No thanks, Gok, I’ll keep my clothes on

THE lights in my sitting room look so warm and enticing as I view them huddled under a damp blanket at the bottom of my garden.

The temperature is close to freezing, my teeth are chattering and my only solace is the stiff Scotch passed to me over the garden wall by my male neighbour, one of more than a dozen men up and down our road who I can see are also seeking sanctuary outside.

It is in short supply but we are all criminals, sentenced without trial to the shrub borders, lawns and garden sheds of our former homes by those cruellest of judges… women raptly watching the first in a new series of fashion programmes hosted by Gok Wan.

My own crime, to which I plead guilty, was to have the temerity to suggest that better entertainment could be gained by watching paint dry.

Seconds later I had been given a jackboot up my backside and was skidding past the bird bath to the sound of French windows being closed and locked.

I tried to bluster my way back inside but both my wife and daughter were too busy to let me in because they were lighting candles in front of an effigy of Gok Wan.

Worse I indignantly noticed that his icon appeared to have taken the place of my beloved film poster from The Magnificent Seven.

If hazy memory serves, there is still another 50 minutes of “looking good naked” to go, but every man in the road is unlikely to have to worry about that.

Far from stripping off, we are intent on hanging on to every stitch of clothing we can just to stay fashionably warm.

Useful security measure or light pollution?

IT may be normal for nights to be getting shorter but it also appears that they are getting unnaturally lighter.

The other evening I had to go out on a job which was quite close to where I live, so I decided to leave the car at home and walk there.

Well, you know how it is, you start walking and you go into a sort of auto pilot where your mind thinks of this and that without consciously directing your legs to move forward.

Suddenly there was a searing flash, darkness was banished in an instant and there I stood on the pavement bathed in the glare from a security light like some reluctant performer on a stage.

It startled me but I started walking again and thought no more about it… only for my passage to trigger another security light which again lit up the street.

In all I suppose I walked half a mile during which time a total of four security lights went off. Now I know of other security lights in my own road and at least three more in nearby roads, so just how widespread is their influence?

I checked on national surveys and domestic security lighting was revealed as the second biggest source of light pollution behind street lighting.

Both my neighbours have security lamps and they certainly light up the garden.

But security lights are a bit like fire, a good servant but a bad master, because I’ve seen them triggered many times by things such as waving branches.

I’m certain it’s reassuring for owners to know they have a front line defence against crime or simply instant light to guide them to their door when they arrive home in the dark, but I do wonder if it’s getting out of hand.

Loud horn, blue lights?

MUSIC lovers are on the edge of their seats at the arrival in Weymouth of a top conductor.

I can exclusively reveal that, while no concert date or venue has been announced yet, the conductor is already out and about practising.

Strangely he seems to favour wearing dirty clothing and the surrounds of a battered white van travelling at speed along a public road to fine tune his skills.

But there can be no doubt about his commitment since he had both hands off the wheel at the same time while making imperious gestures reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein or Leopold Stokowski in full cry.

Culture is so important in our lives and I will happily join others in the ticket queue for his first performance which will hopefully be Beethoven’s little known work for Horn and Blue Lights!

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