Nobbut Laiking, by Ross Brewster
Cyber tyranny my mate calls it. Discrimination against the two million like him who don’t have a smartphone, nor in his case want one on principle.
Parking apps are the latest step in the conspiracy that is designed to turn all of us into phone addicts.
Town centres are said to be struggling for business. Make access to them more difficult and you can guess the result.
Charities such as Age UK have warned that ending pay and display parking would be “disastrous for anyone without a smartphone”.
Older people are often the ones who keep town centre businesses going. What about those who can’t afford a smartphone, or are baffled by the technology? I’ve got a phone, but have no idea how a parking app works.
Councils are determined to scrap pay and display machines and go cashless. It’s convenient for them, no cash to count, but inconvenient for many of their ratepayers and, in this county, tourists.
Levelling Up secretary Michael Gove has accepted that many people are being excluded and urged local authorities not to discriminate against drivers who eschew smartphones.
Whether they will listen is another matter.
When my fell running season was truncated by an unforgiving hedge
It was not the kind of thing an elderly couple taking afternoon tea in their own front garden might have expected.
Well, not some sweaty oik in running gear plunging head first through their hawthorn hedge and landing in an ungainly heap on their front lawn.
To his credit, the elderly chap who was pouring the tea did not flinch for a moment. Neither he nor his good lady said a word. It was as if this was a regular Saturday afternoon occurrence down their street.
I spent a large part of my adult life running on the fells. I did all the tough events, the Mountain Trials, the four 3,000s, the long distance classics like Wasdale, Borrowdale and Ennerdale.
I sprained a few ankles, but despite not being a lish downhill runner in the Bill Teasdale mould, I never took a serious fall.
Not until the seven mile road race at Winsford in Cheshire. I was staying in the area for a couple of days, planning a hill race, and when I heard there was a run I thought “why not?” It should be good speed training.
It can happen to celebrities off the telly, just as it can happen to average ordinary club runners of no great fame.
Memories of my painful experience flooded back when I read that ex-BBC Breakfast presenter Louise Minchin, a keen runner, had suffered a tumble while preparing for the London Marathon.
Louise told her 113,000 Instagram followers that she bruised her knee, elbow “and ego” when she went crashing. Happily the bruises should have healed before the big day.
But 54-year-old Louise didn’t have that blasted hawthorn hedge to contend with, just the embarrassment as she was helped to her feet by a passing cyclist.
Nor did she suffer the indignity of being kerb-crawled by a St John Ambulance once I’d got back to my feet and tried to pretend nothing untoward had happened.
Once I completed the last three miles, the ambulance crew began the laborious process of plucking bits of hedge from my punctured legs and torso. Once it was established I was up to date on my tetanus jabs they were able to let me limp away. I bet they told that story many a time at St John training days.
It took me two weeks before I could walk properly, let alone run. I missed some of the best events of the season. Officially due to a calf strain.
Well, you wouldn’t admit to those rufty-tufty fell runners that you were absent injured, victim of a trip on the pavement and an unwarranted attack by an unforgiving hedge.
Band member’s death is a timely reminder
Never having caught up with all the drugs and free love in the sixties, it’s no surprise that the meaning contained in the words of Procol Harem’s song Whiter Shade of Pale evaded me. Even so, it was a great tune.
Keith Reid, the group’s lyricist, apparently promised to reveal all about the miller and the sixteen vestal virgins. Reference to drugs they reckon. He never got around to it and he has now died aged 76, with his secrets intact.
The oblique lyrics kept many of the fans guessing, too. The song was at number one in the UK pop charts for six weeks in 1967 and became a worldwide hit.
The message of this item is that one should not put off until tomorrow that which can be done today. Hence I will be updating my will. Not a happy thought, but a necessary one if I’m not to be like Keith Reid and leave it too late.
Thirty million adults in this country have failed to prepare a will. When The Wanted singer Tom Parker died he had not made a will and his wife was left to sort his affairs.
At least I shall go to my advisers skipping the light fandango — cartwheels no longer physically possible – in as merry a fashion as possible.
