Once the media decide that this government is comically inept, the perception will be almost impossible to shift
✒I thought David Davis coped manfully on The World at One this week when he talked about the government's problems. Davis, who failed to beat Cameron for the Tory leadership, was raised by a single mother on a council estate. Eton and the Bullingdon Club never featured in his career plans, and he is not the prime minister's greatest admirer.
But, dancing between the landmines of loyalty, he made a good hit, which is that once the media decide on the "narrative" about a government, it is as easy to shift as it is to turn an oil tanker through 180 degrees on a stormy sea. Journalists and broadcasters decided that the Major government was sleazy, then that Blair told terrible porkies, and are in the process of deciding that this lot are comically inept in every field, from kitchen suppers and emergency petrol storage to Cornish pasties. And once that happens, once the press decides that it's dealing with the gang that couldn't shoot straight, the perception is almost impossible to shift.
✒I see that exports of scotch whisky last year rose to £4.2bn, a record. Some 90% of scotch goes overseas, with the US and France the main customers, but the far east is catching up fast. I love scotch, and when the Scots decide to become independent, thanks to Alex Salmond's cunning, I shall miss the warm glow of feeling that it's our great national drink.
One thing that hasn't been discussed properly – at least I haven't seen it – is who exactly gets to vote. Will it be everyone on the Scottish electoral roll? But that includes loads of "foreigners" from the rest of the UK, and indeed overseas. And what about expat Scots? Don't they have any say? Millions of people are, you might say, of mixed race; how do you define them? We can be sure that Mr Salmond will decide on the option he thinks is most likely to produce the result he wants, which he will then argue is the only one that is morally and historically acceptable.
✒For older readers: some of us still translate, in our heads, new prices into old money, so the news that a first-class stamp is to cost 60p means that it will cost 12 shillings to post a letter. (Not that anyone will post anything if they can avoid it; in today's weird world, you prepare a business for sale by pricing it out of the market.)
Isn't that new stamp price horrifying, older readers? And a pee in a London terminal station costs 6/-, the Guardian – sixpence when I first joined – is now 24/-, and at our local butcher's a large free-range egg costs eight bob. Tuppence-worth of chips costs around 30/- in your average fish fryer's.
Mind you, some things are amazing value these days. Ballpoint pens, once prized items, are literally given away. Good wine costs a much smaller fraction of the average wage. And the days when every family had a single television, often a stately object made of polished wood, possibly with doors like a French escritoire, have long gone and we scatter TVs around our houses like cushions.
✒Another nostalgic moment came at lunch this week – not in an Indian restaurant – when one of our number chose the curry and reported that it "tastes like Vesta". Ah, Vesta chicken curries, with that great taste of slimy chemicals! It set us off remembering other unmourned foodstuffs. There were Surprise peas, little dehydrated green pellets which you boiled to destruction. Cadbury's Smash, a sort of frothy wallpaper paste, was best known for its "Martian" TV ads in which funny humanoids apparently made from saucepans giggled at us Earthlings for bothering to peel real potatoes. Fray Bentos canned pies still exist, and I believe you can find Babycham, though I haven't seen it for years; sophisticates could buy the dry version which had a yellow foil cap. (The first alcoholic drink I ever had was a Mackeson sweet stout; can you still buy that?) Spam never went away and nor did Bisto. Lucozade reinvented itself as a high-energy drink and you see it everywhere. But what happened to the Mivvi, a vanilla ice cream wrapped in a lolly? Some of these comestibles were almost quite nice, but not very many.
✒One or two readers have said that it's all very well for me to be snotty about MasterChef, but what would I produce for a proper dinner party – as opposed to David Cameron's much scoffed-at "kitchen supper"? (Actually, a kitchen supper is a perfectly good idea. It's an informal meal eaten in the kitchen, as opposed to three or four elaborate courses in the dining room, spag bol rather than coq au vin.) One dish I do is a favourite of posh restaurants that charge a fortune. You can make it in five minutes. Freeze small berries, blue or rasp. Melt in a double pan over hot water white chocolate and an equal weight of double cream. (100 grams of each will do for four.) Stir till it's all melted. Put iced berries on plates, pour sauce on top. Incredibly good.
✒Labels and signs: Godfrey Eland's wife bought a packet of Tesco sleep aid tablets, marked "may cause drowsiness". Nigel West acquired a Hewlett-Packard laptop computer: "to reduce the possibility of heat-related injuries … do not place the computer directly on your laptop". It's 'elf an' safety gorn mad!
Tony Currer was in Lidl, where he saw a large sign: "Permanent discounts! Hurry!" Ross Workman was in Gaborone, Botswana, where a supermarket had mounted a placard declaring: "Food: an important part of any balanced diet." Possibly there was another sign at the other end of the store marked: "Drink: an equally important part."
And Stephen Green splashed out £2.99 on a plastic strainer for baths. You put it over the plug hole and it keeps out hairs. The Homebase label says: "Easy to fit. If in doubt, contact a competent plumber."