The biggest news for me this week was the passing of one of Britain's greatest comedians, John Inman, aged 71 years. John died of a hepatitis A related illness at 4 am on Thursday 4th March at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London. A Lancashire lad, born local to here - above his father's barber shop in Preston - his first steps onto the boards were in the play "Freda" on Blackpool's South Pier a year after the family relocated to to the resort. It was a performance for which, at the tender age of thirteen, he earned the princely sum of £5. It was also the beginning of a life-long romance with the town. John loved Blackpool, and it loved him too.

Always a treasured member of our "Kings of Camp" section of this AstaBGay website, John Inman is irreplaceable. And they are not only the feelings of this gay website for a fellow gay man, they are the feelings of the whole world. By not long after tea-time on the day of his death nineteen pages of tributes, coming from all over the world, were appearing on the BBC website, and the number continued to grow. It was just one of many websites carrying condolences, memories, and tributes to the man whose "I'm free!" has been voted the greatest catchphrase of all time. All that love, all that affection, was heartening to see - with so many of the people sending their condolences to his devastated life-partner, Ron Lynch.

Like Larry Grayson, John suffered for a while at the hands of a few misguided gay people, mostly in the eighties. They objected to his stereotypical performance of a gay man, and they complained it was detrimental to their fight for equality. But how wrong they were! And on all counts! Mr. Wilberforce Clayborne Humphries was so near to the real John Inman, it mattered not - and the public absolutely adored him. He, like Larry Grayson, did more to further the gay cause than these people will ever know - and it was all done without protest or demonstration. It was done by the love for the man, and with that love came the acceptance of what he was in sexual terms.

John Inman 1935 - 2007. A good man, a great comic, one of clean humour that came with just right amount of risqué - the double entendre - and also a charitable man who at his peak had 22 million of us eating out his hands and begging for more. A sad and great loss, and yet another bit of Britain that has gone but for the recordings which we shall cherish for countless decades to come. At this time our thoughts too are with Ron.

Moving on, I have found a story that perhaps deserves more publicity than it has received. As it involves the Tesco supermarket chain, I shall relate it here - for "every little helps", doesn't it?

It all started in November 2003 when a certain Mr Bond from Swindon visited a Tesco filling station and filled his Mercedes van with diesel. Shortly afterwards the van's engine started playing up, and he returned there to ask them if there was a fault with their fuel. They assured him there was nothing at all wrong with their diesel, but on his journey north to Scotland Mr Bond passed several pumps covered over because of "a technical problem". Fearing the worst, Mr Bond took his van to a Mercedes garage where they discovered water in the engine.

Subsequently Tesco admitted liability, but said it was only prepared to pay 25% of the cost of the repair to the engine. Mr Bond was not at all happy with this and, after several unsuccessful attempts to resolve the matter, he asked Withy King Solicitors to sue Tesco for the remaining 75% of the repair bill.

The court case that resulted on December 6th last year found in Mr Bond's favour, and Tesco were ordered to pay the man £2,690 by December 12th. This, we're told, they failed to do, but instead they did set a revised payment deadline - one which passed without any payment forthcoming. Fed up with being messed around with, Mr Bond complained to the High Court enforcement officers who duly proceeded to the nearest Tesco store (in Gloucester) and seized £60,000 of alcohol which, unless Tesco pay up, will be auctioned off to recoup the amount owing.

It's a heart-warming David and Goliath story, and which may yet produce a windfall of cheap booze for some people in the Gloucester area. We are constantly hearing stories of how the supermarkets ride roughshod over their suppliers, and at times even over the general public, so anything that goes towards putting these giants in their place is to be applauded. Some of them appear to have grown far too big for their boots - boots that we have bought for them.

£2,690 can be of little relevance to the supermarket chain, but it is probably quite a substantial sum to Mr Bond, so why did Tesco not immediately do the honourable thing and pay up once it was ordered to do so by the court? Does Tesco believe it is a law unto itself?

Tesco may be fast falling out of favour. Trading standards officers are said to be currently investigating Tesco. The company stands accused of confusing shoppers with its half-price promotion on fruit. On top of that it has just been forced to take out pages of advertising in several major newspapers to apologise to its customers for the more recent fault with its fuel, one which has affected many hundreds of motorists. It seems Tesco MAY be promising to pay repair costs for any cars damaged by their petrol, but in the light of Mr Bond's story I have to wonder if it actually will? And if it does so will that be all of the cost, or just a small percentage?

The statement issued by Tesco is reported as being: "We'd like to say how sorry we are. More to the point, we'd like to promise to pay for the repairs." Er . . . "We'd LIKE to . . ."? That's a bit ambiguous, isn't it? They would LIKE to say how sorry they were, and they would LIKE to promise to pay for repairs? Well then, why don't they ACTUALLY apologise and promise to pay, if they'd like to? After all: every little helps!

As some of us moan whilst trying to find the money to pay our council tax, a tax which on average is expected to rise by 4.2% this year and although that may be the second lowest hike since 1994-5 it is still way above the consumer price index inflation rate of just 2.7%, perhaps we should stop to consider where some of this money is going. The Taxpayers' Alliance claim it is being used to pay "fat cat" officials earning in excess of £100,000, and courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act the pressure group seem to have the figures to back them up.

Last year the number of local authority officials whose pay packets topped £100,000 rose by a staggering 35%. The top ten earners, with some of them being paid well over £200,000, received more money than we paid our Prime Minister. His salary was £186,429. We're told the total wage bill for the 230 councils across the UK that were checked in order to produce this data increased from £53 million in 2004-5 to £72 million in 2005-6.

Now, when you actually stop and digest those facts, do you, like me, begin to feel positively sick? Can you name one person on your council, or on any council, who is worth paying more than the Prime Minister? I can't, and my heart goes out to all the poor pensioners, the many thousands of them, who at the same time have had to decide whether to sacrifice keeping warm or to go without eating so that they could pay their council tax. Proud to be British? Not any more!

And whilst some of our councils' wage bills are spiralling out of control, are they becoming any better for it? Perhaps more compassionate? Listening more to people's needs? Well, I can tell you they don't appear to be doing so in Fylde!

A story today tells us council officials have threatened to prosecute a Blackpool pensioner, Arthur Bulmer aged 79 years, should he return the sand that blew into his garden during a recent storm to the beach from which it originated. Some of the roads and footpaths in St Anne's became covered in tons of sand, in places up to 20ft deep, following the storm, and Arthur who lives opposite the beach in St Anne's, Lancashire, received his share of it. However if he is found guilty of returning the sand to whence it came, he faces a fine of up to £50,000 or he could even go to jail.

Fylde borough council are reported as saying: "The council has no responsibility to clear sand from private land, the owner must do this. However, dumping anything from your garden on to the beach constitutes fly-tipping."

Tell me, please, and quite honestly, what worth would you put on the council person who came up with this in these circumstances? What would you pay them? To my mind we don't have a coin of a low enough denomination! They should be kicked out of office, put in stocks, and have that sand thrown in their face. It is time that we who pay these people demanded some common sense from them. To threaten a pensioner, a man of 79 years, with all that force of officialdom is despicable. The council stands ashamed!

It seems to be an unfortunate fact that common sense is only ever employed by common people. Once a person becomes elevated to office they tend to leave common sense behind them. For some it is a time for them to attempt to take on the role of Draco.

Perhaps they should read up on how Draco met his end!

Plato had a lot to say about politics:
"No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.";
"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.";
"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.";
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

And I wouldn't argue against any of them!

See you next week . . .

"The Bitch!" 9/03/07.

About the Author

"The Bitch!", a weekly UK News Review column, is hosted by the author and columnist Michael Knell. These articles appear on the Blackpool Gay Directory website, but are not specifically gay in content. More information on the author: http://www.michaelknell.com and on the directory: http://www.astabgay.com.