Winter Olympics Milan,Cortina and Livigno

In the past, the Winter Olympics were for watching the skiing, with the elegance of Jean-Claude Killy or Bernard Russi, or the brutal determination of Franz Klammer. The bobsleigh was watching the Germans schuss their BMW-like bobsleigh with a precision that made the British ex-public schoolboys look like amateurs as they rattled down their faux Austin Allegro bobsleigh as it bounced off the walls. We had highlights such as Eddie the Eagle becoming the favourite plucky British loser, and a rare medal when Torville and Dean had chosen the best tune to dance to. Ice hockey was like watching a fight in the school playground, justifying the lyrics of Al Stewart's Russians and Americans. 

Times have changed; this year, it was the Canadians and Americans who went to war in the men's ice hockey. Trump invited the men's team to the White House, as they had won a gold medal for the third time in the 26 times it had been held. Meanwhile, he mused that he didn't want to invite the women's ice hockey team despite them retaining the gold medal and winning it for the third time in the 8 times it was held. The locker room celebrations were joined by the freeloading Director of the FBI, Kash Patel, who was seen spraying beer after the defeat of the Canadians, who had won the Ice Hockey Gold Medal 9 times, the same as Russia. It epitomised the American supposition that they are the greatest sporting nation. 

Despite having more winter resorts than any other country and a population of 350 million, that is 78% of that of the population of the EU countries (450 million). The USA won 12 gold medals and 33 medals in total compared to the 54 gold medals and 163 medals in total by the EU countries. That's 22% and 20%, barely of a a quarter of 78% of the EU total on a population basis.. Moreover, Norway, not in the EU and with a population of just 5 million, trounced the USA with 18 gold medals and 41 medals in total. It is time that Europe realised that, whilst America likes to boast of its greatness, Europe delivers through the diversity of its nations.

Leaving aside the competition between nations, the greatest joy was watching the new freestyle skiing and snowboarding events, where the obvious fraternity between outstanding athletes, or should that be gymnasts, from Japan, China, Korea, Europe, Canada, and America, epitomised the spirit of the Olympics. They gave us displays that defied our imagination as well as gravity.

Back to Lime Craig

Ben Lomond from Braeval

The first blue sky in February prompted me to make my first attempt on Lime Craig for nine months to test my new hip. I made it, although it took 45 minutes, about 15 minutes longer than it used to take on cold winter days. The shock was the devastation caused by recent felling operations; the planting had been carried out in the 1930s, so by now the steep slopes were smothered by giant spruce and pine trees. I suppose I have been lucky over the past 38 years to have enjoyed the protection of the trees on wet and windy days. I have made the best part of a thousand ascents during this time; the birdlife and red squirrels have made every excursion a treat. How they will fare in this coniferous holocaust is another matter.

The well-graded trails have been churned by tree harvester machines and lumber lorries, creating a veneer of undulating mud and timber debris across the logscape. On the ascent, I met a couple teaching their one-year-old daughter to walk; her smile was almost as wide as her parents' pride. On the descent, I met a lady dressed totally in pink with a nervous four-year-old greyhound. The lady was as desolate as I was about the felling, and her dog could no longer chase the squirrels, which were as elusive as electric hares.  I am now aching, but happy and celebrated with my first beer of the year.

Logscape

Pine Relief

Balquidder Munros

Ben Vane and Ben Ledi

 

River Ribble

Preston Docks

Another trip to Preston to visit my sister and a chance to explore old haunts alongside the River Ribble. I had spent most days when not at school going through the nearby Brockholes Woods to the river at Halfpenny Bridge to fish, swim or slide on the ice during the winter freeze-ups. When the M6 was being constructed in 1958, we used to see how fast we could freewheel down the steepish gradient of the unfinished carriageway to the new bridge over the Ribble. At secondary school, I had run cross-country races against the hundred or so boys in my year along what is now the Ribble Way on the weeks when rugby or football had been cancelled because of waterlogged pitches. As a teenager, I had cycled up the Ribble Valley to the Trough of Bowland to climb the hills or fish for trout in the Hodder, a tributary of the Ribble. 

The Ribble was the timeline of my childhood. What I had not revisited in decades were Preston's celebrated Miller and Avenham Parks, which provide glorious green space between the river and the city centre. I had also not visited the massive Preston Dock to the west of the then town centre, next to the British Aerospace factory. The Dock, which closed in 1981, was accessed by 16 miles of the Ribble estuary that was dredged daily but was unable to take the larger ships that became dominant. This was a chance to revisit sections of the Ribble and conjure up more memories.

We started our walk at Broadgate, next to Penwortham Holme, just across the river, where my primary school had entered me in the Lancashire Primary Schools Sprint Races. My Dad had taken the afternoon off work to watch. Despite the Elliman's Muscle Rub for horses and dogs that he had bought for me and insisted I rub into my legs. I did, but in my 3s 6d Woolworth's goloshes, I was no match for the boys in spikes. I made the final but only came fifth. 

Broadgate had benefited from some impressive flood-protection measures, with sturdy concrete walling topped by thick glass to prevent the Ribble from bursting its banks onto the low-lying houses of Broadgate. We entered the recently upgraded Miller Park under the main railway bridge. I had spent many hours here on Saturday afternoons and school holidays as a 10 and 11-year-old watching the magical procession of steam locomotives whilst playing football with other train-spotters on the asphalt footpaths below the magnificent offices of Lancashire County Council. Austerity has resulted in the offices being sold and then emptied by developers and subsequently vandalised. The developers planned to redevelop the offices into a hotel. The location adjacent to the railway station and splendid Miller and Avenham Parks, and proximity to Winckley Square, could not be better, but developers are notoriously fickle when it comes to delivering projects. I can envisage it being demolished to make way for luxury flats.

We walked along the banks of the river to the new Tramway Bridge, which provides a direct footpath/cycleway from Bamber Bridge and Walton-le-Dale to the City Centre. We wandered through Avenham Park, which the family had visited every Easter Monday for the pace egg racing down the slopes. In those days, before the commercialisation of Easter by the chocolate companies, easter eggs were boiled eggs that had been painted. Avenham Park is a natural amphitheatre below the city centre and, as well as being a popular park, also hosts outdoor concerts and the Preston Guild every 20 years. 

Preston's City Centre is built at the top of the scarp slope above the parks. It takes you into Winckley Square, a green space in the midst of Georgian buildings that host professional offices, numerous restaurants, the majority of Preston's blue plaques and an asylum centre. We reached Fishergate, the main shopping street that has been made pedestrian-friendly and traffic-calmed, allowing only one-way movement of buses and taxis. It worked well, and even on a dull Tuesday morning, there was a good footfall, interrupted only by the ubiquitous scourge of city centres, the Uber e-bikes that are ridden with little respect for pedestrians. We retreated to the 1950s for a coffee in Bruccianis, which has hardly changed since I was taken there as a toddler by my mother every Friday morning to meet my gran and be bought a hot milk and toasted teacake.

I had walked 4 kilometres by the time we returned to the car; my third-longest new hip walk. On the way back, we took a diversion to see the old Preston Dock, which had been the largest single dock basin in Europe before it closed in 1979. It was where cotton, bananas and wood had been imported. I had often visited it with my parents or with Uncle Jim, who was a lorry driver who would get access to the dockside, where I could watch the ships being unloaded. It was a busy port with twenty or so cargo ships docked in the basin, but the Ribble estuary could not take the larger ships, so it is now a massive marina, largely unused. My nephew has a flat in the residential development that overlooks the dock on the south side, whilst business units are on the north and east sides. Jaunt over, the next step was for only the second time in seven months to find an EV charger that was available and worked; range anxiety was real.

Avenham Park and River Ribble

New Tramway Bridge

Winckley Square

Fishergate

Brucciannis

Lancashire County Buildings in distress

 

Epstein's Entitled and Exploited Brits

Going

Going

Gone

Whilst we await the Epstein Files to unveil Trump's unredacted past, the latest batch has certainly nailed some worthy British scoundrels. Peter Mandelson, an ex-Lord, and Andrew, formerly known as Prince are both known knowns. In the past, I have had the misfortune to cross the paths of both of them, not directly but through their intermediaries. They both shared a sense of entitlement that semaphored their innate greed for wealth and ambitions for the highest office. 

Peter Mandelson had  been appointed the Director of Communications for the Labour Party in 1985. Along with a senior councillor, I had made a presentation of  Strathclyde's new Pre-Five policy at a large conference at the  School of Advanced Urban Studies (SAUS) at Bristol University. It had gone down well, and I was accosted afterwards by one of Mandelson's colleagues and asked if I could make the presentation to Mandelson in London. The next morning,  I caught a train to London on my return to Glasgow. Mandelson's stooge followed me onto the train, sat next to me and said that Mandelson would like me to go to see him. It would mean interrupting my journey back to Glasgow, but I had three young children, and I wanted to see them before bedtime. I suggested that if Mandelson wanted to come to Glasgow, we would be happy to brief him. It struck me at the time that Mandy was someone who took without giving, unlike Barry Manilow's Mandy, who gave without taking.

I watched his career oscillate, soaring and diving as he garnered friends in high places and exploited their friendship to satisfy and inflate his ego, wealth and influence. I cheered every time his reputation plummeted as he was caught breaking the rules and the bonds of friendship. His strong connection with the financial sector was evident when he championed the Private Finance Initiatives for schools, hospitals and the London Underground. His lack of concern for the underprivileged went under the radar; the $75,000 he received from Epstein in 2003, but has no recollection of, was two and a half times the UK average annual wage at the time. Mere loose change as his net worth climbed to £10m.

We now know from the Epstein Files that he attempted to safeguard his financial friends during the banking crisis. He managed to dupe Gordon Brown, but Alistair Darling was less willing to respond to Mandelson's lobbying and taxed the bankers' bonuses. After 2010, when he set up a corporate lobbying company and published his third man memoirs, he was criticised by the Labour Leadership contenders Ed Miliband, David Milliband and Andy Burnham. They got it right, unlike Starmer, who was easy prey for Mandelson, the whisperer to aspiring leaders.

Andrew Mountbatten Windsor was the wild child of the royal family and an unreliable business envoy who befriended a gaggle of unreliable contacts from rogue nations long before he was grounded by Emily Maitlis in his disastrous 2019 interview. His love of golf, uniforms and wealthy donors to maintain his lavish lifestyle, was exploited during his time as the trade and business envoy after leaving the Royal Navy in 2001. 

This involved making contact with UK companies. We were occasionally asked to arrange visits with local companies by his private secretary. Most companies were pleased to welcome Royal visits and would go to great trouble to make preparations that were costly in time and money for the visits. On at least two occasions, he pulled out of these visits, citing other engagements. When we discovered that one of these was to spend the day golfing at St Andrews, using the flights that had been booked for his visits, it told us all we needed to know about his commitment to his role as business envoy. Discussing this with other colleagues, including senior police officers involved in royal duties, confirmed that this was typical behaviour. He was widely regarded as the rotten apple of the royal family. and generated a deep resentment from most people who had any dealings with him. 

Add the incredibly pathetic emails from his former wife, Sarah Ferguson, who was begging for money from Epstein and together the former royals and the former politician have become the celebrity British victims of the Epstein Files. Meanwhile, Trump escapes scrutiny again, partly due to extensive redaction and partly by the hesitancy of the American fourth estate to challenge the peace-loving oligarch.