The Daily Mail

As I said in yesterday’s blog,, reading the paper over a relaxed lunch is one of my pleasures. I read the papers online every morning but the Daily Mail has a crap site which forces me to buy their paper whenever I’m at a loose end with a glass of wine – I’m sure it’s a marketing ploy….which works! Tan , my neighbour, reckons I like the Mail because it’s a right wing rag and because it has loads of pictures in it, but I actually read it because it’s got a good sports section and some excellent (right wing) columnists. Normally, I can get through the Mail in about 20 minutes (when I ignore the pictures) but on Friday there were loads of articles which made me chuckle out loud, much to the annoyance of those Froggies reading the Nice Matin. 

Let me share some of them with you…… 

(1)   The Big Picture – normally a double-page spread which shows some subject in glorious technicolour but on Saturday they had a wonderful picture of the Palladium Mansion at Stourhead, Wiltshire with the accompanying text – ‘What Better Sight is There Than Nature’s Glorious Show of Autumn Colours’. All very well….. but it was in black and white!  

(2)   Then there was the article about Iceland (topical because Iceland has gone bust) which stated the following facts…..Iceland has twice as many sheep as people (poor sheep I say). The traditional dish is made up of a Sheep’s Head, Shark Meat, Dried Fish, Pickled Salmon and Salted Lamb – yuck! And children believe in 13 different Santa Clauses. Is this a ruse to get more presents?

(3)   There was a woman of 105 who stated that her longevity was down to having no sex in her life – ever. Having seen the picture of her I don’t think it was her choice.

(4)   A brilliant cartoon by ‘Mac’ showing some British soldiers in Afghanistan approaching their commanding officer and stating that…’The Taliban are prepared to surrender en-masse if they can get a nice big house like the woman in Ealing’. See yesterday’s blog about the Afghan immigrant who gets £170k per year in benefits including a £1.2m house.

(5)   An article on ‘Brew Your Own Biodiesel’ to lower your car fuel costs. Given that my brother is in the business and I get all the problems ad-nauseum – e..g. – collecting hundreds of gallons of the stuff, boiling it to remove impurities, filtering it and then trying to get the smell off of your clothes (you end up smelling like a chippie - sorry Janie), it’s just not worth it….unless you live in the West of Scotland where the average Scot goes through several gallons a week in their quest to deep fry their internal organs.

(6)   And finally (and I know I shouldn’t start a sentence with ‘and’), the allotment owner who was told he couldn’t put up barbed wire because it might hurt the thieves who continually raid his vegetable plot. 

So, a good edition on Friday. I’m still laughing.