I don't want a referendum

Whilst the tube strike seems like the obvious subject for blogging tonight, there is nothing I can say which hasn't been muttered under the breath of millions of commuters tonight - such as why the hell does it take all day to get the District line working properly? Or why hasn't the RMT been banned? Thus, in a reactionary mood, I should be ripe for recruitment by anyone of the burgeoning number of campaigns to hold a referendum on the latest EU treaty, which everyone, except Gordon Brown, Mrs Brown and all the little Brownies, accepts is a lazy rehash of the old defunct constitution.

However, getting back to first principles I am quite a fan of the current British electoral system of first past the post, winner takes all, ner ner ner ner etc etc. It makes for strong government and allows the country to take a clear direction, albeit, occassionally the wrong one. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, it is the best of a bad lot and is a whole lot better than constantly having the Libdems in government.

I do not believe that referendums (or -a, if you are being correct) play any part in this process as they undermine the supremacy of Parliament and therefore the will of the people as expressed in a general election.

Added to this overarching point are the smaller but important issues, such as the home advantage given to the question setter on the basis that people prefer to be pro rather than anti something - viz pro-choice and pro-life in the US abortion debate - the difficulty of encapsulating a difficult issue in one question - which results in a blanket "yes" or "no" - particularly unsuitable for a massive document rather than a clear expression of principle.

I am also irritated by the lack of sincerity amongst those calling for a referendum on the EU treaty - they don't want a vote so it can be approved, they want it, so that the treaty can be scuppered. I do not understand why that is not the policy of the Eurosceptics. It is a bit like Labour giving its MP a "free vote" on hunting as they were too cowardly to come out and say they wanted to ban it, they just did everything possible to get a vote passed and allowed 6 billion hours of Parliamentary time.

It is for this reason I despised Goldsmith's Referendum Party (great political antennae in that family for sure) and I laugh at the idea of UKIP being behind a referendum now.

It is time to stand up and be counted on the issue itself -- not a ridiculous diversion. It would be widely popular for the Conservatives to declare that if elected they would withdraw from the treaty and start reviewing all damaging legislation emanating from the EU. Sure, we need to do business with Europe and we need to meet European standards, but the reverse is also true for them, and we manage perfectly well to trade with the US and the rest of the world without being part of a trade block. I do not advocate complete withdrawal but Britain needs to make up its own mind how far it goes.


So forget a referendum, let's just work on getting a government which will protect British interests in Europe.

Home Information Packs

Just in case I am not giving enough of my hard earned money away to the government the process of moving house has just got more expensive - and I am not referring to the £50 parking fine I picked up this morning in Wandsworth, having assumed that whole borough has no parking restrictions on a Saturday. No, I am referring to the £550 I have had to shell out to pay for a Home Information Pack, or HIP as they are jauntily referred to.

Since HIPs are currently only mandatory if you are selling a 4 bedroom house (soon to include 3 bedrooms) it has been suggested that a lot of people will be describing their 4th bedroom as a study or storeroom, which is a bit daft. On the basis that most people looking for new houses these days go online and search using criteria, one of the most important being number of bedrooms, why would you want to market your house as having one less? In our case, we have ensured that the 4th bedroom is actually presented as a bedroom and not as the junk room that it was a few weeks ago...

So yesterday, we had the energy efficiency inspector over to do his work - which includes measuring all the rooms - something which will be done next week again by the people who draw up the little plans that go on the estate agent's particulars. No doubt the energy efficiency report will note that we have no double glazing, no cavity wall insulation and that our windows release a lot of heat. I will be very surprised if it notes that it is far more energy efficient to live in a house which has been standing since around 1880 rather than to live in a new one, that is centrally located meaning a shorter commute (by public transport) and less of a need to use the car for simple errands (some weeks our car barely moves).

Of course, no one buying our house will give a monkey's about the energy efficiency rating since the cost of heating etc is relatively very low in comparison to the value of the house. Double glazing would also be almost impossible given planning restrictions. If anyone says they do care, then tough, they are not getting a price reduction - in fact I might just charge them extra for being a tosser.

Spectator Double Standards

Having spent about 10 minutes trying to find where my wife had hidden the post in her drive to tidy up the house now that we are putting it on the market, I was relieved to find that my copy of the Spectator had indeed arrived safely, especially since delivery has been a bit erratic of late. Turning, as I usually do, to the lighter and shorter articles (saving the heavier and longer articles for bedtime, when I am lucky to make it half way before dropping off - not a great way of staying informed), I read David Tang's tribute to Mark Birley.

Tang makes no bones about Birley being "spoilt" - "If he had been at the feeding of the 5,000 he would have complained that there was no lemon for the fish" and goes on to record "his distain for the hoi polloi" and recounts an incident when Birley lit up his cigar in his room at the Brompton Hospital. What a character...

However, the lead feature in this week's edition is all about the state of Britain's youth and how it has come to pass that an 11 year old was shot dead a week or so ago in Liverpool. Our politicians talk of a "respect" agenda - themselves using the very word - respect - which forms such a crucial part of the gang culture now terrorising our cities. Gang members want respect and are likely to assualt those who "dis" them - short for disrespect.

Of course, "dis" could also be short for distain, as in Birley's attitude to the hoi polloi - which presumably in his eyes included 98% of the population, or at least those who could not afford to patronise one of his establishments.

It cannot be right that we celebrate the rule breakers and the non-conformists who happen to have money and status whilst simultaneously preach about the breakdown of morals and decent society. It has been ever thus, and the standards of the upper classes in Britain have only been acceptable insofar as they cannot be mimiced by the poor and dispossessed. The same goes for the celebrity drug takers who get handled with kid gloves by the authorities. I accept that those with more money than sense are going to behave badly, perhaps as badly as those with no money and no sense, but can't we just ignore them?

Cash for honours -- told you so.

Nearly six months ago, when Ruth Turner was arrested, I predicted that the police had nothing hard to go on in their cash for honours enquiry - and tonight, listening to the World Tonight, I gather an announcement is being made tomorrow that no one will be prosecuted in relation to this affair. The report says that "friends of" Tony Blair (=Tony Blair/Alistair Campbell) think Blair's authority was seriously undermined by the police conducting the investigation.

Not being the most sympathetic to Blair, I can fairly say that for once he has a valid complaint, although had the same investigation been ongoing in 1995/1996, I am sure Blair would have attempted to score every available political point as he did over the arms to Iraq affair (itself now rather ironic).

Sadly, a government on the receiving end of such police incompetence sees no issue in allowing police to lock people up for three months without charge....

I'm backing Boris because...

...he is undoubtedly one of the more intelligent people in politics today. I believe that he has the courage of his convictions. More importantly, I believe he is capable of cutting through the turgid political consensus that has grown up around a number of issues, especially in local government. When Boris says that he can do without the 50 or so press officers employed by Livingstone, I believe he can, and he will - and do away with the endless self promotion at the taxpayer's expense. I have no doubt that Boris will terrify the vested interests who depend on City Hall to fund their jobs and pet projects. London is ripe for a pragmatic right wing mayor who will implement rational and simple policies to improve core services and basic functions without putting an ever increasing burden on the London council tax payer. I hope that Boris will be to London what Rudi was to New York.

The fact that Boris is Boris and cultivates an image makes him stand out amongst modern politicians. However, if he can translate his image into political success, he will prove that blandness and cowardliness are not necessary prequisites for politician.

Extradiction hypocracy

In response to the refusal of the Russian government to extradict Andrey Lugovoy, the chief suspect in the Litvinenko murder, the British government has expelled four Russian diplomats.

It seems that as far as Russia is concerned, it is one rule for them and one for everyone else. How long ago was it that the USA refused to extradict Irish terrorists who had bombed and murdered their way around the UK mainland? This did not prompt Britain to expel American diplomats, even when the people their government were protecting were far more a danger to the British state. In a bizarre reversal, the position continues today with the British government not extradiciting (although this may change) Roisin Mcalisky - accused of bombing the British army base in Osnabruck, Germany. A campaign to prevent her extradicition is currently in full swing.

The British government is also refusing to extradict Boris Beresovsky, who is currently facing trial in absentia in Moscow on charges of ripping off the Russian state. How would the British have felt if, instead of falling off his yacht, Robert Maxwell had fled to Moscow and then the Russians refused to send him back?

Hardly a one-sided affair warranting the escalation in diplomatic measures currently being taken.

Added to this, although Russia is publicly stating that this row will not effect British investment in Russia, I know for a fact that the Russian embassy in London is being difficult about issuing visas right now, so to imagine it will not have an adverse effect on Anglo-Russian business is incredibly naive.

Perhaps this is Gordon Brown's secret plan for cooling down the London property market? Who knows?

End of Blair

The day Blair became Prime Minister the weather was beautiful and sunny. Brown steps up and it is dull and grey. Perhaps there is a higher power after all and he is trying to tell us something.

Faceblog

Ok, I admit it. I am a slave to fashion and have jumped on the passing bandwagon that is Facebook, and consequently have been ignoring my blog. I guess I have been seduced by its easy interactivity neat design, not like the do-it-yourself chaos of blogger. But I doubt my facebook pals (some of whom are real friends) are terribly interested in my various ramblings so here is my composite entry on the current political scene.

Gordon Brown - it is all very weird. Why is he not yet PM? He can command a majority of the House of Commons - and he is de facto leader of the Labour Party. This slow handover is yet another constitutional outrage and pure indulgence. For what? So 6 non-entities can indulge in a deputy leadership contest. Surely a strange and pointless Labour Party quirk if there ever was one. In most political systems, a potential leader and deputy present a united ticket and stand together - e.g. President and Vice-Pres in the USA. What is the point in foisting a deputy on Brown who he might not even have in his cabinet - a deputy party leader on the backbenches would be the equivalent to the Tory chairman of the 1922 committee - influential, maybe, but hardly worth the national attention it is being given.

And like many others, I live in constant wonder every time Hazel Blears comes on television: how on earth did she make it past security - surely she is masquerading as an MP, otherwise standards are even lower than I feared.

On the opposition benches, and in the letters pages of the Daily Telegraph, there is much excitement about the "abandonment" of Grammar Schools. I recall that Maggie closed more of these in the 1970s than anyone else, but clearly this is a conveniently forgotten fact. Is anyone seriously considering turning the clock back to the old two tier state education system? Apparently so. There I was thinking that Cameron would have difficulty finding a policy on which he could make a stand in favour of progress and thereby add some substance to his image. Speaking of which, I have been told about half a dozen times recently that I look like him (wrong colour hair, of course, and I didn't go to Eton, oh no, actually I did), including by a wedding singer in Torquay. I guess I will have to keep out of trouble in case it hits his poll ratings.

Second Life

I have never explored Second Life, and don't have any particular desire to do so, my first life is keeping me more than busy, thank you. However, two stories about this cyberworld recently caught my eye. The first was the law firm, Field Fisher Waterhouse, has opened "an office" in Second Life. The second was that the authorities are concerned that Second Life, and other such communities, are being used to launder money - i.e. "virtual credits" are bought and then transferred back into another currency, disguising their original source or moving the money around outside the traditional banking system.

I am not sure if the concern is that serious, given that in order to buy credits, the dirty money needs to be in a bank account in the first place, and therefore (in theory at least) the bank would have completed money laundering checks on it. However, law firms cannot rely on the fact that their fees are paid out of a bank account, they have to undertake their own "know your customer" procedures and other anti-money laundering checks. Quite how FFW is proposing to take on virtual clients is therefore beyond me - the KYC procedures practically insist that you meet your customers face to face - and not in a virtual reality world. I guess it is a nice marketing gimmick for FFW to show that they are down wid da kidz, but may be they should make it clear that they will not take on any "virtual clients" in the near future?

22 hours in San Juan

Another trip to the Virgin Islands has resulted in a long journey home. Unable to catch any direct flights back to England from Antigua last night, we have routed via San Juan where we have spent the night before journeying onwards to New York this afternoon and then home on the red eye. It could certainly be a lot worse, but it is nonetheless a surreal experience to come from the simplicity of BVI - only 30 minutes away on a small turboprop - and then be confronted by a massive hotel/casino. The beach this morning, was however, very pleasant.

Seemed to have missed most of the outpouring of Blair specials in the papers, so another plus side, I suppose.

I will be back again in a few weeks... and so it continues.

The SNP Question

Last week the SNP became the largest party in the Scottish Parliament by "the narrowest of margins". Apparently, this means the other parties which got the smallest number of seats must now decide whether or not to work with the SNP to form a coalition government. As I have made clear from my earlier post on the subject, I am not overly bothered by Scottish politics insofar as it has no effect on me or my life, but being a soft hearted Southerner, I would offer the following advice to the other parties, should they care to consult me:

The Liberal Democrats: You are clearly in a quandry. You realise that nobody who voted for you wants independence for Scotland as otherwise they would have voted SNP so you do not want to be seen to be allowing the SNP to get their way. However, you can hardly go back into coalition with Labour as they are clearly a busted flush and you would be blamed for putting them back into power, when only a minority of Scots wants them there. The solution is simple. Go into coalition with the SNP but demand that the promised referendum on independence be called immediately - get it out of the way early in the parliament. The voters will reject the proposition (assuming the ballot papers are pretty straightforward to fill in - even a drunken Glaswegian should be able to decide to tick "yes" or "no"), then you can spend the next three and a half years in power with the issue resolved.

Conservatives: OK, I realise that the SNP would probably prefer to be photographed en masse coming out of a swingers' club than to be dependent on Tory support to form a government, and vice versa, the feeling is no doubt mutual (although, after the Tommy Sheridan libel trial, I trust the analogy still carries weight in Scottish political circles). BUT.... Conservatives could form common cause with the Nats on one important question, and that is the inadequacy of the current Scottish constitutional settlement. On the basis that there is a Scottish Parliament and there is no going back, the Conservatives could work with the SNP to press for greater powers for it. This could be combined with a pincer movement by a Cameron led government in three years time, to enshrine these powers in law (via the Westminster parliament) and strip Scottish MPs in Westminster of the ability to vote in London on matters pertaining to England where those matters are reserved in Scotland to the Scottish Parliament. Probably too radical and the Tories and SNP would disagree on just about everything else so it would not be workable as the basis for a complete coalition, but it's just a thought.

Greens: Power! You know you want it. Now's your chance. Don't screw it up!

Labour: do everything possible to scupper the vote of a first minister, and force a new election. If you can't do better next time with Gordon Brown as your leader, then you really are in trouble.

I'm an uncle, again!

Over on Francesca and Georgina's blog, there is news of the newest arrival in the family - a second daughter for my brother and sister-in-law - and the sixth granddaughter for my father. Congratualtions to all...

Hazel Blears - a worthy successor to Prescott

Newsnight last night contained a very funny interview by Paxman of Hazel Blears, Labour Party chairman (chairperson?), and wannabe Labour deputy leader.

Paxman asked Blears if she could remember when Labour were last more unpopular than they are now. "Probably in 1983" came the answer.

So there you have it, Labour are more unpopular now than they were in 1987 or 1992 - according to their Chairman, sorry, person.

I guess we'll find out on Friday morning. Fingers crossed.

How to speed up terror trials

From today's Times, which reports that the recently completed terrorist trials cost over £50m:

"The trial was supposed to last six months, but began six months late and lasted for more than a year. During that year the court sat for only 35 weeks, with 7 weeks of timetabled breaks and 10 weeks lost to sickness and logistical problems. Barristers tried to have one juror discharged because he took so much time off sick. During Ramadan, the court sat for only 3½ hours each day because of concerns that the defendants would not be able to concentrate while fasting. The judge wanted to sit earlier, to make up for lost time, but one juror could not be in before 10.30am because of childcare commitments."

How about giving the court the power to allot funds to jurors to meet any reasonable expenses caused by longer sittings? How much time and money would that have saved? Only in the public sector - utter madness!

Yes, M&S should fire Ferry

Bryan Ferry has recently got himself into hot water by praising the style of Nazi architect Albert Speer (whose brilliant biography by Gitta Sereny, I heartily recommend) and film maker Leni Riefenstahl. He apologised or clarified his remarks by saying: "I apologize unreservedly for any offence caused by my comments on Nazi iconography, which were solely made from an art history perspective. I, like every right-minded individual, find the Nazi regime, and all it stood for, evil and abhorrent" (from Wired News).

As far as I am concerned, these comments just compound his crime. The Nazi machine systematically crushed modern art. The book burning is well known, but more obscure now is the exhibition launched in Munich in 1937 entitled "Entartete Kunst" or "Degenerate Art", which was held to lambast the art of the Weimar years and included works by Chagall, Max Ernst, Paul Klee and Kandinsky to name but a few. This was contrasted with an exhibition of approved Nazi art which mainly contained sterile neo-classical works of muscular figures doing heroic things. Amusingly, the crowds flocked to the degenerate exhibition whereas the approved one was empty.

Entartete Kunst was mirrored by a ban on left wing and Jewish playwrites, such as Brecht and a complete ban on jazz on account of its "unpure" black roots.

Of the few things I am quite proud of, for my history A-level project, I wrote an essay on why the Nazis reacted the way they did to Weimar culture. I managed to find one of the few surviving artists from the 1937 exhibition, Hans Feibusch, who was in his 90s but was still working and living in St John's Wood. He gave a couple of hours of his time to a pretentious 17 year old to talk about his experiences in the 1930s and how he had got the hell out of Germany once Hitler came to power. He also reflected on modern art and on how even he had his limits - I don't think he was a Tracy Emin fan.

I guess there will always be people who say "at least he made the trains run on time" or think black leather has a certain something, but to praise the Nazis for style when they did so much to destroy the defining art and style of the 20th century is sadly ignorant. No, M&S should not fire Ferry for his crass remarks but M&S should fire him for his lack of artistic knowledge revealed by those remarks.

Poll Tax Rubbish

If the success of the Thatcher years were fairly measured by the protests against her then the fact that the single biggest incident of civil protest in ten years was over a reform to local government finance must surely indicate that in 1990, things were pretty good for the average Brit. As I have always understood it, the objection to the Poll Tax was that it was unfairly regressive in that within each local authority everyone over 18 paid the same amount of tax regardless of income or other wealth. The Council Tax, which replaced it, is charged in relation to the value of the house against which it is levied, with discounts for people living alone and consequently is regarded as being completely fair, or at least not worth rioting over.

In the current climate of climate angst, green taxes are the sine qua non of contemporary politics. Local authorities have risen to the challenge by suggesting they should tax more heavily those households which produce more than a certain amount of waste each year. It is said that such a system would encourage people to use less packaging and recycle and compost more. Whether it is also designed to ensure that we finish what’s on our plate has not been revealed, nor, if it is, how this would gel with the government’s drive against obesity. But I digress.

With the exception of a few good people who grow all their own food and then compost what their own, or their dog’s, digestive system simply cannot accommodate, most of us generate a certain amount of rubbish mainly in the form of plastic, paper and glass packaging as well as the remains of last night’s takeaway. But there’s the rub: which households are producing the most sacks of rubbish? Is it (a) the single person living off takeaways and M&S meals for one; (b) the young couple who are never at home; or is it (c) the family with small children who never go out.

Speaking from personal experience, it is (c) by a rubbish strewn country mile. Yes, my family recycles, we would love to compost (but without a garden we have no intention of opening a branch of Dickens World in our own kitchen) and we have food delivered in environmentally friendly cardboard boxes. But we still generate an absolute ton of rubbish each week for the good bin persons of K&C to collect.

There are five of us living under one roof: three adults (including the au pair) and two babies. We would be heavily penalised by a rubbish tax, I am sure. The first irony and unfairness is that such a tax would effectively be per person - not even per adult, and would be no less regressive than the Poll Tax - even less so if there were no exemptions for students or the unemployed. Where are the rioters when you need them? Secondly, the demand for new houses - driven in no small part by desire of a large number of people to live alone - is a massive source of carbon emissions and pollution so much so that sole occupancy should really be penalised rather than rewarded. Unless, of course, you think the answer to global warming is for us all to stop breeding, in which maybe we should all live alone slowly going sterile whilst eating pizza and watching Vicar of Dibley repeats on UK Gold +1.

Scotland be brave?

The last time I clearly remember an April as glorious as the one we are currently having was precisely 10 years ago and I spent almost all of it desperately trying to help the Tories cling, if not to power, then at least to the Bristol West constituency. Of course, they did neither. Like the devil, back then Labour had all the good tunes. Our charge that one of the "New Dangers" of New Labour was constitutional damage to the UK as Scotland would get a vote on whether or not to have its own parliament was greeted with the unanswerable - "its only a vote - why shouldn't they vote on it". Ok, not unanswerable - we had the answers, but it was obvious that nobody cared even what the question was as they started humming D-ream's "Things can only get better" at you - "so that's an undecided then, sir?".

It's deja vu all over again, as Labour, having let the Nationalist genie out of the bottle is forced to argue why the Scottish people shouldn't be granted their second wish. Right now, on the front of Labour's campaign website is their slogan "Not breaking up Britain". Aside from the use of "Not" at the start of any slogan being disastrous ("Not doing much" etc), is the smug and arrogant assumption that their third way namby pamby hotch potch of a parliament is a perfect constitutional creature and not some evolutionary blip on the road to something altogether more natural - perhaps something that stands on its own two feet and possibly with opposable thumbs to boot.

At this point I have to declare my interest: none whatsoever. Like most southern conservatives, I pretty much regard Scotland as a foreign country. I have spent more of my lifetime in Belgium, Sweden, Germany - even Bermuda, than I have in Scotland, and I cannot see that changing for a while. I have nothing against the Scottish people - I even married into a Scottish family, but all this indifference makes me highly sympathetic to the idea that if the Scots want to vote themselves into economic and political oblivion by choosing independence and in one fell swoop inflict a deadly blow against the Labour parliamentary party by casting out (or perhaps reclaiming?) 39 MPs including Brown and Browne, then who am I to quibble?

In any case, independence for the Scots makes more sense today than it ever did. Traditionally, hard working and enterprising Scots got the hell out of there and came down to London. In these times, what chance do they have, when for the price of a one bedroom flat in the Royal Borough of K&C you can purchase several hundred acres of blasted heath and a property with a moat, turrets and probably a coven of witches if you drive a particularly hard bargain.

Go back to a land down under...

...where the women blow and the men chunder... as the song might have said.

Australia - land of my fathers, or grandfathers at least, Baillieu HQ so to speak. Last week her government announced a doubling of its troop commitment to Afghanistan and in a recent Spectator article, Australian volunteers were praised by the Territorial army's City of London branch for their enthusiastic contribution to our forces.

How does the UK repay this friendship? By reverting to a policy from 200 years ago - shipping young folk (back) to Australia for the crime of wanting to stay, work and pay taxes in the UK for more than one year. A few years ago the tight two year visa offered to young Australians was altered so that out of the two years, only one year could be spent working. I don't know about you, but I would be hard pressed to find a year's worth of travelling to be done inside England, Scotland and Wales - so what is the other year for, other than working illegally?

This is the plight of the very nice boyfriend of our German au pair. He has been working for my sister's payroll business (www.paycheck.co.uk) for the last six or so months, and by all accounts has been an exemplary and valued employee, to such an extent that my sister's company went to the trouble of making a visa application so that he could extend his stay. However, his lack of formal higher qualifications meant that the Home Office turned him down, so he has to leave.

No doubt, there will be those who say this is fair as the Australians apply similar restrictions to our (lightly qualified) young people. Two points: first, two wrongs don't make a right and if we relaxed, may be they would as well. Second, we have a booming economy crying out for hard working young people with a variety of skills and qualifications - we don't just want Polish builders, Slovakian waiters and Latvian (whatever Latvians do)... Young Aussies come with no (serious) language barrier, are all properly educated to GCSE or more likely, A Level or degree standard.

Not the most sexy campaign at the moment, I know: more immigration! But it is a serious issue: my wife successfully sponsored her architectural assistant to stay in the UK recently (at some financial cost), whereas in my office, we lost two excellent Australian secretaries when their visas ran out meaning that time and money had to be spent recruiting and training new people (who are also excellent) and I hate to think of the number of brilliant nurses who must leave the NHS to go home when their visas run out - hopefully they're exempt, but I doubt it.

Celebrity neighbours

I know that we live very close to Tara Palmer-Tomkinson as I have been told this by neighbours and I have seen her with my own eyes coming out of the local coffee shop. I was quite pleased that in a recent interview, her flat was described as being in the middle of South Kensington, as this sounds a lot better than Earls Court and should help the re-sale value no end (not that we need it given the craziness of the current housing boom in West London). I have also spotted Jonathan Aitken walking rather slowly along the Earls Court Road a few times, but that was not half as exciting as once passing Roger Moore on the Old Brompton Road. The celeb I see on a regular basis though, is fellow blogger Evan Davis, who is often heading to the tube in the morning at about the same time as me. As a fan of his blog as well as his TV and radio work, I sometimes mull over an opening gambit with a view to striking up a conversation with him - however, not wanting to be a creepy stalker type, I don't. Tonight, I saw him on the way home from the tube and we sort of criss-crossed eachother as I took the initiative by crossing the busy road in a daring manouevre but then he overtook me as we approached the bus stop near the turning to my road - he is surprising lanky and walks very fast, which is perhaps another reason I never strike up a conversation with him. But up ahead of me he did get stopped by someone else wanting to speak to him. About the BBC's view of the current housing boom in West London? What the Dragons are really like outside of the Den? No, just for directions to the tube station. Oh, the fickleness of fame....

Keith Ingram

I have noticed a fair number of visitors to this blog coming via a search for Keith Ingram. If you are one of those and are looking for information about his memorial service, here are the details:

Thanksgiving Service for Keith Ingram, ‘Inky’

Sunday 3rd June 2007

A Service of Thanksgiving for Keith Ingram, ‘Inky’, will be held at the School on Sunday 3rd June 2007 at 11 am. We anticipate that a great many of Inky’s friends, former colleagues, and pupils will wish to attend and, whilst we plan to accommodate as many people as possible, as it is during term we will have to manage numbers very carefully. Therefore this will be a ticket-only event and applications will be processed in the order of receipt. Whether you are able to attend the Service or not, we would welcome your recollections of this remarkable man. Please email ods@dragonschool.org or return the enclosed form to the OD Office as soon as possible.