“You will be charged £20 per week for
storage to Brighton and Hove City
Council in respect of the cost of making
enquiries, serving this notice and looking
after the property adequately,” read the
note, adding, “If not collected within 28
days, it will be disposed of.” The council
has since defended seizing the dangerous
mat by claiming it was taken during
“additional safety checks” following the
Grenfell Tower tragedy.
A stall holder at Loughborough market
has lost her licence to trade there after
she refused to stop selling “offensive”
items. The Council took the action after
Tina Gayle refused to withdraw coffee
mugs depicting the ancient order of the
Knights Templar. Tina claims says the
council has confirmed to her, after initial
reticence, that a single complaint was
received about the Knights Templar
treatment of Muslims during the
Crusades.
Boys in Blue
A dozen burly coppers in black fatigues,
baseball caps and high-viz jackets were
rushed to an address in Kirby Misperton,
North Yorkshire, to challenge a potential
criminal. She was 79-year-old Jackie
Brooks who, with husband Jim, had set
up a trestle table where they were
offering tea and cakes to campaigners
protesting about fracking. The officers
said they were concerned about her
safety. She said they were staying put.
The police won and Jackie and Jim were
forced to leave. Nothing, not even a
cuppa, gets in the way of Elfin Safety.
Jobsworth of the month
November’s award goes to an
enforcement officer who tried to clamp
a giant dumper truck being used in
Basingstoke, Hampshire, by gas engineer
Darren Killick. He had hired the truck
and had dug holes in a the road to reach
the gas pipes when the officer ordered
him not to use the vehicle because it was
untaxed. Unfortunately, the truck was
blocking the driveway of a disabled lady,
so trapping her inside her own home.
Darren was warned that if he moved the
truck sitting on the ripped up road
surface, he would be fined £1,000. “He
was a real jobsworth,” said Darren who
lost a day’s work because of the official.
NSL Limited, working on behalf of the
DVLA, later apologised and said the
officer would be “retrained,” which we
assume is DVLA-speak for “trained.”
Medical Corner
Doctors thought a 47-year-old postman
from Preston in Lancashire who
27
complained of a persistent cough might
have cancer, as he was a long-term
smoker whose X-rays showed a spot on
his lung. However, when they removed
the mass, they found a “long-lost
Playmobil traffic cone” which the patient
had received as a gift on his seventh
birthday. He told doctors he had
regularly swallowed the small pieces as a
child and believed he had inhaled the
toy. After it was removed, the man’s
cough almost disappeared and his other
symptoms improved.
We don’t often comment on Icelandic
politics in this column, but this month is
an exception because the country’s third
largest political party has been in the
news. One of their MPs, Eva Pandora
Baldursdottir, reported she had been
injured by her one-year-old daughter
who had scratched her eye in a moment
of over excitement. So, she added, she
was forced to wear some sort of
protection while it healed.
Anyone who didn’t know this must have
been bemused when she then appeared
on a TV debate last month wearing an
eye patch. Ms Baldursdottir is a member
of the Pirate Party.
Continued overleaf