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Basil D'Oliveira

I am half way through Peter Obourne's book on the great all rounder. (Those with no interest in cricket had better stop here: in fact those who are interested in cricket should stop here as well, and go immediately to find out what's happening in the final Pakistan-India test.)
A fantastically moving book. Dolly barely got to play on grass until he came to England to play club cricket at the age of 28, and didn't play an officially recognised first class game until he was 30. Not bad for an England player who ended up with 2,484 runs averaging over 40, and 47 wickets. His best playing years were spent in South Africa playing on dirt and canvas covered pitches, where he was renowned, among other things, for his love of hitting sixes. When he first arrived in England he was delayed getting out of the airport as he couldn't find the blacks and coloured channels, similarly when he first went to play for his club, he stood outside for a long time wondering where the changing room was for non-white players.
As Obourne points out, we hear much of the great white South African players (Richards, Proctor et al) who were denied their prime playing years by the boycott of South Africa, but little of the many "non-white" players who were never allowed a chance and of whom we have not heard.
Another thing I didn't know (or had forgotten) was that when they introduced the Population Act of 1950, to define the population by race, members of the same families could be differently classified, not only hugely affecting their prospects, freedom etc., but also meaning they could no longer live in the same area, let alone house. If your son was classified coloured, he could not even legally visit a parent who lived in a white area.
More amusingly, I like the idea of BJ Vorster thinking the MCC Committee of the mid-sixties were a bunch of dangerous, subversive pinkos.

Duchess of Health 3

Old Tish was on the today prog today (she started the politicians favourite "Let's be clear", trans: to obfuscate) actually saying what the Grauniad so keenly anticipated on Monday. The Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust (deficit: £14m) is one of ten trusts "named and shamed" for poor financial management. I can't say I've noticed many signs of profligacy ("Golden Oscietra Caspian caviar with your x-ray, sir?") when I've been. When we visit are we supposed to fix the staff with a severe look and say "Shame on you" . Apparently not, as our frontline services are doing a magnificent job (criticising nurses, doctors and policeman is politically verbotten) so it must be the fault of all the accountants/managers etc. who both the Tories and Labour have been so keen to see running our hospitals.

Duchess of Health 2

The ghastly Hewitt woman takes up the main headline in the Guardian today. "She is expected to say that financial management must have a higher priority than clinical objectives during the coming year". Bloody fucking news people. It's what we hear all the time on the Today programme (except when I remember not to listen, habits are habits, on which Ken Tynan had some apposite wit on stained habits - perhaps it will come to me). Why don't they wait till she says it! Then they can report it. I, however, am free to rant at will on the mere reports (am I a fucking news programme? Am I? Well. I ask you.) Well done Patty (salary £133,997), at last you have responded to the people's wishes. I for one never enter a hospital with out thinking, "I do hope they impose proper financial constraints when considering whether or not to give me the best available treatment."
"We think we should operate to remove your tumour"
"But have you considered the cost implications? Your half-year accounts forecast overspending totalling £948m by the end of March. I think it's best if you just leave it."
Ah, yes. Ken Tynan said (or more likely wrote) "Old hards die habits". Slightly tortuous, but you get the idea.

Duchess of Health

I heard Patricia Hewitt on the Today programme this morning (no links, I am not spreading her words). A more smug, self-righteous, stuck-up, pompous, patronising ass would be hard to find. It could be just the affected "posh" accent of the Australian expat that grates (surely all ex-Canberra Girl's Grammar School girls don't sound like this?). But it's not. It's the formulaic apparatchik "I'm glad you asked me that" type responses that make me want to vomit. And I'm not even going to mention her role as Director of Research for Andersen Consulting.

Jeffrey Lewis

I came across Jeffrey Lewis on the Andy Kershaw show recently singing Williamsberg Willy Oldham Horror, which I thought was magnificent. It is still available on Radio 3 listen again.
Go to the 8 January 2006 prog. The song is about 59 minutes in. A tour de force on life, art and the life of the artist.

Another masterpiece is The History of Punk on the Lower East Side from his album The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane.

Enjoy

Good read

I heard a fine edition of A Good Read last week (no longer available for listening to, I fear) on European crime fiction. Ok, let's not beat around the bush, on the superiority of Euro crime fiction (this being the use of European which excludes British). And pleasing it was to hear that three out of five of Marcel Berlins' recommendations were my own favourites, Camilleri, Vargas and Lucarelli.

I was given a (signed, no less) copy of Robert Fisk's The Great War For Civilisation for Christmas. It weighs in at just under 1,400 pages, which makes bath and bed time reading quite tricky. It is best suited, not inappropriately, to being read bible-style, from a lecturn. I looked at a number of reviews and, despite one by an ex-ambassador in the Guardian, which highlights some factual and translation inaccuracies, struggled to find one which seriously challenged his overview, ie: that the west has been fucking the Middle East for a century (see also Steve Bell), and that we reap what we sow. I found one review (since lost) in which Fisk admitted that after page 230 (I'm guessing here) there were no laughs. As I am now on page 250 and already weighed down by the unremitting tales of torture and slaughter, this is not entirely encouraging.

As I write this, news has just come in of the victory of Michelle Bachelet in the Chilean presidential elections. The socialist doctor, working mother, victim of torture etc. has become the second female head of state of a South American nation, and the first who is not the protagonist in a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. I raise my glass to the latest Latin leftist leader.

Happy Noo Year (hic)

Well here we are again after an extended Christmas break. It only seems reasonable to take up where I left off, and where I have been all this time. I was in Lancing yesterday (the "town", not the public school) in search of its architectural highlights. There were none, but I did find a copy of the TLS from 28.10.05 on sale at the library for five pence. It contains the following information about Anthony Burgess...

In the sixties Burgess and his wife Lynn would get through a dozen bottles of gin a week, despite hardly ever entertaining. He liked a couple of bottles of wine with his evening meal, pints with double whisky chasers down the pub. If in need of stimulation, he would take three dexedrine tablets, washed down with a pint of G & T. For a pick-me-up, he mixed a cocktail called Hangman's Blood:
"Into a pint beer glass doubles of the following are poured: gin, whisky, rum, port and brandy. A small bottle of stout is added, and the whole topped up with champagne. It enduces a somewhat metaphysical elation, and rarely leaves a hangover."

Burgess died of lung cancer, aged 76, possibly related to his 80 a day cigarette/cigar habit. His wife, Lynn, died aged 47 of cirrhosis.