Airedales on the Move

Awfully sorry chaps, but there won't be a proper blog this evening.

Henry and I have one of those god-awful, yet lovely society weddings to get to this weekend off in some backwater in the south east south of the border.

You know the sort of thing…

I simply must spend this time helping Henry find his second-best black silk top hat, then help him bash the weasels out of it before bashing the dents out of it.

I'm also sure I left his tartan trousers around here somewhere.  They work better with morning dress – albeit admittedly not well – and are just generally a bit less aggressive than a kilt when south of the border.

Oh, Grow Up

I'm going to resoundingly ignore the return of Downton Abbey and focus on more important matters in the news.

I find this all a bit of a shock.  First of all, when was the end of adolescence raised to 18?

New guidance for child psychologists is recommending that adolescence now runs until the age of 25.  Child psychologist Laverne Antrobus is quoted as saying 'The idea that suddenly at 18 you're an adult doesn't quite ring true... My experience of young people is that they still need quite a considerable amount of support and help beyond that age.'  She believes that we often rush through childhood whilst being encouraged to achieve key milestones very quickly.

The BBC reports that there are three stages of adolescence – ‘early’ adolescence from 12-14 years, ‘middle’ adolescence from 15-17 years, and ‘late’ adolescence at 18 years and beyond.  Antrobus continues by saying 'Neuroscience has made these massive advances where we now don't think that things just stop at a certain age, that actually there's evidence of brain development well into the early twenties and that actually the time at which things stop is much later than we first thought.'

Hmmmmm.  And perhaps also ‘hrrrrrrrmmm.’  Probably with a ‘-ph’ waiting calmly in the wings.

Frank Furedi, a professor of sociology at the University of Kent, is entirely more sound.  He says that we have 'infantilised young people'.  He's quoted as saying 'There is a loss of the aspiration for independence and striking out on your own.  When I went to university it would have been a social death to have been seen with your parents, whereas now it's the norm… [It’s] not that the world has become crueller, it's just that we hold our children back from a very early age… we don't let them out on their own… hover all over them and insulate them from real-life experience… We treat university students the way we used to treat school pupils.'

Well, blow me down!

Coming from a background where I was racing tractors at a very young age (and coming out on top, too, until a very questionable ruling about the engine I was using); and wherein your measure as a teenager was the amount of scrumpy you could drink without falling over or losing any teeth; and wherein the idea of courting was both of you chasing a cheese down a hill – at least until you were old enough to know that your elders were lying about that being the most naughty thing you could do, these new guidelines strike me as a new and rather sinister form of national molly-coddling.

I am with this Furedi fellow.  Why, my father showed me how to field-strip and reassemble a .308 Parker-Hale when I was eight years old and then left me to it in the barn.  And even before I could read Commando War Stories in Pictures, let alone gralloch a stag, I was the best goat-catcher and -milker in the county.

I left home when I went to boarding school at nine, and when I was home for the holidays, my parents made me pay rent for my room.  They didn't let me forget that there was a real world waiting out there for me.

At or around 30 years of age, my eldritch elvis eldest daughter thinks of herself as ‘insanely’ old.  Perhaps this is why she has started breeding before settling down, and still wears t-shirts with the names of popular beat combos on them.  The other day when she was banging on about ‘One Direction’ I got the wrong end of the stick completely, dug out my old Silva and CCF manual, and re-taught her how to walk on a compass-bearing.

Alistair is still living at home, admittedly, but only because he has so much dirty laundry he can't keep it all at university for fear it will eat him.  However, once he gets his degree (we hope and trust!) I believe he will be leaving us for pastures cleaner, or at any rate hiring a cleaner.

As for darling Sylvie?  She is our proudest achievement in this regard.  She's barely out of her 'teens' and she's already defrauded several millionaires, been thrown in prison and escaped.  She is now on the run with a much older woman with whom she enjoys a relationship, enjoying the highlife in South America somewhere.  All of this used to upset me, but that was before I discovered how to make my own gin.

In fact, come to think of it, the only grown-up child in this house is my husband Henry.  Poor mite.  He was very cared-for as a child, by several nannies.  Nevertheless, he is now flourishing: with budding careers in both tweed-milling and ‘gangsta’ rap, and a liver that just won't quit.

We don't spend a great deal of time worrying about being an adult versus being a child.  Like Popeye the Sailor Man, we simply are who we are.

No-one puts the Airedales in a corner.

Lyons and Tigers and Bears

Earlier this week Jaguar Land Rover revealed their C-X17 crossover concept.  Well, it's not gigantically subtle, is it?  And it's in a 'lustrous' Caesium Blue (that's cobalt blue to you and me), with some gloss black window liners and some interestingly Dark Atlas graphite grey five-split alloys measuring at a very generous 23in, with gloss black finishers on the spokes.

Whatever that means.

A few more specs, if you would kindly bear with me, then I will get on to the point.  The C-X17's cabin contains slim-line seats, mounted rather low down, and the 3mm-thick saddle leather has been die-cut in a houndstooth pattern 'inspired by traditional tailoring methods' (as distinct, one supposes, from the houndstooth pattern inspired by weaving methods with which the rest of the universe is familiar).  The panoramic sculpted roof draws in daylight, and the interior lighting will be ever-so modern and include lighting the seats.

Speaking of ever-so-modern – the C-X17 will feature an 'Interactive Surface Console' (or touch-screen to you human types).  The systems runs the entire length of the car's centre tunnel, a series of inter-connecting screens between transparent not-quite-glass glass, all connected by in-car Wi-Fi.  Not only does it have all the social media bells and whistles, but you can also, with a flick of your wrist, pass content between front and rear seat occupants.  Along with the usual horribly over-the-top sound system and anodised black aluminium, it is a car crammed to the gills with connectivity and technology that the American National Security Agency would drool themselves over.

Once again, the Daily Mail has very interesting 'thoughts'.

Dear Mr Massey: you're full of nincompoopery.

Come now Daily Mail!  It's hardly designed for women is it?  Now, the Honda Fit/Jazz She's…

Yo.

That, dear reader, actually is designed for women, and even features a heart instead of the apostrophe in 'She's'; exterior colours inspired by shades of eye shadow; hot pink stitching inside on the steering wheel and seats; and pink bezels on the dashboard.  And the windscreen apparently helps prevent wrinkles by minimising the effect of UV rays from the sun, and the climate control system improves skin quality. 

Luckily, it's only available in Japan, because I know a few girls who would gladly take a shot at it.

At the beginning of my blog entry today was the general specification of the C-X17 Jaguar crossover concept I obtained by reading a well-known car magazine  and the official press release itself.

Nowhere does it mention that this was a bid to attract more women customers, or designed with 'Chelsea Tractors' in mind.  I would like it if the Mail did not abuse Jaguar Land Rover’s good name in this fashion.

I will admit that I read the Mail Online for fun, as (in my defence) I believe I’ve mentioned many times before.  But just who are these women that the Mail are writing for, and to where and when did their sense of individuality and common decency disappear?  Going to the comments section of the article I am appalled by the casual sexism against women drivers, but mostly by how many women are not sticking up for themselves.  Do they agree with the Mail's sentiments?

Would Amelia Earhart be seen dead in a 'Chelsea Tractor'?  Boadicea?  How about Pankhurst?  Queen Amina of Zaria?  Well?

Why, in my own upbringing our 'Chelsea Tractor' (using the term very loosely and for illustrative purposes only) was an actual tractor that daddy drove us to school on.  When we all reached double-figures, he would even let us drive it up to the school corner, before we quickly swapped around so that he wouldn't be called into the Headmistress's office again.  His record was shocking.

Although after volunteering as the school trip transport,
 we never went to school on the tractor again.

In my own household here in Airnefitchie, the 'Chelsea Tractor' was our current old Landie.  I would pull up to the school gates with children green about the gills due to the shocking suspension.  Upon arrival at the school gates, a cloud of black smoke belched out of the exhaust (I've fixed that problem now).  Henry and I loved, and still love, this car.  Don’t give two hoots what you think of it.  Our children will always bear a grudge against it for making sure they never missed a day of school due to bad weather, what with the snorkel and attachable snow plough.  Unfortunately, sometimes the school itself missed some days due to snow flurries and the children would look despondently out of the Landie's fogged-up windows wishing they were still in the warmth of the kitchen – or, indeed, the school – instead of the cold of the car.  Eventually, they saved up for a radio so they could listen to the local weather announcements and hear of any school closures before they had finished breakfast or even finished putting on their uniforms.

Oh, and it never went anywhere near Chelsea.

Despite what the slogan says.

Don't know what they're complaining about really.  The Land Rover is a fine vehicle.  Suitable for girls or boys.

If it's good enough for Her Majesty…

What the Mail fails to latch onto is the fact that the new Jaguar concept is parading on with this new-fangled idea of constant connectivity.  I find those words damnable!  Why must people insist on being 'hooked up' ‘24/7’?  Surely, giving them the ability to update their social media network whilst driving is very poor idea indeed!  At least my father crashed his tractor due to its heavy load of ten or fifteen primary school children, not because he was updating his TwitBook with a status saying he was probably about to crash.

What I want to know is, will it actually have the 4x4 capability it has the potential to have?  And for the love of all that is holy, will it come in a different colour?  In good old BRG and with the all-terrain performance of a Land Rover or Range Rover, then I might grow to like it.  And the Jaguar C-X17 is the prettiest of the crossovers I've seen, so it's not all bad.  It's not like it's the Porsche Cayenne, which is the most pointless and badly named crossover I have ever come across.

Having said of that, this is a Jaguar concept, and we all know how likely it is to be made into a production car.

It's awfully lonely out here…hello?  Anyone?

So, come on, ladies!  Don't let the Mail, or anyone, brainwash you into thinking any car is specifically designed for women (expect the aforementioned Honda Fit-You-On-About-Min); not until you've read the press release.  And always remember the golden question when in the sales room: 'Yes, but will it work on/in mud/snow/gravel/steep hills/sand/fords whilst transporting a trailer full of a class of twenty primary school children without toppling over?  Well?'

A Wee Bit Irritated

Edinburgh: Inspiring capital by charging you to pee

And so, they've started charging 30p to use the ‘public’ 'conveniences' in Princes Street Gardens.

Edinburgh City Council are refurbishing seven city-centre public loos, which 'will see the facilities refurbished and a small charge introduced for their use'.

I'm all for a lick of paint and a spruce up, but none of the ones I’d used hitherto were ever really that bad.  And now they're doing the same down in Waverley Station too!  Thirty pence!  Why that sum?  Of course!  The convenient 30p coin that does not exist.  When you're bursting, having just come off the train from Airnefitchie (on which an apparently homeless man and his elderly Schnauzer are permanently installed in the loo), the last thing you want to do is have to root around for the correct change.

And now you have to pay to pee outside the station as well.  No, no, not in the form of police court fines; I mean that the Princes Mall also charges thirty pence for the privilege of letting you relieve yourself in their facilities.

Therefore, I am often left to brave Debenhams, Jenners or the M&S Food Hall – at rush hour – just to use their facilities, which thankfully are still free to anyone walking off the street.  Coffee shops are often no good these days either.  I do not wish to purchase a Starbucks coffee just for the sake of the right relieve myself, as moments after drinking said coffee I need relieve myself once again and find myself in the same predicament as before!

Have you ever heard of human rights?  You heard me.  Human rights are 'commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being'.  Yes, I know the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a non-binding resolution, but now that it has acquired the force of international customary law, which can be invoked, I rather think I have a case here.  Is urination not one of the most fundamental functions of a human being, and therefore of being human?  I rather imagine that asserting your basic need to pee was part of the 'recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family...the foundation of freedom, justice and pees in the world'. 

Sorry, ‘peace’.

Human rights violations occur when actions by state actors (e.g. Edinburgh City Council) abuse, ignore or deny basic human rights, and can occur when any state actor (see above) breaches any part of the aforementioned and above-quoted U.D.H.R.

Needing to pee and being charged to do so could be seen as a violation of my basic right to life (because I'm sure if I wasn't allowed to pee, I would shortly die); and my right to freedom from torture (have you ever needed to pee after getting off the sleeper train from Scotland to London – where all the toilets are currently occupied with other passengers – and arrived so early that you neither have the change for the station toilets nor are there any free public toilets even open and you've had to wait for the National Bloody Portrait Gallery to open just so you can use their facilities?); my right to freedom from slavery (I refuse to be a slave to whichever council body is in charge – they are making me a slave to their principles in thinking paying to use the facilities is the correct thing to do); and finally my right to a fair trial (at which I would argue why it is not necessary to pay for the toilets and that one simply never has the correct change to make the required thirty pence – they just assume that I will).

Why is it that this admittedly fairly small human rights abuse can go on under the very noses of those trying to uphold the very principles behind the philosophy of the human right, and yet who bow down to any miscreants who claim their human rights have been violated because we want to steer them out of the country because they violated the civil duties they are meant to adhere to whilst living in this country.  Or prisoners who successfully sue the state because their human rights have been violated due to being incarcerated for murder, or something.

What I want to know is, as a law-abiding (mostly) citizen of this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and therefore a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (not personally but you know what I mean), a member of NATO, the Commonwealth of Nations, G7, G8, G9½, G20, the OECD, the WTO, the Council of Europe, the OSCE and the European Union:

Where is my human rights protection?

I need to pee and I don't have thirty pence, and how long before the department stores cotton on this wicked, wicked scam too?

I suppose I could always lift my leg on the Scott Monument.

Battle Royale with Cheese

We're quite relieved that dear Alisdair does not constantly require us to buy him the 'New Hot Phone'. Every so often, however, he does demand that we sit with him to watch the 'New Hot Film' – albeit perhaps some months after its ‘hotness’ has cooled everywhere else.  He may be the coming generation, but when all is said and done, this is Airnefitchie, after all.

Last night, we watched a double-bill of Battle Royale and The Hunger Games.

Alaster had given us some warning of what we would be watching, and so I did a brief bit of research.  I found the book The Hunger Games in The Other One's laundry basket, so I gave it a quick read.  It's always nice to hear the exploits of a heroine who’s deadly with a bow and arrow; a girl after my own heart really.

What do you fancy for tea tonight?  Deer?  Rabbit?  Trespasser?

But having not heard about Battle Royale, I gave it a quick internet search.  Some of the reviews I read left me fairly panting with antici...

...pation..

Robert Koehler compares it to 'the outrage over youth violence' that Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange generated in early-'70s Britain.  Quentin Tarantino praised Battle Royale as the best film he had seen in the past two decades: 'If there's any movie that's been made since I've been making movies that I wish I had made, it's that one'.  Michael Mirasol praised Battle Royale for its 'thoughtful characterisation' that is 'lavished upon all the students' and concluded that it is an 'intensely violent fable aimed at a young audience, but with true feeling, intelligence, and respect'.  R.L. Shaffer of IGN gave the film a score of 8 out of 10, taking 'a moment to thank The Hunger Games for reminding us how awesome Battle Royale really is'.  And Maggie Lee of Reuters describes Battle Royale as the 'film that pioneered the concept of the teen death game'.

It must be quite a move, indeed!  It was shaping up to be the Japanese version of A Clockwork Orange meets Lord of the Flies and not to be missed (although if it had been made by Mr Tarantino, all bets would have been off).

The Guardian said it, so it must be true!

The Hunger Games, on the other hand, was mostly reviewed as being a rip-off of Battle Royale – despite Suzanne Collins, the HG author, citing inspiration from the juxtaposition of the Iraq War and reality television (I believe her) and maintaining that she 'had never heard of that book [Battle Royale] until her book was turned in'.

In any case, Henry popped some kernels, I made some hot toddies, and we all settled down with an Irish wolfhound each on our feet.  Alistair sat in a sleeping bag on the floor munching on venison jerky.

After five hours (we had to have an extensive loo break, and hunt for the missing popcorn down the back of the settee) I wasn't quite sure what had just happened.

For one thing, how is The Hunger Games a worse rip-off of Battle Royale, than Battle Royale was a bad rip-off of Lord of the Flies?  Eh?

Watching these sorts of movies always makes one wonder how one would personally react and murder the others; and in Battle Royale it would be far too easy, especially if you were one of the first pupils out of the room.  Finding a hidden spot and taking them out one-by-one as they left the building would have been a work of a moment, and with any luck at all you could have purloined all their weapons to boot.  You probably wouldn’t have enough ammo to deal with all 42 opponents, but at least you would have definitely taken out a fair bit of the competition before having to retreat and re-work your strategy.  That the adults would send everyone out sequentially through the same door seems virtually to invite this.

The Hunger Games solved this with the idea of their Horn of Plenty and setting all the 'contestants' off at once in a circular pattern.  If anything, rather than making threats against Collins, Battle Royale fans should be thanking her for devising a game that might actually be interesting to play or watch.

Also, I felt there were too many characters in Battle Royale.  There was some hasty character development, but it mainly felt like a bunch of screaming schoolchildren, and who wouldn’t want to cut them in in the middle of nowhere on a deserted island?

Again, The Hunger Games seemed to solve this – though I wonder how much someone might have understood this without reading the book.  The Hunger Games film seemed a bit rushed to get everything in at once, but at least included a nice amount of backstory for the main character.  Battle Royale seemed a bit muddled in comparison.  Maybe I dropped a bit of popcorn down my gilet at a crucial moment and didn't see something that would have explained everything for every person.  But when all was said and done, I didn't care who lived and who died; only that they were doing it all wrong and needlessly wasting ammunition.

Tragically, I now feel I need to read the book Battle Royale.  The movie hasn't exactly left me wanting more, and there is even a sequel out there somewhere, but it has left me wanting to understand just what the Dickens was going on.  What made the schoolchildren become such a danger to society?  What made society collapse in the first place?  It could have been covered by the titles at the beginning very easily, like in The Hunger Games.

I'm normally more critical of films based on books, especially if I've actually read the book, whether before or after the occasion of viewing the film.  The Hunger Games seemed a bit more successful in its adaptation.  Of course, not having read Battle Royale, my opinion of the film might change once I have, but as it stands it is very silly.

The Hunger Games just seems more plausible.

I do so enjoy our movie nights, but hope that next time Alistair will allow us to watch something starring George Sanders.

Ah, be still my beating heart…