The Shoogly Peg

A very odd story has appeared over the last couple of days. The Drum reports on a Times editorial on the death of Gary Speed – an editorial which has since been supported by the Daily Mail. The Times laments the lack of investigation into Gary Speed’s death, saying,

“If this awful event had taken place, say, a year ago, it is quite likely that we would know a good deal more about it. More of Mr Speed’s story would have emerged, and with it, perhaps, an enhanced understanding of his motives.But, as it is, we – including this newspaper – know very little, possibly a great deal less than there is to know.”

It adds that there have been rumours and theories circulating on the internet since Gary Speed’s death, and regrets that the mainstream press has held back from investigating – because, says The Times, of fears caused by the Leveson Inquiry that any investigation would be criticised.

The full piece is well worth a read, as one of the finest examples of hypocrisy and self-righteousness that I have seen in quite some time. The gist of their argument is that the press is scared to investigate so scurrilous bloggers are just making stuff up instead. And the Daily Mail has dug up support for this position from Tory MP Philip Davies, who says,

“The problem is that we are seeing a chilling effect on the Press and the rest of the respectable media, leaving a large field clear to the unregulated internet and social media so people can peddle lots of things that are not true. These things are best covered in the respectable media so you get the truth, rather than unpleasant smears and lies.”

This would be that same respectable media that hacked into phones to get stories, camps outside the houses of its victims, chases them down the street and approaches their children in an attempt to get a story.

It is bad enough that the print media has allowed itself to descend into the sickening cesspit of amorality that Leveson is revealing. But it is utterly contemptible that, instead of accepting responsibility, expressing genuine remorse and striving for far higher standards of reporting, The Times and its new pal the Daily Mail is claiming that only they can be trusted to find out the truth and blaming bloggers, Leveson and generally everyone but themselves for the fact that their editors won’t let them go and rake through Gary Speed’s bin.

Gary Speed was 42 when he died. Men aged 35-44 are, by quite some margin, the people who are most likely to die by suicide. Instead of whinging about not being allowed to dismantle Gary Speed’s private life, the press could perform a genuine public service by writing honestly and constructively about the reasons for the high suicide rate amongst this group, and the actions that we can all take to help people who are suicidal.

I do not know what the Murdoch-owned Times knows, or thinks it ought to know, about Gary Speed’s death. I do know that the press has no-one to blame but itself for the contempt in which much of the public now holds it.

Well, I could hardly leave my ill-tempered denunciation of the Military Wives as my last pre-festive post, could I? So here’s something a bit more appropriate: an appreciation of Christmas. Yes, I know I’m usually whinging on about something or other on this blog, but at this time of year, I like to take off my grumpy hat and don a silly paper one instead.

The fact is, I love Christmas. And like most people, my idea of A Proper Christmas was shaped when I was a kid. I remember it all in detail, and with great warmth.

Every year, I’d wake up first. I’d manage to lie still for, ooh, thirty seconds or so, and then I’d run to the door, where I’d see the image that still defines Christmas for me. Hanging from a thin golden ribbon on my door handle would be a long cream-coloured football sock that had once belonged to my dad. It was crammed full of gifts, always with an apple at the bottom (swiftly returned to the fruit bowl and ignored), a couple of pound coins in the toe (rapidly trousered) and a cracker poking from the top. The most thrilling sound I have ever heard was the noise, late on Christmas Eve when I should have been asleep, of my mum Santa furtively scrabbling to hang the stocking from my door handle. I know that these days, kids have proper Christmas stockings, bought from shops and trimmed with fur and tinsel. But If I live to be a hundred, I will never see anything more festive than that holey old football sock, bulging with fabulous shapes.

I’d drag my stocking through to my brother’s room, where I’d pogo from wall to wall, almost speechless with excitement, while he, sometimes forcibly, prevented me from waking my parents until an hour that could reasonably be called morning. As soon as I was allowed, I’d dart into their room, and then we began the ritual. My brother and I would career down the stairs, where the second most miraculous sight of Christmas awaited us: the tree, standing guard over a gleaming abundance of presents, spilling out from beneath the branches.

We’d both select one present for each member of the family and take them back upstairs. Not until all of those gifts had been opened, handed round and discussed would we return downstairs to gather another round. In this way, opening presents could be stretched out for hours, as my parents sipped coffee and my dad fetched screwdrivers to assemble that year’s more complicated gifts.

Since then, I have stood at the top of the Empire State Building, bathed in Iceland’s Blue Lagoon and seen Mount Fuji with my own eyes. I’ve spent many wonderful days and nights with much-loved friends and family. But nothing will ever surpass those cosy Christmas mornings of my childhood, contentedly disappearing into a sea of wrapping paper as I sat on a bed with the people I loved most in the world.

Today, there are only three people left from our family of four, and one is many thousands of miles away. We couldn’t recreate those days now, even if we tried. But when I think about Christmas, it will forever be those long happy mornings that will come to mind.

I know that this Christmas will be lovely. I will be spending it with close family, my partner and my much-adored cats, and I will cherish every moment. But a tiny part of me will be thirty miles and more than thirty years away, back on that double bed with an old football sock, an abandoned apple and a room full of joy.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

I don’t believe that people are either optimists or pessimists. I think life is a lot more complicated than that. Sometimes, I am relentlessly determined to see the positive side of everyone and everything. And other times, I’m a grumpy old git. I’m a sunny curmudgeon, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

I mention this because for some time I have been thinking something terrible. Something almost unforgivable, that I would never dream of mentioning in polite company. (Luckily, the shooglypeg does not qualify as polite company). And I suppose I want to make clear, before I give voice to this hideous thought, that I am really a nice person. I do not go around looking for lovely things to be horrible about.

With that said, here goes. I hate the Military Wives song.

I know. I’m sorry. But I’m nice to cats! I stop to tickle their tummies in the street and everything!

It doesn’t help, does it? I’ve just publicly admitted that I despise a song that is raising money for charity, sung by women whose partners are serving our country in desperately dangerous circumstances. I might as well go down to Edinburgh Zoo and punch a panda.

But there is just so much to dislike about it. Putting aside its musical merit, which is easy because it hasn’t got any (thwack! Take that, Sunny the Panda!), the main thing that gets me is that it doesn’t seem to represent any of the military wives I’ve met. This is an insipid, drippy song that sounds like it’s being sung by a bunch of kids. But all the military wives I’ve ever met were terrifying women who could run a business, take care of their own and several other people’s kids, sort out a fight and pack up their entire house in less than a day, all at the same time. They are awe-inspiring, yet this song makes them sound like a dreamy-eyed bunch of damsels, constantly swooning at the window waiting for their Military Husbands to come home.

And that’s another thing. How come they are all wives? I know the army is a bit old-fashioned, but I’m pretty sure there are plenty of military husbands and boyfriends out there, who all feel the pain of their loved one’s absence every bit as much as the women.
But choirmaster Gareth Malone (who, incidentally, I think does a cracking job working in deprived schools and communities: see, I’m not heartless, I’m not!) seems to have focused exclusively on the stereotypical man-in-services-woman-keeping-home-fires-burning type of family.

I heard him a while ago on the radio, explaining why he wanted to do this song, and he said that he wanted to shine a light on these women and look at what happened when women become wives. Which sort of sounds laudable, except that his song suggests what happens is that previously fearsome women become Mills and Boon types who need a male choirmaster to give them a voice. Which they don’t really seem to have found – I have yet to hear a single Military Wife actually speaking for herself. Gareth and his lyricist Paul Mealor seem to be doing all the talking.

Look, I know this all seems terribly bad-tempered. I know the women involved are all adults who have chosen to take part. I hope they’re having a whale of a time and I hope with all my heart that their husbands come back safely from their tours and they all live happily ever after. It’s just that this was a great opportunity to hear from a group that doesn’t often get a voice, and it would have been nice to do something a bit different, rather than the shovelfuls of half-baked soppyness that constitute Wherever You Are.

Although they are on course to prevent Simon Cowell’s latest creation bagging the Christmas Number One, and for that I will forgive them almost anything. See? Always looking for the bright side, that’s me!