Alive and kicking after your own funeral

"HE looked like he'd been hit in the face with a wok." Disgruntled customer at a ladies-only night in Llanelli where the unappealing male stripper was booed off the stage.

OXYMORONS of our time: Ladies-only night.

NICK Clegg is warning that if folk vote for Ukip in the May EU elections, our economy will suffer. If any of these Euro-warnings ring a bell it may be because we Brits remember that late, unlamented exercise in federation-building, the West Midlands County Council. It brought together the councils of the region and existed from 1974-86 during which time it spent an awful lot of money and made very few friends. When its abolition was proposed, I recall all sorts of dire warnings for the future. Yet the sky did not fall in. No-one misses the WMCC and today's councils in the West Midlands find it perfectly possible to manage their patches but to co-operate with neighbouring councils when the need arises. Federations rise and fall but the desire of people to run their own affairs goes on for ever.

THIS year marks the beginning of the commemoration of the First World War. Prepare for a creeping barrage of commemoration, comment and endless re-examination. But I guarantee nothing you see in 2014 will capture the black humour of the Tommies of 1914-18 better than John Jackson's tale of being buried alive by German shells. It's in his memoir, Private 12768, which was written in 1926 and published 80 years later. Jackson describes how the shells came ever closer until two dugouts full of British soldiers were obliterated by direct hits. Miraculously, all the Tommies survived and dug themselves out. As he puts it: "What lucky lads we were. Fourteen buried and all alive and kicking at the end of the funeral."

JACKSON'S words reminded me of my grandfather's war diary for 1919. He was with the Army of Occupation in Germany and had been gassed a few months earlier. A sudden dose of pneumonia almost killed him. Or as he recorded dryly: "That was when I nearly became a German landowner."

WHILE it's good to see First World War commemorative coins being produced by the Royal Mint, what on earth have they done to Lord Kitchener? The feature everyone noticed, apart from Kitchener's moustache, was his fierce squint. On the coin his eyes stare straight ahead, ocularly corrected for posterity. Kitchener without a squint is like Cromwell without the warts.

NICK Harvey, Lib-Dem MP for North Devon says because police can't be bothered to enforce the law banning hunting, country folk may disregard other rules. He says: "You wonder what sort of message this sends to them about drink-driving and other laws." I can believe it. If people are allowed to break little laws, there is a natural tendency to think they can break bigger laws. Our high street is regularly used by two Range Rovers, each with number plates which have been blatantly tampered with to spell the owner's name. It's a £60 offence but the police seem to ignore it. During the sales, those two vehicles were parked on the zig-zags, hiding the pedestrian crossing. When people think they are untouchable they tend to do the unthinkable.

AND a special New Year wassail to Ruth Goodman, presenter of Tudor Monastery Farm (BBC2) a series which recreates rural life as it was in the 1500s, warts, warlocks and all. One moment they're all merrily carolling and the next (I bet this scene brought complaints) they're carving and twisting the head off a slaughtered pig. This is history in the raw, so authentic you can almost smell it. Goodman must be the only female presenter on television to face the cameras without even a dash of make-up. What a pro.