Brass and beer still in tune for Whit

THE FRIDAY THING

LIFE AND OTHER BITS: COULD the Lib-Dems really be that daft with an election looming and Saddleworth packed hill to moor with Liberal, sandal wearing, save-the-whale, real beer and brass-band loving pretend Tykes?

Had they had enough of being in charge and decided to commit political suicide — and in public, too? Had big Howard lost his marbles? No.

The Whit brass band contests are too much of a sacred ritual (they make an awful lot of money for the pubs, restaurants and pie shops, but mainly the pubs) to be sacrificed on the chopping block of the nanny state.

So let the bands, the beer, the toe-tapping throngs and the traffic all flow together and try not to get trampled under the feet of the police horses or tread in too much of the steaming evidence of their presence.

Was it all an invention of the wicked Press? Or was there really a thought that after 125 years of of trumpets, horns and cornets with, for such a huge event, a tiny number of casualties (apart from hangover headaches and the hurt pride of the unsuccessful banders) it was time to tinker for health and safety and the motorists?

Anybody daft enough to try to drive through Saddleworth on Whit Friday deserves to get stuck in a jam (a thick, gooey marmalade would be best). In fact there are good grounds for giving them all a ticket for parking for the night on a public highway.


IT was interesting to read this week that sports development in Oldham was “top of the league”. For while we might be Billy Whizz (or Wayne Rooney) when it comes to organising sport for youngsters and anyone with enough breath to get off the sofa of an afternoon or evening, there’s more to sport than learning how to play the game, do synchronised spitting and swear at referees and umpires.

I know it’s obvious to you and me but successive administrations in Oldham have either turned a blind eye or put on their money-saving blinkers to the fact that you also have to provide people — grown up people as well as young people — with somewhere to play the games you have taught them to play.

That means pitches and somewhere to wash and change afterwards that does not leave you at risk of catching pneumonia or getting arrested. Unfortunately we’re bottom of the league for that.


FINAL WORD: The team that’s looking at ways of preventing Oldham town centre from becoming a ghost town suggests that businesses encourage shopping online. Is it me, or if everyone shopped on line would there be anyone left to come to the town centre? A ghost town , in fact.