In what clearly counts as an instance of buyer’s remorse, today’s inews carries a piece about two Britons – one in his thirties and from Bristol, the other a pensioner from Winchester, who both voted for Brexit and now seem surprised they cannot get visas to live permanently in their respective properties, as per the screenshot below of the report’s headline and byline.
Both are now suffering remorse and a feeling of betrayal (remember all those smooth-talking right-wing politicians who lied to the public saying nothing would really changed in our relationship with the EU and its member states? Ed.).
As defined by the dictionary, the phrase buyer’s remorse has two meanings:
a sense of regret or uneasiness after having purchased a house, car, or other major item; and
a sense of regret after having committed to an endorsement, policy, plan of action, etc.
Either of both of those definitions may be applicable in these two instances.
These stories have a moral, i.e. think before you vote (bearing in mind that all politicians lie. Ed.) and always remember the law of unexpected consequences.
One of the cultural jewels of Market Drayton – the town where your ‘umble scribe grew up – is the Festival Drayton Centre. However, in those days it was Frogmore Road Primitive Methodist chapel, a venue where my late mother took to the pulpit as a lay preacher when I was a child.
Last Thursday Iranian-British comedian and actor Omid Djalili pulled out of a show at the Centre due to “personal threats due to the situation in Israel“, as reported by the BBC.
The BBC did manage to get the essentials of the story correct. However, one significant national news outlet did not.
Step forward The Independent, once a decent broadsheet newspaper that refused to publish trivia about the so-called royal family, but now sadly reduced to a badly researched news website with irritating properties and mediocre content.
On Thursday (19 October), Djalili was scheduled to perform at the Festival Drayton Centre in West Drayton, Shropshire. However, the show was pulled hours before its scheduled opening due to safety concerns for the star.
No gazetteer of Shropshire features such a place as West Drayton. Whilst Market Drayton itself consists of two parishes – Drayton in Hales and Little Drayton (also known as Drayton Parva. Ed.), but of an occidental Drayton, there’s not a sign.
Your correspondent notes that the Independent piece was written by a ‘culture reporter and reviewer‘ writing mostly for titles based within that there London, so perhaps the geographical ignorance can be excused. 🙂
One of the regular features of Private Eye magazine is its Dumb Britain column, which typically records the answers clueless quiz show contestants have given on TV.
The advent of social media has now enabled the entire population to show how stupid they can be without the need to apply to appear on a TV quiz show, as in the case of one unidentified woman from Armthorpe near Doncaster, which was duly reported 2 days ago by the Daily Mirror.
The story was also picked up by other tabloids, with Daily Mail commentards questioning the lady’s sanity – quite a feat given their single-digit IQs.
If Hamas were contemplating invading Yorkshire, their paragliding aviators would have to train really hard, given the distance between Gaza City and God’s Own County is several multiples of the current world paragliding record of some 612 km for a straight line flight.
Saturday last, 30th September, saw a retirement party for Lesley at the church. This was well attended by a broad range of people from Easton and beyond, all gathered to wish Lesley a happy retirement and partake of Lesley’s excellent cakes over which she’d laboured. These included not just church members, local traders, café users, foodbank volunteers and Abdul Malik from Easton Jamia Masjid, the mosque that faces the church across the street.
Lesley with Abdul Malik the church’s close neighbour, Easton Jamia Masjid.
After a question and answer session with Lesley that covered the whole history of the café from its inception up to its closure in August, various people were invited out to the front, given a microphone and said a few words about the café, Lesley and so on. Abdul paid a great tribute (from what I could see wholly unscripted. Ed.) to Lesley and the collaboration between the chapel and mosque, particularly on large community events such as the Grand Iftar at the end of Ramadan.
One of those invited to address the assembled throng was your ‘umble scribe, who was asked to read out his above-mentioned blog post, which was composed on the café’s final day and was received with general approbation.
Lesley did drop some very serious hints that even though the café had now closed, that did not mean the end of catering activities for the community. Your correspondent will keep his ear to the ground and relay any information that comes to light.
In the meantime, have a happy retirement, Lesley; and don’t be afraid to use your bus pass! 😉
One time long ago there was a county called Gloucestershire. It was a large county that included the city of Bristol as one of its major centres of population. However, that all changed in 1373 when Bristol was granted county status in its own right by the king through the usual expedient of paying him a sufficiently large quantity of cash.
However, that has now all changed and Bristol is once again in the embrace of Gloucestershire, even though the news has been suppressed and can only be found by a creful reading of the Bristol Live website, where it appears in a piece by Emma Flanagan inviting readers to vote for their favourite Chinese takeaways.
The headline to the article asks Where can you get the best Chinese takeaway in Bristol?. There’s no mention there about the city being returned to its former historical county 650 years after making its escape from the clutches of the county that grew up based on the old Roman settlement of Glevum.
The clue to Bristol returning to Gloucestershire is well concealed, hiding in the photo caption near the top of piece; it reads Tell us the best Chinese takeaway in Gloucestershire and we’ll crown a winner.
Will this mean a change in the city’s extortionate rate of council tax? Better public services? Improved public transport? Not a word mentioned.
No corresponding article asking readers to rate Chinese takeaways in Bristol has been found on Bristol Live’s sister title, Gloucestershire Live (so far. Ed.), so this dreadful piece of copy has not been shared with other Reach publications.
Moving Bristol to Gloucestershire was not the only inaccuracy of the geographical kind appearing on the Bristol Live website today. By some strange alteration in geophysical forces, the city has been moved from nestling on the banks of the Bristol Avon to those of the mighty Severn/Hafren, as per the screenshot below.
Since this morning the text of the headline has now been changed to read Five-star Severn Bore live as ‘the greatest ride on earth’ rolls through West Country.
If the Bristol Live website ever had a corrections and clarifications column, it would be several times larger than the paper’s website! 😀
Whether it’s a large or small one, Wikipedia pages on human settlements contain a list of local notable – past and present.
Ellesmere in Shropshire – (where your ‘umble scribe recently spent a most enjoyable week) is no exception to this general tenet. Indeed its list of notable people is large enough to be divided into ordinary mortals and sportspeople. However, amongst the members of the aristocracy and one disgraced former MP, there’s one name that shines out, that of Englantyne Jebb (25 August 1876 – 17 December 1928) – one of only two women in the list of the town’s great and good.
As a family, the Jebbs were comfortably off with a strong social conscience plus a commitment to public service. According to Wikipedia, “Her mother had founded the Home Arts and Industries Association, to promote Arts and Crafts among young people in rural areas; her sister Louisa would help found the Women’s Land Army in World War I. Another sister, Dorothy, who married the Labour MP Charles Roden Buxton, campaigned against the demonisation of the German people after the war.”
As part of that campaign against the demonisation of Germans after the First World War (when Britain maintained its wartime blockade that left children in cities like Berlin and Vienna starving. Ed.), Eglantyne and her sister Dorothy were arrested in 1919 in London’s Trafalgar Square for distributing leaflets which bore shocking images of children affected by famine in Europe and the headline: ‘Our Blockade has caused this – millions of children are starving to death‘.
Jebb was tried for her protest, found guilty and fined. However, prosecuting counsel was so impressed with her that he offered to pay the £5 fine himself.
Shortly afterwards, the sisters decided that campaigning was not sufficient and direct action was required. In May 1919, the Save the Children Fund was set up at a packed public meeting in London’s Royal Albert Hall. The organisation quickly raised a large sum of money from the British public and officials were dispatched to organise relief work. The Save The Children website has an excellent summary of its history, including those early post-WW1 days.
The success of Save the Children led Eglantyne and Dorothy to attempt to set up an international movement for children. In 1920, the International Save the Children Union (Union International de Secours à l’Enfant) was founded in Geneva, with the British Save the Children Fund and the Swedish Rädda Barnen as leading members.
In 1923 Eglantyne went to Geneva to attend a meeting of the International Save the Children Union with a plan for a children’s charter. She drafted a short and clear document which asserted the rights of children and the duty of the international community to put children’s rights at the forefront of planning. The Declaration of the Rights of the Child, or the Declaration of Geneva as it came to be known, was adopted in 1924 by the League of Nations, the precursor to the current United Nations, which has its own Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Eglantyne died in Geneva in 1928 after many years of ill health due to thyroid problems. She is buried there Saint George’s cemetery. Her epitaph features a quote from Matthew 25:40: “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.“
Eglangtyne has not been forgotten by Ellesmere. The town’s Cremonrne Gardens bordering the Mere feature the Jebb Garden, which itself contains a large sculpted stone bearing some words of Eglantyne’s from that initial Declaration of Geneva as part of the local sculpture trail. It was carved from Howley Park York sandstone by Llansilin artist John Neilson.
Mankind owes to the child the very best it has to give
Next to it is another sculpture entitled “Refuge” by John Merrill. It is is set in a grass and stone labyrinth to symbolise the perilous journeys taken by child refugees.
Refuge, John Merrill
Well done to Ellesmere for remembering a remarkable townswoman!
On Saturday 9th just gone, one of the hottest days of the year so far, four of us met at Barton Hill’s Wellspring Centre at 10 a.m. to take part in the monthly community litter pick organised by Shona Jemphrey (to whom thanks are die for the photos. Ed.).
We covered part of the Urban Park and some of the surrounding streets, plus an alleyway off Victoria Avenue, which some desperate folk had been using as an emergency urinal. The ‘swag‘ we collected is shown below.
After an hour’s sweating and tidying, the team retired to the Centre for a well-deserved brew and some biscuits. As per usual, we got a few thanks and kind smiles from passers-by.
Local news titles owned by Reach plc, which also owns the Daily Mirror and Daily Brexit (which some still call the Express. Ed.) frequently share stories so frequently that anyone would think either that slow news days were commonplace or that the the country’s major cities had annexed vast swathes of territory well removed from their location.
An example of this practice occurred earlier this week in the Bristol Post, supposedly the city’s (former) newspaper of record, as per the following screenshot.
Last time your ‘umble scribe looked, Fowey in Cornwall was not – and has no intentions of being – a suburb of Bristol. The entire story has been copied and pasted en bloc from Cornwall Live, a sister title to the Bristol Post/Live, including a glaring spelling error – busses – in both the headline and the copy.
That spelling error is one that should have been eradicated in primary school, not allowed to persist into the professional life of an alleged ‘journalist‘.
Your correspondent recalls talking to a former sub-editor some years ago, who was then lecturing at the University of the West of England, teaching online journalism to media studies students. He remarked that before before he could start training them in how to report stuff online, he had to teach them basic English first!
On Thursday the perpetual victim otherwise known as the disgraced 45th President of the United States of America, one Donald John Trump, surrendered to the authorities at Fulton County Jail, Georgia on more than a dozen charges stemming from his efforts to reverse the 2020 election results in that state, brining to four the number of times he has faced criminal charges in 2023.
During his 20 minutes in custody, the Fulton County Sherriff’s Department took the congenital liar’s fingerprints and photograph (aka a mugshot), the latter of which was released and in which the disgraced former commander in cheat shows off his compassionate and humane side to best advantage.
The Donald looking like his mother’s told the toddler him that he cannot have a cookie.
After leaving custody and returning to his perpetual hobby of cheating on the golf course, Trump found time to voice his continual grievances on his own Truth Social [sic] social media platform, griping yet again that the 2020 US presidential election being “RIGGED” (note block capitals. Ed.) and, er, “STOLLEN” (one more note block capitals. Ed.).
Stollen, Mr disgraced former president? According to Wikipedia, “Stollen is a cake-like fruit bread made with yeast, water and flour, and usually with zest added to the dough. Orangeat (candied orange peel) and candied citrus peel (Zitronat), raisins and almonds, and various spices such as cardamom and cinnamon are added. Other ingredients, such as milk, sugar, butter, salt, rum, eggs, vanilla, other dried fruits and nuts and marzipan, may also be added to the dough. Except for the fruit added, the dough is quite low in sugar. The finished bread is sprinkled with icing sugar.”.
Stollen. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
It has yet to be determined by the courts whether a German Christmas speciality is less of a threat to the constitutional integrity of the United States of America than its 45th head of state and his credulous supporters.
If it did come to a vote and your ‘umble scribe was enfranchised, he would always vote for a German Christmas than someone who can’t even be honest when he plays golf.
As a title in the Reach plc newspaper stable, the Daily Brexit (which some still call the Express. Ed.) has long inhabited an alternative reality, a world where the economic disaster otherwise known as Brexit is a roaring success (e.g. ‘Global Britain is thriving’).
In recent times the title has gained a reputation more of right-wing posturing than for the factual reporting of news and current affairs
A new charge must now be added to the title’s many crimes against reality and journalism – a crime against English, as seen in the headline below posted today on the paper’s website in its continuing campaign of hate against Harry Mountbatten-Windsor and his wife.
Wouldn’t it be a boon to journalism if those who write for the fourth estate – even on trivial, gossipy matters – had a basic level of competence in the language in which they are writing?
Your comments would be welcome below.
PS: for any passing illiterate Reach plc hacks in search of enlightenment, the grammatically correct version of the headline would read: “Harry’s six word response as to why he and Meghan won’t give up titles“.
One of the cultural jewels of 
As a family, the Jebbs were comfortably off with a strong social conscience plus a commitment to public service. According to Wikipedia, “Her mother had founded the Home Arts and Industries Association, to promote Arts and Crafts among young people in rural areas; her sister Louisa would help found the Women’s Land Army in World War I. Another sister, Dorothy, who married the Labour MP Charles Roden Buxton, campaigned against the demonisation of the German people after the war.”
