about Jackie Robinson (the first coloured American to play major league baseball in the US). I suppose it was fitting that we were watching cricket (a total mystery to most Americans), while agreeing that we couldn’t make head-nor-tail of the way baseball scores are reported in the American press.

Ranting apart, more light-headed buffoonery was provided by the brother as he showed how, as an umpire, he would signal a wide which also counted as four.

But what has all this to do with being caught on radar (unless Channel 4 captured the elder brother's antics)?

Well this morning, having recovered my health from the previous day, I strolled round to the Village Stores to collect the Sunday papers (head down lest I was spotted by worshippers coming away from the Family Eucharist service). The shop was bustling with people and all conversation was about the cricket at Lords. Peter (him behind the counter) spotted me and said, “Well I saw you on the train, yesterday, you must have been there, as well as all of us.”

I gulped nervously. “You mean you saw me going, or coming back?” I ventured. “Oh, on the platform at Petersfield station bright and early in the morning.” came the reply.

Phew! My condition on the return journey was not (if I remember at all correctly) much to be proud of. Dishevelled and very sleepy I only got two things right – waking up in time for Petersfield (rather than being thrown off the train at Portsmouth Harbour), and phoning the wife to come and collect me. But it does serve as a warning. More often than not, you are being tracked by someone’s radar, even if you are not aware.

Good Intentions

Well I thought that I’d figured out a strategy for Success in Life. All you need is to have the following four elements firmly in place and you should have it made:

The “Master Plan”

Whether for your personal life or for your business life, a “statement of intent” or “Master Plan” covering the next couple of years or so is an absolute necessity.

“Plan B”

We all know that “Master Plans” rarely succeed. So it is pretty much essential to have your fallback plan (also covering the next couple of years) ready for immediate implementation.

Luck

The best laid plans of mice and men…yea, even if your plans leave nothing to chance, then the ceiling will fall in, or you’ll be run over by a bus. All plans need luck and good fortune in some measure and you are unlikely to get much assistance in this regard if you don’t allow for it. So take the odd risk, and buy the odd lottery ticket.

The “Exit Strategy”

Not all plans work, and not everyone has luck on their side. Everyone should have a last-resort fallback plan which can take effect if the “Master Plan” and “Plan B” fail to work out and Luck does not materialise. If all else fails….

The only flaw in this brilliant grand design for life is that it doesn’t always work. My business and I have tried them all and I am left wondering “what comes after the exit strategy?”

The S & M Sermon

I’ve been meaning to preach the S & M sermon for quite a while. It’s a personal thing, you see, something that I’m totally serious about, and so I need to express myself very carefully.

As I get older I wonder from time to time (as do a lot of people I should think), “If I could start my life afresh what would I do differently?”

Well the answer is simple. I would have taken Sport (the “S” in my S & M) more seriously in my childhood. Particularly (and this applies to me personally), I should have concentrated my humble efforts on one team game – cricket, and one individual sport – golf. And, later, I should have been more insistent that my children chose sensible sports and I should have made more effort to ensure that they participated in them at every opportunity and hopefully excelled in them. Sport of all kinds educates the mind as well as the body, and helps you understand how to achieve goals both as an individual and as part of a group.

As for the “M” in my S & M, that stands for Music. How I wish that I had been actively encouraged to learn the piano when a child. How envious I am of those who can read music and make musical instruments come alive. Sure, I dabbled with a double bass as a teenager, but I should have been more serious about it. And, again, I should have been more insistent that my children chose sensible instruments and persisted at least for as long as it takes to be able to read music and to get genuine pleasure from playing. As in sport, music demands that you participate both as an individual and as a group.

The theme of the “S & M Sermon” is that, in the world today, proponents of sport and music are doing more for world unity than any amount of politicians or preachers, soldiers or diplomats, and accordingly should be encouraged in all people at all times.

When sportsmen and musicians decide to help stricken areas of the world the effect is immediate and, often, inspiring. Take this year’s Tsunami fund-raising events in many sports, (rugby and cricket stand out for me). Vast amounts of money were raised very quickly and put to immediate effect, and much of the £300 million pounds donated in the UK came out of S & M events.

Sir Bob Geldof’s Live 8 appeal to “make poverty history” stands out in 2005 as an incredible illustration of how pop music can work for others less fortunate. Another ambitious unifier is the World Orchestra for Peace, founded by Sir Georg Solti and now under the baton of Valery Gergiev, which brings together some 100 classical musicians drawn from around 80 different orchestras in 40 countries from Latvia to Cuba, via Japan, Korea and Kazakhstan. This deft amalgam of brilliant (unpaid) musicians is playing this year in London, Berlin and Beijing (marking the anniversary of the end of World War II) and may well be selected for ceremonies to mark the re-opening of Ground Zero in two years time. I hope so.

I’m not sure if the success of the Iraqi version of TV’s Pop Idol, has much to do with all this, but if a combination of football and Pop Idol can bring any sort of harmony and balance to that wretched, stricken land, then I’m all for it.

So, to conclude, I’m quite happy that sportsmen and musicians are amongst the most highly paid people on earth. I’m delighted that the Olympic Games will be held in London in 2012, and I’m pleased that Wembley Stadium is being rebuilt. And, I wonder, whose personal achievements of the leaders of our day will survive longest? Will it be Bush, Blair, Pope John Paul II, or Her Majesty the Queen, perhaps? I rather hope that Sir Bob Geldof outshines them all in history, because his contribution has been the most effective.

That’s enough of the sermon!