“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”

It is no coincidence that in Italy priorities for the good of the nation are undermined through a variety of local or collective identities. Combine an electoral system, that is rife with inter party bickering and self-focused politicians, with a range of collective ideologies and regional loyalties and change becomes virtually impossible. There are too many groups in Italy that depend on things remaining as they are and individuals feel vulnerable if these groups are threatened. Take as an example the reaction to the proposal to shorten the three-hour lunch break or the recent wave of strikes from taxi drivers and lawyers as they attempt to hold off deregulation of their jobs.

Italian life is also made more complicated through an almost slavish devotion to bureaucracy and any student of psychology will tell you that bureaucracy imposes rules as a means of control and as such is a major threat to change. But then in Italy its citizens usually overcome the constraints of bureaucracy where they can by simply ignoring the rules they do not like, or worse through petty corruption.

Italians will have to adjust their mentalities and begin to commit to the state because the nation needs to become a single entity in the way that other European countries are. In the first instance electoral reform must be the precursor to any changes. Reforms that create a climate in which the Italian people can make informed choices about what is right for their country as a whole and reforms that make inter party bickering and self focused politicians a thing of the past.

However in the final analysis the key question is how to change things without threatening he local way of life. As Tancredi Falconeri said in Lampedusa’s Il Gattopardo “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”

Thank Goodness for Words

It never ceases to amaze me just how much work I can find to do around the house as I pick up my pen and notebook to start writing. I began this entry about an hour ago since when I have managed to de-scale the kettle, put a cleaning agent into the dishwasher make a light lunch and have a general tidy up around the kitchen. Enough! I cannot put this off any longer.

I have written many times in previous journals but found it much easier to get into the writing mood when I was working. What a strange word that is. Working. “When I was working.” It gives the impression that retirement is nothing but doing what you want to do whenever you want to do it and work is a word only associated with what you did before you reached retirement age.

Of course that was how it was meant to be but in reality nothing could be further than the truth. It is only the nature of the work that has changed not the absolute amount. Well if anything the amount has increased exponentially especially when caring for a loved one who has that most debilitating of diseases, Alzheimer’s. I find that the chapters of life called ‘work’ and ‘retirement’ should in all reality be reversed. Unlike Parkinson's Law where "work expands to fill the time available for its completion" Binsie's Law is "time contracts to ensure that planned work cannot be completed to any level of personal satisfaction."

In hindsight it is all too obvious that the life I led before I took up ‘retirement’ was merely time spent at my place of employment as opposed to work, which I now have.  Of course that time had to be spent productively, giving the employer a return for their money but in all reality it could not be defined as work.

So I now write about my real work as a carer for an Alzheimer’s patient. Interesting word that, patient. In the context of an Alzheimer’s sufferer it becomes an oxymoron if used an adjective. She was patient; calm, composed, even-tempered. No. Patient in this sense can only refer to the person who is receiving medical care. Patience is something that my wife now has very little of and is what I need more than anything these days. Well patience and a night’s sleep on a regular basis.

Shirley is now at the stage where much of reality is beyond the limits of her comprehension and she lives in an ever-collapsing world that exists only in her mind. I am all too aware that Alzheimer’s sufferers experience the same shallow depths of life that regress ultimately to a complete emptiness even though she may still be ‘legally’ alive. There may well come a time when she refuses any food and is doubly incontinent.

At that point we will no doubt move into the final phase but for now we have the mood swings to handle, although the pendulum never completely swings all the way back from anger and despair to the joy of being alive. When the demons are out of her head, the ones who call her fat, threaten to kick the cats or steal her clothes from the wardrobe, she is at best tranquil rather than happy. So we are in a downward spiral of despondency with little respite.

Anyway, I will not go on here about the various behavioural traits of the Alzheimer’s patient. Suffice to say that I live now to look after Shirley and that for me work began the day after I retired. Maybe that’s why Shirley and I were drawn together 20 years ago. I can’t say that I enjoy the work and that job satisfaction motivates me. In all honesty it is a grind especially when all I ask for is an even break in being able to maintain a normal lifestyle myself. Well as normal as it ever could be from here on in. Maybe this is selfish of me who knows. It does not mean that I love Shirley any less but I do wonder who the stranger is I now live with.

Thank goodness for books and writing, the things that have become more important to me now in the search for my own normal life. 

Must go Shirley has just come into the lounge to continue the argument she was having in the bedroom mirror.

Oh I Am a Mancunian

An attempt to draw some comparisons between Liverpool and Manchester City from the 1960's and where it went wrong for the 'Blue Moons'

Before all Liverpool fans hit the delete button let me explain that I am from the blue three-quarters of Manchester and share your antipathy towards the club from Salford (hereinafter called the CFS). Having been a City fan since the 1950’s I have suffered first hand the roller coaster ride to nowhere whilst watching, with not a little envy, your almost steady state of triumph from the mid 60’s. Just as an aside I was on the Kop on the 18th April 1964 when Liverpool beat Arsenal 5-0 to win the first division title.

My purpose here is to attempt to draw some similarities between our two clubs (certainly not in the trophy cabinet) and to look at the cultural differences which have ultimately led to the massive gaps in performance on the field and kinship behind the scenes. I began to think of this seconds after I turned the television off 34 minutes into the Liverpool v City game on the 11th April this year. Most readers I am sure will recognise this as being the time of Liverpool’s third goal.

My thoughts at the time, at least the printable ones, centered on the reasons that give rise to success and the capacity to sustain it for generations after. As far as the City story goes we started a few years after the Liverpool train took off in the mid 1960’s, lost the capacity to sustain it less than 10 years later and have struggled to come anywhere near past glories ever since.

I may be going out on a limb here but I believe that the affinities of the fans towards their respective clubs are of a similar nature with the small exception of the need for a healthy dose of eternal optimism at City coupled with a sense of irony bordering on the hysterical. As I say many times to the CFS fans “you can’t take the Mick out of us because we do it to ourselves first.”

The comparisons between Liverpool and City fans lie in their ability and disposition to be constructively critical of their team’s performances and managerial decision-making. Whereas those from the CFS lack the analytical capacity to see much beyond their own narrow-minded biased perspective.

By the end of the 1960’s City were playing catch-up with Liverpool and appeared to have laid the foundations for their tide of success to endure as a League title, FA Cup, League Cup and European Cup Winners triumphs in quick succession demonstrated. The Joe Mercer/Malcolm Allison partnership had proved its worth, with the avuncular Mercer’s steady hand of experience complementing the dynamic coaching techniques of Allison. Allison’s methods created a self-belief in the players that took them to heights of performance not seen at Maine Road in generations, if ever before.

In the background Albert Alexander had been appointed as chairman in 1964 handing the reigns over to his son Eric in 1971. The Alexander family was well established in the folklore of City through Albert’s father who was a founder, President, Chairman, Vice Chairman Director and Manager of the club. Oh yes, he also drove the bus round Manchester in 1904 after they had won the FA Cup at Crystal Palace. City was very much a ‘family club’.

Malcolm Allison

However, the foundations of the 1960’s had been built on shifting sands and the welfare of Manchester City became a poor second to the personal ambitions of one Peter Swales who became a Director in 1971 and was appointed Chairman in 1973. Becoming Chairman of Manchester City was secondary to Swales’ real objective as his sights were firmly set on the Chairmanship of the Football Association. Couple Swales’ megalomania with the ego of coach Malcolm Alison and voila! you have a club on the verge of self-destruction. Notwithstanding the coaching genius of Allison the inmates were definitely in-charge of the asylum.

Frustrated by Joe Mercer’s continuing status as manager and in particular Mercers cautious attitude to the transfer market Allison engineered a Boardroom shuffle that brought Swales and other new directors to the club. Allison’s men were now firmly in place and the Board finally gave him the reins in 1971-72 with Joe Mercer being ‘booted upstairs’ before finally leaving the club for Coventry City.

On the field though it was business as usual with City well placed for a second league title in four years. It was at this point in the clubs history that the self-destruct button was finally pressed. Allison’s personal proclivity for flamboyance was clearly not enough for him. Despite the fact that City had been playing an exciting brand of football since re-joining the First Division he had to go that one step further and persuaded the Board to sign Rodney Marsh from QPR. This finally put pay to the dynamics of a team that, over the past four years, had put more trophies in the City cabinet than any other in its history.

Rodney Marsh

Unfit, uncommitted to the club, overweight and with a threshold of arrogance that put him beyond any team principles Marsh single handedly did for City what most opposing teams had been unable to do for some years – stop them from playing the flowing brand of football which took them to the pinnacle of the domestic game.

Leading the First Division at the time City barely won another match after signing Marsh and finished the season in 4th place on the same number of points as Leeds and Liverpool, one point behind the eventual winners Derby County. In the time-honoured ironic Man. City tradition they went on to beat Derby County in the last match of the season by which time it was all over.

A further example of the bungling that prevailed was the transfer of Steve Daley from Wolves for, at that time, a record British fee of £1.45m. Allison claimed that, whist he wanted Daley, he had already agreed a lower fee with the Wolves manager and Swales’ intervention behind his back only served to drive the fee to the record level. Whatever the worth of Daley his performances on the field were nothing short of abysmal and he soon left.

Swales held the Chairman’s post for 20 years during which time he turned over 17 managers. Since 1993 City have gone on to employ a further 11 managers including the current incumbent; a grand total of 28 managers in 38 years. And yet the ‘Blue Moon’ will always be rising in Manchester thanks to the binding affinity and perverse loyalty of the fans.

Meanwhile back to the 1960’s and Bill Shankly is building a bond between players, backroom staff, and fans across the whole Liverpool club with little or no apparent interference from the Board. After all why would any Board of Directors want to break up a winning formula?

Even when the ‘Great One’ retired in 1974, the Liverpool foundations had already been established in the ‘Boot Room’ where Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Reuben Bennett had set the management philosophy that established Liverpool's success over the next three decades. Rueben who? I hear the non-Scousers call. Just as they asked who Bob Paisley or Joe Fagan was when they were appointed as managers. For the uninitiated check it out.

Len Shackleton, a truly great player for Newcastle and Sunderland in the 1940’s and 50’s, in his book ‘The Clown Prince of Soccer’ titled one of the chapters ‘What the Average Director Knows About Football’. It was followed by a number of blank pages before moving on to the next chapter. Prospective Directors of football clubs should be required to sit a written examination of their knowledge of the game and in particular how good managers create great teams.

Instead the FA advocate their ‘Fit and Proper’ Person Test’ against which anybody with an unspent criminal conviction involving dishonesty, or who has run a football club into administration twice (only twice mind you!) cannot take over at a club. Using this test such ‘honest and upright’ citizens of humanity such as Taksin Shinawatra, who tripled the City’s losses during his one-year ownership and was eventually convicted for corruption in his home country of Thailand, should never pass muster. But he and others of a similar dodgy persuasion have.

It is not for me to pontificate about where Liverpool’s successes may have gone astray in the mid 1990’s. However, the appointment of Graeme Souness in 1991 and the silly situation of Roy Evans and Gerrard Houlier becoming joint managers could only have served to complicate what was a proven formula for managerial attainment. In terms of the Boardroom enough has been said and written about that previously and one can only hope now that Kenny Dalglish’s interim situation will be resolved and he will be allowed to continue his ‘back to the future’ journey. If the Board give him the job on a permanent basis Liverpool will be a force to be reckoned with again next season.

So where have I gone with this comparison between two great football clubs? My final contention is that first and foremost managing a team is best left to those whose knowledge and passion for football transcends their own personalities whether they are quiet and apparently unassuming or outspoken and extravagant. Added to that the top managers have leadership qualities that unite a team and gives average players a self-belief that exceeds their apparent hitherto ability. Malcolm Allison had it all in terms of football knowledge and coaching skills. His downfall was in putting his rampant ego before club values. Bill Shankly had opinions in spades but they only served to fuel his ambitions for Liverpool Football Club.

Having said that any manager, however committed he is to the cause, will find success difficult to achieve if his Chairman and Board of Directors fail to walk a fine line between support and interference (ask Carlo Ancelotti). Both clubs have new owners but Liverpool, with ‘King Kenny’ back in the managers seat, will I am sure establish a modern day ‘Boot Room’ philosophy and the blossoming of young talent coming through to the first team is surely the first signs of the shoots of recovery.

City, for their part always have the cheque-book handy!

Catching Up

The rain was coming down in stair rods as she stared transfixed at the couple, their bodies entwined, silhouetted behind the bedroom curtains. “Time was Harry when we were that couple. Do you remember Blackpool just before the war? Eh it were great weren’t it?”

“It certainly was love but come on we can’t hang about here all night best get on.”

"Aye ‘appen’. Our Irene will be getting worried I expect. She’s a good girl is our Irene. Fifty this year and never thought once about leaving. She could have had lots of blokes but always stood by us and looked after our needs. It were hard at first with you off to France but we coped and she grew up to be such a caring girl.”

“That’s thanks to you Doris. She has your nature not mine. If she were more like me she’d have upped sticks long ago. I’m sorry I couldn’t do any more for you both.”

“That’s all right love, you did what you could, but it weren’t your fault was it. You didn’t ask Herr Hitler to start all that bother did you? Any road that were a long time ago and things have changed. Take them two up there. They’re not married you know. Can you imagine us getting away with that in our day? Fat chance I’d say.”

“Maybe but some things were better in our day weren’t they?”

“Oh aye, Like what for instance? Food rationing, Joe Loss and his band, the Light Programme, Workers bloody Playtime. No Harry I reckon it’s better now. The problem is that you still live in the 1940’s, you haven’t moved on have you?”

“And what’s wrong with the 1940’s I say. We didn’t have these drug problems, old folk could walk about at any time without fear of being mugged, people cared about their neighbours. If someone had a problem people rallied round.”

“And how do you know all this. You were far away playing at bloody soldiers. How the hell do you know what it were like for us? For me and Irene? Did you really give a stuff?

“Of course I did but what the bloody hell could I do about it? I was…

“I know, up to your neck in it. Bloody hell Harry, how many times do we have to have this discussion. I’m fed up of listening to you going on about the good old days. You never talk about modern times. When are you going to start living in the 1990’s? It’s about time that you moved on.”

“And it’s about time you moved on Doris. Come on love I’m taking you back with me now. I’m taking you home at last.”

“I suppose our Irene will be all right on her own won’t she?”

“Of course she will. She’s a big girl now and we’ll both be watching over her won’t we? Just as we always have. Come on love let’s go. We’ve got some catching up to do.”

Italy Matters

Some readers of this missive may draw the conclusion that I write to castigate, demean and, quite frankly, go out of my way to denigrate the Italian way of life. Such a perspective is understandable if taken from the bald facts that follow. However, having lived over here for the past two and a half years nothing could be further from the truth. I merely set out to describe and compare the British and Italian cultures and allow you to draw your own conclusions.


With the exception of one tongue-in-cheek sideswipe at the average British Tourist (Viaggio par Britannicus) I have, until now, kept my counsel on matters Italian. But enough! I cannot stay silent for much longer. Having decided to call it a day on a sorrowful, culturally flagging, Blighty we threw ourselves into the task of integrating into an Italy that we had come to know and love over some considerable years via a holiday home and many glorious memories of La Dolce Vita.


And yet, no matter how many times you holiday in a country that you think you know nothing can prepare you for the absolute shock of being in a different culture on a permanent basis. As an example, how many times on holiday do you want to go shopping between 1.00 pm and 4.00 pm for a piece of timber, some screws, take in your dry cleaning or simply top up your car with petrol. You probably won’t need to do any basic food shopping and if you did, particularly in any rural location, tough luck because the shops close for a considerable lunch hour or three. Can you imagine any retailer in the UK closing for three hours at lunch?


On holiday at this time of the day you are probably in a city or town queuing for entrance to a gallery or some ancient tourist attraction. More likely you could be sipping your first pre-lunch snifter as you pore over the menu; and if you are good luck to you. You’ve worked damn hard all year and you’re certainly going to take it easy for two weeks and just let the world go by.


That’s the problem when you move over here on a permanent basis. You’ve worked hard all your life and you think that you can just switch off, like you do in your summer vacation. However, unlike the two weeks of absolute bliss doing nothing more than reading, eating, drinking and whatever else takes your fancy, you have to get on with the routine of every day life, in a society that has turned incompetence into an art form.

A few months after moving in to our refurbished house our telephone line went on the blink, making a terrible crackling noise and getting and maintaining a connection was in the lap of the Gods. Having reported the problem to Telecom Italia they did a quick check and said that there was nothing wrong with the line and it must be the telephones we were using. Therefore we should buy new ones immediately (Telecom Italia naturally sell phones). Resisting the urge to splash out we did the obvious thing and took the three phones round to a friend’s house to try them out. Needless to say they were fine, so back to Telecom Italia we went for further debate. We struggled on for three weeks until one day I heard the phone go ping and lifting the receiver I discovered that the line was now perfect. Having deduced that the engineers had finally found a duff connection somewhere we were happy to get on with the rest of our lives without any further hindrance from matters telephonic.


How naive could we be? A couple of weeks later a friend rang the cell phone to say that she had called our land-line number on three occasions and each time had spoken to an Italian man on the other end. What she actually said was ‘did we know that there was an Italian living in our house?’ On phoning our home number from the living room using said cell phone I was not surprised to hear “pronto” at the other end. When I asked the receiver to confirm the number that I was calling he promptly recited ours. I told him that this was our number and that he could confirm it by checking the telephone directory. He replied that it must be his because Telecom Italia had given it to him the day before shortly after he had moved in to his new house.

So another call to Telecom Italia to get the matter sorted, except that it was now Saturday and the engineers would not be back until Tuesday, (Monday being one of the 12 Bank Holidays in Italy). The connection was finally restored on Thursday. We only knew this by constantly dialling the number on the cell phone as Telecom Italia would never call to say that the matter had been rectified and, by the way, apologise for any inconvenience caused.


Perhaps the most annoying incident to date was the affair of the nutty neighbour. This involved the small study we were having built adjoining our property boundary and his. During the digging of the footings he came round to say that the building line was on his land and it had to be moved over to our side at once. Worked stopped until the geometra was called for who confirmed that the footings were very much on the boundary line and not on his land and work continued apace (Italian pace that is). Two months after the work was finished we received a letter from our neighbour calling for a response to the concerns listed within two weeks or the matter would be put in the hands of his lawyer.

The burning issues were that I had planted a row of shrubs within the forbidden range of half a metre from the boundary (despite the fact that they were planted six months previously and we had actually had the odd conversation whist I was planting them) and that the roof of the study was not to the original slope. However, the best of the lot was that whilst he accepted that the adjoining wall of the study was on the building line the rendering was on his property, all one-sixteenth of an inch of it! By this time I was quite prepared to move the shrubs, go round and knock the rendering off the wall myself and tell him to get stuffed over the slope of the roof because planning permission had been granted in accordance with the geometra’s specifications.


The geometra explained that the Italians like to get their retaliation in first to put you on the back foot and it would only be a matter of time before we found out what he wanted. And so it was the case. When he met with our neighbour it transpired that he wanted us to let him build something adjacent to our study wall and, in return, he would drop all claims stated in his letter. On that basis we have signed a joint agreement to this effect, although I would have let him do what he wanted anyway. One consolation in all this is that I now know the word for ‘wanker’ in Italian.

However, there are some positive aspects of moving to Italy. One is that it is like stepping back in time to the 1950’s when children played in the streets safe in the knowledge that they would not be abducted by some raving paedophile. Village life in Umbria is akin to austere post War Britain where family unity was paramount and the mother was the dominant figure in the home. Well, she had to be really because my recollections of the early 1950’s do not incorporate any male member of the household washing up, cleaning, bathing children (on bath days that is) and tucking them up with a bedtime story.

No, men were the workers and after a hard days graft they needed sustenance and rest. After all, women weren’t really working were they? They were at home all day and could stop for a ‘brew’ whenever they wanted to unlike the men who could only stop work when the bosses said they could (there was many a strike over tea breaks in the 1950’s believe me). Speaking of tea breaks, as a quick aside, we were in the bank shortly after moving here to transfer our account from another branch and the person we were dealing with got up after five minutes and went next door for a coffee because it was her time for a break. We sat in her office for a full ten minutes with open access to files on the desk and cupboards left open. When she eventually returned she picked up the conversation as though nothing had happened.

Anyway, the point I make is that in many ways it really is the 1950’s out here all over again, but more of this anon.

Egon Chips Dies Aged 134

It is with great regret and not a little sadness that we report the death of that much adored, thrice Dunlop starred, super chef Egon Chips.


At the ripe old age of 134 and still plying his genius as only he could, in his Glaswegian restaurant The Fat Bar Steward, Egon keeled over whilst removing a basket of Mars Bars from the deep fat fryer and, in doing so, substituted himself for its erstwhile contents. Connoisseurs will be doubly comforted to know that he shuffled off this mortal coil in a way befitting a culinary institution and, forever multi-tasking, embalmed himself in chip fat at the same time.

Critics, friends and admirers alike have been quick to add their words of praise and condolence as the news spread throughout the gastronomic world.

“This man has done for the ‘Full English what Heston Blumenthal did for food poisoning” said Marco Pierre Black, himself a two star Dunlop.

Of his many previous students Jamie Dodger the ‘Cockney Cocker’ said...” if it was not for Egon I would still be serving pie and mash down the East End. I well remember the year that Dad took us all to Govan for a cultural holiday. It was here that I first came across the delights of unsaturated fat and soon made the lard sarnie part of my staple diet.”

Egon was nutted for his services to tribalism in 1993 when staff at The Fat Bar Steward inadvertently double booked the restaurant between Rangers and Celtic supporters after the New Year ‘Old Firm’ game. He went down in the ensuing mêlée but not before he had dropped a good four from either side. “That was the great thing about Egon, by the way” said wee Jock Strap of the Celtic Supporters Club, “he niver minded who he beat the crap out of and took on all comers. We put it all down to the diet and the partaking of ‘a good bucket’ on Saturday nights."

In accordance with his wishes Egon will be cremated in the world renowned 60 inch single wall oven at The Fat Bar Steward at 3.00pm next Thursday (240C gas mark 9) although the ceremony is not expected to last long given the residue of chip fat he is still covered in. In the time honoured tradition the body will be browned first on all sides before being placed in the oven.

Mourners unable to attend the ceremony are asked to pay their respects by raising their chip butties to their wives at 3.00 pm with the immortal words ‘Fat Bar Steward’.

The Count is Dead; Pass the Wooden Stake

It is gratifying to know that the time-honoured values of modern politics will not be laid to rest on the back of the early demise of David Laws. For whilst this virginal coalition fumbles its way through the minefield of modern political morality and the rituals of spin in its attempt to present the acceptable face of government (if that’s not an oxymoron) ‘Count Mandelson’ will be reworking his version of Machiavellianism in the first volume of his memoirs.


How wonderfully ironic that he has titled this tome ‘The Third Man’ . For just as Grahame Green told of of a social, economic, and morally corrupt post war Viennese society Mandelson’s Third Man offers an insight into a similar ruined, vacuous regime of intrigue and deceit. The difference, however, is that Greene looks back on a sequence of events which inform the reader early on that the story is not a pretty one.

‘Count Mandelson', on the other hand, gave us an insight in last Thursday’s Times that his version of ‘The Third Man’ will be one of...”a mixture of history, autobiography and emotion” and that hope springs eternal through the timeless values of the Labour Party as encapsulated in a party of “conscience and reform” aka New Labour.

If this vignette was meant to whet our appetites for the full revelations of what went on behind the scenes during New Labour’s gestation period, through infancy into maturity and decay it failed to do so. Given that much, if not all, of the machinations of New Labour’s power struggles have been well revealed over the years through a variety of leaks, articles and memoirs it is unlikely that the reader will be offered anything new to get excited about.

Mandelson’s taster gives the distinct impression that volume 1 (if not volumes 2,3 etc) centre’s mainly around his favourite subjects; himself, and the political equivalent of Colemanballs. So, if you are desperate to find out who he did or did not support in the 1994 Labour leadership campaign read on. For, as he puts it, this is still the subject of some debate, although by whom we are not advised. It is also gratifying to know that he has now realised that electing a leader of a political party is much better than simply appointing someone and that difficult choices cannot be ducked. Who would have thought it?

Above all what this article does tell us is that the book will be nothing more than the sum of New Labour’s empty rhetoric over the past 18 years. So, if you are desperate to know that New Labour became more than just... “a party of class or sectional interest to being a broad-based party of conscience and reform,” or that it has...”an outlook that remains in tune with the priorities and ambitions of families across the country,” I urge you to buy the book. However, if you want to know what this verbal garbage actually means take a course in Postmodernism.

The Count is dead, pass the wooden stake..

The Third Man: Life at the Heart of New Labour, by Peter Mandelson is to be published by Harper Press Summer 2010