The Smoking Gun

Since April 6, 2012, all large shops and supermarkets in England have to cover up cigarettes and hide tobacco products from public view. This has been done in order to protect children from being the target of tobacco promotion and to help people quit smoking.

Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, explained that the ban was part of a process whereby young people don’t think about smoking, don’t see cigarettes and don’t see smoking related products.

Lansley’s ideal is miles from reality but nevertheless a worthy goal.

Reassuringly, the ban is opposed by the tobacco industry. Moves by Scotland to introduce such a ban have been delayed by legal action taken by Imperial Tobacco. The tobacco companies are worried about falling sales and profits. Any move opposed by these organisations should signal a green light for anti-smoking legislation.

I support any reasonable move designed to persuade people not to smoke. The point of sale cover up legislation fits this category.

jay phelps quintet

I saw these guys perform at The Bonington Theatre on 3 Feb 2011. Here's the lineup; a bit different from that advertised.

Leader and trumpet: Jay Phelps

Piano: Jonathan Gee

Tenor Sax: Shabaka Hutchings

Drums: Ernesto Simpson

Bass: Neil Charles

Guest vocals: Kwabena Adjepong

The singer only performed one number in the first set and was on stage again at the oncore with a brilliant skat improvisation. Adjepong is a 22 year old UK resident with Ghanian parents. He is a slightly built and diffident almost shadowy character but once he gets the mike into his hand he is transformed into an accomplished jazz singer with a powerful voice and a commanding stage presence.

The dynamic leader David Phelps is a great showman and trumpet player. He was very engaged with his audience and expressed his particular fondness for the Bonington venue and audience. I couldn't help reflecting on what he might tell audiences at other venues. Anyway, his performance was dynamic and enthusiastic and featured several of his own compositions. Shabaka Hutchings on tenor sax, usually alongside accompanying or 'bouncing off' Phelps, was master of his instrument playing in the cool dude manner. Both drummer and bass player did a great job driving the rhythms forward and also added variety with a number of solo improvisations.

The quintet was completed by the brilliant jazz pianist Jonathan Gee. JG attacked his instrument with glee and gusto. He kept nearly falling off his stool and occasional stood to add an essential direct plucking of a piano string to expand his repertoire. The encore figuratively and almost literally brought the house down. Anybody out there thinking of taking a holiday in downtown Arnold should check out the scene at Bonington theatre.

ODIous Cricket

I spent most of yesterday watching England beat Bangladesh in a One Day International, ODI, Cricket match at one of the most renowned cricket grounds in England; Trent Bridge, Nottingham. I was not altogether happy with the experience.

Many of you out there who know nothing of cricket will be aghast to learn that an ODI takes about 8 hours to complete. Many of the 7000 or so 'spectators' have a low attention span and an unclear idea of the sport anyway. So Sky Sport who manipulate the proceedings have to build up a sense of excitement and of things happening. Every time a wicket falls, a batsman is out or a 4 or a 6 is hit there is an ear splitting burst of music. You can't bring booze into the ground and bags are searched in a manner reminscent of airports. The hapless spectator can only acquire alcoholic products bought at the ground. Many of these drink loads of the overpriced cat's piss lager or even buy a bottle of white wine plonk for £15 with a silly wine glass shaped receptacle to slurp it from. Of course the wine is luke warm within half an hour and near boiling point as the brainwashed clone of humanity sucks the last drop from the bottle. In this booze soaked haze Jo Soap with his mates is convinced that he is having the time of his life. There's Mexican waves, giant rabbits, outlaws, bears what fun.

The usually brilliant Notts (you Notts!) scoreboard, under the control of Sky, flashes adverts and diversions for the stupefied masses. Some of these clones are wandering about attached to a big earphone on a string. I think Nat West, whoever he is, has something to do with it. There's the stench of fast food whereever you go.,

What about the players trying to have a sporting duel at the highest level? Although it was a foregone conclusion that England would win the radio commentators thought that some of our batsmen gave their wickets away. I can easily forgive the players for losing concentration in this lunatic assylum atmos.

Let's face it; for half the 'watchers' what was happening in the middle was an irrelevance.

If you want to learn about what true cricketing grit entails read the eponymously titled book by Duncan Hamilton about the greatest fast bowler of all time, Harold Larwood.

Feathered friends

Brian’s dad, born in 1896, lived in the Mansfield area in England’s ‘Robin Hood’ county. In 1943, during World War Two, British citizens were experiencing short supply of foodstuff and of many other goods. The dad was a bird lover and kept a large cage containing a couple of dozen contented well-cared for budgies, but at this time the bird food supply in the town became non existent. The dad could devise no alternative means of providing his budgies with a suitable diet. With great reluctance he released all of his feathered friends to cope (or not) in the wild. Six year old Brian carries an image of dad, a few days later, smashing the budgie cage to smithereens with an axe; an action mixing both sorrow and rage.

The dad’s interest in birds continued and, at the age of 70, having retired from British Rail some years earlier, he took up a little job feeding chickens at a local farm. Dad looked forward to wandering about the farm scattering feed to the eager, contented chickens. Well, you know what’s coming. He had to run feed into a gulley where cramped, caged birds could just about get their beaks to the feeding trough. About half an hour into the second day, dad could stand the sorry plight of his charges no longer. His urge to release his feathered friends into the wild revisited him, and soon about 200 chickens were causing chaos on nearby roads and the chicken farmer was having an apoplectic fit. Needless to say, dad was sacked but fortunately escaped prosecution.

Brian tod this tale with emotion and pride.

Don't mention the war

A chum of mine has a poster of this picture in his living room. It always prompts me to reflect on the cause of the unhappy / anguished / secretive / tormented etc. expression on the face of daddy. It's intriguing as to why the girl asks this 'manly' type question while the boy seems absorbed in playing with his toy soldiers. I guess that the nub of it is that the question has confronted daddy with a problem.

Is it a general problem about exposing inocent young minds to the horrors of war? Or is it a specific problem about his own contribution, or lack of it, to 'the Great War'?

Watchmen

If you like action-packed films with no-holds-barred battles to the death, this will be ‘right up your street’. There’s blood oozing over every pavement edge and welling out from under every closed door. There’s loads of publicity surrounding Watchmen so if you’ve not just been released from Guantánamo Bay you’ll probably already know something about it, but just in case here’s an arty-smarty link:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/watchmen-returns-the-20year-struggle-to-bring-a-cult-classic-to-the-big-screen-1632148.html

and here’s an in-your-face ad link:

http://www.watchmenmovie.co.uk/intl/uk/

Well , where does this leave me? Let me give you my version of the plot.

It’s 1985 and Tricky Dicky Nixon is in his fifth term in office. He suddenly became popular when he got his chum Dr Manhattan to win the Vietnam War for him. Needless to say, Dr M has genuine super human powers and is indestructable. The Watchmen are a bunch of self appointed vigilantes who adopt funny names and dress up in weird outfits. It seems that they not only “go to the gym” but also, unlike us lesser mortals, do lots of stuff when they get there. They seem to be super fit and hyper assured of their combat skills and tricks. My favourite is Rorschach. He is slightly built and his super hero outfit consists of tatty raincoat and trilby and, most importantly, a sack over his head featuring moving ink stains on the face. In the film I think you will find that Rorschach convincingly debunks the Rorschach inkblot test. Rorschach has a steely determination to wipe out evil, so he’s kept very busy. His unwavering determination stands him in good stead. He spent (a bit) of time in prison and since he’d been responsible for putting a fair number of his new chums behind bars we expected him to become a victim. We soon learned that our fears were unfounded when one enormous thug gleefully told Rorschach: “Now you are locked up with all of us”. But, after a brief telling incident involving boiling chip fat, Rorschach’s response was: “Wrong. You are locked up with me!”

A few superheroes get the sense that something is afoot when one of their number is murdered – this takes some time and involves much blood and amazing powers of recovery. Maybe one of their own number is up to something (on a grand scale of course)? Dr Manhattan rematerialises himself on Mars to reflect on life and the universe and of course on woman trouble (Silk Spectre 11). Could it be that one of their own number is up to some massive scheme to save humanity which unfortunately means that approx 50% of the human race will have to die? By the way, The two remaining heroes are Nite Owl 11 and Ozymandias.

The advertising blurb tells us that it would be wrong to dismiss Watchmen as just another film of a comic (sorry, graphic novel). The story involves “themes of power, tolerance and the nature of social progress…held together by complex characters and a powerful story line”.

I have a copy of the graphic novel and the film has inspired me to read (and look at) it.

Anyway, it would be good to get feedback if there’s anyone left out there!

“A Good Day To Die” by Simon Kernick

It’s a far cry from “Jane Eyre”. When I picked it up at the charity shop, although I’d never heard of the author, it was easy to deduce that I had a racy crime thriller in my hands. The opening sentence prepared me for a high body count:

“Richard Blacklip wanted to kill someone.”

It turned out that Blacklip was to be disappointed as the main character, an ex London cop called Dennis Milne, had other plans for him. Some 3 years before, Milne, whilst still in the London Met., had ended up killing an undisclosed number of ‘bad’ people as part of his unorthodox approach to crime solving. As the book opens Milne is on the run living in hiding in the Philippines. He learns of the unsolved murder in London of his best mate in the met who was still a cop until his unexpected demise. Our (super?) hero decides to return to London to avenge the killing and all hell breaks loose. I must admit that the term gratuitous violence crossed my mind. Here’s a taster where some drunks were being less than kind to a stripper in a sleazy pub:

“…snarling and cursing she launched a ferocious surprise attack …with the heal of one of her shoes…. The nearest drunk got the heal right in the top of his head, the blow landing with such force that I swear it penetrated bone… She had to work hard to get it out again.”

As the plot unfolds a paedophile ring with connections in high places, a sexy female reporter and, of course, a collection of ruthless villains come into the frame. The plot does hold water and unfolds with some gripping twists. This book is Simon Kernick's second Dennis Milne story and the author is planning a third, so this news may help you to decide whether or not, against all the odds, our hero manages to survive his many scrapes in "A good Day to Die".

I recommend this thriller. There’s a good intro from the author, written in June 2008, and it’s clear that he’s strong on background research and the plot keeps the reader guessing to the end. I'll close with a bit of street philosophy from our thoughful killer/hero describing life in our glorious capital city:

“A never ending conflict between the haves and the would-haves-if they could-get-their-hands-on-it, and the people meant to keep them apart – the coppers.”