Derek Jameson

MICHAEL Caine complains he isn't taken seriously in his own country because of the way he speaks. I know the feeling. Like Michael's, my voice has always been a mixed blessing.

A week after receiving a standing ovation at the Oscars, the great actor was finally honoured at the Bafta awards in London last weekend. It only took 85 films for him to win recognition.

"I've come in from the cold," he said.

Michael has always felt slightly patronised and trivialised by people in Britain who resent his success because he doesn't sound like a member of the establishment.

"Just because I have made a point of never losing my accent, it doesn't mean I'm an eel-and-pie yob," he said.

That rang a loud bell in my head. Some people take the view that anyone with a voice like Michael's or mine must be dregs.

For years I suffered people yelling "Wotcha, Sid!" after me in the street because the toffee-nosed twits who ran the magazine Private Eye renamed me Sid Yobbo to mark my appointment as editor of the Daily Express.

The day came when the Eye's then editor, Richard Ingrams, found himself alongside me at a lunch. Speaking slowly - as if talking to a moron - he explained that since I left school in the East End at the age of 14, I must be a yob.

Oaf

You might think the incident far from typical, but sadly the same rules apply right across the class divide. Radio 4 reckoned I was an inarticulate oaf who thought erudite was a glue.

I remember standing in on television for Wogan and receiving a briefing from Pete Estall, one of the BBC's top producers, headed: "Corluvvaduck!" Needless to say, I have never used that tired old expression. I also hate jellied eels - just like Michael Caine.

The extraordinary thing is that real villains from my patch usually try to appear posh and are noted for their immaculate suits, exaggerated manners and phoney accents.

The Kray twins were seen by their neighbours as polite young men, always ready to support a good cause or help a neighbour.

They once turned up at a working men's club where I was having a drink with my brother-in-law, Stan Kemp, a former Royal Marine commando.

Reggie Kray came over to apologise to Stan about something that had happened previously and naturally I wanted to know what it was all about.

He told me his dad had bumped into Ronnie Kray at the club, spilling his beer, and had been given a dreadful rollocking by the gangster.

Stan went over and told Ronnie he was out of order.

"Is that your father?" Ronnie asked solicitously. "What a nice old gent. Let me buy him a drink."

I wonder what the knockers would make of that.

Arch isn't our mane attraction

I AM all for modern art but I can't believe our bid for city status will

benefit if New Age warriors succeed in planting a dirty great picture of a horse across the gateway to the world famous North Laine.

As the Argus reported last

week, an illuminated arch is one of the works of art under consideration as part of the lottery-funded £30 million restoration of the Dome, Corn Exchange and Museum.

What a gift to our rivals.

Lord Bassam laughed the other day when I suggested he should use his influence as an Under Secretary at the Home Office to push our bid to become a city.

But as former Leader of the Council he's not allowed to have anything to do with the final decision.

"As Council leader, I like to think that I changed Brighton for the better," he says.

Why, then, did he decide to go to Whitehall?

"It's very hard

to say 'No' to

Tony Blair," he grinned.

Queen's mission is impossible

TALK about dicing with death - I just can't believe some bureaucratic bungler has been short-sighted enough to send the Queen on a visit to Northern Ireland tomorrow.

The threat to the Queen and her entourage is bad enough, but even if security measures protect the Royal party from harm there is still the danger of an attack elsewhere, if only to secure maximum publicity.

Earl Mountbatten was blown to bits by a Republican bomb on a fishing trip because of the ineptitude of officials who wrongly assumed nobody in Ireland would harm the Royal family.

The Queen's mission is far more controversial. She will be conferring the George Cross on the Royal Ulster Constabulary, a political act if ever there was one.

Republicans hate the RUC - wrecking the Queen's visit would suit them nicely.

Greg's good news for TV

WHAT a pity the faceless executives who run the BBC seem to have discouraged their new boss, Greg Dyke, from giving the heave-ho to all those jumped up commentators who bore the pants off us.

Jeremy Paxman and Newsnight were said to have been top of the Director General's hit list. Quite right too. It's a tired, over-rated programme and most big names won't go near it.

I've been a newsman most of my life, but when the axe does fall - as it surely must - you won't find me pining for Newsnight, Panorama, On the Record, Around Westminster and Breakfast with Frost.

Sort 'em out, Greg.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.