She Should Be Easy To Catch...

...because looking at her picture, she won't be spending too much time on the run:

Wendy Lewis, 32, of Princess Street, Blackpool, was due to be sentenced at the town's magistrates court earlier.

Lewis was last week convicted in her absence of outraging public decency.

As she arrived at the court, she swore at the veterans - some of whom called her "disgusting" - but left the building before the hearing began. A warrant has been issued for her arrest.

In fact, she looks like the word 'run' is somewhat unfamiliar. Not, however, the words 'pies' or 'chips'...

OK, Who Can We Charge With Wasting Public Money?

Sorry, that should be 'more public money':

BBC television presenter Ray Gosling is to be charged with wasting police time after claiming on air that he smothered his terminally ill lover.

I mean, seriously, what's the point of this?

Is it disappointment that it turned out not to be true and they can't lay more serious charges? Do they believe a judge is going to impose a fine equivalent to the cost of the investigation?

No, Not Another New 'Health Risk'...

Headline in today's 'Indy':



Wow! Now that's what I call a computer virus!

The answer, of course, is 'Well, no. But taking his eyes off the road and subsequently crashing almost certainly did'...

Making A Drama Out Of A Crisis….

Police, responding to a "domestic" incident, had been attacked by a Staffordshire bull terrier as they walked up the path to the house.

The dog went for the policewoman, biting her stomach and arm.

A terrifying thing to happen, and it could have been much worse…

One of her colleagues drove off the dog with an incapacitating spray and the dog was cornered in the house in Newcastle Gardens.

Whew! Dog secured, all’s well (or at least as well as it could be), owner in a whole heap of trouble when she returns, job done, right?

Ah, no:

Colin Northcott, head keeper of Dartmoor Zoo at Sparkwell, was called to a house in Whitleigh.

Wait, what..?

Mr Northcott said: "When I got there, the dog was in a pretty ferocious state.

"A vet provided the necessary drugs and I went into the house with the police."

He said members of the police dogs team, wearing "bite" suits, helmets with full visors and carrying riot shields, had the dog cornered in the kitchen.

The dog was snarling and jumping up, trying to attack the police officers.

Well, hardly surprising, given that you are now in its territory and antagonising it!

What’s wrong with simply ensuring the door (or pet door) is securely closed and waiting until the owner gets back or is found?

The dog has been seized by police and will be assessed to establish whether it is a banned breed.

Police were considering an application for a destruction order of the dog.

Shouldn’t have any trouble, given the initial act was unprovoked.

Officers were visiting the Whitleigh house after reports of a disturbance in the street at about noon on Monday.

Neighbours said the incident lasted about five hours.

Now here’s where sloppy reporting comes in – do they mean the initial domestic (in which case, good response times there!) or this incident, which seems to have taken up an extraordinary amount of police time and resources?

Kayleigh Meara, 21, who lives in Newcastle Gardens, said: "I left home at about noon and that's when I first saw one police car and a riot van speeding up Shrewsbury Avenue.

"I came back at about 3.30pm and there were two riot vans and three police cars and most of the police were standing around in the street."

Well, that’s helpful. Good time to be a burglar in Plymouth…

Police first called in the RSPCA to deal with the dog.

An RSPCA spokesman said: "We didn't have anybody on duty with the relevant equipment or training."

Translation: ‘We didn’t fancy getting our nuts chewed off – unless there was a guaranteed TV appearance in it!’.

A 33-year-old local woman was arrested on suspicion of having a dog dangerously out of control in a public place. She was later released on police bail until September 16.

Can’t wait to find out what the real story behind this was…

Huh..?!?

Now, I know why Tesco make such huge profits:



We thought 'OK, well, maybe some of the others are more expensive'. And the first of the others that we saw was the Gaymers cider at ... £3.

No saving, but at least, no loss...

Oh, well. At least there were no obvious spelling errors. As WoaR pointed out on that thread, their arithmatic is indeed suspect.

Another Candidate For Sterilisation…

Following on from Al Jahom’s lucky finds amidst the underclass, we have this sterling example of fatherhood:

A two-year boy shot in the neck with an air rifle by his father was critical but stable in hospital today.

Blake Lowing was injured when Jamie Lowing, 29, accidentally fired the gun at him in his family home in Lincolnshire.

Pity he wasn’t aiming it at his own groin instead of his offspring. Now, that would have been amusing!

Mr Lowing, who was arrested after Monday's incident, was released on bail to be by his son's bedside, Lincolnshire Police said.

It is thought he fired the gun without knowing it was loaded.

/facepalm

As QuietMan points out, you always assume they are loaded and act accordingly!

Playing Fast And Loose With The Figures…

Ah, a morning isn’t complete without Gary Younge’s grinning mug at the top of yet another article pushing the Open Borders agenda, is it?

When it comes to media coverage of immigration the facts that are given the floor, the context in which they are interpreted and the conclusions that then emerge make rational debate, let alone effective policy making, nigh impossible.

And does that have anything to do with the progressives insistence that any such discussion is ‘racist’?

No, that would be crazy talk, eh Gary?

The problem is not that the facts are selective – all facts are selected somehow and for some purpose. But they are selected poorly and with the specific intent of creating panic, fostering resentment and stoking xenophobia.

Whew! All that?

And it works. A Mori poll in 2002 revealed that more than a third of the country believed there were too many immigrants. It's not difficult to see why.

Because there are too many immigrants? Particularly in their areas?

Well, no. It’s all an optical illusion, according to Gary:

The public's mean estimation of the proportion of immigrants in Britain is 23%; the actual figure was around 4%.

Ah, yes, Comparing numbers with area of the UK (including all the farmland plus uninhabitable rocky bits, naturally!) to come up with a harmless sounding figure to ‘prove’ that your opponents are all racist.

Completely overlooking the fact that that 4% is almost entirely in already overcrowded inner and outer cities…

The rest of the article is basically a rant against the media for whipping up prejudice against migrants, and not worth the photons it took to publish on CiF.

Unemployment is important and people's anxieties about immigration should be addressed.

That, Gary, is the last thing you and your ilk will ever allow. You aren’t sure of the answers you’ll get…

But their prejudices needn't be pandered to and can't be confronted on the basis of wanton misinterpretations.

You mean, like the one you just tried?

The Market Always Prevails…

Domino's Pizza, which was among the first fast food outlets in Britain to serve halal-only takeaways, has ditched the menu after poor sales.

Well, someone sure screwed up in the research department!

The chain enraged customers 18 months ago by completely removing pork from its pizzas in favour of halal-only meat at its branch in Hall Green, Birmingham.

But the pizza firm have been forced into an embarrassing U-turn back to their original menu due to poor sales.

So, either they grossly underestimated the number of Muslims who would flock to Domino’s once it went halal-only, or they grossly underestimated the number of non-Muslims who decided to boycott the place in retaliation.

It’s interesting that no-one seems to want to find out which it is, isn’t it?

Domino's Pizza have also reverted to conventional menus at the other two branches where they trialled halal-only menus for Muslim customers in Bradford and Blackburn.

So this wasn’t just a local ‘blip’…

In a letter to customers from its branch in Hall Green, which caters for surrounding Birmingham areas including Sparkhill, Moseley and Sparkbrook, Dominos explained: "I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the store is no longer serving a halal menu.

"Dominos Pizza Group decided to trial a halal menu in Hall Green and two other stores in 2009, but it hasn't had the impact expected and the company has reluctantly decided to return to a conventional Domino's menu in all three stores.

"This has not been an easy decision for us and we are sorry for an inconvenience."

‘Reluctantly’..? Why would they be reluctant to decide to stop losing any more money? Why would it not be ‘an easy decision’?

Oh, well. It’s not like they could have forseen this thou…

Oh:

The forced imposition of halal-only meat at a Burton fast food outlet has now ended.

KFC, in Middleway Park, finished its nationwide trial of selling halal only meat to its customers in Burton yesterday, after a reported dip in sales.

Waaaah! I Want My Playground!

Plans to build a new play area in Castle Park, Colchester, may still go ahead, even if the Government pulls the plug on funding.

Oh, really? And what plans are those, then?

Bob Penny, Colchester Council’s parks and recreation manager, said the council was trying to clarify the effect of the announcement on plans for two local playgrounds.

He said: “The park at Castle Park is in the design stage and we are seeking proposals from six different companies for designs for the play area.

“The other one, at High Woods Country Park, could involve a series of play features scattered around the park.

“We went out to consultation with schools on that and are expecting to place orders in October.”

Hmmm, and yet, despite the fact it may now burrow into your cash reserves, you still want to go ahead?

The Castle Park scheme will cost £200,000 and was set to be partly funded by the Playbuilder scheme.

The £45,000 playground at High Woods County Park was to have been paid for entirely by the Playbuilder scheme.

So that’s a big chunk o’ change for the council to find. How does it plan to do this?

The council is waiting to hear if Playbuilder cash will still be available, but Mr Penny said alternatives might be sought, possibly as part of deals with developers looking to get planning permission for commercial schemes.

Ah. There you go, people of Colchester. Your betters have decreed that you shall have two playgrounds after all.

All it will cost you is a dirty great housing development somewhere you hadn’t expected and possibly didn’t want. Just as you may not have wanted these two playgrounds in the first place….

He added: “If the schemes are ones we want to deliver, we can go further into funds from agreements with developers.”

When normal people experience a sudden loss of income, they tighten their belts and decide to do without luxuries.

In town halls around the country, the response is quite, quite different…

Of All The Excuses...

...this must be the worst ever:

A man drove at twice the speed limit and forced cars to swerve off the road because he thought the Spanish police were chasing him, a court heard yesterday.

Why, no, he wasn't in Spain at the time, actually...

Darren Keats, 38, of Colne Drive, Didcot, believed he was being pursued by the Spanish authorities because he had forgotten to take drugs to calm a psychiatric disorder.

Ah. Now it's becoming clearer.

Oxford Crown Court was told Keats made offensive gestures to a police car following him...

Yes, that's what you do to make sure that people don't chase you. He's mad, all right.