Someone at English Heritage has played a cruel trick by giving listed status to the derelict Lido at Grange. This poor old wreck has been closed for 20 years, its entrance covered with signs saying Keep Out and Danger of Death. Now, it has been given elevated status as a listed building leading some poor souls to believe that a magic wand will bring it back to life. The Lido is essentially a lump of decaying concrete and there isn’t the remotest possibility of it being restored, not least because no-one would be daft enough to spend a fortune rebuilding something which would cost another fortune to keep running.

My comment that the decision to list it was “bonkers” formed the headline in our local newspaper, which so impressed the BBC that they came up to ask me to repeat it for the evening’s news. My reaction may have been a tad forceful, but I was entitled to have my say because the listing puts at risk my proposal, which has the full backing of the Town and District Council and received a majority vote in a Grange plebiscite, to turn the Lido into an attractive public area, with a garden, cafe and fitness centre. My proposals are fully funded and costed and don’t require a magic wand. The photo above shows the Lido as it is now, the photo below, an artist’s impression of how it might look.

“Government is an inefficient industry because it has an insane barrier to entry. To compete with governments on existing land you have to win a war, an election or a revolution”
Patri Friedman

Patri Friedman has resolved the problem of competing with governments on existing land with his idea of building a new country on the ocean. His is the Randian ideal of a libertarian state in which the government plays a minimal part. Paul Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of Paypal has agreed to back the scheme.

What they really want to achieve is a new Hong Kong, a country which, owing to a fit of absentmindedness, was allowed to develop on its own, with very little input from the government. In 1948 Hong Kong had a population of 600,000 and no natural resources. This was the year when the great socialist experiment began in the UK and the Governor of Hong Kong was instructed to apply the dead hand of the state there. For one reason or another, the Governor never got round to it and Hong Kong was allowed to develop as a free market economy with minimal taxation. Millions of Chinese fleeing from the mainland were able to enter illegally and take advantage of the opportunities there, raising the population to 6 million and turning it into one of the richest places in the world.

In 1948 Israel also had a population of 600,000 and at that time had an income per head twice that of Hong Kong. The population of Israel expanded as fast as that of Hong Kong, as Jews from all over the world came to settle there. They brought with them huge wealth, which continued to pour in from wealthy benefactors and US aid. Fifty years on, the population of Israel had grown to 6m, just like Hong Kong, but their income per head had fallen to half that of Hong Kong, a comparative decline of 400%. This relative decline was caused by the fact that their government was highly dirigiste; whereas the government in Hong Kong simply allowed their citizens to get on with their lives. That’s why Patri Friedman wants to create his new libertarian state.

Destroying the High Street is our job, Tesco warn rioters

Tesco have slammed the recent violent disorder that has raged around England by warning rioters that they will not relinquish their monopoly on destroying High Street shops without a fight.

The Supermarket behemoth, which has been decimating shops on the High Street for a number of years, is believed to be worried about the speed and efficiency with which rioters and looters forced the closure of a number of stores around the country.

“Making the area look ugly and striking fear into the hearts of local shopkeepers is something that we pride ourselves on,” revealed a Tesco spokesperson.

“We’ve spent a great deal of time and money expanding our business and forcing the closure of smaller retailers, and we will not tolerate any attempt to undermine our superiority in this area.”

Destroyed by Tesco

Looters and rioters have hit back at Tesco’s claim by insisting that the competition will increase choice for consumers.

“For too long Tesco have had a monopoly on forcing the closure of small retail outlets.”

“We want to put an end to this complacency.”

“This is just the start for us. When the weather picks up we’re heading off to the countryside to fuck over the farmers as well.”

James Alexander Sinclair, the very entertaining gardening journalist, has achieved quite a coup in getting the Sunday Times to devote a whole page in their gardening section to the sale of his home, Blackpitts.
The reason given for the sale is that he and his wife Celestia want to downsize now that their two older children have left home, but the accompanying photos of the garden give the game away. The garden is dominated by a lawn which is studded with what the author Caroline Donald describes as “giant green Mars bars” This rather bizarre description refers to large beech columns which are dotted about the lawn. These columns give the game away- the real reason why they want to flee Blackpitts is that they can’t face another winter looking out onto them. Beech looks gorgeous when it first bursts into leaf in May and stays looking good all summer but it has the unfortunate characteristic of not shedding its leaves in the autumn, so when the leaves turn brown they just stick there. Which means that for six months of the year you aren’t looking out onto lovely green foliage but onto a brown mess.
That, no doubt, is where Caroline Donald got her image of “giant Mars bars”. I don’t blame the Alexander-Sinclairs for wanting to escape and can only hope that they find a buyer before the autumn.

“As the lamb had been kept outside and fed on spring grass, the meat had terrific flavour”

These words are attributed in the Daily Telegraph magazine today to Andrew Fairlie, a chef who runs the restaurant at the Gleneagles Hotel. I’m sure he didn’t really say them; the words will have been put into his mouth by some idiotic PR person, but it was particularly stupid of the sub-editor of the Telegraph to lift them from the text and quote them in large bold type, as if they meant something special. The article was attributed to Christopher Hirst. I wonder if, in his journey up from London to Gleneagles he my have looked out of the window and seen sheep in the fields munching on grass and wondered whether there was something unusual in this. Did he think that most sheep are kept indoors and given a diet of- well what does he imagine a sheep eats if it isn’t grass?

If the lamb at the Gleneagles hotel has a “terrific flavour” it will be down to the bred of the sheep, not the fact that it eats grass out of doors. Looking at the photo accompanying the article, the sheep are a breed known as Blackface, which is the most common breed in Scotland. Nothing special there then. The article says that a room at the Gleneagles can be had for the special price of £470 a night, weekdays only. Included in the price is a view, unique to Gleneagles, of sheep grazing outdoors on spring grass.

Good for Germaine Greer. I never thought I’d say that. In fact, she annoyed me so much a few years ago by saying that she couldn’t stand to see daffodils in roadside verges because they looked so drab once they’d gone over, that I thought I’d never bother to read anything by her again. But all is forgiven after her peach of an article about the failings of the Forestry Commission. She writes first of all about her experience of planting a wood on the flinty soil of a barren part of Eastern England. After several false starts she managed to establish a wood of sorts, but now recognises that growing trees was not suited to that terrain and that she had missed the opportunity to restore a chalk grassland, one of the rarest and most diverse habitats there is. Germaine Greer draws a parallel with the Forestry Commission’s policy of planting millions upon millions of Scots Pines on vast tracts of unsuitable land in England and Scotland, creating a dreary monoculture.

She acknowledges that she made a mistake with her little wood, but she can’t undo it, because the trees are protected under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The sensible solution to the Forestry Commission’s ghastly mistakes would be to clear-fell the pine plantations and return the land to its original bio-diversity. The government made a brave attempt to achieve this, but a crass and ill-informed campaign forced them to change their mind. Bravo to Germaine Greer for daring to state the obvious.

The publicity for The Hotel, which goes out this Sunday is gathering pace. The “listings” magazines came out today and they have all chosen The Hotel as one of the highlights of the coming week, which is all that Channel 4 could have hoped for. We have been warned that we might be taken by surprise by some of the comments which are made, not all of which will necessarily be flattering. The Radio Times proved the point very succinctly by beginning their review by saying that I “bear a distracting facial resemblance to Education Secretary Michael Gove”. Surely, I thought, they can’t mean that handsome young man who used to write for the Times? I googled him and was pleased to see that he is, indeed, 19 years my junior although his looks aren’t exactly matinee idol. There’s ample scope, no doubt, for him to improve with age, as the photo above suggests.

Those of us who earn our living from visitors to the Lakes rarely get the chance to do the things which the visitors come her to do- such as take a cruise on Lake Windermere (and before pedants start foaming at the mouth because I’ve used the word “lake” before “Windermere”, yes I do know that mere means lake, and no, I don’t think it’s tautologous).

Tonight we had the chance to enjoy what the tourists enjoy and there couldn’t have been a better evening for it. The occasion was a fund-raising event organised by the Lakes Hospitality Association in aid of the Japanese Tsunami victims. It was rather ironic that the weather conditions tonight couldn’t have been more benign, with clear skies, and a warm breeze- and views to die for. Windermere Lake Cruises provided mv Swan free of charge, and a superb Japanese-style buffet was put on by Andrew Southcott. The Jazz band, Palladium, provided the music- very well indeed. This was a small gesture on our part to show our solidarity with our Japanese friends and it was one which came from the heart.

A good deal of the 9 billion pounds of our money which the government is devoting to the Olympic cause is being spent on PR telling everyone how good the games will be for tourism. Every announcement stresses that the Olympics will be good not just for London but for the whole of Britain. The truth is very different, as has been revealed by the plans of the tour operators who bring groups in from the Far East. This is the time of year when they finalise plans for the next season, agreeing rates and securing dates. They have told us that next year they won’t be able to bring any tours to the Lake District between 15th july and 15th August because London hotel rooms just aren’t available for non-Olympic business and because the enhanced security in London will make it nigh on impossible to get around. My immediate reaction was to say – well, why not skip London and brings your groups to the Lakes, Stratford and Edinburgh? No chance, was the reply. For most visitors this is the trip of a lifetime and they don’t want to visit Britain without seeing London.

Rather surprisingly, after all the excitement at the TiC yesterday, I found myself being interviewed for both the BBC and ITV news channels about this story. The BBC showed some splendid shots of the new bedrooms and bathrooms at the Riverside Hotel, which have been especially designed with the Japanese visitor in mind by my very talented PA, Sally Schrieber and looked rather beautiful on my TV screen.

The media were there for the re-opening of the TiC under the auspices of the Lakes Hospitality Association who have taken over the running of it from the local council. It’s a role which we have taken on reluctantly, but we had no choice because the local government funding has been slashed and there was a real chance that it would close for good. I found myself giving a whole series of interviews for TV, radio and the press, telling them that when as many as 1,200 people visit a TiC in one single day there could be no possibility of us allowing it to close down. It’s been chucking it down today and no doubt some of the visitors came in to get out of the rain. There was a similar spell of bad weather last year, after which they announced a drought and a hose pipe ban which lasted for three months, during which the rain never let up. Let’s hope for better this year.