From Redcar wit' luv.

Now that the financial future of MGM has been secured plans are underway to resume production of the latest in the James Bond franchise, 'Bond23', with a release set for November 2012. Unfortunately, the restructuring of the finances has meant that future plans for the intrepid secret agent will see significant changes to character, storyline and personnel.

In what is perceived to be a major change in direction that will undoubtedly upset a great many fans the next James Bond outing will be an All-Yorkshire production, shot entirely on location in Leeds, York, Scarborough and the North Yorkshire Moors. It was hoped to film the underwater sequences at Sea World in Scarborough, though these will now be filmed at The Deep in Hull.

Dame Judi Dench is being retained as M, since she claims there aren't enough decent roles for older actresses, though it was felt better that she keep the cut glass accent she has used in her previous appearances. Sean Bean steps into the shoes vacated by Daniel Craig with Sir Patrick Stewart snarling menacingly as Bond villain, Tiddles McVeigh (His mother wanted a cat), alongside fellow baddies, the Chuckle Brothers and John Simm. (Sir Ben Kingsley being deemed too expensive and Sir Ian McKellern rejected on grounds that he is a Lancastrian). In a further bid to reduce costs it has been promulgated that the entire soundtrack be a reworking of John Barry's original Bond scores played by the Black Dyke Mills Band.The initial idea had been for a title track to be performed by The Kaiser Chiefs though plans were dropped as it was decided that Bond required something more lyrically challenging than 'Na-na-na-na-na'.

MI6 HQ has now been relocated to Castle Howard near York, in keeping with the government's desire to be seen as less London-centric, yet maintaining the department's reputation for opulence and excess.

The screenplay will be a collaboration between Alan Ayckbourn and Alan Bennett on grounds that not everyone can understand what Bennett is wittering about and Ayckbourn is a lot quicker at producing scripts. (The fact that Ayckbourn has lived in Scarborough for so long and won't have far to travel excuses him from not being born in the county).

Adrian Edmondson (Young Ones) will be taking over from John Cleese as boffin extraordinaire, Q. (Who else would let Ade lose with explosives?)

Jane Horrocks will play Miss Moneypenny. Kimberley Walsh (Girl's Aloud) will be Bond's love interest with models, Nell McAndrew, Adele Stevens and actress, Jennifer Metcalfe (Hollyoaks), also contributing to the glamour. Mel B. (Spice girls) will play the token female villain, Opal Copperbotham, whose psychotic tendencies and fish fetish mean that even the sharks are scared to swim in the same water. Having formerly worked for Harry Ramsden as a fish filleter she was recruited by Tiddles McVeigh who, recognising the skilled way she handled the knife, assigned her the task of overseeing his expanding interests in North Sea fish farming.

Without giving too much of the plot away, my own spies tell me that masterly mogul McVeigh (Patrick Stewart) has 2 great passions in life, money and rhubarb. From his fortress base in Redcar Steelworks the Rhubarb Baron controls his growing empire. The missile silos have been increased to allow protective coverage of his latest acquisitions, Wembley Stadium, the 02 Arena and the Millennium Stadium which he has now converted into giant greenhouses for his prized crop. He further plans to extend the Rhubarb triangle from Bradford to Harrogate from Wakefield to Hull and from Morley to Sheffield. While The prospect of turning Harrogate and Sheffield into a rhubarb patch might be considered a major disaster there will undoubtedly be some who would say that Hull has long been overdue a make-over. Not content with these dastardly deeds McVeigh has also set his sites on turning the North York Moors into the world's largest Shopping Complex. In his way stands Sir Jimmy Savile who is funding an army of eco-warriors from his secret horde of Gold 'Jim'll fix it' badges to oppose the mighty Baron.

PLONCA (Please Leave Our Natural Countryside Alone), the campaigning group of eco-warriors and tree-huggers supported by Sir Jimmy has set up a defence HQ in the former RAF Fylingdales site, that the government have been forced to sell off as part of the MoD cutbacks. Their regular quad-bike patrols are constantly being ambushed by John Simm and his team of killer wippets. The group have also sustained heavy losses in the Rhubarb Triangle itself, which is policed by McVeigh's ruthless henchmen, the Chuckle Brothers. A large number of the Rambler's Association members as well as several government sponsored task force community police officers have also gone missing in the triangle (though this may have been due to faulty satnav systems).

In a show of defiance Paul and Barry Chuckle have kidnapped PLONCA leader (Brian Blessed) and suspended him upside down from Bempton Cliffs, leaving him to the mercy of the birds.

Parliament recognising the destabilising effect that the ultimate shopping experience would have on the British economy if all the shoppers suddenly descended upon Whitby and Goathland; the devastation it would bring to the countryside and the traffic that would see the A64 busier than the M25, have done what they usually do in such circumstances and passed the buck to MI6, or as it is now known 'HSBC MI6 Direct'. The Ministry in turn has called upon 007 to save the national park, destroy the Rhubarb Triangle, restore the iconic stadiums to their former glory and if at all possible stop Brian Blessed from scaring the bird population. They have also drafted in some of the countries top trackers, elite members of the Jehovah's Witness, to help find the lost ramblers.

Enter the revamped, no nonsense James Bond, or as he is known locally 'Our Jimmy'. Gone are the Tux, fast cars, designer clothes and the Martinis. 007 2013 is 'Primark man' with an eye for the budget as well as the ladies. Not only does he dress appropriately for the occasion, but he wears sensible underwear in all weathers. His Nissan Micra 4x4 is plenty fast enough for the Yorkshire roads, is fuel efficient and holds it value well. Plaxtons have agreed to supply the buses for a showpiece chase through the moors though they have insisted that the buses must stop to pick up passengers if bystanders indicate their intentions clearly.

One of the aims of the new film is to encompass the working class background of our hero and show a grittier edge to the Bond character. This will be reflected in the dialogue which will by and large remain true to the area's dialect and culture. “Now then, gizza brew, Lass,” is the favoured approach offered towards the long suffering Miss Moneypenny, whose response is “gerr 'un yersen” (get one yourself). Other Yorkshire idioms that you can expect to hear are “A jar o' John Smiths, nowt ice an' shaken not stirred,” “ee bah gum!” (oh my god!), “tha'uns got me reet flummoxed” (confused), “Oh aye? Ahm jiggered, nithered an radged ” (Oh, yes? I'm very tired, cold and angry). “Stun buck izer loaded ferrets doon me kegs!!” - “un I tort youzza jus pleased t'sees'ee”. “ow do, flower, can thee ride croggy?” (Hello miss, do you fancy a ride on my crossbar?), “ahl threp thee int' watter.” (I'll hit you into the water). “seethee summat?” (can you see anything?)”, “ey up, I've paggered t' Micra” (oh bother, I've wrecked the car).

James Bond – 'e's proper champion!!! Coming to a screen near you in 2013 – James Bond in 'From Redcar wit' luv' - By 'eck, it's a belter!!!

What's in a name.

The BBC has a lengthy history of utilising staff like tissue paper. Presenters and reporters come and go with alarming regularity. In a very competitive industry it has long been the practice to employ freelances as a means to reducing costs. There will always be a hardcore of staff reporters and journalists, who form the backbone to any schedule; what particularly irks me is the glorious titles that now seem to be handed out like confetti. My understanding is that the role of Senior Political / Sports / Health / Education / Crime / Local Government Editor has always been a permanent position. We now appear to have a situation where everyone is a Senior Correspondent / Reporter / Analyst or Editor of something (strange how there don't appear to be any junior members on any of these teams, if teams is what they are). It would seem a new face emerges almost every week in each of these roles. Either these journalists have incredibly short careers or they must share the roles in rotation. I can't believe they can all reach burn out before they turn 30; being shipped off to some regional backwater from where they can supplement their income through ghost writing D-list celebrity memoirs.

Seeing so many job titles being banded about willy-nilly has prompted me to look at the company for which I work. We similarly are inundated with numerous Managers, Specialists, Analysts, Consultants, Assistants, Engineers, Professionals, Controllers, Co-ordinators, Designers, Technicians and Architects. I don't suppose we are any different from any other medium-sized company. There is ultimately a management hierarchy within the company but most of the 'Business Development Analysts' and 'Senior Implementation Consultants' are in reality fulfilling the same role. I am not sure where this curious desire to pigeon-hole people stems from but it seems a curiously outdated concept in an age where employees are required to wear a great many hats. Perhaps in an ideal world we could all focus on our chosen skills but necessity demands that we all undertake a variety of duties from time to time which often have very little in common with our designated role.

Whenever I have turned up at a customer site my arrival has usually been announced as “Is anyone expecting the IT man?”, “The Computer guy's in reception” or "That man's 'ere again to fix the computers". I have never met a customer who has gone into raptures because he has come to face to face with a 'Senior Network Telephony Design Consultant' instead of some plain old 'Engineer'.

Personally, I stick to the generic title of 'Network Engineer' which broadly outlines the work that I undertake, though occasionally I will, in conversation, describe my role as a 'Consultant' purely on the premise that a lot of people choose to lump anything related with IT under one umbrella and expect you to deal with every aspect of it. This is often the easiest way to explain that different companies may be responsible for providing differing services to customers, we may be supporting the network hardware while another company may deal with issues relating to the pcs and other office equipment. No matter how well-intentioned you may be as an individual it is important to be aware of the repercussions of stepping beyond your company's remit.

The public are a great leveller and basically we all are categorised generically, whether we be “IT guys”, “plumbers”, “doctors”, “gardeners”, “mechanics”, “policemen” or “journalists”. The bottom-line is “If your job title is too long to fit on your business card then you are either in the wrong job or you are taking yourself too seriously”.

Passports

Often when carrying out my duties on behalf of my company I am requested to provide evidence of identity beyond my usual company ID for inspection by some suit and enough brocade to decorate the entire US fleet. This invariably means offering up my passport. I have nothing against carrying this cumbersome little item with me at all times, what bugs me is the time that it takes for 'Jobsworth' to scrutinise the document. Is it perhaps part of their duty to commit my passport number to memory or are they trying to feign intellectual capacity beyond their calling by pretending to read the little red book cover to cover.

Human nature dictates that the more people there are to be attended to in what is usually a lengthy queue, the longer it takes 'Jobsworth' to process the information for each individual. I don't expect him, or her, to smile at my photograph. I am not smiling so why should they – at least I had an excuse to look miserable in my photograph – the weather had been awful, I was cold, wet, windswept, and had managed to drop Coronation chicken on my shirt at lunch; thank heaven for monochrome, I say. Passport photos are not meant to be flattering anyway. I suspect 'Jobsworth' is always miserable.

It seems to me that the more technologically advanced we all become (however reluctant we may be) the more we seem to become dependent on the old fashioned means of identification. Could this be part of a public backlash against fingerprints, keyfobs and iris scans? Are the newer technologies fatally flawed, are they less secure than they are made out to be, is it an issue of civil liberties or are we all afraid that placing your eyeball in close proximity to a photo lens will see our soul sucked into the aperture.

All these questions cross my mind as I watch 'Jobsworth' thumbing his grubby fingers through the pages of my passport. I probably have more fingerprints in my passport than I have stamps for the numerous countries that I have visited.

I don't want a new passport,or ID card all I want is that when they finally get to the crucial page, the one displaying my picture, I want them to flip the page and the photo to say BOO!!!!

Spring has sprung

It has been a strange few week for any number of reasons. The Easter break, coupled with numerous bank holidays being accompanied by unusually good weather for the time of year has brought fresh impetus to what was becoming an insipid year. Back in January 2010 I suggested that the nation had 4 options for reviving the feel good factor needed to see us through the recession, these were 1: Hope for a Take That / Robbie Williams reunion tour, 2: Win the World Cup at any sport, 3: Discover that the UK will not be affected by climate change,  4: Marry off one of the Royals. 

Unless you have been living in a 3rd world country you may have spotted that 2 of these events have since come to fruition, the nation is still steering a shaky path towards economic oblivion and we are now reduced to 2 remaining options. Our sporting prowess would indicate that we are no nearer winning a World Cup in any event and growing talk of hose pipe bans would suggest that we have not been excused the effects of climate change.

In spite of  my wife's protestations I have studiously avoided most TV and newspaper coverage of Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding, not because I have anything against the couple or the monarchy; in my estimation they seem to be a very well suited couple and I wish them both well. In all honesty I quite like the royals and the theatricality of the monarchy. What particularly irks me is the hype and the bandwagon that goes with it. The media has spoken of nothing but the royal romance since before the couple's engagement, generating millions of column inches and broadcasting hours of largely regurgitated observations, theories, rumours and speculations.

I have turned a blind eye to Mrs. Shanks' nibbling the occasional Duchy Shortbread from the vastly overpriced Kate and Wills decorated biscuit tin but have drawn a line at the Kate and William monogrammed sick bag and toilet seat.  Other than the ardent royalist and/or dubious collector, who exactly are these manufacturer's targeting their goods at? 

It grieves me in this day and age where so many colleges and universities offer degree courses in media studies that the TV stations are saturated with the same old performing 'parrots' getting their fix in the spotlight on yet another Royal Bash.  The arc lights come on, delivering yet another shot of adrenalin into the veins of the wearied professional as they launch into the same tried and trusted list of clichés and platitudes that they have been using for the past 30 years. 

The number of people in London for the wedding was reportedly 35% higher than for the Charles and Diana wedding, with close to 1 million people lining the streets along the route (200,000 of which I suspect were either commentators or pundits). Maybe I was missing something but I don't really wish to know what size shoes the 3rd footman wears, listen to appalling anecdotes from Bloggins Minor, who went to primary school with William or question whether Sophie Wessex was really wearing a pheasant on her head.

There is plenty more mileage in this Royal romance which arguably will be good for the country's balance of payments, it is just a pity that it is the very spectacle of the occasion that makes the couple of so bankable. I am sure that given the opportunity Kate and William would welcome a break from all the press attention. I certainly would.

Thanks to the glorious weather I chose to spend a fair amount of this welcome break preparing my garden for the Summer months to come. This task now requires significantly more planning than it used to. As a child I recall the weekly bonfire to eradicate the detritus cleared from the family garden. These days even a barbecue is deemed an unacceptable pollutant of the atmosphere. What is more, you now have to work out which bin you can put your grass and weeds in, where to put the twigs and branches – not forgetting that you must not overfill your bin and remember on which day of which week to put it out for collection. This being  based on an algorithm created by some pre-pubescent whizkid who has never set foot in  a real garden, preferring to water his geraniums in a virtual world created for his playstation.

Having criticised journalists and presenters alike I must confess that I did watch the BBC documentary on David Coleman, whose 85th birthday is this month. Undoubtedly a 'parrot', but a very gifted one, he would spark into life on cue and continue to talk until the final credits rolled. What made him so different from the rest was his knowledge of his subject matter and his ability to put it across in a manner that would enthuse others in the same way that he was enthralled.

From the comments of those he worked with and those who he commentated on it was very clear that he set very high standards for both himself and those he worked with. He was quite forthright with some of his opinions, which were usually right, yet I will forever have this mistaken image of him setting the bar for UK sporting achievement back 30 years. I think it is because he always came across as such an affable man or it might just be due to the timing of his arrival on the scene.

David was not public school, nor did he speak like someone whose collar was 2 sizes smaller than it needed to be. I was at school when he started commentating on athletics. Athletes who still wore baggy shorts, a  thick wooly jumper and a cravat when they ran. Similarly, I wore baggy shorts when I was forced to run at school, though this was because I had short legs and my parents naively believed that a pair of shorts for a 12 year-old would fit the same child adequately from the age of 7 up to 16, not because I wanted to emulate some sporting god from a bygone age.

Athletics was always an enigma to me. At least there seemed to be a point to cricket, football or rugby - scoring a goal, making a tackle or taking a wicket, I could understand but running as fast as you can around a track that brings you back to exactly where you started seemed a futile gesture that I failed to get my head around.

   

Masters at my school clearly came from that idyllic period that believed that all sport was a jolly good jape, the principle of which seemed to be the colder it was the fewer clothes required to participate. This I believe is why I found myself more often than not shivering in the rain and mud with temperatures close to freezing in sodden shirt and baggy shorts that acted as a wind tunnel for the force 4 winds that blasted across the school playing fields. In Summer, 2 jumpers were required to play cricket, not because it was particularly cold but because they were required to disguise the fact that I was wearing a massive belt to keep my baggy flannels in place (bought on the same principle by my parents as my baggy shorts). I fear that not a lot has changed since in the attitude towards 'games'. PE teachers generally fell into one of 2 camps - 'Sadists' or 'jolly good eggs' - The sadists spent most of their time studying the skies for the first sign of snow awaiting the opportunity to dispatch their charges on a cross country run in just their shorts and plimsoles. The sadist would invariably coat himself with wintergreen for protection before joining them in the fresh air to bark out disparaging remarks to those lagging behind who were keeping him out in the cold.  The 'good eggs' generally spent their days also studying the skies and praying for inclement weather that would render the playing fields unusable and meant they could arrange a friendly game of 'tossing the bean bag' in the gymnasium (not if you soaked the bags in water first, as we often did!).  In their gentile and less combative world everyone who takes part gets a sweetie and claps politely when the prizes are awarded. This is not the way to make Olympic champions in my book – the way to build champions is to give the bag of sweets and a 10 yard start to the winner – save the clapping till the runner wins a major championship.

Sport seems to have figured quite a bit in my efforts to avoid the endless coverage of the Royal Wedding, in particular old sporting moments. I managed to catch another good TV documentary on Bobby Charlton, who remains an icon and role model, as well as an entertaining radio interview with James Alexander Gordon, now 75 and best known for reading the football results. His voice is so distinctive and it was interesting to hear how he had brought his musical background to his rhythmic delivery of the football scores. I didn't know that he was the announcer on the Morecambe and Wise radio shows so enjoyed his story of Eric who would always refer to him by the sobriquet 'East Fife 4 – Forfar 5'.

A film dramatisation of the Munich air disaster was very watchable even if it did appear to be a slightly distorted picture, given that the focus of the program revolved around 3 main characters, Matt Busby, Bobby Charlton and Jimmy Murphy. A bit too much dramatic licence and a bit of a cold shoulder to the others who were killed or injured in the plane crash.

I even managed to watch The Bert Trautmann Story on Yesterday purely by chance – a real Boys Own story if ever there was one. This I watched because he was playing for Manchester City at the same period as my father was playing, even though he never turned professional. I was not really aware of his background in the Hitler Youth although the story of his exploits during the 1956 Wembley Cup Final against Birmingham City are vividly imprinted in my mind and were often spoken of by my father. It sends a shudder up my spine every time I see the save he made that broke his neck. Hearing him relate how 1mm either way could have resulted in death or paralysis was bad enough but seeing the way that he continued to throw himself into the path of oncoming attackers during the last few minutes of that game was unbelievable. It was a further 3 days before he even got around to having his neck X-rayed.

2 other sporting legends were brought to my attention this week. Sadly, Sir Henry Cooper died at the age of 76. I became aware of his exploits thanks to my grandfather's foresight in ensuring I was woken from my slumbers to watch his famous fights against Cassius Clay. He used to live not far from my school and I never came across anyone in the area who had anything but good to say about the man. He was an immense character both in and out of the ring and it is easy to understand how he inspired so many in his sport.

My grandfather was a great arbiter of world history. It is thanks to him that I was allowed to watch live reporting of the Kennedy assassinations, Martin Luther King, the Cooper fights, all the space missions (with the exception of  Yuri Gagarin), Winston Churchill's funeral, Donald Campbell's ill-fated Bluebird attempt at the land speed record, the Aberfan Disaster. About the only major world event that I was not permitted to watch was the news of Marilyn Monroe's death, which was a bit before my time and I don't think even my grandfather could have predicted the legacy that she would leave behind.

The other legend I refer to is perhaps not a sportsman in the truest sense. I am referring to Eddie Kidd the former stuntman who was severely injured when a motorcycle jump went badly wrong in 1996. Despite being severely brain damaged and paralysed down the left side of his body he is presently in the process of walking the London marathon route in aid of the charity Children with Leukaemia. With the aid of a specially designed walking frame that sends bionic pulses to help keep his left leg going straight he manages ¾ of a mile on a good day.

In his heyday he was famed for fearlessly jumping over 14 buses and leaping the Great Wall of China. Now, having been forced to sell his treasured bikes he lives a modest life, with his wife and carer surviving on benefits in East Sussex.

  

My memories of Eddie stem mainly from my bike mad younger sister who managed to catch one of his shows in London and talked about it for weeks. The stunts that he and his American counterpart, Evel Knievel, used to perform certainly captured the imagination of a great many people of that generation.

In my own tribute to him I did once attempt to leap the garden pond on my battered Raleigh bicycle. It may have lacked the spectacle and panache of his jumps but was none the less dangerous given the wrath I was likely to face if I inadvertently misjudged it and landed in my grandfather's prized rose border.  

It is heart-wrenching to see the pictures of him now and remember the swaggering showman he was in the 1980s and 90s, yet he has clearly lost none of the guts, determination and good humour for which he was famed. It is a truly remarkable feat that he is attempting and I really do wish him well for the future.

Another blow for freedom of speech

It is with a mixture of sadness and reluctance that I have been forced to accept that I am officially 'old', given that my young boss has now taken to communicating in text speak. I have come to accept that modern communication methods are not necessarily the option I would have chosen, but one tries to go with the flow.

I have grown to accept 2 page emails on issues that could have been resolved with a 30 second phone call, endure lengthy chats about nothing in particular (certainly not work related) with people I have never met or am ever likely to.

I have learned to embrace the crude idioms of modern management that loosely translated equate to not having a clue what anyone is talking about. I have 'sent ideas up the flagpole', 'kicked dreams into the long grass', 'brassed off a few pencil jockeys', 'rolled with the big cheese', 'polished the odd turkey', 'got plenty of bang for my bucks'  and 'given the bean-counters some creative wriggle room'.

Much of my youth was acquainting myself with the Queen's English – the grammar, the spelling, the meaning, the phrasing and the punctuation. To the best of my knowledge it is still part of the school curriculum, though now only as an elective, behind the likes of Gaelic and Urdu.

I am not a card carrying Royalist (OK I may be able to dig out a Silver Jubilee mug from the loft if you forced me to spend a weekend in purgatory – and I did once drive around with  the Charles and Diana dolls on my back seat; the one's with the waggling ears). Quite why “Queenie” should be taking the credit for a language that has existed for centuries evades me but it seems to have served me pretty well all these years.   

Working in the IT industry, which only ranks behind the US military in the preponderance of acronyms you quickly come to expect  that reading a letter or e-mail will take 3 times longer than necessary, simply in view of the amount of time required to unscramble the jargon.

It is bad enough that I have to learn new acronyms all the time since the industry is constantly coming up with new technologies. Now I am expected to know what the following means @TEOTD (at the end of the day),  CID (consider it done), DHYB (don't hold your breath), FTR (for the record), KMP (keep me posted), HADVD (have advised), J/C (just checking), TXS (thanks). The other day I was called an ACORN, which I later learned to be ‘a completely obsessive really nutty person’. 

It took a while for the penny to drop, believing it was a tick in my manager’s fingers that was causing him to type the letter ‘J’  at the end of certain sentences. This I later learned indicated a  joke. ‘LOL’ similarly appeared in unusual places. Historically I have always understood this to mean ‘Lots of Love’ and I wasn’t sure that I was ready for this type of relationship with a co-worker. Thankfully my concerns were not realised since it was pointed out that the implied meaning was ‘Laugh out loud’.

I have nothing against the use of abbreviations, ‘etc.’, ‘Dept.’, ‘Mgmt.’, ‘Mr.’ have been accepted for generations; the full stop at the end of the word indicating that the word has been abbreviated. Why should I now have to read items about ‘guvmint’ when there is a perfectly acceptable abbreviation of ‘govt.’? ‘Kewl’ should not be seen as a mark of how ‘cool’ a person is, it is an indication that the sender is dyslexic.

Of course there has been instances where text speak has managed to find a way into everyday usage. Most people understand ‘OTT’ to mean ‘over the top’, 'RIP' - 'Rest in Peace' and ‘BMX’ – a leather clad, helmeted lunatic on a bicycle. Even I know that ‘F1GP’  means ‘Formula One Grand Prix’ even if it is the only thing I know about that sport. There was a time when if a shopkeeper had uttered the word ‘BOGOF’, the natural  reaction would have been to snarl back some similarly offensive retort. Nowadays most customers would comprehend that this as a reference to a ‘Buy one get one free’ offer.

The advertising industry have been using their own language for decades. Thanks to them we have KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), the PS2 (Play Station Two), FCUK (French Connection United Kingdom) and TGIF (Thank God It’s Friday). A Joseph Cyril Bamford excavator doesn’t conjure up quite same image as a JCB, and would B & Q have become quite such a household name if it had remained Block and Quayle? Acronyms and abbreviations are not always the driving force behind the shorthand, some of the origins can be more obscure. IKEA was formed in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad. The ‘E’ taken from Elmtaryd, the farm where he grew up and the ‘A’ from Agunnaryd, his home parish in Southern Sweden.

Additions to the advertisers armoury of buzz words, such as ‘strength’, ‘guard’, ‘soft’, ‘gentle’, ‘tasty’ and ‘natural’, taken from text speak are ‘NG’ – ‘Next Generation’ , and anything with an ‘eco’, ‘pro’, ‘bio’, ‘X’ or arbitrary number tagged on either the front or the back.

It seems that everywhere you look the world is being infiltrated by shortcuts. Even road signs are being reduced to abbreviations. Tourist signs now read ‘chyd’ for ‘Churchyard’ and ‘Mus’ for ‘Museum’. Is there a global shortage of paint that no one is letting on?

Last month I was happily driving through the countryside trying to translate the cryptic clues on the road signs that I passed. I had almost reached Pen y Fan before I realised that I had ventured into the colonies and that the bottom half of the signs were written in Welsh.

I have read of occasions when exam papers have been submitted by students written entirely in text speak, and accepted by the examining body – The articles did not say how long it took for the examiners to mark the paper, or whether the students passed the exam.

Maybe it is part of my Vulcan heritage but creating a shorthand for a word or phrase that takes considerably longer to decypher than it would take to write in full is both counter-productive and illogical. I for one shall remain as conscientious as ever and honour the dignity of the longhand Anglo-Saxon that I was taught to both read and write.

LLAP (Live Long And Prosper)

The Blair Witch Project

There was a time when the best indicator of a global trouble hotspot was an entry in Kate Adie's diary. This millennium her mantle seems to have passed to Tony Blair, who having managed to bring this country to its knees has now set his sights on the Middle East, where I believe they are well acquainted with this position. Surely there has been no greater misnomer than 'Middle East Peace Envoy'. No wonder his itinerary for the next 18 months is such a closely guarded secret. Perhaps we should be grateful that this latter day Lot has turned his attentions to foreign shores. The ability to reduce all things to a pillar of salt should go down a treat in a region that is largely desert. Lot with the one hand, Midas with the other, a heady dichotomy indeed. I am not sure whether his next feat will be to walk on water or part the Red Sea.

Thankfully, the ever righteous 'Tone' has so far managed to stay his ministrations from the 2012 Olympics, then I doubt this country could any longer afford his appearance fees.

Bring back the ballcock!!

Over the Christmas period the landlord's trusty toilet cistern finally surrendered to old age and refused to flush. The management agent was duly summoned and a replacement instructed to be fitted. Within hours the new device had developed the ability to whistle, a feat that it mastered soon after. Within weeks its skills had transcended those of a virtuoso.

The performances post New Year increased in length, varied in pitch and occurred at irregular intervals whenever the toilet had been flushed. From a mild irritant at the outset this odious noise soon became the bane of both my wife's and my lives. All we could do was flush the loo and wait for the noise to 'erupt' as the water cascaded into the tank. First the rumble in the pipes, then the dripping / gushing of water, followed by the inevitable whistle. The annoying aspect was that it was impossible to predict when it would happen. Sometimes the whistling would occur within 2 to 5 minutes. On occasions nothing would happen for up to an hour. There were even days when nothing would happen, then suddenly you would be woken by the shrill whistling at 2 o'clock in the morning for no apparent reason. Invariably it was difficult to stop, normally resulting in frantically plunging my hands into the freezing cold water and re-seating the flap while trying to stem the inlet flow.

It took 3 visits from a plumber, and 6 weeks before the situation was resolved.

It was with a deep sense of dismay that I looked at the 'gubbins' inside the tank for the first time. My mother used to tell me of the mischievous joy she felt whenever the topic of conversation at school made mention of parent's chosen professions. As a supplier of sanitaryware to the building trade, she took great pride in announcing to her year 3 classmates that her father 'travelled in toilets'. Quite what my grandfather would have made of the said 'gubbins' in the modern bathroom I hesitate to think.

He had retired by the time I had started school but I can well remember his house festooned by all variety of strange looking appliances (not everyone's idea of wall hangings). Coloured ballcocks, valves, tools and fittings of every shape and size, just one of his many eccentricities.

As for the ghastly contraption that had been placed inside our tank, the source of the dreaded whistle, it was horrid and I suggested to the management agent that the plumber had found it in a Christmas cracker. It looked like the rubber baby's shaker that I used to beat my brother over the head with. It made a similar noise, too (the shaker not my brother's head – he just made burbling noises; then, he still does).

Little could flush toilet pioneer, Thomas Twyford, expanding on the work of J. G. Jennings, have anticipated that his wonderful brass fittings would evolve into a float of opaque moulded plastic, smaller than a tennis ball, a flap the size of a tea strainer and a filler pipe that looks more like a discarded condom.

I am not a sentimentalist, nor do I share my grandfather's taste in wall hangings but there is a certain amount of reassurance to be gained knowing that Mr. Twyford's original designs have been around since the 1880s whereas the modern replacements would appear to have a lifespan of no more than 2 years.