Can't You Resolve This Yourselves?

Stef Reid grew up as a sports-obsessed child, dreaming of playing rugby internationally. But on the eve of her 16th birthday, her life changed forever. Severe propeller lacerations from a horrific boat accident left doctors with no choice but to amputate her right foot.

I didn't want to give up on my goal just because I was an amputee, but life is constantly changing and we have to update our goals instead of forcing them to work in a reality that no longer exists," she says.

And by ‘update our goals’ she means whine about what companies choose to sell. 

Now she's campaigning for big brands such as Nike, Adidas and Puma to sell single shoes rather than pairs.

Surely that should be ‘as well as’ ? 

In part it's about cost - high-end running shoes cost around £200, and when she was competing she only needed one but had to buy two, meaning she wasted hundreds of pounds on shoes she never wore.

Well, maybe set up a swap with someone your size who needs the other one, and recoup some cost? 

But her biggest motivation - is the principle. Many of the big brands proudly display models with blades in their shop windows, but don't sell shoes individually for athletes like Stef.

Stef isn't alone. While she wears two shoes with her day-to-day prosthetic, many other amputees don't.

So she DOESN'T waste money on the other shoe after all!  

And beyond disability, thousands of people whose feet are different sizes are also affected by having to buy two shoes of the same size rather than two singles.

Oh, FFS! Why does the world always have to change things that have worked well for hundreds of years for every whinging minority? 

You Made Your Bed...

...why should the UK government help you when you no longer want to lie in it?

Jennifer's uncle, Donald Gillies, said the government should have done more to help the family and others trapped in Sudan to get to safety, as people have been told they must make their own way to the airbase.

'Without a shadow of a doubt the government should have done more, it was, in my opinion, a dereliction of duty,' he said.

'The way the diplomats fled the country. The military went in to their houses to take them and their children out but the normal civilians are seen as of lesser importance.'

He labelled the government's communication to British citizens 'chaos' and said that people should have been warned about potential conflict in the country, as US citizens had prior to the fighting breaking out.

So, did it creep up on her? Did she fly in for a holiday without scoping the place out? Reader, not exactly. She's lived there fifteen years... 

The English teacher moved to the north African country after meeting Mohamed as a student in Glasgow over 15 years ago.

If she's lived there for that long, the warning signs that the country was headed downhill were presumably ignored. Why is that the UK government's fault, or responsibility? 

Now, That's A Community!

Omar Awada, 47, said: “He tried to run away but the local guys managed to catch him and they beat him until the police came.

“It was like Tom And Jerry, they were on him right and left, the guys”, Mr Awada said.

A shoplifter? A phone thief? 

One man, said to have knocked the alleged attacker down with a bicycle, was described as a “hero” by a witness. The witness, who did not want to be identified, said: “We heard screaming, we came out, the guy had a knife, he was stabbing the woman repeatedly, maybe five or six times.

“They used anything in their hands to stop him.

“When people chased him he tried to escape and scare people with the knife, but we had one hero who put him down on the ground. He hit him with his bike.”

Good going! Finally, people are realising that 'leave it to the police' isn't a viable strategy anymore.