Reading last Saturday's Daily Telegraph I had to check the date wasn't April Fools' Day. On page 3 we see that the scum at English Heritage bought and upgraded a mansion house for over £7 million and are now selling it for around £4.5 million. This quango employs thousands of people to spend taxpayers' hard earned cash on pointless projects.
Another page tells us of a plan to stop the branding of cigarettes. All packets will be printed in plain black and white. I remember when I was a youngster going through a spell of collecting fag packets - the red and white Craven A packs, green Woodbine that you could buy in packs of 5, Camel, Senior Service, Kensitas and literally hundreds of others. As another anti-smoking initiative is to put cigarettes under the counter instead of on open display I don't see how the pack design makes any difference. Just means that shops may have a problem finding space and their staff will be bending down rooting in dark cupboards. No longer will a customer be able to spot the brand he/she wants and point it out - "Look, it's up there on that shelf near the right, the dark red packs".
On page 5 we read that a taxi driver has been unable to renew his licence because his command of grammar doen's stretch to the proper use of apostrophes. He seems to think that knowing his way round Bournemouth and being able to handle late-night drunks is a more important skill but the jobsworths at Bournemouth soon put him right there.
And at the other end of the UK at Falkirk in Scotland a major retail development worth over £100 million has been delayed for 25 weeks because a janitor claims to have seen a great crested newt - the furthest north such a creature has ever been recorded. In spite of an intensive search no-one else has been able to find either the creature itself or even a suitable habitat for it to live. Scottish National Heritage are on the case spending taxpayers' money to ensure that evolution does not take it's natural course.
When I got to page 10 and saw the headline I thought common sense had won in the end. "Somebody had to face the firing squad" it declared. But no, it was another cruel joke. English Heritage, Bournemouth Council, SNH, and the smoking police are still alive and kicking.
