Rambling on

Press, 26 August 1978, Page 11

Rambling on

By

JOHN COLLINS

Dear Brian Edwards, ( hope you won’t mind me writing to you like this. I know you must be a very busy man, what with appearing on television, and looking after that very complicated perm of yours, and all that. But, you see, I have this problem, and I know that your programme, “Fair Go, is all about problems and that people can just sort of write in and say their neighbour’s pinching things off the line or that

they paid for a holiday for four in Fiji and were sent a self-sharpening kitchen knife instead and the firm that did it to them will not cough up a refund, am I on the right track, Brian? And then you and your assistants read out all the details of the case, a wee bit like o sort of court case really, Brian, and you bring on the person that deserves to be questioned and embarrassed for having sold a whoopee cushion with a faulty valve, or whatever, forgive my English, and you kind of don your mental wig and your Superman suit (though I notice you actually go in

for the big-lapelled numbers these days, and very nice, too) and you say: "Did you really promise a St Bernard dog and a case of brandy with every motel unit?” and: “Do you really consider a packet of postcards taped to the hotel dining-room wall fufills the brochure’s promise of breathtaking views of the Remarkables?” and all that, don’t you? Well, I do ramble on a bit. About my ’problem. You see, I watch this programme that Television One puts on every Thurs-

day at 7.30, it’s called "Fair Go,” as a matter of fact. And the thing is, Brian, that I know it’s doing a wonderful publicservice, and I know that I’m very lucky to have a good close look in living colour at the way people get ripped off, and I know we’re very lucky to have someone who’s a sort of cross between mild-man-nered Clark Kent and Justice Learned Hand making sure that there’s enough meat in our hamburgers or that contractors don’t dig a trench through the living room while fixing the plug on our neigh-

hour's washing machine. But the thing is, it’s becoming just a teensy bit boring. Honestly, 1 never thought I’d become this callous. On Thursday I watched the bit about how some lady had a great big ditch in her back garden, one that had been there for 16 years and is getting wider. Well, if I had a great big ditch gobbling up the lawn. I’d be worried, too, especially as we reseeded it last year, Brian, what with the hot summer and all. But somehow all I kept thinking was: “If ‘The Rookies’ weren’t on the other side, I don’t think I’d be watching this.” Now isn’t that a dreadful way to think? Perhaps it’s just that week after week of, usually trivial, problems don’t make riveting television. Anyway, Brian, I finally decided to go for a walk and I tripped over a lumpy bit of kerb and bruised my toe, and I think the council should be taken to task for this sort of negligence, and I was wondering jf you would be willing to devote an hour-long Christmas special to this scandal — provided my toe doesn’t go down before then, of course?

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