THE VIEW FROM HERE
AS I watched BBC broadcast of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s stunning production of Hamlet, I kept thinking it reminded me of something. What could it be?
The plot revolves around a leader who will stop at nothing to fulfil his ambition. He is aided by Polonius, a tedious but wise old man, and further enlists the support of a couple of goons, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are nothing more than halfwit toadies. There are also dangerous liaisons, an ill-conceived political enterprise that goes wrong and a barking mad woman.
Of course! It’s just like County Hall!
Even the ghost has got the idea. "I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul … make thy two eyes, like stars start from their spheres …"
Isn’t that uncanny, how he reflects the exact thoughts of anybody emerging from a meeting of the IW planning committee?
There is, however, one fatal flaw in this resemblance between Elsinore and County Hall. Shakespeare’s play needed Hamlet to bring the story to the very satisfactory conclusion of practically everybody being bumped off and a bloke from some other authority taking charge.
Hamlet was, as we all know, bonkers, and while there is no shortage of lunatics at County Hall, none has that inspirational genius to effect the changes required. So, alas, we shall just have to plod on with incompetence rather than carnage.
As wise Polonius says: "’Tis true, ’tis pity."
But the ghost puts the situation even better. "O horrible! O horrible! Most horrible!"
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| The 2,500ft tall Burj, Dubai. Picture: IMRE SOLT |
Here’s my idea of hell
When things get bad, I always comfort myself that at least I’m not in Dubai. The Island may have its drawbacks but it’s surely Utopia compared to this hideous man-made heap of ostentatious commercial excess, sweltering in 40 degrees of arid heat.
I suspect if a hell awaits me after I die, God will have fixed it to be exactly like Dubai. And now this awful place boasts the world’s tallest building, more than 2,500 ft high, with 900 apartments, 37 floors of office space (I shudder even to think of the kind of people who might work there) and, oh God, a gym on the 123rd floor.
I think I’ll just potter down to one of our Island beaches and toddle along the sand. It may not be glistening white, there may be a bit of litter and it’ll be perishing cold but at least it’s not Dubai and I haven’t got to do some ghastly toning exercise on the 123rd level alongside the smug, braying workers polishing up their pecs before returning to the nightmare that is 37 floors of money-orientated office space.
Packaging opened in the nick of time
I was impressed by the tally of accidents which carry us off to A&E over the Christmas holidays.
Apparently, thousands of us were falling drunkenly downstairs, getting tree needles in our eyes, stabbing ourselves with scissors used instead of a screwdriver to assemble new toys and skidding on spilt turkey fat, while our children were nibbling on poisonous mistletoe or swallowing Christmas tree baubles.
I sustained a nasty injury myself, thanks to a present whose label proclaimed it to be "New! Easy to Use! Versatile! Safe!"
It was a "MiracleCut Incredible Cutting Tool. Slices through paper! Cuts plastic packs! Will not cut skin!"
Super-duper, I thought. Unfortun-ately, my incredible cutting tool was itself encased in a plastic pack which resisted all efforts to release its contents. Scissors, screwdrivers, teeth, lobster picks, nothing would work. Clearly, I needed a MiracleCut and that, sadly, was unobtainable.
I finally stabbed the pack into submission with a combination of large chisel and fearful swearing, whereupon it retaliated in its death throes by slicing me across my thumb.
The MiracleCut, however, is a great success. It nipped open the pack of plasters I required in no time.