Even Politicians Can Have Holidays

There was an article in The Independent newspaper the other day, that I felt I had to respond to. The following is a copy of that response, that I sent to the paper with the hope that they might include it in their Letters page:-

EVEN POLITICIANS CAN HAVE HOLIDAYS

I refer to the article by Cahal Milmo (28/12/06) entitled 'With friends like these...', concerning the Prime Minister's holidays.

As an avid Independent reader of about 2/3 months, I was shocked by the substituition of normal, sensible, reasoned criticism of a politician's work, with the scurrilous, shabby treatment of the Blairs' off-duty breaks, and the attempt to blur the gap between the two. Even politicians are allowed holidays. The writer made every effort to smear the Prime Minister and his wife, with a variety of illogical, non-arguments. If Sir Cliff Richard has offered hospitality to the Blairs, and this has been accepted on four different occasions, doesn't that sound like the perfect holiday arrangement - and of course Sir Cliff would keep it quiet, as it was a private holiday. We are not told about wonderful freebie holidays the writer has received - and I don't want to know, thank you - that's private as well.

Why can't Mr. Blair play Bajan folk songs on holiday - I didn't know it was banned. Robin Gibb is described as an ageing celebrity or the 57-year-old disco star. I didn't know it was a crime to age, or to be successful. Why can't he and Mr. Blair be friends - and for one to offer the other somewhere to stay for a holiday?

Kind regards,
Barrie Gordon


So, that was the letter I sent to The Independent on Thursday. I think it unlikely that they will publish it for several reasons, including simply that they might not have room on the Letters page. However, there is a 'longer' response, particularly as the paper compounded the problem by featuring another article, this time by a different writer, but written along very similar lines, in Friday's edition. This article ran under the title: 'Mystery of the Blairs' £50, 000 holiday at Gibb home deepens' by Terri Judd.

At this point I was going to go back to the 28th December report, but on looking at it again, it is such a cesspit of comments, that I'm going to review the 'Mystery' story instead. First off, there seems to be no mystery - so at this point there is no story. Any amount of money is immaterial. Renting a holiday place, for a few pounds or millions is not relevant. I obviously would agree that if public funds were used for a private holiday, then that would be a very serious matter, requiring Mr. Blair to account for his actions and so on, but no case is made in these two articles for that. The writer does talk about the possibility of money going to charity. Isn't that a good thing? No, it wouldn't be, if it came from taxpayers, but as I said, no argument has been constructed.

The 'Mystery' writer spends much time conjecturing about possible air fares - how much would it have cost and all that - for no reason. There's talk about Mr. Blair calling Robin Gibb a 'hero' . So what?! And, to cap it all, the writer reports that bookmakers are already offering odds on the personality that would host the Blair's next family holiday.....and the relevance is?? He can go on holiday, staying at the house of a 'mere mortal' or a 'personality'. It doesn't matter which, but it is important that he's afforded the privacy we all expect for ourselves.

Finally, why does the 'Mystery' article appear in the section headed: Home. Politics. when the story is clearly about neither.

My New Year's resolution, quickly formed over the last few days, is to read The Independent less. I would have said 'never again' but I still do like Tracey Emin's column on a Friday, and there are interesting articles, on art and such like, but when you can't trust a paper to publish their 'serious' articles with accuracy and fairness, then things have reached a sorry state. In the 29th December edition there was a report on the artist Norman Rockwell - or rather the family financial disputes that have arisen since his death. I think that was the gist of the article, but because I was having doubts about the validity of the articles in the paper, and I have thrown most of the paper out, I can't tell you exactly what it was about. The reason I didn't read it fully, was that I didn't know it was the truth, and I didn't want to be misled.

A hope for 2007, is that the quality of journalism improves, not only in The Independent, but elsewhere as well. It would be useful, as an experiment in improvement, for example, for The Independent to publish yet again one of their daily editions as a Special Edition. The print would be exactly the same as the original, except that some of the purported factual reports would have a line through them to indicate that they infact were neither factual nor fair, if that were the case. In the long run, both the paper and the public, would benefit where genuine trust could be established.

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Happy New Year

Snowy Park

Photo taken in the winter a few years ago. Today it's far too warm for snow.

Happy Christmas!

"The Hilton India, please"

...or 'The things people say'.

I was travelling on a busy tube on Wednesday, happily engrossed in my newspaper, when I overheard a man on his mobile. He was close by, so I heard it clearly: "The Hilton India, please". He didn't say anything else at all, but stayed on the phone for a few minutes. It just struck me as funny, and it made me wonder what it was all about. In those situations you conjure up all sorts of scenarios, possibly several way off the mark, but who knows. Was he through to India, making an enquiry about a possible booking or through to international phone enquiries to get a number? Is there such a thing as The Hilton India in the UK? I obviously don't know, and I'm not spending time finding out. In the end it was down to him, and him alone, and I got to laugh about it. It struck me also, that he may have been spinning a joke himself, as my mobile doesn't work for much of the underground, so his may not have either.

Then there was the time I was on the tube, and there was the announcement: "This is to remind all customers, that there is no swimming anywhere on the underground"...or so I heard! I don't think there was anything freudian about it, just that I hadn't heard right. It's usually 'smoking' that isn't allowed anywhere on the underground - you can swim there as much as you like!

In 1981, my wife was expecting our second child. On Friday 20th February the baby stopped moving, and shortly afterwards we went to the hospital for an urgent scan. The Ultrasonographer knew the reason we were there, and started the process. Within a few moments she was complaining that "There must be something wrong with the machine" when nothing showed up on the monitor. We said to her that that was probably because the baby was dead. She didn't seem fazed by this at all. I don't remember her saying anything remotely apologetic. I don't know if she ever learned anything from the experience, so I hope she ultimately lost her job. And the baby, Marie, was dead.

Then there was the time in our first house when we had flowers in every room, of all colours, types, and descriptions. There was the scent of the flowers everywhere. There was a ring at the front door, and a delivery man was standing there with another bunch of flowers, and he said "What's the happy occasion?". I told him there wasn't one - our daughter was stillborn. He was very sorry, and clearly felt awkward about assuming the best. I hope this incident didn't curb him making positive innocent comments elsewhere.

We were having our kitchen done in our first house, and the Irish tiler had just completed his tiling. He invited us to have a look. The tiles were patterned, clearly orientated top and bottom, and we said to him straight away that they were upside down. He said no words, but gracefully went forward and started to unhinge them from the adhesive to turn them round. We had to laugh later when we had the chance.

On Thursday I climbed on to a morning commuter bus, and made my way through the crowd and started to stand. Immediately a young teenage girl said "Would you like a seat?" I was very pleasantly taken aback at the coutesy of that girl, particularly as some people are prone to deride youth and assume only the worse of them. Of course I also thought 'Hang on, do I look that old?' I'm 52, not yet in my dotage. It also struck me that this was probably the first time this had happened. I declined of course!, feeling frisky as I do at present but you never know it might be worth accepting sometime. Oh, must go, got to collect my pension!