SPECTATOR, who wrote about hedgehogs last week, today turns his attention to squirrels and electricity poles.

A two-paragraph item in a regional daily newspaper records quite correctly how squirrels have been leaping on to wooden pylons, mistaking them for trees, electrocuting themselves by touching live wires and cutting off power supplies to neighbouring communities into the bargain.

East Midlands Electricity engineers described in the report as ingenious are said to be fitting "rubber boots" to the tops of poles in problem areas to save squirrels' lives and keep supplies flowing.

Ingenious? As a complete layman, Spectator stands open to correction and admittedly is now commenting with the benefit of illuminating hindsight but, short of coating poles with anti-squirrel grease, he humbly believes this should have been the obvious remedy to anybody familiar with the lethal propensities of a high-voltage overhead line. Why wasn't it thought of before now?

In this case, Spectator must stress that he has a deep personal interest, for he hopes that the new measure will quickly be adopted by his local distribution company, NEDL.

One of its poles only a few yards from his home, in someone else's garden, has twice been treated as an assault course by misguided and unfortunately frazzled squirrels, resulting in complete disruption of both domestic and professional power supplies, not to mention those of unsuspecting neighbours.

Red peril

SPECTATOR would never claim to be all-powerful in world, regional or even local events but there's got to be a limit and we've almost reached it.

The last time he passed by, in the gathering dusk on Sunday, there was still a place between Richmond and Darlington called "SCOTCH CORN TEL".

It was first mentioned here, more in a spirit of robust advice than of destructive criticism, four weeks ago. Just what does it take, short of naming and shaming and given the apparent clout of the organisation now running the establishment, to sort out that glaringly defective red neon sign on one wall of the well-known Scotch Corner Hotel?

Or could it just be that nobody cares about external standards any more?

Not only is the fault deflating like a punctured football the noble image of a well-known travellers' sanctuary where people like the actor George C Scott and leading Russian ballet dancers have laid their weary heads, it must be raising more than a few eyebrows among knowledgeable motorists who have seen better days from their vantage point on the A1.

By the time you read this, though, it could have been fixed and, true to the principles he outlined previously, when that happens, Spectator and companion will call in for Sunday lunch on their weekly travels. And that's a promise.

Discount expected, of course, for advice rendered.