News of the week

I was reading the local paper this morning, over a refreshing breakfast* of bacon, eggs and baked beans.  Always full of interesting things, the local paper.

If The Framley Examiner went bust, I reckon my local paper would be in the running to replace it. 

Top headlines this week:

Town Hall Tidy Up.  An in-depth expose about how the town hall needed to be tidied up.  A start has been made by a group of volunteers who have already "removed rubbish from offices...and cleaned the carpets."    Phew.  I hope next week we hear about the windows being washed and the bins emptied. 

Advice From Local Travel Expert.  A local travel agent is giving people advice about, well, travel.  I wonder if Deanna Troi is a reporter on this paper.  "Captain, I am sensing the bleedin' obvious..."

Yes to Flats.  Some flats will be built.  I was wondering about that myself.  This is in addition to the regular feature on planning decisions, where we all get to read about who had their planning application approved  and who had theirs rejected.  This usually leads to conversations with the neighbours along the lines of "Well, I thought they were pushing it, asking for a new conservatory...that's a listed building, isn't it?" and endless speculation about why they need a garage that size anyway**.  Oh, and it's about bloody time those trees were cut down, they're dangerous. 

Burglary Halts Broadcast is one of those stories that you have to read, just to understand the headline.  Sadly, it wasn't about the local radio station DJ being stolen away mid-show, leaving a lot of dead air time until he was found dumped in a garden half a mile away.  No, much more mundane.  The transmitter was stolen.  Much less exciting, but probably harder to replace than a DJ.  And easier to sell for scrap. 

Longleat Keeper Becomes Mum To Otter Pups led me down a line of thought that was rather unsavoury.  Who's the father?  Will she be breast feeding?  Was it a water birth?  Will her child support be paid in fish? 

It turns out, on closer inspection of the story, that she is a foster mother.  Aaaaah.  That makes more sense.  Too weird, otherwise, even for Wiltshire. 

Talking of weird...

Warminster, The Final Frontier details the recent Weird Weekend, held in town, where people who are keen on UFOs, the paranormal, space aliens, the X Files, anal probing*** and ghosts all get together to discuss it.  I imagine there are a lot of unresolved issues.  Nobody can ever say definitively "Well, I KNOW this is true."  Must make arguments go on forever.  There are photographs of the convention goers, most of them clutching self-published books about their pet subjects and looking cheerful. 

There are several pages of exam results, because, as we all know, names sell local papers.  My favourite story this week is:

Cow Trapped In Ditch.  Yes, it's a headline.  Once I stopped laughing and actually read the whole article, I learned that the unfortunate animal "was stuck upside down in a ditch near the Co-Op store." 

Upside down?  Was someone reversing it, and got the back hoof stuck in the ditch, and overturned it?  Why was it near the Co-Op? Had it nipped out for some milk?  Unlikely, I'd suggest. 

The story reports that several fire crews came to rescue it, using a sling to get it out.  Not though, the kind of sling where they fling it into the next county.  More like a hoist, I suppose.  But the best part?  It was trapped in a "four foot ditch".  A two foot ditch could have trapped a chicken, maybe, or even a person, but a four foot ditch?  That's for quadrupeds only.

I love living here.



*Well, lunch really, but I feel less slovenly if I pretend it was breakfast

**Unless it's our mate who is assembling an aircraft in his - we all know he needs a big garage for that.

***Aliens always seem to do that, apparently.  Why?