No need to press the panic button

PROBABLY the great thing about Hertfordshire Fire Brigade is that they refused to press the panic button. In newspapers, and particularly on the sports pages, they're at it all the time.

The Echo lads are therefore to be commended because in the past four years the cliche has only been dusted down 44 times, although half of those have been in the past 12 months.

Clearly 2005 was a bad year for panic buy-in and for playing through the pain barrier - it means carrying an injury - too.

Darlington FC manager David Hodgson has had most cause to press the panic button hereabouts - or to "refuse to press it" - but that's probably because his team was in danger of dropping into the bottom five (which means to 20th) or, worse, into the bottom two, which means 23rd.

The original panic button was used by Second World War pilots to warn the rest of the crew when the plane had been hit.

Sometimes, of course, prematurely pressing the panic button could lead to the crew baling out when it wasn't necessary. Probably what's called jumping to conclusions.

ALAN Woods writes another well-dubbined boot room clich, giving 110 per cent. "How do they do it?" he asks. "Have they an extra heart chamber, a kind of reserve tank, that they can switch on when they've reached the normal 100 per cent? Should it be allowed? Surely such people have an unfair advantage."

Sports grounds, says Alan, should be fitted with sensory devices to detect such cheats. Opposing football teams could be allowed to take a penalty from 10.8 yards, or marathon runners made to cover an extra 2.6 miles.

Whatever 110 per cent is, he adds sadly, Sunderland don't appear to have it.

CLICH or simply con, the phrase which particularly irks the column is "gala dinner", meaning municipal roast beef with balloons. The Echo has reported on 179 of them in the past decade. (At this time of year, of course, they're gala Christmas dinners.)

The dinner might even be "prestigious" - though it's usually the all-embracing awards which are thus described - and as Dave Dye in Wolsingham points out, the word originally meant "delusory" or "hollow". Preastigium was Latin for delusion.

If the prestige gala dinner were also sophisticated, there could be problems with that course, too. As Brian Shaw in Shildon suggests, "sophisticated" originally meant "adulterated" or "falsified" and in many dictionaries still does. It should be refined with care.

PAUL Wilkinson, once The Times man in the North-East, adds his two pennorth to the debate over "may" and "might".

His old Times style book is curiously silent on the matter, as is his 1965 Fowler ("a school prize"). Perhaps back then, says Paul, everyone knew anyway.

"I always understood that 'may' is permissive while 'might' is conditional - 'Sharon says you may go the pub but she might not be there when you get back'."

Right.

GRUMBLING about changes to Darlington's discordant bus system, recent columns have noted that the homeward service - like many more - now leaves from outside the Nags Head.

At first there wasn't a shelter. When one appeared it was like trying to protect the entire complement of the Great North Run with a second hand golf umbrella. You ain't heard nothing yet.

For the past three Tuesday nights we've caught the nine o'clock, usually running a bit late. Tuesday at the Nags is karaoke night, and it's effectively an outside broadcast.

All the tormented souls in Hades could not cry out in greater anguish than the karaoke singers in the Nags. The nine o'clock noise pierces more fearfully than ever the December cold could, it resonates like a dentist's drill, circa 1950.

If nothing else can persuade the borough council to think again, its members should be forced to stand outside the Nags. Then perhaps they might listen.

LAST week's note on the wonderful new Christmas lights outside Ferryhill Town Hall - a black and white photograph, so readers should really see for themselves - understandably brightened Town Council executive officer Jamie Corrigan's day. "We've had some very positive comments," he says.

In view of the Echo's report nine days ago that two-thirds of companies now refuse to put up Christmas decorations for fear of offending minorities, a supportive letter from Mr J W Davison asks if they know that in Ferryhill. Happily not.

Technically they're light emitting diodes, LEDs for short, and use just an eighth of the electricity of last year's system. The council plans even greater illumination next Christmas, including a "ceiling of light" across the market place.

Jamie's only disappointment is that, because the inside lights weren't affected by the Ferryhill weather, the hall is decked internally much the same as always.

"For six weeks I still get to look at the rear view of a bear from my office. If you want to see a bear backside, look no further than here."

...and finally, the spirit of Christmas is alive and well and reigns in Coundon Conservative Club. More than 30 years after we were barred out for questioning members' allegiance to Mr Edward Heath - as then he was - the blue carpet is being rolled out once again.

Prose and Cons, we'd cause to mention the ban in last week's column. Coundon lad Baz Munday not only sympathised but raised the case with a committee member.

"He said you weren't just welcome back, but he'd personally buy you a pint," reports Baz.

The club near Bishop Auckland, which externally resembles an upmarket ranch, also has women associate members (20p a year) and allows them to join in everything except snooker. He doesn't explain the black ball.

The club's been going for donkeys years, with only one bit of bother that Baz remembers. That was when a chap announced that Margaret Thatcher had a face like the nether part of a sheep's anatomy and was clouted round the ear hole for his trouble.

A furore ensued. The guy with the thick ear apologised and said he'd forgotten he was in a Conservative club.

"It's not that I'm bothered about," replied his assailant, "I'm a bloody shepherd."

We go to press again next week.

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