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Back to Schooldays
Rowson's Comment
Around the Block
News in Brief
Stop the War
Mini-march
Lysistrata Day
Fringe Festival
Straight to the Point
Time to Finnish
Day in the Nick
Starting Over
Readers Letters
Herbal Cleansing
Local Music
Tripping Out
Tippling at the Tup
Property
Housing Matters
Very Testi
Art Happenings
Vietnamese Food
Entertainment
Gardening
Marathon Man
Surfing N16
Man in North Bank
Xword

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p11

And there was I thinking nobody read a word! Far from it, it would seem. I've spent the last couple of months being accosted in shops, rounded on at soirees and generally given a harder time than a UN weapons inspector in an Iraqi military compound. Reason ? A few ad hoc throwaway remarks about Stokey School apropos of something else in the last issue of this organ.

Official letters have even winged their way, banging on mercilessly about my failure to write an ' even handed, sufficiently researched piece and taking the time and trouble to talk to all parties involved.' Let's get a few things clear. My brief is not to be even handed. It's not the job of any personal column.

I am a professional journalist and can sufficiently research and talk to all parties with the best of them ( I also teach other people how to do it) 'the mobile surgeon doing Irony Bypass is still operating a brisk trade in the locale' but N16 couldn't possibly pay me the rate I expect for that kind of job. If it was hard work I simply wouldn't do it. I've got enough on my plate.

Like a lot people who've been involved with N16 for some time, my contribution sort of grew. People who've known various people for a long time, a few sharpeners in the pub one night, a reputation for a big mouth and a general irritation with Stokey's pofaced political correctness. And here we all are.

The point of 'Straight To The Point' is that I rant away like a good 'un about anything and everything that gets on my wick about living in N16, hopefully with vigour and some humour, and if it gets other folks going then that's all to the good. If not the raison d'etre. But as I've long suspected, the mobile surgeon doing Irony Bypass is still operating a brisk trade in the locale. Understand ? Right. Good.

Keep writing in.

Now where was I ? Ah yes - medical cards.

Over the past three months I've received various communications from Hackney doctors and the local Family Health Authority containing medical cards and requests for my presence at check ups and screenings. Except they're not for me. A plethora of ever more exotic names litter the correspondence, but the address is always mine, exactly.

When the third one arrived I started to nose a very large rat, confirmed by Islington Health Authority with whom I had a highly intelligent concerned conversation about my address being purloined for nefarious purposes. Then we realised I should be talking to City and East London instead, which is where the problems really started.

After several abortive calls to Aneurin Bevan House (he'd be spinning on his Welsh hillside at the chaos going on there in his name), I eventually get through to a senior manager, whose talent for off-hand rudeness is positively BAFTA winning. He managed the extremely tricky feat of not giving a flying doodad, but winding me up with anxiety at the same time.

I should be concerned, most concerned: who knows what else is going on with my address. Had I had a burglary recently ? Credit cards pinched?

Could he do anything about it from his end ? Nab sorry – Down To You, Sunshine.
Contact Stokey police, they should investigate forthwith. I'd insist upon it. I'm very friendly with several officers there, he boasted. Could he perchance give me
a name? Nab.

So I rang. Spoke to a WPC who will never be played by Helen Mire. Oh, we get loads of letters at home that have gone to the wrong address. Bye. I can safely say that of the next terrorist cell to be unearthed in Hackney, one member has suspected diabetes and his misses needs a smear.

I don't drive. I packed it up 15 years ago when I failed my fourth test on the 3 point turn, nearly joining two OAPs for afternoon tea in the front room of their bungalow. So the latest Stokey furore over Residents Parking Permits and over zealous wardens has blithely passed me by. Now motorised visitors to Chateau Heal have demanded I take a stand.

Apparently there is no rhyme or reason as to who gets a ticket, why or when. I can't fathom the ins and outs of yellow lines but I did read with mounting incredulity one of the offending Hackney parking tickets fluttering on a mate's windscreen. Apparently my friend can elect to pay £40 now, rising to £80 after 28 days. But if he contests the alleged offence, which take it from me he most certainly does, he can only do so after 28 days has elapsed.

Now you don't have to be Jeremy Clarks to work that one out.

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