The Leisure Review: La Flamme Rouge

La Flamme Rouge edition 5; dateline 10 June 2014

Nick and Vince: regular chaps
La Flamme Rouge is thrilled that coalition government is to introduce regulations regarding the contracts that tie tenant publicans to the large breweries, a move that represents some success for one of Camra’s long-standing campaigns. However, some of the gloss of the announcement was dulled by the performance of the business secretary and the deputy prime minister at the photo call arranged to publicise the news. Holding court in a Soho pub, both Vince Cable and Nick Clegg gave every impression of being out of their comfort zone. Never has the question, ‘Does anyone fancy a pint?’ resulted in such obvious unease. Looking relaxed in front of the massed ranks of the press is a skill that few master but the performance of the LibDems’ leading lights will have done little to promote the joys of dropping in to the local.

Nigel: an irregular chap
Nor will the performance of the LibDems’ leading lights have done much to counter the barfly charms of that habitual potman, Nigel Farage. However, all card-carrying Camra members will have noted that Farage’s latest frog-mouthed photo opp captured him holding a pint of Greene King IPA. They will have marked him down accordingly.

Captains of the economy put the social back in capitalism
Capitalism must be in crisis if so many captains of the neoliberal financial status quo have to take to the barricades in its defence. And when we say barricades, we mean, of course, the lectern. Speaking up at a conference exploring the oxymoronic concept of inclusive capitalism was Bank of England governor, the cautious Canuck Mark Carney. His message to the City was that rising inequality was threatening the basic social contract that underpins capitalism. “Prosperity requires not just investment in economic capital but investment in social capital,” he said. “Just as any revolution eats its children, unchecked market fundamentalism can devour the social capital essential for the long-term dynamism of capitalism itself.” At the same conference Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, warned of the dangers of the financial sector continuing on its pre-crash path. “While some changes in behaviour are taking place, these are not deep or broad enough,” she said. “The industry still prizes short-term profit over long-term prudence, today’s bonus over tomorrow’s relationship.” While her audience wrestled with the concept of thinking of something other than their own personal wealth, few will have wondered at the irony of the IMF, an organisation has become the mainstay and engine of the monetarist philosophy of private profit (although it was founded on the Keynesian principles of smoothing the impact of economic cycles and subsequently high jacked) wagging an admonishing finger.

Cultural economics: support gathering
And speaking of the captains of capitalism, those with any sympathy for the editor’s culturally focused anti-economics ranting that featured in a recent issue of the Leisure Review (see ‘The end of economics: why numbers are killing culture’ in the Feb 2014 issue) might be interested in tracking down economist Steve Keen, whose lecture Why Economics is Bunk, is available via the BBC iPlayer at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01j5h51 Originally broadcast in 2012, it makes interesting listening for anyone unsure that of the validity of the arguments used to justify the austerity heterodoxy.

Bearing arms: tools down among the tooled-up
As an example of how easy it is for organisations to become removed from the people they purport to serve Scotland Yard’s armed police unit may come to be seen as an exemplar. In response to the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s request that officers involved in shooting incidents are not permitted to confer before writing statements, the head of the unit, Commander Neil Basu, suggested that his officers may withdraw cooperation from the IPCC and refuse to carry firearms. For anyone familiar with the headlines of recent years, this threat is of a similar magnitude to pool managers refusing to charge entry to their facilities in protest against their utility bills or landlords refusing to accept money for their beer to register their feelings regarding excise duty.

Open and fair, as only Fifa knows how
For the satirically minded the FA’s bid to host the 2018 Fifa World Cup is the gift that keeps on giving. The latest addition to the folder labelled ‘2018: WTF?’ is provided by former sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe, who was at the ministerial helm when the ill-fated bid was popped in the post for the attention of Sepp Blatter. With the revelations (sorry, allegations) of widespread skulduggery in and around the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, Sutcliffe has opened a new front in the furore by calling for the 2018 vote, won by Russia, to be rerun. Sutcliffe is currently explaining that he feels embittered by the revelations, particularly as he had received the personal assurance of Blatter that the bidding processes would be “open and fair”. Sutcliffe now feels “bitter” that they were not. This leaves the rest of us to conclude that the Westminster bubble must be seriously oxygen-depleted if anyone actually expected anything associated with Fifa to be open and fair. Anyone who has read the papers occasionally in the past 30 years would be surprised if anything bearing the Fifa badge came in anywhere short of totally and utterly corrupt. And, having shaken hands with Herr Blatter, they would be sure to count their fingers.

Bats hit back
Anyone who has ever sat next to a conservation architect at dinner will be well aware of the issues presented by bats. Protected by law, along with their roosts, these aerial mammals generate wailing and gnashing of teeth among those tasked with working on historic properties. Bat surveys? Don’t talk to me (really, don’t talk to anyone in the LFR office) about bat surveys. And yet, no matter how sympathetic you might be to the historic building construction and restoration industry, you have to see the funny side – ironic in the Morrisettian understanding of the term – of legendary bat-muncher Ozzy Osbourne having plans to convert part of his Buckinghamshire farmstead knocked back on the grounds that the buildings are also home to a variety of bats.

Pride and joy: the health dividend
To Pall Mall for a book launch. Pride and Joy by Alex Knight is a management text book written as pacy fiction and focuses on the fundamental dilemma of the health service, namely the expectations of maintaining and extending the quality and timeliness of patient care while also managing rising costs of healthcare. Q&A at the event led to discussion of the need for a breakthrough to solve the problems of rising costs as a proportion of GDP around the world. The long-term goal, according to the author, is to buy time and space for government to change attitudes to health and encourage people to take responsibility for their own wellness in order to minimise their demands on their healthcare services. Pride and Joy is not necessarily heading to the top of the list for the Leisure Manager’s Library but it is certainly food for thought for any managers wondering how to find the inherent simplicity within their own apparently complex organisations. And the dice game is great fun.

Getting into bed with a Coke and a smile
UKActive signing up with Coca-Cola has provoked considerable ire among a considerable number of people across the sport, leisure and culture sector but it comes as no surprise to LFR, who recall attendance at a Fitness Industry Association (later to become UKActive) event a few years ago with great affection. At this particular London-based event, we were first struck by the sharp-suited, gimlet-eyed focus of those on the stands in the accompanying exhibition. Then we were struck by the confidence shown by those explaining from the platform how the private health club sector was going to deliver the physical activity legacy planned for the London 2012 Games. We were wondering how getting more people with little disposable income to sign up for gym memberships that they were never going to use was going to address this particular problem when someone dragged out an overhead projector and began to set up a roll-up projection screen not seen since your father-in-law got out the cinefilm of distant family holidays. Even though we had made that most basic of conference errors – sitting in the middle of a row – we made our excuses and left.

On the edge of credibility
Standing on the Ledge in Chicago always felt akin to a matter of faith but the stakes have been raised. The Ledge is a glass promontory that sticks out from the top floor of the Willis Tower (formerly and more famously the Sears Tower) offering the steel-nerved visitor a clear view of the space between their feet and the ground 103 floors below. A recent group of visitors were treated to the additional thrill of seeing a large crack appear in the glass they were standing on. According to the building’s people, the crack does not affect the structural integrity of the ledge and in fact it is expected to crack occasionally.

Foyles: a new salon
Could the literary salon be making a comeback? The editor of the Leisure Review is fond of droning on about how digital dominance makes the personal more important and at LFR we were as surprised as anyone to find someone who actually seems to agree. Foyles, that most illustrious, and once the nation’s oddest, bookshop has moved its flagship operation a 100m down the Charing Cross Road into the building that used to be home to the St Martins School of Arts. Centrepiece of the new Foyles will be an events space that can hold 200 people and will feature regular appearances from the leading lights of the literary and cultural world. Although many are predicting the decline and ultimate demise of the hard-copy book, Christopher Foyle, owner and managing director of Foyles, is staking a big investment on the fact that while e-books might be making inroads to sales there are still plenty of people of all ages who love the feel of the real thing. We wish him luck and will report back regularly so that he can keep up to speed on how things are going from his home in Monaco.

Who killed the mocking bird?
A new syllabus for GCSE English literature will dispense with the novels of America, leaving To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men and The Crucible among the many classics that will be left on the shelf for school pupils to discover for themselves. While the Department for Education was saying that no specific books were being discarded, to be followed by the culture secretary scoffing at the idea of books being banned, the exam boards that set the papers were making it clear that the DfE and the secretary of state for education, Michael Gove, were behind the changes. Paul Dodd of the exam board OCR said that Gove “really dislikes” Of Mice and Men and that the education secretary had been disappointed to learn that 90% of teenagers studying English literature had read it. Safe to say that Govey would be shocked to see some of the titles on the LFR library shelves so it might be better if he started burning the ones he doesn’t like as soon as possible.

Psst: a word for the Premier League
The interesting interview with Pete Ackerley of the FA elsewhere in this issue of the Leisure Review (they do, we have to concede, get it right occasionally) made us in the LFR office wonder again why the Premier League, also known as the World’s Best Football League Oh Yes It Is, hasn’t yet grasped the marketing value of making its link with the grassroots game explicit. They spend a huge amount on marketing and promotional expertise and they clearly see value in some respects – qv You Are Football ads previously referenced in these pages – but they seem markedly reluctant to invest money in the connection. In the context of the Premier League TV cake, making a friend of the Save Grassroots Football campaign and transforming grassroots football into the best leagues in the world would long-term deliver an immeasurable marketing impact, as well as being the right thing to do. Unless the stories are true: that at the Premier League it’s not about football, it’s about money. Surely that can’t be the case?

Sport development reaching the heights
The conversation with Mr Ackerley also made us think of something else. Having noted that the ethos of sports development, once a bright new speedy specialism among the creaking iron horses of the sport and leisure industry, is now making itself felt at the highest levels, we wondered what a national sports development seminar would look like now? And whatever happened to the national sports development seminar since the Leisure Review was obliged by m’learned friends to cease and desist in its plans to revive it?

Mrs Smith