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THE BAG ON THE SEAT

7/11/2014

The 20.23 from London Euston to Wolverhampton via Milton Keynes, Coventry, Birmingham International and Birmingham New Street.

It's a busy train. I have to walk through two carriages to get a seat but finally manage to insert myself next to a woman working on a laptop and opposite a bloke listening to some music. Quality headphones. Not too loud. Good.

And then, opposite, I see her - the well dressed woman with her MacBook spread across the table. She pushes it across so that it covers two table spaces rather than one. Just to make sure her territory isn't invaded, she parks her suitcase on the seat next to her. One of those overnight jobbies, with wheels. And on top of that, her coat with its faux fur trimming.

I'm guessing she's a professional who earns well. She looks smart and has clearly taken care with her appearance.

At first, I assume that as the train fills up, she'll rather begrudgingly move her case and put it with the other luggage in the (admittedly limited) space allocated to it at the end of the carriage. But no - although people are walking up and down, obviously looking for somewhere to sit, she looks out of the window and carries on regardless. By now she's got her headphones on. What kind of music do people like this listen to?

Other passengers who have tried to hog a couple of seats by laying bags or coats down next to them remove the blockages and allow others to sit next to them. But not her.

I stare at the woman. I catch her eye. She stares back at me, all passive aggressive. Does she think I'm eyeying her up? That I fancy her? You've got to be joking, love. Now she looks down and gets stuck into her work.

Don't worry, any moment now, one of the people who can't find a seat will get fed up, and just ask her to move the case so they they can sit down. I'm willing each and everyone one of them to do it. As a fellow stands in the aisle looking down the carriage, I nod in what I hope is an expressive way at the seat with the bag. He looks down embarrassed, adjusts his fly, and moves on.

Surely, someone will soon demand the space. The train is rammed. She will apologise, shift her bag, and we'll all be OK.

Except that it never happens. The great British reserve - more properly called cowardice - which prevents me from directly asking her to move her bag, is also holding back the other passengers, even those with nowhere to sit.

Eventually, somewhere south of Watford, the carriage clears. She's got away with it. Damn. I walk down to the loo. I see other single passengers who've hogged a double seat to themselves too. Yet in the vestibules I'm having to scrape past people standing.

A large extended family with maybe seven or eight members - including a girl I'd estimate at being around 9 years of age and a teenage lad - are on their feet all the way home, grouped together in the smelly passage outside the loo.

Why didn't I speak up and encourage one of them to challenge the selfish woman? Why didn't the Train Manager try and match up the loose passengers with the empty places and remind everyone over the tannoy that seats are for people not luggage. I've heard it done on other services.

Most of all, why didn't the woman herself feel a sense of shame and embarrassment at denying fellow travellers a seat they had paid for?

A growing selfishness is afoot in the public realm. I travel on the trains regularly, and hear passengers playing music and films out loud without the shield of headphones; I hear loud swearing apparently oblivious to the presence of children.

Nothing though quite riles me so much as passengers expecting first class levels of space and comfort while playing standard fare.

Next time Madam, I'll be on your case - literally.

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LIVE REVIEW: ROGER MCGUINN (Glee Club, Birmingham)

2/11/2014

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What? The lead singer and guitarist from The Byrds playing a venue where you can you practically touch the stage from the back row?

Yup, and I was feeling pretty smug when I snagged myself four tickets on the first morning they went on sale. In fairness, you wouldn't necessarily have been trampled underfoot in the rush - though perhaps you'd have to watch out for the odd Zimmer frame or two given the ageing nature of McGuinn's core audience - but in the end, the man's reputation ensured a virtual sell out.

And he didn't disappoint. An improbably young looking 72 year old, McGuinn has kept his beautiful tremulous, near falsetto but he can still growl like an angry bluesman when he wants to. Guitar-wise he switched between his trademark seven string acoustic - which can mimic the full 12-string jingle jangle Byrds' sound - and an electric Rickenbacker as he bounced around a five decade recording career.

From Dylan covers (My Back Pages, Knocking On Heaven's Door) to self-penned classics (Chestnut Mare, Eight Miles High) to country, folk and even a smattering of sea shanties he's been on a widescreen musical adventure that he wants to share.

So yes, the songs were great, but what set the show apart was the quality of the story telling. This is a man who doesn't merely drop names - he sprays them around with a garden hose. And why shouldn't he? McGuinn has hung out with Dylan, McCartney, David Crosby and the Bee Gees; he's been an inspiration to Tom Petty; and it was a phone call from Miles Davies that secured The Byrds their first record deal.

Yet for all his cross referencing to the History of Pop, there was a touching modesty in the delivery. McGuinn talks you through the evolution of Mr Tambourine Man, frankly admitting that the band were desperate for a hit record, and tried to achieve it by sounding like The Beatles.

They were successful, and the rest is his story. It's one well worth catching if you ever get the chance.

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WHY I WEAR A POPPY

1/11/2014

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Visitors have been warned off visiting Paul Cummin's ceramic poppies at the Tower of London because of overcrowding. I'm not surprised. When I visited earlier this week, it was impossible to get a moment's contemplation to survey the meaning of the flowers, as thousands of gawping visitors (myself included) jostled for the best spot to take a snap or get a better a better view.

In case you don't know Cummins has made 888,246 of the symbolic blooms, which will be filling up the Tower moat in the build-up to Remembrance Sunday. Unfortunately, the meaning of the loss and sacrifice they represent is rather lost in the scramble to catch up with the capital's latest "must see" exhibit.

Don't worry if you miss it - just make sure you buy an ordinary poppy instead. And wear it with pride. I always do. Here's why. If it wasn't for the British people and their military forces I almost certainly wouldn't be sitting here writing this today.

My dad grew up in a German town called Ratibor, and although he was Jewish, there was such a small community, he went to a Christian school. His family were not the Jews of the ghettos as they are so often portrayed in the movies - they were secular, integrated. Everyday people. Ordinary Germans.

My grandfather ran a coaching inn, and there's a family photograph of him and his father in German army uniform all kitted out for action in the Great War. Yes, they too were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country - only for the "other" side.

None of this mattered to Hitler whose psychopathic bloodlust willed the extermination of my Dad's family and his entire race.

Thankfully, in the months leading up to WW2, it didn't seem to matter to the British people either - but in a rather different and humane way. Under a programme called Kindertransport founded by Sir Nicholas Winton young Jewish kids from were allowed into this country from Germany and other parts of Europe provided they could find a sponsor willing to house them. 10,000 Jewish youngsters were saved in this way.

My Dad was one of the lucky ones. He was taken on by a farmer in Derbyshire and at the age of 13, put to work in the fields. It was tough, agricultural toil. He was an adolescent lad, separated from his family and all he knew and placed in an alien landscape. He couldn't even speak the language. But it was better than the alternative.

His brother Werner was taken in by a kindly lady in Southampton who we knew as "Auntie Gladys". Being 11, he was sent to school, and went on to become an architect and town planner in Guildford.

They were the only members of their immediate family to survive. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles all perished in The Holocaust.

It wasn't just Kindertransport that saved them of course. That's where the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force come into it. In the first two years of the war, Britain stood virtually alone against the Nazi menace. Once the Allies came on board many thousands more British and Empire troops gave their lives.

If they hadn't done so, and had the Nazis rolled over this country, what hope then for my Dad and his brother? And what chance of life then for me and my kids?

That's why you shouldn't fret too much if you haven't joined the sharp elbows in the throng surrounding Paul Cummins installation in London. The poppies that count are on a street corner near you, now. Please give generously.

My Dad - Rudy Goldberg

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ROMEO AND JULIET AT THE NATIONAL THEATRE

30/10/2014

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OK, so Baz Luhrmann got here first with his in yer face poptastic screen adaptation of Shakespeare's classic of doomed teenage love, but this 60-minute whizz bang production by the National's Primary Theatre aimed at 8-12 year olds has a freshness and vitality of its own.

Re-versioned by Ben Power, there's an audience clapalong to Pharrell Williams "Happy" and a nod to Adele, but the Bard's poetry is properly respected here - it's just that there's much less of it than old Shakey originally intended. And in case the kids aren't getting the hang of what's going on, key parts of the story are re-told in a Hip Hop-stylee, making the story feel both modern - and, crucially, understood.

Power's ruthless filleting of the script gets us right to heart of the affair. Romeo falls in love with Juliet who has already been promised to another bloke - the arranged marriage providing a neat excuse for a Bollywood ball.

The real problem with their relationship, of course, is that Romeo and Juliet are from Verona's warring families - the Montagues and Capulets - setting the scene for a deadly romantic conflict.

I took my two girls - aged 7 and 10 - and they were thoroughly caught up in the action - especially the younger one who took the opportunity (offered to the entire audience) to come and strut their stuff on the dancefloor. At times you have to remind yourself "this is Shakespeare" - but only in a good way.

The acting was mostly terrific - Tendayi Jembere a convincingly lovesick Romeo, Vanessa Babirye a vicious Tybalt - and you can see how many of the themes (love, marriage, violence, gangs) could inform the classroom discussions and workshops that accompany the touring schools' production.

My only reservation is that - as I understand it - it's only pupils in London who are only going to benefit. The simple set - a bit of scaffolding creating a square arena - could surely be recreated in any school hall. Personally I'd put a dynamic reworking of a classic like this on the National Curriculum and make sure every kid in the country had the chance to see it. Isn't that what being a "National" theatre is all about.

And it's not just for children either. Given that Shakespeare is - for whatever reason - so off-putting for many adults, I reckon there are plenty of grown ups who could benefit from watching it too. It's on at the National until the 14th November, and whatever your age I'd unreservedly recommend it.

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UP FOR THE CUP? A CAPITAL IDEA

29/10/2014

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No football team has a divine right to win. Believe me, as a West Bromwich Albion fan, I know that more than anyone. Like any supporter, I just want my team to try their hardest to succeed in every match they play, and each tournament they enter.

So what am I to make of the decision by Baggies coach Alan Irvine to make ten - yes ten - changes to the starting line-up for last night's Capital Cup 4th round tie against Bournemouth? Irvine, like his predecessors, had insisted that he would take the knockouts seriously. And just like them, his starting XI told a different story.

Sure, there was plenty of expensive flesh on display. £10 million record signing Brown Ideye lined up alongside £6 million man Victor Anichebe, and there were rare outings for some of the other high profile summer signings, notably Jason Davidson and Sebastian Blanco. Liam O'Neill, a promising youngster knocking on the door of the first team got a game.

Bournemouth rang the changes too - just like the Baggies, there were 10 fresh starters compared to the side which thrashed Birmingham City 8-0.

I seem to remember we played in a competition like this years ago, when teams were full of the not quite fit, the not quite good enough, and the promising kids. It was called the Central League. In effect, their reserves beat our reserves.

This, in the last 16 of a competition that leads to a Wembley final and European qualification.

We all know the sub-text here don't we? Never mind the glory of a never to be forgotten day out. The bean counters will tell you that this amounts to nothing compared to the need - in Albion's case - to stay in the all consuming, money mad Premier League; or the desire - in Bournemouth's case - to get there.

I'm not stupid. I understand that once you've started mainlining TV income, only more will do. Enough is never enough. And fans who complain today about the loss of a League Cup campaign, will be calling for the manager's head tomorrow if the club is embroiled in a relegation struggle.

It's a tough balancing act - but surely the current situation is unsustainable. Sponsors and fans (2,000 Baggies supporters made the long trip to the South Coast last night) are simply being taken for mugs.

In the past, I've clung to the idea that my club has a cup fighting tradition (5 FA Cup wins, numerous semi finals). Sadly, while this is a tradition that means plenty to the fans, it amounts to a big fat zero to the people who run the club.

Seriously, if they can't be bothered, why should I? In future, I'm not sure I will.

Incidentally, I'm not knocking any of the 11 players who started last night. They'll have done their best - and I congratulate Bournemouth on their victory.

Defeat is part and parcel of football - what hurts is losing when you feel you haven't done everything you can to win.

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POPPY DAY

28/10/2014

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Bloodswept Lands and Seas of Red - Paul Cummins installation of ceramic poppies, commemorating of the 88,246 British military who died in World War One. It's free to view, in the moat at the Tower of London.

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THE ZONE OF INTEREST

27/10/2014

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Want a book to dip into just before you fall asleep at night? Then give a wide swerve to this latest Martin Amis epic. It's definitely not the stuff of sweet dreams. I found myself counting corpses rather than sheep at night, unable to shake off his appalling vision of a Nazi concentration camp where the Final Solution is being played out.

So why read it then? Well, my old English teacher at school told me the hardest trick in literature would be to create the character of a German prison guard during WW2 and evoke sympathy for him. Yet that's precisely what Amis has done with character of Angelus Thomsen, a well-connected intellectual dosser, who in other eras would have been the middle manager in a multinational. Instead, at this time of peculiar insanity, he goes along like so many of his peers with the hideous programme of human extermination, knowing that to oppose it would culminate in certain and probably brutal death.

Amis is no apologist for Thomsen. Using a series of narrators he unpicks the stitching which holds together this Nazi House of Horror. There's Paul Doll, the comical, impotent wife-beater who as a senior officer has the job of overseeing the new arrrivals; and Szmul, the Jewish "Sonder" chosen to pick over and fillet the belongings of those who are gassed. His self-loathing is matched only by his desire to survive.

For all its death and destruction, this is a curiously romantic novel - though perhaps not in a way that Mills and Boon would recognise - and not without humour either. Amis plays on our Anglo amusement with the harshness of the German language by throwing in a welter of near unpronounceable compounds; and there's a sadistic female prison guard whose porn fantasy persona is undercut by her evident lunacy.

Make no mistake - at times The Zone Of Interest is almost overwhelmingly gruelling; but the fear and terror are offset by a sharp satirical edge. We laugh in recognition and sympathy as men commissioned to slaughter their fellow human beings come up against the conflicting demands of Nazi bureaucracy - prisoners need precious food and warmth if they are to be kept working, but if you kill them to save money, you quickly need another supply of workers who have to be fed and kept warm. The madness - literal and metaphorical - of the Final Solution is exposed.

And at the edges of this crazy world, there are wives, children, servants - some more complicit than others - who continue with their "ordinary" lives.

Amis tried something similar in 2003 with Time's Arrow - this is a scab he just can't stop picking - but The Zone Of Interest is broader in its scope and sympathies. It's a tough, but essential read. Just don't leave it at your bedside.

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IS MODERN FOOTBALL REALLY TOO EXPENSIVE?

25/10/2014

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Is modern football really too expensive? It's a question I recently asked on my #thecourtofsport series on youtube following a recent BBC Price Of Football survey which revealed that the cheapest average ticket in the Premier League had raced ahead at twice the rate of inflation over the last four years.

That research brought forth the usual howls of outrage to the effect that traditional fans have been priced out of the game. It's a sentiment that instinctively I shared - there are few of us who go to matches who haven't blanched at the price of a seat in the away enclosure at Stamford Bridge or Old Trafford.

But I was keen to strip away the reflex anger and look at the stats. After all, and at the risk of coming over as some kind of amateur Milton Friedman, you can't really judge whether something is too expensive on the basis of what people say - only by what they do.

If you take that view - the view that something is only worth what people are willing to pay for it - it's impossible to escape the conclusion that despite all the moans and groans about the cost, we are more willing to splash out top flight football than at almost any stage in history.

The basis of my stats by the way is the wonderful European Football Statistics website. This shows that the average Premier League attendance last season was 36,670. The last time English football enjoyed that kind of boom was in the post-war era when the working classes - deliriously demobbed - headed to a match at every opportunity.

Even then, last season's average top flight gate was only exceeded in 1949 and 1950.

A far better comparitor is 1967 - the year after Bobby Moore had lifted aloft the Jules Rimet Trophy. England were World Champions, Best and Charlton were in their pomp, and clubs with their gigantic terraces took a "one more on top" attitude to crowd safety. Essentially, if you wanted to see a match you could just rock up at 5 to 3 and expect to get in.

But even in '67, the average top flight gate was 30,770 - almost 6,000 fewer than in last season's Premier League.

All this, in an era when there's unprecedented access to live footy on free to air terrestrial television, which boasts regular Champions League coverage and FA Cup ties, as well as highlights on Match of the Day.

Now let's be honest about this. It's hard to imagine someone working for the minimum wage and with a family to keep regularly going to the match - especially at clubs like Arsenal, where season tickets start at around £1,000. Some poorer sections of the working class HAVE undoubtedly been priced out, but with an average gate of 36,000 not every Premier League can be chomping on a Prawn Sandwich.

And while it's true our gates lag behind those in Germany, to be fair they have never matched the levels now enjoyed in the Bundesliga (average 43,699).

We should also remember that in 70's and 80's especially, gates were boosted by much larger away followings than is common now - as a fan I regret the latter-day squeeze on visiting supporter as it robs stadiums of atmosphere. But on the flip side, clubs are now attracting significantly more "home" supporters, including women, which can only be regarded as a sign of progress.

Modern top flight football in England may be many things - greedy, arrogant, out of touch. Perhaps. But too expensive? The numbers just don't add up.

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FAREWELL TO SALEEM'S - AND MAYBE THE BALTI BELT TOO

24/10/2014

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Growing up in Birmingham, the Balti Belt around Sparkbrook was important for two reasons. At a time when the pubs routinely shut at 10.30 (yes, I know!) it was one of the few places you could extend the night into the wee small hours. And it was also the place where as a city we learned to eat out and push our culinary horizons beyond the Wimpy Bar and Berni Inn. (Some of us think it's no coincidence that Brum is now the only regional UK city with four Michelin stars - the Balti boom of the 80's promoted an vibrant eating out culture along with sense of gastronomic adventure).

Most of this spicy activity was located around three grimy inner city streets - the busy A34 Stratford Road and behind it Stoney Lane and Ladypool Road.

The area was a genuine melting pot - a meld of working class Brummies, Asians of course, Irish immigrants, a large African Caribbean community, and out of towners packing the narrow streets in their 4x4's coming to see what all the fuss was about.

Back then, Sparkbrook was still bedsitterland too - a cheaper, downmarket alternative to still-bohemian Moseley which was just a short walk up Church Road. In the balti houses, aspiring rock stars rubbed shoulders with bankers from Solihull - all the while living (if only for the duration of a curry) in an authetic cross cultural bubble.

Rows about the origin and authenticity of the balti were neither here nor there - this was our folk food, and we loved it, in all its sloppy, coriander-garnished glory. As bagels were to New York, so the balti was to Brum.

That was then - this is now. Tonight I went to pay my respects to a veteran of the scene which is finally hanging up its naan bread after 43 years. On November 2, Saleems on Ladypool Road will be shutting its doors for the final time, leaving barely half a dozen survivors from the original balti belt.

The owner - the thoroughly amiable Waheed Saleem - tells me the business just isn't there any more. Ladypool Road has become a centre of the Asian wedding trade, and though the clothes shops attract visitors from far and wide, their clientele are more likely to shop at the proliferating kebab shops and takeaway joints. There's more competition from chains too - Ladypool Road has a Dixy Chicken and a Fargo.

My own observation is that Sparkbrook has become markedly less cosmopolitan since the boom years. The Irish and the the Jamaicans haven't entirely disappeared but they have become "lesser spotted", as the Pakistani Muslim community has grown in their stead. Students now seem thinner on the ground too. There's just one pub clinging on for dear life, where once there were four.

Perhaps the simple truth is that most of us probably just don't need to go there anymore. One of my local high streets, Stirchley, has about a dozen balti houses or "Indian" restaurants in the budget or mid-price range, copying or expanding on the Sparkbrook formula. The Black Country has its own equivalent of the old Balti Triangle in the town of Lye.

The curry has traded up too - we got to understand the basics in the Balti Belt, now we can taste the really good stuff at Lasan, Asha's or Saffron in Oldbury.

For what it's worth, the survivors in Sparkbrook - including Imran's, Dawat, Al Fraish and Shabab - all have plenty to recommend them. They wouldn't have survived this long if they didn't. But the Balti Belt as we knew it has pretty much gone, having spawned numerous imitators across the West Midlands and beyond - becoming, ultimately, a victim of its own success.