Week 25.10

Tendring Topics…….on Line

World Cup Fever

It isn’t very often that I read a newspaper article that I wish I had written myself. This was certainly the case though when I read in the Coastal Daily Gazette a feature article by Assistant Editor James Wills (one-time editor of the Clacton Gazette) expressing forcefully his views on the current World Cup Fever.

James Wills, who says that he is a football fan himself, writes that ‘England has already descended into some sort of mass hysteria – the symptoms of which are a desire to become temporarily patriotic, drink copious amounts of booze, and for men to thump their chests chanting “EN-GER-LUND”

‘During the 2006 World Cup, Home Office data showed on average there was a 25 percent rise in domestic violence reports on the days of England games, with one in four offenders being found to be under the influence of alcohol. ‘What a brilliant testament to our nation – watch the game, get drunk and slap your partner’.

Joining in (and no doubt hoping to cash in on!) the mass hysteria are major companies like Nike and Adidas, Mercedes (despite being a German firm!) and supermarkets, who simultaneously campaign for the introduction of higher prices for alcohol, and desperately promote ‘World Cup booze specials!'

‘Do people really have an insatiable desire to eat Pringles’, asks Mr Wills, ‘because they have changed their name to Pringooooals to flog a football promotion? Perhaps we are missing out and we should change the name of the paper to the ‘Goal-chester Gazette’.

He goes on to say that, ‘We can forget the fact, reported on Wednesday, that one in eight children under five in Niger is likely to die of starvation in the next four weeks, because we are more concerned about Lesley King’s knee injury……..Closer to home Colchester MP Bob Russell has been campaigning in the Commons about child poverty. Apparently the UK has one of the worst levels of child poverty in the developed world and one of the worst in Europe, below Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. But who cares about that? We rank above them in the Fifa football ratings. EN-GER-LUND!

‘The country may be in the middle of an economic public debt crisis, but we can still afford to pay our Italian manager £6 million a year. ENG-ER-LUND!

(I hadn’t realized that that was the England Manager’s salary – and we worry because a handful of civil servants and top council officials receive about £200,000 - more than the Prime Minister!)

James Wills concludes, ‘I sincerely hope that we do win, just because it will bring an end to those appalling ’46 years of hurt’ clichés. The fact is that we haven’t won since 1966 because we weren’t good enough, which is only right and proper because, as our economy, transport infrastructure and almost everything proves, not being good enough is what we are world beaters at. EN-GER-LUND!

There’s nothing much that I can add to that. I thought that I was pretty good at vituperative prose but I take off my hat to Mr. Wills!

The first time that I heard ‘England’ used in that way with three syllables, was under very different circumstances. It was in January 1942 and the German and Italian garrison of Wadi Halfaya (Hellfire Pass) on the Egyptian/Libyan border had just surrendered to us. A group of disconsolate German prisoners were trying to keep up their spirits by singing the German submariners ‘anthem’ with its rousing chorus.

Und jetzt wir fahren! Und jetzt wir fahren!
Wir fahren gegen EN-GER-LAND!

(Now we’re marching! Now we’re marching!
We’re marching against EN-GER-LAND!

Six months later I was a POW myself and knew exactly how those German prisoners had been feeling. Today, as I survey the St. George’s flags displayed wherever I go, listen to the breathless tones of the sports commentators, and reflect on the fact that, in the midst of a financial crisis affecting us all, thousands can spare the time and the money to watch football games half a world away from home, I know just how James Wills was feeling as he wrote that article. For goodness sake, football is only a game!

Whose oil spill? Whose fault?

In last week’s blog I made the point that BP, responsible for the oil leak currently threatening the Gulf Coast of the USA, is only nominally a British firm. A substantial proportion of its shares are owned in the USA and elsewhere.

A recent article in The Independent revealed that not only are a large number of shares held in the USA but that many members of the American Congress, including those leading the enquiry into the disaster, are substantial share holders. Between them, they own $14.5 million of stock in the oil and gas industry, among which are at least $400,000 shares (probably more!) in the three companies involved in the oil spill – BP, Transocean and Anadarko Petroleum.

Fred Upton, top Republican on the Energy and Environment Subcommittee, has nearly $100,000 invested in BP, Senator John Kerry, who sits on the Senate Commerce Committee, has assets totalling at least $6 million in a dozen oil concerns, including BP and Royal Dutch Oil, while his wife Teresa has in trust up to $750,000 of BP stock. The House Republican leader John Boehner, holds BP stock worth $50,000!

Research (via Google) reveals some interesting facts about the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and about the oil well that it was tapping.

The oil well is at a depth of 35,000 feet, and is the deepest well of its kind ever discovered! It is 5,000 feet deeper than the design specification of the oilrig.

An enquiry into the cause of the disaster is in progress. I think it very unlikely that it was the result of a deliberate act of malice, or the carelessness, stupidity or laziness of the rig’s crew. Knowing that they were working at or beyond the rig’s recommended capacity, they would surely have been taking extra, meticulous care.

Perhaps, in order to save time and money, ‘management’ decided to cut corners and ignore precautions that should have been taken. It is possible that drilling at that extreme depth should not have been undertaken at all, or undertaken only with specialist equipment that just wasn’t available on the site.

It must never be forgotten that the prime purpose of any private enterprise is not to serve the public or improve the environment, but to enrich the bank accounts of the shareholders. Delays cost money, specialist equipment costs money. It could be that the current catastrophe arose from an unwise desire to serve what seemed to be the best interests of BP’s shareholders, including of course, those among them who are members of the US Congress.

Among the Cleanest?

I am an enthusiast for the Tendring District. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else and I recommend it for holidays to my friends both in this country and overseas. Our seaside resorts have their own unique qualities that complement each other, offering everything that most people seek on holiday. In addition they are conveniently close to historic Colchester and to the lovely ‘Constable country’ of the Stour Valley.

I am sure that our beaches thoroughly deserve the European Blue Flags of excellence that they have been awarded and I wasn’t a bit surprised to learn that Clacton-on-Sea had been rated among England’s top ten holiday resorts.

I must say though that my loyalty and credulity were strained to the utmost by the report that our Sunshine Coast had been rated within the top ten cleanest places in the country, coming ninth and being beaten in our region only by Maldon, which came sixth. My reaction was not dissimilar to that of Anne Harper, who has run a ladies wear shop in Jackson Road for forty years. She is reported as saying, ‘If we are ninth, God only knows what the rest of the country is like……..The other day when I came in to work, there were cans and pizza boxes in the street – it was absolutely filthy. If there are almost 350 areas worse than us I really do despair’

I sometimes find drink cans and plastic ‘fast food’ containers (often still half-full!) casually dropped over my front garden fence and, driving along the footpath of St. Osyth Road on my mobility scooter I all-too-often have to negotiate my way through broken glass that threatens my scooter’s tyres.

Perhaps whoever decided that we were in the top ten made his or her inspection shortly after the streets had been cleaned. I have been impressed with the Council’s street cleaning service. It is good to see a man with a brush at work rather than a street sweeping vehicle that doesn’t touch the footpaths and, because of parked cars, can’t get to the gutters where drink cans, crisp packets and fast food containers tend to gravitate. Usually though, it doesn’t take long for litter to accumulate again!

Outrageous? Heroic?

Possibly neither. He may have simply been very uncomfortable!

I am referring to the football fan, who ‘burst into the changing room and confronted the English players’ after their less-than-brilliant World Cup performance against Algeria.

It could be that angry confrontation was the very last thing on his mind. He claims that was in urgent need of the toilet and had simply lost his way.

As Esther Rantzen used to say, ‘That’s life!’ Perhaps we should be thankful for the fact that there’s rather more bathos in the world than either heroism or outrage!

Apologies still needed!

I am glad that our Prime Minister made a full and unequivocal apology for the events in Londonderry on 'Bloody Sunday', 1972. The killing of unarmed civilians was inexcusable, even allowing for the fact that there was a 'shooting war' in progress at the time and that the British troops had been ordered into Londonderry's Bogside, a 'no go' area for troops where those who entered could routinely expect to be fired on by IRA snipers. Once firing begins it is difficult to know who is firing at whom and I have no doubt that some soldiers genuinely believed themselves to be under attack. Nevertheless the incident was an appalling tragedy and a blot on the record of the regiment involved.

I note that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness both accepted and welcomed David Cameron's apology. Perhaps, in turn, they might care to make a similarly uneqivocal apology for the hundreds of equally innocent civilians killed by the IRA at that time. There is little doubt that they were far more personally associated with those killings than David Cameron was with those on Bloody Sunday.

A fateful day.

I hope to post this blog tomorrow evening (22nd June). By the time you read it you will know the terms of the Chancellor’s emergency budget – and how they will affect you and your family.. I shall be looking to see if it really will cause pain to all of us as promised, or whether – as usual - the seriously wealthy will escape without even minor discomfort.

Hot on the heels of the Budget will come the make-or-break England v. Slovenia football match on Wednesday that will determine whether England's team goes on to the next round of the World Cup contest or returns to the UK in ignominy. Surely we’re not going to suffer ‘a double whammy’?

It looks as though I shall have plenty on which to comment next week!