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Mario’s 14 hours in the ‘slammer’ was no joke
OUR boys in blue did it again at Heathrow on Monday – and held a well known stand up comic in detention for 14 hours until they were able to “process’’ his work permit.
Is it a coincidence that I am writing about a top black
comic – Mario Joyner (pictured) who flew into Britain on Monday after a world tour as a warm-up for the star Chris Rock?
You can’t help wondering if Mario would have felt the heavy hand of the Heathrow “cops” if he had been white.
It took a High Court judge recently to wrest the rap star Busta Rhymes from their grips.
And all this happened at the start of Black History Month, when we are supposed to
celebrate the achievements of ethnic minorities in Britain!
Mario looked tired when he mounted the stage at the Soho Theatre on Tuesday evening for the start of his week-long run.
I sensed he wasn’t joking when his patter turned to the immigration authorities at Heathrow.
He looked hard at the audience and suddenly said: “Are there any immigration officers here? Why don’t I walk out for five minutes then, and come back in four hours and see how you like it?”
That’s obviously what the immigration officers had said to him – and then left him alone in a small room with a tiny bed.In fact they locked him up for 14 hours, according to his agent, whom I spoke to yesterday (Wednesday).
Mario arrived at 8pm on Monday at Heathrow and was then put under lock and key until 10am the next morning.
A few hours later he began his opening night.
No wonder he looked tired.
His agent tried hard to play down the atrocious treatment meted out to Mario and said all he wanted to do was get on with his act.
I first saw Mario a few weeks ago when he did a very good warm-up act at Chris Rock’s show at the Apollo. He didn’t he disappoint me at the Soho Theatre. He’s a first-class comic – and I hope he pulls in a good audience this week.
What a pity our boys in blue at Heathrow didn’t realise he was a top-class passenger when he arrived on Tuesday.
The Emerald Isle: fair on the green stuff
CAN you believe it? Sir Martin Sorrell, chairman of the giant advertising agency WPP, has moved his HQ to Ireland to keep the taxman at bay.
The agency is also incorporated in Jersey where there is no
corporation tax.
Funnily enough, the London Mayor, Boris Johnson, has also appointed Sir Martin as chairman of an international business advisory council set up to lure businesses to the capital.
After a council meeting on Sunday, Mayor Boris, without a hint of irony, said the government must “rethink its strategy” on taxation as the current system drives enterprises like Sir Martin’s WPP to move overseas where “tax demands are
fairer.”
Innocent Sir Martin is, apparently, above all this.
A WPP spokesman said: “We are not restructuring in
Ireland... we are
creating a new holding company.
“Martin Sorrell still continues to do all he can personally to support British efforts and investment.”
As they say, you couldn’t make this up.
Hetty Bower – 103 not out
IS there something special in the water at the Mary Fielding Home in Highgate? I suspect there is, if Hetty Bower is anything to go by.
For Hetty, who lives at Mary Fielding, has just undertaken a sponsored walk for charity – at the age of 103!
Readers will recall that our famous columnist, Rose Hacker, also lived at the same home until her death in February, just shy of 102.
Once, Rose described the home in one of her columns for this paper as being like “heaven on earth.”
A colleague was lucky enough to attend two birthday tea parties for Hetty – one on Friday at the home where most residents are now in their eighties and nineties, the other on Saturday at her
daughter’s home in Muswell Hill.
Still remarkably sprightly, Hetty held forth at length about today’s financial and political crises as well about music and
literature.
Along with her two retired daughters, she took part in CND’s Aldermaston March against nuclear weapons at Easter this year.
With a broad smile, she said her diary is as full as ever. She is now arranging for a talk on the banking crisis to be held soon at the home.
Many Mary Fielding residents remember first-hand the 1929 crash, the recession of the 1930s and depression that followed it.
People attending the party included four generations of Hetty’s family, including
daughters Celia and Margi, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and her four-month-old great-great niece.
The new arrival’s great-great grandmother, Hetty’s eldest sister, was an active suffragette and remains one of Hetty’s great-great role-models.
n An evening of words and music for Rose Hacker will be held on October 18 at the Unitarian Chuch, Hoop Lane, Golders Green.
We won’t need you today, oh Mandy...
PETER Mandelson, I hear, has been moved from a post he proudly held – that of president at Swiss Cottage’s Central School of Speech and Drama. The college this week replaced the New Labourite with former student, Harold Pinter.
I heard the news a couple of weeks ago but was sworn to secrecy until some loose ends had been tied up – and in the meantime the Prince of Darkness was handed a way back into government.
Pinter, who went to the school in the 1950s, told me: “I enjoyed my times there very much.”
The top banking role wasn’t fit for a King
JOHN Mills, who runs JML, a thriving TV shopping channel, doesn’t think much of the Bank of England chief, Mervyn King. In an email to me this week Mills – the borough’s ex-finance chief – reminded me that when New Labour came to power ten years ago he said Gordon Brown had made a mistake in giving King control of interest rates.
“The bank” writes Mills “represents the interests of finance and not manufacturing and ordinary people.”
Mills, who has been around in politics for 40 years, keeps himself busy – apart from running JML in
Kentish Town – publishing a very informative anti-Euro newsletter along with one or two Labour MPs.
Needless to say, Mills doesn’t think much of Gordon Brown’s policies.
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