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News In Brief – from around the regions

FULL-TIME FOR PUPILS: Lunch was being served with a football theme today for pupils in Cambridgeshire schools.

Twenty four hours before Chelsea were due to face Aston Villa in the FA Cup, the youngsters were tucking into turkey footballers, mini potato footballs, pasta football shapes, “Goal-den” syrup sponge and “extra time” spicy delight.

The Cambridge Evening News reported that the county’s school catering service had also organised a Predict the Score competition for youngsters eating the meals, with footballs as prizes.

A NASTY TURN IN THE LAUNDRETTE: From the Brighton Evening Argus comes the story of Andy Burrage who was accidentally locked inside a laundrette while he was still trying to dry his washing.

Mr Burrage made a sign saying “Help! I am being held prisoner in the laundrette” and held it up to the window. A passer-by raised the alarm and Mr Burrage was rescued by police after three quarters of an hour.

MAYOR’S THREE-WHEEL PASSION: The new Mayor of Lincoln has been revealed as a Robin Reliant fanatic by the councillor who nominated him for the job.

The Lincolnshire Echo reported how Councillor Bud Robinson joked that the Mayor would be able to put a sticker up in the civic limo saying ‘My other car’s a Robin Reliant’. He also suggested that if he couldn’t bear to be parted from his little car, Mayor Richard Coupland could always pop it in the boot of the limo.

GETTING THE BIRD: Taxi driver Darren Hall saw a bird swoop towards his car as he drove through Redcar and was sure it was a goner.

But two days, and 400 miles later, a strange tapping sound sent him into a garage for a check-up, reported the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette.

The astonished driver and a mechanic found a baby pigeon tucked between the wheel and the brake-drum – none the worse for its ordeal.

HEDGEHOG HEAT IS ON: Good old British Gas! The Yorkshire Evening Post has told how the generous energy company has given hedgehog rescuer Debbie James £870 worth of central heating free to keep 40 of the injured spiky creatures warm in a garage used by Flockton Hedgehog Rescue Centre.

Debbie contacted British Gas in the hope of getting a discount and was overwhelmed by its kind donation.

ALL JAZZED UP: When Jazz the cat returned home smelling of perfume and wearing a new collar, his owner decided it was time to tell local cat lovers that he wasn’t a stray.

So Renee Green put an advert up in her corner shop to put people straight, the Grimsby Telegraph reported.

Jazz often wanders the street looking lost and forlorn and someone had taken him in, given him a bath and put a flea collar on him. But Renee said he’s allergic to flea collars which make his fur fall out.

NEVER TOO LATE…: A retired engineer, who had never used a keyboard in his life before last year, has won a special award for computer skills – at the age of 78.

Lewis Reynolds was one of 100 students to collect City and Guilds Level One Certificates at Gainsborough College, the Lincolnshire Echo reported, but he was also awarded a special commendation for outstanding achievement.

A delighted Mr Reynolds had his own computer delivered at home last week and is toying with the idea of returning to college for a more advanced course.

BIRDWATCHER GETS A BUZZ: Birdwatcher Ken Reeves could hardly control his excitement when he told the Leicester Mercury that he had spotted a rare red-rumped swallow flying above Market Bosworth.

“It was a privilege to witness the bird. When you are a twitcher, like I’ve been for the last 30 years, you start to sweat and shake when something like this happens. It does give you quite a buzz, but that’s what twitching’s all about.”

HOMELESS TIM SELLS CITIZEN: When a Stroud newsagent went into receivership, branch staff at the Gloucester Citizen put their heads together to decide how readers could avoid missing out.

They decided to ask homeless Tim Fasey – a familiar and popular sight around the shopping centre with his dog Tinker – to sell newspapers outside the closed shop.

CAKE-FACED THIEF: The Gloucestershire Echo reported that a £25 fine was dished out to a chef who admitted eating two eclairs and half a cheese and onion quiche after he sneaked into a cake shop behind an early-morning delivery man after his request for food was denied.

The thief told police he got locked in after going into the shop to use the toilet at 5.40am.

Defending solicitor Howard Ogden told the court: “The defendant is a man after my own heart. Rather than hitting the till, he went for the fridge.”

SHIPYARD JOB LOST ITS SPARK FOR JACK: After 20 year working at a shipyard, and with only a City and Guilds qualification in welding to his name, Jack Pattinson (45) opted for voluntary redundancy, reported the North West Evening Mail.
Now he is a glowing testament to the power of adult learning as he is a teaching assistant for design technology and food technology, one of two lunch-time supervisors in charge of 222 pupils, a trained minibus driver and first aider, school public relations officer and he also organises the sound and lighting for school productions and performances.

PERFECT MATCH OF THE DAY: The Northern Echo beat the media pack to find the Newcastle location where filming was taking place for the latest McDonald’s commercial starring football hero Alan Shearer.

When they found the film crew at the city’s Icon club, the newspaper also spoke to Shearer look-alike Chris Maynard, who has duped millions of viewers in several McDonald’s and Lucozade adverts. To save the football star’s precious time, all the distant and back shots are Chris and Shearer appears only in the close-ups.

Taking their uncanny resemblance further, Chris plays as a striker in local league football – but his strong Huddersfield accent is a dead giveaway.

A JUST REWARD FOR HER LABOURS: Valerie Donegan (41) gained an NVQ level 2 just days before giving birth to her ninth child, reported the Bristol Evening Post.

Valerie, of Weston-super-Mare, has worked at the Brynmelyn residential home in the resort for seven years. She said: “It has been a struggle at times to combine motherhood with a career but I love what I do and I think if you are determined enough, you will succeed.”

Valerie plans a quick return to work and has plenty of help at home to care for new baby Portia. One of her daughters, Sharon, is a registered nanny and of the seven children still at home, three are over 16.

PROPOSAL IN PRINT: Huddersfield Daily Examiner reader Cheryl Conlock is to marry long-term boyfriend Mike Scott – after he popped the question through the newspaper.

Mike (48) asked Cheryl to marry him in a notice in the Stop Press columns on the back page of Thursday’s Examiner. The paper ran a front-page story the same day and was able to report yesterday that Cheryl had said “yes”.

But she’d inadvertently made Mike sweat for an answer until 8pm because her copy of the paper had stayed, unread, in her bag while she watched her daughter in a netball tournament. “I was just sitting down when I saw the story on the front page. I was totally shocked,” said Cheryl.

PEACOCKS’ PROGRESS: Runaway peacocks are causing a nuisance in the Devon village of Halberton.

Two males and three females, which broke free from containers as they were being moved from an old people’s home, were proving impossible to recapture, the Express and Echo reported.

Their mating noises have woken villages at night and their droppings have been carried on to a pub’s new carpets by customers. One resident told the paper: “Everybody has been complaining about the peacocks coming into gardens and digging up plants and eating vegetables.”

WHO’S THAT MAN: Two hundred people who turned up for a concert at a British Legion club were in for a class act.

Strumming along with l
ocal 60s band The Stowaways at their reunion gig was none other than John Entwhistle, from rock legends The Who. He lives in the Cotswolds and agreed to to help after being told that the concert would raise money for a surgery in Stow, where he is a patient, the Gloucestershire Echo reported.

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