Now Bob Crow is not everyone's cup of Earl Grey but he's just secured a deal for tube drivers that could mean they are on a whack of £52k a year within four years.
In actual fact, there's a good chance they'll be on about £45k I reckon because inflation won't stay sky high for that long.
But the point is, by doing this he has instantly made himself the most unpopular man in the country...unless you're a tube driver.
And that's where he should receive some praise. Because what he's done is exactly what his job description says he should do and he's done it better than anyone else in his industry.
I'm not his greatest fan. I've been getting the tube every day for the last 20 years or so and I could fill a book with the problems I've encountered.
But his job is getting the best deal for his union members and, by heck, he ain't half done well.
Put it this way, if he was a football manager, then what he's achieved would be like winning the league. If he was a banker he'd be on a seven figure bonus. If he was a banker he'd be more responsible for bringing the economy to its knees than the leader of a rail workers' union, that's for sure.
Union leaders may be despised but it's the ones who do well - in their world, not necessarily yours - that are despised most of all.
This isn't to say he's a nice bloke, a great guy or even the sort of person you'd want running the local whelk stall but if you are/were in a union, by God you'd want someone like him representing you.
If the printers, the miners or even journalists had ever had a leader half as efficient, a lot more people wouldn't be in the mess they're in.
I feel almost guilty defending the big lump, but however much you hate him, in getting this deal for tube drivers, he has done exactly what it says on his tin.
There will be a lot of fuss made about the fact there isn't a 'no strike' deal. I'm not so sure. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of agreement under the table that ensures the drivers forfeit some of their deal should they go on strike.
Of course this would make Crow a lot more popular with the travelling public but not with his union members - and you know which set he values more highly.
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I've said it before and I maintain it's still true - most people couldn't give a damn if their household refuse was collected weekly. The advent of wheelie bins and alternatve weeks collecting recyclable waste and household rubbish - with garden and food scraps collected weekly - actually suits most people.
But for some reason Eric Pickles thinks it is so paramount in these days of trying to save money that he's allocating a staggering £250 million to a weekly collection nationwide, just so he can please Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre.
Now £250,000,000 can buy a lot of things. It can secure contracts for British companies over German ones, for instance. It can create jobs, though that's not really a Tory thing is it.
It could be used to stop the cuts in services far more vital than refuse collection. It could even do something radical like go to the NHS.
There was an episode of The Simpsons where Homer gets elected to the local council in charge of rubbish and ensures a fleet of white suited operatives who came round almost every day and emptied peoples bins into shiny new lorries.
Pretty soon the town went bust and had to charge other states to dump their rubbish in Springfield until it was so full of rubbish they had to pick up the whole town and move it.
Pickles, the government's version of Comic Book Guy in so many ways, is the rubbish commissar (again, in so many ways). Meanwhile Boris Johnson could be Mayor Quimby. After all, he likes quoting Homer.
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The Godfather was, as we all know, a great, great film. Arguably the second film was better, but nonetheless, the original is iconic for a variety of reasons.
So what better way to celebrate a marvellous account of racketeers, cold blooded murderers, violent criminals and animal slaughterers than to name a meal deal by KFC after it.
We already have Goodfellas pizzas, in case you want a topping inspired by a gang of Italian mobsters who liked to shoot waiters and grass up their mates to policemen they had previously bribed, then away you go.
Now, if if you want a bucket of something that claims to be chicken, named in honour of a film whose most famous scene was a hacked off horse's head in a music agent's bed, then trot down to KFC.
Where will it end? The Borgia Beanburger? The Charles Manson Milkshake? BK's Attila the Hun in a Bun?
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The two sides of Essex. In the morning as I walked through Loughton High Street, there was a gaggle of paparazzi style photographers around my local newsagent. Or so I thought. Actually they were outside the underwear shop next door where some pear shaped tart from The Only Way Is Essex was buying underwear. Apparently this is big news for the Mail Online.
Later that day I turned on the TV to see The Culture Show. In the few minutes before the kids made me turn over to Family Guy or South Park or whatever, I saw a report on a fabulous looking new art gallery.
It was funky enough to be in Bilbao or New York but, it turned out, it is in Colchester. Britain's oldest city has had little going for it for many years, what with its sterile shopping centre and army barracks.
But now it genuinely has a good reason for going for anyone with even a passing interest in art.
It's a revolutionary building - look up Firstsite, Colchester - and I truly hope the locals can tear themselves away from TOWIE long enough to try it out.
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By the time you read this, we'll know if Amanda 'Foxy' Knox is determined to be guilty or not of the murder of Meredith Kercher, whose father used to be quite a well known journalist among Fleet Street's veterans.
I have no idea whether or not she is guilty. I've read the statements from over-excited Italian lawyers playing for the cameras. I've read numerous columnists chipping in with their five cents' worth.
And I've heard people on the tube declaring with an amazing amount of certainty that she's guilty/innocent (depends which carriage you're on.)
Well, I don't know. And you know what, neither does anyone else with any certainly apart from one or possibly two, people in the world. So let's stop pretending we're Perry Mason and let the experts do it, eh?
Blog adjourned....Solly
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