Barmy Britain (14 page)
Authors: Jack Crossley
The class system is still alive in Britain. A 2008 survey recorded 88% saying so.
The Times
Sir Charles Clore once said: ‘We should all be happy with what we have.’ He was sitting in the back of his Rolls Corniche.
Maurice Cross, of Bristol, in the
Daily Mail
‘I would never go out with a man who, when boarding an aircraft, turned right’.
Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.
Sunday Times
The most immediately striking fact in the recent obituary of Lord Michael Pratt is that he was once kicked out of Pratt’s (the 150 year-old gentleman’s club) for being a prat.
In what must be the least hagiographic obit ever published in the
Telegraph
, Michael John Henry Pratt, youngest son of the fifth Marquess of Camden, is summed up as an ‘unabashed snob and interloper on a grand scale’. (Hagiography is the study of saints.)
Guardian
A fine example of post code snobbery. A letter in the
Daily Telegraph
tells of a cleaning company writing to a woman with a posh post code suggesting she took on a regular and reliable cleaner.
Her daughter had a less posh post code and got a letter from the same company saying that there was plenty of regular and reliable work available… As a cleaner.
Daily Telegraph
Sue MacGregor, a BBC presenter whose cool professionalism has made her a national institution, tells in her memoirs how colleague Sandra Harrison asked Dame Barbara Cartland if she thought that, in modern Britain, class doesn’t matter any more. ‘Of course it doesn’t, darling,’ came the answer, ‘or I wouldn’t be talking to you!’
Daily Mail
The
Washington Post
’s London bureau chief was invited to tea at 10 Downing Street. When he asked: ‘What time is teatime?’ he was told: ‘It depends what class you are. It’s about 4pm, with cucumber sandwiches, for some, and 6pm for those who want pie and chips’.
Observer
‘The class divisions in this country can easily be distinguished. The lower classes drop litter, the middle classes don’t and the upper classes pick up the lower classes’ litter.’
S. G. Davies in the
Daily Telegraph
If you have your name on your overalls you are working class. If your name is on your desk you are middle class. If it is on the factory you are upper-class.
Pete Stephenson, Buxton, Derbyshire.
Guardian
Sociologists state that the middle classes are defined by their behaviour. I found my nine-year-old daughter soaking her conkers in balsamic vinegar.
John Duckworth, Hampton Court.
The Times
A true gentleman is never rude unintentionally.
The Times
The editor of
Debrett’s Peerage
, Zoe Gullen, says that the point about etiquette is that it should reflect good manners and is not inflexible. She cites the occasion when the Queen saw a guest drinking from his finger bowl – and followed suit.
Daily Mail
Following a proposal that it might be a good idea if people living in ‘nice areas’ paid more council tax than those living in ‘rough areas’, a critic complained that his neighbours were an extended family run by a woman with a pack of dogs. ‘Her car isn’t taxed or insured and doesn’t have a number plate. Her grumpy old man is famous for upsetting foreigners with racist comments. A local shopkeeper claims the grumpy old man ordered the murder of his son’s girlfriend. Two of the kids have broken marriages and two grandsons are meant to be in the Army, but are always in night clubs. The family’s antics are forever in the papers. They’re out of control. Who’d want to live near Windsor Castle?’
Sunday Telegraph
Edward Bryant, of Paris, said: ‘Every elegant dresser knows that the tie should not be the same colour as the shirt or the suit’.
Daily Telegraph
C. J. G. Macy of Lincoln pointed out that it costs
£
5 or more to have a pocket added to a shirt. Have the upper classes abandoned them because they can’t afford them?
Daily Telegraph
Should men’s shirts have breast pockets? Controversy raged in the newspapers during November 2007. ‘Snobs have got it in for shirt pockets’, said a
Daily Telegraph
article, printing the argument that ‘A gentleman needs no tools, so why should he need a pocket?’ Chris Watson, of Perak, Malaysia, said that a worse crime is surely a tie with a short-sleeve shirt.
Daily Telegraph
Driver throws his parking ticket
down in disgust and gets another ticket
for causing litter…
A Hertford traffic warden slapped a ticket on her own vehicle after it was pointed out that her permit was out of date.
Daily Telegraph
A Twickenham shopkeeper sounds a World War II air raid siren when a traffic warden is sighted in his road.
Independent on Sunday
The workers who sweep England’s roads have always been known as road-sweepers. But in an extreme example of political correctness, Liverpool city council now calls them ‘Street Scene Operatives’.
Daily Mail
Residents of the remote village of East Prawle in Devon found that the only way they could get their mobiles to work was to stand on a bench on the village green and face west.
Queues began to snake back from the bench at peak times and it began to show signs of wear and tear. So the parish council decided to build them a podium.
Guardian
April 2007 was marked with bitter controversy over some councils deciding to empty dustbins once a fortnight instead of once a week.
It all reminded Rodney Morgan-Giles, of Alresford, Hampshire, of an Osbert Lancaster cartoon during the dustmen’s strike in the 1970s. It had a civil servant saying: ‘We don’t have a problem. We file all our rubbish.’
Daily Telegraph
Councillor Chris Lewis got a parking ticket – while carrying out a survey on car parking in Paignton, Devon. He was checking for places which might be suitable for parking meters – and left his Jeep in a taxi bay.
Sun
Aimee Green did not have any change when she parked in Coulsdon, Surrey, so she put
£
1 in the meter instead of 80p. She was astonished when she returned 15 minutes later to find a traffic warden giving her a ticket because she ‘had paid for more time than was allowed’. The local council cancelled the
£
60 penalty notice and said that the jobsworth warden ‘had been spoken to.’
Evening Standard
Blacksmith Robert McFarland left his horse in the street and returned to find that a traffic warden had slapped a parking ticket on it – with the words ‘brown horse’ under the vehicle description.
It is one of the barmy incidents in T
he Parking Ticket Awards
book by Barrie Segal (Portico Books £6.99), who runs a website fighting unlawful tickets. The book also includes:
- A truck getting a ticket while stuck in a huge hole after a road collapsed.
- A hearse getting a ticket while undertakers were loading a coffin on to it.
- An abandoned burnt out car with no tyres or windscreen. It got three tickets.
News of the World
A builder got fed up with getting parking tickets outside a property he was renovating. So he hired a skip with a drop down front and parked it outside the property. Every day he drove his van into the skip – and the parking tickets stopped.
From
The Parking Ticket Awards
by Barry Segal,
published by Portico
£
6.99.
Daily Mail
Segal’s book also tells of a delivery driver who threw his parking ticket down in disgust – and was fined by a warden on litter patrol.
Daily Mail
A member of South Staffordshire District Council spent
£
2,300 of his official allowance on a speed camera for his ward. He became one of its first victims – caught doing 43mph in a 30mph zone. The policeman who flagged him down was reported to have ‘had difficulty in hiding a smile.’
Daily Telegraph
In an attempt to drive away rough sleepers from a multi-storey car park, Stoke on Trent council arranged for Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 in D minor to be played continuously.
Guardian
Council workers who turned up to mend a broken window at the home of a disabled woman in the West Midlands replaced every window in the house except the broken one.
Guardian
If you clear snow from the pavement outside your home you could be liable if someone slips on it. If you leave the snow alone the council would be liable.
The Times
‘Not only do the homeless not have anywhere to play badminton or tennis, they don’t have anywhere to live either.’
Councillor Arthur Mandry, quoted in the
Fareham Journal
Only one member of the public turned up for a discussion organised by Bath and North East Somerset Council to find ways of combating voter apathy.
Bristol Evening Post
A report advising Rotherham council how to be efficient and save money has had to be redrafted 12 times. Total cost
£
12,000.
Sheffield Star
Two motorists parked in a road in Islington, London, N1, where yellow no parking lines had been erased by roadworks. Later yellow lines were painted underneath the vehicles and ten minutes later they were clamped. A council spokesman said: ‘It was a daft mistake. We apologise.’
Sun
Light bulb changing can be a formidable task. Doncaster Council’s community care staff are alerted to health and safety rules and electrical safety legislation. These regulations require a second person to hold any ladder being used by the person changing the bulb. A third person is needed to switch off the electricity at the mains and stay by the switch until the bulb is changed. Where the client is frail or anxious there may be the need of a fourth person to comfort them while the operation is completed. Many home care workers are not allowed to change light bulbs.
Guardian
It can cost £50 and involve five people working in three different buildings to get a Hull Council light bulb changed. The
Daily Mail
outlined the procedure:
| Step 1: | Report broken light to superintendent’s office. |
| Step 2: | Superintendent faxes Property Services. |
| Step 3: | Property Services issues order for new bulb to Works Department. |
| Step 4: | Works Department issues job sheet to electrician. |
| Step 5: | Electrician fits bulb. |
The procedure can take up to five weeks.
Daily Mail
It may not result in you breaking into uncontrolled laughter, but in 1993 the
Independent
carried a report on ‘A Theory of Humour Elicitation’.
The complex report was softened by opening with a joke about a priest who was accosted by a prostitute offering a quickie for
£
20.
The priest ignores her but is later approached by another prostitute making the same offer.
Arriving at the seminary the priest asks a nun: ‘What’s a quickie?’
And the nun says: ‘
£
20, same as in town’.
Independent
Broadcaster and author John Humphrys’ new book is entitled
In God We Doubt
, and it reminded Simon Hoggart of this joke.
A man anxiously seeking a parking space prays to God, saying he will give up drink, smoking and sex if he can find one. One immediately appears and the driver looks up to tell God: ‘It’s all right, I’ve found one.’
Guardian
A local church’s wild flower meadow in Torquay boasted a luxuriance of agrimony, betony, birdsfoot, trefoil, cowslip, greater knapweed and devils-bit scabious. But the town’s maintenance department sent in a man on a sit-on mower. He razed the carefully cultivated plot which had been financed by their own council. It had all looked ‘rather unkempt’, they said.
The Friends of the Churchyard fumed: ‘Looking wild was rather the point. It’s a typical case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand’s doing at the council.’
The Times
A Healing Service at Acton Church had to be cancelled due to illness.
From Mr. Manning, Acton, Suffolk.
Daily Mail
It could have come straight from Carry on Campanology: a bell ringer tugs on a rope and promptly disappears up into the belfry. But it was no joke for 14-year-old James Kemp when a stay that stops the bells swinging snapped at St John the Baptist Church in Loughton, Essex. James’s rope shot upwards and he went 15ft up with it.
James said: ‘I went up so fast I didn’t realise until my hand hit the ceiling – that’s when I let go.’
James was fortunate not to break any bones and his mother said: ‘It hasn’t put him off. All hobbies can be dangerous – even bell ringing I suppose.’
Metro
The Methodist Church launched a competition to find an 11th Commandment. Among suggestions were ‘Never give out your password’. Political philosopher Roger Scruton came up with: ‘Thou shalt not think of any more Commandments.’ The
Sunday Telegraph
’s report ended with: ‘For many modern sinners the traditional 11th Commandment ‘Thou shalt not get found out’ will take some beating.’
The winner of the competition was ‘Thou shall not be negative’. Runners up included: ‘Thou shall not worship false pop idols’ and ‘Thou shalt not consume thine own bodyweight in fudge.’
The Times
Norman Sanders from Ipswich asked: ‘Was it not Bertrand Russell who said that the Commandments should be treated like an examination – only six need be attempted?’
The Times
Churchgoers in the Cotswolds are reminded that not everybody enjoys baked beans as much as the British and are asked to not to bring them as harvest festival offerings.
Guardian
As a child in Kent, the lack of punctuation on the church collection box filled me with wonder and awe: ‘Thanks Be To God This Box Is Emptied Daily.’
Gillian Bailey, London SW4.
Independent
The Bishop of Horsham urged Sussex vicars to take horse dung into their services to make the Nativity more realistic.
Daily Mirror
A parrot took up residence in the bell tower of St Mary’s church at Mirfield, West Yorkshire, and started telling worshippers to ‘f*** off’. The vicar said: ‘Most people find it funny, but it can cause problems at funerals’.
Sunday Times
Would the congregation please note that the bowl at the back of the church labelled ‘for the sick’ is for monetary donations only.
Churchtown Parish Magazine
An ongoing debate comparing the Bible with the IKEA catalogue produced this letter from John O’Byrne, of Harold’s Cross, Dublin: ‘Nowhere in the Old Testament is there a mention of God creating the world in six days and on the seventh finding a whole solar system left over.’
The Times
Emporer Menelik II of Ethiopia is said to have eaten pages of the Bible whenever he felt unwell. Following a stroke in 1913 he devoured the entire Book of Kings and subsequently died of an intestinal obstruction.
Roger De B. Hovell, Pangbourne, Berks.
Daily Telegraph
‘We shall be meeting on Wednesday when the subject will be ‘Heaven. How do we get there?’ Transport is available at 7.55pm from the bus stop opposite the Harewood Arms.’
The magazine of the parish of
Collingham-with-Harewood
We are pleased to announce the birth of David Anthony Brown, the only sin of the Rev and Mrs J. B. Brown.
The Ambleside Methodist Newsletter
A notice on the edge of the large fish and water lily pool at the Royal Army Chaplains’ Department Centre, Bagshot Park, Surrey read: ‘Please do not walk on the water’.
The Times
Worshippers in East Sussex are told that, due to Health and Safety regulations, fresh produce is no longer welcome at harvest festivals. They are asked to bring tinned food, cook-in sauces, biscuits, jam and custard powder.
The Times
When we were children my brother asked my father if it was right that we come from dust and return to dust. Father said yes and my brother said: ‘There is someone coming or going under my bed.’ S. Hobson, Croydon, Surrey.
Daily Mail
In the midst of the fierce debate about whether it should be made illegal to tell jokes about ethnic minorities and their religions, it still seems to be fair game for the British to poke fun at each other. M. G. Bowman, of Fordingbridge, Hampshire, recalls some golden oldies in the
Daily Telegraph
:
- The English regard themselves as a self-made nation, which relieves the Almighty of a terrible responsibility.
- The Scots keep the Sabbath – and anything else they can lay their hands on.
- The Welsh pray on their knees and on their neighbours.
- The Irish don’t know what they want, but will fight for it anyway.
Daily Telegraph
Julie Langdon’s Notebook recalled the time when a former Archbishop of Canterbury disembarked in New York from a transatlantic liner. He was asked by an impudent American reporter if he was planning to visit any nightclubs in New York.
‘Are there any nightclubs in New York?’ the Archbishop responded, innocently.
The headline next morning was: ‘Archbishop’s First Question: Are there any nightclubs in New York?’
Daily Telegraph
British Servicemen imprisoned by the Japanese sought some little solace in cigarettes which they had to make themselves.
Bible pages were ideal for this purpose and they asked their chaplain for permission to use them.
Permission was given with the provision that they read every word on the pages first.
Rev. Dr A. A. Macintosh, Cambridge.
Daily Telegraph
