Common sense – that's all it really takes …

YOU can put all manner of things to rights while leaning on the four-ale bar. The war on terror? Bring back our troops from Afghanistan and instead spend money and manpower on shoring up our borders. Crime? If someone is sentenced to 10 years, make sure they serve 10 years. Derby County's Championship struggle? Just nip out and buy another Dave Mackay. No problem is insoluble if you have a pint of best bitter in your hand.
Indeed, by its very definition, playing the game of If I Were In Charge is always rewarding. You aren't actually in charge. Therefore you don't have to produce the actions that would bring to fruit the solutions you've scribbled on the back of a beer mat.
Nonetheless, there are times when I wish I were in charge of Derby City Council.
I'm sure you all do (not wish that I were in charge, obviously; that you were). We all believe that we've got the answers, most of them just a matter of common sense, really. We can't understand why, these days, common sense is such an apparently rare commodity within Derby's corridors of power.
Hospital and university parking, public toilets, bus lanes, the Hippodrome – you name it and a good dollop of common sense would probably solve it, albeit one person's solution can quickly become another's problem. You can't please all of the people all of the time.
But you can please most of them. In fact, when it comes to the Hippodrome, you could probably please all of them. If I were in charge, I'd do it tomorrow.
For two years, Derby City Council has apparently sat on a suggestion from Derby Civic Society that a good chunk of the area marketed as The Lanes – broadly speaking, Babington Lane, Green Lane and Gower Street – should become a conservation area.
You'd think that the council would be sympathetic. After all, its city centre management website boasts: "The Lanes feature a variety of interesting buildings, which illustrate architectural trends from the mid-19th century through to the 1960s… making it a thriving and pleasant place to visit."
The reality is that the area is far from thriving and pleasant; in fact, it is quite run down. But it is home to several listed buildings and if conservation area status were granted, then the dear old Hippodrome would become eligible for an English Heritage grant. What a great starting point that would be towards rejuvenating the area.
The council already markets The Lanes as "Derby's hidden gems". Once the theatre was restored to its former glory, it would become the main jewel in that crown. It doesn't take a great leap of imagination to see families pouring out of a wonderful old theatre and into bars, restaurants and small independent shops in a revitalised part of Derby.
Why the council hasn't acted on the society's suggestion is not clear, although it may have something to do with persistent rumours that it is hoping to tempt a supermarket chain to take over the old Debenhams site. If that were to happen, then a road would be needed from the inner ring road extension to the supermarket car park. You can't go driving one of those through a conservation area.
If the area was so designated and the Hippodrome saved, everything else would almost certainly follow. The hollow marketing slogan would actually begin to mean something. Personally, I'd forget about Tesco.
But then, I'm not in charge. I'm just leaning on the bar.