The Leisure Review: World of Leisure

Friday 1 March 2013
Linda Merrick, new principal of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, thinks that the recent abuse scandal involving music teachers at the college and elsewhere could mean an end to one-to-one teaching. Sheffield council announces that the Don Valley athletics stadium is to close as part of its cost-cutting measures. Meanwhile, Newham council is trying to use planning laws to prevent betting companies from targeting deprived areas. Plans to fund the £1 billion Crossrail project via PFI have been dropped by the government.

Sat/Sun 2/3 March
The outcry over the demise of the Don Brennan continues, with questions regarding London 2012 legacy (and no doubt the alleged cynicism of The Leisure Review) being asked; Toni Minichiello, Jess Ennis’s coach, declares the idea of legacy a joke. It’s 50 years since the Beeching report started the process of dismantling Britain’s rail network. The RSPCA is pleased that the Grand National fences are to be built around flexible posts, which will make them a bit more forgiving for the horses jumping them. Having denied allegations of sexual misconduct and threatened legal action against his accusers, Cardinal O’Brien says that actually he is actually, er, cough, shuffle, a little bit guilty. As discussed in a recent editorial in The Leisure Review, the Bank of England says it is going to shovel more money into the banking system in the name of quantitative easing. At last some good news – in the shape of medals – for British athletics at the European indoor championships.

Monday 4 March
The Global Burden of Disease research places the UK 12th out of 19 similarly affluent countries, which health secretary (to our national shame, it’s still Jeremy ‘Berkshire’ Hunt) says is ‘shocking’.

Tuesday 5 March
In the ongoing case of the acid attack on the director of the Bolshoi, Russian police have arrested three people, including Pavel Dmitrichenko, one of the company’s leading dancers. Back in the UK, Justin Bieber upsets many of his fans and their mums by coming on stage two hours late and not even saying sorry even if he didn’t really mean it. IKEA is planning to open a chain of hotels at the budget end of the market. In China it seems that there is growing concern that the runaway economic expansion is leaving cultural damage in its wake; the outgoing premier, Wen Jiabao, commented, “We must make ensuring and improving people’s wellbeing the starting point and goal of all the government’s work.” The annual Gaza marathon organised by the United Nations is cancelled after Hamas decides to ban women from competing alongside men.

Wednesday 6 March
The Southbank Centre unveils plans for a £100-million transformation of its riverside site. Lego is ending its association with The Sun, apparently in light of the anti-Page 3 campaign. Graeme Swann, a key element of England’s bowling attack, is off to the USA for surgery on his troublesome elbow. Pavel Dmitrichenko admits to arranging the acid attack on the director of the Bolshoi, Sergei Filin, who is still hoping doctors will be able to save his sight.

Thursday 7 March
The number of people admitting to drinking heavily has fallen by a third, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics; 80% of households now have computer access and the proportion of adults smoking has fallen from 45% in 1974 to 20% in 2011. London University research suggests that children born in the summer are at a significant academic disadvantage when they go to school. Boris Johnson announces plans for a £900-million investment in cycling infrastructure in London. Jazz musician Kenny Ball dies aged 82.

Friday 8 March
In a warning to everyone who has responsibility for a catering outlet, the world’s best restaurant, Noma, seems to have sent some 60 people home for a bout of gastric eruption. King of the Olympics, Danny Boyle, reckons that JK Rowling should be head of state. In Durham the Bowes Museum has discovered that a picture of a lady with pearl earrings is actually by Van Dyck, which has prompted the museum to fetch it from the basement. The RFU announces a drive to embed the game of rugby into state schools and has chosen a Eton-educated, Mayfair-residing member of a hereditary monarchy, one Captain Harry Wales, to be its public face. Meanwhile, the Afghan women’s boxing team has been refused visas by the UK Border Agency and will therefore not be visiting the UK. Back with rugby, Mike Scott, the erstwhile rugby manager at London Welsh, is banned from the game for life following his admission of involvement with faking residency credentials for one of the team’s overseas players. Retrospective testing of samples from the 2005 athletics world championships reveals six positive tests, which include, to the surprise of almost no one, the gold and silver medallists of the women’s hammer. A climber dies in Glencoe, taking the number of fatalities on UK’s peaks this winter to 12.

Saturday/Sunday 9/10 March
Gamekeepers are apparently of the view that a proposed deer cull will cost thousands of jobs in rural communities. One in seven women on maternity leave are made redundant, according to research of the UK employment sector. Economists at the University of Essex reckon that the recession [Recession? This is a depression, mate. Ed] has halted social mobility among the younger generation. The world’s best chess player is Norwegian Magnus Carlsen; he’s 22. The dancers and musicians of the Hofesh Shechter Company launch Derry’s year of culture and the parliamentary commission on banking standards says that Little Georgie Osborne’s banking reforms are inadequate.

Monday 11 March
Researchers from King’s College, London have research results that suggest a link between lifelong physical activity and improved brain function in later life. Tourism figures show the British Museum as the most visited attraction in the UK; the museum welcomed more than 5.5 million visitors in 2012. A Manpower report reveals that Whitehall departments and local authorities are now having to recruit staff to perform essential functions after the so-called bonfire of the quangos. Coventry City FC are looking at administration as the result of a dispute over stadium revenues. The archives of the Vienna Philharmonic reveal that the orchestra exhibited Nazi sympathies at the time of Anschluss, with fatal consequences for some of their Jewish musicians.

Tuesday 12 March
Julie Waters says that the government’s cuts to arts funding will have a profoundly negative effect on the careers of artists and actors. Iran is apparently to sue Hollywood for the misrepresentation of Iran and Islam. Don Catlin, one of the most respected names in anti-doping, says that tennis is wasting its time with blood passports.

Wednesday 13 March
It seems that there is a growing consensus among those within education and sport that the government’s imminent plan to put £100 million back into school sport of the £160 million or so that it took out a little while ago is not likely to deliver a comprehensive legacy from London 2012. The director of the Royal Opera House, Antonio Poppano, says that young opera performers are too weak physically and emotionally to stand up to the rigours of performance. So-called security company G4S sees its profits amount to £175 million for 2012, a drop from the previous year that is ascribed to its piss-poor Olympic performance. And Roger Draper, the dapper man’s dapper man and long-term friend of The Leisure Review, is to leave his post as chief executive of the Lawn Tennis Association in September, prompting much comment on his £640k salary and a begging letter from at least one publisher of an online magazine for leisure managers.

Thursday 14 March
A new tweak to the ongoing child-protection issues in the Catholic church: charged with sexual assault, Father William Finegan reveals he is secretly married. Now based in Surrey, Nigerian Uneku Atawodi is the only black woman playing professional polo.

Friday 15 March
Mid Devon district council concedes its own stupidity and decides to remove all the apostrophes from its road signs for fear of getting them wrong. The Candidates Tournament, the most high-powered gathering of chess players the UK has ever hosted, arrives in the UK. Leakage of the government’s proposals for funding primary school sport prompts some to welcome the initiative, among them the Little Baron, Mo Farah and Jess Ennis; Govey has at least conceded that the money should be ringfenced.

Saturday/Sunday16/17 March
Pope Francis says he would like to see his church be poor; cynics start their clocks. Bowie mania strikes the V&A as they get ready for an exhibition of the Dame, his life and his music. A coalition of childcare bodies has collectively condemned the government’s proposals to change the regulations regarding the child/staff ratios as a threat to children’s safety. Here comes an art deco revival in the wake of The Great Gatsby hitting the big screen again, while only sports fans with hearts of stone could fail to laugh as England’s Grand Slam hopes are steamrollered in Cardiff by a rampant Wales. Three Russian swimmers in the last two days have been banned for doping offences and David Hasselhoff is in Berlin adding his hair to the campaign to prevent property developers destroying the last remaining part of the wall. The National Trust now owns a Rembrandt following a positive identification of a canvas previously thought to be by a pupil of the great man; the identification was made by a proper Dutchman and everything. In Greece AEK Athens player Giorgos Katidis is banned for life from all national teams after giving a Nazi salute to supporters during a game; “I didn’t know what it meant,” said the 20-year-old idiot.

Monday 18 March
Having only just had the TLR irony meter fixed, it’s been broken again as a historic deal on press regulation, devised to bring daylight and clarity into the world of the media, is done at 3am in a small room with a handful of representatives of vested interests. This year’s Venice Biennale will see a British showcase for young British artists and teachers are talking about a strike this summer. In France seven works of art stolen by the Nazis are returned to their original owners.

Tuesday 19 March
The Design Museum unveils its annual designs of the year, while Alex Beard, deputy director of Tate, is to move into the hot seat at the Royal Opera House. The London Borough of Barnet is in the high court defending allegations that its enthusiasm for outsourcing services broke the law and the cash-strapped Royal Institution has been bailed out by an anonymous benefactor to the tune of £4 million. The Premier League’s bellwether of sound thinking, Sir Dave Richards, says it would be “common sense” for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to be played in the winter. Still on Planet Football, Blackburn sack their manager, Michael Appleton, after 67 days and 15 matches in charge; Phil Neville is to join the England under-21 coaching staff for the European championship this summer; and the Championship clubs are to issue a warning to the Premier League that the integrity of the Football League is being threatened by their plans to increase the soi disant solidarity payments to relegated clubs.

Wednesday 20 March
The chancellor’s latest budget brings laughter and misery in equal measure, depending upon your employment status. Her Majesty the Queen joins the royal family’s enthusiasm for public transport by visiting Baker Street station; she’ll have an Oyster card next. US medic Dr Robert Lustig says that sugar is the real villain in the obesity crisis, while elsewhere in the USA there is a protest by members of the Ku Klux Klan (remember them?) as a park in Memphis is renamed to remove reference to a civil-war-era Klansman. In Germany one of the last organisations to create a single entity from its dual West and East German origins is finally created as the respective angling associations agree to come together. British tennis number one Heather Watson says that actually she is not suffering from burn-out; less than 24 hours earlier she had said she was. James Herbert, one of the UK’s most popular novelists, dies at the age of 69.

Thursday 21 March
Girls Aloud stun many music followers by announcing that they will be splitting up after their imminent arena tour; most people thought they had split up ages ago. Google says it could be up for creating some sort of system to help generate revenue for British newspapers. Glossop’s in the news as protests continue against the closing of its library in favour of a new one in a new building. The EU might be about to fundamentally undermine Spanish football by insisting that the nation’s football clubs actually pay their taxes; many of the biggest clubs are sitting on huge unpaid tax bills that have been deemed counter to the age of austerity. West Ham agree a deal on taking possession of the Olympic stadium and Greg Dyke is to become the FA’s new chairman.

Friday 22 March
It seems that deregulation of the planning laws, a central plank of the ConDem government’s plans to stimulate the economy by creating another temporary housing boom, may fall foul of local councillors, many of whom reckon their patch is already sufficiently developed, thank you very much. Bristol zoo has some new lion cubs, while just down the road in Bath the Combe Down tunnel, formerly a railway facility, is now open as part of the Two Tunnels cycle route. China is now the second biggest cinema audience in the world; the USA remains at number one. Meanwhile, in Coventry the football club seems to have moved out of its stadium. Turkey’s Cakir Alptekin, who won the women’s 1,500m at London 2012, is facing another drugs charge after “abnormalities” in her blood profile.

Saturday/Sunday 23 March
Everyone in the UK is looking forward to a white Easter as the weather continues to do its chilly thing. Playwright David Greig is apparently planning a musical based on the case of the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik. It seems that the numbers of people joining athletics clubs are up but many of the clubs themselves are in a perilous financial plight. The Bluebell Railway is now part of the national rail network, having been linked to East Grinstead by a new two-mile track, and a bit further south French economist Claudia Senik reckons that French people are taught to be gloomy by their culture. Damon Albarn and Noel Gallagher share a stage at the Teenage Cancer Trust gig in London, finally signalling the end of the Britpop wars. Harry Beck, designer of the tube map, is to get a blue plaque.

Monday 25 March
Local authorities across the country warn against savage cuts to services in the wake of imminent cuts to their funding; leisure facilities and services are likely to be particularly hard hit. Pompeii and Herculaneum are the subject of the British Museum’s latest blockbuster exhibition. The RSPCA welcomes changes to the course for the Grand National at Aintree.

Tuesday 26 March
Another exercise in outsourcing, the UK Border Agency, is found wanting and is closed by the government for the simple reason that it was not able to do the job for which it was established, just in time to coincide with the privatisation of the UK’s search and rescue service. The Telegraph and The Sun both confirm that they are to charge online readers in the future. Sir Andrew Motion, poet, says the new planning regulations will wreck the countryside, while England (the country) further irritates baseball fans by celebrating the fact that England (the cricket team) has played fifteen days of cricket against New Zealand and not actually lost. Michael Brewer, formerly director of music at Chetham’s in Manchester, and his wife Hilary Brewer are found guilty of sexual abuse of a pupil at the school.

Wednesday 27 March
Oh dear: the Stones are going to play Glastonbury. Communities secretary Eric ‘Right Old’ Pickles celebrates the forcing of local authorities to restrict their council tax rises to below inflation, a real-terms cut. Meanwhile, Danny Alexander, Treasury chief secretary and Beaker to Clegg’s Dr Bunsen Honeydew, quietly says that there may well be a further £3 billion of spending cuts needed next time the government does its sums. Admiral Nelson’s blood-stained uniform goes on display at Les Invalides in Paris, the first time it has left the UK since the rather unfortunate event that created the holes that are still visible in the cloth. A group of British arts organisations are piloting a project, imaginatively titled Donate, to solicit donations via mobile phones and tablets and Merlin Entertainments, owner of Madame Tussaud’s, Legoland and Alton Towers, is looking to a stock market flotation. In the US Dione Warwick files for bankruptcy.

Thursday 28 March
Sir Norman Bettison is informed by the Independent Police Complaints Commission that he has a case for gross misconduct to answer following his role in the cover-up of the facts at Hillsborough but, rather conveniently, it seems he cannot be disciplined because he is no longer a member of the police service. Coventry City FC have been docked 10 points for going into receivership. It seems that Oscar Pistorius will now be allowed to leave South Africa before his trial for the murder of his girlfriend in order to compete in athletics competitions; would it be inappropriate to say “start the clock”? The Malaysian government is using the power of musical theatre to spread the message to its young people in schools that being gay is a dangerous pursuit to be avoided.

Friday 29 March
The world of marbles gathers at the Greyhound in Tinsley Green, Crawley for the world championships. Kraftwerk have their planned tour of China cancelled after officials recall their support for a free Tibet some years ago. The FA says it cannot find any evidence of England fans racially abusing Rio and Anton Ferdinand, although they do not dispute that it happened; so that’s alright then. Laura Trott, Dani Kind and Jo Rowsell are among the star riders wheeling out for the start of a new season with a new women’s pro cycling team, Wiggle Honda; British Cycling are said to be supporting the team and considering a full-scale women’s Team Sky. Actor Richard Griffiths dies aged 65.

Saturday/Sunday 30/31 March
Tamara Rojo, a celebrated Spaniard, is the new head of English National Ballet. The Swanage Railway, run by volunteers, will soon be part of the national rail network, meaning that it will soon be possible to get a train from Bournemouth to Corfe Castle and Swanage for the first time since 1972. In Barnsley anyone under 16 is now banned from the city centre after 9pm, a move that civil rights group Liberty sees as criminalising a generation. The BBC Television Centre closes its doors for the last time; it’s future could be that of a television-themed visitor attraction. In the Museum of Natural History in Paris the elephant that belonged to Louis XIV is now missing a tusk after someone took a chainsaw to it and scarpered. Sunderland AFC sack Martin O’Neill (still High Wycombe’s favourite adopted son) and appoint the self-proclaimed fascist, Paulo DiCanio; what could possibly go wrong? Oxford beat Cambridge in the Boat Race on the Thames, the 159th time these two have reached the final.