Shut the gate, tractors are the new turn-on

“NEVER do anything that can be turned into an amusing headline” is a perfect slice of olde-worlde advice. Or, as ex-MP Neil Parish has found to his cost, definitely never do anything that can be turned into a cartoon. Last weekend’s Sunday Times featured the following frontpage Newman pocket cartoon. A salesman, standing in front of tractors for sale, is saying to a farmer: “They come in red, green and 50 shades of grey.”

And talking of 50 shades of grey, the front page of Wednesday’s Telegraph featured the never-lessthan-funny cartoonist Matt. A couple in bed are having a postcoital exchange, and she is saying to him: “Who is Massey Ferguson and why did you shout out their name?” Mind you, the farming community may well have preferred: “Who is this little grey Fergie and why did you shout out her name?”

The word on the street suggests that Neil Parish is a decent and honourable man and, as a farmer, probably was looking at agricultural websites but accidentally landed on a porn site. Indeed, journalists and readers have been regaling us with how they innocently landed on porn sites. Like the language teacher researching local places of interest for her students and Googled “The Devil’s Dyke”, a Brighton beauty spot. Words couldn’t express what came up.

“Never do anything in a field that would embarrass your mother,” is another slice of old country wisdom. Or in poor Neil Parish’s case: “Never do anything in the House that would embarrass your wife and family.” Much like Boris’ partygate and Keir’s beergate, Neil failed to spot the inevitable ambush of revisiting the Tractorgate porn site while still at work, and he duly fell on his mower.

I don’t know. From Watergate to beergate, partygate and tractorgate, do you suppose politicians will ever remember to shut that bloomin’ gate?

Finally, the last word goes to Louise Harper of Edinburgh and her letter to The Guardian: “Are tractors the new Page 3 girls?”

Huw Beynon Llandeilo