Top Gear....?

Sunday evenings caused me a bit of a problem earlier this year. It's all to do with the television, you see.

There are two programs which conflict in their viewing. One is a ten-part period drama about a shopkeeper from the US who opened a department store in London. The other is Top Gear.

The first programme - 'Mr Selfridge' is ITV's attempt at creating something akin to Downton Abbey that they can show in prime time, get good ratings for, and sell to the American channels. It should become popular there as well. They've even included an American actor in it, the excellent Jeremy Piven. Normally I would look at this programme with a 'Meh' in my voice and switch straight over to the other side. But I have something of a vested interest in it, you see. During several months of last year I spent considerable time wandering around with slicked-back hair, 1920's clothes and a hat brandishing an old fashioned magnesium flash and plate camera playing the part of a press photographer on the show. So I have some skin in the game. We shot in Central London, Chatham Dockyards (where they built the exterior of Selfridges on a quayside) and in a carpet warehouse in North London which had all the interior sets. I even got to shoot at the Albert Hall where an extraordinary number of people/tourists wanted their photograph taken with me, but nobody actually asked why I was dressed like a 1920's character.

But on the other side is Top Gear. Lemme explain.

Top Gear is a sort of English institution. It's been going for several years and it is (or at least was) a motoring programme. Back when it first started it reviewed cars and had sensible pieces about the speed limit, fuel consumption and similar items relevant to the average motorist. It has been run by a veritable cornucopia of motoring journalists over the years, but is now presented by three gentlemen:.

First there is Richard Hammond. Known as the Hamster for his diminutive size. He is 'The youngest'.

Next there is James May -  "Captain Slow" - who was a respectable motoring journalist with Autocar magazine until he created an acrostic in one issue which led to his dismissal (read the letters in red on the article he wrote here). He is staid, traditional, and slow.

Finally, there is Jeremy Clarkson. He has been with Top Gear the longest - probably since it started. In fact I can't remember a time when Clarkson wasn't on the show. He has survived all manner of presenter reshuffles, program redesigns and media blunders. And he's still here. He is, of course, widely hated in various parts of British society - The Daily Mail, especially do not like him, and I can understand why. He is brash, opinionated, callous, loud and, sometimes, just plain wacky.

But he's the reason I, and many others, watch Top Gear.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I find him infuriating at times. His love of all things big, fast and gas-guzzling drives me up the wall. The Top Gear piece on electric cars was simply a hatchet job designed to ridicule anyone who owned one, and his christening of Porsche's "Caymen" as "A Cockster" has probably condemned that car to ignominy.

But he also has the ability to bring the show to life. He thinks nothing of diving head-first into the flights of excess that now form the show that is Top Gear. Whereas previously the show used to road test the new Ford Escort/Focus/ Sierra etc, the new Top Gear mentions them in passing and then moves on swiftly to the newest Ferrari, Lambourghini or (on occasion) Bugatti Veyron. Each of these cars is taken around the Top Gear test track (part of the new GTA 4 driving game) to determine which can lap quickest. And - in order to prove the superiority of the internal combustion engine - they regularly hold races where the presenters have to take different forms of public transport between two points and try and beat the car. Over the years they've done London to Paris, London to Verbieres and London to Gothenburg. Clarkson, invariably takes the car - pushing it to almost illegal speeds to win, and the other two guys are usually stuck sitting opposite each other on a train that is bound to get delayed at some stop out in the boondocks gifting Clarkson with the win. On the odd occasions that he doesn't win there's always a suitable explanation "It was the French" was the latest one.

But that doesn't matter. Because Top Gear isn't about winning or losing. It isn't even about cars. It's about wish fulfillment and entertainment. If you want road tests and MPG comparisons, and cars that you can buy in the showroom any day of the week you need to head over to a rival channel and watch Fifth Gear. Their show is excellent with quality presentation and great camera work.

But it isn't Top Gear.

Top Gear is about having fun in a way that may - tangentially - by related to cars. like the time Clarkson decided he could outrun a pack of hounds by playing the fox in a 4WD suzuki. Or the time they boys decided they could borrow some heavy duty mechanised equipment and destroy a house scheduled for demolition faster than a professional demolition crew. Or the time Clarkson decided that the best way to test a small car (at a viewers insistence) was to race an American muscle car round the inside of a shopping mall in Basingstoke.

The list goes one. None of these stunts has anything to do with real life. None of them is applicable to our day-to-day existence. They're flights of fancy. Whimsy, even.

But they don't half make exciting viewing.

And they make compelling, if infuriating, television.

They also make me wonder whether watching Top Gear and recording Mr Selfridge is sacrilege. Or whether doing the opposite is worse.
Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk via Compfight cc

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Some thoughts on the nature of death.

Steve jobs died. 

It came as a shock to a large number of people. It shouldn't really have done this. We all know that he had cancer. He was diagnosed in 2003. He had a liver transplant a few years after that. He took a leave of absence to help deal with his illness. He came back to public life and shortly after that, in August this year, he stepped down completely from Apple retaining only the role of chairman. So we knew he was ill. We knew he was going to die. So when he died why was everybody so surprised?

I find it quite ironic that when Apple tries to release a new product, writers, bloggers, and the Tech media all want to find out as much as possible in advance and nothing comes as big surprise. However when the leader - a man who has been diagnosed with cancer, left, returned, and left again knowing he was going to die - does finally pass, it is a huge surprise.

Was it the fact he was young (55) ?

Cricketer Graham Dilly passed away the day before. He was in his 50's too. Actor Charles Napier passed away the same day. He was older (in his 70's)

Neither of them received the sort of public approbation that Jobs did (although, arguable, neither had left as impressive a legacy as Apple's leader). Maybe if they had died on a  different day - one which was dominated by the death of such a  technology titan - they might have been afforded more column inches.

More recently Tony Scott died. The nature of his death caused a lot of column inches (Can you recall the last major Hollywood A-list suicide?). But would we have been as shocked if he had died of natural causes at the age of 70+? A few weeks before Scott died, Anne Rutherford who starred in 'Gone With The Wind' died aged 94 and her passing was marked with only the merest of reporting. Both were individuals who were famous in their fields and yet the difference in coverage was amazing.

What is it about dying young that makes it so much more shocking and unacceptable? The death of Princess Diana was an example. Millions of people who never met her, and knew her only from television news and tabloid stories, were moved to outpourings of grief. But when the Queen Mother - a venerable woman who lived well over 100 years - passed away a few years later, the grief was nowhere near as large. Presumably the grief is compounded by the age. A young (!) person passing unexpectedly from an accident or a disease is far more shocking than a centurion dying of old age. It's probably not even the age factor itself. After all writer Dennis Potter was only 59 when he died but he had been diagnosed with cancer (ironically pancreatic cancer - the same cancer that took Steve Jobs) and had made it clear to everyone that he was suffering from a terminal illness and that we should prepare for his passing 

My favourite quote about Steve's death came from  Robert Llewellyn,  a British Actor who played Kryten in Red Dwarf and is now a committed environmentalist. He said:

"If your [sic] 18, 56 is truly ancient. If you [sic] 55 3/4 it's much much too young."

One more thing....

The final thought must - as always - go to Steve Jobs himself: 

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the  big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving what is truly important."

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Costa comes to town.

There's been some consternation in the village.

Let me explain. I live in a village which was recently voted "Best Place to live in Britain". It's one of those places with a nice little village green, duck pond, and a main street that is packed with small shops all run by local people. We don't have any chains here (in fact when Tesco wanted to come in and open an 'express' outlet in a pub building, it was successfully knocked on the head).

Down the main street we have a top-end bed shop, an antique shop, a local estate agent, an art gallery, a vet, a butcher, an off license, a family-run jewellers, and a small cafe. The main shop is a 'One Stop' that incorporates the post office.

It's all very genteel. Cricket is played on the green every weekend during the summer and the first Saturday in June is always the village fete, which has lots of small stalls, food and a ring where we parade classic cars and the like through for the adulation of the crowd.

What I'm trying to get across is the fact that it isn't a conurbation, a suburb, a town or even - god forbid - a metropolis. It's a small village on the A30 which has tried to remain as much like a small village as possible. As I mentioned earlier it got noticed. The people who decide these things marked it is the nicest place to live in the country, we are proud of that - especially as we took the crown from the reigning champion of three years.

But recently there has appeared a blot on the landscape.

Let me explain. The nearest 'town' is about three miles away. It is quite a bit larger than our village. It has a long main street, shopping centre, lots of chains (Marks and Spencer, Sainsburys, MacDonalds, Starbucks etc.) and it has suffered during the recession having many empty shops and the subsequent invasion of the charity shop outlets along the main street. It has gone the way of many of the towns in the country.

Out village isn't like that. We don't have empty shops. We are thriving. There is a sense of community in the village. Just about everyone knows everyone else. We are all waiting in anticipation and fingers crossed on the outcome of a good friend's cancer treatment. We know where the young married couple are going on honeymoon and we wish them the best in their marriage. It's that kind of place.

Recently, however, a dark cloud has loured over our village. For a short while now there has been one empty shop along the main street. It used to be an off licence, but they just weren't getting the business from the community. It's probably because the established off license was so good and the guy who runs it knows everyone's name. It went out of business a couple of years ago. The shop has remained empty since then as we wondered who was going to take over it. With the breadth of shops that we already had, we didn't really think there was a business that could come in and fill a gap. We didn't need clothes shops, cafes, sweet shops or travel agents. What would fill the gap?

We recently got to find out. A planning application went in to the council for permission to put movable temporary seating outside the premises, and word got out that it was one of the chains.

It was.

Costa Coffee had moved into the village. There was outrage. "It's the thin end of the wedge" people shouted. "Let them in and soon we'll have KFC, MacDonalds and Pizza Hut. We will no longer be the best place in Britain to live.". The complaints were many. But nobody actually did anything other than complain. We couldn't actually stop anyone from moving in because we didn't have a legitimate complaint.

So Costa arrived.

And, do you know what? It's great. I'm sitting in here now, typing this. And it's busy. It was busy when I came in the other day to see what was happening. The seats are full and there's a queue waiting for their drinks. Despite the fact that people were complaining about them moving in, there doesn't seem to be a boycott of the place. Of course, the other cafe in the village will probably have a problem. But at the end of the day that's a cafe and this is a coffee shop. I see the clientele as being completely different.
Is this the thin end of the wedge? I don't think so. Despite what I said earlier about not having chains here, we have two of the four high street banks already. Nobody complained about them. On top of that there is no room for any of the other chains to come and take over - unless one of the shops on the main street goes out of business, that is. At the end of the day I don't see the village become a 'generic' high street like so many of the nearby towns have become.

I may be proven wrong, but we'll see.

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The Olympics

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks, you're probably aware that there's a small sporting competition going on in London. The Olympics is - of course - one of the largest sporting events on the face of the planet, and London were successful in gaining the rights to stage it this year.
In preparation for the games the country has gone into overdrive and put together a project that is quite staggering in its complexity.

Amongst other things they have:

1. Identified a site in East London that can stage the majority of the sports
2. Gained the appropriate planning permissions and clearances to build a staggering number of sporting venues and supporting buildings on the site
3. Upgraded the associated infrastructure around the site to accommodate increased traffic and energy needs
4. Identified and upgraded a number of additional sporting venues outside the Olympic park to deal with the rigours of hosting an Olympic event.
5. Built a complete web system to manage both the public interaction with the games (identifying and displaying competitors, venues, sports, and medal information) whilst also creating a fully functional e-commerce site to deal with the sale and distribution of tickets for the games.
6. Dealt with accommodation and accreditation for all athletes, supporting personnel and local media.

All while organising a world-class sporting event that is being broadcast to every corner of the world.
Attached to that has been the ancillary tasks linked to this effort, such as creating a totally awe-inspiring opening ceremony using over seven thousand volunteers highlighting some of the best bits of British history and culture.
If you have some time I thoroughly recommend looking over the London2012 website. As well as giving live updates of the games, the competitors and the results, there is also a fascinating amount of information behind the scenes about actually building the venues and preparing for the games,

The Legacy

The one thing that is apparent reading the literature is that the organisers of the games had two main objectives in mind.

1. Creating an Olympic games that would be both well run and memorable
2. Creating a sporting legacy for sport in the country.

The issue of legacy itself is an interesting one because it manifests itself in two different ways. Primarily there is the legacy of inspiration. By that I mean the fact that Britain did so well in the medal tables has inspired a large number of people to take up sports and start to be a part of a sporting movement that had suffered in this country. The government is already talking about leveraging this goodwill - and taking flak over the fact that earlier government cuts have lead to a reduction in money available for sports in school.
Secondly there is the physical legacy of the Olympic venues themselves. The Olympic Park has always intended to be something that would remain after the games were over. It is meant to stand as a reminder of the greatness of the games and the achievements of the athletes. But the venues themselves are going to be used and available to the public long after the games have disappeared into the record books.
The velodrome - which is widely acknowledged as being one of the best in the country - will be open to the general public, as will the aquadrome and a number of other venues. The temporary venues - such as the beach volleyball stadium in Horse Guards Parade - are going to disappear leaving just archive footage and a couple of specially commissioned paintings as reminders of what was there, but several billion dollars have been spent on the Olympic Park itself, and it is hoped that the legacy will be more impressive than the decaying overgrown stadium that now exists in Athens after their Olympics.

The Sports

One of my favourite parts of the Olympics was watching some of those sports that have never, really, appeared on my radar before. Examples of this include the diving, synchronised swimming, water polo and mountain bike riding. Thanks to some great information on the BBC website about the sports themselves, the rules and what to watch, I've learned a lot about these sports.
For me the highlight - apart from the Super Saturday when Britain won 4 gold medals in 45 minutes - was watching the controlled chaos which is the BMX cycling competition.
Eight competitors in a single race flying round a course with jumps, dips, a tunnel (in the case of the ladies race) and speed sections which bring the riders to within millimetres of each other. This was the site of several spectacular collisions resulting in concussions, broken wrists and collar bones, and one unlucky competitor being stretchered off after a nasty crash which saw her head plant into one of the 'knuckles' on the course. But despite these crashes the short races (each averaging about 37 seconds) we're fascinating to watch and almost had me holding my breath throughout each one. The issue I had with BMX was that despite having to do a seeding run, three heats, and three semi final runs just to get to the final, the medals were decided on a single run. One mistake - as happened with the British hopefuls - and all the hard work was undone. It just doesn't seem fair.
On the topic of unfairness I have to say something about Usain Bolt. Here's a guy who has trained - like all the athletes - for his Olympic chance and yet to get his medal he had to run for a grand total of about 30 seconds (a heat, a semi-final, and a final). Sure he was running at maximum speed, but it was just three very short races. Compare this with, say, Mo Farah who had to run a heat, a semi-final and a final each lasting nearly half an hour. And at the end of it all he gets exactly the same medal as Usain “I'm a legend even though I only ran for 30 seconds” Bolt. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
And don't get me started on the marathon runners....

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On the subject of friendship

This week marked the advent of another birthday for me. I've said it before and I'll say it again : as you get older these things seem to come round quicker than ever before. When I was a kid it seemed like birthdays took forever to come round. Now I appear to have them three or four times a year.

It wasn't a landmark birthday. Not one that ends in an '0', nor even one that deserves a jewel-themed anniversary celebration, but it did end in a '5' so it drops me between two important birthday stools.

With the growing importance (and intrusion) of Facebook in people's life, the ability to send birthday wishes across the internet has become easier and easier. Back in the days when I was starting out in the world, cards had to be purchased, written, addressed and posted. If you got your timings wrong then you missed people's birthdays.

Nowadays it's just a case of checking Facebook, clicking 'Write on wall' and sending a few choice words to the recipient.

I'm very pleased to say that I received well over 30 such messages - which is far and above the number of cards I have ever received on any birthday since I was 8.

But what also struck me as interesting was the longevity of the relationship I have with a lot of these people. My best friend Jon took great pleasure in reminding me that he and I have been friends for over 30 years and I was his best man 21 years ago. My younger sister has been in my life for over 40 years (and she won't thank me for telling you that). I received an email from a non-facebook friend who was my best friend when I lived in Australia back in the late 70's. He reminded me that we've known each other for almost 35 years.

There are numerous other examples of people I've known and who have been in my life for decades:

• Patricia, If you're reading this, I've known you for almost 20 years.
• Justin you're heading up towards 27 years.
• Suzie S. I met when I was in college - which is the late 80's
• Tim G. - Another college friend of 25 years ago.
• Phil E. I've known since arriving in London 20+ years ago.
• Karen W and Dana L. I first met when I worked in the US over 10 years ago.

What does this say about me as a person? I'm not sure. I don't particularly pride myself on being someone who actively cultivates long relationships. Those of my friends who have waited for me to send them letters or e-mails have usually had to wait far too long. By my own admission I get easily distracted when it comes to keeping in touch. But the upside to this is that when someone does get back in contact after a while it is always a great pleasure.

I was recently gifted with renewed communication from my old Australian friend Michael whom I first met in 1977. We had dropped out of touch for well over a decade (and probably longer) due to... well, I don't know why, exactly, but we did. Then he discovered my blogs, worked out my email address and was able to reconnect with me. It was great to get a long letter from him bringing me up to date with what's happened in his life. We are now back in regular communication. As I mentioned above he was one of the first to send me birthday greetings outside the Facebook medium.

It's times like this that it is good to look back on ones life and cherish the friendships one has made over the years. Sure, there are friends who are no longer communicating with us - I often wonder what happened to old school friends and the like - but they are replaced by other friends who have come into your lives over the years.

Thanks to everyone who wished by a Happy Birthday in some way, shape or form. My apologies to anyone who's birthday I have missed and shouldn't have.

Here's to many more.

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Juice Infused Dried Cranberries

So let me get this right: they take juicy cranberries, remove the juice by drying them out, and then add juice back into them (pineapple in this case) before packing and selling them.

Why?

Posted via email from The Posterous Cafe

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