Blogging has been light of late- not only have I been dipping into Second Life, but also had my head buried in a book.

Not just any book, mind you. This is a coffee table book Par Excellence about my favourite topic- old theatres. It is called Saving the Gaiety and is all about the delightful little gem on the Isle of Man, the Gaiety Theatre on the sea front in Douglas. It is written by Mervyn Stokes, the most enthusiastic man on the planet for the Theatre.

The piece de resistance of the theatre is the auditorium ceiling which also includes a central stained glass rose light, shown above. The photo below (from the site of the decorative plasterers) puts it into context and a more sumptuous interior would be hard to find outside of a Royal Palace.

There is more to a Theatre, however, than just the interior fantasy world of rococo fibrous plaster. It is also a dream factory and has a full set of Victorian theatre equipment, much of it salvaged and restored by Dr. David Wilmore from other theatres contemporary to the Gaiety (opened in 1900) or even earlier.

It also has the only working Corsican Trap in the world, (click here to read about it and see a video.)

In 2000, I attended a Frank Matcham Conference organised by the Matcham Society in Douglas, arranged to tie in with the Gaiety Centenary. David was only a toddler then, so he spent most of the time with Karen on the beach at port Erin, whilst I attended fascinating presentations about life in an architectural practice, the skills of decorative plasterwork and how to conserve the past. It culminated an a fascinating tour of the Gaiety where John Earl, former Director of the Theatres Trust, was given the opportunity to try out the Corsican Trap. (Although it never happened, as it would have been against elfensafety, wink wink.) Mervyn also proudly showed us his most recent acquisition, the original 1911 Vanity Fair Matcham cartoon, immediately recognisable to Matcham lovers everywhere. I believe that it belongs to Mervyn but is on loan to the theatre.

Anyway, we hope to return to the Island next summer, we have found a great holiday cottage (that even features wireless broadband!) and I owe Mervyn a Pint. I just hope they have some decent shows on next year, the programme for this summer looks a little thin.

(If you want to see more of the Gaiety, there are great 360 degree views here.)

Two weeks since I shaved my head for charity and it is rapidly growing back, at least in the places where I still had hair! It is a lot finer at the temples and top, a Number 1 everywhere else, “a typical Copper” according to BloggerWife.

Going bald certainly draws your attention to everyone else’s haircut, I never quite noticed how many blokes have a similar cut & a bit of a beard to distract from the shame of early/late/any onset MPB*.

It was interesting how the smoothness rapidly became the feel of velcro, then fuzzy felt, then satin velvet. Even with two weeks growth I can still feel the heat of the giant plasma screens at work, or the cold air in a draught.

I raised £402.77 by the way and did a bit of Diabetes Awareness in the process. I’m just waiting for a Company Cheque to send it off.

*Male Pattern Baldness.

Blogger Havering On has a great puff for Dan Fogelberg that got me thinking about my own select list of classic albums. My own recommendation for June is No more fear of flying by Gary Brooker.

Released back in 1979, GB is the immediately recognisable voice of Procul Harum and this was his first (& arguably best) solo album. It is a great mix of styles and I love it as a car CD. It isn’t too easy to categorise but the Amazon reviewers paint a good picture (and all rated it five stars). My favourite track is “Old Manhattan melodies“, the sort of song you have to listen to all the way through as a complete whole from opening note to closing chord. Close second is “Pilot” and “Angelina” was covered by others being a mellow version of Mambo number 5 in its sentiment. Honorable mention must also go to “Say it ain’t so Joe.”

Buy it! You know you want to…

News reaches me that Town Councillors might be going to vote themselves expenses or allowances.

Cllr Sanders (the new Mayor) has regularly complained about not getting reimbursed for all of the letters and phone calls she makes whilst cajoling the landlords down at Morley Bottoms. The previous Finance committees have always knocked it back however, on point of principle. The reason for this is that Parish Councillors are not allowed by law to claim expenses for anything undertaken within the Parish. (They can, however, claim for items outside the boundary, e.g. for travelling to a training day in Leeds). Councillors are at liberty to make phone calls from the Town Council Office, or take post there to be franked.

It is now possible, however, to get an independent renumeration panel to set allowable sums. This comes at a cost, of course. The cost of paying it to all the Councillors (regardless of participation) and the cost of administering the scheme. Already there are rumours of a new Admin Assistant as the Real Admin assistant is covering for the Town Clerk who is on long term sick leave.

The biggest cost will be in the pockets of those who pay Morley Town Council precept. It doesn’t sound to me as though there is much cutting of cloth to suit the means, 2006/7 is already a deficit budget drawing on reserves.

I have a softcopy of the previous position of the Finance and General Purposes Committee on Councillor expenses:

• Morley Town Council commenced in May 2000. At that time, it was understood that elected members of town and parish councils are unpaid, as the bodies are the first tier of local government.

• Councillors could claim for mileage and subsistence expenses if performing an approved duty outside the council boundaries (conferences etc.) No allowances were paid for attendance at meetings, committees or any other approved duty within the town council area.

• New regulations came into force on 1st May 2003. These allow for a basic allowance to be paid to members of a town council. This allowance is separate from the travel and subsistence expenses referred to above.

• The basic allowance is calculated to cover the expenses which are associated with the basic duties of being a local councillor.

• The basic allowance is set by a parish remuneration panel. Such a body must be set up by the responsible body, in our case this would be Leeds City Council.
The panel could only be established if requested to do so by a town or parish council.

• The cost of setting up a remuneration panel would be £900 approx. This cost would be met by the councils requesting it (i.e. one council would pay the full cost, nine councils would pay £100 each etc.)

To date, and to the best of my knowledge, such a panel has not been requested by any of the local councils within the Leeds Metropolitan District.

• The new rules were published by the National Association of Local Councils as Legal Topic Note 24. These were considered by Morley Town Council’s Finance & General Purposes Committee at our meeting held on 13th November 2003.

• At that meeting it was proposed that the existing payments for travel and subsistence be maintained, and we would also ask that a dependent carers allowance be considered for members having caring responsibilities. It was agreed that this would be put forward to the Independent Remuneration Panel as part of a joint submission by the Yorkshire Local Council Association.

• We did not support the payment of a basic allowance to members of Morley Town Council.

• These resolutions were approved at the full meeting of Morley Town Council held on 17th December 2003.

• The regulations (The Local Authorities (Members’ Allowances)(England) 2003) do not make provision for the payment of personal expenses incurred by individual elected members.

• It must be emphasied that the allowances as detailed apply only to approved duties, i.e. activities that the Council has asked a councillor to undertake.

My position on this is simple. If you want an allowance to be a Councillor, stand for Leeds City Council. Morley Town Council does not have any real responsibility or authority and most of the money (which comes entirely from Morleians) goes on admin & double taxation. If MTC ever gets any truly devolved responsibilities (and the funding to go with it) then there may be a case. Otherwise One Million Pounds (and counting) is not good value for a talking shop and civic pride programme.

(You can see an example renumeration panel assessment here, .pdf file)

As there is a possible postal strike, the Spectator have decided to make this week’s issue free to view online.

They said I could tell my friends about it, so have a look here. No logins or registrations.

I liked the cartoon on page 35.