Welcome To The Tangerines!

The new football season for the Premier League began at the weekend. Many of the results were as we might have predicted but some were not. In top spot for shock result was newly promoted Blackpool winning away at Wigan 4 - 0. This took them to the top of the Premier League for 3 hours. They were knocked off the top later in the day when Chelsea succeeded in winning 6 - 0 but it still leaves Blackpool in No 2 spot. Blackpool have not headed the top division since 1957. They haven't even played in the top division since 1971. Last season they were expected to be demoted to Division One but they managed to do the complete opposite. They beat Cardiff in the play-offs and moved into the top league. The Tangerines manager, Ian Holloway, has said that he intends to get a picture of the league table with Blackpool at the top and then resign because it can't get better than this. He's right, of course. It can't get better than this. They shouldn't have been playing at Wigan at all. They were due to play Wigan at home but the stadium in Bloomfield Road is still a building site as they try to get their ground up to Premier League standard - and so they agreed to play at Wigan. Things have been a struggle through the summer. Several of their players suddenly became valuable after the team was promoted and they have gone off to better paid fields. The Blackpool owner has set a limit of £10,000 per week as top wage that he is prepared to pay. Quite understandably, some players have rejected such paltry payments. How can any footballer in this day and age, be expected to get by on a mere £10,000 per week; after all its only a little over £½ million per year. And that's rubbish wages. It may be what an average person earns in 20 years but it is still rubbish wages for a footballer.

In the last few days before the start of the season, the manager got hold of a few players and persuaded others to struggle along with £10,000 per week and he got a team together. They trounced Wigan. One goal was disallowed and TV replays show that it was OK. So it should have been 5 - 0.

It's a good start for them and I wish them lots of luck. They will need it just to survive. But even if they go down again, the sojourn in the Premier League will boost the coffers quite significantly and it will give Blackpool a bit of a boost. I have always liked Blackpool as a town for all sorts of reasons. It is different and it has still got its trams and the tower. But like so many seaside towns Blackpool has struggled in recent years and this may just give it the boost that it needs.

Good luck to them all.

Wigan FC has got real problems. Will they survive?

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Blair's Donation

Today it was announced that ex-PM Tony Blair is to give all the money from the sales of his new autobiography to the British Legion to help in the provision of extra facilities for helping seriously disabled ex-servicemen, injured in war - particularly Iraq and Afghanistan. Quite rightly, the British Legion has welcomed the donation, since they need every penny they can get to help in their rehabilitation efforts and Blair owes them. The donation is expected to be about £4 million. The donation has not been universally welcomed and it is not too difficult to understand why. It is impossible to expect of Blair that he does anything for honourable reasons or human decency. And I feel that this is no exception. Blair is now a rich man. He has made much money since he ended his time as PM. Is he now being troubled by his conscience? Does he now realise that both Iraq and Afghanistan were disasters of the first order and he has a total responsibility for sending our troops into both of these conflicts to be killed and maimed. It is one thing to have soldiers fighting for honourable causes but fighting for the wrong reasons and on the basis of lies is another. Blair should have adopted the Wilson approach of giving America the fullest support - short of actually doing anything. Does Blair fear that he will be remembered for little more than Iraq and Afghanistan and wants to help his image? Is he afraid that nobody will buy his book and wants to give it a bit of spin to encourage us to buy it and give money to the British Legion? No, if I am to give money to the British Legion, I will give it direct; not through Blair's book. One man has already described Blair's gesture as Blood money. He may well have a point. Blair is still an obnoxious little man, an apology for a Prime Minister and the sooner he disappears into oblivion the better.

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Troubles in Northern Ireland

It's that time of the year again. Time for rioting in Northern Ireland. According to the accepted version the peace process is now so advanced that the possibility of serious chaos in Northern Ireland is gone for ever. I don't believe it. There is a possibility that at the next elections there Sinn Fein will win an overall majority in Stormant and we must watch to see how much peace that brings. Support for the Unionists may have declined in Northern Ireland but I will believe that the people really have left the past behind them only when they stop the annual nonsense that takes place in August with the Orange Order marches and Apprentice Boys parades.

Few people outside of Northern Ireland know what it's all about anyway. And its not surprising. How many people know about the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when the Stuarts shuffled themselves around a bit and changed kings? It is actually more true to say that they were forced to shuffle themselves about by an increasingly assertive parliament. Having stayed around as king for 25 years after his restoration, Charles II suddenly died in 1685. In spite of his many relationships there was no one left as heir to the throne ahead of his brother James, who became James II. Unfortunately, James had decided that he was a Catholic and when he produced a male heir, parliament was so opposed to the idea of a new Catholic dynasty that they thought of the wizard wheeze of inviting the Dutch William of Orange to become king instead. This is beginning to read like "1066 And All That". Having another Catholic king would, clearly, have been a bad thing. William of Orange was the son of Mary, Charles II sister, and he was married to another Mary, the daughter of James II. So James II was both his uncle and his father-in-law.

Unable to raise sufficient forces to resist, James II left London - he abdicated, it was said, when he threw the great seal of office into the Thames. Then, in 1688, he tried to raise an army in Ireland and fight to recover his throne. It was in 1688 that the apprentice boys in Londonderry slammed shut the gates of the city and instigated a resistance in which the city withstood a siege lasting for 5 months before they were relieved by Protestant forces. In 1690, James was defeated at the the Battle of the Boyne and he finally gave up on his ambitions on the English throne.

But, why does all this have to be remembered and re-enacted every August with accompanying riots and demonstrations? When this all stops, Northern Ireland will become a proper country at last. Don't hold your breath.

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Old Clothes

I was sitting in front of the TV a couple of days ago just watching as I ate my breakfast, when I stumbled onto Bargain Hunt - I know Bargain Hunt is on after mid-day but I have late breakfasts - and Tim Wotchermicallhim told us about a sale item - a pair of Queen Victoria's bloomers. The sellers declared that these had actually been worn by the monarch; expected selling price about £300. The extraordinary things to me were [1] if you bought a pair of Queen Victoria's old pants, what would you do with them and [2] their extraordinary size. They were of tent like proportions. I know Queen Victoria did not suffer from anorexia but these garments were vast beyond belief. The queen was only just over 5ft tall and these pants would have fit snugly around a 5ft waist. Anyway, somebody did buy they - for £4,000. Who was the buyer? Who had so much money to burn? They should be in a museum but I hope it was not a museum that spent so much buying them.

Selling old clothes worn by celebrities has become something of a minor industry in recent years. It is some time now since Arnold Schwarzenegger told us that a lady fan had asked him for a pair of his posing pants. He agreed to send her a pair but he would give them a good wash first. She did not want them washed. She wanted them in as worn condition smelling of sweat and posing oil.

Craig Titus - a great bodybuilder but an appalling man, now locked up for ever for murdering a fitness model with whom he lived and shared a bed [along with his wife] - when he was at the top of his game, realised the potential for selling clothing that he had worn, and offered it for sale on his web site. In fact so much was available in the form of posing trunks, training tops, vests, shirts, etc that we have to wonder if he employed a team of young men who wore the clothing for him so that he could generate enough to make good money. Would you recognise Craig Titus's own personal sweat smell?

I don't think that I have ever felt that i needed to own some sweaty clothes but if I were training hard to reach the top would the smell of a top bodybuilder's sweat spur me on? I don't think so. I think pictures would be the best inspiration still.

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Le Tour de France

Last weekend another Tour de France came to an end. This is one sporting event that i do not wish to miss and I look forward to it every year. This year was an exceptional race with many an exciting stage and contested closely to the very last. The greater biker Alberto Contador won in Paris by a mere 39 secs over Luxembourg rider Andy Schleckt. In the last couple of days it has been announced that Contador will leave the Kazakhstan based Astana team at the end of this summer. The team struggled to pay the wages of staff and riders last year and this year they have not been the strongest team in Europe. Contador was, perhaps not at his best this year and he won overall without winning a single stage - which is very unusual. The struggle between Schleckt and Contador was a real epic that featured in every day's effort's but there was many another impressive performance. There were some fantastic sprint finishes with Manxman Mark Cavendish taking five stage wins and being only 10 points off winning the green jersey in spite of some disappointing results in the first week. But when Cavendish gets to the front in a sprint, there is nobody but nobody who can catch him - even after he lost his lead-out man Mark Renshaw after stage 11 when he was disqualified for head butting another rider in the sprint for the line.

Presentation on ITV4 is tremendous with commentary and inter-round summeries by ex-bike riders, who are lucid, fluent and knowledgeable and good at their jobs. The spectacular scenery across France and the frantic and OTT spectator support along every inch of the route, almost on some stages swallowing up the riders completely, all adds to the enjoyment of this great event. These athletes are superb. Out of an original start grid of 191 riders in Rotterdam, 172 got back to Paris, 3,600 kms later. The only ones who dropped out were ill or seriously injured. Several made it all battered and bruised, but they made it. Cadel Evans withstood the emotional strain of accidents and a broken arm and got to Paris. These guys are hard as nails and I admire them all - every one.

Roll on next year.

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Carlo Bergonzi

It used to be argued that operatic tenors did not last into ripe old age and there did seem to be powerful evidence to back up this suggestion. Enrico Caruso died aged 48, Jussi Bjorling at 49, Richard Tauber at 56 and even the everlasting Beniamino Gigli only managed 67. He was equalled by Mario del Monaco who died in 1982. It was argued that all that blasting out un-natural high notes was inevitably bad for the blood pressure and it does seem that most tenors died with heart disease in some form. Giovanni Martenelli was an exception, dying in 1969 at age 84. He even sang his last role on stage [as the Emperor Altoum in Turandot] at the age of 82.

However, in more recent times great Italian tenors generally have been made of sterner stuff. The great Franco Corelli was 82 when he died in 2003 and Guiseppe di Stefano reached 86.

Two weeks ago Carlo Bergonzi celebrated his 86th birthday and is, as far as I know, still in good health. In many ways, his was the most perfect of Italian voices in the post-war years. Although others could bring more dramatically imposing sound to a part, none could surpass the beauty, accuracy and tender legato of Carlo Bergonzi. Last year Jonas Kaufmann presented Bergonzi with a lifetime achievement award from Marche International du Disque et de l'Edition Musicale at the 5th Annual Classical Awards at the Palais de Festivals in Cannes for his recorded musical achievements over so many years. Born in Parma near Verdi's home village of Le Rencole outside Busseto, where Carlo Bergonzi's son operates a restaurant, Restorante I Due Foscari. The father is a constant visitor talking to guests and sharing a bottle of wine with old friends.

Carlo Bergonzi is the last of that great troupe of Italian tenors that so enriched the performances of Italian opera in the 50s, 60s and 70s. They were all great singers and, along with the Swedish Jussi Bjorling, each had his own tone and timbre that made every one of them instantly recognisable. Today, there are many fine tenors - though, I would argue, none that can compare with the great names that I have mentioned - but they all sound alike and unmemorable. There are exceptions and I would rate Jonas Kaufmann as one.

I have many recordings featuring these great singers of the past and it is always a great pleasure to listen to them - indiosynchracies an' all. Carlo Bergonzi is the last survivor and I hope he enjoyed his birthday.

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The Blackbirds Are Silent

The blackbirds are silent now. Throughout June and early July I had a pair of blackbirds nesting in the ivy on the back of my house. I heard their daily dawn choruses and their daily frantic search for food and nesting material. And then I heard the twittering of the young - perhaps one or two birds - and the even more frantic search for food as they rushed back and forth with morsels to feed hungry mouths. Some days there was desperate screeching as they screamed at visiting cats and chased them away from the young birds. But then, a week or so ago, things went quiet. No longer did i see or hear the blackbirds. No longer did I see them coming and going to/from the nest. There was no dawn chorus any more. Had they left? Where had they flown to? But then, as I went to water the plants at far end of my garden, I saw the remains of a male blackbird, torn apart by a domestic cat. Nothing now but a few bones and feathers. Nature can be cruel but domestic cats are just killers that kill for pleasure. They do not need to kill for food. Their territories are not threatened. Their slaughter is just cruel indulgence. The domestic cat can scare away small rodents but for the most part it is an animal with few attractive redeeming features. It exists for itself. It does not show affection. It is difficult to picture a cat protecting its owner or staying faithful to anyone. Cats visit my garden to use it as a toilet and to lie in the sun. They create an unending stink with their malodorous excrement. They kill the birds. Who would want to own one of these sly, foul, midget monsters.

The blackbirds are quiet now.

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