h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

South Yorkshire homeowners have long lived in fear of today's revelations. The BBC, bless her, has discovered Rawmarsh. I don't suppose I'll ever be able to afford a house-move now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/5349392.stm

The locals have been feeding their progeny through a gap in the school-fence. The healthy fare nowadays proffered by the education service is apparently not to the childrens' taste. I don't suppose Jamie Oliver has ever been to Rawmarsh. He'd probably get eaten if he tried. Deep fried, almost certainly.

Fish and chips ferried in via the cemetery next door is leaving Auntie's various reporters in a traumatized daze. Broadcasting's finest have stumbled upon a veritable affront to civilisation here. It's more shocking than a rabid Pope, or an everyday case of an American President advocating torture.

Did anyone hear the woman they interviewed at the end of PM on Radio 4? Poor old Carolyn Quinn is probably still scrubbing herself with disinfectant under a hot shower. For the first few seconds, CQ managed to contain her reaction at the level of incredulous horror, but by the end she seemed to have lost all hope for humanity. This is going to put pounds on the Licence Fee, just to pay for all that counselling.

I liked the bit where the local woman said it was OK because the kids would all go home to a proper cooked meal. There was one of those hive-resonance moments when me and twenty thousand other listeners all went 'Yeah, right'.

The next village up the road's called Greaseborough, incidentally, which at least tells people what to expect. I've a mate there, who says all the actors in The Full Monty were too posh, and who deplores the liberal attitude to immigrants that he's discerned in the people of Barnsley. I somehow can't see even him thinking that the Rawmarsh parents have done the region proud, though.

Never mind, Jamie. They're probably pretty close to the five pieces of fruit and veg a day. I know you didn't mean it as an intake for the whole town, but hey, you've got to start somewhere.

What is a salad role? A salad and a role? Or a salad on a role? Or like a tuna salad sandwich?

Dunno. But I'm pretty sure it's not like a tuna salad sandwich. Judging by the website photo, it comes in a rather fetching blue box.

I listened to the PM interview again. It's surreal - middle England talking to left-behind England.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/
(PM Latest, fast forwarded to about 43.5 minutes in)

Seeing is believing :- http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ifs_news/hi/nb_rm_fs.stm?news=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1&nbram=1&nbwm=1&nol_storyid=5350760

I thought this was going to be about the blind driver pulled over by police for "erratic driving" (he was being told when to turn the wheel by his front-seat passenger, who was a banned driver)

When the policeman asked the driver to remove his sunglasses, the policeman was shocked to find the driver had no eyes.

Um, unsurprisingly, he also had no MOT, no licence and no insurance. His fate? His licence *cough* was endorced, he was banned from driving, ordered to take an extended driving test, given a suspended jail sentence and he was fined.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/5335802.stm

Be careful out there, folks.

By one of life's remarkable and instructive coincidences, the mortgage advisor I saw this morning went to Rawmarsh School. She was well fit, too. Slim, red-headed and gorgeous.
We talked about her Alma Mater's unfortunate public exposure, and about what our Disposable Head of Government would call the local population's "poverty of aspiration".
I personally think that "poverty of respiration" would be a good idea for most of them, but the unexpected conversation was so pleasurable that I decided to shut up and listen (and dream) for once.
Rotherhem just got a whole lot nicer.