jonathan.rawle.org

Tonight was the annual Last Night of the Proms, the finale of the BBC’s famous concert series. While the Last Night featured the usual eclectic collection of music: the old, the newly commissioned and the bizarre (for example, Sir David Attenborough “playing” the floor polisher) the BBC managed to spoil it by messing about with the traditional end to the concert.

The Last Night used to end with Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs. While rarely played outside of the Proms, the piece provides the perfect opportunity for the prommers to join in: pretending to cry into handkerchiefs during one section, attempting to keep up with the orchestra in another, and humming along in another. It also concludes with See the Conquering Hero Comes, the perfect accompaniment to the entrance of the singer performing Rule Britannia. Unfortunately, in recent years, the BBC decided that the Fantasia was inappropriate to play at the Last Night as the tunes it contains only came from English songs. They added some Welsh, Irish and Scottish tunes, which would have been fine, only instead of adding short orchestral segments as in the original part of the Fantasia, they added songs sung by children’s choirs, broadcast by video links from “Proms in the Park” events from across the UK. This spun out the Fantasia into a work more than twice its former length, which did make it drag on a bit. Last year, the Fantasia was omitted from the programme for, it was said at the time, one year only, so that it could be replaced with sea songs by Vaughan Williams on his anniversary. Unfortunately, the BBC didn’t keep their word, as the Fantasia was missing from tonight’s programme. If I’d queued up for a whole day for a ticket to the Last Night, I’d feel cheated if the programme didn’t contain the Fantasia on British Sea Songs.

However, the end of the concert still had one redeeming feature: Jerusalem. Now to be honest, the words have never meant much to me – fancy naming a patriotic song after a city in a foreign country, especially one that, let’s face it, isn’t in a particularly stable part of the world, and certainly not one that any other country would aspire to become. As for the tune, I find it slightly dull, dreary even. But what made Jerusalem a great ending to the Last Night was Edward Elgar’s orchestration. With its crashing chords and soaring strings, Elgar’s score makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand up in a way that Parry and Blake alone fail to do. Unfortunately, this year the programmers saw fit to replace Elgar’s version with one by Parry himself. I was actually pleasantly surprised that Parry’s version wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, yet somehow it still sounded like it should be played by a school orchestra, not as the finale to one of the world’s most famous concert series. There is a reason why Elgar is one of Britain’s most famous composers and Parry is not.

The Last Night of the Proms is watched and listened to by millions of people around the world. Its second half is the only part of the Proms to be broadcast on the BBC’s primary British TV station, BBC One, so is the only part likely to be seen by the wider public. Removing traditional, fun elements from the end of the concert does nothing to encourage them to explore classical music further. So please, BBC, revive the Fantasia – in its original form it would hardly take up much time in the concert – and please go back to Elgar’s wonderful arrangement of Jerusalem that has always brought the concert to a fitting close. Otherwise, why not just go the whole hog and fill the arena with chairs for the Last Night?

Conservative leader David Cameron caused a stir last week when he used inappropriate language during a live radio interview. While explaining why he doesn’t use Twitter, Cameron exclaimed that, “Too many twits might make a t*at.”

I’m sure many people will sympathise with Mr Cameron’s ignorance of the etymology of the word as it is commonly used as almost an affectionate term of insult among friends.

However, he has revealed himself to be much more out-of-touch through his incorrect use of net terminology. A post on Twitter is known as a tweet, not a “twit”. Tweet can be used as both a verb and a noun. This is actually just normal English usage. Birds tweet or twitter, and the sound they make is a tweet or a twitter. Neither the verb nor the noun is “twit”.

A far better version of the joke would therefore have been, “Too many tweets might make a twit.”

The Conservative leader’s unfortunate joke showed not only his ignorance of bad language, but also of common online terminology and even of basic English. He really did make himself look a twit.

Last year, British coins underwent their first major redesign since decimal coinage was introduced in 1971. The Royal Mint held a competition to design the new coins. The winning entry was by Matthew Dent, and features the Royal Shield split across all of the coins from the penny to the 50p so that they fit together like a jigsaw to reveal the whole image.

Perhaps it’s an indication of how little I use cash, but ever since the coins were first issued, I haven’t managed to collect a full set to put the jigsaw together. Today, I finally received change including the last missing coin: the 10 pence piece.

One thing I have noticed is that in official photos of the new coins, they don’t put the shield together properly. The Royal Mint’s own photo shows a slightly larger shield, formed by placing the coins further apart. While this still appears to be the correct shape for the shield, closer examination shows it is not quite right. The biggest clue is the second quarter, which shows the Scottish rampant lion. It is surrounded by a rectangular border (known in heraldic terms as a fleury-counter-fleury). In the Royal Mint’s arrangement, the edges of this border do not line up. To fit the image together properly, the coins must be touching, as in my photo. The three English lions are then equally spaced, and the Irish harp is slightly smaller. Quite why the Royal Mint display the coins like this I don’t know – I wonder if Matthew Dent has pointed it out to them.

When the coins were launched, there was a bit of a furore in Wales because the Royal Shield does not feature an emblem directly representing Wales, as Wales had long been subsumed into England by the time of the Act of Union in the 18th century. This is slightly ironic given that the Royal Mint is itself based in Wales! The coins no longer have their values written as numerals, only in words. In the old design, the date on the 20p coin used to be on the reverse side, but is now on the obverse to match the other coins. It was revealed a month ago that some 20p coins have been minted with the old head side by mistake, so that the coin has no date at all. Such a coin – known a “mule” as it is a cross between two different coins, just as a mule is a cross between a donkey and a horse – is quite sought-after by collectors.

22 July 2009, Hangzhou, China.

When I go into any shop, I rarely buy anything on impulse. I go in to buy what I wanted. However, I can’t be typical. Shops spend a lot of time and effort making attractive displays to entice customers into buying things they didn’t know they needed, and they wouldn’t bother if it had no effect. It therefore follows that displaying tobacco products encourages more people to smoke, or occasional smokers to smoke more. Seeing the brightly-coloured boxes of this grown-up product on the shelf right behind the counter, where one can’t help but see it when paying, is bound to be extra encouragement for children to take up smoking.

I have wondered about certain practical aspects of a ban on tobacco displays. What will shops be allowed to display to indicate that they actually do sell cigarettes? They will need a sign of some sort. Presumably they will produce a price list or “menu” of products that customers can see if they ask for it. Perhaps I should read the Bill to see if this is explained.

I certainly believe displays of tobacco products in shops encourage young people to take up smoking. I don’t believe the tobacco industry when they claim the only purpose is to inform people who already smoke what is available. Time and time again they have used this argument to oppose restrictions on advertising, yet the fact is millions of their customers die through the use of their products every year, so if they didn’t find ways to attract new ones, they’d be out of business! The shop displays are just another form of advertising, and therefore represent a loophole in the present legislation banning tobacco advertising.

The Health Bill currently going through parliament contains legislation that would ban shops from having tobacco products on display. This post was originally written as a comment on Lord Norton of Louth’s post on the issue on Lords of the Blog.