the scenic blog

I live in a particularly beautiful part of a particularly beautiful country. It is a part of the world of which I am immensely proud. I can’t think of anywhere that I would rather have been raised. The north coast of Northern Ireland is a stunning place and a joy to behold.There are, as always, advantages and disadvantages to living in the middle of an area of outstanding natural beauty. One of the advantages – Often when I wake up and open my curtains I stare out at the Antrim Plateau and its beauty fills me with awe of creation and makes everything all right in the world. One of the disadvantages – After I’ve been filled with awe (and juice and bagels) and showered and dressed and looked at the time and then panicked and then run to my car shouting to no one in particular that I am going to be late for whatever, I pull out of my drive and into a queue of traffic caused by some tourist slowing down to 20 mph so they can fully absorb the wonder of creation as they drive along the scenic route.

The problem is that all the routes around me have suddenly become “scenic routes.” Originally it was just the Coast Road and that suited me down to the ground as I could avoid it if I was in a rush – now all of a sudden that road has been extended right up past Coleraine, Castlerock and on. The Causeway Coast will soon reach the whole way round the Island I think. Then the roads round the Bann became Bann Valley Scenic Routes – there are at least three separate Bann Valley Scenic Routes. Everywhere I turn there is a new brown sign telling me that the road on which I am currently driving is a beautiful route, and that if I turn left I will be on another beautiful route, and that a bit further on, to the right is a beautiful route, and, oh yeah, didn’t I think that route behind was pretty?Now I am always late because, wherever I go, there are tourists. I can’t wait for winter. Maybe the rain and grey skies will mask some of the natural beauty and the scenic routes will be a little less busy.

sportsman, statesman, gentleman

A statue was unveiled in Coleraine this afternoon. Created by Ross Wilson, it was of a local football player who died two years ago. Bertie Peacock played for Northern Ireland and Celtic, managing his country (and Colerine) in the 60s. He was a legend – but not in the way that ‘legend’ has come to be defined.

Think of legends in the modern era and names such as Beckham, Zidane, Ronaldo etc come to mind. These are men who have made a fortune out of the game, married famous, beautiful women (in the case of Vicky B that’s maybe a matter of opinion, I’ll maybe substitute famous and rich women in her case) and live their lives under the intense glare of media scrutiny. Modern “legends” often appear more often in the gossip sections of the tabloids than in the sports section. It could be suggested that they have sold their souls to the devil that is celebrity. I, of course, would never make such a sweeping judgement, but it could be suggested by others perhaps.

Perhaps the most famous local sporting legends, George Best and Alex Higgins, were undoubtedly amazing talents. They could be, irrefutably, described as geniuses in their respective fields. They could also have been described as having major flaws that, again, led them to appear outside the sports pages. We love them for what they were able to do, we loved them because they grew up in places we recognise, but we pity them for what they allowed to happen to themselves. We feel admiration for their rise to fame and we feel pity for their decline into infamy.

The concept of “legend” has certainly evolved through the ages. Which brings me back to Bertie; a man who doesn’t fit either of the previous definitions. He was a naturally gifted player who became an immensely respected leader who went on to leave a legacy to his profession through the founding of the Milk Cup, an international youth football tournament in Northern Ireland.

According to historical references (my dad and the maths teacher from across the corridor from my previous classroom) footballers in Peacock’s day were a different breed. They travelled on the bus to the matches, hung around for a drink with the fans in the local, got stick from their mates at work on Monday morning if they’d played badly at the weekend. They talk fondly of a time when the players of Coleraine football club were a local bunch – born and raised within a few miles of the ground. They lived among the fans – they were fans themselves. Now I know Peacock can’t claim to have been born and raised among the fans when he moved to Celtic – but I know the fans in Glasgow took him as one of their own and respected him as much as we did over here – of course it helped that he captained them to league and cup glory in his time there.

I didn’t know the man personally (The thing for which I most admire him, leading Coleraine to their only league title, took place three years before I was born) but I know enough people who consider him a close friend and who can think of no bad thing to say about the man to know that he was truly special. As far as I can tell he didn’t marry a super model, didn’t own a super car, didn’t get Christmas cards from film stars. Yet I’m glad they unveiled a statue of him in Coleraine. In the way that Joey Dunlop represented greatness in Ballymoney and was rightly remembered and honoured by the town, Bertie Peacock embodies qualities that the residents of Coleraine could do worse than to use as an example. Just look at the base of the statue for examples - sportsman, statesman, gentleman.

Will you be much longer?

"That's two hours of your life you won't get back." I think if I were ever interviewed in one of those 5 minutes, quickie interviews and I was asked what phrase I use too often this is what I'd reply. I use it when I've managed to persuade friends or family to sit through one of my am-dram performances. I use it when I've just sat through Newcastle United succumbing to another humiliating defeat. I use it when I’ve had to teach a particularly boring topic and I know some of the pupils are losing the will to live – I know teachers are supposed to make everything new and exciting and fill their pupils with zeal and enthusiasm for everything they teach. But realistically there are topics out there that we can’t enthuse ourselves about, and if we’re not excited how are we expected to excite others? Of course we do our best but sometimes, just sometimes, we fail to fill our pupils with the fever that we normally do – I use it because I feel bad that I have either persuaded someone else, or persuaded myself to waste a chunk of their life doing something when they would really have been a lot happier and feel more constructive doing something less boring instead.

A lot of our allotted time in this life is seen as wasted. You’ll find no end of statistics online showing that we spend two weeks kissing, four years doing housework, twenty-four years sleeping, six months sitting on the toilet… I could go on but I only have so long to spend on the internet – I need to catch up on my nine months spent in traffic jams.

Last night, as I was about to fall asleep, I heard a new statistic. Apparently British men spend, on average, a year of their lives waiting for their wives and girlfriends. This time, apparently, includes twenty-two weeks waiting outside the changing rooms while their partner tries on clothes. Apparently six out of ten men say it drives them mad that they spend over a week waiting in their car to pick up their girlfriend, who is currently spending that week walking around telling everyone individually that they “must catch up again soon.” One of those six men will, it appears, leave their partner for this very reason. How appropriate it is that they begin married life by keeping the groom waiting at the altar while they take an extra drive round the block.

I got to thinking about how I don’t currently have anyone to wait on. I started to wonder what I should be spending that year doing. I could learn a new language, finish the screenplay I started in 2002, watch the complete back catalogue of Scrubs… the world is my oyster.

Then the bad part happened. I started to think of all the times I’d kept people waiting. Including the plays, the (incredibly few) boring lessons, and the football matches, I have wasted an awful lot of people’s time. On top of that I have a habit of being late. I generally turn up twenty minutes later than I had previously arranged. I like to think that people who know me take this into account when they make the arrangement and spend the extra twenty minutes constructively; but what if they don’t?

So I apologise. To everyone I’ve kept waiting, I’m sorry for the valuable years of your life you spent at Train Stations, Airports, Coffee Shops; I’m sorry for all the plays you sat through for my five minute cameos; I’m sorry I forced you to sit through James Cameron films just so I could talk about how bad they were; I’m sorry I made you read through this blog to the very end. That’s five minutes of your life you won’t get back.

red face day

Yesterday the BBC admitted further cases of fake phone-ins involving high profile programming such as Children in Need, Sports Relief and Comic Relief. Today the written press had a field day.

BBC Shame… Charities caught up in BBC phone scandal… Bear faced cheek…

As I do everyday I visited Young’s Stationers and Newsagent on Ballymoney Main Street. As I do everyday I read each and every paper’s front page to see which I want to pay good money for. As I do everyday I selected The Independent. I couldn’t get over the force of the anger directed at the BBC. Even the Daily Express decided against putting their usual Princess Diana story on the front page in favour of a story about Muslims not being terribly grateful for all the help they receive from the British Police… oh, and PHONE-IN SCANDAL AT THE BBC. The only paper without a front page comment on the controversy was The Independent (well, and The Star which had its obligatory Big Brother story.) Is it any wonder I’m a liberal?

I must admit that I am disappointed in the way programme bosses feel the quality of output overrides any sense of honesty in programme making. I despair that an organisation which places the word “trust” so high in its list of priorities has shown up so many flaws. But in all honesty I can’t say I’m overly surprised. In a media-savvy world where we are sold “sexed-up” stories on a daily basis, where presentation is a greater part of professionalism than content, where cynicism is a prerequisite for an evenings viewing; in a world like this it is hardly surprising that someone took the decision to create a fake contestant rather than admit that technical difficulties had ruined the competition. We live in a world where it is better to cover yourself and get away with something than it is to acknowledge weakness. The only problem occurs where we get found out; and that’s only a problem if enough people actually care. Unfortunately for the BBC, no matter what they do, millions of people care.

And so we find Auntie Beeb’s woes splashed over the front pages, and given ten minute slots in ITN’s news coverage (and possibly Sky’s – I don’t know, I don’t have Sky) Even the BBC themselves seem to be glorying in their own misfortune. FiveLive phone-ins have been dominated by the story, Newsnight had a special report and I can’t wait to see what Nolan has to say about it all. Meanwhile other, more important, stories are slipping through on pages eight and nine. Other media stories that I, personally, find more worrying.

There is no doubt that it has been a bad, BAD week for the BBC but did you notice, for instance, that reports have been disclosed (under the Freedom of Information Act) showing the close relationship between a certain Mr Murdoch and a Mr Blair during the run up to the Iraq War? Requests for this information had been blocked for four years until, as The Independent puts it, “the Government backed down in a surprise change of heart the day after Mr Blair resigned last month.” It’s hard not to imagine the paper’s Political Editor smiling as he typed that line.

Anyway I found the correlation between the Murdoch/Blair phone conversations and the content of The Sun’s comment page fascinating and a lot more shocking than people being defrauded out of their 10,000-1 chance of winning a flat screen TV by spending twenty minutes on a premium rate phone line after watching Richard and Judy – call me harsh but sometimes I think people deserve to lose. It worries me that Mr Murdoch (once described as the 24th member of the Blair cabinet) had such an apparent influence on our elected leader during the most controversial period of his premiership. When you read comments like this:

No big decision could ever be made in No10 without taking account of three men, Gordon Brown, John Prescott and Rupert Murdoch. On the really big decisions, anybody else could safely be ignored.Alastair Campbell’s Diaries

It makes you wonder if maybe, just maybe, Murdoch’s babies, The Times and The Sun, might possibly be publishing their attacks on the BBC with as much genuine relief as genuine outrage.

Shock of 2007

I could have fallen off my chair. Who’d have thought it? Apparently… prepare yourselves for this now… rumour has it that… are you sitting down?... it seems that this year the A-level results were the best they’ve ever been. EVER been!

OK, perhaps the magnitude of this news has been tempered by the fact that we hear this every year. Every year for twenty five years to be precise. I’d love to know what the class of ’81 did wrong that they didn’t beat the previous best. I’m thinking they spent too much time recording the top ten off the radio onto cassette for their walkmans (walkmen?)

Every year it is the same old story, and every year we hear the same arguments – the exams aren’t getting easier, just different – A-levels are more skills based than knowledge based – Standards of teaching and learning are improving year on year – blah blah blah blah blah.

It’s not that I disagree with any of the above statements. I just think that the inevitability of announcements of ‘the best ever results’ each year devalues the achievements of the pupils. I honestly believe we need to year or two where the results plateau for us to take them seriously again. Having said that I would feel terrible for whatever group of pupils it is who break the trend – they will be shunned by society no doubt.

Of more concern to me, however, is the fact that much of this year’s improvement was overwhelmingly down to private and selective schools. Now before proponents of private and selective education start rejoicing and dancing in the aisles I don’t think this is particularly good news (no, DPW, I still haven’t taken your arguments for private education on board.)

It appears to me that the achievements divide between the Private and Selective sector and the Comprehensives is growing ever more rapidly; apparently it is at its widest for more than a decade. Some commentators predict that this, already large chasm, will become an impassable canyon with the introduction of an A* grade in a few years. Despite this being wonderful news for the upper to mid middle classes living within spitting distance of a decent grammar school, it is terrible for rest of the country. This is one of the reasons I’m not a big fan of the A-level. One of many.

But this is not the time to be having a rant about the injustices of the education system. Now is the time to be congratulating those who did well in their exams this year and wishing them all the very best in whatever it is they do next.

Portrush Summer Theatre

Performing as 'Jamie' in Eric Chapells 'Haywire' at Portrush Summer Theatre with Ballymoney Literary and Debating Society. Normal service will be resumed shortly.