Steve Regan: the King of Hull's famous column

AS some of you may have noticed - I'm back, back, BACK! My column has returned for the people of Hull, who have apparently missed it sorely since it disappeared from the Hull Daily Mail nearly two years ago. Even the Leader of Hell City Council, Colin Davros Inglis, has been complaining there are now no proper columnists locally to keep him and his pen-pushing pals at the Death Star (Guildhall) on their toes.

As it goes, I did offer to keep the column running in the paper after I left the newsroom staff, but the editor of the Mail just didn't want my deathless prose. So here I am in sparkling new media form.

But hark at me arrogantly assuming everyone knows who I am. Of course, not everyone these days buys an evening newspaper, so for those readers of thisisUll.com what this column is about, allow me to explain. Each week I'll be describing the machinations and malfunctions of the real world - stripped of the flummery of PR nonsense and the rubbishy spin that those in power (be they venal politicians or grasping capitalist brigands) like to put on everything. If you want the sanitised version of life, listen to the brain dead output of BBC Radio Bumbleside. If you want the real story, welcome to my world.

SO John Prescott has openly given his backing to regional assembly for Yorkshire and the Humber. That should put the mockers on the whole daft project then. We all know that any assembly in this part of the UK will massively favour West Yorkshire. Hull and East Riding folk will be paying for an unnecessary extra tier of government and never feeling the benefit - assuming there are any real benefits at all. I suspect that a few vanity projects in Leeds and the tarting up of a couple of housing estates in Cleckheaton will be the only tangible results.

Two Jags reckons a successful regional structure would benefit cities such as Hull by giving councils the power to shape their own regeneration.

In my experience, we should be taking powers away from local authorities not adding to them. Consider Hull City Council, which has an appalling record of failure in education, economic regeneration, strategic planning and management of public finances.

Prescott lamely opined: All the other European nations have a regional government structure, we're the only one that does not. What a level of political sophistication is displayed by his remark: The others have got one so we want one too!

What does our Comedy Deputy Prime Minister know, at all, about getting things to work for the benefit of the public? Look at the huge mess he made of transport when he was in charge of it politically. The last thing we need is a chance for yet more wind-bagging mediocrities to get elected to political office. And we neither do we want all the clipboard-wielding, targets-ticking, bun-eating, money-wasting bureaucrats that would be employed to serve them.

Some 1,700 East Yorkshire victims of the controversial Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) are to benefit, we are told, from an £8.5m health programme. Hull and the East Riding will get one of the first teams in the UK for sufferers of the ailment, also known as ME. Extra staff, a special unit, consultants, you name it - we are getting the whole shebang. For many years the sensible minority of the medical establishment denied the condition really existed, medically speaking. But now this Yuppie flu is the new socially acceptable plague that must be indulged.

The symptoms include debilitating fatigue. It can also cause muscle and joint pain, gastric problems, poor memory and concentration, disordered sleep, and apparently the victims simply can't enjoy watching Tricia on afternoon telly any more. I've got all of that lot, you know, but surely it is part of life, especially when you get a bit older. Everyday existence in this fallen world was never meant to be a bowl of cherries. You have to get over yourself, as the Irish say. Pick yourself up, dust yourself down and get back to work.

What will the Government think up next as a pre-General Election bribe for Hull? A specialist health unit for the city's most common ailment (particularly among the thousands employed in non-jobs at the city council)? I refer, of course, to chronic cases of Lead Swinging!

Columns - King of Hull by Steve Regan 15 April 2004
	OUR modern lives are plagued by pathological restlessness. We are never satisfied, always wanting to improve or change things or to move on to where we imagine the grass will be greener. This restlessness afflicts everyone to a degree. Do you know anyone who is perfectly contented, with his or her job, or lack of a job, emotional life, family circumstances or home? I recently met someone I hadn't seen for several years Read more...

Articles - Made In Hull - Part One - Arundel Street Days By Maurice Fairfield

	My story begins in Arundel Street and wanders away to the shallow end of Holderness Road next door to the tram sheds and opposite the old Astoria Cinema, which was at that time the New Astoria Cinema. Then to Hedon for a time, then back to Arundel a couple of years before the outbreak of the war. Read more...

Articles - Digging Up The Past By Cilla

	Months ago we published an series of articles written by a man who was witness to the events in The Cod Wars. His name is John Boldock and his story is an honest account of what life was like for him as a young man in what were dangerous and terrifying times. After the story had been published on the site Read more...

Holidays - Ibiza, The World Keeps Gurning By Andi
	Ibiza has long been known as the clubbing capital of the world. However, recent years have seen the development of resorts such as Ayai Nappa in Cyprus and Faliraki in Rhodes. This has lead to a fairly wide-spread belief that Ibiza is dying it's death. Read more...

Articles - Speed Dating By Ash Jamieson

	I've seen it. I've peeked down the rabbit's hole. A large group of people all looking for love in a pub on White Friar Gate. Great to watch, daunting to be a part of but on the whole, good fun all round. Speed dating, for those that have never witnessed the phenomena, is exactly what it sounds like. Dating at speed. A group of people split down Read more...

Articles - The Oscars 2004 By Steve Rudd

	The highlight of Hollywood's calendar, The Oscars seem to come around faster every year. Our man in LA to report back to Britain on proceedings was Film 2004 face Jonathan Ross who didn't do a bad job at all, but seemed hampered by his panel of three accompanying guests in the form of Welsh (supposed) funnyman Rob Brydon, and the impersonating duo of Ronni Read more...

Articles - World Book Day 2004 Event Review By Rich Mills

	It may not be the actual World Book Day 2004 until the 4th of March, and the 100th anniversary of Dr. Seuss being born on the 2nd of March, but Lifelong Learning at the city council held an event at the Ferens Art Gallery on this Saturday. The event which lasted from 10:00am until 3:00pm, was a day of workshops and great fun for the children and adults alike. Read more...

Holidays - Al's Trip To Croatia By Allen Miles
	£649 is a lot of money in most people's eyes. And to spend that much money on seven days away when you're only earning £130 a week might be in a very real way considered lunacy. However, I decided to go for three reasons; Read more...

Articles - A Woman in Chains.

	I am, I suppose, a woman in chains. In this extremely bizarre world we try to live in, I will always be linked to my past.... 15 years ago I was involved in a crime, something I did because I was young, unguided and naïve. I lost more than my freedom as if that wasn't enough; I lost my children, my home, my family and most of my friends. Read more...