The Frumplingtons

Read about this recent unprovoked attack in Lincoln and then see if you still like the idea of a night out in town. All that city centre CCTV doesn’t seem like much of a deterrent, does it?

This news item made me laugh. Police are looking for a gang who burgled a bookmaker’s shop in Bourne, south Lincolnshire, and stole the safe. This, in itself, isn’t particularly funny, although, as dear old Mama Frumplington sometimes used to say, disparagingly, “You’d probably laugh if you were on fire, you would.”

No, what made me laugh was this line at the end:

The safe is described as large and metal with a dial on the front.

It’s like a child’s description of a safe, isn’t it? Or something from a comic strip. Something like this maybe?

The Scottish nanny state government has come up with an ingenious way to stop people smoking. (And before you ask, no, it’s not the old fire extinguisher trick.) They are going to take cigarettes off display in shops and they are going to hide them underneath the counter.

Displays of cigarettes in shops are set to become a thing of the past as part of the Scottish Government’s continuing drive to stop smoking and make Scotland healthier.

source: Scottish government press release.

What a brilliant idea! So simple, yet so effective. Don’t you wish you’d thought of it yourself?

When you think about it, that must be why Britain (and Scotland in particular) doesn’t have a chronic problem with drugs and drug-related crime: because drugs are not on display in the local newsagent’s.

Compare the Scottish idyll with what’s going on in England and you’ll see where we’re going wrong. In England it’s booze that’s the cause of all our woes:

Hospital admissions linked to alcohol use have more than doubled in England since 1995, an NHS report shows. Alcohol was the main or secondary cause of 207,800 NHS admissions in 2006/7, compared to 93,500 in 1995/96.

There has also been a 20% rise in the number of GP prescriptions for treating alcohol dependency in the past four years, the NHS Information Centre said.

source: BBC News (Hospital alcohol admissions soar)

So, why not cure our ills with the Scottish solution? Simply take all alcohol off public display. Mind you, Bargain Boooooze and Teskbury’s off-licence section are going to look a bit empty, aren’t they? But who cares? If it works, let’s do it.

While we’re about it, let’s cut knife crime (get it? ‘Cut’. ‘Knife’. Aw, please yourself…) by taking all the cutlery off all High Street department store shelves.

In fact, we could go one better than Johnny Scotsman. A lot of English pubs use plastic glasses instead of, well, glass glasses. So why not make everyone get rid of their knifey knives and switch over to rubber ones instead? That would also reduce the number of accidents in the kitchen, so it’s good news all round, isn’t it?

What other problems does Britain have? Football hooliganism? Easy solution: hide all the footballs.

Next!

Obesity epidemic? We could solve that one overnight. Just hide all the food.

Yes, as you can probably tell, we are experts on daftity and we sure as dafty heck know a daft idea when we hear one. In fact, that could be our motto: “The Frumplingtons: tough on daftness, tough on the causes of daftness”.

And the Scots’ idea of hiding the ciggies is about as daft as they come, hoots mon!

Well, ok, I admit it. The first part of the title is fact; the second, merely comic phantasy.

It woke us both up though. And it was the biggest earthquake to hit England for around ten years, apparently. The epicentre was only a few miles away, in a place called Market Rasen. (No, I haven’t heard of it either.)

The earthquake did cause our house to shake, though. Fortunately, although Shana is still unnerved by the experience, no harm has befallen the pot dogs in the china cabinet. (Phew!) We phoned the Senior Frumplingtons this morning to see if the earth had moved for them (they live more than 30 miles away), and they said that their bungalow had shaken violently and that the cat had been sick not long afterwards. Other than that, they are unperturbed. However, until they get around to putting some sawdust down, they’re having to be very careful about where they walk.

Zimbabwean president and legendary African tough-guy,Robert Mugabe, is celebrating his 84th birthday this week. Meanwhile, king of showbiz, Bruce Forsyth, is now 80.

Compare and contrast.

Just saw this on the BBC News website:

Two teenagers who killed a man by burning him with a cigarette lighter, then rolling him into a river, have been given detention orders. James Quantrill, 17, and Thomas Orme, 15, were convicted of the manslaughter of Toby Atkin in Spalding in November.

For the full story, including the sentences handed down to these two monsters, visit BBC News. You’ll be swearing and cursing at your computer screen by the fourth paragraph; I guarantee it.

First they were banned from smoking inside pubs and clubs. Now, smoking could be banned outside pubs too. It makes sense though, when you consider all the cigarette-related violent crime and smoking-related road traffic accidents that happen every day in Britain. Heaven forbid they should ever ban boozing in the street! That would be going just too far.

Of course, when I say ‘artists’, what I really mean is ‘piss-artists’.

According to research carried out by Liverpool John Moore’s University, using data from both the NHS and the police, and reported in today’s Lincolnshire Echo.

• More men drink themselves to death in Lincoln than anywhere else in the East Midlands.
• Lincoln has the highest levels of binge-drinking out of the 40 local authorities in the region.
• Lincoln is in the top five local authorities in categories including alcohol related hospital admissions and violent crime.

Worryingly, the Echo also says that “even more alcohol-fuelled incidents are expected to blight the city centre in the run-up to Christmas”.

It’s only the middle of November, but in parts of the UK winter has already arrived: 4 inches of snow fell in the West Midlands overnight. East Midlands airport runway had to be closed for a time. And, inevitably, motorway crashes happened almost immediately. Snow pics here.

Remember how the film, The Italian Job ends? Well, it’s actually happened, not in Italy but in the delightfully named Crook O’Lune in Lancashire. OK, now nobody panic. Just stay calm. And no sudden movements!