Why I can't give them my vote

From left: Captain Cock-up, The Cable Guy and la-di-da Boy Scout Graham

For as long as I can remember, my wife and I have had differing political views.

She is a lifelong Conservative, while I - a trade union member since the age of 14!* - was either SDP, Lib-Dem or Labour depending on where my vote would damage the Tories most.

But this year we have at least agreed on one thing: that neither of us feel comfortable voting for either of the major parties.

That came home to us while watching Channel 4's I'm a Potential Chancellor ... Yes It's Hard to Believe Isn't it? last night. Actually she watched all of it, I just enjoyed edited highlights.

Just looking at the three of them up there - Alistair Darling, George Osborne and Vince Cable - was enough to turn me off.

One looks, admittedly, like a politician, though he's unlikely to get the opportunity to be chancellor even in a hung parliament. Of the others one looks like he should be the nemesis of children's TV legend Captain Scarlet, while the second looks like a boy scout who's having to face the music after being caught in a compromising position with his troop leader.

Bizarrely they all speak like that as well...

The Tories apparently - according to political commentators - regarded Osborne's appearance as a 'success' on the basis he did not make any gaffes. They can't do much about their concern that he is 'very posh'. Cripes Bunter! That gives us a great deal of confidence.

It should be of grave concern to the Tories that after 13 years of Labour rule, David Cameron is not way ahead in the polls. The fact that he is not Gordon Brown, is now, apparently, not seen as sufficient to drive people to vote Conservative.

How inadequate must the Tories be? I voted for Blair and even I've had enough of Labour after 13 years!

It was the former French leader Georges Clemenceau - not Winston Churchill incidentally - who said "Not to be a socialist at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head."

I'm now 46 and must be wanting in the head because I'm still left-leaning and have a social conscience. But I'm a lot closer to the centre than I was previously. And many of my contemporaries are, indeed, now right of centre.

But is it a change of social awareness or just the fact we get more cyncial as we get older? I certainly feel it's the latter. I'm much more cynical about everything to do with politics than I was 25 years ago. And I no longer have the motivation nor the inclination to protest strongly or to write a letter of ill-informed complaint to my local newspaper about whatever gets my goat.

I'm sure the urge to write the letters will resurface when I get to about 60 though.

The crux of the matter for me is that I simply don't trust people in high office. I don't believe what they say and always feel there is an ulterior motive in everything they do that I agree with. I would not be surprised if other people of my generation were similarly inclined.

Which is why at 46 rather than wanting of head, many of my ilk just say "I don't really give a 4X, just cut my taxes and go ahead and sell arms to oppressive regimes and stamp on the minorities."

So, come the end of May George Osborne will be our Chancellor of the Exchequer and everybody will be fondly remembering Harry Enfield's Tim 'Nice-But-Dim' character.

Me? I'm voting Green. Tax cuts simply can't help our budget deficit and poor old Vince Cable hasn't got a hope. At least I know the Greens will do my protesting for me while I stir my Horlicks.

*If you must know I started with the National Union of School Students ... and never looked back

That's yer lot you slag!

I see ITV is to axe The Bill after 27 years - and about time too in my opinion.

They should have called a halt to it in the mid-to-late 90s when Frank Burnside moved on. It used to be must-watch TV but in the 90s it became apparent there were more psychotics and criminals working FOR the police in Sun Hill than on the streets of Canley.

Instead of giving us an idea of what was it like to be pounding the streets it turned into Emmerdale for Plod. It was yet another sad indictment of the way TV was heading, pandering constantly to the lowest common denominator.

I bet you didn't realise that The Bill was partially responsible for the rise in popularity of rubbish like I'm Desperate for Publicity Look at Me. But that's the sort of inside info you get when you read this blog...

PS My The Bill claim to fame is that I went to school with the guy who played PC Able (Mark Haddigan) and that one of my mates went to school with Jim Carver (Mark Wingett) who broke my mate's ankle while playing football. Tenuous or what?

An extra topping of menu please...

Tucked in among the office post this morning were three envelopes marked for ‘The Pizza Connoisseur’ The Azalea Group, etc, etc.

Not surprisingly they landed on my desk. I can’t argue for, in the past, I have been known to order a delivery pizza for my lunch when I have been feeling extremely stressed.

What was more surprising, however, was that each of the envelopes – which all carried a second-class stamp – contained an identical Papa John’s menu.

Three of them. On the same day.

Papa John’s menus are the commonest form of junk mail in Petersfield. On average each household receives 1.4 metric tonnes of Papa John’s menus per annum. To counteract this, the local council has upped its recycling collection while allowing Domino’s Pizza to open nearby and set about doubling the tally.

But previously, they were just shoved through the letterbox by kids who were already delivering free papers – thus there was an automatic QA traceable route from letterbox straight to recycling bin.

But now they’re posting them to us, three at a time, teasingly addressed to the Pizza Connoisseur. It’s a subtle marketing ploy. And it may just work.

Ooooh!! Buy one get one free… Mmmmm!

Don't, don't, don't believe the hype...

I'm at a loss to understand how people think Pompey being allowed to 'sell' players outisde of the transfer window gives the Fratton club an 'advantage'.

If they were buying players, yes, I could understand it then. But knowing they are to lose their star players in a couple of months is hardly going to improve the strength of the current squad.

And let's be clear, on the face of it, the only exceptional thing about this 'special permission' is that the money will change hands.

Pre-contract deals between clubs and between clubs and players are often signed 'outside' of the transfer window. They're just not made public. 

Look at the conditions which are being applied.

1. Players may be sold to other Premier League Clubs but may not play first team football for the new club before the end of the season.

2. Players may be sold to a Football League or foreign club, subject to Fifa's approval .

3. Portsmouth FC may enter into an agreement with another Premier League, Football League or foreign club that a player will be transferred to that other club in the summer.

So, effectively, unless the players are allowed to play for their new clubs immediately under 2 - and that should not be permitted - the only difference is that money will change hands. Money which will go a long way towards preserving a grand old football club for future generations.

I am, however, puzzled as to how any players 'bought' by another Premier League club might be 'loaned' back to us for the remainder of the season. Do we not already have the maximum number of allowable loans?

Don't buy into the media hype. This isn't that unusual and it certainly doesn't give us an advantage. If we were looking to gain an advantage we should have sold one or two of them in bloody August! South Africa's captain my a***!

Whatever happened to frivolous youngsters?

Every day, my life is brightened up slightly when the email from Petersfield Newswire arrives with that day's 'story'.

I know the guys involved and we share the same sense of humour, so we all appreciate the same things about our little market town of Petersfield.

However, it would appear not everybody thinks the same. When I had a look at the site a few minutes ago I was amazed by the reaction - and subsequent comment - of a reader to yesterday's post about mephedrone.

Teenagers are accused of many things but I certainly didn't think being humourless would be one of them.

Press A and F1 together for failure

When England fail to qualify for the 2022 World Cup finals – and they will – the finger of culpability should not be pointed at the manager.

The blame will rest squarely with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

Instead of being outside playing football or watching Match of the Day and learning how things should be done, today’s teenage boys are beating each other over the net on FIFA 2010 or killing each other on Call of Duty – on their choice of Playstation3, Xbox, or Wii.

When I was 11 and watching every possible second of the 1974 World Cup finals from Germany, the great Johann Cruyff produced THAT turn in one of the games. Within minutes dozens of kids from our neighbourhood were out in the street attempting it.

One or two managed to perfect it – modesty prevents me from naming names – and it became part of their armoury (although as a keeper I seldom had a chance to use it).

When Jimmy Hill started to produce tactical match analysis on MotD I took it all in; I couldn’t get enough. I had a voracious appetite – and those who know me will confirm I still do, though more for onion bhajis than tactics nowadays.

Listening to people like Hill, the great Don Howe and Brian Clough pontificating on TV as to why team A failed to match team B’s formation, or how the central defensive partnership of team C was let down by its midfield, fascinated me.

I didn’t get to play at a particularly high level so this – and reading about it – was how I grasped the concept of tactics, positional play and the infamous Position Of Maximum Opportunity, as espoused by the equally infamous Charles Hughes – look him up kids!

I understood how John Beck’s theory worked and marvelled at the ‘Total Football’ – or tactical naïveté, the choice is yours – of the Dutch masters of the mid-70s.

But today, kids don’t give a glance to the analysis of Messrs Hansen and Lawrenson and then wonder on a Sunday morning why they’re being asked why they were drawn out of position or failed to pick up the midfield runner.

However, if you asked them ‘which combination of buttons do you need to press to assign man-marking duties to a player on the Xbox version of FIFA?’ they’d know in a flash.

Somehow I think their sporting priorities are wrong.

A predictable Cheltenham quip

Cheltenham 2.40 - the Ryanair Chase, a grade one race registered as The Festival Trophy Chase.

A full field of 13 runners because the entry to the race is so cheap, but they have to pay extra for every fence they wish to jump...

Nope to Pope Hope

I notice the National Secular Society (NSS) is protesting the visit of Pope Benedict.

It seems remarkably narrow minded of a group so keen on freedom of choice and thought to object to such a trip, after all they claim to "...defend scientific rationalism, freedom of speech and Human Rights, standing for equality for all regardless of religious conviction or non-belief".

Isn't freedom of speech applicable to everybody?

I don’t agree with what the fella espouses either but he has the right to look daft surely?

Such intransigence does the cause of the NSS few favours … maybe I should protest their protest.

Wanted: a return to the spirit of the venture

Some time ago one of my colleagues suggested I join up to Freecycle (http://www.uk.freecycle.org/) – a website designed to reduce the amount going into landfill sites.

The idea behind the laudable scheme is (and I quote from the site) “… a grassroots movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns. Freecycle groups match people who have things they want to get rid of with people who can use them. Our goal is to keep usable items out of landfills.”

As I said, highly laudable. At the time of writing there are, apparently, 1,722,575 members signed up in the UK.

And, for the first few months I really felt they’d hit on something. I picked up a computer keyboard and speakers, which I needed, and the person 15 miles away didn’t.

I also managed to pass on our old IKEA TV and video cabinet, to a delighted chap from just up the road and pick up a few Dilbert books from a pleasant chap near the station.

However – you knew that was coming didn’t you? – in the last week or so I’m beginning to think the spirit of the thing is being lost; people are just looking to get stuff on the cheap rather than adhere to the ‘less waste principle’.

Increasingly the emails coming through are of the ‘wanted’ variety. Over the past few days I’ve seen requests for ‘X-Box or similar games console’; ‘mobile phone’; ‘double bed’; ‘shelter for small horse(!)’; ‘DVD’s’ (sic); ‘iPod – must be over 16GB(!)’; ‘laptop’; ‘golf clubs’; ‘sat-nav’; and ‘fridge and washing machine’.

In other words, stuff that people would, under any other circumstances, sell.

My favourite – although I had no need to enquire whether or not they were still available – was the offer of “10 bras, sizes 34 - 36 D & DD. I have a bag of 10 larger size bras all in very good condition in fact some I only ever wore once or twice. I didn't stay this size for long…”

The mind boggles.

I’m considering putting a wanted ad in myself: WANTED: winning lottery ticket. Must be worth more than £10,000. Would accept holiday in Maldives as an alternative.

Time to clamp down

One of the major news stories of the day is the chief inspector of constabulary's criticism of the way police deal with complaints of anti-social behaviour.

Our family has fallen victim to both anti-social behaviour and criminal activity in recent years, despite living in what might be considered a low-crime area.

On both occasions the perpetrators failed to be punished to any real extent. We hardly felt justice was done. Even when the police were 100 per cent supportive the courts failed to dish out what we - and the police - deemed a suitable punishment.

Indeed, one police officer involved expressed surprise that we hadn't taken the matter into our hands and dished out some personal retribution: "I would have done by now," he admitted.

Our problem is that in our post-war desire to ensure a liberal and caring society - a laudable aim it has to be said - we have gone way too far. Consecutive Governments and the EU have brought in so much legislation that the punishment seldom deters the crime.

The fact that Peter Sutcliffe is even contemplating asking for parole is an indication of that. He should know that for his crimes there never should be a chance of parole. 

Whenever you read or see anything about the Kray twins there's always some old East-ender who's prepared to stand up and say "but it was much safer to walk the streets in those days".

In no way am I advocating a return to the days of mobster rule, but it can not be denied that the punishments meted out by the twins and their entourage were deemed sufficient to persuade those of an unpleasant disposition to keep themselves to themselves: step out of line and you know what will happen!

It wasn't a case of the punishment fitting the crime, for that is an arbitary level determined by somebody in an Ivory Tower, and is liable to be changed at a whim. It was a case of the punishment being sufficient to PREVENT the crime.

And this is surely what's missing these days. It's a gamble; you might get caught and if you do what's the worst that can happen? A few hours' community service? A fine which you can probably pay weekly over a period of a few years?

That's hardly likely to act as a deterrent. However, a guaranteed loss of liberty and privileges might make them think twice. We should not be too concerned with their 'human rights', but concentrate more on the human rights of the victims. Like people's basic rights to live in their house, on their street, without gangs of rampaging yobs making their lives a misery, as was reported on Radio4 this morning. 

Clamping down on criminal or anti-social behaviour should not be regarded as fascism, any more than liberalism should be seen as defending the right of a thief to go about his business without fear of being struck by a home-owner's golf club.

I count myself as a liberal; I like the idea of a free society, but that society should be one in which we can live without fear of becoming a victim. I am at a loss to understand why so many victims are suddenly pariahs because they fight back.

If the country's Government and law courts supported their 'rights', the need to fight back would be reduced. It's about time the balance on our much-heralded scales of justice was corrected.

I hate my colleagues

Apparently I am prone to making rash generalisations and have let my diet slip because I had yoghurt and fresh fruit for breakfast.

This comes from a man who has to move around in the shower to get wet and who thinks anybody who doesn't exist on a diet of two bananas and a packet of Wotsits is a fat bastard. No generalisation there then.

He knows who he is and he's first up against the wall come the revolution ... the revolution led by people who buy their clothes at 'special' shops.

Av' it!

Sorry to go on about football again – but if, like me, you’re a Pompey fan, there hasn’t been a great deal to shout about this season.

Reaching the FA Cup semi-final is a hell of an achievement for a club in our situation. But what may mean more to the club in the long-term is the attitude and mentality of the players and manager.

Harry Redknapp may have won us promotion and an FA Cup, but he never truly ‘got’ what it is to be Pompey. In his few months at the club, Avram Grant certainly has.

In last week’s Observer, one Pompey fan, Mick Dunford, said Grant was already more popular than Redknapp had been even in his pomp.

Several people of my acquaintance scoffed at that statement – but they may have to eat their words now. Grant is achieving Alan Ball-like status among the supporters – and that’s saying something.

Ballie was a God. He knew about the lifeblood of the club – he understood what it meant to have an island mentality (remember Pompey are the only professional football club in England based on an island).

That ‘siege mentality’ – call it what you will – is back – and Avram Grant, gets it, believes in it and has bought into it. And it seems he has instilled it in his players.

Even if we go out of the FA Cup at the next stage and get relegated, it is that inherent spirit which will keep the club alive in the Championship and beyond – wherever that might be.

And for that reason alone Avram Grant can hold his head higher than Redknapp ever could…

One off the wrist

I have written before about the travails of my walk to work every morning but it took on a new, sinister turn this morning ... well it's all relative.

If you are not au fait with my walk to work, let me elucidate: the last 600 or so yards are on a road with no pavement which is busy with people travelling to work at the offices of East Hants District Council.

I'm no string bean, therefore if I'm walking on the road, facing incoming traffic, cars often have to slow down to allow traffic coming from the other direction to pass before pulling out to overtake me.

Quite often they don't look too happy about it. And understandably so: the extra five or six seconds it takes probably means they have to park one space further away from the main entrance.

But this morning one man decided he wasn't prepared to wait. With a look of grim determination on his face he actually accelerated towards me in an attempt to get through before the opposing vehicle. He did not veer out at all and clipped my wrist with his wing mirror.

I was so shocked I didn't have the nous to take down his registration number. I almost forgot to mouth the word 'tosser' after him as well, but somehow regained my demeanour in order so to do.

This shaven-headed moron - you know the type: probably keeps a Staffordshire bull terrier in order to make up for the fact he has the intellectual capacity of a tub of cottage cheese - has made a rod for his own back.

If I see him coming again in the next few weeks I will ensure he hits me square on - at 20-plus stone I'll do some damage to his car plus I have the number for Ambulance Chasers Direct programmed into my mobile.

Your days are numbered muppet!

BBC report - could do better apparently

Mark Thompson's admission that the BBC will close various parts of the organisation to concentrate on doing "fewer things better" has been met with pleasure and pain - at least in my head.

The thought that the Beeb could start making some decent programmes again while dumping all the tedious reality TV effluent, brought a smile to my face.

I was, however, disappointed to learn that BBC6 radio is under threat. I don't listen to it very often but when I do I find it far superior to the vacuous nonsense churned out by Radio1. And I would imagine a lot of people will feel similarly disposed to the BBC Asian Network. I've always been partial to a bit of bhangra meself...

I'm just glad that the excellent BBC7 has apparently escaped the cull. But as much of its programming is repeats of classic radio series I would imagine it's quite cheap to produce. The ideal radio station one would imagine.

Perhaps BBC3 TV should be turned over solely to re-runs of classic comedies and dramas, providing a popular yet cost-effective channel. It'd be great to see things like Colditz, Secret Army, The Brothers, and Are You Being Served etc again.