Bean and gone

Paul Goodman’s reign as our MP finished when Parliament was dissolved in readiness for next month’s General Election. As you know, he declared months ago he won’t be standing again.

So Backchat will pay tribute to him in the only way we know – by daring him to embarrass himself in the name of a charity challenge.

Now before you all huff and puff and say this is undignified, I must point out Paul has a fine sense of humour.

I didn’t expect it when I first met him and learned he was a former trainee monk as well as the comment page editor for the high and mighty Daily Telegraph newspaper. He looked a bit too intellectual for my pea-sized brain. But he soon endeared himself to all and sundry. I well remember him giving a speech as candidate to a group of pupils at Wycombe High School before he was first elected.

Now most politicians would have stood up and tried to crack a few clichéd jokes.

All Paul had to do was to say in a public school voice: “Some people say I look like Mr Bean.”

It was hardly the stuff of “we’ll fight ‘em on the beaches” but it hit the spot. The girls were in hysterics and lapped up everything he said after that.

The Mr Bean resemblance, far from being a hindrance, was remarkably turned into a great ice-breaker and the fact he used it to poke fun at himself showed how down to earth he was.

My tip to all candidates trying to replace him therefore is: Tell us who you look like. The best dead ringer may well win the seat.

But back to the challenge. When I saw this old picture of him at the microphone last week, I spontaneously began humming the tune of Frank Sintra’s My Way.

I can well imagine our now former MP singing: “And now the end is near, and so I face the final curtain.”

I tried rewriting the lyrics in his honour but couldn’t come up with anything, apart from “What is a (Good) man what has he got? If not his seat, then he has naught…”

Yes, agreed, it’s rubbish, and I’ll welcome any alternative entries. I’ll even give a Backchat music CD to the writer of the best version.

However, my specific challenge to Paul Goodman is that he sings My Way with the aid of a karaoke machine at the Wycombe pub of his choice.

I will donate £10 out of my own pocket to charity if he does so. And I ask readers to make similar pledges to get him to do it. Then we’ll video it for you and put it on our website.

And before you rush to criticise me, please remember I once sang a Tom Jones song in a duet with the then Mayor of High Wycombe, Sebert Graham, at the Anchor pub in High Wycombe. So it’s not unusual then.

However, if I were a betting man, I’d put my money on seeing an elephant fly over Wycombe town hall before Mr G takes up this singing challenge.

* If you wish to pledge to hear him sing, email me at scohen@london.newsquest.co.uk