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| The week that time stood still The week that time stood still | |
| (3 days later) | |
| Monday | Monday |
| If time seemed to drag during Theresa May’s “I’m not going to tell you that I don’t know what I’m doing” Brexit speech at the annual conference of Confederation of British Industry, it almost stopped in the contributions that followed. Quite what any of those who had paid a lot of money to attend the day-long bash at London’s Grosvenor House hotel gained from hearing the chief exec of Deloitte going out of his way to say nothing about how a company memo calling the government’s Brexit planning “a complete shambles” ended up as front page news, or the head of Facebook in Europe saying how much she welcomed disruption while giving the most awkwardly choreographed presentation, is anyone’s guess. But they did all eat very well. For breakfast we were offered croissants and pastries, and for elevenses we got ham-hock quiche and chocolate muffins. For lunch there was a choice of five main courses, including Thai prawns and vegetable curry, followed by three desserts. For tea, we had doughnuts and clementines. If it hadn’t been for the entertainment, it would have been a good day out. | If time seemed to drag during Theresa May’s “I’m not going to tell you that I don’t know what I’m doing” Brexit speech at the annual conference of Confederation of British Industry, it almost stopped in the contributions that followed. Quite what any of those who had paid a lot of money to attend the day-long bash at London’s Grosvenor House hotel gained from hearing the chief exec of Deloitte going out of his way to say nothing about how a company memo calling the government’s Brexit planning “a complete shambles” ended up as front page news, or the head of Facebook in Europe saying how much she welcomed disruption while giving the most awkwardly choreographed presentation, is anyone’s guess. But they did all eat very well. For breakfast we were offered croissants and pastries, and for elevenses we got ham-hock quiche and chocolate muffins. For lunch there was a choice of five main courses, including Thai prawns and vegetable curry, followed by three desserts. For tea, we had doughnuts and clementines. If it hadn’t been for the entertainment, it would have been a good day out. |
| Tuesday | Tuesday |
| I kind of expect post-truth antics with Brexit, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage. It goes with the territory. But I didn’t expect Tottenham Hotspur, the football club I support, to be quite so fashionably on trend. Spurs have spent the last six years trying to qualify for the Champions League a second time, and now that they’ve done so, what do they do? They decide to rest some key players for a game which they have to win to have any chance of progressing to the knockout stages of the competition. The reason? They wanted to keep some players fresh for this Saturday’s Premier League fixture against Chelsea. Brilliant. You spend years trying to qualify for a competition, only not to compete properly in it so that you stand a better chance of qualifying for it again the following season. It’s meta, post-truth football in which it’s not the taking part that counts, but the qualification to take part. Predictably, Spurs came unstuck, which at least gave some of their older fans a sense of familiarity. It’s a club tradition that Spurs fail so that we don’t have to. | I kind of expect post-truth antics with Brexit, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage. It goes with the territory. But I didn’t expect Tottenham Hotspur, the football club I support, to be quite so fashionably on trend. Spurs have spent the last six years trying to qualify for the Champions League a second time, and now that they’ve done so, what do they do? They decide to rest some key players for a game which they have to win to have any chance of progressing to the knockout stages of the competition. The reason? They wanted to keep some players fresh for this Saturday’s Premier League fixture against Chelsea. Brilliant. You spend years trying to qualify for a competition, only not to compete properly in it so that you stand a better chance of qualifying for it again the following season. It’s meta, post-truth football in which it’s not the taking part that counts, but the qualification to take part. Predictably, Spurs came unstuck, which at least gave some of their older fans a sense of familiarity. It’s a club tradition that Spurs fail so that we don’t have to. |
| Wednesday | Wednesday |
| When I was at Exeter university in the 1970s, male students with long hair tended to stick together. The hair was considered to be a cultural signifier that you weren’t a member of the Conservative association and that you probably shared some alternative lifestyle choices. Thank God, then, I wasn’t at Oxford with Philip “Lurch” Hammond, the dullest man in Westminster, or I could have come badly unstuck. Old photos of the chancellor have just been published showing him to have been a bit of a hippy with hair down to his shoulders. Imagine the possible faux pas. There you are sitting in some unheated squat giving the bloke the benefit of the doubt for droning on about free-market capitalism, because you assume he must have been up all night listening to Gong. Then it turns out he isn’t stoned, he means every word of what he’s saying and that he really is that boring. | When I was at Exeter university in the 1970s, male students with long hair tended to stick together. The hair was considered to be a cultural signifier that you weren’t a member of the Conservative association and that you probably shared some alternative lifestyle choices. Thank God, then, I wasn’t at Oxford with Philip “Lurch” Hammond, the dullest man in Westminster, or I could have come badly unstuck. Old photos of the chancellor have just been published showing him to have been a bit of a hippy with hair down to his shoulders. Imagine the possible faux pas. There you are sitting in some unheated squat giving the bloke the benefit of the doubt for droning on about free-market capitalism, because you assume he must have been up all night listening to Gong. Then it turns out he isn’t stoned, he means every word of what he’s saying and that he really is that boring. |
| Thursday | Thursday |
| Just occasionally, select committee proceedings give you an insight into how the rest of the world sees us. During a recent session of the public accounts committee – at which the Department of Health civil servant Chris Wormald made headlines for saying the NHS was planning on making patients show theirs passports to access treatment – one gem slipped under the radar. During a question about reciprocal healthcare arrangements for foreign pensioners, the chair, Meg Hillier, asked Wormald if he had any comparative figures for Spain. “Yes,” he said promptly. “At our last count there are 62 Spanish … ” “Not 62,000?” interrupted the Conservative Richard Bacon. “62 Spanish pensioners,” said Hillier. “You’re kidding me.” “62 Spanish pensioners live in the UK and about 70,000 British pensioners live in Spain,” replied the bewildered Wormald, who couldn’t see what the fuss was about. “62?” Hillier repeated incredulously. “We are not the retirement place of choice,” Wormald explained. Pensioners. That’s one export success we don’t often hear the government boasting about. | Just occasionally, select committee proceedings give you an insight into how the rest of the world sees us. During a recent session of the public accounts committee – at which the Department of Health civil servant Chris Wormald made headlines for saying the NHS was planning on making patients show theirs passports to access treatment – one gem slipped under the radar. During a question about reciprocal healthcare arrangements for foreign pensioners, the chair, Meg Hillier, asked Wormald if he had any comparative figures for Spain. “Yes,” he said promptly. “At our last count there are 62 Spanish … ” “Not 62,000?” interrupted the Conservative Richard Bacon. “62 Spanish pensioners,” said Hillier. “You’re kidding me.” “62 Spanish pensioners live in the UK and about 70,000 British pensioners live in Spain,” replied the bewildered Wormald, who couldn’t see what the fuss was about. “62?” Hillier repeated incredulously. “We are not the retirement place of choice,” Wormald explained. Pensioners. That’s one export success we don’t often hear the government boasting about. |
| Friday | Friday |
| As with much of my life, inertia invariably wins the day on Black Friday, so I’m yet again left with the feeling I’ve probably missed out on dozens of bargains. I never get round to starting my Christmas shopping until the second week in December and I don’t want a new TV quite enough to go through the hassle of trying to work out which is the right one. Even if I did, I’m fairly sure I’d end up buying a product that was being discontinued or was actually cheaper in John Lewis. Our own family motto is “Never knowingly underbought” as we always tend to end up paying top dollar for everything, even when we’re trying to do something on the cheap. An example of this was when we went on holiday to Egypt some years back and my wife and son mistakenly managed to haggle the price of a souvenir up from the seller’s original asking price. If only we could see ourselves coming as well as everyone else seems to. | As with much of my life, inertia invariably wins the day on Black Friday, so I’m yet again left with the feeling I’ve probably missed out on dozens of bargains. I never get round to starting my Christmas shopping until the second week in December and I don’t want a new TV quite enough to go through the hassle of trying to work out which is the right one. Even if I did, I’m fairly sure I’d end up buying a product that was being discontinued or was actually cheaper in John Lewis. Our own family motto is “Never knowingly underbought” as we always tend to end up paying top dollar for everything, even when we’re trying to do something on the cheap. An example of this was when we went on holiday to Egypt some years back and my wife and son mistakenly managed to haggle the price of a souvenir up from the seller’s original asking price. If only we could see ourselves coming as well as everyone else seems to. |
| Silver lining of the week: We could be even more broke. The OBR forecast for the country’s finances was more upbeat than many expected. | Silver lining of the week: We could be even more broke. The OBR forecast for the country’s finances was more upbeat than many expected. |