UNDER THE INFLUENCE

What exactly is an influencer? is it someone who gets paid for saying that they like stuff, stuff that they wear and stuff that they use? If so, thats sounds like a pretty easy way to make a living.

It would seem to be a requirement of the role to be something of  a vacuous narcissist with an ego that is disproportionate to any level of talent or expertise. Companies have always had movie stars, sportsmen & sportswomen, musicians and other notables endorse their products but there is an underlying theme of those people being what you would call celebrities based on their ability within their chosen fields.

The Influencer is the modern day endorsee and their qualifications for such a role are somewhat vague, to say the least. I guess its the volume of product out there that companies want to promote that has led to the need for finding people to promote it; enter the Influencer.

The Influencer may say that they are the right person in the right place at the right time, and in this age of celebrities from A-Z they have jumped on the wagon.

I think its a case of, not so much, "if they didn't exist they would have to have been invented", but more, "if you build it they will come"

CHEERS

Becks in action. Return of the pint. Pubageddon. Drinkpocalypse. Yes the UK resumed service, outside anyway, in Pubs up and down the country. 

In Hornchurch (probably) a man wearing a fisherman's waistcoat had a pint of John Smith's in a JD Wetherspoons at the crack of dawn. In Shoreditch (possibly) pub 'bants' resumed around tea time outside the Nail Gun Arms. In Huddersfield (presumably) a group of builders wolfed down a full english accompanied by pints of Guinness. In Richmond (allegedly) a table full of upwardly mobile rugby shirt wearing pals quaffed draught Peroni whilst sitting on a pub bench overlooking the passing rowing clubs.

It's funny that us pub goers can so easily pick up where we left off and happily accept paying 400% more for a pint than we have been doing over the last months at home via the off license. We do this because a pint in the pub is about more than a pint in the pub. It's hard to explain but a pub pint just feels different. There's a ritual to it, a familiarity and a custom about the whole process.

The Pub is a particularly British creature; I'm not talking about bars I'm talking Public Houses. I welcome the stage one reopening and look forward to a full reopening in the near future. This should help reduce the number of pubs that have gone to the wall systematically in localities country wide. It's important that our pubs thrive as its a cultural touchstone and one of the last bastions of real community. Cheers.

WHAT A LIBERTY

Let's be clear, its all about opinion but I think that America is becoming the haven for this country's most irritating loud mouths. The wretched James Corden has managed to charm US audiences with his ego driven brand of dubious charm. Gordon Ramsey decided to ditch his credibility and become a reality TV celebrity across the pond; his bullying schtick was deemed acceptable in his heavily staged Kitchen Nightmare series. Now Piers Morgan has taken his bloated persona back  stateside to dig out Meghan Markle to anyone that will listen.

They seem to go to the land of the free to have the freedom to be oafish and arrogant without censure. Perhaps the US gives them the liberty to be liberty takers.

These people are not unfortunate exiles, they are bridge burners who place success above other important considerations of basic human qualities. The least one can say about these transatlantic ambassadors of arrogance is that by taking themselves across the sea their voice and influence is diminished at home.

Emma Lazarus'  sonnet The New Colossus needs a rewrite to reflect this trend;

"Give me your trite, your bores,

Your  massive egos yearning to bleat free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the hopeless, bad tempered to me,

I lift my lamp for these media whores"

The UK the public may not be the brightest but some things wear a bit thin. Clarkson, Keys and Grey, that bloke from the SAS, all wrote their tickets to ignominy as we don't have unlimited tolerance and we see through self inflation eventually. Maybe they will turn up in the United States at some point as part of a perverse ex-pat community of charmless charlatans. Birds of a feather and all that.

THE CELLULOID STREETS OF LONDON

As its Good Friday, it got me thinking about The Long Good Friday, the 1980 London gangster film directed by John Mackenzie who went on to direct A Sense Of Freedom the brutal Glasgow set biography of gangster Jimmy Boyle. Barry Hines who penned naturalistic pieces with political leanings wrote ii and the stars Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren would become mainstays of British cinema.

The day from hell for mob boss Harold Shand is depicted with grit, realism and a bruised glamour. We see Shand, unable to face progress on anything other than his own terms, gradually lose control and his hubris leads inevitably to his down fall brilliantly crystallised in the wordless ending scene; one of the greatest final scenes in cinematic history.

London is an underused backdrop in movies and with this in mind I’ve had a look at films set in London that manage to capture the flavour of the city in some way. Many of the blokesploitation films that were launched off the back of Guy Richie’s fanciful idea of London’s underbelly have not aged well or are caricatures of London life therefore no place for them in my list of 10 favourite London films. Nor is there room for the Ian Curtis middle class rom-com and its numerous copies as it, again, paints a very niche idea of what upwardly mobile Londoners get up to.

1. Performance (1970)
2. An American Werewolf In London (1981)
3. The Long Good Friday (1980)
4. Nil By Mouth (1997)
5. Oliver Twist (1948)
6. Night And The City (1950)
7. Blow Up (1966)
8. Naked (1993)
9. Repulsion (1969)
10. Bronco Bullfrog (1969)

Honourable mention to Pressure (1976) & Babylon (1980) two early examples of films charting the Black British experience in London. Hard hitting, unflinching while retaining a real humanity.

PARK LIFE

Now that the dust of outrage and misinformation has settled here's the real story from someone who was there. Yes I'm talking about  Covidgedon, Tuesday 30th March, Primrose Hill; The Gathering Of The Clans, Apocalypse Now, Primrosestock etc

The sun came out on Tuesday and the rules changed the day before. The cocoon burst open and the butterfly of optimism flew out and headed to Primrose Hill. Groups of six lay down on their collective blankets, popped the corks and broke out the Canapés to bask in the unprecedented view of London town. Well, I say groups of six, but there were also Magnificent Sevens, Dirty Dozens and what seemed like the 300.

The youth of London and beyond were out and about on the hill, a couple of girls had driven from Slough to enjoy the "beef' free environment of this picturesque corner of London and the atmosphere was one of a festival rather than an angsty jamboree.

The old bill showed up and made their presence felt but any feeling of aggression or threat from those gathered was absent, rather the ambience was one of cocksure youth stretching out and promenading.

Reports of a stabbing were misguided. Yes a fracas took place at the top of the hill and some idiot stabbed someone on Gray's Inn Road Islington but it was disingenuous how the two incidents were glued together to provide an 'I told you so' story on feral youth.

The crowds were diverse, the humour good and by and large the biggest negative in terms of the social contract was the disregard for keeping Britain tidy.

In terms of Covid, we all know that one of the by products of being young is the misguided theory of invincibility which meant that social distancing was disregarded by a good many.

People have been adhering to Lockdown for what seems a lifetime and within this period there have been stories of  illegal gatherings at christenings, protests, weddings, birthday parties, football league title celebrations and members of the good and the great bending the rules for their own private and exclusive events, we also have a number of cases of our elected officials taking liberties with impunity, so we need to look a bit deeper when we see a crowd of predominantly young people doing the same; having double standards is an easy trap to fall into.

I thought there were too many people getting a bit carried away with group numbers but I also saw many many people happily adhering to the rules. 

Was Primrose Hillgate a concern or was it just an understandable collective sigh of relief? not sure, but what I do know is that when I was young I didn't have to live under lockdown, I was free to go wherever I wanted to without worrying about undesirables attacking me as I simply avoided certain areas, and as  for pandemics, we had the Aids crisis but precautions could be taken to manage its spectre.

The days and weeks ahead will be interesting as parks and open spaces greet groups of sun lovers. Let's hope that a sense of group  responsibility filters in and that a collective approach to managing one's debris becomes a habit.

The summer of 2021 will be an interesting one, not least for this current generation of young people who have and are living in unprecedented times..