It looks like Shrewsbury’s most famous son is in danger of sliding down the pecking order of “well known people with the surname Darwin”, writes our News Blogger David Burrows.

The main difference between John and Charles is that John went out in a boat and then turned up some time later claiming he didn’t know where he was from.

Charles, on the other hand, went out in a boat and turned up some time later claiming he knew where EVERYBODY was from.

Another slight difference is that part of Charles’s doctrine was survival of the fittest (although it was not him who coined the phrase, but Herbert Spencer. Every day’s a school day).

Now I’m no medical expert (despite using the line “Trust me, I’m a doctor,” on several occasions. It never works) but I do know that being “dead” can be considered the ultimate in being very, very far from fit indeed. John’s
doctrine is “survival” of the canoeist?.

The Darwin story (John, not Charles) is one of the more bizarre stories that hit the headlines last week while I was taking a well earned rest – the definition of “well earned rest” being “battering people to semi-consciousness with newly-bought wrapping paper while trying to get hold of the last Wii in Sainsbury’s.

Oops, now my soon-to-be pensioner parentsknow what I’ve bought them for Christmas.

But it’s not like we’ve been short of our own stories locally, by all accounts. The fact that we changed the layout of our front page for virtually every edition on Friday is testament to that.

Our sub editors love it when that happens. It makes hitting deadlines so much easier when you have
to rip up your design of the front page and start all over again. Six times.

We’ll all be glad of the drinks when the rounds of Christmas dos come around – which they are, starting this week.

We’ve decided to do something a bit different this year. We’ve hired a boat.

If no paper drops through your door on Monday, don’t phone our circulation department.

I’d try Panama.