I blame the scapegoats (14 page)

It's been a long time coming for the sport
that now looks set to become as popular as synchronized swimming itself. As
everyone knows, curling was invented at a Scottish public school during a game
of association football. To the gasps of all around, one of the boys picked up
the ball, filled it with cement, stuck a door-handle on top and slid it across
a nearby frozen pond, madly brushing the ice in front with the school broom.
'What a splendid idea for a new sport!' said the headmaster of Curling School
shortly before they were both led away by men in white coats.

Since then the sport has become almost
popular in several cold countries, but despite this the British commentators
were still struggling to explain what was going on. 'Urn, and now we come to
the bully-off, and the seeker has to get the puck past the quaffle, hang on,
that's not right. . .' The women had looked unlikely gold medal winners at the
beginning of the winter games. First, the bloke hiring out the boots couldn't
find any their size and then when they finally walked out on to the ice, they
slid about all over the place and refused to let go of the rail. But as the
competition progressed, many of the favourites were knocked out. The American
team, consisting mainly of US air force personnel, missed the ice completely as
all their stones hit and destroyed a nearby hospital. The Lebanese team were disqualified
for getting their curling stones past customs and then chopping them into
little lumps and selling them on street corners. And so Great Britain suddenly
found themselves in the final. Viewers who tuned in late may have been thrown
by the sight of a manic-looking Scottish woman scrubbing the floor with a long
broom - at any moment you expected her to look at the screen and say, 'Flash
cleans floors without scratching!'

Then,
with the scores at 3-3, the commentator said, 'How much more tense do you want
it to be?' Well, quite a lot more tense, actually. Maybe Debbie Knox falling
through the ice, where a killer whale is waiting to avenge mankind's ravaging
of the planet, while Des Lynam, dagger in mouth, has to inch across the ice,
spreadeagled on the cracking surface, holding out the broom for the brave
Debbie as she cries out, 'Don't worry about me! Just make sure that last big
stone gets inside the little circle!' Actually, even then I still think I'd
rather have watched the repeat of Wimbledon's 1994 goalless draw with Leicester
over on Sky Sports Sad. Apologizing for the cancellation of the advertised
programme, the BBC's continuity announcer said, 'Due to the coverage of the
curling final there's no time for Living Dangerously.' Well, quite. But at
least this weekend the British can hold their heads up high, knowing that when
it comes to sliding lumps of rock across the ice our ladies are the best in the
world. Well done, Britain. It's as if in 1912 a survivor was pulled from the
sea excitedly saying, 'Guess what happened on the
Titanic)
I won the deck quoits!'

2
March 2002

'Government
acts to stop hunting', say the headlines. Cue a hundred dismal cartoons of a
fox with Stephen Byers'* face, running away from lots of dogs that seem to have
'Fleet Street' or 'MPs' written on their sides. In fact, there hasn't actually
been a great deal of fox hunting over the past twelve months. All the foxes
looked on confused as the humans apparently discovered a new rural hobby which
involved piling up thousands of sheep and cow carcasses and then setting fire
to them. 'That's even sicker than what they did to us!' said the foxes to each
other.

But
now the hounds are busy once more and the hunting enthusiasts are eager to
make up for all those lost fixtures in their calendar. If 'country sports'
really are a sport, how come the same side always wins? Does this always come
as a surprise to the participants? Do the hunters look on excitedly with their
fingers crossed to see whether the fox rips the dogs to pieces or vice versa?
You don't get the fox being interviewed on
Sportsnight
beforehand saying, 'Well, Brian, I'm really confident
about this one. I've had a couple of fights in the run-up; there was that easy
win against Mr Rabbit, but this is the big one I've been training for.'

* Soon
after this Transport Secretary Stephen Byers succumbed to pressure to resign
from the cabinet. Bvers had made the fatal political mistake of having a name
that rhymed not only with 'liar' but also 'pants on fire'.

'So you're not worried that the bookies have
you at a thousand to one against beating this pack of foxhounds?'

'What, you mean there's more than one of
them? Er, excuse me -I've just got to call my agent.'

Last
month the coalition in the Scottish Parliament managed to impose Labour's
promise of a ban, which the House of Commons with its huge Labour majority
still has not. And yet there are signs that the government are once more hoping
to find some sort of compromise on this issue. This is where I have a problem
with the philosophy of the Third Way. The fox either gets ripped to shreds by a
pack of hounds, or it doesn't. You can't be a little bit barbaric. It wouldn't
be much consolation to the fox that under New Labour's Third Way he at least
gets to take part in a full consultation process beforehand and the hounds that
kill him have to be fully licensed and registered.

But
confronted with another historic set of seemingly implacable enemies, the Prime
Minister cannot resist the chance to broker another historic peace deal. Under
his latest proposals, foxes may have to withdraw from their new settlements in
many urban areas and promise to stop tipping the KFC cartons out of wheelie
bins. The hounds will be allowed to patrol the countryside but only in their
new role as peacekeepers. Any dogs that mistakenly savage a fox will risk being
told off when the inquiry is completed in twenty years' time.

In
fact, the government is promoting a middle way which would involve fox hunting
only being permitted under licence. This would be like solving the problem of
burglary by issuing house-breaking permits and requiring the burglars to close
the door behind them. Apparently there would be people whose job it was to ensure
that fox hunting was not being excessively cruel or drawn out. How the neutral
monitoring of fox hunting is going to work I cannot imagine. The supervisors
would have to be like the parents of squabbling siblings. 'Stop fighting all of
you - you're both as bad as each other.'

To
which the fox says, 'No, we are not as bad as each other: there are dozens of
them and one of me, and they are going to rip me to shreds.'

'Look, I don't want to hear any more! Why
can't you just try and get on with one another?'

If fox hunting is to
continue under new regulations, then we should campaign to make these new rules
as obstructive as possible. For a start, foxhounds must be kept on leads at all
times (thought not those extendable ones that get wrapped around everyone's
legs). Harsh fines should be imposed for any hounds fouling the countryside,
with the master of the hunt being made responsible for clearing up after his
dogs. His little trumpet can be employed to alert everyone that another dog is
doing his business - that familiar fanfare will now mean, 'Oh no, there's
another one over here - pass us another little polythene bag.' Equal
opportunities policy must be invoked to ensure that minority breeds of dogs are
not discriminated against, forcing-hunts to employ little shih-tzus and
miniature chihuahuas, who may need to be helped over some of the larger clumps
of grass.

But anyone who believes that a compromise is
really possible should try explaining the Third Way to a fox. It is not a
question of class warfare; hunting should be banned because it is a matter of
principle and of democracy. The practice is barbaric, it's opposed by a huge
majority of the British people and the people who do it are a bunch of snobby
Tories with stupid posh accents. Oh damn, I didn't say that -damn, what a
giveaway . . .

9
March 2002

At
my kids' school a number of parents built a dinky little summer-house for the
children to play in. And when it was finished a teacher squatted down inside it
and said, 'Well, it's bigger than the flat I'm renting at the moment. . .' This
week teachers in the capital voted in favour of strike action in a dispute
about local allowances, or 'London weighting'; so called because teachers are
still waiting for it. Like so many public sector workers, thousands of teachers
simply cannot afford to buy homes in the South-east. So that's why we've been
taking all those cereal boxes into the nursery. The teachers need them for
building temporary dwellings behind the nature corner. 'Hello, mummy, look what
I made today!' say the infants, skipping out into the playground with a
brightly painted cardboard box, while their teacher comes running out behind
them shouting, 'Oi, come back with my house!'

Perhaps
the kids in Year One could go further towards solving the chronic accommodation
problem. Many infant classes have a little teddy bear called Henry or whatever
that they take turns to have on a sleepover. Well, instead of taking a soft toy
home to stay with them, the five-year-olds could take turns to give their
teacher a bed for the night. And as part of this exercise they could each write
another page in teacher's sleepover diary: 'On Thursday I went back to
Jessica's house, and we had Nutella sandwiches for tea and watched Pingu and I
was very naughty because I didn't want to go to bed at seven o'clock and I kept
saying I had to do my bloody lesson plan.'

The
last time the teachers took industrial action on this issue was thirty years
ago. The then Education Secretary soon regretted confronting the NUT, and was
never heard of again. Oh, apart from becoming the Prime Minister for eleven and
a half years and nearly destroying the entire trade union movement. But today's
teachers have an advantage over their predecessors. Many of the present Labour
government have kids in London state schools - the teachers have a direct line
of communication to those in power. It would certainly liven up a parents'
evening at the London Oratory School.

'Hello there, and
whose parents are you?'

'We're Euan Blair's mum and dad - I'm Tony,
this is my wife Cherie.'

'Well, I'll do my best to remember that - but
I meet so many parents, you know . . . Now, young Euan, yes, well, I think he
would do a lot better if his teachers were not burdened with so much administration
and bloody bureaucracy'

'Um, right . . . But
what about his maths?'

'Hmmm, well, I gave him this basic sum this
week: "If a teacher gets twenty-five thousand pounds a year and they have
to spend twenty-five grand on their mortgage, pension and travel - HOW ON EARTH
ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO BLOODY EAT!!!"'

'Oh, didn't he know that one?' says his
disappointed dad. 'He should have said what a wonderful job the teachers did,
adding that this government has raised education spending in real terms as
share of GDP from four point six per cent in 1997 to five per cent in 2001.'

School reports for ministers' children might
be another more direct route for teachers to get their point across. 'Kathryn
continues to do well in all her studies and could normally expect to go to an
excellent university. But unless you give us a big pay rise, I'm going to fail
her in all subjects.'

Everyone
keeps telling teachers how marvellous they are, but it doesn't pay the
mortgage. The way forward is for teachers to attempt the same condescending
tactic themselves. When the bank rings up asking about this month's payment,
they should say, 'You do a marvellous job, collecting all that money, well
done, you bank managers are marvellous; it's a vocation, it really is.' I'm
sure Barclays would be happy to leave it at that.

Sadly, only 30 per cent of teachers actually
took part in this week's strike vote, with the rest of them coming up with some
very weak excuses for not bringing in the completed ballot papers. 'The dog ate
it, sir.' 'I left it on the bus.' Or, 'My mum said I had to take my sister to
Brownies so I didn't have time.' Several other teachers were seen copying off
their friends in the playground before the bell went. The Department of
Education suggested that the low turn-out in the ballot meant that the strike
call lacked legitimacy; not the smartest argument to deploy from a government
that was returned to office by only a quarter of the electorate. But Estelle
Morris is right that strike action would be very bad news for London's
schoolchildren - it would leave them with nowhere to play truant from.