October 2008 Archives

I went to a Michael Bolton concert at the NIA tonight, yesterday as it is now, and have just finished the review. As always he put on a very professional show but I always feel sorry for acts at the NIA. Last time in Brum he was at Symphony Hall which either attracts a different crowd or creates a different atmosphere than the shed like caverns of the bigger arenas so perhaps the time has come when the NEC and NIA should introduce intelligence and bladder control tests before you can buy a ticket.

Go to any concert there and it is always the same. Just look around and amid the forest of arms holding mobile phones taking pictures and videos that will be out of focus and have all the quality of soup stain on a moonless night and you will see a constant stream of people wandering in and out. Now whether they have the attention span or the bladder capacity of a goldfish hardly matters, either way questions should be asked about their suitability for breeding.

Then we have the talkers and texters. The man next to my wife spent the entire concert on his phone either texting his friends, or more likely his carer to let them know where he was, or holding his phone so the other end could hear a song.

And, lucky us, we had a group behind us who seemed to have a congenital need to keep a constant stream of banality coming from their mouths throughout the entire concert presumably to keep each of their solitary brain cells informed they were still alive so it would keep operating the breathing mechanism.

If had wanted to listen to them talk I could have gone round to their house and done it in their front room and not have had to put up with some American geezer singing away and spoiling the conversation so much so that they had to talk even louder whenever he sang.

Not that I would have wanted to go round to their house, mind you, having heard the level of their communication skills - unless I was doing some anthropological study on why evolution seemed to have by-passed certain sections of the population.

Perhaps the answer would be to have a special section, a sound proofed room where all the talkers could be sat where they would annoy no one but each other and if we threw in a few commodes and stuck the fidgets in there as well, everyone one else could be left to enjoy a concert in peace.

Is it just me or does anyone else see any irony in the Metropolitan Black Police Association announcing a minority recruitment ban at the Metropolitan Police amid claims of racism - that from an organisation which states: "Membership to the Association is available to all black staff employed by the Metropolitan Police Service."

At least the National Black Police Association claims membership is open to all serving police officers although I suspect the white contingent do not need too many rooms at the annual conference. Sadly I suspect if anyone were to attempt to start the National White Police Association that they would spend the rest of their somewhat shortened career within the constabulary in court or attending disciplinary hearings but in the tospy turvy, PC world we live in that is the way the cookie crumbles these days.

Once upon a time we had coppers and law and order on the streets but these days the police are becoming politicised and I suspect minority pressure groups for everything from gay police officers to black officers is not really helping the cause and is certainly doing nothing for law and order.

Nor is positive discrimination - a weasly phrase to try and put a false veneer of respectability over injustice - doing anything to catch the bad guys make the streets safe. If one group or sex is favoured over another then it is discrimination plain and simple no matter what spin you put on it and that causes resentment and unrest.

The culture of PC and legislation so beloved of this Government and its trendy camp followers just provides ammunition for the meddlers and political carpet baggers and adventurers, stifles free speech and virtually outlaws sensible debate and has done nothing to improve race relations, social integration and understanding. In fact all the meddling and finger wagging has probably made things worse.

There are always going to be racists, of all colours and ethnic origins, and no amount of legislation will ever change that but if we are not careful we are in danger of making everyone racists to some degree or another and the more narrowly defined boxes and minority agendas appear the more people will feel forced to choose sides and the tribal menatality grows.

The welfare of serving police officers, or any group for that matter, should be the same whatever their colour, origin or sex and once you lose sight of that the waters become very murky indeed.

In the suburban fashion stakes the aspidistra in the front window and a neatly clipped privet hedge is a distant memory these days. We have had the block paved drive craze then came the imposing front walls with iron railings which any burglar with an IQ stretching to double figures could walk around, and now we have the ornate wrought iron gates opening silently by remote control operated from an approaching car.

Now, don't get me wrong, if flaunting your wealth floats your hand crafted bateau then that's fine by me but why do so many of the security gate brigade make no concession whatsoever to road safety?

Time after time you are behind a car which indicates it is turning into a drive, starts to turn then stops suddenly when you are expecting it to vanish from sight causing cars behind to brake at an unexpected obstruction.

There the car stays with its derrière sticking out in the road holding up traffic while what appears to be a motor running on a set of AA batteries painfully slowly does the open sesame bit. Does it never dawn on people that setting the gates back far enough to allow a car to wait off-road in the approach for them to open, considerably reduces that chance of being rammed up the rear and keeps traffic moving freely?

It seems to have something to do with enclosing every inch of land. You see the same principle at work with boundary walls and fences on the very edge of property even though it means those who live there cannot see to drive out of their entrance until the front of their car is six feet into the road. Fences, it seems, come before safety.