It’s probably true that hard work never killed anyone – but why take the chance?

Thanks to the late Gipper for today's title. Just goes to prove that you be a slacker and still make it to the top, provided that you're sufficiently charming.

Have you ever been trying to read a particularly complex paragraph in a book (this sort of thing) whilst on the train home when a series of unsolicited announcements (‘There is no smoking on this train …please do not leave bags unattended…please move right down inside the carriages…please do not give money to beggars’ etc) means that you have to re-read it 12 times for the meaning to go in?

Well, HMG’s latest idea is to distract your attention permanently from your own little life by deeming it necessary to have local council employees barking orders at us through loudspeakers
in addition to watching our every move on CCTV.

Better still, the government has come up with the idea of using local children to be ‘the voice of authority,’ in an effort to tug on the heartstrings of the minor offenders being harangued as they mind their own business urinating on bank machines and throwing litter bins at each other after a night drinking Thunderbird.

Can you imagine the trauma, as a hormonal 14 year old chav, of hearing an eight year old’s voice crackling ‘Please refrain from having unprotected intercourse on the park bench behind the running track’ over a nearby loudspeaker just as you enter the home straight with your girlfriend?

The UK, it seems, is turning into a vast, authoritarian primary school.

And finally, having spent yesterday afternoon on yet another training course discussing at length something called ‘permitted leakage’ in the context of locked box transactions, a couple of Trevor McDonald-style ‘light’ items to leave you with a warm feeling as you get on with your day:

• There seems to be a childrens’ film doing the rounds, incredibly called ‘The Last Mimzy’. Setting aside the Americanization (with a 'zee') of the spelling, this film suggests all sorts of inappropriate imagery to the adult viewer;


• ‘Menopause: the Musical’ (I sh*t you not) . Coming soon to a theatre near you: ‘Erectile dysfunction: the pop-up (but only after therapy) book'