He braked repeatedly, causing a police car to hit him on one occasion, took roundabouts the wrong way, drove on the wrong side of the road, and even escaped being corralled by driving at speed along pavements.
He had no insurance and no licence.
When he and his three passengers decided to try and leg it – and in spite of the fact he was seen getting out of the driver’s side of the trainee pratmobile he was in (a Renault Clio) – he claimed:
I wasn’t the driver.
This clearly makes him a front runner for this year’s Darwins. Mind you, when you look at that mug shot you have to wonder if he is eligible, since the Darwin Awards are typically awarded to the higher primates.
The little prick got 15 months for dangerous driving – no doubt to be served concurrently with the 9 months he is in the middle of (and for which he must be out on licence) for assisting an offender. Laughably, his defence lawyer also toyed with the idea of getting himself nominated for a Darwin:
Paul Currer, mitigating, said Lucas had been given valium, with which he was not familiar.
A bit of a mistake, I think. He should have been given something else – something that would do evolution a favour. Valium, on the other hand, appears to make him think he can cut his own hair and nobody will notice.
So. Manchester Utd finally sacked Louis van Gaal after he lifted the FA Cup. Mind you, they didn’t tell him. Oh, dearie me, no. That would have been too simple and far too professional.
It seems that Louis learned of his fate from his wife, who had in turn read it on the BBC website on Saturday after the cup final. The Utd hierarchy waited until today to tell him.
What makes me laugh is how the BBC is now talking of his shoddy treatment, yet it was they who gleefully stirred up the shit and created much of the problem – and almost all of the embarrassment.
And the photo below – assuming it was taken on Saturday – is also sickening when you consider what Ferguson must have known at that time.
The truth of the matter is that Manchester Utd were showing significant cracks during Ferguson’s last season in charge. Yes, I know they won the title, but cracks were evident (they went out of the Champions league early on). Since then, it has been fashionable to blame the subsequent lack of success on David Moyes, and now van Gaal – as if Manchester Utd have some God-given right to win everything, every year. It’s bollocks. They had a bunch of players who were past it, but who no one had the guts to get rid of. They didn’t have enough new talent to replace them. That’s why Utd didn’t do so well the following season – finishing 7th.
Van Gaal managed 4th, then 5th this season (though you have to remember that he did win the FA Cup – the last time that happened was more than 10 years ago under Ferguson and they finished 3rd in the league that year). Of course, when the only acceptable outcome is to win everything, that’s unacceptable. This is why van Gaal was sacked.
Louis van Gaal has maintained his integrity throughout this sorry affair. The same can’t we said for Ed Woodward and the Glazers. Or the BBC.
Can you imagine how van Gaal must have felt, going from the FA Cup celebrations at the weekend (with that grinning gargoyle at the side of him), to finding out from his wife via the BBC that he’d lost his job an hour later?
I’ve been seeing these interminable references to “the celebrity” who has managed to get an injunction, gagging the British media from reporting details of him and his partner’s private lives. Initially, I didn’t give a damn. But when I read that Scottish and American – no, wait, everywhere except England, actually – media had reported it I became inquisitive.
It turned out to be bloody easy to find out who it was about, and when it eventually breaks – which is inevitable, given that the injunction looks like it is going to be lifted anyway – you’ll see what a disgusting, seedy mess it is.
At present, only the initials PJS and YMA can be used to identify the main people involved. Neither set of initials is real. However, other people ARE involved. And when you find out who the story is about, that’s when you’ll realise how tragic this whole thing really is.
Celebrities have every right to be left alone. Unfortunately, just by being a celebrity means that unless you live a squeaky clean life, you’re not going to be left alone. The gutter press will hound you over every crack in the pavement you step on. And when something which is as awkward as this one is – with its many implications concerning those involved (and various taboo subjects) – there is no way it isn’t going to go public. Eventually.
Well, the appeal has been upheld – so far. The Sun isn’t at all happy, and neither is the Mail, which has found a slightly different way of dealing with the issue (albeit, in a way which means when it breaks the fallout will be that much worse). There’s some clever word play in both accounts, which make more sense when you know who it is they’re referring to.
Lord Mance said… there was “no public interest (however much it may be of interest to some members of the public) in publishing kiss-and-tell stories or criticisms of private sexual conduct, simply because the persons involved are well-known”.
Former Lib Dem MP John Hemming… said he was surprised by the ruling.
“The logical conclusion of this is that gossip about anyone with children will become a criminal offence subject to a potential penalty of two years’ imprisonment,” he said.
Trust me, there’s a lot more going on here than just that. It’s a form of enforced propaganda of the kind copiously referenced in Orwell’s 1984.
Seriously, you can find it in dozens of online publications with just a few clicks (and a page scroll or two). And the only reason it is in any way interesting is because of the cack-handed attempts to prevent it becoming known.
Incidentally, if you type “google.com/ncr” in your browser address bar you stay with Google.com – not Google.co.uk, which effectively censors out stuff you aren’t meant to see in the UK. The “ncr” stands for “no country redirect”, and it’s a good way of finding news from other countries. You still get UK stuff, but you get a lot more besides.
Where are all those mouthy Spurs supporters who were so cock-sure they’d finish above Arsenal only two weeks ago – and some of whom reckoned Arsenal wouldn’t even finish in the top four?
There was a BBC article with comments enabled, and they were full of themselves. I wonder what they’re thinking now?
Last day of the season, and all the major decisions had already been made. Leicester had won the title – and they bloody well deserved it with the consistent performances they’ve put in throughout the whole season. Aston Villa, Norwich, and Newcastle were relegated. The only parts of the puzzle still undecided were who would get the final Champions League place (Manchester City or Manchester Utd) and who would finish as runners-up (Arsenal or Spurs)?
Arsenal were playing already-relegated Aston Villa, and Spurs were at already-relegated Newcastle. Earlier this week I was praying that Sunderland would still be in a dogfight with Newcastle on the final day so that – in theory – Newcastle would be up for it against Tottenham. But Sunderland condemned the Geordies on Wednesday by beating Everton. So, with Spurs being two points ahead of Arsenal going into the final game everyone assumed that they’d hammer Newcastle, so whatever Arsenal did to Aston Villa wouldn’t matter.
But it didn’t quite turn out as expected. Newcastle absolutely hammered Tottenham with a 5-1 victory. So with Arsenal beating Villa 4-0, the Gunners ended up finishing second!
I was on a lesson with a pupil who is a Spurs fan, and we had the radio on intermittently so we could keep tabs on what was happening. Arsenal had gone one-up within a few minutes, but with Tottenham at 0-0 – and still expecting an easy victory – that didn’t really mean much. Until Newcastle scored. Then scored again. My pupil was gutted when the lesson finished at that point. But as I continued to listen to the match reports as I drove away, it was me who was gutted when Spurs pulled one back, and when Newcastle went down to 10 men I thought that was it.
But Newcastle had other ideas. They scored again. And again. And then, again. They took Tottenham apart.
The only thing I’m hoping for now is that those idiots who keep clamouring for Arsene Wenger to be replaced give it a rest and go back to whatever they do for a living. Arsene is the only man for Arsenal. Period.
Every team in the Premier League gets a basic £55m. The winner gets another £25m, and each position below that is worth £1,236,083 less. So Leicester got £25m for winning, and Arsenal got £23.7m for coming second (£1,236,083 x 20 places = £25m more or less). Then, each appearance on TV is worth £750,000 (plus a little bit for being on MOTD). Leicester got on TV 15 times, whereas Arsenal were there 27 times!
Arsenal would still have earned the most even if they’d have finished third. The full pay-out table is thus (from the Independent):
1. Arsenal – £101m
2. Manchester City – £96.8m
3. Manchester United – £96.3m (if they finish fifth by either drawing or beating Bournemouth on Tuesday)
4. Tottenham – £95m
5. Leicester – £93m
6. Liverpool – £90.4m
7. Chelsea – £87.1m
8. West Ham – £85.6m
9. Southampton – £84.5m
10. Everton – £82.9m
11. Stoke City – £79m
12. Swansea City – £75.3m
13. Watford – £74.1m
14. West Brom – £73m
15. Newcastle United – £72.7m
16. Crystal Palace – £72.4m
17. Sunderland – £71.7m
18. Bournemouth – £70.4m (if they remain 16th by losing to Manchester United)
In the words of Kent Brockman, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again – democracy simply doesn’t work.
The UK has been the laughing stock of the world recently, with the insane decision to invite the public to suggest names for a new Arctic research ship. Far and away the clear winner was “Boaty McBoatface”. Fortunately, intelligence still clings desperately to bits of wreckage in the ocean of stupidity, some of which is still bobbing around among the idiots who decided to let the public get involved in the first place.
The ship will be called the RRS Sir David Attenborough – which is what it should have been called from the start without having involved people who shouldn’t be allowed to vote or breed.
The Australians, who are about to name an ice-breaking ship, have said they want to avoid “a Boaty McBoatface situation.” I mean, the Aussies are looking down at us. How bad is that?
Someone called John Walker – one of those people under the misapprehension that they’re funny – has said he will name any future child he has “Boaty McBoatface” in protest. If only we could be certain that he was joking. I mean, completely certain.
In the UK, people took to their keyboards to say the decision not to pick the name Boaty was anti-democratic.
The imbeciles who let it get this far have even attempted to suggest the affair was “good for science”. What they didn’t make clear was that the sort of science likely to have benefited was the kind you’d find in a play school environment. You know – let’s build a model bridge (out of sparkles and split red lentils). Or, let’s paint a picture of a house (using sparkles and split red lentils). Or, let’s grow some lentils (and add some sparkles).
But it appears that Sainsbury’s is also under the control of the kind of idiots I used to work for, and for whom the end result is irrelevant as long as a lot of people are involved in getting to it. Their Camden Road store placed an ad in the local newspaper asking for an artist to paint their canteen for free.
You can probably already see the precise point at which Sainsbury’s lost the plot and became the target for thousands of retards whose sorry little lives revolve around social media. I mean, the average “artist” in London – especially if he’s out of work, and especially if he’s the kind Sainsbury’s no doubt had in mind – is likely to have already been on the steering committee of the “vote Boaty” party anyway. Then consider that it is Camden we’re talking about, and that ramps things up a few more notches. Then consider that Sainsbury’s most recent profits were declared at £681 million on sales of over £25 billion. The brains of these “artists” will reach meltdown pretty quickly.
Ordinarily, though, it would just be a story about crassness. However, when you get to this bit, you once again see democracy at work:
The advert was placed in the local paper following a colleague discussion around ways to improve the canteen…
A “colleague discussion”, eh? That sounds suspiciously like a team meeting to me. I can see the flipcharts and free doughnuts already. It takes even less effort to imagine how some idiot “colleague” suggested that a Banksy-wannabe monstrosity on the canteen wall while they ate their tofu salad would somehow increase productivity (though not in those words). Trying to get a radical, out of work artist to do it unpaid was probably one of the better ideas.
Actually, it’s quite funny watching people so easily putting their foot in their mouth as a result of social media, these days. I wonder how much longer it will take them to realise that those who use social media as a substitute for a life aren’t worth bothering with. Don’t try to avoid upsetting them, don’t worry if you do, and for God’s sake don’t engage with them unnecessarily – even if they are “a colleague”.
Sainsbury’s, though, has gone all defensive and apologetic, which is absolutely the worst thing they could have done. To start with, they’re now implying that the “colleagues” were wrong. Yet there is no real reason why the store couldn’t (or shouldn’t) have asked someone to work unpaid any more than there’s a reason why they couldn’t (or shouldn’t) have offered a large sum of money. It’s up to them. As I said above, choosing the former option is merely a case of crassness, brought about by an incompetent attempt to be “democratic” and involve the workforce.
Sainsbury’s store management should have told their staff they were getting a couple of coats of magnolia, and that keeping their jobs should be incentive enough to maintain productivity. That would have been the end of the matter.
I saw a story in yesterday about how the police had stopped a car in Birmingham in which sheep had been spotted. The police subsequently issued this photo:
The blurring of the lambs’ faces was done by one of the officers as a joke “due to their age and vulnerability.” It made me laugh when I saw it (especially because the lamb on the left is standing there like Shaun the Sheep).
NOTE: This is an old article and much of what is said is no longer relevant. It was at the time… but the River of Time flows ever on…
Apologies for this crappy link. The Nottingham Post website is an unfortunate collection of annoying and intrusive adverts with poorly written and alarmist news stories secreted amongst them. However, one of my pupils told me that Colwick Test Centre was closing when she arrived for her lesson the other day, but after further investigation it appears that the story she’d read concerned Watnall test centre, and not Colwick. And it isn’t anywhere near as clear-cut as she’d been led to believe.
Updated image (2022)
The title of the Post’s piece is misleading, since the “closure” being referred to is neither confirmed, nor is it connected with the totally separate matter of test waiting times which the Post covered in a similarly unbalanced way a week or two previously, and so brought into this story unnecessarily. The simple truth of the matter is that Watnall testing station is – and has always been – primarily for HGV and public services drivers. Over the years, car tests have been carried out there “in secret” (it didn’t show up as an option when you booked, but you could ask if you booked by phone), temporarily (when Chalfont Drive first closed down), or officially up until the present time (after Clarendon Street closed down). With much HGV testing going private these days, DVSA is considering the future viability of the Watnall site – which is huge (the yellow area in the photo), and must cost a fortune to maintain. Car testing is a very small part of it (the red areas – and I might be wrong about the size and precise location of the parking bit, as I haven’t used Watnall myself during its most recent incarnation as a car testing centre).
My first reaction when I read the article, and extracted the simple facts from the complex cipher used by the Post’s amateur writers, was “if they close it, where will they move car tests to this time?” However, many other ADIs’ initial reaction is along the lines of “we must start a petition… fight them in the air, in the sea, and on the beaches… because test waiting times are already 17 weeks… we can’t afford to lose a test centre while it is like that… the only option if Watnall closes is Lincoln… Purple monkey dishwasher.” The Post quotes some of these comedians.
The simple truth is this: Watnall as a car test centre IS NOT closing. The future of the site is under review, but DVSA has made it clear that if the site closes, then provision will be made for car driving tests to be conducted from an alternative location. The alternative location WILL NOT be 50 miles away in Lincoln, as some of those ADIs are suggesting! Tests around Watnall may move, but they won’t stop. Christ! Even Derby is closer than Lincoln. And Sutton-in-Ashfield, Melton Mowbray, Loughborough, Leicester, and Burton on Trent. Not to mention the other THREE Nottingham test centres. I mean, what kind of idiot do you have to be to start rattling on about Lincoln?
About six years ago, Nottingham had three test centres (Chalfont Drive, West Bridgford, and Gedling), with Watnall always hanging around as a do-they-don’t-they venue. West Bridgford and Gedling were tiny places with little or no parking, and the Labour government’s push to open multi-purpose test centres (MPTCs) saw these closed down and amalgamated into Colwick MPTC (great idea, by the way). All hell broke loose at the time, with ADIs boycotting Colwick and migrating their pupils to Chalfont Drive whether they wanted to go there or not. Many instructors were terrified of having to teach bay parking for the first time in Nottingham (that’s a fact, by the way).
Later, the lease ran out on Chalfont Drive, and DVSA waited until then before even starting to look for alternative venues. Tests were subsequently and variously conducted from DVLA Offices (now closed), Watnall, and finally Clarendon Street. Clarendon was part of a Coalition drive to move tests out of test centres and “into the community” (stupid idea), and Clifton also opened for tests for this reason at the same time. Clifton and Clarendon were experimental and were originally only going to be operated for a limited period. Eventually, Beeston officially replaced Chalfont as the main test centre on the west side of Nottingham, and tests operating out of DVLA Offices and Watnall moved over there.
Finally, and most recently, Clarendon Street (which was also in a stupid location) was closed, though Clifton (which isn’t too bad) is still operating, and Clarendon’s operations moved once and for all to Watnall. At no point during any of this did DVSA (or DSA, as it then was) “close” any test centre without providing alternative venues. In fact, in some cases the number of test slots available increased with the changes.
As far as test capacities go, Clifton only has two tests going out at any time, and I don’t think it operates for the same number of hours as the main centres. It has (or had) the lowest pass rate of all the Nottingham test centres, and I am convinced that this was largely down to the horrendous road works when the A453 was being widened, and the fact that the A453 is one of the busiest roads in the country. Instructors can pontificate as much as they like about how learners “should be able to drive anywhere”, but the simple fact is that any new driver going for their test is statistically much more likely to make a mistake – and for it to be deemed “serious” – around heavy traffic and variable road restrictions than they are on a semi-deserted industrial estate, or running around virtually the same route every test (as was the case with Beeston during the gridlock created by tram works, which resulted in its pass rate being the highest by a huge margin until someone noticed the blip and set things right). I’m not sure how many tests are conducted at a time out of Watnall, but I am certain it is a lot less than the 6-8 maximum at Colwick and Beeston at the time of writing.
One area where I’m not so quick to defend DVSA is on the matter of test waiting times. Not the waiting time per se, but how they think they can reduce it with only a couple of new examiners. Even now, with a capacity for up to 20 tests per time slot (or 100-120 tests per day) throughout Nottingham, the waiting time is going up by approximately one week per month. Simple arithmetic shows that the only way this can ever be brought down – bar a sudden and catastrophic collapse in the numbers of people wanting tests – is to significantly increase the number of tests conducted. An extra 10 tests a day from a couple of new examiners is a drop in the ocean, and it needs ten times that to make a dent in the arrears.
And this is where it gets potentially very messy. From what I understand, DVSA wants its staff to be able to conduct one extra test per working day, and a little more simple arithmetic shows that this would definitely provide the necessary increase in the total number of tests conducted. A time and motion study has been conducted which is looking into that, and it will come as no surprise to discover that examiners are not particularly happy about this. They say it will mean that the latest tests in winter will come back in the dark, which is both dangerous and unfair. Furthermore – and this is one reason I would never want to be an examiner – they already have only a short time between tests to fill in their paperwork, and this will be reduced still further. Tests returning late (not uncommon due to Nottingham’s incompetently managed road works) would cut that time back even further. This extra test will almost certainly add fuel to the already burning fire over civil service pensions and working conditions (i.e. more strikes).
If you try to book a test now (start of May 2016), the first free dates (not including cancellations) turn up in mid- to late-August for all Nottingham test centres – except Watnall. Watnall is completely booked for the entire availability window that DVSA’s booking system allows. All those whingeing ADIs could easily book tests elsewhere and get much better test dates than they are suggesting is possible, and I wonder why they don’t.
DVSA is wholly responsible for not dealing with the test waiting time problem MUCH sooner, and MUCH more effectively than it has done. It has taken them almost two years to do almost nothing, and the problem continues to worsen by the day. It’s got nothing to do with candidates “not being trained properly” and failing their tests, because pass rates are roughly the same as they have always been – 47% every year since 2011, with a 1% increase each year from 44% in 2007. In other words, it has stayed virtually the same for at least a decade (if you ignore the fact that Beeston was passing too many people during the tram works due to the piss-easy test route it was using).
And finally, just a repeat reminder for the stupid ones out there: Watnall isn’t closing. Even if the site does, tests will still be conducted from somewhere fairly close by. You won’t have to go to Lincoln unless you are VERY stupid. Even now, if you drove more than an extra mile or two with your pupils, you could get MUCH better test dates if you were prepared to cover the other test centres (I will do tests at all of them, though Watnall has never appeared on my radar, probably because it is permanently fully booked).
Update: As of 2018, the three test centres in Nottingham are Chilwell, Watnall, and Colwick. Lead times at all of them are at least 6 weeks (not including cancellation dates and sudden Saturday overtime slots). Since I wrote this article, I have started using Watnall quite a lot (and the parking is not quite in the location I gave in the image now).
Well done Alberto, who passed first time today with 5 driver faults.
He was very nervous, and to make matters worse, he’s also been under a lot of pressure due to a serious family situation. I’d already suggested that he might want to postpone his test if this was likely to affect his concentration, but in the end we decided to go ahead. It turned out to be a good decision.
I’ve not had many tests this year as most of my pupils are new, so it is nice to be up-and-running again with two low-fault passes in quick succession.
Well done Alberto, who passed first time today with 5 driver faults.