Barmy Britain (11 page)
Authors: Jack Crossley
Man reaches 65mph in his
mother-in-law’s wheelchair after fitting
it with a jet engine…
It is an age-old truth that anyone who drives slower than you is an idiot and anyone who drives faster than you is a lunatic.
Nicholas Ord, Guildford.
The Times
‘I have today received an offer of car insurance. This includes an invitation to receive the offer in large print or Braille’.
J. R. C. Sharp of Montrose, Scotland.
The Times
Police stopped a motorist on the A1 near Colesworth, Lincs, and arrested him for drink-driving after noticing that he had only three wheels on his car.
Daily Telegraph
An elderly woman driver who was involved in a crash near Bridport, Dorset, was found to be wearing oven gloves.
Dorset Echo
Some years ago, our student-laden Morris Minor was stopped by a policeman hunting for a robber. We were terrified lest he should spot the Guinness beer bottle label we had standing in for a tax disc. Questions over, he thanked us for our co-operation and, as we breathed sighs of relief, added: ‘I’m a Mackeson man myself. Drive carefully, lads’.
Terry O’Brien, London N3.
The Times
A
Times
reader from Loughborough advised English visitors to Rome that the only safe way to use a pedestrian crossing there is to mingle with a group of nuns. ‘Seemingly, Italian drivers regard it as unlucky to run over a nun.’
The Times
Owners of pink and yellow cars are twice as likely to be victims of road rage as drivers of vehicles in other colours – RAC survey.
Sunday Telegraph
We have got a new car journey game – ‘Spot the Speed Camera’. Each time a child spots one they get 10p. It is a lot cheaper than a £40 fine and keeps the children amused for the whole journey.
David Harding, Lincoln.
The Times
A baby born on the way to hospital has been named Mondeo after the car that took him there.
Sun
A Teignmouth, Devon, man was given a two year Asbo after tricking women into taking off their tights. He pretended he wanted them to repair his fan belt.
The Times
In reviewing the new edition of the Penguin Dictionary of
Modern Humorous Quotations
the British press showed a marked preference for this one from the wicked Irish pen of P. J. O’Rourke: ‘There are a number of sexual devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL’.
The Times
‘I have always understood that a gentleman was one who could change gear in an Austin Seven without getting his face slapped’.
Rear Admiral J. A. L. Myres, Kennington, Oxon.
Daily Telegraph
Kelvin MacKenzie’s column carried a picture of a RAC breakdown truck rescuing an AA van.
Sun
An Automobile Association report shattered male egos by claiming that women make better drivers. Readers of
The Times
fought back with:
‘The ruling on women drivers is quite correct. There is no better driver than my wife, especially when she is in the passenger seat and I am at the controls.’ R. W. Davis Foster, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
‘My husband tells me his driving is incomparable – when I am not with him.’ Caroline Charles-Jones, Newport, Pembrokeshire.
‘Whilst driving my wife and her mother on a particularly fraught journey, I was eventually forced to ask my wife: “Who is driving this car, you or your mother?”’ Ged Clarke, Birkdale, Southport.
‘Many years ago I was talking to my mother while we were sitting in the back of the car, my father driving, when she interrupted me, saying: “Just a minute, dear. Just let me get round this corner.”’ John Hodgkin, Steyning, West Sussex.
The Times
Britain’s drivers run over an average 273 hedgehogs every day.
Sun
Postman Pat has ended up on a list of ‘dangerous drivers’ in an analysis of cartoon characters who would not be welcomed by insurers. Top of the Churchill insurance company’s list of Toon Terrors is:
- Dick Dastardly, of Wacky Races, who ‘would struggle to find anybody to insure him in real life’.
- Second most uninsurable cartoon character is Homer Simpson – guilty of road rage, sleeping behind the wheel, obesity, poor eyesight and a tendency to eat doughnuts while driving.
- Noddy is 5th – guilty of driving into Big Ear’s bike and illegally using his car as a taxi.
- Postman Pat, who carries too many expensive items, is 8th.
The Times
The bad news is that police drivers have caused more than
£
2.3million worth of damage to their police cars – while reversing. The worst news is that the cost of repairs comes out of taxes because insurance premiums and excesses are so high that police forces do not claim for the damage.
Daily Telegraph
Items left behind by drivers returning vehicles have included: stockings and suspenders, a shop dummy, used nappies, false teeth, a bag of fish and chips and a dead goat.
Fleet News
, which monitors the world of company cars.
The following are genuine statements from insurance forms:
- The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.
- In an attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.
- The pedestrian had no idea which direction to run, so I ran over him.
- Coming home, I turned into the wrong drive and collided with a tree I don’t have.
Reg O’Donaghue, London SE 17.
Daily Mail
Norwich Union has a collection of the most novel claims made by drivers. Among them: ‘A herd of cows licked my car and damaged the paintwork.’
Independent on Sunday
In August 2004 at RAF Barkston Heath in Lincolnshire, Guiseppe Canella reached a speed of 65mph in his mother in law’s wheel chair – after fitting it with a small Rolls-Royce jet engine.
Sunday Telegraph
Insects in cars cause 500,000 crashes a year.
Independent on Sunday
David Page, 40, dug up an object in Coltishall, Norfolk. It was a sort of canister with a button on top. He accidentally pressed down the button and then feared it might be a World War II mine which would explode if he released the button. He wrapped masking tape around his thumb to keep it in place and used his mobile to raise the alarm. Police arrived, packed his arm – and the canister – in a barrel of sand and told him: ‘Do not move.’ Roads were cordoned off within a two-mile radius. A woman police officer said everything would be OK and David said to her: ‘You’re not the one holding the bomb.’ David kept the button depressed for four hours before bomb disposal experts identified the object as part of a Citroen’s hydraulic suspension system. He said later: ‘It sounds funny, but it was absolutely horrendous.’
Sun, Guardian, Daily Mail
The DVLA keeps a censorial eye on car number plates and tries to stop possible naughty ones leaking out.
TE57 CLE and BA57 ARD have been blue pencilled. But some which slipped through the system are up for sale:
- PEN 15 (£99,995)
- WHO2 LAY (£3,695)
- FKU 778 (5,500)
- 1CUM (£40,395)
- ORG 45IM (6,599)
- R4 NDY (55,000)
Independent on Sunday
Derek Honey, of Witney, Oxfordshire, spotted this in the obituary column of the
Oxford Mail:
‘God bless you and keep you from all of your family’.
Daily Mail
Mrs Rickard, of Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, saw this in the Leigh-on-Sea Advertiser after a donation was made to a local hospital: ‘My husband died last year in this ward and this is our way of saying Thank You’.
Leigh-on-Sea Advertiser
The identity of a headless corpse found in a wood near Liskeard, Cornwall, will not be positively known until dental records have been checked.
Western Morning News
To be truly eco-friendly a coffin should be made of wicker, cardboard, papier mache, bamboo, willow or any wood from a sustainable source.
Legally a funeral can take place anywhere as long as it doesn’t cause a nuisance.
From ‘A Grand Exit’ in Heyday magazine which carries the quote: ‘My mum wants to be shot into the air with fireworks.’
Heyday
magazine
An IN MEMORIAM notice for a wife and mother said: ‘Always in our memory. Husband Charlie and Family. Peace at last.’
Tewkesbury Admag
Joanna Booth, the widow of a vintage shotgun expert, had her husband’s ashes loaded into cartridges and used by friends for the last shoot of the season in Aberdeenshire. The cartridges were blessed by Church of Scotland minister the Rev. Alistair Donald and accounted for 70 partridges, 23 pheasants, seven ducks and one fox.
Daily Telegraph
A search for Britain’s most remarkable epitaph was launched in July 2007 with this early contender:
Donald Robertson, born 14th January 1785.
Died 14th June aged 63.
He was a peaceable and quiet man, and to all appearances a sincere Christian.
His death, much regretted, was caused by the stupidity of Laurence Tulloch of Clothister (Sullom) who sold him nitre instead of Epsom Salts by which he was killed in the space of five hours.
Daily Telegraph
Award-winning novelist, playwright and columnist Keith Waterhouse – whose first job was with a firm of Leeds undertakers – recalls the days when ‘somebody in our street died, the body was brought home to lie in state in the front room with all and sundry trooping through the house to pay their respects. ‘Doesn’t he look well?’ was a common observation on these occasions.’
A few days later Mrs Heather Rubin, of Manchester, reminded Waterhouse that the inevitable rejoinder to the ‘Doesn’t he look well’ compliment was: ‘No, but he should – he’s just had a week in Blackpool.’
Daily Mail
After my husband died a summons for him to do jury service arrived. I notified the court of his death and got another letter addressed to him saying: ‘You have been permanently excused jury duty based on documentation indicating your permanent incapacity to serve.’
Barbara Muskin,
Reader’s Digest
A North Yorkshire man got fed up of fending off motoring fines imposed on his wife for alleged offences committed after she had died. He stormed to his local council’s office carrying his wife’s ashes in a casket. ‘Now do you believe she’s dead’, he said.
Daily Mail
A car hire company in Menorca gave us a pamphlet with the following advice listed under Local Customs: ‘If you see a motorcyclist raise his left hand this usually means that he is turning right. But take care as the rider may not be local, in which case he may turn left.’
Hugo Wurzer, Andover, Hampshire.
The Times
Robert Benchley wrote an epitaph for a promiscuous actress: ‘At last she sleeps alone.’
Roy Tagli, Croydon, Surrey.
Daily Telegraph
Epitaph on a Speyside ghillie’s grave in Cromdale cemetery:
Kevin Melville, Fife.
Daily Telegraph
In India, on a tombstone of a British Army officer accidentally shot by his bearer:
Ray Pearce, Castle Bromwich, West Midlands.
Daily Telegraph
In the gold rush territory of Colorado there is a tombstone simply inscribed:
Daily Telegraph
Father Paul Nicholas, of Solihull, West Midlands, tells of visiting a parishioner in Cardiff who had been widowed. She told him her husband’s ashes were in the kitchen and he expected to see an urn there. Instead, he was shown an egg timer and the widow explained: ‘He never worked when he was alive, but he does now’.
Daily Telegraph
Roland Phillips, of Macclesfield, Cheshire, was amused by the funeral director’s greeting card signed ‘Yours eventually’.
Daily Telegraph
Jobsworth traffic wardens slapped tickets on a funeral cortege as the coffin was being carried into the hearse at Hackney, East London.
Sun
Crematorium organist Trevor Webb, of Maidstone, Kent, reports that he ‘has to play too many awful things’ – including travesties of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ and ‘Danny Boy’ sung by wailing pop singers. He also tells of men in shirt sleeves with their shirt tails hanging out, gum chewing and noisy chatter and laughter.
One funeral ended with a large mechanical frog being placed on the coffin.
Daily Telegraph
Two children of Annie Lamas have kept the body of their late mother on ice in a West London undertaker’s cold store for ten years and visit her every week.
Independent on Sunday
Terry Prendergast, of Dorset was a World War II flying ace and when he died in May 2007, aged 85, he was buried in a coffin the shape of his beloved Hawker Hurricane – complete with cockpit, wings, propeller and the number 8608 (the number of the fighter he flew in the war).
Daily Telegraph
Ned Sherrin, ‘a relentlessly mischievous and brilliant satirist’, died in October 2007. When asked what he would like to be remembered for, he would say: ‘Forever’ (It was one of David Frost’s lines that he had no hesitation in borrowing).
Daily Mail
Keith Waterhouse reported that Sherrin directed six of his plays: ‘He was a ruthless script editor, removing – with the aid of a bottle of champagne – extraneous fat to produce a lean, workable play. Sometimes it was a two bottle exercise’. Keith took him a play knowing that it was too long and Sherrin said: ‘I think we have a three bottle problem here, Keith’.
Daily Mail
The National Funeral Directors Association’s 126th annual convention in 2007 was held in Las Vegas where they launched a 2008 calendar called Men of Mortuaries. It featured topless undertakers.
Daily Mail
Following the death in 2007 of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Paul Pastor, of Ormskirk, Lancashire wrote: ‘My favourite comment on his music was by the critic who said “It’s not as bad as it sounds”’.
Guardian