Readers' letters - May 28

So it’s all over for another year.

No, not the elections,

but the Eurovision Song Contest.

You could say I grew up with it, and being able to stay up to watch it until the very end was a rite of passage and a real status symbol at our school.

However, nothing ages you more than realising you can still remember Katie Boyle presenting it, never mind Terry Wogan, and Lulu and Dana winning it, never mind Abba and Bucks Fizz.

It definitely comes into the ‘so bad it’s brilliant’ category, which makes it compulsive viewing!

Anyway, so to this year’s contest, held in Lisbon, Portugal.

After several expressions of pain from various countries, it was finally the UK’s turn to do its stuff, the song being titled Storm.

Very appropriately so, as it happened, in view of the intruder that stormed onto the stage mid-act and whipped the mike off Surie, who’d been allocated to do her best/worst for our country.

Kudos to her for carrying on singing though.

What a (storm) trooper!

After more wailing and caterwauling, it was Israel’s turn.

The singer, Netta, pictured, was basically clucking like a chicken.

The song was so brilliantly bad that I instantly knew it was going to win, and, what do you know? It did!

Agreed, the songs are absolute and utter ‘pony and trap’.

If Ivor Novello was still alive today, he’d have nothing to worry about, but will I be watching it again next year?

You can bet on it!

The dreaded ‘get a life’ expression is sure to rear its ugly head upon my admission, but for me, it’s a great night’s entertainment.

Who needs a night out on the tiles when you’ve got Eurovision?

Give it 12 points from me!

Until next year...

CM Langan

Address supplied

energy

Renewables not fracking

Vincent Booth assumes (LP Letters, May 23) we need more gas – but the question is, how much do we need?

If we all carry on burning gas as we are now, we risk tipping the world into dangerous climate change.

We can’t burn most of the gas we already know about and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

A whole new gas industry is the last thing we should pursue.

If we invested in energy saving, it would reduce gas use, household bills, and health costs from cold homes.

Renewables are an increasing share of UK electricity and are getting cheaper. If the Government put the same political capital behind renewables as fracking, they would be performing even better.

Investing in energy saving and renewables could create nearly three times as many jobs as for the same investment in gas, and make us much more energy secure, although only one per cent

of imported gas is from Russia.

And how about fracking?

Replacing half our gas imports would mean drilling and fracking one well every day for 15 years, and many wells in the North West.

Is industrialising our countryside the answer, or to back Britain by investing in the clean, green future we all want?

Everyone wants that, don’t they?

Rose Dickinson

Friends of the Earth

language

Offended taking offence again

The professor, in a lift, who mentioned the lingerie department, was called upon to apologise and now, so too, the deputy governor of the Bank of England, who said that the economy was entering a menopausal stage.

No doubt the Bank is now instructing people never to say that situation A will give birth to outcome B, nor to say that they can/cannot conceive a particular circumstance.

All accounting periods will need to be re-classified into months or years.

And they must not

speak of keeping abreast of things.

It’s getting to the stage where I think we should first be seeking apologies from those whose readiness to take offence is so acute as to be offensive in itself.

Neil Inkley

Walton-Le-Dale

motoring

Driving the poor off roads

Once again this Government is doing its best to make things as difficult as possible for the less well-off in this country to stay on the road.

The MOT test has become harder, which will not bother the rich because they can just say “fix it”. The rich will also have the majority of new cars on the roads, the less well-off will be the ones that have to pay. You can expect the MOT to go up in price. This is just another move to force the poor off the road.

Dave Croucher via email

CHARITY

Thank you for your donations

I would like to thank everyone for their kind donations when we held our charity street collection in Preston on Saturday, May 5, on behalf of Prevent Unwanted Pets.

We raised £94.90 which will be put to good use helping animals in need in Lancashire.

Kathy M Pate

Prevent Unwanted Pets