Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious September, Grumpy's Alternative News.

Another super month, where to start. How many people or events can we get into one post I wonder, here goes. Firstly some whom I consider nothing short of idiotic.

Did you read about the woman in Devon who claimed that a 'wheelie bin' outside her home devalued her property. And the graduate from Queen's University, Belfast who claimed he would have got a better degree with more supervision. (Nothing to do with lack of hard work, Andrew Croskery?) The magistrate in Lancaster who fell asleep whilst sitting on the bench, causing a trial to collapse. Plus the judge who refused to order a soldier who 'glassed' a man to undergo anger management. 'Soldiers need anger to do their jobs' said Judge William Hart at Gloucester Crown Court. Great compensation for the victim. Some 'idiots' are more serious than others. The callous individual who abandoned an eight year old dog near Weymouth (later identified by CCTV as from Bamber Bridge near Preston) deserves our contempt. And strangely enough it was in Weymouth where a paramedic refused take a woman for an emergency Cesarean because he was on his break, then blaming someone else for his lack of professionalism. Not everything in the news made me mad; astounded yes, but that's different. Woburn Safari Park accidentally fed food meant for their animals to customers in their restaurant. A fake barrister, complete with wig and gown ran from court in Plymouth when the judge asked him simple legal questions. A priest in Madrid was involved in a scuffle with a parishioner during Communion. A model received benefits as a carer whilst working for Babestation. (Its actually a porn channel!)

Talking of porn, what an idiot was the primary school teacher in Merthyr Tydfil who made porn films with her husband and stored them on her school laptop. (She has been told she is free to seek another job, it didn't say in what capacity!) Plus an employee of Newham Council supposedly struggled to get dressed after an injury. Pity it didn't stop him competing in national athletics events.

Two entrants for the title, twerp of the month. The German tourist in Tenerife who dug a three metre hole on the beach, which eventully collapsed on him, burying him up to his neck. It took fifteen firefighters in five vehicles two hours to free him. Lucky man. Mind you, a one-off, for regular stupidity try Glenn Crawley, so-called sailor aged fifty three, estimated to have cost the emergency services £30,000 plus in sea rescues. (On one occasion four times in the same day.) This time his catamaran was destroyed on Fistral Beach, Newquay. Next time, how about, 'No pay, no rescue.'

Animal stories always interest. Tanvir, a Bengal tiger was stuck on top of a climbing frame at Noah's Ark Farm in Somerset for forty eight hours because he's scared of heights. Biggles, a Springer Spaniel swallowered forty stones (weighing 1.5kg) on a family seaside trip to West Sussex. A man in my home town, Derby lost his claim as to who owns a pet water buffalo called Oink. And man from Crawley ( honest, Crawley for the second time) has just spent one hundred and twenty days in a tiny room with forty one snakes, including black mambas, cobras and puff adders. Why, well may you ask. I see Colonel Gaddafi had thirty Berber horses plus his Beduin tent when he stayed in Rome on an official visit. (Not to mention his female bodyguards dressed in camouflage.) You really couldn't make it up! And finally animalwise, ITV West Country news got a news item somewhat wrong. The polar bear washed up on the beach at Bude was actually a cow! Mind you, I don't suppose they see too many polar bears in Cornwell! I'm not sure about the proposed housing estate in Paddock Wood, Kent being rejected because dormice, (an endangered species living in nearby woods) might be at risk from pet cats owned by incoming residents.

And just to show my 'serious' reading, did you notice in the business world Cinven have bought out Spice for £250 million. Simon Rigby, owner of Spice has set up a new company. Farmgen is using anaeric technology to turn maize, silage, potatoes into methane gas. How, by mimicking the inner workings of a cows stomach. Simple when you know how!

Finally, finally, two items concerning the ladies. Four Australian women have set the world record for the fastest relay race in stillettos. Eighty metres in one minute, four seconds wearing three inch (7.5 cm) heels. Still concerning the ladies, or at least ladies apparel, a farmer in Purton, Wiltshire had a problen, his galia melons kept breaking their vines. The answer, ladies bras, brought in great numbers by helpful customers. Evidently double-D cups were particularly useful! I make no further comment; if anyone wants to suggest a suitable headline on any item, be my guest!

Was August Aweful or Awesome. Grumpy's Alternative News.

Lets start with the idiots, they never seem to go away. Our so called 'rulers' get no better. I am less than impressed that Cabinet minister Cheryl Gillan has got back the £4.47 pence that she claimed for dog food during the expenses scandal. Equally pathetic, new MP Yasmin Qureshi, banned for using a mobile phone whilst driving. Not a first offence I might add. Plus she had no insurance. Add Rory Stewart's (MP for Penrith) pathetic comments that his constituents are pretty primitive people who walk around with trousers held up by baling twine and you realise, regarding parliament, nothing changes. Gruesome, greedy people out of touch with the real world.

Councils didn't let us down when it came to waste and stupidity. Brighton purchased a machine to count bicycles, cost £25,000. Only it can't tell the difference between a bike and a car. Brighton and Hove council paid consultants £300,000 to teach it 'value for money'. Binmen in Gloucester have had to have police protection from angry householders. The binmen have been ordered to leave bins where the lid won't close; it is alleged in one case the lid was only a centimetre from being fully closed. And a seventy four year old in Plymouth was banned from taking his two pet owls on the streets as 'they might attack someone'. A decision later rescinded.

I think the country of the month was undoubtedly France. Taxi drivers in Paris were voted worst in the world in an internet poll. Frederique Messmer, a Paris taxi driver's response said it all. 'I'm unpleasant and so what' was his answer as he enjoyed his cigarette in his taxi. (London's black cabs came out top.) Plus the French police had a busy month. They had to warn the public concerning holiday makers being being attacked by cows near Font- Romeu in the Pyrenees. They also had to deal with a woman in Lyons who put the body of her partner, still dressed in his pyjamas amongst the frozen peas in the deep freeze. And they are still looking for two nuns in their eighties who are on the run after refusing to move to a nursing home two hundred and fifty miles from the school where they worked. They sound hard pressed, the French police. No wonder they have abolished the height restriction of 5ft 3in (1.6m). Damn, I could have joined (I'm 5.4in). Any age restrictions chaps, I'm seventy? It's not that old, honest, even if British judges have suggested no-one should be allowed to sit on a jury after becoming seventy. Come on, we're not done for yet, Rod Stewart's wife is expecting and he's sixty six! (It will be his seventh.)

I notice animals were used by drug traffickers as guards thousands of miles apart; bears in the mountains of British Columbia and an albino python in Rome. I noticed also they are trying to get the two-toed sloth in London Zoo to breed. Mind you, its last partner they chose was also male. There's been no sloth born at the zoo for more than one hundred years, so don't hold your breath. But the animal story of the month was undoubtedly the women who put the cat in the bin in Coventry. Forty five years of age, a church going spinster who works in a bank, how ordinary is that. So she puts a cat in a wheelie bin in full view of a surveillance camera. How extraordinary is that. Something she will never forget, or be allowed to forget. A life changing experience in a split second. I wonder why.

Two mind bending morbid incidents from the month. A groom in Turkey lost control of a AK-57 as he fired it in celebration at the wedding, killing three and wounding eight others. And one of the only two competitors left in the World Sauna Championships in Helsinki died after suffering severe burns. Contestants had to sit in 110c (230F). Surprise, surprise, they are not going to hold the competition any more.

That's about it. But not wishing to end on a sombre note, two items that probably shouldn't, but made me smile. A woman is suing Walt Disney World, claiming that she was 'groped' by 'Donald Duck' at the Epcot theme park. Now I know its not funny if it did in fact happen. But surely there's a problem here. How on earth is she going to positively identify her assailant!

Finally, did you see the 'one liners', jokes submitted for the prize of 'best joke award' at the Fringe, Edinburgh Festival.

Entries include

As a kid I was made to walk the plank. We couldn't afford a dog.

Dave drowned. So at the funeral we got him a wreath in the shape of a lifebelt. Well it's what he would have wanted. Both Gary Delaney.

I bought one of those anti-bullying wristbands when they first came out. I say 'bought'- I actually stole it off a short, fat ginger kid. Jack Whitehall.

I picked up a hitchhiker. You gotta when you hit them. Emo Philips

And finally, the winner.

I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I'll tell you what, never again. Tim Vine

All Great Men Make Mistakes. Winston Churchill

We called in at Worcester last week on our way back from Wales. Seems a nice little place, Worcester. Plus my wife saw a gorgeous handbag in a shop window, reduced from £4.99 to £3.99, an absolute snip. I don't mind treating her at that price! But just as we we going into the shop I noticed it was a Jaeger shop and they certainly don't give anything away. The revised price was of course £399, some difference! Two silly old geriatric plonkers who probably should not be out unacompanied. There again there is a saying, the man who never made a mistake never made anything.I looked up 'lifes mistakes' on the internet. Evidently there are 35,700,000 references. It seems we are in good company.

I suppose there are not many of us who tried to dry their hands in the toilet by sticking them up the opening of the contraceptive machine. (see blog dated 1st February 2009)

Plus I wince at winding down the motorhome window on a dark and dismal night travelling north from Bath and enquiring of a bystander,'Gloucester?'

'No, Cheltenham' came the puzzled reply. Mind you, I blame the sat-nav. Confusing it's rights and lefts is bad enough. And I swear the thing's dyslexic. So there, it's not our fault!

(A friend of mine, much cleverer than me hired a car in Chesterfield to go to a wedding in Newcastle. Sailing merrily along the M1, it was only when he saw the signs for Luton that he realised he was travelling south not north. And he's got an honours degree. What in I'm not sure!)

The dictionary definition of mistake includes: to recognise or identify incorrectly; based on error; wrong.

Thomas Carlyle said 'Do not be embarrassed by your mistakes.nothing can teach us better than our understanding of them. This is one of the best ways of self education.' Though I doubt he was in our league when it comes to mistake making.

Life is full of choices, to marry or not to marry for instance. A friend of mine has been married four times. How many mistakes there? One, two, three, surely not four? I would imagine this comes in the category of 'serious mistakes.' Marriage for me has been far from a mistake so I must be doing something right. (I once arrived late at a wedding and sat in the back of the church for fifteen minutes before I realised I was at the wrong wedding. Stupid, yes, but serious, not really.)

Our visit to Wales was in the main enjoyable, marred by ignorant, rude, over zealous parking attendants who issued us with a parking fine for a technicality on a car park in Dolgellau. Perhaps I should not have returned to Wales after an absence of over twenty years. Perhaps it was a mistake; who knows.

Lets give the last word to Oscar Wilde writing in 'Lady Windemere's Fan.'

Dumby: Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.

Cecil Graham: One shouldn't commit any.

Dumby; Life would be very dull without them.

And less expensive Mr Wilde!

Dare you admit some of your mistakes in life, serious or otherwise. Surely I'm no more mistake prone than anyone else out there. Or am I?

There and Back to See how Far it is.

Do you remember the saying' There and back to see how far it is.' I wonder where it came from.

I was on holiday in Southwold recently. There I met a delightful man and his family. We chatted, as holiday makers do and he turned out to be, like myself, a football fan. Now I reckon I'm keen, but he far surpassed my dedication to Derby County. I noticed he had tattooed on his fingers letters that together spelt out the words TRUE BLUE, his love of Chelsea Football Club self evident. Even more remarkable was the large tattoo on his back. He was proud of his tattoo and showed it willingly, there presumably for all eternity. The name Chelsea and their post code for all to see. He was indeed a character, a very affable one and he lived on the Isle of Sheppey.

Many years ago, when lessons came to an end early (lesson plans, what's a lesson plan?) I had a pupil who rescued me many a time. He gave a touching rendering of 'Old Shep' that was far more moving than anything I had offered in the previous fifty minutes. The ending was guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes of even the most street-wise.

'Old Shep he has gone

Where the good doggies go

and no more with old Shep will I roam

But if dogs have a heaven

There's one thing I know

Old Shep has a wonderful home.'

(Evidently you can get the lyrics of Old Shep as a ringtone. As Michael Caine would say 'Not a lot of people know that'!)

All this was in the seventies when Elvis Presley, who recorded Old Shep was particularly popular. (Walter Brennan's version is far more moving and probably influenced Elvis.) The day Elvis died is one of those dates in history that almost everyone can remember where they were when the news broke. (August 16th, 1977. I was at Chapel St Leonards at the time camping with my family.) Who could fail to remember such important moments in history.

Yet they also reckon most people remember where they were when both J F Kennedy and John Lennon were shot. I remember the Kennedy assassination yet have no recollection as to my whereabouts when John Lennon's demise unfolded.

A strange thing, memory. Many amongst us can remember what we were doing at the age of five, in some cases being over sixty years ago. Yet we have difficulty in remembering more than three items 'the wife' sent us to buy at the supermarket less than an hour ago. I once attended a funeral on the wrong day, went to the wrong church to attend a wedding, visited town on my bike and came home on the bus. (Not all on the same day!) Not that a sat nav or a computerised memory aid would have made much difference.

Sat navs, who needs them! I reckon we are on auto pilot in life, particularly when driving, for much of the time. (A year or so travelling north from Bath on a filthy black night, my wife and I had sat nav trouble; the darn thing refused to let us find the motorway. After what seemed for ever, the wind blowing a gale we arrived in a dark gloomy town. I wound my window down and shouted to one of the few people daft enough to be on the street. 'Gloucester?' I enquired quizzically. 'Cheltenham' he replied dismissively.)

I know little regarding Cheltenham. It has if I remember rightly an establishment for the education of young ladies, Cheltenham College that is highly regarded. I served as a teacher in a large comprehensive for many years. But it was certainly no Cheltenham. A public school yes, in that anyone could come, but an establishment of refinement, not really.

I have taught both in the secondary age sector and in adult education. In the latter I taught a young man, previously one of my school pupils. He had led a somewhat undisciplined life since leaving school, and had served a spell in prison. He was sentenced, amongst other things for hiding a policeman's helmet in a lively street altercation. I wonder what the charge was.

He once told me that 'he had run over a car.' 'What were you driving, a bulldozer' I asked with typical teaching ignorance. 'No,' he replied, exasperated at his former teachers stupidity. 'You know, ran over a car. Ran over, up onto the bonnet, over the roof and down the boot.' He was in my 'night school' class because he now realised the value of education and wished to 'better himself.'.

He too had a tattoo; plus it was on his back ; a tattoo and picture in large letters. Only he wasn't a Chelsea supporter. He had had this tattoo done when he was barely out of school. Now, some fifteen or twenty years later, with a wife and children, he was less than enamored with his tattoo.

He no longer went in the local swimming baths and certainly not with his children. At seventeen or so it had seemed a fun thing to do. His tattoo too will be there for ever and a day. And why is he less keen nowadays. I don't suppose too many people would like a large coloured butterfly and the words 'Butterflies Eat Shit' across their nether regions. Ah, the foolishness of youth. I wonder if my Chelsea friend will ever rue the day he had inscribed his support of Chelsea.