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Personally Speaking

Winnie the Policy Adviser

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on June 25, 2008 8:37 AM

RICHARD Danzig – the man who will be national security adviser should Barack Obama become president of the USA– says the war on terror can learn a lot from Winnie the Pooh.
“Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security,” he said.

Don’t panic. There is no actual proof he is bonkers.

Continue reading "Winnie the Policy Adviser"

Americans tell us we were right all along – too late!

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on June 17, 2008 12:55 PM

IT HAS taken the Americans to tell us that a stiff upper lip is better than letting your feelings spill out.

Well, they don’t just spill, do they, feelings? When people start to get things off their chest feelings tend to spread over the floor like something the dog’s just done.
They are best stepped carefully around, other people’s feelings.

Continue reading "Americans tell us we were right all along – too late!"

Are PM phone calls on the right lines?

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on June 10, 2008 12:32 PM

GORDON Brown has taken to telephoning people at random to show he is staying in touch and re-connecting with the electorate. I took a call.
Hello.
“Hello, may I speak with Mr or Mrs J Buckley, please.”
Mr J Buckley speaking, but I am not buying anything.
“My name is Gordon....”
Of course, it is. How are things in Mumbai? I must say your accent is very good.

Continue reading "Are PM phone calls on the right lines?"

Tip-off of brazenus arrogantus sighting

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on June 3, 2008 8:59 AM

Covert television cameras and spy systems hidden in bushes and trees are catching fly-tippers in Cheshire.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to TipWatch.

“Nearly daybreak, and the monitoring team have been up all night, determined to capture evidence of a Drobelle – that is a Drobelle of the nocturnal Abominable Ronny Drobelle variety – fly-tipping.

Continue reading "Tip-off of brazenus arrogantus sighting"

Naughty children are in a class of their own

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on May 27, 2008 10:01 AM

UNRULY children as young as five face being taught in “educational sinbins” under plans to stop pupils becoming out of control.
Of course, this new government tactic is supported by the latest Janet and John book.

Continue reading "Naughty children are in a class of their own"

Teachers will have to come up with the right answers

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on May 20, 2008 8:44 AM

Schoolchildren, says the Department for Children, Schools and Families, should be able to question teachers applying for jobs.

Ministers believe children should have a say in the running of a school.
Suddenly it may be important for teachers to get on the right side of pupils and not the other way around.

Continue reading "Teachers will have to come up with the right answers"

Police are getting a grip

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on May 15, 2008 8:19 AM

FROM The Daily Telegraph, May 6: A disabled war widow who has refused to pay her council tax for two years has fled abroad to escape arrest.

So it’s come to this, has it?
Inspector Gripper of the Yard looked up in scarlet faced fury when his sergeant jabbed him stiletto style with the bad news.

“She’s flown chief. Done a runner. Scarpered. Gaff’s empty. No trace. Searched. No passport. Spain’s favourite.”

Continue reading "Police are getting a grip"

Signs of artistic ambitions in highways department

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on May 8, 2008 1:46 PM

THIS country has developed a serious problem to go with all the others. This one borders on obsessional.

We cannot resist tinkering with our roads, adding this, putting in that. Usually, it is in the name of safety, but sometimes I do wonder.

Our relationship with roadways seems to be one of gardens and gardeners.

Continue reading "Signs of artistic ambitions in highways department"

Industry gets into bed with university

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on April 22, 2008 12:17 PM

ONE of the country’s newest universities is offering a degree in selling beds. The Britain we live in, eh?

It is what would have been called a training course in your day.
Now it comes with a cap and gown and two years’ obligatory student drunken revelry.
But for being born in the wrong era I would have enrolled myself and happily moved into the halls of residence. Not only would I have bedded the pretty little blonde-haired girl down the corridor I’d have sold her the mattress as well.

Continue reading "Industry gets into bed with university"

Is trip on spaceship truly out of this world?

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on April 17, 2008 1:58 PM

WEIGHING up what to do for my hols, I was torn between a rainy week in a caravan in Abergele – it always rains in Abergele – and joining the first civilian space flight on Virgin Galactic’s spaceship Two Feather. They are now taking bookings, you know.

Abergele stands on a direct route for the rain clouds from Snowdonia. All the while, it is sunny in Llandudno. You can see it sort of shimmering in the distance.
But the cheap caravans are in Abergele, or Towyn if you are the fun-loving sort. If there’s a caravan site, there is always a shop and social club nearby, so there’s no end of things you can do if it is raining.

Continue reading "Is trip on spaceship truly out of this world?"

Mon Dieu! Classroom pranks turned Fat Malc into a thug

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on April 8, 2008 8:34 AM

Teachers are being worn out by classes who hum in unison or start orchestrated coughing and other schoolboy pranks, says the union NASUWT.

Humming? Coughing? They should be so lucky. We drove our French teacher mad. Of course we did not mean to, not so he’d spend months off work and return from some psychiatrist’s couch a thug with the manner of a kindly uncle, but we did.

All teachers are supposed to have ways of dealing with mischievous classes. I remember a physics teacher who could lift me off the ground by the ear lobes. Mine, not his.
Others just had authority. You played your joke and then did as you were told.
Whenever Fat Malc, the French teacher, turned to write on the board we’d swap places, so when he turned back, no one was where they were supposed to be.
Ha ha.

Continue reading "Mon Dieu! Classroom pranks turned Fat Malc into a thug"

Real Cheshire folk know their true boundaries despite lines on a map

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on April 1, 2008 11:08 AM

LET me tell you something about Cheshire.
It starts at Hoylake in the west and ends at Stalybridge in the east.
Even though Wirral and anything the other side of Bowdon has not been in Cheshire since the last time they mucked about with the boundaries, the folk who live there still see themselves as Cheshire people.
Certainly those whose families who can trace their residential antecedence right the way back through the mists of time to, oh, 1974 and beyond.

Continue reading "Real Cheshire folk know their true boundaries despite lines on a map"

Brush over Basil’s gaffe

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on March 25, 2008 1:02 PM

IS Basil Brush racist? His joke about a Gypsy nicking his wallet is a slur on all travellers, says a Gypsy and Travellers Network and stereotypes them.

Personally, I suspect it’s a class thing. Mr Brush is extremely well spoken, dresses very well and doesn’t throw litter about, just the kind of person to get up a Traveller’s nose.

Continue reading "Brush over Basil’s gaffe"

British humour is a funny thing for others to follow

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on March 19, 2008 8:29 AM

Three interesting reports reach my ears: The secret of British humour is in the genes, say researchers; Britons are only happy when miserable, says an American – and Germany to buy ’Allo ’Allo.

The last item is bound to make us happy. Constable Crabtree, speaking broken French in English and dubbed in German, will be worth watching with subtitles. I think we should buy it back.

Continue reading "British humour is a funny thing for others to follow"

Personally speaking

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on March 11, 2008 10:15 AM

IT’S all very well for the Government and the Daily Mail and the Greens to pick on the plastic shopping bag, but my question is this: When they are banned, as will happen, what are we expected to wrap Sunday’s chicken carcass in?

You know, the one that sits in the wheely bin for two weeks in the summer getting smellier and smellier, until it is potent enough to knock out the binman like coal gas and a canary.
It’s a serious question.

Continue reading "Personally speaking"

Personally Speaking

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on March 4, 2008 12:53 PM

You cannot take early flowers and sunshine as evidence of Armageddon

Spring is early again. I know because the newspapers tell me and because, well, I saw two ducks, you know, at it, the other day.
It may be nature but it is not romantic. It’s a wonder she didn’t drown.

Other ducks were milling about as ducks do and you wonder what they thought of it all.
Daffodils have been flowering for months, hedges are in bud, the sun is shining, there are gnats in the air and it is all the fault of global warming.

Continue reading "Personally Speaking"

Education system is failing even examination cheats

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on February 26, 2008 9:23 AM

MORE than 4,000 students were caught cheating at A-level and GCSE exams last year. Proof indeed of the dumbing down of education, that so many should try and get caught.

The percentage success rate in my day was far higher, I’m sure. It is bad enough standards seemingly in all subjects should be dropping – the latest example is a teacher who gave his class of 10-years-olds a science GCSE paper to do and a third of them passed, even though they had not yet studied any science - but that the system, despite all its billions, is not producing pupils who can cheat and get away with it is condemnation of the system indeed.

Where is the UK in these Euro league tables they keep trotting out at such times? Bottom I shouldn’t wonder. I bet there are sharper cheats in France. Oh, the shame!

Continue reading "Education system is failing even examination cheats"

Ballet and opera will just put teenagers off culture

Posted by Trinity Mirror Cheshire on February 20, 2008 12:05 PM

Schoolchildren will be taken to the opera and theatre under government plans to offer all teenagers at least five hours of culture a week.

This sounds like the first ever case of dumbing up to me.
Culture, teenagers. Culture, teenagers. Culture, teenagers.
Nope. No matter how often you repeat the words, it don’t sound right.

Teenagers are overwhelmed with culture as it is. It comes at them in great electronic waves 24 hours a day.

Continue reading "Ballet and opera will just put teenagers off culture"