Boss – I’m moving in

MOVE over, Mr Editor, we’re all moving in...

Newcastle footballer Andy Carroll, 21, has appeared in court charged with assaulting his girlfriend.

He was released on bail only on condition that he lived with club captain, Kevin Nolan.

Brilliant. You’re possibly in a spot of bother so you have to live with the boss. That’s enough to keep most of us very firmly on the straight and narrow, thank you.

Like the girl in my school whose parents had to move suddenly just before her A-levels. Instead of living with one of us – plenty of opportunities for skiving off school, drinking, flirting – she was sent to live with our headmistress. Horror!

But she did get very good exam results.

Usually, we like to keep very clear distinctions between our work and home lives. Otherwise, how can we concentrate on the one and relax in the other? Many people actually enjoy a lengthy commute as it puts not only physical distance, but a nice mental barrier between the two.

But maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe we should bring work and home closer together. (Pause while I answer the door to the postman and empty the washing machine while I’m about it.) Especially when it comes to children.

Some schools do that, of course.

Now that their options for discipline have been much curtailed, they have to use an even greater threat with unruly pupils – to get your mum in.

Not only to see the headteacher, but also – oh joy – to sit with their child in class.

What a weapon. For a bolshy 14- year-old , the thought of his mother – inevitably in seriously embarrassing clothing of course – sitting next to him in the classroom is enough to concentrate the mind wonderfully.

Drastic but effective.

It’s nearly as good as mothers threatening to meet their stroppy adolescents at the school gates with big hugs and kisses and cries of “Darling!”. Who needs to smack a child when you have that nuclear warhead in your arsenal?

I don’t know if Andy Carroll has any family. He was living in a swish hotel, which seems a bit bizarre for a 21-year-old. Maybe that was part of the problem.

But although most of us would recoil in horror at the thought of our parents invading the workplace, for some people it works brilliantly.

Think of Tom Daley and his dad, Andy Murray and his mum, the Williams sisters and their father. Or even Tom Jones and his son.

There’s something about that parent/child dynamic that has something extra. That fuller knowledge of knowing exactly which buttons to press. Perhaps we should encourage more family involvement in the world of work.

Either that or live with the boss.

THE North East Chamber of Commerce STILL hasn’t removed all its adverts, curling soggily up from Darlington’s pavements. Isn’t there a fine for litterers?

S O there will be no Glastonbury in 2012 because all available portable loos are destined for the Olympics.

Fantastic, just what we need. And absolutely no reason for cancelling Glastonbury.

Music festivals have all got much too civilised in recent years. Glam camping, trailer parks, people turning up in designer wellies and expensive suitcases on wheels. Time to restore the true festival experience.

And that means loos that are a hole in the ground with maybe a plank. Or a walk in the woods with a trowel.

That’ll sort out the posers.

Speaking of loos, I happened, by chance, to be in Rome for the inauguration of Pope Benedict. There were 350,000 people in St Peter’s Square and the organisation was brilliant.

The square is actually oval, surrounded by the colonnades designed by Bernini and built in the 1650s.

But on the day of the inauguration, all around the plaza, between each set of graceful pillars, there were crammed eight portaloos – hundreds in all, handy, accessible and utterly unobtrusive.

But whenever I see pictures of St Peter’s now, I can never look at it in quite the same way.

WOMEN were already saving precious little for their retirement.

Wednesday’s announcement means that the state pension has moved another year farther away.

And this on top of the news that more women are going bankrupt. 175 women a day now face insolvency – three times as many as men.

Partly, of course, it’s because women still don’t earn as much as men, especially when they have small children. All the more reason then for us to get a grip on our finances and start worrying our pretty little heads about it.

For every pampered WAG wondering how to spend her husband’s millions, there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of women worrying about paying the rent or the mortgage, for whom a broken machine or new school shoes can just be the final straw. Women always used to be the managers. Working men generally tipped up their wages, which our grannies quickly sorted into little savings pots for the rent, food, coal and the funeral plan.

So how did we lose the knack?

Wherever and whenever we did, it’s time to grab it back quickly.

Unless you can afford to support yourself then you are always going to be dependent on someone else and equality is meaningless. Debt is not liberating. Dependence is a trap.

The only true freedom is financial.

So isn’t it time you sorted yourself out?

Thanks for the memory

I’M loving Keith Richards’ sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll memoirs. But I’m puzzled. Across the years and through the clouds of dope, drink and chaos, how on earth does he remember it all? Impressive.

Maybe we should all have what he’s having.

It’s Joan – naturally?

J OAN COLLINS, 77, is as stylish as ever. Lamenting the lack of glamour in showbiz these days, she claims to owe her still enviable good looks entirely to Vaseline and make-up.

Mmmm... possibly.

But by “make-up” I guess she means something a little more substantial than a quick bit of blusher and some lip gloss.

Backchat

Dear Sharon

L IKE you, I am puzzled as to how we will manage without the convenience of cheques. For more than 30 years I have sold books to church bellringers across the country. I advertise in the specialist weekly journal, customers send me a note with a cheque, I send them a book. It is all very simple.

So today, I rang the customer service number of my bank to ask how we will manage when we no longer have cheques.

“Customers can pay online,”

was the first answer. “Or they can pay in through their own bank.”

“That requires me to broadcast my bank account details in the advertisements, is that secure?”

“It should be all right as it will only be your account number and sort code.”

“How will I know who has paid and for what?”

“It will show on your monthly statement.”

This, I pointed out, would tell me only where the money had come from, but not the customers’ names or which books they required.

“Well you could give them a reference number or ask them to quote their names when they make payment through their banks.”

Do you see this getting a little ludicrous yet, Sharon?

At the end of the conversation, we concluded that customers should send me a letter telling me what they required and giving me their address. In response, I send them a reference number which they take to their bank when they make the payment.

I then wait until the monthly statement arrives and check for the payments, reconciling the payments received with the letters. If all is well, I send them a book.

Quite obviously, this is a vast improvement and requires far less effort than simply putting a cheque in the post.

There must be scores of small businesses, home-workers and small craft enterprises in the same boat.

Peter Sotheran, Redcar