Jottings from previous page
she intended as a dig at the school management team . However , her reading list reached a whole new audience when the school library was selected as the setting for Prime Minister Boris Johnston to deliver a chat to Year 11 pupils at the end of August – his socalled “ mutant algorithm ” speech .
It wasn ’ t long before Tweets began to flood social media detailing the titles in front of which Boris was standing . These ranged through The Subtle Knife , Glass Houses , The Resistance and Betrayed , to Farenheit 451 which is about a society where books are burned .
However , the title which drew most attention from the Twitterati was proudly displayed immediately behind Boris : a copy of Roald Dahl ’ s 1980 children ’ s tale , The Twits .
Boys in Blue
The Deputy Commissioner of London ’ s Metropolitan Police has supported officers who stopped a car in which the black Labour MP Dawn Butler was travelling . She used social media to complain loudly , accusing them of racial profiling ... until Sir Steve House pointed out that the car ’ s windows were tinted so that the colour of her ethnicity was not visible to the officers when they pulled the vehicle in . He added , “ The increasingly routine trial by social media is unfair and damaging to individual officers .”
Derbyshire Police came in for some stick last month after releasing photos of two people who they want to question in connection with a racist attack on a 15- year-old boy in late June . They appealed to the public to identify the pair from images captured on a security camera which were posted on Facebook .
The public were not immediately aided in this task by the Force ’ s decision to blank out the faces of the suspects because of their ages , a procedure referred to as “ anonymising .” However , investigating officers believed that their clothing was “ distinctive ” enough to identify them , but were mocked by some who suggested that the pictures , “ looks like any other day in JD Sports .”
Four letter words
The UK ’ s top intelligence and security agency , GCHQ , has a prestigious history and is home to some of the finest minds in the country . Every week , it publishes a brain teaser on its Twitter account to test the brains of the British public .
But recently , it all went spectacularly and embarrassingly wrong . The challenge was to crack the code in the sequence C-U-T-S-I-U-N . The list , as you instantly noticed , consists of the fourth letter in the name of each of the planets moving outwards from the sun .
Unfortunately , when the answer was revealed , only four of the eight planets were listed - Mercury , Venus , Uranus and Neptune - and the sequence of their fourth letters spelled out a very rude four-letter word . No , we ’ re not going to tell you which word . ( But you can work it out ...)
GCHQ deleted the Tweet within 20 minutes after the error was noticed , and apologised .
However , the message didn ’ t get through to a group of parrots at Lincolnshire ’ s Wildlife Park which have had to be removed from public areas for telling visitors to ... er ... go away . The African Greys also used uncomplimentary language to describe a portly female keeper and her parentage , but luckily she found it amusing .
Apparently , the birds are encouraged by the reactions they get from visitors , so when one naughty four letter word elicits laughter , they will repeat it over and over . The culprits were all donated by their owners during lockdown ... which speaks volumes ...
Spare a thought for …
… whoever is Head of Maps at ITV after a graphic of northern England screened during This Morning on July 31 transposed Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire . But they did get Lancashire in the right place , so one out of three in the geography test , then .
... football manager Stuart Kettlewell who recently signed a goalkeeper on loan from Celtic . He now has three goalkeepers , Ross Doohan , Ross Laidlaw and Ross Munro , plus midfielder Ross Draper and striker Ross Stewart . Stuart is the manager of Scottish Premiership side Ross County .
... a tree which has been blamed for a spectacular failure by Newport City Council . They wanted to erect a lamppost to light a traffic roundabout and decided to place it immediately beneath an 18 metre high London plane tree , the thick leaves of which totally block the lamppost ’ s illuminating efforts . A council spokesman said the issue is not the positioning of the lamppost “ but the tree .” ( Of course it is , dear ...)
... Scott Renwick , a core training sergeant with Northamptonshire Police , who was instructing new recruits on how to use handcuffs . The fire brigade had to be called to cut him free after he demonstrated by putting the handcuffs on himself , and then was unable to get them off .
... Hell ’ s Basement , a Canadian brewery , which has just found out that the name of its New Zealand Pale Ale , “ huruhuru ”, is not the Māori word for “ feather ” as they had always believed . It is in fact a slang term for pubic hair .
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