That was quite some burst of applause and cheering when Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki announced the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi this morning at a Press conference this morning.
Tony Blair must wish he could raise such a galvanised effect from the Lobby hacks facing him back in Britain.
It would be interesting to see what off-guard, involuntary reactions our political leaders had to such breakthroughs.
Tony Blair leaping and punching the air? George Bush running a lap of honour of the Oval Office, before taking a tumble more reminiscent of Robbie Keane's artisan efforts than Lomano Lua Lua's stylish somersaulting?
We can probably do without seeing Margaret Beckett celebrating Ravanelli-style, mind you.
Will anyone now claim the £13.6million ransom put on al-Zarqawi's head?
Or will it simply go into a rollover pot for Osama bin Laden's capture?
"We'll meet again..."?
Underestimate a Para at your peril.
You might think the combined force of Alzheimer's, a temperamental pacemaker, septicaemia, a water infection, ability to breath only through an oxygen mask, and the heart stopping four times would be enough to finally finish off a frail 83-year-old.
Uncle Reg's doctors certainly thought so, advising that next time his heart stopped it would not be worthwhile trying to resuscitate him once more, and that he would never be able to breath again without the mask...
Only for him to blinkingly open his eyes yesterday morning, where my mum and second cousin had been keeping a downbeat but defiant bedside vigil, before settling back into seemingly peaceful-ish slumbers again.
And now he's stable again, but without needing the mask. Of course, he's still very ill.
But putting up a damn good fight.
News in this morning from my mum: "Change the prayers..."
Apparently Auntie Ivy woke the other day, believing she saw a figure sitting in Reg's special chair at home - a vision of his mum.
Coming to collect him, she thought.
Well, she might have come for him, only to be told: "I ay comin' yet..."
You might think the combined force of Alzheimer's, a temperamental pacemaker, septicaemia, a water infection, ability to breath only through an oxygen mask, and the heart stopping four times would be enough to finally finish off a frail 83-year-old.
Uncle Reg's doctors certainly thought so, advising that next time his heart stopped it would not be worthwhile trying to resuscitate him once more, and that he would never be able to breath again without the mask...
Only for him to blinkingly open his eyes yesterday morning, where my mum and second cousin had been keeping a downbeat but defiant bedside vigil, before settling back into seemingly peaceful-ish slumbers again.
And now he's stable again, but without needing the mask. Of course, he's still very ill.
But putting up a damn good fight.
News in this morning from my mum: "Change the prayers..."
Apparently Auntie Ivy woke the other day, believing she saw a figure sitting in Reg's special chair at home - a vision of his mum.
Coming to collect him, she thought.
Well, she might have come for him, only to be told: "I ay comin' yet..."
"The kids are all right..."
Good to see England's Baden-Baden hosts have been laying on appropriate entertainment for everyone.
Goodbye-ee, goodbye-ee...
... Wipe the tear, baby dear, from your eye-ee,Tho' it's hard to part, I know,
I'll be tickled to death to go;
Don't cry-ee, don't sigh-ee,
There's a silver lining in the sky-ee,
Bon Soir, old thing! Cheerio! Chin-Chin,
Nah-Poo, Toodle-oo -
Goodbye-ee...
There are pitfalls in looking too far ahead, too soon, too complacently. Today, with World Cup fever fairly pitching, I was feeling about as alive, a-tingle and a-glow as you're ever likely to catch me, and was even looking forward to a night of travel-bag packing this evening as a I strolled home from, less than 48 hours away from that flight to Stuttgart and the start of three weeks of a match-a-day amusement. Plus, the permission granted earlier today to take off an extra long weekend in Berlin for the final and surrounding explorations. Ruckseite vom Netz, indeed...
Easy now, Aidan.
Rather than tucking into tea then waiting to collect my mum from her Tube station later this evening, I discovered she had rushed up to the West Midlands earlier today to be at the hospital bedside of my great-uncle Reg, sadly seemingly - and abruptly - at death's door. After several years of astounding battling against the cruellest-of-cruel, Alzheimer's, and yet defying doctors with his brave brinkmanship against disease and debilitation. Drifting distantly one minute, jerked back into the most lucid memories of lost comrades, vividly-remembered-and-re-tasted revelries, battlefield setbacks and poppy-field tributes...
My (great/Great) Auntie Ivy and Uncle Reg seem to have become even closer family treasures in the 11 years since my grandma (my mum's mum) died, and especially to me, a few months later when I first him Birmingham as a stooodent - and, indeed, hit troubles - but would canter my battered Austin Metro along the Perry Barr road to Walsall, for a Sunday (veggie) roast, a leaf through that week's Express&Stars and general comfort and chat and camaraderie... And fellow-feeling, I'd like to think on all sides... I hope. I certainly felt so, anyway.
When Spurs got drawn away to West Brom in the FA Cup in January last year, I took the occasion of a Midlands revisit and long weekend to not only see the game, and visit a close university friend in Coventry, but spurred by Uncle Reg's recent hospitalisation, to go with Auntie Ivy for one of her persistent afternoon visits.
It seemed the right, and a harmlessly nice thing to do. But I must admit, I thought it would surely be the last visit, the last sight of him, despite his cheek, his mischief, just the not-right thought of not-him. And indeed, it really wasn't much of a visit - just Uncle Reg drifting mostly through various stages of stupor, Auntie Ivy trying vainly to hold back old tears, one of Reg's loyal old soldiers sticking by and chatting manfully cheerfully.
And that, so I thought, was sadly that. And yet, within weeks, he was being reported as gradually livelier. Days off, more days on. With occasional bursts of sheer spark, especially as my mum's music hall group's latest show, Somewhere In France With You - crafted around Reg and Ivy's wartime romance - took greater shape, became a real show, toured heritage sites and old folks' homes and church halls and, last summer, triumphantly in many eyes anyway, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Intercutting dramatisations of their story, blushing Black Country courting, to D-Day landings, to prisoner-of-war encampments, to erroneous death notices, to surprise Tipton reunion... with re-renditions of Vera Lynn, George Formby, Cole Porter, singalong-despite-yourself many-multitudes...
Well, it worked for me. And bursting-with-pride Uncle Reg, too, as compelling in the audience as anything on-stage. Especially with a special performance in the Dudley church where he and Ivy wed, on their 60th wedding anniversary last November.
And that was then. And now it seems to be over. Speaking to my alternately-stoic and emotional mum this evening, after several heart-stoppages and recognition that the last one was indeed the realistic last chance, already gone...
"Pray for him tonight - but not recovery: just safe, swift, peaceful release..."
Well, indeed. Amen.
Apologies for the mawkishness. Normal flippant service'll be resumed soon, have no doubt of that.
But meantime, here's a salute to a proud Para.
After seeing out D-Day, and precisely 62 good years more - if one eventual date must be, June 6 2006 at least seems some sort of sadly fitting farewell.
"I got blisters on ma fingers..."
Of course, the democratic good offered by the likes of MySpace and the internet's other wondrous (ahem, legal) music-sharing outlets far outweighs the cynical, simply for opening up such opportunities for self-expression as have never been enjoyed so widely before, andzzzzzzzz...
Nah, honestly... My tentative recent steps back into the field of live performance outside the strictly-social bounds of family and friends, brought home just how much MySpace has become de rigeur for the amateur, aspiring-or-otherwise musician. Each time, at G-Lounge in Camden (memorable for its stripjoint-style signage and Scarface artwork), Storm in Leicester Square (with that night's simultaneous, audience-depleting Champions League final, and the happy last ten minutes I managed to catch) and The Dignity in Finchley (that of the frequent name-changes, stayed The Dignity throughout that evening's sets though may well have altered since last Sunday...), my exuberant sense of relief at stepping off the stage has been briefly disrupted by the word "MySpace...", "MySpace!" or, indeed, "MySpace?"
So, despite being too impatient to persevere with layered sound levels, too limited in technical guitar skills, too IT-illiterate to put together some proper-quality recordings, and, finally, too fingertip-worn-down to try out just one more attempt at conjuring a different voice than the annoying one that keeps surprising me from the tape recorder playbacks... - a few hissy, scratchy, scrappy, sloppy demos at least can be found here...
They say virtue is its own reward, but for some people, in this case, curiosity could be its own punishment.
Enjoy.
Or if that proves predictably beyond even the most optimistic listener - endure...
Nah, honestly... My tentative recent steps back into the field of live performance outside the strictly-social bounds of family and friends, brought home just how much MySpace has become de rigeur for the amateur, aspiring-or-otherwise musician. Each time, at G-Lounge in Camden (memorable for its stripjoint-style signage and Scarface artwork), Storm in Leicester Square (with that night's simultaneous, audience-depleting Champions League final, and the happy last ten minutes I managed to catch) and The Dignity in Finchley (that of the frequent name-changes, stayed The Dignity throughout that evening's sets though may well have altered since last Sunday...), my exuberant sense of relief at stepping off the stage has been briefly disrupted by the word "MySpace...", "MySpace!" or, indeed, "MySpace?"
So, despite being too impatient to persevere with layered sound levels, too limited in technical guitar skills, too IT-illiterate to put together some proper-quality recordings, and, finally, too fingertip-worn-down to try out just one more attempt at conjuring a different voice than the annoying one that keeps surprising me from the tape recorder playbacks... - a few hissy, scratchy, scrappy, sloppy demos at least can be found here...
They say virtue is its own reward, but for some people, in this case, curiosity could be its own punishment.
Enjoy.
Or if that proves predictably beyond even the most optimistic listener - endure...
"Well, you know - we'd all love to see the plans..."
"Smile, it confuses people" - an injunction guaranteed to have many, surely, curling their lips not into a smile but a sneer, an even heftier, eyebrow-furrowed frown than before. No, not just me, I'm sure...
Especially when such a chirpy command comes as the debut album title, no less, from such a seeming sourpuss as Sandi Thom, the latest internet music superstar-next-door, who has indeed good reason to crack a grin this evening after hurtling to the top of the hit parade with I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair), which, as everyone now knows, managed to bypass sleek music biz chicanery, thanks to that complex system of levers and pulleys that is the interweb.
Hmm. Or did she? It seems a little journalistic cynicism is (perhaps belatedly) starting to rear its ugly head, with last week's procession of industry insiders hailing the little man (or, indeed, woman) beating, ahem, Ver Man by broadcasting her own gigs online and drumming up a fervent fanbase through down-to-earth, albeit internet-assisted, community spirit - now succeeded by off-the-record naysayers, Emperor's-New-Clothes-decrying whistle-blowers barely finished propping up Sandi's last step onto the parapet with one hand while already tugging her down with the other...
Well, there certainly is a strange unsureness about just how "for real" this supposed new trend for internet music-making - and music star-making - should be taken as (remembering, of course, that that famous "4 REAL" statement of commitment by Richey Manic was both authentically savage, while also a brilliantly potent publicity stunt...)
After all, many of the Press release assurances may seem easy to swallow, but a few moments' chewing lends an odd taste. So Sandi Thom's car broke down once, so she decided to give up the old routine of actually turning up for gigs, instead broadcasting them all online from the comfort of her own home - and soon, thousands of delirious fans were logging on to enjoy instead? Hmm, they must have inifinitely better quality streaming services than many I've ever seen - not to mention much saintlier levels of patience...
Now there are suggestions her record deal was already signed, sealed and delivered before the awareness of her online presence really got into gear - denied by her bosses, who have though admitted committing serious resources to e-mail-outs and MySpace adverts to push a humble, supposed no-mark...
Ah, but this is all so much, indeed too much bitterness and, yes, envy, I hear you cry.
Maybe so. Maybe it's just because I don't especially like the song. Artists supposedly-"broken" online, such as the Arctic Monkeys and the cheerier Lily Allen certainly seem well worth persevering with, albeit not quite the new 21st-century techno-godheads some over-heated coverage might have suggested.
It just seems a little counter-productive if artists too readily fall into being willingly manipulated as spurious, from-the-online-bottom-up radical breakthroughs for short-term gain, at the expense of perhaps-deserved long-term credibility...
There is only so long, surely, that anti-spin can be so successfully spun...?
Good luck to Sandi, though, while she has it, even if she does seem a little confused about the difference between punk rockers and hippies, 1969 and 1977 (it's a little difficult to imagine Johnny Rotten in a kaftan, Joe Strummer tousling a few carnations through his sweaty mop - or, indeed, Donovan with a safety-pin through his nose, Scott McKenzie with a bright pink Mohican, gobbing and snarling and swearing at the crowd when they admit they haven't a clue how to get to San Francisco...)
I wonder whether she'll find this off-the-shelf revolution for which she seems to be half-heartedly searching, as if wandering the aisles of Asda, checking the prices and the ingredients - after all, no revolutionary era would be complete without such essential aspects as, er, ensuring "footballers still had long hair and dirt across their face"...
As for dreaming wistfully of a time when "When accountants didn’t have control /
And the media couldn’t buy your soul / When computers were still scary and we didn’t know everything" and "When record shops were still on top / and vinyl was all that they stocked / and the super info highway was still drifting out in space" - well, they're either the most artfully-crafty of lyrics, inhabiting more irony than Alanis Morrissette could ever muster...
Or it's just lazy shtick of the airy-fairiest, yet simultaneously cynical kind.
Still. All that said as may be - someone please just answer me this.
Why can't I get the damn song out of my head...?
Especially when such a chirpy command comes as the debut album title, no less, from such a seeming sourpuss as Sandi Thom, the latest internet music superstar-next-door, who has indeed good reason to crack a grin this evening after hurtling to the top of the hit parade with I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair), which, as everyone now knows, managed to bypass sleek music biz chicanery, thanks to that complex system of levers and pulleys that is the interweb.
Hmm. Or did she? It seems a little journalistic cynicism is (perhaps belatedly) starting to rear its ugly head, with last week's procession of industry insiders hailing the little man (or, indeed, woman) beating, ahem, Ver Man by broadcasting her own gigs online and drumming up a fervent fanbase through down-to-earth, albeit internet-assisted, community spirit - now succeeded by off-the-record naysayers, Emperor's-New-Clothes-decrying whistle-blowers barely finished propping up Sandi's last step onto the parapet with one hand while already tugging her down with the other...
Well, there certainly is a strange unsureness about just how "for real" this supposed new trend for internet music-making - and music star-making - should be taken as (remembering, of course, that that famous "4 REAL" statement of commitment by Richey Manic was both authentically savage, while also a brilliantly potent publicity stunt...)
After all, many of the Press release assurances may seem easy to swallow, but a few moments' chewing lends an odd taste. So Sandi Thom's car broke down once, so she decided to give up the old routine of actually turning up for gigs, instead broadcasting them all online from the comfort of her own home - and soon, thousands of delirious fans were logging on to enjoy instead? Hmm, they must have inifinitely better quality streaming services than many I've ever seen - not to mention much saintlier levels of patience...
Now there are suggestions her record deal was already signed, sealed and delivered before the awareness of her online presence really got into gear - denied by her bosses, who have though admitted committing serious resources to e-mail-outs and MySpace adverts to push a humble, supposed no-mark...
Ah, but this is all so much, indeed too much bitterness and, yes, envy, I hear you cry.
Maybe so. Maybe it's just because I don't especially like the song. Artists supposedly-"broken" online, such as the Arctic Monkeys and the cheerier Lily Allen certainly seem well worth persevering with, albeit not quite the new 21st-century techno-godheads some over-heated coverage might have suggested.
It just seems a little counter-productive if artists too readily fall into being willingly manipulated as spurious, from-the-online-bottom-up radical breakthroughs for short-term gain, at the expense of perhaps-deserved long-term credibility...
There is only so long, surely, that anti-spin can be so successfully spun...?
Good luck to Sandi, though, while she has it, even if she does seem a little confused about the difference between punk rockers and hippies, 1969 and 1977 (it's a little difficult to imagine Johnny Rotten in a kaftan, Joe Strummer tousling a few carnations through his sweaty mop - or, indeed, Donovan with a safety-pin through his nose, Scott McKenzie with a bright pink Mohican, gobbing and snarling and swearing at the crowd when they admit they haven't a clue how to get to San Francisco...)
I wonder whether she'll find this off-the-shelf revolution for which she seems to be half-heartedly searching, as if wandering the aisles of Asda, checking the prices and the ingredients - after all, no revolutionary era would be complete without such essential aspects as, er, ensuring "footballers still had long hair and dirt across their face"...
As for dreaming wistfully of a time when "When accountants didn’t have control /
And the media couldn’t buy your soul / When computers were still scary and we didn’t know everything" and "When record shops were still on top / and vinyl was all that they stocked / and the super info highway was still drifting out in space" - well, they're either the most artfully-crafty of lyrics, inhabiting more irony than Alanis Morrissette could ever muster...
Or it's just lazy shtick of the airy-fairiest, yet simultaneously cynical kind.
Still. All that said as may be - someone please just answer me this.
Why can't I get the damn song out of my head...?
Same old A*senal...
... always cheating. Hmm, this is interesting - regardless of the people involved.Though I do wonder whether something might actually stick this time.
Actually, I don't really wonder... We all now how this will play out.
Damages for libel, and a bye into next season's Champions League final, no doubt...
(And, for good measure, Spurs somehow hurled out of the Uefa Cup too.)
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