​​Before signing off for August, I did say that I would probably have six mad sections to write about on my return, and how right I was! But discipline and structure are what makes society work, so I’ll stick to the rules!
 
The Good
 
In recent months, I’ve written a lot in this section about massive advances in the treatment of all sorts of diseases. Do you remember that old film where a medical team were shrunk and injected into a patient’s veins so that he could be treated? Well, using robots - not people - that is now a reality! A tiny thread-like robot, half a millimetre thin and a few centimetres long, has been developed to be used following a stroke. It will carry and deliver essential drugs to the brain, is magnetically controlled, and even has a laser which can be used to clear blockages in the blood supply.
 
32,000 people die each year in the UK from strokes and the key to survival is swift action within the first hour after the stroke.
 
Another good…
 
There is no argument on smoking; it is bad for you, will damage your health, and possibly kill you. But the combined effect of educating people on the dangers, restricting the marketing and promotion, and whacking up the cost through taxation, is cutting the amount of smoking in England. Yes, 118 million less cigarettes are smoked in England each month than in 2011, that’s a massive 1.4 billion a year. Only 14.4% of adults now smoke, a record low and the daily average consumption has fallen from 12.4 to 10.6 since 2011.
 
Vaping has also contributed to the reduction in actually smoking tobacco and the jury is still out on the potential damage that does, but it’s less than tobacco…
 
The Bad
 
I’ve written often about vaccination and will continue to do so while the current mindless fad of not vaccinating children continues. My generation were the first to be privileged with protection via inoculation. Our parents queued up to get us jabbed and as an added protection, if you heard of anyone who had chicken pox, measles or German measles in the area, a party was arranged so other kids were exposed to it to boost the benefit of the vaccination!
 
Measles, which can be a killer in extreme cases, was eliminated. But that’s no longer so. Greece, Albania, the Czech Republic and now the UK have all lost their measles-free status given by the World Health Authority. The WHO lays the blame for the renewed advance of measles firmly on misinformation on the value and risk of vaccination, but whilst this has always been on the fringes, social media is fanning that misinformation.
 
I wondered about this being included under ‘Mad’, but that is a jocular look at life, this is too serious for that. Kids can be left with serious disabilities from measles or even die. Put the coffee pot on folks and inhale the vapours!
 
Another bad…
 
If I keep this up, I’m going to be offered a medical column in a major publication! Of course, the State has a responsibility to its citizens to give basic advice and no-where more so than on health matters. But telling us how much sleep we all need is going a bit far! That really is nanny state and government; sleep and nannies remind me of a very good joke on politics, but I probably shouldn’t tell it here!
 
We are all different and at different stages in life, and even need different amounts of sleep depending on the day of the week. But what is sleep? It isn’t just being in bed with your eyes shut and not being aware. Many people who have less sleep but are fit and feel good actually sleep better than those who have more than seven to nine hours a night, which I gather the guidelines will recommend. It’s being said that it is as important as advice on alcohol. But if you stay within the weekly booze suggestions and don’t drink at all for say five days a week and enjoy a few beers at the weekend, you’re accused of being a binge drinker! So, if you prolong your sleep at the weekends does that make you binge sleeper?! Let’s get real here. We all know when we aren’t getting enough sleep and address it. It may be that we’re not sleeping properly… so we find out why. It may be the kids, particularly the teething ones, giving us disturbed nights… but we deal with it as best as we can. We don’t need the government telling us we need more sleep!
 
The Mad
 
I wonder if I should name this long-established and well-respected high street store? But it’s not their fault and I know how difficult getting staff is, especially at the lower end. It was 2.17pm and I was queuing to pay for a paper, a sandwich and a drink. The cashier was a cheerful, efficient, friendly middle-aged lady and I was next to be served when a girl of about 20 appeared at her shoulder. Without turning around until she’d totalled the goods, she said: “I’ll finish this one. Are you almost done as well?”, “No,” came the reply, “I’ve just started but I’m not good at mornings!”
 
I checked my watch as the young lady gave me my change and looked outside to make sure I wasn’t in some strange time warp and out of sync by 12 hours! As I sat on the seafront fending off the seagulls hovering for scraps, I could not help but muse what was madder… that experience or what I was reading in the paper about THAT Wednesday in the House of Commons!
 
And finally…
 
Now, if you’ve got a woodworking or furniture making workshop in your home, you’ll probably have some sort of kit that snaffles sawdust and shavings, but there will still be dust that hits the floor. And so it has always been in Michael Northcroft’s workshop. He’s 63 now and has been turning out wooden creations all his life. I suspect that years back there was more saw dust and shavings on the floor than now, but his last action every night is to sweep the floor. Yes, sweep with a broom. So, I hear you ask, what’s mad with that and of course the answer is nothing. But the Health and Safety Executive in Leyton, East London, has said sweeping up creates a health hazard. Airborne wood dust is an asthma and cancer risk. Instead of using a broom, he must use an industrial hoover! Not even just a hoover, but an industrial hoover. I understand Michael said the advice is “a load of rubbish” and is keeping his broom.

​This will be my last blog before the summer break when I will be watching and playing cricket. Oh, and on the beach with my wife! I’m really looking forward to my 70th birthday party during that time. A game of cricket between two sides each captained by my sons and me batting five for both! Only so that I can spend time with my guests of course; not that, although once a demon fielder, I now find it hard work. Truth is, I get frustrated because I still know what to do, still anticipate what is going to happen with the ball, maybe better than ever in fact, but just can’t physically do it!
 
The Good, Bad and Mad will be back the week commencing 2nd September, and maybe it should simply be three mad sections that week… there’s sure to be enough mad things happening between now and then!
 
The Good
 
There has been a bit of a theme to the good recently which is good in itself. Health, and in particular, cancer. I’ve known a number of folk die of it, including my mum 30 years ago and an old girlfriend who died of ovarian cancer five years ago. Ovarian cancer is particularly deadly, partly because it has few specific symptoms and often isn’t picked up until it is too late. But a new wonder drug, “Olaparib”, has achieved phenomenal results for one sufferer who was rushed to hospital a year ago and told she wouldn’t see Christmas this year. However, she started on the drug just five months ago and says it has changed her life. Olaparib doesn’t yet offer a cure, although it is thought it can for some women, but it stops the condition worsening. So, as with all illness and particularly cancer, the earlier it is detected the better.
 
And some former Facebook and Google employees have teamed with a group of biochemists to create a machine called Chromium. It is used worldwide in research and can test every cell in the body. Working together, scientists at Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered a previously unknown airway to the lung, and information about the biology of cystic fibrosis. The technical data is mind-blowing, with ten million reaction tests conducted in the body in under half an hour.
 
With all the other advancements in cancer treatment recently, including those that use the common cold virus, these are both positive steps to beating the killer disease, possibly within decades.
 
Another good…
 
I’ve written before that I remember the London Smogs of the early to mid 1950s and almost everybody knew of somebody who had died from it. One of Michael Gove’s last acts as Environment Secretary was to announce that World Health Organisation recommendations on pollution will be brought into law. There will be an obligation for local authorities to protect children and the elderly, though I’m not sure how you do that in isolation without protecting the rest of us! Ah, hang on a minute, maybe I’m included in that definition anyway!
 
Let us hope that his successor, Theresa Villiers, keeps up the momentum and sees the project through.
 
The Bad
 
I just don’t get this. People being helped by the emergency services who then turn on them and attack and abuse them. A while back, the maximum sentence for attacking an emergency worker was doubled to 12 months. Why is there a maximum? Between November 2018 and May 2019, 6,663 people were arrested for attacking emergency workers, mainly paramedics. One suspects they were out of their minds on drugs, which definitely raises another issue, or were smashed out of their minds on booze, which raises a separate issue. Indeed, together they possibly raise yet another issue. When people lose all sense of inhibition, they revert to their true underlying character. The attacks show that these people are naturally aggressive and full of anger, possibly full of a sense of injustice. I wonder how many of them have ever accepted any responsibility for themselves? Are we reaping one of the downsides of the welfare state, which I’m the first to say is fundamentally good?
 
Some of the stories of what these folk have faced are horrendous, including knife attacks. I expect the majority of spitting offences don’t even get reported. The behaviour is bad, and the law is bad. Why should there be a maximum sentence, let the judge decide.
 
Another bad…
 
Now, this is bad. Manufacturing in a weak economy and paying the going rate there, then selling in a strong economy, is good business practice. But when I hear that people are being paid just £4 an hour in Manchester, our fifth largest city with a population approaching 600,000 people, to make clothes, it annoys me. Years back, the UK textile industry was thought to be dying, but it is now growing rapidly with production up 25% on a few years ago. But at what human cost? I’m not part of the sob brigade but abhor taking advantage, unfair advantage, of anyone - especially the vulnerable.
 
Thankfully, in a true British spirit of being fair and reasonable, several big names including M&S, John Lewis, New Look, Next and River Island have agreed to work together to get rid of modern-day slavery. Some of those exploited are “paying off the costs of coming to the UK”, which is why they are paid so little. They will no doubt be amongst the 500,000 people the new Prime Minister wants to grant amnesty to and bring officially into the UK economy.
 
The Mad
 
What do you do if you’re bored at work and find a dead mouse? You give it decent cremation and set fire to it! Two guys did just that. Ashley Finley, 25, and Dysney Sibbons, 23, burnt the mouse at their job in a cycle shop in Suffolk. The trouble is that the shop caught fire, causing £1.6m of damage in what has been described as “mind-boggling stupidity”. They’ve admitted arson but not been sentenced yet.
 
Now, I know that once a fire starts it can escalate quickly, but if the flames around a burning mouse start to spread, I’d have thought you could stamp them out. Where did they burn the mouse anyway? Maybe it was on a plastic counter? Maybe they went off and left it? Maybe they just panicked? Whatever they did, it was total (and expensive) madness!
 
And finally…
 
I think it’s pretty obvious that the term manhole was derived from being exactly that, a hole in the ground that a man goes down. Of course, when it would have been invented, women didn’t do the sort of work; going down a dirty hole in the ground to fix something. Well, the good legislators in Berkeley, California have legislated for change. It is no longer a manhole, it is a maintenance hole. Craftsman is to be craftspeople or artisan. Incidentally, Mr Microsoft put a red line under craftspeople!
 
‘He’ and ‘She’ are to be dropped in favour of ‘They’. But isn’t ‘they’ plural? What will the French do if this political correctness gone bonkers took hold in France where they have Le and La? They will all become ‘Les’ presumably!
 
You really would think that city administrators would have better things to do. When an attractive liner docks in California, you now say “they a fine-looking vessel!” Mr Microsoft has got his green line out now! Oh, but wait a minute, I remember when some buses in London were green not red, because they left the city for leafy suburbs… that was called the green line!
 
Madness, all of it!

I begin, uniquely, with a Great! What a game of cricket that was when England beat New Zealand in the ICC Cricket World Cup final. I remember when England beat Australia in an Ashes match by one run on the fourth afternoon in 2005. That was a five-day test match and was tense in the last hour or so, but this all happened in less than a day and was very high drama! There is so often little to choose between top sports folk these days, both teams and individuals. But by definition, there can only ever be one winner. But what all the top sports people share, and we could do with seeing more of in other walks of life, is a commitment to excellence, always wanting to achieve just a little bit more than last time.
 
Rightly, at times, high paid sports people get a bad press for bad behaviour, and certainly man of the match Ben Stokes has experienced that; but let no-one forget he asked the umpires if the four overthrows from when the returning ball accidentally hit his bat could be ignored. We salute you all, not just both sides in this unique match, and thank you not just for the entertainment, but also for the example you set for us all last Sunday.
 
The Good
 
When I was kid, some of my early pennies were earnt collecting bottles with deposits and raiding dustbins looking for them to take back and get cash. So how good it is to see Environment Secretary Michael Gove say he wants a deposit scheme on all bottles, including glass, plastic and aluminium cans. That is good. But I do see two potential problems. Firstly, will a lot people just look at the deposit as an extra cost because it is too much bother to take things back? But that’s why in the fifties I went banging on doors collecting bottles, which leads me to my second perceived problem. Are there enough kids who would be bothered to do what I and others did in years gone by? Would it just be too much trouble for them? I return to this theme in a bad below.
 
Another good…
 
We can all get bogged down with the ‘heaviness’ of life today and I for one don’t think there are as many naturally lighter moments for most of us as there used to be. We have to create more of those lighter moments and I read with interest that spending a few hours with nature, even if just gardening, each week has a positive impact on mental health. I used to be a Trustee of a fabulous place in Faversham, the Abbey Physic Community Garden, which really is the most wonderful place and it does such good for people who have a few mental issues. Doesn’t diagnose, doesn’t prescribe, it is just a tranquil place. You can hear my pre-record broadcast from there on Faversham Natters (https://radiofaversham.org) on Monday 29th July between 10am and 1pm.  So, I find this, which I have cut and pasted from the BBC daily news summary email, which takes me back to those carefree days as a kid in London, when we would sit for hours waiting to catch butterflies in our nets and put them in jam jar with holes in the lid. We always had a bit of something in there for them to eat and let them go at night. I don’t ever remember a painted lady, but the red admiral was the coveted one.
 
Becalming thoughts in a mad world.
 
“The UK is braced for an invasion of painted ladies . Charity Butterfly Conservation says unusually high numbers of the orange, black and white butterfly have been spotted heading from Europe. It's a phenomenon that happens roughly once a decade - 11 million arrived in 2008 - and the charity says it needs volunteers to take part in its annual Big Butterfly Count, which runs until 11 August. The task doesn't sound too arduous. It involves spending 15 minutes in a sunny spot anywhere in the UK, counting the butterflies they see before submitting sightings online.”
 
I’m interviewing Emma Sayle from Killing Kittens at the London Grill Club on Tuesday, my off the wall mind tells me to ask questions about Painted Ladies – or not!!
 
The Bad
 
My generation, along with previous ones and later ones, used to earn a few bob as kids doing things. Saturday jobs, dog walking, helping the milkman, and babysitting. Although, no one wanted a boy to babysit! I guess they were perceived as having the wrong natural skill sets! I’ve talked above about my bottle collecting in the first good and I also went out on my bike with a bucket, sponge and leather to clean cars. I had some notable customers. Cliff Richard’s mum and Danny Blanchflower’s wife. Danny was captain of the great early sixties Spurs side and played for Northern Ireland. Things have changed now, kids just want to buy and sell things online. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a bit of buying and flogging things, but it’s the way it’s done that worries me. All online. No human interaction, no people skills learnt.
 
Barclays Life Skills reports that 670,000 folk between 14 and 21, more than what babysit or dog walk, are making money buying and selling on the internet. Many will say I am just being a dyslectic old GTI, but you gain so much more from earning a few bob the old way. Although, I admit it is good they are doing something. And yes, I am a dyslectic old GTI, and proud of it!
 
Another bad…
 
The Daily Mail tells us that “Criminals with long records get softer sentences than first time offenders.” And it appears the more offences the shorter the sentence. Average sentences for first time offenders are about three years. It’s about 9 months for those with 26 to 50 previous offences and as little as six months for those with more than 50 offences! I don’t get it. Apparently, you’re not banged up for carrying a knife until you’ve been caught doing so for perhaps as much as 18 times!
 
How did we get here? Where is the voice of sanity? I accept that crimes are different and that prison itself won’t always be the answer or a deterrent, but there is no deterrent if you know the more crimes you commit the shorter your stay at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Back in the day, the London gang world used to say someone inside was “away on a little holiday” – that seems to be about the size of it for career criminals from this information. I am a liberal conservative, but before that a pragmatist. This column is designed to start debates!
 
The Mad
​
Now, I know that when I walk down Bermondsey Wall West after midnight I always see a fox or two and there are a number of fox families living in the green open space to the side of the Angel pub on the Thames. A place that incidentally a lot of the scenes for The Bill used to be filmed, especially on the beach. I put that down to nocturnal scavenging in the city. But, whilst that is almost certainly true, a YouGov survey has found that one in seven people leave out food, water and evens toys, yes toys! They stay up late in the hope of seeing the fox! Hang on a minute, not only are they killers, but they also carry lungworm, which can infect snails and slugs. Now, unlike the French we don’t eat a lot of snails, but our dogs do, and the result is loss of weight and heart damage. Foxes are dangerous wild animals and of the six million households who say they see a fox regularly, almost half said they’d be disappointed if they didn’t! Madness.
 
And finally…
 
I’m combining two different stories for the second ‘madness’ this week. The link… parents. No, not another blast on inoculation, but I suspect many of the same parents will be involved. The British Nutrition Foundation reports that kids’ health can be at risk from a vegan diet. It deprives them of essential vitamins and minerals and it appears that you can even get vegan baby food now. There seems little doubt that in the modern world, as opposed to living in a cave, when of course life expectancy was short, that we are probably eating too much meat and too much processed food. But the human body is a machine that thrives on a mixed and balanced diet and as kids, we need healthy diets from all sources of food. Of course, pigging out on and living on takeaways, burgers and crisps is madness, but, equally so is the complete opposite. I use two overworked and grossly ignored words, ‘Common Sense’.
 
Common sense should also be used in the issue of transgender children, for whom I have nothing but overwhelming sympathy. But changing the gender, and that is how it is described, of children as young as three is dangerous and it appears that sometimes the only advice parents have taken is from the internet and lobby groups. The NHS have specialist psychologists to help and advice, so it’s madness not to use them. Maybe the course of action taken is right, but then again maybe not, so surely it isn’t something that should be done on a whim, but only after serious consideration and the best possible professional advice from… the NHS.

​The Good
 
This weekend was the annual Dorset Seafood Festival in Weymouth, which I’ve been going to every year for yonks. There was a new sponsor this year, Nyetimber, the English wine makers from Sussex, and although I don’t drink any form of sparkling white wine, the public were lapping it up! Great to see an English sponsor and there was so much emphasis on seasonal and local food. Perhaps the quote of the weekend came from a local fisherman when he was doing a crab demonstration. He said, “why would you want lettuce in January?”
 
I think it was quieter with less stalls than in recent years, but it was a big weekend of sport, although I heard some people saying it was busier! For me, it was more pleasant than some of the overcrowded recent festivals, and the fashion is changing for the better! I have never seen so many girls and ladies of all ages in such pretty dresses at it before. I met Eren Baslar, who founded myfunkybags.com after working for DHL in Asia and saw all the used packing tape being thrown away. He had an idea and got some Chinese backers to help set up a processing plant in Indonesia, which now makes very durable and funky coloured bags for all purposes, from recycled plastic water bottles and packing tape! He gets the first picture ever on the Good, Bad and Mad... me at his stall!

​Another good…
 
I’m going against the flow here. I’ve read a lot of criticism about Alexa doing the GPs job. I don’t see it like that. Self-diagnosis, which I think is dangerous, has been around on the internet for years and Alexa and others have been giving medical advice for some time as well. What the source of the advice was or how good or bad it’s been I don’t know, and doubt it is possible to tell. But to link up with the NHS so that at least we know the source of the advice is sound is a good thing. Obviously, it doesn’t replace the doctor, and patient’s details need to be protected. If I had an Alexa, I’d probably give it a go with something I knew the answer to, but it seems to me that this is one of the better uses of artificial intelligence and I know several doctors who use Dr Google at times. If something was rare and they suspected it might be the problem, they used to look it up in a text book to check… now they use the internet. Nothing wrong with it.
 
The Bad
 
I have written at length over the years about the lowering of standards and mediocrity becoming the new genius, as well as problems of getting decent staff (especially at the bottom of the market). Last week I spoke about reading buddies who help kids who can’t read when they leave school. Now it appears illiteracy will get worse. According to the website Schools Week, since 2012, 3,500 would-be teachers failed literacy and numeracy tests, which you may say is trying to keep standards up. But we don’t know how high, or more likely low, the pass standard was. Last year, Schools Minister Nick Gibb said that all new teachers had to “demonstrate a high standard of numeracy and literacy.” Now it looks as if the tests, always unpopular with the wannabe teachers and the training colleges, could be scrapped and instead the trainers themselves will decide if the wannabe is up to the job. When chairing the Tom Olsen Lecture last week, I rejected a question to Dr Courtney Radsch because it didn’t address the subject of the lecture and in any event, raised the question of “who watches the watchers”. I find myself drawn to that question twice in five days.
 
I am seriously worried about standards in all walks of life and wrote at length about respect last week. I’m now sometimes actually referred to as the guy who thinks mediocrity is the new genius.
 
A committee has concluded that ‘the group’ is greater than any individual. Why, I wonder? Well, we’ve just decided to do it that way in case we exclude anyone from the ensemble, and in case anyone gets above themselves and starts to celebrate anything other than equality. If that makes for mediocrity, who cares about that these days?
 
Another bad…
 
Staying with the themes of education and mediocrity, clever kids are not taking GCSEs in modern languages for fear of getting low grades that will hinder their chances of getting into university. Apparently, teachers and students think getting high grades in languages is harder than other subjects and the fear is that learning languages may die out if the trend continues. Entries for GCSE French and German have dropped by 30% since 2014. So, what has been proposed? Make the exams easier!
 
The Mad
 
Ian Pendrick and Richard Clarkson, who were coastguards at Hope Cove in Devon, have been sacked for rescuing a car that had slipped from outside the Oceans restaurant, at Bolberry Down, and was close to the cliff edge. The fire brigade and the coastguard were instructed to take no action as the car wasn’t considered to be in a precarious position. As such, those giving the order to ignore it cannot have had any health and safety concerns, but Ian and Richard feared that the driver might have been at risk if he attempted to retrieve it himself. So, they decided to take off their ‘uniforms’, park their official Land Rover away from the scene, and use their own Land Rover to safely rescue the car. They were suspended and then sacked, but guess what for? Not taking the coastguard Land Rover back to base before dealing with the car. Madness.
 
And finally…
 
I don’t believe in giving babies dummies. We never used them. Millions of folk today, however, do, and I’ve known a few of them to often ask each other, “have you seen the dummy?” I’m sure at times they do get permanently lost and you have to get another, but if you lost 19 dummies, you might think something odd was happening. Well, that happened to the Wellesley family in Boston, USA - not Lincolnshire! The family noticed that Mortimer, their three-year-old dog, was being sick before meals, so they took him to the vet. An x-ray revealed something substantial in his stomach and the surgeon’s knife exposed that to be 19 dummies!

​The Good
 
This is a bad with a good outcome. There are far too many children leaving school unable to read, write or do basic arithmetic properly, and I know that at least one supermarket chain has people going from store-to-store teaching literacy and numeracy to its staff. Now, as a dyslectic from the fifties who taught himself to read in his mid to late teens, I know first-hand how this can cause problems, but thankfully I was always numerate and quick of thought! Ginny Lunn, CEO of Coram Beanstalk, is one of those trying to help and has been a ‘reading helper’ for the last four years. She spends time every week with her “reading buddy” and she thoroughly enjoys it. The aim of the group is to support 15,000 children by having 4,000 reading helpers and they are looking for volunteers. Power to them and what a great thing they are doing to help the young folk get more from life, get better jobs, and enjoy those jobs.
 
Another good…
 
Chris Grayling doesn’t always get the best press but as Transport Secretary he has written to all government departments with detailed guidance on how to convert their car fleets to electric, ahead of the government’s deadline of 2030. The ‘Road to Zero’ government plan sees no conventional petrol or diesel cars being made and sold after 2040, but what troubles me is how we generate the huge additional electricity we need to power the cars. Wind, solar and water will never do it, coal and gas are at least in part demonised and would never cope either, and nuclear, which would do all we need and more, brings with it other arguments. Perhaps we should be looking beyond electric power to hydrogen. The technology already exists and there has recently been an experiment with a train. My old nan used to have a saying when we wanted something; “so where d’you think that’ll come from, thin air?” Maybe she had seen the future? She once hid under the stairs in a thunder storm and opened the back and front doors so that the thunder bolt could pass through… but that’s another story!
 
The Bad
 
As is so often the way in life, this is a case where it is essential to distinguish between the principle and its effect on society and the actual event. Some months back I wrote that Dave Thompson, Chief Constable of the West Midlands force, had instructed his officers not to take action over people caught carrying or using cannabis. He was not alone and has support from other Chief Constables, but the Home Office, correctly, issued a statement saying the law should be enforced. I wrote then that I do agree a discussion is needed to re-examine the law, but that while it is the law it must be enforced. We are one country, you can’t do something that is a crime, say, in Lincoln but not in Manchester. Law enforcement cannot be selective or, as I said then, I’ll make a public statement saying which laws I don’t agree with and therefore won’t be abiding by. Law is not an A la Carte menu where citizens and enforcement agencies can pick and choose which bits they agree with.
 
This weekend we have enjoyed the 7th Faversham Nautical Festival and it was, as always, two days of wonderful, traditionally English family fun, on the green at Town Quay. It was a great tribute to Lena Reckie, who started it and sadly died of cancer in the last year. Now, I hear you say, what has this got to do with A la Carte law? Was the Festival illegal? No, it was fully supported by Faversham Town Council, but it brought lots of, very welcome, visitors to the town. There was no unruly behaviour, but there was totally unacceptable behaviour from dozens of middle-class people who would consider themselves to be respectable law-abiding citizens. Yes, the actual act and the principle. There are many waterside areas along the Creek and the roads are private, not adopted or maintained, and paid for by the council. There were objections to the roads being private when the planning consent was granted but the fact is it is what it is, and the residents pay for the upkeep. They are delightful roads to walk along and there are some great pictures to be taken, but it is private and that means you can’t do it. I remember asking someone if they knew it was a private road as the signs are obvious. Somewhat sheepish, he said “yes, but I’m not doing any harm.” I wonder what he’d say if, while it is illegal, one of his children or grandchildren graduated from cannabis to heroine because the law wasn’t enforced on cannabis? I won’t make the argument it is wearing the road tarmac out that the residents have to pay for, which is true, because that detracts from the issue - the principle of sticking by the rules.
 
Like so many of the modern ills, I see it as having been started by those who were becoming parents for the first time in the mid to late fifties. I have talked about obeying and upholding the law and rules, but of course what we are talking about is respect. Why should a kid respect their teacher’s authority if the parents or grandparents don’t respect authority?
 
Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York by starting with the little things. There is a poem by Wilferd Arlan Peterson called the Art of Marriage, but it could be about anything. The little things are the big things. If we really do want to clean up society, we have to acknowledge, and I can hear the screams and howls as I think this before my fingers hit the keys, the link between knife crime and the ignoring of signs that say private road. Respect is not an A la Carte menu.
 
I’m proud of the four stars and two rosettes my wife and I received for our hotel and fine dining restaurant, but I’m not proud of those who think responsibility is option.
 
Another bad…
 
After a long bad, I’ll do a short one. Idris Elba is saying he’d be in a difficult position if asked to play James Bond. He’s quoted as saying if it didn’t work, “would it be because of the colour of my skin?” Rubbish, that to me is a bad approach. He’s a good actor so what’s he afraid of? Make it work, I’m sure Luther would!
 
The Mad
 
I was sitting outside a hotel with a pot of tea and a scone with jam, don’t do cream, writing notes to record my blogs on our recent Land’s End to John o’ Groats trip, when a group of ladies aged between 25 to 35, who were at a wedding, came out for a cigarette. As is usually the case at weddings, they didn’t all know each other but they had something in common, they all had long hair. One said to the others, “do you tie your hair together when you go to bed?” “No”, they all said. “You know you should because otherwise as you toss and turn at night you might strangle yourselves. It happens a lot.” Now that probably qualifies as madness already because if it has ever happened I can’t see it being a lot and no-one I have spoken to has ever heard of it;  some of them have had long hair for a very long time! But when the other girls laughed and challenged the comment, the reply was, “It’s true, I saw it on Facebook”! Madness, but at the risk of being provocative one of my old Dad’s expressions comes to mind. “And she gets a vote.” Dad’s been dead 30 years, heart attack, not strangled by his hair or choked by his moustache!
 
And finally…
 
The joy of the mad is that it can be far-reaching. This is joyously, eccentrically, English mad!
 
The village of Ruddington, Nottinghamshire, has a feline celebrity who had his whiskers put out when his owner took in two rescue kittens. So, Wilbur decided to broaden his outlook and made many homes for himself in the village shops. He’s now known as the ‘King of Ruddington’ as he prowls majestically around the village and is very much a local celebrity with his own Facebook and Instagram pages! He’s ten on the 7th July and the village is holding a party for him. I’ll be playing ‘There’s A Cat Licking Your Birthday Cake’ for him on Faversham Natters on the 8th! It’s mad, but we love mad things!