Mick, a proper gent – I’ll miss him Mick Woollett (easy to remember the name, double everything except ‘e’ and ‘w’) died on Monday. He was my editor at Motor Cycle Weekly in the ‘seventies and early ‘eighties. He was mature in every sense of the word, made editor in his early fifties and a proper gentleman, having to work with an office-full of (mostly) youngsters. He never lost his cool, was unfailingly courteous, never swore and was always perfectly mannered. Extraordinary. I plan to get a lot more off my chest about Mick, but for the moment I’ll leave you with this, true, story from, about 1982. MCW had one mouthy sub, a Kiwi called Brendan who was always shouting off about everything. He knew everything, was witty, but packed full of bluster and b**s**. In the run-up to the Daytona Speed Week one year he’d been shouting the odds about how HE ought to join the team because of all his experience, skills and how he’d do a better j...
A few years ago the wonderful Dr Ben Goldacre of the Guardian’s ‘Bad Science’ page got his cat a diploma in nutrition … much like the discredited ‘Dr’ Gilliam McKeith. It’s a great – true – story that exposes the bogus McKeith, but it set me thinking – are any other animals so highly qualified? It turns out there are loads of them! Colby Nolan the cat was awarded an MBA degree in 2004 by Trinity Southern University, in a Dallas, Texas. In 2009, George, a cat owned by Chris Jackson, the presenter of the BBC show Inside Out North East & Cumbria, was registered with three professional organizations, the British Board of Neuro Linguistic Programming, the United Fellowship of Hypnotherapists, and the Professional Hypnotherapy Practitioner Association, securing George's accreditation as a hypnotherapist. Back in 1967 Oliver Greenhalgh, the cat, was accepted as a Fellow of the English Association of Estate Agents and Valuers, after a payment of eleven guineas. ...
London Councils are owed a total £642 million in council tax arrears - an average of £188 per household. Six percent of that total is owed to Croydon Council, who have – amazingly – slightly reduced the amount owing in the last year!!! I suppose we long-suffering tax-payers should be grateful, but the £40m outstanding adds about £271 to all our individual bills. UK Council Tax debt league 1. Liverpool - £114m, adds £528 to average bill 2. Hackney - £41.8m, adds £403 to average bill 3. Haringey - £32.6m, adds £313 to average bill 4. Hounslow - £29.7m, adds £306 to average bill 5. Lambeth - £38m, adds £284 to average bill 6. Islington - £28.1m, adds £277 to average bill 7. Croydon - £40m, adds £271 to average bill 8. ...
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