The three oldest professions in this world are journalism, prostitution and politics – and who’d want to become a politician? Now you can actually find adverts for sex worker jobs (ladies only, apparently – so far) in Doncaster’s job centres. But these are not vacancies for women who, in certain parts of the town, come lurching out of the shadows to enquire if business is transacted. No, in is high-tech world, these jobs are for those (over 18 years of age) who would like to earn rather more than the minimum wage (there are bonus incentives!) by posing in front of a camera in a studio in Rotherham.

Talk about the glamorous side of the movie industry! Hollywood, Shepperton – and now Rotherham! For those of you who are not au fait with this business, and how it operates, I am told that people who like to look at the unclad human form pay a fee to be allowed access to a viewing room, where they select the person over which they can fantasise. There are pictures, and there is audio. Obviously there is no contact.

Unsavoury as this may sound to most of us, the sex workers involved chose this job of their own free will, and they select the times that they want to work. It is not unsafe (as casual street sex definitely is) and it is completely anonymous. The sex worker doesn’t know if they are being looked at by punters in Peterborough, Pretoria, or Prague. All they have to do is, well, exhibit themselves. Alright, this is probably not what you’d like your daughter to be doing to earn a crust – or your wife, come to that. Or mother. But if there’s no coercion involved, I really don’t see where the harm is!

It is the modern day equivalent of the productions at the legendary Windmill Theatre in London’s West End, where naked or semi-naked “actresses” posed for appreciative audiences. And that was ay back in the forts and fifties of last century! There’s never anything new in this world – the only difference is that the workers of today can be seen (and appreciated) internationally, instead of from a seat in the front stalls. It’s a big step away from anything like a legalised brothel – which in any case I have always advocated as the most preferable way to organise the sex industry. These sex workers are not being “run” by vicious pimps, who take all their earnings and then sell them drugs to maintain an addiction. A spokesman from within this quickly-expanding industry says that he believes that the men who are paying for this service (a figure of £1.50 a minute has been quoted) are the ones who are being exploited. And I completely agree with him. This service doesn’t show any disrespect for the people who opt to make a living wage in this way – indeed, I think that they show considerable courage to be able to apply for the jobs in the first place.

And with only 451 job vacancies in the town (as I write) who can blame anyone for being interested in applying? If they land a job, and come off the unemployment register, so much the better. We’re not paying their benefits any more – and we don’t, if we not inclined, have to watch them, either.

There’s more modern technology involved on Page 3 of the DFP this week. I feel deeply sorry for the motorist whose Sat-nav guided him inexorably to the very edge of a local cliff. But may I offer him a word of advice? There’s something you’ll find at every filling station that is 100 times as good and more reliable than an expensive piece of squawking electrical tutt balanced on the dashboard. It’s called a UK Road Atlas. Or, put more simply, a map. Try it. You’ll be surprised!

It’s that time of year when one gets asked to a few drinks parties and get-togethers – there are considerably less of them than last year, I have to admit. But I never ever drink and drive, so a lot of my journeys, in this rather awful weather, have been made my rail. I have to watch what time I’m leaving the event, however, because you wouldn’t believe how early some of the “last trains” are scheduled! There’s no-where colder than a station platform in the middle evening in December…so I’ve been wondering why (as I shiver uncontrollably) the train companies never ever unlock the doors to their carriages until the very last minute, and why they are so contemptuous of their passengers that they allow them to freeze before the train – finally – departs.

An example? Just the other evening, in Leeds, as it happens. The last train to Doncaster is at 10.39, give or take a minute or so. I got onto platform 10 at 10.28. The lights of the train were on, the driver was happily keeping warm in his cab, and about two dozen of us poor ticketholders stomped up and down trying to keep warm, until thirty seconds before the departure time when the doors finally parted. There is not an enclosed waiting room on this platform – only a “shelter” that affords precious little protection from the chill night air. The railway companies charge the earth, haven’t a clue about customer service on the tracks (I can’t remember the last time I saw a manned trolley in standard class on board a main line National Express train to or from London) and now they want to give us all pneumonia! For the love of Mike – just open the doors, will you? Is that too much to ask?

It’s been a pretty cold week, and a rather wintry one for some parts of the country, some snow scatterings and a lot of frosts. And with the “bad” weather comes the usual news of schools in some areas closing down because the poor wee pupils can’t be expected to slog their way through drifts, which might be, oh, all of about four inches in depth!

I was in London a year or so ago when the heavens blackened at about 2.30pm on a Thursday afternoon, and it began to snow…it was enough, in an hour, to lightly cover the pavements. I have never ever seen such a panic, with normally sensible people running around d like demented chickens, wondering if they might be able to make it home that night – would the train services be able to cope?

What a namby-pamby nation we are becoming. A few flakes descend and chaos reigns. Schoolchildren miss out on lessons because some over-cautious head teacher decides that closing the classrooms is the best and safest option. Otherwise sane people get stressed because their shoes and hair might get wet. I can remember, as a lad, walking four miles to my grammar school in snow that came over the tops of my wellies – and if I’d told my mother that I thought it was unwise to venture out, she’d have clipped my ear and closed the front door behind me. With me on the outer side.

No-one expects you to dig your way through a 16 foot tall snowdrift. Unless you live in Sweden. But this week’s over-reaction? Pathetic.

It’s been a pretty cold week, and a rather wintry one for some parts of the country, some snow scatterings and a lot of frosts. And with the “bad” weather comes the usual news of schools in some areas closing down because the poor wee pupils can’t be expected to slog their way through drifts, which might be, oh, all of about four inches in depth!

I was in London a year or so ago when the heavens blackened at about 2.30pm on a Thursday afternoon, and it began to snow…it was enough, in an hour, to lightly cover the pavements. I have never ever seen such a panic, with normally sensible people running around d like demented chickens, wondering if they might be able to make it home that night – would the train services be able to cope?

What a namby-pamby nation we are becoming. A few flakes descend and chaos reigns. Schoolchildren miss out on lessons because some over-cautious head teacher decides that closing the classrooms is the best and safest option. Otherwise sane people get stressed because their shoes and hair might get wet. I can remember, as a lad, walking four miles to my grammar school in snow that came over the tops of my wellies – and if I’d told my mother that I thought it was unwise to venture out, she’d have clipped my ear and closed the front door behind me. With me on the outer side.

No-one expects you to dig your way through a 16 foot tall snowdrift. Unless you live in Sweden. But this week’s over-reaction? Pathetic.

I’ve always believed that setting an example is a pretty good way to get people to co-operate with you. If you are the office manager for example, and you arrive late, leave early, and your desk is an untidy mess, don’t be surprised if your staff take the Mick and behave appallingly. Rudimentary discipline and good manners will soon go flying out of the window.

Which is why it was interesting, only last night, to be walking through what I call ‘Bar Alley’, the real name of the thoroughfare is Lazarus Court, formerly Bradford Row. It’s right in the middle of the town’s “entertainment” area.
There are several signs prominently posted which state: No Smoking. It is against the law to smoke in this covered area. Because three of the burly men posted as security guards (the word ‘Security’ is there, on their uniforms) were puffing away like chimneys outside the door to one of the drinking dens.

Hardly likely, then, that they’ll be able to demand with any authority, that another civvie offender stub out his fag? Or perhaps the security boys just can’t read?

It was the late Sir Thomas Beecham, the great orchestral conductor, who observed that “the British don’t really like music, they just like the noise that it makes”. It certainly looks as if the nation has been cursed with ears of cloth when it comes to the awful X-Factor.

Not that I watch the wretched show, but I had a guest over at the weekend who asked if the tele could go on after dinner, so that he could see it, and I was only too happy to go and sit with the crossword in front of the log fire in the West Wing, and I left him to it. Just popping in to replenish his glass at one point I heard the sort of noise that a weasel makes while its mating energetically.

It turned out to be a particularly repugnant teenager who looked like a cross between a Muppet and a Gremlin called (I believe) Eoghan Quigg, who was so impossibly mediocre that I ground to a halt and watched him, as you would watch a scrap in the street – with fascinated horror. I gather that a young lady with a perfectly respectable and infinitely superior voice was booted out (Ruth Lorenzo?) in order that the warbling Quigg could stay.

Can anyone explain why viewers vote in droves for this 16-years-old? Can it be that his fans are all grannies who want to cuddle him, and pre-pubescent girls who think that he would give them the time of day? He looks like an overgrown child, and sings with an earnestness that made me feel quite queasy. In fact, for the rest of the night, I had to have a receptacle handy, just in case nausea finally overtook me.

Elsewhere in this week’s DFP there’s an account of yet another spat between the bona fide market folk and the council officials…made more interesting in that not one of the stallholders wanted to be named and identified because, quite obviously, they fear recriminations if they speak out publicly. The expression that springs to mind is “climate of fear”. What happened to free speech and speaking your mind? If our council officers are so scared of being contradicted, and of stallholders giving their opinions, then I fear that we maybe edging even closer than I thought to Police State Donnie.

So the Wonder of Woolies has waned. Not surprising when our own local branch is a convenient shortcut via its escalator to the bus and train stations. I walked through this morning – and I didn’t see one customer buying anything. They were all going somewhere else. Using the shortcut. And I, I have to confess, was one of the guilty parties…mea culpa.

Warm congratulations to the Bentley mum (see page 26 of this week’s DFP) who turned her 21-years-old son in to police when he confessed – after a drinking binge – to being part of a vicious gang attack on a homeless man on Doncaster’s North Bridge. This appalling thug is now back in jail (the attack came only four days after he was released after doing time for another offence) to serve a sentence of twenty-one months, which means that he will, sadly, probably be back on the streets again to celebrate Christmas next year.

The lurid details of the case are there on the page, but you’ll need to know that there were three in the gang – one of them a boy of merely 14 years old! – and that another is currently on the run, having failed to turn up to answer charges. This trio of scumbags assaulted the street-sleeper with absolutely no reason, and, quite apart from them knocking him down three times, then smashed a glass bottle over his head. Unsurprisingly, the victim ended up in the DRI. The cowardly attacker went to his mother’s place, and she noticed blood on his shoelaces. He boasted about the incident, and when she read a newspaper appeal for information, she very promptly and correctly rang the police.

Jonathan Herriott, the clever lad who thinks it fair game to attack the frightened and vulnerable, told the police later that he had been “plastered” at the time of incident, and as an excuse he offered the fact that he’d drunk four litres of cider during a spree. That’s right, and I’ll write that again just so that you can dwell on the amount – FOUR litres. I just wonder that anyone has the physical capacity to swill down so much alcohol. Mr. Herriott now has a roof over his head, courtesy of Her Majesty. The man he bludgeoned probably does not, and is still sleeping rough. I don’t suppose that the cowardly and yellow-spined Herriott will be talking to his mum for quite some while, or whether he’ll be welcoming her as a visitor – but were I one of her neighbours, I’d be popping round to give her a hug and a message of “Well done”.