December 2008 Archives

I leave the Post & Mail tonight after 36 years.

All right settle down at the back and stop the cheering, and you can put that champagne away as well and no, circulation is not expected to rocket from Monday. Look, can we just sit down and stop singing and waving the flags for a minute.

You will be pleased to know that I will continue to write the blog - can you stop that booing at once and put that chair down. I will have you know that it is the most well read and loved part of the Mail's entire website in a bar in the backstreets Tirana. Yes, I know it was accidentally installed as a home page and no one knows how to change it but that does not make it any the less popular.

You will also be pleased to know that - be careful that brick only just missed me - where was I, yes, that my rant will continue as normal in the Mail on Thursday but more of that later.

Meanwhile can I thank you all for your help and support over the years and is there a back exit as those appear to be broken paving slabs they are carrying in and can I smell petrol?

Peter Steinbruck, the German finance mininster, and Steffen Kampeter, one of Angela Merkel's economic advisors, really should watch their backs.

The last politician and civil servants to criticise Gordon and his gang ended up being picked up in dawn raids and banged up by the Met. MI6 hit squads could be on their way as we speak.

We have become used to the Government treating us with absolute contempt while the average MP is given hardly any more consideration than the rest of us by an Executive which sees itself as beyond both criticism and the reach of Parliament.

Yet when our elected members have the chance to say to the Government that enough is enough and that the rights of Parliament and democracy are paramount, transcending partisan politics, what happens? Enough Government toadies and lickspittles scurry though the aye lobby to make sure the Government survives. I hope the yes men remember that when they get the knock on their door.

The inquiry into Police marching into Westminster and searching the office of an MP and taking away confidential documents, many involving constituents whose rights have been reached, has been effectively shelved with a hand picked bunch of Labour jobsworths issuing a whitewash report sometime long in the future on a day when it can be hidden beneath other news.

Having come back from Dusseldorf over the weekend to find my car hidden in a canyon of 4x4s towering on three sides, which meant that boot and passenger side doors could not be reached let alone opened, the time has come for a rethink on car parks.

Accountants, who seem to control everything these days, see the ideal car park as one which crams in as many cars as possible, with people leaving and entering their vehicle through the sun roof, and with charges that rival a night's stay in a hotel. So there is not a lot of room for an ordinary car, let alone a Tonka truck.

So may I offer the simple solution that 4x4s are provided with a special section with wider bays which will make life easier for their drivers and for the rest of us - and charge them extra for the privilege.

It was the first show at my pub theatre at The Station Pub in Sutton Coldfield last night and it was a good one. Contractions is a play which at times is very funny but slowly, among the laughs, it becomes quite disturbing as you see the way large companies try to control and manipulate their staff.

It might seem a bit far fetched but then again a couple of years ago no one would have ever believed a British Government would propose a law giving the police, and no doubt a host of other agencies hidden in the small print, the right to stop anyone they felt like in the street and demand ID for no reason beyond being a bit bored or feeling a bit vindictive.

So a play taking corporate policy to extremes might just be a warning of dangers to come if we don't wake up to the fact we are already living in a police state.

But back to the play and Natasha James and Bronagh Lagan were excellent in what is a difficult play for the cast with a torrent of dialogue.

The play is on again tonight if anyone is interested. It is £8 on the door and it starts at 8pm with a Q&A session afterwards.

I suppose I ought to mention that the sound and lighting were particulalry excellent and myself and Tom Roberts, from the Lichfield Garrick Rep, will be doing the job again tonight.

What is it about mobile phones that means anything remotely approaching good manners goes out of the window as soon as they are used?

Not everyone is a mobile lout of course, some people them discretely without involving everyone within earshot in their conversation. But we have all come across the oh so important corporal of industry who wants an entire railway carriage to know what a key cog they are in some minor empire or other as we are forced to listen to their loud, tedious one sided conversations.

Equally annoying are the people in shops who treat sales assistants with utter contempt by conducting conversations with a mobile phone while supposedly making a purchase. Last week a women spent more than £90 in my local supermarket while on the phone for the entire transaction. Not once did she acknowledge the assistant on the till, even handing over a couple of vouchers and a loyalty card, and there was certainly no room for hello, thank you or good bye in her conversation which, I have to be honest, hardly seemed to be about anything pressing or important. Banal would have been regarded as a compliment.

This week I saw a man buy a packet of cigarettes by mime (badly) in a newsagents rather than interrupt a conversation with a mate which seemed to be about getting legless and finding a way home from some pub or other the previous evening. In the days before mobiles if you were not at home, work or in a phone box you were out of touch and civilisation managed to not only survive but thrive. We even managed to land on the moon without mobiles.

We have happily banned smoking in public places because it a health hazard so perhaps mobile phone users should be encouraged to be more considerate with their usage for the same reason - mobile phones are very useful but they can be a serious health hazard particularly when they ha