Shropshire Star

Mark Andrews on Saturday: Greta's dilemma, belt tightening, and the Old Bill gets a croc

Greta Thunberg has been awarded a Blue Peter badge for her campaigning, and you can't help wonder why they didn't do it ages ago. After all, with all those Fridays off school, she could have really enjoyed the free access to Britain's greatest tourist attractions.

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Alligator head – awaiting feedback?

Still, with an end to lockdown in sight, better late than never, although looking at the list of participating attractions, you do wonder how many she will want to visit. The Ironbridge Gorge museums are obviously out, she's hardly going to celebrate the Industrial Revolution, is she? Same goes for the Black Country Museum. Faraday Museum in London? What, the bloke who pioneered electricity? British Motor Museum at Gaydon? Do me a favour. I suppose there's always the Fleet Air Arm Museum and British Airways i360...

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Meanwhile, Howden Junior School in Goole has named one of its houses after Greta. It is replacing traditional house names, such as Sir Walter Raleigh, Francis Drake and Horatio Nelson, with more 'woke' alternatives, also including Marcus Rashford and Amanda Gorman (me neither).

According to Ofsted, Howden Junior 'requires improvement'. You don't say. The kids will probably leave the school thinking Raleigh made bicycles, Drake was a Canadian rapper, and that Rashford's 94th-minute winner against Wolves really was a seminal moment in history.

But getting back to Greta, I wonder what the attendance record will be like?

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Police got a bit of a croc while raiding a house in the Perry Barr area of Birmingham this week when they were greeted by the sight of 80 severed alligator heads. I'm sure there's a perfectly plausible explanation.

Officers suspect the man was selling the, ahem, items on Ebay, and I bet most of them were bought during the early hours of the morning. We've all been there, haven't we? A few beers in front of the telly, check your phone for messages, accidentally click the 'buy it now' button and next thing you know there is a guy from DHL at the door asking you to sign for half a ton of crocodile spares.

Anyway, a man was this week being questioned on suspicion of illegally handling an endangered species. What, the alligators or the punters?

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After 12 months doing his best impression of Father Christmas, the Chancellor this week announced a package of belt-tightening as Britain faces up to paying for the coronavirus pandemic.

For all the howls of protest, I suspect most people are grown-up enough to realise the support packages of the past year came with a price tag, and that there is no such thing as a free lunch. The harsh reality is that we will all be a little poorer as a result. And while a one per cent pay increase for the nurses who put their lives on the line certainly sounds stingy, it is probably one per cent more than most of us will get.

Or, maybe I should say people would be prepared to accept a bit of austerity if ministers led by example, y'know, showing we are all in it together. Which brings us to the £200,000 makeover of the Prime Minister's flat...