Barmy Britain
Page 7
Daily Telegraph
A survey of American tourists in Scotland revealed that one in four of them believed that haggis was an animal they could hunt.
Evening Standard
Scientists in Canada and Scotland report that schools of herring communicate by farting. Researchers suspect that herrings hear the bubbles as they are expelled and the noise helps them to form protective shoals at night.
National Geographic News
The way to find lasting love is to take your dog for a walk in the park. Warwick University scientists claim that people who do this are more likely to meet a future partner than anywhere else. Health psychologist June McNicholas said having a dog could increase the chance of getting ‘chatted up’ by up to 1,000 per cent.
Daily Telegraph
A Jack Russell terrier called Part-X is being trained by its owner to water-ski after learning how to ride a surfboard.
Sun
EXCUSE ME, MISS, IS THAT A CHAMELEON ON YOUR HEAD? Daily Telegraph headline on its story about a 17-year-old who tried to get through Customs at Manchester wearing the protected species as a hat.
Daily Telegraph
Cats have recently replaced dogs as the nation’s favourite pets and there are over seven million of them – mostly owned by women. Eighty per cent of subscribers to Cats Today magazine are women and editor Jill Reid is convinced that many men are cat lovers, but they would be embarrassed to be seen with a cat magazine. The Guardian reports that Jill’s own cat, Coco, prefers to snuggle on the chest of her boyfriend Tim and says: ‘Tim thinks the explanation is that men’s chests are more level’.
Guardian
Dogs top the list of animals used in advertising. Cats come next, although perceived by some as being selfish and cruel. Surprisingly pigs come third, despite ‘a reputation for less than pristine personal hygiene’. Researchers found that ‘Britons have an almost ludicrous affinity to pigs. If you go into almost any home in the country they are there – in figurines, pictures or just piggybanks’.
Daily Telegraph
A hamster was seen bowling along inside its toy exercise ball on the hard shoulder of the M6.
Independent on Sunday
Environmental health officers in Barbegh, Suffolk, received a complaint from a woman that a neighbour’s horse was urinating too loudly. The complaint was among the top ten of their most unusual calls.
Sunday Times
A lost pet tortoise was found safe and well on a motorway having crawled one-and-a-half miles in three weeks. Freddy, owned by Wendy Passell of Otterbourne, near Winchester, was seen plodding south on the M3 having managed an average speed of 0.0034mph. Proud Mrs Passell said: ‘People don’t realise how hyperactive Freddie is.’
Evening Standard
A survey in Our Dogs magazine found a bull terrier which swallowed a bottle cap, a toy car and some wire and some cling film. It was operated on, the objects were removed and the dog was put on a drip. It ate the drip.
Sunday Times
Legendary actress Sarah Bernhard had a pet alligator which died after she fed him too much champagne. And her boa constrictor died after swallowing a cushion.
Daily Mail
Bathers swam towards a huge basking shark (they can be around 40ft long and weigh up to seven tonnes) which appeared off Porthcurno beach in Cornwall.
Lifeguards were quickly on the scene – but they were there to protect the shark, not the bathers. Basking sharks are a protected species which feed on plankton and are regarded as harmless. ‘We try to keep people away from them’, said one of the guards.
The Times
A 1997 edition of The Times reported:
The royal pets include a number of ‘dorgis’ – crosses between the Queen’s corgis and Princess Margaret’s dachshunds.
Royal photographer Norman Parkinson was having lunch at the Palace one day and had the temerity to ask how the breeds could couple successfully, considering their different stature.
‘Oh,’ said the Queen, ‘it’s really very simple. We have a little brick.’
The Times
A Kennel Club official commented: ‘The dachshund was evolved to chase badgers down holes and corgis to round up cattle. If anyone loses a herd of cattle down a badger hole, dorgis are just the dogs to get them out.’
The Times
J. Mervyn Williams, of Huddersfield, remembers calling into a pub in Wales in the early 1960s when the locals were discussing how much it cost having sheep neutered by vets ‘since old Edwards died’. He asked them if he could make a good living if he set up doing the job old Edwards did.
They asked him: ‘Have you got your own teeth?’
Daily Mail
Dogs and pubs rival the weather as subjects of conversation among the English. The Daily Telegraph had a whole raft of letters on them:
Children should be barred from pubs, but dogs are an essential accessory.
Dogs are grotesquely over-privileged manure machines and should be kept out of pubs.
Dogs are never the pub bore.
Landlords who want to ban dogs should be banned from running pubs.
Daily Telegraph
Warwickshire Fire Brigade swung into action in response to a 999 call. It sent three fire engines (with five men to each engine) and two men with a rubber dinghy. They travelled 35 miles to a drainage tunnel at Earlswood Lakes, near Solihull – and rescued a trapped duck.
BBC News / Guardian
Sue Baines, of Quernmore, Lancashire, had a cat called Geoffrey which was known as Geoffrey Boycat.
Daily Telegraph
Under the headline WHY YOU REALLY CAN’T CALL YOUR CAT KEITH, Christopher Howse informs us of some oddball monikers humans have given to their cats.
Thomas Hardy had one called Kiddleywinkempoops, and many a poor cat is called Astrophe and Aclysm (or anything else that begins with ‘cat’).
Florence Nightingale had Bismarck and Disraeli.
Jock and Margate belonged to Winston Churchill.
Ernest Hemingway had Fats, Crazy Christian and Friendless Brother.
It is said that Thomas Hardy’s ashes were to be buried at Westminster Abbey and his heart in his Dorset village. The heart was left for a few minutes in the kitchen in a tea towel. His cat ate it. The tale is denied, but the story will not go away.
Daily Telegraph
Strange names for animals reminded Marjorie Stratton, of Chippenham, Wiltshire, of a chap who had a horse called Business. His wife was able to reply truthfully to demanding phones calls that her husband was away on Business when he was enjoying a day on his hunter.
Daily Telegraph
It’s not mice that elephants are afraid of… it’s bees. Despite their thick skins and size advantage, elephants turn tail and flee at the sound of a swarm of bees according to research in Kenya.
Guardian
A Huddersfield man has had to change his mobile phone ring tone five times because Billy, his blue-fronted Amazon parrot, learns to copy it. Billy waits until his owner is out of the room before pretending to be an incoming call – then laughs when he dashes in to answer it.
Daily Telegraph
A car thief had a swift change of heart when he was confronted by a Great Dane called Diesel which had been asleep in the back of the car. As the thief drove off Diesel – nine stone in weight and six foot tall on his hind legs – sat up and the driver jerked to a halt and fled. The car owner said that his car did not have an alarm. ‘Who needs one when you’ve got the Hound of the Baskervilles in your back seat?’
The Times
This reminded Richard Littlejohn of the man who parked his Mondeo near Anfield football ground. He was approached by a gang of scallies offering to mind his car for a fiver.
‘No need,’ he said. ‘My Rottweiler’s in the back’.
To which the response was: ‘Can he put out fires?’
Daily Mail
In February 2008 the Daily Mail carried a picture of Shirley Neeley’s fridge full of
hibernating tortoises. Mrs Neeley, who runs the Jersey-based Tortoise Sanctuary, said: ‘It’s much easier to maintain a constantly cool temperature with a fridge than it is with our ever-warming climate.’
One night a guest went in search of wine and was stunned to find the main contents of the fridge were alive and had four legs. But there WAS also a bottle of wine because, said Mrs Neeley, ‘It helps to stabilise the temperature’.
Daily Mail
CHAPTER 10
NANNY STATE
Clown ordered to stop blowing bubbles for children…
A Premium Bond holder rang to give them his new address. ‘Sorry, sir, we cannot take it over the telephone for security reasons’, they said. ‘We will have to send you a form.’
The bond holder gave the address to which the form should be sent… his new address. The Premium Bond people arranged to send a form to his new address so that he could fill it in to tell them his new address.
Sunday Telegraph
Someone put up the idea of withdrawing packets of ten cigarettes to discourage teenagers from smoking.
Maureen McKinlay, of Cardiff, responded: ‘Brilliant. When packets of five were withdrawn I bought ten and increased my consumption almost overnight.’
Daily Telegraph
Clown Barney Baloney has had to stop blowing bubbles for children after being warned that youngsters might slip on the bubbles’ residue.
Said Barney: ‘The fun is being taken out of children’s lives by bureaucracy. Kids eat ice cream and jelly and that gets on the floor and is slippy. Do they want them to stop eating those?’
Daily Telegraph
When a Health and Safety Officer visited Pat Robbins’ Berkshire game hatchery he saw a ladder propped up against a 10-foot high grain bin and said: ‘I don’t want anyone climbing that ladder until it has been secured from the top’. The inspector left, somewhat discomfited, after being asked: ‘How do we get up there to secure it?’
Sunday Telegraph
The Queen is a confirmed non-smoker, but she is also a great libertarian and has no time for political correctness. She always makes cigarettes available for guests. She also refuses to wear a hard hat when she is riding and she refuses to wear a seatbelt when she travels by car.
Sunday Telegraph
After visiting Sunningdale Ladies’ Golf Club a Health and Safety official said the sand pits would have to be fenced in. The sand pits to which the official referred are known to golfers as bunkers.
Ephraim Hardcastle, Daily Mail
Tracey Barnes from Claverham, Somerset, was told by the Passport Office that she could not use a photograph of her nine-month old baby son because it showed him bare-chested.
Daily Telegraph
Police called in to investigate the vandalising of stained glass windows at Middleton Parish Church near Rochdale didn’t get close-up pictures of the damage because ‘they didn’t have specialised ladder training’.
Daily Mail
Children were banned from taking part in a 2007 Llandudno Donkey Derby. Instead, cuddly toys were tied to the donkeys and the children ran behind. ‘Absolutely ridiculous,’ said donkey owner Phil Talbort. ‘The races have been held here for 40-odd years and no child has ever been injured. The donkeys enjoy the Derby so much that they’ll just go on their own.’
The glamorous granny and bonny baby contests went ahead without any recorded fatalities.
North Wales Pioneer and others
Reactions to the widespread smoking ban which came into force in England on 1 July 2007 included:
At the Old King’s Arms at Horsforth, near Leeds, the landlord said: ‘We’ve had one or two regulars vowing that they won’t come back. But give it a week or two of them sitting at home staring at the wife. They’ll be back.’ The Times
In London, comedian and writer Liam Mullone bought a converted hearse and spent the day driving from pub to pub offering shelter to smokers shivering in doorways. The Times
The Daily Mail had a picture of three men smoking at the Smokers Arms in Grimsby – outside in the cold.
£2billion is the estimated cost of smoking to the NHS. £9.5billion is the profit to the Treasury made from tobacco taxes in 2006. Daily Mail
Lap dancers in a Brighton club slipped outdoors in their undies for a drag and Arabic smokers took their hubble bubble pipes outside in London. Sun
Strippers will dance at the Crown in Knaphill, Surrey, to entice smokers to keep using the pub. News of the World
Llanelli cemetery in South Wales became a no-smoking area because it is a workplace for gravediggers.
A quote from the Guardian: ‘I smoke 100 to 120 cigs a day. The ban will kill us’.
Firemen were barred from taking down festival bunting in Ampthill, Bedfordshire because they were not allowed to use ladders to under Health and Safety rules. A local fire chief said: ‘The world’s gone mad’.
Sun (which printed the story alongside its ‘You Couldn’t Make It Up’ logo.)
CHAPTER 11
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
A diner at a Slug & Lettuce found a slug in her lettuce…
Oyster grower is besieged with orders after claiming that he feeds Viagra to his bivalves.
Independent on Sunday
David Dimbleby revealed that he had a great aunt who added her cigarette ash to her porridge. It improved the taste, she said.
Sun
Eamon Butler, of the Adam Smith Institute, declares: ‘Bismarck said that if you like laws or sausages you should never watch either being made.’
Daily Mail
Anthony Danson, 43, won the World Pie Eating Championship in Wigan in 2005. He demolished seven large meat and potato pies in three minutes (that’s one in every 25.714 seconds). This was after eating three pies in a warm-up session 20 minutes before the competition. None of the other competitors managed more than three.
‘Were it seven?’ he said. ‘I thought it were six.’ Mr Danson explained that he was on a seafood diet: ‘If I see food, I eat it.’
Daily Telegraph
Trading standards jobsworths in Weymouth, Dorset, have ordered local baker Val Temple to rename her novelty Robin Tarts because they do not contain robin. Her Paradise Slice has to be reclassified as it does not come from paradise. And her comical Pig Tarts came under the axe because they do not contain pork.
60-year-old Val says: ‘I’ve been selling all these cakes for 16 years. They are a bit of fun and my customers love them.’
The Sun commented: ‘May we suggest that Val adds warning labels such as ‘Shepherd’s Pie – Contains No Shepherds.’
Sun
Scotsman headline: TV ADS BOOST EATING OF OBESE CHILDREN BY 130%. Best with ketchup and a mild chutney, comments the Guardian’s Duncan Campbell.
Guardian
Dr Rick Jolly, of Crafthole, Cornwall, recalls how, ‘in the Commando world we always carried a cardboard tube filled with curry powder. The Royal Marines’ delightful nickname for this absolutely essential and taste-making dietary supplement was “Go-faster dust”’.
Daily Telegraph
Grand Tory MP Lady Nancy Astor splendidly advised the poor in the 1930’s how to make nutritious soup from potato and carrot peelings. But author Pamela Horn reveals in her book, Life Below Stairs, that when Lady Astor went on holiday she took one of her own dairy cows with her to ensure a regular supply of her usual milk.
Observer
A prisoner was granted legal aid to sue the Home Secretary because he was refused a second helping of rhubarb crumble in the jail canteen.
Daily Mail
More people in Britain are employed in Indian restaurants than in the mining, shipping and steel industries combined - and we now export chicken tikka masala to India, while they export hi-tech software to us.
Guardian
When Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow complained that British men appeared to be scared to ask her out, the Daily Telegraph reported a ‘Stockport lad’ offering to take her Up North for c
hicken in a basket. ‘But don’t call on Saturdays. I’m usually out watching Man City’.
Daily Telegraph
Stories about a Scottish delicacy – the 1,000 calorie deep fried chocolate sandwich – brought a warning from the Sun: It would take two hours of sex to work off the calorific effect of the ‘Suicide Sarnie’.
Sun
On a train from Kemble to Paddington I saw this message written on a paper napkin in the buffet car: ‘Would the last person on duty tonight please moisten the ginger cake as it is past its sell-by date.’ Kyrle Arscott, Ashton Keynes, Wiltshire.
Daily Telegraph
A Daily Telegraph reader from Dawlish Water, Devon, bought a jar of chutney from Tesco carrying the ‘Best Before’ date of 4 June 2163. He says he is considering leaving it to one of his children as an heirloom.
Daily Telegraph
The soggy and curly British Rail sandwich was the subject of meticulous culinary precision according to a 30-year-old document unearthed in National Railway Museum of York. It taught employees to use only three quarters of an ounce of cheese, two-thirds of an ounce of luncheon meat, cress or sardine and no more than a quarter ounce of gherkin. At least a third of the sandwich filling was to be stacked on the centre of the bread to make it look attractive and well-filled.
Independent
Claims that the Cornish Pasty was invented in Devon continue to anger Cornwall. Gary Spires, of Penzance, Cornwall, writes: ‘If Devon invented the pasty then Cornwall has done something wonderful to it – it’s as if Devon invented the toilet seat and Cornwall came up with the idea of a hole in the middle’.