Ladies and gentleman, please stand for the National Embarrassment

Billy Connolly once joked that the dirge-like pace of God Save the Queen would cause the British Olympic team to be lapped during an Olympic opening ceremony. Whilst Lord Coe and co are sure to have more important matters on their mind in the build up to London 2012, it’s hard to deny that there is an element of truth in the comedian’s assessment. Its lyrics make no mention of the country it supposedly celebrates until the fifth verse, (which is never sung) and the only surprise in racing driver Lewis Hamilton’s criticism of the anthem’s length this July, with the tune still ringing in his ears following a grand prix win in Hockenheim, was that he felt it was too short and not too long. Yes, the general consensus seems to be that as far as national anthems go, God Save the Queen is pretty bad.

But it wasn’t always this way. The inaugural performance of the world’s first ever national anthem took place in London in 1745. God Save The Queen went on to become, in the words of Nicholas Smith author of Stories of Great National Songs, “the most potent national anthem in existence” and was adopted at one time or another as the national song of countries including;  Germany, Russia and Switzerland. But over time each of these countries abandoned the tune in favour of something less derivative, much like teenagers turn their back on embarrassing and short-lived musical crazes. Great Britain however, along with poor Liechtenstein, who continues to emulate an older relative who has long since ceased to be cool, are yet to grow out of it.

Let’s face it, on the modern international stage any glory the anthem may have once had, has long since faded. Compared to the call to arms of La Marseillaise, God Save the Queen is toothless. Compared to two merged songs and five incorporated languages which comprise post-Apartheid South Africa’s hymn of reconciliation, Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, it is characterless. Not that we have to look abroad to feel inferior about our anthem. The English among us have the pleasure of being doubly discriminated. Unsatisfied with mere international embarrassment, lucky England gets the dubious honour of using God Save the Queen when competing domestically against the other home nations in most sports. And while en masse singings of Wales’s Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau and Scotland’s Flower of Scotland, raise the hairs on the back of your neck, God Save the Queen induces barely stifled yawns. No wonder English football fans are famed for their booing of foreign anthems, they’re clearly hoping to provoke a retaliation of catcalls that will spare them the humiliation of listening to another mind-numbing, uninterrupted rendition of their own.

Maybe though there is a degree of appropriateness about our national anthem. Perhaps like governments, countries get the anthem they deserve. After all, we are British, it is not just our climate which is temperate it is our temperaments too. Keep calm and carry on, that’s what we do isn’t it? Every now and then the wind of change threatens to blow, but it always dies down. We’re hardly going to decide to ditch a ditty we’ve had for over 250 years just because it promotes an antiquated social order that few of us believe in now are we? No, we should take inspiration from the stiff upper lips of our millionaire footballers, so proud that they are visibly moved to muteness as possibly the worst national anthem on the face of the planet is played out. Why, it almost brings a tear to your eye.

Beware of the clap!

If you've ever been on a plane then you'll know just how stupid people can be, because inevitably, as the wheels touch down on the runway for landing, there will be some jokers who will feel the need to clap.  This is something I've never understood. If it's a joke, then it's a done to death man walked into a bar gag, and if the applause is genuine, well for me, it's undeserved. When I board a plane the very least, the absolute bare minimum, I expect is for that plane to arrive in it's chosen destination, ideally with all parties still alive and kicking on board. I may hope for a nice inflight meal, a comfortable journey, an undisturbed sleep, but I understand that these things want them as I might, are all a bonus. But, and call me old fashioned, avoiding death by crash landing into the sea from 35,000 ft., isn't. Especially since we are constantly being told that more people die each year from severe nut allergies, or squirrel attack than in aeroplane accidents. Rightly or wrongly, I've come to believe that air travel is only a fraction behind being carried inside a kangaroo's pouch as the safest mode of transport. So the only logical conclusion to make is that the people who clap are idiots. And apparently they are not the only ones, there's a lot of clapping idiots all over the world. 

Take for instance Wednesday’s Republican Party presidential debate, shown live on TV throughout America and filmed live in front of a studio audience. Clearly there were quite a lot of idiots in the audience, who decided the best way to show their appreciation for Texas Governor Rick Perry was to clap his execution record, which currently stands at 234 not out, of which 59% are ethnic minorities incidentally. Not bad for an anti-abortionist who’s gone on record to say "I believe the right choice is life". 

The fallout of the ‘applause for executions’ incident, which has generated a fair few column inches on both sides of the Atlantic, proved two things. One that, shock-horror, the death penalty is an emotive subject and two, the simple act of clapping is a slightly more perilous business than we often think. You don’t need to look hard for examples closer to home. This Saturday will mark a close to the BBC Proms season a series of classical concerts at which the act of banging your hands together in appreciation has never been so heavily scrutinised. For the blissfully ignorant clapping at classical concerts is bad, so bad in fact, that classical music aficionados have felt the need to lay down a few rules, the long of short of which are clap only in the right places or fuck off. Martin Cullingford, the deputy editor of Gramaphone Magazine suggested concert goers “don’t clap unless there is spontaneous uproarious applause, in which case it is safe to do so”, advice which if followed by everyone in the audience would be a sure-fire way to guarantee complete silence. Cullingford’s approach however seems positively laid back though, when compared to that of Jonathan Lennie, editor of Time Out magazine and author of a hilarious open letter, (read rant), to "Loud Clapping Man Who Sits Behind Me At Concerts". Lennie’s main concern? People who begin to clap too soon after the music finish. God, Guantanamo Bay isn’t good enough for those scum. 

But while the powers that be are trying to do everything they can to keep the proles out of classical concerts by outlawing clapping, in football they’re encouraging them to actually clap more often. The minute’s silence is now all but dead as a way for football fans to commemorate their tragedies and deaths, replaced with the utterly depressing minute’s applause. We are told it is because silence is too somber and depressing whereas the celebratory nature of applause is a more fitting way to commemorate sporting greats like Sir Bobby Robson. And in certain instances, like the example given, this may be true, but surely not on occasions like that in 2008 when Manchester United marked the 50^th anniversary of the Munich air disaster with the sound of clapping instead of silence, much to the dismay of many of their fans. There is something incredibly powerful and poignant when thousands of people in a football stadium stand in complete silence that is lost in the minute’s applause. Of course, the elephant in the room is that all too often the silence isn’t silent and one idiot shouting some obscenity or another marks the occasion in an entirely inappropriate way. But whereas fans of classical music are being urged not to clap for fear they do it in the wrong place detracting from the performance, football fans are being told they have to because the game’s bigwigs don’t believe they have the self-control to stay quiet for 60 seconds when it matters. What next, two-minutes applause on Armistice Day? 

Whether it’s to show support for the death penalty, enjoyment at a concert or appreciation for fallen heroes, applause, or the lack of it, looses all meaning when we are told when and when not to do it. Of course, good luck explain that concept to Bono a man who actually gets off on the idea that the claps of himself and his audience actually send innocent Africans to their deaths.   

Just Cook Will You…

“James Martin is on a mission to transform the standard of food at Scarborough General Hospital, North Yorkshire.” On the face of it, this sentence might sound like good news. Unwittingly, you're probably thinking ‘Great, it's about time somebody sorted out the food in that place’, but then, slowly, it'll dawn on you just who James Martin is, at which point you're probably likely to emit a dejected sigh, followed by the most obscene phrase in the English language, a phrase which contains no less than three C words...Celebrity...Chef...Campaign. Then you'll probably call James Martin a cunt.

No longer content to teach an ignorant nation the frankly vital skills of cake decoration or how best to season a risotto, today's television chefs are following in the footsteps of yesterday's pop stars, by (deep breath), trying to save the world. Like everything else in the universe, it all started with Jamie Oliver. Once content to drive his scooter round the English countryside blind drunk after gorging on an over inflated sense of self-importance and first pressing extra virgin olive oil, Oliver now gets his kicks hanging around the UN building in New York pestering Ban Ki Moon for a “global movement to make obesity a human rights issue”. And on that, isn't it about time that someone told Jamie Oliver he's a little bit overweight himself? I mean we all like to have a go at fat kids in Rotherham, but if you spend your entire working life guzzling Sainsbury's taste the difference confectionary, ostensibly bought for your ridiculously named children, despite the fact they never even get near them then aren’t you a bit of a hypocrite. Talk about the sous vide calling the soufflé ramekins black.

Yes truly TV chefs are the protest singers of our time, although in the case of James Martin he's clearly lip-synching to a cover, as anyone with a TV set and even the vaguest knowledge of popular culture knows that Cordon-Bleu mad scientist Heston Blumenthal already solved the issue of hospital food earlier this year, right after he dealt with the slightly more pressing matter of the quality of snacks served at motorway service stations. And therein lies the problem: there are clearly not enough evils in this world to give one each to our talented band of celebrity chefs to solve. Of course, it doesn't help when busy bodies like Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whatshisface aren't practicing what they preach and are clearly being greedy. Not content with bagsying all the problems in the world's oceans with his Fish Fight, apparently some ingenious pescatarian preservation scheme based upon the premise that we should NOT kill all the living creatures in the seas; HFW branched out to poultry with his latest venture, Chicken Out, a campaign designed to give chickens bigger houses and access to superfast broadband launched because -  and I quote -  "I feel so strongly about the welfare of our chickens”. However, this is still small-fry compared to Oliver, who, completely unperturbed by such trifling matters as a lack of any expertise or indeed natural ability, single-handedly revolutionised the national curriculum in Jamie's Dream School. According to leaked reports his next project will see the phonetically challenged Oliver team up with everyone's favourite lowly billionaire Bono, in which the pair successfully achieve the writing off of all third world debt and all in good time for Oliver's duet with Deila Smith on the Norwich City FA Cup song, conveniently released in the lead up to the 2014 election, at which he'll be standing in place of Nick Clegg.

You have to feel sorry for the old school, those TV chefs being left behind who foolishly believe that the barometer by which they will be judged is the number of Michelin Stars awarded and not the number of fashionable causes they can lend their name too. Should we expect to see Raymond Blanc attempting to cut teen pregnancy rates in 2011? Ainslie Harriot spearheading an inner city literacy campaign and that really young looking one from Ready Steady Cook advocating the decriminalization of heroin as the most effective method of reducing the harmful impact of drugs in society? Almost certainly, yes.

Once upon a time, before he rode his high-horse onto the bandwagon, James Martin used to make fun of people who tried to make a difference, specifically those of the environmental variety. In 2009 he wrote this in the Daily Mail about the cyclists who used to frequent the roads near his countryside house: “God, I hate those cyclists. Every last herbal tea-drinking, Harriet Harman-voting one of them”. Now sadly, instead of ridiculing those who try and change this world for the better, James has joined their ranks. Such a shame.