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MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Happy New Year?

ACCORDING to one in New York where an armed Yankee cop a really big boost by waiving charges of our local weekly snapped: “Go get a watch.” How we throughout the day for shoppers? papers a Mendip howled with laughter when we heard this They can afford it. My mole in the police chief is getting news; how we pitied the poor Americans Shepton Kremlin tells me that from the his truncheon in a with their distant, dour law enforcers. 1999/2000 financial year till 2006/7 the twist because And how wrong we were to believe that takings rocketed from £1, 003,000 to members of the our happy circumstance would continue £2,233,000. Scarier still, it is rumoured public have had the on this once sceptred isle. in the corridors of greed, it will whack By ALAN audacity to claim it is On the rare occasions now that you see up to something approaching £2.7m in GOODE near impossible to get police on the beat they are invariably in the current 12 months. any communication with the two’s and spend the whole time talking And as if that isn’t bad enough, I hear constabulary. to each other and ignoring everybody and the council’s politburo has appointed a His answer seemed to be that on the everything around them. Working on the caucus of trusties to come up with more one hand the police are very busy and on assumption they might just be looking swingeing increases in the months to the other we should all turn up to things for the public to make the first approach, come. called Partnership and Community the other week I said a very cheery What the hell do they do with it all? Together meetings so we can no doubt be “good morning” to a pair in one of our told face-to-face the myriad of excuses town centres. Mind you there doesn’t seem to have for not getting the style of policing we The one nearest turned, glared been much Christmas cheer for the poor want and deserve. suspiciously at me under hooded eyelids devils in Wells who have to go to the The sad thing is I can remember the and muttered a surly reply. I fear I can West Mendip Hospital at Glastonbury. time when we didn’t need meetings; only conclude our police now go to the The bus service, promised when the those were the far off days when bobbies same charm school as the Yankee cop Wells hospital closed down, has been at all levels took a pride in maintaining mentioned earlier. unceremoniously axed. close contact with the communities they Sadly, I fear, this has had two effects: Which proves that in 2007 you should served. since our police with their fancy ideas never, ever believe what any councillor Those were the days when villages had above their station (sorry for the pun) or official tells you or any longer rely on their own constable and towns had police and above their brainpower decided they councils to meet their social obligations. stations that were manned 24-hours a were not a force but a service virtually Still, look on the bright side, maybe it day, seven days a week and when you every aspect of enforcement has gone as will be better in 2008 (although my walked in or rang up there was someone well as service values. advice is: don’t hold your breath). there willing to listen and, when I don’t blame our Mendip policeman Happy New Year to you all. necessary, take prompt action. because he’s too young to remember the Now you can go months or years old ways and too inculcated with the without seeing a policeman in your new. But the truth is that his superiors, village and at the same time the number not just locally but nationwide, have of police stations has been slashed in our become so self-obsessed that they have towns. In most cases, those that remain disappeared up their own politically- spend most of their time shut and correct fundaments. unmanned, all calls being diverted to other parts of the county. Whilst on the subject of self If your grandmother gets hit by obsession, I see the twonks on Mendip burglars over the back of the head with a District Council seemingly went all piece of lead piping you’ll be lucky if festive and provided pre-Christmas free anyone comes out but if you throw darts parking in our towns from 3pm onwards at the dragon on a Welsh flag our from December 10 to Christmas Eve. perfectly PC PCs will turn up en-masse Now, before you rush to send them a to arrest you on the laughably spurious Thank You card and a big box of chocs, grounds that your actions were racist. you might stop to ponder firstly just how In the far off days to which I have big a present is this considering the cash alluded an enterprising journalist asked car parks take from our pockets an unarmed London copper the time and throughout the year; and secondly why was courteously given it. He then tried it didn’t they give us and our town centres

Alan Goode has spent his life working in newspapers and is now very active in the local agricultural community. We look forward to hearing more from him in the coming months. Do you agree, or disagree with him? You can have your say by writing to Mendip Times, Coombe Lodge, Blagdon, BS40 7RG or e-mail [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you on this or any other issue.

MENDIP TIMES • JANUARY 2008 • PAGE 35 COMMENT Mark my words . . .

WELL, you may not hours”, though the business park could can’t just blame the supermarkets. There are believe this but I really charge for longer but at the same rates as local butchers and farmshops who can’t sell did make a New Year the district council’s tariff. you a pound of sausages unless they in are resolution to lay off for Of course, this basically amounts to “stuff quadruple wrappings of cling film. a bit on the subjects of publicopinion and the publicgood” so We keep hearing that steps are being supermarkets in adding to the uneasy feeling that the twonks taken to cut down on this ocean of waste general, Tesco in seem hell-bent on being fairy godmother to but I’m damned if I can see any decrease. particular, fat-cat Tesco, Argos, Woolworth and the like So when is action going to take place By ALAN development whilst at the same time playing wicked before we all drown in paper, plasticand GOODE companies and the uncle to independent commercial activity cardboard? That’s what I want to know. twonks who run Mendip District Council. and consumer choice. And isn’t it funny, don’t you think, that But the Old Year had not even gone out Frankly, they don’t seem to see or care years ago in a non-recycling age we had when the resolution ended up in the bin of that there will be precious little time to get such things as returnable glass bottles for discarded good intentions after I read that down to the High Street after shoppers have items like milk, beer and pop and now, in dear old Shepton Mallet, the Sad Man of visited the outlets on the business park, or an allegedly recycling age, we throw the Mendips, had once again been given the that a 70p for an hour parking charge is a everything away? rough end of the ragman’s trumpet. disincentive for people to support local Once again this latest farcical farrago traders, or that they have driven another G And talking of funny, I’m reminded of a involves the district council, Tesco and a stake into a town’s High Street’s heart. story I heard over the New Year which development company. And once again the Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it involved a participant at a local corporate hope of a future for a traditional shopping again. Wells, and the other shopping centres pheasant shoot. You know the kind of shoot centre is put in serious jeopardy. on the Mendips, would do well to take heed I mean; one where townies dressed in a And bear in mind this is not any old of the results of the actions in Shepton and hundred yards of expensive tweed come out centre. This is the shoddiest, near lifeless the council’s kissy-kissy, cuddle-bundle of the cities once a year to kill more remnant of past commercial glory of any on love affair with Tesco and property pheasants in one day than the average local the Mendips. This is the place, more than developers. Because, mark my words, no shoot manages in a month or more. any other, which needs the seed corn of good will come of it. Well, apparently, this one felt a sudden resurrection. call of nature and went to the edge of the Yet the fact is that shoppers at the new G And now I turn to another hideous blight field to relieve himself. The trouble was he Tesco-dominated Townsend Business Park on our lives. I refer to the continuous obviously couldn’t tell the difference were suddenly hit over the Christmas avalanche of recyclable materials that hit between an electric fence and a hawthorn period by a two-hour waiting restriction. our homes week after week; to say nothing bush and was suddenly seen to be lying on And this came as a bombshell to the honest of all the stuff you can’t recycle. the ground writhing in agony. folk of Shepton and its business community Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for Luckily for him the worst of the effects who had been led to believe otherwise. recycling. What I can’t stand is the vast wore off pretty quickly. But they do say as For when this new architectural quantity of packaging that now how, for the rest of that day, he had a very monstrosity was opened there was talk of accompanies everything. And, for once, you funny walk! an unofficial four-hour free parking limit; that was then reduced to an unofficial three hours but now the land management agents have imposed a two hour limit and a whacking £60 fine for anyone who lingers too long. Interestingly, the development company, Spen Hill said: “We wanted longer but we could not get it.” And promptly pointed an accusing finger at – yes, you guessed it - the district council. The reply from the Shepton Kremlin was that the council delegated responsibility for parking policy to a working group of councillors who said that parking should be free “on a short term basis and up to two

Alan Goode has spent his life working in newspapers and is now very active in the local agricultural community. Do you agree, or disagree with him? You can have your say by writing to Mendip Times, Coombe Lodge, Blagdon, BS40 7RG or e-mail [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you on this or any other issue.

MENDIP TIMES •FEBRUARY 2008 • PAGE 27 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Smothered by sneaks

I SEE that the bad, correct dog pooh was being evacuated, the days in hospital and expressed the sad sickos of the children of Wells were having their opinion to my two sons that I would go politically correct Christmas party scuppered by some mad if I was forced to listen for another persuasion and the elfnsafety-obsessed saddos who evening to yet another symphony of loose-from-the-loony- complained that a risk assessment hadn’t bodily noises performed by my fellow bin elfnsafety Stasi been done on the last one and that there patients. So they hit on the idea of have been wreaking hadn’t been a first aider present. lending me an iPod. havoc once again; this The unhappy outcome of this barmy It was from this unpromising beginning By ALAN time turning their outbreak of namby-pamby nosy-parkerism they eccentrically decided I was GOODE warped minds to is that hundreds of youngsters may be technologically literate and with the badmouthing a little harmless humour and denied the chance to go to the Mayor of connivance of their sister bought me one killing off a festive bun fight. Wells children’s Christmas party this year for my birthday, lovingly engraved with To any normal person it would seem because there may not be one. After all the heart-rending, tear-jerking sentiment: difficult to imagine two Mendip the hoo-hah the Chairman of Wells Cheer Up You Grumpy Old Sod. institutions so unlikely to face obloquy Action, the organisers, said: “We do our Well I can tell you, if I wasn’t grumpy than Chilcompton Gardening Club and the best and I am not prepared to be pilloried before I received this piece of equipment I Mayor of Wells Children’s Christmas for something we are doing out of our soon was. First of all, every time I Party. good nature.” touched the damn thing messages and But that’s never a deterrent as far as And I say: who can blame him? I mean, options of all sorts came up on the screen these pernicious freaks and sneaks are what sort of state is this country in when a and disappeared, never to be found again. concerned and it is on that note I rake bit of adult humour and a lot of fun for Still after much cursing I did get to over the facts regarding the CGC, its children is smothered by the sneaks and grips with the general idea and so felt hosting of the BBC’s Gardeners Question freaks of the nanny state? How long, one emboldened to download some CDs Time, and the query posed from the wonders, will it be before the publicrises through my computer. There then audience concerning the plant up against this raging tyranny? followed an avalanche of queries to the Rhodochiton volubilis, popularly known Of course, in my school days we dealt eldest and the indignity of watching his as Black Man’s Willy. with such people by taking them behind eyes roll with exaggerated disbelief at my Now admittedly, some of the more the bike sheds to teach them the error of senile stupidity every time I asked for sensitive maiden aunts sitting by their their ways. And considering the freaks’ help. wirelesses may have found the subject a and sneaks’ potential for evil perhaps we Anyway, I’ve pretty well got it little too much to swallow. But that side of should do it again . . . but only after a risk conquered at last and I’m beginning to see things didn’t trouble the BBC bosses; assessment has been carried out and a first it was really a very nice thought to buy what rankled Radio 4 management types aider put in place, of course. me one. Unfortunately, there’s just one were their mindless imaginings about the small problem left: it randomly shuffles question’s so-called potential for racial G Whilst on the subject of risk the tracks of each individual album; which offence. assessment, I am reminded of the battle I is not so bad if it’s a CD of songs but it Well, I was there so I can tell you there have had as the unlikely old fogey owner makes mincemeat of the story-line of the wasn’t a gnat’s whisker of a hint of racism of one of those modern musicky, Pirates of Penzance, I can tell you. in the whole discussion. The simple fact is electronic things called an iPod. Oh for the return of the wind-up that the plant is called Black Man’s Willy It all started when I spent two or three gramophone! because a certain part of it is black and looks remarkably like a…. well, you get Still, although modern life may not be without its the drift. And this all led to some difficulties and irritations, today as I sit at my unintentional double entendres by the computer writing this column the wind and rain has panellists. gone and suddenly the weather has turned winter into So all in all, it was a bit of harmless fun spring. of the English traditional musichall sort The sun is shining, my garden is full of snowdrops, which was thoroughly enjoyed by the as are the hedgerows along the green lane outside, the audience in the packed theatre at fields alongside are full of gambolling lambs calling Downside Abbey and, frankly, it made a incessantly to their mothers and the birds are singing pleasant change from the rigours related again. to the sowing of your brassicas and all the It is a day like today that makes the Mendips other predictable horticultural rhubarb. nothing short of heaven on earth. Meanwhile, as this load of politically

PAGE 36•MENDIP TIMES •MARCH 2008 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Sound the last post

WELL, what a people will be inconvenienced, I’d like to But it’s not stopping there. Recently I rumpus the latest plan bet the great majority won’t even notice read a couple of articles – one in a for cutting down the that they’ve gone. newspaper and one in a parish magazine number of post In fact, I’m reminded of a Mendip – that the retrenchment on the Mendips offices has caused. village I know where the post office was is now going ever further with the You could be forgiven closed down and a public meeting held introduction of what might be called for thinking that the which vowed that the loss would be a jumbo benefices. like of it had never tragic blow to the community. And the terribly sad thing is that it By ALAN happened before. The parish council took up the cause doesn’t seem to raise a flicker of interest GOODE For goodness sake, with vigour but it took afew weeks or disquiet among the communities let’s get the thing in perspective. This has before a postmaster was found who was involved. And nor, as far as one can been going on for years. And off and on, willing to come along and open up on a ascertain, does it bother the Church of but usually off, the pleas of the about-to- weekly basis. England. be disenfranchised have gone unnoticed The villagers were asked what they Instead the so-called leaders spend by not just the Post Office but also the thought about the idea. Virtually no one their time having interminable circular politicians. replied because in the meantime the debates on such subjects as women Yet out of the blue, it has developed villagers had gone out and found priests, gay priests, women bishops and into an all-party issue. Our politicians alternatives. gay bishops whilst that unworldly have taken a short break from fiddling Quod erat demonstrandum, I think. dreamer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, their expenses and finding jobs for their appears more concerned about families at our expense to vying to vow G Mind you at least people care and introducing Sharia law than bringing the loudest allegiance to the retention of notice about the closure of post offices; bums back on seats in his own churches. every under-used post office in the land. which is more than can be said about the At the same time the Bishop of Bath Of course, I dare say some would call continual retrenchment of the and Wells guzzles up the equivalent of a it churlish to suggest that these on-the- increasingly cash-strapped Church of rector and a quarter to pay to have his make and on-the-take huffers and puffers England. own personal communicator. And even if aredoing so in abid to knock out abit of I mean, not that many years ago, every the question of why he should suddenly good publicity for themselves after all parish had its priest, and sometimes more need one is ignored, it still leaves the the bad of recent months. than one. Now the parishes have been question: who is there left to And I dare say some would shout merged into what are often laughingly communicate with? “unfair” to the argument that it is called benefices (although what is The truth is that the church has lost founded more on self interest and re- beneficial about a part time vicar on a touch with the people. Sadly, it is an election by our less-than-honourable poverty-line stipend forced to look after irrelevance. If it wasn’t then there would members than any real concern for the three or four, is hard to ascertain). be apublic outcry. honest subjects of the realm. But whatever the reason our papers, I RECKON if the church ever wanted to both local and national, are full of their welcome people back and learn how to handle its rantings and ravings and soggy with their money, it could do well to follow the lead set by crocodile tears. Public meetings are Duke, the resident mutt at the Crown pub in called, petitions are raised, speeches are West Harptree. made and local politicians and councils This hugely appealing border terrier/spaniel are called on to get in on the act. cross can be found sitting on a high stool behind Well, I’m sorry to say it but all this the bar, his large dark eyes and wagging tail attention has come too late. The time to welcoming every customer as they come up to have taken strong action was years ago buy adrink. when plans for retaining the whole gamut But this dog’s no slouch when the money is of services in rural areas should have paid. He swivels round and puts his muzzle in been drawn up and implemented. the tray of the cash register making sure that all And, although I know I won’t be of it goes in and the right change comes out. popular in many circles, I’m also sorry to And I am told, given half a chance, he takes say that it is time it was widely out his wages in the form of a fiver which he recognised the world is moving on and then proceeds to chew. leaving the post offices behind. And Personally, I think he’s worth every penny. although I accept that a small minority of

PAGE 10•MENDIP TIMES •APRIL 2008 COMMENT Who’s watching you?

THIS month my sermon from the pulpit of the sinisterly mind-bending about this Mendip Times concerns a parable of modern piece of equipment: otherwise living. It should, I suggest, be entitled: “The why would so many people Massacre of the Innocents.” spend so much of their life The subjects included are a lady who hooked on talking and found herself a victim of the increasingly texting. audacious actions of our criminal fraternity, I mean, you can’t escape the total uselessness of our police forces and them. They’re yapping endlessly By ALAN the skewing of modern “justice” to protect away in cars, lorries and tractors, on GOODE the slime-balls of society and disadvantage trains, in cafes, and hospitals; in town the law-abiding. market places and on the side of mountains. Sadly this disgraceful affair happened within the Mendips and And while all this is going on it’s to hell with how dangerous, began while the lady in question was at work. She received a call, annoying, inconvenient or down-right rude it is to anybody that purporting to be from her bank, saying that her purse had been happens to be near them. And so I was interested to read the other handed in but in order to verify her ownership certain information day that a market research project has shown that losing a mobile was needed. signal, for many people, is as disturbing as what were previously Grateful that her purse had been found she, in all innocence, gave considered the most stressful parts of living: moving house or having the details. It wasn’t until she got a second call from that she became a divorce. suspicious and contacted her bank about the matter. It was all a Therefore I feel this research has fully justified my long-held hoax. Thieves had stolen the purse and then had the nerve to ring her belief that over-exposure to the microwaves emitted by the God- by mobile phone so they could start the process of milking the cash awful contraptions frazzles the brain of the user. After all, what else from her accounts. could possibly explain such totally barmy behaviour. But if that is not bad enough, the sad, sordid story doesn’t end there. I mean, is it not unnatural to expect that in such circumstances Dear Mendip Times, the first people to get in touch with are the police? I am curious to know where Mr Alan Goode found his material for his Well, I can tell you, you can forget that for a game of soldiers. It is article Sound the Last Post: the second part, in last month’s Mendip time we finally rid ourselves of the notion that our police exist for Times, about the church today. As Rector of Blagdon with any other reason but to fill in forms, persecute motorists and Charterhouse, Ubley & Compton Martin, my experience is very prosecute on mad delusions of supposed breaches of anti-racist different. legislation and politically-incorrect behaviour. Nothing to do with For instance, having less clergy in Somerset is not to do with them, they said. money; it is because Somerset’s such a lovely place to live, that it has But if that is not bad enough, the story doesn’t end there either. I had more than a fair share of priests wanting to live and work here. So mean wasn’t it natural for the distressed lady to ask if she could see in the past there have been too many priests for head of population, CCTV coverage at her place of work in an attempt to identify the compared to elsewhere in the UK. culprits? I am fortunate to have the care of approximately 2,200 folk, albeit Well, you can forget that for a game of soldiers as well. The across three villages and one hamlet, whereas the big town and city authorities raised the favourite hidey-holes of the power- crazed, parishes run to 15 to 30 thousand parishioners or more. Locally, many bone-brained bureaucrat, the Data Protection Act or some other sort folk really do care about their church, even if worshipping there every of half-baked modern legislation. Sunday is no longer the culture. The numbers in all our special And so it was that the whole miserable situation took on an services at Christmas, Easter, Harvest and Remembrance are elliptical form. The only people who could view the CCTV increasing, and the Carol service at St. Hugh’s Charterhouse now risks coverage, said the authorities, were the police. And, of course, as we turning folk away because it gets so crowded. have now learned, the police didn’t want to know. As for ‘big’ church, if you know anything of church history you will So the moral of the story is: Can it be any wonder that criminals know that there have always been arguments over issues of the day, are getting braver and bolder in their evils to perform? Is it any but that in spite of them, the little churches continue to share together wonder that that they laugh at the idea of getting caught when the the hopes and heartaches of life, with faith and trust in God.. There are police do nothing and the law-makers take away the rights of honest still people around who are deeply concerned to see their church individuals to track down their tormentors? survive through this Godless age, and the more people get involved, the more can be done together – any offering of time, talents and G Of course, the tale above involves the favourite piece of treasure will always be appreciated, and in return you can be reassured technology of the socially inadequate, the mentally deranged and that the Church is there for your grandchildren. downright criminal. I refer, of course, to that ubiquitous piece of The Rev. Vickie Goodman. modern living, the mobile telephone. Blagdon To tell the truth, it has long been my view that there is something

MENDIP TIMES •MAY 2008 • PAGE 41 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Bat out of hell I WAS nearly run down the other day in the G And talking shopping centre ofone ofour fineMendip ofanti-social towns; one minute I was happily walking elements along, the next minute I was hurling myself brings me to to safety. Somerset Was it a boy racer in a stolen Peugeot County 205? Was it an East European Council, its pantechnicon driver with a wonky sat- members and By ALAN nav? Was it yet another tractor driver minions and GOODE erratically steering with one hand as he their held a mobile phone to his ear? headlong No, no, no. It was, in fact, some head-down cranky old bat on flight into closing down village a mobility scooter, with walking stick rampant on the back, schools and so depriving local children and adults ofa thriving, scything through the crowds in the High Street like some latter vital centre to their community. day Boadicea laying waste the Roman legions. I mean, the maddening thing is that nobody is suggesting the I mean, let’s face it, I remember the time when our village schools don’t do a good job. The continuing closure of pavements were a sanctuary of safety; the days when the village schools is all about some daft political diktat based on humble pedestrian could go about his or her business without over-simplified, if not totally banal, economic arguments. let or hindrance from vehicular interference. The policy towards these schools is down to the “big is No such luck now though, eh? Mothers with pushchairs the beautiful, big is cheap” theory now adopted as the mantra recited size ofsmall governess carts barge their way three deep on all sorts ofmatters by the governing classes in Taunton. through the crowds, teenagers on skate boards or roller blades My own beliefis it all started when the county made the bid slalom their way round the throng at breakneck speeds, and to take over all the district councils and create the Soviet Union absurdly lycra-clad cyclists abandon the road in favour of ofSomerset. Well, the public saw through this power-crazed what our US cousins, laughingly in our case, call the ruse and so the Government, in a rare moment oflucidity, threw sidewalk. the plan out. Sadly, in county hall they still believe the But worst ofall is the proliferationofmobility scooters propaganda they produced to make their case. which in many cases seem to belong to those anti-social But even worse than this is the continuing erosion in elements amongst the elderly who are prone to think that democracy by local and national Government as the villagers of having lived long means normal human interaction is not Binegar found to their cost at a public meeting recently. They something that should bother them any more. claimed afterwards that questions from the floor were Now let me make it clear at this stage that I am not against discouraged and feedback from the council representatives was those who find it extremely painful or impossible to walk any limited. distance being denied the obvious benefits and freedom But, ofcourse, that is the modern politician’s lip-service offered by the mobility scooter. approach to democracy; that is their idea ofconsultation. As the But I am equally convinced that there is a sizeable minority dear people ofBinegar were told, the county representatives were who could walk ifthey wanted to but can’t be bothered. And not there to answer questions about the future of the village I’d like to bet these world-owes-me-a-living geriatrics are the school, just to put forward options. ones who send you flying in the street and, without a by-your- And let’s face it that’s apparatchik speak for: “To hell with what leave, run over your feet in Tesco’s. you think, we’ll do what we want.” Our country has already seen examples ofmobility scooters being driven for hours down fast roads at four miles an hour G By the way, whilst on the subject ofeducation, I am and so bringing motorists to the very edge ofmadness. reminded that during the one-day strike by that scabrous Elsewhere there was the truly bizarre case ofa mobility agitrop union the NUT, I heard an interview on the radio which scooter being involved in, ofall things, a hit-and-run accident I felt summed up in a nutshell the problem with our education with a pensioner. system these days. If you ask me action needs to be taken before we are all A reporter asked a teenage pupil what he thought about maimed or driven mad by frustration. It’s about time mobility losing a day at school. The young man in question replied that scooters are only given to those who really need them, and the he was against the strike “ ’cos I won’t be learned nuffink.” riders have to take a test, pay road tax and face heavy fines Ifyou ask me, judging by the standard ofteaching in regard to and a driving ban ifthey are caught indulging in dangerous or his understanding ofthe English language, even ifhe’d gone to anti-social behaviour. school it is clear he wouldn’t “have been learned nuffink Then, perhaps, we could again walk our pavements in neiver.” relative safety. ’Nuff said, I think.

PAGE 30•MENDIP TIMES •JUNE 2008 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Giving short shrift FORGET carbon footprints, forget melting ice But if you did you would have reckoned without the bone- caps, forget rising sea levels. Let’s face it, brained reaction of the so-called Department of Culture, Media there is a greater threat to civilisation as we and Sport which ruled that the display would be “too know it from global warming than any of militaristically British”. these. Pausing only briefly to describe the decision as a load of dog I speak, of course, of the middle-aged and pooh, I move on to point out this comes from a department which above male scrote who at the first sign of the is part of a Government that through lies and obfuscation landed sun popping from behind the clouds decides it us at war in Iraq and also chucked our chaps into Afghanistan By ALAN is time to go into a disgusting state of where so far 100 have been killed, to say nothing of the hundreds GOODE déshabillé. injured. Out come the baggy, shapeless shorts revealing one of five What I would like to know is: with a record like that who’s options: thin scraggy legs, bandy legs, knobbly knees, a pair of “militaristic”? Is it those of us who value the unrivalled expertise pedal extremities that are so grotesquely fat they would not of the Red Arrows or the twonks who run the country? disgrace a billiard table or, of course, any combination of the four. Anyway, if you feel incensed about this decision you can Meanwhile, off comes the shirt to allow a beer belly of always register your opposition through the petition on the web hogshead proportions to hang pendulously over an overstretched site of Gordon “Let’s all be proud to be British” Brown. The and slipping waistband that is perilously at the point where a address is a bit of a keyboardful but here it is: charge of indecent exposure could be a distinct possibility. http//petitions.pm.gov.uk/RedArrows2012/?ref=redArrows2012 The “scrote chic” is compounded by a shaved, bullet head at the top, a pair of the ubiquitous trainers at the lowest point and a selection of tattoos over the arms, legs and chest plus one that travels, one shudders to think where, from the shoulder blades into the shorts. This glistening-with-sweat barrel of lard then thinks it his right to walk into any shop he wants to or fill any café, pub or restaurant with his unrestrained and foul-smelling bodily odours. I mean, what is going on in the minds of these people? In fact, do they have minds at all? Do they ever look in the mirror and see what the rest of us see? Or are these beer-belly boulevardiers unable to recognise themselves for what they are – swaggering, ugly pillocks? Let’s face it, whatever has happened to good taste? Where did common decency go? Well, the truth is we are on a slippery slope to where the lowest common, and I mean common, denominator G Talking of those who excel in their spheres of operation rules the day. reminds me to mention that one of the highlights for me of the So the sad fact is that whenever we go out when the sun shines last month was visiting Blagdon artist Martin Bentham’s our streets and hills will be full of the smelly, greasy shorts recent exhibition at his parent’s home in the village. brigade. Now I don’t know if you have seen Martin’s work but not Pass the sick bag, Mabel. only does the word “stunning” come to mind, he captures the G And talking of our country being at a low ebb brings me to an beauty and spirit of the Mendips better than anyone I have email I received out of the blue from a friend of mine from Ston come across. Easton who is an avid collector of the madness that inflicts the Last year he won the Royal Bath and West’s art competition world today. with a picture of the Blagdon butcher working in his shop. Seemingly it has been ruled by our self-proclaimed betters that This year’s exhibition was dominated by two topics, men dry- the Red Arrows aerial display team cannot perform at the 2012 stone walling and the farmers’ market in Wells. Olympics because they have been deemed to be “too British”. Other Mendip subjects include the gnarled old beech trees Apparently the team had come up with the idea of producing a that cover the hills, the views across the valleys, flowering truly world class display the like of which had never been seen hedgerows and bluebell woods. before, which must mean something really spectacular given they Martin’s is a rare talent and his work is a rare record of the have performed at 4,000 events worldwide. hills in which we live. I urge you, if you get the chance, not to Now you and I might have thought that this would be a great miss seeing his paintings. They are a reminder that there is addition to the games and not a bad way of showing the world still much beauty around us, even in an increasingly ugly that, even if most of our greatness has been thrown out with the world. bathwater, at some things we still excel.

PAGE 18•MENDIP TIMES •JULY 2008 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Completely bonkers I ASKED my doctor the other day why my blood pressure was so high despite my taking what seems like a barrow-load of pills a day. Being an honest sort of fellow he said he was not sure. Well, I bloody well know for certain now. It’s being absolutely helpless to do anything in the face of the idiocies being inflicted on us By ALAN all the time by the wazzocks who make up our GOODE on-the-make-on-the-take, two-faced politicians, our un-civil civil servants and our injudicious judiciary. Because, as it happens, July seems to have been a particularly bad month for decisions of the Broadmoor-bonkers kind. And the perpetrators cannot even blame the effects of the sun because we haven’t had any. Allow me to give you four examples. Firstly I turn to the case of Julie Lake, a World War II pilot’s daughter who lost her rag and leapt into action when she caught a Well, quelle horreur! – as the French would say – in the load of apparent yobs and slobs vandalising a much-vandalised extremely unlikely event they were ever as stupid as us and started war memorial in Yate north of Bristol. taking notice of the barmy burblings of Brussels. As a result she landed up in court and, amazingly and And this neatly leads me to the fourth example: the action of that shamefully, at the end of the hearing the score line read Yobs 1, sermonising Scottish nanny Gordon (call me Heathcliffe) Brown in Public-spirited Citizen 0. She had been found guilty of assault, telling us to do our bit towards the food famine by eating our stale criminal damage and a public order offence. crusts and passed-the-sell-by-date fluorescent lamb chops, as well Hoody-hugger District Judge David Parsons said she had shown as urging we switch to eco-friendly cars. And then, can you credit a complete lack of self-control. Well, brushing aside the question it, skipping off on a gas guzzling jet to the G8 summit for an eight of who appointed this witless wonder, all I can say is that the course dinner. world would be a safer and better place if more people lost their Let’s face it, just how much more of this lunacy, chicanery and self-control like Mrs Lake. hypocrisy can anybody take? Quick, nurse, the pills! And this brings me to the second example: the decision of the Government not to allow the cull of badgers despite the increasing G Didn’t they holler, didn’t they shout, incidence of tuberculosis in cattle with the resultant effects on the Didn’t they throw their sticks about. farmers, to say nothing of the suffering to be inflicted on thousands Well come on. Get real. When I criticised a couple of months more cows. ago the geriatric hooligan and lead-swinging element of the This match has ended in the score-line of Bunny-huggers 1, mobility scooter classes you would be forgiven, from the uproar, if Countryside 0, the decision having nothing to with the rights or you thought I’d broken all ten Commandments in one go and wrongs of the case but everything to do with our self-seeking poured custard on the Queen. politicians looking for the main chance when it comes to getting in Funny then, I think, that as I went about the Mendips I was votes. assailed wherever I went not by angry critics of my words but by For my own part, and with due thought given, I find myself people who said I’d only written what they had long felt but were coming to the inescapable conclusion we’d be better off keeping afraid to say. the badgers after all . . . and culling the politicians. I mean Britain must be in a pretty poor state when a majority of Thirdly, I bring to your attention the Monty Pythonesque its population agrees but has been cowed into submission by the situation in Bristol where a trader was ordered to throw away his fanatically politically correct brigade. entire stock of kiwi fruit because they were 1mm – yes, you read All who spoke to me told stories of mobility scooter horror right, one piffling millimetre – below the European minimum size. but the story I most liked came from a man whose student son For goodness sake, do we really need to spend public money on whilst walking, in Portsmouth I think it was, heard the sound of a paying people to go round measuring the items on fruiterers’ high-powered motorcycle following him on the pavement. counters down to the last millimetre? Why the hell do we care When he turned he was surprised to see an elderly gent in full what size Europe says something should be? And why can’t it just biker’s gear, including leathers and helmet, sitting on his mobility be left to the consumer to decide what size kiwis he or she buys? scooter which was fitted with loudspeakers giving out the full- But the morally outrageous result of this bureaucratic bru-ha-ha throttle brmmm-brmmm Harley Davidson roar. is that at a time when there is a world-wide food shortage, the Now speaking for myself I find it’s one hell of a relief to know trader isn’t even allowed by law to give the fruit away. All he can there is actually one member of the mobility scooter classes out do is chuck ’em. there who has a sense of humour.

PAGE 12•MENDIP TIMES •AUGUST 2008 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Farewell old friend TO tell the truth, I’ve never seen myself as an over-emotional sort of fellow and especially where inanimate objects are concerned. But I must admit I found today hard going. Because it was on the day of writing this column that I lost a true and trusted friend; a friend who in all the years of our acquaintance has been faithfully at my side By ALAN and has never let me down. GOODE I refer to Betsy, my elderly Land Rover pick-up, who sadly had to go through no fault of her own, but because the person who built her did not provide enough seats to accommodate myself and my grandchildren. Betsy entered the family just after I retired to provide me with a means of every-day transport that could handle the vagaries of their way through our highways and byways causing damage and driving on the Mendips; to wit the council’s reluctance to take obstruction and posing dangers to every other conceivable type measures to stop roads and lanes building up into deep floods of road user. every time it rains and the local farmers’ tradition of leaving So I say three cheers for North Somerset Council in taking more mud and manure on the public highway than in their fields. action and placing a 7.5 tonne limit on the A368 from its junction As well as being a means to move poultry food, logs, straw, with the A38 to Burrington Coombe (as well as roads leading off compost and other examples of rural freight, the sturdy it). construction of this Iron Maiden gave a satisfying feeling of It’s long overdue that somebody should stand up to the heavy- safety in the likely event of some lunatic townie coming round leaning freight industry Mafiosi who are now circulating scare a corner too fast with a mobile clamped to his ear. You knew stories of the effects in other areas as their members and their who was going to come off the worse and happily it wasn’t employees saturate different unsuitable roads to get round the you. ban. It also became the favoured means of transport of my border Frankly, this not only demonstrates their total lack of concern collie Maisie, and then our later addition, Millie the Tibetan for the public but also points out that to really work there needs terrier. For hours Maisie sat upright in the passenger seat to a unified strategy among all local authorities. watching for suitable places for a walk as we bowled around the Mind you, I notice that the Somerset Levels has its own way of Mendips and dropping down into the foot-well in disgusted dealing with the problem. I hear the rhynes alongside the narrow boredom when we entered built-up areas. roads often act as “tank traps” for the sat-nav short-cutters as the As for Betsy she never failed to start first time even on the wheels slip into them on sharp corners immobilising the monsters mistiest, claggiest morning or to dig deep into the very bowels of and leaving them stranded at a very funny angle. her being to spark to life in the coldest of weather. Perhaps the simplest answer, after all, is build ditches on Mind you, she had a great sense of humour. Early on in our corners of all our lanes. That’d learn ’em, as they say. acquaintance I drove from Shepton Mallet to nigh on Gurney Slade at 15 miles an hour, with a build-up of traffic behind me G Talking of pests, it’s a funny thing but after several months stretching back for miles, thinking there was something wrong now people still come up to tell me their pet mobility scooter with the engine - only to find when I got out that there was a stories. Antipathy for the anti-social elements amongst the users stick stuck under the accelerator. I swear I heard her laugh. is clearly widespread and ingrained. Now, I’ll bet Betsy II, another old Land Rover but with the Most, of course, refer to mad-cap antics in shopping centres extra seats to allow for proper attention to grandfatherly duties, and supermarkets but some also reflect the feeling there is a lead- will be as redoubtably reliable. But her predecessor was extra swinging element who could walk if they wanted to. special. She was not only the realisation of a long dream but the A typical example of this was related to me by a charming and reality actually lived up to that dream. elegant lady of my acquaintance who is certainly not given to In my experience, you can’t often say that in this world. So, hyperbole. She tells of being at an event where a member of the excuse me whilst I wipe away a tear. mobility scooter class arrived in the entrance. Insisting he could not walk to the other side of the room, staff G Continuing on the subject of road transport, I see that North moved chairs and tables to provide him a passage through. Once Somerset Council has taken a brave but commendable step there he got off his scooter and happily walked, unaided and for against those snorting, rumbling, tarmac-crunching, smoke- about the same distance, to the loo. emitting dragons of the road, the modern pantechnicon. A less refined person than myself would, I guess, accuse this Well, not before time, if you ask me. As I’ve said before, member of the mobility class of taking the p… (well, you know something needs to be done to stop these monsters from crashing what I mean).

PAGE 10•MENDIP TIMES •SEPTEMBER 2008 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Banging on . . . WELL, it looks as if number on the computer and gave consent the doom-mongers to the wrong application. And if that wasn’t were wrong when they bad enough nobody at benighted Banes crawled from beneath spotted the error until a third party saw it on their stones and the council website. claimed the end of the Nice ones, eh? As Victor Meldrew would world would come say: I don’t believe it! But you better had about when those because it’s true. In fact, Mendip Golf Club By ALAN scientists had a go at ace Councillor Les Kew has teed the two GOODE creating a Big Bang. I applications to the 18th hole of the legal mean, as far as I can see, nothing’s changed: system – the High Court – in what could be the world is still going from bad to worse the most spectacular Eagle of his playing Councillor the same as before. career. Les Kew Mind you, I’m not surprised. Personally, I The problem is that the applications will never worried about that particular Big stand unless Councillor Kew can get to the is only matched by its total indifference, if Bang. The one that worries me is the one High Court in time and convince one of the not downright antagonism, to the existing that will eventually annihilate us through the bewigged class that the applications should town centres and their traders. sheer stupidity and incompetence of our be rescinded. And anyway, what I would like to know public bureaucrats. But come on, let’s get real, how can these is this: what, at the end of the day, do they The continual litany of the crass, negligent things be allowed to happen? Is nobody in do with all the millions they take out of the activities of the army of sack-proof key- charge any more? Is nothing ever checked? car park machines? I think they should tell board crunchers, and the failure of anybody, Is anything going to be done or is it going to us. anywhere, to do anything about it is the very be the usual bureaucratic reaction of: oh stuff that will finally destroy what is left of dear, how sad, never mind? G Mind you, talking about escalating costs, life as we know it. But then as my old friend, people’s I see that the passenger transport company Frankly, I’m amazed and disgusted at philosopher Bar-stool Bernie, has often been that elevated getting you late to London into hearing the constant stream of examples of heard to observe: never underestimate the an art form has just pushed up the prices of the negligence and lack of discipline among power of stupid people when gathered in the bus tickets in the Mendips by up to 20 slip-shod hordes of government and local large groups. per cent. government employees, particularly in Well, I have a suggestion for how the First regard to their failure to master computer- G And whilst on the subject of stupid Group can spend some of the wealth gained use and computer records safety. people in large groups, I see that the twonks through this modern form of highway And now I learn from that eccentric, but on Mendip District Council have again robbery: they can buy their timetable fearless and invaluable source of activated their favourite form of indirect persons a calculator. information, the Midsomer Norton, taxation and bunged up the parking fees. That way at all their stops they could say Radstock and District Journal, that a In my book this makes a mockery of all what time to expect the bus rather than computer cock-up has now afflicted Bath the self-serving clap-trap spouted earlier this leaving the passenger to do mental and North East Somerset District Council. year by the leader of the council, that great arithmetic at some of them. For instance at According to the free distribution Journal, bearded bletherer Harvey Siggs, about Green Ore you are urged to take seven which takes a gritty approach rare in local keeping down the increase in council tax. minutes off the next stop down the line, journalism today, those banes at Banes have But what a time for the twonks to stick on Chewton Mendip, to work out when the bus managed to give planning permission to two an increase: just as the worst credit crunch will arrive. developments that its planning committee for years was about to bite with families Now I know that subtracting by seven is turned down. feeling the pinch as fuel bills rocketed and not in the Higher Maths league but what The first case concerns building food costs soared. about customer service? And again, where permission given for a development in a And on top of that what a time to pick: will all this lead? Will we end up being garden when a functionary got on the just as retailers are beginning to feel the given the time the bus leaves Street and the computer and instead of choosing the refuse impact of people’s tightened spending time it gets to Bristol and be left to work out code chose the approve code. And if that power and the closure of local shops is for ourselves when it is likely to reach any wasn’t bad enough gave the reasons for showing signs of acceleration in all our particular stop? refusal as the reasons for approval. Mendip towns. To tell the truth, when considering First The second case involved one of Banes’s The fact is, the total fascination of Mendip Group’s thought processes one is reminded own planners who was studying an District Council with town centre of the clippies of yesteryear cheerily calling application when a clerk entered a wrong developers and the Tesco supermarket chain out: plenty of room up top!

PAGE 16•MENDIP TIMES •OCTOBER 2008 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Where’s the money? MAYBE I’m just a Councillor Derek Yeomans who made Meanwhile another judge was sweet and the point that his colleagues should flipping his wig because sentencing sentimental old thing have recognised that when interest guidelines stopped him sending a serial but if I had £25 rates were too good to be true, they fly tipper to prison when, as he said, million quid I’d be were usually just that. decent, law-abiding citizens were bloody distraught if I Frankly his view, that the situation regularly having their collars felt for had to watch it going could have a huge impact on finances breaking stupid wheelie bin rules. down the tubes. And and services because the county was As if to prove his point about all the By ALAN my bet is you would already facing potentially large budget rubbish surrounding rubbish bins these GOODE be too. deficit this year anyway, seems the days, in West Wilts a house owner Scary then that that doesn’t seem to most pragmatic and, indeed, honest. found his local dustmen wouldn’t move be the case among the nogginheads at Of course, Somerset isn’t the only his bin because the elfnsafety Stasi Somerset County Hall, who invested idiot on the block. One estimate puts a claimed it was dangerous because it that amount in what has become the price tag of £110m invested by local was standing on gravel! Icelandic bank fiasco. Their finance councils in the South West, whilst the While all this was happening spokesman dismissed it as merely a figure for the country overall is said to elfnsafety nutters were proving that “relatively small percentage of our be £800m. there are more cabbages in the town available funds”. That’s one hell of a sum the local hall than in the ground when they Well, I don’t know about you but authority world has managed to bet and ordered an allotment holder to take “some small percentage of funds” or lose. The truth is these financially down a barbed wire fence he had put not it still amounts to one hell of a lot foolish virgins fell for the seductive up in an attempt to stop his vegetables of dosh. And at the risk of sounding promises of the Swankers-cum- being nicked. A council official said picky I would just point out that it is Bankers and so helped them to reap in elfnsafety were worried in case the actually our dosh, having been millions in bonuses whilst destroying thieves got hurt. garnered through the swingeing taxes the banking system. And then just to add to the idiocy of we all pay for pretty-well sod-all And now, to cap it all, the Swankers- modern life it seems that the whistle has service. cum-Bankers are receiving a tsunami been blown on a talented seven year-old But on top of all that their of public money to get them out of boy from Yeovil, who is hailed as a spokespersons try to palm us off with their own self-evacuated fiscal faeces. football prodigy. It is claimed he is in the claim that the assets “are frozen but What a nightmare! breach under rules restricting children have not disappeared” which has got to from being competitive and (can you be the biggest piece of persiflage since G And whilst on the subject of believe it?) it’s the Football Association Chamberlain came back from Germany nightmares I find myself remembering that’s handed him the red card! in ’39 and proclaimed “peace in our the items of news I have seen lately time”. that prove the sad, mad manifestations G Talking of remembering things I am And let’s face it – it’s also got to be of life in Britain today that were going reminded that as one grows older the the worst pun for about the same length on unchecked as the country set about memory, not unlike one’s knees, tends of time given the inherent dangers of going to financial hell in a handcart. to get a bit wobbly. sticking your cash in the bank of a For instance, I learned a gardener So it was the other day, after people’s country whose assets are limited to was stopped, arrested and charged for philosopher and raconteur glaciers, gales and geysers. Where is having a scythe in his van by two extraordinaire, Bar-stool Bernie, left the collateral in ice land, one might mindless coppers who made the mind- his favourite perch to entertain a table ask? bogglingly daft decision to class his of diners with a miscellany of his And on top of this, these purveyors tools of the trade as offensive weapons. amusing recollections. of dreams went on to claim the sorry Luckily in this venture their legs Suddenly he stopped and stared shenanigans will not have any effect on were cut from under them, so to speak. blankly into space before exclaiming in local services so therefore suggesting it The case was finally dropped by the a deeply pained voice: “It’s getting won’t cost the inhabitants of Somerset Crown Prosecution Service when it got worse. I’m forgetting my rememberings any inconvenience or one extra bean to recognising there wasn’t a jury on now.” from their hard-earned cash. this earth who would have convicted. And I’ll swear a hush fell on the It was therefore a relief to learn that But it didn’t take the decision until the room with all the senior citizens at least one member of the county hall last minute and so justly got a right present stopping talking – to observe a crew could see through this public bollocking from the judge for wasting minute’s silence in memory of their relations smoke screen. And that was a the court’s time. memories.

PAGE 16•MENDIP TIMES •NOVEMBER 2008 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT True Christmas spirit JINGLE those bells, evening activities. They enjoy gardening, organisation why not visit their website deck the halls with attending workshops, both on and off site, www.orchardvaletrust.org.uk hunks of holly and, including printing, weaving, baking and come on, pull my upholstery. Many attend college courses. G Talking of goodness and sanity brings me cracker. I’m really, The success with which East Court has to that wonderful institution the Ston Easton really, really in the pursued its founding aim became apparent Turkey Supper, which for a number of years Christmas spirit and to me as two of the residents, Paul and now I have taken as the official kick-off to I’m just hoping that Linzi, took it on themselves to be my my seasonal festivities. By ALAN everyone else is too. hosts and my guides and I found myself And as a result of my visit to East Court GOODE Mind you, after a being swept along on a roller coaster of with my taste for all things Christmas lifetime of turning all gooey-eyed at the joyful emotion. returned with a vengeance, I was positively thought of turkey, tinsel and carols as if I They showed me, with irrepressible fizzing with the Yuletide spirit as I entered were still a child, I really had begun to fear enthusiasm, the quite outstanding work the hall. that this was the year when the magic they and their friends have achieved in Well, let’s face it the supper itself is a would finally fade in the face of the pottery, painting, embroidery and other reason to rejoice. It is a true village event in unrelenting banality of modern life. handicraft skills. Another resident, the real tradition of the Mendips for which a What with the soggy summer followed Alan, spoke passionately about his own lot of hard work is cheerfully undertaken by by the worst fiscal fiasco in decades handiwork as he warmly welcomed me. a lot people so everybody can have a really compounded by the continuing avalanche One of the tutors, bursting with pride good time. of lunacies by the twonks, banes, at what her students had achieved, The hangover’s nearly gone now so I’m nogginheads, elfnsafety Stasi and the brought out item after item to off to enjoy the rest of the festivities. As assorted puritanical purveyors of demonstrate what the residents had they say on Mastermind: I’ve started so I’ll politically-correct perfidy there seemed made and the quality of their work. finish. little room left for good, old-fashioned Parents looked on smiling proudly at enjoyment. the results that had been gained and the G By the way whilst on the subject of food, But that’s the funny thing, don’t you happiness of their children. I hear that members of one of the WI think, about life. When all the good, sane, The result was I left East Court with the branches on the Mendips reckon they’ll be caring things in life seem to have gone the pointer of my mood barometer turned chuckling right through Christmas after a same way as the Wills’ Woodbine from despair for the present right round to visit to that estimable Glastonbury baker, cigarette, something happens to show you optimism for the future. I was back on Burns the Bread. examples of humanity acting at its best. track to get really stuck into Christmas. The group included members who are And so it was that fate dealt me a blow For whilst such oases exist in the formidably good cooks. But, apparently, this like a sockful of wet sand on the back of maelstrom of modern life there must be enthusiasm is not shared by their President the neck when by pure happenchance I every hope that goodness and sanity will who makes no secret of the fact that slaving turned into the driveway of an old house in in the end prevail. And if you want to over a hot Aga is not her idea of fun. Wookey, near Wells. learn more about this wonderful So imagine their reaction when the bakery For I had stumbled on East Court, a announced that the winner of the “make the home for people with learning disabilities; best pasty” competition was non-other than the kind of people society generally finds their pet hater of all things culinary. easy to dismiss, whose development as Meanwhile a little bird tells me that her personalities is so often ignored. family is living in dread that the dear lady, Whilst there I was to learn that East who is said to be much impressed by her Court was opened in February, 1986, by new-found skill, will serve up a Christmas the Orchard Vale Trust following the dinner consisting of a pasty with a sprig of efforts of two families who discovered holly on top. high quality residential care for their Down’s Syndrome sons was in short G Last, but most certainly not least, take my supply. Since then the trust has opened tip: cast gloom aside, ignore the doom- three further homes providing extra places mongers in their many and varied forms and including for some individuals who would enjoy yourselves to the very full. not find placements elsewhere. And from the very bottom of my heart: a East Court provides a tailored happy, happy Christmas, everyone – but programme of life skills for each resident most especially to all the wonderful people as well as a full range of daytime and L to r: Linzi, Paul and Alan at East Court. Cheers!!

PAGE 8•MENDIP TIMES •DECEMBER 2008 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Taking the medicine

DOESN’T it defy consider the other two options. And alive, well and living in Wells High Street. belief? When although people have been allowed to Indeed, this delightful thoroughfare seems something is really, submit their views, take my word for it, sadly to host a whole tribe of these really useful and really, this is likely to be yet another example of misanthropic misers. really works you can so-called consultation whereby members of I refer to the “Chrstmas! Bah! Humbug!” bet your bottom dollar the public are asked their opinions and then firms who failed to cough up a quid or two that the Government the Government goes ahead with the plan it to provide a Christmas tree on the walls of bovver boys will come first thought of. their premises and so left dark gaping holes By ALAN along in their Doc Yet the effect on patients will be in the city’s festive illuminations. GOODE Martens and try to kick considerable, particularly in rural areas like According to Lesley Watts, of the Wells it to death. the Mendips where pharmacies do not exist Chamber of Commerce, the gaps were One of the latest examples is the near- outside the towns and public transport can largely down to the shops run by national criminal threat to dispense with the be sparse. Even for those with, or recourse chain stores and the big banks (although I dispensaries at doctors’ surgeries, thus to, private transport there is the cost and spotted a few locals who didn’t join in denying patients a valued service and inconvenience in time, fuel and parking. either) who, she says, “don’t support this committing them, their relatives, carers or Meanwhile leaving anything to the sort of thing”. friends to travelling miles and miles to pick vagaries of the Primary Health Trusts, with Well, what I say is: they bloody well up a packet of pills. their abysmal record of bad decisions and should – national or local. After all they’re The fact is, of course, that the rotten management, sounds positively only too glad to take every penny they can Government smells a cost saving by suicidal. Frankly, the results are almost too out of our pockets. So it wouldn’t hurt forcing us all to go to a chemist and as a frightening to contemplate. them to give a smidgeon back in the way result it will be once again a case of But in the end, I’m afraid, this latest of festive cheer. sacrificing the well-being of the public to assault is yet another example of the fact And it’s no good them blaming the credit save a few bob to misspend somewhere that to the Mandarins in their plush, crunch either when recession or no else. recession-proof offices in London, the sick recession, the largely locally owned shops I mean, come on, most sensible and lame are nothing more or less than an in Queen Street, Sadler Street and Market companies and organisations in this world economic inconvenience. Square managed to cough up the cash. But have the nous to work on the well-proven How sad that such uncompassionate, then their owners obviously have a true and principle of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. unimaginative accounts-book-crunching lively link with the community. Yet Whitehall and Westminster have quite tightwads have the power to take the After all, it’s a sad day when businesses demonstrably proven over the years that service out of the once great National are so tight-fisted and curmudgeonly that they work to the precisely opposite concept Health Service when the health they cannot lash out a handful of loose of “if it works then let’s bugger it up”. professionals are so skilled and work so change for a bit of Christmas razzle-dazzle After all, for goodness sake, what sense hard for the sick and injured. to cheer their credit crunch customers. does it make to close dispensaries at So I suggest that next year shoppers vote surgeries; the very places where doctors G And talking of tightwads, reminds me I with their feet to mark their disappointment and patients come together? read that Ebenezer Scrooge is apparently and keep well out of any premises refusing But then it never ceases to amaze me, the to have a tree. No decorations, no jingle ability of sack-proof, redundancy-proof, tills – that’s what I say. gold-plated-pensioned un-civil servants and their masters, the never-done-a-real-day’s- G By the way the mention of pedal work-in-their-lives MPs, to make things extremities reminds me I heard the other worse with their constant, unremitting day that the new vicar for Chewton Mendip meddlings. with Emborough, Litton, and Ston Easton In this case the Government is is also a fully trained and practising apparently considering three options, the chiropodist. first being to leave things as they are. It is rumoured the local wags are going The other two are to stop doctors around saying this combination of skills dispensing unless light years away from a gives him the unique, but invaluable, chemist or letting the Primary Health ability not only to heal the souls of his Care Trusts decide. parishioners, but also to cure their soles. Well, it’s inconceivable that leaving But if you ask me, I think it all sounds a things alone is a Government favourite bit too corny. otherwise there would be no need to Happy New Year to you all!

PAGE ??•MENDIP TIMES •JANUARY 2009 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Cold first footing

IT was whilst 22-year-old woman shopper couldn’t electromagnetic fields generated by the scraping the ice off buy a box of crackers from a system are seriously upsetting my Land Rover, with supermarket because she couldn’t something called people’s “positive the thermometer prove she was over 16. Both were energy fields”. reading minus10 victims of the stark-staringly crazy There have been claims of headaches, degrees centigrade, contents of a new Explosives Act. rashes and even pneumonia brought that despite the deep Meanwhile Mendip District Council about by the emissions from the wi-fi freeze conditions my was revealed to have used the masts; one former yoga teacher has By ALAN blood boiled. Terrorism Act to send undercover moved herself and her son outside of GOODE If the world is agents to spy on a bird show (an event their allegedly baleful influence whilst really getting hotter and hotter, why the only ever linked with seditious plots someone else has started building small hell was I shivering in an early and treasonable deeds in the fragile generators which are claimed to morning Winter Wonderland in the grip on reality held by the minds of the neutralize the effects. midst of one of the longest and deepest twonks on the hill) and elsewhere the Sorry, but on first impressions, it all cold spells in years? same law has been used to rifle through sounds a bit too far on the bonkers side And, come to that, what happened to people’s wheelie bins. to me, a view which is echoed in the the widespread forecasts of yesteryear The elfnsafety Stasi are still up to words of an eminent physicist from that Britain would become a sun-baked, their acts of certifiable lunacy with one Imperial College, London, who claimed arid desert when the actuality is that of the most recent being to warn a all studies had failed to link wi-fi rain has hardly stopped hammering council it should close its paddling effects to ill health. down for the past two years? pools unless it appoints lifeguards. But then, after saying all that, a Yet, as we all shivered, there were (No, stop laughing. It’s true, honest). nagging doubt won’t leave my mind: global warming freaks, secretly wetting And not to be done down the food Could they just be right? their knickers with fear that their scam regulation fascisti are forcing had been sussed and their day jobs Cadbury’s to explain on their wrappers G Eh, guess what? Telling tales of the were on the line, trying to pass off the that their Dairy Milk Chocolate unexpected reminds me an enterprising seasonal weather as a “blip”. contains (titter ye not, you’ve guessed person has finally come up with the The trouble, I saw clearly, was that it right) . . . milk. revolutionary idea that the public might 2009 had seamlessly taken over from All I can say is: Quick, fetch Vlad actually want to meet up and speak 2008. All the idiocies and restrictions the Impaler. And start sharpening the with their local custodians of law and of the old year were coming in spades stakes. order. right from the start of the new. The According to the regularly home- crusade of the zealots, bigots, killjoys G Let’s face it, talking of zealots delivered Somerset County Council and doom-mongers to take total control reminds me that Glastonbury is a propaganda sheet it seems that in of our thoughts, words and deeds was lovely town yet even its greatest Highbridge the town’s flatfoots will be picking up apace. admirers have got to admit that when it joined by selected volunteers to run a All the rampant hysteria and comes to attracting freaks and weirdos Police Information Point at the local misinformation about global warming, it sits in a league of its own. Asda. promulgated by members of what is Embracing virtually everything from It’s only open two hours a day and now a multi-billion pound global crystal ball gazing to didgeridoo will only operate during the week industry, was just a part of the whole healing, adherents of the alternative which is sod-all use if you’re at work sorry mess that is England today. can be found in abundance amongst but, after all, it is a start, so don’t let’s And a constituent of that mess is folk living in the shadow of the mighty get picky. Let’s instead say well done evidenced in the malevolent effects to Tor. to the local councillor who has kick- be found every day in the hundreds of But even so who would ever have started the scheme with a £3,000 new and ill-thought out laws passed thought that Somerset County donation from her Local Initiative over recent years by our Nanny of Council’s decision to make the town a budget. Parliaments, many of which carry jail wi-fi zone would have caused such a I mean, you never know, if things go sentences for no good reason. furore? on like this it can only be a matter of For instance a shopkeeper in Wells Yet it seems to have really upset the time before someone comes up with the recently found she could no longer sell karma of the healing and spiritual mind-bogglingly, spectacularly never- separately the cracking bits to put in therapy classes who have decided that thought-of-before idea of opening a 24- do-it-yourself Christmas crackers wi-fi is bringing a spate of health hours a day police station in the middle whilst in another part of the country a problems while others claim the of a town.

MENDIP TIMES •FEBRUARY 2009 • PAGE 21 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Food for thought PSST, want a laugh? Did you hear the one about the trading standards officer and the doner kebab? Apparently local authorities from all over the country have By ALAN been spotted scouring GOODE their areas buying kebabs for much the same reason as men claim to climb mountains, just because they’re there. Which is why our intrepid heroes of the problems needing tough thinking and breakfast and they do so say he has Trading Standards Office of Somerset tough decisions. Not the kind of thing your astonished many a visitor with what he can launched their own ferocious assault on average addle-headed councillor or do with a dollop of HP sauce, a smear of the kebab houses of the county, fearlessly, jobsworth public servant would or could Marmite and a stick of celery. nay selflessly, tossing aside salad garnishes handle. But it saddens me that in his column last and dressings for fear their findings would Better eh, to chase some neat and tidy month he threw away the traditional be tarnished. politically correct agenda. So much safer; English pancake for some of those trendy In their eyes burned the desire to uphold so many more creep points from the savoury things that you find laid on by the fat and salt intake levels devised as drivers of the mind-bending, power crazed ingénues to the home entertaining front. safe by the food fascisti and the controllers of our lives up in Westminster. What I say is, stay with the pancake fundamentalists among the medical And so it came to pass that the county’s laced with sugar and lemon juice, or my fraternity. Their aim: to go where no man Great Public Nanny, a councillor described particular favourite, covered in lashing of had gone before; to find a week’s safe as portfolio holder for community safety glorious golden syrup. level of the offending substances in just (and what a sinister, Orwellian ring that And let the cry go forth: Hail to the one single little kebab. title has) announced himself shocked at the traditional English pancake on traditional And imagine the jubilation in Somerset results. English Pancake Day. County Hall when these latter day St But as my old friend and people’s Georges slew not one but three dragons. philosopher Bar-stool Bernie said: “Well I G Talking of cooks reminds me I saw Yes, they had three entries in the top ten of got news for ’ee. I’m shocked that he’s not recently that someone called Raymond the national league table. shocked at the cost and time wasting.” Blanc, who was described as a celebrity What is the startling result of the I mean, as there seems not enough of the chef (but aren’t they all these days?) was apparatchiks’ less than riveting findings, day job to go round, what the Great Public helping the pupils at the Blue School in do I hear you ask? Well, as far as I can Nanny should be considering is giving Wells to eat properly. see, nothing really, except to pass them to these trading standard chaps something Well, I dare say in these days of fatty a talking shop called the Local Authority really useful to do like gritting the roads, kebabs, MacGristleburgers, Kentucky Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services with clearing ditches to take off all the water Fried Rubber and all the other imported the possibility, perhaps, sometime, maybe, that is allowed to build up on our roads or foreign muck, the chap will be having an labelling the product’s contents. some bad weather walling up on Priddy. uphill battle. Never mind that every year all manner Although if it happened again I’d But then, it would be churlish not to of councils claim penury and snatch more recommend coating the portfolio holder wish him luck and if he does succeed I and more money from our wallets, never for community safety and his staff with suggest that the school looks next to mind services get poorer and poorer and lard and skewering them on their own harnessing the services of whatever guru less and less, never mind every year grants kebab sticks. for the well dressed has replaced dear old to voluntary organisations looking after the Hardy Amies. poor, the ill and the elderly get slashed. G And the mention of things to eat brings Because the daily display by the pupils Never mind the country is, according to me to say that I sadly find myself for once of shirts out of trousers, tie knots down to at least one Government minister, in its at odds with Paul Hartley, that most the waist and scuffed and dirty shoes is a worst financial mess in 100 years, never excellent writer whose chatty prose and sight so repellent as to bring shame on the mind that scoundrels, rogues and good advice regularly grace the pages of City. overbearing monopolies are ripping off the this magazine. To be honest I don’t think I’ve ever seen populace every day. Let’s face it, Paul’s a great cook. I can a school turn out such a load of scruffy No, never mind. These are tough personally vouch for his full English ’Erberts as the Blue School.

MENDIP TIMES •MARCH 2009 • PAGE 23 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Passing the bucks WELL, I hope all my one-liners which someone of a more fellow wrinklies on critical nature than myself might say was the Mendips are even more apposite in the current joining me in hanging circumstances. Viz: “If you can’t stand their heads in shame; the heat, better get out of the kitchen.” in savagely scourging Think I see what you’re getting at themselves for their Harry!! brazenly wanton By ALAN squandering of the G Whilst on the subject of heat I am GOODE benefits bestowed minded to mention the furnaces really upon them by exercising their right to seem to be stokedin the campaign to free bus travel. make sure a plan for a crematorium near After a lifetime of paying taxes on Shepton Mallet goes up in smoke. practically everything we earnedand Frankly, I feel ill-equippedto be too spent andsaved– andstill to be taxed dogmatic about the site under when we die – we now find we are being consideration but I take strong exception vilifiedfor one of the few tangible to the claim by planning officers that freebies to come our way. there is lack of proof of the needfor such For the fact is we’re being blamedby a facility when at present the nearest the Twonks-on-the-Hill for almost single- energy costs and, of course, that great crematoria are in Bath, Wells or Weston- handedly putting Mendip District current catch-all “the global economic super-Mare. Council well andtruly in the economic turn-down”. The distance will not be, I agree, of doggy–do. But the truth is Mendip’s finances have any great concern or inconvenience to the Indeed, I hear the leader of that been less than healthy for a goodtime departed, but it is one hell of an ordeal scrofulous bandof buck-passers, the now andthe pensioners’ bus pass scheme for the distressed relatives. To my mind Great Bearded Bletherer Harvey Siggs, is didn’t just turn up unannounced in the the current situation shouldbe seen as distributing this verbal slurry like a last month or two. untenable by any reasonable person, even farmer on acid at muck-spreading time. And anyway, what do they do with all by the living dead who inhabit planning My numerous spies on our verdant the money they mug from us? How come departments. hills inform me he is going roundtelling they whack up the council tax every year Andanyway you couldhave something everyone he can pin in a corner, from andthen come back for more whilst worse on your doorstep. After all, television crews to parish councillors at cutting the services we receive? generally speaking business at a their village hall meetings, that the Clearly something is wrong so, if you crematorium is pretty dead. amount the council has to cough up for ask me, the councillors wouldbe better bus pass journeys has brought his advised to see where they get it all so G Andtalking of having something authority to its knees. badly wrong before having the effrontery worse on your doorstep brings me to the And, of course, this black propaganda to lash out accusing pensioners of taking subject of showman Gerry Cottle andhis is being usedas a reason for justifying them for a ride. actions that have so upset the dear folk of economic cut-backs which – surprise, But, don’t let’s be silly, that would Wookey Hole. surprise – once again reduce the grants to never do in the 21st century. That is not It seems this purveyor of generally community andvoluntary groups andso how local or national politicians behave vulgar entertainment for the ghastly end delivers another blow below the belt to in this brave new worldin which we live. of the social spectrum has ploughedup the long-suffering populace, including Today’s is a culture where the notion of the village bowling green andreplacedit the old, the sick and the needy. personal andcollective culpability has with a course for crazy golf enthusiasts Mindyou, the Great BeardedBletherer been abandoned for personal and surmountedby a replica pirate ship. andhis pals are latching on to as many collective inviolability. All this has been done by the external factors as possible in a bare- I mean don’t you, like me, just yearn buccaneering showman without planning facedbidto avoidany culpability for the for the days when we had true permission. He is quotedin the press as financial straits in which Mendip now statesmen? Statesmen like the late and saying he took advice and didn’t think he finds itself. great American President, Harry S. needed it. Examples – besides the bus pass buck- Truman, whose dictum was: “The buck Well, let’s hope Mendip councillors pass – include falling Government grants, stops here.” take advice and make Pirate King Cottle less money coming from their Mindyou, talking of Harry S. Truman return the site to its original use. That’ll overchargedcar parks, allegedrising I am reminded of another of his great shiver his timbers.

MENDIP TIMES •APRIL 2009 • PAGE ?? MENDIP TIMES COMMENT It’s a dogs’ life NOW just a doggone them there. Even in times like these with one in minute, it doesn’t You see, it’s a badge of honour that we four pubs closing down through lack of mean that because I round up, not stampede; that we nudge custom you’re hard pressed to find one come running every and push so as not to scare witless; that by where I can go in with the Aged time he blows his sheer force of personality and patience we Assistant when he stops for a pie and a whistle a girl doesn’t stare out the odd dissenter ’til it comes pint. have feelings, can’t be into line? Even the Three Counties Showground, shaken to the core of But what is really laughable, what is the whose very existence is based on the With MAISIE her very existence, final damning indictment of their farming and the rural community, bans GOODE doesn’t want to get dogs from its events whilst most National her views across. Trust properties are pooch protected. After all, as the full-time carer for my Still, hope sprung eternal in my Aged Assistant Alan, I reckon I’m as fully maiden’s breast as I was taken to Port entitled to air my grievances as he is and Eliot in Cornwall, the stately pile of the so this time I had to tell him: “Move Earl of St Germans with its beautiful over in the kennel, mate. It’s my turn on gardens and parkland nestling the lap top.” alongside the Lhyner River. The reason for this bone-gnawing After all, the advertisements said bout of canine confutability was the that on all the days that the property article I had just read on the page of was open dogs were welcomed on the Daily Telegraph placed under my leads and implied on Wednesdays the dinner bowl which said Tesco had dogs could run around lead free. banned the use of dogs in rounding up Was it too good to be true? You bet. sheep in New Zealand. We’d hardly been there ten minutes And the report included some desk- when I was back on the lead after a bound sanctimonious city-slicker of a sharp-eyed steward came over claiming Tesco Tosser as saying: “We don’t have a that, even on Wednesdays, dogs could problem with sheepdogs but we need to only be off the lead alongside the river make sure they move sheep in a understanding of country life is: they want and in the parkland. considerate manner so they don’t stress the farmers to round up the sheep instead! Of course, as you might guess, the the sheep out.” Well, crikey, what a belly-burster of a joke Earl’s dogs, of some poncy, useless posh Come on, what the hell are they on that is, if you don’t mind me saying so. breed, were running and crashing about? What do they think Border Collies A farmer on his two legs walking is a everywhere with their superior noses in like myself have been doing over the sight rarely glimpsed these days. Instead the air. centuries while they have been evolving these agrarians of the 21st century spend Mind you, all that pales into into thick, uncomprehending morons all their time on monstrous tractors, Land insignificance compared to the response working as unthinking automatons to the Rovers or quad bikes and with mobile of a hotel which claimed it welcomed diktats of the supermarket shysters at phones stuck to their ears. dogs when we were looking for headquarters? For as the sheep and even anyone who somewhere to stay overnight during a For goodness sake, let’s get real. When ventures from the brick-box streets of brief visit to Cheshire. They wanted £100 you talk of sheep dogs, you’re talking suburbia knows, farming is now one of the for me for one night and £100 a time for about specialists, you’re talking about a most sedentary of all occupations any further nights! level of top flight breeding that makes probably coming second only to train Some welcome, eh? Some extortion your average aristocrat with a family tree spotting. more like. going back to 1066 look like a particularly I mean, get real, if anything is likely to mixed-up mongrel. You’re talking about give sheep stress it’s the sight of a farmer G So what I say in face of all this one of the top-most intelligent of the running around a field waving his arms adversity is: Build the barricades. Fight species. and swearing like a trooper. Let’s face it, the good fight for doggy rights; the right It’s all in the genes; it’s what’s called the sheep would die laughing. to roam, the right to use our skills and doing what comes naturally. I can tell you our brains; the right to be seen once that when there’s a barbecue at our place G Mind you, being a canine these days is again as man’s best friend. . and the Aged Assistant isn’t looking I can nothing short of a dog’s life. Talk about Because unless things change, I think I herd the guests into a huddle in the middle not being welcome, not being wanted in shall go barking mad. of the lawn in no time at all, and keep most places is more like it. Woof, woof for now!

PAGE ??•MENDIP TIMES •MAY 2009 COMMENT Fads and cads IF you ask me, I’ve could even have spelt muesli. Further away I spotted a greengrocer seen more food fads But what I failed to realise was that this offering Saville oranges, presumably during my life than was no one-off; my day was to be given under the delusion that they were grown I’ve had hot dinners. over to the full effects of what might be by tailors in Saville Row, London, rather They come in waves called the spelt experience. For in the than in Seville, Spain. and are generally evening we were kindly taken by friends Whilst elsewhere I noticed that a baker promoted by zealots for a meal, and a very good meal it was was advertising Black Forest Gateaux’s to the cause so that too. But the menu was dominated by, you (sic) clearly unaware that it’s one gateau, With ALAN everywhere you go, guessed it, spelt. two gateaux and goodness only knows GOODE everywhere you eat There were spelt croutons in the soup where he got the apostrophe and the “s” the damned “fad of the day” is shoved (rather more crouton than soup it has to from or thought they were doing there. under your nose whether you like it or be said), there was the speltotto main Even the editors of this great, generally not. course which the waitress said was a flawless, magazine managed last month Frankly, I think one of the first times I risotto (whatever that is) made with spelt in this column to change the ancient word noticed this trend was the arrival of that and there was spelt pudding among the till, which still has valid currency (see tasteless squelch of an apology for a desserts. I went for the cheeseboard that 2,000 page, authoritative tome, the vegetable, the courgette, whose very which came with spelt bread (no surprise Oxford Dictionary of English), to the name is French and so is clearly not to be there then). non-word excrescence of ‘til (a useless, trusted. Finally my host, in a display of wicked filthy corruption of until). Maybe I had a deprived childhood or humour, ended But it’s all of a piece, it’s a sign of the maybe I moved in the wrong social the evening by times. A friend of mine invigilating at a circles, but one minute I’d never heard of presenting me school’s GCSE exams was asked at the the damned things and the next I couldn’t with a leaflet end of the day by the English teacher: get a meal anywhere without them gate- of spelt “Was all the papers there?” As he said crashing the menu. recipes. But I later: “If that’s the standard of the Then gut-wrench smelling, vile tasting am afraid this teacher’s English, what hope is there for garlic hit the country at force 12 on the was one step the pupils.” Beaufort scale and suddenly you couldn’t too far. I even get a good old-fashioned cottage pie rushed home to G And whilst on the subject of spelling, I without the modern day chef chucking in regain sanity by wish I could find a fairy godmother who half a gardenful. sinking my teeth could turn me into an MP. I could do with I mean, they do say this abhorrent into a round of the house painted, a new TV, the herb is useful for warding off vampires, good old Tesco chandelier polished and a bit of heavy which says a lot about it’s capacity for white sliced. digging done in the garden (to say inducing nausea (which you will The truth is: I was nothing of getting rid of the moles). appreciate if you stand too close to all spelt out! Just my luck to find out this scam of a someone who’s just eaten it) but gravy train when it is too late or also, I would argue, shows these G Mind you, the use of otherwise I could have been by now a blood-sucking stalkers of the night the word spelt brings me to Dishonourable Member in our Mugger of cannot be all bad. In fact, I bet mention I am getting more Parliaments, taxing the populace till the they don’t like courgettes either. and more annoyed about the pips squeak and feathering my own nest. So I suppose I shouldn’t have way so many words are Some soft-hearted innocents have taken been surprised the other day spelled incorrectly these days. me to task in the past for writing about when I found myself awash Frankly, English, and its our on-the-make-and-on-the-take MPs. with what appears to be the teaching, has well and truly But even I, the great cynic, after a latest fad, an ancient cereal gone to the dogs. lifetime dealing with these two-faced called spelt, of which up to And talking about dogs apologies for human beings, didn’t realise very recently I had been reminds me of a roadside board what a band of happily unaware. I saw recently offering puppies unscrupulous First my wife and myself for sale. The breed was given dyed-in-the-wool stopped at a café where I not as in the Rev Jack Russell fraudsters they had discovered I could have soup who introduced the breed but become. with spelt bread, or a variety of as the non-existent word Off with their sandwiches with spelt bread. I Russle. heads!

MENDIP TIMES •JUNE 2009 • PAGE ?? COMMENT Pooh sticks I SHOULD warn you, about the Dishonourable Members of our Dear Reader, that the Mugger of Parliaments: they just don’t subject this month is get it, do they? They’re so wrapped up in not a pleasant one; themselves they’ve lost all touch with not for the squeamish morality and reality. or those of a dicky But as my old friend, the Rev Wesley tummy. It is, in fact, Slope, who has the rare gift of Christian given over entirely to understanding in the most trying of With ALAN the unwholesome circumstances, sagely intoned: “After 25 GOODE matter of effluent. years of Mr Heathcoat-Amory giving out To be more precise it deals with the raw so much Shhh-you-know-what to his sewage that is evacuated in increasingly constituents, perhaps it’s not surprising he alarming amounts, and at a great deal of finally wanted some for himself.” cost and misery to the electorate, from our body politic. G And so, still grimly sticking to the So firstly I come to that particularly subject of effluent, I come to those dog noxious form of effluent, the scam of faeces on the pavement of life, the Parliamentary expenses and, in this elfandsafety Stasi and their buddies, the regard, I shall pay particular attention to insurance company protection money that double-barrelled muck-spreader, the hoodlums. Obdurate Member for Wells, Mr David One of my innumerable spies on the strawberry farm is deemed to be – and Heathcoat-Amory. Mendips tells me that when he needed a you’ll love this one – a strawberry For it was he who decided rather than cowl on his chimney it coincided with the factory. pitchfork his own money into a load of same work needing to be done on a dung, he would charge you and me, the council house nearby. G And so, finally, to another area of the taxpayers, £380 for the privilege of My spy paid £20 to a local chap who state effluent industry; to the vast, and helping his rhubarb get a bit of a spurt on. nipped up a ladder, slapped on the cowl growing, slurry lake of quangos, Now goodness only knows that in itself and then off he went all in a matter of consultants and research reports which is bad enough but what really gets my minutes. The council, hampered by over- cost thousands upon thousands of pounds goat is, having been caught, he gives us burdensome elfnsafety rules, had to only in the end to state the bleedin’ our money back and then resorts to appoint a company to erect and then obvious. persiflage and obfuscation to justify his dismantle a ton of scaffolding for the For instance, a quango charged with being in the doo-doo. same job. And guess who paid for that. improving police efficiency immediately In an interview in his weekly paper Mr Yet if this was hard to swallow, hard on set to work by spending £70m on Heathcoat-Amory says his order of its heels came the news that elfnsafety consultants’ fees and is planning to take ordure was entirely within the rules and had stopped a chap fetching fish and on 340 new jobs and all this at a time waffles on about what “an incredibly chips to liven up the day for fellow when you can’t find a policeman for love busy” constituency he has and how his residents at a sheltered housing complex nor money and forces are still having work has to go on without being because – and I cod you not – he didn’t their staffing levels cut. “distorted” by the expenses debate. have an insulated box to carry the Meanwhile that basket case of a I mean is he living in a hermetically portions home. Government department, the Department sealed bubble and not heard the deafening Would you believe it? The certifiable of Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) wails of horror and the raucous roar of killjoys claimed that bringing back the coughed up £300,000 to hire two Oxford scornful laughter from the populace as cod-lots in just their individually-wrapped scientists to come up with a report which they learned how MPs have been polystyrene boxes represented a risk of came out with the earth shattering news trousering oceans of public cash from the food poisoning. that – wait for it – ducks like rain. national piggy bank? And following fast on the heels of this A load of excrement is a justifiable Just how does he have the nerve to came the news that a pick-your-own Parliamentary expense? A farm is a claim the whole business is but a strawberry farm has been forced to close factory? You can’t take your mates a bag distraction to his work and the fault of because elfnsafety wanted handrails on of fish and chips? You can’t climb a “certain national newspapers running the drainage ditches and cordons around ladder even for the simplest of jobs? Cut articles with their own agenda”? potholes in the fields. back the police to pay for a quango? Pay And, come to that, where’s the bloody The farmer says that in four decades to find a duck likes water? apology? only two people had been hurt but in the If you ask me, the country’s well and Mind you, that’s the worrying thing eyes of elfnsafety and the insurers the truly in the Heathcoat-Amory!

MENDIP TIMES •JULY 2009 • PAGE ?? MENDIP TIMES COMMENT

SignCALL of it a sign of the theNo sooner times had the Chewton fete passed The signs were up less than two weeks times if you like, but over than they were out again, this time before the threats rained down but at the whatever anyone says pulling up all the boards to the Priddy folk same school parents have been I maintain, absolutely festival claiming they were “illegally campaigning for nearly three years for and without question, placed on public land”. Only one action to get traffic speed reduced, and still that the verges, banks remained, I am told, at the end of this nothing has been done. and pavements of the wanton, state-sponsored vandalism, and For this criminally negligent example of villages in which we that was in the B&NES area. local government gerrymandering and With ALAN live belong above all And my moles tell me they are bashing parsimony we have to point the fickle GOODE else to the village and out guidance notes to parish councils finger of shame to the seemingly eternally the villagers. warning them of the rules about somnolent members of the Highways But then, silly me, I might have known advertising notices (only on private Department of Somerset County Council. that, like almost everything else you can property and of a certain size). They are The safety campaign began when the mention, the faceless, brainless, mind and also planning to give the imperial headmistress and some of the parents body controlling freaks that infest our measurements because they witnessed three near fatalities. Letters town halls and the corridors of Whitehall condescendingly think everyone outside were written, local councillors lobbied and claim to have taken them over. the Shepton Reichstag is as thick as a a petition raised. Yet still nothing has been How do I know we can no longer claim plank (measured in centimetres of course). done although the dangers increase. ownership of any part of our villages? Yet what really, really gets up the noses It’s not as if the parents are asking for Well, I know because in Chewton Mendip of the Chewton villagers is that while the the earth. All they want, and were assured there is an annual fete that raises money to goose-steppers sought to crush a charitable they would get even as late as last April, help fund the village school and church. initiative, a farm shop’s unauthorised signs were flashing lights, repainted road Like its counterparts throughout the have disfigured the village crossroads for markings and more prominent road signs. English countryside, it’s a joyful affair. months and months despite complaints. Nothing more, in fact, than most schools But the biggest challenge for its But, let’s face it, that’s the problem in a get if they are lucky enough to be hardworking organisers is to tell everyone nutshell. When it comes to exercising their anywhere but in Somerset. that it is actually happening and where to roles the over-empowered, dim-as-a-Toc H There are now vague utterances about be and when. Since time immemorial this –lamp, jack-booted jobsworths of the getting round to the job in September. But has largely been achieved, as with other public sector have all the perception of a what price their promises? What price a villages, by putting up signs on the deaf bat on the darkest night of the year. child’s life to the pen-pushers in Taunton? roadside extolling the benefits of turning G G up. Now, in stark contrast, I ask you to And returning to the subject of the So it was this year until a messenger consider the rat-out-of-a-trap speed village fete, I am reminded that it was from hell – well, Mendip District Council response over the banal triviality of the there I chanced upon dear old Harvey to be exact, but it amounts to the same fete signs against the deadly sloth of the Siggs, leader of Mendip District Council thing – barged in. I refer to a member of bureaucrats when it comes to doing and member of Somerset County Council, the sinister-sounding, little-known and something that could save the lives of who without a by-your-leave expressed totally under-publicised Street Scenes children. disappointment there was not a bucket of Department from the Shepton Reichstag, manure handy to pour over my head. who ranted that if the signs weren’t Being an intuitive chap I quickly removed forthwith he’d take them away cottoned on that he was clearly miffed himself. over an appellation I had given him in this Luckily, thanks to that generally good column. He said he wasn’t particularly egg Councillor Tom Killen (who to his bothered for himself but it upset the everlasting credit was heard to say on children, so this time I will not mention learning of the threat: “Am I the only one the term. to think the world has gone bloody mad?”) But can I suggest two causes which the threatened signs remained in place and could mark him as a man of action? The the fete raised its biggest ever amount. first is: get your Mendip Street Scenes But what’s going to happen next? Well, monkeys off the back of villagers trying to as far as the Street Scenes Gestapo and raise a few bob for good causes. The their superiors in the Neighbourhood second is: now your party is in power at Services (Services? There’s a laugh!) Taunton make sure Chewton School, and Group are concerned “vee have vays of every other in the county, has the road making you conform”. safety measures they deserve.

PAGE 10•MENDIP TIMES •AUGUST 2009 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Growing old disgracefully

NOW I know that teeth, glasses with lenses the thickness of Kay sees this is as a natural extension of Cornwall is noted for the bottom of a beer bottle and a walking her first venture of taking inner city the beauty of its frame? Is it, one asks, likely to pull the children from London to savour living on a scenery. But it wasn’t birds? farm and feels that the award is not just for the rugged splendour And if it does what will his wife – in her but also for all the other people of its towering cliffs, trainers, socks, legs like a billiard table, involved. the rollers crashing on baggy shorts and a skin-tight T shirt giving What I can say is: a meet-up with Kay’s the beach below or her the contours of an over-inflated bubbly, caring, good-natured self is to be With ALAN even the bleak and Michelin man – have to say about it? reminded there is a God after all. GOODE brooding moors that The amazing thing is, it wasn’t as if it The second award was to the man who stunned me on a recent visit. was just one pair of lunatics shuffling must have the largest collection in the No, what stopped me in my tracks was through St Ives. Their counterparts were country of lurid braces which he uses, as the horror of the outbreak of sheer banality all over the place exhibiting the ultimate in they say, to hitch on to the plentitude of in the so-called “power dressing” of the bad taste adopted by the dimmer end of cloth that forms the most ample waistband 72-cum-18 years-old fashionistas, for the Shearing’s Coaches dotage brigade. of his trouserings. whom the term “second childhood” might I wouldn’t care but you can’t move Namely, Paul Hooper JP, the have been invented. without being pinned in the corner of the administrator of the Royal Bath and West, I mean, what I want to know is: what pub bar, or the cooked meat counter at who has served the society for 32 years, sort of freak wrinkly thinks he or she is Tesco’s, by some fellow pensioner but measured in working days it must be pushing back the years by dressing like an groaning on about the iniquities of the nearer 64 as he never seems to go home. inner city yob? “yoof of today”. Some say he is the glue that holds the Is there a medical term, I wonder, for the Give me the yoof anytime, I say. At least Bath and West together. Personally, I think, kind of aging idiot that dons a bizarrely they have the excuse of being young and like his braces, he is eye-wateringly bright worded T-shirt, three-quarter length inexperienced. and without his support everything would trousers with baggy pockets, white ankle As my old friend and people’s be in danger of falling down. socks, a pair of outsize trainers and a philosopher Bar-stool Bernie opined: “The baseball cap? mutton-dressed-as-lamb oldies just prove G Mind you, my own personal accolade Come on, is this the kind of get-up that that a tasteless idiot, even after living three goes this month to my local postmen and lends itself to spindly, wrinkly legs, false score years and ten, is still, in the end, just women. After all, despite the pretty bad a tasteless idiot.” press their colleagues seem to attract, the service I get from our friendly, obliging G Moving on, I think there is something local posties is first class. especially satisfying in seeing two people, Even so, the other day they really whose worth you value, receive awards for excelled themselves. I received through their generally un-sung endeavours. my letter box an envelope on which my Let’s face it, the enjoyment is all the surname, the lane, the village and the post keener because so many of the national code were all wrong. honours meted out these days go to dodgy Yet some conscientious persons had MPs, verbally-challenged footballers and spotted the clue for whom it was intended various slappers and sniffers from the by the position I hold in my local branch world of pop and soaps. of the Royal British Legion and it dropped So it was good to learn that at the Bath without delay on my door mat. and West Show this year two people of my Now that’s service. acquaintance were called upon to receive from the outgoing High Sheriff of G Finally I come to the Goode bad taste Somerset, Annie Maw, her awards “in award which goes to the newly-opened recognition and appreciation of their Dobbies Garden Centre in Shepton Mallet activity and contribution in enhancing the where the porcelain urinals are (can you life of the community”. believe it?) in the form of two orchids and The first was farmer’s wife Kay Trippick a hollyhock. of Emborough who has worked tirelessly Still, I suppose it brings a whole new over years for the Children of Chernobyl meaning to saying you’re just going to Fund and in aiding young adults in Belarus water the flowers. And look on the bright to extend their farming knowledge and side, it could have been two thistles and a capability. cactus.

PAGE ??•MENDIP TIMES •SEPTEMBER 2009 MENDIP TIMES COMMENT Can I help you, sir? COME on, let’s face it, perfectly capable of holding a tray and one of our excellent local papers, when I do I look ga-ga to you? picking a bottle up. I can even walk and chanced upon the big, bold, black headline: Do I look likethesort chewgum at thesametimewhich is more WELLS CATHEDRAL WANTS ODD of pensioner that than was said about one American COPPERS. should only go out president. Well, I don’t know whether the cathedral with a minder? No, did Then a few minutes later saw me trying a got them in those days when the storm I hear you say? Well, I particularly cunning ruse to get served at a clouds of the Second World War were don’t think so either. till without a queue when he was back gathering, but the country seems to have With ALAN But in that casewhy, again grabbing megentlyby thearm and some very odd coppers now. GOODE on a coach trip to steering me back into the queue I was This was emphasised to me whilst Beaulieu with my chums from Probus, did trying to avoid. “This is where you pay,” he talking to one of my many moles on the strangers start to speak to me in that unctuously crooned. Mendips who mentioned the problem of cringing tone usually adopted by nannies I think I managed to keep my cool but it skateboard, banger racing youths causing when urging small children to eat their was getting a close thing when my self hell on the Whiting Road car park in Wells. crusts? esteem was finally demolished. I took out He tells me that for the local residents Mind you, I admit that the day didn’t get my wallet to pay the cash girl and heard thedistresscausedby thedisturbanceand off to a perfect start when, on stopping for that voiceagain: “You’vedroppedyour the patience sapping business of trying to coffee, I startled the company by crying out money on the floor. Shall I pick it up for get action by the police, left them with in grief when I found my absent wife’s keys you?” what might be described as nerves as tight in my pocket. I was so mortified I could have spat out as thestrings on a pair of Victorian stays. Thethought of going back to find she my dummy and banged my beaker on the In the end it seems that the council had had been confined to the house all day did table. to spend money (our money) to build not bear contemplation because Mrs G’s Still, after that I managed to enjoy my barriers to deter the rowdies instead of the wrath is not to be trifled with. But it’s the lunch with some friends, opted to stay alone police (whose wages we pay) keeping the kind of mistakeanyonecould make…isn’t in thewarm sunshineinsteadof touring the peace. it? houseand hit on theideaof That’s thetroublethesedayswith public The real problem started in the Brabazon circumnavigating thegrounds. institutions, it’s all “forums for Restaurant when I was standing in front of All went well until I got to the back of consultation” on “inishatives” and the drinks cabinet trying to find a beverage thehouseand took a turn down a small “ishoos”. And preciouslittleby theway of I had heard of and which was preferably gravel path – I’ll swear there was no sign action. alcoholic. forbidding entry – only to be found, what G Suddenly, this chap came up to me and might be called, footling around in his And talking of “ishoos” brings meto a cooed: “Can I hold your tray for you while lordship’s privateparts. little unfinished business. Namely, the you get a drink?” I declined with as much As a result a very pleasant lady asked failure of Somerset County Council to goodwill as I could muster. how I got there and pointed out the error of introduce long-awaited and badly needed I mean, what was he suggesting? I’m my ways in thesametoneas my restaurant road safety measures outside Chewton tormentor. Once again I found myself being VillageSchool. steered gently along, this time though a Surely it should not have been too much small picket gate to rejoin the hoi polloi. to expect the ditherers and bletherers at Mind you, by this time, I was County Hall’s Highways Department to beginning to doubt my own sanity so I completetheworkin timefor thenew set myself the task of leaving the school year. grounds to see if I remembered Personally I’m much saddened that dear where the coach was parked. old Harvey Siggs, head honcho at Mendip And I scored what golfers District Council and a big cheese in the would describeasa holein new ruling party for the county council, one. I was pretty relieved, I can didn’t get stuck in and chivvy up his tell you. roadmenders. And, in case you wondered, I Thelast timeI saw Harveyhesaid he had a wonderful day out overall. wished he had a bucket of manure to pour over my head because of the appellation I G By theway I was carrying fixed to his name. I have desisted in using out some research the other it sincebecausehesaidit upsetthe day in the dusty tomes children but I’m beginning to think I was holding the back numbers of right in the first place.

MENDIP TIMES •OCTOBER 2009 • PAGE 51 COMMENT Give generously WELL, I hope by the day not better? believe it? They bunkerised the town everyone is going to However, one thing is certain: hall. give especially concern and bafflement among the God knows what teeming, clamouring generously to the general public over this Afghanistan hordes their fetid minds imagined Poppy Appeal this business is now palpable. This was no would turn up to listen to their year because the better illustrated than by the Poppy interminable witterings but in the event, Royal British Legion Appeal Supper organised by my local and quite predictably to anyone ofan is certainly going to branch ofthe British Legion. undisturbed mind, only two members of With ALAN need all the money it The attendance doubled this year the public and two reporters arrived and GOODE can get the way the because the speaker was a recently requested to be let in. war in Afghanistan is going. retired officer who latterly served in Having been told they couldn’t, I The death toll is inexorably rising and Afghanistan. The simple fact is that the understand it was agreed by the four as for the mounting number of injured, people of this country are looking for would-be attendees that whilst two may all we know is that it must be a lot the answers the politicians won’t give. be company, four certainly didn’t make because official sources claim not to Still after all’s said and done, these a crowd and therefore they reluctantly have kept a record. are the sad but disputable facts: we are forsook the opportunity to riot or storm I mean, can you believe it? Our at war, deaths and injuries will continue the council chamber (though this must soldiers are losing limbs, losing eyes, to mount whilst the conflict continues, have been much to the reliefofthin getting shot and blown up and yet no there will be one hell oflot ofpeople blue line who, no doubt, wanted to get one knows the full effect of the misery needing help as a result and back to their proper job, filling in forms and suffering being imposed upon Government aid will be totally at the police station). them. inadequate to look after them. Anyway, at the end ofthe meeting Yet what we do know from So that is why every year, but this some pretty anodyne statements were experience is that Government year in particular, the British Legion’s made by the Lilliputian council and its provision (and this goes for any Poppy Appeal –as well as other service Lilliputian councillors who over-played Government) will be wholly and charities – needs all the help and the over-played “legal reasons” card, a disgracefully inadequate to look after support that you can give. gambit that has become the last refuge the men and women, and their families, Please, please give generously. ofscoundrels, question-dodging who have been affected by service in politicians and blame-dodging G this God-forsaken land. And so now to the ludicrously bureaucrats. And nor will there be a proper aid incongruous Wells City Council with its This, ofcourse, leaves the public, the programme for the “hidden” victims leaning towards pomp and self- very people the councillors are that all conflicts produce, the trauma importance, a stance which is in supposed to be beholden to, with no sufferers who, tragically unable to cope diametric contradiction to its pathetic idea ofwhat is going on. any longer with the demands ofdaily insignificance as a local council entity. So for goodness sake, do you know? life, will end up on drugs, in the gutter This divergence between self- You do? Is that what it’s all about? Are or in prison. delusion and stark reality could not you sure? Well, I never did! But ifwe know that our heroes will have been better demonstrated than Ofcourse, you may say so but I be thrown on the scrapheap of with the intriguing affair of the couldn’t possibly comment. Government indifference and “resignation with immediate effect” of G ingratitude, do we really know why we its town clerk over the alleged “misuse However, now to something I can are in Afghanistan in the first place? of a computer and financial comment on for whilst wandering Let’s face it, we were told we had to mismanagement”. through one ofour Mendip towns I hang on to the coat tails ofthe Yanks Because when it came to discuss this came across a printed poster outside an and invade Iraq on a bare-faced lie matter, the councillors arbitrarily optician’s shop, Vision Express to be concerning non-existent weapons of waived aside all pretence at democracy precise, which read: We welcome mass destruction and does this “fighting and held the meeting “in camera” and prescriptions from other optician’s. the war on terror” escapade look any so away from the ears and eyes of the I can only assume the aberrant, more convincing? And is it achieving good burghers to whom they allegedly abhorrent apostrophe was missed anything? report. because the proofreader had poor And anyway, just how long are our And furthermore in such secrecy did eyesight. service personnel going to be offered they decide to discuss the matter and so Perhaps he should have gone to up like lambs to the sacrifice because, important did they conceive themselves, Specsavers. watching television and reading the they called in two police officers and papers, the situation seems to get worse barricaded the entrance. Can you

MENDIP TIMES •NOVEMBER 2009 • PAGE ?? COMMENT Merry Christmas and Godt Nytar! COME on, out with stops to make sure that everything was old Councillor Harvey Siggs said, when the paper hats, stock done for us children and visiting cousins. he expressed the wish to pour a bucket of up with party poppers For example Christmas Eve our manure over my head because of an and put the mulled stockings would be filled with a few appellation I had conferred upon him, for wine on the stove. presents. the sake of the children. It’s Christmas time “But the main event would be Although, of course, in my case it’s the again: presents, cards, Christmas Day. In the evening there readers who inundated me with emails turkey, tinsel and all would be anything between 15 and 20 expressing disappointment. Well, OK With ALAN the trimmings. relations and friends. then, two (my grandchildren) but I bet GOODE It’s the time for the “After tea about six o’clock we would there were a lot more lost in transit. young to so enjoy Christmas that the all be in the sitting room playing games, And on top of that there was all the happy memories will stay with them for when all of a sudden we would hear a cruel raillery that I had to take from the rest of their lives. And it’s the time big rumbling noise in the bedroom above fellow correspondent Paul Hartley who for their grandparents to nostalgically and then thump, thump, thump all along pointed out every time I went to his dream of their own childhood Christmas the landing, down the stairs and he bistro café not only was his picture days. would appear with two, sometimes two- always in the magazine but it was always And so in order, Dear Reader, to help and-a-half cwt, corn sacks filled with twice the size of mine. you get into the festive swing I take the presents. I mean it’s too, too upsetting. More liberty to share with you the fond “The air was electric to us all, than once I had to ask him to pour me a recollections of Christmases Past especially a cousin aged about six years fourth glass of wine to settle my nerves. contained in the memoirs written by my who had come for the first time. He did G dear friend and retired farmer, Arthur not know whether he should hide, scream Anyway, straight back to the festive Green. or cry. Unless you were in that room at theme and so let me wish you a Zalig Arthur spent his childhood in the 20s the time Father Christmas opened the Kerstfeast, Joyeux Noel, Froehliche and 30s of the last century and lived with door you have no idea of the atmosphere Weinachten, Buone feste Natalizie, Feliz his family in a large farmhouse on the amongst young and old. Navidid, Boze Narodzenie and a Kela Mendips. His memory is still alive with “I always thanked my parents for that. Christouyenna. the joys of the family’s celebrations. We felt that we had something special I mean, it would never do for it to be He writes: “When it came to Christmas and that nobody was as lucky as us.” said this column is slow to adopt the new he (my father) would pull out all the To me this magical tale conjures up the so it’s only right following the Lisbon wonders of Christmas as it should be: treaty thing being foisted upon us I family, children, presents and an all- should wish everyone a Merry Christmas pervading atmosphere of contentment in an all-embracing Euro-way. and goodwill. My friend goes on to Actually, to be truthful, it’s not as all- express the view this kind of event could embracing as all that as there’s a hell of a not happen now because of TV, the lot of other languages in Euroland but commercialisation of Christmas and the quite frankly I got fed up with the restrictions placed by political bewildering juxtaposition of letters. correctness. Mind you that’s the whole problem But on this point I’m not so sure I go with this EU thing as I see it – you can all the way with him. I can’t help feeling only pay it so much attention before you that Christmas is old enough and special fall off your seat in total mind-numbing, enough to carry on throughout all the spirit-sapping boredom. onslaughts placed upon it by modern life. Still, I don’t suppose it will take the Call me an old softy if you wish but I’d Euro-prats long to get stuck into drawing like to bet in sixty years time the young up a Euro-law which insists, throughout of today will be saying to their the Great Presidency, we should all use grandchildren: “Did I ever tell you of the the same greeting. (Probably, Joyeux wonderful Christmases I had as a child . . Noel as the French seem to get their way ?” on everything else). So while I still have the chance I will G Talking of Christmas presents reminds take the opportunity to wish you all a me that the one thing I would like is my very, very Happy Christmas and a picture back with this column. Not for prosperous and Godt Nytar (Oops! I went personal reasons, of course. But as dear all Continental again).

MENDIP TIMES •DECEMBER 2009 • PAGE 59 COMMENT

BarkingJUST look at me in this picture.mad! For A Mendip adder yesterday goodness sake, what dignity is there in it for ayoung ladyof asensitive disposition? No wonder I look anything but in a merry Christmas mood forced to dress up like this. Yes, I know it’s the time of year when we are supposed to be full of the festive spirit With DAISIE and oozing good will to all but what I want GOODE to know is: why do I have to go through this performance? I mean, it’s the same every year. Out come those tune- playing antlers, out comes the tinsel and out come the cameras. How they laugh, how they hoot as they click away. Mind you, I reckon the last laugh is on me because I’ve developed what the late Humphrey Lyttelton might have described as the antidote to Christmas party games. More potentially damaging to household contents than blind odd pheasant or deer. Just part of the harmless fun of a good man’s buff and likely to give an elfnsafety officer a heart day out, I always thought. attack (make sure you invite one), it will make any party That was until I was taken for a walk in August and as I came explode into feverish activity. It’s a must for every festive back to the path found that my left back leg was sore. I didn’t canine funster: Maisie Goode’s “The Be Quiet Game”. think much of it at the time and the Aged Companion had a look What I do is wait until mid-afternoon on Christmas Day and couldn’t see anything wrong. when everyone has eaten a huge lunch and drunk too much But by the evening my paw was swollen and by the next wine. To get the best out of the game I ensure they’re all morning so was the whole of my back leg and it was straight off to sitting down and about to nod off. the vet. Despite several sorts of tablets I spent the night I then rush round and bark at each one of them, so they all whimpering with pain. shout: Be Quiet. I run round again barking louder. They all Then it got gradually worse. Blood began to ooze out of the shout louder: Be Quiet. This encourages my Tibetan terrier pores of the leg and it became so bad that I woke up one morning bean bag-sharing pal Millie to join in and we repeat this part of to find that I was lying in a pool of blood and that there was the game several times. another one at the spot where I had first lain down. Finally they try to grab me and I dodge them streaking Still that seemed to be the turning point and I started to get better through the living room, dining room, kitchen, utility room, although it was some time before I could really enjoy walks again. conservatory, up the stairs and back again until they shout: And I can tell you, I’m not so keen to bash through the trees “Chase that bloody dog into the garden.” anymore. At this point it can be guaranteed that my Aged Companion So just a word of friendly advice to my doggy readers and their will lose his temper and roar: “Leave my dog alone. This is her owners: keep a watch out on hot sunny days for dozing adders home not yours.” He will then use his best dog-trainer’s voice because they’re pretty nasty when they become roused. and say: “Sit!” G This is my cue. I sit down immediately and look up at him, But now for some happy news so come over here and let me my blue eyes liquid pools of love and obedience. “You see,” he whisper something I haven’t told anyone before: I’m in love says, “all you have to do is treat her properly.” And from Yes, and (would you believe?) it’s with a fellow canine writer. another room my acute hearing picks up someone saying sotto Mind you, it’s an unrequited passion. We’ve never met. I’ve just voce: “It just wouldn’t be Christmas without Dad having one read his articles. on him.” His name is Dooggie and he writes in the monthly What’s About And so once again it’s game, set and match to Maisie Goode. Guide that you can pick up round about the Mendips. He looks the After all, if they think they can turn me into a reindeer, I’ll real, rugged He-Dog in his picture. show them I can make monkeys out of them. Oh, how sad I was when I read he’d had many homes in his short life, how happy I was when I learned how he loved his new G On a more serious note I think I’m lucky to have seen this home and his new mum and hoped to stay there, how I cried when Christmas because, frankly I had a remarkable escape from he wrote about the pain of his sore earole. death after being attacked by an adder. So, with my heart all a-flutter, loads of woofs and kisses to Up to then I never saw anything wrong in bashing through darling Dooggie for 2010 and, of course, a very happy New Year the undergrowth in the woods looking for rabbits or even the to you all.

MENDIP TIMES •JANUARY 2010 • PAGE ?? MENDIP TIMES COMMENT What we need – true grit TODAY, Dear Reader, added, to calls from the police, not the vacuous banality leaving us non-the-wiser. I urge you to settle public. But putting David Thomson on one side, comfortably in your So Councillor Anderson rang the police what about the findings of this report and pews and consider the who rang the highways department by what about the culpability of the parable of The Parrot whom they were told: “We only grit A- Conservative administration and the and the Foolish class roads.” Liberal Democrat opposition in sitting over Virgins (the latter Then on behalf of Councillor Anderson a council which has been told it’s got to were, you may recall, BBC Radio Somerset rang the highways improve so it provides value for money, With ALAN the maidens of old department and the station was told: “We high quality service and meets people’s GOODE who let the lamps run only grit A-class roads.” needs? dry of oil through lack of forward Mind you, I can understand why What the public needs to know is: did planning). Somerset County Council has taken to the councillors sit on this state of affairs For it seems Somerset County Council employing parrots to speak to the public. and do nothing or did they just not notice? has appointed a parrot to answer questions After all, what the public now needs is And either way, is it not time some of their regarding the gritting or rather, as in most totally subservient to what the tin-Hitlers heads rolled on the basis they have been cases, the non-gritting (I mean did you see decide we’re going to get. Therefore, lamentably deficient in carrying out their the state of Wells shopping centre?) of our human interaction is obviously redundant. duties? roads. Fundamentally, of course, the reason the I wish I had a bucket of manure to pour Anyway, following my perusal of a piece county is under-stocked with enough grit over their heads! in that estimable weekly paper, the Wells for a rather cold winter is myopic planning G Journal, I was led to the inescapable and an unwillingness to free up money by Now what I want to know is: what does conclusion that only a parrot could have cutting back silly, pet schemes that starve a man of ripening years do with a second- been trained to chant interminably: “We vital services of funding. hand, three feet long, cuddly, only grit A-class roads.” If you ask me, the skids should be put hippopotamus called Henry to whom he For, apparently, it doesn’t matter what under council leader Ken Maddock and his suddenly finds he has given a home? question you ask about the snow and ice- troupe of fellow municipal Foolish Virgins This is the conundrum I face having bound roads, just as Long John Silver’s who between them have led the county to a managed to out-perform all my previous parrot recited “pieces of eight, pieces of grit shortage, all because, like those silly dire results by achieving the lowest score at eight”, this one squawks: “We only grit A- girls of old, they didn’t ensure they’d have a whist drive at the Mendip home of that class roads.” enough. convivial raconteur and reclamationist You can plead for action to be taken David Watts and getting the wooden spoon, G because aged grannies are shooting down By the way, talking of skidding reminds or in my case the stuffed hippo. an icy hill on their backsides faster than me that’s what seems to have happened to So that’s why I am asking: what should I tobogganers on the Cresta run, and it will the career of Mendip District Council’s do with Henry? Good ideas would be still say: “We only grit A-class roads.” chief executive David Thomson, who welcome – but please remember You can tell it mobility scooters are recently took a surprising and very fast anatomically impossible suggestions are skidding over the side of a cliff at an early retirement. not required. These have already been alarming rate and this damnable, The decision came at a private council made by my fellow whist players. insufferable, over-dressed pigeon will meeting shortly after an Audit Commission chant: “We only grit A-class roads.” report slammed the Twonks-on-the-Hill for If you are really persistent you might just the way the council manages much of its get the Great Feathered Bletherer to recite affairs. the other tedious phrase it has been taught In line with modern Kremlin-style “Ring 0845 3459155” but don’t blame me thinking the underlying reasons for the if that is manned by another parrot hasty departure were not given because it shrieking: “We only grit A-class roads.” would never do for the proletariat to know This strange state of affairs was brought what their masters were doing. (Remember to light by Wells City Councillor David the case of the disappearing Wells town Anderson when he tried to get action over clerk?) a lane that had become impassable through Suffice it to say that dear old Harvey thick ice. Siggs, the council leader, and the man who The same morning he heard on BBC wished he could pour a bucket of manure Radio Somerset, the county highways over my head for something I wrote, and department say: “We only grit A-class the Liberal Democrat leader, Councillor roads.” The county would only respond, it Claire Hudson, made statements of

MENDIP TIMES •FEBRUARY 2010 • PAGE 11 COMMENT Mucking out time YOU won’t believe me Perhaps the MP for Wells David dealer than with this tawdry band. Where I don’t suppose but, Heathcoat-Amory, for it is he of whom I are you Arthur Daley? honestly, the other day speak, unrealistically expects the G I saw a headline which charitable amongst us to take solace in Talking of the innate stupidity of those contained the words the fact that he did at least stump up the who govern us, decisions don’t come more “election fever”. Well money and did not appeal to the review innately stupid than many of those taken laugh, I thought my by Sir Paul Kennedy. The less charitable by Bath and North East Somerset Council knickers would never might say he ought to resign. (Banes by acronym and banes by nature). With ALAN dry. Although admittedly worse still are the Their latest rib-tickling wheeze at a time GOODE Come on, let’s get MPs who want to get out of their when money is scarce and finances stand real. Fever! What fever? I’ve seen more heat obligations and those who say the ones on the edge of a precipice is to ladle out a generated from a disconnected gas stove on who face fraud charges should be able to staggering £95,000 of their local taxpayer’s a rubbish dump. claim Parliamentary Privilege and dodge cash to that squillions of pounds profit And no wonder when you take into the courts. accountancy firm PriceWaterhouseCooper. account the recent antics indulged in by the And yet, after all that, they still want us And what are they spending £95,000 on? greedy, greasy greasers of Parliament. to get excited by the election. Come on, They’re spending it – and you won’t I mean, what parallel world do they let’s face it, we’ve got MPs who belong believe this so promise not to laugh – so inhabit, these self-assessed, self-absorbed, to a Third World banana state not a long- PWC can tell them how they can save self-serving spongers who have unilaterally standing democracy. money! decided that they are worth more than they Frankly, I reckon we’d be better putting You couldn’t make up stories like this if are paid? our faith in a back street second hand car you tried! To say nothing of the mental anguish they provoke in the electorate with the Dear Mendip Times, unrelenting boredom induced by their sad As Somerset County Councillor responsible for the County’s Highways services, I feel belief that the pitiful pitter-pat, pitter-pat compelled to respond to Alan Goode’s comments in your February edition. Alan Goode’s ping pong of claim and counter claim, suggestion that the County Council has employed parrots to speak to the public about winter gritting, serves only to undermine the hard work and careful planning of all those involved in accusation and counter accusation is any winter maintenance services. form of political debate. To perpetuate the myth that “we only grit A-class roads” is not only frustrating, but And yet these Parliamentary pickpockets completely untrue. It is generally accepted that to grit all of Somerset’s 6000+km of road are so brazen, so bare-faced, so brass- would be financially, and practically unachievable. Therefore, with its allocated winter budget necked as to ask us to entrust to them the of £1.3 million the County Council has to make some difficult decisions about which roads to country’s and our own futures as if they treat. It is worth noting that this budget is designed to cater for a “normal” Somerset winter. This were like Caesar’s wife, above suspicion. winter, we have already spent about £2 million to provide an essential gritting service to keep For example, let’s look at that double the County moving safely. At the start of the year 21% of Somerset’s roads were identified as barrelled muck-spreader representing a great our first priority for salting. This includes many B roads and covers all of the main routes slice of the Mendip area who charged the across the County. taxpayers for a load of manure for his However, up until the week of severe national salt shortages in January, Somerset garden as a legitimate Parliamentary Highways were consistently gritting around 35% of the entire road network, helping to keep expense. schools open and businesses running. When much of the country reduced its coverage Somerset still had enough salt to keep the main network clear. When found out he didn’t apologise but One of the greatest challenges will be to look at how the county of Somerset works together claimed that being asked to spend time to keep people moving. talking about this matter was a distraction With this in mind, we are already starting to look at how we can support communities to from his onerous duties looking after his help themselves at a local level. This year, Somerset County Council employed local farmers constituency. to help snow plough rural roads, provided salt to parishes that fund a grit bin, and supplied salt Now it turns out he was in fourth place bags to schools, and Town and Parish Councils. among the high roller MPs in the £l0,000 As Cabinet Member with responsibility for Highways, I have worked with a team of officers who are totally dedicated to serving the needs of local people. The County Council club having exceeded allowable has received compliments from local residents across the County praising the hard work of gardening expenses by a whacking our winter maintenance teams. £26,696.58 and cleaning expenses by As a local councillor and a Cabinet Member, I welcome any constructive feedback that £2,995.35. people in Somerset have about the way in which their money is spent on this, and any other And true to form he did not apologise but issue. Council taxpayer’s money must be used wisely. There are no parrots sitting on instead went all mealy-mouthed describing shoulders at County Hall. These are serious issues that deserve honest – and realistic – debate. the repayment as “re-imbursement of claims Anthony Trollope-Bellew that had retrospectively been disallowed”. I Cabinet Member – Environment mean, talk about persiflage. Somerset County Council

MENDIP TIMES •MARCH 2010 • PAGE 13 COMMENT April showers Well just fancy, the andsay more bobbies are going on the shower who run the beat. But we all know that the figures are Meteorological Office fiddled by tackling easily solved cases to are abandoning meet targets andthat there isn’t a copper to seasonal predictions be seen for months in your village. just because the Tell them what they want to hear and forecasters can’t tell then we’ll give them what we want them their isobars from their to have. That is the attitude today; that is With ALAN elbows andthe the grossly pervertedstate that our green GOODE weather does the andsceptredisle has fallen into. opposite to what they forecast. On the other hand, if some of our Is this goodenough, I ask? I mean, for national bodies start taking it on goodness sake, what are we supposed to themselves to make the revolutionary step make of things if suddenly one of our of coming clean, how the hell are we national institutions starts telling the truth supposedto know what to believe? just because it can’t get things right? So what I say is: It’s a sadstate of Let’s face it, this kindof honesty flies in affairs when the Met office holds up its the face of modern convention where spin, collective hands after admitting when it obfuscation and downright lies are spoon comes to forecasting seasonal forecasts it fedto us on a regular basis in the belief can’t get them right. that we are so thick we’ll believe anything. Come on, even the dimmest of us knew From our Mugger of Parliaments down that when the weatherman saidwe were in we have become accustomedto never for a barbecue summer to cancel the order believing a word of what is said. We may for sausages andbeefburgers; andwhen not like the situation, but at least we know toldto expect a mildwinter to go out and where we stand. buy extra thick socks, thermal underwear After all, nothing is what it seems andone of those furry Russian hats. anymore. Just take Cheddar cheese for After all, up till now it’s just been a Somerset County Council fail again in example. What’s more local than that for a matter of always believing the opposite of their roadgritting responsibilities we shall true Mendipian? Well, nothing except what we’re being told. all have hadso much experience of there’s a fair chance, if you’re not careful, As that meerkat on the telly says: travelling on snow andice that the county the supermarket will have bought it from “Seemples.” couldscoop the pool in the next Winter Latvia. Olympics. G Or take a nice bit of turkey breast Mind you one indisputable fact that was And wouldn’t that make their parrots described on the supermarket wrapping as goodto believe was the stunning Gold squawk! British. Well, British be buggered; the Medal Bath’s Amy Williams won at the G bird’s likely to have grown up in Hungary winter Olympics. It was a real heart Talking of records, I am reminded of the or Botswana or somewhere andwas just warmer at the endof a very coldwinter. one set by the Mendip’s own Earl cut up andpackagedin dearoldBlighty. Just the sight of her shooting downhill at Waldegrave who has been found by Hospital andsocial services spokesmen a breathtaking speed headfirst on her Mendip District Council to be letting a shed crocodile tears over revelations of “skeleton” bob was not only to admire her farmhouse where living conditions are neglect or abuse of those in their charge skill and dedication but to commend her judged to be totally unacceptable. andpromise measures have been put into courage. The Earl, in explanation for this most place so it will never happen again. But Andthe fact is that Amy didmostof her unfortunate lapse in good landlording, is you know, I know andthey must know it training far away from the snowy slopes quotedin the local Press as saying: “One will – and it does. but insteadon some sort of contraption in has tried to do people a favour but it hasn’t Politicians make gravy train livings with Bath that helped her develop her take off worked.” high salaries, top hat pensions, huge skills. The council says its officers foundice expenses andfirst class tickets on Great It is truly fitting that this most likeable on the bathroom floor, rat droppings, bare Western by promising that they will make sportswoman received a parade through electrical wires, rising damp and a hole in Englanda country of which we can be the city andthat so many people turned the roof. It was also understood there was proud. But we all know they mean we out to celebrate her victory against all the no water supply and taps without handles, shall continue the inexorable slide to being odds. a toilet which didnotflush andno cooking the poor man of Europe. Mindyou, if we get many more cold facilities. The police say they are beating crime winters andthe Foolish Virgins of Some favour eh, Your Lordship?

MENDIP TIMES •APRIL 2010 • PAGE ?? COMMENT Beware the Mendip tractor man WHAT I am though he hadstartedextra early because wondering is this: do he hadto follow a tractor from before the majority of tractor Shepton Mallet all the way to Castle Cary drivers become pig- railway station without it ever once ignorant, anti-social pulling over. misogynists when they Another person tells of how he was get on the public roads forcedto creep all the way from Wells to through the process of Cheddar because some tractor person With ALAN natural selection of the couldn’t be bothered to pull over for just GOODE species or is it the a few minutes for the whole of the result of special training? journey. Personally I lean to the view they must And before any farmers reading this go to a school to learn the art of hogging lose their tempers, I know they have a job the roadwithout care or conscience for to do. I know that many of their tractors mile after mile as they plough their are slow and there is nothing they can do tortuously slow furrows along our roads. about that. My view is somebody somewhere is That is not the point; the point is that Vlad The Tractor Driver running courses leading to NVQs in the they don’t need to be boorish, they could proven ability of the successful candidate be goodmanneredandpull over saving from the closure of Wells to induce agricultural-based angst amongst occasionally. Magistrates court wouldbe at the expense the serriedranks of motorists, van men Not too much to ask, you’dthink of local access to justice. and lorry drivers. . . . even of a farmer. Whilst a despairing Brutonian customer Otherwise how come the chaps you said of HSBC’s decision: “A bank is an G meet on the skittle alley, in the pub or at The mention of Vladthe Impaler essential part of the community. We are the village church’s Harvest Supper seem reminds me that still going on apace is growing as a town andour facilities are reasonable but mutate into insufferable the ruthless non-stop pillaging, sacking decreasing.” monsters when they get behindthe andthe sticking of stakes through the Not surprising, I suppose, in our tractor’s driving wheel? heart of vital local services. Andall in the modern world neither the bank or the After all, the human race has prospered cause of spurious efficiency claims. ministry botheredto apologise or even not least because it learnt at a very early Two of the latest examples are the begin demonstrate an understanding of stage of evolution there was a lot of impending loss to that lovely town of the needandvalue of local facilities as advantage to be had for rubbing along Bruton of its only bank andthe closure of part of a community’s essential with one’s neighbours on a fairly amicable the Wells Magistrates’ Court after infrastructure. basis. hundreds of years upholding law in the Just like the ubiquitous tractor driver That is except for some notable city. it’s a case of: I’m all right Jack, sodthe exceptions who put self before everything Ironically Bruton is about to suffer at rest of you. like Vladthe Impaler, Genghis Khan, Al the hands of that global banking business G Capone and, of course, our own dear HSBC who likes to kidus it’s part of the Andtalking of Jacks brings to mind tractor drivers. community by means of the slogan the my recent visit to exquisite Somerton I mean, you can travel miles behindone World’s Local Bank. where I foundits excellent stationery of these mechanisedsnails as traffic Meanwhile Wells is to lose its court shop selling a pack of cards the cover of tailbacks lengthen. Never mindthat there because the Ministry of Injustice says in which bore the legend: Playing Politics is saidto be a protocol whereby tractors its so-called“consultation” report this is ’10. No Expenses Spared. shouldstop at regular intervals to allow the best option “in order to optimise the Inside the individual “court cards” those in faster modes of transport to court estate, deliver value for money and carriedhumorous but accurate caricatures overtake; never mindthat people have provide better facilities for court users”. of such as Brown, Cameron andClegg appointments to keep, businesses to run, An HSBC spokesman drones on that andvarious other MPs from the late, children to get to or from school; never the closure of Bruton’s branch is a unlamentedMugger of Parliament. mindthat simple goodmanners might reflection of the low volume of customers Mindyou, what wasn’t accurate was suggest a more sociable approach. but cannot lower himself to address the depicting some of the leading MPs on the Andnearly everyone you meet has a troubles current users will face or how Kings andQueens. horror story to tell about being trappedby the bank might have attractednew ones. After all, everyone knows, from the these agricultural aggrovators. On the other handa Law Society recent antics of the political classes, that I know a chap who nearly misseda train spokesman counteredthe Ministry of our MPs are either jokers or knaves, and for an urgent appointment in London even Injustice with the point that the cost in some cases both.

MENDIP TIMES •MAY 2010 • PAGE 13 COMMENT Gardeners’ question time A garden is a lovesome thing, Got wot! There are chemicals and contraptions Well, the voters did just as he asked, if Rose plot, for sending off dogs and cats and rabbits not in the way he intended, and booted Fringed pool, if they stray on to the three square metres out the disgraced double-barrelled muck- Ferned grot – of hallowed turf at 23, Railway Cuttings spreader from the Wells constituency and The veriest school of peace and lamps, cameras, sirens and electric onto the dung heap of thwarted political defences in case a human being walks ambition ORSO wrote 19th through the front gates. A deserved lesson, you might think, for century poet Thomas There are solutions that can be mixed a man who claimed a load of manure was Edward Brown, whose that will kill any unwanted plant in your a legitimate political expense, who in total love of gardens was as garden and if you’re not careful all the trousered over £26,000 of the public purse passionate as his use plants you do want and those of your for the upkeep of his garden and who, on of English was neighbours too; and you’d better wash top of all that, failed to offer an apology. singular, in a heartfelt your hands after use or you could be Therefore, if you ask me, it would be poem that proclaims shrivelling as well as the dandelions. satisfying to feel the electorate has With ALAN gardens are so Frankly it appals me. It is all so shunted Mr Heathcoat-Unsavoury into the GOODE wonderful that God political wilderness for his unsavoury walks in them. behaviour. Well, God better not try any of that But, of course, we all know the trespassing malarkey these days, I can tell governing classes look after their own so you, otherwise He could find himself what’s the betting he’ll be leaching off the zapped, CCTV’d, Asbo’d and tagged for taxpayers for years to come by means of a life before He could as much as say comfy seat in the House of Lords? Lonicera Periclymenum. Although come to think of it, it could be I mean, you only have to look on the worse. We may yet hear him boom, like shelves of the garden centres or in the monsters of the horrors movies of old, magazines to see the warfare that goes on the spine-tingling words: “I’ll be back.” against animals, birds, insects, unwanted G visiting plants and man in today’s average And still on the subject of loathsome garden. It makes the Battle of the Somme things I see from my copy of the look like a Sunday School picnic. estimable Wells Journal that the Twonks- There are rows and rows of products all on-the-Hill have been up to their cack- aimed to knock out, bang out, biff out, handed tinkering again. snuff out, smoke out anything that dares To most people’s surprise the parking enter the sterile area of the neatly charges have suddenly gone up in the coiffured, weedless lawn at 76, Acacia unnecessary, all so damaging to the Mendip towns (again!) and the time limit Avenue and its sad borders of uniformly already fragile and blitzed eco-structure of in the car parks in the very centre of Wells planted begonias, their petals as stridently this once green and pleasant land. Why is now only three hours maximum. painted as a Soho tart’s face. can’t we live with and harness nature The sudden, unwanted and damaging There are concoctions to kill mice and instead of launching into destructive no- change has brought shrieks of horror from rats, smokes to kill moles; powders to kill win war? the Mayor, tourist officials (the nearest ants, wasps and wood lice. What sort of clue less, care less idiot is long stay is up to a mile and a half from There are sprays and aerosols that give it, I wonder, who gardens with so little the Bishop’s Place) and local people. your garden the Vietnam War napalm love or understanding of the natural world The reply from the Shepton Kremlin is treatment wiping out any bug that walks, around him; whose bigotry and blindness the usual rot about prior consultation (to crawls or slithers and if used in sufficient lets him or her exterminate with all the which the populace rightly counters “what quantity would no doubt do you in as perverted passion of a Belsen guard? consultation?”) and a claim it will take well. A modern gardener is a loathsome three months before they can look at the There are slug killers that are so potent thing, God wot! situation (Twonkese for “like it or lump they are even sold with a dispenser to it”). G “reduce the danger to other wildlife”; And talking of loathsome things If you ask me, it’s time we parked the clearly a gardening chemical company reminds me that on the morrow of the addle-pated Twonks in the municipal euphemism, I suppose, for that other election I spotted still in situ outside Mr crematorium for deadbeat councils. euphemism, “friendly fire,” the Yanks use Heathcoat-Unsavoury’s constituency And let Wells, and the other Mendip when they bomb to bits our lads in office two large posters that screamed towns, decide for themselves what they Afghanistan. “Vote for Change”. want.

MENDIP TIMES •JUNE 2010 • PAGE 11 COMMENT World Cup whiner KICKBALL, bloody kickball. I hate This time they managed to ignore all the rules about kickball. Every time you view, everytime publicising elections and put up only one public notice that there you listen, every time you read, every time was a vacancy in Shepton ward. you step outside all you get is sodding And on . . . wait for it! . . . just one internal notice board in the kickball. Shepton Kremlin. (No, please don’t laugh; you know it’s wrong You get it in the street, in the shops, even to mock the afflicted). in the gentlemen’s excuse me in your local But I am shocked to see that according to the estimable pub. Just stand still for two minutes and Shepton Journal even after being caught bang to rights the With ALAN some bore is wittering on about injuries or Mendip District Council spokesman issued a statement which GOODE squad make-ups or merits of one player lacked one word of apology for making a complete hash of you’ve never heard of against another player you never wanted things. to hear of. Instead the statement waffled on about the commission Things are bad, I can tell you. Organisers of some fetes are so outlining five important points which they would be following fearful of the obliteration of their events from the hold this as if they were never in the election bible that should never curious activity has over certain of the, shall we say kindly, less have been ignored: Managing a local government election in imaginative of their local menfolk that they are putting England and Wales – Guidance for Returning Officers. televisions in their village halls to keep them happy. And then claimed, against all the evidence, it did advertise Frankly, I don’t understand why the hell we should have to the vacancy even though through their abject inefficiency one face endless media coverage of a game played by individuals candidate at least did not get his nomination papers in on time whose thick skulls are as empty as the balls they try to kick and and a basic democratic right was withheld. who fall down screaming in agony every time an opposing Well, I mean, spin is one thing but this is puerile, undiluted, player gets within a yard of them. misleading piffle. Even that World Cup-standard spin player And why, in any case, one wonders, are these butter-fingered, Alistair Campbell would have blushed with shame if he found butter-footed verbally dyslexic airheads paid an absolute fortune himself issuing this sort of God-forsaken guff. for from time-to-time kicking a ball in something like the right G direction, occasionally at something like the right moment? Still, it’s good to be reminded during all the irritations of Any road up, let’s face it, we all know that after all the hype, modern life and the follies in the Fawlty Towers of municipal after all the never-ending win, win, win mania, toot-your-free- misfeasance that there are still good deeds to be found in this Sun-horn banality, it’s England that almost invariably naughty world. ignominiously loses to something like the Outer Mongolian B One of these is undoubtedly the quarterly Croscombe charter team of yak herding yurt dwellers. market, which has recently been raising money for Headway I mean, if there really are some people who mystifyingly find Somerset, the charity which offers support for those with brain kickball interesting, why do the rest of us have to be bored to injury. the point of permanently putting our heads in buckets in an A Saturday or two ago I tootled along with Mrs G on attempt to avoid the never ending nauseous vomitings of the account of Henry the Hippo, the large cuddly toy I received for media classes about an event of such monumental being the worst player at a whist drive, doing his bit by insignificance? seeking to get himself re-christened Zambesi and so raising the After all, we have only just come out of a coma brought on goodly sum of £66. from the saturation coverage of the world’s most boring election Well, after a great time there, I can recommend a visit as an which led to us wanting to throw our shoes or the cat experience well worth the effort. And as it’s you, I’ll let you (whichever came to hand first) at the television in frustration at into a secret: Don’t leave without buying a pot or two of Mrs the never-ending speculative twaddle of the politicians, the McRobbie’s home made jam. Take my word for it, it’s the broadcasters and the so-called experts. nearest thing to ambrosia, the fabled food of the gods. Now we are being forced to spend our time shouting at the So don’t miss box and the radio in frustration at the irritating rubbish in the the next market same mind-numbing depth about teams of charmless chumps on Saturday kicking a ball backwards and forwards across a rectangular- September 11 or shaped piece of grass. if you can’t wait If you ask me this whole kickball business is just a load of old turn up for the . . . er . . . spherical objects. village fun day and fair on G And whilst on the subject of charmless chumps I see the Saturday July Twonks-on-the-Hill have been given a good slapping by the 10. Go on, give Electoral Commission for another bout of their cack-handed yourself a treat, tinkering. you deserve it.

MENDIP TIMES •JULY 2010 • PAGE 11 COMMENT Making a din NOISE, noise, noise; Well, fair’s fair, I know I didn’t feel much to the chagrin of the Electoral non-stop, everywhere too great but up to then I had thought of Commission). you go, night and nothing worse than a bad bout of flu. The intriguing fact is, of course, that day. Life in the 21st No wonder my blood pressure was up the change of allegiance by the much- century is just wall- when I saw the doc. tried burghers of one of the Mendips’ to-wall din, clatter, And there was no peace in the most ancient towns leaves a council racket, row. It’s the outpatients department at a local chamber consisting of 23 Conservatives curse of the age. hospital where a telly was urging me to and 22 Lib Dems thereby giving overall With ALAN Of course, they do test for Chlamydia. And I nearly did power to two Independent councillors. GOODE say silence is golden too, till I found out it was a sexually Now it does seem to me that these but how the hell are we to know when transmitted disease much favoured as Independent chappies have the chance we’re barely ever free of that deafening part of a good night out by our young to force through sensible governance in cacophony that assails our eardrums? people alongside binge drinking and this Fawlty Towers of municipal Let’s face it, go into someone’s house Ecstasy. misfeasance. and you can bet your bottom dollar But even worse, the screen was They could, for instance, sort out the you’ll have to hold a conversation in suddenly filled with a choir of hideous, parking fiasco wished upon the city of competition with the wireless or the aged, would-be rockers belting out Wells in a flash instead of waiting the television and sometimes both. some 70s pop song, their upper three months the Twonks needed before In your own home it seems no dentures fluttering in their wide open even reviewing the decision. tradesman can come without filling it mouths as they reached the high notes. Or they could vow never to allow the with unwanted, excruciating sounds (Gott in Himmel, at least spare me council’s directors getting rises of from their portable radios as they this). £9,000 and £14,000 for doing a bit of change a washer, replace a plug or put a I mean, can all this incessant noise be extra work when the poor bloody dab of paint on the front door. good for us? Is it good for the state of infantry got a derisory, below inflation Sit in the garden and the chances are our minds, let alone our souls? Or am I rate, Scrooge-level one per cent. some whipper-snapper will be going the only one to find it a hideous Oh yes, the result could be good news round and round the area with his 50cc irritation? Come on, tell me what you for us all but, mind you, it isn’t such motor cycle engine screaming or think. Er, what did you say? Sorry, I good news for dear old Harvey Siggs, overhead there’s a micro-light buzzing can’t hear you. the leader of the Tories and the man away like a giant, demented wasp. Good Lord, you wouldn’t believe it, who said he wished he had a bucket of If you pull up at a set of traffic lights someone’s switched on that blasted manure to throw over my head because the car alongside you is likely to be a radio again! an appellation I had bestowed upon him battered old BMW with darkened frightened the children. G windows from which emits the most Well, moving quickly on to another In fact, one is reminded of the rhyme God-awful thump, thump, thump of the curse of the age, I see the Twonks-on- regarding the Grand Old Duke of York: grotesquely over-amplified bass of the-Hill are in a right pickle after the he marched his men up the hill and some nauseous rock band. recent vote in Shepton replaced a Tory down again but when they were only Go by bus and you’re bound to find with a Lib Dem (that’s the election they half way up were neither up nor down. yourself sitting next to a bird-brained, publicised on just one notice board G anti-social idiot with a glazed By the way I was in a farm shop the expression and an iPod that swish, other day when I spotted a book that swish swishes you to distraction. charted in pictures and words the Visit a pub and the smart money’s on history of the village of Bishop Sutton the music system being tuned to one of and its school. those dreadful local radio stations But what really caught my eye was where some banal presenter is the title: Don’t learn my son no sums; frantically babble-babbling nonsense the words said many, many years ago like a baboon on speed. by an angry farmer’s wife to the then For goodness sake, even that former headmaster. haven of peace, the doctor’s surgery, Mind you, pity she’s not still around. isn’t immune any more; last time I went She’d find any number of schools in the there was a TV from which some gink current education system where the was asking me to make an immediate teachers can’t “learn” their pupils sums intimate check to ascertain whether I and who share her tenuous link to the had testicular cancer. basics of the English language.

MENDIP TIMES •AUGUST 2010 • PAGE ?? COMMENT Sustaining Shepton Mallet NOW I know the state of Shepton’s town centre is no laughing matter, but I really couldn’t help having a wry smile when I read a headlinesayingtherearepeoplehopingtheTV filming that has been going on there will put thetown on themap. Of course, I dare say umpteen days of prime time television will do just that but, let’s face it, With ALAN there is an insurmountable hurdle; when the GOODE hordes of sightseers arrive to visit the Sad Old Man of the Mendips there will be near sod all for them to do or see. And just in case you don’t believe me, let me quote a couple of friends who we bumped into there when we went the other day to look at the much heralded super-sized Friday market only to find that it had gone. Presenter Gregg Wallace addresses the 1930s traders in Shepton “Don’t know why you bothered to come,” said the dispirited pair Mallet's Market Place who had also made a rare venture into the town, “There’s nothing here.” Frankly, you’d expect a self-respecting district council to lead the You don’t believe me or them? Then let me point you in the way in this sort of venture but all the evidence points to the direction of a former Sheptonian lady now living in Queen Camel probability that our Twonks leave their brains at reception when who in a letter to the Shepton Journal wrote that she was nearly they go into the Fawlty Towers of municipal misfeasance and only reduced to tears on a recent visit. pick them up on the way out. “Wherehasall thevibrancy goneof this oncebeautifultown? So G depressing, so unkempt and untidy. Litter strewn everywhere, Now staying with the subject of brains, or more precisely the buildings looking dilapidated,” she wrote. lack of them, I come to the ludicrous, nay cruel, activity indulged in But then, come on, get real, the only reason the film crews were by themoremoronic of theurban bunny huggers. there in the first place is that Shepton Mallet is a near ghost town It seems that in the dead of night they come from Bristol into the with umpteen empty shops. If they’d all been open and busy there Mendip countryside and let loose those foxes they find troublesome wouldn’t have been anywhere for the film crews to film. in the back gardens of their sanitised suburban environs. So don’t run way with theideait’s an honour for thetown to be For these foxes a life of rich pickings through scavenging is on thetelly. On thecontrary, it’s a sad indictmentof thosewho have suddenly snatched away and they are thrown into a completely allowed the traditional shopping centre to get into such a state. hostile environment in which they cannot sustain themselves. For example, take the decision of Mendip District Council to It gives a whole new meaning to the saying “killing by kindness” allow that monstrous carbuncle of the Tesco shed to be built and so but in truth it represents an example of that sickening modern trend let that supermarket chain hoover up the local, private businesses of covering sheer callousness and ignorance with a thick layer of likesomegiant whalesluicing in theplankton of theoceans. sickly soppiness. And then, having done that, the Twonks-on-the-Hill never Of course, you could rightly call there actions just another form insistedthat thereshouldbelargesigns pointing peopletothetown of foxhunting but with their foxes condemned to the certainty of a centre so allowing the hideous edifice to become a one-stop shop to far more lingering death. the detriment of local traders. But then, I don’t suppose these bigoted Bristolian bunny huggers And then on top of that they stood by as the agents for Tesco cut have the intellectual capacity to see it that way. For them the foxes back freeparkingon thestore’s hugecar park from four hours to are out of sight, out of mind. Isn’t that just terrible? two giving shopperslittleif any timeto go into theold shopping G centre. And talking of seeing it that way, I return to the depressing And then on top of all that the Twonks slapped increases on the subject of supermarkets having read that Morrisons have been council-run car parks as a further disincentive to visitors and a caught red-handed selling New Zealand liver, although they claim further financial nail in the coffin of the shopkeepers. all their meat is British. Doesn’t it all just want to make you weep? Can’t the councillors So did they hold their hands up? Did they heck-as-like! No, they get into their heads that the centre of Shepton with its plethora of cameup with thequotethat theFood Standard Agencydefined old buildings is potentially a very attractive shopping centre and meat as “skeletal muscle” which excluded “non-muscle” cuts such ideal for small businesses? as kidney, liver and heart. But to create a vibrant, bustling Shepton Mallet there needs to be Never mind, it seems, the rest of us see these items under the determination, imagination, investment and incentives. The town general heading of meat or that we buy them at the butchers or the itself and its last few trades people will not do it alone; they will not meat counters. halt its galloping disintegration. Personally Mr Morrison I find your excuse quite, quite offal.

MENDIP TIMES •SEPTEMBER 2010 • PAGE ?? COMMENT Talking rubbish STONE me, the country stands on the brink of swingeing cuts in public services, the unions are threatening trouble and strife, some people are predicting a double dip recession and the threat of terrorism hangs over the world. Yet in the midst of all this confusion, chaos and uncertainty, like Old Man River, With ALAN the massed ranks of Her Majesty’s Army of GOODE Elfnsafety Dipsticks just keep rolling along. I mean, take for example those off-their-trolleys council the right of the council chamber at Mendip are putting it about bosses who deal out trashcansful of elfnsafety rubbish to their that I’m going all out to get their Lib Dem opponents into binmen. (Or should I say binpersons given the politically power. correct madhouse in which local councils operate? Did I hear Well, let it be known here and now that this claim made my you say “no’? Quite right, binmen it is). blood boil so much you could have put a frying pan on my head In this instance I refer to our neighbouring county of and cooked yourself a traditional English breakfast. Wiltshire where in case the county’s apparently unusually So let me make it clear, once and for all, that this column is delicate brand of binmen should come to harm, frail pensioners strictly non party political and when I hit out at the Twonks I have been told to haul their wheelie bins across a pothole mean the whole bloody lot of them, not just one sorry part. strewn road. As far as I can see both parties have had their chance, both This is the same council that in 2008 issued the risible edict have made a ham-fisted job of it and it therefore means I don’t that the dust cart crews should not be troubled by having to care which way anybody votes because my dream is one of collect wheelie bins if they were a certain distance from the revolution. kerb. Let’s face it, the last thing that is going to help anyone is the Then in June, possibly due to a particularly strong full moon continuation of the game of snakes and ladders played by the affecting the minds of local council officials, the lunatic order present incumbents. There’s years of that gone on and just see was issued that wheelie bins would not be emptied if the where it hasn’t got us. binmen could not move them with just two fingers on the And if you want an example of what I mean, just look at the handle. state of Shepton Mallet, that sad Old Man of the Mendips. Its Now the daft squad have struck again and ordered that bins decline didn’t start last week; it’s been going on for years. cannot be emptied in Clarendon Road, Trowbridge, which has Both parties could have done something about the state of potholes, and the elderly householders are being ordered to haul this potentially attractive shopping centre, neither have. And all their own bins to a designated area. the signs are they never will. The order went out from the Waste and Recycling officer who No, my dream is the emergence of a new council filled with wrote saying that the potholes on the unadopted road prevented people of charisma, vision and the determination to get things the bins being safely manoeuvred for emptying so putting done; an authority which eschews party politics in favour of operatives at risk and they could damage vehicle tyres. doing right by the people of the Mendips. “Garbage,” retorts resident Celyn Varnam who is 78 and In the meantime, a plague on both their houses. knows what he is talking about because he is a retired binman, G “This road, even with potholes, should pose no problems for Whilst on the subject of things not changing I was fascinated the vans.” to hear at a talk about the Wells branch of the St John Still the glare of publicity with its attendant ridicule of the Ambulance that it was formed in 1930 in response to the need elfnsafety barmy army within Wiltshire County Council has led to tend to the many victims at an accident blackspot. a spokesman to promise business as usual until a meeting can The rise in the number of motor cars on the road had led to a be held with the irate householders. whole string of accidents on the crossroads by the Ploughboy But surely that isn’t enough by any manner of means. Inn on the A39 at Green Ore, and at the time it took 50 minutes Tougher measures need to be taken against officials who would to get an ambulance. prefer to risk the frail and elderly rather putting than ask their Yet after 80 years and road widening, umpteen signs and employees to just take a bit more care. traffic lights, the arrival of driving tests and later the And if you ask me the people who dream up all this guff breathalyser, thanks to a rag bag of careless and dangerous should be declared council waste and recycled for filling motorists the crossroads is a still potential death trap. potholes – starting in Clarendon Road. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose, as my old friend and people’s philosopher Bar-stool Bernie mumbles into his G Talking about dipsticks brings me once again to mention the glass of Ploughboy Chardonnay every time he hears the sound Twonks-on-the-Hill. And this time because I learn that some on of screaming brakes.

MENDIP TIMES •OCTOBER 2010 • PAGE 13 COMMENT Mayor for the Mendips? WELL, I don’t know about you, Dear Reader, but my experience is that it’s extremely rare for a wish to be granted immediately even by the most efficient of Good Fairies. But cor-luv-a-duck, theink was hardly dry on thepaperof my ramblings in thelast issue of the Mendip Times before I received a press release from one of my moles on the Mendips With ALAN that said: Mendip Mayor? What do you think? GOODE I mean, last month I wrote of dreaming of a revolution in our local authority misgovernance; the replacement of the current Twonks-on-the-Hill with people of charisma, charm and vision. stated in big, bold, black lettering: Past and present councillors And here being handed us on a plate is the unexpected but need not apply. wonderful chance, if we all take it, to begin the process of G exterminating the present band of no hopers and self-satisfied, Mind you talking about last month’s Mendip Times did you see self-preening popinjays. that weird paragraph on a yellow background under the delightful Hereisthechanceto getsomeonewhocould takerealaction to Sue Gearing’s latest inviting suggestion for a good walk? revitalise Shepton Mallet, the Poor Old Man of the Mendips, Well, in case you missed it, the small panel contained the which has been ritually and continuously stuffed by both parties following two sentences: A recent article described The George at on thecouncil. Nunney as “family friendly”. They have asked us to point out that Hereisthechanceto getrid of thoserisiblepolitical runts who theydo not admit anyoneundertheageof 14. have just been told to bend over the headmaster’s chair while their I say, goodness gracious me, what sort of place is this? What backsides are caned by the Local Government Ombudsman. sort of people are they that think being family unfriendly is good For it was that very person who identified maladministration, PR? What sort of clientele do they attract? confusion and misinformation by thosein theFawlty Towersof Frankly, I thought this example of the British at their most Municipal Misfeasance in Shepton in regard to the dealings with a boorish had gone out with donkey-stoning the front step, works handful of villagers in North Wootton. canteen lumpy gravy and boarding house battleaxe landladies. And yet again this band of ’Orrible Obfuscators rolled out a Anyway, for my part I’m going to give The George at Nunney a statement of nauseous doggy-do as an explanation for making an wide berth because any pub that won’t take my grandchildren, or almighty cock-up in dealings with its local people. anyone else’s for that matter, doesn’t get my money. No apology, of course, because the Twonks never admit being And speaking personally I hope a lot of other people feel the wrong however many times it’s shown they are. Instead, a same. statement by an unnamed official wittering on about the matter G being “unfortunately caught up in local politics”. By theway, whilst on thesubjectof giving support or not as This drivel is followed, as usual, by irrelevant guff about maybe,brings meto mentionthat wearenow onceagain at the reviewing management policy and procedures as if it were time when The Royal British Legion is holding its annual Poppy perfectly understandable for the council not to get a Appeal. straightforward matter right in the first place. Sadly the organisation needs all the financial support it can get No, what we should do now is look into our wider community, these days to fulfil its commitment to look after ex-service men ignore the confines of petty politics and pygmy politicians and go and women and their families as the toll of dead, wounded and for someone who combines the attributes of a free-thinking mentally scarred continues to soar because of the Afghanistan entrepreneur with good communication skills and the man- war. management techniques of Erik the Skullsplitter. I know many of us struggle to understand why our forces are After all, the first part of this man’s or woman’s abilities would there and what the outcome of their sacrifice will be. But the provide the means to finally have positive, far-reaching actions politicians have sent our men and women out there and their taken to improve the lot of the Mendips, its towns and its people. commitment and bravery cannot be gainsaid. Of course, there is a downside. The question about having a What also cannot begainsaid is that thepoliticians who ruined mayor is being asked by the Twonks themselves, all 47 of whom the lives of so many personnel and their families will not through expect to still be there pocketing their allowances for making a the Government or their bank accounts be looking after the mess of things. casualties. But then, let’s face it, that’s where Erik the Skullsplitter comes Therefore, it seems to me that we all owe them our support and in. what better way to give it than through The British Legion’s And by the way, before I forget, there’s one last thing. On the Poppy Appeal. application forms for Mayor of the Mendips I reckon it should be So please, please dig deep in your pockets.

MENDIP TIMES •NOVEMBER 2010 • PAGE 13 COMMENT

Let’s make it a Christmas cracker! GOOD grief! You try heartbreak for the parents and their demographic, is overwhelmingly middle to get into the families, the sadness and helplessness of class and there are more people with Christmas spirit and the medical staff involved is heart plums in their mouths than there is fruit wheresoever you turn rending. in Tesco’s at Shepton. there seems nothing From my own experience, to walk By and large it can be said, from a but trouble and strife, through a hospital treating children at the masculine perception, that the items on murder and mayhem, advanced stages of illness is a harrowing sale are things you never knew you ruination and experience that leaves a deep and wanted, still don’t want and seem With ALAN desolation. troubling scar on the mind. prohibitively expensive anyway. But, GOODE For instance, as I sit And even if such wonderful medical fair’s fair, the ladies love them and the writing this column the telly, the radio advances are being made support is still events do raise money for charity. and the papers are carrying lengthy needed to get the success rate higher and But, gentlemen, take the word of stories saying that students are revolting. higher and to give the happiest and most experience; stay clear. For one thing (But then, what’s new? Personally, I loving care in their last days for those there are hardly any other men present always thought they were). who cannot be saved. (and at the relief of occasionally meeting Even worse, the papers are full of So from the bottom of my heart I ask one you will find yourself greeting each pictures of former Countdown counter you at this Christmas time, which after other like two Victorian explorers Carol Vorderman’s bottom in a dress all is dedicated to both birth and the unexpectedly crossing paths in the which if described as flattering the young, to support those charities who African jungle). enchanting lady would be stretching help cancer research and young cancer And here’s another tip: don’t be fooled truth, like the fabric, too far. patients, and those wonderfully dedicated by all these females throwing out their But dig deeper, look more closely and people at the children’s hospices. arms in welcome and kissing each other buried on page ten in the issue of my on both cheeks. Once on the shopping G morning’s paper is the headline: Eight in By the way, talking of Christmas time, trail the faces harden to granite. 10 childhood cancer patients now beat if you happen to be male the run up to They represent a massive cloning of the illness. the festive season isn’t necessarily all a that fabled chariot riding Ancient Briton Now don’t you think that is Christmas barrel of laughs I can tell you. If you’re Queen Boadicea (or Boudicca for time news of real worth? Don’t you think really unlucky you could find yourself younger readers) as they scatter everyone this is of more moment than all those dragged by your wife to one of those so- aside barging through doorways and silly students who want everything for called Christmas Gift Fairs. ploughing to the stalls of their choice. nothing? Those agitprop lecturers who Mind you, I’m not referring to what And if you see how they are with each expect the state to pay for their seditious was once called a Christmas bazaar and other, then just imagine how they’re support of riotous behaviour? took place in the village hall or school going to treat a mere male. I tell you, it’s Yes, the real news, the real joy is that and now go under rather different hell in there. This is female territory and amidst a society that in almost every nomenclatures. the male of the species counts for respect, whether it comes to manners, The ones I’m talking about seem to absolutely nothing. style or the deteriorating moral standards generally take place in larger venues with Let’s face it, at one I was dragged to of its political classes, seems to be going a particular penchant for very large lately, I queued for a coffee after being to hell in a handcart, there are those who houses converted into private schools or trampled nearly to death by the warrior are working quiet miracles. very large houses still in private matrons. The female serving looked after Although the headline might have ownership. the lady in front, stared right through me over-simplified the situation in an illness The customer base, and the stallholder and served the lady immediately behind with many forms nevertheless a Cancer me. Research UK spokesman is quoted as Still I got my own back. I muttered a confidently saying: “The new figures salty imprecation rather more loudly than show that years of hard work by I had planned – and rather satisfyingly I researchers across the world are paying left to snorts of disgust emanating deep off.” from the bosoms of the battleaxes behind I mean, that’s just great to hear. After me. all, cancer in its many forms, and despite G medical advances, is so often a terminal But away with dull care. So let me illness that it is something to be dreaded sincerely wish every one of you – readers at any age. and advertisers – a very, very Merry But in young children it is particularly Christmas. Come on, let’s make it a cruel. The loss of a young life, the cracker!

MENDIP TIMES •DECEMBER 2010 • PAGE 13 COMMENT Happy Birthday to me!! JUST fancy, since the last time we met I have right through the very jugular of democracy in the county. been subjected to two momentous experiences I refer to his plan as a cost saving measure to re-organise his and they don’t even include the Lionel cabinet office so that only two people are needed out of the 58- Clothier skittle team, of which I am a proud member council to make vital decisions affecting us all. member, actually winning a game. Councillor Maddock, who is also cutting down on the belly- No, firstly I celebrated 50 years of being 21 burstingly pompously-titled portfolio holders who deal with years old and secondly an acquaintance of particular services, is quoted as saying: “As the county becomes mine, having read a number of my articles leaner and more efficient, it fits that the cabinet should too. I am With ALAN from time to time, accused me of not being a confident these changes will lead to a better and more efficient GOODE 21st century man. decision making process cutting unnecessary red tape and Well I bridled on both counts, I can tell you. I mean it came bureaucracy.” hard to realise how long it was since I reached my majority and Well what I say is: piffle, poppycock and persiflage. Mind you, how long it had taken my brain, despite all the signs to the let’s be fair, I can see the attractions for a leader of two-person contrary, to recognise my true age. decision making, especially if those two people are specially And I didn’t much like being accused of being a throw back to a picked to make sure that they play the game. After all it has to past era and not a with-it, on-the-ball, get-up-and-go 21st century save a hell of a lot of time and effort compared with dealing with trailblazer. After all, come on, hadn’t I mastered emailing and people who might have better ideas. Hitler and Stalin, I nearly got to grips with working the DVD machine? understand, hit on much the same wheeze. But then well into the second large glass of Paul Hartley’s most Still. it won’t be all that long before we will have the chance if excellent Chilean–produced Sangiovese on a birthday visit to his we so wish to kick out Axe-Mad Ken and his grisly crew … if, of café-bistro I had what I can only describe as a course, his two-person decision making unit Damoscene moment. I suddenly remembered Alan Goode going hasn’t axed the county elections as a cost saving what life was like in 196l. shopping in 1961 measure! For instance, policemen still walked their beats G and chatted to local people, pedestrians could By the way the mention of grisly crews make their way day and night throughout our reminds me the Twonks-on-the-Hill, who towns and cities without being mugged and the recently were slated by the local government police station was open 24 hours a day. ombudsman, have been busily cementing their Health and Safety Officers busied themselves not inconsiderable reputation for making a mess with ensuring workers were safe amongst of things. potentially lethal machinery and had not morphed This time the victim was Peter Ireson of into elfnsafety loonies endlessly worrying about Lynda’s Loaf in Chewton Mendip, bakers of fine the improbable consequence of a falling conker. organic breads, who suddenly had the Doctors still came out days, nights and embarrassing and frightening experience of a weekends to see patients in their homes and the bailiff storming into his shop and sizing up world had yet to suffer the bossy inane kill-joy fixtures and fittings for removal. burblings of the food fascisti, the anti-alcohol As if that wasn’t bad enough a month later the bigots, the anti-smoking jihadists and the keep fit council still hadn’t written to sort out the freaks. problem despite the episode being prominently Yes, my eyes were opened. Sudddenly I was featured in the Wells Journal and a complaint pleased I came of age when I did. After all, the made to MP Tessa Munt. last thing I want to be is modern man: ill- And they still hadn’t answered even though the educated, monosyllabic, foul-mouthed; a horror whole fiasco is down to the muck-up Mendip in a shaven head with a repulsive tattooed beer District Council made of dealing with the bakery barrel body dressed in a curry-stained T-shirt, over the question of relief of one kind and long baggy shorts and stinking trainers. another on business rates. So, what I say is, bring out the Time Machine, True to form, of course, no councillor came set the dial back to dear old ’61 – and beam me out of the woodwork to explain this gross up Scottie. defamation of a fine shopkeeper but left it to the ubiquitous anonymous spokesperson to talk to G Actually, talking of the horrors of this century the Press who ranted on about the process of brings me neatly to the subject of Somerset paying business rates and how they’d seize your council leader Ken “Axe-Mad” Maddock, the chattels if you didn’t cough up. slicer and dicer of the county’s staff and services. Good Lord, what a crumby lot they are in the Yes, dear old Axe-Mad has again raised his Fawlty Towers of Municipal Misfeasance in bloodied cleaver and this time brought it down Shepton.

MENDIP TIMES •JANUARY 2011 • PAGE ?? COMMENT Am I an old windbag? TODAY, Dear Reader, I shall address myself politically correct, the businessmen, scientists and God-knows- to the task so beloved by that eccentric old who-else who are making wads from the damn things and the Spanish gentleman, Don Quixote. I shall barmy army of global warming/climate change doom-mongers spend my time and yours, if you will let me, So I dare say that will make me a heretic in their eyes and we tilting at windmills. And probably with as all know that in the Middle Ages they used to burn heretics at little luck. the stake. Mind you, I suppose these modern day Inquisitors But I mean, don’t you just sometimes feel would lean more to frying me alive on a solar panel. that things have to be said; that the time has Serve me sunny side up please! With ALAN passed for sitting back idly and submissively G GOODE accepting the drivel that is put before you as Talking about being a heretic, I can provide an update on the undisputed fact? plight of Chewton Mendip bakery Lynda’s Loaf, after Mendip Don’t you just feel the moment has arrived to take up the Dipstick Council made the appalling gaffe of sending in the lance, saddle the horse and take a good gallop at bailiffs by mistake. the flailing targets even if the result is likely to The bakery’s local councillor, Tom Killen, contacted me bring the derision and spittle-soaked venomous after last month’s Comment pointing out that he had acted words of condemnation of the zealots? immediately on hearing of the situation and Because in the world of the politically correct stopped any further action being taken. He and in the bible of modern certainties there are then met the proprietors and had talks with things that just cannot be done or said without council officials to resolve the situation. the earth opening up to swallow you; for He is now hopeful, he tells me, that the instance, smoking in the loo or being rude granting of business rate relief for last year about the Welsh. and the current year will be sorted out soon And such it is with regard to wind with a way being found to circumvent turbines which have been sprouting up in Government legislation stating that relief alarming numbers all over our country’s cannot be retrospective. verdant pastures whether the local people Now all that is most laudable of the wanted them or not. And usually they councillor and I am sure everyone will be didn’t. pleased and indeed relieved to hear of his fight However, the prevailing view from those against this case of bureaucratic bungling. who consider themselves our betters is that My point remains however that in a properly run they are “a must have, good thing” and an council the bailiffs would never have been sent in – yet answer to our energy needs. So yah- boo, no councillor had the guts to go before the Press to tell sucks to you. But as was undisputedly local taxpayers how it had happened and what was demonstrated before Christmas, when the being done to ensure it never happened weather gets really cold they are about as again. Instead it was again left to an useful as a pork chop at a Jewish anonymous council spokesperson who, as wedding. usual, dodged the questions. Energy experts reported that as On top of that a month after the incident the Twonks-on- temperatures plunged and the demand for the-Hill had failed to put anything in writing to the bakery. electricity soared, the country’s 3,000 wind Now I know Councillor Killen was an able intermediary and turbines were working at less than one messenger but the bakery was deserving of an immediate hundredth of their capacity. written response. Because without that you just can’t And I can certainly vouch this is true from help remembering the words of that savvy old movie personal experience because whereas other mogul Sam Goldwyn: “A verbal agreement ain’t people have fairies at the bottom of their worth the paper it’s written on.” gardens, I have a wind turbine and it certainly wasn’t swinging G its arms about to keep warm. Talking about last month’s Mendip Times, I see Humourless Yet despite this 10,000 more are planned in the next decade of Bradford on Avon has dipped his pen in vitriol and written to and according to the Government they will provide 30 per cent the Editor about me again. of our electricity needs; although, it would now seem, not Now I have no objections to his views on my column. For all necessarily when we most need it. I know he may be right. Well, I’m no expert in power generation but it doesn’t take a But what I do bridle at more than somewhat is his wholesale degree in electrical engineering or a lifetime in the power support for a previous correspondent who described me as a industry to work out that a source that gives up at the very bigoted old man. I mean, come on, after all fair’s fair. Less of point everyone most needs electricity is very seriously flawed. the old . . . please! Now I know my views will be treated as heresy by the

MENDIP TIMES •FEBRUARY 2011 • PAGE 19 COMMENT

A moment of madness I HAVE always thought one of my most from Litton, asked my wife if she had yet put me in a home for endearing peccadilloes is the ability when the bewildered. I laughed at the time but I’m beginning to think undertaking a humdrum task to lose myself she may have a point. in thought over some intractable problem G and so make a complete ass of myself in the And the mention of a home for the bewildered reminds me of process of executing the job in hand. the Fawlty Towers of Municipal Misfeasance in Shepton with To make things clear take the example of its in-power Tory Twonks who have the undemocratic habit of Miss Prism, who in Oscar Wilde’s never sticking their heads above the parapet when the flak is With ALAN Importance of Being Earnest, admitted in a flying. GOODE “moment of abstraction” putting the baby in I have often questioned how this comes about without ever her handbag and her two-volume novel in the bassinette. receiving an explanation from Mendip Dipstick Council leader Well, it was just such “a moment of abstraction” that afflicted Harvey Siggs (who once told me he would like to pour a bucket me in Wells a few days ago when I was tasked by my wife to of manure over my head) and his baneful band of artful pick up a hot-off-the-press copy of the Mendip Times. bodgers. The order was to jump out of the car at the bottom of Sadler Well, I am told by one of my Moles on the Mendips, who has Street and dash into the newsagents while Mrs G drove slowly an intimate knowledge of the controlling Twonks, it is their round Market Square to pick me up outside the Edinburgh policy never to answer any criticism that appears in the Press. Woollen Mill shop. Can this be true, I wonder? If it is, is it bad manners, Unfortunately, on leaving the car I decided that the job in arrogance or fear that makes them feel no obligation to make hand was a no-brainer and turned my mind to a vexing problem explanations to the tax-paying public? the details of which I need not bother you with. Of course, I won’t be told because the question will hit the The good news was I picked up the Mendip Times, rushed Twonks’ Catch 22 “Don’t answer what’s in the Press” rule. But back across the road and jumped into the 4x4 waiting for a bus I think we should be told. to pass before leaving Market Square. G The bad news was I had just settled myself in the passenger Some friends of mine have long maintained that Jacob-Rees seat and was about to shut the door when I was met with the Mogg, the MP for Wansdyke, whilst having a brain as sharp as a question: “What the hell do you think you are doing?” It was at bacon slicer, is an aloof sort of cove. this point I realised to my horror I was in the wrong vehicle. To underline this they claim he wrote a letter to Radstock’s And, yes, I have to admit my reply: “I thought you were my weekly paper quoting Homer when everyone knows that the wife” to what turned out to be a gentleman of mature years in a only Homer most people in those parts know is on the telly and baseball cap lacked, with hindsight, a soupcon of credibility. has the surname Simpson. But before people like Humourless of Bradford of Avon, who Anyway the other day I learnt there is nothing he likes better keeps tell-tale-twitting on me to the Editor, call in the men in for shaking off the Mugger of Parliaments than going for a white coats on the basis that I am losing my marbles let me drink at his local, The Crown at West Harptree. point out that this peccadillo of mine has been an ever-present So it’s good to find he is a man of the people after all. And, part of my life. I’m told, he’s happy to reply to Indeed in my early 20s I once drove my Mini through a criticisms. I’ve a good mind German border crossing oblivious of its presence whilst to leave him a pint behind concentrating on singing a few verses of Wagnerian opera in the the bar next time I pop in. composer’s mother tongue. I only became aware of the misdemeanour when I was stopped by the Austrian border guards who waved me back whilst idly, but obviously, fingering the triggers of their guns. Now those people who say the Germans have no sense of humour may not be entirely wrong, because the Guardians of the Fatherland I had passed were not laughing when I returned. But at least I didn’t know these people and would never see them again. The problem with the Wells imbroglio is that the chap in the 4x4 is a member of that quite excellent and thriving organisation, the City of Wells Probus Club. And it so happens that not only am I a member but I am also this year’s chairman which means that no self-respecting Probusian will be able to resist making humorous quips at my expense for many meetings to come. No wonder a dear old friend, an elegant and charming lady

MENDIP TIMES •MARCH 2011 • PAGE ?? COMMENT

Voting with the head not the heart I HAVE recently been made aware a large people as depicted by their craniological curiosities. number of readers are expecting me to provide Having identifiedtheright shapednoddlefor thetypeof chap someform of guidanceon how theymight hewanted,theproprietorwentto theofficeand was taking his recognise suitable candidates in the daily stroll around the various departments when he was stopped forthcoming Mendip Dipstick Council dead in his tracks: there was The Head. elections. After asking the department manager to whom The Head Of course, I understand the quandary they belonged, he invited the surprised owner of this phrenologically face. The truth is that the old method of voting spot-on pate down to his oak-panelled office, gave him the senior With ALAN for theparty with thebestrecordor themost executive job and showered him with money and a seat on the GOODE appealing policies is hardly open to us when board. fielding a new team for the Fawlty Towers of Municipal Now the point is The Head proved to be exceptionally Misfeasance at Shepton. impressive and successful and was to remain at the helm of the After all, the in-power Tory Twonks are about as visionary as a newspaper for years and years to come, much to the development particularly myopic mole, have earned themselves the unenviable of thebusinessand thesizeof theproprietor’s bank balance. reputation for generally making a mess of things and are so So takemy word, this has to beas good a way as any of picking arrogant they refuse to go on record to explain their manifold sins a candidate. And from past experience it can’t bring any worse and wickedness even when they are challenged by taxpayers results. through the Press. G Whilst on the other hand you have the out-of-power Liberal Still, as the poet W. H. Davies wrote: What is this life if, full of Democrat Twonks who didn’t do much to shout about when they care, we have no time to stand and stare. And frankly, I’ve been were in power and who in opposition have resembled nothing if doing quite a bit of standing and staring myself lately. not that of a still-life painting of a dead cod on a fishmonger’s Because every year I cannot help but marvel how the earth, after marbleslab. the winter with virtually everything seemingly dead, bounces back Some choice, eh? Well have no fear Goode is here and not only to life as the days lengthen and the temperatures erratically begin that, he has been mulling over this knotty problem and at no to rise. expense to the dear people of the Mendips has come up with a I have a particular affection for that harbinger of even warmer, solution. lighter, sunnier days to come: the snowdrop. And with swathes of What I suggest you do is think of the person you most admire, these flowers in my garden are the many-coloured crocus, the say the Queen, Nelson Mandela, Michael Eavis, or a businessman, aconites and the first of the daffodils to open their yellow artist, composer, scientist, even Bett Lynch from Coronation trumpeted heads. Even a lone anemone has decided to brave the Street. Then carefully study that person’s head and pick the cold, frosty nights. council election candidate whose skullular topography most The birds are starting to sing and flutter round examining the resembles your chosen hero. nest boxes, hedges and trees. Whilst a particular delight of mine is Now, come on, don’t scoff, don’t sneer. I don’t give this advice to go down to the Levels and see the hundreds of swans – surely lightly or without previous experience of the efficacy of this God’s most gloriously graceful creation – in the fields and on the particular method of selection. water. I mean, years ago I was acquainted with a very impressive and Which makesit all themorebloody nauseatingthat at thetime successful newspaper proprietor who was looking for a person of re-birth in the natural world around us some 30 of these with theability to bean beautiful birds have been wantonly killed by means of firing air impressive and successful gun pellets into their heads. senior executive. But People talk about the beasts of the field. It makes you wonder the usual channels whether the real beasts are not the animals, but the human beings. were showing no G result. By the way, I spotted in the Chew Valley Gazette the other day Then one day the a headlinesayingthesearchwas on to find a suitablesitefor butler brought the affordablehousing in ChewMagna. Can this possibly beright? morning paper I thought thewholeraison d’etreforChewMagna was to into the providea homefor thosein thepopulation who inextricablythink breakfast room they gain social status just by paying through their stuck-up noses and the for their houses. newspaperman I’m sure you’ll join me and their money-for-old-rope estate saw an article, agents in hoping an influx of ordinary down-to-earth people will with copious not adversely affect their property prices. illustrations, of the Afterall, as you say Daphnedarling, you didn’t votefor that varying attributes of nice David Cameron for this kind of thing to happen.

MENDIP TIMES •APRIL 2011 • PAGE 11 COMMENT

Seeking the cure for Twonkitis WELL, it’s like this, I said to the doctor the forthcoming by-election in Shepton on only one notice board – other day after ringing for an emergency and that was in their own offices! consultation, I seem to have developed a Well doc, I said as the consultation neared its end, I am new and frightening addiction. The fact is I pleased to hear there have been no recorded deaths from just can’t stop Twonking. Twonkitis but I am sorry there is no cure. As you say I can only I know the affliction has laid low many a hope the causes of the problem disappear. man stronger and braver than I. And So, you see, Dear Reader, I’m fervently praying (mind you, I honestly it isn’t as though I have not tried to dare say a hell of a lot of others are too) that after this election With ALAN give up. Every month I designate as a No- we might just find ourselves with a group of councillors who GOODE Twonking month and every time I break that know their arses from their elbows. pledge. G And it’s not as if it’s all my fault, I continued as the doctor’s Talking of people knowing their posteriors from their mid- expression became ever more serious, because each time I make arm joints, I must voice my concern that Councillor Ken “Axe- up my mind to go Twonk-less, the Twonks-on-the-Hill do Mad” Maddock, the leader of Somerset County Council, something awful or scandalous, or awfully scandalous or appears to be showing the strains of high office. scandalously awful. Having sliced swathes from the budget with his And now it has happened again. This time mighty bloodied cleaver he has the wrong voting cards for the successfully dealt a blow to forthcoming Mendip Dipstick Council literacy with his policy on elections have been sent to thousands of libraries, cut services to the people, including me as it so happens. disadvantaged such as the elderly I mean, it isn’t as if holding an and young people and left half the election is anything new. They’ve been county stranded through lack of bus going for donkey’s years and the same services. can be said of sending out voting cards. He has bored to the point of So how come it went wrong? insomnia the whole of the Somerset But then it’s nothing new for the electorate and anyone else within inhabitants of the Fawlty Towers of striking distance on the need to Municipal Misfeasance at Shepton to save money; to introduce fiscal make a right pig’s ear of elections; just prudence into the corridors of look at the one in 2007 – but I warn those County Hall. of a nervous disposition it’s not a pretty sight. And in the midst of this never-ending This poll was a real humdinger of municipal torrent of Armageddon-like pronouncements, you’ll never mayhem. It was hit by delayed postal votes, problems with guess what he has done now unless you’ve just eaten a rather proxy vote applications, late and misnumbered polling cards, large plate of magic mushrooms. issues over vote verification, a slow count and the loss of a He’s gone and employed a consultant to recommend further marked register of electors. cost savings and he’s paying her – wait for it, wait for it – a Of course, at the end of this fiasco Mendip Dipstick Council monstrous, mind-boggling 800 quid a day. Yes, a day. Yes, 800 announced, as it always does when it has once again made a of our hard-earned bloody pounds. mess of things and as an opiate to the incensed masses, a I know it’s a shock. One man, I am told, heard about it on the “review of the system”. radio while in the bath and was so appalled he slipped Yet strangely one of the cock-ups in this climactic coruscation backwards and lost consciousness. He was only saved from a of catastrophies in 2007 involved voting cards for which the shallow but watery grave thanks to prompt action by his wife. printer was roundly blamed. In this election the council has Mind you, Axe-Mad is currently a leading member of Mendip gone to another printer and now he has been blamed. Dipstick Council, so perhaps, in view of that authority’s record, But what I say is: instead of blaming the supplier the council inexplicable decision making is not in the least surprising. should look to its procedures; perhaps undertake yet another of G its beloved reviews. Clearly the last one fell short of perfection. By the way, I was with a friend on a visit up north recently Because let’s face it, the Twonks really must stop passing the when he was asked by a Lancastrian, whose knowledge of the buck and accept if the printer makes a mistake that does not West Country was hazy, what was the difference between absolve them from responsibility as the organisers of the Devon and Somerset. election. My friend thought for a few moments and then replied: “Well, Mind you, this is not the only time since the 2007 that they in Devon they have primroses in their hedgerows. In Somerset have made a mess of an election. Not long ago they got a good we have litter.” slapping from the Men from the Ministry for advertising a How sad he should be so right.

MENDIP TIMES •MAY 2011 • PAGE ?? COMMENT

Letting a little sunshine into our lives I DARESAY you will find it hard to believe Centre at Chester and later this month to meet a paediatric but the irritations and irritators of modern life neurologist in Liverpool. are not at the forefront of my mind this month. She is not, she says, looking for a cure although it would be Instead I just can’t get out of my head that marvellous if she could find one. She is just searching for catchy song Morcambe and Wise used to trill, anything that might help alleviate the disabilities with which her Give Me Sunshine. son has to live. And the reason is I suddenly found the other Mind you, it’s not surprising the financial cost on a single mum day a great burst of sunshine had entered life unable to go out to work has meant that life has not always been With ALAN during a chat about the opening of Angela and easy. At one point she fell into debt but friends rallied round her GOODE Alban Bunting’s garden on Sunday, June 19, including the setting up of Larry’s Appeal. when I learned the story of Shepton Mallet’s Scarlett Beavis, and What Scarlett, who moved from Bristol to live with her sister her son Larry. and helper Romina in Shepton a few years ago, knows for certain Sadly Larry was diagnosed as autistic at 18 months old. This is that Larry assimilates more than he can express and he has was soon to be confirmed as Autism Spectrum Disorder, which sensory sensitivities which include adoring music, enjoying meant the progress and direction of his disabilities were uncertain singing and loving gardens and being around flowers. but the effects would be profound. It therefore seems very fitting it is through opening a garden His mother says the news felt like being shown into a black hole Angela and Alban should be raising money for charities including and since then she has devoted her life to looking after Larry, who Larry’s Appeal, which was originally launched by Angela’s sister. G is now 15 years old. She is his mother, full-time carer, teacher and So I urge you to pop along and give your support to this most loving companion. worthy cause. Not only will your contribution be extremely His problems include the time taken to absorb information and valuable, you can also enjoy a most unusual and stimulating that those with him cannot always be sure he has taken it in. garden. Sometimes he can string whole sentences together, others he will For Alban, who absorbed a love of old building techniques as an have difficulty speaking a single word. apprentice carpenter working with craftsman who had served on Certainly it is to her undying credit that Larry has grown into large estates, has used his skills to the full. such a happy, fulfilled human being. Scarlett describes him as a The buildings he has constructed in the garden, named after his typical teenager in that he is fairly laid back most of the time but three grandchildren comprise Ruth’s Cottage (Gothic); Tom’s not when he gets frustrated. He is also affectionate but can be a Lodge (Elizabethan) and Charlotte’s Post Office (Victorian). There handful when he is not. are other attractions too including a jousting tent, a gazebo, But what is so inspiring is when talking of her life with Larry, Norman tower and an Owl and Pussycat Garden. Scarlett speaks without a trace of self pity or of anger. Her words Angela’s home-made cream teas and light lunches will be are those of a loving mother finding her happiness in the available and there will be live music; there’s free parking in the happiness and well-being of her son. nearby field and parking for the handicapped nearer the house. And it is this sharp-focused commitment that has driven Scarlett So do try to get along to Spindle Cotttage, Binegar Green, to constantly seek specialist medical help; the latest being on- Binegar, near Wells BA3 4UE (01749 840497) on Sunday June going visits to the Brain Injury Rehabilitation and Development 19th (11.30am -5.30pm). Admission is only £3 a person and children are free. Go on, give yourself a treat and help Larry at the same time. I know you won’t be disappointed. . G Mind you, moving out of the sun and into deep shade for a moment, have you ever wondered whether it is true our once world-leading education system has disappeared down the plughole of modern-day mediocrity? Well, just in case you have yet to reach a decision let me bring to your attention the scrawl seen on the back of a very, very dirty red lorry. The legend, in large capital letters, read: “CLIN ME.” I mean, what hope is there for us if even our graffiti scribblers are diabolically illiterate. Oh so different, I fear, to the good old days when KILROY WAS HERE. Innit? G By the way I think my Twonkitis has been cured because I haven’t once this month mentioned the Twonks-on-the . . . oops, Larry with Alban (left) and Angela in the garden of their Binegar now that’s torn it. Clearly I’m not as well as I thought. home Quick nurse, the pills.

MENDIP TIMES •JUNE 2011 • PAGE 11 COMMENT Save the humble cheque THERE are so many diabolical Big Brother Concern and Help the Aged, or the Federation of Small stitch-ups going on these days somehow it Businesses that have set their sails firmly against being dragooned slipped my attention that for many months the by the banks into going further into the paperless society. knives have been out to get rid of that trusty And perhaps even more impressive is that the massed ranks of ally, the cheque book. those Middle England modern Bodiceas, the members of the It seems this is the latest evil wheeze of the Women’s Institute, are burnishing their razor-sharp swords and bankers, those monsters running institutions throwing themselves into the fray. offering increasingly poor service, fewer and Now the Payment Council better beware, this is the organisation With ALAN fewer local branches, levying ever higher that had the guts to wipe out that perpetual and repulsive toothy GOODE charges for ever less service and liners of their grin of Tony Blair. Clearly they take no prisoners. own pockets with immoral oodles of dosh in bonuses in the G process. Talking of the battling Bodiceas of the WI, leads me to mention Or at least work is being done for them by an organisation the campaign by the Blagdon branch to get action taken to make called the Payments Council which gives itself the Orwellian- safer an accident black-spot bend in Burrington Combe. sounding job description of being an organisation “which sets the I am told by its members there is an average of one accident a strategy for UK payments having been set up by the payments month on the bend which requires the attendance of police, fire industry in March 2007 to ensure that UK payments systems and and ambulance. On top of that there are even more which do not services meet the need of the payments service providers, users require the emergency services but still cause injury and damage. and the wider economy”. In fact, the situation is so bad even an electronic sign put up to Well, that’s a mouthful of old tosh if I ever heard one but if you warn drivers of the sharp bend was mown down, presumably ask me this long and indigestible sentence means the organisation because the driver didn’t give himself enough time to finish is the subservient lacky targeted with the job of carrying out reading it. spurious consultation before imposing on us all against our wills The members have written to people who might be influential in the ideas bankers first think of. getting something done and have received a letter from North Because take my word for it, this whole muddle-headed concept Somerset Highways and Transport Development officer John has got sweet sod all to do with helping the users, which is us, but Painter asking them for suggestions on what do. everything to do with ridding the banks of what they have come to Well, the branch is of the opinion that that electronic sign was consider a nuisance. too close to the bend for motorists to sufficiently slow down in Never mind small organisations and small businesses rely on the time and are all for having two carefully spaced accident blackspot humble cheque book for giving and receiving money as much as warning signs erected. they ever have in the cheque’s 350 year history. Of course, some people might argue the kind of idiots who go Never mind vast numbers of the elderly, disabled and down Burrington Combe like bats out of hell and heedless of their disadvantaged will be lost and confused without them. own safety and anyone else’s are so thick as unlikely to give a toss Never mind, as a spokeswoman for the consumer magazine about warning signs. Which? pointed out there is still no cheap, or most importantly, Others would argue with the state of modern education the sort safe alternative to cheques. of bone-headed loony who uses Burrington Combe as a race track Never mind anything really, the Payments Council is hell-bent is probably unable to read anyway. on phasing out cheques by 2018 despite what anybody says as But the idea put forward seems a good one to me and it is hard they point out 11m cheques were once written every day and now to see what else could be done which would be any more there are only 3.8m though that still sounds one hell of lot. effective. Still, it is good to hear that there are lots of people like Age And anyway my advice to Mr Painter is get on and do it or you’ll never get any peace. After all, when it comes to the bend, the ladies are not for turning. G By the way, days after I wrote of the wonderful example of a mother’s love for her autistic son there came the BBC Panorama expose of the terrible indignities imposed on the inmates of a residential home in Bristol. Could any contrast be starker than that of the safety, comfort and selflessness of the Beavis family home and the vile abuse and degradation of that loveless institution? I mean, the inmates were given a frightening time under the noses of the managers, without the knowledge of the home’s owners and the body entrusted with investigating complaints ignored pleas for help. As the Romans used to say: Who guards the guardians?

MENDIP TIMES •JULY 2011 • PAGE 33 COMMENT I’m hacked off with lawyers I DON’T know about you but my phone hasn’t been hacked by the Dirty Digger’s unsavoury schlocks. I am pretty sure there’s an odds-on chance it hasn’t happened to you either. And although I don’t underestimate the enormity of the heinous doings of that scrofulous band of amoral media meddlers in With ALAN Wapping, I find my mind turning to another GOODE malign manifestation but one which hits us all where it really hurts: in the pocket. My eyes are set on those sinister vultures who sit glowering down on humanity ready to pick the bones from any person’s mishap for their own gain. I refer, of course, to the personal injury lawyers. controlled Somerset County Council, which form two sides of the To tell the truth, the enormity of the situation was really brought same dismal and devalued coin. home to me the other day when I popped into a Mendip hostelry I mean, the ability is breathtaking of both benighted institutions and found myself cornered by a bar room bore haranguing me to attack the very core of our civilisation and the very weakest in over ever-rising car insurance premiums. our communities in their cack-handed cost savings. Then when he had completed this mind-numbing monologue he The risible crew in the Fawlty Towers of Municipal Misfeasance turned to his involvement in a car shunt and how in no time, he in Shepton have come up with the wheeze of not cleaning public said, he was canvassed by a firm of injury lawyers who promised toilets (or at least those which have not already been closed) in him oodles of cash if he went to the doctor’s and said his shoulder Wells on Sundays. hurt. He did and duly copped for a grand or two. It doesn’t appear to matter to them the city is a tourist attraction The amazing thing is this bone-headed bonzo couldn’t see it was and visitors from this country and abroad will go away not because of thousands of idiots like him claiming grossly- thinking about the magnificence of the cathedral but of the city’s exaggerated effects of near imaginary injuries who are artificially stinking toilets. pushing up the premiums. It doesn’t look as if they give a damn the very people who pay Well, I said at the time when the restrictions on solicitors’ their council taxes will have to suffer the same insanitory, advertising were lifted that no good would come of it; that they unhygienic, germ-laden conditions of a third world chemical were blood-sucking menaces enough with only a brass plate khazi. outside their front doors. And while this is going on, Somerset County Council, under its Now you can’t watch television, or read a paper or a magazine, leader, former high-ranking Twonk Councillor Ken “Axe-Mad” without being bombarded with advertisements exhorting the Maddock, is continuing its headlong assault on literacy which benefits of going to them as an easy way to getting a fair few quid began with a programme of extensive library closures. for bugger all. Not content with this outburst of rampant Philistinism, the Of course, we’re in a litigious age where the duty of an county is now axing most of the mobile library service reducing individual to look where he or she is going has been replaced by a the number of library stops from 854 to 311 which means 206 culture insisting nothing is an accident or an Act of God but has to rural communities will no longer get the service. be somebody else’s fault. Of course, yet again the vulnerable will be hit, particularly older And the promoters of this blame culture are the injury lawyers people, the disabled and youngsters seeking to improve their who see every slip and every trip as another chance to chuck more literacy skills. Often going into town to a library will not be an cash in their bottomless money bags. option as the bus services have been slashed; even if there is still a Come on, the blindingly obvious fact is that rises in claims are library when they get there, of course. passed on by the insurance companies through premiums so the Oh to be in Somerset now the Twonks are here, tra-la. end user carries the cost. The only ones really trousering extra G bunce are the solicitors. Finally a happier note. I see the Payments Council, the lick- In the circumstances I am reminded of the words of the spittle organisation formed to do the bankers’ dirty work, has American novelist Mario Puzo, author of the Godfather: dropped its bid to chuck the cheque book in the dustbin of history. “A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more money than one It was interesting to see Wells MP Tessa Munt claim in a hastily hundred men with guns.” published statement it was down to some Liberal Democrat MP from Oop North somewhere who she says launched the Save the G And so I move seamlessly on from the people who can put a Cheque campaign. value on anything to those who seemingly know the price of But we all know, don’t we, it was the serried ranks of the everything and the value of nothing. braying Bodiceas of the WI who really sent the bankers fleeing. We are back to the Twonks-on-the-Hill and the Mendip Mafia- Will you tell her, or shall I?

MENDIP TIMES •AUGUST 2011 • PAGE 11 COMMENT Tarredandfeathered COR blimey guv, it was only last month I tourism. It’s about civic pride. It’s about looking after the best complained about control being exercised that has been bequeathed for the benefit of those here now and on our behalf by people who know the price the generations to come. of everything and the value of nothing in So let’s face it, the two councils have shown themselves their headlong dash to save dosh at any cost. willing to put to sacrificial slaughter heritage, literacy and Well, blow me down if they haven’t been public hygiene on the altar of ill-considered cost-savings whilst up to their old tricks again. The latest of showing no understanding of inherent value. their dastardly doings is to cobble together a Come on, what a clueless, clumsy, catastrophic load of With ALAN plan which means damaged cobbles in the incompetent cobblers they are! GOODE glorious Market Place, Wells, are patched G with tar. Talking of the lack of civic pride reminds me I read the other And it’s the same crew, viz Somerset County Council, whose day a judge of the Mendip in Bloom competition bemoaning rampant Philistinism is aiming to bring down the executioner’s neither Street nor Shepton Mallet entered the competition. axe on literacy in the county by closing most of Somerset’s Yes, I bemoan it too. I deplore the lack of interest in making a library services, both mobile and static. statement of confidence in their shopping centres by their I mean, when it comes to spoiling an historic market area respective councils and businesses. But my concerns are for with a ha’p’orth of tar, we are talking of the same city which very different reasons in the case of each. has to bear stinking public toilets at weekends. From my experience Street has a bustling shopping centre This disgraceful situation came about because the Twonks-on- right next to the crowd-pulling Clark’s Village. This alone the-Hill at Shepton decided to save a few bob by withdrawing should encourage locally-based shops and the bone headed cleaning services on Sundays so condemning visitors and council to make the place look enticing to big-spending residents to the rigours reminiscent of a 19th century earth strangers. closet. On the opposite side of the coin poor old Shepton Mallet lies But then is it surprising there are remarkable similarities in in the ugly shadow of the God-awful, commercially blood- the approach by the district and county councils? After all, they sucking Tesco super–shed, which has done everything to add to are both run by the Mendip Mafia. the supermarket’s profits and sweet sod all for the local traders. I refer, of course, to Councillor Ken “Axe-Mad” Maddock, The fact is the former Top Tory Twonk on the Mendips who left to lead centre of Somerset abetted by some of his cheerless chums from the hills. Shepton needs And so, Dear Reader, here’s a starter for ten: Who is leading all the support it the charge to turn Wells’s Market Place into a black tar can get to stay patchwork quilt? alive before the Why, it’s is non-other than Dear Old Harvey Siggs, leader of life machine has Mendip District Council and, unbelievingly in the to be regretfully circumstances, a member of Wells City Council. In fact, the turned off. very man who once voiced the wish he had a bucket of manure So, if you ask to pour over my head because an appellation I bestowed upon me, both centres him frightened the children. deserve better This oh-so-busy chap, when wearing his hat as a county than the dull- councillor is cabinet member for highways, appeared non-too- brained, penny-pinching Neanderthal dullards they are saddled pleased the tar scam had not only been spotted by arch rival Lib with. Dem MP Tessa Munt but that she had immediately issued a G damning press release. By the way, reluctantly returning to Harvey Siggs I see he is Good on yer Tessa, is what I say. However, in his statement to not just leader of Mendip District Council, a Well City the estimable Wells Journal Mr Siggs seemed miffed about her Councillor and Highways boss and Chief High Executioner of action expressing disappointment she had not approached him Staff at Somerset County Council. first. It seems he has now been made third vice-chair (the Lord But then, I dare say it would have suited him and his keep-it- save me from such vomit-inducing municipalese) of something quiet pals if nobody had brought the issue to the notice of the called South West Councils. public even though with his back to the ropes he did say the Well, he looked pleased with himself in the pictures county was already looking to resolve the issue. accompanying the articles announcing his latest appointment Yet the really scary thing is he gave no indication of having but one can’t help wandering whether, even with the advantage the slightest understanding of what the fuss was all about. “We of his motorcycle, he is in danger of taking on too much. do not believe a small amount of tarmac in certain areas will After all, I am old enough to remember how totally drive the tourists away,” he said. unfulfilling were World War II sandwiches when the butter Good God, who’s talking about tourists? This isn’t about ration was spread too thin.

MENDIP TIMES •SEPTEMBER 2011 • PAGE ?? COMMENT Beware the monsters of Brussels Meddle, meddle; tinker, tinker, haven’t the guts to fight. The EU’s come up with another stinker. Wonder whatever happened to the Dunkirk spirit? G YES, the bureaucratic bunglers of Brussels Talking of stinkers, I see the Government has come up with have devised another pile of Euro-crap, this changes to planning laws which would give our greedy, time opening up our country to even longer grasping housing developers virtual carte blanche to stick up and heavier lorries than ever before. their tacky little boxes on handkerchief size plots wheresoever It now seems likely that next year will see they want. With ALAN on our roads 60-tonne mega monsters that Mind you, this seems rather puzzling as by anybody’s GOODE will be a jaw-dropping 83ft long compared reckoning such a move would be like giving a kleptomaniac with the present 54 feet. unimpeded access to all the departments in Harrod’s in the vain Which, of course, means our buildings will be shaken ever hope he wouldn’t strip the store bare. further to their foundations, the road surfaces and their But then I saw in my Sunday paper the Tories have been infrastructure already being crushed by the current 44-tonne given millions of pounds in donations from developers and mastodons will be eroded even further and faster. developers are also paying thousands of pounds for access to a It also means the chaos and danger often caused by the Conservative forum where elite donors can discuss planning length of the current goliaths will be come more acute as the and property issues at “breakfast meetings”. long-as-a-liner models try to take sharp corners, master On top of that I read in my daily paper that Greg Clark, the roundabouts and turn out from T-junctions. And God-only- planning minister, has been privately urging his chums the knows what will happen when they sat-nav through the lanes. developers to lobby David Cameron because of concerns his Mind you, this might not be new to you but it was to me. Not rob-dog ideas may be blocked by the Prime Minister. that I don’t try to keep abreast of current affairs but my mind, Meanwhile some chap involved in drawing up the new rules like those of many others, is loathe to take in anything in a is quoted as saying that local residents are not meant to be able newspaper, magazine or on the box that contains Europe or EU. to “resist” new developments warning there will be more Any road up, I finally came across this disturbing news in the development not less whether we like it or not. estimable monthly newspaper, the Chew Valley Gazette, with Never mind democracy will be crushed under the bulldozer its quite excellent section containing reports of parish council tracks of pecuniary self-interest; never mind that our beautiful meetings within the area. countryside will disappear under bricks and tarmac; to hell The notes of the meeting at Blagdon stated councillors had with our wildlife, our ancient trees, or even the production of decided to write to North Somerset District Council to find out our own food. what the authority’s intentions were as to the routing of this Of course, there may be a perfectly rational and innocent latest road transport industry threat to our senses. reason behind it all but considering the artful dodges our “Our view is that, for example,” the parish council report political parties have come up with in said with commendable forthrightness, “Blagdon High Street the not-so-distant past one just can’t help just could not accommodate vehicles of this size and we intend a shadow of doubt casting over the to say so.” mind. Well, I wouldn’t for a moment think it bloody-well could and G certainly not without great danger to buildings, people and Finally, I come to yet another stinker. other traffic, to say nothing about the inconvenience to the The treatment meted out to one of villagers themselves. Britain’s finest delicacies by means of And Blagdon is not on its own; the majority of this country’s the Government’s health fascisti and the roads were never designed for lorries anything like the size we new owners who have taken over see now let alone anything bigger. production. The dangers, therefore, are plain to see and you’d have I refer to HP Sauce, the indispensable thought these might have overriding importance. After all the adjunct to anything with chips and the country’s up to its eyes in side-splittingly awful elfnsafety decision to follow Government health rulings it doesn’t want. guidelines, which meant reducing the (I mean, did you see the one where a dairy company took salt level by a small amount but enough upon itself to nick old milk crates given to a school years ago. to ruin its taste for connoisseurs like The children had apparently used them without incident but myself. that didn’t stop some-pea-brained Little Hitler designating This raises two questions. Why the them an elfnsafety hazard). hell do we let foreigners snap up our But then sensible elfnsafety decisions are like policemen. national brands? And as the diner only When you want one, they are never there. has a small dollop of the sauce on the And anyway the sad truth is when the EU barmy army comes plate, what’s achieved by changing the up with its unpalatable ideas, Whitehall and Westminster recipe?

MENDIP TIMES •OCTOBER 2011 • PAGE 15 COMMENT The art of communication WELL, it might have been blindingly obvious to you andme for many a year but finally the powers-that-be seem to have had a rare moment of lucidityandgraspedthe value of proper English as it is spoken and written. For instance, I see it has been recognised as not a bad idea that foreign doctors With ALAN working in this country shouldactually be GOODE able to speak andunderstandtheirpatients andtheir patients understandthem. Not a mind-boggling stretch of the brain cells one would have thought but it has taken a bloody long while for anyone to get go-faster velocipedes to Somerset is a no-no. Well, excuse me if aroundto doingsomething about it. Meanwhile Godknows how I fail to sheda tear at the news. many misunderstandings and misdiagnoses there have been I mean, for goodness sake, if the wheelers want to whoosh through lack of proper communication. through the county and their adherents want to watch them, then Andnow I learn that some quango calledOfqual, which is fine by me. But my point is simple: they shouldfundit described as a qualifications watchdog, has finally woken up, themselves. come out of its kennel andbarkedthat from September next What I can’t understand is why the public purse was ever year marks will be deducted from GCSE English papers for bad raidedbutI suppose someone is going to say it entertainedthe spelling. locals andprovidedpublicity for our fine county. But, what do they mean, going to? Why the hell did they ever Frankly on neither count can I see that the results justifiedthe stop? Why should it be too much to expect a student with a expense. For the local residentsandthose far afieldthe so- fistful of GCSEs, a handful of A-levels and a university degree called spectacle is but a momentary flash of bicycles speeding to be capable of writing words in the manner defined in our down a road. You can see that any day and it could be dictionaries? anywhere. Apparently the dear little horrors face losing as much as 12 But now we are in an age of austerity when, according to per cent of their marks for poor spelling, punctuation and “Axe-Mad” and his cheerless Mendip chums, we can no longer grammar. The aim, it is stated, is to bring rigours back into the affordliteracy, hygiene or heritage. Let’s face it, in those exam. circumstances to chuck money at a load of pedal pushers would But what I can’t understand is why it has taken so long to get be scandalous. to grips with what has become a national scandal and has been a So my message to the begging bowl-touting Tour of Britain bane of life for years for many employers. organisers is the same as Ken’s: On yer bike. Andby the way, why are they just going for English G Language next year and waiting till 2013 to introduce this By the way, I see the newly-appointed chief superintendent ground-breaking initiative to English literature, geography, in one of the London areas worst affected by the summer riots history, ancient history and religious studies? has come up with a sure-fire way of getting ridof gangs and Andwhile we’re at it, why are all other courses that need gang culture. written English apparently exempt? Is there not a case for the He is demanding that the public stop referring to gangs and same academic rigour? Is there not a case for all students to instead– now wait for it, wait for it, this is a real belly-burster – leave with a thorough commandof their native language? is ordering the horrible little scrotes be described in future as So, if you aks me, it’s not before time we got some dissiplin “associates involvedin criminality”. back into the use of Inglish. D’yer no wot I mean? Apparently he reckons that the gang member tag gives them something called “street cred” among their fellows and spreads G Moving on from words to numbers, I don’t reckon anyone fear among the wider community. couldaccuse me of being an uncritical observer of Somerset So what we have here is crime obliteration by euphemism, a County Council leader Ken Axe-Maddock and many of his cost- new approach to law and order. Call them something else and slashing activities that focus on price at the expense of value. the whole problem melts away. If we don’t watch it they’ll be But I must say in one area, which has causedcontroversy re-badging other criminals with similar mealy-mouthed, over the past week or two in what passes for our local press, he politically correct descriptions. has my support, 100 per cent andno caveats. I suppose it must be too much to expect the top cops of today I refer to his decision to cut out splashing local tax-payers to notice the villains will still being going around indulging in money on the Tour of Britain bicycle race which provided a their nefarious activities. Andit is the criminal activities, and spectacle in the county quite recently which was remarkable not the nomenclature, which disturbs and frightens the only for its marginality of interest. community. Apparently, without our hard-earned cash, the return of the Aren’t our police wonderful?

MENDIP TIMES •NOVEMBER 2011 • PAGE 45 COMMENT Learning to live with cancer PEEP ho! It’s me, Captain Glass Eye. I bet you of Twonkopoly. As the name suggests this has more than a passing didn’t expect to see me this month. But then, I resemblance to the popular game Monopoly, which every didn’t expect to be stuck in hospital with the Christmas is won by some spotty young relative from the further effects of cancer. reaches of the family. I mean, cancer is a bugger; it’s a complete Monopoly is based on the partners getting a small amount of and utter bugger. But there is one cancer that is money and taking over the whole of London, building all over it, rarely spoken about because it rarely occurs. and making oodles and oodles of cash. This is how Twonkopoly Young doctors in training are told as an parts company with its parent. With ALAN afterthought to look out for glass-eyed men In Twonkopoly the partners are given oodles and oodles of GOODE with large livers because there is a chance they taxpayer’s cash and the winner is the one who can throw most will never come across the condition. It is with some surprise over down the drain and make the biggest muck of things. the last four years that I have become the glass-eyed man with the There will be four counters: Harvey Siggs, carrying a bucket, large liver. Thus giving great excitement to specialists who showed recalling his threat to cover me with manure for an appellation I an enthusiasm I’ve yet to grasp. placed upon him, which he says frightened the children; Ken “Axe- It all began just over four years ago when I suddenly lost the Mad” Maddock, who you will remember as leader of Mendip sight of my right eye whilst out in the garden. And before you Council, but now is the destroyer of every decent thing in could say ophthalmologist I was being told in the Bristol Eye Somerset, and so will be carrying his mighty bloodied cleaver. Hospital that there was a growth and that the eye had to be The third counter will a replica of Harvey Siggs’ motor bicycle, removed and what’s more I would have to go to Liverpool for the allowing players to get round the board quicker; the fourth will be unseemly work to be done. a faceless person, representing the Liberal Democrat opposition. There I met Britain’s top eye “gouger” Prof. Domato who made There will be community cards carrying such motifs as: “You it plain that one of the predilections of the condition I had have just fouled up another supermarket application; give the contracted was that it seeded in the liver – unlike other melanomas developers £5,000.” it only went to one place and it was pretty sure to return at its own It is all good fun and quite suitable for the whole family. The speed. winner cries, “TWONKS-ON-THE-HILL”, and claims a place on For three years I happily went through being tested on the the British South West Council (whatever that is!). Wirrall every six months and it all seemed just a bad dream. In October 2010 when I rang up to find out the results I was told there was a melanoma in the liver, but it was operable. The surgeon was brilliant but the aftershock of the operation at Aintree Hospital was no great fun. The relief was short-lived as I found recently that I now had melanomas on both sides of the liver and there was no possible Y chance of another operation. So I’ve opted for chemotherapy which L has been no doddle and lead me to lose my unbroken record in PO writing for this admirable magazine. O K My advice to anyone else who contracts cancer is to do what N I’ve tried to do and laugh at it. Don’t let the beast get you down. O Now I am happily ensconced in the Perry Ward in Bath surrounded W by beautiful nurses. Things can’t be that bad. T I’ve just been brought my first cup of tea after days of nil by mouth and my first meal – pureed faggots and peas, can you believe it? I’ve been dreaming for several weeks of a really nice meal but I think I’ve lost my sense of taste. Being hospitalised means a complete loss of modesty and having G to submit to bed baths by pretty young ladies. This is terrible and An amazing part of my recovery has been my discovery of an should be outlawed along with mixed wards. I am surprised the WI aptitude for hallucinations. I really must have been a pain in the has not got stuck into this one. neck at times, when I would struggle in the night to tear off all the The greatest problem of course is the indignity of the bed pan. tubing that was connected to me. And it doesn’t help that when you settle down to observe the I went through a whole phase of my family coming to see me course of nature, you spot the cheery face of the vicar of Chewton without having any memory of their visit. Although I must say my Mendip, Howard Latty, as he strides in to see you. hallucination of being in an Egyptian temple waiting for my family Quick nurse, the screens! for hours, but never seeing them, topped the lot. But when I told my old friend and people’s philosopher Bar G The one thing that my illness has done is to sharpen my resolve Stool Bernie he said: “To be honest, it doesn’t sound any worse to complete my board game, which currently has the working title than the Friday nights we used to have in the 70s”.

MENDIP TIMES •JANUARY 2012 • PAGE 15 COMMENT Memo to David Cameron: our nurses are wonderful BANG! Bang! Bang! Believe it or not it’s waters) and I reckon I got top notch service. not just the open season for pheasant So look here Dave, take my advice. Stop being a motor shooting; it’ s also time for many of our mouth. After all we had one of those for 10 years and look politicians to launch a verbal barrage on where that got us. our nurses and this hellish band of pot Just for once, stop hectoring us for a minute and get on shotters includes our Own Dear Leader, with the sweeping the Aegean stables clean. Meanwhile look David “Dave” Cameron and his motley for ways of thanking the best, of lifting their spirits, of raising crew of Coalition chums. public awareness of all they do. You owe it to them. G With ALAN Now I am not saying there aren’t good Still on the subject of public recognition, I see a chap called GOODE nurses and bad nurses. There isn’t an Tony Williams, a former athlete, is leading a campaign to get organisation or a profession that doesn’t have its rotten apples the Freedom of Wells for former Golden Girl and outstanding and, fair dos, they deserve to, and must be, hauled out root long jumper, Mary Rand. and branch. And quite rightly too. It would be a suitable tribute to the I am not saying that cruelty and callousness by nurses achievements of this Wells chimney sweep’s daughter who won should be allowed to fester although equally to blame are the a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics and to crown it all broke costs-obsessed management as they turn blind eyes the world record to boot. to what is going on and concentrate on their So well done to the Wells Journal for accounts as others suffer. throwing its full weight behind the But what I do say is that all this stress campaign and the estimable newspaper is on the bad so disastrously, so unfairly, not on its own. The chairman of the hides that great body of nurses who British Olympic Campaign, Lord are caring, cheerful and competent Moynihan has also come out in in the face of continual criticism favour, as have the Bishop of Bath plus financial and staffing cuts, to and Wells, the MP for Wells, Wells say nothing of the custard-for- City Harriers, Wells Football brains managements many of Club, Wells Rugby Club, Avalon them have to endure. Leisure and Wells Lions Club. Of course some grouser, some But, of course, any signs of petty party apparatchik, might general jubilation at the chance of asked what the hell I know about happiness and rapture spreading it. Well, quite a lot actually having through the streets always brings out spent the last few years attending the curmudgeons from underneath hospitals from as far away as Liverpool their slimy stones spitting and snorting and Exeter as well as the RUH, the BRI, derision. Bristol Eye Hospital and Weston-super-Mare. Already there are those who say she should And I can say with conviction that in all these not have the Freedom of the City as she has not hospitals I was treated with total kindness, sympathy and been seen in Wells for a year two and other such charmless respect. It made a difficult time into something approaching a drivel. Well is that surprising, I ask, as she lives with her pleasure. husband in Atascadero in the States? I mean, take my last incarceration at Bath’s RUH in Parry I mean, she’s hardly in a position to pop into Wells’ Tesco for Ward (sorry for last month unforgivingly describing where I a bag of sugar and a couple of loaves of sliced bread every was lying as Perry Ward. I blame the tablets. Others, of week or Whitings for a box of three inch screws and a coal course, might call it sheer carelessness). bucket. The staff there were wonderful, even though clearly rushed Anyway, the freedom is for past achievements not for what off their feet. They were cheerful, attentive and kind. Their she is doing this afternoon. duties were not always pleasant but they unfailing were. They G often worked long shifts and towards the end the tiredness And now I turn from the remarkable to the unbelievable. I was etched on their faces. refer to North Somerset Council being asked to cough up These are people with true dedication to their demanding taxpayer’s cash in the form of a fine by the Information profession. But despite all this, to their obvious Commission’s Office for personal information being sent to the disappointment, they were not even allowed a Christmas tree wrong people. on the ward due to alleged budgetary reasons. (Scrooge is There were five instances – the fifth one occurred (wait for alive and well and living in Bath). it, wait for it, this is a belly burster) while council officials Add to this the willingness of the consultant and doctors to were interviewing the employee about the breaches of talk over my condition plus the all important matter of the confidentiality. food (I had a pork roast the memory of which my mouth still You couldn’t make it up of you tried.

MENDIP TIMES •FEBRUARY 2012 • PAGE 17