GEORGE GALLOWAY'S toe-curling appearance on Big Brother was a cracker for connoisseurs of political gaffes.
Even better than John Selwyn Gummer shoving that hamburger down his little daughter's throat or Neil Kinnock's stroll along the shingle.
Better even than Margaret Thatcher's "we are a grandmother" line. What was that all about?
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Anyhow, step forward Coun Colin Rigby, Tory leader of BwD Council and representative for North Turton for as long as anyone can remember.
Coun Rigby was talking about the plans to introduce disc parking for shoppers in Darwen.
"It's a scheme to get people moving into the town more easily," he suggested.
Oh, yeah?
He went on: "And surely you can do whatever you want in two hours in Darwen?" Ouch! That hurt, Mr Rigby.
I don't think any throwaway comment by a local councillor in the past few years has attracted such odium from local folk.
My telephone's been boiling away and I could barely walk five yards around the town centre without someone having a moan.
Not many Darweners know Colin Rigby who lives over the "lump" in Edgworth.
And you have to wonder how well he knows Darwen.
Two hours and you've done Darwen? Well, perhaps he has a point but he could have put it more gently.
Frankly, the centre has not been so dismal and forlorn in living memory.
Empty shops and stalls litter the area. Railway Road is a shell of its former glory.
Bridge Street, Market Street and the Circus are almost as bad.
Take out the service shops and what's left? Not much.
It's a theme I'll be coming back to.
However, Coun Rigby misses the point about Darwen town centre.
It isn't there just for services and shopping. It performs an important social function, especially for the elderly and the lonely.
In the old days there was always someone coming to your door; the men who read the gas and electricity meters, the rent collector and the tallyman, the postman and the insurance man, the coalman and the knife-sharpener. And of course the neighbours.
There was the milkman, the window cleaner, the rag and bone man, the fruit and veg man, the bloke who cleaned the drains.
The bob-a-jobbers and the maypole dancers and the Salvation Army band.
Who knocks on your front door these days? Cowboys and yobs?
For many folk a cup of tea and a chat with old friends in town is the highlight of the day.
Two hours and you've done Darwen? Not if you want to browse in the library, have your hair cut, look round for a few bargains and, most importantly, catch up with the gossip.
Darwen hasn't a lot going for it, but we do have free, unfettered town centre parking and we should fight to retain it - so let's say three hours, strictly enforced.
Discs? No thanks.
And perhaps Colin Rigby should let the council's team of spin doctors do the PR bit for him in future.
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