Express & Star

Mark Andrews on Saturday: Tyre-some offers, a tier-some approach to football, and a load of meatballs

Read the latest musings from Mark Andrews.

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Haggards and paes, mucka?

Never mind Christmas being cancelled, it looks like the BBC has now abolished the Black Country's favourite dish.

Bosses at Radio 1 have decided to rewrite the words to The Pogues' somewhat over-rated Christmas song, replacing the word 'faggot' with the more politically correct 'haggard'.

This is an offal decision. Who is going to go into the butchers and ask for 'haggards and gray paes, please, mucka'?

According to consumer organisation Which?, many Black Friday deals are not all they seem. It highlighted a coffee machine in John Lewis, which had been 'on offer' for £1,285, despite costing less than £1,200 in May and June.

Just who in their right mind pays £1,200 for coffee maker? Any Black Country mon knows you can get a jar of very good instant from a popular supermarket chain for two quid, enough to make 111 cups. And the only 'coffee machine' you need is a kettle.

My favourite Black Friday offer, though, comes from a national fast-fit centre offering discounted tyres in time for Christmas.

Imagine Christmas morning, as the presents are unwrapped.

"You know I couldn't get to the shops, love, what with the lockdown, so I got you a couple of Pirellis instead. Oh, and here's a lovely set of brake pads for the kids."

And as the lockdown measures are finally eased this week, a limited number of football fans will be allowed to return – if they support the right clubs.

While the clubs in the Big Smoke and Merseyside – and we all saw how responsible the Scousers were in the summer – welcome their supporters back, there will be no such respite for Villa, Wolves, Albion or Walsall.

If ever there is an example of where it was inappropriate to implement a tiered system, this is surely it.

Suppose, for argument's sake, one of Villa, Wolves or Albion found themselves in a relegation scrap at the end of the season. Pessimistic, maybe, but I'm a Villa fan and used to thinking that way.

And suppose that scrap also involved maybe Fulham, Crystal Palace, West Ham or Brighton. While the Midland clubs could be forced to play all their home games in soul-less, silent stadia, the southern ones may well have been cheered on by friendly supporters for most of the season. It's hardly a level playing field.

The same could equally be true if one of our clubs is in the running for a European spot.

Disputes about VAR are nothing to the injustices this could unleash.

I'm A Celebrity – crime scene

And now for some good news. Crime levels in North Wales are so low that the Old Bill has the resources to focus on the real issues, like the type of species used in I'm A Celebrity bush-tucker trials.

The local constabulary has deployed its 'Rural Crime Team' to investigate reports that non-native spiders, worms, cockroaches and maggots were used in the stunts.

Look, it's one thing taking a tough line on illegal migration, but isn't this going a bit far?

The real crime is what passes for prime-time entertainment these days. Showering has-been minor celebrities with creepy crawlies was mildly funny about 18 years ago. It isn't now.

It also looks like they are running out of Z-listers to fill up these shows. They've never attracted the cream of the crop, but at least we knew who Nigel Benn, Phil Tufnell and Tony Blackburn were.

One of the more obscure channels is about to launch a new series of something called Celebs Go Dating –and the biggest name they have found is Gary Lineker's brother.