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| The Mekon first appeared in the The Eagle comic and was arch enemy of hero Dan Dare |
JOHN Prescott's at it again. His
memoirs, serialised in the Sunday
Times, not only scourge
usual suspects and sanitise
others but have a go at David
Miliband, Foreign Secretary and MP for
South Shields.
Miliband, says JP, was "one of the No
10 Mekons" - and though The Mekon has
proved remarkably durable, there will
still have been many on Sunday morning
who'd no idea (and perhaps not for
the first time) what on earth the former
deputy prime minister was talking
about.
The little green monster materialised
in 1950 in the first issue of a comic called
The Eagle - price threepence - as the
arch enemy of Dan Dare, sub-titled Pilot
of the Future.
The Mekon, says a website, was "created
by scientific experimentation, engineered
to a very high intelligence".
You can see what Prezza means, mind.
He dressed in something akin to surgical
scrubs, a cross between an impatient
toddler on a poe and a Subbuteo
player on his hunkers. He was fearsome
for all that; not for nothing was he absolute
dictator of the Treens.
The first politician to be nicknamed
The Mekon was Angus Maude, a Tory
cabinet minister in the early 1980s. Iain
Duncan Smith and the cerebral Mr
William Hague were hoist by the same
sobriquet.
Suspended in space and time, the
Treen machine is still believed to be
awaiting his moment. Dare to read on.
THE Eagle was launched by the
Reverend Marcus Morris, concerned
at the effects of American
horror comics upon gullible young
males. Three other comics soon followed:
Girl, Swift - for younger children
- and Robin, for fledglings.
Dan Dare also appeared nightly for
five years on Radio Luxembourg and, as
perhaps might be expected, has taken off
regularly since.
Kenny Everett's Captain Kremmen
was said to have been modelled on Dare,
The Times had a strip called Dan Blair
and Private Eye ran for several years a
cartoon in which Dare was identified as
Neil Kinnock, Pigby as Roy Hattersley
and The Maggon probably needs no
explanation.
He was said to have been modelled on
Frank Hampson, the artist. His lieutenant
was the ever-loyal, if somewhat
dreamy, Albert William Digby - who had
an Aunt Anastasia, after whom Dare's
spacecraft was named. His sidekick was
"Flamer" Spry.
The Eagle also had characters like
Harris Tweed, Luck of the Legion and
PC49, a sort of pen and ink Dixon of
Dock Green.
The Mekon was a bad beggar, though.
He lived on Treen - the northern hemisphere
of the planet Venus - his head
swollen to accommodate his massive if
wholly malignant brain.
In some strips he sought personal revenge
on dear old Dan. "For a being supposedly
without emotion," someone
once wrote, "he could be surprisingly
impulsive."
Whether or not the Foreign Secretary
would have approved, we are unfortunately
not able to say.
WE happened to be in South Shields last
sunblessed Saturday - a bit dig around
the Roman fort followed by lunch at Colman's
fish and chip emporium, about
which agreeable experience much more
in next week's Eating Owt column.
Mekon Miliband is several times featured
on the restaurant walls, too. Tony
Blair's visit is also commemorated, the
old boy grinning like a guppy fish.
South Shields wasn't thus named at
the time of the Roman occupation, of
course. The word "schele" - and not
many people may know this - is Anglo-
Saxon for a shed or hut used temporarily
in the summer.
The "scheles" offered homes to castoff
fishermen. There were some on the
opposite bank of the Tyne, an' all.
WHICH brings us neatly to Mr
David Walsh, and something
else that few may hitherto have
realised.
David, former leader of Redcar and
Cleveland council, is a regular and much
appreciated correspondent hereabouts.
On Saturday, however, he wrote to The
Guardian in response to a proposal to
create an "Angel of the South" near Ebbsfleet,
in Kent.
The early favourite is a "White horse"
sculpture - at £2m twice as expensive as
Mr Antony Gormley's Gateshead creation
and at 50m, twice as high.
The white horse idea is said to have
been inspired by the Saxon invaders
Hengist and Horsa when they landed in
Kent.
It reminded David of long-gone schooldays,
when he asked a favourite teacher
what HORSA huts - well remembered,
little explained - might be.
The teacher said they were so named
because it was beneath that very spot
that Horsa fought his first battle on English
soil.
It was only much later that David
learned it was an acronym for Huts Ordered
(for the) Raising of the School Age,
at the time from 14 to 15. Some of us
only learned it four days ago.
SATURDAY'S Guardian also carried
a piece on the growth of the
obituary poem, used in classified
ads in local newspapers. Though more
personalised funerals are a welcome
idea, the poem is something which the
Echo appears largely to have
ignored.
Many years ago, however, there was a
memorable In Memoriam to illustrate
potential pitfalls
So soon to go
So young to die
We often wonder
But God knows why.
EVER-VIGILANT, Janet
Murrell in Durham is puzzled
by the location map
for her nearest Tesco, to the
north of the city.
Somehow, Durham has acquired
a Scully Park - which
according to Google is either
in Tamworth (home of West
Tamworth Lions rugby
league club) or Illinois but -
unless it's today's special
offer - definitely not
Durham.
"What's more worrying,"
adds Janet, "is that Tesco is
in the wrong place, too."
ANOTHER sharp-eyed reader
wants to compliment Poundland
- transferred last weekend
to the former Dresser's bookshop on
Darlington High Row - on the almostcorrect
use of the apostrophe in
"Everything's £1." The little blighter's
in the right place; just a pity it's upside
down.
Apologies, however, to the anonymous
reader who seeks translation of
the Echo paragraph beginning: "There
are clearly operational synergies between
the two companies." I've no
idea what it means either.
and finally, last week's news that a
multi-million hotel and spa complex is
to be built for training purposes by Darlington
College offered the chance of a
little further education.
It will include a modern bar serving
specialist coffee "to develop students'
barista skills".
Learned friends will appreciate that
this has nothing to do with barristersat-
law. Barista, plural baristi, is an Italian
word meaning bartender but now
generally used to indicate expertise -
proficiency, anyway - in the preparation
of espresso-based coffee.
There's even a world barista championship,
in which Simon Robertson
from Malton was eighth last year. It's
all very commendable, but an internet
search may reveal the real grounds for
the skills shortage in the catering
industry.
A barista earns about the same as a
kitchen porter, and that's coppers
above the minimum wage. As no doubt
they say at Darlington College, you
learn something every day.
1:14pm Wednesday 14th May 2008
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