HOME.
It took the Isle of Wight Council.
Economically this holiday island, like many another, is heavily reliant on the tourist industry for its survival. Parking charges are generally bloody, but I guess visitors are so accustomed to the avaricious money grubbing of councils that they expect the big stick wherever they go.
This year, however, legalized thievery reached new heights over here when popular carnival spots were deluged with parking tickets issued by council traffic wardens. Both the daytime and evening (Illuminated) carnivals were targeted. Needless to say the IW Council hotly denies accusations that its actions were monetarily motivated and claims that it only had safety in mind.
Is anybody seriously expected to believe that?
Do the patronising rogues care?
And do they give a toss how much goodwill and next year’s returning holidaymaker business they may have lost?
I sometimes think that when we stopped electing opportunistic jerry builders (who we knew were in it to fiddle council contracts from their funny handshake mates) and opted instead for career expenses claimants (who seem to be in it because they like the money and don’t like television) we took an enormous step backwards.
And it took the Scots.
When, in my last post, I ventured the opinion that sometimes we should simply tell our bullying American cousins to piss off, I had no idea the Scots would do it.
Should have known better.
They have always told the English where to go and the Romans built a bloody great wall across the north of England to avoid confrontation with them.
With a history like that did the pleasant President of America and his unpleasant Secretary of State (doing a televised good cop/bad cop routine) expect grovelling acquiescence to their clear indication that the man imprisoned for the Lockerbie deaths should remain incarcerated until he died?
How good or bad the evidence against him was, or whether the medical prognosis is at all questionable, I have no idea: so whether, given the choice, I would have released him I do not know.
But the Scottish Justice Minister did have the choice, decided enough was enough, and acted accordingly.
Though I still deeply distrust politicians, I must admit to the grudging belief that he may have done everybody a favour.
TELEVISION.
Proms on BBC4.
Just as I was decrying the dearth of my sort of music at the Proms along came the wonderful West-Eastern Divan Orchestra conducted by co-founder Daniel Barenboim to give us Liszt’s Les Preludes, the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, all hauntingly musical.
The orchestra was founded in 1998 by concert pianist Barenboim, an Israeli-Argentinian, and Edward Said, a Palestinian-American author.
In the words of the conductor it is “a project against ignorance.”
Whatever their off-stage differences, in performance this fine orchestra’s magical harmony is clearly born from its affection and respect for maestro Barenboim: feelings clearly reciprocated.
The following night, with an international cast of singers, they performed Beethoven’s Fidelio.
Long may they and their remaining founder thrive.
Cricket.
“England won The Ashes then,” I said to the cat Shadow.
“Yeah,” he said. “Did you watch it?”
“No, did you?”
“Nope.”
He thought for a moment: “Don’t matter. They wouldn’t have won if we had.”
FILM.
The Constant Gardener.
This intense, moving and well acted adaptation of the John le Carre novel was directed by Fernando Meirelles, produced by the late Simon Channing Williams and starred Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz (who won a best supporting actress Oscar).
There was a lot of flashback, a twisting plot and the subtle absence of a feel-good finish.
Fascinating.
AND HOME AGAIN.
A great result.
Libby and Eamonn Lawless own a farm here on the Island and we have been friends for many years.
Back in the seventies Eamonn, a superb horseman, ran a riding school at the farm and our daughter Roz was one of his pupils. She would have been around ten years old.
They got on.
Neither of them suffers fools.
When he eventually forsook the saddle Eamonn began more seriously entering his dogs for sheepdog trials. On the 24th of August we received an email referring us to the International Sheep Dog Society website which at the time carried the news that Eamonn and his dog Bill had become English National Trials Champions 2009.
Well done, mate!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0AKf6mCNhk
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