A S FRED ASTAIRE sang in one of his memorable movies, "Pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and start all over again".

It would appear Ilfracombe is going to have to do just that after the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, a name almost as pretentious as its vision, channelled £1 million of funding to St Ives in Cornwall instead of our fair town.

Still, you have to admire this self-serving group of preening twozzers for their far-reaching artifice and imagination in awarding the money to a ruinous collection of garrets inhabited by airy-fairy artists, instead of somewhere it could make a real impact on the prosperity and employment prospects of a whole town.

What a waste of money!

I have to say when I found out it made me very angry. Yes, angry! What annoyed me more was the thought of all the cash I had spent on endless years of anger management classes going down the drain!

Sorry, I'll have to take a break for a moment to get in touch with my Buddhist side.

Okay, I'm back now; and do you know what annoyed me even more? Of course you don't, there is no reason you should really. I will just have to sit here calmly and try to explain.

When the news of this outrage was printed on the

Journal's

website it attracted a huge response from various interested parties. In fact, the last time I checked there were over 40 comments posted concerning the issue.

And that's when I started to get my hair off again.

A classic example was from "Resident" in Woolacombe. "Does this really surprise anyone? The best thing to do with Ilfracombe is fill it in and use it for a park and ride to Woolacombe."

Well, obviously Woolacombe is the place to be. What has it got? Just a bit of a beach, a couple of pubs, some shops selling shell-encrusted Puffins and a disco. Get a life "Resident".

This was not the only comment to cause me affront, of course, but when it comes to Ilfracombe people seem to have very set ideas about how we live our lives and what the general population is actually all about.

There was Sam from North Devon. "Why is everyone so surprised at this outcome? Forget tourists and compare the towns involved. Ilfracombe: full of thieves, druggies and drunks. St.Ives: the odd drunk or two, but lovely and clean and no need for a full-time cop shop."

To be honest I had to edit that one a bit to make it understandable to a literate reader, but thieves, druggies and drunks? Just what planet is our Sam living on? He does at least admit there might be a drunk or two in St Ives, which is quite a concession, but when was the last time he came to Ilfracombe when you consider we haven't had a "full time cop shop" for donkeys' years now. Another twozzer!

Finally there is Dave from North Devon to consider. "Be fair people, where would you begin with £1 million to spend on Ilfracombe? That wouldn't even scratch the surface to turn that dump around."

Apart from the fact he put two thats in the same sentence, which automatically makes him a pariah in my book, he is obviously a man of infinite stature and intellect. Yes, you've guessed it; yet another twozzer!

So, or so it seems, not only are the people concerned with the distribution of grant funding — not handouts — against us, but it would appear the whole of North Devon is equally determined to consider us as a lost cause.

Nice to know we are so popular isn't it; but what do we do?

I suggest we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down, and start all over again.

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IMAGINE, hypothetically, there is a dreadful accident and the crewman of a fishing boat has been swept overboard near the shores of Ilfracombe. With the prevailing winds and tide taken into consideration he is in clear and present danger of being swept onto the rocks and dashed to pieces.

But never mind, a helicopter scrambled from Chivenor can be on the scene within a few minutes and the poor soul can be rescued from a fate none of us would even care to contemplate.

Oh sorry, I forgot. The Chivenor helicopters are only available for 12-hour periods now. We will just have to wait 20 minutes or more for one to turn up from Culdrose. By this time of course they will arrive just in time to scrape the bloodied remains of this hypothetical seafarer from the jagged rocks surrounding our coastline.

What I want to know is just how many twozzers there are in the world because at the moment we appear to be infested with the blighters and it would seem a great many of them are sitting behind desks at the Defence Department.

The sea is an unremitting foe and in a worst-case scenario every second is vital to the survival of some poor unfortunate. I'm absolutely sure the fliers from Culdrose offer a champion service but I wonder how many of those chair-borne warriors in Whitehall would like to thrash about in the seas off our coast waiting for them to eventually turn up for a rescue.