Loads a Money – No Sense

What do you think the car on the left cost? Do you even know what it is? It’s difficult without being told although some of you nerdy car types out there might have got it. It’s a Bentley and it cost £264,000. Let me say that again - £264,000!

Joey Barton, not one of my favourite footballers, was interviewed last week and called footballers knobs. Sorry about that but he did say it. He said that these incredibly high earners couldn’t do anything without their agents. They couldn’t open or even work a bank account without their agent doing it for them. They had no idea how to fix insurance or get an internet connection. They needed their agent to pay their bills and do the most mundane things we all take for granted. It’s laughable but of course, it’s not just footballers who are knobs when it comes to being totally dependent on their agents, although they seem to come to the attention of the press more often.

A south-American footballer (Brazilian I think) joined Arsenal a few years ago. As is normal, the guy was put up in a fancy rented apartment and everything was fine until some of his teammates went round to his pad. It was summer and they couldn’t believe how hot his house was. When they questioned him it transpired that he’d no idea where his central heating switch was or even how to operate it. It had been set to maximum when he’d arrived in the winter and he’d never touched it. Coming from Brazil he thought the house was fine – not too hot at all! He blamed his agent for the problem for not showing him how the central heating worked which is a bit of a laugh given the said agent was sunning it back in Brazil!

And then there is a friend, John, who is an accountant to film and TV stars and one of them, a really well-known TV actor loved by women of all ages, went off to try and crack the US market a few years ago and he rented a house in LA for the duration of his stay there. After a few months his electricity was cut off and he phoned John to complain and to work out why this terrible thing had happened to him. After a few questions John managed to establish that the actor had simply ignored the bills dropping through the letterbox and when John advised him to pay them asap, he almost panicked, said he’d have no idea where to start and could John fix it all from London.

Now back to the Bentley and footballer’s agents. Yup – you guessed it. The car belongs to a footballer and this particular footballer has form when it comes to ruining nice cars. The footballer who did the dastardly deed is called Stephen Ireland and he plays for Manchester City. Why didn’t his agent stop him? Why didn’t his agent tell him that if he wanted to buy a prestige car costing over £250,000 and turn it into a pimpmobile, there were cheaper, more suitable vehicles for sale, particularly at the local auction site! Of course, Ireland is the guy who turned up for training a couple of years ago in a brand spanking new black, Range Rover Vogue. And what did he do to it? He put pink stripes down the side and painted his alloy wheels pink. What a wazzock. And the worst thing was that despite being ridiculed by his mates and the press, he kept the car for about two years! But he’s obviously gone and done it again!

So, any footballer’s agents reading this - you get between 10% and 20% of their enormous wages for not doing very much. The very least you can do is to stop them absolutely ruining their cars. I bet Bentley (or Volkswagen as they are now) are absolutely appalled.

Ski Sunday Presented By T Cupples

I was sitting in my local bar the other day waiting for my lunch to arrive.

Now that it’s a bit chilly outside I made sure I had a table deep inside with a view of the TV. On came the downhill skiing and it took me back 25 years or so when J and I would dash back from the shops on Saturday to watch the downhill races on the telly. And then on Sunday we’d watch Ski Sunday or whatever it was called and get another dose.

This wasn’t just an obscure liking for skiing. In those days J would organize an annual ski trip to some resort in Europe and would invariably end up sorting out flights, transfers and hotels for up to 40 people. Quite a task.

In 1990 we ended up at Meribel, one of France’s most popular resorts and a great time was had by all, as was normally the case.

During the week, it was quite obvious that something was about to happen on the slopes because quite a few of the runs down to the village were closed off but it became clear pretty quickly that a major race was about to take place and on the penultimate day of our holiday, crowds flocked into Meribel and headed for the lower slopes beside the closed off runs.

Huge banners went up proclaiming the World Ladies Downhill Giant Slalom and that day we skied in the morning but made sure we were in place after lunch when the racing started.

It was fascinating watching those ladies hurtle down from the top of the mountain at speeds I could only dream about (I was a bit of a flyer on skis myself) and then to see them only a few feet away in the enclosure, waving their skis at every camera to ensure maximum publicity for their sponsors.

During the week I had been my usual idiotic self, videoing every member of our group even whilst skiing and amazingly, despite a few crashes, usually into slower-moving Germans, my camera remained functional and I had taken it to the races to see if there was any interesting footage.

Suddenly the crowd went into an absolute frenzy. Carole Merle the French skier had just started her run. She’d won the World Cup Super G the previous year and was doing well again in 1990. To the French she was an absolute star and she wasn’t bad looking either!

As she flew down the mountain, the timers showed her to be leading and sure enough , as she crossed the line, slid to a halt in a flurry of snow and ice, she was so far ahead of the other skiers she was being proclaimed as the winner.

I pushed forward with my video camera to try and get a shot and suddenly I was pushed in the back and ushered into the enclosure with all the press and TV photographers. And there she was, just a few metres away. Well give a Glasgow boy an inch and he’ll take a mile so nothing ventured, nothing gained I started pushing my way to the front and within a few seconds, I was standing right in front of Carole Merle. It was quite surreal. All the other photographers seemed to disappear into the background. It was like I was the only one there – just me and Carole.

She looked at me. I looked at her. She looked at my video camera and that was that. A brief moment of glory – for me. Ms Merle went onto greater things after that.

From 1989 to 1992 she won the Super G World Cup four times in a row, in addition to the Giant Slalom World Cup in 1992 and 1993. At the 1989 World Championships in Vail she won a silver medal in the Giant Slalom, two years later at the 1991 World Championships in Saalbach she won another medal and at the1993 World Championships in Morioka she finally won the gold medal in the Giant Slalom. At the 1992 Olympics in Albertville she won a silver medal in the Super-G event.

PS – I’ve still got the video and wince with embarrassment every time I watch it!

White In Perspective

“Firstly, I'm not materialistic. I'm the third of four boys and my childhood greatly influenced me because I lost my mother, Maria-Rosa, when I was six, two weeks after she gave birth to my younger brother Craig. So, no matter how much money I make, it's not going to buy the things I want. It's never going to allow me to buy her a dress, to take her for lunch, get her flowers, anything that shows her kindness. I've worked purely for the security of my children, because if something happens to me, at least there's a trust to look after them. I certainly don't care about fame or fortune.”

Nope – not me but it’s quite touching isn’t it? It’s a quote from Marco Pierre White, the enfant terrible of the celebrity chef circuit although when he was at his peak there wasn’t anything remotely resembling a celebrity chef. The quote however, is obviously about money and I’ll get to that later.

Years and years ago (20-25 probably), I remember reading about this new chef who was the youngest then to have received 3 Michelin stars. I drove past his restaurant every day (Hyde Park Hotel) and desperately wanted to try his food but even on expenses it was prohibitively expensive and I had to wait until he took control of the Criterion Restaurant in Piccadilly. For £25 they served probably one of the best lunches in London and I became a fan. Interestingly, today’s set lunch at the Criterion is now only £20 for three courses although I think White has moved on.

Anyway, I didn’t really want to concentrate on White’s culinary skills in this post although some of the ‘chef’ anecdotes about him are legendary such as when a diner asked for chips with his meal – absolute sacrilege to the chef. White hand cut the chips himself, cooked them but then charged the diner £25 for the privilege! And then there was the time one of his sous chefs complained about the kitchen being too hot so White cut his uniform top off with a sharp knife. He probably learned all these ‘skills’ under the tutelage of Nico Ladenis, who incidentally has, like White, returned his 3 Michelin stars. Ladenis was famous for ejecting customers from his restaurant if they had the temerity to ask for salt for their meal.

As I said, this blog wasn’t about White’s abilities in the kitchen but about his attitude to money. He must be a multi-millionaire by now despite a few failed marriages and of course he’s most recently been seen as the head chef in Hell’s Kitchen where everybody thought he’d be a monster but actually turned out to be something of a pussycat. He’s obviously mellowed, or so I thought when I read the heart-touching quote at the start of this blog. To say that money has no meaning to him because it does not allow him to ‘pamper’ his dead mother actually tugged at my heart strings being in a similar position. But then I read that his ex-wife of 7 years, who no doubt played a huge part in allowing White to concentrate on his business career, whilst she brought up the kids, has been frozen out, not receiving a penny which is all a bit mean, don’t ya think?

As I said, this posting has jumped about a bit but at least one good thing came out of it -some renewed research on The Criterion. £20 for lunch in a central London location in probably the most stunning, ornate dining room in the capital (see picture) is a bargain and I fully intend to go back there the next time I have an opportunity to do so. Details below.

http://www.criterionrestaurant.com/restaurant.html

The Annual Ritual

It’s the day all men dread, well those of us who own our own cars – the MOT test. Called the Controle Technique in France, it’s a two-yearly inspection to ensure your car meets current safety and emission regulations. Despite only having to get it done every two years, with two cars in the family and their dates crossing, I find myself sitting in the Vence Auto Bilan every year waiting expectantly for the lady to call me to the counter to hopefully give me a new certificate.

It’s the nearest thing I’ve come across which is akin to having a baby – well not actually having a baby but being next door whilst the missus is in the delivery room. In the case of the nearest testing station (Vence Auto Bilan) they have a glass partition so you can see all the gory details, the guy putting on his gloves, sticking the emission tube up the exhaust pipe, scrutinizing all the dials, inspecting its underside with a powerful light and finally giving it a good shake to see if anything falls off.

And when it’s all done and dusted he comes into the waiting room and either shakes his head sympathetically or just goes straight to the counter and tells the lady to write out a certificate.

Yesterday morning when I arrived at the testing station I expected a bit of a rebuke because the test is 4 months overdue, primarily because the last time the Honda was tested, I got two fault warnings; one for a cracked windscreen and one for the reversing light not working, neither of which was serious enough to fail the test but needed to be fixed as soon as possible.

Neither was fixed of course, hence the delay in taking the Honda in and when the lady started keying the registration number into her computer screen, I waited anxiously for these past misdemeanors to appear in bright flashing red on her screen. If they did, I didn’t see them as I was ushered off to a seat in the waiting room.

Despite the Honda getting on in years (like it’s owner J), it’s still a good old runner (recently voted the most reliable 4X4) but despite that there’s always a chance they’ll find a screw loose or something trivial, but yesterday I felt lucky.

As I entered Tourrettes on my way into Vence, something told me to put my seat belt on, which was just as well because at the other side of the village there was a virtual road block of police checking for motorists using mobile phones and not wearing their seat belts. They looked ruefully as I passed slowly showing them I was ‘road legal’ but then I remembered the out of date MOT (which shows in your windscreen) and speeded up.

Anyway, my ‘lucky day’ continued. The Honda passed but this time I got 4 fault warnings, including the previous 2, plus what I think must’ve been an admonishment on the part of the young inspector presumably saying I really needed to fix these items, which is all a bit of a joke when you see some of the wrecks on French roads!

You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks…..

….. they teach themselves.

The mystery of the empty cat bowls had been going on for quite a few weeks. Bijou and Coco never empty their bowls completely but for some reason they’d suddenly started eating every little biscuit (they get dried food) and their milk bowls were dry as well.

Now it’s not uncommon for cats to put on an eating spurt to bulk themselves up for winter and in Coco’s case, being the absolute glutton she is, she almost doubles in size, but they’d always left some, but not now. Every morsel had gone.

And the cats had suddenly started hammering on our bedroom door in the middle of the night, shouting and bawling. It couldn’t be because they needed to get out because the door to the garage was always left open and so one night when I couldn’t stand the constant meowing anymore, I let them lead me into the kitchen and there was Shadow, just finishing off the last of the cat’s milk having completely emptied their food bowls.

In true Shadow style when caught out, he lowered his head and closed his eyes and pretends not to be there thinking that he's become invisible. No chance! He was soundly chastised, his treats were cut off for a couple of days and he was told in no uncertain terms that his behavior wasn’t that expected of the head of the animal family. He skulked back into the lounge, lay in front of the dying embers of the fire and was snoring again within a couple of minutes.

The following day, I decided to put a door stop on the kitchen door so that it was open wide enough for the cats to get in and out but way to small for Shadow to sneak in - his food and water are placed in a corner of the lounge so he shouldn’t need to enter the kitchen.

That night the usual cat commotion started outside the bedroom door again. I rushed into the lounge but Shadow was asleep (I think) in the corner but amazingly, the kitchen door had been opened just wide enough for a dog to get in. Yes – the cats’ bowls were completely empty. There was only one suspect but Shadow is a bit thick so I feel guilty about telling him off when I don’t catch him in the act so I filled the bowls and went back to bed.

The following night I’d forgotten something in the lounge about 10 minutes after lights out and when I went in and there was no sign of Shadow. The kitchen door had once again been prised open but this time there he was – face deep in the cats’ bowl scoffing their food. Well he didn’t know whether to run, stay or just lie down and cover his eyes with his paws but it was all too late. I whacked him over the nose with the empty cat bowl, booted him up the backside and he crawled back into the lounge.

That was a couple of months ago and we’d thought we’d cured him of his illegal midnight feasts but no, he’s at it again, but with a subtle twist.

He now leaves a small amount of cat food in the bowls to make it look as if the cats have been eating but he stupidly empties their milk bowls. And how do we know? J caught him last week in the process of moving from the food bowls to the milk bowls. Again he pretended not to be there which is absolutely hilarious to watch but once again he suffered because his beloved doggie treats were confiscated for a week. I don’t think he correlates the two.

But how does he open the kitchen door? He might be thick but when it comes to getting into the kitchen through a 'locked' door to get to the cats' food, he obviously knows a trick or two!

One night I'll catch him.