Jane Wenham-Jones's Blog, page 13

Plain Jane 200314: I don’t like to complain but…

YOU know me, dear readers, I don’t like to complain – a regular little Pollyanna here, we are – but things have been, how shall we say, a little tricky of late.

Just one of those phases – we all have them – in which whatever murky corner of one’s life one peers into, one finds a small crisis brewing (or pouring through the ceiling, refusing to start, falling down, not turning up or having a face on).

Nothing life-threatening, not the sort of catastrophes (unfortunately) where one is so overtaken by the trauma of it all that one can’t eat.

More the kind where one has an over-whelming urge to self-medicate with wine and crisps and then spends too long in the pub.

Not the best possible preparation for an evening in which one is to stand abreast of a famous ballerina.

The beautiful and enviably slender Darcey Bussell CBE was the star celebrity at this year’s RoNAs – Romantic Novel of the Year Awards.

I was wielding the microphone and reading out the shortlists. Darcey was doing the envelopes and “the winner is” bit. She was gorgeous, funny and fabulous.

The whole evening was fabulous. The champagne flowed, the room was bathed in love, romance, and hysterics at Helen Fielding (awarded an Outstanding Achievement Award for bringing the world Bridget Jones) and heartfelt appreciation of the general amazing fabulousness.

Post-prizes – Veronica Henry won overall – I drifted about in my floaty, floor-length sequinned frock, feeling that light joy you get from too many anti-histamine tablets (how else to get through without blowing my nose? I had a cold brewing) mixed with pink fizz, congratulating myself on only mispronouncing the one name this year (sorry Ali McNamara!) and generally feeling the smug glow of a job well done (particularly as I’d managed to trip over the floaty sequins on the way in and drop my notes, thus spending most of the proceedings largely unaware of the running order).

Then I saw the photos. “Oh My God,” I wailed to my agent, The Fearsome One, who took me out to lunch the next day to demand to know why I still hadn’t written the novel I promised two years ago. “Why didn’t I do the exercises on my arms?”

This was her cue to tell me my arms were fine and did not in fact stand out in the pictures like two white slugs in the face of Darcey B’s poise and elegance.

TFO glared. “Well it all takes time, doesn’t it,” she said. “Do we know how sales of the Flab book are going?” My recent work – a meticulously researched tome on weight control with chocolate – contains an entire section on the value of the well-toned tricep.

It also extols the virtues of a well-judged fake tan. I hadn’t remembered to get one of those done either.

I attempted to lighten the mood by listing various people whose sad demise had come before their time. Clarissa Dickson Wright, the last of the two fat ladies, believed that the rise in prozac prescriptions was in direct proportions to the reduction in the consumption of animal fat, I told my companion. “Exactly,” said TFO sternly. “Carpe Diem! Live each day to the full,” she added, by way of translation “Why haven’t you written that novel?”

JANE will be presenting the Love, Life and Laughter charity show (probably wearing long sleeves) tomorrow night (Saturday, March 22) at 7.30pm at the Sarah Thorne Memorial Theatre, Broadstairs, in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. Tickets £10 from the box office on 0845 2626263.

Read the original article at: http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Plain-Jane-don-t-like-complain/story-20832826-detail/story.html

Filed under: articles, Isle of Thanet Gazette, Plain Jane, RNA, romance, writing Tagged: author, blogging, books, Bridget Jones, characters, creative writing, Darcey Bussell, ebooks, Helen Fielding, isle of thanet, Isle of Thanet Gazette, Jane Wenham-Jones, journalist, Kent, literature, Morgan Bailey, Morgen Bailey, non-fiction, novelist, novels, Plain Jane, speaker, story author, story authors, Thanet, TV applications, TV show, Veronica Henry, Wannabe, Wannabe a Writer, WordPress, writing, writing magazines, writing TV show

Plain Jane 200214: Who is worthy of NHS treatment?

SIR Andrew Dillon, the pleasant-sounding head of Nice (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence), is expressing doubts about taking “wider societal benefit” into account, when deciding who can have their drugs paid for.

Sir Andrew said such a Government suggestion made him “uncomfortable”.

He was “really concerned” at the thought that a middle-aged man with a job might be deemed more worthy of expensive treatment than a very old one who was retired.

Come, come, sir, don’t be fainthearted.

It could save us a fortune! Clearly those without work are a drain on society and don’t deserve a thing. What’s that you say about being a wonderful mother and doing voluntary work?

Oh all right then. She can have antibiotics for her throat infection, but I really don’t see how she needs her veins done.

And let’s not stop at the unemployed. There’s the overweight – look at the room they take up – and while we’re at it, what about the intellectually challenged?

It’s not being a bit dense that has wider societal benefit – it’s the chaps that can invent things, build business, boost the old economy. They’re the ones who need their pills stumped up for, sharpish.

You at the back, too. There’s no easy way to say this, but you’re not actually very attractive. And what with us all having to stand so close together – on account of the fatties – it would be of greater societal advantage if you could at least look nice. As for those of you who are thick AND ugly, well!

Would euthanasia be a step too far? Drinkers and smokers and jam-tart eaters, obviously they can be left to rot – what do they expect? All that sugar and nicotine. Children aren’t a lot of use – not now they can’t go up the chimney – and the elderly will clog up the Post Office.

While, frankly, the nuisance-makers – playing their music at top volume, not putting their recycling in the right bin – that’s not cricket where the wider implications are at stake, is it?

Louts on a Saturday night shouting and jostling in the High Street before they toss their kebab wrapper on the pavement? Why should they get their anti-inflammatories?

Inept drivers, holding us all up while they faff about at roundabouts and fail to reverse park – what are they contributing to the greater good, apart from increasing our stress levels? And then THEY want the valium. As for the dog owners – leaving their pooches’ poo all over the pavement for the hapless to step in – why even let them see the GP? Round ‘em, up, put ‘em against the wall and shoot the lot of ‘em.

All seems sensible to me.

Drug bill halved, more room on the bus, cleaner streets. A win for the Government. A win all round.

CONSTERNATION among the feminist groups at the news that the Barbie Doll has turned cover girl for the 50th anniversary of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, where she’s seen posing in a bikini.

“A line has been crossed,” said an earnest young woman on Radio Four, protesting that the cover shot was entirely inappropriate as the doll was aimed at six-year-old children and the magazine bought by adult men.

Considering Barbie, with her huge chest, miniscule waist and legs up to her armpits is a totally unworkable depiction of the female form – if she were a real woman, she wouldn’t even be able to stand up – this seems to be rather skewing the point.

I’d say the potential damage lies with Barbie being on the toy shop shelves, not on the front of a glossy mag. And that energies would be better spent in distracting the small girls away from the fashion doll, possibly with a box of Lego, a cuddly toy and a skipping rope, rather than concerning oneself over a bunch of blokes ogling a fantasy figure with plastic breasts.

Originally posted at: http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/PLAIN-JANE-Societal-benefit-faint-hearted/story-20666984-detail/story.html

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Plain Jane 230114: Time for council to do some good, for a change

I am naturally thrilled to hear that Thanet Council have been hitting their targets, with a bullseye for 44 out of 58 “key projects”.

I am not surprised, however, that achieving the required revenue for on-street parking wasn’t one of them. May I offer a small personal theory and possible solution.

I look at it thus: psychologically we are geared up to pay in order to leave our motor in a car-park.

It is nice when this facility is free but as it generally isn’t, we drive through the entrance, expecting to have to dig about for coins and hoping some nameless older family member has not plundered the stash in the car’s ashtray like he did last time he took the vehicle out, especially as you know for a fact the younger one has already “borrowed” every last 20p you had in your purse. (He needed it for parking). So that outlay feels like fair game. Especially when there isn’t a spare square foot of tarmac for miles around and yellow lines stretch into the distance.

Being asked to pay to leave the car in a deserted high street on a dark, wet, windy Sunday night when there is a whole row of empty gaping spaces in front of you,  it is deepest winter and you are off to support one of the local, equally deserted, businesses and are already reeling from your council tax bill, feels like a rip-off, an imposition, and frankly a bloody cheek when one lives here…

It is no wonder that people (me!) after fumbling for the right money, finding the machine has rejected your 50p for the third time, and you only want to have one quick coffee anyway, give up and walk off, muttering “sod-it”.

Assuming, rightly in this case, that traffic wardens will not exactly be thick on the ground.

What we need if I may make so bold, is the following: a resident’s permit for on-street parking during the winter months. Some sort of disc, token, plastic-coated ticket that could be left on the dashboard to indicate one was a bona fide due-paying Thanet local and so was exempt.

This could have a time limit attached – whereby you can only stay for two hours during the day – to prevent the shop and office workers clogging up every available bay and preventing any one else patronising the High Street – and could be financed by asking drivers to pay a couple of quid for it to cover printing costs.

Hell, I’d pay a fiver! Or even a tenner – so the council coffers would probably get more from me than they do now, under the current regime in which I generally fail to have change (see above), park as close to the shop of my choice as I possibly can and sprint there with fingers crossed, or worst of all, decide to go elsewhere, just to save the hassle. The benefits to all would be manifold.

Council taxpayers would feel they were being given some small bonus and the council weren’t such a terrible bunch of bunglers after all.

Council Members could walk around with that small inner glow one gets from having Done Good for a change.

High Street restaurants, bars and shops would get more impulse shoppers, general footfall and customers happy to pop in for “a quick one” having not calculated that by the time they’d paid for parking, they might as well stay at home with a supermarket beer and a bag of crisps.

And I could stop shrieking about who’s taken my last pound coin.

Click here for the original article.

Filed under: articles, Isle of Thanet Gazette, non-fiction, Plain Jane, writing Tagged: author, blogging, books, characters, creative writing, ebooks, isle of thanet, Isle of Thanet Gazette, Jane Wenham-Jones, journalist, Kent, literature, Morgan Bailey, Morgen Bailey, non-fiction, novelist, novels, Plain Jane, speaker, story author, story authors, Thanet, thanet council, TV applications, TV show, Wannabe, Wannabe a Writer, WordPress, writing, writing magazines, writing TV show

Chipping Norton Literature Festival critique competition

Reblogged from The Wannabe a Writer TV Show:

Seeking a way around the slush pile? Brave enough to have your manuscript critiqued in front of an audience? Whether you’re ready to throw your hat in the ring, or just want to pick up tips for your own writing, this event is one for aspiring authors everywhere.

Literary agent Carole Blake (pictured right) teams up with author of Wannabe a Writer?

Read more… 46 more words

Who dares? :- ) Be great to see anyone who can get here - to watch even if not to take part.... :-) jx

Plain Jane 090114: With five diaries, why do I keep missing things?

OK HANDS up – who’s fallen by the wayside already? You over there with the fag and the cream bun – weren’t you going to stop all that? And is that a bottle I see behind you?

I like the notion of a New Year, New Beginning, as much as the next woman, but with age comes pragmatism.

If I were meant to be thin, nice, teetotal and out of bed at 6.30am each morning for a bracing run, it would probably have happened by now.

That does not, however, stop me – as I kiss goodbye to one year, and peer down the barrel of another – having aspirations.

These can be fuzzily summed up as a vague wish to be more focused, productive and organised. To make better use of my daylight hours; to do one thing at a time, at the right time, in time.

Cue the annual examination of my management techniques.

I currently operate a five-diary system. There’s the one in the kitchen that comes from Boots – I’ve had the same model for 20 years and would twitch if it were any other sort. We might call this The Downstairs Diary. It has relevant family movements in it – dental appointments, haircuts, washing machine repairman’s promises – and birthdays. The latter are written in red ink so as to stand out, and are carefully transcribed from old to new diary each New Year’s Day. (A job I used to make my husband help with, until he deemed it hilarious to write silly names on the wrong days and I threw said diary at his head.)

Upstairs, I have an office diary. This has a selection of events from The Downstairs Diary plus “work” dates. If the latter involves me going away for more than one night, I also add them to the kitchen diary so that the rest of the household knows it has to do its own washing and the bin won’t empty itself. This Upstairs Diary is also a special sort. Exhaustive searching of the internet some years ago located the perfect specimen: an A5 volume with a perforated corner to each page. Imagine a week-to-view one side, with a blank sheet on the other on which you can make a LIST (I need lists). Then – and here is the clever bit – when the list is complete (naturally you cross off each item as you go), you tear the corner off the page! Thus, should there be an important “to-do” left undone in late March – that corner will flap away accusingly at you throughout the whole of April. Genius. When I first showed the torn-corners technique to my mate, the foodie guru and restaurant critic extraordinaire Marina O’Loughlin, she was deeply – almost speechlessly – impressed. (I think she is less impressed now she realises it doesn’t stop me double-booking when we’re due to have lunch.) She herself keeps her entire life on an all-singing, all-dancing, practically-makes-you-a-gin-and-tonic smart phone. (She says she still misses every parents’ evening.)

I also maintain a rather beautiful leather-bound journal in which I note my thoughts, hopes, dreams, the day’s weight, severity of hangover etc, plus the current position of the latest work on Amazon (if your resolution involved a diet and you’ve already caved in – I have just the book for you!), which lives in a drawer. And a small handbag diary, received free with my Equity membership, which rarely gets written in at all but is there to be casually pulled out when I want to show off.

Finally, I have an electronic calendar on my Blackberry, with reminders.

I still forget things. I am still late. I am currently taking the bold new step of writing the birthdays from downstairs, upstairs as well, so I don’t miss those so often (on a long day when I don’t descend to the kitchen before the last post goes, the whole system falls apart) and am considering the input of such anniversaries to the phone.

“You could then sync these to your computer,” says a nerdy friend helpfully. I think it would be easier simply to give up crisps.

Original text at http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Plain-Jane-diaries-missing-things/story-20422290-detail/story.html.

Filed under: articles, humour, Isle of Thanet Gazette, Plain Jane, writing Tagged: author, blogging, books, characters, creative writing, ebooks, isle of thanet, Isle of Thanet Gazette, Jane Wenham-Jones, journalist, Kent, literature, Morgan Bailey, Morgen Bailey, non-fiction, novelist, novels, Plain Jane, speaker, story author, story authors, Thanet, TV applications, TV show, Wannabe, Wannabe a Writer, WordPress, writing, writing magazines, writing TV show

New Year’s Resolutions for Writers…

By way of an intro I must tell you that I found these on my computer while looking for something else. They were written for a column in 2007! And the shameful thing is, they are just as pressing – with minor updates (see notes in italics) – now, as they were then.  Proving that Old Writers Never Learn – they just get bigger arses…. (or something!).

Whatever you resolve, I hope it comes to pass. Happy New Year!

New Year’s Resolutions for Writers

1. Writers’ Bottom

I will finally face the fact that Writing does not use up 500 calories an hour and that food eaten at the desk does count – particularly when it is two packets of Kettle chips dipped in houmous, a bar of chocolate and half a bottle of white wine. The excursion from computer to sofa to watch EastEnders does not constitute  exercise. Writers Bottom is not a hereditary condition but caused by sitting on it for eight hours a day while cramming junk food. (Now of course I am the proud author of a tome designed to consign one’s writer’s derriere to a thing of the past. If you wanted to help my new year go with a bang you could always buy it :-))

2. Alcohol

I will remember that actually alcohol does not enhance creativity and that there is no point in writing down the brilliant idea I had for chapter seventeen when I  was three sheets to the wind. Even if I can  decipher it, it will still be drivel in the morning.

3. Tolerance

I will not scream: YOU JUST HAVE  when family members walk into my  writing room, saying “I won’t interrupt you but….”

Nor throw things at their heads when they answer: “But you were only looking out of the window… “

4. Deadlines

I will remind myself that the sensible, grown-up way to handle a deadline is write 2000 words a day, Monday to Friday,  with Sunday off to allow for bracing walks and cooking the family roast. I will no longer spend five months and three weeks emailing and going out to lunch and then book into a hotel for seven days and stay up all night swearing.

5. Bookshops

I will go into bookshops to buy books. I will  stop rearranging the bookshelves by moving myself from W (down in the corner at ankle level where the cobwebs lurk) to A  where everyone can see me (especially if I put all copies face out over the top of Jeffrey Archer).

Alternatively I will change my name to Arkwright.

6. Jealousy

I will stop grinding my teeth over the Bestseller lists and be totally thrilled when someone who has never written a word in their entire life gets a six-figure sum and half a million quid’s worth of film rights for their memoir on eating slugs in the jungle or having a breast enhancement operation, live on Big Brother. After all, there’s room for all of us…

7. Humour.  I will smile widely when the 4, 752nd person says: Ha, ha, ha – have you sold as many as 50 Shades of Grey yet? (of course when  I first wrote this, it was J K Rowling. Doesn’t make it any better!)

8. Patience.

Even when that person says it every time I meet him.

9. Perseverance

I will try and keep to these longer than I did last year (January 17th)

10. Honesty.

I will tell the truth. (It was Jan 4th)

Filed under: books, eBooks, humour, non-fiction, writing Tagged: author, blogging, books, creative writing, deadlines, diets, ebooks, fight the flab, Jane Wenham-Jones, New Year, New Year resolutions, writer's bottom, writing

Plain Jane 271213: My review of the people and places of 2013

Regular readers of this column (God help you) will know that my final offering of the year has historically been a round-up of my top ten Thanet establishments from the previous twelve months. This usually includes both new ventures and old favourites and generally comprises an eclectic mix of bars, eateries, retail outlets and leisure venues (I’ve also listed Thanet District Council for their continuing entertainment value). It was my mate Mike – seen on these pages when I’m having a lie-down – who suggested that this time around I might go for my top people instead. (“I’ve tried to think of some good places in Thanet,” he explained, with his usual optimism, “but I’ve had no luck.”)

We who get out a bit more, know, of course, that the Isle teems with fabulous enterprises, even if some of them are closed for the duration. E.g.

1) Angela’s Café. Back in the spring, when I put out a call for breakfast recommendations, two different Emmas, a Ryan, a Sam and a Carol all emailed to applaud Angela’s Café in Margate Old Town. I know an orchestrated campaign when I see one, but in a spirit of good-for-them, I have been meaning to visit Angela’s ever since. Unfortunately, by the time I did, it had shut for the winter weeks (reopening February 2014) – so I went next door. My second accolade therefore, goes by default, to…

2) Café G. 1 High Street, Margate. They don’t do breakfast as such, but my son had a Panini he gave the thumbs up to, and the charming girl serving kindly made me some perfectly nice toast. And – a big gold star for this one – they offer a good selection of teas. Most establishments don’t stray beyond the safe-but-dull peppermint and camomile or they have lemon-with-ginger, which I don’t much rate. Café G has green tea with just lemon – a much better option – and also jasmine. I like that.

3) Emma Irvine. (I am taking up Mike’s suggestion and throwing in a few people too). Emma is the powerhouse behind the conversion of ex-council gaff, Albion House in Ramsgate, into a boutique hotel. Search “Albion House Open Day” on YouTube. It is sounding fab.

4) Kate Smith at the Updown Gallery – also in Ramsgate at Satis House, 11 Elms Avenue. I love this! Wonderful space, great exhibitions – so fantastic to see a new gallery in Ramsgate. Go see for yourself.

5) York Street Gallery Ramsgate – in York Street (funnily enough). I’ve only entered this little gem recently but apparently it’s been going nearly two years. I went along for Brian Homewood’s exhibition for quite personal reasons (standing with a glass in one hand, a cheeselet in the other, surveying a large canvas of oneself in the altogether, borders on the surreal) and I liked it. Good range of reasonably-priced greetings cards by local artists.

6) York Street Post Office, Broadstairs  (One thought led to another). I sometimes feel this is my second home.

7) Frank Thorley. There are some who like to mutter (for reasons I’ve never quite fathomed) about Mr T and Thorley Taverns. But let us not forget the huge investment this pub / hotel / restaurant group has made in Thanet over the last 38 years, the number of workers it employs and the huge contribution Frank makes personally to the community in terms of his charity efforts. As one who happened to be the speaker for the ever-amusing chaps of Rotary Thanet (also doing lots of good works) on the night of Frank’s last birthday, I can only hope I am going that strong and achieving that much when I am 78.  Go Frank!

8) Laura Sandys. Round of applause for our (sadly) outgoing (come 2015) Member of Parliament for Thanet South. Whatever one’s political persuasions, it would be hard to refute her credentials as a brilliant constituency MP. Let us hope whoever we get next has even half of her energy, commitment, good spirits and compassion (and his name’s not Nigel).

9) KLM, Ann Gloag, and all who fly in her. I make no apologies for the fact that I continue to adore having a working airport on my doorstep. May Manston go from strength to strength however much flak I get for saying so. Which brings me neatly to conclude with:

10) Readers (the most important people of all) who write to me. I give you Dennis Franklin for the crossest, most entertainingly abusive, correspondent of 2013 and Helen Waddington for the loveliest. Helen often writes to the letters’ page too and is unfailingly positive about Thanet – always seeing the best in every new development. Frankly, groaners, we need more Helens.

But even if you’ve not written yet (there’s always 2014), I thank you, most sincerely, for reading me. Have a very Happy New Year!

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Mike and Jane: Christmas Time, Mistletoe and Whine…

My latest Isle of Thanet Gazette column – the annual joint offering with fellow columnist, my mate Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EVERY year, Jolly Jane and I meet for lunch to discuss the theme for our seasonal collaboration, followed by the traditional humiliation in which her pal Bill takes the photos, the brief she’s given him being to make her look young and me look stupid.

Later she chooses the youngest / stupidest one. You get the picture? If not, see the one with this column.

“We could write about our perfect Christmas,” coos the cherub of cheerfulness.

Asking me to do that is like asking a vegan to cook the perfect steak and kidney pudding.

But perfect Christmas it must be, so I shall put aside the reality – sitting alone watching grinning goons on the telly wishing me merry; the impending December credit card statement; the impossibility of even going to a pub without stumbling over carol singers, kids, and charity collectors.

There is fun in choosing the perfect dinner guests. I’m just no good at it. I’ll plump for Isambard Kingdom Brunel (unoriginal – and he’s dead), Robert Jay from the Leveson Inquiry (unknown quantity, but what a brain), a 17-year-old Bridget Bardot (obviously) and Jerry Lee Lewis to entertain.

Best present ever? The Minic wind-up London Transport red bus which had me in tears when it vanished from the toy shop window. I was too stupid to realise my parents had bought it for me.

Worst? That’s ungrateful, but for 20 years I received a subscription to Reader’s Digest. The magazines never came out of their wrapper, but I never dared tell the giver.

Perfect Christmas dinner? Anyone who says it isn’t turkey and all the trimmings should be stuffed and roasted.

As a child, I waited each year for that moment exactly 12 minutes into the meal when Auntie Ethel would raise her little bird-like head and ask: “Are you enjoying it, Michael?”

To my pride, I never let out a mischievous “No!”

And my perfect present to Jane this year?

I considered a model of her beloved Manston airport. But on second thoughts, it might be cheaper to buy her the real thing.

DON’T listen to him, dear reader – he’s as vain as I am. This year he rejected a perfectly good photo of me smothering lipstick all over his chops because, says he: “I look as if I’m dead.” (Nice to know I haven’t lost my touch).

Perfect Christmas? Easy to say when I’ve never done it but I’m tempted to say no guests at all – there is something quite alluring about the notion of a day in my pyjamas, watching mindless TV, possibly with a bottle of champagne. On the other hand I do find Jeremy Paxman deeply attractive and if Carson the butler from Downton Abbey turned up to pop my cork, I wouldn’t shut him out…

Can’t be doing with sprouts or Christmas Pud – but what I do like is a wonderful turkey sandwich the next day – good bread, mayo, upmarket crisps, chilled bottle of Macon Blanc Villages…

Presents? Without wishing to be too sickeningly Pollyanna-like, it is gift enough not to have died yet, and to know my nearest and dearest are still kicking too.

My offering to Mike (I include him in above list)? A year’s subscription to The Guardian, a vegetarian cookbook and his very own corner of Turner Contemporary in which there will be an installation comprising an unwashed sock, a rotting parsnip and three wound-down watches (symbolically halted at a minute past midnight) entitled Yuletide Reflections from the Edge. On sale for half a mill.

But I expect I’ll get him bath cubes again.

Whatever you are doing on Wednesday, may Santa make your own dreams come true (or at least keep the relatives from squabbling and the sherry flowing) and may we BOTH wish you a VERY merry Christmas.

Read the original article here: http://www.thanetgazette.co.uk/Mike-Jane-Christmas-Time-Mistletoe-Whine/story-20343959-detail/story.html.

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Plain Jane 221113: I like Laura Sandys, but…

I like Laura Sandys. While not a natural inhabitant of the same neck of the woods, politically, as our good MP for Thanet South, (to quote my esteemed colleague Right Mike’s lament, I can be “dangerously pink”) I applaud her commitment, her hard work for the constituency and her genuine compassion and concern for the people and future of Thanet.

Indeed, I have found, via informal chat over the years, that many of her views – of whatever hue, officially – coincide closely, even pinkishly, with mine.

Until, it seems, we come to the vexed question of supermarkets. Or to be specific, their “dodgy promotions”.

Laura is cross with the big stores, recently exposed by a Which? report, for being a bit iffy on their was / now pricing, contravening the statutory length of time goods must have been at a higher price before “discount”, and for hiking the price altogether when presenting a multi-buy offer, so that sometimes it is more expensive to buy ON offer than off.

Basically, if I might paraphrase, for being conniving, duplicitous swindlers who enjoy pulling the wool over our eyes.

Laura is urging the Government to “take some proper action,” saying that for families in her constituency on a tight budget, these false promotions are “totally unacceptable” and that the companies “must be held to account.”

So far so good, couldn’t agree more (I’m quite sure my beloved Waitrose would never be involved!)).

I waver, however, over Laura’s solution. She proposes that supermarket chains found up to no-good should be “put into the equivalent of the ‘village stocks’”. No, sadly, she does not mean the board of directors get pelted with their own over-priced tomatoes, but that the shops should be subject to “a one minute shut-down” per scam, at “their busiest time of the week.”

Her press release spells it out in full: “lights out, tills closed, doors shut – trade totally stopped”, she declares. “It would be a signal to everyone in the store that their supermarket was being punished for attempting to mislead them.”

I hate to rain on such a bold parade but I foresee problems.

1) How long is it going to take to get everyone out? That woman who’s spent half an hour opening every egg box on the shelf and peering inside – by the time you’ve distracted her from her mission (what is she looking for?) it will be time to reopen.

2) What about our trolleys? There we are halfway up the cereal aisle, receptacle piled high with (very probably crookedly priced) three-for-two cornflakes, when the shout goes up and we’re all herded to the doors. Then we have to re-find the right one (which quite frankly is difficult enough when you move a metre away during the Christmas rush). Chaos.

3) Will there be special dispensation if you’ve just reached the till? Picture the scene. You’ve queued, you’ve waited, you’ve stood by while the old boy in front finds his vouchers, gets his token, demands that his tin of beans is changed for one that’s not dented, queries the total and tells the checkout girl about the gout in his bunions (she doesn’t care, bless you, she really doesn’t). You’ve unloaded everything onto the belt and Pow! Time to go. When you get back someone else has shoved in front or that till’s now closed for ever.

4) Who’s going to head up crowd control? There’s a freezing wind, it’s pouring with rain and five hundred shoppers are stuck in the car park. It might be a moment for the Dunkirk spirit. On the other hand…

5) The “busiest time” for a supermarket has been shown to be late Saturday afternoon. Serious delays could mean the nation will miss Come Dine with Me and might even be running late for Strictly. If you thought there was trouble brewing already…

Sorry, Laura. I like your thinking, love. But it’s never going to work.

***

Read the original article at: http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/Plain-Jane-like-Laura-Sandys/story-20116736-detail/story.html

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351: Jane Wenham-Jones books and writing advice

Reblogged from Authors for the Philippines:

ITEM: A copy each of Wannabe a Writer? and Wannabe a Writer We've Heard Of? (Not to be mistaken for the same thing!) Signed to you or a friend (think useful Christmas gift for someone misguided enough to want to join the ranks)

PLUS half an hour of telephone or skype writing* advice - which can be a general chat or feedback on a short story or first chapter of a novel.

Read more… 139 more words

I'm a late addition to this brilliant authors' auction set up by the resourceful Keris Stainton. Am giving a dollop of my best agony-aunting plus a couple of books - signed and posted out to you or a friend. Please pass on details if you can think of anyone who might be interested in bidding. All funds raised go to help the people of the Philippines and if you don't fancy my lot there are hundreds of other fab authors' offerings to go for.... thanks xx