The lost children under our supermarkets
Every year some 5,000 children are lost or abandoned by their parents in supermarkets in England and Wales and are not found again. The increasing number of feral children in retail outlets is a matter that should concern us all. Living on a poor diet of prepackaged food filched from shelves, prone to alcohol abuse, without a formal education; and living in extraordinary conditions under bales of kichen towels, in disused fridges, and on warehouse shelving, these poor children remain unseen by most customers, their very existence frequenty veiled by a conspiracy of silence between them and lower paid workers.
Foolish claims of sovereignty
One of the lesser known claims over another land's sovereignty is that by the London Borough of Lambeth over the territory occupied by the Arab Republic of Egypt. This claim dates back to the early 1980s, when a team of Borough Surveyors concluded, on the basis of disputed evidence, that the source of the River Nile was to be found in the foothills of Norwood. One of the Surveyors disappeared in sinister circumstances and as a result the Borough declared that Egypt had been annexed. To this day council tax bills are sent to the Cairo Opera House and the Pyramids appear on council tourist information literature.
Perverse religious beliefs interfere with house moves
It is not generally known that Jevovah's witnesses will refuse to complete property transactions on days which are prime numbers. Government plans to speed up house selling through the use of so-called Home Information Packs, generally slated as useless, do not contain details such as whether the seller belongs to a religious sect with strict numerological completion requirements. This omission needs rectification without delay. A task for Ruth Kelly's successor.
Scuttled U Boat in Chipstead Village Pond should have war grave status
At the beginning of the Second World War, the German Navy (the Kriegsmarine) inflitrated 4 P class U boats into village ponds in Surrey and Sussex - their mission to capture passing traffic and to interfere with what was seen as the British upper class passion for duck shooting. Two were two large for their ponds, and were instantly apprehended by constables, one was misdirected into a field and its remains are believed to be under Gatwick Airport; but the last, parachuted into Chipstead pond, was the bane of local life until September 1943, when after a fierce encounter with the Home Guard, the U-boat was scuttled, the Captain, Jürgen Spaßbender, going down with his ship. Repeated requests for the pond to be designated as an official war grave have been refused.
Aircraft dragging donkeys need our help
In a number of airports around the country, donkeys are regularly used for pulling aircraft around in order to save on fuel. There is a massive surplus of donkeys resulting from the closure of so many donkey rides on our beaches. One might think this a useful redeployment; but the heart rending sight of six straining animals pulling a 747 into position is not one the airports publish in their flight magazines.
Goodwin Sands to be developed for housing
The acute shortage of building land in South East England has led developers Lomea Homes to apply for permission to polderise and build 500 homes, with commercial facilities and a supermarket on the Goodwin Sands. The sands, 6 miles off the coast of Kent, are to be linked to the mainland by a tunnel, the debris from which will be used to raise the proposed sea wall around the sands to the height of 20m. Environmental Groups are opposed to the loss of one of the few remaining habitats of the opal halibut, a relative of the flounder.
Politicians standing for office again in disguise
There is a growing tendency for world leaders to give up power with extreme reluctance. With sophisticated plastic surgery, or even a bit of greasepaint and a false beard or wig, the transformation wrought can be astonishing. German Chancellor Angela Merkel may not resemble her predecessor Gerhard Schröder, but he hasn't been seen recently, has he? In the United States of America, a number of the prospective Republican candidates appear to be implausible to external eyes, and electors there should take care that a last minute substitution does not take place.
Scottish Parliament to redefine "North" and end 200 years of injustice
The Scottish Parliament is to debate a measure which is intended to clarify the meaning of the word "North" and to remove what was described as its "demeaning and slighting character when applied to Scottish affairs". A SNP spokesperson declared: "For 200 years the English have used the term 'North' and derivatives such as 'Northern' in order to undermine the people of Scotland." The measure proposes to change the term in placenames and on maps to "Upper" or "Top". And good luck to them.
President George W Bush Library not to be based at Guantánamo Bay
People who live outside the United States of America are sometimes perplexed by the idea that an outgoing head of state should have a large building set aside for his (or her) papers (or a selection of them) rather than there being dealt with impartially by a centrally based archiving institution like our precious National Archives. But that the obvious location for such papers, Guantánamo Bay, a delightful spot on the island of Cuba, is apparently not being favoured (as we spell it) as a location. Why ever not?
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