About me

I am a pretty Major Dude, if I do say so myself. I don't mean that I am in any way like a former Tory Prime Minister, perish the thought. However, an event occurred when Major was PM that does go to show what a major dude I am. It has to do with the award of a public honour - Membership of the British Empire, actually - upon a bus conductor called Tony.

I hopped on his bus at Piccadilly while reading the Evening Standard, which used to have a column, 'Man On The Clapham Omnibus'. It was some boring dog-bites-man story about a surly bus conductor. Then Tony bounced up. I hadn't seen him in months because his shift pattern had changed, but he had swapped with a mate, so here he was, immaculately turned-out as always and impeccably polite.

The bus got to the bottom of Regent Street and stopped to turn left into Trafalgar. Two lads came down the stairs. Tony nimbly intercepted them. "Young sirs," he said. "Please do not alight in traffic, but wait until the bus has reached yonder stop, mere yards away." Perhaps stunned, the boys stopped and did as they were told. '

In that moment, I resolved to write to the paper and give them a proper story to investigate. So, I made a note of Tony's number, wrote to the Standard and they did a big article about him. At the time, John Major's government was trying to make Awards more populist, so they must have cottoned on to the story in the Standard about this hero of public transport. I believe Mr Anthony Silvestrin has now retired whence he came, to the Bahamas.

I was an influencer back in the days before social media; before, even, I invented Food Blogging, around the turn of the millennium. These days, the so-called Twittersphere is saturated with nobodies spouting nonsensical opinions. You need a voice that can, with just a few words, cut through the chatter, clarify the issue and make a clear call to action that is subtle yet unambiguous. You need a wordy mensch, a major dude, a writer like yours truly.