Christmas! The happiest time of the year. Unless, of course, you read local newspapers, then it’s a cavalcade of misery. There’s nothing quite like the festive season to bring out the very worst in people, which – of course – makes for great reading in the papers. And there’s nothing that says CHRISTMAS IS RUINED…

Halloween and Guy Fawkes have come and gone, and that can only mean one thing – people getting annoyed at Christmas. And it’s already started with the news that Gregg’s have apologised for switching sweet baby Jesus for a half-eaten sausage roll, and brain-dead racists threatening to boycott Tesco because their Christmas advert includes people…

There are many things that you don’t want in your life. Ebola. Rabid weasels. And new to the list – a commemorative Paddy McGuinness plate. And you really don’t want a commemorative Paddy McGuinness plate. Mere photographs cannot put across the full horror of this rare item, but photographs you shall have. Nottingham Post: Woman vows to…

It’s literally all kicking off in Scotland where a local football rivalry has exploded after the thoughtful gift of turds was not deemed acceptable. After being on the receiving end of a 7-0 drubbing and an on-pitch altercation, one former club official thought the appropriate response would be to send those involved a box of…

Here’s a masterclass in local newspaper compo facing. Everything’s there. The cold, dead eyes. The thing that made you angry. And helpful pointing at the thing that made you angry. Portsmouth News: Gosport mobile chef furious after his Asda online shopping order isn’t delivered This story reads like the failure of Britain’s fourth best supermarket to…

Let’s wang back to the innocent days of November 2015, where a man’s east London idyll is ruined by a blatant laying of a cable on his private property. Robert Gray, who is described as a “Greenwich character” and bears a striking resemblance to my father seems rather miffed that you can’t grow a garden…

Actually, we’re pretty sure this is either James Blunt or Nicholas Lyndhurst. The value of celebrity lookalikes may go down as well as up. Kent Live: Customer receives apology from Tesco after snotgate incident Yeah, our money’s on singer and former soldier James Blunt in a lovely wig and fake fur coat, perusing the offers in…

A spectre hangs over the Antipodes as fruit thieves move in under the cover of night to pilfer people’s avocados, the bastard of all fruits. With avocados selling for a brutal £1.50 a go, just to watch them over-ripen and turn to mush in your fruit bowl, people are resorting to desperate means to keep…

Everything’s terrorism these days. You can’t even grow a giant marrow without the bomb squad swinging by. So it’s hardly much of a surprise that one man’s harmless but highly competitive hobby of growing outsize vegetables have attracted the attention of the law. But, to be honest, it’s probably more to do with a huge…

We’re suckers for angry people with clothes pegs on their noses, and even more so when there’s a prop fish involved. Which means we’ve hit the jackpot with this story from Australia, where the smell of the now disused power station used to mask the smell of the dead fish. And now everything’s fishy, and…