The Aged P

Why am I creepy? I’m hardly pro Palin, if that’s your insinuation.

What sort of person would use that as a defence?

But let’s begin at the beginning.

Perusing the UK Daily Telegraph online, yesterday (I refuse to put a portion of my hard earned pension into the wallets of the Barclay brothers for the dubious pleasure of reading the latest trillings from Bryony Gordon printed on a dead tree) I came across this review of Nick Broomfield’s documentary on Governor Palin by the DT’s film critic, Tim Robey.

Now as I am on a fixed income and therefore have to count my pennies I must confess that I don’t usually read Mr Robey’s pieces because I can rarely afford the luxury of a visit to the cinema or the renting of a DVD – it would be like pressing my nose against the toyshop window lusting for the £50 robot dog with my 25p clutched in my hand. But I understand in the world of the cultural media elite he is highly regarded by the great and the good (including that arbiter of all things artistic, Guy Lodge) and, on the few occasions I have read his musings, I have no reason to dispute the contention that his place in the higher levels of London’s Culture Heap is richly deserved.

So, having a passing interest in the world of US politics, I linked onto his Broomfield article to find out his opinion of the film.

To be fair to Mr Robey he wasn’t particularly impressed with it either technically or artistically. Of course he was rather sniffy about the Governor’s parents (“all homespun pieties” with “an impressive mountain of antlers in their yard”) and ended up with the usual stuff about the significance of “approval ratings” more than a year before an election but hey…what do you expect – he’s a film critic and it’s the Daily Telegraph for crying out loud….par for the course…

But then I read this..

There’s something creepy, for sure, about the fierce guarding of Palin’s reputation in town

…and I thought creepy? He thinks it’s creepy for people in Wasilla to treat Broomfield like something unpleasant stuck on the sole of your shoe?

So I looked up Mr Robey’s profile at the Telegraph, couldn’t get that word out of my head and took off for Planet Twitter

TheAgedP The Aged P The creepy @trim_obey at UK Telegraph creepily predictable on Broomfields Palin film (which bombed even with US left)tgr.ph/olVclY

Which prompted a reply which I initially regarded as hilarious but on further reflection seemed to be rather sad….

trim_obey Tim Robey @TheAgedP Why am I creepy? I’m hardly pro Palin, if that’s your insinuation.

He had assumed, I fancy, that I was some sort of lefty wingnut who had felt he was being too soft on her. Did he suddenly have visions of being cold shouldered at the next North London dinner party or struck off the BBC Newsnight invitation list for being a crypto Tea Partier or, even worse, another David Starkey?

Worrying….

What had triggered my response, however, was the fact that, although he had regarded the film’s technical and artistic values as rather shallow, Mr Robey had appeared to accept, at face value, Broomfields presentation of “the facts”

Gradually, though, the gossip they dig up from erstwhile friends and campaign managers – giving the lie to popularity-boosting Palin myths about her sports prowess and family life – prompts the communal cold shoulder.

I thought that was a sloppy piece of journalism, especially when I recollected what The New York Magazine had said about Broomfield in their review

• Broomfield wants to show what a superficial individual Palin is, so he includes a sequence about her alleged plastic surgery and Bump-it hairdo. Ah, sexist and inconsequential! Point: Palin!
• Broomfield attempts to highlight the suffering Palin caused others by introducing scandal after scandal, then cutting to a shot of its victims trashing Palin. The result: Regardless of the viability of their grievances, her enemies just look like spurned brats. Point: Palin!
• To try to paint a compelling portrait of Palin’s two-faced, evil nature, Broomfield regurgitates just about every blog post from the last three years, throws in clips of the Katie Couric interview (which at this point would put even Rachel Maddow to sleep), and digs into the revelation that Palin wasn’t actually nicknamed “Barracuda” because of her intensity on the high school basketball court, but rather because she liked the Heart song of the same name. Point: Palin!

The NYM is the newssheet of anyone who is anything in the hip cultural elite of US media, more Tina Brown than Tina Brown herself, light years from Wasilla and as Palin unfriendly as you can get – yet even they smelt something fishy about Broomfield.

Which is why I tweeted this

TheAgedP The Aged P @trim_obey a more honest review from a source that could never be described as Palin friendly http://bit.ly/r6LvKb

This obviously touched a nerve.

trim_obey Tim Robey @TheAgedP Perhaps that’s me being credulous, which you’re more than welcome to argue, but I don’t see how it’s dishonest.

There were further exchanges between us of a similar nature but I hope you get the drift of the debate, such as it was. There was, of course, no resolution. Mr Robey could obviously not accept my point that anyone who gets paid, probably quite generously, for writing in the public prints, needs to do a little of what R S McCain calls shoeleather on a topic or, at the very least, employ that golden “get out of jail” card of every hack – the word “alleged”

Should I have bothered? Was it worth all the hassle? I think it was. People like Sarah Palin, Herman Cain, Margaret Thatcher and other conservatives unafraid to challenge the assumptions held dear by a media/academic elite overwhelmingly imbued with the ideas of the liberal left will always have to endure the prospect of death by a thousand cuts – phrases, comments slipped so often into discourse that, Lysenko like, they become accepted as truisms. The beauty of the internet is that, at last, the journalists can be held to account. With a much smaller megaphone, of course, but at least something can be heard – though Mr Robey might not agree

trim_obey Tim Robey @TheAgedP Yes, I’m sure my media career is finished. Good luck with yours.

Heh – as Prof Reynolds would say – how about that Army of Davids?

PS…..I am distraught – I have been crucified by Guy Lodge himself…..

@GuyLodge:@TheAgedP @trim_obey What’s creepy about this back-and-forth, if I may, isn’t anyone’s stance on Palin, honestly influenced or otherwise…. It’s that you’d use a fairly coolly argued review as a springboard for a personal attack on someone you don’t know.

..as distinct from “a fairly coolly argued review” which implies that someone he doesn’t know who has a political background with which he appears to be totally unfamiliar has not discouraged untruths about herself for political gain, Mr Lodge?

Heh….

This and this show a side of George W Bush that appears not to have been reported by the BBC…..I wonder why? Surely they cannot have an agenda…..after all didn’t they do a massive highlight on this report about Katrina, debunking many of the myths? I’m sure they did….

Would you buy your organic yoghurt from one of these hunky Somerset farmers?

My how those Somerset farmers have changed….

Yeo Valley pitched their commercial especially for the UK X Factor – it comes to something when a lot of viewers find an advert more interesting than the over ramped narcolepsy inducing Simon Cowell TV dross…..and The Wurzels are still going strong after forty years or so. Great music, their gigs are always sold out but they would never ever win X Factor….probably a moral there, somewhere….

In a spot of surpassing peace and beauty on a lonely hillside in the Ashdown Forest in Sussex we often pause for a while at The Airman’s Grave. It is not really a grave but a memorial to brave young men who gave their tomorrows for our today.

In July 1941 a RAF Wellington bomber was returning from a raid over Germany. In bad weather and with only one engine working it crashed onto a hill in the Ashdown Forest, killing the six crew members. A little while after the crash the mother of Sgt Vic Sutton, the 2nd pilot, came to live in the nearby village of Nutley and had a simple wooden cross placed near the site of the crash in memory of her son and his five comrades.

Over the years the Forest Rangers have looked after the memorial, replacing the original cross with one of stone, planting a small garden and finally building a wall to keep the forest sheep away from the plants.

Each year in November, on Remembrance Sunday, hundreds of people gather on the sloping hillside to honour the memory of these men and all others who gave their lives and futures so that we may live free from being terrorised by evil men who wish us harm.

When you go home
Tell them of us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today

Just can’t get enough of Eddie Izzards quirky, whimsical humour….only he could come up with the concept of Darth Vader getting annoyed with a wet tray…..sublime….

Yesterday was as gloriously sunny as it was last week when we went here but with a cooler autumnal edge. Walking up the hill to post a letter my boots were crunching thousands of acorns and their cups, dropped onto the grass from the line of oaks gracing the road’s boundary.

This time last year, I reflected, I was looking forward to my trip to Chicago for the C4P meet up and the chance to socialise with a cross section of those extraordinary ordinary Americans supporting Sarah Palin including some who, at times, commented upon my own irregular posts.

But now I was feeling rather flat after the week’s news, partly in myself but more so for those good people I met in Chicago as well as all the other C4P regulars and a whole host of friends I have made in the Twitterverse.

As an invited guest in the barbarian encampment I could only, of course, be an observer. My country has its own political travails which naturally have a greater impact on my life and the lives of those I love. But US politics have always been of great significance to me for our two countries are bound together by historical, cultural and linguistic ties that are too strong to be broken asunder by the odd family disagreement. So I have been a great watcher of the American scene and enjoyed the cut and thrust of your politics as a kind of spectator sport.

But Sarah Palin struck a different chord in me, as she did with all of you. This charismatic lady came from out of the blue generating a feeling of trust and hope for the future at a time when many could only see darkened clouds on the horizon. I rejoiced at the impact she made upon millions of ordinary people – but also found myself burning with anger at the highly orchestrated attempt to denigrate her with lies, calumnies and disdainful sneers – not so much from the left for that is their stock in trade but from the so called right, the Frums, the Parkers and the Sullivans. Like all of those I met in Chicago I wanted to do something even though I lived 3,000 miles away across the ocean. So I wrote this and subsequent blog posts and eventually got invited to post on C4P by Rebecca Mansour.

Which is why, of course, like so many of you I am feeling disappointed – and as I watch her enemies dance and gloat that sadness becomes compounded, just as it did on November 22nd, 1990. But please don’t be downhearted for long. Who knows what surprises the future might bring for Sarah Palin or her supporters. Only time will tell. As for her enemies they should savour the moment while they can for some time in the future fate will surely deliver their come uppance…

One thing, however, is certain. None of you will forget her and, hopefully, many of you will use that memory to continue a commitment to political activity – and one day an American President might well walk into the Oval Office for the first time, put a photo of Sarah Palin on his or her desk, give it a nod of thanks then begin to clean up America.

So, I have just poured myself a tankard of honest English ale to raise a toast to all my Palin supporting friends across the ocean…

Cheers…….Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien

Cheers…..thanks for the ride

Cheers……now, what’s next on the agenda?

Oh yes – shove a sharp stick up the anterior orifice of the odious Mark Mardell, the BBC’s man in Washington….

Now – where’s that other bottle……

Mark Mardell, the BBC’s man in the USA, lets the mask slip in a rather unpleasant piece on Governor Palin’s decision not to enter the 2012 Presidential race.

Shriekily filled with venom against a president she branded a socialist and suggested was un-American, in love with guns, God and the unborn, apparently ignorant of the outside world, indeed not fully clued up on the lower 48 (the USA outside Alaska)

What a perfect example of well informed, deeply researched political analysis – paid for, I might add, by a poll tax on everyone who owns a TV set in Britain.

Holding true to the definitive snake oil salesman’s code of practice that the best way to present an untruth is to baldly state it as a fact, Mardell goes for broke.

Sarah Palin’s decision will have disappointed some.
Not the American people who clearly didn’t like her as John McCain’s running mate in 2008.

Excuse me? If that was the case why was it that the only time that the McCain ticket led Obama in the polls was in the first half of September after Palin joined it? After September 15th, of course, the ticket was dead in the water – not because of Palin but due to McCain’s deer-in-the-headlights reaction to the Lehman Brothers collapse.

Naturally Mardell ignores policy positions and goes for the personal…

As a result we have Michelle Bachmann in the race. Herman Cain in the race. Rick Perry in the race.
They are all more authentic, more intelligent, more acceptable than Palin

Hmmmm….Mr Mardell – are you saying Camille Paglia is is just some dumb broad?

No evidence to back this up, of course. Indeed what is fascinating is how Mardell is trying desperately to portray Palin as some sort of X Factor “celebrity” without any connection to the world of serious politics. No reference to her years of executive experience in Alaska as a successful city mayor or popular governor. No reference to her fight against corruption in her own party or her triumphant battles against the big oil companies.

But then why in the world would any rational person be at all surprised at this bucketful of poisonous bile?

It’s Mark Mardell..

For years he was paid by the BBC to pimp the EU as their man in Brussels. Then, when the they began to believe their own hope&change crapola about a totally unvetted Chicago Daley machine hack with zero executive experience, Mardell’s bosses decided to send him to Washington as a kind of court correspondent to wax lyrical about the new Camelot. He must have been delirious with joy, foreseeing an eight year stint pimping for Obama.

But it has all gone horribly wrong. The Obamacare shambles, the ever swelling deficit, the lobbyist rewarding stimulus that has failed to dent unemployment, the ATF guns scandal, the Democrats losing control of the house in 2010, the emergence of the tea party (which, characteristically, Mardell ignored for well over a year )…..

Mardell could even be characterised as the Comical Ali of the Obama regime

a cult figure thanks to his wild claims and colourful language

Obama is crumbling and there is precious little reward in pimping a failure. Hence the vitriolic attack on Palin. When the Brooks/Douthat/Frum axis of appeasement was advocating accomodation with Obama and Huntsman seemed the future Palin was the only leading light of the GOP who was calling him out. Her predictions have been vindicated. She was right about Obama – Mardell and his ilk were wrong – and how it must hurt to be outsmarted by someone “apparently ignorant of the outside world, indeed not fully clued up on the lower 48”

Here’s a suggestion for the BBC, supposedly in cost cutting mode. Why not save money by getting rid of Mardell and just giving White House spokesman Jay Carney a few dollars extra to blah blah blah about the Potemkin villages of Obamaland.

The song will be the same as Mardell’s but the price will be much lower…

BTW…he predicts it will almost certainly be Romney v Perry, ignoring the latest polls about Cain. Time for the Race Card, methinks…

His girl friend compained that he hadn’t made any garlic bread – so he killed her, stabbing her 30 times.

A man was on the edge of a tower block balcony threatening to jump. Neighbours and police were trying to persuade him to get back but below a crowd gathered shouting “Jump”…they got their wish.

This woman was having a night out with friends and family when she was groped by some guy as she walked across the pub. She slapped his face. He smashed her in the face with a glass, leaving one of her eyes permanently damaged.

A couple were at home when they received a call inviting them to a torture party. They joined in the physical abuse of a young man and enjoyed it so much they invited everyone to take him to their house to make his life even more miserable.

No doubt the BBC/Guardian would blame it on THE CUTS – but old Tom Hobbes would have had a different view of a world where morality is mocked and law is absent from the streets…

no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Ah, Mr W, you are still one of my musical heroes……

At 87 Slim Whitman is still around (though he heard rumours of his own death in 2008) but in the early 50s he was very big on the US country scene. In America he had faded in the charts by the end of the decade but he was always popular in Europe and frequently toured there.

With his falsetto voice and yodelling breaks he was always instantly recognisable. A navy man during WW2 his first big break came when he was contacted, pre Presley, by Colonel Tom Parker and got his first record contract.

In 1952 his big break came when he reached #2 in the US Country chart with “Indian Love Call”. He tended to sing songs of love and romance and his crooning style was not always popular with some country purists. Nevertheless compilations of his greatest hits have always sold well and, within the first two seconds many could still recognise those distinctive swirling perfectly pitched notes..

The other trademark of the Whitman sound is the “singing steel guitar” of Hoot Rains..

The soaring notes of the steel guitar can be heard in many of Slim’s early songs. It all started by accident in the classic, “Love Song of the Waterfall.” One night while performing the song, Hoot overshot a note sending it soaring skyward. Slim asked Hoot after the show, “what happened out there”? Hoot said, “I missed it.” Slim liked what he heard and said, with a wry grin, “Well, miss it again!” They soon worked this unusual new sound into his songs. They called this new technique “shooting arrows..

….and the Slim Whitman version of the classic western number “Cool Water” written by Bob Nolan, of Sons of the Pioneers fame.

Surfing the net for Slim one consistent narrative appears to be that his voice brings back fond memories, even amongst people who were not around in his heyday – I wonder if anyone will be saying that in sixty years time over Lady Ga Ga?

BTW – if you want to meet up with the Slim Whitman Appreciation Society then go here….

…if ever a mortal heard the voice of God it would be in a garden…

These days on the cusp between September and October have been gloriously sunny and warm so it seemed appropriate for us to take a wander around nearby Sheffield Park. With grassy slopes, peaceful lakes and sweeping trees it’s a fitting memorial to the genius of Lancelot “Capability” Brown who originally laid it out 250 years ago.

Brown and other pioneers of English 18th century garden design rejected the formal, geometric patterns of the French tradition, exemplified by Versailles. Instead they endeavoured to create an ideal landscape reflecting the English countryside.

Rolling lawns, clumps of trees, all outlined against the sky and mirrored by the waters of lakes and pools, each one edged with paths and crossed by elegantly sculptured bridges….

Brown likened his work to that of the poet..”Here I put a comma, there, when it’s necessary to cut the view, I put a parenthesis; there I end it with a period and start on another theme.”

One key point to remember is that this could never be “instant” gardening….it had to be a vision that might take as long as fifty years to reach its final flourish.

He that plants trees loves others beside himself

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in

Over the years subsequent generations have developed the garden in sympathy with Brown’s vision. On one edge is a path leading upwards….

….to a cricket pitch, laid out by a nineteenth century owner. Still the venue for rural enthusiasts to strive for local glory it also has an important place in the history of England’s cricketing annals for hosting one of the earliest matches between England and Australia in 1884.

The photographer photographed….by my Blackberry…