29 November 2004
Lemming failing to jump is condemned as negative
Let me say something positive about taxi drivers. Many of them are friendly, on time and don’t jump the lights. Some of them are extremely good chess players.
Let me also say something positive about Norwich. It is my favourite city in the entire world.
Being such a positive person, I was surprised to notice that a taxi driver had written to the editor, complaining of my negative outlook as a “doom and gloom merchant”. He also said he had come across many people like me, which seems an extraordinary run of bad luck. He has my sympathy.
All this because I pointed out how difficult it was for someone from Lowestoft to drive to the Theatre Royal in Norwich. The taxi driver said he could find the Theatre Royal with no trouble, which I am relieved to hear. It would be embarrassing if he couldn’t, especially as the city goes out of its way to help taxi drivers by allowing them to drive where mere mortals and doom and gloom merchants cannot go. I personally have no trouble finding the Theatre Royal, but then I was born in Norwich, and I usually walk.
The fact remains that a non-taxi-driving friend from Stafford (yes, I have friends in places other than Lowestoft) visited the city for the second time last week, and out of the blue, with no prompting whatsoever from me, asked: “Isn’t anyone in charge of traffic planning in Norwich?”
And she was not even trying to find the Theatre Royal.
Another gentleman, on reading my article last time, wrote: “Until this morning I couldn't work out why it took Moses 40 years to find the Promised Land. Could it be he had a Norwich traffic planner plotting the course?”
If being against traffic humps and convoluted road systems is negative, I guess I sometimes am. But then, to a lemming, everyone who doesn’t jump off a cliff is negative.
Pondhenge head welcomes disruptive minister
The acting headmaster of Pondhenge Grammar School, Professor V A R Scheinlich, has welcomed the Government’s plan to introduce disruptive pupils into previously well-ordered schools.
He said last night: “The Secretary of State for Education is man of wit and insight. It won’t be long before the schools system is totally revolutionised.
“At Pondhenge we look forward to having our lessons disrupted superbly by this new intake of pupils that Mr Clarke is sending to us. We have had enough of pupils learning things and getting good exam results and generally making a success of their lives. What fun is that?
“My teachers have been saying that they want a new challenge, and I myself have been despairing at the lack of paperwork from Whitehall recently.”
Asked whether he would be able to offer the disruptive pupils a good education, Prof Scheinlich said: “I understand they have already been offered a good education, but have declined the offer. No doubt they will be able to offer us a new educational experience.”
Prof Scheinlich is retiring at Christmas.
Newts aim to make schools as good as social services
A consortium of great crested newts that has been running the social services department for Norfolk County Council has received a reassuring one-star rating from the Government, which a spokesperson described as “not very good really”.
Encouraged by this, the consortium is moving swiftly on to take over the education department, recently bolstered by the exciting collapse of its PFI scheme – described on this page two weeks ago as the most widely predicted disaster in the history of the county.
“Clearly the two departments will fit together perfectly,” said a spokesnewt. “We expect to do just as well in education as we have in social services.”
He denied that there was any connection between his consortium and the newt consortium whose bid to take over the school building programme is being looked on favourably by County Hall. “We have never met each other very much,” he commented.
Customs down on tits, complains bird
The only Norfolk great tit to have travelled to Lithuania complained last night about the difficulties she encountered in getting through Baltic customs.
“I am only a straightforward bird,” she told our reporter. “I have been described as a stick-in-the-mud, which I find frankly offensive. Not many birds can do what I can with a bag of peanuts.
“But the suggestion that I was smuggling is ridiculous. Apparently I was supposed to have a visa, but I don’t believe in credit cards, especially near Christmas. They obviously thought I should have stayed in Norfolk. They said I wasn’t built for migration, which is blatantly sexist.”
The great tit, who asked not to be named but said she was a Eurosceptic, added that many inferior birds were just waved through while she was detained. “There were a couple of northern shovelers that were obviously up to no good, a very common goldeneye, and if I say lesser spotted woodpecker, I think you’ll get my meaning,” she said. “There was even a really dozy Ural owl, which to my mind didn’t know where he was. None of them had any trouble with Customs.”
Back home in Fakenham, the tit, who said she “had just been visiting a mute swan in Klaipeda, or possibly Butinga”, has decided not to travel so far again. “Maybe Hemsby for a bite to eat,” she said. “If I’m feeling peckish.”
Meanwhile she would probably sit around for a while, and ring a few people.
“I was feeling quite pale in Lithuania, and I’m still feeling a bit blue,” she said, “which is confusing.”
Baltic customs officers were unavailable for comment.
Taverham woman defends French
Suggestions that the recent loud bang in the sky over north-east Norfolk was caused by a French aircraft are far-fetched, according to a Taverham woman. Diane Taverham said yesterday that in her experience the French were quiet, artistic and considerate people, but she had heard several similar sounds while on holiday in parts of Italy – despite the absence of Liberal Democrats, who “tend to provoke that kind of thing”.