Use your vote and give the hogs a roasting at the next election

Pete Pheasant's Derby Telegraph column, May 14, 2009

AN OLD friend has a saying about elections: “Don’t vote, it only encourages them.”

It’s one of the few things we hotly disagree about.

I view the right to vote as one of the great privileges of living in a democracy, while my mate thinks politicians are all as bad as each other, so what’s the point?

I’m sad to say, however, that I saw some logic in his argument after the ghastly revelations about MPs’ expenses – talk about snouts in the trough!

What saddens me most is not the news that one Honourable Member – how discredited that first word now seems – claimed £75,000 for a flat, despite owning a £1.5m home 12 miles from his place of work.

Nor is it the curious case of a male minister who expected the taxpayer to reimburse him for buying panty liners and a woman’s blouse.

It’s not the case of the minister for tourism who claimed £25,000 for security patrols at her London home because she didn’t feel safe there, even though that made me wonder if she had the right credentials for promoting the capital as a tourist destination.

It’s not the claims for light bulbs or manure or pet food; not the tens of thousands spent on doing up properties; not the 23p claimed by one MP for a lemon, much as that demonstrates the depths of mean spiritedness displayed by the House of Hogs towards our money.

I admit I was genuinely shocked to learn about another MP’s 26p claim for a wooden spoon – I thought they were issued to everyone at Prime Minister’s Question Time.

As for the frontbench Labour MP who claimed 93p for a packet of Iced Gems, well! I wouldn’t trust anyone who’d pay so much for such a tasteless sweet to run the country.

But what’s sickened me the most is that all my confidence in politicians has simply been shattered.

You may find this difficult to believe, coming from someone who’s covered public affairs as a journalist for 30-odd years, but I’d always regarded politicians as being a generally honourable bunch who were actually trying to do the decent thing.

Many’s the time I’ve chided friends for branding them a grabbing, selfish lot.

I’ve argued passionately that we should give them a good wage to reflect the importance and pressure of their jobs and the fact that at least we can exert some control over them, unlike the hundreds of thousands of civil servants who really control out lives and over whom we have no say whatsoever.

Now I’m beginning to think that I’m just a naïve old fool.

The wave of apologies from Westminster left me unimpressed. It seemed more like a case of “sorry that we’ve been found out”.
It also left me thinking they should all resign and let the country speak.

The one good thing to come out of this affair is confirmation that the British free press – another great bastion of our precious democracy – is alive and kicking.
But for the Daily Telegraph cracking open the cesspit, I bet we’d never have known the half of it.

And at least one old belief is as strong as ever. My mate can save his legs if he likes, but I’ll be walking to the polling station on June 4 to exercise my democratic right to make my voice heard in the county council and European Union elections.

If you’re tempted to stay at home, consider this: only two-thirds of us bothered to vote for MPs last time around – and look how that encouraged them.

Jam sarnies and butter? Get away!

MARKS and Spencer may be on to a winner with its new strawberry jam sandwich.

For 75p, it is offering two slices of white bread, buttered and spread with jam, cut into triangles and displayed in a box beside loftier butty creations like prawn and mayonnaise.

M&S has already earned tens of thousands of pounds in free publicity for what it calls “one of the greatest simple pleasures of life”.

According to the high street chain’s Sandwich Specialist, “one bite takes you straight back to your childhood”.

Journalists on Fleet Street’s posh papers have been getting dewy-eyed with nostalgia over what’s probably no more than a distant cousin of the homemade granary with dollops of conserve that nanny used to dish out with a silver spoon when they were kids.

But I’m all for cheap, down-to-earth food and that’s the attitude M&S is banking on in these times of recession to lift its sagging profits (£297m at the last count).

There are, however, a few serious flaws in the concept.

For starters, I was way ahead of them in spotting the potential of the jam sarnie revival. I served up a tray of white bread and jam sandwiches at a wedding anniversary party last year and they went down a storm.

Notice something missing there? It’s butter. Not a scrape was allowed to contaminate my jam butties. And that’s Marks and Sparks’ first offence against the Spread Sandwich Code.

To purists like me, there can be no butter in a sandwich containing spread. When I say “butter”, I mean either the real thing or one of the many yellow imitations which, unlike the margarine of my youth, don’t require softening in front of a fire prior to spreading and don’t taste like axle grease.

Butter’s fine with the likes of cheese, tuna and cold meat but not with jam, nor with the rest of my spread sandwich top five, which I can now reveal after days of meditation.

Undisputed king of the crusts is Marmite – and if you’re in that half of the population who think it’s not the devil’s sputum, you’ll surely agree that bread and the brown stuff need no other spreadfellow.

Challenging strongly for top spot are two born-again additions to my food cupboard – lemon curd and honey (the thick, creamy variety), with cheese spread bringing up the rear, its fortunes having revived considerably since it came in tubs instead of those tinfoil triangles that had to be warmed in the hand prior to unwrapping, unless you preferred gooey lumps to a true spread.

So, no butter. And, almost as important, no cutting.

Those well-meaning folk at M&S may think they’re helping the common man through the credit crunch with a cheap lunch. But slicing through a jam sarnie is like serving warm lager in a mug.

Nor is this feast to be packaged and planned. No normal person is going to think: “I fancy a jam sandwich for my lunch today”, then seek out a supermarket and take two prissy little triangles back to the office or building site.

Jam is too sticky to eat while pounding a computer keyboard, for example – and the whole point about spread sarnies is spontaneity.

When you’re standing in the kitchen thinking “what can I have for dinner?” and you haven’t a clue but your stomach’s growling, you reach for a slice of cheap white bread, slap it on to the working surface (no breadboard, mind!) pile on the jam, fold the bread without cutting and devour, while wandering around until you can think of a proper meal (or settle on more sarnies, followed by a cup of tea and a pile of biscuits).

Now that’s how to eat a jam sandwich.

The joys of Sunday morning football

HALF an hour to kick-off and our centre-half is devouring a giant hot dog drenched in tomato sauce.

“Need some fat inside me,” he says with a grin. “On the ale last night!”

It soon becomes clear that he was not the only one.

A team-mate sucks on a cigarette as if his life depends on it and a rival group amble by, smoking something illegal and slurping from cans of Stella Artois.

It’s 10 o’clock on Sunday morning and football is about to get under way.
Weeks of rain have left the outer edges of half a dozen pitches on an inner-city park ankle-deep in mud but the refs have ruled them fit for play. They’ve got out of bed and made the journey, so they want their match fees.

Besides, what’s wrong with ruts and puddles? Even the pros put up with them in Cloughie’s day. And scores of eager young men and a smattering of diehard baldies with beer bellies are desperate for their weekly dose of parklife Wembley.

Our boys are facing a pub side and, as the ref blows for action 20 minutes late, having inspected goal nets tethered with yards of masking tape and bent-over twigs, it seems the visiting team are still wearing their beer goggles.

I’m there only as a watching dad (hoping to avoid getting roped in as linesman) but even I want to cheer as the opposition finally manage a pass on target.

Five minutes gone, and our striker is sent sprawling by a tackle so clumsy that even the perpetrator doesn’t protest as the ref signals a penalty. Our man smashes the ball against a post.

It falls at the feet of a startled defender facing his own goal eight yards out and he fires his attempted clearance with great precision past his own keeper and into the top of the net.

His team-mates are helpless with laughter.

We’re two-up at half-time but then lose the plot. Our goalie lets a shot sail through his hands and gets just what he needs to bolster his confidence – a barrage of abuse from his own players.

I flag for offside seconds before the visitors score again (naturally, I’ve been roped in as “lino”) and my honesty and parentage are called into question as the scorer runs towards me, snarling.

Then the worst thing happens. Their pretty-boy would-be Ronaldo (there’s always one) who’s been whingeing and arguing from the outset, finally produces a flash of brilliance to equalise and there’s hardly time for another kick before the ref calls it a day. Elation and dismay in equal measure but handshakes all round.

This is football how it used to be, and I love it. But I’m having severe withdrawal symptoms at present, thanks to this wretched weather.

When will it ever end? Even basement league footie bows to the snow, leaving me to mooch around or do something useful, like clean the car.

I don’t care what it’s like in the week.

I’ll brave iced-up windscreens and skidding wheels to get to work. I’ll humour others who take the day off at the first sign of winters like they used to be, when people were ’ard.

I’ll forgive teachers who shut schools for fear of being sued if one child slips over (though they’re depriving a generation of the ancient art of slide-building, which once spawned glassy playground tracks that always seemed to end with a thud and a groan against railings or thorn bush).

I’ll totter oh-so-gingerly across icy patches that linger when most of the snow and slush have cleared, threatening to send me bottom-over-breast.

I’ll even suffer cutesy pictures of Mr and Mrs Snowman and their snow children
But just give me my Sunday morning football fix!

How a boy of six was locked away for life in a lunatic asylum

1966: England’s footballers are kings of the world, the Beatles are at their peak and mini-skirts are rising.

It’s a time of freedom and tolerance, of long hair and all-you-need-is-love.

And, in an unmarked grave, a boy condemned to a lunatic asylum for almost 50 years is finally laid to rest.

This is the story of my great-uncle Harold.

I had not heard of him until a few years ago. Then I decided to research my family history.

What drove me to this I cannot say for sure. Perhaps it was the fact that, with my parents long dead, I had only one remaining link with my past — my grandmother, who was nearing her 100th birthday.

So I decided to get her talking about the old days and recorded the conversation.

She was one of 13 children born to a miner and his wife in a pit village in the north of England.

Although unable to recall the names of all of her siblings, she remembered the youngest, Harold, with clear fondness.

They called him Hally. He was “a bonny lad” with a mop of curly hair but he “wasn’t all there” and my grandmother spent much of her time looking after him.

Hally’s mischief-making included hanging from a bedroom window by his feet.

Times were hard and their father – a coalface worker whose sense of compassion drove him to fight for the rights of fellow miners as a union man but who apparently boasted that he never cuddled his children – decided that Hally should be put into care.

Eighty-odd years on, my gran could still remember the day a welfare man turned up at the house. He put a hand on the boy’s head and declared: “Oh, I see. He’s an idiot.”

Hally was taken off to an asylum and there he remained until he died, my grandmother said.

She recalled visiting him occasionally with her mother, making the journey across country by pony and trap. On one such occasion, her mum announced that she had come to see her son. She did not recognise the grubby, shaven-headed urchin standing next to her.

I was shocked and fascinated by the story and had to find out more.

But, since my gran had long lost touch with her family, I had to rely on official records.

I began scouring the internet and, knowing roughly when Hally was born, managed fairly easily to obtain his birth certificate.

Months of searching for a record of his death, however, proved fruitless until I established which health authority had inherited the records of the long-gone asylum and requested details of the time he spent there.

Weeks passed before the arrival of a letter that would reveal all that was officially known about my great-uncle Harold’s pitiful existence.

In a few short lines, it gave his date of entry to the institution, his patient number, date of death, where buried and by whom.

He had been confined to the asylum since the age of six. And there he had remained until his death an astonishing 49 years later.

He had died not as a boy, as I had suspected and which would have been sad enough, but at the age of 55.

I was now able to obtain his death certificate, showing that he choked on vomit after contracting pneumonia.

Local council records revealed that he was buried in an unmarked grave with two other asylum inmates, as was the custom.

This was in 1966, just 43 years ago, when I was about to become a teenager in the Summer of Love in oh-so-civilised England.

How could such an outrage have happened? How bad could a child of six have been to warrant being locked away for the rest of his life in the presence, I guessed, of people far more deserving of the term “lunatic” (which, in Hally’s childhood, was still one used in the government census)?

How many more had suffered like him?

I came across the blog of someone who was a patient at the asylum in 1972. He wrote of the ordeal of “sane people” having to mix with “the mentally subnormal” in an apathy and depression:

“People sit smoking and staring about... treatment basically consists of prescribed pills for all and electroconvulsive therapy for most... after each shock, it takes a good while for one’s memory to return.”

I felt sure that, if Hally hadn’t been mad when he arrived there, he would certainly have gone mad before long, and so any hope of being let out would have gone.

And yet perhaps all that afflicted him as a six-year-old was one of those conditions now diagnosed and regarded with sympathy, like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

If he were to have died today in such circumstances, there would be newspaper headlines. But life was very different back then and attitudes were different, too.

His confinement began before women had the vote and, even when it ended in the enlightened 1960s, unmarried mums were being shut away in hospitals and convents.

In the intervening years, I guess, mental illness was regarded by the authorities as something to be hidden away and, consequently, viewed with shame by the victims’ families.

I’m not sure what my discovery has achieved, other than to satisfy curiosity and serve as a cautionary tale for others tempted to delve into their families’ past.

But I feel better for knowing more than just a name in the memory of an old woman and for realising that, however grim life might seem today, however bad the news on the economy and how shocking contemporary cases of child abuse might be, we’ve come a little way since kids of six were consigned to the scrapheap for being different

Revealed: secret plans to silence old whingers

NEWS that Derbyshire police want more Taser guns to combat violent offenders has alarmed civil liberties groups.

But a much bigger hoo-hah is about to erupt, because I can exclusively reveal plans to use a new electronic weapon to curb another type of social pest: the grumpy old man.

A secret Home Office study has concluded that firing 50,000 volts of electricity at bellyachers of a certain age who go around putting the world to rights would be excessive.So scientists have come up with a new stun gun.

It’s called the Daser and is set to silence whingers of a certain age. While Taser gets its name from a fictional weapon – Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle – Daser stands for Disarm And Stabilise Elderly Ranter.

The Daser emits high-frequency radio waves which are picked up by hi-tech wristbands that anyone over 50 would be forced to wear on entering a public building.

The result is a numbing sensation that makes the silly old sausage forget what he was talking about just long enough to end confrontation, restore peace and send the whinger on his way, none the wiser.

“ERs (elderly ranters) are a well-meaning and generally law-abiding group,” says a leaked report.

“But they undermine Government attempts to promote social inclusion.

“By venting their frustration and anger in public at minor failings by everyone from big business (for instance, by telling supermarket checkout girls they will report them to the chairman of Tesco for not saying ‘please’) to private individuals (e.g. chastising parents in the street over the behaviour of their children), ERs are widening the social divide.

“Such over-zealous self-righteousness carries two risks: 1, ERs may be subjected to physical abuse; 2, More people may begin to think like ERs and make a fuss about bigger issues, like the economy.

“Tests have shown that the Daser quickly and quietly immobilises ERs with no lasting harm to the target.”

Unbelievable, isn’t it?

And I, too, was sceptical, especially since the plans are outlined in “top secret” papers discovered after a darts match at the Horse and Jockey.

But I am now utterly convinced, because I put the theory to the test. Yes, I have been Dasered.

I had to call in some big favours from contacts in Whitehall but finally tracked down the report’s author and arranged for a demonstration.

I’ll call him D.We arranged to meet at my local swimming baths, where he handed me a wristband identical to those used for lockers and told me to make a minor scene about another swimmer.

Regular readers will understand my unease at the prospect of such uncharacteristic behaviour.

But I swallowed my pride, attached the wristband, entered the pool and launched myself into old man’s up-and-down swimming.

I could see D in the spectator gallery, holding what looked like a mobile phone.Within minutes, I found my way blocked by two old biddies inching side by side through the water in a display of world championship nattering.

“Some people,” I muttered loudly as we passed, “have no manners”.Suddenly, my wrist tingled.

Then my body went numb and I was engulfed by a wave of pleasant memories. There was a song running through my head – “Happy Daser here again” – and all I could think of was shop signs with apostrophes in the right place, tired feet soaked in hot water and digestive biscuits dunked in strong tea.

I have no recollection of what happened from that moment until I arrived home half an hour later but D phoned to tell me I’d calmly climbed out of the water, waved goodbye to my fellow swimmers, dressed and left the building.

I guess I should be disturbed by the Daser’s implications for civil liberties. Truth is, I can’t even be bothered to have a rant about it.

Why I'm heading under the stairs

I’M determined to spend more time under the stairs in 2009.

This might strike you as a little odd, but then I am.

It’s also, however, the starting point for a new year’s resolution that comes with a reasonable chance of success.

Who really wants to get fit, stop smoking, stop drinking, be a better person, live a greener lifestyle, do more for charity, cut down on chocolates and all those other worthy things we pledge to do at this time of year?

OK, perhaps most of us – but are we being realistic? Judging by some statistics floating around this week, it’s all hot air that quickly vanishes.

Three million people in this country apparently sign up for gym membership but half a million never bother to go.So sorting out the clutter under my stairs seems an eminently sensible goal.

The mess in what used to be the pantry has been driving me nuts for years. I can’t understand where all that junk lived before we liberated the space from tins and boxes of food.Well, “junk” is a bit unfair.

A cursory inspection reveals that, in addition to a bottle of rum that’s only ever touched once a year (for Santa’s little tot, alongside his mince pie and Rudolph’s half a carrot), a copy of the Yellow Pages rendered redundant by the internet, a set of scales untouched since the kids did cookery at school, my fourth-form copy of Julius Caesar, two boxes of vinyl LPs I can no longer play but can’t bring myself to get rid of, a piece of skirting board awaiting its destiny and two broken torches, this 4ft by 7ft hidey-hole is teeming with useful things.

Among them are 15 pairs of shoes, an ironing board, two tubs of assorted screws (waiting to gash my fingertips on the odd occasion that I make a fruitless rummage for one of the right size), a set of stepladders and a golfing umbrella.There are two bags of football kit, an assortment of light bulbs, two boxes of Christmas beer, several bottles of wine that will probably serve as emergency birthday presents, two cans of air freshener and a bag of clothes that may one day make it to a charity shop.

Perhaps I should invite people in off the street for a variation of the Generation Game.

If we were talking people, my one-time larder would be more densely populated than Hong Kong.

Oh, I forgot: two picnic chairs, two electric drills, several dozen CDs that have fallen out of fashion, umpteen carrier bags, pots of paint and varnish, a punctured football, a cricket bat, bags of brushes and rollers, baking tins and a battery charger.

I could go on but I can’t get at the rest.

And that’s the whole point of this new mission because, when a household appliance has broken and ignoring it doesn’t work, or one of my handy pals isn’t available to fix it, there’s nothing left but to reach for my tool kit, which involves sprawling over some of the aforesaid clutter (having negotiated the newly-ironed shirts that hang from the door jamb, waiting for me to take them upstairs) and scrabbling around for an implement with which to practise my own perverse form of DIY. The only problem is that, when I look back on my life, even from childhood there was always a den of clutter.

My wife’s family called theirs a lobby hole and the kids would bury themselves under dad’s pit clothes during games of hide-and-seek.So perhaps it’s just meant to be.

Perhaps the rest of the house needs a bin so that the rest of it can stay reasonably tidy.

It’s still New Year’s Day and I’ve ditched my only resolution. Is this a record?

Christmas cards? Bah humbug!

TIS the season to do Tippex, cos I’ve made a mess, tra-la-la-la.

Mr Cackhands here, reporting for Christmas card duty. And that means a return to the glory days for the little bottle of correction fluid that hides in a drawer for most of the year, remembering when people used typewriters and Control-Z was but a twinkle in Microsoft’s eye.

Talking of eyes, as I write, that stupid cartoon paper-clip that pops up whenever a new Word document is created is staring at me from the corner of my PC screen, occasionally glancing right or left, or shifting his body slightly, or raising his eyebrows and scratching his head when I pause for thought.

I’d like to grab hold of him, straighten him out like a real paper clip and use him to delouse the keyboard.

But it’s the season of goodwill and I’m spending a few hours writing Christmas cards to a few people I don’t see all year and the dozens I see day after day.

It’s a farce, isn’t it?

The Department of Civil Servants with Nothing Better To Do estimates that a billion Christmas cards are sent in the UK each year.

Apparently, recycling just a tenth of them instead of sending them to holes in the ground would save 2,600 tonnes of greenhouse gases, which is like taking 800 cars off the road, though I doubt that paper cars would be much use in this weather.

That’s something to chew on when the turkey’s out of the way. For now, I’m doing the annual chore and making the annual pig’s ear of it.

Common sense tells me it’s pointless giving workmates dozens of folded-up pieces of card bearing my name in exchange for dozens of folded-up pieces of card bearing theirs. But it’s what we do.

And I don’t want to be branded a bah-humbug merchant, so I’m reviving the ancient art of handwriting and hoping I’ve remembered everyone who’s likely to send me a card.

In previous years, I’ve tried doing charity collections instead. But there’s always someone who breaks ranks and gives me a card as well, usually on the day before I break up for Christmas.

I’ve also tried writing out a few extras, just in case someone I wasn’t expecting one from popped up with one, then I could rummage in a pile of envelopes and say “how nice – and here’s yours”.

However, that invariably left me with a few spare because certain individuals hadn’t played the game, so I ended up giving them one anyway and making them feeling guilty because they’d missed me out. Ha ha!

You can tell how insincere this exercise is when you have to ask the missus: “What are so-and-so’s children called?”

Or: “Is he still with her?” Or worse still, you have to phone the supposedly-dear friend with whom you’ve had so little contact to check: a) that they’re still alive and b) where they live.

And my handwriting’s shocking. It gets worse as I get older and the years spent working at a computer slip by.

My age-induced slide into scattiness and a love of spoonerisms don’t help either. I spotted an unsavoury-looking parcel in the street recently and described it as a “dog of bag muck”.

Hence, a slight distraction during this card-writing palaver can turn “from” into “frog” or “merry” into “cherry” or suggest that my sexual orientation has changed and I’ve acquired a daughter, because I’ve written my son’s name immediately after mine and before his mum’s.

But it’s the thought that counts and I guess every card purchased helps during the credit crunch.

Come to think of it, I’d better get down the off-licence. Brothers and sisters-in-law will be visiting soon and I need some gifts of cheap wine to swap for theirs