LATE NEWS IN YORKSHIRE...

"AND TONIGHT ON THE LATE YORKSHIRE NEWS:

A woman from Barnsley is gutted that she has been turned down to be a foster parent because she is a member of the BNP".

Er, yeah...and I should damn well think so too.

Maybe they should give her a little black/asian/european child to look after...

GRIM REAPER'S BLACK SENSE OF HUMOUR

How ironic. A jogger on a California beach, keeping fit and chasing that dream of everlasting life that all health nuts subscribe to, ran into the path of a plane making an emergency landing and was killed.

Bet he'd never in his wildest dreams imagined that scenario when he was weighing out his lima beans and dust to make his health-giving nutritional shake of a morning.

Ironically, if he'd been a couch potato, he'd probably still be alive...

CALM DOWN, DEAR, IT'S JUST A DINNER!

ITV's latest prime time Friday night offering concerns Michael Winner the restaurant critic marching about the streets of Britain as if he owns the place and dining out at "ordinary people"'s houses.  He then "marks" their efforts, makes them come down to London to hear everything he's said about their fare and awards them - or not - with a see-through plastic star or three, depending on how mean he's been feeling that particular day.

Now...

 There is much to say.  This is quite an artificial set up.  It showcases Michael Winner's fabulous status - real or imagined.  He is fabulous and rich because he treats his staff like sh*t, the programme would have you think.  This has to be for the cameras because no aide, however obsequious, would put up with that treatment.  He is chauffeured from place to place and helicoptered across Britain, all reminiscent of some Alan Whicker "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" travelogue.   

Winner then lords it around the town where he is to be a guest for the evening, shouting and bawling and generally making a nuisance of himself.  The only thing missing is a megaphone and the words: "Don't you know who I am, love?  I'm MICHAEL WINNER!"

The scene is set: a rich and powerful man is coming to your humble abode for dinner.  Members of the public who believe they are good cooks have volunteered themselves for this double-edged sword.  So when they start getting the heebeegeebies because Michael Winner has phoned them to say he  is coming round, I can't really feel for them.  They put themselves in this situation, they have to cook themselves out of it.

The awards themselves are arbitrary: 3, 2, 1 or 0 stars depending on Michael's criteria, which we are not made aware of at any time.  The 'umble public are given a see-through bit of plastic on a whim, for putting themselves through the psychic equivalent of a mincing machine.

It all seems rather pointless to me, an overblown version of  "Come Dine With Me".  It's a shame the title of the show has to reflect the inclusion of awards: "Michael Winner's Dining Stars".  Geddit? It's a play on words, the hapless victims win the stars, and they are the star of the show! Only they're not.  Michael Winner is.

I personally think they should have called this show  "Michael Winner's TV Dinners".  That has a certain ring to it...

THE VENABLES BOY IS BACK

The Venables boy is back in the news this morning, having been returned to prison after breaching a number of conditions concerning his release.

Everyone in Britain knows the names Robert Thomson and Jon Venables.  When they are mentioned, people experience a frisson of dread in the pit of their stomach, a weird primeval reaction to the boys who committed an unnatural act - that of torturing and killing another child.

In order not to have 3 childrens' lives ruined,  Thomson and Venables were given the chance of rehabilitation and released when they were 18 with various conditions attached.

Now the press are screaming and bawling for explanations.  There will be various "I told you so"s.  It does not help that a policeman involved in the case described the 2 boys as "evil".  James Bulger's mother is eaten up with anger and hatred and wants to know the truth.

Children killing children is, mercifully,  very rare.  This in particular, is a unique case.  Emotions run high.  Knee-jerk reactions are everywhere.  We do not have enough experience or understanding of why certain children do this.  There are only 2 options at present: lock them up and throw away the key, or try our hardest to rehabilitate the offenders.  Thank God hanging has been abolished...

Until the facts are in concerning just what Jon Venables, under his new identity, has been getting up to, any "I told you so" or bawling for blood are highly premature.  

Watch this space...

THE THOUGHT POLICE WOULDN'T LET YOU MAKE IT UP...

Morse code noises...

Beep beep beep beeeeeep beep beep beep

American accent:

Yahoo news: yesterday a man shot his friend's electric wheelchair into the mosh pit at an AC/DC gig by accidentally touching  the joystick of the chair.  Just to compound the tragedy, the wheelchair-bound friend fell on his "metal pointing stick" and it become lodged firmly in his left eye...

The organisers are being blamed for not having an electric-wheelchair-proof barrier around the mosh pit.  Or a crystal ball...

TAXI FOR PETER SUTCLIFFE!

As someone who resides in the midst of the Yorkshire Ripper's former hammering grounds, I was interested to hear that the cogs in what passes for Peter Sutcliffe's brain have been clunking recently.

The inmate of Broadmoor has a cunning plan.  Despite being a murderer, having been diagnosed with schizophrenia and residing in Britain's most infamous hospital for the criminally insane, he would quite like to know if life meant life when he was sent dahn with twenty life sentences.  Because apparently the judge at his trial never said.

Oops.

There are a couple of minor tests for Sutcliffe to pass before he can walk free.  He will have to convince a mental health tribunal of his incredible, nay, miraculous, recovery.  Also, the judiciary will have to be convinced of his suitability for release.

Step one is controversial.  There are those who believe that Sutcliffe should never have been in Broadmoor in the first place.  He claimed insanity, but it is an incredible coincidence that when he was not driving his lorries or murdering thirteen women, he was caring for his wife who suffered with... SCHIZOPHRENIA.

Step two is nonexistent.  Sutcliffe will never be released, although he has been going around calling himself Peter William Coonan for quite some time now - in order to reflect his Irish ancestry, and no doubt to distance himself from his notorious deeds.  

I double dare the courts to pronounce him fit to rejoin society at large.  Communities have long memories.  In West Yorkshire the dark memory of the Ripper still lingers.  It will linger for generations to come.