Bloke walking his Jack Russell in the country and he really fancies a pint. Comes to a pub and it says 'no dogs.' So he puts on a pair of sunglasses and wanders in, bumping into things on the way. The barman looks at him and says 'sorry mate, no dogs'. 'But he's a guide dog, I'm blind' says the bloke. Barman looks at the dog and says 'listen mate, that's not a guide dog. Guide dogs are labs or alsatians.' 'Why?' says the bloke 'what have they given me then?' Hat tip: Acker Bilk.
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Poor old Bob Crow. Or not. He's on £155k a year and he lives in what we used to call a council house but which is now referred to as 'social housing.'
Council houses used to be social. You could leave your door open all day and not get Eastern European squatters according to anyone over the age of 50. And thanks to organised crime, the streets were safe. No muggers in those days, you see.
But my point is that Bob Crow is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. If he buys a posh pad everyone says he's sold out and that's he's a champagne socialist or a bolly bolshevic. If he stays then he's depriving a genuinely poor family of a home.
Of course, as anyone with even the remotest of working class roots will know, the main aim for those growing up in a working class area is to do well enough to move to a better area. That's not forgetting your roots, that's called ambition. When someone like Alan Sugar does it, everyone admires him. When someone like Bob Crow does it, everyone slams him. I'm no pal of the fat lefty but what should he do?
Social mobility gets a good reputation when it's a billionaire. Eastender done good, Alan Sugar, became a committed Thatcherite and represented the social mobility of the new white collar class of the 1970s/80s. Though he then became a Blairite, Brownite and now he's probably either a Cameronite, Cleggite, Samsonite, Twilight or Gobshite for all I know.
I spent the first few months of my life in social housing - first a pub in Stoke then a two bedroomed council house, with my grandparents, in an estate in Stepney (which may well now be called Stepney Green Village in estate agent windows.)
As soon as they could afford to, my parents moved to what was then leafy Essex along with what seemed like several million other people from the East End. Ilford's not so leafy now but it was the height of ambition for many back then.
I can remember when I started school there. As the parents gathered at the gates to meet us coming out from our first day at Ilford Jewish Primary, the mums and dads were all chatting like long lost friends. Basically because many were. The conversations were on the lines of 'I remember you from Stepney Boys Club' or 'didn't we do the knowledge together in Bethnal Green' or 'didn't you extract protection money off me when you were working for the Kray Twins and I ran a nightclub in Mile End?'
Well maybe not the last one but there were lots of tales about run ins with gangsters, relatives who had fought the blackshirts in Cable Street or their dads had gone to Spain for the revolution back in the day. Nothing like a good punch up to bond old East Enders together. My grandad's Stepney neighbour, Charlie, had fought Franco in the Spanish revolution and, like many round there, would not go to Spain on holiday until Franco was dead.
There are those who. like Bob Crow, become very successful yet decide they are going to stay with 'their people' in the depressed part of town where they grew up. They think they are displaying some kind of loyalty or not selling out or some such admirable quality but they're not. Not really. Imagine it. You're living hand to mouth in a council flat with barely enough to cover your Sky subscription and next door is some geezer on £155,000 a year who was on Have I Got News For You? the other week (except you were watching a reality show about Kerry Katona). He would stick out a mile wouldn't he? Of course he could be an inspiration to the poor folk around him in their social housing and may encourage them to get out and look for work. Except that when they do get a job and try and turn up at the office on their first day, they're an hour late because there's a Tube strike.
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According to some research which I didn't write, men with two daughters are happier than everyone else. As they both read this, I have to say that I agree (otherwise they will make my life hell.)
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The trouble with Spurs is that we don't have managers who look like managers any more. Not since Keith Burkenshaw. I blame Gerry Francis. He looked like a cab driver with that mullet and shorts. Christian Gross looked like a bank manager, Glenn Hoddle like a vicar trying to look trendy, that bloke Santini was a geography teacher, you expected George Graham to suddenly try and sell you a dodgy car and Terry Venables was the bloke he worked for back at the dealership, smoking a cigar and wearing a camelhair coat with suede collars. Ossie Ardiles was their fixer and Martin Jol their enforcer. And Harry was the Mr Big controlling the operation. Kenny Dalgish looks like a manager. Managers should look old, like they've been around a bit. Or gone to fat. In the past, there were more managers who didn't have much hair, their cheeks were rosy from boardroom whisky and they wore a tracksuit long after anyone else their age should in any other walk of like. Sir Alf, Revie, Cloughie, Bertie Mee, 'Sir' Billy Nick, Shankly, Paisley, Jock Stein, even Don Howe and Doug Saunders.
Bring back old, bald, managers in track suits. Not bookish dons wearing Paul Smith. And let them smoke in the dugout. You'd be able to tell how much they care by how many fags they get through in 90 minutes.
And don't get them to stand in front of those stupid sponsorship boards. I can remember as a 16-year-old covering Wimbledon v Bradford in the fourth division for a press agency called Hayters as a Saturday job. Dario Gradi was the Dons' manager. There were two reporters and me - who set the phones up for them and filed copy from a local phone box when the fixed lines didn't work. Gradi took us all to the players' bar for the post match press conference (it was a 2-2 draw.) And he paid for the drinks. That's class.
Cheers all....Solly
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