COLD TURKEY AND DON’T COUNT YOUR CHICKENS

Turkeys and chickens seem to be in the news this week.

First I hear that police in Peru were stunned to find cocaine surgically implanted in two bloated turkeys. Apparently a little bird told them to stop a bus outside the city of Tarapoto. Officers were puzzled when they found the turkeys in the crate, but they didn’t find the expected cocaine until they noticed that the two turkeys were bloated. On examining the birds they found surgical seams on the chests and after an operation a vet extracted 11 plastic capsules containing 1.9 kilograms of cocaine from one turkey plus a further 17 capsules with 2.9 kilograms from the other.

It is not clear at this time whether anybody has yet been up before the beak and is serving bird for the offence.

Meanwhile Hans Larsson of the Canada Research Chair in Macro Evolution at Montreal's McGill University believes he can develop dinosaur traits that disappeared millions of years ago in birds. He told AFP that by flipping certain genetic levers during a chicken embryo’s development, he can reproduce the dinosaur anatomy. I understand the research could eventually lead to hatching live prehistoric animals, but Larsson said there are no plans for that now, for ethical and practical reasons as a dinosaur hatchery is “too large an enterprise.”

Ah, one for the birds then.

Finally talk of chickens and turkeys reminds me of a scam that was popular in pubs in Dublin in the 1970s. In the days before Christmas a man would enter a bar with a large bundle under his arm and a turkey’s neck protruding from it. He’d then tell one and all how he’d won the office lottery with a turkey as the prize but wouldn’t you just know it he already had a festive bird at home. Once he found a punter willing to take the turkey off his hands at a good price he’d quickly leave the bar. It was only when the hapless buyer got the bird home and unwrapped it that he found that the turkey’s neck had been sown on to the body of a small chicken.

A stitch up indeed!

WALTER @ SARDI’S

In my blog today I was going to vent my spleen over CNBC, the NBC business TV station that broadcasts in Europe and around the world. However I became sidetracked when thinking of New York so instead of ire I come to you with fond memories of one of the kindest and gentlest of men I have ever met, Walter Neiman.

I first met Walter in London in the early 1970s. He was then vice-president of WQXR, the classical music station of the New York Times. He gave a key note speech at a conference on commercial radio, a concept we were about to grasp in the UK so ending the domination of the BBC.

We had a long chat in London, corresponded and I then visited him in New York. He took extraordinary lengths to ensure that I had access to the many departments at WQXR and gave me the fullest briefing imaginable on how a commercial radio station operates – especially in a big city.

He took me to lunch at Sardi’s which impressed me immensely. First it was the only New York restaurant I had ever heard of, second the walls were bedecked with pictures of all the famous talents who had dined there and third, it was Italian, so it was food that I understood.

Our friendship continued over the years and when I visited New York in the early1980s Walter had been president of the station for a number of years. Although running the radio station of the New York Times is a major task in itself because of its importance on the city’s cultural scene Walter’s influence and talents were spread across many fronts including the Met.

We talked in his office about a radio programme I would record for WQXR with former British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, with a special emphasis on the pending Royal Wedding between Prince Charles and Diana Spencer. That agreed we again retired to Sardi’s for lunch.

After we sat down Walter told me this would be our farewell lunch. I looked at him rather puzzled and he explained that he had a terminal heart condition and would not be around in many more months. Indeed in March 1983 the New York Times ran the rather bleak obituary headline – Walter Neiman of WXQR is dead.

He had passed away of the expected heart attack whilst in hospital. Yet our final lunch was far from a sombre occasion. It was the first time in my life that I had been confronted with a person’s mortality so head on. I thus spent the lunch in a state of shock, like trying to eat after being punched in the stomach. Either Walter had accepted his fate with good humour or was a superb actor but he spent the rest of the meal talking animatedly about WQXR, music and his wife with whom he had visited London on the way back from an Italian holiday when I had arranged for them to visit the House of Commons. Make no mistake, Walter was the master and I was the pupil yet never in any of our conversations – and certainly not then - did he treat me anything other than as an equal and a friend. That is the true measure of this man.

Thankfully when we came to part for the final time we both had meetings to rush to so no lingering farewell was endured. However I have to admit when I turned on to Broadway tears were rolling down my cheeks. When I next visited New York Walter had passed away but friends had kept various obituaries which showed just how valued and loved he was.

Our final lunch certainly taught me a very tough lesson – but 26 years on I still have only the fondest, warmest memories of a wonderful man, a fine mentor and a true friend.

LOCKERBIE & THE THATCHER LEGACY

There is no doubt that Margaret Thatcher will be seen as a major influence on the British and world political stage in the 20th century. First she was Britain’s first woman prime minister but she divided the country and historians are yet to decide whether she was a force for good or bad although many politicians have their entrenched opinions already. I suspect we will have to wait for the still formidable Baroness Thatcher to shuffle off this mortal coil before the historical views are publically spoken or put in print.

On Saturday I read an interview in the Daily Telegraph given by Jim Swire to Peter Stanford. Jim Swire lost his daughter in the 1988 Pan Am tragedy but he has been one of those who believed that Megrahi was not guilty of the bombing and that the bomb was placed on-board the Boeing 747 at Heathrow rather than a connecting flight from Malta via Frankfurt. If his theories are correct then the likely terror group responsible is pro-Palestinian based in Damascus with links to Iran.

This brings us to Margaret Thatcher because the widely respected Swire holds her in utter contempt. He told Stanford: “She refused even to meet me, as a representative of the families, to hear our request for a public enquiry. And then, in 1993, in her memories, she writes that after she backed the US bombing of Tripoli in 1986, Libya never again mounted a serious attack on the West. How can she write that if she believed Libya was behind Lockerbie two years later? Unless she knows something she is not saying.”

I know the freeing of Megrahi has caused widespread pain to the relatives of those on the Pan Am flight who are convinced of his guilt, especially in the USA. However I do wonder if the protests from the US Government and its agencies are motivated not because of a miscarriage of justice in freeing the Libyan but because his release might eventually mean the investigation is re-opened and another miscarriage of justice is uncovered.

And what, one may ask, is Baroness Thatcher’s take on all this? Indeed are there other murky secrets yet to be uncovered from her time in office?

THE LOCKERBIE TRAGEDIES

For me the Lockerbie air disaster came close to being a personal tragedy. A very dear friend was booked on the Pam Am flight 103 in 1988 and literally escaped death at the eleventh hour when his business meeting in London overran so he had to re-book on a later flight.

Nor is the town of Lockerbie just a name on a map. In the years prior to the disaster I drove past the crash site on many occasions so the events in the air and the 11 deaths of the ground have a very real reference point.

Now the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, has been released from prison in Scotland and as I write this is in the bosom of his family in Libya were he awaits his own death sentence from cancer.

Megrahi was found guilty by a Scottish court sitting in Holland of murdering the 259 people on board the 747 flight and those on the ground. Some people argue that this was a convenient closure especially so for the governments in Washington and London.

What does appear clear is that some lawyers in Scotland are very unhappy with the conviction of Megrahi and wish the legal case to be re-opened. This could have been the case had he continued with his appeal against conviction.

Even more to the point many of the families of the victims in Britain do not share the view of their US counterparts and also have strong doubts over Megrahi’s conviction.

So we are faced with two tragedies: the slaying of 270 people by the explosion of the 747 over Lockerbie and that 21 years on we are still none the wiser over exactly what happened – perhaps we never will be.

Sadly the USA long ago ceased to be a reference point for compassion or justice so its government’s pressure counted for little in the Megrahi case and could even have been counterproductive.

Scottish Justice Secretary Mr MacAskill said Megrahi had shown no compassion to his victims, but added: “That alone is not a reason for us to deny compassion to him and his family in his final days.”

In the coming months Megrahi will join his victims in peace. However the torment will continue for those family members left behind and other perpetrators of this act of terrorism will still be amongst us because even if Megrahi was guilty, he certainly didn’t act alone.

THOSE LAZY HAZY CRAZY DAYS OF SUMMER

Britons are having to come to terms with the fact that, once again, their promised barbeque summer has turned in to a couple of barbeque days.

The mind plays curious tricks. I remember the summer days of my childhood and long hot summers were the norm. Except they weren’t of course and although my childhood coincided with the exceptional summer of 1959 even those consecutive hot months was accompanied by heavy storms.

This year partly on the promise of a barbeque summer but more because of the economic crisis and sterling’s slide against the euro many Britons have opted to holiday at home. This is a blessing and a curse for the British holiday industry. It’s good to have the fully booked sign hanging from the holiday village, hotel, boarding house and camp site gate – but as the country is awash how many of these Britons will holiday at home next year? Very few.

Spain has been hit by the recession too because Britons and Germans make up a large quota of the incoming holiday traffic and this year their absence has been noted. It is the ‘national’ tourists who have saved the day but then for many Spaniards holidaying at home is the norm not the exception and often includes a return to the “pueblo” of their birth. I should add that for a Spaniard his or her “pueblo” is everything. It is their identity and their “pueblo” or the “barrio” of a city comes before their province, region and country.

Antonio lives in the valley where I had my house. He grew up on the hillside across from me where his father was the shepherd. He has a house in the village but developed a piece of land with a small dwelling, pool, vegetable plot and storage area for his building business. Apart from his honeymoon and military service he has never roamed from these parts. A few years back his young daughters demanded to spend the day in Puerto Banús. He reluctantly agreed to take them and then wished he hadn’t. The Costa del Sol was like a foreign land and as for the price of drinks... ¡Joder!

Last week my village held its feria. This is a signal for all jimenatos to return from wherever they may now live. As I went to the supermarket a very smart but casually dressed young woman with her two children went ahead of me. She certainly didn’t have the look of a village lass. As we entered the shop she was hailed by a man who asked why she wasn’t in Madrid (which explained her style) to which she proudly replied she had returned to “her pueblo” for the celebrations.

I close this blog at Cañete La Real in the Serranía de Ronda. Now whilst most of us celebrated Noche Vieja – New Year’s Eve – on December 31 the people of this village held their party last Saturday night. Many locals have moved from the village to other places in Spain and Europe but return for the month of August to their “pueblo”. Hence it was decided to hold the New Year’s Eve fiesta in their honour including, of course, a “Miss y Mister Emigrante” competition.

Oh those hazy, lazy, crazy days of summer!

THE DANCING SAINT

One of the things that fascinates me about Spain, and I have touched on it here oft times before is religion.

When I grew up Spain was one of the most staunchly Catholic countries in Europe. Whilst most Spaniards would still probably consider themselves Catholics today, in the same way many Britons would say they were C of E, the fact it the modern Spain is a secular nation.

Coupled with that is the role of the Catholic Church in the pre Civil War years, under the Franco regime and to an extent in the post-dictatorship era. This leaves many Spaniards unwilling to enter a Catholic church or to have anything to do with a clergy so aligned with the Fascist past.

So it is not surprising that on Sundays or high days and holidays the Catholic Churches preach to a few. It is a situation well known in Britain.

However there is a profound change in the nation come Semana Santa when the Easter week parades take to the streets and the crowds flock to see the processions. The same can be said for when a town or village’s patron is duly honoured and the image is carried high to much local devotion.

What makes Spain such a special country is that if a large number of people are gathered in one place then it is seen as reason enough to have a party. Hence fiestas always accompany the days in which the patron is honoured.

Now make no mistake the honouring of the religious patron, be it one of the numerous ‘Virgens’ or a saint, is a serious and devout businesses. There is an unbreakable link between the people of a town, village or even small neighbourhood to their patron, they are ‘familia’ and it would be a foolish man or woman who treated such veneration with disrespect. Yet this devotion should not be confused with organised religion.

I have just been writing up a report on El Burgo in the Serranía de Ronda. There was much consternation in the village last August when during the annual fair the statue of San Agustín fell to the ground and was smashed injuring a woman in the process. The accident happened as those carrying the village’s patron performed a dancing movement accompanied by the municipal band. Apparently the throne on which San Agustín stands rotates to face all points of the compass but last year he crashed at the feet of the villagers before it could be completed. For such a small community of just hundreds this would have been seen as an exceedingly bad omen so it is no surprise that eight months of major restoration work have been undertaken to ensure the statue will be ready to again take to the streets on August 28.

Do the people of El Burgo flock to the church on Sundays? Of course not.

Will they be on the streets on August 28 to venerate their dancing saint? Of course – every one of them.

CHEESED OFF WITH THE BANK?

Word reached me after the banks closed on Friday that in central Italy a deposit of Parmesan cheese is enough to secure a loan.

Apparently this system dates back to the 1950s and is still used by four banks in northern Emilia-Romagna including one which holds around 400,000 rounds of the cheese.

I am reliably told that a round of Parmesan weighing 40 kilos is worth 300 euros so is not to be sniffed at.

The cheeses take about two years to mature but during these two years the producers have to cover a range of costs and continue to pay their suppliers. To allow them the necessary financing the banks in this region have diversified by creating Parmesan storage.

In cases of default, the banks recuperate their losses by selling the cheeses.

I am now busy raiding my fridge to find that packet of ancient, sorry mature, cheese slices and will be off to the bank as soon as it opens on Monday.