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The local Jaguar car dealership has closed overnight! I passed it yesterday, glancing enviously at the forecourt as I always do, admiring the row of sleek powerful machines waiting to be bought. This morning the forecourt is empty – save for a skip containing
… more → If you fancy dining out, how do you know whether a restaurant has good standards of hygiene? It’s important to know, because you can get ill or even die from food poisoning. Have you ever asked for a quick look in the kitchen before taking your seat? Or do you assume that environmental health inspectors keep a close eye on every establishment? Perhaps you judge by front-of-house appearance, or rely on reviews by food critics and members of the public. A bit indirect? A more objective source of information is
… more → Here’s a money making tip. As student Simona Bonomo discovered, all you need to do is make a video of iconic buildings in London. OK they don’t pay you straight away. In fact it’s fair to say there is some hassle involved. But it might also give you first hand experience of the Stanford experiment forty years on.  Heaton Moor Medical Centre  Stockport features at Number 12. I wonder whether the authors had seen this local feature when they were compiling their sideways look at modern Britain? Perhaps not, for if they had, then surely Stockport might have been put a notch higher in the rankings?
It’s outside a health centre and appears to be a manhole cover dedicated to a nurse who worked there for a year. Now, on the one hand it’s touching that her passing is marked for posterity. She evidently was missed – presumably by her colleagues – and I can only assume that her death came unexpectedly soon after taking up her new post. In publishing this photograph I have no wish to make light of others’ loss or to be disrespectful to her memory. It just strikes me as somewhat unfortunate that an item of galvanized drainage furniture was chosen as a symbolic tribute to this person’s life. North American manglers of the English language have long since adopted the phrase ‘different than’ but I notice that more and more speakers of British English are saying ‘different to’. When comparing things, we are deciding if they differ from each other. Not to or than each other. Not sure what to get for that special person? Thinking of gift vouchers? Wait! Why not just give them the money, and simply tell them which shop to spend it in. When I was growing up, there was only one phone in our household … Well, I could go on. But who would believe me? If I went on to describe it as weighing two and a half kilos, wired in, and rented to us by the State-owned post and telephone monopoly people would think I was making it up. So I won’t mention that it didn’t even have a screen, for that would be unimaginable. London’s National Theatre went international last night for a live screening of One Man, Two Guvnors. Manchester’s Cornerhouse joined cinemas in Canada, New Zealand, Estonia, South Africa, Iceland and many other countries in charging people to sit and watch a play being performed somewhere else. Strange idea in the 21st century, really. Television broadcast by satellite from the other side of the globe has become commonplace. So what was it like paying £15 to watch something that wasn’t quite a film, and wasn’t quite like being at a live performance? It did feel a bit detached – almost voyeuristic. We in Manchester were witnessing something, more than directly engaging in the performance. The audience in London applauded but we did not. There was raucous laughter at the NT – and a few muffled guffaws in Manchester. We had a better view than those in the theatre’s cheap seats. The camerawork was sophisticated, mixing close-ups with wide angle views and audience shots. It was not just a static projection of the entire stage as I had feared it might be. We also got a backstage tour in the interval, conducted by Emma Freud. And what of the play itself? A five-star performance from the truly talented James Corden, supported by a very strong cast – including a skiffle band. It’s a farce based on Goldoni’s Servant of Two Masters written in 1743, brought up-to-date (actually to 1963) by Richard Bean. The script is sparkling, the slapstick comedy timed to perfection. I’m really glad I went, and just a bit sorry that I didn’t clap at the end. It transfers to the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End from 8 November, with the original cast. Go and see it! In the interests of sexual equality the word ‘actress’ has been phased out. One word for one profession. But why didn’t we phase out ‘actor’ instead? I think it’s now time to purge the English language of other gender distinguishing words. Let’s stop saying ‘he’ and ‘she’. Let’s just choose one and dump the other. ‘He gave birth’ sounds strange now, but at one time, so did ‘She is an actor’. Deliberately induced road collisions (‘crash for cash’) are on the increase, apparently. Criminals cause a crash typically by braking hard and unexpectedly in front of the victim’s vehicle, and profit from the resulting claim for damage and personal injury. This dangerous and illegal practice exploits the fact that the victim cannot stop in time to avoid hitting the vehicle in front. In other words, it can only succeed when the victim is driving in an unsafe manner. As Rule 126 of The Official Highway Code says:
If all motorists obeyed this rule perhaps there would be no incidents of ‘crash for cash’. |
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