Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Monday

Alex Massie

The Latest Great Irish Storyteller?

Who can we add to the roster of Great Irish Writers? Why none other than our old chum Patrick Bartholomew Ahern. It seems that Bertie's autobiography (sadly not titled Dig Outs & Other Fuck-Ups) should be found on the fiction shelves. How so? Well... The granting of tax-free status to former taoiseach Bertie Ahern for earnings from his autobiography under the artists’ exemption scheme has prompted calls for the scheme to be revised. Labour Party arts spokeswoman Mary Upton said the tax break served a worthy purpose and she would not like to see it removed, but it should be reviewed. “In the current economic climate we need to have another look at who is eligible and the financial structures around their eligibility,” she said.

Sunday

Alex Massie

The President is not your Daddy

Maureen Dowd is a lovely person but this is a truly terrible column. No Drama Obama is reticent about displays of emotion. The Spock in him needs to exert mental and emotional control. That is why he stubbornly insists on staying aloof and setting his own deliberate pace for responding — whether it’s in a debate or after a debacle. But it’s not O.K. to be cool about national security when Americans are scared. Our professorial president is no feckless W., biking through Katrina. He is no doubt on top of the crisis in terms of studying it top to bottom. But his inner certainty creates an outer disconnect.

Alex Massie

Sunday Evening Country: Waylon again

Been a whole lotta time since Waylon was seen around here. Time to rectify that so here's the great man singing A Good Hearted Woman which is what every outlaw needs though since all mommas also know they really shouldn't let their babies grow up to be cowboys you'd think that means they'd be doubly hesitant to let their daughters hitch themselves to the outlaw bandwagon...

Alex Massie

Our Dismal Politics: Charlatanry and Deceit All Around

Fraser rightly draws our attention to the highly entertaining extracts from Peter Watt's book published by the Mail on Sunday. Granted the whole enterprise is accompanied, as is traditional in these matters, by the sound of many an axe being ground and some of the details - to say nothing of the quotations - are close too being in the too-good-to-be-quite-true camp. Nonetheless, the general spirit of the thing seems persuasive. So it's worth highlighting another, minor, passage that actually doesn't have anything to do with Gordon Brown at all: Some of our politicians could be touchingly naive.

Saturday

Alex Massie

Bullseye Britain

It’s been a depressing few months, hasn’t it? The papers are full of stories about British decline. In such trying times it’s a comfort to turn to an activity in which Britain still rules. I speak, of course, of darts. Most of the world’s greatest games were made and built in Britain but in football and cricket and rugby and so much else the rest of the world long since over-took the original masters. That’s the problem with globalisation. Darts, however, remains a Great British Success Story. For all that darting missionaries preach the gospel of the oche overseas, this country still reigns supreme on the dartboard.

Friday

Alex Massie

The Health & Safety Culture Claims Another Victim

Curlers on the Lake of Menteith, Perthshire earlier this week. Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images. See, this is the sort of depressing development that makes one lose faith in modern Britain. Hopes had been hight that, for the first time since 1979, conditions would be right for the Grand Match between 2,000 curlers representing the North and South of Scotland to take place on the Lake of Menteith. (It's not simply a matter of the ice being thick enough; there musn't be any snow on the lake either.) And indeed the weather has played its part and in a better, saner world the bonspiel would be going ahead. But that reckons without our health and safety culture.

Alex Massie

The Politics of Snow

With admirable opportunism Sunder Katwala argues that the current frosty conditions make the case for more, not less government. As he says, everyone plenty of people like to rail against government in the absract only to find themselves asking the state to do more as soon as something - such as a heavy snowfall - makes life just that little bit more inconvenient. And, to be fair, he has a point. Many people do think like this, which is one reason why there's not actually a very hefty constituency for libertarianism. This is unfortunate, but true. Nonetheless, even libertarians are permitted to argue that since the public highways are publicly-funded it is indeed the state's responsibility to see that they remain open and clear of snow and ice.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Only One Word for That: Magic Darts

Enough of this talk of national decline. We still do some things quite well and we should celebrate them. Darts, for instance. I've a piece on the PDC World Championships in this week's edition of the magazine (subscribe!)... Darts, however, remains a Great British Success Story. For all that darting missionaries preach the gospel of the oche overseas, this country still reigns supreme on the dartboard. The rise of China threatens to overwhelm Britain’s traditional supremacy in snooker, but even though a Japanese darter won a preliminary round match at this year’s championships, Britain retains its comparative advantage when it comes to barrel-chested middle-aged men flinging 20 gram pieces of tungsten at a tiny target.

Alex Massie

Labour’s Useless Plotters Should Watch The Wire for Guidance

What a day! I mean, we've two feet of snow here and are running low on vital provisions (tobacco and whisky) and one of the chickens went missing and is feared lost in a snowdrift. A shame, since she's a reliable layer. Meanwhile at Westminster, a pair of clowns armed with plastic spoons tried to knife the Prime Minister. Tweedle-Who? and Tweedle-Hoon concocted a plot so comically useless that it seems possible that the only question is whether it will be remembered for its stupidity or its ineptitude. Now of course it ain't over yet (as James reminds us) but as of this writing it looks as though, yet again, Labour's plotters have demonstrated their utter hopelessness.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

John Wayne Explains the Culture Wars

Here's the Duke being interviewed by Canadian television in 1960. It's striking how contemporary it all sounds once the conversation moves on to politics. Fifty years on and you hear many of the same arguments... Hat-tip: Terry Teachout whose new biography of Louis Armstrong comes highly recommended.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Vote for Mr None of the Above!

If another 650 or so candidates did this then the new parliament could be rather interesting: An aspiring MP has gone to extreme lengths to protest against the three main political parties. Adam Osen, 50, has officially changed his name to None Of The Above and hopes to attract support from disillusioned voters as an independent parliamentary candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green. The move was suggested by Mr Above’s brother, Gideon, who took the idea from the film Brewster’s Millions, which sees a character run a political campaign under the same slogan. The former Mr Osen, a painter and decorator of Woodberry Way in Chingford, said his wife, Rebecca, 43, tried to talk him out of the move and many did not believe he would go through with it.

Alex Massie

A Question for the Nudgers

As we know, Team Dave are fans of Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's Nudge. The authors advocate something called "libertarian paternalism". Steve Hilton, Cameron's style guru, is especially enthusiastic about using insights gleaned from behavioural economics to advance "progressive Conservatism". Here's one example he cites in a recent strategy memo: A few years ago, the authorities in Montana managed to cut binge drinking amongst students - something that the Labour Government has tried and failed to do over the past decade. How? They simply put up advertising that stated: ‘80% of Montana college students drink fewer than four beers per week’. This led to an immediate fall in binge drinking because of the power of social norms.

Alex Massie

Tory health policy is confused and contradictory: so why do they want to talk about it?

I don't know why the Conservatives released their NHS manifesto yesterday. Can they really want people to read it? Do they think that's a good idea? I'm not sure it is, you know. Granted, there's the promise of a free health pony to every sick kid in the country and plenty of nice-sounding stuff about decentralisation and patients' rights and accountability and all the rest of it. But there's also, as I suppose might be expected, an awful lot of "we will" and very little "this is how we will" accomplish all these goals. For instance: "We will give people access to a doctor or nurse when the local family doctor's surgery isn't open:. Sounds useful! But how are you going to do this?

Alex Massie

A Case Against Profiling

In the wake of the Knicker-Bomber's attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner it's hardly a surprise that plenty of folk are calling for more rigorous profiling of muslim (or arab) passengers wanting to board aircraft. Some go so far as to suggest that all young muslim men should be strip-searched. Brother Blackburn doesn't go that far but does say that it's just common sense at work. Plenty of commenters agree with him. So, since I don't think profiling of this sort is a terribly good idea let me concede that it might make a difference to airline security. This might be the case even though there are plenty of examples, as David says, to remind one that any number of criminals would have escaped the kinds of profiling being suggested.

Monday

Alex Massie

Christmas Quiz! The Answers!

As promised, here are the answers to this year's Christmas Quiz. It turns out that it was perhaps a little harder than I'd appreciated since no-one (or at least no-one who sent me their answers) came very close to getting it right. The most valiant efforts - and most efforts were most valiant now that I think of it -  scored some marks on a little more than half the questions but no-one scored points on more than 22 of the 30 questions. Still, many thanks for playing and better luck next year... 1.  What's the connection between Dartford, St Pancras North, Beaconsfield and Edinburgh South?

Alex Massie

English Schadenfreude

Everyone always says that there's no english equivalent of schadenfreude and I've always assumed, recklessly as it turns out, that since everyone always says this it might be true. Not so! Hats-off to Mr Ciaran J Breen of Celbridge, County Kildare for writing to the Irish Times to explain that: But there is a one-word English equivalent. It is “epicaricacy” which means rejoicing at, taking fun in, or getting pleasure from the misfortune of others. The word is derived from the ancient Greek “epi” (meaning upon); “kharis” (meaning joy) and “kakos” (meaning evil). The German language equivalent, Schadenfreude, is more commonly used as a loan word in English. – Yours, etc,.

Sunday

Alex Massie

Fighting a Lukewarm War

What sort of war do we find ourselves fighting and, more than eight years after the destruction of the World Trade Center, who is winning? Like Norm, I commend a couple of columns from today's papers. First up it's Matt d'Ancona (late of this parish of course) in the Sunday Telegraph who writes: [T]here are two competing narratives in the West. The first is frightening, difficult and poses a host of deeply unwelcome questions. According to this version of events, we face a global struggle against a new mutation of militant Islamism ready to use all and any means at its disposal, bonded by anti-semitism, hatred of America and a desire to enforce sharia law and to restore the Caliphate. This network plots globally and kills locally. The merit of this is that it happens to be true.

Alex Massie

The Myth of Gordon Brown the Eternal Battler

Self-delusion is an important skill in politics. If you can't convince yourself that what you're saying is true then good luck with convincing the electorate. Among Gordon Brown's difficulties is the unfortunate truth that he's not an accomplished liar. So, for instance, when he tells Andrew Marr this morning that "Everything I have ever won in my life I have had to fight for." voters can be excused finding this preposterous. True, Brown's eye-troubles and his battles to help modernise the Labour party have been struggles, but within the context of his own upbringing and political history, Brown's as much an establishment figure as, in his own very different way and in a different sense, David Cameron.

Alex Massie

Rory Stewart’s Long March to the Border

It's a curious feature of British politics these days that an ex-army, ex-FCO hand educated at Eton and Oxford can reasonably considered a "new" kind of politician. Then again, Rory Stewart isn't your average Old Etonian. Assuming, as seems likely, he wins Penrith and the Border he seems likely to be the new member of parliament who will be the subject of more envy and perhaps jealousy than any of his peers. So be it. I rather enjoyed his account, published in the Sunday Times today, of the walking tour he's made of his prospective constituency. There's much good sense in it and, frankly, one approves of the idea of an MP making such a progress on an annual basis. This too has an appeallingly old-fashioned feel to it. And there's some good sense too.