Megan's Song - for Loved-Up Schoolgirl Megan Stammers

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Megan's Song I was lost in Maths In exams the noughts were singing I was lost in Maths And my calculator was minging As I stood there in the morning sum I had a feeling I can't explain I was lost in France in love I was lost in France And the algebra was singing And the paps all flashed Didn't catch what they were saying When I looked up they were standing there And I knew I shouldn't but I didn't care I was lost in France in love Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing I was lost in France And the Maths was over-flowing I was lost in France And a million sums were glowing And I looked round for a telephone To say 'Dear Mum, I won't be home' I was lost in France in love Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing And I looked round for a telephone To say 'Dear Mum, I won't be home' I was lost in France in love Ooh la la la Ooh la la la Fance Ooh la la la Francing Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing Ooh la la la Ooh la la la France Ooh la la la Francing… I was lost in France But then the cops came calling I was lost in France And the world was just there watching And I looked up He was standing there I felt so hopeless I didn’t care I am still so lost In France

More Than a Drop in the Ocean

So many in need. 

So many charities. 

How do you decide which to help?

    

How do you separate the ones who, according to reports, have people stealing money behind the scenes? How do you decide between supporting a charity that raises money for research into heart disease, because it stole your dad, or breast cancer, because the gene might be inherent in your family?

    

There are some charities that receive a huge amount of money, simply because they are the most prominent names in the headlines. Of course, they are worthy, but there are many others out there in need of funds, and how do you choose which to support? There are millions the world over who need aid from those of us who have so much more, and the efforts of Comic Relief, Sports Relief et al, have brought the tragedies taking place on a daily basis to the public’s attention – and raised huge amounts of money for them – in a way that they might not otherwise have done.

    

Many of these charities raise money for countries that have no food: where babies are dying of starvation and dehydration every minute of every day. There are millions who do not know the joy of turning on a tap and receiving fresh, clean water every day, and, while this has always struck me as something of a luxury, this week it hit me with a blinding disbelief that others do not share what we take for granted.

    

We take it for granted in our baths, showers and sanitised swimming pools; we boil our vegetables in it, sure in the knowledge that we will not be contaminated by what lurks within; it pours forth from our taps to counter a stomach upset, thirst after exercise, a hangover. 

With a one second twist of our hand, we have the greatest luxury the world has to offer, and, for the most part, we don’t even acknowledge it.

   

I have not spoken to anyone at wateraid.org, but I am urging you to spread the word and to offer help in any way you can. In particular, check out the daily life of women, on whom the onus is to collect water from miles away – and not very sanitised water, at that.

    

There are so many ways in which it is possible to become involved. Never did the Rime of the Ancient Mariner have any more poignancy than now: “Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.”

   

Like I said, I have not spoken to anyone at this organisation, but let’s not take that turning on of our taps and having the miracle of water our forth so effortlessly into our lives, for granted.

    

Let’s make water not only a blessing, but the right, of everyone the world over.

  

    

  

  

Dallas, Dallas, Wherefore Art Thou, Dallas?

You know you’re old when the oil barons are getting younger. 

The remake of Dallas has brought us a new breed of Texan magnates who look barely out of their Lego and I don’t like them one little bit.

    

At best, Bobby’s son Christopher is Thunderbirds’ Scott Tracy after a day at the spa; at worst, Norman Bates after a week of bad bookings. JR’s son John Ross has a walrus sitting on his face and is about as sexy as . . . well, a walrus sitting on your face.

   

John Ross’s and Christopher’s fathers, who were once such magnetic personalities, are no longer appealing, either. JR’s eyebrows look as if they need their own Visa to enter the country, and Bobby looks as if he has had the kind of eye-lift that turns people Chinese overnight; in fact, his eyes appear to have been eaten by his forehead. Lucy looks as if she has spent 20 years eating all the pies she never got to consume when the wind swept the food away every morning on the breakfast terrace, and all the allegedly glamorous women make a Stepford Wife look like Personality of the Millennium.

    

I so, so wanted to like it; but it is bad. So, so bad. Lame writing, lame acting, and a lame Bobby, who keeps clutching his leg in pain, as the cancer he is trying to keep secret takes hold. Sue Ellen appears to be the only character who has survived the fallout. And Linda Gray still brilliantly plays it for the laugh it always was.

  

I first watched Dallas when it was broadcast in the UK on BBC2 in the afternoon; I think I was probably its first UK fan. Although I did not know the term soap opera when growing up, I knew it must be something very, very naughty, because my parents always sent me to my room when Peyton Place was on.

    

Never having watched Coronation Street, I took to Dallas because of the shoulder pads, the pools, the glamour. It was a world so far removed from my own in South Wales, I could fantasise about riches, fine clothes, magnificent dinners, and take joy in the knowledge that for every material wealth these people had, they were still miserable as hell. That made me happy. Being poor. With no fine clothes. And, in a bad week, rather hungry.

   

I specially liked Dallas’s annual Oil Barons Ball, where the oil magnates would gather to celebrate the industry but end up fighting and/or murdering each other. WestStar oil head honcho Jeremy Wendell always featured heavily on these occasions, though I swear he never washed his shirt from one year to the next.

    

Dallas lost its credibility with the “death” of Bobby, quickly resurrected and made the subject of wife Pam’s dream, when the ratings plummeted following the departure of Patrick Duffy, who played him.

   

The biggest problem was that the sister show, Knot’s Landing, was still in production and had a lot of episodes in the can; so Bobby’s brother Gary continued to grieve on one channel, telling everyone how momma had never been the same since Bobby’s death, and nobody ever bothered to tell him that an entire year had all been in his head.

    

But it was the ludicrousness – the complete lack of believability – that, strangely, made it work. The new mob are playing it as if they have landed parts in Henry V, and they are about as menacing as a dead mouse in a Camembert.

    

After two episodes, I’ve already wiped it from my “series record”; life really is too short. 

And I really, really don’t want to watch Bobby dying from cancer – well, not unless he emerges wet and glistening and we discover that it was Christopher’s dream after all.   

     

They'll Never Walk Alone

The desire for justice in the face of others’ wrongdoing is intense. Having recently sued an ex-landlord in LA – and won – I know. It takes it out of you, but being in the right and, most importantly, being seen to be in the right, is worth everything, in the end.

My own struggle is but a grain of sand alongside the families of the Hillsborough victims; it is not even worthy to be in the same sentence, and I mention it only because I know how all consuming my own fights for justice have always been and cannot begin to imagine what these poor people have been through in their 23 year fight to get to the truth.

    

Not only did they lose their loved ones; they had to suffer the indignity of being told that the dead were to blame for the tragic events of that day.

    

The evidence that has come to light is another heartbreak: not just the lies and deceit, but the knowledge that 41 of the victims might have been saved. Everyone who lost a relative or friend that day will spend the rest of their lives asking: Was he/she one of that 41? 

Injustice upon injustice upon injustice. 

You can only weep.

    

I have been remembering another football stadium tragedy four years before Hillsboorugh in May 1985: the fire at Bradford City, that claimed the lives of 56 fans and injured well over 200. I arrived home from shopping in Bristol, where my parents were living. I was working in London and had gone home for a weekend visit. I walked into the living room to find my father crying in his usual armchair. My brother and I are sport crazy, but Dad never watched it; nevertheless, he was visibly stunned as he watched the disaster unfold on the screen.

    

My father who, died in 1990, was a desperately sensitive man. He could not talk to me for five minutes without crying, as if he never got over the fact that I learned to speak, let alone grew up. I would always be his little girl. We were a family that cried at everything, including Lassie when we sat down to watch it after dinner on Sunday afternoons. Dad cried every time he mentioned his parents, long dead, and he had never felt able to visit their graves.

    

After the Bradford fire, new safety standards were put in place at football grounds, including the banning of new wooden grandstands. Yet what we have heard this week was that not only was Hillsborough unsafe, the authorities had known it to be unsafe for some time.

    

Also after Bradford, many police officers received commendations, bravery awards and medals; yet at the heart of the Hillsborough inquiry is the accusation that the police falsified information, following complaints about their handling of the tragedy.

    

What the hell happened? Four years apart, the tragedies could not be more different (although the subsequent Popplewell inquiry at Bradford found that the club had been warned about the accumulation of rubbish – that fuelled the fire - under the stand).

    

Twenty-three years is a long time to wait for justice – and for the Hillsborough families it’s far from over, with the likelihood of those who falsified evidence or made crucial, devastatingly bad judgments, being prosecuted. Somebody, surely, has to be accountable.

   

 It is a cliché that nothing can bring back the 96 who perished on that day; but the living hell and the fight for truth by the brave people who have fought tirelessly on their behalf must bring about a small measure of peace. 

Truth will out, they say. 

It’s just damned disgraceful that sometimes it has to take so sodding long.