Which is more surprising to watch? Two men locked in unprecedented sporting combat in front of a disbelieving crowd, or two men locked in unprecedented political agreement in front of a disbelieving crowd?
The Mahut-Isner match today (and yesterday....and tomorrow) is set to become a set question in pub quizzes for years to come. Last year's Federer-Roddick match was enough to make anyone reach for their fingernails, but today's record-buster had me braving the depths of an old rucksack in the hope of finding a bit of Kendall's mint cake left over from that trip to Fort William some time before the kids were born.
Today's Wimbledon may have provided us with a marvellous spectacle of endurance, but there was very little sense of heart-stopping, winner-takes-it-all competition. No murderous tribalism in the crowd. Just an appreciation of two brave souls locked together in a piece of history, with tennis the ultimate winner. (I think I'd better give sport a miss tomorrow. I'm coming over all cliches and sentimentality.)
The media, of course, is trying to create a partisan feud story on the back of the Budget. The Montagues and Capulets in this contrived drama are the public and private sectors, and tonight we saw a dress rehearsal, courtesy of the BBC. Well, you might have. I was busy with my mint cake and my musings on whether Tim Henman is, in fact, the third Miliband. I only caught a clip of "An Audience with Dave and Nick" on the news.
That clip showed Cameron and Clegg giving us the full Chuckle Brothers routine ("To me, to you"), fervently, unitedly defending a Budget which seemed to me to biff the rich, inconvenience most earners and discourage welfare dependency as a lifestyle choice. But it also acknowledged the need for an incentive to work, acknowledged that lower paid workers may need a straightforward benefits bonus to be able to stay in work, and that small businesses - essential in Wales - need to be financially stable so that they can provide that work.
It's not, as the BBC audience in the news clip seemed to suggest, a crazed attack on the public sector. There are some nutty and pointless jobs financed by the taxpayer, and they should just go. But the majority of public sector jobs are valuable, including some in the backroom. Where I have a problem is when I hear that the deficit isn't the fault of the teaching assistant, the paramedic or the social worker, so why are they punished for the greed of the banks? And the policies of Gordon Brown, I add, sotto voce.
Well, the shop assistant, the cleaner and plasterer weren't responsible for the deficit either. In rural Wales especially, private sector workers have had poorer pay, conditions and job security than their public sector neighbours. And while George Osborne gave us all due notice that "we are all in this together", many private sector workers were all in this together a lot sooner than others. When the Chancellor confirmed last month that some government departments would have to anticipate significant budget cuts, my Whitehall butty opined that he didn't care what Osborne did as long as he left his pension alone. He didn't seem to realise that many private sector workers don't even have a pension, let alone one with employer contributions.
Now, before this turns into a whine, and I play right into the Beeb's hands, let's be clear what I'm saying. We are all in this together. Like Cameron and Clegg, we have got to put our sense of grievance to one side, and get on the same side. The public and private sectors are not at war with each other. Our common enemy is the Labour legacy, and both sectors need to co-operate willingly to overcome that enemy.
Two brave sectors locked together in a piece of history, with Britain the ultimate winner.
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Planting Evidence
Like all hayfever sufferers, I've long objected to my reluctant role in the sex life of plants. I am not a bee. Nevertheless, like thousands of miserable pollen sniffers, I am a martyr to my role in the horticultural seraglio. And while my generous sneezes may assist in the creation of a new generation of trees, I have not overlooked the irony that a considerable number of them will have to be chopped down and turned into paper in order to feed my seasonal Kleenex habit.
So forgive me if I am not moved by the plight of the lesser spotted meadow thistles of Tycroes. Apparently these plucky little chaps have endured a century of unnatural and unwanted celibacy. Every summer, just when things started to suggest it was time to lock the bedroom door, they were trampled underfoot by boisterous primary school children. While this may be a situation familiar to anyone who owns one or more primary school child, the lesser spotted meadow thistle had had enough after a hundred years; the school playing field was dug up and moved to Waun Las Nature Reserve near the National Botanic Garden of Wales. The smokily named Natasha de Vere, head of conservation at the Garden, reports that the thistles have exhausted their frustration, and that they have been blooming profusely.
As, it seems, has the profligacy of the Welsh Assembly Government. Darren Millar - the AM, not the Eastenders character - has obtained figures which show that, in the last five years, £195,000 was spent on maintaining plants sited in WAG administrative offices.
That's a lot of care and attention for leafy decoration. But then, maybe these are the famous trees that Labour and Plaid think the money grows on.
So forgive me if I am not moved by the plight of the lesser spotted meadow thistles of Tycroes. Apparently these plucky little chaps have endured a century of unnatural and unwanted celibacy. Every summer, just when things started to suggest it was time to lock the bedroom door, they were trampled underfoot by boisterous primary school children. While this may be a situation familiar to anyone who owns one or more primary school child, the lesser spotted meadow thistle had had enough after a hundred years; the school playing field was dug up and moved to Waun Las Nature Reserve near the National Botanic Garden of Wales. The smokily named Natasha de Vere, head of conservation at the Garden, reports that the thistles have exhausted their frustration, and that they have been blooming profusely.
As, it seems, has the profligacy of the Welsh Assembly Government. Darren Millar - the AM, not the Eastenders character - has obtained figures which show that, in the last five years, £195,000 was spent on maintaining plants sited in WAG administrative offices.
That's a lot of care and attention for leafy decoration. But then, maybe these are the famous trees that Labour and Plaid think the money grows on.
Thursday, 17 June 2010
Waiting Rooms
Son has done his arm in, sacrificed on the altar of the beautiful game - again. This is what comes of not taking after his mother, preferring instead to ferret about in the biology cupboard for some sporty genes. Last time this happened, I had to abandon the UK Shadow Minister of Agriculture and the Welsh Shadow Rural Affairs Minister on an official visit to Builth Wells, while I sat with him in A&E for what seemed like aeons, watching TV ads for crutch replacement services. I didn't realise they were offering double entendres on the NHS.
While we're sitting in the fracture clinic today, clocking up some more Hywel Dda Trust loyalty points, I can ponder on some other health news. The first is the rumour that up to 16 further beds could be cut at the Princess of Wales hospital in Bridgend, some of which are used as overspill for A&E admissions. As you may have gathered, A&E services are close to my heart, especially with the disappearance of minor injuries units in Powys - hence our 30 mile journey into another trust area every time Injury Boy decides to play lemming. To think that bed closures are still being contemplated when senior managers are still being paid not to work after the trust mergers is enough to send everyone's blood pressure soaring. And how much would that cost in free prescriptions?
The good news is that £1m has been confirmed for Breast Test Wales to replace its fleet of mobile screening units with seven new ones. The present units are not accessible to anyone with mobility problems, as highlighted for me, when I was a parliamentary candidate, by the irrepressibly good-humoured Mrs Bradbury of Llangammarch Wells. Llangammarch is one of the "deep rural" communities consulted in the recent-ish Rural Observatory report on standards of living and access to public services in rural Wales. Mrs Bradbury's access to breast cancer screening services proved to non-existent when she was unable to climb the steps of the unit which visited Builth Wells, 12 miles from her home. Her mobility problem meant she can't sit for long enough to make the journey to Cardiff. So tough.
That's why the investment in new units is such good news. Women like Mrs Bradbury won't be discriminated against just because of where they live. Old cynics like me, though, can't help notice that only 7 new units are promised, replacing a fleet of 10. Perhaps these seven are in addition to another three. Or will there be fewer visits to existing locations, or even that fewer locations will be visited? Will the lost Crickhowell visit be re-instated? And when will we get to see these units?
Don't keep us waiting Edwina.
While we're sitting in the fracture clinic today, clocking up some more Hywel Dda Trust loyalty points, I can ponder on some other health news. The first is the rumour that up to 16 further beds could be cut at the Princess of Wales hospital in Bridgend, some of which are used as overspill for A&E admissions. As you may have gathered, A&E services are close to my heart, especially with the disappearance of minor injuries units in Powys - hence our 30 mile journey into another trust area every time Injury Boy decides to play lemming. To think that bed closures are still being contemplated when senior managers are still being paid not to work after the trust mergers is enough to send everyone's blood pressure soaring. And how much would that cost in free prescriptions?
The good news is that £1m has been confirmed for Breast Test Wales to replace its fleet of mobile screening units with seven new ones. The present units are not accessible to anyone with mobility problems, as highlighted for me, when I was a parliamentary candidate, by the irrepressibly good-humoured Mrs Bradbury of Llangammarch Wells. Llangammarch is one of the "deep rural" communities consulted in the recent-ish Rural Observatory report on standards of living and access to public services in rural Wales. Mrs Bradbury's access to breast cancer screening services proved to non-existent when she was unable to climb the steps of the unit which visited Builth Wells, 12 miles from her home. Her mobility problem meant she can't sit for long enough to make the journey to Cardiff. So tough.
That's why the investment in new units is such good news. Women like Mrs Bradbury won't be discriminated against just because of where they live. Old cynics like me, though, can't help notice that only 7 new units are promised, replacing a fleet of 10. Perhaps these seven are in addition to another three. Or will there be fewer visits to existing locations, or even that fewer locations will be visited? Will the lost Crickhowell visit be re-instated? And when will we get to see these units?
Don't keep us waiting Edwina.
Monday, 14 June 2010
Blindly Thrashing
It's no good. All I can see is Huw Irranca Davies, thrashing around blindly, trying to keep the winged food snatchers off his fruitbowl. His personal harpies are the media, according to the Western Mail. Or would that be "Medea"? (Don't all laugh at once. I'm not Lembit Opik). I don't think Jason and his Argonauts are going to turn up at a dramatic moment and rescue the MP for Ogmore though.
Labour's own Phineas has been making wild prophesies about haemorrhaging valleys and wilful malevolence. According to Mr Irranca Davies, we must challenge the consensus on the need for immediate spending cuts, engendered by those fiendish Conservatives and their media butties.
Apart from the obvious observation that the Conservatives and the media in Wales are not exactly first choice for Lovebirds of the Year, you have to wonder why Mr Irranca Davies thought it was good idea to start going all Conspiracy Theory on us when everyone else just gets it. Big debt. Labour's fault. Going to be painful.
And maybe it will feel especially painful in his constituency, where years of Euro-money and Labour representation has done nothing to resolve worklessness, poverty and dependency. Occasionally some cash falls into the right hands - like Creation in Blaengarw - and some decent Big Society chinks of light start to illuminate the future that our repressed communties could have.
Would it be churlish to point out the neighbouring Labour authority of Neath Port Talbot is urging schools to dive into their reserves and "splash out" on their pupils and students? Keeping a moderate reserve is sensible housekeeping, so is the suggestion that too many schools have been hoarding too much? With years of gimmicks and underfunding of the better policies, maybe it's no surprise that NPT schools have been extra careful, fearing that the funding fog would eventually become the rainy day.
The advice to get spending is not only very dissonant in the week that cuts dominate the headlines, but is very likely to get up the noses of the teachers, parents and pupils of Powys, which have struggled with poor Assembly government settlements for years, while their brothers and sisters in the valleys of South Wales have been able to access all that Euro-cash. The Outline Strategic document is now up on the Powys County Council website (search "School Modernisation"), and it's plain to see that the closure of schools or sixth forms is still very much on the table.
When we spend more on interest on the national debt than we do on education, you can see why some of us see Labour's legacy as something of a Greek tragedy.
Labour's own Phineas has been making wild prophesies about haemorrhaging valleys and wilful malevolence. According to Mr Irranca Davies, we must challenge the consensus on the need for immediate spending cuts, engendered by those fiendish Conservatives and their media butties.
Apart from the obvious observation that the Conservatives and the media in Wales are not exactly first choice for Lovebirds of the Year, you have to wonder why Mr Irranca Davies thought it was good idea to start going all Conspiracy Theory on us when everyone else just gets it. Big debt. Labour's fault. Going to be painful.
And maybe it will feel especially painful in his constituency, where years of Euro-money and Labour representation has done nothing to resolve worklessness, poverty and dependency. Occasionally some cash falls into the right hands - like Creation in Blaengarw - and some decent Big Society chinks of light start to illuminate the future that our repressed communties could have.
Would it be churlish to point out the neighbouring Labour authority of Neath Port Talbot is urging schools to dive into their reserves and "splash out" on their pupils and students? Keeping a moderate reserve is sensible housekeeping, so is the suggestion that too many schools have been hoarding too much? With years of gimmicks and underfunding of the better policies, maybe it's no surprise that NPT schools have been extra careful, fearing that the funding fog would eventually become the rainy day.
The advice to get spending is not only very dissonant in the week that cuts dominate the headlines, but is very likely to get up the noses of the teachers, parents and pupils of Powys, which have struggled with poor Assembly government settlements for years, while their brothers and sisters in the valleys of South Wales have been able to access all that Euro-cash. The Outline Strategic document is now up on the Powys County Council website (search "School Modernisation"), and it's plain to see that the closure of schools or sixth forms is still very much on the table.
When we spend more on interest on the national debt than we do on education, you can see why some of us see Labour's legacy as something of a Greek tragedy.
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Bags of Gossip
Plastic Bag Levy. Headliners at Glasto? Top tip for the Man Booker? Or just another Assembly government good intention paving the way to hell? Again.
The "levy" (election-speak for "tax") turns out not to be a tax at all, but a means of charitable giving. I like this. What I don't like is that the Cardiff Bay government wants to spend £400,000 of the money we did pay in tax to tell people about it. Shall I groan for you too?
We've all done it. A trolley load of shopping with a boot load of carefully conserved plastic bags out in the car park, and a testy queue of post-work shoppers collectively willing you to get a move on. So you sigh, agree to add 30p for a clutch of new "single use" bags to your bill of £120, and vow never to do that again.
I'm pleased that my pence will go to charity rather than the supermarket itself. But it's not that that will change my behaviour. I'm getting better at remembering to get the bags out of the boot first, but the Assembly government doesn't seem to be getting better at spending money. Still thinking Prada rather than plastic. Or maybe it's getting extra Nectar points. We should be told.
Untimely spending sprees are the subject of a little bit of gossip from Powys County Council. Fans of Glyn Davies (MP!)'s must-read blog, "A View from Rural Wales", will have become very fond of a certain Edna Mopbucket over the years. There has been much speculation as to whether she has indeed been seconded to polish Eric Pickles' pens and pencils, but readers will be pleased to know that her niece, Kylie, is currently on work experience, hoovering the corridors at County Hall.
Rumours that the Powys Independent-Lib Dem Alliance (oops, almost said coalition then) is rather keen on a cabinet-style government aren't new, but Kylie seems to think that a formal request to the Chief Exec is imminent. I've always thought it a bit strange that the Lib Dems, champions of proportional representation, would be keen on this most exclusive form of local government, but that's what they're looking for in 2011. Or maybe Kylie misheard over the sound of her Henry.
Because an expensive consultation on changing the style of local government is just what we need right now, isn't it? (This Nectar point conspiracy theory becomes more credible by the sentence). Powys CC can't say it wants to close schools with one breath, and then throw money at itself in the next.
Anyway, we're already due an important consultation. On Powys ward boundary changes, reducing the number of councillors in the county - it's late starting. Which political group/s will lose out when that consultation is complete, and will a decision be made before the local authority elections in 2012?
I'll be in the carpark, filling my boot with plastic bags, if anyone wants to find me to tell me the answer. Oh, that was quick. Looks like Kylie was right. Council to vote on this before the end of the month - at least a year before there's any legislative obligation to do so. It must be those Nectar points ...
The "levy" (election-speak for "tax") turns out not to be a tax at all, but a means of charitable giving. I like this. What I don't like is that the Cardiff Bay government wants to spend £400,000 of the money we did pay in tax to tell people about it. Shall I groan for you too?
We've all done it. A trolley load of shopping with a boot load of carefully conserved plastic bags out in the car park, and a testy queue of post-work shoppers collectively willing you to get a move on. So you sigh, agree to add 30p for a clutch of new "single use" bags to your bill of £120, and vow never to do that again.
I'm pleased that my pence will go to charity rather than the supermarket itself. But it's not that that will change my behaviour. I'm getting better at remembering to get the bags out of the boot first, but the Assembly government doesn't seem to be getting better at spending money. Still thinking Prada rather than plastic. Or maybe it's getting extra Nectar points. We should be told.
Untimely spending sprees are the subject of a little bit of gossip from Powys County Council. Fans of Glyn Davies (MP!)'s must-read blog, "A View from Rural Wales", will have become very fond of a certain Edna Mopbucket over the years. There has been much speculation as to whether she has indeed been seconded to polish Eric Pickles' pens and pencils, but readers will be pleased to know that her niece, Kylie, is currently on work experience, hoovering the corridors at County Hall.
Rumours that the Powys Independent-Lib Dem Alliance (oops, almost said coalition then) is rather keen on a cabinet-style government aren't new, but Kylie seems to think that a formal request to the Chief Exec is imminent. I've always thought it a bit strange that the Lib Dems, champions of proportional representation, would be keen on this most exclusive form of local government, but that's what they're looking for in 2011. Or maybe Kylie misheard over the sound of her Henry.
Because an expensive consultation on changing the style of local government is just what we need right now, isn't it? (This Nectar point conspiracy theory becomes more credible by the sentence). Powys CC can't say it wants to close schools with one breath, and then throw money at itself in the next.
Anyway, we're already due an important consultation. On Powys ward boundary changes, reducing the number of councillors in the county - it's late starting. Which political group/s will lose out when that consultation is complete, and will a decision be made before the local authority elections in 2012?
I'll be in the carpark, filling my boot with plastic bags, if anyone wants to find me to tell me the answer. Oh, that was quick. Looks like Kylie was right. Council to vote on this before the end of the month - at least a year before there's any legislative obligation to do so. It must be those Nectar points ...
Brock-ing the Bank
Caught a repeat of "Who Do You Think You Are?" last night: Sue Johnston from The Royle Family. Her great grandfather's first family had lived in the overcrowded Lanes of Victorian Carlisle. His wife and three children were all killed by TB. The library photos of the area were pretty grim. I used to think that family pics of my great grandmother on some tyddyn on the Loughor estuary looked like a set from the first series of Blackadder, but these little bits of urban history remain strangely shocking.
Kids were still having TB cysts removed after the war in Wales. Some of our poorer immigrants still bring it into the country with them. And, like the poor, TB seems to be always with us. Today we hear that leave to appeal has been given to the Badger Trust, allowing another pop at the Welsh Assembly decision to carry out a limited cull in Pembrokeshire this summer.
At the moment, we taxpayers spend rather a lot (about £100m this last decade) compensating farmers whose TB-infected cattle have to be destroyed because we have a public health threat which is not being contained adequately. If the cull goes ahead and proves that controlling badger numbers reduces the rate of infection, we wouldn't have to pay so much in compensation.
Instead, compensation payments remain high and now we'll have to pay to defend this appeal as well. Times may not be as 'ard as for Sue Johnston's great grandfather, but public spending is about to be slashed. Now is not the time to be forking out on badgers' rights, sorry. What's more, the last time wild animals dominated our headlines, the small matter of the non-appearance of WMD was all but overlooked as Parliament ate up hours of debating time on fox hunting rather than on hunting for reasons to be in Iraq.
Kids were still having TB cysts removed after the war in Wales. Some of our poorer immigrants still bring it into the country with them. And, like the poor, TB seems to be always with us. Today we hear that leave to appeal has been given to the Badger Trust, allowing another pop at the Welsh Assembly decision to carry out a limited cull in Pembrokeshire this summer.
At the moment, we taxpayers spend rather a lot (about £100m this last decade) compensating farmers whose TB-infected cattle have to be destroyed because we have a public health threat which is not being contained adequately. If the cull goes ahead and proves that controlling badger numbers reduces the rate of infection, we wouldn't have to pay so much in compensation.
Instead, compensation payments remain high and now we'll have to pay to defend this appeal as well. Times may not be as 'ard as for Sue Johnston's great grandfather, but public spending is about to be slashed. Now is not the time to be forking out on badgers' rights, sorry. What's more, the last time wild animals dominated our headlines, the small matter of the non-appearance of WMD was all but overlooked as Parliament ate up hours of debating time on fox hunting rather than on hunting for reasons to be in Iraq.
Monday, 7 June 2010
Nice To Be Out
Sitting in the hairdressers with a half head of foils, looking in the mirror at a noseful of Gower sunburn, is not the way to hear about the death of Stuart Cable. But that's how it happened. I'd glanced up from an article congratulating Tom Jones on being hot and 70, when some passing emissary stuck their head round the door and announced the sad news to the assembled shampoos and sets.
Whenever anyone mentions the Stereophonics, it just gives me a flashback of after-school ballet lessons in Aberaman. This was before extra-mural competitive parenting became the standard fare of chick lit and twitchy Sunday newspaper columnists. Anything more than Brownies and Sunday school and it was a definite case of "'oothe'elldoyewthinkyeware". Ballet gave way pretty quickly to a late afternoon Nesquik on the settee in front Wacky Races.
Thomas Woodward obviously had a bit more dedication to his art than I, although our passion for hair dye might count as a shared interest I suppose. Until recently, of course, as Sir Tom is now grey and gorgeous. Today he joins the elite crew of Welsh "names" who are 70+ - including Elaine "Descent of Woman" Morgan and Margaret "Erotic Dancer" John, whom I remember as a very staid lady on Owen MD but is better known to sprightlier audiences for her dotty totty doings in Cwm Pen Ol and Barry.
Not everyone's Sian Phillips or Anthony Hopkins though. Age Concern research reveals that a million pensioners admit to being lonely often or always. Today the Big Lottery Fund has allocated £20m to alleviate the social isolation experienced by some older people in Wales.
The emphasis seems to be on befriending and projects that run from 3 -5 years and "developing support services to empower older people by representing their interests and obtaining the services they need."
Now befriending I understand. When it works, it's massively enriching for everyone involved. It helps improve confidence, create friendships and encourage socialising. It helps control depression, anxiety and other illness. It's a service commonly provided by voluntary community support organsations, which run on fourpence, usually headed up by a super-stressed, underpaid adminstrator, scrabbling for small grants to stay afloat, and wondering why so much public money gets eaten up by unnecessary umbrella organisations or the Assembly's cunning plans.
So let's see if the Big Lottery can show some Big Vision and invest in building the Big Society. Don't throw away the money on duplication, or one-size-fits-all, nice office, endless meetings, jargon blather initiatives. Give the existing groups a chance (and ditch the word "provider" while we're at it) to build up a stable base and acquire a critical mass of work and an entrepreneurial spirit which doesn't take them out of the sphere of the communities they serve. Loneliness fades when you have friendship and respect, not reports or mission statements or fancy launches with the Minister.
Other people, not another Sector.
Whenever anyone mentions the Stereophonics, it just gives me a flashback of after-school ballet lessons in Aberaman. This was before extra-mural competitive parenting became the standard fare of chick lit and twitchy Sunday newspaper columnists. Anything more than Brownies and Sunday school and it was a definite case of "'oothe'elldoyewthinkyeware". Ballet gave way pretty quickly to a late afternoon Nesquik on the settee in front Wacky Races.
Thomas Woodward obviously had a bit more dedication to his art than I, although our passion for hair dye might count as a shared interest I suppose. Until recently, of course, as Sir Tom is now grey and gorgeous. Today he joins the elite crew of Welsh "names" who are 70+ - including Elaine "Descent of Woman" Morgan and Margaret "Erotic Dancer" John, whom I remember as a very staid lady on Owen MD but is better known to sprightlier audiences for her dotty totty doings in Cwm Pen Ol and Barry.
Not everyone's Sian Phillips or Anthony Hopkins though. Age Concern research reveals that a million pensioners admit to being lonely often or always. Today the Big Lottery Fund has allocated £20m to alleviate the social isolation experienced by some older people in Wales.
The emphasis seems to be on befriending and projects that run from 3 -5 years and "developing support services to empower older people by representing their interests and obtaining the services they need."
Now befriending I understand. When it works, it's massively enriching for everyone involved. It helps improve confidence, create friendships and encourage socialising. It helps control depression, anxiety and other illness. It's a service commonly provided by voluntary community support organsations, which run on fourpence, usually headed up by a super-stressed, underpaid adminstrator, scrabbling for small grants to stay afloat, and wondering why so much public money gets eaten up by unnecessary umbrella organisations or the Assembly's cunning plans.
So let's see if the Big Lottery can show some Big Vision and invest in building the Big Society. Don't throw away the money on duplication, or one-size-fits-all, nice office, endless meetings, jargon blather initiatives. Give the existing groups a chance (and ditch the word "provider" while we're at it) to build up a stable base and acquire a critical mass of work and an entrepreneurial spirit which doesn't take them out of the sphere of the communities they serve. Loneliness fades when you have friendship and respect, not reports or mission statements or fancy launches with the Minister.
Other people, not another Sector.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Nostalgia Ain't What It Used To Be
I can smell the Palmolive and taste the Tooty Frooties. A time when the cards we swapped were from packs of PG Tips, clackers were banned from the schoolyard and our transport home was a spacehopper. My friend Gail went one better with one that looked like a giant tomato. She also had a brother who shot at us with his airgun. He's a doctor now.
Yes, I'm talking about a childhood where road safety was dominated by Billy Beacon and a visit to our school by the BBC. They'd come to film us for "Heddiw", that little bit of black and white Welsh current affairs, safely steered into the early evening schedules by R Alun Evans. I still don't know why they came to our school. None of the kids spoke Welsh, although not knowing the anthem was a dap offence. For the boys anyway: the girls got the ruler.
The Secret Squirrel generation had another rodent hero. Some of us still have the Tufty Game and remember the goodies that the half-a-crown membership of the Tufty Club got you. (Burglars note - I carry my badge with me at all times. Along with my Tessie Bear from the Ricicles box tops, so don't bother breaking in.) But Tufty's gone all modern. He's got his own website, http://www.tuftyclub.org.uk/., and a marketing consultant in Newport who wants to bring him back to teach the grown-up version of road safety. Despite numerous warnings, parents are still parking outside a Malpas school and causing a safety hazard. Clearly not pitching up on space hoppers.
Funny to think that when I was learning to look right, look left, look right again, Parliament was acting on the decade-old Wolfenden Report and introducing the Sexual Offences Act. The Hart-Devlin exchanges which preceded it still made essential reading on legal philosophy courses twenty years later, and maybe still do.
David Laws was just a toddler when the law was changed and I was standing on the kerb. Perhaps I should rephrase that. Because the Wolfenden Report also discussed the rise in street prostitution at the time, which it associated with "community instability" and "weakening of the family".
Words which could have come from the Conservative manifesto. 2010. In the week that we all feel sympathy for Laws but wonder whether we should have paid for his sensitivities, we also learn that three street prostitutes have been murdered in Yorkshire.
Half a century on from Wolfenden, which is the real scandal?
Yes, I'm talking about a childhood where road safety was dominated by Billy Beacon and a visit to our school by the BBC. They'd come to film us for "Heddiw", that little bit of black and white Welsh current affairs, safely steered into the early evening schedules by R Alun Evans. I still don't know why they came to our school. None of the kids spoke Welsh, although not knowing the anthem was a dap offence. For the boys anyway: the girls got the ruler.
The Secret Squirrel generation had another rodent hero. Some of us still have the Tufty Game and remember the goodies that the half-a-crown membership of the Tufty Club got you. (Burglars note - I carry my badge with me at all times. Along with my Tessie Bear from the Ricicles box tops, so don't bother breaking in.) But Tufty's gone all modern. He's got his own website, http://www.tuftyclub.org.uk/., and a marketing consultant in Newport who wants to bring him back to teach the grown-up version of road safety. Despite numerous warnings, parents are still parking outside a Malpas school and causing a safety hazard. Clearly not pitching up on space hoppers.
Funny to think that when I was learning to look right, look left, look right again, Parliament was acting on the decade-old Wolfenden Report and introducing the Sexual Offences Act. The Hart-Devlin exchanges which preceded it still made essential reading on legal philosophy courses twenty years later, and maybe still do.
David Laws was just a toddler when the law was changed and I was standing on the kerb. Perhaps I should rephrase that. Because the Wolfenden Report also discussed the rise in street prostitution at the time, which it associated with "community instability" and "weakening of the family".
Words which could have come from the Conservative manifesto. 2010. In the week that we all feel sympathy for Laws but wonder whether we should have paid for his sensitivities, we also learn that three street prostitutes have been murdered in Yorkshire.
Half a century on from Wolfenden, which is the real scandal?
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