THE TRUE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS

ONE OF THE PROBLEMS ABOUT CHRISTMAS over recent years has been the delicate matter of trying to understand what it is all really about. When the modern idea of Christmas was expanded into its current form during the reign of Queen Victoria, who imported it from Germany and then exported it to many countries throughout Europe through her dozens of children and grandchildren who married into royal households, the spirit was simple, albeit a radical change from the past: the Christmas period was one for being with the family, eating well, exchanging modest gifts with those who came to visit and sharing in moments of peace.

THERE STILL REMAINED A MODICUM OF THE RELIGIOUS element, particularly for the poor, but it was soon cast into second place with the arrival of the Coca-Cola-Company-designed Santa Claus, a figure far more interesting than a little baby sleeping in a barn, particularly as hardly any urban young children had an idea of what a manger was.

SINCE THE NINETEEN-FIFTIES Christmas has morphed into a sort of shopping fever festival, in the early days mainly involving buying toys for children, but by the eighties this had boomed into buying at least one present for every member of the family, including close relatives whom we see every single day of the week. The notion of “peace” among men, however, has dwindled to the point that most Christmas meals involve a family row. This may be due to alcohol, the fact that we have to mix with relatives we hate or the fact that we didn’t get the present we wished for (as for some reason this has become a secretive business).

BUT THE LATEST TWIST IN CHRISTMAS is reflected in the joke made by the late American stand-up comedian George Carlin: “The main reason why Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.” Christmas has become a time for selling sex. In the old innocent days of TV perfume ads the selling point was a scene when a husband would say to his wife, “Honey, you smell so good”, and she would wink at the camera and a picture of a bottle of Chanel Nº 5 would appear at the bottom of the screen.

NOT SO TODAY. One brand shows us a semi-naked woman in a bath and then in bed with an answering-machine (do they still exist?) voice-off begging her for more sex “after yesterday afternoon” (sic); another shows a young couple stripping each other on the stairs on the way to an apartment and having sex before they even manage to open the door; one shows an elegant blonde walking through crowded halls and peeling off her clothes as she goes; a girl is pursued and (presumably) raped by a wolf in another, etc.

CHRISTMAS HAS BECOME LEATHER pencil skirts, black stockings with a line up the back, patent leather stilettos and desperate, violent, hurried sex sessions in any place or position except in a bed. And so, once again at this time of year, I would like to wish all my readers the very best for Christmas, hoping you enjoy it in the true spirit of Christmas 2013.

(Post Script. One chap has electronically mailed me asking whether this means that my desire is for everyone to get a good "shagging", as he put it, at Christmastide, and I suppose that is true. Happy holidays, except for students, who have to go home to their parents, and that is when the shagging stops.)

WHAT DOES THE EUROPEAN UNION SAY?

ONCE AGAIN THE UK is involved in a little spat over what the unelected European commissions and committees think they should be allowed to apply to a legal system that has been in some form "elected" or "chosen" by the people of England for over a thousand years.

 

NO ONE ELECTED DURÃO BARROSO, the much-hated leader of the European Commission (above). No one elected the putty-faced and brainless leader of the European Union, Herman von Pussy-Dumpty. And yet elected governments such as the UK, in this case in a country in which the representation by voter is the most simple and direct in Europe, have to put up with weird rules established by the European Court of Justice.

 

THE LATEST ISSUE WITH THE UK GOVERNMENT has to do with the right to vote by serving prisoners. Prime Minister David Cameron has said this will not happen, and I will personally protest if the idea is accepted by the British Government and the law in England and Wales.

 

IF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES WISH TO HAVE their laws made by criminals then that is their business. And I could, without any consultation, reel off a list of French, Spanish and Italian presidents, prime ministers and deputies who have all been found guilty of embezzlement, robbery, thuggery, corruption, pimping and sundry minor crimes of robbing the public purse.

 

SO PRIME MINISTER DAVID CAMERON has asked for clarification on this matter of the voting system, something incompatible with our "first-past-the-post" system. The language used by the European Union documentation is always difficult for us to understand due to the double-talk and off-key translations used by the Brussels authorities. When Prime Minister David Cameron asked the European Parliament about the issue of voting for prisoners, the response was:

 

 

Yaki-yaki-yaki-do Yaki-yaki-yaki-do Yaki-yaki-yaki-do Umm-baba-umm-baba

THE NEW KAISER CHIEFS

I AM FULLY AWARE of the fact that when one writes about the recently deceased Nelson Mandela without swelling fulsome with praise there will be a flurry of criticism similar to what happens whenever I write stating the fact that the absurd "global warming" protesters are just that: absurd.

 

NO ONE CAN DENY that Nelson Mandela suffered for his beliefs and stood defiant in his wish to see a new Republic of South Africa, and his acts were in many ways on the level of those carried out by the great Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was also given a hard time in South Africa by the obscurantist chaps who ran the country in the nineteen forties.

 

BOTH GENTLEMEN, so I am led to believe, went on to "improve things" in their countries and approached something near to sainthood in the eyes of those who grant credit to such entities as saints and angels.

 

SO WHY DO I SEE, when watching the week-long "celebrations" of Mandela's passing, images of young black children barefoot in ghettoes? Why did I see hardly any white faces in the 90,000 stadium which is the jewel in the crown of this "rainbow nation"?

 

AND WHY IS MANDELA'S natural heir, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, now President of the Rainbow, booed each time he appears in public? When even the true hero of the liberation of South Africans, President Frederik Willem de Klerk, was not given any prominence during the ceremonies? As I write, it looks like the nation may slip back into something worse than Mandela may have envisaged or even lived through. The time of the dictators seems to be returning.

THE BASHAR STREET KID

I HAVE BEEN MORE OR LESS UNABLE to keep up with my commitments of late due to a series of factors involving excess of work, illness to my good lady wife and a lack of anything out of the ordinary to write about, given that government incompetence and economic failure have become our daily bread, No one in their right minds expects to see a "recovery" (whatever that might be) for the next twenty years or so and so most of us who are living off accrued income and investments are forced to simply watch our income be reduced.

 

HOWEVER, ON THE FOREIGN FRONT, I have been paying some slight attention to the activities taking place in Syria. When, when what seems years ago, the soi-disant Arab Spring began, there were foolhardy journalists in the left-wing press in the United Kingdom, the openly socialist BBC, and the occasional article in the United States press (just to show balance) who heralded a "new dawn" of democracy in countries that had previously had a dearth of rights for the common man.

 

THE CURRENT SITUATION SEEMS to suggest that the new aurora has not been a great success. Tunisia has no apparent government at the moment, Libya is utter chaos with the only law being dictated by firearms, Egypt is a mystery even more unfathomable than Russia used to be, and Syria is, as I suppose everyone knows, a disgrace beyond belief in present times.

 

PHOTOGENIC BASHAR HAFEZ AL-ASSAD, the current leader of Syria (above), is relying on the fact that there has to be some limit on how many 19-year-old boys the United States of America and the United Kingdom are prepared to sacrifice in order to depose vile despots. This is particularly sensitive after we have seen over the last ten years that "the new guys" in power are usually not much better than the ones that we sacrificed thousands of our soldiers to replace.

 

YET, WHAT HAS PROVOKED me into writing this is the fact that Bashar stated last week to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar that he deserved to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after it was granted to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) watchdog currently destroying his regime's massive chemical arsenal.

 

AFTER THIS STATEMENT, EYEBROWS WERE RAISED, as we sometimes say, but not mine. I cannot see any reason why the bloody hands of Bashar should not be given a Nobel Peace Prize. After all, last year it was given to the European Union, a much-hated organisation that has been destroying the lives of over a hundred million people through its idiotic Euro currency and common policies on agriculture, condemning most of southern Europe to poverty, misery and -- increasingly -- suicide or emigration to Germany, which is more or less the same thing.

 

BASHAR, IN MY OPINION, WOULD BE a worthy successor to the sinister Barroso, the vague and incompetent Von Rumpoy and the hated Angela Merkel at the EU, although at least Bashar and his assassins put their victims out of their misery very quickly.

EVIL REAL REVISITED

HAVING ONLY ON TUESDAY DECLARED my lifelong intent to never set foot in the vile city of Vila Real, it is a tribute to the powers of persuasion possessed by my wife that I found myself there once again, early last Wednesday morning. The justification was easy to understand: we travel without the burden of the modern automobile* – something which has ups and downs – and the stinking city of Vila Real is a major road (and previously rail) hub.

 

THUS WE BRIGHT AND EARLY LEFT THE HAVEN of the Upper Douro at Sabrosa once again; once again we boarded the bus with the gentleman who has been our driver on so many occasions recently, in the company of the same schoolchildren on their way to do exams as boarded the bus yesterday. Our bus driver, a man with the handlebar moustache of a master of ceremonies at a Victorian music hall performance, gave us our last feeling of comfort before we entered the hated “civilization” of sinister Vila Real.

 

WE PERHAPS DID NOT FEEL so comfortable about this gentleman last week, as we waited outside the railway station in the little riverbank town of Pinhão, where, feeling lucky after a good lunch, I left my wife stationed with the suitcase and bags and went off to a bar to try my luck at the new-fangled “Euromillions” lottery-style betting event, as well as to sneak a little glass of Port wine.

 

THE CHANCES OF WINNING THE PRIZE in this lottery are basically nil; but the chances of drinking an excellent, homemade Port Wine are one hundred percent in our favour in this region. Next to me at the bar in the tavern, having been served an enormous glass of red wine, was the man whom we soon after discovered was our bus driver. He then drove on a route unknown to us through mountains and on the edge of ravines that would probably make a Tyrolean sick looking down. Hearts still in mouths, we bade him farewell.

 

THAT WAS LAST WEEK. TODAY, HEAVY-HEARTED, we did the same as we arrived to change horses in the evil city at Vila Real bus “station”, with just over an hour to kill before our trip home to our country residence in Celorico da Beira, passing through Régua, Lamego and Viseu. The trip was wonderful, but that one hour and twenty minutes in the hated Vila Real was more than I could take.

 

MY DESCRIPTIVE AND ANALYTICAL POWERS are more than enough to relate what happened during that short time, but I would rather adopt a Brétonesque, Woolfian or Joycean cop-out style of writing to give one an idea of the events:

 

BUT INSTEAD: WE HAVE:

 

No left luggage office (which left us almost immobile)

No ramps outside the station for those with luggage

Imperfectly cobbled streets which were a chore for a wheeled suitcase

Spitting in the streets to a scale which suggested there might be some kind of municipal prize for the best spitter

Milk watered down with water at a breakfast café

Margarine instead of butter on toast

No air cooling system in the station

Mis- dis- and lack of information about bus times

Panic after our bus left empty and without us – without anyone explaining that there had been a change in plans and another one was on its way.

 

IN THE END, I CHECKED THE EUROMILLIONS results in a little tobacconists shop while we were still at a roadside café watching and listening to people spit on the pavement. Ostensibly I won nothing, but in the end, when the bus started moving, about to leave Vila Real behind, I felt like a millionaire.

 

*(My wife has her own view of life under these circumstances: www.acarlesslife.blogspot.pt . My picture shows the head offices of the local governor -- on the left) 

LAND OF GREATS

 

WITHOUT BEING FULLY AWARE of what was in store, I have found myself of late on a journey throughout the wine-rich lands of the River Douro in the north of Portugal. I have lived in Lisbon on and off for over thirty years; yet this area is a novelty for me.

 

THE TRAIN UPRIVER FROM OPORTO, then the short boat-ride to the waterside hotel at the confluence of rivers in the Porto Antigo hotel in Mosteiró, where the only sound that could be heard was the lapping of waves, the clanging of metal rope fixtures against flagpoles as the wind hit them, and then – in the late evening – the porcelain and steel noises of the waiters and cleaning staff in the restaurant below us as they washed up and closed down for another day.

 

THEN THE CHEERFUL HAPPY-SLAPPING and giggling of two couples of otters, coming to see what was going on after lights were dimmed, and to find out whether the restaurant had served shellfish for dinner today.

 

THE ORGANISATIONAL SKILLS involved in all of this was in the able hands of my good lady wife, who had wished to surprise me after almost six weeks of intense work, which is why I have not been writing of late. Despite being utterly and totally against this in my view unnecessary trip, I am grateful to her for being able to enjoy the stunning scenery, the wonderfully honest and real food, the spectacularly fresh white wines and the renewed tenderness that can only be brought about when one is away from reality and only hears otters and swallows during the early morning period when we wake up in a queen-size bed.

 

THE SECOND STAGE OF THIS TRIP was to here, where I am now, writing this, in the little village of Sabrosa, the birthplace of Ferdinand Magellan, the first captain to circumnavigate the world, and whose (ruined) house I can see from where I sit, on the second floor balcony of the Solar dos Canavarros hotel. A little further along the main road has brought me to the house of Miguel Torga, one of the most famous Portuguese poets and novelists of the last century.

 

BOTH OF THESE GREAT MEN are remembered by the local people through plaques and monuments of varying taste and quality, but there are other men of renown who hail from this region, and it would be wrong of me not to mention their names.

 

YESTERDAY MY GOOD LADY WIFE AND I took a trip to the city of Vila Real, often termed the capital of the north of Portugal. My opinions about the city of Oporto have been made clear in Sunday Mornings passim, but nothing had prepared me for the nightmare of the view of this soulless, centreless, heartless and, in the end, useless city. It appears that every local handyman, mechanic, plumber and electrician had been granted a plot of land on which they could build a construction of their choice, but never imitating their neighbour’s work.

 

THE RESULT IS THE WORST MISH-MASH of construction and urban planning I have ever witnessed over three continents. Without wishing to be didactic, I would like to suggest to anyone who reads this: Do not go to Vila Real. It appears that no one there has a clue about what is going on: we asked for directions to the centre. A young lady in a shop said she had no idea. We then found out we were less than 200 yards away.

 

THIS CITY IS THE HOME to the current Portuguese Prime Minister, Pedro Passos Coelho. You ask him from one day to the next what his policy is and he has no idea. You ask him the way to the future, for Portugal, and he will say it depends on the situation in the future. Or not. Thus we have a leader who is a reflection of the shithole from which he comes.

 

ON ANOTHER OCCASION MY WIFE and I decided to take a little excursion to Alijó, a small town close to Sabrosa which was the base for the famous Baron de Forrester, an Englishman who helped grant such greater visibility for the Port Wine trade that he was made a Portuguese noble. His table wine is delicious and costs about £1.50 even in restaurants. The best white wine I have ever tasted.

 

BUT I WAS NOT SO HAPPY about, on this journey from Sabrosa to Alijó, passing through the little village of Maçada do Caralho, which is the birthplace of the previous prime minister of Portugal, José Pinto de Sousa, also known as José Socrates.

 

THESE LATTER TWO GENTLEMEN have probably done as much damage to Portugal and the name of Portugal as the generations of explorers, poets, writers and chroniclers did it good. I am not sure what picture I should use to show the combined effect of Passos Coelho and José Socrates, but whatever I think of will be displayed above.

NO PAIN, NO GAIN

DAVID CAMERON'S INABILITY to keep in touch with the people who have put him where he is will no doubt lead to his downfall sooner or later. As the situation is, of course, he will just have to put up with the rather considerable swathe of Conservative members who are not happy with "Johnny foreigner", "Johnny-come-lately" or even "johnnies" in any shape or form. With the ribbed ones for extra male-to-male stimulation being both taboo and unknown to these good party faithful activists.

 

YET EVEN THE MOST OBVIOUS BENEFICIARY of the blanket abandonment of the Conservative Party, particularly after dour yet dependable Jeremy "the" Paxman has today stated that the term "mad, swivel-eyed loons" was and is in regular use by the upper echelons of the Conservative Party to describe the hard-working (and misguided) chaps and ladies who spoon out the party's politics, may want to watch his rear. This beneficiary is the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage.

 

IF HE PLAYS HIS CARDS RIGHT, FARAGE will probably disturb politics in the United Kingdom in a manner unseen since 1911. Yet he will have to deal with some of the more extreme elements of a party which, after all, is built on the sharp end of The Daily Mail and on drunken discussions after closing time by people who have either no money to go on to a club or have a beer gut so large that they would feel uncomfortable; added to this are the Surrey Sect of people who have never really seen a foreigner, "unless one means that swarthy chap who does the roses".

 

FARAGE HAS TO FEND OFF the probably orchestrated attacks suggesting that Lincoln UKIP Councillor Chris Pain had described illegal immigrants as "sandal-wearing, bomb-making, camel-riding, goat-fucking, ragheads". Mr Pain has taken pains to point out that his Facebook page was hacked.

 

WHILE ACCEPTING THAT HOMOSEXUAL ANAL AND ORAL SEX could be termed "disgusting" if anyone wished to see it this way, thus allowing us to at least feel what we like in the privilege of our own minds, Farage was keen to point out that racism will not be tolerated in his UKIP Party, now two percentage points behind David Cameron and his "college kids coalition".

 

(My picture shows UKIP Councillor Chris "feel the" Pain)

SWIVEL-EYED LOONS

I AM PLEASED TO SEE that I am not the only person to have a strong opinion about the unfortunate state of the British Conservative and Unionist Party. According to both today's Times and Daily Telegraph, a close ally of David Cameron has called party activists "mad, swivel-eyed loons" who are forcing Conservative MPs to take reactionary positions in Parliament. The unnamed "ally" suggests this is ridiculous, and that Conservative MPs should follow Cameron's lead.

 

THIS PRESUMABLY MEANS that Mr Cameron's friend is unaware of the British electoral system, under which elected MPs are supposed to do what their constituents and local party activists want them to do -- that is, an MP elected for a constituency in rural England, if he or she wishes to be returned to Parliament, would be best advised to vote for a return to fox hunting, vote against gay marriage and vote in favour of leaving Europe. As well as lower taxes for the upper-middle classes, etc..

 

EQUALLY SO, AN MP ELECTED in a run-down, working class urban area in the north of the country would be wise to support a robust social policy. What, I wonder, is wrong with that?

 

MANY CONSERVATIVES ARE UPSET with Mr Cameron's "modernising" (ie, leftish) policies, and would like a return to stronger, more traditional values, with over half of Conservative MPs voting against the government last week in Parliament. This obviously means that Cameron will have to get his act together and behave more like a Tory, or he will be facing unemployment at the next elections.

 

(My picture shows David Cameron and George "Boy George" Osborne showing contempt for the swivel-eyed loons who are members of their party)

FARAGE TAKES THE HIGH ROAD

IT IS BY NO MEANS A SECRET that I would vote for Britain to leave the European Union in any referendum even though I have never voted in any elections in my life and feel in no way political. The fact is, however, that I am attracted by Nigel Farage's UKIP party for two reasons.

 

THE FIRST IS THAT THEY PROMISE to leave Europe and put Britain back where it should be; ie splendid in isolation and with close ties to Switzerland and our former colonies, including the United States of America. How this could be worse than a financial and economic agreement with the likes of Slovenia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Romania I fail to understand.

 

THE SECOND REASON IS THAT THEY appear to be a group of well-minded buffoons. Indeed Mr Farage himself is the closest I have seen to a likeness of Hugh Laurie when he played the public school-educated upper class twit Bertie Wooster alongside Stephen Fry's Jeeves.

I AM SOMEWHAT DISTURBED, however, at the fact that some sections of society are happy to call him 'racist'. Proof of the fact that this is not true is his recent visit to Scotland, and his willingness to accept the Scots within a future 'independent' Britain. The very fact that his party is charitably called the United Kingdom Independence Party is testimony to this.

 

YET I AM NOT QUITE SURE he will be making an early return to Scotland. On his well-intentioned trip to talk to the angry hordes of spittle-mouthed Picts he was attacked to the point of having to be escorted by two anxious policemen and barricaded in the Canon's Gait pub 'for his own safety' as the anti-English racist natives were far more than restless.

 

I AM SURE THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME that Farage has enjoyed a stay-behind, but the serious point here is that the Scots have no idea what their future will be. It may well involve being independent from a Britain that is no longer in the European Union, which would leave them with a future sharing poverty with Iceland.

 

BUT MY OWN HOPE IS that Britain leaves the Europe and Scotland gains its independence but remains in the hated European Union, just like the idiots in the Irish government ended up doing. Scotland would go straight into bailout territory, particularly after the oil-rich Shetland Isles vote to reclaim their independence or join Norway under the buy-out clause established by Christian I of Norway in 1469. Then we will see hordes of Scots taking to the low roads again and looking for work.

THERE AIN'T NOTHING LIKE A DAME

IT WOULD BE SOMEWHAT AMISS of me to allow a state ceremonial occasion, such as the incinerating of the last remains of Britain's most important prime minister of the XX century, to go without a fitting word of recognition. And thus, as I feel it my duty to do so, I would like to add my words to those of so many who have committed key to screen over the last, upsetting days.

 

IN A GOOD WORLD, prime ministers would die in office, whether killed by lunatics who had ill-will toward them, or due to old age, having been good, decent, knowing and sensible folk for a long time. Dame Margaret Hilda Thatcher never had the chance to choose her end, having been beaten into submission by the very people she had promoted to power. This is a matter that those who have strong feelings on this issue should consider.

 

IN THE MEANTIME I THINK I SHOULD suggest, for those who have short memories, or who never go to the musical theatre, an excerpt from "South Atlantic", the famous Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II production, with its book by Joshua Logan:

We got sunlight on the sand,
We got moonlight on the sea,
We got bilberries and raspberries
You can eat them off your knee,
We got volleyball and ping-pong
And a lot of dandy games!
What ain't we got?
We ain't got dames!

GEORGIE PUDDIN 'N' PAYE

 

GORMLESS GEORGE 'GIDEON' OSBORNE, our dear and beloved Chancellor of the Exchequer, has admittedly been somewhat at a loss to endear himself to the great unwashed, an issue which is relatively unnecessary in his Cheshire constituency where the majority of voters favour footwear of the green-Wellington kind and appreciate his pig-snorting laughter version of 'haw-haw-now-lets-see-where-the-tottie-have-got-off-to-and-give-them-a-bit-of-a-feeling-up-the-bum-before-the-hunt' sort of "chappish" behaviour. There is indeed nothing to be scoffed at in this.

 

HOWEVER, IN THE BIG, BIG WORLD of today's politics, David Cameron, who used to be his friend at university and is now his boss at the new college they all frequent, occasionally wishes for George to 'show a bit of a leg', 'muck in', 'knuckle down' and 'get in there' with the working classes so that these unfortunates may like him, and -- although this is a long shot for Osborne -- want to re-elect the Conservative Party as the government.

 

OZZIE'S MAIN DIFFICULTY in touching base with the working class is his voice. His voice and his accent. His voice, his accent and his pronunciation. His voice, his accent, his pronunciation and his intonation. His voice, his accent, his pronunciation, his intonation and his delivery.

 

WHILST IN THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT the above attributes may fast-track him for a position of some note -- as it has obviously done in the academic world -- these attributes are a drawback when talking to 'real' people. Today Mr Osborne gave a speech to supermarket staff in Kent, and appeared to have undergone some sort of radical change in the language and style with which one associates him.

 

BEYOND THE DROPPING OF THE 'T's and the rather clumsy introduction of glottal stops (i', instead of 'it', "that's better inn'it"), there was no real incursion into Estuary English, and one does tend to imagine that if one ventures into these fields one should really go prepared. I suspect that even Georgie's political advisors, should such creatures exist, have no idea about the difference between the type of relaxed English spoken by supermarket workers in the south of England and the English spoken by gangsters of Italian descent in New York City in films from the 1970s. Thus we had to hear Osborne stating that things would be reduced by 'twennny percent'. And stating that the coming fiscal and tax policy may be "wannadebest" of recent years. Can no one help poor, misguided, inarticulate urchins like George? Surely education is the best policy?

FRANK IN SENSU STRICTU

THE NEW BISHOP OF ROME, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires and perhaps former chemical engineer before entering into the much-hated fraternity of the Jesuits, promises to be something of a revolution in the Roman Catholic Church. As indeed all popes tend to promise before they become bogged down under the weight of trying to supervise (when they try) the most labyrinthine, underhand, corrupt and incomprehensible organisation that exists on the face of the Earth. If it is in any manner a reflection of what life after death may be then Heaven help us.

 

HOWEVER, AS IS ALWAYS STATED each time a new pope is "elected", he may well bring something new to the Roman Catholic Church.

 

THE MOST OBVIOUS FACTOR which differentiates him from the last cluster of popes is that he is the first one for over fifty years who is not openly a war criminal, given the fact that he has not been a member of the Curia, which, when not helping the Nazis outright at the time of World War II, did their best to conceal the fact that the Vatican either concealed, contrived to conceal or in fact destroyed documentation detailing the papacy's involvement in the horrors of the Holocaust and other sundry mass executions in Italy.

 

ONE IMAGINES THAT A FURTHER feather in his mitre might be the fact that -- to date -- there are no widespread stories of priests buggering young boys in Argentina, unlike the churches in Europe.

 

YET AS I WRITE I AM WATCHING a news item suggesting that our good Francis I was not, as one might state, wholly forthcoming in his defence of the thousands of people who disappeared during the ruthless, bloody dictatorship in Argentina. Everything changes but everything stays the same.

HUGO'S THERE?

ONE SHOULD NEVER SPEAK ILL OF THE DEAD, I have always heard; and I am perfectly prepared to stick to this maxim, which means that I should, in theory, not have anything off-colour to state about the manic, histrionic, corrupt and shameless "politician" who was the leader of the sub-third world banana republic that was generously called Veneziola (in homage to its being similar to Venice) by over-optimistic Tuscan explorer Amerigo Vespucci in 1499.

 

HUGO RAFAEL CHÁVEZ FRÍAS is as I write being given a send-off that makes many people think of Lenin, although I personally tend to think of Stalin. I am currently being reminded that Chávez is "not dead", but that "all Venezuela is Chávez". (Which, of course, allows me to speak ill of him.)

 

I MUST CONFESS THAT I HAVE NOT spent a great deal of the last fourteen years trying to find out what President Hugo Chávez of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has been up to; and I am prepared to listen to arguments on both sides of the divide. Occasionally I have seen bits of what he has been saying on TV, and my attention has been lost very quickly.

 

I HAVE READ ACCOUNTS of his raising the standard of living among the poor of the country, and ones which state that the homicide and robbery rates have never been so high in Venezuela, particularly in Caracas, as during his period of tenure. I have also read that he managed to build up a personal fortune of over 200 million dollars.

 

AND SO I SHOULD LEAVE IT AT THAT. Were it not for the fact that when a leader dies and has literally millions of toothless and apparently brainless supporters prepared to take a week off work in order to traipse past his rotting corpse I tend to imagine that something is rotten in the state in question.

 

(My picture shows Jack Parrot, from the film "Robbers of the Caribbean")

MEAT YOUR MAKER

THE METEOR WHICH CRASHED TO THE EARTH in an unpronounceable town somewhere in the shadows of the Urals is obviously yet another sign from above that Heaven is not very happy about the shenanigans going on down here at the moment involving the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church from the top to the bottom -- all equally at fault in their non-fulfillment of their Lent and Easter duties.

NO SENSIBLE PERSON will believe that this extremely unusual event is not a sign of displeasure from on high. According to NASA, the European Space Agency, CNN, SKY NEWS and all of the observatories spattered about the globe and manned by bearded loonies who see nothing in their lives other than "stars, man, it's just like flickering lights, man, but there's life there, man", no one saw this coming. How does a two-ton object hit the ground without anyone noticing beforehand?

SIMULTANEOUS TO THIS CURIOUS EVENT, we have the "meat scandal", as the BBC News team terms it. It has now been discovered that a considerable part of our diet over recent years -- not everyone, of course, only those who ate in pubs or hamburger restaurants, or bought hamburgers, meatballs, sausages, frozen foods, pies or pasties in supermarkets, football grounds or dodgy cafés -- may have been affected by eating Arkle, Red Rum, Black Beauty or Noddy the Blackpool Donkey and even may have otherwise been scoffing on the equine unbeknown.

TIME HAS A LOGIC OF ITS OWN. We are now in Lent, when we should not, in all conscience, eat meat except on Sundays until Holy Thursday after early evening mass. My good lady wife and I have decided to give processed meat a wide berth for the next 36 days, and I imagine that in terms of health it will do us no harm. Whether this brings us closer to our Creator or not remains to be seen. So we will see.

(My photo shows the famous portrait of Pope Benedict XVI by Francis Bacon)

NON HABEMUS PAPAM

ON THE 14th OF SEPTEMBER 2010 I wrote a few words on this blog about Joseph Alois Ratzinger, our current pope, at least until 8 o'clock on the 28th of February. At the time my opinion was that this gentleman was a bit of a shifty character when seen in the wrong light.

 

YET NOTHING COULD HAVE PREPARED ME for the shock of hearing that a pope could resign his position. There are increasingly few certainties in the modern world, and the fact that a pope was elected "for life" was among these. The soon-to-be Mr Ratzinger has removed one more of these certainties, and has added fuel to the fire of the lunatics who believe that the world will end after one more pope after one who resigns, a prophecy put about by St Malachy in 1139.

 

ACCORDING TO MALACHY, the next pope will be the "final Peter" and we will presumably have to get on with preparing for an economic, spiritual and emotional Armageddon over the coming years, in the meantime readying ourselves for the life to come.

 

ONE MAY FIND SOME PARALLELS in the absurd action being taken by the present soon-to-be-ex-pope-Benedict XVI and the odd, not to say queer, times of the last resignation of a pope in 1415. At that time the Roman Church was divided over several issues of dogma and attitude, a chaos of moral and spiritual values that had seen no equal for centuries. So much so that there were three "popes" who claimed legitimacy, Benedict, John and Gregory. Gregory XII was the one who stepped down in order to allow some leeway for Antipope Benedict or Antipope John to step up to the plate. In the end the whole thing went awry when a third pope was chosen.

 

HISTORY, WE SOMETIMES HEAR, REPEATS ITSELF. We daily hear of paedophile priests. The Roman Church seems to be completely out of touch for a growing number of people. Economically, Europe has not seen such difficult times since before World War II. Yet the richest institution on the planet after the Church of the Latter Day Saints is offering nothing but "prayer" and "solidarity" to those who are watching their lives get flushed down the toilet, in a country where the biggest robber baron of the last century laughs in the face of authority and decency.

 

MR RATZINGER WILL STEP DOWN from office soon; how would he have felt if Jesus his saviour had said, from the Cross of his Crucifixion, "That's enough suffering and saviouring for now. I'd like to resign."?

 

IT IS NOT A MATTER OF BELIEF, but one of coherence and consistency. One can only hope that we are not about to witness another Great Western Schism. Even so, how will it sit with those who swore allegiance to this shifty, irresponsible German when he is still alive and we have a "new pope". Perhaps Italian TV can organise a debate show with the two of them, moderated by today's third pope, Silvio Berlusconi.

THE TIMBUK TWO

THERE ARE THOSE WHO OPINE that we should make our presence felt on the international front as the statesmen standing up for righteousness and general do-gooding that needs to be done on the world stage, even if this means getting involved in what has been termed as "Britain's Vietnam" in the North of Africa.

 

THE VIETNAM REFERENCE is not without a less than innocent and careless whisper when it is stated by the American press, given that what they mean by "Vietnam" is something that was ballsed up by the French and then the Americans had to come in and try to help them out. And even so had to deal with snarling and spitting arrogance from the French who had hitherto "ruled" the colony and run it into the ground.

 

SOMETHING SIMILAR SEEMS to be on the cards in relation to the French ex-colonies in North Africa. Not a single one of these territories seems to have been settled sensibly. The French "forces" (I am being a little generous) were either forced out, hurried out, shot at or -- more usually -- bribed to leave their colonies in the fifties and sixties.

 

BUT NOW DAVID "DAVE" CAMERON has decided to step in to help someone, without really making clear whom. This was announced in the House of Commons on Tuesday. Then arose Sir Peter Tapsell, the longest-standing member of the House and someone with a belief that we can learn from the past.

 

AS HE STATED: "As my right honourable friend sets off on his pacific mission to Algeria, will he, with his great historical knowledge, bear in mind that when Louis Philippe sent his eldest son on a mission to Algeria in the 1840s it took a century, massive casualties, the overthrow of the Third Republic and the genius of General de Gaulle to get the French army out of the Algerian desert!"

 

NONE OF THIS SUGGESTS, of course, that the United Kingdom may end up mopping up the shit left behind by the French. Heaven forbid. But perhaps one might watch, as they say, this space.

CHARLES THE OBLIVIOUS

THE RECENT "VISIT" OF PRINCE CHARLES and his concubine Camilla to the London Underground Metropolitan Railway only confirms how out of touch these people are. Charles had no idea what an "Oyster" was as he slipped it into the slot allowing him to go down into the underground. Many people throughout the shires will also not be familiar with the term, but in London it means "your bus and metro pass."

 

IT APPEARS FROM THE FOOTAGE taken by our good media representatives that our king-in-waiting was not too sure of what to do with his oyster when he went down. One wonders whether people more intelligent than I might wish to come up with jokes about this last sentence. Far be it from me to do so.

 

OF COURSE, IN MANY COUNTRIES one would be happy to see a constitutional monarchy showing its benign and benevolent side towards the "common folk" as Camilla once described us. But it might have been nicer if she had shown up as a full-time paid-up concubine with her full-time paid-up husband to have a drink in one of the most run-down pubs in Toxteth in Liverpool. Or even if Charles could have had more than a sip of his half-pint of Guinness when he had the chance.

THE DESERT SONG (VERSION TWO)

IN A REVIVAL of a great musical which once thrilled hundreds of thousands of theatre-goers and conscripted soldiers of Spain, France and Italy as they jollied their tenor and alto soprano voices into the Sahara in order to liberate and civilize the peoples of the Rif, of Morocco, of the Protectorate of Tetouan and of the Kingdom of Libya, we now have a new version, with new stars on the stage, in a hit that will, as they sometimes say, “run and run”. Just watch.

 

RAUNCHY LEON “LION OF THE DESERT” PANETTA, the ageing yet feisty ex-head of the CIA and United States Defense Secretary, as well as milksop, confused, pasty-faced loon Philip Hammond, the British Secretary of State for Defence, are as I write holding a joint press conference outlining how they will “knuckle down” and “sort out” the Al Qaeda bands of “rebels” who are trying to turn the North of Africa into what they call a “safe haven” for terrorists.

 

THE UNITED STATES AND BRITAIN, rather sensibly, have never really bothered too much with the Maghreb region of Africa, as they both realized that the shifting sands of both time and place mean that the type of colonialism that both countries favoured was never going to cut the ice in an area where people wandered about on camels with masks over their faces, indulged in buggery and could make a date last three days. This was never going to be the market for British goods or American proselytism.

 

YET THE FRENCH AND SPANISH, perhaps without such practical approaches in their minds, saw fit to try to colonise most of the Sahara. The result of all this, as could only be expected, was a series of long and bloody wars between Spain and Morocco and between France and Algeria. Italy managed to keep out of harm’s way mainly by simply abandoning Abyssinia when a couple of the locals started to show their tooth.

 

NOW, HOWEVER, THINGS HAVE GONE PEAR SHAPED and these useless ex-colonial powers have had to call in the big boys due to the heavy-handed and ham-fisted actions of the Mali and Algerian “authorities”. I am not sure that I think that involving British and/or American troops in the minefield of Maghreb politics is a good idea – and Panetta and Cameron are on my side. But we surely cannot have unwashed, flea-bitten rascals holding our enterprises to ransom, can we? So we must not give in to the French.

 

(My picture shows international terrorist, the much feared Moktar Hollande El-Moktar, allegedly responsible for the latest crisis)

I AM A TEACHER, YOU ARE A WHORE

EVERY COUNTRY HAS TO MAKE SPECIAL PREPARATIONS for major international events such as the Olympic Games or the World Cup. I was very impressed by the Chinese authorities before the games in Beijing 2008, when every taxi driver and hotel employee was given free English language lessons to help them deal with the vast numbers of tourists flooding to the city.

 

AND IT IS A SIGN OF THE STEPS that Brazil has taken over recent years that they are planning a similar campaign to help tourism and local trade. Every single one of the 4,000 prostitutes in Belo Horizonte, one of the cities which will host games for the 2014 Soccer World Cup is being offered free English language classes by the local authorities. I am quoting Prostitute Association President Cida Vieira: "It will be important for the girls who will be able to use English to let their clients know what they are charging and learn about what turns them on."

 

OF COURSE, ONE COULD EASILY see this as discrimination, given that no similar service is being offered to drug dealers and kidnappers, although I imagine that the programme could be extended by the time we get to the Olympics in 2016.

 

AS A LANGUAGE TEACHER myself, I tend to wonder about the content of the classes. If these ladies are total beginners, then I imagine the language schools will adopt the so-called Direct Method – the “I am a teacher, you are a student, this is a table, that is a chair” approach. The variants are endless.

JANUARY

JANUARY LOOKS FORWARD AND BACK, and is the month of change for so many. January the 7th is the day of the year when most affairs begin and most adultery is committed. January the 2nd is my birthday and is a day on which I have always been fortunate enough not to have worked. Most of these January seconds have been bright, clear days when I could sit down and think about the year that had just ended and the year to come. But I never really did much of that.

 

JANUARY THE EIGHTH is the birthday of David Bowie and of Elvis Presley, who is now dead, and will thus not be celebrating the event. History tells me that he is a man who changed the world, but he was a little too early for me to feel his influence.

 

ANOTHER DEAD “ROCKER” is John Lennon. His death may have been more of a shock to the world than that of Elvis. Lennon did not die fat, puffy-faced, old and ugly. But what he said about Elvis Presley’s death has always stayed in my mind. “What do you think about Elvis Presley’s death, Mr Lennon”, asked some American TV reporter. “I thought he died when he joined the army,” was Lennon’s response.

 

AND WE ALL DIE WHEN we join the army. We all die when we want to kill someone or something else. If the spirit of John Lennon existed then no one would join the army, no one would pick up guns and no one would kill another human being just because we were told to do so. But that is just not going to happen, is it? Certainly not in Britain and the USA.

2012: A YEAR IN WORDS

 

FOR MANY PEOPLE TODAY the year of 2012 was probably one to forget, although in my opinion many of these good folk will be looking back in a few years’ time and wishing they were back in what they will then see as ‘the good old days’, given the financial disaster that is surely to come. This is because it is patently evident from the discourse being used by our politicians that the south of Europe and the Republic of Ireland are about to go down the toilet permanently and a good deal of the north will follow a few flushes later, after vain attempts to “rescue” the weaker countries. Very few of my readers will know what happens when one tries to pull a turd out of a toilet; even without this experience, I feel free to state that the result will be a handful of shit.

 

NEVERTHELESS, THE YEAR NOW ENDED has been one of extraordinary triumph and happiness for a great number of people, and I feel it is somewhat in my duty to provide a brief summary of all that has been splendid.

 

IN THE FIELD OF SPORT the year was exceptional. Britain won the Olympics, the Tour de France bicycle race, and England won the soccer World Cup in the sense that the Spanish team included players who play in London. Unfortunately, England and Britain have a habit of teaching foreigners how to play the sports we invent and then we are very quickly thrashed by whomever these foreigners happen to be: Australians at cricket, the entire planet at football, Americans at golf, the Swiss at tennis, the Irish at snooker and the Canadians at curling, so it is always nice to see a touch of success.

 

IN THE VAST AREA OF ENTERTAINMENT, once again Britain proved that there is no match for the TV we produce. Downton Abbey was the hit of the year, although Sir James “Jimmy” Savile with his programme “Jim’ll Fix It” gave it a run for its money.

 

IN THE ECONOMY, we still have the pound, and thanks to the gains made by U£IP and its courageous leader Nigel Farage, we should be able to finally get out of this European mess some time in the near future.

 

THERE WERE LOW POINTS OF COURSE, as there always must be. Two of these low points were Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge’s breasts. The size of which suggest that the future king or queen of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland and Northern Ireland will be getting their milk out of a bottle. Which is a shame.

 

NEVERTHELESS, THE LOWEST POINT OF A MIXED year has to be the ludicrous decision by the Scandinavian Nobel authorities to award the Peace Prize to the European Union. This has to be some form of joke, given that riots have been taking place on the streets of Athens, Rome, Naples, Madrid, Lisbon and Paris more or less constantly since March 2012. If this is the peace that the EU brings us all, then requiescat in pace. Please.