Barmy Britain (9 page)
Authors: Jack Crossley
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
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 When packets of five were withdrawn I bought ten and increased my consumption almost overnight.’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.)
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: T
V
A
DS
B
OOST
E
ATING
OF
O
BESE
C
HILDREN
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 chicken 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’.
Western Morning News
The league table of British foods which have had the biggest impact on worldwide cuisine:
- Worcester sauce
- Cheddar cheese
- Yorkshire pudding
- Clotted cream
- Black pudding
- English mustard
- Scones
- Salad cream
- Mint sauce
- Jellied eels
Daily Telegraph
Mrs. A. Maurice’s first efforts at baking bread were not a total success. When a TV ad came on extolling a bread ‘Just like mother makes’, her children pleaded: ‘Please don’t buy it Mummy.’
Daily Mail
Dr K. R. Whittington, of Cambridge, attempted to cook porridge in a coffee percolator when in student digs in the 50s. His landlady was not amused when the contents erupted ‘volcano fashion’ into her piano on which the percolator was standing.
The Times
A
Times
reader expressed surprise when his electric kettle came with instructions that it was to be used only for boiling water. His letter was followed by one from hotelier Martin Armistead, of Ickford, Buckinghamshire, saying: ‘I have seen kettles in hotel bedrooms that have been used to boil eggs and even cook a curry. Perhaps the most imaginative was the trouser press used to reheat pizza’.
The Times
Mark Brightman told of a student who attempted to heat a can of baked beans in an electric kettle.
The Times
A packet of nuts on a flight to the US carried the instruction: ‘Open the packet. Eat nuts.’
Jo Morrison, London.
The Times
The question is: Why, after eating asparagus, does one’s pee smell so extraordinary? One London club had for many years a notice reading: ‘During the asparagus season, members are requested not to relieve themselves into the umbrella stand.’
Guardian
My husband gave up on the bread machine immediately he realised that the bread did not come out sliced and wrapped in polythene.
Gloria Gillott from Cambridge in
The Times
A jar of mincemeat I bought carried the following message: ‘The contents are sufficient for a pie for six persons or 12 small tarts’
David Morris-Marsham, SW12.
The Times
A recipe of breathtaking complexity for making beans on toast comes from the Heinz stable. It requires a slice of bread 1.56cm thick from an uncut white loaf, 9.3g of unsalted butter stored at 16.8 degrees centigrade and 280g of beans heated to 64 degrees centigrade. Use an oven grill and not a toaster and when the desired colour is reached, leave to stand for 1 minute 8 seconds. Spread the butter to achieve a uniform seepage of 2.13mm.
Guardian
Lee and Mary Humphrey, both 84, have eaten at McDonald’s every day for 17 years. They even moved house to be within walking distance of their local branch in Eastbourne, Sussex. They turn up at 11am without fail for a double hamburger and fries to share. They have had the same meal 6,000 times.
Sun
, under the headline: I’
M
L
OVIN
’ I
T
Basil Marcuson writes to Simon Hoggart about a family he saw on the Tube. Mother and father were seriously obese and junior was well on his way. He heard the mother say: ‘No, you can’t have any more sweets. You’ll spoil your McDonald’s.’
Guardian
In a week when newspapers were full of scary stories about how salt is bad for you, one of Britain’s oldest women celebrated her 110th birthday. To the undoubted horror of health police, Mary Brown, of Godalming, Surrey, put her longevity down to having an inquiring mind, not driving, and enjoying plenty of salt on all her food.
Daily Telegraph
Another defiant old timer celebrated her 100th birthday with a cake decorated with candles spelling out 1-0-0. When the candles were lit, Beatrice Langley, of Croydon, stepped forward and lit her fag off one of them. She has been a smoker since she was eight. S
TILL
F
ULL
OF
P
UFF
, said the
Guardian
headline.
Guardian
The world’s poshest grocery store – Fortnum and Mason – introduced baked beans in their Piccadilly emporium in 1886.
The Times
One of Terry Wogan’s fans came across a Senior Citizen Special Breakfast: two eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast, £1.99.
A woman ordered the Special, but said: ‘I don’t want the eggs’.
The waitress said that in that case the breakfast would be £2.49 – ‘because you’re ordering a la carte’.
‘OK’, said the customer, ‘I’ll take the Special at £1.99’.
‘How do you want your eggs?’
‘Raw and in the shell’, said the customer.
She was served the raw eggs as requested – and took them home.
Sunday Telegraph
Fanny Craddock, once the grand dame of TV cookery, campaigned against artificial flavourings and fertilisers. She fed her tomatoes on a diet of tea and pee (dubbed Madam’s Tonic).
Daily Telegraph
Steve Hawkes, retail correspondent of
The Times
, writes: ‘Britons are embracing the Government’s
five-a-day
message as never before – that’s one cheeseburger, medium fries, a Coke, ice cream and, go on then, chicken nuggets on the side.’
The Times
In February 2008 Billy Bunter, the bespectacled fat owl of the remove at Greyfriars School, became 100 years old.
Despite being the living embodiment of pride, envy, avarice, greed, sloth, wrath and gluttony, he still has his own fan club, known as the Friars. The club celebrated the centenary at a meal heavy with pies and puddings. Bunter would have called it tuck ‘and wouldn’t be satisfied until he had gorged on everything on offer’.
The Times