Margaret Thatcher

Just a Minute?

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BBC’s under-rated and these days hidden gem of comedy radio is the show Just a Minute. The original host Nicholas Parsons had plenty of minutes in his lifetime. He ran the longevity of the show from 1962 to 2019, well into his 90s. The witty Lincolnshire-born presenter came from a town called Grantham, known for its infamous daughter Baroness Margaret Thatcher and Sir Isaac Newton. One famous for apples falling off a tree, and the former, a Darth Vader-impressionist for stealing milk from developing children.

“Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race!” – Translation from G. L. Smyth, The Monuments and Genii of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and of Westminster Abbey

Nicholas Parsons reportedly only missed around four episodes of the radio show, Just a Minute, between 2018 and 2020. Parsons was clearly caught slacking at the young age of 94. His good friend Gyles Brandreth, a regular show panelist stepped in for those occasions. Even into his 95th year, Parsons was active at a charity event, with the Grand Order of Water Rats.

The aim of the gameshow Just a Minute, is to speak unbrokenly on a subject for sixty seconds. Regular panelist (for 33 years) and comedian Paul Merton has mastered this skill. Evidence can be found on the BBC website, although you can’t say BBC because that’s repetition. No repetition. I repeat, no repetition. The rules of Just a Minute involve:

rulestips
When the leader or chair person says start talking, or ends their introduction the competitor must speak immediately. Try not to speak too swiftly. You may trip over your own words.
Don’t hesitate. Don’t speak slowly because… No hesitation. Nor should you acknowledge others speaking and that you’re going to go down another avenue.A wide vocabulary is useful.
Deviation: changing the topic is ill-advised. That’s a rule broken. No deviation. Keep it on topic.Don’t ask questions to the chair person or fellow panelists. That’s deviation.
To say, “um”, “er”, “ee”, “oo”, “ah”, “walla walla”, “bing bang” or “ahhhh” is to break the rules. See hesitation. The listening competitors can challenge any broken rules.
Repeat only the words on the subject card, although it being a radio show. No repetition of other words. Even acronyms such as BBC, CCTV etc count as repetition. Short words don’t count as repetition. e.g. I, our, we, the…
Let the opposition listen and challenge you. The chair person’s say is final but the panel may debate challenges in a friendly way. Rules are rules.

The game show can be adapted to be a fun end of year game. It would certainly encourage fluency and accuracy in thought to speech. The show created by the late Ian Messiter was caught day-dreaming and faced the cane, but could avoid doing so by speaking for two minutes on the class subject (he should have been listening to). So, in a sense, repeating the game in the classroom, at the end of the school year, is returning it to its origins. Without a cane. Thanks Mr Messiter! Interestingly, the creator’s son, Malcom, even presented the show on a televised version in 2012. Now, actress and comedian Sue Perkins hosts the regular radio panel show. In my humble this is essential listening to improve your skills of English and spoken ability. There’s no harm in trying. Sharpening the tongue is a skill of its own.

Civic Duty

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How do! / 你好 (nĭ hăo) / Namaste / Welcome!

“It is your civic duty, so you avoid unknowingly spreading the virus and you help to break the chain of transmission.” – Matt Hancock, Health Secretary, BBC News.

Boris Johnson has urged you to move on. In a rare boiling of the blood, Boris told his peers to “move on” five times. In fact, it almost mirrored Kasabian’s Fire track, ‘move on, you got to move on. You got to get to the hip, get your shake on (I’m on fire)’. How dare his peers and opposition party politicians stoke the fire of a political ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead. It seems to be a running problem, that when the elitist leaders and their aides do something, others should do something else. You’re in this together, right? Not us. Not everyone. Not everybody. Them and us?

“Stop indulging in irrelevant debates about sharing the pie between manufacturing and services, the north and the south, women and men” – Dominic Raab et al, Britannia Unchained

Well, what better way to idle away time than watch a good cop show? Between writing, reading books and teaching, I did however find an electronic copy of the book Britannia Unchained:Global Lessons for Growth and Prosperity and sped through the material with consummate ease. Authored by Priti Patel, Elizabeth Truss, Dominic Raab, Kwasi Kwarteng, and Chris Skidmore in 2012, it is a treatise (a long essay) on politics and business. It argues that Great Britain should take more risk and engage a radical approach in economics and business. Its writers are all elitist Thatcherite-leaning Free Enterprise Group members and it shows across the 152 pages of content. They’re all part of Boris Johnson’s inner sanctum and the cabinet in some shape or form now. It advises that Great Britain should slacken employment laws and abandon fairness for the worker, in favour of global profits.  

“The British are among the worst idlers in the world. We work among the lowest hours, we retire early and our productivity is poor.” – Dominic Raab et al, Britannia Unchained

The book Britannia Unchainedargues that 85% of Japanese kids learn A-level standard mathematics to just 15% in the U.K. It fails to indicate how few students study these subjects and go on to work in a relevant area. It snubs any notion that arts and creativity are good for community and transferable skills. It doesn’t mention the outcome of Japan’s 15% of mathematical unqualified. It takes joy at the U.S.A.’s risk-taking but barely mentions the outcomes of flops and failures and the social or economic gambles gone wrong.

Arguably, as noted by General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress Brendan Barber, there aren’t enough jobs knocking around and slackness may be a result of not being motivated to go pick lettuce in a slurry field on a wealthy conglomerate’s estate in Surrey. Not everyone needs to have the motivations or grafting spirits of Asia, but it does seem those who haven’t are being pushed to do so by those who have. Easily done when all is on a plate. What I love about British culture most, is when someone from a working class background steps up and becomes the hero of their people – the boy or girl who did good. The Billy Connolly or Danny Boyle types who defy, are few and far between. The rest of us scrap out for what’s left. The book proved who to watch and highlighted a class divide. It rang alarm bells at the time and now all the writers are in top government positions. The New Statesmen wrote of them, “They have joined the political version of celebrity culture – the same culture that they argue, to some extent compellingly, makes Britons believe they can get on without doing any hard work.”

“I didn’t float up the Lagan in a bubble” – character Ted Hastings, Line of Duty

That’s Line of Duty done with. I really enjoyed series 1-3, but the 4th season was much of the same. The fifth was strong and rightfully so has claimed good plaudits but the flow was a little slower. I understand that original director and writer Jed Mercurio announced two more series will follow. It is gripping and engaging as thrillers go, but surely co much corruption in the fictious Central Constabulary and East Midlands Constabulary must have been found by now. Oh, wait, maybe it is like real lifeTM. The latter four series were filmed in Northern Ireland by the BBC. The range of accents throughout all five series creates an almost perfect fictional city. It is so generic that you forget where you are. All the series feature big gun screen stars such as Keeley Hawes (Spooks, Ashes to Ashes), Thandie Newton OBE (Crash, Westworld), Kirkby-born Stephen Graham (Snatch, Boardwalk Empire’s Al Capone), and Nottingham’s Lennie James (The Walking Dead, ShakespeaRe-Told). Stephen Graham joined main star Vicky McClure in the movie This Is England and its spinoff TV series. It took me a awhile to realise that Nottingham-born McClure was Frances Lorraine “Lol” Jenkins from This is England. They’ve also starred in BBC’s The Secret Agent together too. There’s a tram named after her in Nottingham – one in which she was asked to leave for not paying her fare. Detective Inspector Kate Fleming and former footballer (Greenock Morton) Martin Compston’s Anti-Corruption Unit Detective Sergeant Steve Arnott with Superintendent Ted Hastings played by Adrian Dunbar make for a thrilling series, way better than the movie of the same name.

“Some little girls grow up wanting ponies. I always wanted to be a widow.” – character Alice Morgan, Luther.

Jed Mercurio was responsible for a TV series with Noddy Holder from 1997 to 2001 called The Grimleys. That was comedy gold-dust, set in and around Dudley, with some wonderful cameos throughout. He also created and wrote the thriller Bodyguard with Richard Madden and Keeley Hawes. His creation Line of Duty has fast become a favourite. It doesn’t hold back and a few surprise turns have kept countless viewers on their seat-edges. Each finale always seems to leave the viewer wanting more That’s what you want, especially from a cop show. I’d rank it #6 in my top thirteen cop shows. My choice for #13 is Inspector Morse. I’ve never disliked Inspector Morse and I can’t say it was amazing but it was always gritty (despite my lack of bias towards John Thaw being a Gorton-born Manchester City fan) and I think Jimmy McGovern’s Cracker (Robbie Coltrane) is much more than a cop show and deserves to be remembered for being very complex and about psychological motivations – plus it is Mancunian, so that’s why it is my #10 choice. David Jason’s A Touch of Frost just makes the #12 slot.

“I drink too much, I smoke too much, I gamble too much. I am too much.” – character Dr Edward ‘Fitz’ Fitzgerald, Cracker.

#11 Rebus (penned by Ian Rankin), #9  Life on Mars (nostalgic 70s drama), #8 The Shield (with rogue bald bad cop Vic Mackey), #7 The Wire (set in Baltimore), #5 Denmark’s The Killing, #4 Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect, #3 The Bridge (Nordic noir), and #2 Neil Cross’s Luther (Idris Elba) are all great cop shows. #1 But for me the king of all has to be Homicide: Life on the Street (Baltimore’s finest foray into the criminal world on a TV set). I would rate them all highly and recommend them even more so. If you have some COVID-19 lockdown time spare or wish to stay clear until a vaccination is found, then bang on a blues and twos box set.

Maybe by the time I have reviewed my top 13 cop TV shows, I will stumble on the reason Boris Johnson’s aide committed murder in Durham…

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Sir IDS follows Sir Jimmy Savile

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How do, alright?

49081107382_fa15e73c7cHere we go again… firstly Jimmy Savile was a vile and disgusting man who manipulated life and entertainment whilst preying on the vulnerable. Using his image was not an easy choice but it does carry an appropriate image. This man gained a knighthood in an Honours list selected by our state. Others have too. For less and for more. The Honours list is seen as a bit of a joke. Politicians and entertainers are put on a level field with those who do great things for others. Selfless acts placed alongside profiteers and pioneers of their own self-interest.

Do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man. That was his party slogan, because Iain, Duncan and Smith, is and was a dull guy. Iain Duncan Smith celebrated as he passed welfare cuts to society’s most vulnerable people. This Conservative MP has previously claimed breakfasts as part of his expenses totalling around £39. School pupils, under his government were allocated just 7 pence. 557 children could have eaten something for the cost of his breakfast. Didn’t he know Gregg’s bakery do a bacon barm and coffee for about two quid. I doubt this Edinburgh-born former military man would ever be seen drinking a mug of coffee in Gregg’s with the small people.

IDS was caught out lying about his university education at the University of Perugia he later was found to have dropped out of the Università per Stranieri. Later his website claimed fictious qualifications from the Dunchurch College of Management. IDS has been eternally sceptical about the UK’s membership of the dictatorship-like EU (it lets terrorists in), and was supported by Margaret Thatcher, the original Darth Vader of politics. IDS sat with Americans following the September 11th terrorist attacks and backed the invasion of Iraq ( a nation that has dropped in literacy, food availability and domestic fuel usage since the allied invasion). The quiet man turned up the volume in Iraq. Still it kept his wife (the ostensibly impoverished daughter of the 5th Baron Cottesloe) in good money (see Betsygate).

Following his demise as Prime Minister, Iain Duncan Smith seemed to be doing something right. He soon became the Chairman of the Social Justice Policy Group in 2005. It’s reports Breakdown Britain and Breakthrough Britain. Breakdown Britain were noted by the European Court of Justice, as “unfit for a modern democracy” and “verging on frighteningly authoritarian”. Very 1984 indeed. Whilst he re-joined the political foreground he noted a worrying rise in Anti-Semitism in Britain, but on the other hand, called for more British involvement in Iraq.

In 2010, Iain Duncan Smith ended employer’s rights to use mandatory pensionable retirement at the age of 65. On one hand, good. On another, it would mean people working for longer, with fewer jobs on the market. So, to suit longer lives, people need to work longer. In the same year Universal Credit arrived. This was a man who could live on £53 a week, presumably £39 for a single breakfast was a weekly treat. But then, he would have been too busy battling human rights laws and forcing people into work for welfare – and taking wealthy pensioners’ winter payments back without an actual way to do so. But then, he never was good with numbers.

Under his watch, Iain Duncan Smith has seen a huge increase in the use of foodbanks. Non-governmental organisations and charities. Even Oxfam questioned why the seventh wealthiest nation on the planet is struggling to feed its people. And on the 2012 United Nations’ International Day of Persons with Disabilities, people on benefits were told they could lose their support. These people with disabilities or  illnesses ranging from cancer to paralysis or mental health would be forced by the UK government to work for free. This announcement came in December, to make for a lovely Christmas and New Year ahead. Personal Independence Payment would work alongside the Department of Work & Pensions, to ensure that being vulnerable could and would have meant death – around 2000 people died. Work your way out of poverty!

“We won’t lift you out of poverty by simply transferring taxpayers’ money to you. With our help, you’ll work your way out of poverty.” – Iain Duncan Smith, Conservative Party Conference, Manchester, October 2012

In 2016, Iain Duncan Smith quit the government. He didn’t like the “government’s austerity programme for balancing the books on the backs of the poor and vulnerable”. Presumably, it was because someone else had found a bigger and more aggressive axe than he could hold. But, forget all these minor problems, because in 2020, Iain Duncan Smith will be knighted for the for political and public service. He joins the late Sir Jimmy Savile (deceased so he is stripped of the title after death), [former Sir] Fred Goodwin, Rolf Harris, spies Anthony Blunt and Kim Philby, Sir Philip Green, Robert Mugabe (honorary knighthood, 1994-2008), Romanian Dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu (honorary knighthood 1978-the day before his execution on Christmas Day, 1989), Jean Else, television entertainer Stuart Hall, Benito Mussolini (honorary knighthood in 1923), Denis McShane, Bishop Donald Shearman, convicted child abuse photographer Chief Fire Officer Francis John Sheehan and Donald Tsang [曾荫权]. There are others including former Prime Minister David Cameron’s advisor Patrick Rock. Every single name in that list is inappropriate – and sadly many were not discovered for years, so who will join the notorious Honours list of shame next? Enjoy your honours.

Ta’ra for now!