It’s got really cold, wet and miserable in the last week. Welcome another long English winter. The long dark nights are drawing in, the scarves, gloves and hats have come out the bottom of wardrobes, and thermals nestle underneath our clothes. This is your life for the next five months, so you best make do.

There is nothing worse than a double glazing advertisement. However, there is nothing worse than not having double glazing. How am I supposed to function in a terraced house, with irregular heating hours and with single paneled windows in the middle of an English winter? I don’t have a death wish, but death does indeed seem on the cards.

A balding middle aged man harangues another during another insipid double glazing commercial, I can hardly stomach it. My shivering wreck of a body takes me to a place that seems entirely closed to me – that of actually ringing the advertisements flashing number. I had always thought I was particularly hard; able to withstand both extremes of temperatures, but my sulky resignation to irritating marketing ploys defies all my previous self respect. I ring the number, the man from the advertisement seems a lot calmer now, he’s lost some of his flustered excitement and seems to want to get down to the real nitty-gritty of selling me some extra window panes.

What am I thinking! Am I the only person in the whole country that has been sucked in by the most excruciatingly painful advertisement on TV? What more damage can a winter do to a man’s own self respect!

Earlier in the week the Daily Telegraph reported that teams of police will be on guard to control crowds when a large new Ikea store opens in Coventry later this month. It’s hard to fathom exactly why police presence is required in the case of simply opening a furniture store. Is it that they’re they expecting hordes of middle aged couples to riot mercilessly over depleting stocks of an overpriced lampshade? Please don’t get me wrong, I realise Ikea shoppers are perfectly capable of reenacting scenes of the D-Day landings in their zealous attempts to snap up items like the Linford Christie designed shoe horn or the Wayne Sleep designed cat flap, so maybe police control is necessary after all?

Ikea’s invasion of our own nation very much seems to simulate these expectant scenes in Coventry. It rushed into our traditional pine furniture markets and killed them off in its pronouncement over the imperativeness of modernism and ergonomics. Even MFI is dying a slow death and as much as I had wished this is as a small child being dragged around its fitted office and kitchen spaces, I never stepped into an Ikea until much later.

Even then I don’t believe that I had to force my way inside, I believe I just walked in calmly and spent a nice Sunday afternoon wishing I had the money to buy a nice shiny little fork. I must admit though that I find it a little absurd this enthusiasm for people to go furniture shopping just to later be bamboozled with having to assemble nine pieces of irregular shaped wood with about seven types of screws. Still, I continue to wonder whether the citizens of Coventry will be relaxed in their response to the grand opening, or will the X-Factor be rudely interrupted by news broadcasts of an all out Ikea war in the Midlands? That would suddenly spice up a bland televisual experience of your usual Saturday night at home.

I don’t really know what to make of this other than the argument that the best candidate for the job should get this position regardless of  their ethnic background. As Martin Luther King Jr famously said in his address at the March on Washington Movement in 1963: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”.

This week: 3 “Great” British Childrens TV shows

As a kid growing up in the late 80’s/early 90’s I had the privilege of being exposed to some particularly great shows. Whilst in every generation there seems to come a new phenomenon; whether it’s Teletubbies, Thomas the Tank Engine or even Tin Tin, for me there was always certain shows close to my heart. Here they are in no particular order:

Bananaman
Voiced by the Goodies and based on the comics of the late John Geering, the adventures of Eric Twinge and his crime fighting alter ego ‘bananaman’ stirred me into a pathological hatred of any other form of fruit. It is because of Eric’s incapable love for the news reader Fiona, and her subsequent love for bananaman that I was known to keep devouring large quantities of the monkey fruit.

SuperTed

At one time in my life the ‘welshness’ of shows like SuperTed and Fireman Sam made my English accent my mortal enemy. In trying to refute it, I was dreaming of becoming either the Ted (whispering the secret magic word for my power) or subsequently his space-dust empowered companion Spotty. What was particular haunting was the sideline the creators made in producing exceedingly tasty SuperTed Vitamin Tablets; unfortunately rumours of your friend getting their stomach pumped abounded far too frequently.

Poddington Peas

BBC’s healthy obsession in combining cartoons with fruits and vegetables seemed to strike a particular chord between me and my young friends. I expect that during the airing of this show Birdseye sold more peas than ever. The peas story ‘down at the bottom of the garden’, where all garden objects were gargantuan beasts, also caused a shift in attitudes towards allotments. The once boring, banal plots suddenly became the centre of the universe for subverted young minds like my own. I want those hours back.

Where we have: “Ello there, guv”, a greeting commonly exhibited amongst male friends of certain familiarity, which is fairly centric to London, and almost always precedes the further inquisition; “how’s it all going?” there then exists the: “Hello, how are you?” which is a largely formal way of inquiring about an acquaintance, and is also probably the most sensible way of greeting someone of an unfamiliar appearance. Then there is “alright?” and that’s where the trouble begins.

“Alrights” place in the catalogue of English greetings is a particularly difficult one. It isn’t really a sentence or a question. It is mainly nonsensical and is largely devoid of true sentiment. It has however turned into something of a necessary tool for teenagers and young adults alike. Give any other Anglophonic nation the ‘A’ word, and receive stony stares, bewilderment or even a literal response; “Yes I’m doing great thanks” – is exactly the kind of response a mumbled “Alright” deliberately attempts to avoid.

“Alrights” function is to simply acknowledge the presence of someone recognized, whilst indicating that there is no time or will to stop and exchange niceties. It is in a way a form of dismissal, which is abused by the shy and retiring types of our nation. The adoption of the word in this new context has significantly marked a dramatic departure away from its adjectival or inquisitive purpose. It is now a very familiar greeting, or indeed non-greeting, that has wormed its way onto the streets of Britain and has burrowed deep into heart of our youth culture. The next time someone mutters “alright?” counter them with a; “I so desperately need to talk to you!” and watch the awkwardness unfold.

  Saying “Alright” is tantamount to burying your head in the sand.

To round off a rather political tone this week, I’d like to draw your attention to British Universities and the current debates being channeled through such institutions. Currently at the University of Sussex; an institution which some agree that I should be privileged to attend (but otherwise I am not so sure); a debate is raging over whether the controversial British political party the BNP should be allowed to air their views on the campus facilities.

Sussex with its long tradition as proprietors of free speech, seems to have finally realized the limitations of adhering to something which in truth can only be an ideological concept. A society in which there is complete freedom of speech, is something that can never surely be realized as long as it continues to remain pluralized and variegated. In saying ‘we are for freedom of speech, but this voice shall remain silenced’, is there not a slight return to the totalitarian repudiations that the University is guarding against so fervently in the first place?

For those of you who don’t know your BNP from your B&B, the BNP is a party which runs on largely fascist principles. Although distancing themselves from the stereotypical racism one might come to expect, a strong sense of xenophobia and fear of racial mixing is propagated by the party’s assertions. It is important that we hear their voice in order to determine what is wrong and what is right; if such voices are repressed and sentiments ignored, do we not then come in line with their own strategies of authoritarian control and silencing the voice of the minority?

In British schools all students have to follow the national curriculum, that is an outlay of certain topics in varying subjects that are considered essential to the development of knowledge in young minds. Now, not all the educationary bods in our society can always agree on what should be encompassed in this curriculum, and this has lead to some bizarre points of dispute in the past.

None is more contested than that of the issue of creationism. Charles Darwin has been both the bane and saviour of scientific and religious lives in the recent history of our world. Much like (and I’m making an abstract comparison here) Salman Rushdie, he has been both vilified, glorified and completely ignored, but to withdraw the theory of evolution and natural selection from the mandatory lessons in school, is surely a step backward to the dark days of humanity.

Now discussion of this issue has been directly addressed by Parliament and can be seen on the British Humanist website: http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/contentPrintArticle.asp?article=1385 There they discuss the relative merits of the curriculum: “The school curriculum as a whole should promote the “spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils””. If this is so, shouldn’t students have the right to decide for themselves whether they accept the theories of Darwinism?

The primary purpose of the British schooling system should be to foster such questioning principles in students. Students should be welcomed to challenge the theories and the facts they learn on the curriculum. In a world where facts and theories are constantly refuted, there should be careful emphasis on whether all that students learn should be solidly set in stone.

For a young voter like myself, there is little accessible information as to what the state of UK politics actually is. It is true that an individual should be responsible for their own education in such fields, but how many of us can tear ourselves away from the insipient vertical transient that is our lives of studying, contemplating the future and consequent escapism.

David Cameron was on Parkinson last night. He talked and joked about how Kate Moss thought he was a plumber, and we all laughed. Well, some of us did. Others were waiting for more important pronouncements, such as what the Conservative party intends to do with the problems of immigration in our society, if indeed there is one? Well, just-for-laughs-Cameron appeared to be appealing to his so called youth voters simply in his claims to know the rich and famous. However, we are not a moronic generation driven by celebrity fascination, we require substantiality from our politicians, and should they make important declarations we will stand up and listen.

The fact is, there is no radical voice in politics. The average young voter is apathetic to politics, they believe that not only will their vote not count, but that there is no distinction as to who they vote for. There is no glamour in politics despite Cameron’s best efforts.

David’s jokes are best left unsaid……

The secondary usages of the Cornish Pasty that you highlight have indeed sown several seeds in my ill working brain:

How about their replacement of bricks and mortar to build a house sturdy enough to withdraw the fervent huffing and puffing of any hungry wolf?

Due to their unfortunate shape how about their use as a substitute to the traditional leather rugby ball? Catching one in the middle of a game would certainly add a little more delight to the players faces, additionally it would justify the length and means (i.e. tearing each other apart) to get to the blasted thing.

Sometimes the English can be downright sanctimonious. We cling on to sentiments because we feel it’s the right thing to do. It’s here I’m going to talk about a touchy subject, which shouldn’t be at all sensitive because time is here to help us all forget. The death of Princess Diana was a surprise to all. However, the most surprising thing is the continual existence of this legacy that her death glorified; it still continues to touch people fully. The media have a habit of picking things up and ceasing to drop them and Diana’s death is just one of their fixations. During the ten years since her death we have been continually reminded of her presence. This has come in varying forms; tributes, probing inquiries into the deep abyss of her private life, inquiries into her death itself and pure speculation about her last days. Was she pregnant? Was she engaged? I have to be honest that I am really too young to indeed care; I accept she was a role model to many people and that she was very committed to helping out others less fortunate, but when is the nation finally going to let things rest?

Death is finality, it happens, it’s sad, but then life moves on. There are deeper concerns we all face on a day to day basis. Diana did not touch us to the extent that we can cease to operate emotionally. To prevent people joking about her death because it is too hurtful on the memory of the nation is really too absurd a notion to fathom. The timing of jokes must be careful, but surely ten years afterward our sensitivities on the issue must be somewhat more relaxed.

Since I’ve probably stirred up a hornets’ nest already, can I just mention our nation’s reaction to the Madeline McCann saga? It’s been six months since her abduction and still the nation and the tabloids cling on to every news story they can make, like moths to a lamp. I cannot help but feel that her tragic disappearance has not been somewhat manipulated by the tabloids in order to sell more papers. However, excusals must be made in recognition of the simple fact that it is us the general public who still cling to her disappearance as if it consumes our every waking sense of being.

No disrespect intended, freedom of speech allows.