A new scandal has hit the BBC. Nothing to do with the numerous Savile-related enquiries, exceedingly large payoffs, or Lisa Riley doing the splits on "Strictly". No - according to the Evening Standard, two BBC News 24 presenters "have been banned from appearing on screen together after having an affair". It's hardly novel for journalists to be front-page (or in this case 11th-page) news and I doubt many people are greatly shocked.
What caught my eye though was a quote from "a friend" of Tim Willcox, whose profile rose when he covered the Chilean mine drama and who's now left his wife for a married colleague 15 years his junior. Said the friend, "He is... very honourable so all this will have been very difficult for him." Not half as difficult as for the dumped mother of his four children, I suspect.
And excuse me for being a little sensitive about this particular topic, but how did the word honourable creep into a sentence discussing a man's adultery? That's some strange word association. Cheating on your spouse may be exciting, middle-age-cliched, sordid, devious, or many other things. But whatever honour he could claim was left outside the bedroom door.
Monday, 26 November 2012
Monday, 26 March 2012
The hour of pain
I did a cycling time trial at the weekend.
You may know this discipline because of Bradley Wiggins, or the skinsuits that are even tighter than usual, or the helmets with a long tail, or the bikes slender enough to slice through concrete. Wiggins is one of the best in the world, although not as good as the Swiss powerhouse Fabian Cancellara or the German metronome Tony Martin. Back among the ranks of the mad amateurs, some of us ride these things because they're there. (I was going to write "for fun" but that's so far from the truth.) My pal Richard the bike shop owner has a specialist time trial bike worth thousands, but said the other day that he hates it because every time he rides it he knows he will suffer.
The French call it contre le montre and that is exactly true. Each entrant starts, rides and finishes alone, with only a pounding heartbeat and ticking clock for company. Sometimes (in my case often) a later starter may sail past but in essence it's a battle between man and the passage of time. Like life itself, then.
I'm told that time trials can become addictive, the quest for a personal best leading people to extremes. Perhaps it is like the search for the elixir of youth: a battle to turn back the gradual decay of age. Here is some of the knowledge I have accumulated:
1. To improve your personal best, train hard.
2. When you've trained hard, train some more.
3. After you've done that, spend a few grand on an air-slicing frame and disc wheels and get used to riding in a flat-forward position that would give most people sciatica.
4. Some courses are faster than others. If you really want to beat your PB, find one that's flat, has nice tarmac (not the claggy stuff in Kent) and isn't windy. This may mean driving dozens, or even hundreds, of miles every weekend in search of the perfect conditions. That's OK, as long as you shave off a second or two.
As to tactics for an individual event...
1. Ride the first half flat out. Then ride the second half flat out.
2. If you're sick after crossing the finishing line, that's OK: it's a sign you've given everything.
3. If you're sick before crossing the finishing line, that's bad: it's a waste of energy. And it makes a mess of your kit.
4. If at any point during the TT you don't think you're about to die, you aren't trying hard enough.
5. Acceptable reasons for putting in a slow time are: puncture, major mechanical (for example, chain snapped, handlebars fell off, wheel rims combusted under fierce braking).
6. Unacceptable reasons for not completing the course include: it was a bit chilly, my legs hurt, it was raining, I was out on the beer last night.
7. Acceptable reasons for not completing the course are: death, RTA.
8. If you are overtaken by an old lady on a shopper bike, time trials aren't for you. But you must still finish the course.
You might be wondering how I got on. It was not so much chilly as downright freezing and my legs hurt; but I hadn't been on the beer and suffered only a minor mechanical, so I beat my personal best. And it was only a 50-mile round trip.
You may know this discipline because of Bradley Wiggins, or the skinsuits that are even tighter than usual, or the helmets with a long tail, or the bikes slender enough to slice through concrete. Wiggins is one of the best in the world, although not as good as the Swiss powerhouse Fabian Cancellara or the German metronome Tony Martin. Back among the ranks of the mad amateurs, some of us ride these things because they're there. (I was going to write "for fun" but that's so far from the truth.) My pal Richard the bike shop owner has a specialist time trial bike worth thousands, but said the other day that he hates it because every time he rides it he knows he will suffer.
The French call it contre le montre and that is exactly true. Each entrant starts, rides and finishes alone, with only a pounding heartbeat and ticking clock for company. Sometimes (in my case often) a later starter may sail past but in essence it's a battle between man and the passage of time. Like life itself, then.
I'm told that time trials can become addictive, the quest for a personal best leading people to extremes. Perhaps it is like the search for the elixir of youth: a battle to turn back the gradual decay of age. Here is some of the knowledge I have accumulated:
1. To improve your personal best, train hard.
2. When you've trained hard, train some more.
3. After you've done that, spend a few grand on an air-slicing frame and disc wheels and get used to riding in a flat-forward position that would give most people sciatica.
4. Some courses are faster than others. If you really want to beat your PB, find one that's flat, has nice tarmac (not the claggy stuff in Kent) and isn't windy. This may mean driving dozens, or even hundreds, of miles every weekend in search of the perfect conditions. That's OK, as long as you shave off a second or two.
As to tactics for an individual event...
1. Ride the first half flat out. Then ride the second half flat out.
2. If you're sick after crossing the finishing line, that's OK: it's a sign you've given everything.
3. If you're sick before crossing the finishing line, that's bad: it's a waste of energy. And it makes a mess of your kit.
4. If at any point during the TT you don't think you're about to die, you aren't trying hard enough.
5. Acceptable reasons for putting in a slow time are: puncture, major mechanical (for example, chain snapped, handlebars fell off, wheel rims combusted under fierce braking).
6. Unacceptable reasons for not completing the course include: it was a bit chilly, my legs hurt, it was raining, I was out on the beer last night.
7. Acceptable reasons for not completing the course are: death, RTA.
8. If you are overtaken by an old lady on a shopper bike, time trials aren't for you. But you must still finish the course.
You might be wondering how I got on. It was not so much chilly as downright freezing and my legs hurt; but I hadn't been on the beer and suffered only a minor mechanical, so I beat my personal best. And it was only a 50-mile round trip.
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Blowing smoke
I see the good burghers of Top Gear are in trouble again. Not Jeremy Clarkson this time, but James May, for a fabricated sequence in which he's blocked in traffic by a bunch of learner drivers whilst trying to road-test a classic Ferrari. It turns out this was actually filmed more than two years ago and it was instructors, not learners, driving the cars. Was anyone surprised?
I have long been a fan of Top Gear but who still takes it seriously? As far as I can see, it's a sitcom. Any resemblance to a motoring programme past or present is purely coincidental. The presenters have become parodies of themselves: the brash, opinionated head of the household; the young, preening one; and the slow, arts-loving boffin. Even their hairstyles play along: Clarkson is clearly a man stuck in the 70s, May is a free thinker and doesn't care who knows it, Hammond could advertise grooming products. All this is blended with the petrolhead view of cars as representing freedom, far detached from the tax-motorists-till-they-bleed reality of modern Britain. Speed is king, which is why the testosterone-overloaded threesome often head to the open roads of mainland Europe to let rip in shiny supercars - that, and the consequent suntans, and possibly the opportunity to mock their own Britishness and their hosts' foreignness.
Some of the scripting is utterly brilliant. Give a medal to the man (somehow I don't think it was a woman) who wrote the lines by which Stig was introduced each week. And the imagination that lies behind some of the trio's adventures, is right up there with some of the great sitcom scenarios. The cross-channel challenge was excellent, so to the attempt to cross the Bering Sea. James May attaching a caravan to a hot air balloon? Genius. Richard Hammond building his own steam train replacement? I loved it.
My problem is that the programme too often crosses the line into clear "that's made up" territory. I haven't seen the driving lesson episode - it's among a backlog of recordings on my digital box - but recently Hammond and Clarkson filmed themselves directing the second unit of the film The Sweeney. They blew up a mobile home, destroyed several cars, argued about the finer points of traction control, crudely edited the rushes into a ridiculous chase scene (and plugged the film). They also met Ray Winstone and he had no idea who Hammond was. This is a man who, as a recent Pointless question highlighted, was The Star in a Reasonably Priced Car not so long ago. He was thus revealed as an actor, acting. This does beg the question: how many of the other "unwitting participants" in Top Gear are following instructions? Was the impressive train stunt in the India special completely fabricated? Is any of it real? I suspect the answer is that, like many great (and some dire) comedies it is improvised to a loose script, not spontaneous and uncontrolled as they would have us believe.
James May sells us a vision of freedom and ends up constrained, as part of a humorous construct? That seems an apt metaphor for Top Gear itself. Stop thinking so deeply about it, people; just sit back and enjoy the insults and the tyre smoke.
I have long been a fan of Top Gear but who still takes it seriously? As far as I can see, it's a sitcom. Any resemblance to a motoring programme past or present is purely coincidental. The presenters have become parodies of themselves: the brash, opinionated head of the household; the young, preening one; and the slow, arts-loving boffin. Even their hairstyles play along: Clarkson is clearly a man stuck in the 70s, May is a free thinker and doesn't care who knows it, Hammond could advertise grooming products. All this is blended with the petrolhead view of cars as representing freedom, far detached from the tax-motorists-till-they-bleed reality of modern Britain. Speed is king, which is why the testosterone-overloaded threesome often head to the open roads of mainland Europe to let rip in shiny supercars - that, and the consequent suntans, and possibly the opportunity to mock their own Britishness and their hosts' foreignness.
Some of the scripting is utterly brilliant. Give a medal to the man (somehow I don't think it was a woman) who wrote the lines by which Stig was introduced each week. And the imagination that lies behind some of the trio's adventures, is right up there with some of the great sitcom scenarios. The cross-channel challenge was excellent, so to the attempt to cross the Bering Sea. James May attaching a caravan to a hot air balloon? Genius. Richard Hammond building his own steam train replacement? I loved it.
My problem is that the programme too often crosses the line into clear "that's made up" territory. I haven't seen the driving lesson episode - it's among a backlog of recordings on my digital box - but recently Hammond and Clarkson filmed themselves directing the second unit of the film The Sweeney. They blew up a mobile home, destroyed several cars, argued about the finer points of traction control, crudely edited the rushes into a ridiculous chase scene (and plugged the film). They also met Ray Winstone and he had no idea who Hammond was. This is a man who, as a recent Pointless question highlighted, was The Star in a Reasonably Priced Car not so long ago. He was thus revealed as an actor, acting. This does beg the question: how many of the other "unwitting participants" in Top Gear are following instructions? Was the impressive train stunt in the India special completely fabricated? Is any of it real? I suspect the answer is that, like many great (and some dire) comedies it is improvised to a loose script, not spontaneous and uncontrolled as they would have us believe.
James May sells us a vision of freedom and ends up constrained, as part of a humorous construct? That seems an apt metaphor for Top Gear itself. Stop thinking so deeply about it, people; just sit back and enjoy the insults and the tyre smoke.
Monday, 30 January 2012
The soundtrack to my life
I have a confession to make: I used to be a fan of Michael
Bolton. In my defence, I was a teenager and Soul Provider was a classic
soft-rock album. On the scale of crimes against good taste, I'm someone who
delinquently nicked a few sweets from the corner shop, not a bank
robber.
This guilty secret came back to me while I was waiting for a
Sunday roast in the pub yesterday. Over the muzak dispenser came the
unmistakeable strains (in more ways than one) of the classic "How am I Supposed
to Live Without You". Somewhere in the back of my mind it stirred an anguish.
You might think that as I leave a broken marriage I would naturally be moved by
such a heart- (and ear-) rending song, but the lyrics are clearly about
unrequited longing. That is much more a teenage experience and I know that at
some point this particular song meant a great deal to me. But I couldn't recall
at whom my particular unrequited longing was directed. It set me thinking – and
service was so slow, I had plenty of time to think.
I’m not a great music lover. There are things I enjoy
listening to but I don’t need a constant background sound. Nonetheless I
realised during my lunchtime reverie that certain tunes are very meaningful to
me. I can never hear “Thank You for the Music” without thinking back to a
mundane childhood memory of sitting on the landing while Mum cleaned the
bathroom; she must have had the radio on and it just stuck. My German exchange
partner loved A-ha and “Take On Me” evokes homesickness in a crammed bedroom in
the Ruhr. “It’ll Be Lonely This Christmas”, apart from being surely the most
miserable festive song ever, always reminds me of a desperately awkward time in
my life, when I wanted to be with someone who I knew didn’t want me. Many years
have passed but I don’t think I will ever hear that song without a twinge of
sadness.
“When You Say Nothing At All” takes me back to the funeral of
my brother’s best friend, who died in a car accident before he’d really lived. I
don’t think there was a dry eye in the house when that was played – and not just
because it was the Ronan Keating version. I’ve had the song on my iPod more
recently; I must be mental. On a happier note, “Tubthumping” by Chumbawumba puts
a smile on my face every time I hear it. The stadium DJ played it straight after
Gillingham beat Wigan in the 2000 play-off final and it was an inspired choice.
“I get knocked down but I get up again/You ain’t never gonna keep me down”
caught perfectly the mood of the fans that day, a year after heartbreaking
defeat to Manchester City. Elation, exhilaration, defiance – the occasion feels
like yesterday.
While I was lost in memories in the pub, Mr Bolton faded away
to be replaced by Jon Bon Jovi singing “Bed of Roses”. It was an incredible
coincidence, because this is a song that’s very much in the present: it was
being played by a covers band at the very moment when I realised my marriage was
over. Doubly cruel is that it has long been one of my favourite songs, by one of
my favourite bands.
Sarah and I got together partly because of a shared love of
Bon Jovi - I lent her my Slippery When Wet album and accidentally got her
attention. Any similarity between the long-term survival prospects of a cassette tape and our
marriage is entirely coincidental. One of the last really good nights we had
together was watching Jon and his crew at the O2, and so for "Bed of Roses" to
wrap it up was probably fitting.
I am now in search of a song to reflect the next stage of my
life. These lyrics seem apt:
Dare I admit they are from a song by, er, Michael Bolton?
Gonna break from these chains around me
Gonna learn to fly again
May be hard, may be hard
But I'll do it
When I'm back on my feet again
Soon these tears will all be dryin'
Soon these eyes will see the sun
Might take time, might take time
But I'll see it
When I'm back on my feet again
Gonna learn to fly again
May be hard, may be hard
But I'll do it
When I'm back on my feet again
Soon these tears will all be dryin'
Soon these eyes will see the sun
Might take time, might take time
But I'll see it
When I'm back on my feet again
Dare I admit they are from a song by, er, Michael Bolton?
Friday, 6 January 2012
I wonder why
First things first, I'd like to wish a Happy New Year to both my readers.
Today, like Curtis Stigers, I've been doing a lot of wondering why. Here are a few of the things I've been wondering...
Why people think the stairs at London Bridge station in rush hour are a suitable place for a friendly natter.
Why any man would consider even for a second that jeans with elasticated bottoms could be a fashion worth adopting.
Why Ruth Jones has gone blonde for her new TV series.
Why the Shard was built.
Why Essex is The Only Way and why no one has yet thought of another way.
Why the brunette who I used to see on the train every day is no longer there to brighten up my evenings.
Why my front door lock is working perfectly again now the weather is milder, after keeping me outside for five freezing minutes at the weekend.
Why trains on the northern branch of the Kent Coast line take 10 minutes longer on the journey out of London than the journey in; and apparently take longer than they did before the Second World War.
Why I wasted three minutes of my life trying to recognise the participants of "Celebrity" Big Brother last night.
Why mango smells like cat urine.
Answers on a postcard please, or failing that the comments section at the bottom.
Today, like Curtis Stigers, I've been doing a lot of wondering why. Here are a few of the things I've been wondering...
Why people think the stairs at London Bridge station in rush hour are a suitable place for a friendly natter.
Why any man would consider even for a second that jeans with elasticated bottoms could be a fashion worth adopting.
Why Ruth Jones has gone blonde for her new TV series.
Why the Shard was built.
Why Essex is The Only Way and why no one has yet thought of another way.
Why the brunette who I used to see on the train every day is no longer there to brighten up my evenings.
Why my front door lock is working perfectly again now the weather is milder, after keeping me outside for five freezing minutes at the weekend.
Why trains on the northern branch of the Kent Coast line take 10 minutes longer on the journey out of London than the journey in; and apparently take longer than they did before the Second World War.
Why I wasted three minutes of my life trying to recognise the participants of "Celebrity" Big Brother last night.
Why mango smells like cat urine.
Answers on a postcard please, or failing that the comments section at the bottom.
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