Should I get a cat?

I've been secretly (I haven't admitted this to anyone) thinking about getting a cat. I have no idea why; I don't really like cats. I thought I'd consider the Pros and Cons of this.

Pro:

1. Cats are temperamentally much like me; a cat and I could live together in a spirit of mutual separatism, a bit like the British and the French - wary of each other but too lazy to do anything about it
2. Cats need minimum looking after
3. Cats do not generally generate mountains of hairs, as do dogs
4. Company

Con:

1. I don't want cat poo in my house - would need to be a self-cleaning cat
2. Reluctant to spend my pension on cat food - would need to be a self-feeding cat; rodents, neighbours' cat food, etc.
3. Problems with kennels or whatever when I'm away
4. However (see Pro #3) cats do make me feel itchy; this could be psychosomatic
5. I worry that, given my low boredom threshold, I might lose interest

Doesn't sound as though this is going to work. Shame. Could I just rent a cat? Is that even a thing? If not, someone needs to see the business opportunity. Maybe a holographic cat.

I will seek advice on the matter and get back to you.

Current thinking; Con #5 is the clincher.

If I did get a cat, what brand should I go for? Karen Wu Ph.D. in Psychology Today reports on a 2019 research project (actually a survey of cat owners so not sure that's 'research'), from which I quote selectively:

Most aggressive toward (human) family members: Angora

Least aggressive toward family members: British Shorthair

Most aggressive toward strangers: Angora

Least aggressive toward strangers: British Shorthair

Most aggressive toward other cats: Angora

Least aggressive toward other cats: Persian and Norwegian Forest Cat

Most shy toward strangers: Russian Blue

Least shy toward strangers: Burmese

Most shy towards novel objects: Russian Blue

Least shy towards novel objects: Cornish Rex

Most likely to seek human contact: Devon Rex

Least likely to seek human contact: British Shorthair

Most active: Cornish Rex

Least active: British Shorthair

Most likely to suck wool: Turkish Van, Maine Coon

Least likely to suck wool: Russian Blue

Most likely to groom excessively: Burmese

Least likely to groom excessively: Neva Masquerade

Most likely to have a behavioural problem: Oriental breeds, Persian

Least likely to have a behavioural problem: British Shorthair, European Shorthair

This is harder than I thought.

Cashing In

When I play (or played, as it hasn't happened for over a year obviously) poker in one of my local pubs, the monthly £10 freezeout is a big occasion. With ten players, the £60 first prize sets you up for ... well maybe not life but at least for a few pints (I don't drink zero alcohol on those occasions for fear of being mocked for unmanliness). Second gets £30, which is six Asda breakfasts and third gets his (always men dunno why) £10 back. Fourth place gets the same as tenth - nothing. However, tenth gets the benefit of going out earlier and thus having perhaps a couple of hours of value-added economic activity which gets one over on the  guy who struggles for that time and ends up losing £10.

My poker mentor - Son #2 Daniel - taught me that second place means nothing: if you come second you are a loser. Therefore the obvious strategy is to go hard and early with your poker aggression. If it doesn't work, you'll be able to indulge in the afore-mentioned value-added economic activity (and probably saves you £4.50 for the second pint you would have bought); if it does, you'll be able to cruise to victory.

In contrast, the Premier League is a no-lose league. With just tomorrow's final matches to go, Sheffield United will come last and pocket ... £125 million. I'm obviously playing the wrong sport; I should cash in my poker winnings and buy a Premier League club. Manchester United, a small provincial club of which even the most soccer-averse of you [yes that's you, MiceElf] may have heard, earned £161 million for coming second. You can see why the 'top six' clubs (a term invented by the richest six) want to have a bigger share of the pot and have on a number of occasions, most recently with the European Super League fiasco of an idea, presented propositions to enable that. Why would you spend £100 million on a top player and still, even if you come first in the league, earn only £38 million more than the club which finishes last?

Of course, Sheffield United will be relegated, so next year they will not get to share the Premier League's millions. But here's the thing - they get another prize: 'parachute payments'. Next season that will amount to around £40 million for them. This iniquitous system almost guarantees that they have a really good chance to get promoted straight away. The two clubs so far promoted from the second tier league - the ridiculously styled 'Championship' - Norwich and Watford - were the bottom two in the Premier League last year. Norwich, in fact, invented the ultimate cash cow: get promoted, spend no money on different players, get relegated, pocket your £125 million and £40 million [are you keeping up?], get promoted ... rinse and repeat.

Time to make the club go up
Time to shut the club down
....
Then we rinse and repeat
And it just goes on

.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I'm unsure what I think about attempts to re-engineer the past. Statues, such as those of Cecil Rhodes. I wonder whether Rhodes would have been a fan of The Clash.

... if you want me off your back
Well, come on and let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

I generally approach these apparently binary issues with a touch of cynicism. I doubt they are simple matters. In the case of Rhodes, it may boil down to what a statue is for. Things change; the culture of a nation changes, as do the values of humankind. Statues don't; they are either there or not (ask Saddam Hussein). Perhaps statues should be temporary, with a limited lifespan. He's no longer interesting; let's put her up instead for the next year or so. Made of some cheap material to facilitate that. Or holograms, with a coded time limit; you wake up one morning and discover that David Lloyd George is no longer in Parliament Square Garden. "Oh, we switched him off; his time was up; Madonna will be there next week."

I know virtually nothing about Cecil Rhodes so am unwilling to venture an opinion of his suitability for deification in concrete. I can consider the arguments on both sides: leaving the statue standing is a necessary reminder of how we, the British, condoned genocide vs removing the statue means we no longer share those imperial values and should not appear to celebrate them. Both arguments seem to me flimsy, sounding a bit Orwellian. I suppose I think statues coagulate the past and I am much more interested in the future.

I rather think Rhodes would have echoed The Clash:

If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So ya gotta let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

A dog called 'arry

Sitting in the pub garden. A bottle of Heineken Zero. People watching. As you do. There's a large man nearby, in cargo shorts, with a dog. A small, white perky dog with a short, erect tail. The dog is clambering all over another dog (I believe there's a technical term for that but this is a family-friendly blog). "Stop it, 'arry!" says the man. Which makes me wonder after whom is the dog named. And on what kind of whims do people name their pets?

I think I've mentioned before (Pets and Kids) that I 'ad a budgerigar which I named Little Jim, after a character in The Goon Show, which was a wireless (that's what we used to call the radio in those days) show at the time. The 50s. Here are the actors: Peter Sellers (the smooth one with wicked mimicry skills), 'arry Secombe (the Wynne Evans [see the GoCompare ads] of his day) and Spike Milligan (the completely bonkers one):

I asked my friend Tony one day why 'is pug was named Lily. "She 'ad that name when I got 'er as a rescue dog and I thought she might suffer a self-esteem crisis if I changed it" 'e replied. I may 'ave slightly embroidered that but that's the gist of it. So no 'elp in answering my question.

My first instinct with pub dog was 'arry Kane, about whom I 'ave blogged recently (As a Spurs fan...). Or Prince 'arry, about whom I 'ave never blogged. But it's just as likely that 'arry's owner was called 'arry, although that could be confusing for all concerned. Maybe a 'arry Potter fan? Large man was too young to 'ave any empathy for 'arry Truman; on a football theme, it could 'ave been 'arry Redknapp (a true 'arry if ever I saw one) or Cliff Richard.

Wait! Cliff Richard, Nigel - where does 'e fit into the 'arry pantheon? 'cos 'is real name is 'arry Rodger Webb, silly; everyone knows that.

I was mulling this over, making notes ready for the blog. "Why don't I just ask 'im?" I thought ('im being the owner not the dog). I looked up and ... they 'ad gone. Bummer, I'll never know.

The Dawn of a Golden Age

I felt that a new Golden Age arrived today, as I ate a cooked breakfast - egg, bacon, mushrooms, fresh tomato, hash brown and beans, since you ask - in Asda this morning, resuming a twice a week routine - Wednesdays and Saturdays - from a previous era, aka a Dark Age. Accompanied by a real paper version of the Times, rather than that on iPad. A true feeling of liberation from the dark, satanic (should that be capitalised, I wonder? Satan as a quasi deity?) days of lockdowns, tiers and tears. A week from now, all being well, I shall be on my way to London and thence to Kent to visit friends and family; I shall breathe a sigh of relief.

Fellow video game players will be familiar with the concept of a Golden Age, during which you can earn more gold, produce more killing machines and build more wonders. In real life, historians look back on particular times and nominate them as Golden Ages.

The ancient Greek philosopher Hesiod introduced the term in his Works and Days, when referring to the period when the "Golden Race" of man lived.

That is from Wikipedia and it occurred to me that I use a lot of their material, so I decided to make a small monthly donation in recognition of that. As Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, writes: "We're a non-profit that depends on donations to stay online and thriving, but 98% of our readers don't give; they simply look the other way. If everyone who reads Wikipedia gave just a little, we could keep Wikipedia thriving for years to come."

I'm happy to be in the 2%.

I guess the designation of a Golden Age is often nationalistic: the Greeks pre-Prometheus, the Romans of Virgil and Ovid, Japan's Helan Period, the English first Elizabethan age, the French Belle Époque. Even pirates (1650-1726) and Hollywood (1920s?) have their 'Golden Ages': a bit budget, perhaps, but no more so than an Asda breakfast.

For some extremists, Brexit was posited as heralding a new Golden Age for Britain. Although I voted for Brexit, mine was a vote against the increasing, anti-democratic centralisation of the European Union, a realisation that the UK could never have enough influence to counter that in a union trying to grow its membership and behave on the international stage as an economic closed shop with tariff barriers when the rest of the world is trying to achieve a free trade Golden Age. I don't believe there will be a post-Brexit Golden Age for us, just as I don't believe there would have been a new Golden Age as part of the EU. For us, it's a slow, inexorable post-imperial, post-colonial decline and we can make the best of it in whatever guise we choose.

In my research for this post, I discovered a Golden Ages board game which seems to be just completely me. Problem is I have never been able to interest any family or friends in gaming; I'm hoping that, in a few years' time, my grandsons will be compliant. Anyone for a game? 2-4 players, 90 minutes, ages 12+, complexity rating 2.89/5.

We should all beware: in Civilization VI a Golden Age is often succeeded by a Dark Age, as a result of over-producing, increasing debt and just general hubris. From Wiki again:

In Hesiod's Works and Days, the Golden Age ended when the Titan Prometheus conferred on mankind the gift of fire and all the other arts. For this, Zeus punished Prometheus by chaining him to a rock in the Caucasus, where an eagle eternally ate at his liver.

Just not in the next two weeks, please.

Someone else of a restless nature

I read about Juanma Lillo, assistant manager at Manchester City, who has apparently managed 17 football clubs in his career. Googling "which manager has managed the most clubs?" gives you Roy Hodgson, who has managed 16. I if were Juanma I'd be a bit cheesed off about that.

In 1981 Lillo, a Spaniard, took his first managerial position at Amaroz KE, a small club in a small town called Tolosa in northern Spain. I could find no mention of this club in any of my usual reference material so it's possible it doesn't exist any more. Probably not Lillo's fault. His most recent managerial dalliance was in China at Qingdao Huanghai, who play in the Chinese Super League.

Hodgson's managerial career began in 1976 in Norway and subsequently encompassed clubs in England, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and Italy as well as coaching the national teams of Switzerland, United Arab Emirates and Finland.

In comparison with these two giants of peripatetic football, Alex Ferguson was manager of Manchester United for 26 consecutive years. Not quite a one club manager - he managed three Scottish clubs before United. Arsene Wenger managed Arsenal for 22 consecutive years and these two stand side by side as the longest successful managerial reigns in modern football.

But they pale in comparison with the records of Fred Everiss, who managed West Bromwich Albion from 1902 to 1948, and Guy Roux, who managed Auxerre in three separate reigns totalling more than 40 years.

What is it about these two distinct types - Lillo and Hodgson restlessly seeking new challenges and Ferguson and Wenger (in the same era) challenging themselves to drive their clubs to new heights? If you Google career restlessness, you get items characterising it as a negative, requiring remedial coaching:

"Agitation and restlessness: what causes it?"

"Feeling unhappy and restless at work?"

According to that, Lillo and Hodgson are suffering from some kind of illness, or least a syndrome that needs remedies but it seems to me more likely that's a misunderstanding of lifestyle choices: I've taken this team as far as I can, now I (and they) need a new challenge. A search for improvement rather than a Ferguson/Wenger search for perfection. Indeed a recognition that there is no perfection and that the pursuit of it is doomed to failure.

Of course, it could be that Lillo and Hodgson were not very good at their jobs and kept getting sacked; you'd have to be prepared to do more research to establish that. You might also have to be of an uncharitable nature.

I'm glad there are different kinds of people in the world and we should appreciate difference as a positive. Hooray for them all.

Fronted adverbials

Earlier today, I discovered fronted adverbials. "Earlier today" is one.

Sadly (another, I think), fronted adverbials is a term I had never heard of in my long life. Suddenly (enough now, I think), I came across it in a comment column by Alice Thomson in the Times. Obviously better educated than me, one of Alice's claims to fame is that the city of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia - an almost unbearably hot desert city, I can attest to that - was named after the wife of her ancestor Sir Charles Todd. So better connected than me too.

According to learningstreet.co.uk "Teachers will introduce children to fronted adverbials from Year 4 onwards". What? I'm first hearing this in Year 78! Maybe they hadn't been invented when I was at school.

Charles Todd was Superintendent of Telegraphs of South Australia when it was decided to build a telegraph line from Port Augusta to Darwin independent of the other colonies, and work began in September 1870. The Overland Telegraph Line was one of the greatest civil engineering feats in the history of Australia. There's a monument to it, and him:

It stands 50 miles south of Daly Waters, at the point where the northerly and southerly sections of the Line were joined in 1872. In 2007 I traversed this route on a wonderful train called the Ghan

stopping at Alice Springs for a few hours on the way. Here's one of the Alice locals I met:

The indigenous people who have native title to Daly Waters and its surrounds are the Jingili. They traditionally spoke a language called Jinguli, although a survey in 1997 found that only between 10 and 15 people still understood it.

Jinguli typically uses verbless clauses. So they probably haven't heard of frontal adverbials either. That makes me feel better.

=INT(RAND()*10+1)

Along with a group of family and friends, I play a game called Footy Naps. Every week of the football season - which for some reason isn't 12 months of the year - we each select a match result, with the bookmakers' odds. It it loses, you lose one point; win and you get the odds. Last week I selected Sheffield United to beat Crystal Palace at odds of 2/1. If United had won, I'd have gained 2 points; they lost and so did I: -1 point.

Sounds easy, I hear you say. Not so. I laboured for many years thinking - as do most of the players - that I knew better than the odds setters - the bookies - and, with a bit of work each week, I could find a value 'bet'. You have no idea how dispiriting this can be; week after week, the bookies prove they know what they are talking about. Not every time obviously - otherwise they would go out of business - but more than me.

For the 2017/2018 season, I decided to change tack. I had to find a strategy which met three criteria: (1) it had to involve the absolute minimum of effort and time (2) the chosen match is ideally on TV (usually a given since by definition the away side will be one of the big hitters) (3) it had to be fun, meaning a general expectation of losing punctuated by the occasional big win and the resulting accolade from my fellow players of "wow Nigel, how did you do that?" I decided to choose the longest odds home selection in the Premier League each week. As there are only 20 teams in the Premier League and therefore only 10 matches, the selection takes about 30 seconds; check one. Isolating just one league and just home matches simply furnishes a minimalistic algorithm for my efforts. Outcome: I got my maiden win in the competition. And this match gave me the biggest win @ 18/1:

I watched the match on TV. Check two. It was stressful but hilarious and fun. Check three. For accuracy I should state that this was a FA Cup match; I have to adapt in weeks where there are no Premier League games (I'm still waiting for Gibraltar to get a 150/1 win in the dreaded international weeks).

Next season I adopted the same strategy and it was a disaster but in 2019/2020 I made a comeback with an even bigger win, once again courtesy of Manchester City:

A 22/1 win contributing to my clean sweep of season title, first half of season win and second half of season win.

Once again reverting to the mean, season 2020/2021 has been a disaster. Miles behind with only three match days to go, I thought I'd have a bit of a change and decided to use a randomisation process. I considered using the I Ching but that proved as far removed from my "minimum effort" principle as it is possible to be. So I just used some random number stuff in a spreadsheet.

=INT(RAND()*10+1) selects the match (values 1 through 10).

=INT(RAND()*3+1) selects the bet: home win, draw, away win (values 1 through 3).

Simples.

Hence the afore mentioned Sheffield United selection. That fact that I didn't win that particular nap doesn't invalidate the method. It hasn't been the best of seasons for me ...

... although I had the pleasure of playing alongside my sons. They can comment on their own best wins of the season; looking forward to that, boys.

I did have one spectacular win:

Aston Villa beat the Champions 7-2. Seven! Remarkable. And a 17/2 winning nap for me.

Process before outcome; sloth before vigour. Works for me.

53 degrees North

We're going on a a trip. A round the world adventure. Following the 53° N line of latitude. We begin in ...

Wigan. The new centre of the world. In a circumnavigational sense. The Romans had it wrong: all roads lead to Wigan, the birthplace of George Formby.

Shall we go westwards (Ho!) or eastwards? I think in the initial stages of our journey there is more land to the east, so that's it.

Crossing the North Sea (I wonder if Icelanders call it the South Sea) we arrive on the Dutch island of Texel, famous for giving its name to a breed of sheep.

Moving on, we arrive in Germany, Lower Saxony to be precise. The capital is Hanover, the 19th century Kingdom of which fell out with the English because we had the temerity to optate a female monarch (Victoria). Thence to the West Pomeranian province of Poland. In that country a province is called a Voivodeship and I believe many people arrive there looking to buy a sturdy, ultra reliable car.

I hope you're keeping up with this whistle stop sheep/car chase. Leaving Volvoland we meet the people of Belarus. According to nationsonline.org Belarus is famous for "potatoes, tractors, and being one of the poorest countries in Europe by total wealth." They need to do something about that reputation; maybe hire a PR firm?

Next it's Russia. There's a lot of Russia to cross and we dip in and out of Kazakhstan, following our 53rd parallel. The Baikonur Cosmodrome, home to Russia's manned space flight launches, is in Kazakhstan. We leave Russia temporarily as we pass the world's largest by volume freshwater lake, Baikal, and cross the tip of the Chinese province of Heilongjiang, which takes its name from the Heilong River, which marks the border between China and Russia.

More Russia: Sakhalin Island and the Kamchatka peninsula, then we cross the Bering Sea to the US outpost of Alaska (Sarah Palin will unfollow me for 'outpost'). Alaska is possibly the most faunal and scenic stopover on this trip so we'll do a bit of sightseeing: salmon, moose, caribou, bears, whales, bison, puffins, jellyfish, glaciers, fjords, mountains, lakes, rivers; what's not to like?

Actually we're island-hopping through Alaska: Attu, Kagamil and Umnak, then Canadian islands - Hibben, Moresby and Louise - in British Columbia. Like Russia, there's a lot of Canada - we travel through Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Winnipeg, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland/Labrador. What to say about the lovely Canadian people? They speak English👍 They rank "the world’s most reputable nation" 👍 They are all nice 👍 They are great at developing video games 👍👍

Across the Atlantic to Ireland. Home to Guinness, U2, James Joyce, George Best and the Giant's Causeway. I hope the DUP aren't going to get picky about whether Northern Ireland is in Ireland; it's on my route; get out of the way! Lovely accent - although I imagine they think of my diction as the accent. Crossing the - often very rough - Irish Sea to Mount Snowdon in Wales, the most beautiful of British mountains and finally home to ...

Butter pie, courting cake, scouse, aughton pudding and pea wet; yes it's ...lovely Wigan. It's raining cats and dogs but Wigan, we love you.

Truth is redundant

VAR (the Video Assistant Referee) distorts truth. The truth that the striker has scored a legitimate goal, by any measure except one: exactitude. His big toe, with which he is not attempting to score, is a millimetre beyond the bum of the defender, which with the latter is not going to intercept the shot. The striker kicks the ball into the net with the foot other than the one of the big toe, past the head of the defender, whose bum is now pointing away from the goal, who attempts to intercept. Graphical truth takes over: lines are drawn on a computer screen and the 'goal' is disallowed. Incorrectly, in every possible way except one: exactitude.

Football wasn't designed to be a game of exact, static images. It's a fast moving, fluid sport which encourages the taking of attacking risk whereas VAR persuades forwards to hold their runs that little bit too late and, when involved, takes a minute or more out of the game to make a marginal decision and interrupts the players' momentum - and, who knows, their wills to live.

We were all brought up to believe that truth exists and that it is unimpeachable. Now we know better; to paraphrase Descartes: I score, therefore I don't.

I've never heard a footballer quote Descartes but I've begun to think I am frequently unfair to them. I complain vociferously - to the TV - about retired footballers, employed to assist the match commentator by deploying pithy comments about the play, butchering the English language. Despite the fact that I understand perfectly what they are trying to say. Their truth undermined by my exactitude.

News Chronicle

I woke on Saturday morning to the news that "The eldest son of South Africa's late Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini has been chosen as successor to the throne, amid a bitter family feud." [BBC]. It felt as though as though I had been transported to a real life version of my favourite historical strategy game Civilization VI. In that case though it would have been Shaka leading the Zulus. He was their King for 12 years, during which he built a strong and well organised military. This map shows the rise of the Zulu Empire under Shaka (1816–1828) in present-day South Africa:

This took me back to my youth - I have a dim recollection of knowledge of Zulu and Mau Mau in the news, which must have been in the 1950s. I guess I must have been an avid newspaper reader even then [yes television had been invented; don't be cheeky]. Which in turn led me to think which newspaper would have been in my house. I'm pretty sure it was the News Chronicle, which would have fitted my father's Liberal politics. I don't remember my mother ever expressing a political view and am pretty certain I recall her refusing to tell me which party she voted for.

Obviously my reminiscence of the time was about the Mau Mau rebellion rather than anything about the Zulu but I feel that the latter appear somewhere in my memory. Perhaps media reports referenced earlier Zulu uprisings against the British Empire as colour; maybe there was just a sense of ... Africa. I was disappointed to discover that the British Newspaper Archive didn't give me any News Chronicle articles but it could easily be that I'm not familiar enough with it to search appropriately. The paper was subsumed into the Daily Mail empire in 1960 in what was undoubtedly a trend towards fewer, larger titles but unfortunately also a trend towards political polarisation of the print media with middle-ground views unrepresented.

Today the Zulu nation is part of South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province. Amazingly - to me in my ignorance - there remain 11 million who identify as Zulu living there. According to the BBC report "The throne does not have formal political power and the monarch's role within broader South African society is largely ceremonial. But the Zulu monarchy remains hugely influential, and has a yearly taxpayer-funded budget of more than $4.9m (£3.5m)."

I hope Prince Misizulu avoids Shaka's fate - assassinated by his half brothers.

I dedicate this post to my good friend Trevor, who knows far more about the history of Britain's newspaper industry than I ever will. Maybe he'll honour us with a comment!

Champagne socialist

Generally speaking, I would prefer to pay someone to do a boring, tedious task rather than do it myself. Tasks such as weed killing, hedge trimming, checking the oil level in my car's engine.

The concept of DIY is alien to me. There are those in my family, cognisant of the disastrous consequences of my erecting shelves, who would no doubt support my 'pay someone to do it' stance. Whoever invented DIY? What about supporting local traders, particularly in the difficult circumstances of the pandemic?

As a young husband and father I felt a multitude of pressures to Do It Myself. Financial obviously but more an expectation that, as the man of the house, it was my solemn duty to devote my time to tasks for which I was temperamentally unsuited. Not to mention totally unskilled. Shelves to put up? Nigel's your man. Shelves to put up again when the originals fall down? Nigel again, in an extreme example of Einstein's alleged 'doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is a definition of madness' maxim.

In my time, I have tried my hand at plumbing, electrics, decorating and even on one occasion helping a pal erect a shed for his beloved cow, using scraps of wood. It seems that men have absurd estimations of their own abilities. 'But you have to learn to do these things'. Why? Why can't someone else - a plumber, an electrician, a cowshed builder - do it for me? Turn on the TV and bring me a drink!

Even now, in my life of relative financial comfort - which simply means I don't starve or worry about whether I can afford a flight to Australia [Gentlemen have sufficient private means so that unexpected situations don't become painful embarrassments: Martin Cruz Smith, 'Rose'] - I have been known to pick up the occasional weed, do a bit of vacuuming, change a light bulb. Although the last time I did the latter, a few weeks ago, the lamp holder broke [note that it was the lamp holder's fault, not mine] and now I need an electrician. Unless I am prepared to risk electrocution Doing It Myself. How much, Mr Electrician? Fine, when?

Am I behaving like a filthy capitalist? If I were a true socialist I would be living in a collective, sharing ownership of goods and chattels, helping each other out each according to their skills, exchanging our wheat for meat, no need for money,  no need for shelves. Very Soviet. Maybe I'll do that in a year or two; meantime, I'm off to the pub to spend my hard-earned filthy lucre on....myself! Bring on the champagne. Bolly Bolsheviks [Mrs Monsoon, Absolutely Fabulous].

Jura

Jura is an island of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, with a population of 196 at the time of the 2011 census. As you might expect, it has a distillery, producing Isle of Jura single malt whisky. I'm not a whisky aficionado by any means and no doubt could not distinguish between this estimable product and the cheapest blend available on Lidl's shelves, but it's a consistent Scottish meme and we must allow them it.

On 23 August 1994 the band KLF filmed themselves burning £1 million in banknotes on Jura. KLF were also known as the Timelords and had a number 1 single called Doctorin' the Tardis in 1988. Here they are:

Another example of the BBC's insidious influence on British culture, KLF must have looked back on this and thought "this is so embarrassing we have to make a bonfire of everything we earned from this"; hence the 1994 incident.

At the other end of the culture scale, George Orwell wrote 1984 on Jura. You might have thought that KLF would reference that in their exhibitionist exploit, perhaps a two minutes of hate directed towards...money?

If you can bear it, listen to the first minute of an interview with band founders Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty about the burning:

Most likely they were ignorant of the connection between Orwell and Jura, as was I until I read another of Jenny Diski's essays Don't Think About It. Given that these essays originally appeared in the London Review of Books, it's not surprising that many of them are biography reviews and a favourite technique which Diski uses is compare and contrast, reviewing two different biographies of a subject in parallel. In this case Michael  Sheldon's biography of George Orwell and Hilary Spurling's of his widow Sonia.

George and Sonia were married for just three months, the last of George's life. It was a marriage of convenience. George knew he was dying from tuberculosis and wanted someone with literary editing experience, and whom he trusted implicitly, to manage his legacy. Sonia's end of the bargain was to manage his literary estate to her financial advantage. Thus Sonia became a controversial figure: Sheldon's view of her is unsympathetic whilst that of Spurling, a friend of Sonia's, is to largely exonerate her behaviour and rapaciousness on the grounds of having, for instance, a drunken - possibly psychopathic - stepfather.

It's an interesting technique and answers my question from an earlier blog post: what is an essay? Compare and contrast is a classic staple of English literature examinations, the student invited to write an essay using the technique. Now I know. And Diski is a master (I use that word in a non gender specific way, people, don't complain!) of it. A pleasure to read.

Mattress partner

Not what you think, people. If you're not interested in football - I believe there are such people hiding away somewhere in the world - you'd be forgiven for thinking that the commercial ethic of a football club is simple: get a sponsor to give you some cash, buy some players, win the league.

Manchester United have 23 sponsors. Last time they won the league: 2013. Actually they are called partners not sponsors.

Mlily is United's "Official Global Mattress and Pillow Partner". Based in China, they claim to have the biggest foam production base in Asia which produces close to 2 million moulded pillows every month. Obviously very relevant to a football club. Although how is beyond me. They have a vision partner (polarised lenses), a coffee partner, an electrical styling partner, an online financial trading partner, an official betting partner and a global partner Visit Malta (which seems - nothing against Malta, I've been there - a little underwhelming). I'm not naming these people 'cos I'm not giving them free air time. Nothing comes free, chaps.

I feel this blog is missing out on these cheap and easy commercial opportunities. If there's rampant capitalism going around, I should get my share of it. I can see Boots as my vision partner, Lidl instant coffee, Asda disposable razors, Santander banking, Charlie Cloggs the bookie in my local and Visit Charlestown Harbour. I could certainly do with a new mattress. Probably not a mattress partner though, so to speak. You don't have to give me cash, just goods and services. Or bitcoin.

What I could really do with are: a bionic eye partner, an anti-ageing partner, a gardening partner, a decorating my lounge partner, a jigsaw partner - now there's something Manchester United are missing out on; maybe I could get a finder's fee for introducing them to Vincent Van Gogh.

[What's that you say - he's dead? All the better, I don't need to give him a cut]

Even the once-mighty, now rather less so, Ipswich Town, have nine "partners". Much good is it doing them.

I'm on the phone to Sid Meier to see if he wants to be my gaming partner.....

[Brr brr]

"Hello Sid Meier here, inventor of the Civilization series of computer games and official gaming partner of Manchester ... [enough, I put the phone down, too late to the party]"

Local elections are not for me

For the first time, I did not cast a vote at the last UK general election. In those, I tend to vote on a broad cultural basis rather than any expectation that a particular group of politicians will be able to make a meaningful difference to me, my country or the world. In December 2019 I could not find a party whose culture I embraced in any way. Rather than signal my virtue by entering the polling booth and splashing a big NONE OF THE ABOVE MORONS across my voting slip, my indolence won the day and I stayed at home.

I am generally of the view that all governments are incompetent and eventually become corrupt. I don't mean corrupt in the sense of ministers accepting bribes or concealing their ghastly errors - more the corruption of power; the belief that they are omnipotent and can get away with any obviously crazy and authoritarian act they wish. I have no faith in politicians and I eagerly peruse the media for news of their demise. Yet I generally vote for one of them in a general election.

Local politics, on the other hand, are a complete blank to me. A mystery. I suppose I am a globalist by nature - I love travel, wallow in the histories of countries and indigenous peoples around the world and who somehow seem more interesting than those whom I meet every day in my street, pub and on the beach. I have zero knowledge of what my local council - I don't even know whether it's a parish council, district council, county council or any other kind of council; let's call it a tribal council - does. OK I interact with council services such as refuse collection but I don't imagine that is something which is changed by local politicians. I don't know whether the candidates stand as independents (which sounds like it would be best for dealing with mundane, non-controversial issues) or for Mebyon Kernow. So I don't vote.

Nigel, that's terribly irresponsible, I hear you say. Actually it's the most responsible thing I could do: I leave the voting for the local people who know whom and what they are voting for. I definitely should not stick my nose in and potentially distort the probably sensible outcomes of the election.

In general elections, I stay up all night, manipulate voting numbers and percentages in my head and enjoy it as though it were a momentous event like the moon landing. Tonight, I'll be in bed with a book.

As a Spurs fan...

..no not me. Heaven forbid! But, if you are a Tottenham Hotspur supporter - II believe they do exist - who would you like as your new manager/coach?

First though there is the Harry Kane question. If you assume that Kane will not stay at Spurs for the rest of his career - which seems likely given the club's dearth of trophies - when is the optimal time to sell him? Kane is 27, arguably in his prime. He has a contract until June 2024. He has a consistent, although slight, problem with ankle injuries - and a tendency to push himself to come back from injury before fully recovered, resulting in a game or two at less than full effectiveness. transfermarkt.co.uk estimates his value in the transfer market at £108 million, down from a high of £135 million three seasons ago. Is this an ongoing, age-related decline in value or a reflection of a difficult post-pandemic market? It's not clear but you would have to conclude that the value trend is more likely to be down than up.

In the 2018/19 season Spurs made £90 million from their run to the final; last season £61 million from a run to the round of 16; this season they were in the Europa League, which provides much lower income. Currently they are on the cusp of not being in Europe at all next season; certainly not in the Champions League. Supposing Spurs keep Kane this summer, hire a coach with a strong Champions League history and earn £60 million in 2022/23 and again in 2023/24: that's £120 million in the bank but Kane then leaves for nothing.

So the maths suggest that, if you could get £150 million for Kane this summer, that would be the optimal financial decision. There are two problems though with this scenario:

• in the post-pandemic world there are probably only five clubs which could afford that money. Of these, Barcelona and Real Madrid are hugely in debt but still pursuing as their first choices Erling Haaland (age 20) and Kylian Mbappe (age 22) respectively, so can be set aside. PSG would need a replacement for Mbappe, have Pocchetino - Kane's manager at Spurs - who would probably like to hire Kane but Leonardo, the Sporting Director, calls the shots on transfers. Which leaves the two Manchester clubs. United have posted profits in recent quarters despite the pandemic causing a decimation of match day income, so are in the ballpark for a £100+ million signing and a proven striker seems a perfect fit for their team development. City posted a staggering loss of £126 million for 2019/20, which included only three months of no match day income. They do however have something like unlimited investment possibilities from the Abu Dhabi owners.
•  The kind and quality of manager Spurs are able to attract probably depends on whether Kane is at the club.

Which brings us back to the original question. But first - why would Manchester United or City take a punt on a player whose value will halve over the period of a three year contract, where Spurs might not? Simple answer: Premier League titles. If Harry Kane costs us £60 million plus wages over three years but helps us win two League titles, job done. You might quibble that I haven't included Liverpool in the list of potential suitors but I think their owners are much more conscious of resale values, e.g. the sale of Coutinho to Barcelona enabled Liverpool to bring in Van Dijk and Alisson, which enabled them to win the League title last season.

Managers likely to be willing to come to Spurs but only if Kane is there probably include those with huge experience such as Rafa Benitez, Max Allegri and Maurizio Sarri (of those apparently available) but the list of those with a penchant for developing young players, forging a strong collective and overachieving as a club is longer: Brendan Rodgers, Roberto Martinez, Julien Lopetegui, Eddie Howe, even perhaps Gareth Southgate. Ex RB Leipzig coach Ralf Rangnick has been mentioned recently but he's 61 and that doesn't seem Daniel Levy's style.

As for a recent trend for clubs to go for distinguished ex players to bring in a strong fan support base, that has had mixed results - Frank Lampard, Stephen Gerrard, Mike Arteta, Scott Parker - and would be a punt, if you could even find one suitable. Jurgen Klinsmann's name always comes up but he's a bit of a transient with no real interest in long term visions. Spurs tried with Ossie Ardiles and he took them into the bottom half of the Premier League.

Given the recent hiring - and firing - of Jose Mourinho, it seems Spurs chairman likes big names. But that proved that there is only room for one big beast at the top for Tottenham, and it won't be the manager.

I would have thought that Brendan Rodgers would be the perfect fit but he has ruled himself out (at the moment). Maybe Martinez or Southgate after the Euros.

I'm not sure where this is going but I'm willing to bet Levy will be tempted to cash in on Kane this summer, with a big bid from Manchester City who have cleared the decks for a new striker with Aguero leaving. He will hope to engineer a bidding war between United and City and take it down to the deadline day wire. As is often the case it will come down to the player: do you want to join the League champions on almost double your current wages and play in the Champions League, Harry? Only one answer to that.

Finally, how would Tottenham replace Harry Kane? There's a ready made replacement in my opinion: Gareth Bale. I watched him on Sunday thrash a hat trick past Sheffield United (I know, it's Sheffield United) in a game where Kane was peripheral. Aged 31 but where else is he going to spend his final contract? Cash in on Kane, give Real Madrid £20 million and Bale Kane's wages and a lifetime membership of Wentworth and in three years he'll get you a bagful of goals. And he'll be happy as Larry.

What do you Spurs fans think?

Maggie Thatcher did something good

Never heard "may the force be with you"? You're not a Star Wars fan then. It's an iconic phrase first uttered, I believe, by General Dodonna to his Rebel troops just before the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope, the original movie of the franchise. Now called Episode IV - don't ask.

The Battle of Yavin was also known as the Battle of the Death Star, with which my loyal readers will be familiar as a result of my documenting jigsaw puzzle travails.

Here's how it's going, by the way.

In other words, slowly.

Anyway, Star Wars fans, never knowingly undersold, spotted the close pronunciations of force and fourth and have for two decades now celebrated the Fourth of May as Star Wars Day. The first formal celebration was in Toronto in 2001 but in fact “May the Fourth be with you” was first used by Margaret Thatcher’s party to congratulate her on her election on May 4th, 1979, and the saying quickly caught on. I couldn't discover the authoring genius of the Conservative party that thought of this but the phrase is now protected by trademark by LucasFilm for use in toys and for "Fan club services; entertainment services, etc. I think this blog is OK because no-one ever accused me of being entertaining. I hope the original author got recompensed.

I know plenty of my readers will never utter the phrase again as a result of my revealing its origins. If you're not one of those, what should do on Star Wars Day tomorrow? Here are some suggestions.

1. Show up to work as Darth Vader.

2. Make a Baby Yoda puppet.

3. Make some Portion Bread (Episode VII: The Force Awakens).

4. Host a virtual Star Wars fancy dress party.

5. Binge watch all nine episodes: 25 hours 7 minutes. Bring some popcorn.

Don't forget - your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will surely ask you "what did you do on Star Wars Day?" You'd better have an answer ready. 

Salò

Salò is an Italian town which was for a short while Mussolini's capital in exile. Situated on the banks of Lake Garda, it is 142 km from Venice and has a population of around 52,000. So Folkestone-by-the-lake. For reference.

If the town is famous for anything reputable - which is debatable - it could be for the musical instrument maker Gasparo da Salò, one of the first violin makers. Here's Katha Zinn telling you about that:

I came across Salò in a book by Martin Cruz Smith, The Girl From Venice. It's my kind of book with my kind of hero: a fisherman, a peasant I guess you'd say, giving the appearance of being uneducated but smart as a whip, a shrewd observer. An outsider who relishes that status, not a materialistic bone in his body, flawed but comfortable in his singularity.

It's a novel set in 1945 as the Second World War comes to a conclusion and Mussolini's Italian Social Republic, a German puppet state, is crumbling before our eyes. It begins in Venice, where the descriptions of the Lagoon and the life of the fishermen are vivid. Our hero Cenzo rescues a young Jewish girl from the waters of the lagoon and learns her story of escape from the Germans. Cenzo sets out to find a way to get her out of Italy and the story moves to Salò, where his brother Giorgio is a film star and a Nazi collaborator.

The characters we meet include a Swiss film director, an Argentinian consul's wife and a friend of Mussolini's mistress. They are well painted and the writing is good.

The Germans are leaving town, Mussolini is disappearing, various groups of partisans are ready to battle each other for the soul of Italy...will Cenko be able to find a safe way out for Giulia?

I often read trashy spy and crimes novels but this is a league above that. Easy to read, difficult to put down. And an introduction to Salò.

My epicurean day

08:00 Cereal of bran flakes and Kellogg's hazelnut and chocolate crunchy nut granola with semi skimmed dairy milk. Cup of decaffeinated tea with semi skimmed dairy milk.

10:30 Cup of instant decaffeinated coffee with semi skimmed dairy milk.

12:30 Thai chicken and lemongrass soup - not home made obviously since I don't, to my knowledge, have any lemongrass in my garden. Or chickens. Or Thais. Two glasses of home made banana/oat/whey protein/cocoa/peanut butter smoothie.

13:15 Cup of instant decaffeinated coffee with semi skimmed dairy milk, with two squares of Lindt "a touch of sea salt" dark chocolate.

16:00 Cup of Jasmine tea and one maple and pecan plait (courtesy of Lidl bakery).

17:30 Hors d'oeuvres of salmon and king prawn sushi with four lemon and herb olives.

19:00 Dinner of one cod and prawn Thai style fishcake (not home made since I don't like the smell of fish in my kitchen) with Marvellous tomatoes, spring onions, wild rocket followed by a fresh fruit salad of strawberries and grapes with mango, papaya and passion fruit yoghurt. One bottle of zero alcohol beer. 

20:00 Cup of percolated decaffeinated coffee with a dash of hazelnut milk.

21:00 Second cup of percolated decaffeinated coffee with a dash of hazelnut milk and a small glass of Armagnac.

Total carbs: too many to count.

Satisfaction rating: 9.5/10 (marks deducted for not the best yoghurt in my fridge - and it's too strong for the fruit - and for instant coffee).

Nigel, this is definitely not an essay. And Coco says "where pictures?"

A woman, a man and a cat called Coco

I've started reading essays by the late novelist and poet Jenny Diski. They were originally published in the London Review of Books and 34 of them have been brought together by Jenny's editor Mary-Kay Wilmers in Why Didn't You Just Do What You Were Told?. I'm reading one a night, in bed.

I'm interested in the notion of: what is an essay? As opposed, say, to a blog post. Or a newspaper comment item. Is it a matter of length? Quality? Purpose? The very word essay reminds one of school - a duty performed reluctantly, with quantity and topicality the primary goals (marks for length and relevance). A comment piece, as written perhaps by one of my favourite columnists Giles Coren in the Times, is attention-seeking and designed to titillate whilst a blog post might be argumentative and persuasive. But I can't seriously be comparing myself with Jenny or Giles. It's a statement of the bleedin' obvious that they are proper writers and I am not. Jenny is a writer, Giles a journalist, I a blogger. A poet, an artisan and a dilettante. The sheer quality of Jenny's writing in particular is unassailable.

Nevertheless it leaves open the question of genre. One of Jenny's essays is typically around 4,000 words, a piece by Giles 500, one of my blog posts maybe 400. So there is undoubtedly substance to essaying, indicative probably of breadth of thought and depth of subject matter. I don't think I could write 4,000 words about anything or even think enough thoughts on a single topic to engage to that degree. There is also the readership question. The London Review of Books has a circulation of 45,000, the Times 400,000. I have, measured by frequency of comment and interest expressed, a woman, a man and a cat called Coco. And I have yet to receive a comment from Coco, although she is clearly an influential reader. I say reader but cats obviously can't read - but they can look and, shortly after I started blogging, came a request for ... pictures. Later, a suggestion of moving pictures. Cats have eyes and paws and I can be pretty sure whence came these requests. What next, a catcast?

Worth noting that essays and comment columns don't have pictures or videos; hah!

The first essay in the book is Moving Day. It's initially about a live-in-lover moving out and segues to post-lover life as Jenny describes it:

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Nothing. Nothing. These are the days. Don't speak to anyone. Leave the answering machine on. This is it, then. Me in my space. Me and my melancholy. I do nothing. I get on with the new novel. Smoke. Drink coffee. Smoke. Write. Stare at ceiling. Smoke. Write. Lie on the sofa. Drink coffee. Write. It is a kind of heaven.

It does sound heavenly. Well, perhaps without the fags. And the caffeine. And the melancholy. She claims that "a fraud is being perpetrated: writing is not work, it's doing nothing." I don't really know what this means but I find it an attractive notion.

There's a deal of self-revelation in her writing which I personally could not countenance. I guess it's one of the many things that would distance me from any proper writer, that I write at a distance from my subject matter, keeping myself at arm's length from the reader by deflecting into frippery. A serious writer reveals her soul; I'm not sure I have one.  There's a final question: longevity. In fifty years' time there will be people in this world reading Jenny's essays. In comparison, my blog posts are transient, of momentary interest hopefully but nothing more, almost designed to be disposable as I move on to the next topic passing by my impatient mind.

What I do have is personal contact with my readers; can a novelist hope to replicate that? I'm not sure who a novelist writes for but I suspect it might be herself. I write for my readers. Who will probably be relieved to know that I won't be troubling you with reviews of all thirty four of these essays. I made this decision after reading the second, with its gruesome details of the murders committed by Jeffrey Dahmer and Dennis Nilsen, in which the author explores the realms of background, motive, remorse and punishment. I can imagine Coco covering her eyes and ears already.

Tonight's essay subject: Howard Hughes: "He Could Afford It". Maybe it will sleep me a good sleep. "Our little life is rounded with a sleep" (The Tempest).

Throughout my life, I never thought of myself as a writer. That's not going to change.