Roadmap Out of Lockdown: A Cause for Optimism At Last?

“Data, not dates,” said Boris Johnson, would be the key to England’s route out of the current lockdown. Predictably, the roadmap he then announced was a series of dates (to be honest, how could it be anything else?), with the 21^st June the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the date at which everything should be back to normal. Or at least that is what most people seem to be assuming, especially on social media; it isn’t what the roadmap says.

In Step 1, schools re-open on 8^th March, regulations on meeting people outdoors are relaxed slightly, and care home residents can have one regular visitor.[1] From 29^th March, households can mix outdoors but not indoors, and some organised sport is allowed.

Step 2 includes opening gyms and libraries, non-essential retail and hairdressers, and allows household groups domestic overnight stays and self-catering holidays; Step 3 sees re-opening indoor entertainment, and indoor and outdoor events with spectators. In Step 4, life returns to pretty much how we remember it, pre-March 2020.

But, and here’s the major caveat, all the dates in the roadmap are subject to four tests being passed:

• The vaccine deployment programme continues successfully
• Evidence shows that vaccines are sufficiently effective in reducing hospitalisations and deaths in those vaccinated
• Infection rates do not show a surge in hospitalisations which would put unsustainable pressure on the NHS
• The assessment of the risks is not fundamentally changed by any new “variants of concern” of the virus

It seems that the tests being passed is largely being taken for granted but, while ‘no earlier than’ means definitively that Step 4 cannot be reached before 21^st June, it does not mean that cannot be later than then. The four conditions need to be met every step of the way, so Step 4 could be in June, or July, or August, or later, assuming the Government sticks to its own rules. You may remember Lockdown 1, when relaxing social distancing measures was contingent on the R number falling, but restrictions were eased on the basis of a timetable rather than data. That could happen again.

This diagram showed the supposed route out of Lockdown #1; it was largely ignored.

If the Government does follow its own rules this time, and if we, the public, play our part, and if the vaccination programme continues at the pace and efficiency with which it has started, then for the first time in several months there may be cause for optimism.  Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel, but the end of that tunnel must be reached by reference to data, not blind adherence to dates.

Naturally, the light isn’t close enough for some, as this Daily Mail front page shows.

What are we waiting for? Another surge in infections and another lockdown, perhaps?

Of course, it’s easy to be gung-ho and demanding about these things when you don’t have to take any responsibility if it all goes horribly wrong. Meanwhile, petitions have been started to make 21^st June a Bank Holiday, not a wise move in my opinion, but unsurprising, as unsurprising as an uptick in infections a fortnight later if the last year is any guide.

Andrew Rosindell, MP for Romford, has said that the Prime Minister should "show flexibility and a willingness to move faster if the data allows it.” Others have said similar, but by the same token, they must be prepared for the Government to adapt to the data and move more slowly if necessary. Will they be patient if the data suggests that the dates cannot be met? I suspect not; the idea that these dates are set in stone seems to have taken root.

The wisdom of a mass return to schools on 8^th March is debatable. At the start of the year Boris Johnson, in support of pupils returning to their classrooms, claimed that schools were perfectly safe. Twenty-four hours later, after schools had re-opened for one day, he declared that they were ‘vectors of transmission,’ and closed them again. The science did not change in those twenty-four hours and I’m not aware of it changing significantly since, so why are schools now safe to re-open?  Vaccines, I suppose, and Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi explained how vaccines made the case for an 8th March re-opening on breakfast TV on Monday, but ended up making an almost unimpeachable case for keeping schools closed till May.

As with all of the steps in the roadmap, time will tell, and wisely (not a word I am accustomed to use in relation to him), Boris Johnson has not ruled out further lockdowns – local or national – especially in order to tackle new variants of coronavirus. All things considered, this roadmap does appear more measured, more considered, and more realistic than some previous timetables and plans, so much so that I do wonder if someone curbed Johnson’s impulsive nature when it was being drawn up, or if he was sidelined entirely.

Looking at the roadmap from a personal perspective, the fact that sporting events with spectators cannot restart before 17^th May has led the Isthmian League to curtail the season, putting the kibosh on Romford FC playing any more league games, so it looks like it will be August before I see any more football.

Holiday lettings in self-contained accommodation can re-open from 12^th April, so, like many other people I’ll be hoping we can get away somewhere shortly after that date: All roads to the English coast will be jam-packed in April’s second week. International travel won’t return until 17^th May at the earliest, and although I suspect that Val would like to get away somewhere hot, I’ll happily wait till next year before dusting off my passport.

The thing that I have missed above all others in the last twelve months has been going to gigs. All being well, 17^th May will see indoor events such as gigs allowed with an audience of 1,000 or 50% of the venue’s capacity, and on 23^rd May I am due to see Sparks at The Roundhouse in Camden, and then Yes at The Royal Albert Hall the next day. I don’t suppose that either of these events are guaranteed to take place, and if they do, how the organisers will cater for reduced capacities. I expect to see emails at some point with information on that score.

Yes at The London Palladium, March 2018

I haven’t seen the inside of a pub since March 2020 (that’s the longest hiatus since I was a teenager), and even when they re-open in April it will be with outdoor service only, so the chances of me visiting one then are slim. Indoor drinking is scheduled to resume in June, which will be the earliest I’ll visit one I expect, since a visit to a pub is, for me, incomplete without actually being inside. If al fresco drinking is all that is on offer, I might as well stay in my own garden.

Any optimism I have about the coming months is tempered by caution. There’s many a slip twixt cup and lip, and even the most competent administration is a hostage to fortune in the face of a pandemic like this, but maybe, just maybe, they have it right this time.

The first landmark on Johnson’s roadmap is less than two weeks hence, when schools and colleges re-open. I just noticed, there’s no mention in the roadmap of when all MPs will return to the House of Commons, but I imagine it’s the same day as schools, don’t you?

 

 

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[1] Full details of the roadmap are on the Gov.uk website, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-sets-out-roadmap-to-cautiously-ease-lockdown-restrictions

The Big Match on Mars

Life on Mars was one of my favourite TV shows, and the episode in which Gene Hunt, Sam Tyler, and Annie Cartwright go undercover running a pub to find the killer of a Manchester United supporter just days before the big derby match against City is one of the best.

John Simms (left) and Philip Glenister as Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt in Life On Mars

The killer is caught at a pre-arranged skirmish between United and City fans, typical of the 1970s, when many top-flight football matches were marred by violence and hooliganism, inside grounds, on trains, and on High Streets, up and down the country.

The reality of the 1970s football experience, realistically evoked by Life on Mars, is equally present in another TV series, one which can be seen on the ITV Hub, namely The Big Match Revisited, re-runs of The Big Match, ITV’s football highlights show, which aired from 1968 to 1992.

To watch an episode of The Big Match Revisited is to step back to another era, one which today’s football fan would recognise, and would no doubt find sometimes quaint, sometimes edgy, sometimes amusing. Although presented by Elton Welsby from 1983 to 1992, it is Brian Moore who is most associated with the show, as presenter and, for London matches at least, commentator. The regional structure of ITV companies meant that to watch a game from Stamford Bridge or Highbury was to hear Moore’s dulcet tones; from Ipswich Town or Norwich City it was Gerry Harrison you would hear; Hugh Johns covered the Midlands, while Granada TV’s coverage of North West clubs such as Liverpool or Manchester United featured Gerald Sinstadt behind the mic.

The relationship between the commentators and the clubs was such that it always seemed to me that there was a degree of partisanship in their coverage, and in an era when the atmosphere in many football grounds was hostile towards the away supporter, this even seemed to be apparent in commentaries.

I remember some of the games shown on The Big Match Revisited from the original broadcasts, and watching them again now, it does not feel like half a century has passed, but they do show how much football, on and off the pitch, has changed in that time.

In The Big Match featuring Spurs v Newcastle United from December 1974, the first noticeable thing is the crowd. Small knots of young boys in scarves, middle-aged men wearing ties, and an attendance of just over 23,000 in a ground capable of holding nearly twice that. And on any given Saturday it was possible to turn up at virtually any First Division ground, pay cash at the turnstile and find a good spot on the terraces, because of course all-seater stadiums only became compulsory in the 1990s, and all-ticket games were rare.

On crowded terraces there was much pushing and shoving, jockeying for best position. It was not uncommon to move several yards in one direction or another during a game, standing occasionally on tiptoes to catch a glimpse of the action, and frequently stumbling forward into the back of someone. A goal would often result in a headlong, and involuntary, rush down the terrace, after which everyone would creep back to somewhere approximate to where they had started from; it ebbed and flowed like a badly organised tide.

The pitch at White Hart Lane for the game in question actually looked not bad, and while it might have become a little tedious to constantly compare pitches from the 1970s with today's, a later episode of The Big Match, from January 1975, showed West Ham United playing Queens Park Rangers on an Upton Park pitch that resembled the proverbial ploughed field.

In 1974’s goalmouths stood goalkeepers who wore gloves only on the wettest of days, and in the Spurs v Newcastle game, Tony Bell made his one and only appearance for The Magpies, calamitously throwing the ball into his own net for Tottenham’s opening goal, undoing all the good work he had done in saving Cyril Knowles’s initial shot.

Newcastle United goalkeeper Tony Bell fumbles Cyril Knowles's shot over the line

Shirts were unadorned by sponsors’ logos or players’ names, and commentators such as Brian Moore still said, for the benefit of TV viewers watching in black and white, that one team or another was wearing the darker shorts.

The quality of recording equipment and of the floodlights at many grounds made for interesting viewing once the sun had set. One edition of The Big Match features Newcastle United v Manchester City, and the second half from St James’s Park looks as though the ground is illuminated by candles, so poor is the picture.

As far as commentators go, I have always held Barry Davies in the highest esteem; Brian Moore I tolerated rather than enjoyed. In his first few outings behind the mic he had a tendency to confuse volume with clarity, but he gradually calmed down, although I found him often prone to error; some decisions by referees seemed to mystify him, and he would sometimes confidently announce that a corner had been given when it was clear to all that it was a goal kick. What The Big Match - noticeably, and refreshingly - lacks, is expert analysis dissecting every incident, and particularly refereeing decisions, at interminable length. 

1970's commentators would announce, very formally, that the match referee was, say Mr Albert Smith from Stowmarket, and thereafter he would remain, Mr Smith, or just ‘the referee.’ Now, referees are almost as much personalities as the players, but in the 1970s they were less celebrated, although the match programme might tell you that Mr Smith was a married man with two children, and a sales rep by profession.

The pace of the game, the tackles that today would inevitably result in a card of one colour or another but then were considered quite ordinary, goalkeepers picking up back-passes, and wildly different interpretations of the Laws of The Game compared with today – especially the offside law – are all indicators of how much football has changed in fifty years, sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

The threat of hooliganism and violence provided an almost constant undercurrent to 1970s football. During the Sheffield Wednesday v Manchester United game shown on The Big Match in 1974, with Wednesday going 3-1 up, Yorkshire Television commentator Keith Macklin mentions that “some of the Manchester United fans are thinking of taking action” to try to get the game abandoned; some invade the pitch, but fail to halt proceedings other than temporarily. Mounted police intervene, and the game ends with policeman lined up in front of the terraces to prevent more spectators encroaching onto the pitch. The game ends 4-4.

Manchester United fans on the pitch at Hillsborough in a vain attempt to get the game abandoned.

Even following non-League Romford FC as I did during the 1970s, there was the occasional unsavoury incident, and the ramshackle and sometimes dangerous grounds I watched football on then would not be allowed today. As a neutral, my occasional visits to Football League grounds were fortunately generally incident free, although it was often possible to detect a certain undertone of menace, between railway station and ground if nowhere else, although the febrile atmosphere inside some grounds could often intimidate. In that respect, a visit to The Den to see Millwall play Bristol Rovers is permanently etched in my mind.

The Den at Millwall

Was football better in the 1970s compared with today? Maybe, maybe not, but it was certainly different. Take in an episode of The Big Match Revisited and see what I mean.

 

 

More Than Somewhat

I like having a routine. In one of my first blogs, written just after I retired, I said how much I craved routine, and how having one was my comfort zone. Well, I certainly have a routine right now, and if I’m honest what I would actually like is a break from it. Heaven knows I am not one who embraces spontaneity, but how I crave doing something on the spur of the moment!

The days are blurring into one. Every morning we go for our regular three-and-a-half mile walk through the increasingly soggy country park. When we get home the muddy clothes go in the wash and I make myself breakfast (porridge with sunflower seeds and fruit or jam). Then I may do some housework, and once I week I go to Tesco to do a big shop. After lunch I read, and scroll through social media, then it’s time to make tea, wash up, watch TV, then go to bed. Some days (like today), I write.

Eastbrookend Country Park

It would be nice to be able to just get up one morning and take the car, or the train and go to the coast, or up to London (not today though, as it’s snowing), but that will have to wait. My escape from routine must be through the pages of a book, and in the last few months I have got back into reading after a couple of years in which I had started to lose the habit.

At present I have two books on the go, not something I usually do, but one of them is a book of short stories, so I dip into that as a contrast to the 700-page novel I am reading. That novel is The Vizard Mask, by Diana Norman. It was published in 1994 and has one of my favourite opening sentences; ‘Penitence Hurd and the Plague arrived in London on the same day.’

I read The Vizard Mask when the paperback came out in 1995, and have not thought of it for a quarter of a century, until it recently popped into my head for no reason. Remembering how much I had enjoyed it when I first read it, I searched for it on Amazon, quite prepared to find it not available, but there it was, with the Kindle edition priced at a very reasonable £2.90: other formats are a bit pricier.

Used copies of the hardback range from £38 to £139, while previously owned copies of the paperback are priced at £60, or an eye-watering £3,680 although that one is apparently ‘new.’ In purchasing my Kindle version, I naturally took great care to avoid accidentally clicking on the more expensive paperback copy.

The Kindle edition has a few glitches – ebooks seem to suffer them more than physical books in my experience – with some misplaced punctuation; commas and full-stops exchange places from time to time, but for a book that has been out of print for some time and subsequently digitised, that is probably to be expected.

The plague catches up with Penitence sooner rather than later, and there are plenty of parallels with the way in which the authorities deal with it and the way in which governments are handling coronavirus, although as yet no one has been boarded up in their own homes for forty days with a red cross daubed on their front doors, but give it time, eh?

My other reading matter was an absolute snip on the Kindle. The Damon Runyan Omnibus, comprising the trilogy of More than Somewhat, Furthermore, and Take it Easy, was just 99p. You may not know Runyan or his work, but chances are you’ll have heard of Guys and Dolls, the stage show and film that Runyan’s short stories inspired. By the by, Runyan was the first man to coin the term ‘Hooray Henry’, in his story Tight Shoes.

Damon Runyan

Runyan’s style is an eclectic mix of the highly formal and the informal, with some often bewildering slang thrown in. His tales – which recount the exploits of the gangsters, guys, and dolls of prohibition-era New York, especially round Broadway – are almost all phrased in the present tense, to wit:

Breach of Promise

One day a certain party by the name of Judge Goldfobber, who is a lawyer by trade, sends word to me that he wishes me to call on him at his office in lower Broadway, and while ordinarily I do not care for any part of lawyers, it happens that Judge Goldfobber is a friend of mine, so I go to see him. Of course Judge Goldfobber is not a judge, and never is a judge, and he is 100 to I in my line against ever being a judge, but he is called Judge because it pleases him, and everybody always wishes to please Judge Goldfobber, as he is one of the surest-footed lawyers in this town, and beats more tough beefs for different citizens than seems possible.

Now, if there is one thing about Runyan’s stories it is that they are peppered more than somewhat with colourful characters, but their exploits – even when not strictly legal – are always endearing and rarely, if ever, murderous even when they are loosing off slugs from their Roscoes someplace like Good Time Charley Bernstein's little speakeasy on West Forty-seventh Street. They are, however, a dish best served sparingly, as they comprise a very rich diet if one is inclined to partake of them more often than is good for one.

One book I won’t be reading again is the most recent Jack Reacher novel. A new Reacher novel is a highly anticipated annual event in the world of books, and Reacher’s 25^th outing, The Sentinel, was published in October 2020. Having read the preceding twenty-four books, naturally I read this one too, curious to see how Lee Child’s work would compare now that he has taken his brother Andrew on board as a collaborator.

So, how was it? Well, I’ve enjoyed all the previous Jack Reacher books, even number 24, Blue Moon, which my wife (who has also read them all apart from the latest) didn’t think was up to snuff, but The Sentinel, was Reacher-by-numbers. All the elements we’ve come to know and love in a Reacher novel were there, but it all seemed a bit half-hearted, as though the writer was going through the motions. Reacher 26, Better Off Dead, is due out in October 2021, and I expect that I will read it, but my hopes are not high.

One book that I sampled, but won’t be buying (a major bonus of the Kindle being the facility to download the opening chapter(s) of a book for free) is the highly acclaimed Ben Okri novel, The Famished Road, which won the Booker Prize in 1991. Val was recommended it on a writing course, and having read just the opening page, asked me my opinion. I got nearly to the end of the sample, which comprises the first thirteen (short) chapters before deciding enough was enough.

Ben Okri

The Famished Road runs to nearly six-hundred pages and is just the first book of a trilogy. It is written nicely enough, Okri’s style is easy on the eye, as it were, it flows well and is enjoyable enough for that, but the story – such as it is – does nothing for me, being merely a series of loosely connected incidents.  It is rather like someone recounting a series of their dreams, and we all know how interesting other people’s dreams can be. Maybe it pulled together over the remaining 1,300 pages of the trilogy, but I wasn’t sufficiently engaged to buy it to find out.

Season’s End – Where Now For Non-League Football?

English non-League football is in a parlous state, from the National League at Steps 1 and 2, down to more local leagues at Step 7. The National League has been able to play behind closed doors thanks to grants of £10million from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the National Lottery, while Steps 3 to 7, which began their programmes in September with fans allowed in grounds subject to limits on numbers, have been suspended since the end of October.

The current National League Structure came into being in 2017, but is
due an update with the addition of an eighth division at Step 4

With the grants now ended and fans not returning for the foreseeable future, National League clubs are reluctant to accept the loans they are being offered to continue playing and are now in the process of voting on whether or not to curtail the season.

Steps 3 to 6 meanwhile, has seen no football since 31^st October aside from a handful of Northern Premier League games. When Step 3 and below started their seasons in September, crowds were limited to between 200 and 600, but secondary income sources such as food and drink sales were much reduced due to tightened restrictions, or were simply not allowed at all.

Bury Town v Romford on 31st October 2020 was the last game I saw.

Until now no government money has been available to clubs below the National League, but last week it was announced that clubs at Steps 3 to 6 could apply for grants ranging from £7,500 at Step 6, up to £27,000 at Step 3. Naturally, the grant money can only be used for specific purposes such as lease or mortgage payments, loan repayments, and utility costs, and not for capital expenses such as work on stadiums, or players wages. [1]

The big question for Steps 3 to 6 now is how to complete this season. The decision last March to null and void 2019-20 was not universally popular; a decision to null and void 2020-21 would be more reasonable as some clubs have played just five of their scheduled 42 league games, but other options are up for consideration.

Reversing the null and void decision, reinstating results from 2019-20 and combining them with the results from 2020-21 to compile league tables based on points per game (PPG) is one idea. This solution, which would feature promotion but no relegation, would allow The Football Association to implement its restructuring programme, which was supposed to have been in place at the start of 2020-21. The chances of The FA reversing last season’s null and void decision, especially after successfully fighting a legal challenge to it, are virtually non-existent in my opinion.

Project Non League is calling for decision to null and void the 2019-20 season to be reversed.

Another alternative to treating 2020-21 as null and void would be to carry forward the results and continue the season from August, or whenever it is possible to start. This would give the leagues a fighting chance of completing a whole programme of matches before the end of April 2022, but on the other hand, with some clubs having played just 10% of their 2020-21 fixtures, it could be argued that too little of this season has been played to make that worthwhile.

There are some people who still believe that there is a chance of completing 2020-21 in full before August. One such is the respected journalist, broadcaster, and supporter of non-League football, Tony Incenzo. In a recent tweet, he suggested the following:

• Wait until all main vulnerable groups have been vaccinated & lockdown is lifted in March
• Re-start the season & play through April/May/June/July
• Have the close season in August
• Start 2021/22 season in mid-September

A Twitter poll that he is running shows that 53% of those that responded support this idea.

I’ve no axe to grind with Tony Incenzo, and I cannot help but admire his optimism, but I cannot share it. The speed with which the National Health Service is vaccinating people suggests that the main vulnerable groups may receive at least their first jab by the end of March, but protection is not conferred until a number of weeks after the second vaccination. This alone makes lifting lockdown in March unlikely, especially since the Prime Minister has said that now is not the time to ‘take your foot off the throat of the beast’ by easing restrictions too quickly.

Even if football could restart at the beginning of April, Steps 3 to 6 clubs would not have trained for five months, much longer than even a normal close season, and would probably want two weeks to get back up to speed.

Assuming that the leagues could restart on the third Saturday in April, there would be sixteen weeks to complete the seasons before the end of July. This would require The FA to allow the game to continue through June, a month in which organised football is not normally allowed in England.

Even then, would completing the season be possible? In the Isthmian League Premier Division, Bishop’s Stortford have 36 games to play, and Bowers & Pitsea have 37; it may be doable, but is one game every three days reasonable for players who are holding down full-time jobs? And this assumes no postponements for either the weather or the inevitable covid outbreaks.

There are also play-offs to consider, which would either extend the season into August or, if completed in July, reduce the number of weeks in which to complete the regular season to fifteen (up to 36 games in just 105 days).

To start again in mid-September would allow just six weeks for clubs, especially those who had been promoted, to strengthen their squads. Clubs would also want to undertake pitch maintenance; both these activities are usually spread over double the length of time that Tony Incenzo’s proposal would allow.

All of this is entirely hypothetical. When and under what constraints non-League football returns is entirely at the mercy of the country’s response to coronavirus and to the restrictions that the government sees fit to lift.

I cannot see non-League football below the National League resuming before August, in which case the best solution is probably to pick up 2020-21 again from where we left off in October, assuming that coronavirus restrictions allow (which is not a given).

Whichever way 2020-21 is completed, there has to be a plan to deal with a possible (some would say likely) suspension of the season come next winter.  Last summer the leagues had scenarios to deal with a variety of start dates, but none had plans in place to handle the season being suspended.

It is difficult for The FA or the leagues to provide any certainty or assurances in these unprecedented times, but once a decision is made on the outcome of 2020-21, flexible and adaptable plans for the next twelve months need to be written, otherwise, there is a risk that come January 2022, football will be faced with the same issues it faces now.

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[1] Full details of the grant scheme – The Football Winter Survival Package – can be found here: https://footballfoundation.org.uk/grant/football-winter-survival-package

 

Omit Needless Words

I sometimes wish that I could play a musical instrument. I imagine it must be enjoyable to pick up a guitar, or sit down at a piano, and make music. Alas, I have never learned to play anything. The recorder that I supposedly learned to play at school does not count.

My recorder and I made one appearance in a concert at school which was marked by my gazing without comprehension at the sheet music before me, covering holes on my recorder and blowing into its mouthpiece mostly at random; the law of averages suggests that at some point I played the right note, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

There are people who can play music by ear (not being able to read music has not inhibited illustrious performers such as Elvis Presley, Slash, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix), however, knowledge of musical theory is probably advantageous if one has ambitions to compose, and acquiring that knowledge requires formal learning.

Jimi Hendrix

As I lack that sort of knowledge, I could no more sit down and write music than I could fly to the moon. On the other hand, I know as much as I need to about writing prose – or so I thought.

Some doubt crept in when I read Stephen King’s entertaining and informative book, On Writing. I’ve not read much of King’s fiction, just his alternative history novel, 11.22.63, about a time traveller who attempts to prevent the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, and The Outsider, which starts out as a straightforward crime fiction story, but ends in horror/supernatural territory. I appreciated the subject matter of 11.22.63 more than The Outsider, but enjoyed King’s writing style in both.

Stephen King

On Writing is part autobiography, part writing manual. The chapter in which he describes being hit by the ice cream truck that almost claimed his life is thoroughly engrossing. The chapters that comprise instruction on how to write are interesting, but apart from guidance on editing, and the very valid advice to limit the use of adverbs - especially when writing dialogue - King’s most useful suggestion is to read The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr and E B White.

The Elements of Style is brief, just ninety-six pages, and barely a word is wasted. Strunk practices what he preaches; “omit needless words” he urges us in Rule 17. Reading this book made me realise that in the English I was taught at school, grammar and the theory of writing played very little part.

Worth reading, even if all you write are work emails.

I have vague memories of being taught some formal grammar at junior school, but from the age of eleven onwards, nothing. What I understand about grammar is probably similar to the musician who cannot read music; I know what sounds right and what sounds wrong but I would struggle to explain it. Yes, I do know what an article is, and a noun, and a verb, so I suppose that means I could parse a simple sentence, although I struggle to see why I would want to.

You will have noticed that the last sentence ended with a preposition (I know what one of those is, largely due to the fact that ending a sentence with a preposition has long been regarded as an almost mortal sin in written English). One might imagine that Strunk would frown on such a practice, but he does not, since slavishly avoiding ending sentences with prepositions may lead to tortuous construction, up with which he would not put.

Sadly, while Strunk would not have been concerned with my ending that sentence with “to,” he would have been less impressed by my following it up with one that contains “due to the fact that,” which he says should be revised out of every sentence in which it appears.

That is not the only expression of which Strunk disapproves that I am guilty of using, overusing, perhaps. “As to whether” is another, as is “in terms of.” These, and others, are hangovers from my working days, when I wrote a lot of technical documents, such as user specifications and user manuals, documents that require a certain style, or at least lend themselves to a certain style. That style is rather formal, hackneyed, repetitive, and trite because that is the norm. One could not write a user manual in the style of Raymond Chandler or Damon Runyan, although it might be fun to try!

Strunk rightly decries the use of certain words that add nothing to a sentence. For instance, certainly is a word that pops up frequently in my writing, and so is feature, as in “a feature of.” Strunk disapproves of both, and frankly, it is hard to disagree: he would probably not approve of frankly, either.

Strunk says that qualifiers, such as quite, very, rather, little, and pretty should be avoided, and I agree, but they insinuate themselves in my writing without my being aware of it. Likewise, adverbs. Blogs don’t have much, if any, dialogue, which is fortunate, because if I wrote dialogue, I suspect it would be peppered with them. Dialogue doesn’t always need “he said,” “she said,” if the identity of the speaker is clear; when it isn’t, a constant stream of them can be wearisome, but not as bad as people speaking “consolingly,” or “tiredly.”

It is quite galling to read a book on how to write and find that one’s own style features heavily as what not to do (I am conscious of the fact that this sentence did not require the word quite; it was either galling or it wasn’t, there really is no need to qualify the degree to which it was galling). A voice is screaming “omit needless words!” at me, but it is not easy.

I know I overwrite without Strunk having to point it out, and according to his usage of the word, I flagrantly misuse ‘hopefully,’ although so does virtually everyone else.

Strunk’s book, and other sources, have shown me that what I know about grammar is instinctive rather than learned. I know that I use the pluperfect tense, but would struggle to define it. The same goes for the fronted adverbial (not something Strunk addresses), a term I recently encountered for the first time on Twitter. Immediately, I Googled it, so now I know what a fronted adverbial is, although I do not think that I am any the better off for it.

Reading Stephen King and William Strunk’s books has taught me valuable lessons. Firstly, I realise that I know very little of the theory of writing, especially grammar, and secondly that my writing is peppered with stock phrases that it would be better off without.

The most valuable lesson I have learned, however, is “omit needless words.” I will try to do so in future.

I Resolve

Here we are, a week into 2021: How are your New Year’s resolutions going? Did you even make any? I didn’t, and rarely have in the past. Any I made usually didn’t last 24 hours.

The problem with New Year’s resolutions is that most involve giving something up, whether it’s smoking, alcohol, eating too much, or gambling. These are either addictions or things that people really enjoy, so deep down, giving them up is the last thing you want to do. Ideally, if one wants to make a success of a resolution to quit doing something, it should be something you don’t like doing anyway; unfortunately, these turn out to be things you’re not allowed to give up, like work or visiting the in-laws.

Over indulging at Christmas and resolving, on Boxing Day, to give up some habit or vice a week later makes little sense. Give it up there and then, or don’t give it up at all. When I went for counselling to stop smoking, the first thing I was told was that you don’t finish whatever you have left and then give up, you give up immediately. So, no finishing that last pack of cigarettes, no finishing the beer that’s in the fridge, no last bet, just stop, full stop, period.

The flip side of giving up is the resolution to do something positive. Join a gym, read good books, take more exercise, take a course in flower arranging or cyber security, something that improves the mind, body, or soul. Every year (apart from this one), Fitness First, Nuffield, David Lloyd, and all the other gyms see a surge in membership in January, are packed to the gunwales for a few weeks, then see their new members fall by the wayside in February.

And books:How many copies of worthy books like Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, or Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time (25 million copies sold) have been purchased and discarded unfinished, or barely started? The Booker Prize list is where many people start when they want to find a serious, worthy, improving novel, and although most winners are best sellers, I bet many are enjoyed much less than the novels of non-prize-winning authors. For full disclosure, I submit that I have read just three of the winners since the prize was instituted in 1969.[1]

Courses get dropped, exercise tails off, improved diet lapses into a regime of fast food and sugar laden soft drinks as the majority of people lack self-discipline and will power, but first and foremost, we are set in our ways and all of these resolutions require change, and change is painful. Some also require more time than we are prepared to sacrifice.

There’s an expression – New Year, New You – that we have all heard and possibly wanted to embrace. It’s seductive, but potentially poisonous. If you want to change – and change is hard, change is painful – do it when you need to, when you want to, not because the calendar has changed.

Do I resolve to change in 2021? Do I have a shopping list of things I will stop doing, or start doing, or do more of? No, but I do resolve that as far as my blog goes, after this one, I will not write about Brexit unless something very dramatic happens or affects me directly. Ditto, covid (although that may be much harder to avoid).

As far as Brexit goes, my position is the same as it was when the EU referendum debate was in full swing in 2016. The EU has many flaws, and a sensibly negotiated exit on the back of a significant Leave majority may have been beneficial for this country. My fear in 2016 was that the actual act of negotiating how Britain would disengage from the EU would be a clusterfuck, particularly since Leave’s margin of victory was so small. Nothing I have seen in the last four and a half years persuades me otherwise.

Still, the majority of us may see little difference post-Brexit. Queuing at European airports for passport control (when we can actually go back to the Continent for holidays), a return to Duty Free limitations (with baggage restrictions on most airlines, not many people bring back ‘cheap’ booze or fags any more, anyway) are minor inconveniences, although for Britons who own homes in Europe and don’t have dual nationality, the 90 days in 180 rule will be a problem they have to work round. And for those UK citizens now permanently resident in the EU, some will find that if they have a UK bank account, their bankers will shortly be requiring them to make alternative arrangements, as some passporting arrangements are not available to financial institutions based in a third country, which the UK now is.

News to me was the introduction on 1^st January 2021 of a new method for the treatment of VAT on goods arriving in Britain, not just from the EU, but worldwide. In the interests of treating companies in EU and non-EU countries which sell to UK consumers in the same way, these companies will have to register with HM Revenue & Customs, and collect and pay VAT on HMRC’s behalf on orders under £135. Some companies have decided that this is too onerous and have ceased selling to UK consumers, as my elder daughter has discovered, as a company that she regularly buys from and who are based in Europe, will no longer ship to this country.

Former Star Trek actor William Shatner has similarly decided that his online store – based of course in the USA - will no longer be available to UK consumers. As he explained on Twitter back in October, he had decided that the costs of collecting the VAT and filing returns were prohibitive.

How much this affects me or you is difficult to assess (I’ve never bought anything from William Shatner, heck, I didn’t even know he had an online store), but I have bought plenty of stuff online from European retailers, so chances are I may find some products unavailable to me in future.

An immediate benefit of Brexit is the zero-rating of VAT on feminine hygiene products – the so-called Tampon Tax – albeit it’s too early to know if the benefits will be passed on to the consumer or retained by manufacturers or retailers.

Both of these changes – one a benefit, one a potential drawback – are relatively small beer. The major pros and cons that will accrue from Brexit won’t be known for months, or years, or as Jacob Rees-Mogg said in 2018, maybe not for fifty years.

I can’t wait for Rees-Mogg’s fifty year timescale to elapse (I’ll be long dead by then), so I will inevitably return to the subject of Brexit before then, but I resolve to hang on as long as possible.

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[1] Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally; Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel; The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis

Meet the New Year, Same As the Old Year

In recent years it has been my custom to write a blog about the gigs and shows I have seen in the preceding twelve months. To write one for 2020 would not take long. Of the nineteen I was supposed to see last year, I saw just two.

 

In January Val and I went to The Barbican to see Joe Stilgoe, who played a selection of songs from the movies, accompanied by the Guildhall Studio Orchestra. It was entertaining, if a little unadventurous. If the name Stilgoe is familiar, older readers may remember Joe’s father, Richard, as the singer/songwriter who appeared on TV’s Nationwide and That’s Life! during the 1970s. He also wrote the lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express and collaborated on The Phantom of the Opera.

 

Joe Stilgoe

In February we saw Alice’s Adventures Underground at The Royal Opera House, an off-the-wall version of the Lewis Carroll classic (which is somewhat off the wall to start with). Frankly it wasn’t up to much, but at least it was short.

 

Shows in 2020 featuring artists as diverse as Genesis, Lonely Robot, Sparks, Level 42, Fischer-Z, Steven Wilson, and Derren Brown were all either rescheduled (some more than once) or cancelled outright. Currently I have eleven shows lined up for 2021, although I’m not particularly optimistic about any of them, especially Genesis at The O2, which is supposed to be at the end of April. Perhaps by the time we get to autumn, from when I have Steven Wilson, Steve Hackett, Marillion, IQ, Cosmograph, Level 42, and IQ to look forward to, we’ll be out of the woods and back to some semblance of normality (vaccine willing) – or perhaps not.

 

I should have seen Steven Wilson (centre, seen here performing with Blackfield) in September; we'll try again in 2021

I have bought tickets for a couple of newly announced gigs in 2021, more from not wanting to miss out if they actually go ahead rather from any great optimism that they will; my innate pessimism will not allow me to believe that there is any guarantee that the new year will be any less of a horror show than 2020 was.

 

One of my great pleasures in recent years has been visiting the BBC to attend radio recordings. I managed a few in early 2020 – Brain of Britain, and Newsjack among them – but none since February, although I was in the virtual, online audience for a recording of Paul Sinha’s General Knowledge via Zoom, which was okay, but not really as rewarding as a recording at the Radio Theatre; I’ve not bothered applying for any other shows since.

 

Naturally, it wasn’t just gig-going that saw a downturn in 2020. In 2019 Val and I were lucky enough to have six holidays or mini-breaks. Cyprus (twice), a Norwegian cruise, Center Parcs, Norwich, and Folkestone. We had planned to do slightly less in 2020, but didn’t imagine that our holidaying together would be limited to a few days in Eastbourne in August, although Val did get away to Tenerife with our younger daughter in January, while I stayed at home because I had football matches to go to. These were inevitably postponed due to the weather! At present I feel disinclined to contemplate an overseas holiday in 2021, although I suspect that Val would jump at the opportunity.

 

A Norwegian cruise was one of our holidays in 2019...

...Cyprus was another...

...Eastbourne is as far as we went in 2020

In 2019 I saw all forty-five football matches that Romford FC played; in 2020 I also saw every game the club played, but there were just twenty of them. The last game that Romford played in the 2019-20 season was against Tilbury on 11^th March. There was a sense at that game that there was something pretty serious brewing, and the Isthmian League’s decision to put the season on hold for a few weeks came as no surprise.

 

Romford (in white) on the attack at Bury Town in October 2020, the last football match I'll see for the foreseeable future.

By the end of March, the decision had been reached to terminate the season at Romford’s level. This decision did not meet with universal approval, although in my view it was justified, if for no other reason than it provided certainty. When the 2020-21 season began in September, non-League clubs in football’s seventh and eighth tiers and below had to get used to a whole raft of new guidelines and protocols, which were gradually tightened until the end of October when new Government restrictions resulted in the season being suspended again. Attempts to restart again have not been successful (apart from a few matches in the Northern Premier League), and with the whole of the Isthmian League’s footprint now in Tier 4, in which non-elite sport is not permitted, the chances of a restart any time soon are slim to non-existent.

 

Those who were critical of the decision to null and void 2019-20 will no doubt be apoplectic if 2020-21 goes the same way. I see little prospect of it being possible to restart football below the National League (which, like the Premier and Football Leagues is considered elite and is continuing behind closed doors thanks to the £10m it received from The National Lottery) until maybe April. Null and voiding 2020-21 seems almost inevitable, and a decisive move needs to be made soon to provide everyone with certainty; the stop-start-stop cycle non-elite football has been in for the last few months does no one any good.

 

There are plenty of people who don’t believe that lockdowns work. My view is that the one that ran from March until the summer was successful but, having locked down too late, it was relaxed to soon. This has resulted in the lockdown>release>lockdown cycle we have become locked into. It’s analogous to a scab over a wound: let it follow its course and the scab will come off and the wound will heal after a month; pick it off after two weeks and it’s back to square one.

 

I understand why lengthy lockdowns are hard for business, and detrimental to people’s mental health, but a relentless lockdown>release>lockdown cycle is no better – worse, in fact as there is greater uncertainty, and for pubs and restaurants, there’s all that wasted stock.  I’m not being wise after the event, but when the initial national lockdown was introduced in March, I was of the opinion that it would last at least twelve months, eighteen months even (with or without a vaccine)

 

At the start of the pandemic, I thought it only a matter of time before I caught covid. As time went by, my concerns eased, but my anxiety has increased with the recent upsurge in cases, especially as I live close to the areas with the highest numbers, and even more so since the previously anonymous cases have recently begun to include people I know.

 

Right now, we are pinning our hopes on the vaccines, and I fervently hope that they are effective and administered quickly and allow us to break the vicious circle we are locked in at present, and which is doing my anxiety no good whatever.

 

In the run up to the New Year, social media was awash with posts bidding good riddance to 2020 and looking forward to 2021 as though the ticking of the clock would, by itself, make things right again: It won’t. Until we see positive effects from the vaccine, and until restrictions can be lifted safely, for some time to come it will be very much a case of meet the new year, same as the old year.

Charles Dickens and the Commercialisation of Christmas

For as long as I can remember, people have been bemoaning the commercialisation of Christmas, but it isn’t the current generation that is responsible, nor their parents, nor even their parents’ parents. The blame – if that’s what you want to call it – for the commercialisation of Christmas can be laid firmly at the door of the Victorians, and Charles Dickens has to take his fair share of responsibility.

 

According to the historian Ronald Hutton, it was Dickens who revived the holiday, principally thanks to his novella, A Christmas Carol, creating a ‘family centred festival of generosity,’ contrasting with the declining community and church-based observations.

Charles Dickens - the man who invented Christmas

 

Many of the elements that make up Christmas as we know it today began during the reign of Queen Victoria, who ascended to the throne in 1837, so if a family from the mid-1800s were transported in time to the present day, there would be as much of a 21^st century Christmas that they would recognise as would be unfamiliar.

 

The idea of a holiday on Christmas Day and Boxing Day began because of the wealth generated by factories and the industrial revolution, which was also responsible for the mass production processes which enabled toy makers to produce dolls, games, books and other toys at affordable prices, well, affordable for the upper and middle classes at least. Father Christmas as a bringer of gifts for children gained popularity in Victorian times, before which he had largely been associated with adult feasting and merry-making.

 

The Christmas tree was introduced to Britain by Queen Victoria’s German husband, Prince Albert. He first brought one to Windsor Castle during the 1840s, when the typical Christmas dinner for the royals would have included beef and swan, but not turkey. For Victoria’s subjects, beef was popular in the north, while goose was favourite in the south – the poor everywhere had to make do with rabbit. By the end of the 19^th century turkey had taken its place as the typical Christmas meat.

 

Victoria, Albert, and tree

Crackers were another invention of the 1840s, created by a London sweet maker by the name of Tom Smith, who found that his original idea of wrapping sweets in a twist of coloured paper sold much better when he added a joke, a hat, and a toy, and made them go bang. The company that Smith started is still going, and supplies crackers to the royal family.

 

The creation of the penny post in 1840 by Rowland Hill facilitated the birth of the Christmas card as we know it today, although the first record of a Christmas card being sent dates back to 1611, when the German physician Michael Maier sent cards to James I of England and his son Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. In 1843, Sir Henry Cole had a thousand cards printed which he sold for one shilling each from his London art shop, but the popularity of the Christmas card hit new heights in the 1870s thanks to the half-penny postage rates and the coming of the railways.

 

In 2019, the UK card industry made sales of £1.7bn, and it is estimated that the British send almost a billion Christmas cards a year, more per person than any other country. If our experience is anything to go by, the number must be on the decline however, as this year the number of cards we have received is down on last Christmas, and that was lower than the year before.

 

This reduction in the number of cards hitting our doormat may be down to any number of reasons, the pandemic probably being a factor, although I can’t rule out the possibility that we – or more probably I – have simply dropped off some people’s Christmas card lists! In all seriousness though, the cost of sending cards is becoming quite prohibitive. Sir Henry Cole’s one shilling Christmas card of 1843 would have been out of the price range of all but the very wealthy, as in today’s money it would have cost the equivalent of around £5, although individual cards in the shops today can easily cost as much as that.

 

Let’s say for the sake of argument that a reasonably priced pack of Christmas cards come in at about £5 for ten cards. This year we sent fifty, so that would be £25. Then add postage. As usual, we left it late to post our cards and had to send them first class, which is 75p a stamp, so £37.50 on top, making a total of £62.50 for Christmas cards. And even if they were charity cards, not all of the cost goes to the charity itself in most cases. It is little wonder that many people are ditching the Christmas card and making donations to charity instead, something which I think it very likely that I will do next year.

 

Looking at the somewhat diminished number of those that we have received this year, it is a fact that the design of Christmas cards not changed much over the years, as these cards from the late 19^th century show.

 

18th century Christmas cards were not so different from today's

The images of robins, and of Father Christmas, jolly lamplighters in Victorian streets, and general snowbound scenes have featured on cards since the very beginning, even though most of the country sees very little snow on 25^th December – the last White Christmas in London was ten years ago.

 

The fact that a Victorian family would recognise a lot of a 21^st century Christmas is because our traditions have ossified. Christmas is stuck in a time-warp, with everyone doing the same things year in year out. Even the Christmas songs have got stuck in one decade, albeit a fairly recent one, with the best dating from the 1970s (there were a few in the 1980s though). You know it’s Christmas when you hear Noddy Holder scream, “It’s Christmasssssssssss!” although ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’ is now old enough to actually be one of the songs "your granny always tells ya...are the best."

 

Our Christmas was little different this year, as I expect yours was, although in all honesty, ours was only marginally different. We don’t have a large family, and although we weren’t able to have our elder daughter and her boyfriend join us on Christmas Day, most other things we did were pretty normal. Coronavirus restrictions aside, Christmas was pretty much the same as it ever was, and likely ever will be.

 

To my surprise, my Christmas supermarket shopping was less stressful than usual. We ate and drank pretty much what we normally do, although the present buying was scaled down from previous years, which was a relief – not because I’m a Scrooge, but because I lack inspiration (I don’t even know what I want, let alone what anyone else does). We are probably not typical however, and for many people, Christmas 2020 will have been one to remember for the wrong reasons.

 

The Christmas traditions that we know, and by and large, hold dear, will take years to change other than subtly – our time-travelling Victorian would probably find Christmas 2119 little different from 1849 – but I think that next year I’ll be making a donation to charity rather than sending cards, and our gift buying may well be scaled back still further. Doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy next Christmas though, and I’m sure that we all fervently hope that it will be a better one than this year.