Taught half as much! Taught twice as well?

I despair of universities. Today I went to get a staff card, my old one having expired, and was told that I couldn't be given one because my old one had expired. Yes, you read that correctly: because I need a card, I can't be given one.

Try not to sprain your brain wrestling with this. I shall need to discuss this with Personnel, I think.


In fact, I don't just despair of universities; I despair for them. Student Direct is running a fascinating story about how little teaching Manchester students tend to receive, and how unfavourably it compares with the situation in the University twenty years ago. It's worrying stuff, both in terms of what it revals about Manchester and about what it suggests about higher education in Britain as a whole.

It seems that Student Direct complained to the University's president last year, saying that teaching hours in the University had plummeted; Alan Gilbert apparently challenged the paper to prove this, and using that marvellously liberating tool that is the Freedom of Information Act they were able to do so, leaving the president 'stunned' and 'momentarily lost for words'.

Student Direct describes students having just four or five hours of teaching a week, clocking up just 120 or even 86 teaching hours over the course of a year, whereas twenty years ago they'd have had roughly double that amount of teaching, on balance.

I think the article would gain from a hefty chart showing how the emphasis has shifted away from teaching over the past twenty years, with figures for each subject clearly laid out, and maybe with case studies and such, but even as it stands, sans the help of Excel, this is potentially huge.

Granted, the article doesn't say anything of how Manchester compares with other universities in Britain and abroad in this respect, which I think needs consideration. Despite this, though, that teaching at Manchester suffers in contrast to research seems clear if you study the university guides published by The Guardian and The Times; the former ranks Manchester as the sixteenth-best university in Britain, whereas the latter ranks it as only twenty-ninth in Britain! These rankings may seem absurd when contrasted with the University's far more credible showings in the QS World University Rankings -- seventh in Britain and thirtieth in the world -- and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Ranking which places it fifth in Britain and forty-eighth in the world, but the latter league tables emphasise research rather than teaching. It seems clear that in the surveys that rank universities in terms of what they offer students, Manchester doesn't do as well as it should.

That's part of where the 2015 Agenda, laudable though it is in so many ways, falls down. There is only so much money to go round, after all, and the University clearly thinks the best way to spend it is on high-profile figures who will in turn attract other eminent individuals -- the aim being to make Manchester one of the world's top twenty-five research-led universities by 2015. All very well, but if that's where the money's going then it's hardly going on teaching, is it?

And while people might argue that this'll mean better teaching -- and better students -- in the future, should the students of today really be asked to pay for the students of tomorrow? Is it the role of the University to teach the students it's got or to pick the students it wants?


Martin Stevens, who taught poetry in Manchester a few years ago and is now the High Master of St Pauls School in London, gave no quarter a couple of months back when damning the paucity of the University's teaching:

The university is so locked into getting in big name researchers and doing as much research as possible that students come far, far down the food chain. Students are so far down the food chain they are in danger of starving to death. . .

This is the philosophy of unintended consequences. By focusing the funding of universities on research, it has forced universities to take their eye off young people even more.

To make that a little bit more tangible, remember Martin Amis? Martin earns £80,000 a year in the University of Manchester, and teaches for just twenty-eight hours during that year; in short, by the only yardstick we can use, he's paid £2857.14 for every hour he teaches, a rather more impressive sum than the £20 to £50 an hour that most visiting lecturers reportedly earn. Well, applying a similarly crude yardstick, there are second year history students who pay £3,070 a year in fees and yet are taught for just four hours a week, which works out at £28.43 per hour.

Granted, you can prove anything with facts, but it does rather appear that on an hour-by-hour basis it takes a hundred students to pay for Martin Amis, whereas it takes only a couple to pay for, say, Terry Eagleton.


Granted, Manchester prides itself on encouraging independent learning among its students, but I've heard plenty of people grumbling over the years that this tends to work out as simply an attempt to provide education on the cheap; I've heard medics in particular complaining that the much-vaunted 'problem-based learning', so central to the Manchester medic experience, is a joke, and the figures might bear this out.

It's all very well to say that higher level teaching is about quality rather than quantity, but that rather loses its potency as an argument when you crunch through the workload figures for British universities and then place those figures side by side with the university league tables that focus on what students get out of their university education.

Try it. If you torture the data long enough it'll tell you anything.

Are the Simpsons more realistic than the Flintstones?

I still reckon the jury's out, but I reckon this may have convinced a lot of people, whether they've seen it via BoingBoing or whatever.

I know, it's terrifying, isn't it? And after Friday's post I probably shouldn't be trying quite so hard to make your stomachs churn. Sorry.

For what it's worth, there's a slightly less alarming rendition of Mario over at Pixeloo too. Strangely, Jessica Rabbit is leading the poll for the next person to be detooned. I can't see that working. We'll see though, I guess.

Fifty Years of Moyler Men

Well, last night was interesting.

This academic year has seen the fiftieth anniversary of my old school, and so there was a shindig in Citywest hotel to mark the occasion; there were a handful of us there from my year, along with an army of lads older than us, and smattering younger, and maybe a score of teachers.

I can't remember the last time I was a gathering so absurdly male -- it was probably when I was in school, to be fair, as having paid my dues through thirteen years of all-male education, I've tended towards female friends over the last few years!

It was a good evening, what with drinks, dinner, and entertainment, though that was a bit hit and miss. Comedians are always risky, since everyone's got their own sense of humour, and while the band was very good, it was rather neglected; by the time they came onstage everyone was outside chatting at the bar.

The chatting was definitely the soul of the evening, and so I buzzed about chatting to almost everyone I wanted to, during which I discovered to my astonishment that teachers I'd been terrified of when I was twelve were surely no older then themselves than I am now!

I couldn't help but grin ruefully as I nattered with a couple of them and pointed out a detail or two from the Jubilee Yearbooks, piled on the tables in front of us. Look at the history of the school magazine, I said, embarrassed. The first few all have cartoons by a fella called Robert Bohan, cartoons that are described as 'benign'.

My cartoons take up where his stop, and there's no 'benign' attached to mine. Were mine 'malign'?

To be fair, in retrospect, they probably were. And the last of the magazines was the one that got banned, pulled off the racks after being sold for just one day, all due to me. There must have been a ferocious row about that in the staffroom. Maybe more than once. Dearie me, and talking last night -- for the first time since leaving school -- to the person I surely bothered most, left me feeling decidedly ashamed.

There's a lesson there somewhere, though I'm not sure what it is.

Sadly, there were more than a few teachers and old friends missing who I'd have loved to caught up with, but there'll be more nights like this, please God. And next time, with luck, there'll be more of us from my year, and perhaps a bit less of the entertainment.

What Lies Beneath

I was highly amused earlier on by this fine attempt at casting the principal characters from Peanuts in Watchmen. In gratitude to the person who sent me that I pointed him over to this sinister rendering of Charlie Brown's skeletal structure.

You could do worse than work your way through the whole of Michael Paulus's disturbing attempt at revealing the skeletons of the rest of the Peanuts gang, Betty Boop, Fred Flintstone, the Powerpuff girls, and others:

Animation was the format of choice for children's television in the 1960s, a decade in which children's programming became almost entirely animated. Growing up in that period, I tended to take for granted the distortions and strange bodies of these entities.

These Icons are usually grotesquely distorted from the human form from which they derive. Being that they are so commonplace and accepted as existing I thought I would dissect them like science does to all living objects - trying to come to an understanding as to their origins and true physiological make up. Possibly to better understand them and see them in a new light for what they are in the most basic of terms.

I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass.

Disturbing, eh? The one of the Shmoo troubles me perhaps more than any other, because I'm pretty sure the Shmoo shouldn't have a skeleton. And of course, if those were too grotesque for you, then you probably don't even want to think about what balloon animals must look like on the inside.

Sorry about that. If you can stomach it, there's more where that came from, thanks to Jason Freeny.

Between Two Stools You fall to the Ground

Just following up from the Naomi Sugai affair I mentioned the other day, I was interested to see a short but telling piece on the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education in today's Independent.

Student complaints about their treatment by universities rocketed in the year after the introduction of top-up fees, according to a watchdog.

They rose by 25 per cent during 2007 to 734, the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education (OIA) disclosed yesterday. Figures also show the number of complaints upheld also rose significantly from 19 per cent to 26 per cent. The biggest rise was among mature students.

Most of the complaints for 2007 were made in the first half of the year when students having to pay top-up fees of up to £3,000 a year were in their first full year at university.

However, many of the complaints were about examination results with students realising that a 2.2 degree was not enough to find a good job.

"The rise in complaints is due to many more students challenging their degree and exam results," said Baroness Deech of the OIA. "This is probably because there are so many graduates emerging onto the job market now that graduating with, say, a lower second, is insufficient for success."

Students are increasingly aware of the complaints procedures, she added. Years of rising debt levels among students culminating in the introduction of top-up fees have also made them demand more value for money, according to academics and student leavers. In all, 64 per cent of the complaints were related to degree or exam results – while 11 per cent were over disciplinary proceedings and accusations of plagiarism. The OIA recommended that universities pay £173,000 in compensation as a result.

The OIA is recommending that universities set up their own "campus ombudsmen" so that complaints could be dealt with more swiftly and simply.

It's interesting that so many of those complaining are postgraduates and mature students; I'm sure their willingness to complain isn't simply due to them having more at stake than undergrads. Rather, I suspect, it's simply the fact that their age and experience makes them less susceptible to bullying or being messed around; that's not to say that it makes them invulnerable, just that they're perhaps more likely to try to speak up when things are going wrong.

That's not to say that the issue of value for money isn't an important one. Universities constantly justify their actions nowadays by saying that the modern world demands that they be run like businesses -- think of University vice-chancellors and presidents claiming as a matter of course that they should be paid in line with the salaries that CEOs. That's fine, though it rather demands that the universities be run like well-run businesses, and that the students are treated either as valued customers or as stakeholders in the business. Unfortunately, it seems that these truths elude far too many universities.

The OIA's recommendation about campus ombudsmen seems almost too obvious, really, and indeed it's a point that Baroness Deech sensibly made a week or so back, describing a campus ombudsman as 'someone who sits on campus behind an open door and is ready to sort out students' grievances at an early stage... we believe it's a very good idea'.

Of course, like all these things, the office will only be as good as the person holding it. The real problem with the universities is often not so much that they've not got mechanisms to deal with problems, it's that the mechanisms aren't properly applied, and then their misapplication is condoned and approved of by people higher up the chain, effectively institutionalising what might charitably be deemed bad practice.

Baroness Deech is retiring this month; I'm pleased to see that her successor Rob Behrens will be a full-time appointment. He looks promising.

Of course, I've made the mistake of assuming that about people in the past.

Leaders by Acclamation

And so Brian Cowen is leader-designate of Fianna Fáil, and will be only the seventh leader in the party's 82-year history. And this being the way of things, in about a month's time he'll become our eleventh Taoiseach.

I was talking about this to an old friend last night, and couldn't help but grin at how it seemed only the other week -- in reality it was half a lifetime ago -- that he was bubbling over in school at the thought that Brian Cowen, his old family friend, someone his Mum had babysat in her day, had been appointed to the cabinet.

'Mam was talking to him last night,' he said, 'He's really excited.'
'I bet he is. How's your Mam taking it?'
'Oh, she's thrilled!'

It's far too strange, really. There shouldn't only be just one genuine link between me and the head of our government. I live in a village.

I passed the Dáil today when the Soldiers of Destiny were gathering outside for their family photograph. The last couple of weeks have been peculiar. Bertie's resignation was odd enough -- not that he didn't have reason to resign, just that he's brassed so much out already I'd assumed he'd keep going. But watching the Fianna Fáil leadership so calmly floating over to Cowan's head has been bizarre. It just seems freakish that the position shouldn't be contested. I appreciate how popular he is within the party, and how his loyalty is admired by all his colleagues, but even so, he's hardly the only person among the Fianna Fáil front ranks who'd have the ability and the appetite for the top job.


Speaking of uncontested elections, our society -- the second-oldest in the college -- appointed its new auditor today, joining an illustrious line that includes, um, me. Oddly, browsing through the auditorial list today, I realised just how rare elections have been in the society, and spoke to a couple of others who'd likewise taken the helm about this.

'I think I'm the only person in about fifteen years, maybe more, who was actually elected in a contested election,' I frowned.
'What? Someone ran against you?'
'Heh. No, it was the other way round. I ran against someone. There was already somebody who looked set to slide into the position without any objections. It's a long story.'
'What was the vote like?'
'Horribly close. I won by one vote. 41 for me, 40 against. Imagine if I hadn't voted for myself!'
'Hmmm. And it hasn't happened since. A short-lived experiment with democracy interrupting a long-line of automatic succession...'

University in Using Sledgehammer to Crack Nut Shocker!

There was a very peculiar story in the Times Higher the other day, picked up by the Telegraph yesterday, of how Anglia Ruskin University has reacted to the grievances expressed by one of its students.

It seems that one Naomi Sugai, a master's student doing some sort of business course and the student representative for that course, having grown frustrated with attempts to complain formally about how her course was being handled, decided to air her concerns publicly.

Basically, she filmed a short clip of herself claiming that she was was gathering evidence to complain to Trading Standards about the university; she specifically complained in the clip about timetables being issued late and inaccurately, and alleging that the University had said that its students could choose modules tailored to their needs, but that this hadn't happened on her course where all modules were compulsory.

She posted the clip on YouTube back on 25 February, and eventually it drew the attention of the University authorities, who in turn clearly felt a need to alert everyone else to their shortcomings. Claiming that comments posted on YouTube in response to the video were defamatory, the University suspended Naomi indefinitely, and barred her from the campus, with Steve Bennet, the Secretary and Clerk writing to inform her:

Should you attend the campus during your suspension, security staff have been instructed to remove you and, if necessary, to seek assistance from the police. Given the seriously defamatory nature of your comments, this matter has also been referred to our solicitors.

The supposedly defamatory comments have since been taken down, but the video itself is still online, and if you watch it you'll probably wonder why the University has made such a fuss. It's pretty inoffensive, really, just a girl sitting at a computer in her bedroom, talking to her webcam and grumbling vaguely about her course. If the University had stayed calm it's safe to say that this wouldn't have caught the attention of the national media, and wouldn't have inspired internet comment.

Do they not understand that creating martyrs is a bad idea?

Leaving aside the merits or otherwise of Naomi's case, and the fact that things are only defamatory if they are false, what intrigues me most about this is the notion that she could be prosecuted for comments made in connection with the video. The comments have since been removed, so it's not clear whether she made the comments herself or whether the comments were responses by others to the video. Common sense might suggest the former, but this comment of hers from yesterday suggests otherwise:

Belfast confetti I'm afraid I had to delete your comment as it could have been construed as "defamatory" and I have been told to regulate this site. I do not like to censorship but unfortunately I have no choice.

Isn't that interesting? It seems -- and it's important to say that the whole story may not be in play just yet -- that the University has threatened to prosecute her for something someone else has said! Are they just bluffing? After all, it would seem that she was neither the author nor the publisher of the offending comments -- YouTube is the publisher. How then could she be held responsible for them? Granted, she has to power to delete comments, but I think the University would be on shaky ground if it tried to argue that people ought to police all responses to things they've posted on the internet.

It's kind of funny reading the comments, though, both in response to the video and in connection with blogs commenting on it; quite a few people are remarking that they'd never even heard of Anglia Ruskin before this happened, while others simply ask why Naomi went there!

Caped Crusaders and Dark Knights

I was chatting away last night, and the Batman came up, as he has a habit of so doing, even when I'm not passing on recently garnered lore about his auburn adviser.

'I'm going back tomorrow,' said my friend, 'and we're watching Batman.'
'The old one,' I asked, 'with the bat shark-repellant? Or Christopher Bale being moody? Or in between?'
'Tim Burton? No, it's the Adam West bat shark-repellant. Why re-make? We've just got it on DVD.'
'It's a fine film,' I grinned, 'though I've liked Batman in most cinematic incarnations, other than Val Kilmer and George Clooney. They were wrong. Oh! Speaking of Batman -- have I ever told you about Superdickery?'
'Nope.'
Well brace yourself, for I am about to. This alone almost explains it all --'

'Superdickery started by showing old comic panels and covers where Superman was being a dick,' I explained. 'Other galleries have been added. This gallery is, I think, the most troubling.'

'Hehehe,' giggled my friend, 'Whoever decided he would be a good person to take care of Robin?'
'D'you know,' I remarked, 'you're not the first person who's wondered that.'

The Jackson 5 on Albert Square

I'm not really sure what's going on with television nowadays. Have you seen the adverts for Coronation Street? All bleak and grey, with a voiceover from the sinister young David, looking like he's about to kill himself, presumably because people are starting to realise how he hurled his mother down the stairs, shortly after using the delightfully ominous phrase 'the spawn of David'.

That's not Coronation Street, is it? That's more Eastenders, the BBC's epic drama of miserable people living miserable lives, somehow defying the British trend by never once mentioning football. But Eastenders is changing too, it seems, as I discovered in the aftermath of Doctor Who when this came on.

It's brilliant, isn't it?

They should make this a regular part of the show. It'd be so much better.

I want you back indeed.

Lessons in Loyalty

There's a marvellous interview with Roy Keane in today's Irish Times, conducted by Tom Humphries, who I tend not to think of as one of Ireland's best sports journalists, but rather as one of Ireland's best journalists, and one who just happens to write about sport. He has quite a history with Keane, of course, having conducted the interview that precipitated the whole Homeric Saipan affair -- thus ultimately inspiring I, Keano -- and seems to be rather good at getting Keane to open up.

I never liked Keane as a player -- for all his talent and industry, I felt he was basically a thug. Sure, when he was in green he was our thug, but a thug nonetheless. As a manager though, I keep being impressed, being struck by his intelligence, his freshness, his openness, and indeed his humility. This little detail is very telling.

Things are changing with him anyway. Sunderland has infected him. For instance he pays some attention now to the wisdom of crowds. A few weeks ago against Everton in the Black Cats' own backyard he heard a voice behind him having a pop. He swivelled around and caught the end of the it. "Playing for 75 minutes with one up front and it isn't effin working ya . . ."

His face darkened and then.

"Do you know what? He was spot on. We had five in the middle and one up front and it wasn't working. It's like that. He was right. I don't always agree but a lot of time fans are spot on. Sometimes we get nasty letters. Sue in the office, well I don't think she shows me many, just the odd one when she thinks I should know what is going on. She gave me one last week. This man was having a go at the way we played (pause). So I rang him up."

At this point he allows a moment for you to picture the stricken features of the poor soul who hastily committed his frustrations to the vellum and sent them off confident perhaps that Sue in the office would either include the epistle in the bundle for the days shredding or hand it over in a sheaf heavy with disgruntlement. And here now was Roy Keane on the other end of the telephone. The thump, thump, thump of that vein in his temple audible down the line.

And?

"Ah, we had a chat. I said to him I knew what he was saying but it isn't time yet. In a few years hopefully we will have five maybe six players capable of getting forward but for now we have to survive. We need to play the way we do to stay in the division. Not to be a yo-yo club."

Patience is a virtue, after all, and realism matters. It's the kind of thing I wish legions of posters on Toffeeweb would keep in mind, that construction schedules for eternal cities are perhaps of their nature not so speedy as we might wish. It's interesting to see him cast a cold eye on loyalty in professional sport, too.

United. It's a surprise to hear him say he feels no affinity with any of his former professional clubs. Everything is changing though. He goes to clubs now as a manager where he remembers being booed, and fighting tooth and nail with the locals and hating the sight of their jerseys and they are wonderfully courteous and friendly to him. Good people. Arsenal couldn't be more decent. Arsene Wenger and Pat Rice. Rafa. Great. David Moyes. Excellent. He spent some time with Martin O'Neill after the Villa game and he could have sat listening to him all night. Everywhere he goes he soaks things up, looks for evidence of values and the right way to do things.

And affinity? It is with Rockmount AFC. Where he was made. The lads come over regularly. A couple of his old mates manage the team now and they talk about the old days and management. They were all over for the Villa game. Len Downey and Damien Martin are coming over for Middlesbrough.

The older he gets and the more he sees, the greater his appreciation of the innocence and the loyalties he saw at Rockmount. He went to Rockmount when he was eight and stayed till he was 16 or 17. That he believes now is what football is all about . He has seen the business side of the game and people suddenly begrudging you when you cease to be of use.

It still hurts. Forest tried to milk him for money he was owed when he was sold to Manchester United. The postscript to his playing career at Celtic was a mistake he feels. United still feel the sting of his venom. Their betrayal still hurts.

Having statements ready like United when you have served a certain amount of time for them and they don't even get the years you were there right in the statement. You think "Ah well, there you go".

"The day I left United, in hindsight, I should have stopped playing really. I lost the love of the game that Friday morning. I thought football is cruel, life is cruel. It takes two to tango also. I am fully responsible for my own actions but some things are wrong. I left on a Friday and they told me certain things before I left that day. I was told the following week I couldn't sign for another club. I had been led to believe I could. There were certain things I was told at certain meetings that were basic lies.

"That was part of the exit plans, I am convinced. Especially with my pride, I wasn't going to accept that. They had a statement prepared and they were thanking me for 11 and a half years of service. I had to remind the manager and (Manchester United chief executive) David Gill I had been there 12 and a half years. I think that might have been part of the plan. Then financial stuff was mentioned. I was thinking, my God. I am happy to leave. I won't go down that road. A week later they announced £70 or £80 million profit after telling me I hadn't played for six weeks and so they weren't prepared to do this and that. I told David Gill I had broken my foot playing for Manchester United against Liverpool. Pretty sad.

"I look back and think I should have said this and I should have said that. It is like Mick McCarthy at the World Cup. I always think when he said if you don't have respect for me you can't play for me, I should have said to him what I felt. I am not playing for you I am playing for Ireland. It is easy to be wise afterwards."

He talks for a long time about loyalty. Its meaning in his life. United hurts and Saipan hurts. They were times when he expected some loyalty back but he realises now when you outlive your usefulness to some people loyalty is too much to expect.

It's a telling point, really: loyalty to clubs is for fans, more than anything. Players can be fans and so too can owners, but ultimately players tend to play for money, for glory, and for fun; they're mercenaries, and owners are businessmen or moneylaunderers. But loyalty to teams? That's a fans' preserve.


I can't help wondering, when I think of this, whether fidelity in sport is related to fidelity in life; is it the case that people who are loyal in one thing are more likely to be loyal in other things? Are people who stick by teams through bad patches the kind of people who'll stick by friends and lovers through hard times? That's the real test: celebrating success is easy; it's enduring failure that's hard.

Chesterton wrote a fine essay on Kipling once, where he remarked that Kipling, ultimately, was a man who understood nothing of patriotism, as he lacked the faculty of absolutely attaching himself to any cause or community.

He admires England, but he does not love her; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons. He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English.

It's when success ebbs away that the true measure of the sports fan is shown. Whether this applies to other aspects of life is a different matter. Are Everton supporters less likely to cheat on their spouses than Chelsea ones, say? I reckon there'd be a Sociology PhD in that if someone wanted to give it a shot - Marital Infidelity and Football Fanaticism: A Study in Correspondence.


Just to wrap up, regarding the Keane interview, it's good to see that he's not quite as dour and earnest as he can sometimes seem.

Last year going for promotion everyone was getting uptight and the pressure was starting to tell. They were playing Wolves at home, a big game on the verge of the play-offs. They players were called in to their pre-game video analysis of Wolves. Instead they got that wonderful segment of Ken Loach's 1969 movie Kes where Brian Glover plays a teacher with a Bobby Charlton fixation. They just had a good laugh together. They never mentioned Wolves once. Then they went out and won.

You've not seen it? No, well, it'd been years since I did too, but don't worry, I've dug it out just for you. The Brother reckons it's one of the best passages in any film ever. Enjoy.

Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do

So says Uncle Gilbert, anyway, and I'm rather inclined to think that he was right.

One of my favourite short stories is an extraordinary work of horror, or dark fantasy at any rate, by the incomparable Fritz Leiber. Yes, I know, you've probably not heard of him. I've yet to meet anyone who hasn't scrunched their face up quizzically whenever I've mentioned Leiber. It's odd, really, as over the years there can't have been many writers as talented as him to have worked in the fields of fantasy, horror, and science-fiction. Certainly, there's surely been nobody as gifted to have excelled in all three genres; he's one of those writers to whom other writers line up to pay tribute: Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, Kurt Vonnegut, Harlan Ellison, Michael Moorcock, Terry Pratchett... you name them, they venerate him.

Certain themes and topics reappear with delightful frequency in Leiber's work, with theatre, fencing, sex, cats, and chess being the most distinctive landmarks in his fictional landscape. If you can spare the time, you should settle in to read the marvellous 'Space-time for Springers', a hilarious and heartbreaking tale which Neil Gaiman describes as 'a story that everyone who's ever tried to understand kittens should read'.

Rather less easily available is 'Midnight by the Morphy Watch', which I've heard described as the best piece of chess fiction ever written; I don't know about that, but it's a chilling study of obsession and madness, and a wonderful ode to the glories and dangers of the game which Leiber so adored. Try this for an opening:

Being World's Chess Champion (crowned or uncrowned) puts a more deadly and maddening strain on a man even than being President of the United States. We have a prime example enthroned right now. For more than ten years the present champion was clearly the greatest chess player in the world, but during that time he exhibited such willful and seemingly self-destructive behaviour -- refusing to enter crucial tournaments, quitting them for crankish reasons while holding a commanding lead, entertaining what many called a paranoid delusion that the whole world was plotting to keep him from reaching the top -- that many informed experts wrote him off as a contender for the highest honours. Even his staunchest supporters experienced agonizing doubts -- until he finally silenced his foes and supremely satisfied his friends by decisively winning the crucial and ultimate match on a fantastic polar island.

Promising, eh? Leiber's sinister little gem, nominated for a Hugo Award in 1975, tells the tale of an old, but not very good, chess player who one day in San Francisco comes across an odd shop where he recognises an antique pocket-watch that had been presented to Paul Morphy in 1859, when he returned to America in triumph after his victories in Europe. He buys the watch from the shop's owner, who appears to have no idea of its significance, and takes it home, and that night the watch begins to tick.

I'll not spoil the story on you, because you really should hunt it down, but here's another little taster, just to whet your appetite:

"Les échecs fantasques," he quoted, "It's a cynical madman's allegory with its doddering monarch, vampire queen, gangster knights, double-faced bishops, ramming rooks and inane pawns, whose supreme ambition is to change their sex and share the dodderer's bed."

Tempted? You really should be, you know.


So why am I banging on about chess, you might wonder. It's been over six months since I've last done so, after all, when I warbled at length about a metaphor I'd carefully contrived between sips in the pub one night. I'm still rather proud of that one, as it happens, not least because things do seem to be coming to pass pretty much as I expected.

The thing is, I'm not very good at chess. No, scratch that; I suck at chess as badly as some people suck at Photoshop. I should be good at it: I'm pretty smart, I have a good memory, I've a fine visual imagination, and I've spent ten years of my life pondering strategy and tactics. I use chess language when I discuss problems, talking of forks, pins, binds, mobility, stalemates, endgames, king hunts, perpetual check, windmills, poisoned pawns, you name it. There's a whole tactical vocabulary there that I'm utterly at home with, and yet, sadly, it's all for nowt on that chequered board.

I have no idea why. Is it that I just don't concentrate enough? That was Poe's theory, wasn't it, in 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue', that in nine cases out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers?

I haven't won a game, other than when I was teaching the basic game to others, since I was in Jerusalem about six years ago, when over the course of several balmy evenings a friend and I brushed aside advances from some comely lasses who had been attempting to persuade us to join them on the roof of our hostel. Later, we said, each night. The game was more important. The girls, sadly, didn't think so, but they kept trying, their patience eventually running out when we failed to hook up with them in Eilat a few days later, after our desert adventures.


Anyway, today, against my better judgment, I installed the Facebook chess application, and started to play, first begging my friend -- smarter than me, and surely far smarter at anything analytical or mathematical -- not to tell people of how badly he'd beat me.

Possibly because of my confessed ineptitude, or possibly because he prefers to respond to challenges rather than issue them, he allowed me the advantage of playing white. And somehow, I won.

I'm still not sure how. Every game I've played for the last few years I've overstretched within four moves and then been dismantled. This time, somehow, that didn't happen, and I was able to throw bishops, knights, queen, and pawns into a full-blown assault.

'Wow,' remarked my friend, somewhere in the middle of the bloodbath, 'I've never played anyone so aggressive before.' I think that may have been the first time anyone has ever called me aggressive, at least to my face. How much have the last couple of years changed me? I want the ball now, that's for sure. I never used to.

I've a feeling the Jerusalem Jinx is still pretty much intact, though. I reckon I'll be annihilated in the next few games.

The Lion and the Unicorn

I've always wondered why Britons who are free-marketeers in all other respects suddenly get all protective about the importance of having a specifically British -- or British and Northern Irish, to be precise -- currency. After all, if they believe in a free and open market, surely they ought to want a common currency, one that isn't under the control of any particular state. You know, something like a gold standard, where money is itself a commodity of universally accepted value, rather than something the value of which governments get to define?

I'm not saying for a minute that the Euro is such a 'hard currency', but it's surely a step in that direction. It never ceases to amuse me how the very people who argue hardest for neoliberal economics and laissez-faire policies will adopt a wholly contrary stance on this point. It rather undermines their credibility, I tend to think.

Anyway, be that is as it may, I've always thought the Two Pound coin was Britain's best argument against joining the Euro; it's a lovely design, and one that would surely be ditched were Britain to find the nerve to join everyone else on the dancefloor. Because let's face it, if Britain does ever join in, she'll surely follow the Benelux countries in having the head of state on the 'national' side of every coin, which'd be a fierce shame. I'd rather see a mixture of designs -- maybe a selection of Shakespeare, Newton, Stonehenge, Britannia, and the monarch, whether it be Elizabeth II, Charles III or George VII.

Britannia, of course, who currently sits imperiously on the fifty pence, clearly having long grown accustomed to having been violated by the Romans, will not be featuring on new British coins for the foreseeable future, though; all the current coins, barring the marvellous Two Pound piece, have been redesigned to delightful effect.


Have you seen the new designs yet? They're gorgeous. The brainchild of Matthew Dent from Bangor in North Wales, the pound coin features the royal coat of arms, with the three lions of England being shown at the top left and bottom right, the Scottish lion rampant in the top right, and the Irish harp in the bottom left.

The six lower-value coins show details from the Arms of Dominion, to give the coat of arms its proper name. They're designed to be assembled in a formation, which should keep kids and drunks entertained for hours.

The people at the mint are naturally very excited about the new designs, and today's Independent quotes Andrew Stafford, the chief executive, as saying that 'It is the only work of art that every member of the general public touches every day, that is important to the nation's way of life.'

That's an interesting point, especially given that there appears to be no plans for a specific Scottish variant on these patterns. You might wonder why there would be, but there'd be a good reason for one. This version of the Arms of Dominion has been used since 1837 but is never used in Scotland, which features the Scottish lion rampant in the first and fourth quarters, with the English lions restricted to the second quarter. This makes sense, after all, since England and Scotland were meant to be equal partners in the 1707 Act of Union.

The Scots, therefore, will be handling coins emblazoned with the English version of the coat of arms, but the English won't ever be handling the Scottish version. Expect someone to get uppity about this soon.

Incidentally, it seems ironic that it should have been a Welshman who came up with this idea, considering that -- being a principality rather than a kingdom -- Wales isn't explicitly recognised on the coat of arms. For the purposes of the Arms of Dominion, Wales is part of England.

This may well annoy people too.

The Toppling of the Teflon Taoiseach

Good grief. Bertie's gone. Or going anyway. It shouldn't be surprising, considering the past week in particular, but I had a feeling that he'd hang on a while longer.

I'd not have known either, only I checked Facebook a few minutes back to find that a couple of friends had posted status updates to the effect that one 'defies popular opinion by still thinking Bertie is great. The teflon is dead, long live the teflon,' while another ' celebrates the news, a bad day for Teflon but a great day for democracy.'

Is Bertie gone, I wondered aloud, and moments later established that if not gone, he's certainly said he'll be gone in just over a month.

'Taoiseach Resigns,' announces the Irish Times in its breaking news section, accompanied by the most extraordinary picture, a modern Irish Mount Rushmore that just looks like some incompetent work on Photoshop. If that's what it is, someone sucks at Photoshop.

So yes, it appears Bertie will be stepping down on 6 May, and is doing so purely because what he terms a 'barrage of commentary' on his life, his lifestyle, and his finances is distracting the work of government. He says that he wasn't pushed into the decision and that the decision is motivated purely by his desire to refocus the political agenda. In short, he's stepping down in the national interest. He says.

He says he's privileged to have served his community, party, and country -- though presumably not in that order of importance -- for many years, and is proud of his work on the Northern Ireland peace process, on successive social partnership agreements, on delivering a modern economy and of Ireland's involvement in the European Union, as well as ending the purported myth that his party was incapable of sustaining a coalition government.

Supposedly this has nothing to do with Gráinne Carruth's recent evidence to the Mahon Tribunal, but if you believe that, well, you might be interested to hear that penguins can fly. He was due to be grilled on the matter in the Dáil this afternoon. I guess instead the session will be given over to praise and political obituaries instead.

In case you're not Irish, and haven't been paying attention, one of the things the Mahon tribunal is investigating concerns claims that Mr Ahern received money from property developer Owen O'Callaghan some years back. The claims have been denied numerous times by both O'Callaghan and the Taoiseach, but the investigations have taken some odd turns and raised plenty of questions about suspicious lodgements to Ahern's personal accounts back in the early nineties.

The peculiar lodgements took place between 1985 and 1997, and in total come to £452,800 in value -- that's €886,830 in today's terms, apparently, allowing for inflation and such. Basically this just means the lodgements the origins of which can't be convincingly explained. I was amazed to see God alone knows where the money's gone to, though. It's not as if Bertie's got a lavish lifestyle, after all.

It's probably worth following this over at Gavin Sheridan's blog, as he's been assiduous in following the tribunal over the months, and scathing in his contempt for the media that have paid the story far less attention that its been due over that time. So far today all he's really had to say, though, is that he has no sympathy for Mr Aherne, as 'For 20 months we have been dragged through this nonsense. If this country was truly functioning, he would have resigned a very long time ago indeed. And it all was of his own making,' following that up by rightly observing that:

'Now we have to see how the media reacts to the news. So far RTE television have been bringing on a stream of FF deputies. And each of them runs the usual ‘trial by media’ line.

This is clearly nonsense. The media in fact did not go out of its way to criticise Ahern, all it did was seek answers about his tribunal evidence. And even after Carruth’s evidence broke two weeks ago, the media remained quiet for a very long time.

Ahern’s silence since Carruth’s evidence is perhaps a sign of how bad things are. We still await explanations of sterling lodgments, and indeed more lodgments. Questions of money laundering and vast sums of money going through Ahern’s and other accounts to which he is linked.

Ahern is not off the hook.'

Indeed.

Noseybonk Returns

So, today being April Fool's Day, I was tempted to write a post all about how my cursed war is finally over, how my friends and I have been apologised to, how a couple of people have been dismissed with one reported to the police and a raft of others have resigned, and how I've been compensated properly for the two years of nonsense I've had to struggle through.

And then I thought, no, only children and journalists do that sort of nonsense. And the Powers That Be at YouTube, it seems.

The Brother popped up on Skype earlier. 'Have you been to YouTube UK today?' he asked, 'Go there: http://uk.youtube.com/ and pick a video - any video.'

So I did, and clicked at random on the first video, only to be rick-rolled straight to Mr Astley singing how he was never going to give you up, let you down, run around and desert you, let alone a host of other caddish acts.

As it happens, the video I'd tried to click on featured Noseybonk, scourge of a million childhood dreams, pottering about in a greenhouse, where he appears to be carefully raising a batch of those phallus plants that adorn the occasional fifth century Athenian vase.*

Do you remember Noseybonk? If you're too young to do so, then you should be glad of that fact.

But if you're thirty-ish, and British or Irish, and if you don't remember the phallus-faced nightmare, then you've clearly blocked him out, in an attempt to protect yourself from the traumatic memories.

Noseybonk used to appear on Jigsaw, a problem-based children's BBC show that ran from 1979 to 1984. It was presented by Adrian Hedley, a gifted mime who presumably doubled as Noseybonk, and Janet Ellis, mother of Sophie Ellis Bextor. Janet Ellis was replaced towards the end by Howard Stableford who took over the characters that she used to play and also played the improbably-named Gregory Growlong.

Yes, Gregory Growlong and Noseybonk. They didn't skimp on the innuendo back then, did then?

So anyway, leaving aside the jaunty tune, Noseybonk was a sinister figure with a deathly white head, bulging eyes, a manic grin, and an enormous nose, impeccably dressed in morning clothes and strangely reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange.

Like Freddie Krueger he's been hiding himself away in our nightmares for over years, but it seems that he's back. And this time even the fridge isn't safe...
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* I can't find any pictures of such vases online, but if you don't believe me get yourself down to the library to check out Sir Kenneth Dover's Greek Homosexuality.