Feb. 14th - PS: I Love You London

What price love?

I went into central London today, Valentine’s Day, looking for love. I found it.

Not that I am loveless – Liz gave me a good morning kiss this very a.m., though the bunch of roses and box of chocolates failed to materialise, from either of us. In fact neither of us mentioned Valentine’s Day, and it wasn’t until Facebook wished me ‘Happy Valentine’s Day Mike!’ (the exclamation mark is theirs) a short time later that I realised it was indeed 14 February.

The postie came and went, and once again (as happens every year) all my Valentine’s cards from secret lovers had been misdirected and delivered to someone else. It’s okay, I’m used to it now. My fault for moving house so often, I’m sure that’s the reason. Must be. Sigh.

Anyway, with an appointment for a long-overdue catch-up coffee in Soho (28 years overdue in fact) I set off into London. I looked for love on the tube on the way to Tottenham Court Road, but didn’t see any snuggling, canoodling or soppy kissing. All I discovered was a discarded Metro newspaper (I use

Oh pur-lease!!

the term loosely) in which there was a special ‘Rush-Hour Crush’ double-page-spread featuring anonymous commuters who go by such endearing noms-de-plume as ‘Suited Guy’, ‘Petite Girl With Olive Skin’, and ‘Dazed Cyclist’, all declaring their adoration for fellow commuters. Or female commuters, depending.

I searched in vain for a message saying, ‘Gorgeous mature blogger with tightly-furled umbrella, trendy beard and steely-blue eyes, you looked at me and smiled. Fancy a wine or two?’

On the other hand I didn’t see any hate on the tube either, so maybe the absence of hate is actually love. Or love, actually. See what I did there? (Yes – don’t overdo it – Ed.)

I did however stumble across love in Soho Square Gardens, where someone had thoughtfully placed a sprig of leaves and berries in the hands of Charles II’s statue. He remained stony-faced, but perhaps the Merry Monarch felt the love somewhere deep down in his marble heart.

On such a grey and chilly day I didn’t feel the need to sit on any of the numerous park benches in the wintry square, but I discovered that some of these also bore declarations of love. On many there are plaques, inscribed to the memory of various people, many of whom seemed to have had a deep association with Soho Square and worked or lived nearby. Jamie Simpson for example, who ‘had a smiling face for a loving race, he always loved to chill in this place’. Or Andy Cooper, who is missed more and more each day; Rest in peace gorgeous’.

R.I.P Kirsty

And there was one who was loved by thousands, if not millions, the singer Kirsty MacColl. Perhaps best remembered for her verbal duel with Shane MacGowan of The Pogues in the Christmas ballad Fairytale of New York, MacColl was killed by a speedboat while swimming off Mexico eighteen years ago. She was certainly loved by the music industry, and sang with many of the greats including the Rolling Stones, Talking Heads, Robert Plant and Van Morrison. I sat on her memorial bench for a moment – I’d loved her voice also.

No love for love songs...

However, love wasn’t all around, as I found when I read the park sign at the entrance. This clearly shows that the park’s management have absolutely no love for dogs, loud music or busking, alcohol, cycling, pigeon or squirrel feeding, skateboarding, rollerblading or ball games. Although they will tolerate you putting your litter in a bin, and presumably quiet contemplation of former loved ones is okay too.

I met up with my ex-work colleague from New Zealand and we caught up on almost thirty years of lost time. He told me how he’d found love and taken advantage of the relatively liberal laws in New Zealand to join his partner in a civil union, and then two years later went back and formalised it in a proper marriage. He and his husband, I learned on this Valentine’s Day, had found love and had had it officially approved.

I fell in love too, with the place where we met for coffee, which was Soho House in Greek Street, his private members’ club. Hard not to fall for endless beautifully decorated rooms, fine dining restaurant, swanky circular bar, plush leather seating, and a roof terrace undergoing a spruce-up in time for summer (whichever day that is this year).

On my way back afterwards I nipped in to my preferred house of fashion – Primark – where I discovered a man who had fallen in love with two pairs of jeans which he’d stuffed into a backpack. Unfortunately he had neglected to pay for them and was being pursued by two burly security guards, who I’m sure would have loved to have caught him.

My search for amour continued on the way home on this Valentine’s Day, named by the way after two men both called Valentine, who were executed by Emperor Claudius II in the third century AD on February 14, but in different years.
But it was Chaucer and others in the 18^th and 19^th centuries who began the convention of bestowing gifts, flowers and personal messages of love.

Entering Tottenham Court Road station my quest for love soared when I found that all the ticket barriers for the Northern Line were closed, and instead of showing green arrows instead displayed red crosses. To me these looked like a row of kisses, but maybe I’m just a romantic old fool. (‘Romantic old fool at Tottenham tube, I saw you smile at the kisses. Fancy a drink?’)

And as I emerged finally from Stockwell Tube Station the flower stall was still doing a brisk trade, with roses prominent. A man bought a single bloom and took it into the nearby Sainsbury’s. I hoped perhaps he had a crush on the checkout girl, but, reluctant to intrude, I didn’t follow and never got to see what happened. 

Instead I headed home, where my new love was waiting. Oh, didn’t I mention it? I’m absolutely loving watching the winter Olympics!

Flight Path

Last October we bought a bird feeder, one of those clear tubes you fill with tasty morsels which dispense onto a saucer at the bottom. There are four wire perches hang around the edge so the birds have somewhere to hang on while they peck away. Apart from magpies of course, they’re too big to land on the perches, and instead glare frustratedly at the seeds as a child might gaze through the window of a closed sweet shop. Except a child wouldn’t be doing that from on top of a satellite dish.

The bird feeder was a miserable failure. Nothing came, not even a boring sparrow or two. The feeder was full, swinging in plain sight, beckoning to the local London avian population and open all hours as autumn turned into winter and the daylight faded earlier and earlier each day. Despite the onset of the cold and dark the birds totally ignored it.

Well, to be honest, a magpie did discover it, and tried in vain to find a way to access the seeds in the saucer, but magpies can’t hover, and as mentioned, their size precludes them from bird feeders such as ours. I took pity and chucked some seed onto the balcony’s fake grass, for which it seemed cautiously grateful.

An upstart crow

I’m not a bird-watcher particularly, never really understood the appeal of twitching and how it excites people like Bill Oddie and Bill Bailey, and probably many other less-famous Bills. But once we’d put the feeder up I desperately wanted to see it used; the magpie didn’t count. And then I realised, maybe we don’t have many birds locally in St. Ockwell. I began to view our local environment with a critical eye, and it dawned on me with a sinking heart that there are bugger-all birds in our neighbourhood; and if they are there they're all lesser-spotted.

Oh yes, there are seagulls and pigeons, and of course crows, but none of them can deftly land on the perches of our bird feeder either. I wanted tits, for example. Yes I know, snigger, snigger. How juvenile can you get. Bird watching is a ripe field for smut and innuendo, what with great tits, shags and boobies to entertain you. But if that’s what makes you giggle then you’re a right little bustard. I’d rather be a bird watcher than a word botcher. (See what I did there?)

Great Tit  (oh behave!)

No, the thing is, we don’t exactly live in the Forest of Stockwell; there’s a paucity of trees around our little pied-à-terre. If I look out from the balcony where the bird feeder is I can count exactly two-and-a-half trees, the half being more of an overgrown shrub with tree-aspirations – a Wannabe Tree. The majority of things flying overhead are Boeings and Airbuses, being as we are on the flight path to Heathrow.  Yet if I walk literally round a couple of corners into the posh part I am in tree-lined Georgian streets, with gardens that have trees in them also. That, I’m guessing, is where the birds are. I would be if I had feathers. Or loads of money.

All I needed was one bird, just one, to discover our bird feeder, and then it could go and spread the word. They would come in their thousands, or at least maybe a handful from the classy streets, I hoped. And then one day it happened; a sparrow called, grabbed a mouthful and flew off. Some days after, an indeterminate slim thing with a grey cap perched for a few seconds, and then – hallelujah – a great tit gorged itself before taking off in a blur of black and yellow. I know it was a great tit because I had my camera to hand, ready to capture any avian visitors, plus we have the RSPB’s guide book on the bookshelf. Definitely a great tit.

Need I tell you?

Since then word has indeed got around, and now almost every morning there’s a parade of sparrows,

a robin, the great tit (it always seems to be the same one)and – still feeding off the fake grass pickings – the magpie. They each make multiple visits. I am resisting naming them for fear of becoming boring, but tentatively they’re all called Bill.

To top that off, I got up in the middle of the night recently, thinking it must be close to dawn because I could hear a bird singing. Assuming this was the overture to the dawn chorus (or, in our neighbourhood, more of a dawn squawk) I didn’t pay much attention until I discovered it was only 2am. I’ve heard the bird on other nights too, and I now believe it to be a nightingale – there was magic abroad in the air. (I know what one sounds like because I had a close encounter with a nightingale at 11 o’clock one summer’s evening on a French canal, and here’s the recording to prove it.) Anyway, if one can sing in Berkeley Square, why can’t another croon on a council housing estate?

So now every morning at breakfast I sit on the couch twitching. I’m hoping more and different birds will come, as I’m propped there with camera in one hand, RSPB book in the other. I’m still not a serious bird watcher. Honestly. I’m only doing it for a lark.

Bad News

The recent stoush over gender pay gaps in the BBC has thrown a spotlight on more than just the gulf between the salaries of some of its employees – it's also highlighted just how grotesquely inflated the pay packets of so-called celebrities are. Especially those paid by us, the taxpayers. 

So, on your behalf, dear reader, I have been casting a critical eye over the presenters in particular, (it's my right eye; my left one is more tolerant) and I am now ready to give you my opinion of their huge salaries. In a word: bollocks.

Before the main rant, let me just say that I am qualified to cast judgement on news presenters in particular. In the 1980s I was one of them myself, in New Zealand, on a regional news programme which went out live-to-air five nights a week immediately after the main national news.

A younger me presenting the regional news in NZ

My job was basically the same as any of the news presenters today: sit in a studio, read from an autocue, speed up or slow down your presentation to ensure the programme fits into the allotted time, and keep things running if something goes wrong. There was admittedly an element of scriptwriting for the introductions to the stories, but even that was usually based on information supplied by the reporters who were driving them.

I was not a celebrity or personality, and I was classed (and paid) as a 'senior journalist' – mainly because the role of 'news presenter' didn't officially exist, at least not at TVNZ. At that time anyone on the telly in New Zealand was an employee, not a 'star' on a negotiated fee plus bonuses with two months off every summer. 

Pleasingly (at least to me) my role was slightly more involved than just news reading – I would sometimes go out with a film crew to direct and present features, plus if we had what we called 'a visiting fireman' – a personality or famous person of some sort – I would interview them live during the programme in the studio.  In a nutshell, I had a few more things to do than just read the news.

Now to the rant, with a capital Aaargh. BBC news presenters in particular don't do anything other than sit in their chairs, read robotically from an autocue, and… well, that's it. Even their studio 'guests' – who are invariably BBC specialist rounds editors (finance, crime, health, social, etc.) – are not actually 'interviewed'; they simply present a report they otherwise would have done had they been crossed to 'live' somewhere.

Oh, and don't get me started on this ‘crossing live’ thing! Why does the news insist on 'crossing live to (insert name here) in (insert place here)' for a report that is inevitably in front of a closed courthouse, outside a dark chainlink-fenced factory, or on a deserted street cordoned off with police tape where something happened six hours previously? The reporters stand there telling us breathlessly what happened hours earlier on this very spot, wasting our money (in the case of the BBC) instead of being in the comfy warm studio beside the news presenter. Crossing live is bollocks also.

But I digress. Let me get back to the main rant, and reveal here and now that almost anyone could be a news presenter. Literally almost anyone. Can you read? You're on the road to fame and fortune. Can you look serious and stern, yet morph into light and jolly when required? You're hired. Can you use the voice of doom for bad news, and be on the verge of giggles when called for? The job is yours. It's that easy. Seriously. I know; I've done it, and it is one of the cakiest pieces of jobs in the world.

Channel 4’s news is to be commended. Their news presenters, such as Matt Frei, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Cathy Newman and others actually conduct in-depth interviews live in the studio, and not just with patsy Ch. 4 journalists; theirs are with senior politicians, captains of industry, union leaders, in fact anyone who is a big-enough target and deserves to be put under the interrogation lamp. Just watch them - they actually perform real interviews, which involve an on-the-spot thrust and parry that the BBC’s sanitized and rehearsed stuff just can’t match.

Matt Frei of Ch. 4 news

I like their newsreaders better too, when they present to-camera. They have more believability, more credibility than, say, the BBC’s Fiona Bruce, whose style is so conspiratorial that I feel the need to draw my chair closer to the television so that nobody else can hear what she’s telling me. She is allegedly paid between £350,000 and £400,000, and that's just to talk to me. There are others, but I am overcome with such ennui I can’t bring their names to mind. What I can tell you is that I would happily do Ms Bruce’s job for only twenty percent of what she’s paid, and I would do it better.

Come closer, let me whisper in your ear...

The only one at the BBC news worthy of note is political editor Laura Kuenssberg. She must be good since she has been threatened, and has required a body guard; you know your questions are getting close to the bone when that happens. Alas Laura and her posh wardrobe of elegant coats is usually confined to a rooftop somewhere in Westminster for most of her reports.

Laura wondering where her bodyguard is

I want Ms Kuenssberg to be the BBC’s main news reader, in the studio, allowed to do her incisive interviews and ask her intelligent questions live, and definitely not talk to rehearsed ‘editors’ who have exactly 50” to say their prepared piece. Are you listening BBC?

So, presenters’ salaries are bollocks, particularly at the BBC where they do sod-all to earn them. Our licence fees pay for this ‘service’ and we are absolutely short-changed. That’s the end of the news, here’s the weather.