Chance to give my springs a rest...

THE FRIDAY THING: NOW that it’s all over, the winner has gone off to be measured for the House of Commons uniform and the losers back to doing their day job.

So, who do those of us who live in Oldham East and Saddleworth (surely the most bizarre constituency in the land, constructed as some sort of joke or for a bet) see about the repairs to the springs on our overworked letter boxes?

Since the campaign began we have had just short of 40 — yes 40 — missives from the various parties, beating the postal delivery of letters and bills by about three to one.

Mind you, beating the postal service is easy these days since the sorting of local mail was moved to Manchester. This week we received the December 14 issue of The Lady magazine (what would I do without it?).

But it wasn’t only the election literature (hardly an appropriate use of the word, I fear) that brought a glow to our dull lives. We had the many visits by party representatives (often duplicated) and suffered the danger, while nipping out to the Co-op for a bottle milk, of bumping into Nick Clegg, David Cameron, Ed Milliband (although that might have been a chap who works in the hardware shop) William Hague and even Eric Pickles who makes our Howard look like slimmer of the year. And there were others, who didn’t look so familiar, but who were given away by the sickly false grin and the sticky palms.

As late as yesterday there was a glossy effort from Elwyn telling us that the choice for MP was simple (I am advised to make clear here that this should not be taken to imply that I think he is simple as name calling can be, well, costly).

In fact, in the postal stakes the Lib-Dems won hands down although their leaflets lacked the verve and flair that voters in this constituency had grown used to from the recently banished Labour scribes. They may all be glad, that it’s over but not as glad as we on the receiving end of this attention.


WHAT has happened to shirt pockets? Every shirt had a small pocket over the left breast but it seems that the shirt makers have decided that the pocket must go.
Of the Christmas present shirts I received, none had a pocket so where do I put my dry-cleaning ticket, lottery ticket, that fiver I found under the settee cushion, books of stamps and the odd extra-strong mint?

It surely can’t cost much to sew a pocket on to a shirt, especially as most of them are made in Chinese sweat shops where staff are paid about five bob a year.


FINAL WORD: Were you as delighted as me to read that there is to be another Beckham? Yes, I thought so.