I T WOULD appear every time we in Ilfracombe try to put our best foot forward somebody comes along and treads on it in no uncertain terms. I don't know about you but I should imagine our collective toes are getting quite sore by now.

Okay, forget the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment and its mystifying decision to award St Ives the funding we felt we rightly deserved. That's all water under the bridge, always assuming we had one of course.

You can also forget the puerile comments made by that small minority of mindless morons, with brains the size of a broad bean, who don't live here, have never visited the town and are just reiterating urban myths. These were perpetuated 20 years ago by ignorant people who were just as remote from any sort of reality then, as these cretins are at the present moment.

Does Ilfracombe have a drug problem? To some extent yes but no more than any other town or city in Britain. Is Ilfracombe infested with thieves, hooligans and ne'er-do-wells? Well, we have our fair share you must admit but again, no more than any other place you would care to mention and certainly a lot less than some. Do the empty shops in our High Street suggest the seediness of a town in decline, or do they more aptly reflect a radical change in consumer spending patterns and the ultimate result of a global recession?

Can anyone tell me of a single High Street anywhere in Britain that hasn't got a To Let sign somewhere in its environs because I would really like to know!

The ferry link to South Wales will be a catastrophe because it sometimes gets choppy in the Bristol Channel. Regeneration of the seafront will be a financial disaster because nobody cares and it won't make an ounce of difference. Crikey, even Victorian Week, which, say what you may, attracts a huge following, should be scrapped according to a small-minded group of plebeians.

It starts to make you wonder if all the effort so many people put into raising the status of Ilfracombe is really worth their time and effort. On the other hand, as Confucius was heard to declare, "The longest journey starts with the smallest of steps".

At last Ilfracombe has begun to take those first small steps towards a bright and prosperous future, after all, what goes around comes around and as Carly Simon was fond of singing, "It's coming around again."

Now we have another furore to contend with and it is all to do with the town's effort to "re-brand" itself with a new logo. I don't like to mention it but a whole host of nobodies are treading on our toes again.

"It looks like a sperm," the outraged whinge, as if they haven't got anything better to do with their lives than perform a Rorschach inkblot test on a little decorative squiggle. "Oooh, it's my mother; no, it's the Devil; oh my God, it's a sperm!" Wake up people and get real.

And, for a moment, just supposing it is a sperm; what does that signify? To me it spells fecundity, rebirth and the beginning of a new life. It talks of optimism for the future and the embryo of something tiny that will grow until it reaches maturity. It is suggestive of hopes and aspirations we can pass on to a future generation.

Bring on the sperm I say!

Just to round off and reach some sort of conclusion in all this; do you think it might be a good idea for us to apply for a government grant and issue every concerned resident of Ilfracombe with a pair of steel-toecapped industrial shoes? I have to tell you, I'm tired of people treading on my best foot whenever I try to put it forward and I bet you are as well!

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THE DIE IS cast and yet another senseless decision has been declared as ultimately sensible. Mark my words, it will all end in disaster but who are we to question the judgement of those whom we elected and consider themselves our ultimate superiors?

There is, without any doubt, a consensus amongst those who really care, including our intrepid lifeboat crew, that the reduction of helicopter coverage from Chivenor will inevitably cost lives at some stage in the game but hey, who cares as long as it saves the Government a few bob? After all, you can't really blame them can you? Having bailed out the Hooray Henry's in the banks to the tune of £billions our august leadership has got to make some savings somewhere and what do the lives of a few seafarers count in the grander scheme of financial things?

Personally I just hope that one of those chumps who earned a fortune selling tea he hadn't even bought yet, or made a packet in bonuses by investing in sub-prime mortgages, buys himself a nice big spanking yacht. I then hope, although I must admit it is something of a long shot, he invites the Chief of the Defence Staff for a little cruise into our territorial waters.

I know it's pushing the boat out a bit but I then pray they both come to grief at Morte Point, holed below the water-line by the jagged rocks just off the coast there. I could then stand on the cliffs above, watching them bob about in the freezing cold water, calling for help and shout, "Never mind, do the best you can, with a bit of luck a rescue helicopter will be along in half-an-hour or so!"

Not that I am in any way vindictive you must understand.