Laying a Cable

I know there's a theory that we all start to look like our dogs, and that Jewish men marry women who then turn into his mother but did you see the pictures of Mrs Vince Cable dealing with reporters outside the family home this week? Blimey, it's Vince in a wig. The likeness is uncanny.
The papers helpfully described the house as a semi in Twickenham - which is what posh blokes usually get when turning up for corporate hospitality at the rugby. Boom boom.
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Apparently - and I didn't know this - if there is an accident in rehearsal for a Broadway show, the insurance companies only pay out once the show has opened (ie - after press night.)
So if dozens of the cast get killed as it builds up to the opening night, then tough. Anyone in the current Spider-man production had better watch out then.
You've gotta love them insurance companies.
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Metro, the free newspaper, printed a letter this morning from 'Ben, Manchester' who simply said: 'Merry Christmas to my favourite newspaper.'
Now, either this was a made up letter (and as someone who used to make up letters for the Sunday Sport then I can empathise), or it was from someone who genuinely wants to wish a newspaper Merry Christmas.
Sorry Ben, but if that's the case, you're mental.
It does remind me of the time that The Daily Star had its tenth anniversary and Kelvin Mackenzie sent them a letter saying: 'Happy 10th birthday to the Daily Star, a year for each of its readers.'
The Star printed the letter minus the last few words and made it the £10 Prize Letter though I'm pretty sure Kelvin rang up to complain that he never got his tenner.
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I didn't 'do' Christmas when I was growing up, and it's only since I've had kids that we've gone full pelt for the tree and presents and everything.
So I was always one of the first to volunteer to do the Christmas Day shift at The Sun when I was a freelance casual (that's a reporter who does shifts, not a football hooligan in an expensive track suit).
It was a good gig. You'd get double your money, you could go to the pub at lunchtime, do overtime and have very little to write. As long as the night news editor wasn't Barrie Mattei, who used to try and win our shift money back off us in a game of late night poker, then you came out of it quids in.
I think the most challenging thing I ever had to do was go to the Docklands home of Bros (Luke Goss and his brother whose name escapes me), chat to some of the fans who had camped outside in the hope of seeing the heart-throbs and get a token quote from the boys. They were fine, gave me five minutes, posed for a picture with a couple of female fans and that was it.
Happy days - Solly