Shropshire Star

Mark Andrews: When things start getting out of control

SHOWING an uncanny knack of knowing how to get more people using public transport, the Extinction Rebellion mob this week decided to get their point across by blocking the roads around Snow Hill railway station in Birmingham.

Published
An injured swan following a catapult attack

It does beg the question, though, about what they are doing in Brum. Why aren’t they with their mates at Glastonbury, where a full-scale protest is being staged? Maybe somebody disrupted their transport arrangements...

AN oasis of peace and tranquillity between the thrumming traffic of the Telford Eastern Primary, the factories of Halesfield and the housing estates of Brookside and Stirchley, Holmer Lake has for years been known for its graceful swans.

Not any more. Sadly the swans have had to be removed for their own safety after idiots started taking pot shots at them with catapults. This month alone, one bird has been killed and another one was left with a nut embedded in its beak. The Friends of Holmer Lake group has now asked the RSPCA not to return any swans back into the lake, saying their safety cannot be guaranteed.

We hear a lot about anti-social behaviour being down to a lack of activities for young people. But here we have a wonderful community amenity, improved and maintained through the hard work of volunteers, which is being spoiled by nasty cowards who appear to take pleasure in ruining it for the rest of the community.

In an ideal world, somebody would drop the perpetrators inside the lion enclosure at the zoo, and we would soon see how brave they are. But I suppose the best we can hope for is that they will be caught and feel the full force of the law. I won’t hold my breath, though.

VALERIE Sanders is a 4ft 10 cleaning company boss. She is married to 16- stone body-builder Michael, who used to work as a prison officer before being made redundant.

After losing his job, Michael got a job at a gym, and according to Valerie he started spending too much time working on his physique, and not enough helping around the house. So she did wives do, and left notes around the house asking him to vacuum the carpet and clean the patio doors.

“She was constantly on at me,” says Michael. “She used to leave the vacuum out or the polish and wanted me to clean every day because of the dogs.”

Valerie also complained that Michael was eating six meals a day, and that the Viagra he started taking was made him ‘sniffy and snotty’.

So far, so amusing. Anyway, for some reason Michael had to visit his local job centre, where a member of staff thought he seemed a bit down in the dumps. When staff asked what was wrong, he mentioned something about ‘er indoors giving him a bit of earache.

Next thing you know, the Old Bill were on their doorstep, and Valerie was arrested for ‘controlling behaviour’, locked up in a cell for 17 hours before being charged and banned from returning to the family home. The case was dismissed before a crown-court trial was due to begin this week.

Maybe this is a bit radical, but perhaps the job centre staff would do better to spend their time trying to get out-of-work people into gainful employment.

And given that the police are so under-resourced, maybe they should have questioned whether a body-builder getting a bit of verbal of his pint-sized wife really constituted controlling behaviour.

Still, it will have boosted his cred down the gym, I'm sure.