A SLIPPY Christmas and a Scary New Year . . . that‘s what we’re having up here in the place tourist brochures call ‘Britain’s ‘secret kingdom’ but which we know better as The Land Northumberland County Council Forgot.
Didn’t take long, did it, for the suffering to start once Britain’s worst borough council handed over north Northumberland to what seems destined to be the UK’s most useless unitary authority?
Over the whole festive season I saw but ONE gritter on the main Cornhill-Wooler road, and an empty one at that; the yellow bins I checked were empty; there wasn’t grit to be had for love nor money. Only teeth got gritted where I live!
John the Joiner and I bought the last six available bags at Jewson’s and were told: “No more supplies ‘til after New Year.” Berwick Christmas Farmer’s Market was a dismally attended affair thanks to the car park that became an ice rink.
I understand the argument that excuses an absence of snowploughs and teams of gritters: it would be hugely uneconomical to invest millions in equipment that might only be used for a handful of days each year.
But grit? Or rock salt? A little manpower? Where were THEY when the weather closed in?
It certainly makes the deal that County Durham Primary Care Trust struck with its county council – to grit 35 miles of bus routes over the next two winters in exchange for £1million – a far-sighted bargain in terms of reduced accidents to car drivers and the elderly and, therefore, reduced costs to the NHS.
If we can’t expect our council to send the gritters around every village up this way – paying, don’t forget, just as much council tax as the cosseted burghers of Morpeth and Alnwick – what about creating ‘grit dumps’ when bad weather is forecast? Why not pay local builders and farmers with the machinery available to subdivide the grit around the locality, where householders could fill a pail and make their own pavements safe?
And perish the thought that some of our 2.5million unemployed might be expected to earn – indeed, might welcome – a bonus on their dole money when a national or regional emergency requires it.
I’VE been keeping one eye on the weather forecast and the other on the exchange rate for Australian dollars. Why? Well, to celebrate 35 years of married life the Bankses are taking a trip Down Under later this month.
It’s not the 24-hour flight that worries me – it’s what comes before.
Since the day six years ago when the notorious Shoe Bomber was arrested security checks have required that every air passenger remove his or her shoes.
What are they going to want us to remove now the Underpants Bomber has been exposed?
MY Daughter the Actress and her actor partner share a dyslexic agent called Daisy who once, appropriately, spelled her own name ‘Dozy’.
The other day, the man who would father my grandchildren was directed to attend an audition for a TV ad for Nationwide in which, Daisy told him, he was to play “a Germanic housebuyer”.
Now Alistair takes his acting very seriously and likes to ‘climb into’ the role, so he cut and dyed his hair blond, adopted a military bearing and stomped around the set clicking his heels and demanding “Wo ist die haus, Herr Estate Agent?”
The audition was over almost before it began. Mystified, the Hunnishly handsome young actor checked the film company’s requirement.
Not ‘Germanic’ at all . . . it was for a GENERIC housebuyer!
ONE thing puzzles me about the fall-out from Tory frontbencher David Willetts’ concern that marriage is becoming a ‘middle-class only’ institution: the accompanying statistic stated that marriage was at its peak in 1972 when 480,285 people said “I do”.
How could it have been an odd number? Did some sexy little threesome sneak in there? I think we should be told.
First published in The Journal, Newcastle, January 1 2010
Didn’t take long, did it, for the suffering to start once Britain’s worst borough council handed over north Northumberland to what seems destined to be the UK’s most useless unitary authority?
Over the whole festive season I saw but ONE gritter on the main Cornhill-Wooler road, and an empty one at that; the yellow bins I checked were empty; there wasn’t grit to be had for love nor money. Only teeth got gritted where I live!
John the Joiner and I bought the last six available bags at Jewson’s and were told: “No more supplies ‘til after New Year.” Berwick Christmas Farmer’s Market was a dismally attended affair thanks to the car park that became an ice rink.
I understand the argument that excuses an absence of snowploughs and teams of gritters: it would be hugely uneconomical to invest millions in equipment that might only be used for a handful of days each year.
But grit? Or rock salt? A little manpower? Where were THEY when the weather closed in?
It certainly makes the deal that County Durham Primary Care Trust struck with its county council – to grit 35 miles of bus routes over the next two winters in exchange for £1million – a far-sighted bargain in terms of reduced accidents to car drivers and the elderly and, therefore, reduced costs to the NHS.
If we can’t expect our council to send the gritters around every village up this way – paying, don’t forget, just as much council tax as the cosseted burghers of Morpeth and Alnwick – what about creating ‘grit dumps’ when bad weather is forecast? Why not pay local builders and farmers with the machinery available to subdivide the grit around the locality, where householders could fill a pail and make their own pavements safe?
And perish the thought that some of our 2.5million unemployed might be expected to earn – indeed, might welcome – a bonus on their dole money when a national or regional emergency requires it.
I’VE been keeping one eye on the weather forecast and the other on the exchange rate for Australian dollars. Why? Well, to celebrate 35 years of married life the Bankses are taking a trip Down Under later this month.
It’s not the 24-hour flight that worries me – it’s what comes before.
Since the day six years ago when the notorious Shoe Bomber was arrested security checks have required that every air passenger remove his or her shoes.
What are they going to want us to remove now the Underpants Bomber has been exposed?
MY Daughter the Actress and her actor partner share a dyslexic agent called Daisy who once, appropriately, spelled her own name ‘Dozy’.
The other day, the man who would father my grandchildren was directed to attend an audition for a TV ad for Nationwide in which, Daisy told him, he was to play “a Germanic housebuyer”.
Now Alistair takes his acting very seriously and likes to ‘climb into’ the role, so he cut and dyed his hair blond, adopted a military bearing and stomped around the set clicking his heels and demanding “Wo ist die haus, Herr Estate Agent?”
The audition was over almost before it began. Mystified, the Hunnishly handsome young actor checked the film company’s requirement.
Not ‘Germanic’ at all . . . it was for a GENERIC housebuyer!
ONE thing puzzles me about the fall-out from Tory frontbencher David Willetts’ concern that marriage is becoming a ‘middle-class only’ institution: the accompanying statistic stated that marriage was at its peak in 1972 when 480,285 people said “I do”.
How could it have been an odd number? Did some sexy little threesome sneak in there? I think we should be told.
First published in The Journal, Newcastle, January 1 2010
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