Tag Archives: Tash Friday

Don’t ever let them see you coming

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Hola Tash Appreciators,

Some of you will no doubt have seen Barcelona’s superlative performance against AC Milan on Tuesday night. For those who didn’t, Barca were two-nil down following the first of a two-leg tie but then won four-nil on Tuesday to go through to the next stage of the Champions League. 

Football fans love to talk about the Barcelona team’s skill and style of play (Tuesday was a shining example of both) but TF is more interested the manner of their win rather than the method. 

After David Villa scored Barcelona’s third, crucial, goal, he celebrated like this:

The picture perhaps doesn’t do it justice but as I was watching it live I thought that it was the celebration of a man who just loved the game. He’s not celebrating with the fans and he doesn’t really acknowledge the 96,000 Catalans who are cheering their approval; he just seems delighted to have scored an important goal for his team after a long spell of poor form and injury.

The differences between AC milan’s players and the Barcelona players are interesting. Many of the Milan players have outrageous haircuts and obviously care a great deal about how they look on the pitch. For example, the worst look of the season goes to Milan’s El Shaarawy:

On the other hand, Barcelona seem to be more about substance. Lionel Messi doesn’t have a fancy haircut. More than that, he looks like (and seems to genuinely be) just like any other guy you’d see walking down the street. 

I’m reminded of Al Pacino in Devil’s Advocate when he’s telling his young protege how to act in the big city:

“Don’t get too cocky my boy. No matter how good you are don’t ever let them see you coming. That’s the gaffe my friend. You gotta keep yourself small. Innocuous. Be the little guy.”

I’ve got a lot of time for that attitude. If you’re out and about these days, you’ll see many people wearing expensive clothes and driving flash cars. You’ll see folk spending huge amounts of money on champagne in clubs (or, as TF calls them, discotheques) and buying bottles of over-priced vodka with sparklers attached. All, presumably, in an effort to make themselves look more successful, smarter etc than they perhaps are. If it were me, I’d rather be under-estimated than fail to live up to the hype. Ask the AC Milan boys – “style” only gets you so far. 

I’m also reminded of this week’s Tash. In one of his many movies, he played the role of a high school basketball coach. When talking to his team about having a bit of class and not being too showy on the court, he said this:

“Since when is winning not enough, playing hard not enough?”

This week’s Tash is Richmond High’s very own Coach Carter:

Have a great weekend folks! 

Keep going.

Oh Indeed…

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Morning Tash Appreciators,

I was watching the American Office this week when a new boss appeared to ruin Michael’s fun:

That’s Idris Elba and he’s best known for his role in The Wire as the gangster-turned-economics-student, Stringer Bell. 

Despite having a superb Tash, Stringer is not a nice guy. It’s not a plot spoiler to say that he’s a murdering drug dealer who is driven only by cash. However, he’s not an entirely dislikable character. 

The same goes for one of Stringer’s enemies: Omar Little. He’s also a murderer but, rather than dealing drugs, he steals them and sells them to other gangsters. Although, on paper, he’s as bad a man as Stringer, in many ways he’s the hero of the show. Why? Because, in his words, “a man needs a code”, and he lives by his. He doesn’t hurt civilians and he takes his grandma to church on Sundays. That being said, if you saw him in the street you wouldn’t necessarily know that he’s a man of high morals:

The real villains of the show don’t physically hurt anyone. On the contrary, they hold themselves out as being the saviours of the poor people of Baltimore. Unfortunately, they are greedy, conniving, duplicitous and altogether rather unpleasant. Here’s one of them:

That’s Senator Clay Davis. Yes, you got it, it’s the politicians who do the real damage. This is another example of Tash being rocked by a baddie. Clay Davis, and the other politicians in the show, don’t have a code in the same way as Omar; they’re out for power rather than just money and so they’re not as predictable as Stringer. Not only this, but they’re meant to represent the people and so the damage they do is far greater.  

The work of David Simon, the creator of The Wire, is known for being true to real life; he researches everything meticulously. I’m not suggesting that the real Senator for Maryland accepts bribes the same way clay Davis does but I bet that Simon had someone in mind when he wrote the character. 

In this country, I don’t think our politicians are any better. They serve their own purposes, no-one else’s. For example, Theresa May is apparently set to announce plans to take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights. 

She’s not doing this because she doesn’t agree with the legislation (the right to free speech – which I’m using here – is, I understand, generally thought to be worth having), she just wants the votes that the Tories are losing to the “latent racism party” (aka UKIP). Our Home Secretary cares more about votes than she does the fundamental rights of citizens. I could go on about the rest of our right-honourable representatives, but I won’t for the moment. 

Give me Omar and his code any day. At least if Omar was Home Secretary, we civilians would be safe…

Have a good weekend folks.

Keep going!

Firmness in the right

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Morning Tash Appreciators,

The Oscars last weekend have finally given me the opportunity to cover a topic which has been on my mind for a few weeks now: Lincoln.

What interests me most about Abraham Lincoln is not what he did while he was President. To be sure, his achievements were incredible, and we might live in a very different world had he not been President. However, those kinds of achievements are beyond the reach of most of us. What I find interesting is his outlook on life and the way he conducted himself. 
In the film, we see the approach that comes naturally to most of us in moments of anger and frustration. Thaddeus Stevens, in his speech about whether men are, or are not, created equal says this:
How can I hold that all men are created equal when here before me stands, stinking, the moral carcass of the gentleman from Ohio? Proof that some men are inferior. Endowed by their maker with dim wits, impermeable to reason, with cold pallid slime in their veins instead of hot red blood. You are more reptile than man George, so low and flat that the foot of man is incapable of crushing you.
 
Although an excellent put-down, saying that someone was a lesser man just because he was wrong wasn’t Lincoln’s way. Little more than a month before his assassination, as the end of the Civil War drew close, Lincoln was inaugurated as President for a second time. The War had caused over a million casualties and the hostility between the two parts of the country was obvious. However, Lincoln ended his inauguration speech with this:
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
Perhaps we cannot all aim to bind the wounds of nations but we can act with malice towards none and charity to all. What I find interesting is that Lincoln doesn’t give those who have committed wrongs a free pass. He’s not advocating that the electorate turn the other cheek. No, he’s concerned about having “firmness in the right”. 
If someone is wrong, like those who opposed abolishing slavery, an opposing view will probably not change their minds. That’s human nature. All you can do is uphold your own standards i.e. the “right”. 
What I’m trying to say is that we will all come across those who will infuriate and offend us. They will be wrong to act the way they do. However, the thoughts of those who are wrong should not divert us from what we know is right. 
I’ll leave you with a final thought from Lincoln. This was from his first political announcement:
Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition, is yet to be developed.
I may not end up being arguably the greatest President there has ever been, but if I take any lesson from Lincoln, it will be that it is the respect of my equals – those who share my views of right and wrong and whom I respect – that will determine whether I have been a success or not. The rest is just background noise about which I could not care less.  
Anyway, the Tash. It can only be one man. Triple Oscar winner and the actor who brought Lincoln to the silver screen: Daniel Day-Lewis:

Whatever you’re doing this weekend, I hope you enjoy it. 
For god’s sake, keep going!

Commuter Code of Conduct (Train Ed, 2013)

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Morning Tash Appreciators,

I’ve noticed in the last week or so that it has been much lighter in the mornings. This is good in the sense that its nice to not feel nocturnal but it has a downside. I like to call this downside the amateur commuter. At some points in the summer, amateur commuters make the 7.30 to Waverley look like this:

 

Amateur commuters are those who only take the train every now and again. If they have to take the train, they’ll only do so when the weather is good. The day before, they’ll have described their trip to their colleagues as either being “a nice change” or “a pain in the neck”. I much prefer the latter category. I suppose, therefore, that my wrath is restricted only to those amateurs who look forward to the experience. 

They can be identified by any/all of the following signs:

  1. They’ll be standing looking at the departures board in the station (if you get the train every day you know exactly where you’re going);
  2. They’ll be holding a ticket for which they will be reimbursed; 
  3. They will have a bucket of Starbucks and a muffin/some other sweet confection (if you do it every day you can’t afford those luxuries);
  4. They will have a pal with them (the worst kind of amateur commuter);
  5. They’ll spend ages working out where they want to sit;
  6. They will put their gear (of which there will be a tonne) on the seat next to them;
  7. They’ll phone someone to confirm that they have “finally made it on the train and have found a seat” (the third worst kind of amateur commuter); 
  8. They’ll be awake during the journey;
  9. They’ll have terrible, leaky, earphones (the second worst kind of amateur commuter); and
  10. They’ll be on their feet and heading for the doors 5 minutes before anyone else. 

These folk stand out a mile and this is because, in any particular carriage, there are maybe twenty people who sit in the same place every day. You’ll know who the regular commuters are by looking around the carriage and, if you’re on the phone, talking loudly to a pal or using leaky earphones, all the people who are looking at you do the journey every day. 

If you only get the train every now and again please follow this simple code of conduct:

  1. Do not under any circumstances speak to a distant acquaintance with whom you have not spoken in the last 6 months or more. They do not want to speak to you. A wave is more than sufficient and don’t be offended if you are ignored. Personally, I’d ignore you. 
  2. Do not bring a pal along for the ride. If you do, keep any discussion at a minimum and at a low level. No laughing.
  3. Wait until the last minute to board the train. You’re an amateur, you have no right to a good seat.  
  4. Under no circumstances speak to someone on the phone. No-one wants to hear what “mega deal” you’re closing that day. It’ll wait till 9, idiot. 
  5. Take the window seat if it’s available and keep your gear off the seats. You’re not getting two seats to yourself; accept it. If I see you sitting in the aisle seat with a window seat next to you, I’ll take great pleasure in making you get up to let me in.

The above will sound intolerant and rude. Please don’t take it that way. Commuting is a necessary evil which people adapt to in their own way. For me, I sleep in the morning then either read or watch something on my generic tablet device on the way home. Most other regular commuters find a similar way of chilling out. Therefore, if you don’t do it all the time, have a thought to those who do and leave them in peace. 

If you don’t keep the noise down, you will appear to others like the most annoying man on telly: this week’s Tash, the guy from the Go Compare advert. If he was on my train, he would find himself being compared to a findus lasagne: definitely something which was formerly an mammal but you’ll need to test it at a molecular level before you can tell what it was previously.

 

Have a great weekend folks. 

Keep going!

Never fear, the Tashes are here

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Howdy Tash Appreciators,

This week will be one of TF’s public service announcements. 

As many of those who live in central Glasgow will have heard, the city appears to be in the midst of a crime-wave. In the west-end, a prowler has been assaulting women in broad daylight and the last two weeks at TF central have seen an attempted house break and the kicking in of a front door followed by some poor chap getting battered on a Sunday afternoon. It’s serious stuff, so keep an eye out when you’re out and about. Be particularly careful when staggering home after a couple of Weihenstephan.
When one person at work mentioned her concern at the prospect of walking to and from the train station, the helpful response she received was the question: “what weapon do you carry?”

Although tempting, TF respectfully suggests that packing heat is not the answer to safety on the streets and in the home: that’s just a recipe for getting yourself hurt (n.b. TF knows nothing about personal safety and its views are simply speculation. This email does not amount to advice and does not indicate a duty of care to the reader. If you want to pack heat, you pack it).

Instead, TF suggests that civilians should take care to walk in well-lit, busy areas and ensure that all doors and windows are secured at all times. It also makes a further suggestion: be accompanied at all times by a man with a Tash. 

Have you ever seen a man with a Tash in any kind of peril or on the losing side in a brawl? I strongly doubt it. Even if you have, he’s probably been taken by surprise by another man with a Tash. 

Look at these hard men:

Kurt Russell (and the rest of the cast of Tombstone):

Charles Bronson:

 

Tom Hardy:

 

Daniel Day Lewis:

The evidence is compelling. If you’re ever in strife, don’t pull a knife or other weapon; call a bloke with a Tash. 

Have a nice – safe – weekend folks!

Keep going!

Racing through the dark

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Morning Tash Appreciators,

Now that we’ve all heard Lance Armstrong’s “confession” and the media frenzy has died down, I thought this might be an opportunity to tell you a tale of real redemption. Not the kind that follows crocodile tears and a prime-time tv interview; I mean the kind which follows spending time in the depths of despair but which ultimately leads to a raised fist and victory while doing something you love. This kind:

image

That’s David Millar: a Scottish cyclist who insists on being described in the press as “David Millar, ex-doper”. Like everyone else 10 years ago, he took performance enhancing drugs to win bike races. And, like many others, he was caught. 

Unlike most, however, he offered no excuse for what he did. You will not hear him attempting to justify his use of drugs by saying that everyone was doing it and that he was just trying to level the playing field. 

Instead, even once he lost his lucrative contract, his newly built house, his friends and his livelihood, he gave a full confession which described what he did and why he did it. He then served his ban; helped start (and now partly owns) a successful cycling team that has a no-needles policy but which also allows former-dopers to race again; started campaigning vigorously against doping when no-one else was; and did everything he could to ensure that cycling, and sport generally, is drug-free.

Armstrong and Millar make for an interesting comparison. Both could have (and did) win clean but both bowed to pressure and cheated and were ultimately caught. That’s where the similarities end. Millar used his experience to better himself and the sport he cares about. He missed out on two years racing – and a lot of money – but since then he has made a lasting impact on cycling and sport in general. He’s now an athlete representative on the World Anti-Doping Agency committee and has done as much as anyone to help young athletes avoid making the same mistakes he did. Along the way, he’s even managed to win a stage of the Tour (which he did in 2012) and get back to the very top of the sport. Millar shows that sometimes the pain of defeat is sometimes worth it. He’s rebuilt his life on his own terms and seems to be a happier man because of it. I’m sure Armstrong can’t say the same. 
Millar’s victory in the Tour was his last step to redemption. The state he was in after it shows just how much of an effort it was:

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I’ve already mentioned Millar’s team. Its name has changed over the years but Garmin has always been part of it. It’s also always got some kind of Argyle pattern on the jersey. Over the years, some of the team have sported a Tash. One such Tash was worn by Dave Zabriskie: another former-doper who is currently serving a 6-month ban after blowing the whistle on Armstrong. He’ll be back racing in March and I can only hope his Tash also makes a return:

 

image

Quality, right?
Have a good weekend folks!
Keep going!

From where we are now to where we have never been

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Morning Tash Appreciators,

In November last year, I spent some time working on a TF about the American election. It was about how the hostility between the campaigns was detrimental to democracy. I binned it because (a) it wasn’t positive; and (b) I saw James Bond and I did the TF on him instead. 

It came to mind again on Monday when I watched President Obama’s inauguration:


After all the name calling that seemed to be filling the pre-election airwaves, America seems quite content with its decision. Democrats and Republicans are making progress with budget negotiations and there appears to be consensus about the need for gun reform. It seems that after all the hostility, two camps that were previously irreconcilable might just be able to reach some agreements. 
Maybe a good old street fight (in the metaphorical sense) is actually what’s required when people need to choose between two options which are opposites. I suppose you can’t really make an informed choice about an argument (or a person) until you’ve seen it/them tested to their limit. Making things personal is a step too far but going all out at the other side’s ideology and logic seems useful.

Monday also saw another important day in the American calendar: Martin Luther King Day. With Dr King, you see another example of where the coming together of diametrically opposed views caused a shift in opinion and change for the better. If those involved in the Civil Rights Movement had decided to accept anything less than equality then they may not have been so successful. 

In the next few years, Scotland and the UK will have big decisions to make too. Firstly we’ll have a referendum on independence and then, possibly, on membership of the EU. Hopefully, we’ll have a full debate which will leave no holds barred in examining the merits of each side’s argument. 

However, that might not be enough for the right decision to be reached. If you look at the campaigns of Obama and the Civil Rights, they have many things in common. But the similarity that seems most striking is that both had leaders who were/are charismatic, intelligent and principled. Can we say that about our political leaders today? 

Hopefully, as well as putting these issues to bed for good, the referendums in the UK will also bring to the fore genuine leaders who we can look up to in the same way Americans look up to President Obama and Dr King. 

I’ll leave you with a quote from Dr King about the occasional need for entirely opposite views to be tested against each other; when you can’t compromise. I’ll also leave you with reminder that he had a particularly excellent Tash:


“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”


The similarities, and differences, between two of those photos are quite something. 
Have a cracking weekend folks!
Keep going!

We could be heroes

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Hello Tash Appreciators,

This will be the second to last TF of what is, incredibly, Tash Friday’s second year.

Earlier this week, I had a look back at what I said around this time last year. As some of you may recall, last year’s festive TFs looked at Christmases Past, Present and Future.

In the final TF of 2011, I said this:

With the Tash of Christmas Future, I hope that we can all look ahead to the things that can be achieved or, more excitingly, attempted. After all, it is only by pushing ourselves beyond what we perceive as our capabilities that we can really test our mettle. It’s also at these times that we tend to find that we are capable of doing more, and going further, than we thought possible.

If you look back at 2012 you can see numerous examples of people who did just that:

Closer to home, 2012 has seen numerous new jobs (100% decrease in unemployment among Tash Appreciators); new houses; exotic holidays; an engagement or two; weddings; and what would appear to be, in the main, relative contentment.Friday morning rhetoric about getting stuck in, aiming higher than just an “acceptable” level and about life being too short is one thing but it looks very much like this year exceeded expectations. If we had sat down a year ago, and recorded our hopes for the year, would we have thought ourselves too ambitious by suggesting that all of the above would happen? Yes, is probably the answer.

The question we therefore have to ask ourselves is: what’s next?

We must be ambitious, enthusiastic, vigorous and determined. The coming year will not bring financial prosperity for the nation or even, dare I say it, any indication that we’re on the right track towards it. However, this year has shown we can do just fine; even in times of relative hardship. Onwards and upwards must be our battle-cry!

So that leaves us with this week’s Tash. Serendipitously, Bowie just faded into my earphones and so, with the words “just for one day…” ringing in my ears, I leave you with this week’s Tash (from the excellent movie The Prestige), David Bowie:

See you next week for the end of year/world edition…Cheers.

Ask not what you should be thankful for…

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Good morning Tash Appreciators,

Some are under the impression that TF is based in the US (N.B. not everything that is  syntactically incorrect and littered with spelling mistakes emanates from the United States) and others lambast TF’s American leanings. This week, we embrace the US-bias, and one of the great American traditions – Thanksgiving. 

If Thanksgiving is one of the most famous American traditions, John F Kennedy is one of the most famous American Presidents. In his inauguration speech (pictured below), he asked that his fellow Americans “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” 


Maybe we should not ask ourselves what we should be thankful for (there would surely be too many things to think about), but what we have done to make others thankful. I daresay that’s a shorter list. 
Earlier this week, I heard an exceptionally cantankerous chap – who will not be happy with his views being compared to those of JFK – arguing that people these days spend too much time trying to insulate themselves from society.  He said that we should invest more of our time and effort in trying to improve the world around us rather than blocking out all interaction with it. The ways he suggested doing this were fairly radical but the core of what he was saying was pretty indisputable: that only by working together will things improve. That seems to fit pretty well into what JFK said.  It also fits the idea that we should ask ourselves what we have done to make others thankful.
Of course, there is one thing for which we will all be thankful – The Tash. For that, we must thank the ‘Tashfather’ (apologies, that’s awful):
Have a cracking weekend y’all!
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Good morning Tash Appreciators,

This week saw the passing of Clive Dunn. He’ll be fondly remembered by those who were fans of Dad’s Army and his oft repeated line: “Don’t panic, Don’t panic!”. As an aside, he also had an exceptionally distinguished moustache:

Clive Dunn played the part of Jonesy, and his character spent many an episode recalling his time in the deserts of Sudan during the First World War. In reality, he fought in the Second World War but spent four years as a prisoner of war. He later said that his time in Dad’s Army was payback to the Germans. I suppose he wasn’t one for holding a grudge. His death, in the week before Remembrance Sunday, is a reminder, if one were needed, that we are steadily losing those who lived through the war years. 

So much is eloquently said and poetically written about veterans at this time of year that it would do them an injustice for a nonsense “blog” like TF to chip in with some hastily drafted tribute. Instead, I’ve tried to find something which might resonate particularly  with what TF is all about: living life to the fullest. 

The example I have chosen is from one the prominent First World War poets, Rupert Brooke. He was a Cambridge student and his friends (including Winston Churchill and Maynard Keynes) would later become giants of his generation. His sonnet, V: The Soldier, said this:

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. 


Poetry like this leaves you wondering how much richer a place the world would have been if Brooke, and the millions like him, had been given the chance to do more than occupy a corner of a foreign field. 

Have a good weekend folks.