Caviar and Kippers

A friend recently told me about some other friends of his who had booked a holiday on a very expensive cruise ship.

This couple had come into money and had both retired early. One of their loves was going on cruises to many different places. It was the attraction to the ships as much as the holiday that they loved. Both of these people had been married before and had met each other later in life. The wife had had a good life and already experienced many different types of luxury, while the husband was a working class lad "done good", as they say.

One morning while having breakfast on board this ship, the wife noticed that there was caviar available and urged her husband to have this for his breakfast. He declined, having tried it and disliked it. He asked the waiter if he could just have some fresh kippers for his breakfast as he regarded this as a luxury. His wife was incensed that her husband had, 'showed her up' but the truth is she just missed the point! It doesn't matter how much something costs, if you don't like it then to you it's worthless! Just like two weeks on a luxury cruise ship would be to me.

Another woman I talked to this week told me she wished that she was French. Was it the language, I asked? Or maybe the food, or what about the slow-paced lifestyle of rural France or the cosmopolitan style of Paris or Marseilles? No she wished she was French so she didn't have to shave under her arms! She had missed the point of what it is to belong, and as far as I'm aware there is no law in Britain that dictates that women must shave under their arms!

An American lady (I'm being kind with the description) once tore into me about my lack of love for ickle baby cheeses. When I told her that I had no belief system in anything supernatural she accused me of being a 'devil worshipper'! I know she just missed the point: how can I worship something I don't believe in? She told me that if I didn't have Jesus in my heart then I must have the devil in there. No, just blood and probably a bit of cholesterol swimming about in there, I'm afraid. What about other religions that don't believe in the hippy carpenter? Are they all devil worshippers?

The only reason that I'm telling you these dull pointless stories is because after spending a whole evening watching the TV the other night, I came to the conclusion of "what's the point?" The news wasn't news. Part of it was about a "singer" who had to borrow some other singer's pants to go on stage. And that David Beckham had got a small part in a film! Obviously this is far more important than people clinging for their lives on makeshift rafts with their children in their arms. It's more important than mindless imbeciles who are raping and torturing their own people while blowing up ancient monuments because of... fuck knows! What happened to the news?

Also all the programmes seem to be copies of each other. Medical, or police programmes, real life not dramas. Cooking or antiques shows or quiz shows or inane docudramas. My wife can sit and watch all this dross and even wants to have a conversation with me about it!

I know my views are not popular. People tell me that I'm just whinging whenever I point out the shit that is fed to us on a daily basis by the powers that be and the media. So maybe they are right, maybe I just miss the point of it all!

Cuckoo In The Nest!

The Labour Party has been infiltrated. It is true! Jeremy Corbyn has been found to be a socialist!

This shocking news has come to light this week. Long-held beliefs of the Blair Party, sorry, Labour Party, have been put to the test this week, when lots of people have wanted to join the Party. This has come as a shock, as the Labour Party has spent years trying to discourage people from believing in them and voting for them. Then along comes this strange, middle-aged man with his socialist views and all of a sudden people are getting interested in politics again. This has to stop!

How is British politics supposed to carry on, when you have people with opposing views? Everyone knows that we need a two-party-state where both parties have the same ideas, led by the same type of people. That way, no matter who wins, everything stays the same.

The Labour Party has learned nothing from their crushing defeat in the recent elections. Most Scots are like a stick of Blackpool rock, cut them open and they have socialism running through their centre! They no longer saw the Labour Party as an alternative to the Tories: instead, they saw them as the rest of us do, a mirror image of the Tories. Along came the SNP with their socialist ideology and guess what? The whole country voted for them! Not only that, but young people became involved with the whole process and discussions were held in the streets. Politics came alive once again.

All we have heard about of late is how scared the Labour Party is about people from other parties having a vote in the leadership election. We haven't heard about all the young people that have once again become interested in politics. It was the Blairites who have made the party unelectable, not people Like Jeremy Corbyn! People sneeringly say it's old fashioned politics, but they are wrong. With the global economy collapsing, it is clear that the capitalist dream is really the old-fashioned politics! People have woken up to the fact that capitalism only benefits the few, while billions must suffer. Like communism, this outdated idea has had its day. There has to be a happy medium between the two. Sorry, what's that I hear you say? Yes you might be right, socialism might be the answer.

There is nothing wrong with utilities being nationalised, as long as they are run like a business. They are better off in the hands of the state where the profits are put back into the economy rather than into the pockets of a chancellor's friends. When you change your fuel providers or when a train company loses their licence nothing changes but the people at the top, so why can't we re-nationalise companies and run them with the same staff and infrastructure? All the best train services around the world are state-run, from Germany to Japan.

If you are as scared as the Tory press are about having an opposing view to politics then vote for the Tories, and keep the country as it is. If you want politics that is alive and vibrant, where opposing ideologies can disagree and debate and bring change, then we need people like Jeremy Corbyn, we need people like the Green party and lots of other people who want to bring a change. What we don't need is anymore plastic suited middle class boys and girls who try to prove they are like the rest of the great unwashed by rolling up their sleeves and having a pint of beer in a local pub. This patronising, sneering and downright creepy mentality really pisses me off! Every election, we get idiots like Cameron, with shirt sleeves rolled up, being filmed having a pint. “Call me Dave, why don't you? I'm just an ordinary multi millionaire public school boy like you!” What a twat!

What we need is grass roots politicians with fire in their bellies doing what the SNP did in Scotland, giving us something other than the status quo. The last election was lost by the Labour Party because of the way Ed Millaband ate a sandwich?  No, it was because there was no difference in the politics so the only thing the Tory press could do was play the schoolyard bully and call him a geek! This, my friends, is not the politics that I or most reasonable minded people want to be associated with!

I for one will be interested to hear what Jeremy Corbyn has to say, and I will also be interested in hearing what the Blair clones have to say against him. And if there are thousands of Tory voters paying to join the Labour party to vote in the leadership election then thank you for donating the money to help people like Jeremy Corbyn fight against your single-minded, greedy tyranny.

Does My Ego Look Big In This?

To be a writer means that you are driven to write. It doesn't matter if no one else reads your words, though you would prefer them to be seen. I think it's some deep-seated need to be heard that writers suffer from.

I make my living from writing, so I come into contact quite often with people who tell me that they, too, want to be writers. They tell me about their plans and the titles of the books they are going to write. When I ask them what they are writing at the moment, lots tell me that they haven't started yet! This is not the way it works if you're a writer.

All artists write, paint, sculpt, sing, and dance when no one is interested: that's what they do - they can't help it, they have a passion. I'm a bit strange, because I don't have a passion to write, I find it laborious and a chore. Having said this, I feel compelled, like some literary lemming, to throw myself into a story or write about the world around me. I used to appear on a radio show for Radio Sheffield a few years ago, and the host of the show was Rony Robinson, he was also a writer and playwright. He used to tell me that he couldn't wait to get home to, as he said, “Put all those lovely words on paper”. I don't share this view.

People will often ask where you got the idea about certain characters or stories, so I tell lies, because the truth is, like lots of writers, I don't know where the inspiration comes from. I have woken up from a night's sleep with a whole story running round in my head. I hate it when this happens because I am then compelled to write and being the world's laziest writer means this is no fun for me. Having said all this, here I am writing a blog in a desperate attempt to be heard.

I'm telling you all this because there has been a lot of discussion about education in the media this week. The emphasis has been on how university graduates are working in very low paid unskilled jobs. So what? The only difference between an apprenticeship and a university course is the snobbery, as they are both further education, but the apprenticeship leads on to better job prospects.

In Britain, education is used as a tool to pass useless exams, putting pressure on young minds to conform into one way of thinking. This is not education, it's mind farming! Education should be about sharing knowledge and creating a love for the world around you. It should be about swapping ideas and discussions and disagreements. Education should be about creating a love of learning without pressure. There is nothing wrong with learning just for fun. One of my heroes, Socrates, used to stop people in the street and engage them in debate about the world around them. This forced them to think in a different way, but also gave them a voice.

In the past when I could manage one of my rare nights out with close friends, we would often end up in debates about statements one of my group would make. Often people sitting nearby would be drawn in to verify snippets of information that the group would throw at each other. Now this no longer happens because of so-called smart phones. As soon as someone makes a statement everyone reaches for their phone to look it up, and for me the whole evening is spoiled. A debate is a journey where many things can be learned along the way. For instance you could say that Barack Obama is the first black president of America, but the real intrigue and knowledge comes when you discuss why he's the first black president of a multi-cultural country. The true knowledge is discussing the journey of millions to arrive at the success of one man, that is education, this is wisdom.

I have written before about this, but please do try it out: it cannot be verified by your smart phone. The next time you are out for a few drinks with friends, ask them to define love. Every answer leads to another question Socrates would have loved this, he would no doubt have debated this subject many times anyway. But you can spend a whole evening talking about this subject, though I must warn you that you may find out things about your friends that you didn't know.

For me, I have just had my fix of desperate attention seeking by writing this piece, so I can now go out in the world a behave like a normal human being, until the ego rises again....

Time for a change!

Some things never change. There are lots of people out there that make sure of it!

I see this week that Ozzy Osborne, not the cool alcoholic one, but the cruel sober one, has been up to his old tricks. This week he announced that he is selling off the Royal Bank of Scotland, a bank that is owned by us, the tax payers. He is selling it off at a loss. He will make the money up somewhere else (unspecified) is what he claims. Has he had the advice he sought before, from the people who advised him to sell off the Royal Mail at a dismal price, then the shares were all bought up by the very people who advised him?

I see that there are even more programmes on TV about welfare cheats. Are the government trying to justify the measures they are about to bring in - just getting the great unwashed singing from the same hymn sheet before they release the hounds on us all?

Also there are more allegations about high ranking politicians and child abuse. This week, it's a former prime minister! If these allegations are proven, then someone must pay, as there must be people alive now that knew about this. He had around the clock police protection, so they must have known. What about the woman who had a case against her dropped because she threatened to reveal information? Of course these are just allegations for now. Has anyone heard any more about the case against Prince Andrew? Has it all been cleared up? Nothing in the news about it so far.

I have spent a great part of my working life trying to help change the lives of young people who for what ever reason find that education is not for them. I know what it's like to feel like this, as I was one of those kids that wouldn't listen, and tried my best to alienate myself from everyone. There has to be a different way to engage these young people. Kids Company tried a different way. I have to admit that this was not one of my favourite charities, and I had grave reservations about the charity for years. But I have always applauded them for trying something different. They were working with some of the most challenging young people in the country. These kids may not have had a state education but they have had very good schooling on the streets and are very clever and manipulative. So it's easy to criticise the charity for the way it worked, but it is the government's policies that created these problems. They have given up on lots of these young people, and lots of them have metal health problems - and many of them have kids of their own!

When these people have no other alternative but to go out and rob... “WHAT!” I hear you say, “NO OTHER ALTERNITAVE?” yes you heard correctly. These are young people who have a multitude of problems from drugs and drink addictions to mental health issues, they have no education and no means of finding any employment. They have been sanctioned by the social security so are receiving no benefits and have been given up on by family and friends: what do you think they will do to survive? Lots of these young people come from violent backgrounds and know nothing except day to day living - that's what they do and that's what they are good at. When they come calling to your house don't be trying to phone the police if you live in an odd number house as they wont be interested.

The police have been cut back so far that they have become a company only interested in getting fines from motorists. The young people that I have spoken about have been arrested so many times they know the game, they know what to say so they are nearly always let off. It's a vicious cycle.

So, I would like to ask the question again. What are you going to do?

We are told that we must all suffer the regime of austerity, but what about all the tax evasion by the big multinationals? Get the money they owe. Welfare fraud is a drop in the ocean compared to the big multinationals' tax evasion. But we don't see ever increasing television programs about them do we? All we see is programmes about the poorest and most vulnerable in society doing the only thing they know what to do, live day by day.

I have written many times before that I'm co-founder of an enterprise called Relight-ED we exist to try get young people to see the value of education. Like Kids Company we try lots of different ways to engage young people and like Kids Company, we don't always get it right. I have always claimed that you must start with the young people long before they end up running feral on the streets. Show them that education can be fun, break the cycle. It's not easy to do this and it is always one step forward and two steps back. We have to work with dedicated people because it is a hard slog for little reward financially.

I also heard this week about a theatre company who had been funded to work with young people discussing and making a play about fundamentalists grooming young people on the internet. They talked about being radicalised and jihad brides etc, I hope they had things about Christian right wing bigots in there too? They were making a play about this subject and had three hundred young people working on the project. To have this amount of young people wanting to take part in an art project is very impressive, trust me. Everything was going well when the plug was pulled on the project and it was cancelled, even the police were involved, why?

There have been lots of claims and counter claims. The powers that be said the play wasn't up to standard. Whose standard? If it has been written and directed and performed by the young people then it's up to their standard, and that's good enough as far as I'm concerned. Or is it the subject matter that people have a problem with? The only way you can change things is to talk about them then meet them head on and deal with them. That is what was happening here as far as I can see. We at Relight-ED have made films and productions that have been brilliant but we have also done some that shall we say were not as brilliant. It depends on who is making the film/production. We do everything not on a shoestring budget, but on a non-existent budget, in many cases.

We find it hard to get funding, we don't have the high profile or the contacts that lots of London-based enterprises have, but we do have good, hard-working and very talented individuals who are prepared to work to change the lives of others. If you're working class it seems all we are good for is being on TV showing what low life scroungers we are. When in reality, the real scroungers are the people who have the power and shift the real money around between themselves. These are the people who are creating a divide in society which is getting bigger each year. Something has to change!

Real money has to be invested back into communities. When the government say they are giving a million towards a charity it is just like you putting a pound in a box. It's a worthless gesture. We don't need charities, we need a proper government that works with the people, for the people. Enterprises such Relight-ED are not the solution to the problem, we can only work within education to help teachers. The money must be given to the schools, and not to enterprises to run the schools. We don't want or need a charitable society but a strong, government-led society, where we all have an equal chance to succeed no matter who our parents are or what they did for a living or where we were born. We want a society where people can develop and learn at their own pace so they can become a valuable member of society and give back what has been given to them. They don't need stigmatising or criminalising by the real crooks.

IT IS DEFINITELY TIME FOR A CHANGE!

Terminators, Divide And Destroy!

You should never underestimate the British public's love of a good old fashioned bandwagon! They love to jump on to whatever it is the media is telling them to be worried about. One minute it's immigrants, the next it's terrorists, then the unemployed - we all need someone that helps us to take the moral, superior high ground. They react like seals clapping their hands together as the media and the government throw them a few titbits to keep them occupied while they destroy our whole social system.

We have just heard Cameron, talking about finishing off the job Thatcher started in the eighties. He wants to take away the only weapon the unions have in their fight against greedy, selfish employers, the right to strike. The smarmy bastard even went as far as to say, “It's not fair that hard working people are forced to miss a days work!" Is he implying that people in unions are not hard working? What about the greedy employers who have people working on zero-hour contracts? What about them being deprived of a days work? This is the same tactic that Thatcher used, when she told people that the miners were earning far more than the average working man, yet they wanted more! Even though the strike was about pit closures and not pay. Divide and destroy, have the minions fighting each other while they carry on destroying what it has taken us years to build up. Cameron is slowly taking the fabric of our welfare system apart bit by bit. He is making it more or less impossible for people to get welfare when they most need it. He has given the poor a small tax break while stopping their working tax credit, leaving the average family about £1,000 a year worse off, those good honest hard working types that he loves so much. Most of the welfare budget goes on pensions, but he dare not touch them as that is the demographic that stupidly votes the Tories in!

I also see that the Tories are feeding the public their morsels about Boris Johnson, and how he will be their next leader. I saw a book in Waterstone's the other day written by Boris: it was about Churchill, and I thought, how apt, they have so much in common. Both are second-rate politicians, both bullies, both have little or no regard for the working person but both are brilliant self-publicists. After the first world war Churchill was all washed up with his scant disregard to the lives of the soldiers he sent to Gallipoli. He was not taken seriously until the start of the second world war and then it was a toss up between him or Lord Halifax who was to lead the Tories. Throughout the second world war he continued to show little respect for the average soldier, his chiefs of staff often having to change his mind about sending troops on suicide missions. Remember, Churchill admired the Nazis and wanted Britain to align themselves with them right up until 1938. He even said that if Britain fell he hoped a man like Hitler would rise in Britain to lead them.

Talking of Nazis, the Queen was seen giving a Nazi salute when she was a young girl. I cannot believe that I'm going to do this but I feel I must defend her against the charge - she was only a child. If I started to clown around with my grand daughter I could easily get her to give a Nazi salute, even though she is of mixed race, and she wouldn't have a clue what the meaning of this was! The same can be said of the Queen, but not of her mother or that weak-minded fascist, uncle Edward! I see that all the pathetic royal apologists have all been out in force, some saying they were just mocking Hitler, while others were saying that they weren't giving a salute at all, but pointing out into the distance! Edward was a Nazi sympathiser, end of! During the thirties the powers that be knew what Hitler was up to, and the elite (who gave them that title?) had no problem with it. Remember, Mosley had quite a big following here in Britain at one stage in the thirties. Mind you, I think he could still swing a few by-elections here today, if he was still alive.

I see that Jeremy Hunt (what does Hunt rhyme with, children?) is on with dismantling the NHS. It's the consultants' contracts that he is now trying to change. Apparently they don't have to work weekends, even though they do work weekends. They wheeled out a family who had a terrible tale to tell of how they lost their child because there was no consultant to sign to get the child moved to another hospital, this was on a Sunday evening. I have no right to comment on this, as to lose a child is too much for any parent to bear. But I haven't heard of any other families saying the same things. Why don't the over-managed hospitals ensure that there are consultants there at all times? I have lots of family that work in the NHS and it is being decimated by over-zealous management who believe work should be contracted out to the cheapest bidders. Remember the cheapest bidder is just that, cheap! Wards are under-staffed, doctors are over-worked but we do still have lots of managers in the NHS, why?

I see that both the Tories and Labour don't like the SNP being the third largest party. Those terribly nice Lib Dems didn't like to make such a fuss, not so the SNP. I see the media also are constantly trying to attack them. The SNP were voted in by the people of Scotland, they exist to serve the people of Scotland, not Westminster, not lobbyists, but the people who voted for them. How refreshing. Yes, Nicola Sturgeon will do a few dodgy deals but they will be done so the people she represents benefit. Labour were too busy playing the 'you said, we said' politics with the Tories to notice that the whole of Scotland was fed up with them. The SNP are ruffling more than a few feathers for all the right reasons. The only gripe I have with them is that they want to break away from Britain and I cannot see any benefit in this for anyone, the Scots or the rest of Britain.

You have to remember that this government is like the terminator, it will not stop until the poor are back in the total grip of the rich. While you are jumping on your band wagon about the dole scroungers who there seems to be so many programmes on the TV about, remember that social security fraud is just a drop in the ocean compared to the tax evasion of big multi-nationals. When they bang on about bringing in new laws to protect you from those nasty terrorists, remember that it's their policies that created the terrorists in the first place, that and retarded religious beliefs! The laws that are brought in to protect you from the terrorists can be used against you, to quash your freedom of speech and right to believe in what you want. When they talk about wanting to help hard working families, remember that, under this government, hard working families are having to use food banks, while others, here in the north can't be hard working through lack of investment in the economy!

And finally, you know the fuss the media made about those predatory paedophiles, you know the whole of the British entertainment industry from the seventies? Well, why haven't they been as keen to find out just what happened to the dossiers that have gone missing about the MPs that were accused of the same thing? I know I'm becoming quite a bore on this subject, but has anyone heard any more about the accusation of Prince Andrew's alleged assault on a young girl?

Bring Back Spangles!

Mention 'Spangles' to any young person and they think that you are talking 'Vagazzles'! But no, they would be so wrong.  Good old fashioned Spangles are boiled sweets and nothing to do with ladies' squidgy bits!

I was never a great lover of the Spangle, which I think only came in two flavours, Fruit and Old English. Old English was a taste as peculiar as the name by the way. I'm still not sure what the taste was supposed to be. These sweets were the staple diet of old ladies, the type that offered children sweets out in the street without the fear of the police and social services paying them a visit. These old ladies would produce a sweet from their cavernous coat pockets, rub you on the head, then insist that you ate one of their sweets, which were never in their original packets. Some of these sweets, I'm sure, saw action during the second world war!

That's the strange thing about nostalgia; once something has gone, it becomes very appealing. Think about people on diets - they crave cream buns, yet when they are not on diets, they are not bothered? I know people who claim their school days were the best days of their lives, yet they bunked off school at every opportunity.

Going back to the sweets, I used to love cough candy when I was a kid, athough we called them cough sweets. I know you can still buy this, but I don't like it now. But a few years ago, when my father was diagnosed as having terminal cancer and not having long to live, my older brother, John, and I took Dad to Ireland to do the roots thing. Before we set off, I had gone shopping with my wife and had found an old fashioned sweet shop that sold all the old favourite sweets such as sherbet pips, apple tarts, cola cubes and hundreds more. I noticed a jar full of what used to be my favourite sweets, 'voice tablets'. Why these sweets are called this is beyond me, as they are nothing more than flavouring and sugar and I would imagine they'd do more damage than good to your voice if you happened to be a boy soprano. Luckily for me, I don't fall into this category, my voice is more 'obscene phone call' than soprano. I was so pleased to see these sweets and, knowing of my long drive around Ireland, I promptly bought 2lb (a kilo) of these sweets.

We set off a day later on our journey and my father, who loved his sweets, noticed the rather large bag of sweets in the front of the car and promptly asked if he may have one. I handed them back to him without thinking and carried on driving. A few hours later, while driving through Wales on the way to the ferry, I asked my Dad to pass me one of the sweets to which he replied, “what sweets?” 

“The voice tablets” I replied, feeling the need for a sugar rush.

“I can't” he replied quietly.

My heart sunk as he said this, as he was very ill at the time and I genuinely thought some sort of paralysis had set in with him.

“Why can't you pass them?” I replied, trying to control my emotions.

“Because I've eaten them all” he answered.

With this all my concern for his health disappeared, “You greedy bastard, There was 2lb of sweets in that bag, how the fuck have you eaten so many sweets in such a short time? They were supposed to last the whole journey!”

“I love voice tablets, they remind me of my childhood!”

“Don't tell me that Nona bought you 2lb of voice tablets when you were a kid?”

"No she didn't, but had she have done I probably wouldn't have eaten all your sweets now!”

He then spent the rest of the holiday sitting in the back of the car, chuckling to himself like a naughty schoolboy. He regaled every one we met about his Dennis the Menace type raid on my sweet bag.

That is why we should bring back spangles, because they are a throwback to happy times long gone. As for me, I would buy the whole shops stock of voice tablets just to have that time back again with my brother and my father travelling around Ireland. Those sweets for me will forever be a symbol of that time.

Stuff And Nonsense!

I haven't managed to write anything for this blog for quite a while. I have been travelling the length and breadth of the country, visiting shopping centres, theatres, and lots of schools.

If this is the first time you have read any of my blogs, welcome, and where the hell have you been?! I must explain that I am lucky enough not to have a job. I have so much fun and meet so many lovely people. What I do to earn money can't really be described as a job. It is more a passion, but with all passions, sometimes it's very hot, sometimes it cools a little. Having said this it never disappears.

Seeing the response to my work and my comedy is very fulfilling, But the relentless travelling and traffic becomes overbearing at times. It was the hottest day of the year last Wednesday, in fact it was the hottest day ever recorded in Britain. I had spent the day working with the National Literary Trust in a shopping centre in Leicester. I had a brilliant day, The schools that visited were wonderful. The staff and management of the centre were so helpful and made life easy for me. So when I left for home I was in quite good spirits until I hit the M1. There had been a crash and a chemical spillage on the motorway. I left Leicester at 3pm for what should have been a one and a half hour journey home. It took me over six hours to reach home, and this on the hottest day of the year!

I am really lucky to visit lots of schools, both here and abroad. Some, I visit every year. Lots of these schools are wonderful places of learning with hard-working, devoted teachers. We always hear the negatives about members of the teaching profession, but most of them have my utmost admiration. I don't single out any schools as my favourite, because I don't think its fair, but I visited a school on Thursday which I have visited many times. It has to be one of the best schools in the country. Everyone who works in this school, from the cleaning staff right through to the head, has a fantastic ethos about life. The teaching staff are second to none and not only inspire the students but also inspire me working with them.

Having spent so much time around happiness and inclusion and tolerance, it is once again sad to see that one of the weirdy beardy's puppets have gone on a rampage of blind hate, anger and stupidity! The killings in Tunisia have not only ended the lives of innocent people but have brought financial destruction to the country. Tunisia relies heavily on tourism, this action has nearly wiped out their financial lifeline overnight. Why do religious bigots think that suffering and misery are a good thing? Why are they bent on destroying the lives of those who wish to live life differently to them?

Still on the the subject of religious low lifes, I see that yet another Catholic bishop is supposed to stand trial for yet more sexual abuse claims. But guess what? He's fallen ill, so he can't stand trial. How many more paedophiles are going to use the illness route to avoid prosecution? All those in power who have had the allegations laid at their doorsteps either develop a life-changing illness or the evidence mysteriously disappears! While we are on the subject what happened to the case that was levied at Prince Andrew? Has that been dealt with? I have been away for a while but I've not heard about it?

The abuse of children has been a subject that has in the past been brushed under the carpet in this country. Institutional abuse was rife for years. The powers that be, whether they are political or religious, have glossed over the allegations of their own in the past. Now with social media, they are finding it harder and harder to hide their seedy little creeps, so they offer up lower ranking people in their organisations to through the media off the scent of the big names. The 'So vile' case has proven this, how many big names have been brought forward since we found out how many poor young children Jimmy was fixing it for? The authorities were aware of these allegations at the time but did nothing! Shame on them!

On a lighter note, Amongst the highs of my touring which is not yet finished, I have another few weeks left yet.

My performances are all comedy-based and are designed to break down barriers students may have to reading and writing. So I work hard to get as many laughs as possible, whenever I visit a school.

This week at a shopping centre in Manchester while working for the National Literacy Trust, a group of school kids were laughing and were quite boisterous. I noticed a young lad sitting just in front of where I was placed: he looked quite perplexed. I had worked hard to get the audience on my side when, after half an hour, in a loud voice, he turned to his friend next to him and asked, “Is this supposed to be funny?”

Also last week my beautiful little granddaughter, Harleigh came to stay. She sleeps over at our house every Sunday night, and stays Monday. Both my wife and I look forward to her visits as we both dote on her. Usually Harleigh, who is only two and a half years old, likes to take her favourite book up to bed with her. We both lie in bed and read the book while eating fresh toast and drinking green tea. This ritual has become a must for both little Harleigh and myself on Sunday evenings. The books we normally read are Old MacDonald, where we have to find animals and numbers, and another book which was her father's favourite book when he was little, 'Andrews Bath'. This book tells of little Andrew's first bath without his parents and contains the line, “Get up them stairs to that bath!” this is Harleigh's favourite bit as she gets all excited and stand up in bed and shouts it out.

Last week I thought I would introduce Harleigh to one of my books. My most famous book is called 'The Spot On My Bum' which contains a poem by the same name. This poem is quite famous and has kids of all ages laughing when they hear it. So I read the poem to her (I don't know why I read it, I wrote it and have recited it for over seventeen years). Little Harleigh listened with intent then, when I had finished, hoping for the happiness and recognition all us needy writer types crave, little Harleigh looked at me and said, “Not read silly book Babo, read good book!” and then snatch my book from my hands and replaced it with Old MacDonald! Children have a way of keeping your feet firmly on the ground!