Saturday 22 May 2010

My tactical voting teach-in

TWO weeks on and they’re still infected with election fever down at the Red Lion.
“Never mind yon bus timetables you wrote about last week, Banksy,” thundered the good Farmer Morebottle. “There are issues of state still requiring answers.”
Well, you know me: ever prepared to selflessly give of my time and great wisdom I hunkered down with a pint and a bowl of peanuts and took questions from the floor at Young Farmers’ Night. This is how it went:
Old Bob: “Who’s representing ME in the Coalition Cabinet? Two thirds of them went to Oxford or Cambridge, only four are women and none of them is working to a manifesto any of us voted for.”
Me: “Well said, Bob; the Cabinet is indeed unrepresentative educationally and by gender. At the same time, half the population must be, by definition, of below average intelligence; let’s just hope the Cabinet is non-representative in THAT aspect, too.”
It is, in fact, extremely unlikely that Bob, my domino partner, would have been persuaded to cease exercising his drinking arm for long enough to exercise his civic duty. But I digress . . .
The Byreman (who has been gloating ever since the Fat Cats’ and Foxhunters’ Alliance won office): “Boris Johnson says the Coalition is like a cross between a bulldog and a Chihuahua. Do you agree?”
Me: “No. I see it more as a marriage of pit bull and muzzle.”
At this The Byreman exploded and headed off to fetch a four wood from golf bag to “teach me a lesson”.
“Don’t worry,” cooed Billy the Kid, soothingly. “I play golf with him every Friday and I’ve yet to see that four wood connect with anything.”
Nevertheless, the kerfuffle brought our General Election inquest to a premature end with important questions left unanswered. Such as: How will the Liberal Democrats of Thirsk and Malton vote next Thursday in an election that was delayed by the death of the UKIP candidate?
It’s a safe Tory seat where a Labour man ran second in 2005. A fortnight ago tactical voting brought about a national coalition government, but two weeks is a long time in politics and protest votes are all the rage.
Supporters of both ruling parties who disapprove of the unholy alliance – and there are many – might well vote Labour ‘just to show ’em’.
Then true blue Conservatives and diehard Lib Dems could really stand united . . . behind the red rosette!

THE High Court decision to grant BA an injunction to stop the latest air crews’ strike on a technicality offers just the precedent we need for a re-run of the General Election: not every voter was correctly registered, some people had more than one vote and hundreds – maybe thousands – were prevented from voting.
Or do General Elections not have to be held to the same high standards as union strike ballots?

I STOPPED a man on a train from bellowing into his mobile phone the other day by pretending I thought he was talking to me.
“Absolutely!” I muttered, when I could take no more of it. “I couldn’t agree more.”
His eyes narrowed. He glared at me and lowered his voice. But only a little.
“You’re SO right!” I cried, nodding vigorously in his direction and giving him the thumbs-up.” It did the trick: he scowled, mumbled a little Anglo-Saxon into his mobile phone and hung up.
The fightback against noisy mobile users gathered pace this week when the new Prime Minister announced that mobiles and Blackberrys must be switched off in Cabinet.
Why stop there? We’re quite used to wifi hotspots as the only places where wireless broadband works . . . why not jam mobile phone signals in restaurants and public buildings and instead construct pavement buildings, painted red with windows for safety and providing perfect mobile telephone reception for all networks?
Then we could call them . . . phone boxes!
First published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne, May 21 2010

Keeping the bus-tards honest...

YES, I know it’s only a couple of days since the new PM (Poor Man) accepted the poisoned chalice but I’d like to be the first to protest . . . And yes, I DO know that Cleggy and Campo have hardly had a chance to get their feet under the table at Number Ten. Nonetheless, I’d like to register the First of the Summer Whines.
After all, it is occurring on their watch. And Mrs Banks and I blame Cameron’s Big Society.
Something terribly sneaky, you see, has happened to our village bus. They’ve put up the fares. They’ve cancelled a couple of runs. They’ve retimed the rest.Without asking – or even telling – a solitary soul!
Word first got out about the altered timetable when a lady from Branxton told ’Er Up In Arms how she’d waited for a bus that “never came”. Actually, it did – but (uselessly) twenty minutes after its long-advertised time.
The parish council knew nothing about the change. Neither did our post office, which has always been the designated stop in Crookham.So Mrs B boarded the next bus to Berwick to find out for herself.
Sure enough, times had changed, one trip had been abandoned altogether and the fares had gone up. And all of this had happened three weeks earlier.Nothing advertised in The Journal or the Berwick Advertiser. Nothing even in that waste of space, money and manpower the county council mischievously calls ‘Northumberland News’.
The timetable confusion is extraordinary:
VISIT the bus company’s website and you will find a timetable dating back to September 2006.
CALL at Berwick’s Tourist Information Office and you’ll be given a ‘slimmed down’ schedule which omits any reference to Branxton, Crookham, Duddo, Felkington or Shoresdean. It tells you where the bus starts and finishes its trip but gives no indication of which route it follows.
My check call to the operators, Glen Valley Tours, confirmed the changes. Confusion still clouded the question of cost: the receptionist quoted £2.80 as the new single fare (“It’s gone up 20p or 30p, I’m not sure which”) but she was unable to remember the new return fare.
“If you ask for a return on the bus you might get a discount but it won’t be much.”
The bus driver told us different: £2.60 single and £4.80 return is what HE charges.
So here’s why I’m getting steamed up: the 267, like other scheduled services in Northumberland, is subsidised by the taxpayer through Northumberland County Council. The service is not cheap, especially compared with heavily subsidised big city services like London and Manchester.
Londoners pay just £1.20 per bus trip to travel anywhere in the capital, with a daily £3.90 cap on bus costs. Under-18s pay just 60p per trip with a £1.95 cap.
Less advantaged north Northumbrians – with far fewer transport alternatives than their big city counterparts – struggle to meet comparatively colossal bus fares. With the minimum wage set at £5.80 per hour (or £3.57 for under-18s) daily travel can represent a hefty percentage of earnings.
It’s not so much a Big Society we need, Campo, as a joined-up one.
In the meantime don’t bother asking the bus company for a timetable, get one from the bus driver. And pay the fare HE asks rather than the price Glen Valley suggests!

WHEN fat cats telephone hoping to part you from your hard-earned, how do they KNOW who they’re talking to?
“Is Mrs Banks at home?” the Man from Barclays asked. “No,” I replied. “Can I help? I’m her husband.”
“Afraid not,” said the banker. “Is her brother available? [the siblings handle my elderly mother-in-law’s affairs]”.
I thought quickly. “Yes he is…hang on.” Pause. Change of voice. “Hello?”
“Ah, Mr Newton . . . I just wanted to go over a few things . . .”
Ridiculous, this security charade. Isn’t it?
First published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne, May 14 2010

Dopey decides General Election!

SO, at last it’s over. Can Toon and Country lay claim to having been scrupulously fair throughout all the bigot-bashing, name-calling, head-in-hands horrors and butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-their-mouths moments? I think so.
As you read this I will be settling into my headphones onstage at the University of Chester preparing to take part in day-long BBC Radio Five coverage of the General Election fallout, whereto I have been summoned to provide a taste of North-east opinion on the outcome.
Frankly, loosening the fairness leash a little will come as a welcome relief. The past five weeks have been very trying.
My domino form at the Red Lion wasn’t helped by the eternal sniping from the Byreman and those bibulous old Tory farmers he hangs out with. Calling every drawn game “a hung parliament” hardly smoothed things over, either.
And my earning power was frequently reduced when the BBC, agonising over compliance with its Charter, would cancel planned studio debates because some redneck journalist of the Right had pulled out, thus destroying the careful political ’balance’ demanded by the party spin doctors armed with stopwatches.
Naturally, The Journal and its editor have been entirely, nit-pickingly fair in their approach to election coverage and I pay homage to the spirit of decency blah-blah-blah…( as you can see from the above, dear reader, my annual contract negotiation is underway).
Anyway, as I was saying, the Great Pow-wow is over, at least until we grow to hate the next lot and demand they, too, face the guillotine. I hope you’re happy this morning. I can almost certainly promise you that I’m not.
So to cheer us all up, I was going to unveil my favourite, least-politically correct election joke. But even that has been stymied.
“I think NOT, Banksy,” said The Powers That Be when I submitted my column for perusal. “Britain might still be counting the votes if the result is as tight as everyone thinks it will be.
“This so-called joke,” said t’Editor, painfully puncturing my week’s work by metaphorically consigning it to the spike, “is hardly presented in the spirit of fairness, honesty and decency.”
So I argued. I pleaded. And finally (contract negotiations being at a ticklish point), I capitulated and rewrote my political joke “snowy white“, naming no names, in the spirit of fairness (and in exchange for an extra five quid on my fee). Here goes...
Hi-ho! Hi-ho! The Seven Dwarfs left for work early each morning, leaving Snow White at home to do her housework. As lunchtime approached, she would prepare their food and carry it to the mine.
One day as she arrived at the pithead with lunch she saw that there had been a terrible cave-in. Tearful, fearing the worst, Snow White began calling out, hoping against hope that the dwarfs had somehow survived.
“Hello? Hello!” she shouted. “Can anyone hear me? Hello!”
For a long time there was no answer but just as she was giving up hope Snow White heard a faint voice from deep within the mine, singing: “Vote for Change!”
Snow White fell to her knees, sobbing and praying.
“Oh, thank you, Lord!” she wept. “At least Dopey is still alive!”
By the way, if you think that’s still a bit one-sided try the bolshie old Byreman’s definition of the word ‘bigot’: Brown Is Gone On Thursday!

POLITICAL correctness now stretches to food where kids are concerned: sell-by dates consign cases of yoghurt to the kitchen bin, day-old bread can’t even be used for toast, cheese with a rind is “off”, they insist.
Only the poverty brought on by leaving home adjusted my pair’s commonsense acceptance of the Real World, but I wonder what even they would make of the remedy for mouldy jam that I found in Marguerite Patten’s 1968 Every Day Cookbook the other day?
“Remove the mould from the jam, tip the remainder into a pan and boil hard…use VERY quickly!”
First published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne, May 7, 2010

Sunday 2 May 2010

Shirley's show must go on...

THE show, as the old saw has it, must go on. Come hell, high water or hot volcanic ash a duty, once undertaken, must be completed.
Sez who? Well, my Daughter the Actress for one: dedicated to her art, she once gamely dragged a theatrical surgical boot upstage and down throughout a Tennessee Williams play, ignoring the torn knee ligaments her dedication brought on early in Act Two.
Fans of Queen, Pink Floyd and Three Dog Night understand the maxim, too; it booms out of their soundboxes through the eponymous singles those bands respectively produced.
Carrying on regardless may be courageous but it’s not always comforting. At the high point of one cultural expedition to the Hackney Empire to hear the Moldovan State Opera play La Boheme (a contest La Boheme won hands-down) ’Er Indoors and I suffered agonies for the lead tenor who missed his top notes and coughed over the lower range throughout the first act.
”I so sorry,” he pleaded, after stepping bravely through the curtain at the interval. “Haff sroat veddy bad, much hurt.” The politely sympathetic ovation that followed dried to a slow, horrified handclap when he added: “But neffer fear, I carry on!”
I find myself in a similar dilemma. For two months I have eagerly anticipated interviewing Baroness Williams of Crosby (Shirley, as was) tonight at the Queen’s Hall, Hexham, as part of the town’s book festival.
Last Sunday I was laid low by a chest infection, a hacking, hurtful cough bad enough to cause me to miss my dominoes at the Red Lion. On Monday I visited the doctor then took to my bed, popping antibiotics and sucking on a lung-clearing inhaler.
My contact with humankind has been limited: I bumped into the Byreman at the chemist’s shop in Coldstream and he directed me out into the street “where we can talk in the fresh air and not surrounded by your bloody germs.“ What a friend!
My old agricultural pal Ronald ‘Demon’ Barber didn’t even notice my spluttering discomfort when we met as I travelled home via the Cornhill shop,
“Cereal prices are on the floor,” he growled. “Thank God for the EU money.”
Doubtless he’ll still be voting Conservative next Thursday, however!
Anyway, on the eve of my theatre date with the noble lady - and despite a second visit to the surgery for a change of medication - I’m still wheezing like a steam engine and scaring the local sheep with my bark.
So here’s my dilemma: we have a full house turning up tonight (so much so that Mrs B and her old school friend Mary Clegg will have to perch on chairs backstage), it’s too late to brief an understudy and I’m determined not to let anyone down, particularly Baroness Williams.
Besides, ‘Shirl the Pearl’, as we tabloid types used to label her, has a fascinating life story to tell.
The woman many believed would be Britain’s first woman prime minister abandoned the security of the Labour Cabinet to join the Gang of Four in setting up the Social Democrats, forerunners of today’s Lib-Dems. Easy to see that 29 years later - and one week from tonight - she might finally witness the breaking of the political mould.
But there‘s so much more to Shirley: for instance, did you KNOW she once worked as a waitress in Whitley Bay? Or that the one-time tomboy’s ambition to become an MP was, at 20 years of age, acerbically dismissed by Lady Astor with the words: “Not with THAT hair!”
So say a silent prayer that my tonsils hold out and that my coughing fits don’t drown out Baroness Williams and drive her audience to distraction. For this is one show that MUST go on.
Who, after all, could let a little thing like a chest cold cost him his front row view of history?
First published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne, April 30, 2010

Last orders! Chatham House rules, OK?

I LUNCHED this week with a Conservative Shadow Minister and six national newspaper editors; privileged company for this tabloid has-been to keep with Britain two weeks away from its most unpredictable General Election result since 1945.
Unfortunately, as I flipped open my red-backed Creamline notebook, laid out three newly-sharpened HB pencils and checked the batteries in my mini-recorder, our host intoned words that spell dismay for any journalist keen to hit the headlines: “Chatham House Rule, gentlemen.”
I should explain two things: first, pressure of work had forced cancellations from Britain's two female editors, leaving our political guest of honour to cope 'only' with the testosterone-hyped editors of The Times, Financial Times, Independent on Sunday, Observer, Daily Mail and the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs.
Second, for those not in the know, a meeting held under the Chatham House Rule allows participants to use information received while revealing neither the speaker's identity nor affiliation. While in no way legally binding, it is a moral code (governing the behaviour of the least moral members of society, the media).
In other words, I COULD tell you everything that was said, and by whom, but if I did so I would have to kill you.
So let me tell you first what was NOT discussed as the nearly great and the not so good picked over their fish-and-white-wine lunch beside the Thames: policy, either pertaining to a future Tory government or to its attitude toward the media, did not get a look-in. Neither did volcanic ash, our empty skies and the million Brits pleading (with the 'nanny state' they claim to despise) to repatriate them on warships from the Costas.
All we talked about was Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats.
About how Clegg “could not win” last night's second TV debate with Brown and Cameron “because expectations after his stunning first performance were now too high” and that his opponents would be gunning for him.
And, briefly, about the deleterious effect that a powerful showing by the Lib-Dem leader would have on Rupert Murdoch's massive influence on the government of this country, given that his powerful editors have always laughed off the need for a relationship with the third, “inconsequential” political party.
Bearing in mind the off-the-record restrictions imposed by Chatham House, a rule originated in June 1927 at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, I think I may at least tell you that the Tories are as mystified by Clegg's appeal to the ordinary voter as the Vatican is towards the outrage over the church's child abuse scandal: They Just Don't Get It.
Alas, all too soon the lunch broke up: the editors of the Times and the FT fled first, followed by our Shadow Minister breaking away to knock on doors in Godalming and, lastly, by the drift of Sunday editors off to stoke the fires of next weekend's one-day wonders.
Tabloid editors of my ilk, I reflected sadly, were made of sterner stuff: no Sun or Mirror editor would dream of leaving the table until glasses stood dry and all hope of replenishment had passed.
And as for Chatham House Rules . . . pah!


IN a small bar over a cleansing ale after lunch, one of the media men reflecting on what he saw as “the greed” of the Scottish Assembly in its demands on the British taxpayer, illustrated his remarks with this story:
A Scotswoman was walking along the beach with her small son when a tsunami plucked the boy from her grasp and sucked him out to sea.
“O Lord,” wailed the wee wifey, “Bring back oor Hamish safely and I'll be grateful tae God for ever mair!”
Instantly, another huge wave crashed ashore returning her son almost into her arms. He was saved, but she wasn't pleased.
“Here, youse!” she cried. “He was wearing a new hat!”

First published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne on April 23, 2010

Hey, Dave! Save wonga with Debt-ol wipedown

IF David Cameron REALLY wants to wipe billions of wasted wonga off the nation’s books he might well kickstart his efficiency drive by giving the nation’s zimmer frames a wipedown with Dettol.
I’m serious! My pal Patsy’s mum-in-law had a fall recently, spent a couple of days in hospital (where together they watched a government information film encouraging recycling) and was then discharged with a smart, new zimmer to aid recovery.
A fortnight later, fully recovered, she tried to return the walking frame she no longer needed to the Essex hospital from which it was provided. “Nothing doing,” said the local NHS Trust. “It’s a matter of ’elf and safety, madam.”
Zimmer frames harbour unseen germs, they explained. “Never heard of bleach?” fumed Patsy’s mum. “Or Dettol and a J-cloth?” Still no takers.
So she tried recycling the zimmer via the local Red Cross.
“Sorry, love, but we’ve got a warehouse stuffed full of the wretched things,” said a volunteer, not unsympathetically. It’s a nationwide problem, apparently: Dorset’s Primary Care Trust, for example, finds it cheaper for patients to keep the equipment rather than collecting, cleaning and re-using it. “It also minimises the risk of cross-infection” said a spokesman.
So if you, too, are having trouble finding a use for that redundant granny-walker here’s Five Things You Could Do with an Unwanted Zimmer:
1. Grow runner beans up it.
2. Cover with cling film to make a mini-greenhouse.
3. Add wheels and turn it into a golf trolley.
4. Make a tent for your cat.
5. Use as a baby swing.
On second thoughts, Health and Safety wouldn’t be happy about the baby swing idea . . . metal fatigue, you know.

IF you’ve ever wondered how firm a grasp the average punter has on subjects such as geography, climatology and global warming then this wee tale that has drifted back from Australia should leave you shaking your sorry head.
Robbie the Lawnmower Salesman from Spittal was visiting an old Geordie mate Down Under last summer and they were lying on the beach talking about old times when Eck says to Robbie: “Here, back home it’ll be Kelso Show this weekend.”
“Aye,” says Robbie, stretching out under Sydney’s still-warm winter sun, “And haven’t they got a grand day for it!”

IT has been a trying week up here in Godzone: we didn’t realise The Byreman’s chest infection was as bad until he missed TWO drinking nights at the Red Lion as well as Ladies’ Day at Kelso, a racing event normally etched into his heart as deeply as his own dear wife’s birthday.
Then a steward’s inquiry had to be called into the latest Grand National sweepstake coup by the landlord’s infant son AJ, a precocious toddler with the suspicious knack of winning everything he enters (indeed, we’re thinking of saddling him up to ride Lucinda Russell’s best mount in next year’s National!).
Finally, a brace of banking traumas for ’Er In Debt: first, our internet bank account was mysteriously frozen as we tried to draw funds with which to open new ISAs. Then the bank – having demanded proofs of identity as a means of unlocking our funds – refused to accept that their account holders “David and Gemma Banks” were the same people as the council rates bill’s rather more formal “A.D. and M.G. Banks”.
If it happens to you, by the way, don’t bother calling the automated customer service number with your mother’s maiden name, first school, place of birth and so on; ’Er Enraged did that and the robotic voice at the other end merely wilfully misunderstood her human dialect and demanded that she “try to find another way of describing the problem”!
I remember the days when I could go into the bank, blow a kiss to the girl on the till and blag a cup of tea from the manager, but that was way back when . . . oh, don’t get me started on zimmer frames again!
First published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne, April 16, 2010