Come come now, we're all grown ups here, aren't we?

Much sniggering in the hood because poor old Ilfracombe, my favourite place to live but where I don't actually live, has found itself the focus of unwanted attention by paying marketing specialists many thousands of pounds to be told "Put a funny squiggle over the initial letter of the name of your town". While that is, in itself, somewhat laughable what is even funnier is that so many people have decided the funny little squiggle resembles nothing more than a single, solitary sperm. Now, personally, I'm not so sure it does look like a sperm - a rather overweight sperm, I would suggest - but even so it's gained the town national attention far beyond what the marketing specialists could reasonably have predicted. Good thing or bad thing, only time will tell, but in the meantime it's given every smart arse (me included) the chance to make their little jism jokes. Personally, I think the squiggle looks more like a dog turd, but maybe the bottom has dropped out of the naughty fido joke market. I don't know, but what really amazes me is the self-serving claptrap that accompanies these marketing initiatives. Seriously, you wouldn't believe that people outside of a mental hospital could spout such nonsense and then get paid big bucks for it. Yea verily, you couldn't make it up.

As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with. . .no money for Ilfracombe

Consternation in Ilfragloom as the North Devon town most likely to be featured in a posh paper's colour supplement once again misses out on big dosh. Ilfracombe had put in a pretty convincing case, I would think, for getting around £1 million of Government-backed readies only to find it was a case of thanks, but no thanks. Oh woe is them, they are rending their garments, wailing and gnashing their teeth and generally throwing their toys out of the pram. But I suspect what really narks them in Ilfracombe is that instead, a ton of money is going to St Ives - the Cornish one, not the one in what used to be Huntingdonshire.

Trying to view this dispassionately, although I don't see why I should, in life there are always winners and losers and so in the case of Ilfracombe v St Ives the possibility that the North Devon side would come off worst cannot be avoided. However, Ilfracombe is the place in North Devon I might choose to live were I ever to move from the place I already live in North Devon, which is nowhere near Ilfracombe, but arguably just as shabby. I have considerable affection for the place, I think its setting surpasses many, many places in the whole of the South West and it has its own distinctive character. In short, I want it to do well. I bear no malice towards St Ives, but I can't help feeling that nature, history, arty-farty types and holidaymakers with a considerable amount of bunce have already endowed the town with enough to keep it going.

Anyway, as some saddoes are fond of quoting "When the going gets tough, the tough get going". So maybe the time has come for Ilfracombe to act tough and say "We never wanted your money in any case. We'll manage on our own." Because to be frank who wants to be known as a town propped up by a succession of Government hand-outs? Ilfracombe hasn't necessarily had money rained down on it by the powers that be, but it is forever putting the case that it could do with a little help to see it through bad times because it is a little bit down on its luck. So come on Ilfracombians (I don't think that's exactly what they're called) now is the time to grow a pair, work out the best way of making the most of what you've got and saying of Government charity "Thanks awfully, but why not give it to a real basket case."

Mrs Slocombe's pussy is stuffed

Blimey, first Michael Jackson, then Molly Sugden. Who will be next? I was just on my way back from the beach when they announced Molly Sugden's death on the radio. The brief obituary referred to roles in The Liver Birds and, as Mrs Slocombe, in Are You Being Served? It was in that character that she exploited the British love of double entendre with endless references to her 'pussy'. The extract on the radio had Mrs Slocombe saying that something had been so frightening her 'pussy's hairs stood on end'. Ha ha! I'm not sure I even found that particularly funny when I was a teenager watching that sort of stuff on telly. Even so, pussy is a great word, as is beaver, and for a comedy fruit moment you can't beat plums.

I wonder if Molly Sugden ever came to North Devon. I could see her having done a show at the old Victoria Pavilion in Ilfracombe. I suspect not, she would be more of a Torquay sort of person. So, Molly Sugden, may you and your pussy rest in pieces.

By the way, the man in the red Renault Laguna estate is continuing his non-mobile lifestyle in one of the lay-bys on the A39. He had his windows down when I went past this afternoon, but he still must have been baking.