Posted 2:56 PM by Paul
Still No Hovercars

Nearly 2004. An impossibly futuristic date. I worked on the Dome, Britain's ill fated millennium project. Way back in those optimistic 90s when Tony Blair was almost universally trusted, the Year 2000 seemed like an impossible future. The new millennium. Now it seems anachronistic. A bit like a 1950s Sci-Fi DC Comic but not as much fun.

How was the year for me?

My mother died. Despite the tears and the heartache we were very lucky. She survived at least 4 years longer than was expected and we were all with her when she slipped away on a bright sunny day in September aged 81.

The kids are healthy and happy.

Heather and I are coming up to our 15th anniversary and still very much in love. My love for her has grown over the years. I still look at her and wonder why she marrried a man nearly 10 years older than her aged 23 when she could have waited around for someone better.

Blair signed up for a a war made in the White House and a nation began to tire of his patronising sermons and effortless sophistry. Now we have a civil war, an illegal occupation and a base for Islamic extremists in a country where they were hitherto excluded.

I played my pathetically small part in the anti-War movement by going on two huge anti-war demonstrations. Participation in the last one during Bush's visit got me in to a shouting match with an old friend. He left the restaurant before finishing his supper, annoyed with me and unable to share the same table. I stayed and tried to work out why it had come to this.

We visited the USA and Canada and were driving out of Niagara when the power outages blacked out the Eastern Seaboard and Ontario. I fell in love with New York again. The first time I went in 1983 it felt so modern. Now it seems like part of America's heritage, a place of tradition rather than innovation. It is still the greatest place I have ever been to.

Concorde was retired from service. Cutting edge technology is now employed in blowing people up, not in whisking them between continents at twice the speed of sound

My sister had happiness cruelly snatched from her when her boyfriend died of a rare kidney disease just before they were due to wed.

I was offered, and accepted a permanent contract at work - so now my salary is not only generous but reliable.

Tomorrow we are going to to see Santa Versus in the Snowman in 3-D at the Imax cinema at Waterloo followed by supper at a new American diner that has opened up in the Savoy. We will all see the New Year in at home. I never forget how lucky we are.

My hopes and plans for next year are limited.

Stay happy
Stay healthy
Stay in employment
Teach the kids guitar
Teach Emily to swim
Have a long family holiday in France
Celebrate my 29th consecutive fiesta in Pamplona
Improve my Spanish

Nearly 2004 and still no police in hovercars and air hostesses in shiney metallic jump suits. What ever happened to THE FUTURE?

Posted 9:21 AM by Paul
Bam

Sitting on the sofa in the post Christmas hiatus in front of an open fire with the kids playing dolly gmes on the carpet, it is impossible to take in the magnitude of what has happened in Southern Iran. Estimates have now been raised to 47,000 dead. All in a few seconds. That's about the number of people killed by bombing in London in the whole of World War II or nearly as high as American casualties in Vietnam. By the time most of the rescue teams arrived from around the world it was too late. The main task was to bury the dead in mass graves before typhus and cholera took hold.

Who knows what the political fall out will be? Perhaps it will help us all understand our common humanity. It is harder to see a nation as part of the Axis of Evil when they are weeping over their dead children. Harder to see Americans as The Great Satan when they arrive distributing free medicine, no strings attached.

Posted 4:55 PM by Paul
Where's the Beef?

Mad Cow disease has been detected in Washingtom state and many UK commentators are enjoying the discomfort of US agri-business and the Bush administration. This is understandable because despite the much vaunted special relationship, Clinton's White House lost no time in banning British beef as soon as they discovered that our herd was infected.

McDonalds across England even had signs up letting customers know that only prime French beef was being used in their burgers. Now the US Secretary for Agriculture is flying around the world trying to convince nations like Japan, which imports over $1billion of US beef, that they should lift the ban because the "threat to humans is slight."

It's a serious issue. Mad Cow Disease can cross species boundaries and become the human form of CJD which condemns people to an agonising death. It's also not much fun for farmers as many of them will go to the wall, without extra subsidies from the US Government. This is something they can probably rely on as Bush needs all of the electoral college votes from the West and Mid West states where most of the cattle graze.

The world reaction to the discovery of Mad Cow Disease is of course nothing to do with beef at all. It is the predictable reaction of countries who have just been hit by tarrif barriers on imports into the US market. "Two can play at that game" - seems to be the message coming from hitherto staunch allies like Korea and Japan. One allie will stand loyally beside the USA - that's right Britain.
So, despite the long ban on our beef, British consumers will have the right to buy US pepperoni, even if it some of it made from the last reclaimed scraps stripped from the spinal column of an infected animal.

The latest development in the story is predictable. The infected cow was apparently imported as a calf from Canada. Very convenient. When in doubt, blame Canada. It reminded me of Mayor Bloomberg's inventive explantion for the power outages in August. It was all caused by the unreasonable demands of people in Ontario who wanted to use their air conditioning during a heat wave.

Posted 11:38 AM by Paul
An American in France

My old friend Ray from New Orleans has just e-mailed from his retreat in the Pyrenes in a mixture of delight and despair. Delight because he is enjoying his semi-retirement in the historic town of St. Jean Pied de Port at the beginning of the pilgrims' route to Santiago de Compostella. Despair because he is learning how difficult it can be to get anything done in rural France.

First, he has spent hundreds of dollars trying to get proper authorisation to import his US registered German made car into France and drive it legally. Months later he seems to be no nearer collecting the necessary paperwork. The problem revolves around his yellow indicators. Apparently they should be clear. Then the paperwork for his application for Carte de Sejour or long term visa looks like a UN treaty. His description of his difficulty in getting some minor renovation work done on his house made me laugh out loud.

" Paul - I don't need to tell about attempting to arrange a rendezvous with
workmen. They have holiday in August and September and then take the whole month of October to shoot birds, and then complain they are overbooked.

I do like my young dare devil electrocution (err, I mean electrician), if he is not very good. Every time he is here, he gets shocked, screams, falls off the ladder,
shakes for a bit, and then talks to himself for a time. But he considers
shutting off the electricity to be a sign of weakness. "

And then there are money worries as the dollar continues it's precipitous decline

>"And on top of all that, when we bought the house it took .87 cents U.S. to
>buy one Euro. Today with commission, it costs about $ 1.34 U.S. Correct, we
>have lost 45% of our purchasing power. A dinner that once cost us sixty dollars
>is now over a hundred. "

A whole generation of young Americans will be hitting Europe this summer and they will feel decidedly poor. There is a bizarre notion still abroad in US campuses, that it is possible to work for 6 months doing McJobs in Ohio to finance the next 6 months living in some of the most expensive countries on Earth. It doesn't work like that anymore. It's only the top 15% Americans who are making any serious cash at all and the average middle American earns no more than the average Western European and usually works longer hours. This will come as a shock to many Young Americans on there first visit to Europe. At home they are being told that they are the most powerful nation on Earth and that they are shaping the destiny of the world, which is true. But this will not feel so great if a cup of coffee in a roadside café breaks the bank and you have to return home to Ohio two months early because of the price of sanwiches.

My advice to Ray (who wisely saved money from his years as a very successful lawyer) was to write a book for the American market along the lines of "A Year in Provence" . Ray is a good writer and he could pen a piece of work which simultaneously confirmed Americans' worst suspicions of the French but makes them want to buy a country retreat in La Belle France because of the great food and beautiful countryside. The readers will also believe they would manage better than the author in negotiating the vagaries of French life.

The French bureaucratic system is exasperating. It seems to be based on the philosophy of two people.

1. Andre Breton - the father of Surrealism
2. Edith Cresson ( Freench for watercress) The first female French Prime Minister.

Shortly before being hauled up for fraud of European Union funds (she managed to employ her dentist as the EU's top public health offical despite a lack of experience and qualifications) Edith coined the memorable phrase " We should not allow the importation of Japanese skis as they are not compatible with French snow". Economists call this attitude non- tariff trade barriers and the French vie with the Japanese for the gold medal position in its creative use.

Ray's sin was not to buy local. His neighbours think that people in Bordeaux are big city foreign types and "up to no good". Mention Paris in South West France and they spit in disgust. Germany is Pluto.

However, despite all the hassle of the French system 60% of English people cite a house in France as their dream retirement scenario. I think they are imaging that the French have all moved to London.

Part of me is repelled by the heroic inefficiency of French bureaucracy but part of me quite admires their attitude to life. Off shooting for the whole of October? How well balanced of them. No wonder they have a lower incidence of heart disease than the British and the Americans. Experts have been predicting the collapse of the French economy for the last 20 years and it still has not happened, so they must be doing something right even if they do it very very slowly.

Meanwhile Ray ( he is a Democrat who froths at the mouth at the mention of George Bush) is happy to be out of the States for a while and is spending New Year across the border in Pamplona - which must be a joy.

Posted 6:17 AM by Paul
So That Was Christmas

Christmas day had a Scandanavian feel as we opened the presents well before dawn. Outside all was still dark as the first wrapping paper was eagerly torn from the boxes.

Emily woke up at 5.40 a.m and stood outside our bedroom door asking " has Santa come yet?" I told her to hop in bed and snatched a little extra sleep by tranferring inot her bed. Emily was followed by Alice at 6.15 a.m and we all went downstairs. It's always a relief to see the presetns stacked under the tree because there is always the lingering fear that a burglar will have made a visit and cleared the lot out. A burglar or The Grinch.

Emily was greatly impressed by her new watch and doll who she has christened Fiona. Alice was well pleased with her beat box and new clothes. Added to this they had piles of dolly clothes and games. Emily got one of those robotic dogs from my sister Dianne. Starnge to think that only a few years ago they cost severla hundred pounds. We also bought a small classical guitar for the kids to share as part of my plan to get them interested in music. I used to play in a band years ago but most of the little skill I had has left my fingers. I tried to master a few Beatles songs and Christmas Carols and failed. I will have to practice more so that I can start teaching the kids.

Heather liked the silk nightie and silk pyjamas I got her. I was well pleased with my new charcoal grey woolen roll kneck, book about the London diarist Samuel Pepys and fitted green shirt - very 70s retro. I should buy a medallion and a chest wig. Heather's sister Mary bought me a huge tome on the private life a Stalin. Ideal Christmas reading. When he wasn't deporting millions to Siberia or assasinating his rivals Joe seems to be quite a congenial figure. Camping trips with his friends, sweet love letters ot his yuong wife and kindness to his adopted son. It reminds you of the old cliche about "the banality of evil." Hitler was kind to animals and Saddam like children.

I managed to recover from sleep deprivation by taking a 2 hour nap on the sofa in the late morning. Heather then snatched 45 minutes whilst I prepared a small Christmas dinner. There is no point doing a big spread as the kids only want to eat for 15 minutes before returning to games TV and stuffing their face with chocolate and sweets. We spend the rest of the day lounging in front of the fire and playing games.

On the 26th we took the kids ot see a new film of Peter Pan which was much truer to the J.M Barrie original than the Disney cartoon. My friend Steve from Baltimore came over in the evening with his wife Leslie, two kids, and his remarkably energetic mother Artis who is an 86 year old Southern lady. Steve is working over here as a railway consultant and is hoping the rest of the family will come over in summer to join him. We'll see. It's a big move and a got the impression that his tennage son was already missing his friends back in the States.

A whole bunch of American executives are making an impression on the business community in London including Barabra Cassani who is heading up the 2012 Olympic bid. Several are working on the London undergrounds and the railwaywork. This is an interesting phenomenon as the American solution to decay on the railway network has been to replace it with freeways.

Tomorrow Heather is going in to work whilst I take the kids out to Central London and the Tate Modern which has a huge installation by an Icelandic artist who has created an artificial sun in the huge turbine hall. The Tate has been the success of the millennium in London. Whilst other projects funded with millions of National Lottery money have crashed, the Tate goes from strength to strength attracting millions of visitors every year. Most of the gallery is also free and the whole enterprise is funded from revenue from the shops and restaurants in addition ot entrance fees to the special exhibitions. Their recent Warhol retrospective attracted nearly a million visitors

This proves that sometimes you need to have faith and not let the focus groups and market testers rule the roost. Spending around $100m on a huge modern art gallery by the Thames in a renovated power station is the kind of idea that would have got you laughed out of Government funding meetings across the world. But someone took a risk. It's as difficult a pitch as making a movie which is an allegory of the life of Christ about a freaky alien who comes down to Earth and is befriended by small children. I mean who is going to watch that?

Posted 3:19 PM by Paul
Mother Christmas

Heather has it all under control. Presents are wrapped and the kids have just gone to bed after the traditional reading of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and The Night Before Christmas. in front of a roaring fire. Emily was most concerned that we should damp down the coals before we went to bed, otherwise Santa might have trouble getting down the chimney. Heather was born in London but her parents are Canadian and so she has a whole North American take on the festive season.

Our Christmases in the North of England involved waking up around 4.30 a.m. to find pillow cases stuffed with presents at the foot of our beds. At the botton of these improvised Santa sacks we would always find an orange, a brand new shiney penny (for luck I suppose) and piles of chocolate which we would gorge on until we were sick. My elder bother Dave and I would then fall asleep until around 9.30 a.m. to be woken up by the sound of a full English breakfast sizzling in the pan and mum calling us . I was a regular church goer (Baptist) but I never went on Christmas Day because in our house Christmas was for Family not God. Breakfast would be followed by full traditional Christmas lunch at around 1.30 p.m. and then sandwiches and cakes watching TV around 6.00 p.m. Before bed we would have some mince pies. After opening presents, Christmas Day was partly an anti-climax until Boxing Day when family would come round for more food and drink and games. My dad worked for a few hours on the afternoon of December 26th as he had a part time job (in additon to his full time factory job) at a dog track so the festivities would start around 6.00 p.m.

One Christmas morning - I was 7 or 8 so it would be 1964 or 65 - I was beside myself with joy to find a brand new full size Lego building set in a sturdy wooden box at the foot of my bed. I couldn't believe it. It had been the object of my deepest desires for as long as I could remember. I would go into Redgates, the city centre toy shop, every Saturday and stare at it - knowing that my chances of owning it were slim as it cost £5 ($8), an impossibly huge amount of money. But that year I achieved my ambition and i was deliriously happy. I played with the Lego set until I was 13. Only years later did I work out that it cost close to what my mother took home in wages for a full week's work at a local factory.

Well, mum has gone now, never to cook us another breakfast or make us happy. Tonight I think of her with love and respect. I wonder if I will ever make a gesture that will amaze my daughters as much as that Lego set did for me way back when Harold Wilson was Prime Minister, LBJ was President, the Russians were winning the Space Race and the Beatles were top of the Hit Parade.

Posted 5:09 PM by Paul
Living on the Fault Line

The news is just in that a strong earthquake has hit California. So far the news bulletins are reporting that only 2 people have died. This is remarkable given that it was 6.5 on the Richter Scale. Perhaps the building regulations brought in during the 70s have worked to some extent. Free marketeers take note. Government red tape saves lives.

I don't have many contacts on the West Coast. Most of my American friends are from the East Coast or the Deep South. Many more are Peripheral Americans living in Spain, Mexico and France. The only West Coaster I know is Dierdre Carney, daughter of my old friend the late Matt Carney. I will drop her a line to see how she is. She lives in San Francisco which she reached via New York, Paris and the West of Ireland.

The earthquake in California is a timely reminder, as I settle down to a pre-Christmas mince pie, wedge of stilton and a cup of tea, just how benign the British landscape is. The last earthquake that killed anyone was over hundred years ago, no tornados and we have only one vaguely poisonous snake, the Adder. About 13 of them hang out in the far north of Scotland. The subject of as many PhD thesises.

We are lucky to inhabit such a boring land. I love to travel but coming back to this stable, infuriating and at times complacent land is the best part.

Posted 11:38 AM by Paul
Father-In-Law held in Baghdad

The wierdest thing about the arrest of Saddam Hussien is that all the photos of him look like Heather's dad Tom. Tom is a retired Church of England vicar who defected on retirement to the Russian Orthdox Church in Exile. Not ofcourse to be confused with the Russian Orthdox Church. The latter are apparently are a bunch of liberals and KGB plants. Tom did not agree with the ordination of women or most aspects of the 20th century

The similarities in appearance are striking. Same beard, same build. Maybe it is Tom. I haven't spoken to him for a while. In which case the CIA interrogators would have a fustrating time of it. They would receive a detailed account of schisms in the medieval church but little about WOMDs.

Posted 11:30 AM by Paul
B-Movie

A few night ago we watched a documentary about Gil Scott-Heron the black soul artist cited as the Father of Rap. The same claim has been made for artists as diverse as The Last Poets and Mohamed Ali. I don't care much for modern rap as it reminds me of a mixture of jive ass square dance and product placement. But Gil Scott-Heron was different, mixing jazz, soul and fluid poetry in a mellifluous voice. Just before Reagan took office he penned a song called B-Movie, in which he predicted a country run by an actor and which had in his memorable words moved from being " a producer to a consumer". At the time nobody took his pessimistic analysis seriously, but now it looks remarkably prescient.

Last week, buried in the financial pages of the broadsheets I noticed a small article reporting that the US trade gap had grown to an unprecedented $489 billion per annum. 20 years ago these figures would have been front-page news and the stock market would have taken a dive - but now it doesn't seem to worry anyone too much. At the same time the media is reporting an American boom, with growth rates last seen in the glory days of Eisenhower. Even during this period of growth unemployment remains stubbornly high, particularly in those places nobody wants to live in anymore like Michigan and Illinois. Experts refer to this as a "statistical recovery" or a "jobless boom". In the new global economy if the tide comes in, all boats no longer rise. The old certainties are gone forever.

The greatest country on Earth now consumes far more than it makes. Gil Scott Heron accurately predicted a phenomenon that escaped legions of economists. $14,000,000,000 (2.8%) of the gap can be accounted for by the growth in Chinese imports. In a show of commitment to global free trade, the Bush administration has reacted by slapping heavy import duties on products from the People's Capitalist Republic, focussing on brassieres and textiles. Political insiders tell me that this is about the 2004 Senate and Congress races in the Georgia and the Carolinas, where the undergarment and textile trades are very important. The Chinese have re-acted by slapping taxes on US products.

But perhaps this is a case of shutting the stable door once the horse has bolted because US consumers have gotten used to Third World products, which are no longer cheap and tacky but often inexpensive and high quality. On the other hand high prices of US products may deter the vanguard of the Chinese consumer class. They may well turn to other countries for their agricultural machinery and sports cars thus establishing a trend for the future. The early adopters ofetn set the tone for consumption for decades to come. Paradoxically many of the foreign imports whihc cause concern in Washington will carry quintessentially US brands. Some of these products will get past the tariff barriers by the old dodge of making the parts abroad and then assembling them in the US. However, many goods which carry US brands are now made thousands of miles away and some of them even in the land of the old enemy - Vietnam. Where Agent Orange and carpet-bombing failed, The Gap succeeded.

All this creates an interesting paradox for the political classes that have adhered to the new globalist orthodoxy. The export of jobs of Western companies is seen as an inevitable consequence of the drive for competitiveness. Over this side of the Atlantic there has been a great deal of noise about the loss of around 30,000 call centre jobs to India. In a masterstroke of marketing speak Tony Blair referred to this process as the "churning of jobs". So - it's official. Unemployment has ceased to exist. Instead your job has been churned. At what point it turns to butter and then to cheese is not clear. The UK labour market is now moving into a secondary stage of the globalisation of work. Most of the manufacturing jobs went years ago. In the whole Greater London area (pop. 8 million) more people work in the creative industries than manufacturing. We are now exporting employment in the service industries.

But every few years the politicians themselves are up for churning and they still need the votes of the recently churned of Michigan or South Wales. So, the political elites sell the process as an Act of God like earthquakes or pestilence. Anyone who even questions the wisdom of this global merry-go-round where companies shift jobs at the flip of a switch but leave the UK or US taxpayer to pick up the tab for the social consquences stands accused of " selling a false prospectus".

So, Bush's people are in a quandary. They cannot take measures to restrict the flow of jobs abroad as this would offend their allies on Wall Street but they still need to appeal to the patriotic voters of America. Hence, the tariffs on steel and bras and the recent blunt announcement that only countries that took part in the coalition to invade Iraq could bid for contracts in its re-construction. France, Germany and Russia may be indignant but all this plays well in Main Street USA. It also reveals them to be as motivated by self-interest as the US and the UK. Even if some of the $70 billion (much of this figure paid for by Iraqi loans secured against oil revenue) in re-construction contracts does filter back to the American Heartland it will not make a huge impact on employment in Duluth. Even so, the symbolism it perfect. Bush is seen as someone who is looking after the Middle American Meat and Potatos Guy of advertising legend.

On the macro-economic side the US can fund the deficit by increasing the money supply - or in English get out of debt by printing money. The only thing which could upset this state of affairs is if crude oil were ever denominated in Euros, in which case the US Treasury would not be able to dictate all of the rules. But this is a long way off. The last person to suggest the idea was a a mad bloke called Saddam Hussein, who is now residing in a small cell somewhere near Baghdad Airport. I don't think many leaders, despotic or democratic, will be suggesting this wheeze in the near future.

So, the jobs move South and East but Bush and Blair look secure.

In the long run, I wonder if the US can sustain this position. When I was a boy owning something American was a big deal. I remember when my elder brother came home with his first pair of Levis. They were great jeans, faded beautifully and lasted for years but they were more than just apparel. They were a symbol of youth and optimism. Now the preferred symbols of aspirational youth are Gucci, Versace and Courvoisier. When hip brands are notionally American such as Nike or RocaWear, the actual product is likely to be made in Guatemala.

And Gil Scott-Heron? He was arrested a few weeks ago for possession of a banned substance.

Posted 3:28 PM by Paul
Brassneck Boogie

I wasn't going to write about politics for a while because it was making me feel like a crazy old yard dog who sits by the new freeway all day snarling at the cars whizzing by, annoyed that the world has moved on. But I had to blog when I turned on the radio to learn that inevitably the We Love Vladdy Putin party had won the Russian parliamentary elections. No surprise there then. But US and EU election observers have complained that the elections were flawed and biassed. They gave two reasons.

- Putin's United Russian Party (only policy Give more power to Vlad) had unfair access to state power.

- They benefitted from a biassed media.

The sheer brassneck of the Proeject for the New American Century is heart stopping.

Next they will be claiming that Putin's cronies actually polled 540,000 less votes than their nearest rivals and that the election was swung by voting irregularities in Vladistan, a small province run by Putin's younger brother. Or maybe even more far fetched - that Russian provinces were called before the votes were counted by a TV station in which another Putin relative held a powerful position and that Vladdy Baby was able to raise twice as much money as his nearest rival. Maybe they will claim that 50% of all Chechens in key electoral districts were disqualifed from voting for being in possesion of a large furry hat in a built up area

But that would be too ridiculous. It would be like errrrr. Communism or something.

P.S The EU observer must have been Berlusconi's valet
P.P.S This was nothing to do with the fact that the pro-Western ultra free marketeers polled less than the Free Vodka party
P.P.P.S Next year's Russian Presidential elections will be declared invalid under the Russian Constitution if less than 50% of those rgistered to vote go to the polls

Posted 9:23 AM by Paul
Tony Blair. Another Doctor Speaks

Yesterday I went to the annual Bullfight Club of London dinner with my friends Chris (not the one dieing of renal cancer in Atlanta) and Mark. As I may have mentioned before , Mark and I are old muckers from school and first went to Pamplona in 1976. We don't get together as much as we used to but it's always great fun when we do.
He is a scream and a major addition to any dinner table.

The meal was a hoot and we all drank far too much. I sang badly in Spanish ( En Lo Alto del Pirineo ) to the bemused applause of a woman from Alava ( due south of Bilbao). A Welsh woman who was a senior officer in the Metropilitan Police Force sang the Welsh National anthem beautifully. Great fun was had by all. The best story came from a man we all know simply as Kiwi. He was in the New Zealand Navy in the early 1960s and was on the first NZ ship into Hawaii since Pearl Harbour. Just as they tied up and got ready to go ashore the band on the official welcoming party struck up what they thought was the visitors' National Anthem. The band launched into"Waltzing Matilda".

This is a bit like playing "I Wish I was in Dixies" to welcome the Candadian Ice Hockey team. This mistake did not bode well for the whole trip and subsequently there was a lot of drinking and a lot of fighting. What the Kiwis lack in population they make up for in size, particularly the indigenous Maori population.

Mark was on great form, scandalous and erudite by turns. He is a clever bloke and through a long and heroic process of night studies and research Mark, who works for the Probation [ Ed note. Furlow in American] Service he got a PhD in Criminology. He had an interesting take on our Prime Minister's behaviour. Blair constantly repeats the mantra that he has no "reverse gear" and often says "we are where we are" in a clear attempt to make us believe that it is "My Way or the Highway". Mark pointed out that this is exactly the kind of behaviour that they try to wean criminals from as offedners will often fatalistically say "that's the way it is" or " This is me. Take it or leave it." Mark and his team try and suggest to the offender that there is an alternative to thier failed behaviour and simply repeating it is unlikely to meet with any success.

It's the first time that I have heard a PM compared obliquely with an inadequate petty criminal, but it is a thought.

We then retired to the pub across the road where the guest of honour the veteran
( he is 25 but looks younger) bullfighter El Juli was drinking Guiness and watching the Chelsea v Manchester United game. He is like the David Beckham of bullfighting back home but in England no one knows him. He has been fighting bulls since he was 14. I even had the honour of standing next to him at the urinal. I couldn't think of anything to say as we washed our hands. So I kept silent. And no I didn't check out the size of his manhhod.