Why do so many people try to find the loopholes in the Covid regulations? Restrictions are a nuisance but they are about keeping people safe.
Lines have to be drawn somewhere. It’s about reducing risk. Stop trying to push the boundaries or else nothing is going to work.
In England, the big talking point now is whether a sandwich is a meal, so you can have a drink to accompany it in a pub or restaurant, just because it looks like a Scotch egg is a meal.
The sausage in the Scotch egg is cooked so it is probably more likely to qualify as a meal. Covidiots, leave it. Pub owners and boozers alike are trying to unpick the regulations and it’s doing my nut in.
No, I know nuts are not a meal either. Dry roasted nuts? Aaargh, I don’t know and I don’t care. Just leave it. We are in Tier 1, so why should we bother?
By the way, where are the eggs in a supermarket? In exile, of course.
Interviewing Darth Vader
It was a sad moment when I heard Dave Prowse had passed. The iconic Green Cross Code Man back in the 1970s and 1980s, a sort of superhero figure all dressed in green and white who ticked off kids for not being careful when crossing the road. He’d say: “Stop, look, listen, think.”
Then he got the part of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. Dave got the imposing role being muscular and 6ft 6in. Yet it was the voice of James Earl Jones they used in the film. They thought Dave sounded too West Country.
Back in the 1990s, the editor on the newspaper I was on in Croydon asked me to “put on your Star Wars helmet and go and interview Darth Vader”.
He had been talking to his agent and, as he lived just a couple of miles up the road, the big man was up for a chat. No glitzy media entourage, I was just to go to his home.
When he answered the door, I asked: “Mr Vader?” He said: “Ah, you must be the Scotch git the editor said he was sending along for a conflab?” Yeah, that would be me. A Scotch git, eh? Huh.
Dave then posed for my photographer and in we went for tea and large wedges of his wife’s homemade cake. No drams though, as I was driving. We had a great time all the same.
He had hilarious yarns about behind-the-scenes accidents that happened when making the Green Cross Code stuff. Then the big intergalactic Star Wars stuff.
They should have used Dave for the weird Vader voice, too. Producer George Lucas thought his Bristol accent too strong.
Being a consummate professional, Dave had all that laboured dialogue off to a tee. Yanks, what do they know?
Soon I was conscious I had taken up enough of Dave’s time. But, no. He had other yarns. I suggested the editor would wonder where I was. Is Maciver in the pub? That sort of thing.
Dave demanded his number. Like a creature from another world, he lumbered over to the phone and his big hands dialled. In that Bristolian accent, he asked for the editor. Then that raspy voice: “This is Darth Vader. Is that Editor Skywalker? Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father, I mean, reporter? I am holding him hostage until he has more cake. You don’t know the power of the Dark Side.”
That was it settled. I could then stay as long as I wanted.
As I left his house in the late afternoon, Dave rushed out after me and said: “Do you need any help crossing the road? Should I get that uniform?”
I got a great double-page spread out of my chat. Dave phoned up afterwards to say thanks. I should have been thanking him but that was the type of guy he was. Thank you, Lord Vader.
With it being near Christmas, a Star Wars film or two will be on soon. Thank you, Santa.
Before you mock kids who still believe in Santa, just remember there are still many adults who believe everything they read on social media.
Mrs X is not happy. She says that since I heard the sad news about Dave Prowse, I have become obsessed with Star Wars.
It’s so bad, she’s thinking of leaving me. I said: “Please don’t go, honey. You’re the Obi-Wan for me.”