Sandwiched in a boy band

Through a freak of airline ticketting, on the flight to Belfast on Tuesday I sat sandwiched inside a boy band, namely G4.

There was Ben to the right of me, and Matt, Mike and Jon to the left of me. Fresh from their appearance at the Royal Albert Hall, these triple-platinum album sellers were on their way to play the Waterfront in Belfast on Tuesday night and the Olympia, Dublin last night. It was exhilirating to be in their testosterone-soaked company.

The event was made all the more interesting because I didn't fully know who they were, and could therefore be rather detached. I vaguely recognised the blonde one, Jon, as he walked down the aisle. But I thought no more of it. Then someone asked them for their autograph and only four of them signed it, and I thought they were G6, dimly remembering them from The X-Factor. So I thought it couldn't be them, there are six of them, not four. So I thought they must be some other band. They mentioned the Waterfront. So I had to actually walk two miles to the Waterfront in Belfast to look at their poster to confirm who they were.

It was amusing to observe them from a detached viewpoint. They seemed fixated with a game they called "Lookalikies" where they went through the inflight magazine and shouted out page numbers and photos and who they looked like. Laugh? They nearly.... I can't say their enthusiasm for this game rubbed off on me, but I wish them great success.

Hard shoulder abuse

According to the government:

"The hard shoulder should only be used for breakdowns and emergencies. It is not a place to stop to check maps, make phone calls (except in an emergency), have a rest, drop off passengers or pick anyone up, except in an emergency."

So, if it is sunny and you have a convertible with its roof down and it starts to slightly "spot" with rain, and you decide you want to put your roof up, is that an emergency?

Is it ‘eck as like. There were several drivers on the M4 this evening doing just that. (I wouldn't have minded if it was a terrential downpour, but it was just spotting with rain!). If you put your roof down you should expect to get the occasional soaking in this country. That doesn’t mean you should endanger lives to do avoid it.

Alice and the Holy Grail in Taxland

"Tories will not promise tax cuts"....."LibDems to cut income tax by 2p"...I did feel a bit like Alice slipping down the rabbit hole when I heard that couplet of headlines. Cameron is becoming a LibDem to get elected, while we're becoming Tories to not get elected.

I jest.

But I was very gratified at the evidence of some radical thinking on tax. From all the reading (not much) I have done on global warming it is emphasised again and again what great damage plane travel does to the environment. (I speak rather shamefacedly as someone about to jump on a plane to Belfast but at least I did spend some time looking at the alternative - 18 hours by ferry and car.) So I am delighted that we are proposing a tax on air flights (the flight - not the passenger) although Tony Ferguson is right to urge caution on this one. The Tories are bound to go to town on us for ruining people's holidays (isn't it about time we laid into them on tax in some way?). I am also delighted at the tax on the very high carbon emitting cars. At last we are seriously talking about taxing enironmentally damaging behaviour (unlike Cameron) while, for once, letting up on income tax.

Hurrah!

But Quaequam Blog has a good point. The local income tax did do us serious damage in places like Newbury and Guildford at the last election. I agree with it. But, I think we have never really managed to get the message of its advantages across to pensioners. While we failed to get that message across, the Tories certainly got the message across in places like Newbury and Guildford that 20 and 30-somethings would get shafted by our local income tax. I had several non-political people repeating that line back to me. So we should remember the south and the areas where we fight the Tories.

I will look forward to seeing what happens to our Holy Grail of the local income tax in the final tax proposals from our team. From what I have heard so far, I expect they will come up with something devilishly clever. I have a lot of confidence in the likes of Vince Cable and Ed Davey. Oh my hat, does that make me "Orange Book"? Goodness knows. Someone will have to tell me. I have not read it and I haven't really a clue about this Orange book v non-Orange book debate. All I know is that I like what I have heard so far.

Most agreeable surgery and Thai curry by the canal

Just to add a bit of clour to this posting, I have included a couple of photos I took today of flowers in our garden.

I started the morning at 7am with a trip to Andover to view the market's canopies there. This is part of some research I have been asked to do into the subject of awnings and canopies in markets.

It doesn't seem just a few days ago that I was doing up my anorak against the cold in Paris. An old friend and I joke about the word "agreeable". When I see him going off in his sports jacket and flannels to Lords to watch the cricket on a sweltering day, we agree that it is "most agreeable".

Well today is "most agreeable" too.

Due to a freak of rota-swopping, I was on duty on the Town Hall steps this morning for the second week in a row. I was gratified that a couple of people at last got my joke about having "local anaesthetic available" at the surgery - I have now modified it to include John Prescott's mallet being secreted behind the door for the purpose. I knew this was a joke whose time would come.

It was particularly agreeable to be doing the surgery with Conservative Adrian Edwards, who is our deputy mayor this year. Very entertaining as usual.

Items raised at the surgery were:

• Problems of traffic noise and vision caused by West Berkshire Council (I presume) cutting down a couple of trees by Sandleford link.
• Unfinished tarmacking and a dangerous kerb at a bus stop in Glendale Avenue.
• A loose manhole going "bumpf" every time a car goes over it in Greenham Road
• A query about hanging baskets this year - where are they?
• What happened to the bench outside Camp Hopsons in Northbrook Street - will it come back when the refurbishment is complete?

As usual I will follow these up and reply to the residents. Once again the market was full and busy.

After the surgery, my wife and I enjoyed an excellent Thai curry at the canal bar in the Waggon and Horses. This, Adrian Edwards had informed me earlier, is the oldest pub in Newbury. It was our first experience of the Thai cooking at this bar and it was utterly superb. Coupled with the wonderful view from the canalside, it was all....well....most agreeable.

I bumped into a freind there who was celebrating his grand-daughter's graduation. He asked me what I was celebrating with my wife to which I replied: "Being without our daughter for three hours".

A wonderful day all round, to be very thankful for.

End of the line

I'm a bit of a slow coach and I've been in catch-up mode this evening. Via the BBC's wonderful broadband service I just watched the last episode of "Line of Beauty". It was worth persevering to the end. The last episode was very satisfying. The series has been elegant and entertaining. Not for the sex or the politics though. The relationship between Nick and Kat. The immense sadness of those touched by Aids, which was underscored throughout. The appalling treatment at the end of Nick by the Fedden family. These were the meaty parts of the series. The political dénouement of the MP was most Oaten-like. The acting was superb. The music was, for once, tastefully understated. Nick Guest played by Dan Stevens pulled the whole thing together and reminded me, in a funny sort of way, of David Stockwell in ITV's Heartbeat. The bewildered look. The looking away and then back again. The partial and hesitant mouthing of unspoken responses. It was all there except for the clutching of the old cap. That is meant as a compliment, strangely enough.

All in all, well done BBC.

Mark Oaten's Newsnight opus - available to view

Mark Oaten's film on Newsnight from 23rd May is available on to review here.

I have just had the chance to watch it at leisure. I was very glad to see an extremely relaxed and cheerful Mark on this film. Noone would wish what he and his family have been through on anyone. It is good that he is obviously "bouncing back" and I wish him well. I hope he can now get coverage for doing things for Winchester rather than for his somewhat tangential forays into Celebrity Fit Club (or whatever it was) and this Newsnight film on "why politicians press the self-destruct button".

A few things in the film struck me though.

He had a sort of embryonic moustache. At first, I thought it was the contrast or the resolution on my PC. After fiddling with it, it became clear that it was indeed a form of moustache which he had grown. I also noticed that he had about two days' growth of beard. Interesting. The sort of style you would get from an advertising executive or a media type. But not from the MP for Winchester appearing on national television. Call me old-fashioned, if you will.

I was also very struck by how he spoke in the past tense about Westminster:

"I fell out of love with Westminster"...."I lost my identity"...."There wasn't a day went by when I didn't say 'actually I don't want to do this' " Really? Alan Clark in his diaries used to write quite the opposite, about his daily compulsion to be in politics, a compulsion which many politicians, presumably, share. But I am surprised that someone who, it is presumed (rightly or wrongly), wants to remain in politics, is telling us that he told himself everyday that he didn't want to do it.
Julia Langdon, seasoned journalist, put it well when she was asked whether she, a journalist, "played God" with politicians' lives. The response was positively Nannyesque: "The person in question has just been silly...to not to have been straight-forward". Ah! A blinding shaft of light in an otherwise foggy film.

But Mark was very honest. He said "We are the authors of our misfortune...the one person to blame is me...I am at a crossroads...people don't expect me to hide away...they want me to just get on with it."

You can't knock his honesty. Is this an embryonic Portillo we see? I don't know. The beginning of the film was like an enthusiastic and rather naïve six-former having a stab at broadcasting. It got better. You can't go wrong with Phillip Hodson, the psychiatrist, who gave his view. I enjoyed the discussions with Michael Brown and Oona King.

I am not sure where this leaves us. I do wonder if there is a sort of Max Clifford figure behind all this. I wish Mark all the best and I can assure him that life is wonderful outside of politics.

Closing the stable door? - US troops to get ethics lessons

The BBC reports:

"US-led troops in Iraq are to undergo ethical training in the wake of the alleged murder of civilians in Haditha. For the next 30 days, they will receive lessons in "core warrior values", a military statement said."

I am not normally one for Bible-bashing, but perhaps a good, simple start for these ethics lessons would be Exodus 20, verse 13:

"You shall not murder."