The Nether Regions

The letters page of the Whitby Gazette is a reliably wonderful festival of misanthropy. Serving as a weekly noticeboard of human hatred, nearly every issue of the paper sees someone publicly attacking their fellow Whitby residents for crimes committed in the course of everyday life.

Whitby Gazette, 5 January 2011:

Joggers should have their own stretch of beach

I would like to open a debate about joggers having their own stretch of beach. Possibly, the area near to the west extension when the tide is in.

Not only do joggers expect all other human beings to either step aside, fall down, or jump over the cliff in order to clear their path, but they assume deafness to a happy ‘good morning’ and blindness to a smile, and at the risk of running out of sync, a kick in the ribs to the dog.

Oh yes dear reader, I am a dog owner and also, as it happens, like seagulls!

Miss P Smithson, Upgang Lane, Whitby

For those of you not intimately familiar with the geography of Whitby beach, the ‘area near to the West extension when the tide is in‘ would not be ideally suited for jogging, as this picture  demonstrates. Hats off to Miss Smithson for publicly calling for the death of all joggers.

News just in: Dog owners have shit for brains!

Whitby Gazette, 12 January 2011:

Littering with dog mess

It never ceases to amaze me to see dog owners pick up their dog mess in a plastic bag and proceed to throw it up a tree or into the hedge back.

Not only littering with dog mess, but also with plastic. All I can say is the contents of the plastic bag is equal to what is keeping their ears apart.

Mal Greenley, the man with the white lurcher, Helredale Road, Whitby

More news just in: Dog owners deliberately make children go blind!

Whitby Gazette, 26 January 2011:

Clean up after your dogs

May I, through the Whitby Gazette, thank the person (and I know who you are), for allowing your dog to leave a large ‘deposit’ on the path outside my house this morning (Tuesday 25 Jan).

As a thank-you to you, I have informed the dog fouling authorities and you should be receiving a visit from the Dog Warden in due course.

The responsibility of looking after a dog is no different to looking after a young child. You have to feed it and clean up after it. If you are not willing or prepared to clean up its mess, then you shouldn’t have it in the first place. You are totally irresponsible and should be ashamed of yourself. Toxoplasmosis is a disease which is passed to humans via dog faeces and can cause blindness. It is extremely dangerous for children and pregnant women. Many children play on the two grassed play areas on Queen’s Drive and frequently go home with dog faeces either on their shoes or on their clothing. These are children’s play areas. If they were designated dog walking areas, they would have dog litter bins in situ.

On a final note. To those of you who fail to pick up your dog’s mess whilst walking it on or near the grass at the bottom of Queen’s Drive, I will not hesitate to report you. Enough said.

Mrs Ward, Queens Drive, Whitby

Local newspapers: truly the lifeblood of any community.

It seems the concept of dog ownership will always give rise to existential debate in the letters pages of regional newspapers.

This correspondent doesn’t take kindly to another reader’s jibe that not having a dog = not having a life. And he executes his rage with a wonderful level of passive aggression.

Whitby Gazette, 26 March 2008:

Dogs on the beach – the debate continues

May I, as someone who has not got a dog and therefore, according to a previous letter writer has not got a life, speak out for the thousands of people who do not want dogs and therefore also do not have lives.

May I first list the things a dog can offer to people with and without lives.

It can bark, eat, defecate (very often illegally but only where its idle or irresponsible owners allow it to), smell, put its nose in parts of our anatomy where its owners may like it (but those of us without a life definitely don’t), lick your face after it has explored the nether regions of fellow mutts with its tongue, bound up to us lifeless ones and our children and knock them over (he’s only playing you know), copulate with your leg (he really likes you), yap endlessly when left tethered outside shops (he misses his mummy) and chase livestock because it is illegally unleashed.

I offer the paved walk from Prospect Hill to Ruswarp as a regular example but mind where you put your feet.

It cannot smile, talk, think, frown, understand every word you say or use a toilet.

I would sometimes really love to have a life.

But if this involves daily walking around with a bag full of dog faeces in my hand then I think I would rather not have a life and if the only way Ms Barnett can make friends is by having a dog, perhaps she should seek help.

James Smith, Whitby

I must say, it’s too rare that the paved walk from Prospect Hill to Ruswarp is offered as a regular example of anything. Hats off.

From time to time, local newspapers attract people who are prepared to engage in Letters Page War with other correspondents.

In this case, narky oddball Nino Hoblyn of North Street, Caistor, drags the new editor of the Market Rasen Mail into the matter and criticises him for regularly printing the local Tory MP’s letters. He even finds time to squeeze in an accusation of a freemason conspiracy. Excellent work.

Market Rasen Mail, 14 July 2010:

Letter: Other matters do need addressing, starting with Caistor’s boxed tree

EDITOR – Am I the only regular reader of the Market Rasen Mail who is beginning to wonder if the “New Kid On The Block, Paul Fisher” hasn’t been doing some of those funny little deeds with Edward Leigh MP where certain very strange handshakes are done in secret?

Because if the answer to this is “Nay Mr Wilks”, then why may I ask is dear Eddy Leigh slotting his tuppence with each and every week in telling us the reader, things that should be kept to the likes of “Jackanory”.

For how many times does one have to shout before one goes blue in the face, that we have more concerning issues in our own lines of much greater importance, the “Offending tree in a box in Caistor Market Square”.

This man’s apparent fondness for using excessive quotation marks is highly intriguing, but still not quite as intriguing as this “offending tree in a box”. Pray tell, what is the story behind this myserious box-bound woody plant?

Thanks to the work of intrepid Lincolnshire native Anna Holden, we have what some may call a photograph:

Who’d have thought an innocuous white stick in a box could lead to this?:

Oh yes sir! This may seem a most trivial topic to those with no understanding of tree’s but let me please inform you that trees should be planted in the ground and not in a box.

Let’s not forget trees also have feelings and as a humans, a box is for those who no longer live, so why condemn the tree in a box while it still breaths and enjoys gods wonderful planet.

So come on let’s release the tree back into the wild where it will smile for each and everyday of its long life and thus growing leaves more greener and a trunk thicker, will then be saying to all of us “Thanks-you”.

NINO HOBLYN

North Street, Caistor

Oh dear. Yes, the man is a mentalist.

Mind you, you know you’ve done well when your letter manages to tease out an editorial response.

Editor’s Note: The Market Rasen Mail strives to be entirely independent in its coverage of all matters. As MP for our district I feel our readers are interested in Mr Leigh’s views and actions and so the newspaper regularly carries letters from Mr Leigh.

FREEMASON ALERT.

The title of ‘Sunderland’s Most Judgmental Man’ is a fiercely contested accolade, but there’s little chance of it being taken away from Mick “The Pen” Brown any time soon. Further to his previous coverage here, it’s time to gently prod the brain of the Sunderland Echo‘s most dedicated reader-who-treats-the-letters-page-like-a-personal-diary a little further.

Arguably the fairest point ever made by a mentally-unhinged letters columnist: two world wars weren’t fought so folk could prowl around supermarkets in their pyjamas.

Sunderland Echo, 7 August 2009:

Ban these people

ON the day Harry Patch, Britain’s oldest First World War veteran died, the Echo printed a letter from a Mr Joe Plush telling us he had witnessed folk shopping in Asda clothed in pyjamas.

I wonder what people of Mr Patch’s generation would have thought if they could see what they fought for?

It would appear that anyone, no matter how they dress, can shop in a supermarket. But how long before we see people walking through The Bridges in night gowns and slippers?

I know people have had a go at me for using a Harrods carrier but I am merely trying to keep the standards up and what’s wrong with that?

My carrier is almost a statement like an Armani suit or a Gucci watch and, let’s face it, you do not see many in Sunderland.

It’s about time supermarkets and The Bridges had a strict dress code which banned people in certain attire from these areas.

In the old days men used to wear a tie every day. In fact many old fellas still do and the older women in Marks and Spencers are always well turned out.

Mick “The Pen” Brown

I’m not sure two world wars were fought for Harrods carrier bags either, mind you.

I should think the Seaburn tourist board will be livid about this one, but let’s face facts: the man’s uniquely brusque eloquence and inquisitive prose makes him hard to argue with.

Sunderland Echo, 20 May 2010 (full letter, six from top):

Seaburn? Give me the countryside

WHEN I was very young I used to love visiting the Seaburn fairground. I used to particularly admire the fairground worker who jumped on the back of the dodgems and held the pole.

He was always trying to get off with the young lasses who were normally seated with their boyfriends in the dodgem. He normally had a spotty face and a tatoo of an eagle on his arm, which he probably thought made him look tough.

However, as I grew older I soon realised that being a dodgem operator was a naff job, but I still miss the fairground. I think that it’s an essential part of any coastal resort. [...]

Some things never change, however. Take, for instance, the OAPs who sit motionless like Capodimonte figures on the seats facing the Marriott hotel. They don’t seem to speak, just slurp the ice cream, and have you noticed they wear coats in the middle of summer? Why is this? [...]

I suppose on a hot day you cannot beat the seaside – fish and chips, candy floss and all that.

Or are you the type who is too mean to buy them, relying on some home made cheese sandwiches that when eaten you can taste the grit of the sand as you bring your garden furniture to sit on and enjoy them? I really think that this completeley lowers the tone of Sunderland – stripey sun loungers and a scout’s tent that blows away in the wind.

So perhaps Seaburn is not so good after all. I prefer the countryside.

Mick “The Pen” Brown

It appears that he is not loved by all, however. The anti Mick “The Pen” Brown riposte below was published just a few days after the publication of the  series of letters covered in the previous post. These variously laid into the long-term unemployed, the bingo-playing underclass, women who wear Scholls, and those who swear.

Czar Kazum just isn’t having it. It’s wonderful when war breaks out on the letters pages of regional newspapers; it must have been where people argued before the internet.

Sunderland Echo, 6 May 2010:

Swearing at Mick

MICK “the pen” Brown has us good folk believing that he is well-to-do, yet in the majority of his letters he is either hanging around a bingo hall, in all probability where he actually makes his money, with appalling smoking women, (perchance smoking himself?) or wandering around Southwick falling for uncouth women and complaining when the aggrieved lady remonstrates with him for knocking her precious groceries all over the pedestrian area.

However, I believe the good lady’s footwear is basically irrelevant and you were too busy getting your ears bent. Had I been knocked flying by a clumsy oaf, I would have expleted at you as well good sir.

Nevertheless, your “ban all swearing in the street” is admirable, but I feel the local police has enough trouble trying to catch proper criminals. Anyway, we would have to build prisons the size of Ireland to house all the miscreants who swear out loud after stubbing their respective toes or have somebody knock their groceries flying.

I believe that he should broaden his horizons and take his gambling habit to a good bookies, as the female of the species tend to populate bingo halls and ignore the bookmaker side of gambling.

Czar Kazum

Thank you to Michael Laverick, Sunderland resident and close personal friend of Mick “The Pen”  Brown, probably.