Aweful August, Not Really. Grumpy's Alternative News.

Where to start. Let's get rid of the dodgy people for a start. I see a builder from Epsom claimed over £100,00 in disability benefits while running a building company. What made me laugh (cry?) he arrived in court in a wheelchair and neck brace with his arm in a sling! Plus an asylum seeker in Blackfriars received £211,ooo in benefits, (covering many years) claiming for a bogus son and receiving housing benefits and heaven knows what. By the way, she was caught stealing shampoo from Boots! I do wonder about our super country. From top to bottom we are shown bad examples. For instance those pillars of the establishment, paragons of virtue, Sainsbury's. Fined for colluding to drive up the price of milk and cheese. Along with Asda, Safeway and Tesco. Mind you, all but Tesco had the decency to plead guilty. We get poorer, the rich get richer. Doesn't it make you sick. And Charlie Gilmour, son of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, appealing against his sentence for swinging from a flag at the Cenotaph. Says he didn't realise the significance of the Cenotaph. So much for a private education. Get real, you spoilt, privileged prat. And one more fool of the highest order, Two phone twit David Secker, phoning with one hand and texting with the other whilst driving on the A47 in Norfolk. A twelve month driving ban and eight points, pathetic. Surely a fool like this should not be on our roads, ever again!
I must stop letting the idiots take me over. So what made me smile? Rowan Atkinson crashing his £2 million, 240 mph, 0-60mph in 3.2 seconds F1 McLaren supercar into a tree with no other vehicle in sight. Makes my geriatric driving look positively A1. Mind you, sorry you were hurt, Rowan.

Chris Petrie, from Queensland, caught driving a scooter made from a motorised beer cooler. No licence plus he'd had one, or two, or three, or four, or more. 55cc engine and the cooler holds 48 bottles of beer. I reckon Rowen would be better off with this machine!

Any more smiles? Well what about the expenses row embroiling the police's top training college Bramshill House. In two years the bill included, £1.3 on travel, £673,000 on hotels, £26,779 on leisure and entertainment and £27,917 on restaurants and bars. All money well spent I'm sure, but was the 'designer lingerie', the 'beehive' and the 'cultivator' necessary spending; recession, what recession.

Plus I see Winnie the Pooh's in trouble in Turkey for drinking root beer on television. Turkey has strong media laws concerning alcohol. Television station Kanal D have been fined up to £170,000. Which is a pity as root beer is non-alcoholic. And our German friends could also do with 'lightning up' a wee bit. The Knigge Society, a manners watchdog has called for a ban on works colleagues kissing in the office (sometimes even twice as the French do). Shaking hands, yes, kissing, no. Evidently it's a form of 'terror'. Handshakes, yes, approximately 60cms apart. Any closer is apparently crossing over a 'socially defined distance zone'. I'm making no comment on Germans and a sense of humour, I leave it to you! Mind you, it was suggested the runaway cow, Yvonne be shot. She wandered the countryside near Muhldorf for weeks and weeks. She learnt to become nocturnal, ran with deer and enjoyed herself. But eventually any support for capture and converting into Sunday joints became a no no. Instead, finally captured, she was transported to Aiderbichi Animal Sanctuary, to live the rest of her days in peace. Miserable Germans, never, I take it all back, you lovely people.

Finally, an American story, with no mention of guns!

Long Island veteran lifeguard Roy Lester reckoned his refusal to wear Speedos cost him his job. Now I didn't even know what Speedos were. I had to look them up. When I saw them I could see what he meant. They're not called 'banana hammocks, lolly bags and budgie smugglers' for nothing! Sixty one year old Mr Lester thought the Speedos did him no favours and I too reckon he's right.His offer to wear cycling shorts was rejected so now he goes to court. I for one hope he wins and strikes a blow for all us oldies. Go for it, Roy!

Good Old February

I steadily collect material for 'Is the Whole World Going Mad or is it Me'. (See blog dated 13th February.) You might think it is difficult to find items. Don't you believe it. Take February for instance, what caught the eye, bringing moments of merriment and occasionally horror to these gloomy, doom laden times.

You can always rely on the older generation to make the news. I thought the pensioner who hit a teenager with rolled up papers after the miscreant damaged flowerbeds deserved a medal rather than a conviction for battery. (Newton Abbot Magistrates Court.) She, the pensioner was on her way from a church meeting. She was definitely in good company. Take seventy one year old Geoffrey Dornan for instance. Mr Dornan was fined heavily for being a danger to pedestrians in Southport town centre. How, he was roller skating of course. Don't all pensioners roller skate! The magistrates said he was a danger to pedestrians, Mr Dornan said he always gives way to pedestrians hence his appeal against a very heavy fine. (£300 plus £1792 costs.)

Some of us might be old but there's life in us yet. There certainly is in seventy two year old milkman Robert Holding. To do the job at all says much for his stamina. Plus Mr Holding is also very community minded. As well as supplying milk he supplied a little extra for his elderly regulars in the form of cannabis, conveniently split into small packs and stored in an egg crate on the back of his milk float. Evidently his prices were very reasonable, as no doubt his oldest customer, aged ninety two would testify.

We oldies might have had our day but at times I actually feel sorry for the young. Evidently a GCSE science paper awarded Grade C's to pupils correctly scoring 20%. (ten right from fifty five.) Surely that does no-one, the young included any favours. The boards defence was breathtaking gobbledygook in the extreme. With pompous fools at the top the young have no chance. Not that academia has cornered the market where stupidity is concerned. Swiss doctors reported a new condition 'idiopathic palmar eccrine hidradenitis'. (Idiopathic means arising from an unknown cause.) Condition solved almost by chance. Evidently the condition cleared up when the twelve year old patient desisted from vigorously using Playstation joysticks for a few days. I would like to think the whole thing was a joke, alas I doubt it.

February, just another unexceptional month. A month in which the only surviving Mumbai gunman is to be charged with, amongst other things, being on a railway platform without a ticket. Oh for the law and lawyers fees. A month in which Npower says Westminster Council mustn't call its electric car refueling stations 'juice points' as Npower consider they have the copyright of the word juice. ('Npower juice'.) I ask you! The Dalai Lama joined Twitterati, Downing Street flew the Union Jack upside down and a barman in the Jolly Farmers, in Ormestry, Norfolk put the pubs taking in an oven, not realising it was lit.

Finally a ray of hope in a dark, snowy month. (Did you notice even the penguins in London Zoo, Humboldts excepted, refused to go out in the snow.)

A team at the University of Essex have identified a variant of a gene known as a serotonin transporter. People who inherit this varient gene tend to avoid negative thinking.

Are you one of those who 'always looks on the bright side of life'. If so, lucky you, but spare a thought for those who are not so lucky. You can't buy serotonin transporters, you can only inherit them!