A STICKLER'S BOAST

Although I am within a pontoon hand of my century, my family has sent me, a small, furry grenade, hurtling into the white technological heat of the twenty-first century.

For my eightieth birthday, a grandson, to whom I have shown nothing but kindness, signed me up as a Twitter, making me one with the loathsome Fry whose supercilious ubiquity nauseates. I have tried to join that merry throng but cannot think of a single tweet. The family clubbed together to buy me a Sony E-Book, with a collection of a hundred key books, thus making redundant the library of around two thousand books for which I built a garden library. It is having a terrible effect on me. It is getting so that I prefer Doctor Who to The Archers.

I feel as Richard Burton must have felt when Elizabeth Taylor bought him, one Christmas, the entire output of the Everyman Library housed in oaken bookshelves.

Though I am still frightened of it, the E-book has the fascination of a Black Mamba waiting to strike. I cannot believe that between its covers crowd Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare, Aristotle, Bronte, Homer, Machiavelli and a host of other classical authors who have escaped the bonds of copyright.

Apart from a voucher for a foot massage from an aroma therapist (who is going to enjoy a whole cornucopia of aromas when she explores my toes from which the twinkle has long gone), I relished the unchallenged joy of a bespoke hickory walking stick, lovingly crafted by Smith's of New Oxford Street, the Saville Row of stick-makers. Such a stick. A stick that could go out on its own and not an eyebrow would be lifted. A stick with magical powers that confers dignity on that which it supports. A swagger stick, a stick that will never be in the mud. A stick of consequence who will stick at nothing. Notice the 'who'. No 'which' describes this stick. This is no dry stick. This is a stick through which noble blood courses. This stick could walk unaided along any given boulevard with an independent air. A stick capable of breaking any available bank at Monte Carlo. A stick one would not dare to shake a stick at.

It was of just such sticks that Mr Jogglebury Crowdey dreamed. It is inconceivable that there can be anyone who has not heard of Mr Crowdey, the comic creation of the Geordie squire R. S Surtees whose unsurpassed comic novels, “Mr Facey Romford's Hounds”, “Mr Sponge's Sporting Tours” and “Mr Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities”, were the inspiration of a young reporter called Charles Dickens.

Mr Crowdey was, said Surtees, “a long headed, short necked, large girthed, dumpling legged little fellow who like most fat men made himself dangerous by compressing a most unreasonable stomach into a circumscribed coat, each particular button of which looked as if it was ready to burst off and knock out the eye of anyone who had the temerity to ride besides him. He was a pouffy, wheezy, sententious little fellow, who accompanied his parable with a snort into a finely pleated shirt-frill, reaching nearly up to his nose.”

Sounds oddly familiar.

His hobby was carving and collecting “curious handled walking sticks, of which he had accumulated a vast quantity. The garret of his house was quite full, while the rafters in the kitchen and cellars and outhouses were crowded with others...and as he cut and pouffed and wheezed he chuckled and thought how well the sticks, which he valued at thousands, would provide for his family.”

How nice to find oneself in such congenial company.

If I hear one more sanctimonious MP confess how right the public were to despise the House of Parliament, in a patronising tone, completely disassociating themselves from the fraud, I swear I will shake my stick at them, the ultimate sanction.It was the Slum House as a whole which voted itself the perks; the Disorderly House itself which voted AGAINST ending the shameful practice. The same House of Ill Fame that voted itself self- employed and eagerly joined the new Union of the Self Employed when being self-employed seemed to hold advantage. When the advantage subsequently moved to the employed, it was this House of Ill Repute that not only voted to be employed, but wrote to the fledgling, cash-strapped Self Employed Union demanding their joining fees back. A plague on all their Houses. The answer is simple. When I was making “Archives “ for R4, as the successor to John Ebdon, the BBC put me up in a family hotel in which they had reserved bookings for visiting broadcasters. It was comfortable without being lavish. The Part-time Work House should do the same having come to a financial arrangement with the hotelier. If the accommodation offered is not grand enough he the MPs should be free to make their own arrangements. It should be a job requirement for the MP to live in his constituency at his own expense.They would no doubt argue that they can be kicked out of parliament at ever election. I worked on weekly contracts with the BBC for thirty years

Fiddling while Rome Burns

Today I am eighty and only the intervention of a beautiful lady prevents this from being my last blog. Keith Waterhouse in the Mail, Paul Johnson in the Spectator, and the Guardian Wrap, a splendid digest of the news, have all sent in their papers this week. Tempted to join them.

With me it is neither intellectual exhaustion nor a diminishing of the urge to write. Rather, it is the growing belief that this is the age of Gibbon rather than Swift. Laughter is not enough. I believe that although in many ways we are living in a Golden Age it is like the last defiant flowering of a dying shrub. In the West civilisation is crumbling. The future lies with India and China, not Europe or America. Moslems are once again at the gates of Vienna. They will shortly outnumber 'white eyes' in Britain. Corruption is endemic in Parliament, the City, the Monarchy, the Law and local government. Undeterred by the costly folly of the Millennium Dome and although the country hovers on bankruptcy Our Rulers have taken on the Olympics. This week that cost the tax payer FURTHER £324 million towards the cost of the Olympic Village which wiser heads in finance have refused to finance. So far we have invested £650 million but will no doubt contribute to the £358 million still owed. Senior policeman have misused their credit cards to a mind boggling million pounds. Of the terrorists arrested, only seven per cent have been charged. In defence, the police claim that is also the percentage of serious criminals arrested and charged. Two disturbed non-criminals who might have been subdued by tranquilliser darts were shot dead by the police this week. The Chief Constables Association says it cannot uphold the law on hunting it took Parliament 48 hours to frame (that is 32 hours longer than they debated the smoking laws) Difficult to avoid the view that the police do not give value for money. To think we used to boast “Our Policemen are wonderful”.Barristers and solicitors have priced themselves well beyond their talent. I have never trusted judges since I discovered they heeded the 'advice' of the Lord Chancellor during the moratorium on the death penalty and “cooked the books” by reducing all murder charges before them to charges of unlawful killing. In consequence they must bear much of the blame for the increased number of murders since that infamous year. Moreover, neither the judges nor the Crown Prosecution Service spotted the corrupted evidence in murder trials which resulted, after the use of DNA , in pardons and compensation of many millions.If all that wasn't bad enough, the Elm has vanished, Wisteria is being attacked by foreign insects and Horse Chestnuts are dying all over Britain.

As to the House of Ill Fame and its cheerleader, the incomprehensible non-Speaker in any tongue humanity can unravel, the best suggestion, as so often happens, came from Sir Simon Jenkins in The Guardian: “My remedy is simple. Remove MPs from working for the state, laden as it is with PAYE, tax breaks, expenses fiddles and corruption. Make them self-employed, as they were before the war, paid an agreed salary but from funds supplied to and disbursed by their constituency returning officers. If they want a pied a terre in London, let the constituency own it. Let them pay VAT, fill in their own tax returns and make their peace on expenses with HMRC. This is hardly a drastic punishment, to have to behave like ordinary citizens.”

 Cromwell's view of the Rump Parliament was expressed  in terms which seem appropriate to the Current Parliament of Arseholes:

"[Cromwell] commanded the Speaker to leave the Chair, and told them they had sat long enough, unless they had done more good, crying out You are no longer a Parliament, I say you are no Parliament.” He went on: "It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. “Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? “Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Eighty? I never asked to live so long and I am not sure it is a good idea. The only surprise life holds for me now is waking up and finding which limb has started to ache.

 Like my friend the painter Sir Kyffin Williams, I was born on Ascension Day. He always insisted that meant we had two birthdays. I also insist on a rehearsal. This year it took the form of lunch at my favourite restaurant, The Plate and Porter, in March. I had sausage, egg, bacon, black pudding, tomato and fried bread, with two large Pink Gins since wine no longer agrees with me. My wife generously hosted (even to buying, without her usual protest, the gins). The guests were three favourite, funny people, two much loved Jewish friends and a beloved cousin. They brought me a dashing, bespoke walking stick, a voucher for a foot massage and a CD of my young cousin singing with the York Minster choir. The Jewish friend said it was all right to shake his hand and kiss his wife. They couldn't catch Swine Flu. They were kosher.

Today most of my family will be around me at another lunch party. There will be Farmhouse Lancashire cheese, sausage rolls, Melton Mowbray pie and soused herrings. I wanted Bury black pudding and tripe and onions but that has been ruled out, as has fish and chips. My eldest daughter is making a cake. She is an authority on libelous cakes. She made one for my seventieth birthday which had seventy marzipan bottles of champagne round its perimeter.The family clubbed together to buy me an E-Book, which is a great worry. I had an MP3 Player for Christmas. It took me until Easter to work out how to use it. Finally a grandson showed me and I am making sure he is at the party so that he can explain the electric book.Taz, our long dog, bought me a bronze ballet dancer for my collection. I cannot understand why my friends call ballet 'Poufs' football'. At any one time there are up to twenty glorious girls on stage and two men. Taz has bravely defied my wife who had a busy month clearing away ornaments, giving them to Cancer Research. She can be very vocal at my obsession with bronze ballet dancers. She wanted Taz to buy me a bonsai tree but he was of the opinion that at eighty I may not have many growing seasons left. Doesn't worry me. For an octogenarian, dying is a worry only to the people he loves. As I told the surgeon when he spelled out the dangers of the operation at my age and in my condition, the act of dying is nothing. There would be no pain. I won't even know it has happened.

Of more interest are the changes that are coming over me. I do not complain about my release from the tyranny of sex and the disappearance of alcoholism, the twin wayward pilots who have controlled my enjoyable journey through life. I am sad, though, that I can no longer get angry. Writing rude letters to banks, the Inland Revenue and sundry organisations was one of life's pleasures and I always felt better after a family row. No longer. Now I seem to spend most of my time looking for charities to support. I am currently helping a charity run by my younger daughter which finances an Indian children's village; sundry African projects via John Humphrys' excellent no frills charity; the PDSA; Chinese Moon Bears; tortoises; old hacks; innumerable charity shops which, to my wife's chagrin, results in filling the house with pot teddy bears; and a variety of support groups for wounded ex-servicemen. I used to support other charities but ceased to do so when I discovered the amount that goes in administration and the production of costly magazines. The ones I have chosen are those which give all my money to the sufferers. Goodness knows what my motives are. Lord Beaverbrook in his dotage did good works in order, it has been said, to assure his place in Heaven. I have no wish to spend eternity in a sort of Celestial National Eisteddfod, surrounded by creatures in long gowns, playing the harp, where I won't know a soul. I take the fact that I have survived cancer, diabetes, alcoholism and cirrhosis as a sign that God doesn't want me. I, in return, intend to take Oscar Wilde's advice to his friend Robbie Ross:

“When the last trumpet sounds, let us turn over and pretend we do not hear it.”

If you want to give me a birthday present, be happy and enjoy life and, as Mencken suggested, “Wink at an ugly girl.”

HEAVEN HELPS US ?

THE MANAGEMENT WISHES TO

APOLOGIDE FOR BLOG 

MISBEHAVIOR

.

.......... And God spoke unto Adam and He said:

“Why does it take you so long to come to the phone?”

Adam said; “Have you seen the size of this garden?

 Also I wish you would have a word with that angel you sent with a blazing sword.

 I’ve got scorch marks on the dahlias and the heat is bringing on the chrysanths

 too early........”

God said, “The angel is Security and outside my remit. 

But there has obviously been a mistake.

He shouldn’t be there till apple picking....... “

He continued: “I wanted Dobermans but Finance estimate an overall saving with flames

 that is very impressive. It’s something they picked up from the Competition. By the by,

 we are working on garden staffing levels. Research and Development were going to let

you invent the plough but then we planned electricity which I personally am very excited

 about and cannot wait to create Faraday.”

Adam said; “Talk is cheap. When do I get to invent the plough?”

God said; “It’s in the pipeline. Meanwhile R and D have come up with this new concept. 

Run it up the tree trunk and see if it flaps.”

Adam said; “God, sometimes you say things which are a mystery to me....”

God said; “Goes with the territory. But about this R and D idea - it will do the

 gardening; it’s an entertainment concept and does home nursing.

“R and D are working on a modem called sex which completely does away with the

 spare rib method I originally planned. It will need a User Manual. I’m thinking of 

calling it the Ten Commandments.”

Adam said; “Does this machine of R & D’s have a name?”

God said; “What’s in a name? as Shakespeare is going to say.

 We were going to call it ‘slave’ and then ‘skivvy’ but Marketing said names like that

 give off the wrong vibes, consumer-wise. So what we finally came up with was Woman. What 

takes the Woe out of Man? Woman! Neat, eh? Copywriting and Graphics reckon we could achieve a 98 per cent

 penetration of A and AB markets.”

Adam said; “I want an assurance from management that this woman machine

 will never be programmed to take executive decisions......”

And God spoke and He said; “Thursday already? I have to go. 

I have two days’ creating to do before my rest day....”

And He rang off. It was only later when Eve harvested the apples and there

 was this Leak from Head Office about relocation that Adam remembered he 

had been given no guarantees about negative parity for the woman machine.

And Adam was sore afraid.

…………………………………………………………..

I think they should change the name. Not “Rule Britannia”.

 Not anymore. “Misrule Britannia” would be more appropriate. 

In Parliament the criminals write their own laws. When I worked away from home

 I paid for my own lodgings. The wrong we have done to the Ghurkhas has still not been

 righted and now we are refusing permission for the Iraqi interpreters to take refuge 

here, even though they  live under an imminent threat of death in their own country because 

they co-operated with an invading army. 

We cannot blame our immigration policy because we don’t have one. When it suits us

 we lay down the red carpet for IRA thugs; the architect of mass murder in Africa 

has been granted refuge here. What we laughingly call Learned Judges pontificate on 

the rights of various many hued unsavoury characters to blot our landscapes. 

But Heaven help anyone who tries to help us.

MY WIFE SENT ME THIS ONE…………

First published in “Punch” on April 3, 1957, but VERY pertinent to what’s happening today!

Q: What are banks for?
A: To make money.

Q: For the customers?
A: For the banks.

Q: Why doesn’t bank advertising mention this?
A: It would not be in good taste. But it is mentioned by implication in references

 to reserves of £249,000,000,000 or thereabouts. That is the money they have made.

Q: Out of the customers?
A: I suppose so.

Q: They also mention Assets of £500,000,000,000 or thereabouts.

 Have they made that too?
A: Not exactly. That is the money they use to make money.

Q: I see. And they keep it in a safe somewhere?
A: Not at all. They lend it to customers.

Q: Then they haven’t got it?
A: No.

Q: Then how is it Assets?
A: They maintain that it would be if they got it back.

Q: But they must have some money in a safe somewhere?
A: Yes, usually £500,000,000,000 or thereabouts. 

This is called Liabilities.

Q: But if they’ve got it, how can they be liable for it?
A: Because it isn’t theirs.

Q: Then why do they have it?
A: It has been lent to them by customers.

Q: You mean customers lend banks money?
A: In effect. They put money into their accounts, 

so it is really lent to the banks.

Q: And what do the banks do with it?
A: Lend it to other customers.

Q: But you said that money they lent to other people was Assets?
A: Yes.

Q: Then Assets and Liabilities must be the same thing?
A: You can’t really say that.

Q: But you’ve just said it. If I put £100 into my account the bank is 

liable to have to pay it back, so it’s Liabilities. 

But they go and lend it to someone else, and he is liable to have to 

pay it back, so it’s Assets. It’s the same £100 isn’t it?
A: Yes, but....

Q: Then it cancels out. It means, doesn’t it, that banks haven’t 

really any money at all?
A: Theoretically......

Q: Never mind theoretically! And if they haven’t any money, where do they 

get their Reserves of £249,000,000,000 or thereabouts??
A: I told you. That is the money they have made.

Q: How?
A: Well, when they lend your £100 to someone they charge him interest.

Q: How much?
A: It depends on the Bank Rate. Say five and a-half percent. That’s their 

profit.

Q: Why isn’t it my profit? Isn’t it my money?
A: It’s the theory of banking practice that.........

Q: When I lend them my £100 why don’t I charge them interest?
A: You do.

Q: You don’t say. How much?
A: It depends on the Bank Rate. Say a half percent.

Q: Grasping of me, rather?
A: But that’s only if you’re not going to draw the money out again.

Q: But of course I’m going to draw the money out again! 

If I hadn’t wanted to draw it out again I could have buried it in the garden!
A: They wouldn’t like you to draw it out again.

Q: Why not? If I keep it there you say it’s a Liability. 

Wouldn’t they be glad if I reduced their Liabilities by removing it?
A: No. Because if you remove it they can’t lend it to anyone else.

Q: But if I wanted to remove it they’d have to let me?
A: Certainly.

Q: But suppose they’ve already lent it to another customer?
A: Then they’ll let you have some other customer’s money.

Q: But suppose he wants his too... and they’ve already let me have it?
A: You’re being purposely obtuse.

Q: I think I’m being acute. What if everyone wanted their money all at once?
A: It’s the theory of banking practice that they never would.

Q: So what banks bank on, is not having to meet their commitments?
A: YOU GOT IT!
----------------

THOUGHTS OF AN M.A (paperback)

Did not have one myself so I don't understand the fuss about education. I got mine by reading Penguin paperbacks. 

There must be cheaper ways of keeping children off our backs. My darling daughter studied art so long they didn't know whether to give her a BA or a gold watch.

Why art when they are taught fashions not principles? History? Propaganda written by the winner's press agent. Geography? Abroad is just the same as here. Australian soaps and Chinese take-aways. Only difference is you can't read the adverts.

Science and law and rhetoric is what universities were invented for. The rest is jobs for the boys.

Just imagine.

It is the Middle Ages and there are these three fellers on a tram and one says:

"What line you in, then?"

"I teach law at the university."

"Teach? What is teach?"

" I stand up in front of these kids and I tell them how to be lawyers."

"Could end up with more lawyers than jobs."

"Ain't that the truth. But we solved it. The ones don't get jobs,they teach other kids to be lawyers. What's your line?"

"I write books, but the pay is lousy."

"You should teach. Three months holiday a year. All found."

"What can I teach? I just sit down and write."

" It's not what you teach. It's what you call it. Let's see. Book. In Latin Liber. Liberture? Doesn't have a ring. Lit,lit. That's it, Literature. You married?"

"On my wages?"

"So you're a bachelor. Great. Bachelor of Art."

There's this man sitting on the seat behind and he leans over and he says:

"Any chance at your place of a start for me?"

"Could be. What do you do?"

"Not a lot. I keep a diary."

"So. A record of past years. Gimme a minute to come up with something. You write down what happens to you. The story of your life. Your story. Let's run that up the flagpole and see if it waves....Too personal.

“Hang about! Teach what is in everyone else's diary. His Story, History! You'll do a bomb."

"I don't KNOW what's in everyone's diary."

"Use your imagination, everyone else did. The Romans claimed they were descended from a wolf. If the public will buy that..............And there was this Greek guy Herodotus. He invented men whose heads grew out of their chests. Never looked back."

"Well, they couldn't, could they?" said this Jewish kid who was strap-hanging and kibbitzing. "Stands to reason. Not with their heads in their chests."

"Congratulations," said the lawyer, "you just invented logic."

"I'll take two dozen," said the Jewish kid who knew a good thing.

Just at this minute along comes the conductor.

"Fares, please. Have your groats ready."

"Three to the university," says the lawyer.

The other two pay.

"Funny old job, conductor," said the lawyer.

"You should see it market days," said the conductor. "Live pigs, rack full of cockerels. And every Wednesday this guy gets it on with a krummhorn. What a racket."

"Why do it?" says the Jewish kid. Having got a corner in logic he is already seeking market opportunities.

"What can I tell you? I like to go abroad for my holidays. Fifty-one weeks a year, krummhorns. One week, Benidorm. I wish I could find some other way."

At this the Jewish kid brings a piece of parchment out of his pocket, sticks a stamp on it and hands it to the conductor.

"Sign here over the stamp,“ he says. “Ten per cent of your wages and I'll introduce you to this talent scout. Hey, lawyer. You profess to know everything. Anything for the conductor, so he can go abroad for his holidays? No krummhorns."

“The conductor? Easy. Do what everyone does. Bore people about his holidays. Show snaps. Tell 'em how often it rained. Do I have to draw graphs? Graph. THAT'S IT....Geo...Greek for earth... graph - Geography!"

The conductor was very grateful.

"You got a real faculty for this,” he said.

That is how education was born.

I will not be voting in the Common Market elections either. I watched with great joy a series about agriculture on TV, the walking stick of old intellectuals.

In the programme on cattle we watched delightful archive footing of the Thirties when I worked, a truanting schoolboy, on a local farm. In those far off days the milk yield was forty-six per cent. Since then we have boosted output with farmers' collectives, the milk marketing board, improved grass, and technological aids. Then we joined the Common Market. Our milk yield now?

Forty-six per cent.

The news that our fruit industry is nearing extinction struck a particular blow to me since an ancestor introduced the red streak apple to England. He started a thriving industry producing apples of many varieties. It was killed virtually overnight when we joined the Common Market and learned of the horrors of Golden Delicious apples and all-the-year strawberries which taste like rock.

It was also the end of our fishing industry. We were told it would mean cheaper wine and tobacco. It didn't. We are told we get enormous bags of gold from the EU. What we get is a fraction of the money we pour into its apron.

The EU exists for the membership not of its member states but of its members. Even though it loads them with cash for dubious reasons, it still cannot get its parliament to pass the bare face robbery which is its budget.

THE LETTER THE TIMES DID NOT USE

Sir,

Matthew  Paris belongs to a minority which many of us believe is silly and inconsequential. We are not allowed to say so. I am surprised you allow him to so describe the Gurkhali cause in his column to-day

Tolling it to the Birds

I have not been a fan of that unlikely Lord, Hattersley, since he tried to get me the sack from my job on the Daily Post. So I am uneasy about agreeing with him on the subject of St George, an Arab from Lod who made a fortune selling no doubt dodgy bacon to the Roman Army. He rightly suggests we should celebrate instead the birthday of William Shakespeare, which I did with a roast beef supper followed by a Shakespeare DVD. English is the only language in which Shakespeare could have written. The famous exhortation in Hamlet, translated into Dutch, would read “ Omlet,omlet, is dein feider's spooke”, which misses the dramatic emphasis of the original., as Geoffrey Madan pointed out in his hilarious notebooks.

I suppose I should be glad to have anything to celebrate as the last crumbs of England are brushed off the table of history.

If I were a bird I would be keeping a beady eye on the RSPB. Worse than the Metropolitan Police with their shooters.

The Royal Society for the Protection (?) of Birds has its sights trained on the magpie, a handsome bird, admittedly with relaxed nesting habits, which eats smaller birds because that is what magpies do. Magpies were doing it before the arrival of the Royal Society for the Protection (of some) Birds. No matter. It is Open Day on the magpie. The RSPB has form in this matter. Readers may recall the shocking affair of the Ruddy Duck.

I recall being very disturbed by that RSPB-sponsored Massacre of the Innocents, the ruddy ducks in Britain whose only crime was breeding with their Spanish cousins,  resulting in flocks of ducks of mixed race.

 I pointed out at the time that if pulling Spanish birds was a capital offence it would not be long before we had a great gap in our male population between the ages of 16 and 30. 

I was also unhappy in these days of politically correct genetics that it was considered a bad thing to be of mixed race and an excuse for genocide. Tell that to the Afro-Caribbeans; because it does seem to me that if we encourage mixed race among humans we cannot deny it to the rest of Creation.

Speaking generally, I am opposed to the human race doing God’s job for Him. Even though I don’t think He is very good at it or we wouldn’t have tried to wipe each other out in wars. If it pleases Him to let the Ruddy Duck go at it like knives on Spanish holidays, who are we to quarrel with the Divine Wisdom?

We have also declared war on grey squirrels. If God thinks the grey squirrel has more right to live than the red, so be it. Though even if you don’t agree with Him, battering them on the head, as I am told the hunters do, is an appalling way to despatch them. Wouldn’t dare do it to a fox. 

People who took part in the cull claimed the grey squirrel behaved very badly to the red, yet I have never heard of anyone bashing a red-head with a stone.

 I am not one of God’s greatest fans. I think He was a lousy designer. Have you ever seen an armadillo, a sloth or a baboon’s backside? Nor would the human body pass the Prince of Wales’s architecture test. As I have pointed out before, you would not get planning permission for a building where the waste pipe is directly above the food inlet.

THE CORN OF SCONE

 My friend Colin Hills writes from Germany

This is a true story from Texas. Neiman-Marcus, if you don't know already, is a very expensive boutique shop (they sell a typical $8.00 T-shirt for $50.00). My daughter and I had just finished lunch at a Neiman-Marcus Cafe in Dallas, USA . Because both of us are such biscuit lovers, we decided to try the 'Neiman-Marcus cookie'. It was so excellent that I asked if they would give me the recipe. The waitress said with a small frown, 'I'm afraid not, but you can buy the recipe.' I asked how much, and she responded; 'Only two fifty - it's a great deal' I agreed to that, and told her to add it to my bill. Thirty days later, I got my Visa statement, and the Neiman-Marcus charge was $285. I looked at it again, and I remembered I had only spent $9.95 for two sandwiches and about $20 for a scarf. At the bottom of the statement, it said, 'Cookie Recipe - $250.00'. That was outrageous! I called Neiman's Accounting Department and told them the waitress had said it was 'two fifty', which clearly does not mean 'two hundred and fifty dollars' by any reasonable interpretation of the phrase. Neiman-Marcus refused to budge. They would not refund my money because according to them; 'What the waitress told you is not our problem. You have already seen the recipe. We absolutely will not refund your money.' I explained to the Accounting Department lady the criminal statutes which govern fraud in the state of Texas. I threatened to report them to the Better Business Bureau and The Texas Attorney General's office. I was basically told: 'Do what you want.. Don't bother thinking of how you can get even, and don't bother trying to get any of your money back.' I said, OK, you've got my $250, and now I'm going to have $250 worth of fun. I told her that I was going to see to it that every cookie lover in the world with an e-mail account gets a $250 cookie recipe from Neiman-Marcus for free. She replied, 'I wish you wouldn't do that.' I said, 'Well, perhaps you should have thought of that before you RIPPED ME OFF!' and slammed down the phone. So here it is! Please pass it on to everyone you can possibly think of. I paid $250 for this, and I don't want Neiman-Marcus to EVER make another penny from this recipe!----Jan NEIMAN-MARCUS COOKIES (Recipe may be halved as this makes heaps) 2 (500 ml) cups butter 680 g chocolate chips 4 (1000 ml) cups flour 2 (500 ml) cups brown sugar 2 tsp. (10 ml) Bicarbonate of soda 1 tsp.. (5 ml) salt 2 (500 ml) cups sugar 500 g Grated Cadbury chocolate 5 (1250 ml) cups blended oatmeal 4 eggs 2 tsp. (10 ml) baking powder 2 tsp. (10 ml) vanilla 3 cups (375 ml) chopped nuts (optional) Measure oatmeal, and blend in a blender to a fine powder. Cream the butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla, mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and bicarbonate of soda. Add chocolate chips, grated Chocolate and nuts. Roll into balls, and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees (180 C). The above quantities make 112 cookies. Enjoy!

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A POLICEMAN'S LOT IS A LOT MORE THAN HE DESERVES

Hipkin, my archetypal Fenman gardener, delivers papers round his village and has done so for many years. He has a been startled to be told by his employers that he must prove he is English by sending a copy of his birth certificate to their head office. As it turns out it is a legal requirement

The sad collapse of England is a rare example of a tragedy which is being transmuted into farce. A subject for Gilbert and Sullivan, rather than Macaulay. There was a time when our policemen were said, despite the evidence, to be wonderful. Now they are a gun happy mob whose incompetence astounds and are apparently above the law. They mowed down an innocent man who was carrying a chair leg amongst other unlikely targets. Man eating lions are tranquillised with blow darts: why not human beings?

We learn of misinformation from the Metropolitan Police to evade blame for the the tragedy of Tomlinson, a homeless alcoholic who was transformed in death, according to a relative, into a much loved member of a family. Not loved enough to be provided with a home, By coincidence, this happens at a time when we are recalling Hillsborough when South Yorkshire Police Force doctored evidence to evade responsibility.

Manchester police boast gun crime in the city dropped by 97 per cent when they arrested the leaders of one gang. Why were they not arrested years ago? Or indeed shot? Luckily for them, they carried guns and not chair legs.

Perhaps most frightening at all is the fact that planning a demonstration is an arrestable offence. One remembers Nazism and Fascism had similar laws.

But for a truly Gilbertian plot what better than the case of Commissioner Quick on-the--draw-of-his-pension? Parenthetically, have our security services not noticed that outside Downing Street stands a cameraman with a lens powerful enough to pick up typescript, an ability he demonstrated earlier when he photographed a cabinet minister's papers? Difficult to believe that this is accidental happy snapping rather than a nice little earner.

Act Two of this Gilbertian farce was the hurried raid on a number of Pakistani students who, according to some inspired leaks, were within days of blowing up a shopping centre and a night club. MOD should co-opt them. They were apparently going to bring this about without using explosives, of which none has been found.

I look forward to Act Three. The terrorist plot is now seen to be aspirational rather than actual. In other words, there wasn't one. In consequence, the students are likely to be deported rather than charged, but even this is problematic because if they were returned home THEY MIGHT BE TORTURED. If, as we were told, they planned to kill and maim hundreds of innocent shoppers that would be no bad thing. If they didn't, why are they being harassed at all?

I remain convinced that Wahabi dominated Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are the enemy. Not Iraq and Afghanistan. At time like this it is worth remembering that MI5 and the whole secret service was the invention of a thriller writer, E.Phillips Openheim. Aided by a mad Press Baron, “Nutty” Northcliffe.

WORD OF THE CENTURY

Despite the daily breast slapping of our celebrity ambassadors I fear The Word of the Century is not 'Caring'. How about 'Massacre'?

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did their best to wipe out the native American, the Aborigine and the Maori but they lacked not only our expertise - they just didn’t have the technology.

We invented the flame gun, the atom bomb, germ warfare, bombing defenceless women and children from the air.........Oh, we are the devil’s golden boys.

There was no sense of race discrimination about us. We slaughtered Jews; Chinese and Russian peasants by the millions; street children in South America; anyone we could lay our hands on in the Balkans. Blacks almost anywhere. We weren’t fussy. If there were no outsiders handy, we slaughtered each other. We invented the death camp. We owe to that Icon of Peace, Mandela, the blazing necklace of a rubber tyre. In World War One when our soldiers were reluctant to shoot that stranger, the enemy......we shot them.

In the fifteenth century a woman called Christine the Pisan wrote a book called The Art of War. It was an instant bestseller. No prince planned a campaign without it. In it, she pleaded with them not to harm the peasants. She wrote: “They would full gladly always live in good peace and they seek no more. So ought they then ,as it seems to me, be free thereof....because their estate is not to meddle in war...and have no other office but, poor innocents, go to plough and work on the land and keep the beasts.”

Fugh. We will have no truck with that sort of rubbish in these enlightened times. “Bring me your hungry and your homeless......and I will wipe them out.”

No. Massacre is my nap selection, with anything to come on just plain evil.

BEST BOOK IN THE LAST TWENTY YEARS.

If there was a best novel in the past twenty years I must have missed it. In a recent poll that accolade went to Umberto Eco’s “Name of the Rose”. A good enough read, I grant you; dripping with meaning, though basically about a search for dirty books in a monastery. All gloom and, in the inevitable film, a spectacularly unshaven Sean Connery. Bond in bondage, desperate for flagellation. All shadows and sweaty monks. Monks and mayhem. A sort of Brother Cadfael in a Bolognese sauce. I would have thought “Birdsong” by Sebastian Faulks more worthy of the title. None, of course, comes anywhere near Howard Spring's “Fame is the Spur”.

I was happier about the choice of biography. Juang Chang’s merciless “Wild Swans” was much more successful than Eco in showing how evil man can be if he really puts his mind to it. Mandela’s biography, predictably, came second as it would have done even if no one had written one. Ackroyd’s “Dickens” came third..

I would have put it first, though, as Ackroyd justly remarked, Dickens’ best biography was in his novels. I thought the prologue the best thing ever written about him, though I seem to remember being embarrassed at Ackroyd’s conversations with his subject.

A later guide than I read would no doubt have placed his masterly transcription of the Canterbury Tales high in the list but I certainly won’t quarrel with the Book Guide’s choice of Ellerman’s Oscar Wilde. I prefer biography to fiction. Biography, indeed life, can be fanciful in ways that fiction wouldn’t dare.

John Julius Norwich’s account of murderous Byzantium, the bad empress Theodora, and chapter headings like “The Emperor who lost his nose”alone would entitle his three volumes on that Empire to a place at the top of the history list. He prefers he original three volume edition to the collecte edition from which as he crossly observed to me, all the jokes had been removed. JJ has ben described as the most intelligent man in London. How different he is in lightly wearing that scholarship to the dreadful and ubiquitous Stephen Fry who eagerly shares his vast accumulation of facts with us, I would also include in any list “The History of the Cavalry”, which was the work of JJ's cousin and my old friend the Marquess. of Anglesey and won him the Chesney Gold Medal, the highest accolade of a military historian.

But there I go making lists.

INTERVIEWING

I did my first published interview on VE Day in 1945 and since then scarcely a day has gone by when I haven't done at least one, for radio or for newspapers. Even my non-fiction books are extended interviews, either with people or other books.

But it took me forty years to become an interviewer. And then it was an accident. I fell asleep in the middle of an interview for a Radio 4 series.

Since nobody noticed, and the woman I was interviewing was a Russian Czarist princess with a fascinating story, I said nothing. And for the first and only time in my life the office was inundated with letters praising my interviewing technique. At last, they all said, an interviewer who isn’t for ever interrupting.

It flies in the face of received radio wisdom. On courses, young interviewers are told top keep answers short. Otherwise listeners get bored. This is rubbish.

At its best, an interview is the spur in the flank of a monologue. The interviewer is the jockey - a sort of horseman of the puckered lip. But if you can see him, even in your mind's eye, he has failed.

On Radio Wales, Vincent Kane in his prime was a superlative interviewer. He always left space for answers to his questions. So did a man called Gerry Monte. And there have been others. Like Michael Parkinson and, quirky though he was, Ray Gosling and (though not on Today) John Humphrys. But neither Paxman nor Naughtie qualify since both are desperate to show their own knowledge of a subject.

Now the interviewer is the star. His questions swirl like a matador's red cape as he taunts the bull in a suit of too bright lights.........I do sometimes wish they could fall asleep and give the other chap a chance.

We don't get many interviews. What we get are cross-talk acts between John Humphrys and various elephantine politicians; even crosser talk acts between Paxman’s eyebrows and ever more politicians. But they never seem to elicit any information.

Are the broadcast media right to concentrate almost exclusively on politics? I know it is cheap but I don't know anyone who listens enthralled. Am I wrong?

Perhaps I am also wrong in believing that interviewing should not be part of the entertainment industry, which it plainly is.

I would have thought that if satellite news bulletins and the barely live five proved anything they prove there isn’t enough news about - or news they can afford to get- to nourish a rolling news coverage. The reason the first popular papers included features was that there wasn’t enough news to fill a paper big enough for people to want to buy.

In the old days, BBC announcers would sometimes come on, announce the nine o'clock news and say “There is no news today. Good night!“

Isn’t news just another fix, anyway? We are used to getting it at stated times, like the six o'clock gin of happy memory; and we think we can't do without it.

Isn’t it even more depressing that we are now copying things like the Oompah Whimpering show where you manufacture news by bringing together stage villains or antagonists and inviting them to fight whilst the audience boos and cheers?

A READER WRITES

One of my oldest friends, Brian Hitchen CBE, ex paratrooper and former editor of the Sunday Express writes;

Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing Red every Friday. The reason?  Englishmen and women who support our troops used to be called the 'silent majority'. We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for Country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or over-bearing. We get no liberal media coverage on TV, to reflect our message or our opinions. Many English people, like you, me and all our friends, simply want to recognize that the vast majority of  Britain supports our troops. Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that every Briton who supports our men and women afar will wear something red. By word of mouth, press, TV -- let's make Great Britain on every Friday a sea of red much like a homecoming football team. If every one of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, co-workers, friends, and family, it will not be long before Britain is covered in RED and it will let our troops know the once 'silent' majority is on their side more than ever, certainly more than the media lets on. The first thing a soldier says when asked 'What can we do to make things better for you?' is...'We need your support and your prayers'... Let's get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example; and wear something red every Friday. ENDS

NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS

The Welsh were invented by an ancestor of mine, a Pictish chieftain called Cunnedda. Nothing very grand about that. He is only an ancestor by marriage and I share him with most north Walians. If they took the trouble, most Welsh people could claim similar nobility.

I think of myself as a professional alien; and aliens are the greatest patriots.

The Welsh Nationalist party Plaid Cymru was formed by a Liverpool-born graduate in English.Catherine the Great, who was called the Mother of Russia, was a German. Napoleon came from Corsica to be Emperor of France. Hitler, the Austrian painter, founded the German Third Reich. The first language of Bonnie Prince Charlie was Polish. Lloyd George was born in Manchester, two streets from my birthplace as it happens. The post-war IRA troubles began with the rule of Mac Stiofan, who was a Londoner. Indeed it was English influence that brought about its birth.

The distinguished historian Professor Gwyn A Williams in his elegant history "When Was Wales?" claimed the Welsh invented themselves.

They have been re-inventing themselves ever since.

Few Welshman do not believe that America was discovered by a Welsh prince called Madoc. There is no acceptable evidence that either he, or the tribe of Welsh Indians he discovered, ever existed. As the Professor pointed out in another book, the prince was invented as a political move by a Welsh civil servant at the court of Elizabeth the First.

The ancient laws of Hywel Dda are codified and published. There is less evidence of the existence of Prince Hywel Dda. The first publication of his laws was in Norman times and it has been suggested they were a cunning Welsh ploy to get round the Normans' oppressive game laws. A canine historian has pointed out the laws list six breeds of dog that did not exist before the 11th century. Yet no mention is made of the wolfhound or the Irish great hound which certainly DID exist.

The nouveau riche Normans, by the way, were so impressed by this Welsh ability they commissioned Geoffrey of Monmouth to invent them a respectable past. This Saatchi of the day not only gave them a family tree; he chopped it down and turned it into an Arthurian round table.

When everyone started to apologise to everyone else for the sins of history it put me in a strange position. In California, my late cousin Howard thought our family had a lot of apologising to do. Our Norman ancestor Ralf was descended from Vikings. Do we need to apologise to the French for what the Vikings did to them? Or to the Saxons whom we pillaged?

We never learned. Ralf was part of William the Conqueror’s 6,000-strong army which thrashed the Saxons. Once again, sorry, Saxons.

In 1315, it was said of our ancestor Sir John Skydemore that “the Welsh hate the said Sir John because he inflicted so much damage on them during the war in the late king’s time.” Apology to the Welsh?

In 1298 and 1301 Sir Walter Skydemore was summoned to war against the Scots. Forty-three years later Sir Walter Skydemore, a nephew, was a man at arms in Ireland; and two years after that he was in France in the retinue of Edward, Prince of Wales.

So that's the Scots and the Irish, and once again the French, who must believe we are picking on them.

It gets worse. Thomas Skidmore emigrated to America where he joined governor John Winthrop jnr in a new settlement at New London, Connecticut. Fought against Uncus and his tribe. He and his son took land from an Indian named Asharoken for two coats, four shirts, eleven ounces of powder and seven quarts of “likker”.

So Heap Sorry. Also apologies to African Americans for Joseph Skidmore who had slaves on his Long Island estate and left two, Tom and Ned, to his son Isaac.

Howard always hoped no apology was due to the first five groups since we married into all their races and would be apologising to ourselves. About the Indians. Howard’s grandfather’s first cousin Joel, through inheritance from his mother, became the last chief in the west of Long Island of the Canarsie Indians, who had been persecuted by the Mohawks because they had welcomed the Dutch.

Isaac later freed his next generation slaves Phyllis and Cain. Cain Skidmore, the freed slave, was head of a family in the 1810 census and five great uncles fought for the North in the Civil War.

Anyway, as Howard always said, “No one should be held responsible for his relatives’ transgressions. We have enough to do being responsible for our own.“

GOING FOR A SONG

Tony Blair is, we are told, a shoe in for President of Europe. I do not know why we are in it anyway. If Tony Twinkle-Tongue thinks Britain can become a suburb of Europe, he has never tried to buy a CD in that annoying land mass.

I tried. The last time I saw Paris, I also spotted a two volume CD “L’Ame des Poetes”, a collection of Aznavour, Becaud, Piaf, Greco, indeed all the great post-war chanteurs. Unfortunately the Ferret insisted I buy only one.

Buying even one wasn’t easy. The shop computer had gone down and the assistants weren’t selling anything to anyone. My suggestion that we did things the old fashioned way, where we gave them money and they gave us the CD, was received with Gallic contempt.

So we had lunch, which cost four times the price of both records, returned, bought one, came home, played it and brought Instant Paris into the drawing room.

I wrote, faxed, even e-mailed the Paris shop with an order for volume two. No response. In desperation I phoned the shop, only to be told it did not do mail order. So much for the Uncommon Market. The CDs were produced by EMI. I rang their London HQ and was told “L’Ame des Poetes” was cut by their French division and they were not allowed to import it to Britain.

Subsequently, I tried in one large record shop in Amsterdam and in another in Bruges. The notion of importing CDs across a border that wasn’t even supposed to exist appalled both. I did momentarily think I had struck lucky in Brussels where the girl in the record shop assured us she would have the CD at our home in Wales before we were. Despite another flurry of letters, faxes and e-mails, not a whimper.

A month later, I popped, in passing, into Cob Records in Porthmadog. “L’Ame des Poetes, Vol 2? No problem,” said the assistant. Nor was there. I am playing it as I write this.

COMMENT FROM THE TIMES

.”............These anti-Koranic perspectives will continue to predominate in the British Muslim community as it becomes more directly tied to ultra-conservative and extremist sects - such as the Wahhabi, Deobandi, Jamati Islami and the Tabligh Jamaat. These ideological radicals propagate a highly toxic caricature of Islam. They regard creed and culture as indistinguishable, refusing to grasp that Islam is a global religion, not a faith that is linked to one particular people or place.

Although Muslims have their own specific territorial cultural traditions, there is no such thing as an Islamic culture. Therefore the modern trend among British Muslims blindly to emulate Arab ethnic dress or grow beards or for women to wear the Wahhabi-sanctioned niqab or face masks has nothing to do with the Koran but everything to do with the primitive tribal mores and sexist practices of Arabia................”

Taj Harjey, Head of a progressive Muslim Organisation.

A TRAGEDY

The Spectator has managed to get rid of Paul Johnson, its only essayist. Now it is just a collection of op-eds.