Hampshire’s gone wrong

Woman pointing at the kerbside she 'occasionally' drives over

I used to live in Hampshire, but I got better. Behold, then, a county in a state of absolute rage.

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Southern Daily Echo: Furious mum calls on those pencil-necked desk jockeys at the council to condemn local playground before a kid pokes their eye out or trips and breaks their leg

In all my years I’ve never once heard of a kiddiewink poking their eye out as an act of misadventure in a playground. But I suppose there’s still time.

Other things that could happen include: Wild animals rampaging through the park after a small child finds and opens a Jumanji board game on a riverbank; a small child bumps into the Ark of the Covenant left in the park by a careless American adventurer causing a small bruise on their thigh; Radiohead playing an impromptu gig by the swings and a small child gets a bit depressed.

Also: A woman gets her hand stuck down a drain (pictured).

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Southern Daily Echo: Mum parks her car across pavement to prevent engineers from drilling trial holes for proposed 5G mast

It’s at times like this that I wonder what Mahatma Gandhi would do. And looking it up in his self-published leaflet “Take it to The Man!” he says “park your Citroen C1 sideways across the pavement to prevent you and your neighbours getting improved mobile phone reception in the Southampton area”.

You may be surprised to learn that Gandhi, who died in 1948, knew about both mobile telephony and the Citroen C1 motor car. That’s how good he was.

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Southern Daily Echo: Man is furious at those pencil-necked desk jockeys at the council for not doing anything about weeds

It’s not the council neglecting their duty, it’s NATURE IS HEALING, and I, for one, bow down to our new plant-based overlords.

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Woman pointing at the kerbside she 'occasionally' drives over

Southern Daily Echo: Woman’s fury at local council plans to install bollards in front of the area she ‘occasionally’ uses to drive up the kerb, across the pavement and over a pristine grassy bank to park her car outside her house

You might think that all the grass has been worn away into a bank that becomes a mountainside of mud by her ‘occasional’ use to access her home, but you’d be wrong. It is, of course, the very selective result of global climate change affecting that very small area and that area only.

You’d think those pencil-necked desk jockeys at the council would have better things to do than prevent local residents from exercising their God-given right to drive their cars wherever they bloody well want.

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And that’s just the Daily Echo. Meanwhile in Winchester, it’s all kicking off too.

Hampshire Chronicle: Puddle appears in Winchester

Why oh why oh why oh why won’t those pencil-necked desk jockeys at the council do something about it?

This opinion piece is from a columnist under the pen name Belgarum, who seems to be in a permanent state of fury about the city’s decline into anarchy.

And in the case of the puddle s/he concludes:

“And it gives Wintonians a taste of what life is like in a Third World country.”

If there’s something which is the polar opposite of living in a Third World country (by which they mean ‘a developing nation’), it’s living in one of the wealthiest cities in the land and getting you feet slightly wet from stepping in a puddle in the city centre. Hellish.

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And, Lordy, it’s spread to the letters page.

Hampshire Chronicle: Where are my trousers?

Kim Jong-un’s got them, and now they smell of cigarette smoke and human rights abuse.

Happy to help.

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And now on to the rest of the country, for more of your regular fury:

Brighton and Hove News: Dad is furious because those pencil-necked desk jockeys at the council have installed a bike shelter which blocks out the light from his children’s bedroom

And there he is, FUMMIN, with the bike shelter clearly blocking the sunlight from …oh, err… as you were.

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Glasgow Live: Glasgow Rangers fan loses court case as judge tells him the supporting a football club is not a religion

“He receives a birthday card from Rangers each year and was recently invited to visit Ibrox to see the Scottish Cup.”

That’s EXACTLY the kind of thing a religion would do to drag you in.

Any road up, you need to switch to Arsenal, where they have a Jesus, three Gabriels and our Lord God Dennis Bergkamp.

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Derby Telegraph: Shoddy fitted kitchen ‘keeping man awake at night’

As you can see, he’s at the ‘rage at the major retail chain from which you bought the kitchen’ stage of having a kitchen fitted.

This will soon pass, to be replaced with the ‘oh well, they’ve fixed most of it, that’ll do’ stage.

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Nottingham Post: Councillors protest against axing of ‘vital’ bus service

This one’s here because despite trying to throw us off the scent by wearing a personalised hoodie which claims otherwise, you are Walter White out of Breaking Bad and I claim my five pounds.

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Kent Online: Man erects a realistic post box in his front garden, and is shocked and annoyed that people think it’s a real post box

You can tell it’s not a real Royal Mail post box stuck on a post by the side of the road by the way that it looks exactly like a real Royal Mail post box stuck on a post by the side of the road.

Easy mistake to make, could happen to anybody.

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Wolverhampton Express and Star: Dudley residents complain about leak of green slime which has been seeping out into the street for twenty five years

Ectoplasm. The whole street is built on an ancient and very cursed settlement. Oh wait, that’s just Dudley.

On the bright side, now that it’s reached twenty-five years of age, it has been marked safe from Leonardo DiCaprio.

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Insurance claim of the week:

Worcester News: An innocent trip to the safari park ends in TERROR as rhinos ram family car

“Hello? NeverPaysOut Car Insurance here. We have a few questions to ask about your recent claim. I’ve seen some cobblers in my time, so do you really expect us to believe THAT?”

“Can I make something up then?”

“Go right ahead”

“The accident was caused by me waving to the elephant I ran into last week”

“Perfect. Cheque’s in the post”

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Inexplicably weird story of the week:

Reading Chronicle: Man and his trusty brown Austin Allegro tracks down and recovers overdue library books

[Doorbell]

“I wonder who that might be at this hour?”

“LIBRARY SQUAD! Show us your books!”

“Ronald! RONALD!! They’ve found us! Sweet Lord have mercy!”

[Gunshot] [Fade to black]

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‘We hope something slightly inconvenient happens to you, like you put a packet of biscuits into your suitcase and all your holiday clothes are covered in crumbs’ of the week.

Manchester Evening News: Holidaymaker fakes having a broken foot to jump the check-in queue at Manchester Airport, anger ensues

Apart from finding out that they had put a packet of biscuits in their suitcase and all their holiday clothes are covered in crumbs, we also hope that they forgot to return a library book before going on holiday and that the library police are waiting for them to return outside their front door in a brown Austin Allegro.

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Journalist does normal thing of the week:

Surrey Live: Journalist goes to Starbucks

Dave here has the perfect face for being angry in a local newspaper, and is rapidly becoming Surrey Live’s go-to man for gurning at the camera outside a place he has just tried and didn’t like.

See also: Journalist goes to the toilet

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Cat of the week:

Luton Today: Locals startled by the ‘Beast of Leagrave’

…or as she’s known to her owner, Flossie.

Cat.

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‘I’ve been waiting my whole career to write this headline’ of the week:

High fives all round in the Stoke Sentinel newsroom.

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Local newspaper poem of the week. To be honest, there’s been an avalanche of royal poetry, but it’s more than my life’s worth to put it here. So, here’s something perfectly normal from Suffolk.

“Imagine if the farmer hadn’t pasteurised the milk before it was

Given to you and your family to drink,

Think about that.”

Now that you’ve said it People’s Poet, I can’t not think about it.

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