Pooh Bearers

Modesty is a virtue, and at its best a quintessentially British one. As a trait it sometimes borders on a lack of self-esteem or nervousness, but better this than being seen as brash or boastful.

A good, and relevant, example of British modesty is played out every day on campsites throughout Europe. When Mr England needs to visit the toilet block all manner of inventive deceit is employed as he calculates the exact number of two-ply sheets he will need to complete his ablutions before secreting them about his person or interleaving them into his copy of the Daily Mirror. Then off he sets on the lonely walk, looking down at his deck-shoes trying to exude nonchalance. Now our Scandinavian cousins are a lot less bashful about nudity and bodily functions, and off they stride with the whole toilet roll tucked unashamedly under one arm and a placard in the other hand proclaiming boldly "Going for a Shit!"

Closer to home however, I have noticed a worrying trend towards faecal indifference, albeit in the name of environmental correctness. Every morning this country now bears witness to an unfeasibly large number of dog owners walking along quite brazenly swinging a transparent plastic sandwich-bag full of dog shit. Without even the slightest hint of embarrassment! It is almost as if the thought of not having allowed their dog to foul the pavement fills them with such civic virtue that it blocks out the glaringly obvious. That they are walking around, smiling and carrying a bag of warm pooh!

Now what is this country coming to when you can regularly do this and still be taken seriously?

Pods -i

There is no doubt that being able to carry hundreds of albums around with you in a handy, compact format is useful, but the ubiquitous i-pod is also undermining the English language and cataloguing conventions.

If you transfer an album by Bob Dylan to your MP3 player then this is filed under 'B', for Bob. Similarly one of Neil Young's masterpieces is filed under 'N' for Neil. Call me old fashioned if you like, but my CD collection, ordered alphabetically by artist (and then chronologically if required), finds Bob under 'D' for Dylan and Neil under 'Y' for Young. This convention is followed widely in the real world. You only have to visit a music-store, bookshop, or dare I say it, public library to see this simple phenomenon in action.

Perhaps I am worrying needlessly but how will members of this digital i-pod generation ever find anything when they are eventually forced to take their ear-phones off and use their eyes for a change?

Andy The Loud Welder

The ‘Musical’ bandwagon must have quite an impressive weight-limit. Everybody seems to be jumping on it regardless of merit.

As a genre The Musical has always been flawed for two main reasons. Firstly it is no more than a poor-man’s opera, and secondly it is unbelievable. People don’t walk around conversing with other people in song. For a Musical to work then you really have to suspend your disbelief, and for this to happen the end product has got to be something special.

Something like the Rodgers & Hammerstien classics from a more innocent, and yes, believable age. Or something like Lars Von Trier’s film "Dancer In The Dark" where he subverts the format. Sadly most of the Musicals dished up today are dross disguised as pseudo-culture for the masses. Let’s plunder the treasure chest of literature and dumb it down in song: Victor Hugo’s "Les Miserables" as a sing-song on the barricades or T S Eliot’s poetry sung by a bunch of dorks dressed up as cats. Can’t these people concentrate long enough to read a book or watch a play without needing the characters to burst into song? Who are the culprits that create this rubbish apart from Andy the Loud Welder, and where did he come from in any case?