When builder Neil Irwin goes out drinking he wears a T-shirt bearing his address and a photograph of his house so folk can see him home in Herne Bay, Kent.
Sun
Soon after it became illegal to smoke in public places pub customers grew nostalgic for the old familiar smells. A Lancashire firm specialising in ‘niche fragrances’ started getting orders for an ‘ashtray aerosol scent’ which recreates the authentic fug of a pub.
Independent on Sunday
The Old Spot Inn in Dursley, Gloucestershire, won the 2008 Pub of the Year Award from the Campaign for Real Ale. There is no juke box, no pool table, no fruit machine – and it doesn’t serve chips. Licensee Steve Herbert says: ‘Our drinkers come first’.
The Times
This is stuff we all need to know. Michael Winner, lover of expensive wines, says: ‘If you buy a Chateau Latour 1961 in a restaurant, probably for £8,000 a bottle, it is opened and poured immediately. So, allowing for three hours breathing, your Latour would be just about ready to drink as you get up to leave. I get round this problem when I take my own wines by pouring them out at home into a decanter and let them breathe away to their hearts’ content in my living room. Sometimes I pour my wine from the decanter into a milk bottle and take this to the restaurant. Amazingly, the lady accompanying me refuses to carry the milk bottles. She thinks it looks terrible. But what do I care if I’m saving a couple of thousand pounds on restaurant prices?’
Daily Mail
A new pub called The John Masefield in New Ferry, the Wirral, has been urged to change its sign because its image of the former Poet Laureate looks more like Hitler. Locals began calling the inn The Adolf and the Sun’s headline was ALE HITLER. It also suggested ONE FUHRER THE ROAD and HERR OF THE DOG.
Sun
The campaign to crack down on binge drinking ran into difficulties when it was reported that anti-binge drinking adverts were not working. Ads warning of the dangers of booze often show people passing out or being carried home. But researchers found that these scenes could remind youngsters of fun nights out and a Bath University professor said that young people bonded over tales of alcohol-fuelled disasters.
Sun
New sex discrimination laws mean that landlords could be punished for allowing sexist jokes in their pubs. Defiantly the Daily Mail filled a page with jokes that would fall foul of the new legislation:
A horse walks into a bar and asks the barmaid for a drink. ‘Why the long face?’ asks the barmaid.
A penguin walks into a bar and asks the barmaid: ‘Have you seen my brother?’ ‘I don’t know,’ she replies. ‘What does he look like?’
A giraffe walks into a bar and orders a pint and is charged £10. The barmaid says: ‘We don’t get many giraffes in here.’ ‘At your prices I’m not surprised,’ says the giraffe.
Daily Mail
CHAPTER 19
SCHOOL’S OUT
Jilly has set herself an
extremely low standard which she
has failed to maintain…
University lectures are increasingly being moved to the afternoons to give students more time in bed.
Daily Telegraph
Charles Wilkie-Smith, of Corbridge, Northumberland recalled his final prep school history report which said: ‘Charles Smith slept here.’
The Times
Andy Du Port, of Chichester, West Sussex, was taught rowing and geography by the same master and got a school report which said: ‘Good at rivers’.
The Times
An exasperated colleague wrote on one pupil’s school report: ‘John is to design technology what Attila the Hun was to needlework.’
Henry Adams, Wirral, Merseyside. The Times
In the 1960s I was told that the only words required in school reports were: ‘Trying’ and ‘Very’.
Jean Bryant, East Grinstead, West Sussex.
The Times
Arnold Freedman treasures his school report saying: ‘Should have done well, but has fallen into bad company.’ In a letter to The Times he reports: ‘I became a consultant surgeon. The bad company became a professor of physics.’
The Times
School report on the son of a professor of mathematics: ‘Not up to pa.’
Robert Hudson, Warwick. The Times
A report from the Latymer Upper School, Hammersmith: ‘We have both failed. I, at least, tried’.
Kenneth Cleveland, Carlisle. The Times
A head teacher remembers this report: ‘I have spent more time on X’s homework than he has.’
David Porter, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk.
The Times
Lee Jones of Manchester got a note from school complaining about ‘incomplete and poorly attempted’ homework. He admitted that he had not submitted homework for a some time, but pointed out that he is now approaching his 21st birthday and left school four years ago.
Sun
A schoolboy was asked ‘Who was Joan of Arc’ and he replied: ‘Noah’s wife.’
Mrs Elizabeth Price, Linton, Kent.
Daily Mail
Geography Awareness Week 2007 had a survey asking: ‘Where is Mount Everest?’ One in three thought it was in the Alps – or tucked away somewhere in Britain.
Daily Mail
From a school report on novelist Jilly Cooper: ‘Jilly has set herself an extremely low standard which she has failed to maintain’.
Daily Mail
Organisers of TV quiz shows, aware of the limitations of many of the people leaving school these days, often make it easier with multiple choice questions. Andrew Pierce, in his Daily Telegraph Notebook, writes: ‘Can I share this gem from the Big Brother house? A beauty queen was asked if Winston Churchill was:
A rapper
A US president
A prime minister
A king
The 21-year-old contestant replied: ‘Wasn’t he the first black president of America? There’s a statue of him near me that’s black’.
Daily Telegraph
One in three children think Winston Churchill was the first man on the moon, according to a survey. Four in ten thought Mars was only a choc bar.
Sun
A fifth of British teenagers believe Sir Winston Churchill was a fictional character, while many think Sherlock Holmes and Eleanor Rigby were real.
Daily Telegraph
On ITV’s This Morning programme the quizmaster asked a contestant: ‘On which river is Newcastle situated?’
Contestant: ‘The Thames’.
Quizmaster: ‘Yes, well done!’
Daily Mail (selecting extracts from Mediaballs,
edited by Marcus Berkmann).
The British may well express pride in the nation’s heritage, but lots of them are ignorant about it. A survey found:
1 in 10 adults thought Hitler was not a real person and almost half were convinced that Robin Hood was.
More than half thought Horatio Nelson commanded British troops at the battle of Waterloo.
30% of 11 to 18 year olds thought that Oliver Cromwell fought at the Battle of Hastings.
‘In a way,’ sighed an expert, ‘there is just too much history.’
Sunday Telegraph
James Meadows, of London, says his school motto was ‘Age Quod Agis’ (do as you would be done by), which ‘we chose to translate as “Do it to him before he does it to you.”’
Guardian
Derek Craven, of Bath, says that in 1940 his class motto was ‘Cras Fortasse Laborabimus’ – tomorrow, perhaps, we shall work.
Daily Telegraph
TV and radio quiz shows are now some of the funniest programmes thanks to stupid answers given by many contestants. For instance:
Q: Name the funny men who once entertained kings and queens at court.
A: Lepers
Q: A famous chain of tea shops was opened in London in 1894 by Joseph who?
A: Goebbels
Q: Name someone associated with Liverpool.
A: My uncle Peter.
>
From Private Eye’s Dumb Britain, edited by
Marcus Berkmann £4.99. Daily Mail
New Government guidance in April 2007 told teachers that unruly pupils should not be ‘overdisciplined’. Teachers should hand out praise five times more often than punishments.
This inspired cartoonist Haldane to show a teacher telling a miscreant to ‘Go to the headmaster’s office for tea and biscuits’.
The Times
In May 2007 Education Secretary Alan Johnson told the House of Commons how he had been caned by a teacher called Hughes in 1959.
In the Daily Mail of 8 June 2007 a Mr David Hughes, a retired teacher of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, stated that he was not the teacher who caned Johnson, but ‘when I listen to him now I would be greatly tempted to.’
Daily Mail
Henry Smith, of Hove, East Sussex, remembers the motto of the Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School: ‘Absque Labore Nihil’ (Without Labour Nothing).
Much amusement was caused when the building became Brighton’s Maternity Hospital and the motto remained on the façade.
Daily Telegraph
Keith Waterhouse likes the motto of Penistone Grammar School: ‘Learn or Leave’.
Daily Mail
David Cowling, of Perth, says his school’s motto was ‘something about Gloria being sick in a Transit’.
Guardian
Dudley Turner, of Westerham, Kent, pointed out that Gloria was sick only on a Mundi.
Guardian
In July 2007 the Scouts celebrated 100 years of the movement. It may have begun as an adventure club with proficiency badges in stopping runaway horses and bugling, but today’s scouts pick up qualifications in administration or public relations or circus skills. Rosie Reynolds, 16, from Eltham, South London, said: ‘I do not know how to tie any sort of knot.’
Guardian
Does nothing change? ‘In 1912 The Times quoted a headmaster saying that standards of reading were declining because parents no longer read to their children – and too much time was spent listening to the gramophone’.
Alan Myers, Hitchin, Hertfordshire. Sunday Times
I was asked by a pupil if it is true that, on reaching the age of 100, one receives a mammogram from the Queen.
Ron Sloggett, of Fleet, Hampshire. Daily Telegraph
Oxbridge has become famous for throwing oddball questions into interviews with students. (Such as: ‘Tell me about a banana’.) But gone are the days of the Cambridge tutor who was said to hurl a rugby ball at interviewees. If they dropped it they were out. If they caught it they were in. If they drop-kicked it through the window they got a scholarship.
Daily Telegraph
There was a time when the essential skills acquired by a Girl Guide included semaphore, making beds and lighting fires. However, a 2007 Guide to Living For Modern Girls says that the must-have skills for 7-10 year olds should include surfing the web safely and being able to name the Prime Minister.
10-15 year olds should be able to stand up to boys, change a light bulb and know self defence.
At 16 to 25 they should know how to practise safe sex, speak confidently in public, cook a roast dinner and keep down their carbon footprints.
Daily Telegraph
Ten things every girl should know:
How to knit
Basic Ballet
Bake cupcakes
Make a daisy chain
How to eat spaghetti
The perfect French plait
Grow cress from seed
Climb a tree
Sew on a button
Play conkers
The Times
Brighton College plans to teach traditional etiquette to its pupils. The news inspired John Venning, Head of English at St Paul’s, London SW13, to write of an encounter with one of his senior pupils. ‘If this encounter had occurred 50 years ago, the boy might have “capped” me as he passed. Instead he removed the earphone of his MP3 player, said “Good morning, sir”, and returned the earphone to his ear’.
Daily Telegraph
A teacher told a pupil that it was impossible for a whale to swallow a human being and the pupil said: ‘When I get to Heaven I will ask Jonah’. ‘What if Jonah went to hell?’, asked the teacher. ‘Then you can ask him’, said the pupil.
Daily Mail
Consultants were paid £5,000 to find a name for a new university at Bradford. They came up with: ‘Bradford University, University of Bradford and The University of Bradford’.
Telegraph and Argus
CHAPTER 20
PLAIN ECCENTRIC
While clearing the house of
a deceased aunt, a box was discovered,
labelled, correctly: ‘Pieces of string
too short to keep.’
A book with the title Fish Who Answer the Telephone and Other Bizarre Books (by Russell Ash and Brian Lake, published by John Murray £9.99) includes: Eleven Years as a Drunkard, or, The Life of Thomas Doner, Having Lost Both Arms Through Intemperance, He Wrote This Book With His Teeth as a Warning to Others.
Reader’s Digest
A long established British eccentricity is love of queuing. Reader’s Digest reports on research showing that Britons spend 407 hours a year shopping – 73 of those hours being spent in queues.
Reader’s Digest
In 1984 a notice began appearing in Edinburgh newspapers asking: ‘Are you eccentric or know someone who may be?’ Among the results:
The Barking Vicar of Berkshire, whose sermons featured animal growls.
An inventor who created a tripod on which country singer Dolly Parton could rest her breasts.
A Yorkshireman who lectured sheep from a pulpit atop his farmhouse.
Anne Atkins, who had more than 1,000 garden gnomes in her Gnome Reserve. She accepted visitors if they wore the tall, red gnome hats which she provided. ‘Otherwise, the gnomes are embarrassed by people staring at them. This way, the gnomes think the visitors are just other, larger gnomes.’
Wall Street Journal
Mike Madden, 48, went walking in the woods near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, wearing a bird-feeding hat complete with a tray full of nuts. From the top of a tree, a large grey squirrel took a flying leap at Mr Madden’s hat. The impact knocked the bird lover to the ground and he suffered whiplash injuries requiring him to wear a neck brace for a week. Mr Madden calls himself an inventor and gives his address as Crackpot Cottage.
The Times
The e-petitions received on No.10’s website reveal some of the oddball things that excite the interest of the Great British Public. They include calls for:
Legislation to introduce a standard-sized umbrella.
Spandau Ballet’s song Gold to be the new national anthem
Yorkshire pudding to become the internationally recognised symbol of the North of England.
A Bank Holiday in memory of the world’s oldest horse (Old Billy, which died in 1822 aged at least 62).
Frisbee to become an Olympic sport.
No.10 does reject some petitions. One was a plea for mice to be allowed to travel free on public transport – rejected not because it was deemed frivolous, but because it was ‘outside the remit or powers of the Prime Minister’.
The Times
Sixty-nine year-old Peter Taylor of Hastings, East Sussex, writes in the Daily Telegraph: ‘I drive an MGF 1.81 convertible Rover. When the hood is down I wear a felt hat with one side turned up and the flap garnished with seagull and flamingo feathers mixed with sprigs from a long-stemmed decorative flower’.
Daily Telegraph
72-year-old Betty Rees of Solihull, West Midlands, drove an ancient Ford Fiesta and bought her clothes in charity shops. She left £1.2million to animal charities in her will – some of it for donkeys in Egypt.
Daily Mail
A baked bean fanatic who calls himself Capt Beany and paints himself orange has been declared an official tourist attraction in Port Talbot South Wales.
South Wales Even
ing Post
Joseph Leek of Hull wore second hand clothes, lived in a dilapidated house and watched his neighbour’s TV to save money on electricity. When he died at the age of 90 he left £1.1 million to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association – a charity in which he had never shown any interest. He left his two daughters nothing.
The Times
A four-page leaflet has been published in Dundee giving advice on the safest way to sit on the toilet. It is entitled Good Defecation Dynamics.
From Richard Littlejohn’s book, Littlejohn’s Britain
(Hutchinson £12.99). Daily Mail
A letter in The Times read simply: ‘Sir, While clearing the house of a deceased aunt we found a box labelled, correctly: “Pieces of string too short to keep”’.
This was followed by a spate of similar letters, including:
‘Years ago, after the death of my husband’s great aunt, I found a tin labelled: “Old toffees. Not to be eaten”’.
‘We found a parcel, labelled in my great grandmother’s handwriting: “Old blanket. Too good for cow”’.
‘Soon after my grandmother’s death we were much amused to find among the odds and ends a bottled labelled “Might Be Aspirin”’. Jean Gibbs, Sidmouth, Devon.
The Times
Eccentric millionaire Sir Owen Aisher died aged 93 in 1993. He was the chairman of Marley Tiles and produced a range of new floorings – and the first British hula-hoops. In later life he amused himself by shooting trout from his electric wheelchair.
Daily Mail
Barmy Britain Page 11