Humiliating Andy Murray

Some vignettes from my sporting past.

It is 1974, and I am slouching sadly away from the school TV room having just watched Willie Ormand's Scotland team exit the World Cup.  England have failed to qualify, courtesy of Poland's goalkeeper, and Scotland seem an acceptable substitute.  More than that, with a team stuffed full of luminaries - Dalglish, Jordan, Bremner, Johnstone, McQueen, Buchan and Law - they clearly have a chance of doing quite well.  But although all teams in their group beat Zaire, the other group games are draws and Scotland go out on goal difference, the first team ever to exit the competition unbeaten.

Now fast forward to 1990.  I am in the Argyll Arms Hotel in Ullapool, a solitary and rather nervous Englishman in the public bar watching England play West Germany in the World Cup semis.  By the time the game goes to penalties I have already worked out from the rapturous reception of the Germans' opening goal and the silence which greets Gary Lineker's equaliser that I am alone in more ways than one.  And when Stuart Pearce wafts his penalty over the bar there is no need for me to go back inside and enquire (I couldn't actually watch, obviously): the roar of approbation tells me all I need to know, and I wander disconsolately away into the luminous West Highland night, reflecting that the party of Germans who have hung their national flag out of a window have gauged the local mood rather better than I have.

I mention all this not to prove I have a greater capacity for generosity of spirit than a randomly selected group of Scots more than twenty years ago, but to pinpoint the occasion when my Hibernophilia - which started when I was still in short trousers - began to descend a little from its apogee.

If the Argyll Arms incident introduced a new note of realism, the rise of Scottish Nationalism has certainly helped it take hold.  I am not going to expound my doubts about the Nationalist cause here, save to say that the Scottish variety features the usual mixture of sentimentality and fascism - sentimentality because it relies on narratives about both past and future which are selective and therefore false, fascism because it gets a good deal of its motivation from dislike of another ethnic/cultural group, in this case the English.

But anyway, enough about chippy Jocks.  What about Andy Murray?

I still managed, just about, to support the England football team this summer despite the inclusion of such unattractive people as Terry, Rooney and Ashley Cole. In tennis however, the personality of a given player matters rather more than in a team game.  And Andy Murray seems such an eminently dislikeable man.  His standard expression is that of someone chewing a wasp.  And he was playing against Roger Federer, a man universally regarded as a gent.  And in 2006 he was quoted as saying he would support "anyone but England" in the World Cup.

I would still have been quite pleased if Murray had won.  But somehow I was quite pleased that he lost too.

Artists look for connections, and if it would be too much to see in Murray's emotionalism a parallel with the sentimentality of the SNP, the Final certainly added to the much-vaunted Scottish tradition of heroic defeat.

It might have served the myth better if Murray had been able to hold  it together in the post-match interview by Sue Barker. I watched incredulously as the director held the camera on Murray as he stood drizzling the ground with tears. Surely they would cut away to Federer?  But no.

I don't warm to Murray, but no-one deserves that. Federer had three hours to humiliate the Scot and failed. The cretinous Barker managed it within 30 seconds of handing him the microphone. I think I would rather endure the 1990 penalty shoot-out than watch that again.

Punk, history and frilly shirts

It is now about 35 years since punk burst on the British music scene, and, since the people who were young then and went into journalism have now risen to the top of their profession, no more obvious anniversary is required to prompt yet another series on the phenomenon, the most recent trailed on 6 Music with gritty voiceovers and cameo John Lydon appearance.

If it's like every other programme on punk it won't be worth listening to.

Quite a lot of shows of this kind appear on BBC4; there was one about Bowie the other day which mainly consisted of clips from ancient times when the old boy was writing really good songs; then again in the spring the channel had an evening devoted to Tom Petty, all four hours of it.  Now Petty wrote some decent stuff, and was about as beautiful as a man could be (how I wished I could look like that) without actually being a girl, but four hours?  BBC4 is a great channel - the old BBC2 de nos jours - but sometimes it looks worryingly like MTV for baby-boomers.

But back to punk.  As someone who was there (no, I didn't go to see the Pistols at the Free Trade Hall, but I did see the Buzzcocks and the Clash many times, plus the Stranglers, the Slits, the Fall and so on ad nauseam from 1976 onwards), I am in a position to point out what the analysts get wrong.

Firstly, the idea that punk was new.  It wasn't.  When I first heard Anarchy in the UK in 1976 what was immediately striking was how familiar and comforting it was.  The Pistols were a trad rock'n'roll band.  They even trashed hotel rooms.  The Pistols were merely Dr Feelgood with a fatter guitar sound.  And the Feelgoods were doing it two years earlier.

Second, the idea that punk changed the music business: I don't think so.  Previously the big record companies ran it; apart from independents like Island.  Who did the Pistols sign with?  EMI; then one or two others.  Did they show any sign of being any less capitalist than their predecessors, the fat cats like Led Zep or Genesis?  No.  They didn't give away their advances to women's refuges or fund turnip-growing co-operatives in Northamptonshire.  They spent it on themselves.  The Clash signed to CBS pretty much right at the outset, the Buzzcocks to United Artists.  These are awkward facts for true believers.

Third, the idea that punk was political.  Now pretty much everything that takes place in a political context can be classified as political, but punk never had a manifesto.  The nearest it got, Sid Vicious's condemnation of sex as just "two and a half minutes of squelching noises", was readily undermined by the experience of the average teenager.  The movement's most overtly "political" band, The Clash, eulogised dodgy regimes like Castro's Cuba and the Islamist guerilla movements like the Peshmerga, while being signed to a big US corporation ("We can change it from the inside!") and overcharging for merchandise at their gigs.  Joe Strummer was a public schoolboy who ended up reading the Torygraph.

No, punk was great, but it was a fashion, just like any other in pop.  And in three years it was swept away by The New Romantics with their frilly shirts.  Programmes about punk don't tell us much about music or politics, but they speak with inadvertant eloquence about journalism, ageing and the process by which people render their personal experiences into history.

Waving at El Sistema

Is El Sistema, Venezuela's government-funded orchestral programme for children at the bottom of the socio-economic heap, the answer to society's woes?  Judging by the euphoric write-ups it's getting over here you might think so.  Amidst a plethora of press coverage (most recently in the Times courtesy of Candace Allen, one of Simon Rattle's former wives) comes a BBC4 programme about an appearance by the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra at Raploch, a grim outlier of Stirling and a place where something like El Sistema has been tried.

I saw only the part of this programme where the Orchestra played the Eroica on an outdoor stage under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel.  The Guardian's reviewer was faintly sniffy about Dudamel's reading of the piece, but I think he is a top class conductor, both technically and musically.  Lacking perhaps a degree of refinement, the Orchestra nevertheless reminded me a little of the old Berlin Phil under Von Karajan, with its muscular string sound and augmented quadruple woodwind for the tuttis.  Mercifully Dudamel seems to lack Karajan's narcissism and self-absorbtion, although, as every conductor knows, sincerity is a great thing if you can fake it.

For every classical musician El Sistema is a tantalising prospect, promising as it does a rejuvenation of the music we love and which, as I've written on here a number of times, appears to be in decline.  But even if the government had the money to fund it nationwide (and it doesn't), would it work?  I suppose it depends partly on what you mean by work.  In this context, two answers appear possible - one, engage kids with poor prospects and two, give them a new and enriched sense of purpose.  The second of these would I think flow automatically from an encounter with the discipline of instrumental playing in a classical ensemble; but I'm not sure about the first.

Essentially El Sistema is a cultural scheme operating within a cultural context.  It offers children of a failing culture the opportunity to better themselves by immersion in the structures of another culture from half way across the world.  But there are many differences between the Venezuelan and British cultural contexts.  Here are some.  

Our poor people are not as poor as theirs.  Ours tend to have roofs over their heads, enough to eat and the right to free health care and education.  They also tend to have TVs, Playstations, mobile phones and computers.  For the children of the favelas, classical music is a new world, and the opportunity to be part of something with other people a novelty.  For our children classical music is part of the old one, entirely lacking the allure and sparkle of technological innovation they prefer in their leisure activities, and their own culture is one of individualism and self-gratification rather than the team effort.

For many children in Britain, fed a diet of music videos where the stars are airbrushed and autotuned to perfection, the hard labour and incremental gains involved in getting to grips with an instrument are inimical.  We already have El Sistema type ensembles in Britain - they are called youth orchestras; and they are in decline.  Could they be rebranded and repackaged to attract scallies from the Council estates as well as the Tarquins and Tamsins of the bien pensant?  I'd like to think so, and I admire the people who are trying, but I don't know.

Looking out from the brightly lit stage to the blustery grey light of a Scottish summer evening, I did not detect in the BBC4 programme much sign of a Damascene conversion of the youth of Raploch.  The few hundred cagoule-framed faces watching in the field were on the whole adult, some rapt with attention, others looking frankly bemused.  Where were the kids, I wondered?

In the margins of the frame, it turned out, there as the director panned across - running around, hitting each other and waving at the camera.

George Osborne's ABC

The economy is shrinking, so George Osborne's economic policy is a failure, right?

Depends how you look at it.  Yes, the best the UK is flatlining, but growth isn't the only consideration.  If you look around Europe you'll see everywhere economies in trouble.  Ireland and Greece have needed bail-outs.  Spain and Italy's borrowing costs are pushing the 7% barrier thought to be the point of no return.  How's Britain doing?  Well the cost of borrowing depends how long you want the money for, but while not as low as Germany, our borrowing costs are at historically low levels.  This morning the UK sold some index-linked 17 year bonds at a negative rate - that's to say borrowers actually paid the UK to look after their money. The massive deficit Osborne inherited from Labour is falling, both in nominal and real terms and as a percentage of GDP.

Someone said recently that our borrowing costs were low because we were one of the best looking horses in the glue factory.  It's certainly true that markets, terrified of the state of the southern European economies, are desperate for somewhere safer to put their money. No matter how unpromisingly things are going here, we still look a bit better than some of our neighbours across the Channel.

Put it like that, and Osborne's policy is working rather well.  Certainly the markets think he'll pull it off.  If they didn't, we wouldn't be borrowing at under 2%.  Anyone who thinks, as the two Eds apparently do, that just borrowing a bit more money will set our economy going again at trend rate or something like it (2.5%), when all around us European governments are tumbling, China faltering and even the US set for a dose of fiscal rectitude after Obama's re-election in November, is living in cloud-cuckoo land.  In these circumstances the best we can hope for is to stay afloat.

Its failure to recognise this that makes Labour's economic policy, sadly, a joke. Labour tells the Tories they must spend more to reflate the economy. The Tories borrow (and thus spend) more, but the economy doesn't grow. So Labour says Osborne's policy isn't working, overlooking the reality that he is doing pretty much what they wanted.

Of course it's also arguable that this paradox makes Osborne look foolish too: he says that extra borrowing will push up bond rates. It hasn't happened; or at least not so as you'd notice.

In this mutual game of it-was-him-no-it-was-him, my sympathies lie slightly with Osborne, because undoubtedly every extra billion we borrow pushes us slightly closer to the point where the UK slips beyond the financial event horizon and down into the vortex of death. Which is why this morning's borrowing figures this morning were bad for the Chancellor.  It's early in the year, and borrowing fluctuates from month to month, but May borrowing was up to nearly £18bn from £15bn last year.  And this is the danger for Osborne.  Economies weaken across Europe.  UK tax revenues shrink and benefits payments rise.  Borrowing rises to pay for it.  The deficit goes up instead of down.  Our interest costs rise accordingly.  We are sucked into the same whirlpool that did for Greece and is now doing for Spain and Italy.  We are not there yet, but you can see how it might happen.

If it does, you can forget not just Plan A, but all the rest of the alphabet as well.

At least it wasn't the Germans

Against my better judgment, football has been on my mind quite a lot in the last fortnight (old naiveties die hard), and it is something of a relief that England's voyage towards the Final of the European Championship has been brought to an abrupt end by the Italians.

For one thing, when the Final takes place next Sunday night I will, pretty much to the minute, be walking out onstage at Salford University to conduct Mahler's 4th Symphony, a prospect which, had England still been in the competition, would have involved the difficulty of having to be in two places at once, ie in Salford and somewhere in front of a TV.

But also, if we had beaten Italy our opponents in the semis would have been Germany.  While Italy are distinctly average at the moment, with only one great player (Pirlo, last night sending the ball curling to all parts of the ground, unimpeded by Rooney who was supposed to be marking him), the Germans are a great team, perhaps the only ones with a prayer of beating Spain.  I shudder to think what humiliation the Hun would have visited on Roy Hodgson's journeymen.

The Finals have brought those in my family not much interested in football (ie 4/5ths of them) into close contact with the game, and I have been trying to help them by creating a bluffer's guide to what to say whilst watching England.  Here it is.

"Early ball, Joe!" - an exhortation to England's goalkeeper to distribute the ball quickly to one of the wide players to set up another attack (in fact what Joe Hart does is hoof the ball upfield, thus giving away possession to the opposition).

"Stop giving the £$%&ing ball away!" - To be said after Hart has hoofed the ball upfield, giving away possession to the opposition; or after any of his team mates has done the same thing.

"I don't like this!" - To be said after "Stop giving the £$%&ing ball away!" when the opposition, having been gifted possession by England, are bearing down on our penalty area.

"Close him down!" - When, having reached the penalty area, the opposition have been given time and space to set themselves up for an attempt on goal.

"Row Z!" - When the opposition have lashed the ball goalwards, this cry, uttered loudly enough, can often act as a charm, mysteriously directing the ball to the uppermost tier of the stand.

"That'll do!" - When the ball is nestling in the uppermost tier of the stand, prior to it being returned to Joe Hart to hoof upfield again, thus conceding possession to the opposition.

"Early ball, Joe!" - It will be seen that only a small number of cries are required to follow England successfully on TV.  Merely proceed through the above cycle during the 90 minutes.

"Shall I put the kettle on?" - A good way of breaking the silence when England have lost.

Anyway, enough footy till Brazil 2014.  Bring on the Mahler!

Jimmy Carr and Amazon

"I've applied for a car loan", runs the newly minted joke.  "He's the only one with any money".

What to make of David Cameron's condemnation of the comic's tax affairs?

No two people can agree on how much tax it's right to pay.  Given the relativism inherent in this, it seems sensible for the law to cut through moral disagreements and tells us when tax is due.  After all, the law is merely the legislative opinion of the government of the day.  Anything not caught by the law is fair game, one might think.

Well, up to a point.  I wouldn't condemn Carr for minimising his exposure to tax.  But for someone whose career depends on ordinary people liking him (ordinary people who not only don't have Carr's money but moreover don't have the opportunity to evade the chilly embrace of PAYE), reducing the amount of tax you pay to single figure levels seems like remarkably bad PR.  The fact that Carr once took part in a lame TV sketch show which lampooned Barclays for tax avoidance is useful ammunition for his opponents, but essentially something of a sideshow.  For the real crime of tax avoiders like Carr, whose USP to some extent rests on their identification with the common man, is hypocrisy.

Spare a thought for journalists on the Guardian, fulminating every other month about some corporate tax avoider like Vodaphone but knowing (I try and remember to write in and tell them, just in case they've forgotten) that Guardian Media Group bought the publisher Emap via a series of offshore companies in order to avoid tax.  How they must be grinding their teeth into their skinny lattes.  Or not.

Think of those latter day saints U2, fulminating about the poor whilst squirrelling their own vast wealth away offshore to make sure not too much money goes to the Irish exchequer, an exchequer whose spending cuts are even as I write forcing people out of their jobs and homes.  If U2's fans were capable of joined up thinking, they would never fork out again to experience the compassionate warbling of diminitive tax dodger Bono and his mates.  But I'm not holding my breath.

For while it may be perfectly legitimate for Carr and his fellow travellers to minimise tax, the rest of us don't have to like it much.  I have for example recently decided to stop buying books from Amazon, and I recommend that you do the same.  Amazon do millions, if not billions, of business in the UK.  But they don't pay any tax here.  Amazon have the right to arrange their tax affairs in any legal way they like.  But we don't have to buy books from them.  I find www.abebooks.co.uk a perfectly good substitute.

As for David Cameron, if he doesn't like Jimmy Carr's tax arrangements, he could always change the law, no?

Mrs Merkel blinks second; or not at all

So perhaps the Torygraph's reports of a European Redemption Pact were a bit premature.  Or maybe just wrong.  I saw a German banker on Newsnight last night, eerily reminiscent of Hardy Kruger in The Flight of the Phoenix, explaining with patient complacency that Germany was willing to put in more money; it was just that there would always be a quid pro quo.  In other words, social reforms.  So maybe Merkel's coat-trailing of an ERP was just part of this process - jam tomorrow.  If you're good.  Of course all that ignores the fact that Greece and Spain have to live with this crushing austerity now.  Hope that in five years things might be a bit better (or not) do not sustain people who aren't sure where their next meal is coming from.

Apologies if I've mentioned this before, but some Torygraph journalist - it might have been Jeremy Warner - wrote a while back that we've been standing on the edge of the abyss for so long that we might not have noticed that we are actually falling into it.  I suspect that we probably now are falling into it, and that's what accounts for the vague feelings of hysteria and unreality which accompany the sight of the G20 leaders flailing around at a Mexican seaside resort.  David Cameron apparently declined to be filmed in front of this scenic backdrop, and one can hardly blame him.  No doubt he would much rather be at home than hobnobbing with people like the egregious Manuel Barroso, a bureaucrat of the first water whose bad-tempered reproof for President Obama carried with it a sense of outrage that the facts are, inexiplicably, refusing to conform to the scheme enthusiasts like him had planned for the Eurozone.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy . . .