November, You Didn't Let Us Down. Grumpy's Alternative News.

    Let's talk money for starters. Anyone got any spare cash? So what's going, cheap or otherwise. A Supermarine Swift jet aircraft on eBay, cheap at £250,000. Or some bed items, maybe? Hitler's single sheet and pillow, embroidered with his initials, estimated auction price, £3,000 (Bristol). The sign, reading 'BED PEACE' that hung above John Lennon and Yoko Ono's 'bed in' in 1969. (on sale at Christies, London, estimated price £100,000). No, how about the blackboard from the room where Michael Jackson died. Reads 'I (heart) Daddy SMILE, it's for free.' Written in chalk by his children, estimated price, £250. We may be broke, but there's still plenty of money about. The world's most expensive train ticket fetched £3,872  at auction in Cirencester. (Journey from Banagher and Maryborough, original price 9s 4d.) A doll, originally bought in 1747 fetched £58,850 at Bonhams in London. Not over surprised, London after all is, well, London. (There's an unmodernised flat, two bedrooms, for sale in Belgravia. Only £600,000 and its got a long lease. Not really, how would ten years suit you!

    Mind you, for the 'real' money its back to the good old US of A. Liz Taylor's 'La Peregrina' necklace is to be auctioned in New York in December, estimate, $3 million. This after all is the country that has built a robotic rover (called Curiosity) to investigate whether Mars is capable of supporting life. The cost of this 'robot', £1.6 billion! We can't compete with that. Why bother! We are in recession. We are careful with the money, we have to be. So the 99p stores contribution to it all is to be applauded. A bra for less than £1. (Choice of three colours plus a bow at the front.) Well done (ladies?), now how about something for the chaps!

    Petty criminals, now they're always good for a smile. Like the thief on the the church roof in Lincoln who took the lead and left behind a can of Polish lager covered in his finger prints. And the A-level student from Wolverhampton who stole two left-footed trainers from a shop during the August riots. (Doesn't say much for modern A levels.) Or the burglar tip toeing round a bedroom in Swansea when his mobile phone went off. Not so petty the hopelessly inadequate postman in Torquay who finished up with over 30,000 undelivered, unopened  items dating back to 2008. (A third of it junk mail) Stored in his shed, his car and a local garage. Interestingly enough, he's been replaced by two postmen and a van!

Now ten unrelated titbits that I found interesting.

1 Danica May Camacho born to a 'jeepney' driver in the Philippines one Sunday night in November was the seventh billion human being.

2 Two Russian families, whose children aged 12 were accidentally switched at birth have bought houses next to each other with compensation from a court.

3 A researcher at Oxford University has been honoured for devising a fence that scares away elephants in Africa by buzzing like a bee.

4 A couple in Ratley, Warwickshire have had to halt their house extension work after four skeletons, part of an Anglo-Saxon burial ground were found under their patio.

5 5000 portions of curry were served in Trafalgar Square from malformed vegetables to highlight the fact that 30% of all fruit and vegetables is rejected by supermarkets for not meeting cosmetic standards.

6 270 tons of miniature Eiffel Towers were sized in police raids on illicit street vendors in Paris.

7 A teenager preparing for a skiing trip to the South Pole prepared by spending the night in a supermarket freezer. In Iceland of course.

8 Tonga won a competitive football match for the first time in their history. Their Man of the Match was Johny 'Jayieh' Saelua, the first transgender footballer to play in the World Cup.

9 Surgeons removed a piece of bone from Matthew Willey, took it from one Birmingham hospital to another  for radiotherapy, returned it and reattached it, all in a ten hour operation.  

10 Johny Rotton, of Sex Pistols fame drew some rather crude drawings on the wall of his flat in London, in 1977. It has been suggested they be preserved, being, like the cave paintings in France, 'of archaeological interest'.

    Finally a few 'rude' bits I couldn't help noticing. The Office For National Statistics has published figures for a 'baby boom', suggesting it was down to last years long and harsh winter. Really! San Francisco is changing the law and making it an offence to enter a restaurant naked. Evidently it has been putting people off eating! (Surely a Freudian slip that reported it was making the city the butt of many a joke?)

    A man accused of secretly filming himself making love to his girlfriend in South Wales claimed it was 'research not voyeurism', he being a 'Time and Motion Consultant'. You couldn't make it up! (He was found not guilty. One person who saw the 35 minute video said, and I quote, 'There was very little action in it.')

    The mind boggles but not in the same league as the Russian historian and expert on local cemeteries. He had 29 mummified female corpses, some posed, in his home, all dressed up as life-size dolls. Some with music boxes, toy hearts and soap inserted into the rib cages. He was described by a local newspaper editor as a loner with 'certain quirks'. Rather an understatement I fear. I think Louis hit it in one 'What a Wonderful World'.   

Mad as a March Hare weeks 1 and 2

Still collecting (see blogs dated 6th February and 6th March) ) and already March fulfills it promise as 'Mad March'.

For instance, a the story of the cannibal on the bus in Canada. Do you remember Jasper Carrott doing a sketch concerning 'The nutter on the bus'. (Now that's non PC nowadays for a start.) How the oddities than travel on buses invariably sat next to him. I know the feeling. But the chap on the Canadian bus was ultra special. Not only did he cut off his fellow passengers head, he also sat and ate some of the 'bits'. I presume the rest of the passengers huddled at the back of the bus. Not funny but I couldn't help noticing that a judge solemnly recorded that the passenger was to be judged insane. Really, you don't say, thats almost normal on some of the school buses round here. I know, I know you shouldn't laugh at such things but if you didn't laugh you'd cry.

Moving swiftly on food figured several times in the month. Did you know that Sainsbury's in Bedford has started displaying wedges of Parmesan cheese in security boxes. Evidently thefts have increased dramatically though the Cheddar is unaffected. Signs of the times I reckon. No wonder a sign on the back of a bakers van in London reads 'No scones or cream buns left in this van overnight.' China is trying to combat drivers falling asleep at the wheel by serving free chilli peppers at service stations whilst the Indian Army no longer has snake on the menu of its survival courses. (the snake population is seriously threatened.) Instead those on the commando courses have to make do with extra chocolate, dried fruit and nuts. Not really the same is it. But the food story of the month was the young lady, aged ten in Aldershot who has been fed by tube all her life, by choice for no medical reason. But recently, offered yogurt she accepted, followed by soup and ice cream. Mother was delighted, but wait until breakfast takes thirty minutes (twenty five minutes deciding what to have). See if everyone's so happy then!

What else caught the eye. The recent discovery in Luxor of the Ancient Egyptian tomb of Amenhotep, Seal bearer of Pharaoh Tuthmosis 111 by Belgian archaeologists made me smile. Purely because it was originally found in 1880 then lost under the sand. Excuse me, but how do you lose anything as big as a tomb. They're certainly having nothing of mine for safekeeping.

A desk owned by Lord Lucan recently sold at auction for £13,200, twice the estimated amount. It was bought by an unknown telephone bidder. I'll bet it was! Though it certainly wasn't the Chinese gentleman who bought two bronze imperial sculptures (again by telephone) for £14,000,000 each in Christies Paris auction, only to announce a week later he could not and would not be paying for them. How many of us would love to bid for an item costing a million or two when our bank account is profoundly empty.

I read thieves have been breaking INTO Ford open prison in Arundel, West Sussex and stealing tools and cleaning equipment. Now that's what I call an open prison! And I loved the story of the rare whitebeam tree in a layby in Lynton, Devon. For many years it sported a 'No Parking' sign nailed to its trunk. Now at long last its been officially named as a new species by the National Museum of Wales. And the new name? 'Sorbus No Parking.' You couldn't make it up; well done chaps.

Finally something for all you out there who suspect politicians are not the brightest of individuals. Evidently Britain's fire service has been called out almost every day for the past five years helping the NHS and others to lift obese people. Sad really but I thought the verbose Tory health spokesman's comments were a classic. He demanded that the government do something about it. 'It's putting the emergency services under strain' he declared with great authority. Well done Mr Mike Penning for that Freudian interpretation of what is definitely a 'big' problem. Hemel Hemstead, you've got a right one there!