Friday 1 January 2010

a good thing I went back

I am just over half way through a three-week period of home leave, as my employers call it, which so far is thoroughly enjoyable, catching up with friends and family, having had a lovely family Christmas in Mullion, Cornwall (we had three kitchens between us, so cooking the Christmas meal was the least stressful it has ever been, I am spoiled) and now in lovely Cyprus for New Year - December sunshine in Cyprus is the only way a redhead like me can sunbathe safely - and as part of that I was in Reading for a few days before Christmas. We left, by train, on Monday 21st December in heavy snow, and had of course a trouble-free journey west. I was amused to hear Mr Salter defending "My Council, Right Or Wrong" although many of his constituents must have been outraged at Reading council's complacent and negligent attitude to the management of its roads. But what does he care? The council delivers his election leaflets, he has told us many times. Corruption. Where was I? Ah yes. Reading. I picked up a paper copy of the Reading Evening Post, pre-Christmas edition, and what a joy it was. There was a report of the funeral of former mayor of Reading Bob Green, with a large picture of, you guessed it, Mr Salter, and no pictures of Mr Green's family. Perhaps that is what the family wanted. Perhaps. And Mr Green's widow Jill is no pushover, to my personal knowledge. But was it not distasteful to make quite so many phone calls and leave quite so many messages with family members unknown personally to Mr Salter, in Mr Salter's ultimately successful endeavour to be allowed to make a speech at the funeral? Putting pressure on the bereaved at a time of grief? I only ask.

That same edition of His Master's Voice carried a full-page advertisement for, er, the Reading Evening Post, with a big picture of its editor, Kent coalfields secondary modern boy Andy Murrill, who ought not to have had quite such a heavy night before getting his picture taken - a night on the booze gives you a puffy face the next day Andy old man.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funny how you left Reading on the day of Bob Green's funeral but still managed to pick up a copy of the Evening Post published two days later.

And......... there was no way gritting lorries could have got through the gridlock I suffered - aggravated by stupid and selfish drivers who blocked junction after junction.

janestheone said...

oooh boys welcome back, I actually picked up the dead tree copy on 28th December while changing trains at Reading on the way to Gatwick Airport, since you ask. How are you coping with only two opportunities a week to read it on Proper Democratic Paper instead of the Nasty Anti-Democratic Cyber-Web Thingy? Sorry to hear you "suffered gridlock". When I was walking around in Reading and getting on the train I didn't suffer any at all, did nasty selfish car drivers cut ums up during ums pedestrian or bicycle journey, whether or not that was ums going to Bob Green's funeral? Poor loves. Now be Mummy's brave ickle soldier, night night.

Anonymous said...

John Howarth had the same difficulty as your correspondent according to his commentless puff-site. The two couldn't be linked could they?

"there was no way gritting lorries could have got through the gridlock I suffered - aggravated by stupid and selfish drivers who blocked junction after junction"

Is it just me or does the commenter seem to be one of those stupid and selfish drivers who blocked junction after junction?

dreamingspire said...

Them southerners don't know how to handle snow. We don't fit snowchains like we used to, but it should be de rigeur to put shovel, boots, even piece of old carpet in the car boot. Yes, I know that forecasting exactly what would happen is difficult, and the weather boys and girls thought that it would be rain rather than snow up to Reading. And I also observe that young drivers do not seem to have been taught how to be careful - they come whizzing round corners without a thought about hazards ahead.