The longest interlude in history

IN the history of interludes this must rank as one of the longest . . .

Right Round the Houses (No 30)

WELCOME once more to Right Round the Houses, the weekly feature where the nation’s columnists strive to be witty and erudite – but seldom succeed . . .

Are we coming or going?

SOME good news at last from the pages of the Daily Mail. This is the sort of stuff its readers like to lap up. Any more cheery stories in the same edition?

Dead parrot story (the story, not the parrot)

THE Daily Mail has a story about a lost parrot that’s reunited with its owners after spending the winter in a hen house. But this is no ordinary parrot – and no ordinary story. This a masterpiece of journalistic shenanigans . . .

Big fat gypsy stereotyping

THE children of traveller families are to get special treatment in schools if they misbehave. Under Equality and Human Rights Commission guidance, teachers are being told to be sympathetic to traveller parents because they struggle with confidence issues and are put off attending school meetings to discuss their children’s behaviour. Fair enough. How does the Daily Star report the issue? Sympathetically and with a high degree of understanding?

Most spurious headline of the day

FROM the Daily Mail:

Right Round the Houses (No 29)

WELCOME back to Right Round the Houses, the weekly feature where the nation’s columnists have their say – while we wonder just why it is we put up with them . . .

Getting the hump – or not

A MONSTER has been spotted in Windermere, England’s longest lake, by a couple of kayakers who work for an IT company. Despite their desperation to get out of the water, they managed to take a picture with a mobile phone. But worse is to come. Like winged predators from that ancient film where Raquel Welch wears a bear-skin bikini, the nationals swoop in their rapacious eagerness to determine exactly what the beast might be. The Telegraph’s Nick Collins opens his piece with this astute observation:

No Methodism in Expresss madness

RANTERS – an unfortunate choice of words by the Daily Express, which illustrates two things:

Ignore this story: Dirty cars save you money

THE Daily Express brings us something else to worry about – which is the only thing it does well. If your car is dirty, it’s carrying more weight, therefore it’s using more petrol, says a study. Not only that, it’s costing British motorists a massive £95m a year. The Express, very helpfully, tells us which part of the car is most likely to carry most dirt: