The Tameside Radio presenter talks about the killing of Sir David Amess MP, battling a rise in Covid cases, an amateur production he watched and what he's seen at the cinema recently.

It’s been a bleak week of news since my last column. Whilst we were out delivering cakes in Tameside and Glossop for Local Radio Day, an alert flashed up on my phone that Conservative MP Sir David Amess had been stabbed whilst doing his job at a constituency surgery. 

The scale and horror of what had happened quickly became clear, and it brought back horrific echoes of events in 2016, when Jo Cox also lost her life.

A lot has been written about the way in which we discuss politics in this country, and I would argue things have never been as polarised since the Brexit referendum in 2016, whichever side of the fence you were on. 

I spend a lot of time on social media, as I find it a useful tool when putting my radio shows together. It does sometimes really get you down though, as almost any conversation however innocuous can quickly descend into mudslinging in no time at all. 

Perhaps if we all thought a little bit more about the effect our words can have, the world might slowly start to become a better place. 

As an Amess family statement this week said: “Please let some good come from this tragedy”. It’s not the time for political point scoring. Let’s all show some humanity and honour Sir David’s family in their wishes.

Also this week, Covid-19 cases have been rising exponentially once again, and Mayor Andy Burnham has been reminding us to wear face coverings on public transport and at busy interchanges as winter approaches. I got a train recently from Ashton to Southport, and was surprised to note I was pretty much the only passenger who was wearing a mask in our carriage. It was the same on the return journey the next day. I have never found wearing one a big deal, and if anything it doubles up as a handy face warmer as the colder months draw closer.

The last thing any of us want to see is for events to grind to a halt again, so if we can all be a little more considerate and keep up the hand washing, distancing and mask wearing where we can, it can’t do any harm. 

The new campaign “Covid’s Still Here” has just been launched in Greater Manchester, reminding us to stay home if feeling unwell, and ‘keep doing the right thing by each other’. 

I suspect a lot of Brits just want to draw a line under the last 19 months and pretend this is all magically over. The current death figures unfortunately don’t support this narrative. I also dread any politician telling us they are going to “save Christmas”, as we saw how that panned out last year.

Talking of live events, I was privileged to attend the Denton West Amateur Dramatic Society’s version of Are You Being Served on Saturday night at the Community Centre. 

This newspaper’s editor was fantastic as Don Bernardo, channelling his inner Andrew Sachs, complete with dodgy moustache and exceedingly convincing Spanish accent (he didn’t pay me to write this bit, I promise!). 

The whole cast had Andy Hoyle and I in stitches, and it was a great combination of bawdy humour, slapstick performances and even some German dancing! One review of the original movie in 1977 said it was a film that was “guilty of violating almost every law of comedy and film”. 

I’m sure critics would have been kinder about this production, which had been a year and-a-half in the making due to lockdown delays. Bravo DWADS. I even won the chocolates on the raffle! You can read my review here. 

I’ve also been counting up my cinema visits during an Adele record this week to stay awake, and found I’ve seen 42 films on the big screen since Cineworld reopened its doors. 

Not bad going! I thoroughly recommend Venom 2 for an easy-going, funny Marvel movie. Halloween Kills is another rickety ghost train ride into the world of Michael Myers, who’s still going strong after the 1978 original and numerous sequels. Another film is planned for next year. He has more lives than Nigel Farage has had attempts at getting democratically elected, it seems.

As I say, none of us want the fun bits of life to stop again. It’s on all of us to do our bit to keep theatre, cinema and live shows going. A lot of jobs depend on it.

You can listen to Alex every weekday from 7am to 11am and on the 'Super Scoreboard' show on Saturdays from 3pm to 7pm, on Tameside Radio 103.6FM. 

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