Nottingham Evening Post:

Residents have spoken of their joy and surprise after Buckingham Palace announced Prince William and Princess Catherine will join the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on their trip to the city on June 13.

My response to this Evening Post article was:

 I’m so glad for them both.

It will be a reet-treat for them!

Being a long time resident of Nottingham, being made redundant three times, living for a month on a pension that’s less than they pay for a bottle of plonk.

Recovering from heart surgery, suffering with arthritis, impetigo, haemorrhoids, failing reflux valve, and angina, high blood pressure, on 17 medications a day, depressed, bothered and getting angst (mugged twice) by the local yobs, the flea pit I live in (well… I say live?), is even more decrepit than I am, and my expert knowledge of knowing where to find the cheapest short date foods to buy, will no doubt have fascinated them.

Still, it doesn’t bother me, I know my place… in the gutter! (Hehehe)

Had they responded to my trying to flag their armoured Land Rover down to have a natter with them – instead of the policeman nearby… who did have a natter with me. (The bloke in the picture is not me, I was doing me David Bailey bit with me ten year old camera!)

I’d have offered to show then around the places they would not usually visit without their nine full time armed protection officers and a helicopter hovering above.

Well, you’ve got to try and help the poor little mites, bless them!

* I could have shown them the six police stations torched in the Summer riots – or rather the three that are still operating anyway.

* The burn marks on the Canning Circus station grab bars are still visible as you climb the steps to go into it still brings back the memories.

* I could show them the scenes where a party-goer was shot in the head with an air rifle, that’s only a few hundred yards to the south of my house.

* Then the pub where a youth was shot and killed, that’s just a few hundred yards north of my house.

* The spot where a man sat in a car was shot at by members of one of the  many drug gangs  around, that’s about half a mile from my abode, and on my weekly 90 minute walking route to the hospital for my INR Warfarin level blood tests.

* Take them on my 40 minute walk to town down Mansfield Road, and pointed out the variety of closed down retail businesses en route (46).

* Where the 84 year old lady was mugged and hospitalised last June, while at the bus stop by two illegal immigrants one Sunday morning, the now closed down shop on Mansfield Road where a lady of 67 years of age was gunned down in a raid and no one has ever been caught for it.

* Let them see the colourful Big Issue sellers as they sometimes get off their mobile phones to actually sell an issue.

* The newly opened outlets in the city centre – the Charity shops, the Bookmakers, the Coffee shops, the numerous Pay-day Loan outlets and the We buy your gold retailers.

* The constant traffic jams in the city, where they could increase their word knowledge I’m sure!

* Take them to the Arboretum, where sometimes you can find enough grass to sit on without having to move the used condoms, beer cans (empty), pop and water bottles (empty), half eaten take away foods, fag packets, phlegm, and sick, while they could listen to three or four other peoples music at the same time!

Well, I was not feeling very well on the day wot I wrote it like, and I missed me morning medications…

The Evening Post, did not print my comment.