Free Barmy Britain by Jack Crossley Page A

Boycat.
    Daily Telegraph
    Under the headline W HY Y OU R EALLY C AN’T C ALL YOUR C AT K EITH , Christopher Howse informs us of some oddball monikers humans have given to their cats.
    Thomas Hardy had one called Kiddleywinkempoops, and many a poor cat is called Astrophe and Aclysm (or anything else that begins with ‘cat’).
    Florence Nightingale had Bismarck and Disraeli.
    Jock and Margate belonged to Winston Churchill.
    Ernest Hemingway had Fats, Crazy Christian and Friendless Brother.
    It is said that Thomas Hardy’s ashes were to be buried at Westminster Abbey and his heart in his Dorset village. The heart was left for a few minutes in the kitchen in a tea towel. His cat ate it. The tale is denied, but the story will not go away.
    Daily Telegraph
    Strange names for animals reminded Marjorie Stratton, of Chippenham, Wiltshire, of a chap who had a horse called Business. His wife was able to reply truthfully to demanding phones calls that her husband was away on Business when he was enjoying a day on his hunter.
    Daily Telegraph
    It’s not mice that elephants are afraid of… it’s bees. Despite their thick skins and size advantage, elephants turn tail and flee at the sound of a swarm of bees according to research in Kenya.
    Guardian
    A Huddersfield man has had to change his mobile phone ring tone five times because Billy, his blue-fronted Amazon parrot, learns to copy it. Billy waits until his owner is out of the room before pretending to be an incoming call – then laughs when he dashes in to answer it.
    Daily Telegraph
    A car thief had a swift change of heart when he was confronted by a Great Dane called Diesel which had been asleep in the back of the car. As the thief drove off Diesel – nine stone in weight and six foot tall on his hind legs – sat up and the driver jerked to a halt and fled. The car owner said that his car did not have an alarm. ‘Who needs one when you’ve got the Hound of the Baskervilles in your back seat?’
    The Times
    This reminded Richard Littlejohn of the man who parked his Mondeo near Anfield football ground. He was approached by a gang of scallies offering to mind his car for a fiver.
    ‘No need,’ he said. ‘My Rottweiler’s in the back’.
    To which the response was: ‘Can he put out fires?’
    Daily Mail
    In February 2008 the Daily Mail carried a picture of Shirley Neeley’s fridge full of hibernating tortoises. Mrs Neeley, who runs the Jersey-based Tortoise Sanctuary, said: ‘It’s much easier to maintain a constantly cool temperature with a fridge than it is with our ever-warming climate.’
    One night a guest went in search of wine and was stunned to find the main contents of the fridge were alive and had four legs. But there WAS also a bottle of wine because, said Mrs Neeley, ‘It helps to stabilise the temperature’.
    Daily Mail

CHAPTER 10
NANNY STATE
    Clown ordered to stop blowing bubbles for children…
    A Premium Bond holder rang to give them his new address. ‘Sorry, sir, we cannot take it over the telephone for security reasons’, they said. ‘We will have to send you a form.’
    The bond holder gave the address to which the form should be sent… his new address. The Premium Bond people arranged to send a form to his new address so that he could fill it in to tell them his new address.
    Sunday Telegraph
    Someone put up the idea of withdrawing packets of ten cigarettes to discourage teenagers from smoking.
    Maureen McKinlay, of Cardiff, responded: ‘Brilliant. When packets of five were withdrawn I bought ten and increased my consumption almost overnight.’
    Daily Telegraph
    Clown Barney Baloney has had to stop blowing bubbles for children after being warned that youngsters might slip on the bubbles’ residue.
    Said Barney: ‘The fun is being taken out of children’s lives by bureaucracy. Kids eat ice cream and jelly and that gets on the floor and is slippy. Do they want them to stop eating those?’
    Daily Telegraph
    When a Health and Safety Officer