Little green men..? Only after last orders

THE FRIDAY THING:
IS there life on Mars and if there is, is it green? And if not, where did the notion of the “little green men” come from? Are there no little green women? We need to be told.

You could blame the Eagle comic and the dastardly Mekon (ask your grandad or even great-grandad) because The Mekon was an extra-terrestrial and he was green.

He waged war on Dan Dare (super name for a hero) who actually lived on Venus rather than Mars but it’s churlish to nit-pick.

So if you come across any green folk in Oldham or, especially in Delph where they could blend in with the natives, don’t mention Mars.

The Americans have spent billions of dollars on making a sort of spaceship (it has the look of a bedstead without its clothes on and is called Curiosity) and have landed it on Mars.

I say that, but there will be thousands of nutters out there convinced that the Mars landing is fake, filmed by Steven Spielberg in his mate’s garage somewhere out near Mexico.

Mars could send a vessel to us in which case they will be in for a surprise if Martian mythology describes the Earth dwellers as blue or red or striped even.

They will confront a cocktail of just about every skin colour known to us humans and even a few maybe not so human.

Of course if they land in a town centre on a Friday night they will see hundreds of green-faced folk taking part in the weekend ritual of throwing up over their friends or their own shoes.

Some welcome party after such a long journey.


THERE is more than just a hint of play-school squabble over toys in the toy box in the Collision government’s hair-tugging, face-pulling and chubby arm-pinching fracas over reform of the House of Lords. Like afternoon naps and eggy soldiers for tea, it was inevitable.
By some considerable distance, the Lib-Dems are the minority party in Government and those who, in the wake of the Collision — the wreckage of which can now be seen scattered over future months — predicted a gloomy and petulant outcome have been proved to be right. In the early days of this most unlikely of trysts, deals were made on a referendum on the Alternative Vote and on House of Lords reform along with a reduction in the number of MPs in the Commons.

The referendum on voting reform was lost by the Lib-Dems. The great British public trusted the old system of voting more than they trusted the Lib-Dems.

There is inevitably a tit-for-tat, poke in the eye response from Clegg minor. He will no longer support the reform of parliamentary constituencies, designed to make the number of electors in each constituency more even because it would favour the Tories. So there! Heaven, or rather Mars, help us.


FINAL WORD: Anyone who has noticed the increase in the number of betting shops in Oldham in recent months might think that there has been a sudden surge of interest in horse and dog racing. But no, the rapid rise has come about because betting shops are now allowed to have what are politely described as fixed odds betting terminals which ensure that the gambling problem in hard-up towns and cities reaches epidemic proportions.
These mechanical money eaters are largely placed in areas where people are short of cash and are thus likely to be tempted to try a flutter on a roulette machine. The excitement of winning draws in the punters, the desperate need to claw back money they have lost but could not afford to lose keeps them gambling and an addiction to gambling, in those who can least afford it, is born.

As a former poker player, I can testify that there is only one real winner and that’s the people who run the gambling either in casinos or betting shops. Don’t get drawn in, don’t be a mug.


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