Shropshire Star

Mark Andrews: Protesters should try flour power

Read today's column from Mark Andrews.

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Music festivals – worth going without a wash for?

BRITAIN'S biggest onshore oil and gas find since 1973 has been discovered just outside Hull. Given that this will potentially bring £200 million to an area which has suffered its share of deprivation, you would expect it to be welcomed with open arms. But no, the Loctite louts have already been out in force, bonding themselves to anything that moves in an attempt to disrupt the scheme.They say they want to see Britain become carbon neutral as a matter of urgency. Which is rather strange given that super glue, or cyanoacrylite to use its correct name, is a hydrocarbon product made from petrochemicals of the kind they are trying to stop. Maybe they should stick to flour paste in future?

THE secret to reversing the ageing process is hidden inside pomegranites and raspberries, a study in Switzerland has claimed. Well I’ve obviously been eating in the wrong restaurants, because last time I ate raspberries, the only thing hidden in them was seeds.

JUST in time for the start of the music festival season, a new report reveals that the average attendee goes three days without washing. Nice. I realise this probably marks me about as a bit of a square, but I have never been to a music festival in my life, and would very much like to keep it that way.

IT'S not that I don’t like music, and I can see the attraction of spending warm summer evenings watching your favourite bands. But going three days without a wash just to stand uncomfortably close to other equally unwashed people so you can stare at a large screen and listen to music broadcast through giant speakers does not sound like a value-for-money experience. It’s just an unhygienic way to watch television. Why not have smaller, open-air concerts, where you can actually see and hear the bands, and then go home afterwards, or at least stay in a local hotel?

ANYWAY, I’ve just returned from my own festival, a huge classic car rally at Burghley House in Lincolnshire. The clientele may be a little more mature, but everybody has had a wash, and the toilets are definitely better. And then next month it’s time for the Wolverhampton Beer Festival. Let the festival season commence.

Mr Moore

JAY Moore is a street performer, drum teacher and fire eater with a, shall we say, unconventional appearance. He is also a town councillor in Oswestry, who has lodged a formal complaint about former mayor Sandy Best after she asked him to remove his baseball cap in a council meeting. She reportedly told him he looked like a ‘West Side Story reject’, which was maybe a bit harsh. I was thinking more of an East 17 tribute act, but I guess that’s a generation thing. Anyway, Mr Moore has accused Miss Best of sexism after she said men should not wear hats in the council chamber. “I take things like this to heart having spent all my childhood and teen years constantly being bullied,” he said. Talk about snowflakes. Mr Moore is 35, so you would think by now he would have developed a thicker skin. Being told to dress appropriately is not bullying, and it is certainly not sexist. But wearing a hat in a council meeting is bad manners.

FORMER Olympic cyclist Chris Boardman has said hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers money is wasted on ‘substandard’ cycle lanes that actually make cycling more dangerous. Which is rather unfortunate given that the West Midlands Combined Authority has recently committed to spending £256 million on the things. Still, it’s only money.