Last night, Nick Boles gave the Macmillan lecture to the Tory Reform Group. You can read a potted summary of it here, but I wanted to pick up on one part of his text, because it's relevant to my post on HS2 a couple of months ago. Essentially the issue of the Oxbridge Brain Belt has raised its head again, after first being proposed by Lord Wolfson last April.
This government likes large infrastructure projects - "Boris Island" and HS2 are ample proof of that, and I can see some logic in the Brain Belt proposal to link up the Oxford-Cambridge-Milton Keynes troika with a new motorway, paid for by the development of a new garden city en route. But, to return to a thought from last week, isn't this just another case where the best is the enemy of the good?
First, consider the very real problems of the northern cities - do we really want to be building an entirely new city in the south-east, when regeneration is so urgently required in large conurbations elsewhere. Of course, some will argue that it should be both/and, not either/or, but it does indicate some "interesting" priorities, to say the least.
Then there's the purely political consderation, and this is really amusing. If you're going to build a new city on this route, then where do you put it? Logic would dictate the point where the motorway intersects with HS2 (for a potential new station), and the M40: so, North Buckinghamshire, just to the east of Bicester then; we could call it, oh, I don't know, Stratton Audley. The best of luck with getting that one past an electorate that is already up in arms about HS2 - "by the way Bucks, as well as the high speed rail line, you're also getting a motorway and a city........"
And yet, there is something in this, and maybe it doesn't need a motorway.
The first thing to say is that east west transport in this country is abysmal. I regularly travel from Bicester to Milton Keynes for work, and what should be a 20 minute journey can take over an hour. Cambridge can take two. Public transport is abject; the X5 bus weaves its merry way from Oxford to Cambridge via Milton Keynes and Bedford in a catatonia-inducing three and a half hours.
The Centre for Cities, in it's Cities Outlook 2012 notes that Cambridge and Oxford are first and third for number of patents granted in the UK, they've both got world class universities, and they don't directly capitalise on this. The same report notes that Milton Keynes was the fastest growing city in the UK between 2000 and 2010, as well as being 3rd in the UK for business start-ups per 10,000 population. Clearly there is potential here for an M4 corridor style belt of prosperity.
Of course, there used to be a rather well placed railway line.
The Varsity Line from Oxford to Cambridge was closed at either end in 1967, leaving only the section between Bletchley and Bedford, and the spur from Oxford to Bicester Town open to passenger traffic. The rails are still in place between Oxford and Bletchley. One of the infrastructure projects announced by the Chancellor in the run up to Christmas was the re-opening of the line to passenger traffic between Oxford and Bedford, with a new connection to Milton Keynes Central. But why stop there?
The obvious answer is that the old trackbed east of Bedford has become obstructed. Housing crosses the line at Sandy and Potton, the Mullard Radio Astronomy Laboratory has appropriated 3 miles of trackbed outside Cambridge, and there's a "guided busway" on the formation between Trumpington and Cambridge city centre.
But, if we're seriously debating building an entire city and new motorway surely we can look at whether it mightn't just be cheaper to allow Milton Keynes and Bedford to expand, and use the money from developers to fund either a deviation around the obstructions (surely not beyond the wit of man), or compulsory purchase/relocation of anything in the way. This last might seem rather hardline, but actually I wonder if the authorities at the time authorising any of the above developments bothered to revoke the Act of Parliament for the railway line - which would lead to a potentially interesting legal position (feel free to step in here and correct me, it's certainly cost people their gardens elsewhere when the rails have unexpectedly been put back....).
Reinstatement of the railway line between Oxford and Cambridge would join up the Oxbridge Brain Belt, get freight off the roads, and provide a genuine east-west rail link in a country now largely short of them. Indeed, if the government also reinstated the spur off to Banbury from Verney Junction then you've got a new fast link between Cambridge and Birmingham, opening up the West Midlands conurbation. It's certainly worth looking at as an alternative: at a time when grand projects come with a grand price tag, maybe we should lower our sights ever so slightly and just have good, affordable projects?
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Monday, 30 January 2012
Thanks, Aggers
Growing up in England in the 1980s and 90s it was still just about impossible to escape cricket, although the numbers that tried were growing. My grandfather had played for a decent club side in the 1950s, and once managed to take all ten wickets in the match, after which he was presented with the ball. I suppose I knew about cricket balls before I knew what cricket was, as he had it mounted on a plinth on top of his television, with a small bronze shield attached recording his feat. Over the years, it had been polished regularly to a very deep patina, which I vividly remember staring at for hours as a young boy of four or five. In retrospect, this was probably good training for the long periods at New Road, or Chester Road in Kidderminster, watching Worcestershire grind out fourth day draws...
Cricket has always played a part in England's sense of self, or at least, it has been used as a form of shorthand for whatever point the writer wishes to make: for John Major it was part of his appeal for a return to decency and fair play; for, say, AG Macdonell in "England Their England," it is an archetype of the English capacity for eccentric time-wasting.
Last week, the ECB announced that a deal has been signed to keep Test Match Special on air at least until 2019 - to general cheers and sighs of relief all round. TMS is an integral part of national life, it's measured commentary perfectly suiting the ebb and flow of a five day match. Over the years its commmentators and summarisers have become household names (well, in certain households), and judicious recruitment has seen gaps gaps filled by a succession of characters, from a seemingly never exhausted pool of talent.
Of course, the doyenne of TMS voices was Brian Johnston, who for so many years simply was cricket. The three ring circus that is TMS had Johnners as its ringmaster, struggling masterfully to keep control over such diverse personalities as Don Mosey and Fred Trueman.
In his 2010 book, "Thanks, Johnners," what Jonathan Agnew has done is essentially bring him back to life in a small way. Part biography, part memoir of his own early years in the TMS commentary box, Aggers provides a window into the workings of a small part of English culture. Derek Birley set cricket firmly into its position in English life, but Aggers goes a little way towards illuminating its place in the national soul.
At a time when the England side are experiencing a bit of a wobble at the pinnacle of world cricket, and it's still too early to think about sitting on the boundary at the Parks, huddling for warmth as Oxford University struggles to give some second string county side a competitive game, it makes sense to revisit past glories. It's a good time to close the curtains against the January dark, throw another log on the fire, and drift away to a time when Johnners made cricket commentary seem effortless, even as Chris Tavare, say, made playing the game itself seem infinitely harder...
Indeed, to shamelessly plagiarise PG Wodehouse on "Love on a Branch Line" - itself home to one of the finer literary cricket matches;
"Reading it is like drinking champagne in the open air on a sunny morning"
Johnners has been very lucky in his memorialist, as we've all been in his successor at the centre of the TMS circus.
Cricket has always played a part in England's sense of self, or at least, it has been used as a form of shorthand for whatever point the writer wishes to make: for John Major it was part of his appeal for a return to decency and fair play; for, say, AG Macdonell in "England Their England," it is an archetype of the English capacity for eccentric time-wasting.
Last week, the ECB announced that a deal has been signed to keep Test Match Special on air at least until 2019 - to general cheers and sighs of relief all round. TMS is an integral part of national life, it's measured commentary perfectly suiting the ebb and flow of a five day match. Over the years its commmentators and summarisers have become household names (well, in certain households), and judicious recruitment has seen gaps gaps filled by a succession of characters, from a seemingly never exhausted pool of talent.
Of course, the doyenne of TMS voices was Brian Johnston, who for so many years simply was cricket. The three ring circus that is TMS had Johnners as its ringmaster, struggling masterfully to keep control over such diverse personalities as Don Mosey and Fred Trueman.
In his 2010 book, "Thanks, Johnners," what Jonathan Agnew has done is essentially bring him back to life in a small way. Part biography, part memoir of his own early years in the TMS commentary box, Aggers provides a window into the workings of a small part of English culture. Derek Birley set cricket firmly into its position in English life, but Aggers goes a little way towards illuminating its place in the national soul.
At a time when the England side are experiencing a bit of a wobble at the pinnacle of world cricket, and it's still too early to think about sitting on the boundary at the Parks, huddling for warmth as Oxford University struggles to give some second string county side a competitive game, it makes sense to revisit past glories. It's a good time to close the curtains against the January dark, throw another log on the fire, and drift away to a time when Johnners made cricket commentary seem effortless, even as Chris Tavare, say, made playing the game itself seem infinitely harder...
Indeed, to shamelessly plagiarise PG Wodehouse on "Love on a Branch Line" - itself home to one of the finer literary cricket matches;
"Reading it is like drinking champagne in the open air on a sunny morning"
Johnners has been very lucky in his memorialist, as we've all been in his successor at the centre of the TMS circus.
Sunday, 29 January 2012
How We See Ourselves
I was going to write about Hampton Gay today, but the Oxfordshire mists have descended and made photography impossible - and it really needs photographs. So, instead, it's film matinee time.
I wrote last year about Powell and Pressburger's lyrical hymn to England, A Canterbury Tale. Although I think overall ACT edges it as a film, Englishness was a theme they returned to in colour in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
Starring P&P regular Roger Livesey in the title role, the film conducts a microscopic dissection of what it means to be English in the age of total war; by following the life of Clive Candy from dashing war hero just back from South Africa, through the Kaiser's Berlin and the Western Front to the period after Dunkirk when, as a general, his carefully planned military exercise is finished before it has properly begun by the actions of a young army officer who refuses to play by his rules.
Candy is everything that the British capacity for self-mythmaking would have the ideal army officer be - chivalrous, brave, kind to defenceless women, honourable. P&P's point in the film is that ultimately this is not enought to beat forces driven by evil ideology - a theme returned to slightly less successfully in Brownlow and Mollo's "It Happened Here" ("the terrible thing about fascism is that you have to use fascist methods to defeat it.")
The portrayal of Blimp is sympathetic, but underscored with the thesis that his time has passed and that a new approach is required to secure Britain's safety. This was not an opinion that went down well with Churchill, who tired to have the film banned as unpatriotic, but it is one that they advance very powerfully. The core argument is essentially that much of what Britain/England values about itself will have to be sacrificed to ensure that any of it survives at all. In one of the most poignant scenes, when Candy realises that his frontline military career is over, it is explained to him by his friends that this is a new kind of war, it's not a rugby match, and there will be no peace with honour for the loser - just a descent into darkness. Therefore, given that losing is not an option, you can't choose how you want to fight.
Although these days P&P are rightly lauded for their cinematography and direction, one of their bravest strokes in this film is the writing of a sympathetic German character as second lead, played brilliantly by Anton Walbrook. That even in the depths of the Second World War they were able to put a German army officer centre stage says a great deal for both their readiness to take risks, and their absolute humanity.
This is a film that will make your hair stand up on the back of your neck on several occasions, but never more so than when Walbrook's character, making his case for political asylum in a 1939 London police station, relates the story of how his children became Nazis, and howm therefore, with the death of his English wife, his life has essentially come to an end.
The female lead is Deborah Kerr, who plays no fewer than three parts spanning 45 years - Theo's wife, Candy's wife, and Candy's ATS driver. She carries a lot of the weight of the film and makes it look effortless.
Of course, being Powell and Pressburger, there has to be at least one scene of jawdropping technical achievement, but this one provides two. The real film technicians get very excited about the duelling scene (again, typical of P&P, you never actually see the duel) where the camera pans down over a snowy Berlin and in through the gymnasium skylight in a single take, but that's not the high point.
For something utterly dislocating the film takes the viewer into a First World War POW camp. But one in England, full of German officers. Candy goes to visit his German friend and finds the officers sitting by the side of lake listening to a concert. During the interval he picks his way through the prisoners and catches sight of his old friend just as the music starts up again. Walbrook looks straight through him before turning away, kicking off a beautiful shot of groups of Germans turning in differenct directions to face the music to the opening bars of Fingal's Cave. It's powerful, magical, heartbreaking, and utterly captivating.
The film was mauled by unsympathetic postwar editing, but is generally now shown essentially as Michael Powell intended. It's long, but there are fewer more genuinely pleasurable ways to spend a Sunday afternoon than to watch it. As a portrayal of friendship it's unmatched, as an examination of national values, and whether these should be set in stone, or adapted to changing realities, it stands alone.
I wrote last year about Powell and Pressburger's lyrical hymn to England, A Canterbury Tale. Although I think overall ACT edges it as a film, Englishness was a theme they returned to in colour in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
Starring P&P regular Roger Livesey in the title role, the film conducts a microscopic dissection of what it means to be English in the age of total war; by following the life of Clive Candy from dashing war hero just back from South Africa, through the Kaiser's Berlin and the Western Front to the period after Dunkirk when, as a general, his carefully planned military exercise is finished before it has properly begun by the actions of a young army officer who refuses to play by his rules.
Candy is everything that the British capacity for self-mythmaking would have the ideal army officer be - chivalrous, brave, kind to defenceless women, honourable. P&P's point in the film is that ultimately this is not enought to beat forces driven by evil ideology - a theme returned to slightly less successfully in Brownlow and Mollo's "It Happened Here" ("the terrible thing about fascism is that you have to use fascist methods to defeat it.")
The portrayal of Blimp is sympathetic, but underscored with the thesis that his time has passed and that a new approach is required to secure Britain's safety. This was not an opinion that went down well with Churchill, who tired to have the film banned as unpatriotic, but it is one that they advance very powerfully. The core argument is essentially that much of what Britain/England values about itself will have to be sacrificed to ensure that any of it survives at all. In one of the most poignant scenes, when Candy realises that his frontline military career is over, it is explained to him by his friends that this is a new kind of war, it's not a rugby match, and there will be no peace with honour for the loser - just a descent into darkness. Therefore, given that losing is not an option, you can't choose how you want to fight.
Although these days P&P are rightly lauded for their cinematography and direction, one of their bravest strokes in this film is the writing of a sympathetic German character as second lead, played brilliantly by Anton Walbrook. That even in the depths of the Second World War they were able to put a German army officer centre stage says a great deal for both their readiness to take risks, and their absolute humanity.
This is a film that will make your hair stand up on the back of your neck on several occasions, but never more so than when Walbrook's character, making his case for political asylum in a 1939 London police station, relates the story of how his children became Nazis, and howm therefore, with the death of his English wife, his life has essentially come to an end.
The female lead is Deborah Kerr, who plays no fewer than three parts spanning 45 years - Theo's wife, Candy's wife, and Candy's ATS driver. She carries a lot of the weight of the film and makes it look effortless.
Of course, being Powell and Pressburger, there has to be at least one scene of jawdropping technical achievement, but this one provides two. The real film technicians get very excited about the duelling scene (again, typical of P&P, you never actually see the duel) where the camera pans down over a snowy Berlin and in through the gymnasium skylight in a single take, but that's not the high point.
For something utterly dislocating the film takes the viewer into a First World War POW camp. But one in England, full of German officers. Candy goes to visit his German friend and finds the officers sitting by the side of lake listening to a concert. During the interval he picks his way through the prisoners and catches sight of his old friend just as the music starts up again. Walbrook looks straight through him before turning away, kicking off a beautiful shot of groups of Germans turning in differenct directions to face the music to the opening bars of Fingal's Cave. It's powerful, magical, heartbreaking, and utterly captivating.
The film was mauled by unsympathetic postwar editing, but is generally now shown essentially as Michael Powell intended. It's long, but there are fewer more genuinely pleasurable ways to spend a Sunday afternoon than to watch it. As a portrayal of friendship it's unmatched, as an examination of national values, and whether these should be set in stone, or adapted to changing realities, it stands alone.
Friday, 27 January 2012
Gratuitous Friday Photo
Sea Harrier in the hover over INVINCIBLE during 2003. Would be quite handy to have a few of these in the back pocket.
Happy Friday
Happy Friday
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Aircraft Carriers - it's what's on the flightdeck that counts....
Just occasionally it's nice to get out of the shires, at least that's what I thought a few years ago when I ran away to sea. To a navy with three whole aircraft carriers, all of its very own - I left before they did as it turns out....
The Royal Navy has been in and out of the news ever since the Strategic Defence Review of 2010, one of the main points of which was the aircraft carrier debacle, which suggests that of the two carriers currently in build, the first will be mothballed pretty much at launch, while only the second will ever embark a fixed wing air-group. Cue Daily Mail self-writing headlines along the lines of "Aircraft Carriers Without Planes - Shock!!!"
The problem however is not with the carriers themselves; steel is cheap and air is free; so much as the planes. Britain is supposed to be buying the Joint Strike Fighter, which it is developing in conjunction with the USA. However, it is here that the procurement fun really starts.
Because the RN has been operating Harrier jump jets for 30 odd years we decided, against all logic, that that is what we should carry on doing, and committed to buying the jump jet variant of the JSF rather than the conventional variant (which would require catapult assistance for take-off, and arrestor wires on the deck for landing). The SDR changed that decision and committed the UK to the conventional variant - meaning that the carriers need to be redesigned. Then last week we learned that there have been problems with the design of the arrestor hook, meaning that the plane itself is going to have to be redesigned.
Defence procurement is a licence to print money in so many ways - you're dealing with cutting edge technology, long lead times, and defence manufacturers who know that they are the only people governments can go to, and thus have them over a barrel. Maybe it's time for a pragmatic rethink?
UKIP were first out of the traps last week with the suggestion that now was the time to pull out of the JSF programme and, as far as it goes, I'd be minded to agree with them. However, they then suggested that the answer to Britain's problem was to "navalise" the Eurofighter, citing a BAe feasibility study from early in the last decade. Their argument essentially runs along the lines that this would be good for British manufacturing. Fine, but the Eurofighter is just another in a long line of UK procurement disasters; late and over budget.
The plane would have to be completely redesigned, and the UKIP plan does nothing to address the old truism that whilst it is easy to make a very good land based plane from a naval design, it's much harder to go the other way and turn a normal jet into something suitable for carrier operations (apart from anything else the sea is a particularly unforgiving operating environment which demands different materials to be used in construction, hence naval jets are typically heavier than their land based brethren and will handle differently and carry a different payload).
If we are going to have carriers at all, then we need to ask what we are going to realistically use them for, and cut our cloth accordingly. If we're going to fight a major power, then we're probably going to do that as part of an alliance, and so do we really need the best planes in the world, when the sky is likely to be full of them? Quite apart from this, things are likely to have got pretty serious geo-politically, and we're probably getting into wars-of-national-survival territory.
If we're going it alone against a second rank power, then surely all that matters is that our planes are better, rather than that they are the best in the world? The best is after all the enemy of the good. I think it might be time to start thinking about buying off the shelf - especially if the rumours are true that we're unlikely to put a carrier to sea with more than 12 JSF on-board, when it has been built to hold more than 30.
For the price of JSF we can afford to buy something designed for the job, that's combat proven, in greater numbers, and better than anything we're likely to come up against from potential enemies - unless we're going to unlaterally declare war on a superpower. Therefore, the UK realistically has a choice, we either buy Rafale off the French for the most modern carrier jets, or F18s off the USA. Both would be fine for our realistic needs for a couple of decades until being superceded by UAVs, and either would be cheaper.
JSF is a nice to have, not the be all and end all. Given that we seem to lack a workable defence industrial strategy, I don't think a large number of defence jobs AND decent kit are achievable across the full spectrum of defence equipment needs. Perhaps it's time to retreat from some of them and recognise that the needs of our forces ought to come first, and we should aim to give them something that is good enough, rather than world beating.
I'm not sure I'm totally right, and willing to be convinced of the merits of any aircraft type, but I think the option ought to be on the table that the solution to our carrier needs already exists, and is flying from a navy very nearby - whether it's to our east or west.
Finally, for the nostalgists, a picture I took back in the days when we could embark a fixed wing carrier air group.....
The Royal Navy has been in and out of the news ever since the Strategic Defence Review of 2010, one of the main points of which was the aircraft carrier debacle, which suggests that of the two carriers currently in build, the first will be mothballed pretty much at launch, while only the second will ever embark a fixed wing air-group. Cue Daily Mail self-writing headlines along the lines of "Aircraft Carriers Without Planes - Shock!!!"
The problem however is not with the carriers themselves; steel is cheap and air is free; so much as the planes. Britain is supposed to be buying the Joint Strike Fighter, which it is developing in conjunction with the USA. However, it is here that the procurement fun really starts.
Because the RN has been operating Harrier jump jets for 30 odd years we decided, against all logic, that that is what we should carry on doing, and committed to buying the jump jet variant of the JSF rather than the conventional variant (which would require catapult assistance for take-off, and arrestor wires on the deck for landing). The SDR changed that decision and committed the UK to the conventional variant - meaning that the carriers need to be redesigned. Then last week we learned that there have been problems with the design of the arrestor hook, meaning that the plane itself is going to have to be redesigned.
Defence procurement is a licence to print money in so many ways - you're dealing with cutting edge technology, long lead times, and defence manufacturers who know that they are the only people governments can go to, and thus have them over a barrel. Maybe it's time for a pragmatic rethink?
UKIP were first out of the traps last week with the suggestion that now was the time to pull out of the JSF programme and, as far as it goes, I'd be minded to agree with them. However, they then suggested that the answer to Britain's problem was to "navalise" the Eurofighter, citing a BAe feasibility study from early in the last decade. Their argument essentially runs along the lines that this would be good for British manufacturing. Fine, but the Eurofighter is just another in a long line of UK procurement disasters; late and over budget.
The plane would have to be completely redesigned, and the UKIP plan does nothing to address the old truism that whilst it is easy to make a very good land based plane from a naval design, it's much harder to go the other way and turn a normal jet into something suitable for carrier operations (apart from anything else the sea is a particularly unforgiving operating environment which demands different materials to be used in construction, hence naval jets are typically heavier than their land based brethren and will handle differently and carry a different payload).
If we are going to have carriers at all, then we need to ask what we are going to realistically use them for, and cut our cloth accordingly. If we're going to fight a major power, then we're probably going to do that as part of an alliance, and so do we really need the best planes in the world, when the sky is likely to be full of them? Quite apart from this, things are likely to have got pretty serious geo-politically, and we're probably getting into wars-of-national-survival territory.
If we're going it alone against a second rank power, then surely all that matters is that our planes are better, rather than that they are the best in the world? The best is after all the enemy of the good. I think it might be time to start thinking about buying off the shelf - especially if the rumours are true that we're unlikely to put a carrier to sea with more than 12 JSF on-board, when it has been built to hold more than 30.
For the price of JSF we can afford to buy something designed for the job, that's combat proven, in greater numbers, and better than anything we're likely to come up against from potential enemies - unless we're going to unlaterally declare war on a superpower. Therefore, the UK realistically has a choice, we either buy Rafale off the French for the most modern carrier jets, or F18s off the USA. Both would be fine for our realistic needs for a couple of decades until being superceded by UAVs, and either would be cheaper.
JSF is a nice to have, not the be all and end all. Given that we seem to lack a workable defence industrial strategy, I don't think a large number of defence jobs AND decent kit are achievable across the full spectrum of defence equipment needs. Perhaps it's time to retreat from some of them and recognise that the needs of our forces ought to come first, and we should aim to give them something that is good enough, rather than world beating.
I'm not sure I'm totally right, and willing to be convinced of the merits of any aircraft type, but I think the option ought to be on the table that the solution to our carrier needs already exists, and is flying from a navy very nearby - whether it's to our east or west.
Finally, for the nostalgists, a picture I took back in the days when we could embark a fixed wing carrier air group.....
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Happy Burns Night!
"Titfield. One can't open the newspaper these days without reading about Titfield."
With these exasperated words the Minister of Transport in Ealing Studios' "The Titfield Thunderbolt" wearily resigns himself to the fact that Something Must Be Done. It isn't just going to go away. At the moment, the same can be said about Scotland - and the fact that it's everywhere in the papers at the moment as one side seeks to cut loose, whilst the other searches for elusive positive arguments for why we'd be better off sticking together....
So anyway, given that it's Burns Night, its time to sit down and consider the story of the struggle between a cheery streetwise ginger Scotsman, and his ancestrally Scottish putative overlord up from London with the English accent - yes, Ronald Neame's film of James Kennaway's "Tunes of Glory."
TOG fits perfectly in with the first rule of British cinema - that if it's set in Scotland and was made before about 1965 it's going to be good (the exception, naturally, being Jack Hawkins and David Niven in "Bonnie Prince Charlie"). It tells a complex story of power and identity, that is fairly ambivalent in its presentation of the two protagonists Jock Sinclair (Alec Guinness) and Basil Barrow (John Mills). Indeed, by the end it's difficult to know who you're supposed to be rooting for.
The plot is straightforward enough: Jock, an officer commissioned from the ranks after Alamein, is acting colonel of his highland battalion, garrisoned in a peacetime barracks similar to Stirling Castle. Basil is the 5th generation regimental officer sent up from instructing at Sandhurst to take command over Jock's head.
The antagonism between the two characters provides a window on the eternal questions of Scottish identity, and what is proper behaviour. Jock has his officers dancing reels with gay abandon, hollering and raising their hands above their heads; Basil is convinced that his officers should be dancing "correctly," and orders them to attend remedial dancing classes at dawn with the pipe major. As an aside, as someone who has been given some very stern looks at the Northern Meeting I can confirm these attitudes persist on the 21st century Scottish dancefloor.
Some of it is more subtle - can Basil really be considered Scottish with his English accent, even though he is undoubtedly from north of the border and from an old Scots family? Are the attitudes of his officers to him mirrored in the scorn of the pipe major for the clearly English Regimental Sergeant Major, Riddick? And can any self respecting Scotsman take seriously as his commanding officer a man who will turn down whisky in favour of lemonade?
The officers are an odd bunch. Gordon Jackson is ever-reliable as the adjutant, but then there are characters like Alec Rattray, clearly a bruiser after Jock's heart, and a marvellously malevolent turn from Dennis Price as Major Scott - a man who manages to alienate everyone around him by the end of the film, stealing Jock's lover and completely undermining Basil whilst giving every outward impression of being on his side.
Shot in technicolor, the film is these days a distinctly period piece, but it has some marvellous scenes - particularly of the reeling - and Guinness was never better than in this film: indeed, he saw it as the performance he was most proud of in his career.
Ultimately, it's a study of leadership, and the shifting currents of loyalty within a tightly sealed world. It gets under the skin of the immediate postwar army in a way that perhaps only George Macdonald Fraser's McAuslan stories (interestingly also dealing with a Highland battalion) have matched. It deserves a new audience.
With these exasperated words the Minister of Transport in Ealing Studios' "The Titfield Thunderbolt" wearily resigns himself to the fact that Something Must Be Done. It isn't just going to go away. At the moment, the same can be said about Scotland - and the fact that it's everywhere in the papers at the moment as one side seeks to cut loose, whilst the other searches for elusive positive arguments for why we'd be better off sticking together....
So anyway, given that it's Burns Night, its time to sit down and consider the story of the struggle between a cheery streetwise ginger Scotsman, and his ancestrally Scottish putative overlord up from London with the English accent - yes, Ronald Neame's film of James Kennaway's "Tunes of Glory."
TOG fits perfectly in with the first rule of British cinema - that if it's set in Scotland and was made before about 1965 it's going to be good (the exception, naturally, being Jack Hawkins and David Niven in "Bonnie Prince Charlie"). It tells a complex story of power and identity, that is fairly ambivalent in its presentation of the two protagonists Jock Sinclair (Alec Guinness) and Basil Barrow (John Mills). Indeed, by the end it's difficult to know who you're supposed to be rooting for.
The plot is straightforward enough: Jock, an officer commissioned from the ranks after Alamein, is acting colonel of his highland battalion, garrisoned in a peacetime barracks similar to Stirling Castle. Basil is the 5th generation regimental officer sent up from instructing at Sandhurst to take command over Jock's head.
The antagonism between the two characters provides a window on the eternal questions of Scottish identity, and what is proper behaviour. Jock has his officers dancing reels with gay abandon, hollering and raising their hands above their heads; Basil is convinced that his officers should be dancing "correctly," and orders them to attend remedial dancing classes at dawn with the pipe major. As an aside, as someone who has been given some very stern looks at the Northern Meeting I can confirm these attitudes persist on the 21st century Scottish dancefloor.
Some of it is more subtle - can Basil really be considered Scottish with his English accent, even though he is undoubtedly from north of the border and from an old Scots family? Are the attitudes of his officers to him mirrored in the scorn of the pipe major for the clearly English Regimental Sergeant Major, Riddick? And can any self respecting Scotsman take seriously as his commanding officer a man who will turn down whisky in favour of lemonade?
The officers are an odd bunch. Gordon Jackson is ever-reliable as the adjutant, but then there are characters like Alec Rattray, clearly a bruiser after Jock's heart, and a marvellously malevolent turn from Dennis Price as Major Scott - a man who manages to alienate everyone around him by the end of the film, stealing Jock's lover and completely undermining Basil whilst giving every outward impression of being on his side.
Shot in technicolor, the film is these days a distinctly period piece, but it has some marvellous scenes - particularly of the reeling - and Guinness was never better than in this film: indeed, he saw it as the performance he was most proud of in his career.
Ultimately, it's a study of leadership, and the shifting currents of loyalty within a tightly sealed world. It gets under the skin of the immediate postwar army in a way that perhaps only George Macdonald Fraser's McAuslan stories (interestingly also dealing with a Highland battalion) have matched. It deserves a new audience.
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
Self Determination
Lots of people died on both sides, shouldn't we let the people who live there decide?
Monday, 23 January 2012
Getting to the point.....
The big racing news of the weekend was trackside, rather than having anything to do with horseflesh - Ascot's spot of bother with its new dress regulations. However, just up the M40 a few thousand people were having much more fun - and all dressed impeccably.
The Heythrop point to point was held at Dunthrop for the last time on Sunday, with the organisers citing the inability to water as the key reason. This essentially means they have no choice but to meet early in the season, and hence restrict the number of races on the card because of the limited amount of daylight. Next year, they're moving to a new site in Aldsworth, so it was a last chance to experience the extreme silliness that a point to point 600 feet above sea level in January has always been....
A general lack of rain recently meant that the going was at least firm, and the car parking didn't resemble quite the Passchendaele of some past years. There were a variety of decent stalls, some of which will be familiar from elsewhere on the circuit, offering the chance to stock up on everything from hunting prints to the works of Dick Francis. I made a beeline straight for the cider stall, where £3 purchased an incredibly dry scrumpy at around 8%. Once the initial shock had burned off a few tastebuds, the flavour settled down to a very crisp note; even so, it took nearly an hour to drink...
As ever, a good crowd had been drawn from the surrounding area. Obviously a large number had come across from Chipping Norton, two miles to the west, but there were a fair few of the usual suspects from the hunting world. The Heythrop were out in force, but there were also contingents from the Christ Church & Farley Hill Beagles and Four Shires Basset Hounds as well.
So to the racing. Prices were pretty keen along the run of bookmakers, but what reputation I may have had as a judge of horses was in tatters by the end of the afternoon following a steady procession of three legged horses, fallers, and non-stayers. Nevertheless, I'm sure someone somewhere had some success (probably the chap with the chalkboard).
Point to pointing has been undergoing something of a renaissance lately, as people seek out less costly ways of entertaining themselves than the corporatised experiences at the big racecources. It's part of a wider trend that has seen attendances up at agricultural shows throughout the country - if only the Royal had held on for a couple more years it might still be with us!
As ever, there's a lot going on out here in the countryside if you scratch the surface. An awful lot of the point to point was only possible because land owners and hunt supporters had donated their time, assets and experiences. It wouldn't be possible without this sense of community, and of place.
Dunthrop was always a cold experience, and some years I certainly wondered what on earth I was doing there, but it will be sad not to be there next year. Aldsworth is going to have a lot to measure up to, but I'm sure in 20 years time it will be every bit a part of the local calendar as its draughty but wonderful predecessor.
Next up, the Bicester with Whaddon Chase at Whitfield on 18th March (HS2 permitting...) - well, strictly the Bullingdon at Kingston Blount's before then, but who in their right mind wants to go to a point to point on the last Saturday of the hunting season?
The Heythrop point to point was held at Dunthrop for the last time on Sunday, with the organisers citing the inability to water as the key reason. This essentially means they have no choice but to meet early in the season, and hence restrict the number of races on the card because of the limited amount of daylight. Next year, they're moving to a new site in Aldsworth, so it was a last chance to experience the extreme silliness that a point to point 600 feet above sea level in January has always been....
A general lack of rain recently meant that the going was at least firm, and the car parking didn't resemble quite the Passchendaele of some past years. There were a variety of decent stalls, some of which will be familiar from elsewhere on the circuit, offering the chance to stock up on everything from hunting prints to the works of Dick Francis. I made a beeline straight for the cider stall, where £3 purchased an incredibly dry scrumpy at around 8%. Once the initial shock had burned off a few tastebuds, the flavour settled down to a very crisp note; even so, it took nearly an hour to drink...
As ever, a good crowd had been drawn from the surrounding area. Obviously a large number had come across from Chipping Norton, two miles to the west, but there were a fair few of the usual suspects from the hunting world. The Heythrop were out in force, but there were also contingents from the Christ Church & Farley Hill Beagles and Four Shires Basset Hounds as well.
So to the racing. Prices were pretty keen along the run of bookmakers, but what reputation I may have had as a judge of horses was in tatters by the end of the afternoon following a steady procession of three legged horses, fallers, and non-stayers. Nevertheless, I'm sure someone somewhere had some success (probably the chap with the chalkboard).
Point to pointing has been undergoing something of a renaissance lately, as people seek out less costly ways of entertaining themselves than the corporatised experiences at the big racecources. It's part of a wider trend that has seen attendances up at agricultural shows throughout the country - if only the Royal had held on for a couple more years it might still be with us!
As ever, there's a lot going on out here in the countryside if you scratch the surface. An awful lot of the point to point was only possible because land owners and hunt supporters had donated their time, assets and experiences. It wouldn't be possible without this sense of community, and of place.
Dunthrop was always a cold experience, and some years I certainly wondered what on earth I was doing there, but it will be sad not to be there next year. Aldsworth is going to have a lot to measure up to, but I'm sure in 20 years time it will be every bit a part of the local calendar as its draughty but wonderful predecessor.
Next up, the Bicester with Whaddon Chase at Whitfield on 18th March (HS2 permitting...) - well, strictly the Bullingdon at Kingston Blount's before then, but who in their right mind wants to go to a point to point on the last Saturday of the hunting season?
Sleeping your way to a Meeting
Recently, the sleeper service between London and points Scottish has come under the threat of having its funding withdrawn. Whilst this lunacy seems to be diminishing after a rare outbreak of common sense, perhaps now’s a good time to consider why these services are so vital to the wellbeing of their users.
The first thing to say is that I’m not rampantly anti-aviation. I think it would be a good thing if we all took fewer, and shorter flights, but there are times when obviously only the plane will do. In the UK we have the real advantage that nowhere is really all that far from anywhere else. Admittedly, if you live in Truro and get asked to a forty minute business meeting in Inverness then you should probably think twice about whether a conference call might not be a better idea; but there is generally no need to be leaping on the plane for an internal flight every couple of days.
A couple of years ago I was travelling regularly from London to Edinburgh on business, and you got to recognise the same faces standing in the queue for security at 0630 on a Monday morning. I just couldn’t understand how people could keep up this existence for any length of time. Of course, I realise that some people make calculations based on needing to do it – in order to see more of their children and have a workable home life - but it did seem to me that this sort of extreme commuting meant serious compromises in other areas of life, and high levels of stress and exhaustion.
After a while I investigated the possibility of taking the sleeper instead of the plane – I’m generally pretty positive about rail travel anyway, and it seemed to have been the right solution for Richard Hanney….
Quite simply, it was a revelation. Yes it takes longer – London to Scotland and back in 30 odd hours instead of say 14, but it opens up time for much better use than standing in queues or waiting for the transfer bus to a far distant airport car park.
Given my general antipathy to London, the sleeper at least gives me the opportunity to go and have dinner with those of my friends who haven’t yet managed to escape! From the restaurant or bar a quick tube to Euston sees me on the train and in bed by midnight, before being lulled to sleep by the motion of the train as it makes its way out through the northern suburbs and onto the West Coast mainline.
The berths are spartan but comfortable, and if you know the dates you want to travel a decent time in advance then you can usually get a cabin to yourself for about the same price as a business internal flight. When you wake up it’s to the sight of the Pentland Hills rolling past the window, and you’re into Edinburgh in time for a shower, breakfast, and a read of the paper before your nine am meeting. You’re less stressed, better rested, and arguably better able to perform. That night, simply repeat the process with your Edinburgh based friends….
Of course, this sort of thing is made a lot easier if you’re single, and don’t have a partner or family who may be less enthusiastic about you spending more time away than you technically have to, but, if you can get away with it, then it really is the only way to travel.
If the sleeper service was withdrawn tomorrow then the world would still keep turning, and most people would carry on without batting an eyelid, but something that makes Britain ever so slightly more civilised would have vanished; in the long run that would make us all the poorer.
Sunday, 22 January 2012
Where do we go from here?
One of the most striking features of the current "Age of Austerity" is the growing need for authenticity in consumer habits. As household and discretionary spending undergoes a squeeze, people have been forced to confront their consumption and make real choices about what is important in terms of quality and quantity.
One of the more pleasing bi-products of this has been the gradual trend away from consuming for its own sake, in favour of buying fewer better quality items (something that has been genuinely the case in Switzerland for many years, and that a Frenchman would at least tell you was the case in France, even if it is more honoured in the breach...).
However, it's not enough just the recession that has brought this about. Even before 2007, the UK public were becoming increasingly concerned about issues such as food miles, seasonal/local produce, and ethical consumption. This catalysed the growth in regional food fairs, and initiatives like Cittaslow, making it increasingly possible for people to take a real interest in what they wear, what food they put on the table, and how they live their lives.
I'm currently rereading Carl Honore's In Praise of Slow, which more and more seems to make sense as a blueprint of how we can all live better, slower and more ethical lives. As the world staggers slowly towards what we can only hope are the broad sunlit uplands Mr Churchill was so enthusiastic about, maybe we do need to start thinking about what sort of society and structures we want to build to ensure that we don't fall into the same consumerist trap as before.
One of the more pleasing bi-products of this has been the gradual trend away from consuming for its own sake, in favour of buying fewer better quality items (something that has been genuinely the case in Switzerland for many years, and that a Frenchman would at least tell you was the case in France, even if it is more honoured in the breach...).
However, it's not enough just the recession that has brought this about. Even before 2007, the UK public were becoming increasingly concerned about issues such as food miles, seasonal/local produce, and ethical consumption. This catalysed the growth in regional food fairs, and initiatives like Cittaslow, making it increasingly possible for people to take a real interest in what they wear, what food they put on the table, and how they live their lives.
I'm currently rereading Carl Honore's In Praise of Slow, which more and more seems to make sense as a blueprint of how we can all live better, slower and more ethical lives. As the world staggers slowly towards what we can only hope are the broad sunlit uplands Mr Churchill was so enthusiastic about, maybe we do need to start thinking about what sort of society and structures we want to build to ensure that we don't fall into the same consumerist trap as before.
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