The Kids Are All Right

‘THERE are few things more geared to cause the older generation to fret and the younger ones to laugh out loud than a survey into yoof culture.

‘And I inhaled…’

But happy to look utterly out of touch, the Government that gave us Cool Britannia and a Prime Minster who thinks he’s Hank Marvin has conducted a survey.

And it’s found that a fifth of all teenagers have pretended to take drugs to make themselves look cool, but have not really ever tried any.

News in the Times is that teenagers are more interested in looking clued-up about drugs and being able to ‘talk the talk’ than actually using them to get stoned.

Teens, it seems, are not a bit unlike the Government, which bangs on about illegal drugs but hasn’t really got the first idea how to deal with them.

And in a single stroke, the Government’s official figure of the numbers of teens taking drugs has dropped by a fifth.

But before we get another survey that discovers how a further third of confirmed teen wasters confused banned drugs with legal narcotics like Prozac, Valium and alcohol, we hear the sensational news that surveys are not always accurate.

It seems that when asked if they take drugs or not, teenagers are prone to lie. It’s shocking but it is true.

So this study, sponsored by Frank, the Home Office’s national drugs information service, didn’t ask yoofs what they themselves took but what they think their friends took.

And the story goes that a fifth of 1,000 11 to 19-year-olds,who weren’t too pissed or gouched to answer said they thought their friends had pretended to take drugs as ‘an act of bravado when they had not done so’.

However, the respondents themselves are universally cool and have taken any number of Es, trips and whiz to make your head spin for weeks…’

Posted: 23rd, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Life In The Slow Lane

‘MOTORWAYS have three lanes: one for caravans; one for lorry drivers on speed, coaches of OAPs and men in leatherette driving gloves steering burgundy-coloured Rovers; and one for everybody else.

White caravan man

But not all of us know our proper place, and the Independent has seen research by the RAC Foundation that says some of us get in the wrong lane and refuse to budge.

According to the study, these ‘outside-lane blockers’, ‘middle-lane hogs’ and other drivers blessed with poor lane discipline are wasting up to a third of motorway capacity at heavy periods.

The other thing slowing down traffic is what the survey terms ‘phantom traffic jams’.

We’ve all been there when the traffic suddenly begins to crawl along. You think there’s been an accident ahead or a Pizza Delivery boy has mistakenly wandered onto the motorway.

But there’s nothing. When began with a flurry of red brake lights was an incident that never existed.

This, dear driver, is a phantom traffic jam. And, apparently, it’s caused by tailgating motorists pressing the brakes when the car ahead so much as flinches.

So please stop it. Better driving will free up 700 miles of motorway.

Space which can then be used for worthy projects, like housing the homeless, providing well-accessed starter homes and a picnic area for caravaners…’

Posted: 23rd, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Land Bruisers

‘THE most rugged terrain most 4×4 owners will venture over is the speed humps between Jack and Jemima’s school and the Harbour Club.

‘Must get to Waitrose before it closes’

But if you needed another reason to hate the urban tanks, the Chelsea tractors that ferry the short of chin around our cities, then this morning’s papers are happy to provide it.

According to the Guardian, responsibility for a tenfold increase in dust storms emanating from the Sahara can be laid squarely at the five doors of the Range Rover and its hybrids.

And this is not just a problem because Consuela, the Portuguese maid, has to work a bit harder to earn her £5.50 an hour, but because of the effect on the environment and human health.

An estimated 2-3 billion tonnes of dust is carried away on the wind each year, coming down as “blood rain” across Europe and causing respiratory problems and exacerbating allergies.

And Andrew Goudie, professor of geography at Oxford University, blames “Toyotarisation” for destroying the thin crust of lichen and stones that has protected the desert for centuries.

“I am quite serious,” he told a conference in Glasgow. “You should look at deserts from the air, scarred all over by wheel tracks, people driving indiscriminately over the surface, breaking it up.

“Toyotarisation is a major cause of dust storms. If I had my way, I would ban them from driving off-road.”

And if we (and most of the motoring public) had our way, we would ban them from driving on-road.

It is time to bring back the original ship of the desert, the camel.

No problems getting over speed humps, two seats for Jack and Jemima on the dromedary model and plenty of room for the weekly shop from Waitrose…’

Posted: 20th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Damp Summer

‘EVERY cloud has a silver lining – it’s just that you sometimes can’t see it for all the dust.

New car sales set to rise

The wet summer may have prevented Hugo and Tamara spending as many weekends in the country as they would have liked, but Huges has bought himself a natty set of new waterproofs for the golf-course and Tammy is looking as brown as a berry, thanks to regular visits to the sun doctor.

And that is good news for manufacturers of waterproofs and fake tan who are having a bumper summer as the country dissolves into a sodden mess.

The Times reports that, although last month was the worst for summer clothing in two years with sales of traditional bestsellers like sandals and swimwear falling sharply, it wasn’t all doom and gloom.

Fort instance, spending on women’s waterproofs leapt by 150% compared with last year and supermarkets have been doing a brisk trade in winter warmers like tinned soup and mince.

Not only that but The Sahara Co. is doing a roaring trade in sandbags, while the Boscastle village shop has been cleaned out of buckets and spades. And walls. And a roof…’

Posted: 20th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Coronation Roll

‘WHEN Denise Van Outen admitted to stealing an ashtray from Buckingham Palace, the papers reacted with shock and indignation.

An artist’s impression on the suspect

Why, they asked, hadn’t the ashtray gone the way of so many other Royal freebies and been fenced to raise money to pay off the Queen Mum’s gambling debts?

And how was it that Van Outen got her grubby little paws on it without one of the undercover reporters who make up the Queen’s household noticing?

But as files released at the National Archives yesterday show, pinching stuff from the Queen has been going on for as long as she has been in the job.

The Telegraph says that at a time when austerity still ruled, even the distinguished guests at her coronation in Westminster Abbey in 1953, weren’t above a bit of pilfering.

‘It was found, early on Coronation Day, that much of the lavatory paper had been removed,’ a post-mortem of the big day records, ‘and in future it will be necessary to take steps to prevent this.’

What those steps were and whether or not they have been successful we don’t know, but our sympathies go out to the Queen.

There’s nothing worse than sitting down on the throne and finding you’re out of bog paper…’

Posted: 20th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

As Easy As ABC

‘BENJAMIN Franklin said there were only two things in this world that could be said to be certain in life – death and taxes.

‘Anyone here read? I think it says an A’

To that we can now add a third – a pass at A-level.

The pass rate for the exams rose for the 22nd successive year, with an astonishing 96% of students sitting the exams getting an E grade or better.

And, according to figures published this morning, more people than ever before got A-grades.

That means that, on current forecasts, the pass rate will break through the 100% barrier by the end of the decade, at which time the Government will start to award certificates to people who haven’t even sat the exam.

And in 2013, we should see the abolition of everything other than the A-grade, making Britain the best educated and most highly qualified country on earth.

Predictably, however, there is carping from our newspapers and the Tories.

Tory education spokesman Tim Collins tells the Independent that the rules that allow students to resit A-level modules as many times as they want should be scrapped.

‘Olympic athletes do not get a second or third go at the 100 metres if they don’t like the result,’ he says, ‘and the same logic should apply in education.’

In the Olympics, however, there is only one gold medal. If all the athletes who entered the 100m were guaranteed a gold, then no-one would care how many times they ran the race.

The Telegraph is also predictably grudging in its welcome of the outstanding success of our country’s youth.

It notes the drop in the number of pupils taking traditionally hard subjects like modern languages and science and the rise in the number taking softer subjects, like religious studies, media studies and flower arranging.

And it says the 70% rise in the number of people attaining A and B-grades over the past decade is ‘unparalleled in the history of examining’.

But what of employers?

Digby Jones, director general of the CBI, says the debate about grade inflation is an annual wild goose chase.

‘Employers,’ he tells the Indy, ‘are much more worried by the real education scandal, which is the number of students who come out of the system totally unprepared for today’s world of work.’

Take-up of the new Working Your Butt Off For Bugger All Pay A-level has clearly not been as high as the Government or CBI would have liked.’

Posted: 19th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

If Ignorance Is Bliss…

‘THERE is something called the George Bush test among examiners – if the US President can get an A-grade, then the exam is too easy.

D is for Dubya

Thankfully, the standard has never been invoked because there is no test devised by man that Dubya can pass.

This is a man who in 2001 claimed that ‘border relations between Canada and Mexico have never been better’ and asked singer Charlotte Church what state Wales was in.

But when it comes to geography, Bush’s ignorance appears to be shared by many of his fellow Americans.

In 2002, a National Geographic survey discovered that 85% of young Americans couldn’t find Israel, Iraq or Afghanistan on a map. An amazing 30% couldn’t even find the Pacific.

Not that young Brits would probably fare much better – the Independent this morning publishes a map of the world and asks its readers to identify 25 countries and cities.

Anyone who guesses three correctly gets a geography A-level. Anyone who guesses four or more gets an A-grade. Anyone who fails to get any becomes President of the United States…’

Posted: 19th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Capital Punishment

‘HOWEVER much the Government tells us that we’re all getting cleverer, the evidence suggests otherwise.

New York? Milan? Tokyo?

Visit London, the capital’s tourist board, put five pictures up on its website and asked visitors to identify where they were taken.

According to the Times, fewer than one in ten respondents identified the Thames, with a quarter mistaking it for the Amazon.

More than half (including three-quarters of Londoners) believed a picture of Regent Street was of Italy. Only 1% identified a shot of Covent Garden, with more than two-thirds again opting for Italy.

And more than a quarter thought that Brick Lane was in the Indian sub-continent.

Okay, so people are not always entirely honest when it comes to online polls and besides the pictures were deliberately meant to confuse.

But it’s not the failure to identify five of London’s most famous areas that is most worrying – it is the fact that no-one seemed to work out that the pictures on a London tourist website were just possibly going to be of, er, London…’

Posted: 19th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

In Pole Position

‘WE may not run the fastest, jump the highest or finish the strongest, but we Brits are the undisputed champions at one event – shagging.

Practice makes perfect

Bend you heads, oh promiscuous youth of Britain, and receive your gold medals.

If there were a Sex Olympics, the lyrical strains of the Star-Spangled Banner or Advance Australia Fair would be drowned out by the more martial tones of God Save The Queen.

The podiums would be populated by young blokes with names like Shagger and The Fish and young women called Nikki and Kelly – all schooled in that Olympic medal factory, Club 18-30.

Forget silver medals in sports like synchronised diving and think gold in The Synchronised Wheelbarrow Race.

Never mind about dressage, cross-country and showjumping, the only equestrian event worth a candle is The Bucking Bronco.

This is where the future of this once great sporting nation lies, as the Guardian reports that single Brits train harder in these disciplines than their colleagues in any other country.

In an international survey of sexual attitudes, single Brits come out as the most promiscuous, with 59% of respondents thinking it normal to have had 10 or more sexual partners before getting married.

By contrast, only 17% of Chinese, 30% of French and 49% of Yanks say the same.

Only 42% of Brits thought it natural to stay faithful to one partner – a lower percentage than for any other country except for Germany.

However, although 70% of Chinese believe that monogamy is a natural state, 23% think extramarital affairs in which no-one gets hurt are acceptable (compared with 11% of Brits and 9% of Yanks).

All of this, combined with last week’s poll that suggested that Brits spend their holidays banging anyone they can get their hands on, is very encouraging.

But there is room for improvement. We still don’t have the same attitude for hard work as our rivals, for instance – 76% of American men (and 62% of American women) expect regular sex compared with only 66% of British men (and a disappointing 47% of British women).

If Anorak’s campaign to deliver gold for Britain in The Wheelbarrow Race at the 2012 games in London is to succeed, we all need to try harder.

No more lying back and thinking of England – get a strong chair out and start barrowing for Britain.’

Posted: 18th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Heads Of Government

‘TONY Blair has had a lot to wrestle with over the past few months and we’re not just talking about his regular Tuesday morning grapple with John ‘Two Bellies’ Prescott.

Hands up who looks a twat!

Iraq, the war against terror, foundation hospitals, the Sudan, house price inflation, what part of his back Gordon Brown is going to stick the knife in…

But the quandary the Prime Minister faces this morning is a real tricky one – to bandana or not to bandana.

Does Mr Blair follow the example of his friend and host, Italian leader Silvio Berlusconi, and wrap a handkerchief round his head or does he let his bouffant locks bounce free?

It’s a hard one all right and, if Blair is looking to the newspapers for guidance, he is out of luck.

The Independent reports that, far from looking a complete twat, Berlusconi is on the cutting edge of fashion.

Harvey Nichols spokesman explains: ‘More and more men are wearing them in the cooler bars in London. In terms of a trend, Berlusconi was spot on.’

It has been suggested that what to the Indy is a fashion coup by the Italian PM was in fact merely designed to conceal the scars of a recent hair transplant operation.

But he gets no marks from the Telegraph for style.

‘There are,’ says the paper’s Clare Coulson, ‘few things more tragic, in fashion terms at least, than a middle-aged man trying too hard to be cool.

‘As fashion crimes go, the bandana is up there with neon-trimmed shell suits and handlebar moustaches.’

And the Italian congoscenti agree. Daniela Monti, a fashion writer for Corriere della Sera, says: ‘If there is one thing you can be almost sure you won’t see on an Italian beach right now, it’s people wearing bandanas.

‘They are fuori moda – out of fashion. In other words, old hat.’

That was of course until Big Brother’s Stuart came along…’

Posted: 18th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Pees & Qs

‘GERMAN Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has no need of a bandana – he is blessed with a full head of luxuriant black hair with ne’er a trace of dye.

‘I’ve just been for a pee and I haven’t washed my hands’

So when Russian president Vladimir Putin was casting around for a present to give his friend and fellow leader, he eschewed headwear and the normal trinkets that oil international diplomacy.

Instead, he gave him a three-year-old orphan from Pavlovsk Orphanage No.4 in St Petersburg.

While Tony and Cherie Blair breed like incontinent rabbits, the Telegraph says that Herr Schroeder has collected wives rather than children.

He is step-father to his 13-year-old Klara, daughter of fourth wife Doris, and now the adopted father of little Victoria.

Living in a house of all women cannot be easy for the 60-year-old Chancellor, particularly when it comes to toilet etiquette. Does he pee standing up or sitting down?

This is apparently a big issue in Germany – as evidenced by a new £6 voice alarm (called WC Ghost) which reprimands men for standing up to deliver.

It is triggered when the seat is lifted and a voice (impersonating Herr Schroeder) issues the following reprimand.

‘Hey, stand-peeing [stehpinkeln] is not allowed here and will be punished with fines, so if you don’t want any trouble, you’d best sit down.’

The fact that the Germans have a single word for standing up to pee is discovery enough, but even better is that they have a word for those who sit down.

It’s sitzpinkler…and it means wimp.’

Posted: 18th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

John The Terrible

‘THE US Presidential election started off in the gutter and is going swiftly downhill as we get closer to the November polling day.

John Kerry, with his packed lunch

So far, it seems that the deciding issue will not be what either candidate proposes to do about the economic disaster that is looming as America’s budget deficit spirals out of control.

Nor indeed does either candidate have much idea of how to extricate American troops from Iraq without the country descending into an even greater state of anarchy.

No, the election looks like it will be decided on that oh-so-vital issue of gay marriage and which candidate is the more patriotic.

In American politics, there is no depth to which a candidate will not stoop to traduce his opponent and this year is no exception.

However, it takes a quite incredible amount of brass neck for an administration led by men who used their connections to avoid the Vietnam draft to attack John Kerry over his record on the war.

Kerry, you might remember, won three Purple Hearts during his tour of duty as a swift boat captain on the Mekong delta – although shamefully the Republicans are now questioning whether he really deserved the medals.

The closest President Bush got to Vietnam, on the other hand, was his tour of duty with the Texas National Air Guard; vice-president Dick Cheney got five deferments and once explained his non-service with the staggering line, “I had other priorities”; and attorney general John Ashcroft managed to win a mind-boggling seven deferments after his graduation in 1964.

If, even on that basis, the White House is prepared to attack Kerry on his war record, then a snippet in today’s Guardian should give them yet more ammunition.

British researchers have discovered that Kerry is related to all the royal houses in Europe – not such a bad thing you might think in a royalty-obsessed country.

Mr Bush, by contrast, can only claim kinship with Queen Elizabeth I, as well as Kings Henry III and King Charles II.

But it turns out that, through his mother Rosemary Forbes, Kerry is a distant relation of the former Tsar of Russia, Ivan The Terrible.

Which makes him a Commie, as well as a peacenik.’

Posted: 17th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Barclays Blank

‘GOOD old Mr Anorak is a true hands-off owner – the last time he interfered in an editorial decision on this esteemed publication was in 1994 and that was only to correct a minor mistake in our recipe for a perfect pink gin.

The new Krays

Mind you, he hasn’t been seen since, well, since that day, and the few of us privileged enough to visit the top floor have remarked on a rather nasty smell emanating from his office.

If only Times owner Rupert Murdoch were so happy to let his journalists get on with their job while he drank himself to death.

But we see the dirty paws of the Dirty Digger all over this morning’s front-page story about the Barclay brothers, new owners of the Telegraph and therefore Murdoch’s media rivals.

We won’t bore you with the details of a story so boring that we defy any Times reader to get beyond the third paragraph, but the gist of it is this.

Sir David and Sir Frederick have had business dealings with a Japanese entrepreneur, Tadayoshi Tzaki, who in 1998 was banned for seven years by the SFA because of his dealings with Yasuo Hamanaka, a rogue metals trader.

If those are the edited highlights, you can only imagine how mind-achingly dull the full story is – so we will spare you the full horror.

But by way of illustration we will quote the by-line in full.

‘Special report by Leo Lewis, Richard Lloyd Parry, Elichiro Tokumoto in Tokyo and Dan Sabbagh, Helen Nugent and Stewart Tendler in London.’

Tomorrow, the sames crack reporting team reveal how at the age of five the Barclay brothers were once sent to bed early with no tea and how the editor of the Independent once got a parking ticket.’

Posted: 17th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Hellas, Poor Greece

‘THE shame continues – Britain’s Olympians have as yet failed to add to the solitary medal we won at the weekend…in the synchronised diving.

Synchronised Diving (Off A Motorbike) champions

But it is as nothing compared with the embarrassment of the host nation.

The Times reports that Greek prosecutors are now considering bringing criminal charges against the disgraced sprinters Konstantinos Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou.

The preliminary enquiry into the supposed motorcycle accident last Thursday when the pair claim they were trying to get to a drugs test has been found to contain ‘contradictions’.

And Dimitros Linos, prosecutor for the Greek Supreme Court, says the pair will now face charges of deception and shaming their country.

While you mull over the idea of introducing a similar offence into Britain and wonder who would be in the dock first, we have more bad news for the Greeks.

In a competition marked by farce (including a bellyflop, someone hitting the board on the way down and even a Peter Kay-like intruder), the Greeks won their first gold medal of the games.

In synchronised diving…’

Posted: 17th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Coming A-cropo-lis

‘IT’S embarrassing – Britain’s only medal in this year’s Olympic games so far has been a silver won in the synchronised diving.

The Wheelbarrow Race has been playing to huge crowds

But the good news is that there’s been no-one in Athens over the first two days to witness our shame as one prospect after another fell by the wayside.

The Telegraph’s front page shows a lone spectator in a huge bank of seats for the weekend hockey fixture between Germany and Australia.

And the Guardian publishes similar pictures from a first-round tennis match (in which only a bellboy can be seen) and even from the Beach Volleyball Centre.

Fewer than 400 people attended the table-tennis at the 6,000-seater Galatsi Hall and the preliminary rounds of the boxing took place with just a tenth of the 8,200 seats taken.

‘Athenians,’ says the Guardian, ‘have shown a willingness to follow the home team, but seem reluctant to get behind the visitors.’

The organisers insist they will not resort to giving away tickets as happened in Seoul in 1988.

‘Attendance was not very high with less popular sports,’ said spokesman Michael Zaharatos. ‘We never hid the fact that less popular sports and preliminary rounds would not be a full house.’

This might explain why the tae-kwon-do hasn’t been playing to packed houses, but tennis is hardly a minority sport. And as for beach volleyball…

However, the Telegraph reports that the Greeks may have no choice but to hand out freebies.

‘Broadcasters,’ it says, ‘cringed as television audiences around the world saw tennis, weightlifting, hockey and gymnastics played out in half-empty stadiums.’

The only good news is that the fewer spectators there are in the Greek capital, the fewer there are to witness Britain’s Olympic debacle.

So far, cyclist Nicola Cooke has failed to win an expected medal in the road race after crashing into a barrier; swimmer Sarah Price gashed her leg on a TV camera while warming up for the 100m backstroke and sailor and Sydney gold medallist Ben Ainslie was disqualified in his second race.

But at least we’ve got that silver in synchronised diving, eh?’

Posted: 16th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The Joke’s On US

‘IF George Bush and John Kerry could only put aside their political differences, they would be a shoo-in for the gold medal in synchronised gag telling.

America’s answer to Hale & Pace

Here’s the Democratic presidential hopeful in California over the weekend sucking up to Republican governor and serial groper Arnold Schwarzenegger.

‘I have a lot in common with your governor out here,’ says Mr Kerry. ‘He and I both married up. He married a woman who is a member of the other party. I married a woman who is a member of the other party. Arnold has massive biceps. I have massive hair…’

And here’s George Dubya just a few hours later in Santa Monica.

‘We both married above ourselves,’ the President says about him and the man they call the Governator. ‘We both have trouble with the English language. We both have big biceps. Well, two out of three ain’t bad…’

Now, Jim Davidson may have to steal jokes, but you would have thought the man billed as the leader of the free world could get someone to write some new gags.

However, American politics is now officially beyond parody – as the Independent reports.

Apparently, a group of protestors turned up at the President’s Santa Monica rally dressed in evening gowns and tuxedos and calling themselves Billionaires For Bush.

Waving placards that read ‘Welfare For The Wealthy’, ‘Free The Fortune 500’ and ‘Four More Wars!’, they were allowed to mingle with the pro-Bush demonstrators because no-one was quite sure if they were serious or not.’

Posted: 16th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The Flying Squad

‘THE British bobby has never been much of one for solving crime, as countless detective stories recount, but he was always the best in the world at giving directions and telling the time.

A right constable

While American cops spent most of their time shooting the innocent and the rest shooting themselves, there was a limit to how much damage the British copper – armed with only a whistle and a bike – could do.

However, never underestimate the resourcefulness of the humble constable in this regard.

The Guardian has news of how one of the Queen’s prized paintings has been ruined by a policeman entrusted to look after it.

The unnamed officer was apparently attempting to close a window at St James’s Palace when the chair he was standing on collapsed.

‘He flung out his arm, grabbed the curtains and landed in a heap in the drapes,’ a Scotland Yard source confirmed.

‘He then saw a hole in the canvas. He still doesn’t know how he did it. He either stuffed his hand through it or a curtain hook ripped into it.’

Either way, it sounds like an open and shut case of criminal damage to us, although the Royal Family have apparently taken a lenient view.

Had it been by a more important work than that by the 19th Century painter Morley, maybe they would have been less amused.

But it does make you wonder what the Royal Family thinks of the policemen assigned to look after them.

First they usher an Osama Bin Laden lookalike into Prince William’s birthday party, then they started offering guided tours of the Queen’s quarters to undercover reporters and now they start wrecking the Royal Collection.

Perhaps, they should go back to giving directions and telling the time. We could probably still win a gold medal for that…’

Posted: 16th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

National Hearse Service

‘FORGET for a moment fat, smoking, alcoholism and lack of exercise and know that the biggest drain on the NHS resources is ill people.

Shipman’s book is now required reading for medical students

The selfish sick are costing the health service millions of pounds every year.

But, as the Independent reports in a small article on its second page, medical workers fed-up with treating the ill are taking matters into their own hands.

Researchers writing in the British Medical Journal estimate that 40,000 deaths (or ‘adverse events’ in medical speak) in NHS hospitals are down to medical errors.

As the Times says on its front page, this means that one in ten patients admitted to the NHS each year will die at the hands of the NHS.

This is encouraging news for an overstretched service keen to free up hospital beds and slash waiting lists.

And what Dr Harold Shipman begun with such gusto, his colleagues in white coats, filthy hands and rusty scalpels are taking on a stage further.

And GPs like the efficient Shipman are still doing their bit.

A charity called Action Against Medical Accidents tells the Times how the latest figures do not even take into account the work being done in GPs’ surgeries.

That they do not, but there is additional evidence that not all plots to streamline the NHS go to plan. Things can yet be improved.

Take the case of Australian Pat Skinner.

When most people show the folks back home their holiday snaps, they’re of Buckingham Palace, a British bobby and Japanese tourists walking across the shot.

For Pat, the lasting memory is the 4×2 glossy of a pair of scissors left inside his body after surgery.

This is clearly an outrage, and had the NHS not done a stock take, Pat might have managed to slip out of the country with some much needed NHS goods secreted in his pelvis.

But the NHS knows a chancer when they see one and recalled Pat and duly retrieved the scissors.

What happened then to Pat is not revealed. His story ends there.

As such, his holiday snap, reproduced in the paper, should serve as a warning to all that the NHS will not stand for anyone who abuses the system.’

Posted: 13th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Cannon Fodder

‘HAVING saved a fortune in patient aftercare by killing them by the thousand each year, the Government’s drive towards a more efficient use of public funds continues apace.

With airbags fitted as standard

The Telegraph says that five years ago, the Ministry of Defence reached the decision that it would save £90m of the £105bn Eurofighter/Typhoon aircraft project by not having a cannon on board.

The British version of the European jet would not feature this unnecessary and dangerous device. Instead, it would have nothing.

The British Typhoon – like a cheaper model of the same car – would look the same as the top-of-the-range version, but just have a few buttons that did nothing.

The only problem is that, without the gun, the plane’s aerodynamics are affected. And that means something was needed to replace the missing cannon.

Ideally, this something would weigh the same and be shaped just like the declined optional extra.

Lead and concrete weights were tried but neither worked. What was needed was something better suited to the job…like a cannon.

So the MoD ordered a terrific new cannon which looked exactly like the rubbish one they didn’t want at a cost of, er, £90m.

But the even better news is that more money has been saved since these new guns will not come with any bullets…and that will save the MoD a whopping £2.5m.

But why stop there? Why not just fly the jets into the country’s crowded hospitals and so save the country a fortune.

Come on, guys, the taxpayer’s suffered enough…’

Posted: 13th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Veil Of Tears

‘THAT’S not rain outside your window – those are tears from the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain.

Fears for Tears

The Guardian says that the Circle Of Tears is back up and running.

You can just make it out through the hole in the fence, through which they who come to splash sneaked yesterday.

But one park warden was not having it.

‘It’s not open until the 20th,’ he shouted, showing a horrible lack of respect for our dearly departed princess.

‘Excuse me,’ he went on, ‘could you please just imagine there’s an invisible line in the grass there – you cannot step over it.’

To cross the line would be to step into another dimension, to cross over into the afterlife. Something one visitor was keen to emphasise.

John Loughrey is typical of millions of us. Every week, he’s come to the memorial.

‘Diana is a big star in the universe that keeps expanding,’ says he, putting into words what so many of us think.

‘The people keep coming here. Eventually, they will have no choice but to fence it off altogether.’

Or just turn off the tap…’

Posted: 13th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Haway The Clones

‘READING today’s news gives us the sensation that Britain is embroiled in a macabre race against the clock.

‘Blaaaair’

The Times tells us that British leaders are prime targets in an al-Qaeda assassination plot. So too are leaders in Pakistan and the USA.

Indeed, any leaders, politicians, statesmen and, one supposes, newsagents, gardeners, flower arrangers and Big Brother contestants the vile al-Qaeda doesn’t like are marked for murder.

While this is no great revelation (and not exactly a scoop for the Pakistani security services that came upon the information), the fact that such news comes on the day when the papers are awash with stories of human cloning troubles us.

The Telegraph reports that yesterday the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority gave British scientists the go-ahead to clone human embryos for the first time.

Next week, a team of experts at Newcastle University will follow the Telegraph’s six-point guide (with pictures) entitled, “How It Works”.

(We must point out to team leader Professor Alison Murdoch that the paper has crucially failed to print Part 2 of its guide – the part that warns scientists not to use skin from Newcastle United football fans on account of it being permanently frozen through exposure to sub-zero temperatures.)

But no matter, because the Independent has its own SEVEN-point plan to replicate human life, which includes an image of the final product of this cutting-edge science – a small baby with pert ears, eyebrows raised to the point of incredulity and a smug grin.

No it’s, not Dolly the sheep. This one’s called Tony…’

Posted: 12th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Fun And Games

‘SUCH are the advancements in human cloning that can we really be sure the figure who yesterday arrived in Greece for the Olympic Games is George Bush?

‘Who wants chilli sauce?’

Scientists could even miss out the odd chromosome and still replicate the leader of the free world with some ease.

The Telegraph’s story of how the creature that passes for the American president will be staying aboard the yacht of Greek billionaire Spyros Latsis is of interest.

However, the more likely place where leading-edge science and the Olympics will collide is on the athletics track.

Such is the high level of cheating, the feeling is that, if all drugs takers were removed from the sporting arena, the only person left within the cauldron would be the bloke who raises the red and white flags by the long jump sandpit, and even he’s a borderline case.

But let’s not dwell on the negatives – let’s be higher, faster, stronger, and run like Ben Johnson on speed…because the news is that the stadium’s going to flood.

The Times has happened upon some information about what we can expect when the Games opens tomorrow.

Lois Jacobs, a British events expert, is the brains behind the £21m opening ceremony, in which gallons of water will be allowed to flood part of the Olympic stadium and a fireball will race across the surface.

Those still waiting by London’s Tower Bridge for the Millennium River of Fire will be excused for snorting a cynical chuckle.

But Jacobs is confident that she will succeed where four years ago Ken Livingstone and a man with a match and some kerosene failed.

But Jacobs has more worries than just the fire – indeed, anyone planning to be in the stadium when it floods and then catches light should think about their will and the hereafter.

The Times hears from an unnamed Albanian who worked on the stadium, and his words are less than reassuring.

“We have been praying it does not rain because we ran out of concrete half way through,” says the insider. “There is more sand in that stadium than concrete.”

And since he doesn’t mean the aforesaid long jump pit, the concern is that, once flooded, the entire stadium will slip off its foundations and gently roll out to sea.

And if it crashes into George Bush’s boat, causing it to sink, don’t worry – there’ll be another Bush along in a minute…’

Posted: 12th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Order Of The Boot

‘IN a society obsessed with paper qualifications, it was only going to be matter of time…and now it has arrived.

If Germany had won the war…

The Guardian says that Little Hitlers (aka wheel clampers) are being offered the chance to take a BTEC in vehicle immobilisation.

Little Hitlers will be instructed in ways to “handle situations where conflict might arise”.

Before, during and after the Little Hitlers have attached the infamous Denver Boot to a parked car, tethered dog, wheelchair-bound pensioner and, as in Southampton, a minibus dropping disabled volunteers off for a street collection, Little Hitlers will be taught to communicate.

Having studied the 30-hour training course, Little Hitlers will be polite and efficient as they launch your car onto the back of a truck.

Goebbels and Co. will listen attentively while they stick a green metal shoe on your prized motor.

They will smile as they drive away, bowing even as they present you with an extortionate bill and remind you that, if you do not pay, your car will be taken to a field and shot.’

Posted: 12th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Testing Times

‘ANOTHER year and another E minus for the shambolic Department For Education And Skills.

Q1: ‘Would you like an ‘A’, an ‘A-star’ or an ‘AA’?’

We had hoped that the DfES would have learned from its past mistakes, tried harder, done better and paid more attention in class.

But once more the signs are that we have been talking to a brick wall – either Education Secretary Charles Clarke and his witless minions don’t want to learn or else they are unable to.

So today we read in the Telegraph how the department has failed this year’s Key Stage 3 English papers.

Whether or not the 600,000 14-year-olds who sat the exam fared better or worse than their masters we can only guess at because the DfES tells us that the data it gathered from the tests were “not fit for purpose”.

To put that phrase in plain English, the DfES has raised its hand and told ‘Miss’ that it has made a complete hash of marking the papers.

As a result, “hundreds” of schools have complained about haphazard and inconsistent marking of the exams, leading to the DfES’s decision to cancel the publication of this year’s results.

The Times reports that the Secondary Heads Association has complained about “haywire” marking. As of now, 100,000 of those 600,000 papers are “under review”.

This means that experts in the English language are spending time that could be put to better use remarking papers that count for pretty much nothing in the wider world.

And one thing these keepers of the language could be doing is teaching English to people who want to become UK citizens.

The Times says that the Home Office wants all new Britons to speak the language of their adopted country, but has failed to specify who will check what their level of English is.

New rules mean that migrants will be required to have reached Level Three of the English For Speakers Of Other Languages (ESOL) course.

Meanwhile, anyone who claims they can already speak the language will have to produce written confirmation that they have a qualification in English from a person approved by the Home Office.

And since no-one has been approved, as yet, and no ESOL courses have begun, it means none of the wannabe Brits can officially pass the test.

Which is great news for those British patriots who don’t like immigrants. And totally in keeping with the Government’s education policy…’

Posted: 11th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Band Of Brothers

‘MIGRANTS waiting to pass their citizenship tests in English are faced with a problem.

‘And as the great Smokey said…’

Do they learn the English language from watching TV shows like EastEnders – and in so doing begin speaking as badly as most of the people they hope to live among.

Or do they strive to speak like the Queen – and so stand out from the barely literate masses like the proverbial sore thumb?

The new arrivals might prefer to learn English from the radio, or even CB radio, which, the Times reports, is set for a comeback.

Citizen’s Band radio is not as popular as it was in the days before it was legalised 23 years ago.

Back then, hundreds of thousands of bootleggers (illegal users) communicated under false names (handles) over CB.

But things are set to change as Ofcom, the media regulator, yesterday announced plans to legalise the broadcast of religious sermons over the CB airwaves.

Until now, religious figures wanting to broadcast their messages over CB had to break the law.

“Churches were buying CB radio kits, putting [them] next to the minister, and Sellotaping down the broadcast key,” says a spokesperson for Ofcom.

“It may have been great for those who couldn’t make the walk across country, but they weren’t supposed to be doing it.”

But now, the newspaper says, it’s a big ten-four to the cleric in the pulpit, who sill soon be able legally to deliver his words to those unable to attend church.

And geeks, drugs dealers, radio hams, asylum seekers, truckers…’

Posted: 11th, August 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment