This man speaks pure Geordie.

No corruption after over twenty years in Oz!

Amazing really, left South Shields twenty odd years ago after a career in the Royal Navy to make a new life in Australia, his professional position often takes him to Hong Kong and the USA, but unlike many others who manage to acquire a Cockney accent after 12 months in Putney, or a mid Atlantic accent after three years in New Hampshire “Andy” sounds as though he’s just stepped off the No. 42 bus from Henderson Road.

This photograph was taken last night in The Beacon on The Lawe, South Shields where a few of us gathered to meet and greet the man who reputedly fiddled around on with Freddie Flintoff’s lap top during the last Ashes tour! The small crowd who were there to greet “Andy” are all members of the Curly’s Corner Shop Message Board, the busiest little online facility in this part of the world for Sanddancers, ex-pats, and foreigners to get together for a friendly chinwag. “Andy” is back in South Shields with his wife and daughter to visit his mother, and on Sunday we will be hunting down David Miliband down at The Stadium of Light to request that he recommends “Andy” for some sort of special award for resisting the onslaught of “strine” for so long. He knows exactly where his Geordie roots and culture come from and he does his very best to export our hospitality, generosity, and common sense to our cousins down under.

As far as adapting to Oz cultures and habits “Andy” said he couldn’t give a XXXX!

Welcome home Andy.

Btw, can I recommend the Deuchars IPA.

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Why vote?

What should motivate me to go to the polling station?

I’ve just walked back from school in the middle of a heavy rain shower thinking, if the weather is like this tomorrow then what would motivate me to get another soaking by going to a South Shields polling station?

Our local government elections have an unenviable track record for making people stay at home regardless of the weather, is that people feel disengaged or uninvolved with local politics? Why is there a sense of futility about the exercise?

South Tyneside Borough Council like hundreds of others in England and Wales is responsible for spending hundreds of millions of pounds of our money, and then raising some of it from council taxes, which we all perennially complain about, yet only around 38% of us bother to take the time to involve ourselves in the business of deciding who should spend this money for us, or to question why they should spend it all. Local councils provide services that we all use in fashion or another, education for our children, social care for the elderly, street cleansing and waste collection, street lighting and highways maintenance, library services, local amenities and sports facilities, cemeteries and crematoria, planning and licencing services, and a plethora of other legal obligations put upon them by central government.

These are all elements of our normal daily lives which from time to time we all find fault with and have a good old moan and groan about, yet more than half of us do not seem bothered about helping to decide who’s fingers should control the purse strings. It’s our money, surely you would think that more of us would be interested! No, apparently not, we don’t go to the poll because we cannot be bothered, they are the same, they are in it for what they can get out of it, the weather was too rotten, what difference does it make anyway? All standard excuses that we give year in year out.

I’d be motivated in any case, because I am one of those who cares passionately about the area that I was born and brought up in, I feel that the decision that I make at the ballot box will help shape the future for the next two years at least, and that in the longer term my children may benefit from the decisions that we make tomorrow. However, I often consider what our political parties are doing to interest me, and more importantly those eighteen year olds who may be about to vote for the first time. It’s certainly true that most of them are only active on the streets of South Shields in March and April, it’s certainly true that only some of them produce literature for their local candidates in the wards for us to read, some either don’t bother or don’t have the finances to produce material, leaving us to rely on newspapers, or even websites!

Here is one of my major complaints, todate I have received literature from the Labour Party and the Progressives in my ward, I have looked at the website for the Labour Party in South Shields, the Green Party in south Tyneside, and the Independent Alliance, I understand that the South Tyneside Progressives have a website somewhere but it isn’t showing up in Google searches, and unfortunately there are no official sites for the Lib-Dems or Conservatives locally. The interesting and frankly shocking fact is that none of these websites are truly interactive, they can allow us to contact someone by email and hope for a response, but you won’t find any user friendly polls, or blog style comment facilities, or even details of where they meet, or how to join in. Yet this is the digital age, a time when they have all tried with pilot schemes to increase voter turnout at local elections by offering postal voting on demand, voting by text or email, and even suggested voting at your favourite supermarket. They say they listen but their websites don’t even reach out.

Another question I have asked myself is, should I ignore national politics when it comes to local elections? In years gone by by was inclined to say that I most certainly should, but I’m older and wiser now, and I realise that you simply cannot divorce and separate the two. National government is entwined in local government as much as spaghetti is entwined with bolognese sauce, it provides the great majority of the cash used by our local councils by way of central grants and it dictates how much of that cash should be spent, it also provides obligations that councils must follow administer, enact, and enforce parts of national legislation. So realistically we cannot ignore the policies of the government of the day when it comes to our town halls. There is a balance to be sought between national policy and local initiatives and I need to realise that my local council tax is as much decided by national government as it is by my local councillors.

Therefore it is reasonable to question just why council tax has doubled during the period since Labour was elected in 1997.

So why vote?

I’ll vote because I know that my local ward councillors ought to be there to represent my views in the town hall, that’s whether I voted for that particular ward councillor or against them, they have a duty to represent the whole ward and collectively the whole borough of South Tyneside. I’ll vote because I know that local councillors still have some influence over how are lives are affected in South Tyneside, I’ll remember that I am one of the 25% of households here who pay the full amount (non discounted) of council tax. I’ll be like like many other people who will vote because I want to send a message to Gordon Brown too, and hope that he’ll listen!

More importantly I’ll vote to defend my right to complain, carp, and generally moan when things don’t look right, without casting that vote I don’t consider that I have a right to moan! Have you ever considered it that way? Unless you vote and help decide the future of the borough, then do you reasonably have a right to complain about things you don’t like?

I’ll vote for people who offer to make a difference, and if they are successful I’ll be happy, if they don’t deliver they will face me again in two years time. I’ll vote for a party or organisation that has a well produced plan of ideas and policies that appeal to me, and I’ll not vote for those who cannot be bothered to offer a meaningful map of policies.

I’ll vote for children and for my elderly relatives, because they deserve the benefit of my choice in how they are to be looked after, I’ll consider the effect of politicians plans for my local environment and how it will be affected in future years. I’ll vote because this is a democracy, a nation that was twice threatened in war by a repressive regime that believed strongly in a one party state, I’ll remember that millions of people died to protect my right to decide how I should live in free, liberal, democratic state. The supreme sacrifices that they made should not be forgotten and I feel duty bound to continue the type of lifestyle that they died to protect.

I’ll vote because I still believe that it matters, not just to me, but to those who live around me, in my street, in my neighbourhood, in our schools.

A poor turnout tomorrow will not be good for democracy, it will only confirm that people are not fully engaged by political parties and see little relevance in their attempts to converse for a few short weeks at this time of year. But please consider all of the above and put this matter to one side for now, it was ever thus, but by participating in the electoral process you may help to change minds, the political wannabes may actually take notice if more people tramp along in the rain to a polling station, they may actually respond one day and involve us all further throughout the year.

Please use your vote, and remember why we are privileged to have one!

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Happy St. George’s Day

Fly your flag for England

If you are going out to the pubs in South Shields to watch Manchester United playing Barcelona this evening, insist that mein host unfurls the St. George’s flag just for today. I hope if you are out for lunch that you find some nice tasty roast beef and yorkshire pudding.

I hope that your children return from school today telling what they have learned about England and St. George and the dragon.

Many Conservative MPs were spotted at Prime Minister’s Questions today wearing English red roses (can’t say I saw any on the government benches though.)

Happy Saint George’s Day everyone!

It ought to be a Bank Holiday really.

p.s. Kerron Cross seems to have found the type of pub scene we need.

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Afraid of our identity?

What makes us afraid to celebrate being English?

As St. George’s Day appraoches on April 23rd. is it worth asking the question “Are we afraid of our own identity?”

For years we seem to have become very reticent about celebrating our national saint’s day, and have sat back whilst many things that “identify” the English have become lost in the mists of history, we have been prepared to allow the big consumerist ideals of corporate giants to “sell” St. Patrick and Irish products to us, to thrust Valentine down our throats with a hard sell technique, yet the supermarkets, the pubs, the small shops, restaurants, the newspapers, and the politicians and local authorities cannot be bothered to get off their collective backsides to help us celebrate being English.

Even young boy scouts used to parading on St. George’s Day have found their activities curbed and abolished due to “Elf ‘n’ Safety” regulations dictating that roads need to be closed and sufficient coppers cannot be found to marshal the parade. It is as though collectively as a nation we have become terribly embarrassed about being English.

We fly the flag of St. George with vigour and fervour when the English football team is doing well, or when our rugby team is on the verge of a word cup final, but on St. George’s Day - well I’ll let you go out and count them. happily, South Tyneside Council decided a couple of years ago to take the European flag and hide it away somewhere and replace it with the flag of St. George but originally placed it next to the clock tower at South Shields town hall, before red faced officials realised that it needed pride of place above the main entrance - and so it should be.

Our long history is a fascinating tapestry that at one time enthralled school pupils as they learned of this island nation fighting for it’s independence against Romans and Vikings, of almost mythical characters such as Hereward and Boedica, they learned of the golden thread of monarchy that weaved it’s way through this rich tapestry leading backwards all the way to Harold. They revelled in the stories of famine pestilence and plagues as rural England survived what could be thrown at it, tore itself apart with a civil war and relentlessly sold it’s merchandise around the globe as an empire was built. Union with the Scots and Irish created the Great Britain that we often talk about, even though we eventually ceded our interest in the Irish, it was in the (originally) English parliament that our democracy flourished and it’s principles were borrowed and copied in countless countries worldwide. As the industrial revolution changed the face of rural Britain it was initially the English mill towns who forged a path and English entrepreneurs created a network of canals and railways that eventually traversed across the whole of Britain.

So why should we be afraid to celebrate our traditions and our history, why is it that St. George’s Day is no longer seen as a major cause for rejoicing (rather like Commonwealth day and the Queen’s Official Birthday)?

Paul Kingsnorth has written a book “Real England: The battle against the bland” and I’ve just finished reading it’s review in the Telegraph, and in it he argues for many of the things that I have talked about in this blog from time to time, especially as they affect life in my hometown, South Shields. He rails against the cloned town centres, the loss of independent retailers, village post offices, and the traditional pub.

“In the high streets, saloon bars and market-places of England, the omnipresence of the chain store and supermarket is striking. Giant multinational companies dominate almost every area of national life, from finance to farming. They do so with the full and enthusiastic encouragement of the State, whichever political party happens to be managing it. Meanwhile, the same State busies itself enacting or enforcing laws, from health and safety legislation to EU hygiene directives, which crush the life out of the small, the independent and the local.”

“We are sleepwalking towards a future in which the country becomes a giant reproduction of Kent’s Bluewater shopping centre - the largest in Europe, a paradise of consumerism, CCTV, security guards and fake landscapes, where price trumps value and everything is for sale.”

“Why is this happening, and why do we allow it? Responsibility can be pinned on three forces, which are meshing together to form a uniquely destructive whole: a powerful alliance of big business and big government; an unspoken, 21st-century class conflict, in which every nook and cranny is being made safe for the wealthy urban bourgeoisie; and a very English reluctance to discuss who and what we are as a nation or to stand up for our places, our national character and our cultural landscape.”

Thankfully he states that the English are gradually stirring and finding ways to counter this malaise, he recognises the role of smaller more local communities coming together to protect what is theirs, what is English. Fledgling armies of people fighting for the post office, or the village pub, or the streetscape that allows children to play in larger towns.

“We stand up for our localities and communities, we value our history and the glorious eccentricity of our landscape, and we refuse to allow it to be replaced by more strip malls, car parks and executive waterfront apartments. In doing so, we rediscover what perhaps for a while we forgot - what it really means to be English.”

We may have once been described as a nation of shopkeepers, but there is more to England than that, we are a nation that lived off it’s land for centuries, we became adaptable, we managed resources for the benefits of all, we brought much to the common good of the Union. So it is worth remembering that England although small in size is large in stature, we could describe ourselves as the “David” in the battle against Goliath, much the same as George had to battle the larger dragon.

So I say, however you manage it try and do something to celebrate being English on St. George’s Day, challenge your local pub, club, shop, or street to fly the flag and encourage others to join you. Pester the Shields Gazette to campaign for a restoration of traditional celebrations - it’s just one day, but it’s our nation’s saint’s day!

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Chinese “thugs” identified

Picture by Yuki Mop - Associated Press

Chinese Paramilitary Police allowed to operate in London.

At least we now know who they are, where they came from, and palpably what they do!

We still don’t know what was in those bumbags!

Neither do we know who exactly authorised the presence of these men. described by Olympian Lord Coe as “thugs”, onto our streets. Indeed the sight of them organising security measures around Gordon Brown when the flame arrived in Downing Street was rather disturbing to say the least. If I felt humiliated watching the pictures on television, I shudder to think what senior Metropolitan Police commanders felt, or indeed what thoughts were going through the mind of the Prime Minister.

Coe has advised other countries to;

“get rid of those guys”.

Konnie Huq, the Blue Peter girl said:

“They were very robotic, full-on . . . They were barking orders like ‘run’ and ‘stop’ and I was like, ‘Who are these people?’.”

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis is also asking who authorised their presence after it was revealed thattThe security men entered Britain on visitors’ visas but the Home Office would not reveal whether they had disclosed on the application form for whom they worked.

One interesting point to note after the nightmare of the event, is that London still has a sufficient number of athletic policemen of it’s own, able to keep going at a decent pace over a thirty-one mile route, these must be an elite group of specially trained athletes, perhaps members of the Met’s rugby and football teams. Let’s face it with 75% of police time spent behind desks completing ludicrous amounts of paperwork after nicking little Johnny for scrawling graffiti on a garage door, the average beat Bobby wouldn’t be up to it, unless he joined the rugger team!

Wonder what the Police Inspector thinks?

Update

The Telegraph reckon they came from the Peoples Armed Police in China, the paramilitary unit responsible for crushing dissent in Tibet. I’m not sure I can assimilate this, Gordon Brown’s government allowing the killers of fredom in Tibet, the freedom to organise events in London!

I feel nauseated.

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Since when was a kitchen floor officially classed as a bed?

Overcrowded Sunderland family “stunned”

I was quite stunned too to learn that a Sunderland family are living in virtually 1930s conditions under 1930s laws.

You don’t need a bigger house when your family grows – your children can sleep on the kitchen floor or the settee – and it’s all legal.

One of our Corner Shop customers has written to Yvette Cooper, the housing minister, in an effort to get this archaic statute “reviewed”, I’m sure he’ll be in touch when Mrs. Balls replies.

Southern snobs never visit northern England

Travelodge report nonsense

The Daily Telegraph comments on a Travelodge report today which suggests that 4.9 million southerners, about 15 per cent, have never visited the north. Well if this is true it’s their miss!

The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions shows that for 2006 (the last year for reliable figures) Blackpool Pleasure Beach was once again the most visited place in Britain, and that once you get away from London many sites in the north of England attracted millions of visitors. Places such as Chester Zoo, York Minster and the National Railway Museum, The Tate Liverpool and the World Museum, Merseyside Maritime Museum, Blackpool Tower, Newcastle’s Discovery Museum, Sunderland’s Museum and Winter Gardens, the Royal Armouries in Leeds, Castle Howard, Hadrian’s Wall and Housesteads, not to mention our own Roman Fort at Arbeia, South Shields attracted countless millions of tourists.

Then there are the major heritage sites to consider such as Durham Cathedral and Castle, Lindisfarne, St. Paul’s Jarrow, and St. Peter’s Monkwearmouth.

This evidence suggests that the Travelodge report is fanciful nonsense!

Then I must ask why the Hilton group decided to build a magnificent hotel at Gateshead if it didn’t see a demand for visitors? Why are there a clutch of top class four star hotels in Newcastle alone?

If I had the choice of visiting the Yorkshire Dales or the Derbyshire Peaks, as against a trip to London, Birmingham, or East Grindstead, which do you think this boy from South Shields would pick?

I think Travelodge are just waking up to the fact that southern visitors just don’t fancy using their motel style lodges that much, it’s absolute nonsense to suggest that southern visitors don’t visit the north, but perhaps they like higher standards of accommodation when they get here to match our legendary hospitality.

Another good argument for building a four star hotel on Gypsies Green!

Councillor’s behaviour under the microscope

“The behaviour of some members is damaging the reputation of the Council.”

According to an Audit Commission report released yesterday: “There has been inappropriate behaviour dealing with some officer issues” / “The behaviour of members at Council meetings is poor with personally abusive language used and aggressive behaviour regularly demonstrated” / “Some members said that they would not speak at a Council meeting for fear of being shouted at or ridiculed” / “Members from all parties recognise that the culture of the organisation is not appropriate and affecting capacity.”

Oddly enough, the report is NOT about South Tyneside Council, it’s on Lib-Dem run Liverpool City Council, but don’t use it as an excuse next time you visit South Shields Town Hall.

Via Red Box 

Underage sex

England leads the way - in the wrong direction

It hardly comes as a surprise to learn that in England four out of ten girls have underage sex, which is more than in any other European country, there is even a shedload of anecdotal evidence of this in South Shields, just look at the number of teenage prampushers who have lost their own youth. The annoying generalisation (to me, anyway), is that it is accepted, that these things will happen, it was just an accident. An accident that the rest of us will continue to pay for unless someone is prepared to attempt to reverse the trends.

Neil Lyndon in The Times seems to think that he has found the answer, it’s simple he says, no more benefits for teenage mums, nothing will change until we stop subsidising them. Whjich is fine, so long as he isn’t making any claim to originality for the concept.

By much of the educational interdiction of the past thirty years, teenagers have taken it upon themselves to broaden their horizons, stretch their knowledge, reacting to physical attractions with a new found authority that they know what they are doing. Perhaps some of this teaching starts at too early an age, the jury is still undecided on that question, but what is not at question is the lack of responsibility so long as the rest of society is prepared to pay the cost of bringing up babies by teenagers who are little more than children themselves.

If it were firmly embedded in the educational curriculum, and both parents and children understood that they, rather than the rest of us, must be responsible for their own actions or inactions then perhaps we might start to make some inroads into the growing problem of teenage pregnancies. Our educationalists and politicians need to shout this message loudly and clearly, if you get pregnant, we will not be offering you a house or accomodation, we will not be offering you money (other than child benefit) neither will we pay for abortions or morning after pills. If you want these things, YOU will have to pay for them.

As one generation becomes used to living on state handouts, then the next will surely follow suit. It really is time to put an end to this nonsense and try to move in another direction.

Home Secretary and the police.

Frosty relationship over pay

The relationship between Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and the police forces of England and Wales could hardly be any cooler after her decision, backed by Gordon Brown, NOT to backdate their pay award as recommended by the review body. Full payment will be made in stages and police consider that their pay is to be effectively cut. Scottish police will receive the pay rise in full and backdated, courtesy of the SNP administration of Alex Salmond.

The Home Secretary must have woken up to more than frosty weather this morning as the news was handed to her that police are meeting today to decide their next steps in the dispute, and many are calling for a change in the law which would allow the police to take industrial action, in the same manner as other public servants , however it is most unlikely that a Labour Party which has supported mass industrial action when in opposition would even consider supporting changing the laws when in government.

Police Minister Tony McNulty has confirmed that the government will not back down in the dispute, thus driving another wedge between the English and the Scots and heightening the perceptions that England and Wales subsidise the ambitions of the Scottish nation.

With the government pressing ahead with it’s anti-terror plans, early prisoner releases, and increased detention without charge the support of the police could be a vital filip, but it seems thay are uninterested in helping the moral of the forces of law and order south of the border!