A letter to Graham Norton

Graham Norton has long held a fascination for me, not least because he's Irish. From the first moment he danced onto our screens as a hyper-active Irish dancing priest on "Father Ted", I was hooked.

Incidentally, I once spied Dermot Morgan who played Ted in Searson's Pub on Baggot Street in Dublin, enjoying a quiet pint and reading the paper, or at least he was until I ingratiated myself into his body space. " I know you must get this all the time, but I absolutely LOVED Father Ted, a call girl in the bath with the bishop, sheer genius." "Thanks". So that was that really, I slunk back to my seat to my friends who had completely given up and were pretending they'd never seen me before in their lives.

Back to Mr. Norton, every Saturday morning he has a radio show which I listen to ( if I'm not slinking out of a hotel or ferrying several pink princesses around fulfilling their busy diaries ) and one of the regular features is listener problems, where people write in for advice from Mr. Norton and the great British public too. It makes for real entertainment, not so much the "problems", but the suggested solutions are always a hoot. I have finally thought of a letter which I think he might read out. Here goes -

Dear Graham,

Firstly let me say I am a huge fan of the show, not in a "I'm your number one fan" creepy/stalkerish way obviously, but you get what I mean.

I have an idea I'd like to run past you, it's not a problem per se, more a suggestion, let me know what you think.

We all know the devastating effect that the credit crunch has had on our economy in recent times and I'm sure The BBC haven't exactly been immune to the effects of it either, otherwise why on earth would BBC4 screen - "Teenage Kicks: The Search for Sophistication" ? Anyway, I have a cunning plan to save some money.

( You'll forgive the language in the next part of my letter, but sometimes only one word will do. )

The weather in Scotland is shite, we all know it's shite and it doesn't take Mystic Meg to "forecast" that it's going to be shite in the future. In real terms, the forecast could be covered admirably in two sentences ; "Everywhere in the UK will be lovely today with the exception of Scotland where it will hammer down with rain and sleet and it might snow too. In July." So, why bother including Scotland in the weather forecast at all ? Simply skip it, everyone up here is too depressed to notice or even care anyway and you can free up valuable air time to sell more advertising, thus generating more income for The Beeb. Brilliant !!

I realise this is a fairly radical suggestion but look forward to your reply.

Yours in abject admiration,

Laura.

I'll let you know if I get a reply.

Just to mention, my new pictures are now on my site too as of yesterday - right here.
I'm off to Inverness in the morning where men are men and sheep are in counselling, allegedly. Catch up with you from there.

LL xx