The Burghers of Rutland

I was saddened, as no doubt were many, just before the New Year, by the death of Neil Innes, variously described as the Seventh Python or the Sixth (or Seventh) Beatle, and always as a really nice guy and talented musician who didn’t really receive the recognition he deserved. One of my favourite vignettes was of his Walrus-inspired song about the “Montana Café“, released in the late 70s, which shortly afterwards encouraged me to do a painting called “Sunray Café”. 

“Sunray Café” (detail) © R. Abbott 2020

The location is semi-fictional, Warren Street, or thereabouts, and the slightly Modigliani-ish figures are the consequences not of astigmatism but of inability. However, like the Montana, it’s a café where a sad man could seek solace, a fry-up, and a quiet smoke.

As well as Bonzo Dog, Innes will always be associated with The Rutles, for which he provided the principal musical input, with his accurate Lennon vocal impersonations and Beatles pastiches as group member “Nasty”, including such classics as “The Knicker Elastic King” and “Eine Kleine Middle Klasse Musik”. The Rutles were of course intimately associated with Rutland Weekend Television, a series which managed extremely successfully to combine Pythonesque humour with parodies of the loveable absurdity of the later Beatles, and to put England’s smallest county on the map of popular culture.

Rutland hit the headlines again this week, in news reports that the local council were meeting to discuss the proposal to build a drive-thru McDonalds on the northern outskirts of Oakham, Rutland’s county town. As a planning dispute there was something most unusual about it, namely that both sides of the debate were respected and the inevitable outcome – approval – was received graciously. More specifically unusual was the nature of the argument against the plans, which we will come to in a moment.

In most disputes of this sort there is a strong, positive, objective, forward thrusting, carefully costed, computer modelled proposal to build something – a fast food outlet, a by-pass, a wind farm, a housing estate, a runway, a high speed railway – which it is claimed is desirable, and will improve local conditions, benefit transport, bring in investment and jobs, provide “green” energy, create money, and overall be a good thing. Opposing it is a weak, subjective, negative, backward looking, vague, intangible, highly subjective argument that the proposed construction will spoil the neighbourhood, mean the loss of something valued, damage a treasured view, upset a colony of rare newts, generate traffic and noise and litter, be a waste of money, and overall be a bad thing. The proponents normally have access to all kinds of professional support, including lawyers and people with strong presentational skills; they will in all likelihood have done this kind of thing before, know all the arguments, know all the tricks, be well placed. They will be prepared to play fast and loose with the truth, whatever that is. The opponents are usually ordinary honest people, fearful, defensive, inarticulate, on the back foot, presented with something they don’t want, who rapidly have to learn tactics from first principles, get little help from anyone, endure stress and expense they can ill afford, and can only put together an amateurishly mumbled and feebly hand-drawn objection. The outcome is almost inevitable.

In the Oakham instance there were worries about litter and traffic, but since the proposed site, at Land’s End, on the A606 by-pass is away from housing, on an essentially greenfield site but adjacent to a filling station and other commercial retail premises, those sort of objections were minor. McDonalds is something of a symbolic red rag for people who don’t like matters corporate and in particular American, and it has also been associated with arguments about its employment policies, and about the nutritional quality of its principal products, especially as consumed by young people. Those factors were aired too. People interviewed in the street had differing opinions, many seeing both sides of the debate. Many, especially those with children or grandchildren, could see the attraction of an edge-of-town vendor of fast food. Salivating already.

What was very unusual about this case, though, was the main “soft” or “subjective” argument, the one that normally gets sneered at as mere nimbyism.  Specifically, the defence as to why the proposed development should not go ahead was that Rutland was the last county in England that did not already have a McDonalds, and therefore that it was “special”, was “different”, and it ought to remain that way.

 
So in this instance it was heartening to see the “subjective” case perceived as perfectly valid, unique as it was, and when – as expected – it was defeated, the good citizens of Oakham seemed not unduly troubled. The whole business was civil in  both senses of the word, as befits such a delightful English county. I’d like to think that Neil Innes would have been pleased with the outcome too, the only possible improvement on the situation being that, instead of being just another outlet featuring the Golden Arches, it could be named the Montana Café instead.

Quality of Life No. 1 – flowers blooming and black horse dropping

In these politically turbulent times an accusation often made between competing parties is of “running the country down”, the implication being the painting of an unfairly negative picture of how things are. “Modern life is rubbish” asserted Blur, one of our better bands, a couple of decades ago. An easy conclusion to reach, especially as one ages and tends naturally towards extra grumpiness. That’s me.

Given the potentially vast reservoir of material to go at I’ve decided to post the occasional blog on aspects of our current quality of life, or more honestly my quality of life, since it will be arbitrary and subjective and selective, echoing my experiences, attitudes and preferences. In the nature of things, anyone reading this is just as likely to have completely different reactions. Never mind, such is freedom of thought, and the basic truth behind the realisation that – however crappy things sometimes are – we don’t have to live in North Korea.

So, quality of life is all relative, but it’s a good excuse for a rant – like having a go at people who start sentences with “so”. So, I hope it will be both more and less than that. I’ll start on a high.

On Easter Saturday afternoon the doorbell rang, but by the time I reached the door there was nobody there. I found a bag containing a bunch of daffodils hanging from the door handle. A couple unknown to me, but who live round the corner, were delivering the same to every house (approximately forty) in our thoroughfare. A random act of kindness – by unknown strangers to unknown strangers - which made my day and improved the quality of my Easter; the very opposite of so many random acts – again affecting unknown strangers - that make the news these days.

Before Easter I received a letter informing me that my branch of Lloyds Bank, in Nottingham city centre, was to close in the summer. Though once the main branch in the city, for many years now it has been run down, with fewer serving staff, longer queues, and the sort of ambience one associates, perhaps unfairly, with eastern Europe pre-perestroika. Disappointing but not entirely unexpected. However, over the Easter holiday I noticed that Lloyds saw fit to screen an extravagant TV commercial, smugly congratulating themselves on how they are “on our side”, and have been for 250 years. Not pleased by this. This morning, visiting the bank - which is on the first floor of a tired 1960s-ish office block - to pay a bill and to express my observations on the tactlessness and hypocrisy of this advertisement to the ruefully smiling teller, they thoughtfully had the down escalator working, but not the up one. I wondered on whose side that was.

Progressing across town I encountered a McDonalds undergoing refurbishment and surrounded by protective fencing upon which were placed posters suggesting how the new premises will look. Featured prominently were self-service machines. I shan’t be bothering to discover whether these are for ordering food, for preparing it oneself, or – having obtained it – for stuffing it back into, and I’m sad to report that since my first euphoric visit to a McDonalds in Las Vegas in 1978 my appreciation of them – with a few exceptions (Swiss Cottage, Paphos) has been relentlessly downwards.

Continuing on my morning’s business, I went to one of two city centre branches of W. H. Smith’s, the one that from time to time is marginally more contaminated by staff and customers than the other one. I wonder how this organisation keeps going, but I’ve been wondering that for around 40 years now. Perhaps it’s because they’re so over-priced. Since the counter was marked “closed” I disturbed a rare staff member and asked if it might be possible to pay for my purchase. She pointed me in the direction of a self-service machine, and when I expressed a preference not to use it, she tutted loudly and went through the tedious rigmarole for me. I hope that in due course she will be made redundant. I mean, more redundant than she already is.

 
I think one may judge my attitude towards trends in quality in the service sector. However, to end once more on a high, my quality of life has been enhanced in recent weeks by the weather and the Spring flowers, and especially by the tulips in our garden, which have been of above average brilliance and duration.