Room 101: Duncan Bell – Former Bath and England prop

1. Speeding fine injustice
Now, don’t get the wrong idea…I’m no ‘Driving Miss Daisy’, nor, by the same token, am I Ayrton Sienna. But for the first time, at the age of 38, I have been nicked for doing 57 mph in a 50 mph contraflow on the M4, near Bristol. You may say that’s a fair cop, but the most annoying thing is that I’m not even sure I was driving the car at the time. I’d lent my car to a friend of mine for a couple of months and it was right at the handover point that the said offence happened. I immediately wrote off to the powers-that-be to ask for evidence that it was me behind the wheel, but I’m still waiting to hear back. As they are seemingly uncontactable – there’s no phone number anywhere – I’ve just had to accept my lot and book myself in for a driver rehabilitation course, which has cost me £80. The whole system is a bureaucratic nightmare and purely geared up towards making money.
TRP verdict:  It wasn’t me, honest guv’…you’ll have to do better than that Belly. You’re out.
2. Form filling
I’m a self-employed mortgage advisor in the financial services industry, www.bellfinancialservices.co.uk, and the FSA regulations are an absolute nightmare. The rules and regulations are all well-meaning in that they are there to protect the advisor and the consumer, but at the end of the day the whole process becomes unbearable for both parties. If you wrongly phrase something or don’t tick a box in a certain area on a screen or you don’t sign your name in the right place…you can get the biggest rap over the knuckles from the Compliance Network. They put so many hurdles in the way it almost makes it impossible to complete what you want to achieve. It is a really confusing and antiquated system. As a man running his own business I can’t afford a PA so I have to do all the paperwork myself, and if you get behind on that, the pile on your desk can be as thick as an encyclopedia.
TRP verdict:  You can tick this box…you’re in
3. The Scrum
Personally I don’t think there’s any point to the scrum nowadays. I’ve always found it to be the most fascinating part of the game, but frankly in the last few years it has become a joke. The scrum and lineout is what makes Rugby Union, yet one of them is deliberately refereed off the park by referees who have no empathy for that position. The scrum is refereed so poorly that even if you’re the dominant pack you’ll get penalised. As a player I knew that if the first penalty went against you more often than not you’d have the next one regardless of what had happened. As a result you’d just do something really illegal knowing that you wouldn’t get punished. I’m a big, big fan of American Football and they have 10 referees on the field. I’m not saying we should have that many referees in rugby, but the scrum is such an intricate part of the game that I think you should have an ex-professional front row player officiating, where possible, that facet of the game. I don’t see how you can have, with the greatest respect, a ref who hasn’t played in that position, and frankly doesn’t know what he is talking about, telling you what’s what.
TRP verdict:  After much ‘pause’ for thought…you’re in.