Your pal the Skipper is up in arms about housing this week, mainly due to having to help friends with the ins and outs of dealing with a landlord with a sense of entitlement larger than the grandest house in Falmouth.

Now I know that the reputation of journalists is in the gutter, regardless of whether or not they are looking at the stars, but, having had few dealings with amateur landlords, I assumed they could not be worse, and that reasonableness and calm would prevail. How wrong was I?

I have sympathy of course, after all, often a home is little more than an asset to them, and as such they have every right to protect their interests. But treating people like second class citizens and making up spurious rules as they go along is a pain to deal with, and insulting.

Timed beautifully was a missive from our local MP about the problem of rogue landlords.

Yes I know! Many will laugh out loud at a Conservative decrying problems in the housing market, and they do have a point, but at least this move to stop revenge evictions seems a no brainer.

People should not be ordered out for asking for the heating to be fixed or mould solved.

On a related note, it was with some comcern I learnt about the state of one of Falmouth’s most famous homes, Marlborough House in Silverdale Road. Now the bailiffs have been called in I hope repairs are on their way. Rumour has it the packet ship captain who built it could row from his front door down through Swanpool and out to sea.

What would he think of its disrepair I wonder?