The arrogance and pettiness of MPs when it comes to their expenses defies belief

IT’S an April Fool, right? I mean, why else would we, the taxpayers, be paying for the Home Secretary’s husband to watch porn films? Or any other films come to that. How dare they?

The whole system of MPs’ expenses stinks. Not just because it’s blue movies – though wouldn’t you have loved to be a fly on the wall in the Smith/Timney household when that came to light? – but because of the high-handed arrogance of those MPs generally as they milk the system for every last penny.

A bath plug for 88p? I mean, who could even be bothered with the pettiness of that claim – especially when they’re getting more than £20,000 a year for a dubious second home claim as it is.

“It’s our right,” said one MP dismissively when challenged, thus proving he’s even more out of touch with the real world than the whitetied toffs of the Tory party that they love to mock.

MPs work in two places – their constituency and in London – and consequently need financial help to be able to do that properly. Of course.

But that should cover reasonable expenses, not be another money-making opportunity that we’re paying for.

And if we’re subsiding the mortgage costs on the second homes – not to mention the bath plugs – then surely we are also entitled to a share of the profits when they sell. And if not, why not?

Amazingly, Jacqui Smith’s husband, Richard Timney, is also paid £40,000 – again at our expense – to run her office for her.

Well, if he can’t even manage to tell the difference between official expenses and blue movie receipts, he’s clearly not up to the job.

Time his wife, and the taxpayers, sacked him. Then he could watch as many blue movies as he likes – in his own time and at his own expense.

While paying his own mortgage too.

And if he doesn’t, well, can we have our bath plug back please?

THIS week is, would you believe, National Nap at Work Week.

Lovely thought. But perhaps, in these recessionary, pound of flesh days, not a good time to be caught having a quiet zzzzz in she stationery cupboard.

Shame, because apparently a 15- minute snooze bucks you up no end and even cuts your risk of a heart attack.

You could try telling that to the boss.

Napping at work is not recommended if you are a brain surgeon, pilot, lorry driver or air traffic controller.

England cricketers and the House of Lords, however, already seem to have mastered it.

New technology hasn’t helped much. In the olden days when I was young and daft with a very interesting social life, the big old-fashioned typewriter in my office was just the right height, angle and solidity to put my head down for a quiet Monday morning recovery.

A computer keyboard isn’t half as comfortable, so I guess – yawn – I’ll just have to try and stay awake.

Wainwright's books are his memorial

TWO proposed statues are under discussion at the moment – one of Jade Goody on the London council estate where she grew up and the other of Alfred Wainwright in the centre of Kendal.

Wainwright’s family are said to be split over plans for the £80,000 statue, his nephew claiming that AW himself would have hated it.

Bermondsey council have apparently been besieged by requests for a statue of Jade and are said to be considering it.

Perhaps there is some justifications for a statue of Jade, for, without something to remind them, in ten or 20 years’ time, who will remember who she was or why she was famous?

Alfred Wainwright, conversely, needs no statue. As long as people are out walking on the high fells, following the route on his small chunky books of exquisitely drawn maps and directions, he will not be forgotten.

Every copy of his books is his memorial and every day inspired by them to be spent striding out in sunshine or plodding determinedly through the rain, is its own tribute to his memory.

So who needs a statue?

Life onscreen

GOSH it was, I admit, absolutely pathetic. Last week my computer was out of action for two whole days. Two days! I was lost. Utterly lost. I hadn’t realised quite how much I lived my life onscreen.

Work, of course, columns and books to write. Then there was a message for the boys... checking the exact location of a school I had to visit for work... Contacting other possible interviewees... train times... booking ferry tickets...

checking a quote... buying bras and second-hand books... reading Welsh newspapers... reading and writing emails... sending pictures...

paying bills… moving money around... and a host of other things that I do each day and hardly notice.

And I’ve never even bothered with Facebook or other such sites.

Yes, I know, everything I wanted to do, I could, of course, have done in the traditional way. But that would have taken me ten times as long.

In the end, driven to distraction, I replaced a light fitting in Senior Son’s room that had been broken for months, oiled the bathroom door where the squeak had been driving us demented and sorted out a bookcase. And finally finished Roy Hattersley’s very satisfying nice fat book about the Edwardians.

And then the lovely men from Mikom in Darlington repaired the computer so that it was even happier than it was before it broke.

Bliss. Once again I was in touch with the world. I even sang a happy little tune as I whizzed through the scores of accumulated – and mostly boring – emails.

My life was restored.

Just so long as we don’t get a power cut.

YET another teachers’ group – this time the Association of Teachers and Lecturers – has warned of the consequences of too many televisions in a home.

Growing numbers of children are starting school unable to hold a conversation because they spend so much time alone in front of a TV screen.

Young children do not need television in their bedrooms, says Dr Mary Bousted, the general secretary.

“Bedrooms should be where children sleep.”

She’s right.

Madonna and Malawi

MAYBE Madonna is doing it for all the right reasons.

Maybe she really wants to help a desperate child. Maybe she really wants a house full of children and to devote her days playing with them, enjoying the lovely messiness of toddlers, teaching them about the world and seeing it all again through their eyes, through a haze of sleeplessness and mashed banana and endless rereadings of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (“Again! Again!”) And the wonderful prospect of all those Parents’ Nights ahead of her.

Maybe.

But there was still something about her trip to Malawi with daughter Lourdes that smacked less of a mother yearning for another baby and more of someone out shopping for some more snappy accessories and photo opportunities. Let’s hope appearances are deceptive.