Express & Star

Allotment too big for you?

PETER RHODES on a row among the potting sheds, standing up to authority and the security guards who silenced a nuisance

Published

SOME parents, according to reports this week, are turning to Game of Thrones as the inspiration for their newborn children's names. It is a Great British Freedom to be able to give your kid whatever moniker you fancy. But do remember that at some stage in the future you will be heard shouting it the length of a supermarket: "Put them bleedin' crisps down, Khaleesi!"

A READER took my advice to make a stand against the idiocy of officialdom. A relative died and he phoned TV Licensing to arrange cancellation and refund of the deceased's TV licence. After the usual button-pushing, automatic-response nonsense, he was connected to a human being who said he must write a letter explaining the circumstances of the death and enclose a copy of the licence. He drew a deep breath, kept his temper and made the point that many licence holders pass away every day and surely it is bonkers to expect the relatives to write in. He takes up the story: "Just seconds later the operator confirmed the licence was now cancelled and a (substantial) refund would be posted forthwith. Job done. But how many callers accept this silly instruction and take the trouble to write a personal letter. And how many more would shrug and do no more about it, effectively bequeathing the unused money to the BBC ?" Tut, tut. Such cynicism.

ISN'T it odd, the things that can start a row? Charlie Dimmock, the TV gardener, merely suggests some allotments are too big for the average couple to manage. She is howled down for her "random thought" by the National Allotments Society which points out that the common 300 square yard allotment, dating back to Victorian times, is specifically designed to feed a family of four for a year. This size is apparently sacred and inviolable. But why? Many allotment holders are retired or have no family. Some find the full-size allotment too much to cope with. Others are desperate for any scrap of land. And I bet all over England thousands of allotments are already informally divided between friends and relations. All Dimmock is suggesting is that when some allotments become vacant, they should be divided into four, just to see what the demand is. The reaction from the allotments establishment proves once again that nothing matters more to the English than their hobbies.

DID you notice how the word "brassiere" appeared nowhere in the above item?

A FEW days ago I dismissed the NHS European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) as useless. As night follows day, a number of you have been in touch to say they found it useful. Perhaps the best advice is always to carry one but never to rely on it.

WELL done, the security staff at Dublin Airport who confiscated a three-year-old boy's plastic toy on the grounds that it had a trigger and looked a bit like a weapon. In truth, it didn't look anything like a weapon. But this £25 "Fart Blaster" which emits noisy bursts of electronic raspberries, looked exactly like the sort of device a three-year-old could use to make a damn nuisance of himself throughout the flight back to England. The word "security" may have been misused on this occasion but anything that saves passengers from noisy, over-indulged children is fine by me.

IN fact, would it be entirely unreasonable to have all children under five put in the baggage hold?

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