I'VE gone and done it again. I've agreed to give a talk to a local club. Every time I do it, and bore people rigid, I swear I'll never, ever agree again and then people ask and they're so nice I can't say no. So I spend the next few months trying to forget it's going to happen and then the two weeks running up to the event, after I've been kindly reminded of the date, in a blue funk. It's nothing to do with the people I am going to talk to, it's my sure and certain knowledge that I'm not a good speaker. I can write, I can report other people's speeches and marvel at their delivery and their wit. But I can't do it myself. I blame my former English language teacher who, when we all took an examination in public speaking, wrote 'very good enunciation but dreadfully dull content and delivery' on my report, after I had given what I thought was riveting talk on 'me and my pet ferret'. I vowed then and there that I would never expose myself to an audience of yawning people again. Sadly, when you work for a newspaper you often get asked to do extra mural activities, such as opening or judging things. When you're a woman it's even worse, because anything that smacks at being even slightly feminine, ie nearly everything, is pushed your way. On one paper, I was the sole female on staff so consequently was in the front line for 'volunteering' whenever such activities came up. Most invitations to any newspaper are sent to the editor. In fact all correspondence which comes near a newspaper is addressed to the editor and invariably starts 'Dear Sir'. I used to get most of my mail addressed personally after a time, but despite this the letters often began 'Dear Sir' as though it was some kind of generic term for editors. Anyway, on this particular paper, the editor would get invitations to go along to some local do, and as he never opened anything except a bottle, he would fix on a likely victim in the office and that was usually me. 'You like dogs don't you? he would say casually. The first time I said I did with some enthusiasm, thinking he might like me to write something about dogs. Subsequently I just waited for the inevitable and would find myself in the back of beyond on a Saturday afternoon searching for a dog show in an obscure village where they were lacking a judge. If it wasn't dogs it was horses. 'It doesn't matter if you don't know the back end of a horse from the front end, they only want you to judged the b..... fancy dress on horseback. Just choose the least grotesque child and you'll be well away'. If not animals then other things. 'They want someone to pick out the bonniest baby and I said you had the ideal qualifications because you've dropped three of them in quick succession', he would say, in the days before political correctness reared its head. At dog shows, I would not be considered qualified to do any serious judging, so usually got the 'fun' classes. Attractive At one I had to pick the most attractive dog and its owner, a slight variation of the 'dog most like its owner', and infinitely worse. I had the choice of a large lady in a beige and white cloak accompanied by a large boxer in a brown and white coat. Or was it the other way round? As neither could be said to be remotely attractive, unless you have a thing about bouncy jowls, they weren't in the running. Neither was a thin elderly lady in maroon with a ginger Peke (I dubbed it the widow's peak), nor a child with buck teeth carrying a dachhound. The difficulty was that if the dogs were attractive then the owner wasn't, or vice versa, until I spotted a fairly good looking redhead with an Irish setter, who fitted the bill nicely. A lucky choice because she turned out to be the president's wife, so everyone except the other contestants was happy and I got given a very nice tea. At another show I had to choose the dog I would most like to take home with me. I quickly found the dog I would most like to kick up the backside, because it bit me when I patted it. I eventually chose a cross poodle cum five or six other breeds with a ragged stick up coat and an engaging grin. A little child at the end, clutching the ugliest terrier I have ever seen, an animal that no amount of money would have persuaded anyone to take home, burst into tears and I felt terribly guilty and slunk away. I was asked back the next year to judge the children's pets (open class) which proved to be horribly difficult. Just how you were supposed to differentiate between a toad and a tabby kitten, a hamster or a goldfish? And who's to say that a grass snake isn't a more lovable pet then a gerbil? I eventually awarded equal first to the toad and the gerbil and gave everyone else a runner-up prize, which wasn't popular with the organisers but then they didn't have to face twelve little screwed up tearful faces. After my fifth pet show, 'the cat you'd most like to roast on a spit', no, I'm joking, I flatly refused to attend any more and the editor got his own back by sending me to another baby show. Baby shows are gradually dying out, but they were once all the rage, and rage was often in evidence at them, directed at the judges. Practically every mother thinks her baby is beautiful, even if the rest of the world thinks it looks like a small cross chimp. All mothers think their babies are going to win, and even my mother, who once entered me for a baby contest, had to admit to seething hatred when I came second to a large dough-like drooling creature (my mother's description). So, walking down a line of bawling infants trying to fairly judge each one on its merits, or lack of them, was hell. Especially so if some sadistic organisers, who was no doubt already on a train to Scotland on the day, had called it 'the most beautiful baby'. I did once judge such a show with a professional midwife who prodded and poked and judged on health, growth and other important things, not looking at facial features at all. It didn't matter though, when the winners were announced all the losers adopted an expression which read revenge and I always hoped to make a quick getaway through the back door, until I was reminded that I would have to present the prizes. Other judging invests involved Easter bonnets, which weren't so bad and often very inventive. I did a Jewish ladies flower festival, where all the entries contained such expensive and exotic flowers stuffed, no delicately arranged, in solid silver vases, that I hardly dared breath on them, let alone judge them. At a WI event I was involved in trying to pick the best knitted dish cloth out of 50 identical entries (I shut my eyes and pointed a finger), and various food competitions which always seemed to coincide with me being on a diet, ruined by having to nibble 40 Victoria sponges or taste rich fruit cake. By the end of such a judging day I was tempted to present my own cup, the milk of Magnesia Trophy for the most indigestible Eccles cake. If I thought these somewhat lighthearted events were hard, I was in for a shock when I found myself wearing evening dress and standing in the foyer of a hotel ready to judge a local heat of the Miss England competition. This invitation had definitely gone to the editor, who usually accepted anything which mentioned the words 'cocktails' but perhaps his wife had vetoed a beauty contest. Actress I was joined by four men and two women, and when we told the receptionist that we had come for the beauty contest she looked at us doubtfully until we explained we were judges. The judges were a mixed bunch, including an elderly but quite well known actress and a singer of local renown, but none of us had done the job before. Fortunately we had a list of questions to ask and were told to mark using a points system. The contestants were a mixed bunch. Some local girls, some amateur beauty queens and a number of obviously professional beauty queens, done up to the nines in thick make-up, and over lacquered hair. It soon became apparent that the male judges favoured the professionals while the ladies liked the natural and pretty local girls, even though you knew they weren't going to win. Which they didn't. As we sat at the front of the stage marking out choices, we became aware that sitting behind us in the front rows were the mothers of many of the contestant, and talk about the hairs on the back of your neck rising. When we announced our decision I could feel the daggers and made a hasty exit. I decided I'd rather run the gauntlet of the dog I'd least like to take home with me than spend another minute fighting off the glares of pure hatred from the runner-ups mother.

I'VE gone and annoyed Caradon Council by dissing their new parking discount scheme, especially saying that there seemed to be a perfectly good card scheme already in the shape of the Cornish Key Card. They say their scheme does not duplicate the Cornish Key Card scheme, that the Cornish Key does not offer discounted parking in South East Cornwall and that the Saltash Scheme was a pilot for the parking card. Well, I'm sorry Caradon if I have confused people, but when the Cornish Key Card scheme was first launched in March 2000 the publicity, which is still on the County website, stated, and I quote, 'Residents of North Cornwall and Caradon using the Cornish Key cards will pay a slightly reduced fee for parking in the Council run car parks in Saltash, Looe, Liskeard, Torpoint, Callington, Bude, Launceston and Wadebridge.' So what happened to that? I know one thing, the key card was free and I use it as a library card and, on the rare occasions I travel by bus, as a concessionary bus pass. The only thing wrong with it is that the picture on the front makes me look like an elderly drag queen. Oh well, I suppose for half price on the buses you can't have everything.