New beginnings

June 17, 2010 — simonashall

On June 29, this blog will be one year old. During the election campaign, I experienced quite a bit of traffic as the Rosie vs Jonathan battle heated up but with the elections over and everyone fed up of politics, those readers have gone and the number of repeat visits – mostly I suspect from Lib Dem activists checking what I had written – reduced.

During the next 10 days, I will be busy preparing to get married and am going to take that time away from the blog to think about how to make it better for readers in future. I want to move it away from being nominally a Horsell blog because there wouldn’t really be enough to write about on a daily basis and now Horsell has The Resident blog, I’d rather contribute to the debate on that site that try to match it here. So a change in name is probably in the offing, which I know is terribly confusing but it’ll hurt me more!

I’d still like to be able to give a view of what’s going on in the Woking democratic process from the perspective I get working quite closely with the Conservative group and association. I think that’s something you probably can’t get elsewhere and could be useful (but not too useful, obviously!). I’d also like to be able to talk, within obvious boundaries, about my experiences as a magistrate because again, that’s something that isn’t necessarily available elsewhere.

As I go through my CIPR course (I got a distinction for my first assessment, by the way!) I’d also like to start talking more about Public Relations as a influential factor in our society and politics and picking  up on instances of bad PR and where it has had a subtle effect. For example the Daily Mail carried a story today about a Piranha being caught in a Kent lake. Not at all tied in to the Piranha 3D movie, released in August, I’m sure.

What I don’t want this blog to become is a commentary on national politics, because there’s a load of other blogs that are better than me at that. You know my position, liberal Tory, finding out what someone thinks of every issue gets tedious unless they’ve anything unique to say. So those are some of the thoughts going round in my head. When I get back after my marital mini-break (we’re not honeymooning until September), they’ll be a redesign using the superb WordPress 3.0 and a re-launch along slightly different lines.

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English football fever

June 17, 2010 — simonashall

The first world cup I can remember was Mexico ’86 and I was mad about it. I still remember the dramas – Bryan Robson‘s injury, Ray Wilkins getting sent off against Morocco and the glory of a Gary Lineker hat-trick against the Poles to get out of the group stages. Then onto the great game against Paraguay and finally the infamous Argentina game where Diego Maradona – just as bonkers then as now but no less brilliant for it – decided the result with the best and worst goals in history.

It’s scary to contemplate how different the game I adored as a youngster is from the game we are currently watching in South Africa. In 1986, you could hear a dull thud every time the ball was hit hard (see video below) – now the ball is so light that it hardly makes a noise. Before the flooding of the Premier League with overseas players, there was a considerably larger pool of talent for the England manager Bobby Robson to pick from. They also knew how to play as a team and England caps – not the silly money of the Premier League – was their number one motivation.

During the years between Italia ’90 and France ’98, the English game changed dramatically. It ceased to become a sport and became instead a form of entertainment that was commoditised by BSkyB and sponsors to reinforce their brands. Footballers were no longer sportsmen, they became entertainers and even famous celebrities and were paid accordingly. England wasn’t the first nation to do this – Italy had been paying big wages in Serie A – but it was the first to do so in such a comprehensive way.

In all the excitement, no-one stopped to think how so wealthy and powerful a league independent from the Football Association could possibly benefit to the England football team. Or perhaps they did and ploughed on regardless. But rather than opening up the football market, the Premier League created several super-teams, three of whom have shared all but one of the titles since the formation in 1992. Rather than creating better English players, it was more commercially viable to buy them in. And rather than seek to teach English managers how to galvanise and control the newly-inflated egos of football, the new money meant that they could simply be hired in, ready-made from the continent.

The movement that was supposed to set English football free had no time for development, training or nurture. It just wanted success – at whatever price was deemed reasonable.

Every world cup, one looks at the players in the English side and concludes that they must be one of the top five or six sides in the world. But in each of the last competitions we have lacked the ability to beat Brazil (2002), Portugal (2006), Argentina (1998) and Germany (1996), Portugal (2000), France and Portugal (2004). In that time we beat the Netherlands (1996), Argentina (2002) and Germany (2000) – but only during the group, not knock-out, stages. We can’t lift our performances for the big occasion. And that’s about attitude and teamwork.

You can argue that in 1986 and 1990 things were no different but I disagree. England were hugely unlucky in both tournaments not to reach the final and in 1990 I think they could and should have won. Looking at highlights of these games now, it is difficult to imagine today’s team playing with the same fluency, awareness, communication and selflessness. They may have got fitter but that’s about all.

And until our domestic league structure changes and England comes first, we will never win another competition as we’ll always come up short when the pressure is on. That success has been mortgaged and sold off by the Premier League to pay for its footballing theatre.

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Something a little different

June 6, 2010 — simonashall

Sir Edward on the cusp of fame, c1900

Apologies for no updates during the past few days, I’ve been having connection problems with Virgin Media – no great surprise, I’m sure – and contrary to what you might think, paying a premium for fibre optic broadband doesn’t seem to buy you any better service or reliability than anything else.

They are still fixing the problem but I’ll start by doing a posting that I missed out on June 2. Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a great passion for classical music and particular the works of Sir Edward Elgar. Having read just about everything ever written about him, having studied his manuscripts and letters and done my own research on his life and works, if you except the academic world, I’d probably count as a bit of an authority on him and June 2 is his birthday (153rd this year).

To many people, Elgar means pomp and circumstance, pageantry and marching and for the political it can mean Edwardian complacency and Imperial folly. That’s fine, I’m not going to say that Elgar wasn’t a proud patriot and a Conservative and that he eschewed the values of Empire. He didn’t – he opposed Irish Home Rule and despaired about what he saw as the threat of socialism.

But he was far more complex a man than that. Born the son of a lowly music shop owner, he fought all his life against the social barriers of Victorian England, not to mention the religious ones – the son of a Roman Catholic convert, he encountered the full weight of prejudice that the largely semi-aristocratic musical establishment had to offer. The family of his wife Alice were utterly opposed to their marriage – her father was a Major-General in India and it was considered she was marrying substantially beneath her – in age as well as class.

Unlike his peers, he didn’t have a formal academic musical education and was self-taught. He tried to move to London twice but had to give up for financial reasons and return to Worcester – and was generally viewed as a provincial non-entity by his contemporaries until 1899, when he was 42. That year, having made a modest name for himself writing secular oratorios for the many and various choral societies that provided a social and musical backbone of Victorian middle-class life, Elgar decided to write an orchestral work based on his friends, representing them or a facet of them in music.

Elgar the man was not at all pompous or stiff – he could be jovial, easy-going and excitable but also prone to mood swings, immaturity and deep nostalgia. He was a dreamer, often tied down by self-doubt who kept few close companions but many acquaintances and he loved puzzles and cyphers of every kind from crosswords to musical conundrums. An orchestral work that used references to people that only he and a few others would “get” appealed to him hugely and he made the puzzle even deeper by included in it a “larger theme” that he said “‘goes’, but is not played”.

The resulting work was the Enigma Variations, which began the journey of Elgar from plain Edward Elgar, three counties musician, to Sir Edward Elgar, 1st Baronet, OM, GVCO, Master of the King’s Musik. The man whose in-laws had written his wife out of her inheritance for marrying him ended up towering above them all in the order of precedence. And while Nimrod is the most famous variation that we all know, they are all fantastic and worth listening to – showing as they do the many sides of Elgar’s character.

I have a wonderful drawing of Elgar’s birthplace in Broadheath above my piano. And here is my little birthday tribute to him.

Posted in English identity, Mundane occurances, Music. Tags: , . No Comments »

Still here

April 19, 2010 — simonashall

Just finishing off my CIPR assignment as I have until Friday to complete it. Apologies for the silence. Interesting times!

Posted in Mundane occurances. No Comments »

It’s not a masterpiece, but…

March 16, 2010 — admin

Here is the document I’ve been working to put together – it’s a mock Critical Reasoning Test for the Chartered Institute of Public Relations Diploma. The real thing kicks off in about 10 days’ time, when I have four weeks to research and write two 3,000 essays along similar lines. It may be during that time that the blogging is slightly restricted but I’m going to structure my working patterns differently for the real thing that should allow for some time to keep it going.

Obviously I won’t be able to post the real answers when they are done because they will be going to be formally marked but the questions we get are likely to be similar. I actually found this question quite vague – does it refer to the act of studying persuasion, does it refer to one’s own study of persuasion or is the emphasis on the word “persuasion”, thereby making the study almost a redundancy. I opted for a mixture of the first two – I’m not actually all that happy with the answer I’ve given but I’ve learned a great deal from the experience of doing a mock.

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Nearly there…

March 14, 2010 — admin

I continue to be sorry for the lack of activity here – I’m struggling through my mock Critical Reflection Test for my CIPR diploma in the midst of making sure that I’m doing everything I can for Horsell West. The CRT is nearly done and when it is I’ll post a link to it so that you can see what on earth I’ve been up to in the evenings for the past two weeks – if you really want to read it.

Then I get a break for ten days before the actual CRT, during which I have to research and write two 3,000-word essays in four weeks. That is due on St George’s Day, after which I have a clear run for a little while. But I will try to maintain blogging during that period and the run-up to the elections (it’s what we’ve been waiting for, after all) not least because if I don’t, the Lib Dems will and it’s not fair that they should have the cybersphere to themselves.

So apologies for not being able to do as much as I’d like during the past couple of weeks - and thanks to Denzil Coulson for DMing me on Twitter with his understanding sentiments. I hope he is enjoying trying to seek the Lib Dem population of Fleet; it’s a bit like searching for Conservatives in Goldsworth West, I should imagine.

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Lack of activity

March 8, 2010 — admin

I’m really sorry about the lack of activity during the past week or so. I’ve been so busy with wedding preparations, various evening meetings and doing my CIPR diploma that it’s been difficult to find the time in the evening to update. I have a mock Critical Reasoning Test in at the beginning of next week that I’m frantically reading up for at the moment. It’s all interesting stuff about persuasion and the nature of public relations but I’m struggling to fit much else in, especially now the garden is getting going again (our lounge table is covered in seed propagators).

There are a couple of things that are ongoing – notably that I will be involved in a LDF Character Study meeting on March 25 on behalf of Horsell Residents’ Association. Further details will follow.

In addition, on St Patrick’s Day (March 17) I will be splitting my time between the HRA management committee and a Tune In event at HG Wells. My understanding is that’s it’s open to all, so why not come along?

I am trying to keep up with everything on Twitter, which is less time-consuming and can be done throughout the day. Why not follow me if you don’t already?

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Ten good things about the BBC

January 28, 2010 — admin

I’ve done two things today. Firstly, following a discussion on Twitter with @PaulTwinn, who took issue with my last posts and comments about Nick Robinson, I’ve added Biased BBC to my blogroll because it is a decent blog that has some insight into the very subtle way BBC bias manifests itself.

I accept totally that people within the organisation don’t detect bias or believe that they are on anything other than the middle ground. I’ve never worked for the BBC, but I do have a Master’s Degree in Journalism and Media Theory, five years in the industry and am studying for a Postgraduate diploma in Public Relations after three years in that industry. So I know how the system works. And it isn’t just me claiming there is bias in the corporation – they admit it themselves.

Anyway, enough of the BBC bashing, I think it’s important to remember that the BBC’s coverage of politics is staffed by many good journalists who are earnestly seeking to present the truth to people in the best way that they can. Taking it a stage further, the BBC is also graced with many very courageous and skilled reporters who risk their lives in war zones and undercover investigations to bring the news into people’s front rooms. It is not without reason that the BBC commands respect across the globe.

I am one of the few people I know who believe that the BBC’s investment in BBC3 and BBC4 and digital technology is money well spent – the corporation cannot afford to rest on its channels complacent in the knowledge the licence fee exempts it from having to make progress. It doesn’t and the BBC has been prepared to make risky decisions to stay with its commercial rivals.

So the second thing I am doing today is enforcing a bit of impartiality upon myself by listing 10 reasons why I am happy to pay a licence fee – even if I believe it could be cheaper!

1) The BBC carries British values and standards throughout the world and will remain the most trusted and respected trans-global broadcaster well into the 21st century. Such regard is not built up for no reason.

2) There exists a tradition of quality wildlife and natural world programming at the BBC that the corporation has maintained and even improved (the Planet Earth series was the best recent example). I hope this will continue even when Sir David Attenborough cannot.

3) The BBC has made a substantial proportion of its back catalogue available to the public first on VHS and then on DVD. Okay, this helps bolster its income but means that people born after Fawlty Towers was originally broadcast are able to enjoy it, along with other classics such as Yes, Minister and The Office.

4) iPlayer – the corporation has displayed a high degree of acumen and foresight by pioneering this technology and making it available on platforms such as Virgin, BT and even the iPhone as it doesn’t require Flash Player.

5) The BBC has one of the most accessed and wide-ranging websites in the UK, not to mention one that is fully customisable and has content from cookery to history. It is certainly a lot better than Sky’s and ITN’s and of the online newspapers, only the Grauniad runs it close.

6) Jeremy Clarkson. It’s fair to say that he is the antithesis of everything that the liberal BBC stands for. It’s not just that he’s there – ITV could have done that – it’s that an organisation with such a loud exponent of its collective political anathema gives him a platform that its instincts tell it should be denied. Long may it continue.  

7) BBC Parliament. Hardly anyone can receive it and of those that can, hardly anyone watches it. But as Sir Humphrey said of Radio 3, the countryside, the opera and the universities “It’s vital to know that they’re there!” Televising parliament was a huge turning point in our political culture and the BBC covers it well. It’s not its fault that no-one’s interested.

8 ) Local radio. In many places, it has been marginalised by commercial competitors but it still serves a small but significant part of the population who if it wasn’t there, would have little or no access to local news. Local radio plays a part in helping communities define themselves.

9) The Reith Lectures, which have been commissioned by the BBC since 1948 and most recently broadcast on Radio 4. The 2008 lectures on China were particularly fascinating – it’s a shame that they are not put out on TV; BBC2 is an obvious home for them.

10) Charitable events, notable Comic Relief and Children in Need. The corporation has helped raise more than £1bn since the 1980s with these two charities and that is something to be very satisfied by. Some may think it’s all got a bit too much but in this case I believe the end justifies the means.

So there we are – ten very good things about the BBC. I don’t oppose it, I don’t want to see it privatised, it has an important place in the nation’s fabric. I accept that it will always be an organisation with a culture that prefers a particular way of presenting things. But I won’t just ignore that fact.

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Bernays source

January 24, 2010 — admin

I spent yesterday at the University of Nottingham starting out on my PR diploma, which if I pass it will allow to become a full member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. It was a fairly intense day of discussion and critical analysis of what has always been to me an entirely practical pursuit- I have no formal PR qualifications or training at all having gained degrees in music and then journalism.

As part of the opening session, we watched a short segment from a TV programme called The Century of the Self, which first aired in 2002 and for reasons of copyright hasn’t seen any further broadcast since then. It is the story of how the theories of Sigmund Freud were taken up by later members of his family, including his daughter Anna Freud and nephew Edward Bernays and used to control the masses in a new way that defined 20th century history.

In particular, Eddie Bernays used the idea that we all have dangerous and primal instincts contained within ourselves than can be exploited to control thinking, break taboos and change behaviour. He became a key member of the American administration in the First World War as the champion of pro-war propaganda and after the war took the very same ideas and launched a new venture, which he called “counsel in public relations“.

It’s all on YouTube and it is really is gripping viewing for anyone interested in how democracy and consumerism has developed during the past 100 years. Matthew Freud, the great-grandson of Sigmund, PR guru and wife of Elisabeth Murdoch, was also involved in the production. Some of the commentary slightly over-states the accepted academic view of the importance some of the featured individuals had – but that only serves to demonstrate what good self-publicists they were!

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Of Mice and Men

January 17, 2010 — admin

Learning that you are sharing your dwelling with mice is a problem that goes back to the dawn of civilisation. And many thousands of years later, the methods of controlling them haven’t changed hugely. About two weeks ago I noticed something dark on the floor out of the corner of my eye when on the XBox – it immediately shot back down into our as yet unfinished (and unfurnished) fireplace.

Subsequent inquiry unearthed a rather unpleasant trail of evidence that suggested Mr Mouse’s appearance that night was not his first. My other half isn’t keen on mice and wouldn’t go downstairs until I promised to block up the fireplace temporarily. While I’m not what I’d call an animal lover insofar as I wouldn’t consider a domestic pet, I am a nature lover and animals form an important part of that tapestry. So I bought some live traps with the hope of releasing the mice on Horsell Common.

After baiting them with raisins, nothing happened for about 72 hours. Then I came down one morning to find two live traps activated – but neither contained a mouse and one didn’t contain any bait either. I spent  hours trying to figure out how any mouse could have got into the trap, taken the bait and got out again while leaving the trap activatated. I’m still not entirely sure.

So after having read up a bit more on the subject, including about the diseases the mice can spread and the fact that house mice don’t get on terribly well in the wild when released anyway, I decided to get tough and set some regular traps. It seemed the kindest thing to do for the mouse as well, given it was likely simply to find another house and get trapped there instead. In addition, I had another sighting of our mouse, this time in the kitchen. Even though I saw it and blocked what I believed were all the escape routes, was it behind our fridge when I pulled it out? Of course not.

So I baited up four traps – three behind the fridge and one elsewhere. I came down this morning to find that the one elsewhere and one behind the fridge had been relieved of their bait but were still cocked for action with not a rodent in sight. Another trap had had its bait nibbled at but not totally removed. I have to admit at being impressed with the ingenuity of my opponent.

And apparently, this isn’t uncommon. More reading online has suggested that a) Mice can seemingly disappear through solid walls b) they have learned how to evade and avoid traps (presumably the fact that these traps have been the same for many hundreds of generations of mice doesn’t help) and c) peanut butter is the suggested bait because it is sticky and difficult to remove without triggering hazards.

I have now invested in two superior traps as well as a jar of peanut butter. There is also a suggestion for a different kind of trap – a homemade one – that mice haven’t evolved to avoid. My father thinks I should poison them but I’m loath to do this - apart from anything else, using the destructive power of human chemical knowledge seems an unfair advantage and akin to an admission of defeat.

If the wily mouse wants a contest, a contest it shall have.

Update 18/12: Poor Mr Mouse lost the contest sometime between midnight and 8am this morning in our dining room. His last meal was peanut butter and I can vouch that it was almost painless – a good clean trap. He may have been a highly-developed scavenger rodent but he was no match for the power of the Rentokil Advanced Mouse Trap and currently awaits collection by Woking Borough Council in my residual waste bin.

My other half was very relieved. “How did he look?” she asked. Er, I think it’s fair to say that he’d looked better…

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