Surfing on a tide of relentless cynicism

Civilised society tells us we should behave in a certain way. From an early age we are consciously and unconsciously schooled in the correct manner to go about our business. What is deemed acceptable behaviour, how to behave towards those around us. The rituals and constructs of social interaction.

Of course, within ten minutes of venturing out for a drink in any medium sized market town or city in this country, anyone with half their faculties intact will discover that this is just a veneer. And not even a robust high quality veneer at that. More the type applied to the dashboard of the Austin Princess, circa 1978, very Terry and June.

Cast your eyes over the locals squaring up to one another outside the nightclub. The chin down to protect the throat, the skin going pale, as the blood flows away from the extremities towards the vital organs, the body instinctively moving into a bladed stance, side on, to present less of a target. In my home town, it seems to be the convention for street pugilists to remove their shirts at this point. Study the scene and you'll notice the only thing missing is the voice over by David Attenborough, "See how the young males beat their chests to intimidate their rivals....". Our genetic inheritance.

Behaviours which have evolved over hundreds of generations, thousand of years, come steaming to the surface, in an eruption of pent up rage. No room for social niceties here, "I say old chap you seem to have spilt my pint and I'm rather browned off with your squiffy mate who's just vomitted on my flannels. Bad form and all that". None of that, it all disappears in an instant of flailing fists, boots and heads which ends in A&E.

These reactions and behaviours are even recognised in police self defence training. The S.P.E.A.R system, (Spontaneous Protection Enabling Accelerated Response) which is trained to law enforcement agencies all over the world, teaches officers to work with the natural, instinctive "flinch" reaction, when faced with a surprise attack.

Has it always been like this? Certainly the instincts and reactions have always been there, lurking below the surface, ready to kick in, in the blink of an eyelid as the tinkle of broken glass signals the incoming Budweiser bottle.

Is it getting any worse? Maybe. What we lack in modern society is any sense of self control. We don't teach it, we don't inbue it in our young. Stoicism is an old fashioned value. The Great British stiff upper lip is long defunct. Footballers burst into tears after being caught out in the latest tabloid sting "roasting" incident. No X Factor contestant can hope to take the grand prize unless they are prepared to lay their emotions bare for the viewers and break down at least once a week in the later stages of the contest. The commonly held limits of what is and is not acceptable behaviour, the glue which binds society together, are slowly desolving.

Why do I say all this? Earlier today I found myself in the freezer section of my local Morrisons. Bad planning on my part. I normally make some excuse and arrange to meet my other half at the checkouts "to help with the heavy stuff", before sloping off the to car park to read my latest book about the Third Reich, whilst sat in the Corsa. On this occasion I had failed and was slowly pushing the trolley around, my mind wandering. I reckon I do some of my best thinking in supermarkets. I was already feeling a bit out of sorts as I 'd just passed an elderly couple. The old gent, back bent by years of hard labour, slowly pushing his trolley around, whilst his wife talked to herself. A window on my future? I mused.

As we moved into the tinned soup aisle, I made eye contact with another chap, about my age. At that instant, stressed out by the whole shopping experience, I could have cheerfully strangled him. He'd done nothing wrong, in fact if first impressions count for anything, he looked like a nice bloke. The problem was, in that instant, as I gazed into his domesticated, emasculated dead eyes, I saw myself reflected in them. Fortunately, I rationalised my feelings and moved on to the diary produce.

In fact the whole shopping trip was only brightened when I copped an eyeful of tit as some woman bent over at the check outs. I do apologise, but you see it's in my genes.

In 1972, my parents having scrimped and saved, bought a three bedroomed end terrace, overlooking our local park. In its' own way it was quite an imposing building, about ninety years old at the time, with a pleasing view through the bay window, across the road and into the greenery beyond.

So much of my memories are framed by that bay window. From an early age I was interested in cars, so always took an interest in what was parked outside by the people visiting the park. As I grew up, the Vauxhall Vivas and Ford Cortinas made way for the Sierras and Montegos, much later to be replaced by the Accords and the odd Matiz.

When I look through that window I can still see the blonde haired four year old chasing his dad, my dad, down the street in his pyjamas and dressing gown. My dad with his jet black afro hair and bushy black beard. Many years later, I commented he must have been shitting himself when West Yorkshire Police released the photofit during the ripper enquiry. It drew a suitably abusive response. He'd read me a bedtime story where the villagers had put walking beans in an evil elf's shoes to make him walk out of town. I told my dad I had put the same beans in his shoes. We were almost through the gates of the park by the time he stopped, me crying, "I didn't really do it daddy". I still carry the mental scars today. His hair is now white, mine's gone through brown and is now grey.

The time, in the late seventies when I looked skyward and for what seemed liked minutes watched a flock of starlings migrating south for winter. Literally thousands of them, passing overhead like a bomber stream on its' way to Berlin, circa 1943.

That same park that my dad used to walk through enroute to the bus stop, often with our first cat Trudy following him. One day as he got on the bus he told her to wait for him. When he returned from work he went into the park through the side entrance. Next day there was still no sign of Trudy. Worried we went looking for her and found her still sat on top of the shelter, waiting for my dad to get off the bus.

Looking through that bay window, onto the street, our street where Trudy met her end, left for dead by a passing motorist one night. She still lies buried underneath the rockery in the back garden. My first taste of bereavement.

As I grew older, I started to venture further afield, heading off on my bike, pretending to be Barry Sheen, whilst tear arsing round the park. One day I tried a bit too hard, the pedal touching the ground as I leaned over. I managed to stagger back to our house, my right thigh slowly turning purple.

There used to be a rocking horse in the play area, the type that could seat four or five people. It was made from wood, and rested on a metal beam. Eventually the council removed the wooden part, when it became too rotten to repair, leaving the metal beam in place. One day, around the time of the Moscow Olympics, I decided to perform a spot of gymnastics by walking along the bar, unfortunately it was a bit damp and I slipped. I think my testicles must have retreated into my abdomen as my entire body weight came crashing down on them. Happy days.

This coincided with my grandparents retiring and joining the veterans bowling club in the park. In those days there were separate clubs for men and women, with separate club houses and greens. My grandad told me the men's green was the second biggest in the country. What seemed like acres of flawless, billiard table-like manicured grass stretching off into the distance across the crown and out towards the gutter. The women's green was the same. I took up crown green bowling about the same time and used to regularly play against my grandad in the school holidays on that green.

One of the gents in the veterans club had been there on the day the park was opened in 1902. My grandad used to talk to him because he had knocked around with his dad, my great-grandad. Strange that, when I looked at them, all I saw was two old men. It didn't register that one was old enough to be the other one's father.

Things started to change around this time. The first noticeable sign was that the council put shutters up over the windows of the men's clubhouse. There was simply too much vandalism going on. In time the shutters were covered in graffiti.

Not long afterwards they started to thin out some of the bushes so the park took on a more open appearance, the reason given, to discourage the drug users that were sleeping rough in there.

Some time in the nineties, the women's club house was burnt down as a result of an arson attack. No forensics, no arrests, no prosecutions of course. Just the charred remains of a building that had served as a social hub for generations of senior citizens levelled and consigned to the dustbin of history.

About the same time they grassed over the rose garden to provide a football pitch for the groups of youths that were now congregating in the park on a nightly basis. I have no problem with this, although the rose garden was beautiful in summer. The teenagers have as much right to use the park as anyone else.

Apparently this wasn't good enough though. The same gangs decided they wanted to use the ladies' bowling green for their nightly football games instead. The council made a token effort to stop them, the odd visit by their patrollers, who were met with threats and abuse and therefore had to retreat and leave the offenders to it.

A crown green is not made to have a football kicked around on it, nor will it hold up under repeated sliding tackles. Eventually the council gave up.

Today I walked through the park. The women's bowling green now has the appearance of a 1970s third division football pitch, covered in ruts and mud. Of course there are the first signs of the men's green going the same way.

One can regularly hear groups of feral youths shouting to one another at four o'clock in the morning from inside the locked parked gates. My neighbours cars have been vandalised two nights running within the last fortnight.

The government would have us believe that crime is falling, something which I do not believe for a second. I've seen at first hand the way crime recording statistics can be manipulated. We have more police officers than ever, but fear of crime is at an all time high since those self same police officers are so weighed down by bureaucracy, that they are unable to provide a meaningful, visible deterrent. The much trumpetted PCSOs, "Blunkett's Bobbies", whom he told us were going to be "the eyes and ears of the police" don't work full nights and in any case lack the skills, training, equipment or powers to deal effectively with anti-social behaviour. In any case I'm forced to ask why we would need anyone to be the eyes and ears of the police if we could free up officers time to actually get out onto the ground and into the faces of these wrongdoers.

The liberal intelligentsia would have us believe that crime has always been at present day levels. It's just that we live in a modern media age where crime is far more visible due to repeated reporting. Where members of the public are far more likely to pick up the phone and report matters, where they will then be recorded, rather than attempt to sort things out themselves, but I don't believe that for a second.

I know things are always better when seen through the lense of nostalgia, but I've seen things start to slide, I seen the effects of parents abdicating their responsibilites to the state. Of individuals abdicating their responsibilities to themselves and those around them by sticking a needle in their arm. Of the criminal justice system turning its' back on citizens and protecting the human rights of persistent offenders at the expense of their victims. Of the state breaking its' contract with the law abiding. I've seen it all through my bay window, looking out onto the park with the crown green.

That same bay window where my mum turned to me in 1998 and said, "I've been to the hospital, you know my cancer's terminal don't you". I didn't but I just nodded. What's to say when your world's just caved in on you? Ten years now since she's been gone, but I wonder what she would make of the state of the park. God knows I miss her, but in a way I am glad she is not here to witness it.

Last week the new series of Ashes to Ashes, the spin off from the excellent Life on Mars, returned to our screens. I must admit I didn't rate the first series and only tuned in because Keeley Hawes is definitely worth one. Actually thinking about it, more than one.

I saw an interview with Dean Andrews, aka DS Ray Carling (great name), a few months back, when he stated the writers of the show were looking to give the second series more of a serious tone than the played for laughs first.

Unfortunately, so far, the whole thing's left me feeling very disappointed. The programme just doesn't seem to know what it wants to be.

Life on Mars worked because it combined comedy with moments of genuine drama. A gritty reality and attention to the 70s detail, plus the question of whether Sam was really back there or merely hallucinating, led to some genuinely original, gripping television.

I've just watched "One Summer" the drama filmed in 1983, starring David Morrissey and Spencer Leigh as two scouse teenagers who run away to North Wales. One of the things that struck me was how different everything looked, from the buses and cars to the decor to the clothes.

Ashes to Ashes is supposed to be set in 1982, but just doesn't look right. The whole thing has the appearance of a 1980s music video. Neon lighting, plus black ash furniture, stripey red sofas and wedge haircuts do not automatically give the programme an authentic sense of being back in that era. I suppose it could be argued that since this isn't actually taking place and is only a constuct of DI Alex Drake's memory, she has filtered out the background noise and created her own reality. Like when I remember 1984, I think of the drought and adverts with Stuart Hall standing at the bottom of a dried up reservoir, yet can only vaguely remember having seven shades of shit knocked out of me one evening after I missed the bus and was ambushed by some older lads. Memory can be very selective.

The other point is that the series doesn't have the weight to really represent what policing was like in pre-PACE days. If you want that, check out the fly-on-the-wall documentary "Police" filmed at Reading nick in 1981 and broadcast at the beginning of 1982. The episode, "A Complaint of Rape" is still difficult to watch. The complainant, who was reporting she had been raped by three strangers, is treated to a inquisition by three male officers, one of whom states, "This is the biggest load of bollocks I've ever heard". Within the interview room one can almost feel the oppressive claustrophobia.

Remember Ashes to Ashes is supposed to be set twelve months after the widespread rioting which set Britain's inner cities ablaze, a matter of months after Lord Scarman has reported "unquestionable evidence of the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of 'stop and search' powers by the police against black people". This is a year after The Peoples March for Jobs, a modern day Jarrow Crusade had made its' way from Liverpool to London. As unemployment sored to three million, as the monetarists ran amok, the Prime Minister presented the inhuman face of Torism, "To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: 'You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning".

Given this, a soundtrack of Duran Duran and The Teardrop Explodes doesn't really go far enough to capture the spirit of the times.

Also the whole premise that Gene Hunt's entire squad would have upped sticks and made their way down to London also seems contrived. Weren't the Met doing alright fitting people up themselves?

Having said all that, I suppose I am guilty of over examining the whole thing and should be accepting Ashes to Ashes for what it is, light entertainment, not some social realism docu-drama in the Ken Loach oeuvre.

Anyway enough said. I'm off to run an iron over my Farahs and Pringle sweater. Crank up the Kajagoogoo, it's 80s night at the Dog and Duck.

I think I prefer the lilac throw....Even as I registered the words coming out of my mouth, I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing.

My days off, my quiet time, the time to recharge my batteries and here I was being dragged around a succession of show homes, all wildly outside our price range, safe in the knowledge that I had no intention whatsoever of moving house.

Into an ensuite here, a master bedroom there, a conservatory here, a reception room there, all the time getting more and more detached from reality, until, "I think I prefer the lilac throw". Fuuucccckkk! This calls for drastic action. At this rate I'll be watching Mama Mia by the end of the week.

My mind darted instantly to the scene in Fight Club -

"It's a blanket, just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and I know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then? We're consumers. We're by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty - these things don't concern me. What concerns me is celebrity magazines, television with five hundred channels, some guy's name on my underwear."

Click, click. The pieces fell into place. The cogs turned and I finally understood. Modern life, a series of processes leading to the emasculation of men. To rob millions of their essential masculinity. To deny them the right to engage in purely male pursuits, in the company of other men.

I'm not talking about anything homo-erotic here, I have no desire to try my hand in a spot of man love, although I did once buy a Pet Shop Boys album. If that's what floats your boat good luck to you, consenting adults permitting, privacy of your own home etc. Nor am I suggesting I should be able to stay down the pub till closing time every night, before staggering home to a meal on the table. Dishing out a few left and rights if 'er indoors has had the audacity not to prepare it.

It's a simple fact that blokes need to spend time, being blokes in the company of their mates.

We are constantly drip fed a diet of media dirge telling us we are not complete until we have the four bedroom executive home with ensuite, the Audi sat on the driveway outside, the 42-inch LCD flat screen on the living room wall, all tastefully furnished and decorated in a suitably understated neutral pallet. The advertising onslaught in the commercial breaks between the latest episodes of X-Factor, Britain's Got Talent, or Celebrity Jesus Christ Superstar on Ice, ramming home the message, consume, consume, consume. You will not be be complete until you have the ying yang coffee table.

Spend some time in any out-of-town shopping complex, if you can bear it. Wander round the anonymous aisles in Ikea, B and Q, Homebase, Currys, Comet, Matalan, TK Max, et al. See the grey rings round the eyes, the burgeoning waist lines, the silver hair at the temples. The dead, vacant stares. Inside we die a little every day. They know it, you know it. The architecture reflects the oppressive mood. Everywhere beginning to look the same, identikit town planning. We could be in Hemel Hempstead, Skelmersdale, Warrington, Telford, the Leeds side streets that you slip down. I wonder to myself. I ponder. Yesterday's tomorrow, a post war modernist vision, that offered so much and delivered so little. That which crushes the human spirit. Gordon and Alistair's brave new world, mortgaged to the hilt.

All this might conceivably be bearable if it stopped there, written off as an inevitable process of the free market system at work. The need to constantly relaunch, replace, replenish. To keep the capitalist wheel turning.

Unfortunately, we're also continually sold the idea we must be in touch with our emotions. Like 70's Californian "New Man" rejects, sitting round the hippie camp fire playing the bongos at a weekend retreat. Presumably having completed the twelve hour shift to support the mortgage, the loan on the Audi etc.

I'm not saying we should all be mono-syllabic hairy arsed gorillas. Seething balls of pent up rage, unable to express emotions, self medicating on alcohol to dull the pain inside. It's the current obsession with wallowing in emotion to no purpose I find particularly disagreeable. Beckham cries when he scores a goal, the contestants on Deal or No Deal cry when their own greed leaves them in the 1p club. Peter, the middle aged belly dancing drag act on Britain's Got Talent cries when Amanda and Piers vote him through to the next round. It makes you long for the days of the stiff upper lip.

Picture the scene, the heady days of summer 1940, the bell outside the dispersal hut rings as Stanmore Park scramble another squadron to meet the Nazi hordes. Thirty gerries, angels one-five, south of Reigate. On the airfield nothing moves. You can hear the irritation coming down the line from sector control.
"Winco here, what the bloody hell's going on Biffo?"
"Sorry sir, the chaps are rather browned off since we lost Algie to that 109. Whizzo and Bully have gone to occy health for some counselling, Ginger and Harry have booked some compassionate leave. Piers-Smyth's gone up to London to appear on that wireless show, Jeremy Kyle-Watson's half hour. I thought I'd get squiffy at the Dog and Duck in the village, before picking a fight with a complete stranger."

Witness the way in which a person can be branded as inhuman and uncaring if they don't partake. Remember the vitriol heaped on Kate McCann, because she did not break down publicly in front of the world's media.

The trouble is we are living in in-between times. The feminists of the late 60s and 70s wanted to destroy gender stereotypes and reshape society in a more equal democratic form. They succeeded in the first part of their vision, however we yet to clearly define what the role of the male should be in this utopia.

In the meantime I'll have to content myself with shopping for lilac throws, in between rubbing my big fat hairy cock of course.

So, it's now twenty five years since the start of the miners' strike and unsurprisingly the anniversary has prompted widespread media coverage. Unfortunately, it seems that particularly within the BBC positions are still as entrenched as they were in 1984.

So far the only truly balanced report I have seem was by Roy Hattersley for The One Show. The former deputy leader of the Labour Party made the observation that the longer the dispute went on the more it became a battle of egos between Margaret Thatcher on the one side and Arthur Scargill on the other, with everyone else caught in between.

Another late night discussion, featured the film maker Ken Loach and Nigel Lawson. Both chose to trot out the same old arguments. Tory conspiracies to provoke the strike versus the militant left's attempts to overthrow democratic government. The language had changed so little in the intervening quarter century that I found myself glancing at my reflection in the living room window to make sure I wasn't still wearing my Farahs and sporting a mullet to a Tears for Fears soundtrack.

What genuinely worries me is that as time goes by it becomes all too easy to romanticise what was a very bitter and hard fought conflict and in so doing to gloss over unpalletable facts.

The reason the strike still holds a fascination in the public consciousness is that it formed a watershed between the old Britain of heavy industry which had existed since the 18th century, and what we have now. The miners had been the big battalions of the labour movement for over a century. If Thatcherism was going to reshape the nation their power had to broken.

The dispute was also different in its' motivation. Most strikes are clearly for self gain, an extra few percent here, a few less hours there. In '84 things were different. This was a strike to try and safeguard an industry's future. To secure a future for families and communities.

At this time I should declare an interest in as much as I do live and work in an ex mining area which in the aftermath of the return to work in 1985 was absolutely traumatised by multiple pit closures. I remember how angry I felt when on the twentieth anniversary of the strike, Sir Bernard Ingham, Thatcher's press secretary was interviewed on breakfast TV. When asked what changes had occurred in mining areas since the end of the strike, he flippantly answered, "Well they're certainly greener".

Of course things are never black and white. As Andrew Marr states in his excellent History of Modern Britain, the miners had never been "the enemy within" (as Thatcher would have had us believe). Most were fundamentally law abiding people, doing some of the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in the country. The trouble was they had allowed themselves to be led by a deluded insurrectionist.

The one and only aim of any trade union leader should be to represent his or her members and to gain for them a fair deal. By pursuing his own political agenda, Scargill deserted his fundamental responsibilities. Further one of the founding principles of the trade union movement was to further workers' rights through collective action along democratic principles.

The denial of a ballot by Scargill and his inner circle could be reasonably said to have cost them the strike, since it gave the Nottinghamshire area a valid argument for refusing to come out. This in turn led to the need for flying picketing, the subsequent violence playing into the hands of those in the government who were trying to paint the strikers as bully boys and fuelling the myth of "the enemy within".

The seeds had been sown twelve years before when he and his band of followers marched down the road to Saltley coking plant in the West Midlands, thereby guaranteeing the NUM's victory. To see Scargill talking of the magnificent feeling of witnessing the power of mass picketing (some would say orchestrated public disorder)is a study in hubris. Two years later a second strike, coming hard on the heals of the oil crisis, provoked by the Yom Kippur War, caused the three day week and the fall of the Heath government. This sent tremors through the conservative establishment. Planning for a future dispute, following a Tory return to power began.

Of course one could argue that the Thatcherites were so intransigent that any attempt at compromise would have fallen on deaf ears. Afterall the steelworkers had faired little better in 1981. However, by electing Scargill and pursuing the route of confrontation the NUM ultimately sealed its' own fate and put the lie to their own slogan, "The miners united, will never be defeated". Whilst the WORKERS united, may never be defeated, the miners were unfortunately comprehensively defeated. Across huge swathes of the north, communities are still paying the price. Indeed anyone working in a non-unionised industry is still paying the price and it will only get worse now we are in the grip of the credit crunch.

Why Deal or No Deal absolutely encapsulates in one show what's wrong with our society.

Cue tense background music. At £15,000 Ceejay, deal or no deal?

Ceejay stares longingly at the strategically placed photos of her dead mother, who died tragically in her sleep, aged 85.

The camera cuts to her husband Wayne in the audience. The incredible tattooed man. The veins in his temple bulging as he struggles to control his roid rage.

"No deal, Noel!!"

Everybody screams, "Come ooonnnnnn!"

What particularly annoys me about this show is when Noel tells the contestant they are "playing a really clever game", or similar. I find myself instinctly shouting at the television, "It's pure fuckin chance, you morons."

Deal or No Deal sums up everything that is rotten in Dodge, with people having vast sums of money thrown at them for doing absolutely nothing of merit, without having to excel at anything.

There once was a time, before the insidious cult of celebrity, when to become famous you actually had to be good at something. No more. Now one can become a media personality and a multi millionaire simply for spending a few weeks locked in a house with a group of people similarly under endowed in the brain department. If you think I'm being harsh, just remember when one the BB housemates was called a psuedo intellectual for having the audacity to know that Neil Armstrong was the first man to land on the moon.

Increasingly, when I read of the latest contestants taking part in this week's gravy train celebrity fest programme, my usual reaction is, "Who the fuck's that?"

We live in times where the only thing we aspire to is mediocrity.

Witness the current media circus, as the final weeks of Jade Goody's life are played out in the tabloids, all taste and decency, together with any notion of dignity, a distant memory (quelle surprise Max Clifford is loitering nearby). It's a tragedy that any young woman and mother of two should be struck down by cancer, at such an early age, but what makes Jade any different from the thousands of other women in a similar situation. Oh yeah, she's a celebrity, but for what? Because she thought East Anglia was a foreign country...

And thus everything is reduced to the lowest common denominator. I blame the comprehensive system.

In the year of Our Lord 1974....

The first installment of "Red Riding", Channel Four's much publicised adaptation of David Peace's Red Riding Quartet was broadcast last night.

I've been looking forward to it since I first read about the project a couple of months back, having read the first three books in the series 1974, 1977 and 1980 and being just about to start 1983.

I suppose it's always a problem if you've read the book to make a objective judgement on the screenplay, but in all honesty it left me feeling a little flat, which was strange since it had all the elements of a really cracking crime drama. No Life on Mars humour here, played out to a Ziggy Stardust soundtrack. This was the ugly underbelly of the gritty industrial north. The West Riding's version of Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven". A place where there are no good guys, from the corrupt politicians, to the bent coppers, to the tired alcoholic old hacks in the local rag, to the questionable morals of the young hotshot reporter. Bastards to a man.

I must admit some of the cinematography was beautiful. Whether it was the brutal modernist concrete architecture or the Vauxhall Magnum making its' way under the leaden sky, the camera work really contributed to the feeling of suffocating claustrophobia. The feeling that there was no escape. Of course having read the book I knew things were going to end badly and there really was no escape. Certainly no happy ending. This was real life, not some glossy US crime series where the good guys get their man. Or was it?

Reality's a funny thing. The emergency services, or anyone generally who comes into regular day-to-day contact with traumatic situations will always use humour to get themselves through. It's not because of any disrespect for the dead or the bereaved. It might not be appropriate, but it is a defence mechanism. Take that away and like David Peace's characters we'd all crawl inside a bottle and drink ourselves into oblivion. It might be compelling writing, but real life it ain't.

That said, I'll still be watching the other two parts of the trilogy (why wasn't 1977 adapted?) and have already pre-ordered the DVD. I'm also looking forward to the cinema release of The Damned United at the end of the month.

Christmas morning arrived and my other half peeked out from behind the bedroom curtains, fervently hoping to be greeted by a picture book scene. A crisp white blanket covering the surrounding countryside, save for the village church spire. Young whipper snappers skating on the frozen duck pond.

Sadly it was not to be.

Instead the same patch of threadbare grass, adorned with a damp settee. The potholed road (Claims Direct take note). The neighbour's house with the boarded up living room window, results of last week's domestic.

Shitsville in the year of our Lord 2008.

I pretended to be asleep while she mused, "It'd be nice to live on a decent estate, so I could look out and see a father teaching his son to ride a bike."

"Well you still get that here, only it's usually a stripped down Honda 90, outstanding stolen, with three of their mates on the back."

Christmas isn't what it used to be. I've wrote at length on this blog about the state of British TV, but at no other time is it more acutely highlighted than in the season of goodwill.

If you want evidence of the absolute dearth of imagination in our television executives, then look no further than the Christmas schedules. It says a lot when a large proportion of the BBC's output for the festive period is at least thirty years old.

That said I'd much rather sit through an old episode of Porridge, Dad's Army or the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special than waste any more of my life watching the latest "celebrity" tripe.

This year I splashed out on Frankie Boyle's live stand up DVD. He comes up with an interesting variation for the next series of Big Brother. When the housemates get voted off, instead of the usual media scrum outside, why not have them go out to complete silence, followed a short while later by the sound of a single gun shot. Just when they're all thinking it's some kind of psychological game, we could dump the body from a helicopter into the BB garden. Might be worth a letter to Endermol Frankie.

Yet in the midst of all the cynicism and disillusionment with the "season of goodwill", this year I think I witnessed a genuine miracle.

Picture the scene, a high speed road traffic collision. A vehicle having left the road, a dead cert for a fatal you'd think. Not so, out from the twisted and contorted wreckage staggers a male, mercifully spared from any significant injury. I join him in the back of an ambulance where, due to the fact that he stinks of ale decide to do a breath test. It's at this time that said male spontaneously loses the ability to speak English, eventhough he's been conversing perfectly well prior to this. Fast forward thirty minutes and having completed the hospital drink drive procedure and failed to get any response from him, I decide to bugger off for a coffee, but not before telling him his wallet's in his coat pocket, to which he answers, "Cheers mate, thanks for your help".

At this time I felt genuinely touched by the hand of God and a warm glow entered the A and E cubicle. My brother struck dumb had regained the gift of speech. This was truly a miracle and I felt at one with my fellow man. Fortunately by the time I'd had my brew, it had passed and I was back to normal.

Bah Humbug...

Last Saturday I found myself at a friend's house, sat in front of the television, in the early evening, being treated to yet another round of The X Factor.

To be honest I thought the show had ended weeks ago, or perhaps I was hoping it had. It's got to be at least six weeks since I last tuned in. I've tried to erase the memory like a seven year old who witnesses his parents being blown up in a freak boating accident.

I guess they must be dragging things out till Christmas. I liken my feelings on Saturday night to how the Allied soldiers must have felt in February 1945, as they sat poised to make the assault across the Rhine. The end was in sight, but everyone knew there was going to be a lot more unpleasantness to get through before the guns finally fell silent.

Will Self once described "Love Actually" as the most cynical manipulation of the emotions since "Triumph of the Will". I must say I felt pretty manipulated last Saturday and not in a good way.

The sight of Cowell mentally undressing Ruth, the buxom Spaniard nearly made me vomit. I'm sure I caught a glimpse of his hand disappearing under the judges' counter during her first song, his face contorted, or maybe it was just my fevered imagination.

The performance was very Bonnie Tyler circa 1983, A Total Eclipse of the Heart, except without the fifty a day, chesty smoker's cough. All big hair, back lighting and wind machines, crowned by the fireworks as the number neared its' crescendo. I was genuinely fearful when the pyrotechnics started that the whole front row was going to go up like a roman candle due to all the hairspray in the studio.

Then onto Eoghan. Cowell reclining, seemingly disinterested. You could almost see the pound signs running through Simon's head, as he did the mental arithmetic and calculated how much money he was going to make out of the young lad's debut album. As he ran through the choice of trim options on his latest Maybach. My mind began to wander. Fast forward five years, Cowell driving past a provincial branch of Tescos, enroute to the Gateshead X Factor auditions. Eoghan being led to the waiting panda car, having just nicked six jars of Nescafe, to feed his burgeoning crack habit. Nevermind lad, you had your fifteen minutes and just look at this Aston Martin I bought with the royalties...

Then on to Alexandra. All raw power and emotion. From the gallery, the producer speaks into Cheryl's covert earpiece. Somewhere off camera a raw onion is produced. Cue tight shot on Cheryl as the tears roll, "You've come so far pet, I diven't know how you've coped. I haven't felt like this since King Kev left St. James, ye nar."

It's the same old story. Bread and circuses. X Factor is the opiate of the masses. It's there to keep people from asking questions, to delight the eye and confound the senses.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this war is not going to be over by Christmas.

Bollocks to it. I'm turning over, it's nearly time for Strictly.

11.30am. Sat in my local library.

I've recently cancelled my internet subscription at home and decided to make use of the facilities provided by the council. I figure I'm paying more than enough council tax and want to extract the maximum value for money. I'm therefore regularly popping out to the library to check emails, bank accounts and order stuff online. Who knows I might even sign up with the parish lesbian pottery group. At least we'd be able to discuss "plating" techniques, even if I don't share their love of ill fitting pullovers and hairy armpits. Anything to claw back some of my money from the bureaucrats in the town hall.

I also thought not having internet access at home would have benefits in other areas. For starters I'm saving the subscription costs. I don't have the temptation to go online, leaving other household chores left undone. I even thought not being able to surf the internet might help me address my burgeoning "crack" habit.

Of course there are problems with opening your emails in public. One of my work colleagues has a habit of sending out what can best be described as "off colour" emails, which although very funny, shouldn't really be given an airing, when you've got the local history group holding a meeting a couple of feet behind your right shoulder. I mistakenly opened one of his jpegs a couple of weeks ago and had to resort to ripping the power cable out of the back of the PC, before I was asked to leave the premises. It wasn't pleasant. Three words - glass coffee table.....

I once read that Alan Bennett would often ride on buses, furiously scribbling in his notebook, as he earwigged on the other passenger's conversations. The notes later used to produce his fantastic "Talking Heads" series of monologues and other writings.

The library's local history group seem to have an average age of about eighty. I strain to overhear them, while pretending to search ebay.

"Remember Agnes?"
"Who?"
"You know Agnes, used to work as a dinner lady at the infant's school on George Street."
"Doesn't ring a bell."
"You know big buxom woman, blonde hair, thought she was a cut above, used to look down her nose at us."

In my mind, I'm catapulted back to 1958, visualizing a Jayne Mansfield lookalike, dishing out sloppy semolina, the custard dripping off the ladle and sliding slowly down between her ample cleavage. As Kipling would have said, something stirs down in the undergrowth. Shortly to be brought back to reality with a bump..

"Yeah, she died a couple of weeks ago. The neighbour said she'd died from blood loss after a rectal prolapse. The police had to break the door down. They had to take the bay window out to get her out of the house. She'd let herself go a bit since Albert passed away."
"Oh, shame. Can you pass me another custard cream Sissy."

Guess I'm not going to be challenging Alan Bennett for an Olivier award any time soon.