Memorial Day and my hero.

Burcot Grange (above) built in 1890 and my home for a while as a young child.

It's Memorial Day here; Memorial Day Weekend with the actual 'day' being on Monday and who do I remember? I remember lots of people as I am fortunate to have a good memory. On a site in the UK called Friends Reunited I looked at the people in my class at school and there were just a few; one or two of them got in touch with me, the memory man, and one or two wrote to me that I had forgotten; so not too much of memory man after all. All the things I write on here are from memory and sometimes I look on the Internet for some details like the road where such and such happened; one guy I wrote to, wrote back and said he couldn't remember anything about school at all. If you mention his name to anyone from my class they certainly would remember him as he would sit back on his chair in full view of the rest of the class and . . . well maybe if I put that in it will be picked up as a metatag and draw porn readers to the site – so he forgot all about school did he? The teacher (male) of the class must have seen him but what could he do? What could he say? **** put that thing away? That boy is probably a grandad now and what would his grandchildren think? A year or two before that, a boy at school suddenly stopped coming to school; nobody said anything and we didn't notice that his name had been taken off the register; his name was Michael Holmes. He came to our house to play a couple of times and I got to know his sisters later on; after a few weeks we found out that he had fallen into the canal and drowned. It was a shock but the school didn't let us know; I don't know what age we were but I would guess around eight or nine; I was in the Junior School in any case – Clifton Road Junior School. Now I don't need memorial day to remember Michael as he springs into my mind quite often. What happens here this weekend is the same in Britain only in Britain this weekend it will bank holiday weekend – I think it was called Whitsun at one time and on this American Heathen word processor on this computer it comes out as a spelling mistake – there now I've added the word to the dictionary so it's officially in. In Britain remembrance day is in November and people wear poppies to signify the ending of the first world war at 11/11. That's when Britain remember their heroes. The heroes they remember, of course, are the dead from wars. I think they go back to World War One which started in 1914 and ended in 1918 and there is hardly anybody left who actually fought in that war – the great war the war to end wars. I heard recently that the last one died either here or in the UK. The other world war started in 1939 and ended in 1945; I have to put those dates as some people here have different dates when the Americans joined in; here they might say 1941-1945 and 1917-1918 – I have heard both and, indeed, people just might not know. I hate the idea of war as it has always been young men fighting old men's battles and even though I had a small amount of military service war heroes have never been my heroes; they are everybody's heroes and should be; they paid the ultimate sacrifice and they should never ever be forgotten - but my heroes have always been pioneers and not necessarily people who fight. I am more impressed by ideas and most of the long conversations I have are about ideas; once a week I meet a pal for breakfast who majored in philosophy and we have many an interesting tête-à-tête and I have read books by Nietzsche for example as a result of our meetings; I have another friend I meet once a week for lunch to talk about politics; I talk British politics and he responds with the American version. I feel quite privileged that I have experienced both worlds and can't think what I would have done without that knowledge; I would never have written my novel, for one, and I don't think I would have started my one man Irish show in the theatre – A Bit of Irish. But I have always been curious; I watched a film once called The Land That Time Forgot and I remember one line from it - Plato was right and I wondered who Plato was and researched it; I put this curiosity down to my lack of formal education so when I look back I don't regret anything about my education or experience. But the four men I admire the most (no not the Father, Son and Holy Ghost) are Muhammad Ali, John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Roger Bannister. I really admired the way Ali stood up to authority, forfeited his world championship for his beliefs and finally, in the end, won. A lot of people disagreed with him including Jackie Robinson who was also a black pioneer in baseball – his own business, of course, but I know very little about him. John Lennon was just a hero because he was a singer; I stood within three feet of him once in a bar after seeing the Beatles at the Ritz Ballroom, King's Heath, Birmingham. Looking at him then, and you could see the Beatles were destined for something, I wasn't sure if he knew what was going on; The Beatles came from a middle class background; John wanted to be a 'working class hero' but he was middle class; they were art students and up to that time art students – students in general in Britain – liked jazz. When I say students I mean mature ones as the Americans tend to call everybody at school students as opposed to pupils in the UK. When I was a student – a mature one – we liked The Beatles. Later on John might have been misguided by Yoko Ono but I think he was a man that did more for peace than is generally realised; I know Beatles fans dislike Yoko and he loved her but I love my wife; I wouldn't take her to work. Bob Dylan I just find the most talented poet I have ever heard or read; I like lyrics by Chuck Berry and John Lennon but Dylan has so much imagery in his work - just look at any of his lyrics – look at these I ran into the fortune-teller, who said beware of lightning that might strike I haven't known peace and quiet for so long I can't remember what it's like. There's a lone soldier on the cross, smoke pourin' out of a boxcar door, You didn't know it, you didn't think it could be done, in the final end he won the wars After losin' every battle. I woke up on the roadside, daydreamin' 'bout the way things sometimes are Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head and are makin' me see stars. You hurt the ones that I love best and cover up the truth with lies. One day you'll be in the ditch, flies buzzin' around your eyes, Blood on your saddle. I have been more influenced by Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran when I know, as an actor, it should be Marlon Brando and Laurence Olivier. So who have I left out? Ah!! Roger Bannister.

Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile barrier in May 1954; I was a little boy watching my friend nearly drown at Moseley Road Swimming Baths and finding out that another friend had died. I lost a lot of time at school as I suffered from conjunctivitis (in the eyes) which developed into ulcers; I remember seeing the horrible white things on the blue of my eyes and I was told that this was because I rubbed them; I couldn't face the light and water would consistently run from my eyes.

So that was the end of my education as I failed the secondary exams - but that's only an excuse as I can clearly remember sitting to do a paper for the 11+ and not putting anything at all on to the sheet of paper.

Then one day on the TV, the news came on and it said that the 4 minute mile had been achieved; the race came on and there were only 3 runners in the race; the other 3 were invisible. Christopher Brasher was ahead with Bannister behind up to about half a mile and then Chris Chataway took the lead with Bannister second to him up to half way around the final lap and then on the final lap Bannister took the lead and made history; to a ten year old boy this was like an orgasm. Later in the year the Bannister/Landy Miracle mile and that was the best mile race I have ever seen – do yourself a favour and look for both races on YouTube. I won't give you the result of the latter race but John Landy of New Zealand broke the world record after Bannister and then they had to meet in the Empire Games. Have a look - it will bring a tear to your eye and a lump to your throat.

So I had to go a place called Burcot Grange - above; this is a very large house in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. It is a very large Victorian House and had been donated to the Birmingham Eye Hospital by its owners giving prolonged treatment of children suffering from inflammatory conditions of the eye associated with harsh city life. It was also a place where squint operations were performed and a lot of the other children had lost an eye. It was at Burcot Grange that I was introduced to elevenses which was a snack at eleven-o-clock; maybe a biscuit (cookie) and some orange squash. It was like being let loose as there were 5 acres of grounds; so we played cowboys with real hills, valley and bushes to hide behind. The other thing I did was run; I was going to be a Roger Bannister and I ran around those acres every day. My mother came to see me with a tear in her eye, and encouraging one in my infected ones, every week and I cried when she left and then forgot her for a while. Of course one of the nurses was my girl friend; she was nurse Hollingshead and maybe 15 years older than me. She wrote to me for quite some time after I left and when I did they presented me with a book by Enid Blyton called, something like, Around the Year. It was a nature book and they wrote in the inside cover to Christopher with lots of love from Burcot Grange. I still have the book which is at my daughter's in Suffolk. As we sat there in the sun the nurses would 'time' me as I ran around the grounds. I remember I could get around in about three minutes; one day one of the nurses, who had timed me, called another nurse and said 'Hey! Is it the four minute mile or the four mile minute.'

I can just imagine the four mile minute. When I got home I would run around the block – where we lived – and I managed to get a sucker to beat. He was Roger and looked more like Roger Bannister than I did and I would let him run ahead of me so I could run along the back straight which ended just by the lane where we lived in South View Terrace on Moseley Road. So Roger Bannister is my hero; he ran for many years after that to keep fit although he retired from competitive racing early after the 'Golden Mile' to continue his studies to be a doctor where he worked at Northwick Park Hospital as a neurologist and later as Director of the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases in London and a trustee-delegate of St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in Paddington. A few years ago I bought his book called The Four Minute Mile, of course, and just as I was coming up to the Golden mile on page 224 about the Empire Games, where he met Landy, I found the page was blank. The next page was there and from there till the end of the book many pages were missing and there was only an intermittent report from that section. I called Amazon, where I had bought it, and they referred me to the publishers, The Lyons Press, and when I called them they hung up on me. So there we are – there are my memories on this memorial day; I wonder what yours are?

Landy and Bannister Statue in Vancouver; the scene of the Miracle Mile.

Facebook and Privacy.

I think I wrote on here about rock'n'roll Ralphs; rock'n'roll Ralphs is on Sunset Boulevard and Ralphs is one of the main supermarket chains here in Southern California.

When I go in there I usually go to the automatic checkout and use my 'Ralphs' card – by the way Ralphs is spelled without an apostrophe as a man called Ralphs started it; that's what they say or they might have invented him when they found that the sign writer at the first store had spelled it that way.

But I digress; when I use my Ralphs card – shouldn't it be Ralphs's card?? - a load of coupons come out of the machine. The machine knows it's me and knows what things I buy on a regular basis.

It give me coupons for other brands so most of the time so I throw them away.

But this got me thinking; Ralphs know what I buy there every week as it's on their system. What would happen of Ralphs was to sell this information to my healthcare insurance company and what if I bought a couple of bottles of whiskey there a week – or even whisky?? Wouldn't I be in danger of losing my benefit?

And not just whiskey – we are what we eat and we buy what we eat and I feel uncomfortable about broadcasting that to everybody; I'm a bit uncomfortable about letting the world see my DNA via this blog but I've got used to it. We have let Big Brother take over and with things like Facebook, MySpace and the like we are exposing ourselves to things we probably wouldn't want to if we actually knew the full details.

I have a Facebook page and my children periodically put photos on there of their activities with their children and it's great to see them but people actually put their ages on there, let their friends know when they are going away – helloooo the house is empty!! – and put all sorts of personal things on there.

The other day I received an e-mail from a friend of mine, Dave, in Wales with a link to a web page.

I went there and it was a link to a site selling Viagra!!

Dave sent an e-mail later and told me that Facebook went into his address book and sent e-mails to the people there – so who did I talk to about erectile dysfunction?

I don't have my correct date of birth on there as I was always suspicious about that and I have my year of birth on there as 1913!!! So what were they trying to do with the Viagra? Kill me?

I say be careful my friends in what you say on Facebook.

Just a short post today as it crossed my mind and in the true sense of Facebook - I am going to Porto's in Glendale for lunch; I love than Cuban sandwich.

Acting, writing, searching for characters . .

The other day I went into my agent's office to make a recording; I do this quite often and my agent sends the recordings off to some people who are looking for a voice for their commercial; sometimes they want my voice and sometimes they don't so after I make the recording, which I usually do in one take, I go away and forget about it and if the commercial happens it's nice.

As I walked into the office, which is actually a house in Hollywood, I saw a friend of mine talking to another actor – there to put their voices on tape – and as they noticed me I did rather a big 'double take' which got a huge laugh from the other actors there.

The actor that was talking to my friend said “do you do comedy?”

Now the thing is 'yes' I do comedy – but doesn't every other actor; the question if we do it well?

But the laugh I got in the office is nothing to do with the laugh I might get on stage – or even on film; although on the stage you 'time' your laugh and know when and how to pause after the gag line in case you 'step on' the next line and in film you are left to the sense of humour of the editor which is why some editors are good at comedy and others good at action and drama; by the way most of the really great actors look for comedy in everything and the others usually have their heads stuck up their own arses; nothing is that serious!

Going back to that actor in the office, he went on to suggest that I put the big double take into my repertoire for future reference; well it was already there, if I have such a thing as a repertoire, but I try to approach everything with a fresh perspective – or at least I think so or try to.

The guy went on to say that he sits and people watches to find characters; I people watch a lot but not to find characters; I do it for fun especially when I'm with my wife; we even give the people dialogue and we were doing it before we saw Woody Allen doing it in Annie Hall.

I've also heard the phrase 'I go into actor's mode' or 'writer's mode' – well I don't.

I think if I did that I wouldn't be taking part in life. I'm one of those people who like people and spying on them would spoil the fun – it's a bit like being analytical about sex; how can you enjoy sex if you are doing it for research?

So when I write stories of my experiences and other things from the past they are there in my memory and when I write them I am sure some of the experiences are how I remember them and not a hundred percentage accurate.

When I was in Scotland, many years ago, on the SAS course I wrote about here while back, I was going through a forest with my pal 'Gary;' we were carrying SLR rifles and a small pack and we were trying to find our way back to the rendezvous where we were told to join the other troops.

As we walked through the forest we heard gun shots and they were being aimed in our direction. First of all we thought they were blanks and then it became clear that it was live ammunition so we dropped and took cover.

We looked at each other not quite believing what was going on; the shots continued for a few seconds, which felt like hours, and then one of us spotted a target on the ground not too far from us.

We shouted 'stop firing' or whatever and the shooting stopped.

Then we heard some kind of reply and went walking towards the voice.

It was coming from a middle aged gentleman, I seem to remember him being dressed in tweeds and hat, with a rifle. I don't know what he must have thought when he saw us walking towards him carrying our weapons as he probably didn't know they were unloaded but we had a chat and went on our way.

I spoke to my pal 'Gary' via Skype on his desert island (as my friend David Delderfield called it) last year and he mentioned it and I said 'there he was firing at us with his SLR and 'Gary' said 'it had a bolt action.'

For all of those years I thought we had compared our rifles and that they were the same but he was actually using a bolt action .303 – the same as I used in the army cadets.

So it shows how wrong you can be.

Another post I wrote was about my friend almost drowning and is true but another friend of mine, from those days, thought it was him that almost drowned. Well it might have been but not the day I was there; the day I was there it was Freddie Bishop.

When I was about 20 I went to the doctors and as I sat in the waiting room who should walk in but Freddie Bishop. Still the same kind of shy kid and we were within 200 yards of the swimming pool where he nearly drowned.

He sat next to me and was as quiet as he had been before; his big problem, looking back, is that he had no confidence.

At school people would make fun of him as he didn't know anything about sex and didn't know how women had babies. He might have been too shy to admit to knowing anything about the facts of life and sometimes other kids were cruel to him.

He was a good footballer and a pretty good bowler at cricket. One thing you have to do, as a bowler, is appeal for LBW; if you don't appeal the umpire will not give the batsman as being out.

So Freddie would have done better as a bowler if he's learned to shout an appeal - 'HowZat?” you shout and the umpire will either shake his head or stick his forefinger in the air which says to the batsman 'On your way!”

I hadn't seen Freddie, on that day in the doctor's waiting room, for 5 years as we had both left school at the age of 15, and I wondered what he had been doing, what he had been up to.

The shy boy who didn't know anything about sex at the age of 20 was married with 4 children; so that's what he'd been doing so somebody must have told him!

Coalition Government and the Cannes Film Festival.

Well this is my last word on the election – for now!!!

This isn't really a coalition government in Britain; a coalition would be made up of the three parties as it was in World War II; this is a pact between two of the parties – the most popular of the three main parties and the least popular.

If it was truly representative of what the British population wanted it would be made up of Conservative and Labour and then truly truly representative it would be a coalition of the three.

Then you would have in the cabinet the best people for each job and maybe the chancellor of the exchequer would be Gordon Brown – who knows?

Labour in the last thirteen years had quite a few faults but it did redistribute tax credits, double the spending on the National Health Service and introduce a minimum wage; so it wasn't all bad, you know.

The Liberal Democrats in their manifesto said they would keep everybody earning under £10,000 per year out of the tax bracket and the Conservatives in theirs said they would abolish inheritance tax under £1,000,000 – I think I heard they were going to abolish it altogether but I'm not going to do any research as I've read enough about them – but isn't it easy to see where each parties priorities are?

What I don't like is that within days they are advocating a referendum to change the voting system and hidden in there is to have fixed terms; like in America. The one strong thing about the British voting system is that you can get the buggers out if they lose a vote of confidence in the commons.

Will they still have the vote of confidence option?

So that's my last word for the moment.

Where I really should be at the moment is at the Cannes Films Festival; I have been four times to Cannes and look – there I am at the top of the page with black hair - well blackish with some streaks - in those days; the guy on the right facing the camera is the famous guitarist Vic Flick who played the guitar on the original recording of the James Bond theme; we were on our way from Cannes to a picnic on Ile Sainte-Marguerite a half a mile boat ride to the island in the sun;

the island (just above) is famous for its fortress prison (the Fort Royal), in which the so-called Man in the Iron Mask was held in the 17th century.

What you can't see, between me and Vick, are many cans of beer and food; when we got there we had a great picnic and even left some beer buried in the sea to keep cool as one of the party was returning the next day; hard life for some.

So it's back on with the novel writing – I'm also going to start to adapt my first novel into a screenplay and then make a film of it; it will probably be my life's work and might involve more trips to Cannes and I leave you today with a few up to date photos of what's happening in Cannes now; will my wife let me go? Comments welcomed.

The Mojave Cross and the prospect of Proportional Representation

Well here we are and still no sign of an agreement in British politics and I bet people are loving it – maybe not David Cameron who must be getting very impatient as I'm sure he can't wait to be Prime Minister; he has that kind of look and body language but Tory Boy Clegg must be loving his moment in the sun.

It's the same over here when one congressman holds the most important vote and you can see them loving their moment.

I see the phrase 'Tory Boy' for Mister Clegg is nothing new as they were calling him that in 2007 but he is the same as the congressman who is the deciding vote; someone of insignificance suddenly being thrust into the limelight.

To draw very broad strokes about British politics there are people who know nothing about politics at all, as there are in every country, who vote, if they vote, for the status quo; in other words Conservative and when they come to America they vote Republican; they say it's the party of big business and big business must know what its talking about; some immigrants will also vote for the status quo because they think that it's the right thing to do.

The Labour Party is traditionally the party of the working classes or the working class movement and sponsored by the trades unions and, there again, some people will vote for Labour just because they are working class.

And then you have the Liberals.

I have honestly thought that the people who voted Liberal, except for the wooly hat eccentrics, are the people who can't bring themselves to vote for either of the two main parties.

I know of people who have gone from Labour to Liberal and from Conservative to Liberal because they just can't go all the way; they are called the Liberal Democtrats now, of course, but I still don't know what they stand for.

I hear, at 10.43am Pacific time as I write this on Tuesday May 11th that Tory Boy Clegg is back talking to the Tories – living up to his name.

Of course there are people who know and follow politics who vote for the two main parties because they believe in them and the policies of their party.

The newspapers in Britain are very partisan and influence the population and they are mainly Conservative.

There was an advertising copy writer who assessed the British Press as follows:

The Times is read by the people who run the country
The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country
The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country
The Morning Star is read by the people who think the country ought to be run by another country
The Independent is read by people who don't know who runs the country but are sure they're doing it wrong
The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by the people who own the country.
The Daily Express is read by the people who think the country ought to be run as it used to be run
The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who still think it is their country.

There was an extra one was put in, I think by Jonathan Lynn in Yes Prime Minister which is that the Sun's readers don't care who runs the country providing she has big tits.

That's a broad caricature of British Politics and the newspapers which is not without a grain of truth.

The phrase I never heard in British Politics was 'the separation of church and state' which we hear over here all the time.

In Britain religion is taught in schools by law – at least it was when I lived there – and here it is against the law to teach it and yet the majority of the people in the USA are religious and the majority of the people in Britain are not; what does that tell you?

I am not religious at all – I am heathen and an agnostic at best. As an Irish Catholic religion was rammed down my throat as a child; I couldn't go to a Catholic school where we lived in Birmingham (UK) so my brother and I had to go to the convent on Saturday mornings for our religious education; by the time I grew up I had had enough of it and I started thinking for myself.

I think that's the case with the majority in Britain and it's the opposite here; maybe more than 85% of the population here attend church on a regular basis and in Britain, where religious education is a must, maybe 85% of the population don't go at all.

In the 1930s a cross was erected in the Mojave Desert to commemorate the dead of the first world war. The Mojave Desert is between here, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas and I've driven through it a few times. I don't think I have ever seen the cross though.

The land where the cross stands is government owned and there was a movement to get the cross taken down as the cross violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment; I believe someone wanted to put a Buddhist shrine erected near it.

It was decided to transfer the land to private ownership to satisfy the law.

The case went to the Supreme Court, recently, and in a 5-4 decision the court sent the case back to the district court, saying the lower court used the wrong legal standard in deciding to invalidate a transfer of the land on which the cross sits to private ownership.

As I have mentioned I am not religious but what harm is it doing? Are they (the protesters and a certain Frank Buono who brought the case in the first place) so anal that they can't just let it go?

This is cut and pasted from something I found on the Internet today:
MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE, Calif. — Authorities say a 7-foot-tall cross in the Mojave Desert that sparked a U.S. Supreme Court dispute has been stolen.
The National Park Service says someone cut the bolts holding down the metal-pipe cross and made off with it late Sunday or early Monday.
Veterans groups say they're outraged at what they consider the desecration of a symbol that was erected in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars to honor World War I dead.
The cross was challenged by critics who say a religious symbol shouldn't be allowed on public land but the U.S. Supreme Court last month refused to order it removed.

This has nothing to do with Nick (Tory Boy) Clegg who has stated he doesn't believe in God (he wouldn't get voted in here) and who, at 11.19 Pacific Time, has lived up to his name and backed the Tories as Brown has just quit as Prime Minister and at 7.19 pm BST from The Guardian will advise the Queen to invite the leader of the opposition (Cameron) to become Prime Minister – he wished the new PM well.

So it looks like a Proportional Representation referendum.

I wish Gordon Brown well.

Proportional Representation and Nick (Tory Boy) Clegg.

Well that's what my daughter calls him with a few expletives; Nick (Tory Boy) Clegg; and I can see what she means on this very sunny Los Angeles afternoon.

It's not too hot and rather pleasant but my daughter is getting very hot under the collar. She didn't want the Conservatives to get in at all and as she votes in Bury St Edmunds she felt her vote would be a waste of time so she tactically voted for the Liberal Democrats; with Clegg talking to Cameron, the Conservative leader, she feels she has been betrayed.

A lot of voters voted tactically and they feel betrayed too.

I was having lunch the other day at Porto's, a great Cuban place in Glendale, and as I munched on my Cubana I told me friend Ron about the tactical voting; he had never heard of it.

It's simply this: if there are 3 people on the ballot one Labour, one Conservative and one Liberal Democrat, and you know from previous elections, opinion polls or just by tradition that the Conservative is going to win it by a bunch of votes and your party stands no chance at all, you vote for the party that can or may stop the Conservative candidate getting in.

So my daughter voted for the Liberal Democrat; she said her hand trembled, her stomach churned and she could hardly bring herself to make the cross – but she did.

Now as I write this Clegg is or has been talking to Cameron so Nick (Tory Boy) Clegg, she feels, is stabbing her in the back.

Of course by the time you read this it might be all over so you are laughing at me because I got it wrong or he might have called Gordon.

What Tory Boy Clegg really wants is Proportional Representation and I have no qualifications to give anybody advice on what to vote on this, should it come to the vote, but as I have asked before where are all the new MPs voted under the new system going to sit? There are only 650 seats!

Let's just take the constituency where my daughter lives: the Conservative won with 47.5% of the vote; straight away you see that the winner has less than a majority as more people voted against him than voted for him. That's nothing new but I point it out in any case.

This means that in the House of Commons, for the constituency of Bury St Edmunds, more people will be representing the minor parties than the person who won the election if they had already adopted PR.

That's the way I see it.

The other kind of PR is that out of the 5 people that stand for parliament you will put them in the order of preference giving 5 points for your favourite and so on down to 1 point; this means that the person with the most votes as favourite won't automatically win if nearly everybody likes one of the people as a second choice to their own particular favourite – now who would that be? Yes you are right! The Liberal Democrat – Nick (Tory Boy) Clegg; no wonder he wants Proportional Representation.

Would he want PR if he was a member of the Labour or Conservative Party? Ask yourself that one.

For anybody reading this from America the liberals in the UK are not the same as the liberals in the USA where liberal is a dirty word.

The liberals in Britain – or the Liberal Party – were formally the Whigs and they ran the country; this is going back to the 19th Century.

When the Labour Party was formed (and this is off the top of my head so don't write and tell me I'm wrong – ok write if you want) when it was formed it eventually won one seat in the commons and the MP was Keir Hardie.

So the Labour Party only had one seat. And the over the years they won more seats till by the 1930s they actually won an election; the Prime Minister, the first Labour PM was Ramsay MacDonald but it didn't last very long. I believe he was an ancestor of Angela Lansbury the actress famous for Murder She Wrote or, in my book, The Manchurian Candidate – and Elvis's mother in Blue Hawaii.

The Labour Party took a lot of votes from the Liberal Party, over the years, to rise to such a position and a lot from the Conservatives and in 1945 with a huge majority they oversaw the nationalisation of basic industries such as coal mining and the steel industry, the creation of the state-owned British Railways and the establishment of the National Health Service; can you believe that America a free health service paid out of taxes.

So whilst the Labour Party grew the Liberals shrank.

In the 1980s the so called Gang of Four – a bunch of opportunists, Michael Foot called them – split from the Labour Party and together with David Steele formed the Social Democratic Party which became the Liberal Democrats in 1988 – 22 years ago.

It took the Labour Party about 60 years from formation to Government so the Lib/Dems have 38 years to go unless Nick (Tory Boy) Clegg has his way.

So whilst the world looks towards the oil leak and the incoming oil slicks off the south coasts of the United States and my son's team Chelsea takes the premiership the Tories are filing in to see Tory Boy Clegg, who has only been an MP for 5 years, for a different kind of premiership – the job of Prime Minister.

Below are the 3 wise men; the contenders for a job which will be the finish of whichever one of them takes it.

Proportional Representation.

So what is all this new system the Liberal Democrats want for British Politics – Proportional Representation – and how would it work?

Well I'm sorry if it looks as if I have a clue on this and that I might write something here that is enlightening but I can't because I don't have one - a clue that is; but when did that stop me from having an opinion?

One thing I do know is that there were so many people turned away from polling stations yesterday who stood in queues for hours and still couldn't get to vote with the simple system that they have now; so how would it be with complicated papers containing Proportional Representation?

At 9:30 pm yesterday, half an hour before the 10:00pm deadline, council workers at a Hackney polling station, were telling people in the queue that they would not get to vote; this was met with cries of 'Over my dead body' and similar comments but it wasn't to be; they were sent away voteless.

What's going to happen about this is anybody's guess but it seems to me that if you see queues all day you would bring in extra staff – one polling station actually ran out of voting papers.

But getting back to Proportional Representation (PR) and how it might work: proportional means relative so it would mean the percentage of votes you get in the country, or in the constituencies, would correspond with the amount of seats you get in the house of commons.

So how many MPs would each constituency have representing them and when they get to Westminster where would you put them?

Would each MP still have an office? Would there be secondary MPs? Senior MPs?

What about The Monster Raving Looney Party? They had candidates in many constituencies; this year they were actually backed by Britain's second biggest bookie; William Hill so they were called The Monster Raving Looney Party; William Hill.

For those not familiar The Monster Raving Looney Party was taken from a Monty Python sketch and just above is the late Screaming Lord Such who founded the party.

How many seats in the house percentage wise would go to them? One percent? That would be 6 MPs. 6 and a half MPs to be more precise wasting everybody's time with their antics.

At the moment I don't know how many votes, percentage wise, the parties in Britain have received. I could be wrong but I think it was something like 36% to the Conservatives, 28% to Labour and 22% to The Liberal Democrats; translating that to the House of Commons who have 649 seats to fill – the other one going to the Speaker of the House – not to be confused with Nancy Pelosi's job, by the way, as the Speaker is just that – he or she controls the house and calls upon members to speak amongst other things.

36% of the seats to the Conservatives = 234
28% of the seats to Labour = 182
22% to the Liberal Democrats = 143

That comes to 559 leaving 91 seats to share amongst the rest; there will be the Ulster Unionists, the Green Party, the Scottish Nationalists and the British National Party sharing the remaining percentage of the 16%.

Would we really like to give a voice to the fascists or the Nazis – or whatever they want to call themselves this year? Would we really want to throw the commons into a state of chassis?

Isn't it bad enough that they are represented in Europe?

As Captain Boyle said in Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock – 'The whole world is in a terrible state of chassis.'

Let's leave it alone and it will get better.