“Former lord mayor suspended over sex talk” – Telegraph

From today’s papers comes one of the more unusual stories about a councillor misbehaving:

A former lord mayor has been suspended from serving as a [Conservative] city councillor for three months after repeatedly asking a female guest at an official ball if he could have sex with her.

Married Andy Matchet, 57, also questioned the middle-aged chief executive about her orgasms and told her about losing his virginity as they spoke at the Lord Mayor’s Ball in Coventry.

As the city’s lord mayor at the time, father-of-two Mr Matchet was wearing his ceremonial gold chain and was accompanied by his wife Caron, 47.

From the full report it sounds as if Andy Matchet’s behaviour was both sustained and extremely offensive. But did you spot the dropped in reference to “wearing his ceremonial gold chain” as if being on the receiving end of such behaviour is somehow all the worse if somebody is wearing Lord Mayor’s chain? (Though in the slightly weird world of local council standards boards, I guess wearing a chain is an extra mark against you because it means you were being a councillor at the time and not a private individual.)

Pop fact of the day: there are only twenty-three places in England with a Lord Mayor.