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The in-fluence crowd
ANOTHER Newspaper,
shall we say, is preparing a
list of 500 of the North-
East's "most influential"
people and - a salute to
their even handedness -
has asked me for a very potted autobiography.
Influence upon the ancient art of
phrase turning, perhaps? On the sale of
long-word dictionaries? On the development
of a candle that, incorrigibly and
inextinguishably, burns at both ends?
Actually, they insist, it's more to do
with the Northern League - football, understand
- and it's flattering to have that
acknowledgement, too.
It is only to be hoped that the list appears
alphabetically and not in order of
merit. In a top 500 of the great and the
goodish, it would still be anticlimactic to
be 499th.
WERE there to be a top ten of the
region's most influential, who'd
be on the honoured list?
For this purpose we'd best burn bridges
at the Tees, thus eliminating Dr John Sentamu
and Mr William Hague - was he really
any relation, incidentally, to Iron
Hague, the early-20th Century pugilist
who came from the same town in south
Yorkshire?
Were there a vote for the North-East's
most respected figure, the winner would
undoubtedly be Sir Bobby Robson, even
among those who've never had the great
privilege of meeting him. It's not a particularly
long word, but if ever a man defined
indomitability, it's Sir Bobby.
Among the most influential, quite a few
- David Miliband, the present Bishop of
Durham, Niall Quinn and sundry other
football fellers - clamour for automatic
inclusion.
The column's own list would certainly
include Kip Watson, the former teacher
from Sunderland who helped form the
country's first Over 40s football league,
who is responsible for thousands of men
retaining fitness into middle-age and
who, at 90, remains the league's daily inspiration.
It would include the guy responsible for
Arriva buses in the North-East - influential
in a pejorative sense - for failing to
maintain a respectable fleet (the same
goes for Arriva's local train services) and
for recruiting a few drivers who aren't fit
to drive a midden cart.
As of last Friday, the list would also
include Becky Brunskill, the 20-
year-old politics student who,
standing as a Conservative,
topped the county council
election poll in Willington,
a former Co Durham colliery
town where hitherto
Labour votes had
been counted on a
weighbridge.
Denise Robertson,
who reaches so many
and who was recently
granted the freedom of
her native Sunderland,
would be up there, too.
Also demanding
consideration would
be Mr Duncan Bannatyne,
who appears
to have struck gold
since the days when we
reported his hobby of collecting
matchbox labels, the
guy who is the real brains
behind the regeneration of
Newcastle/Gateshead and Terry Laybourne,
deservedly made MBE for his
work in revitalising eating out hereabout.
What, too, of Tyne Tees Television meteorologist
Bob Johnson, whose forecasts
so greatly influence the North-East's outlook,
and of Carol Malia, on the other
side, reckoned greatly to cheer the region's
menfolk.
Under the influence or otherwise,
readers may have
suggestions of
their own.
AMONG the many things which Arngrove
Northern League colleagues find
hard to understand about their chairman
is my frequent preference for travelling
by public transport when a lift is
available.
Thus on Monday morning, by train to
the Ernest Armstrong Cup final between
Esh Winning and Sunderland RCA. It
was played at Ryton, just a mile and a
half from Wylam's lovely little station.
Ernest was league president, MP for
NW Durham and a former vice-president
of the Methodist Conference. The closest
he ever came to swearing was "blighter".
The kick was off at 11am, the journey
via the 8.44 from Darlington to Newcastle.
A vacuous gang just up the carriage
had a ghetto blaster - or whatever it is
they're called these days - intrusively
playing a "song" which appeared almost
exclusively to consist of four-letter
words.
Around Ferryhill, a
middle-aged lady
marched up and
told them to turn
the thing down.
"That's the
second time,"
she said, "there
won't be a
third."
Clearly she
was a school
teacher. Would
that we had
two dozen
referees like
her.
BY no means alone, Richmond is
having problems sustaining its
markets, both indoors and out.
The Echo reported last week the results
of a consultant's survey into the
problem.
"One idea," we said, "is to create a café
with toilets in the indoor market hall,
with fixed stalls along one or both sides,
at a cost of £340,000."
The report is noted with some alarm
by Mike Porter, who himself lives in
Richmond. "I prefer a bit of privacy, but
if they're on the wall just inside the market
hall it might be handy for us older
folk."
Mind, adds Mike, they're going to have
to spend an awful lot of pennies to recoup
£340,000.
WITH thanks to Chris Willsden in
Darlington, we again have the
results of what the Washington
Post calls its Mensa Invitational - Inspirational
might be better - in which readers
are invited to take any word from the
dictionary and redefine it by adding, subtracting
or changing one letter.
Forget DC, Washington clearly works
on Alternative Current. Many of the
winners, like Beelzebug, are brilliant. A
Beelzebug is "Satan in the form of a mosquito,
that gets into your bedroom at
three in the morning and cannot be cast
out."
"Sarchasm" is defined as "the gulf between
the author of sarcastic wit and the
person who doesn't get it"; "cashtration"
as "the act of buying a house which renders
the subject financially impotent for
an indefinite period of time."
"Foreploy" is a misrepresentation
about yourself for the purpose of getting
laid, "glibido" - much the same context
- is all talk and no action. "Reintarnation"
- get this - is coming back to earth
as a hillbilly.
An ignoranus is someone who's both
stupid and an asshole. Washington Post
readers clearly aren't.
WHAT kind of word games have affected
the postcard - spotted in his local
paper shop window by Paul Dobson in
Bishop Auckland - for a "full spenchin
boys bike." Paul supposes that it must
be "full suspension." We're hanging on
for further theories.
and finally, David Kelly in Mickleton,
Teesdale, finds beneath his carpet (as
you do) a copy of the Echo from 21 years
ago.
As is to suggest that there really is
nothing new under the sun, there's a
paragraph that Middleton-in-Teesdale
parish council - then as now - was urging
the retention of the ambulance service
in the upper dale.
The council, however, had rejected an
offer from the Central Electricity Generating
Board of a video explaining the
implications of the Chernobyl disaster.
More than two decades later, however,
the Chernobyl Children's Project
(Teesdale) held a fund raising fun day
and car boot sale only last weekend.
Good on them.
1:43pm Wednesday 7th May 2008
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