LOCAL GIRL WINS POETRY PRIZE

Sophie Manning (pictured above), of Appleton Close, Froghill, could hardly believe her luck last Monday when she took first prize in the ‘Little Laureate’ poetry competition.

She was presented with a cheque for £50 by Sir Stafford Blunt at a special awards ceremony at Fukham Hall in Central London. She also received a handsome trophy for her poem I Used To Have A Rabbit.

Ten-year-old Sophie is no stranger to artistic success, as she won first prize in the 7-12 section of the the Sow and Gate ‘Paint An Animal’ competition in January of last year.

Said Sir Stafford: “Sophie’s poem had everything: perfect metre, a good rhyme scheme and a deceptive simplicity. It tackled one of the grand themes of human existence in a subtle and unaffected manner, an achievement quite astonishing in one so young.”

The Observer is proud to reprint Sophie’s poem in full.

I Used To Have A Rabbit
by
Sophie Manning

I used to have a rabbit,
His name was Mr Bugs,
I’d greet him every morning,
With kisses and with hugs.

I used to have a rabbit,
His fur was white and brown,
A little tuft upon his head,
That looked just like a crown.

I used to have a rabbit,
I took him from his hutch,
And left him out on our front lawn,
Which he loved very much.

I used to have a rabbit,
While he was nibbling clover,
A speeding car veered off the road,
And ran my rabbit over.

I used to have a rabbit,
And though I was only seven,
My mummy said I mustn’t cry,
Because he’d gone to heaven.

I used to have a rabbit,
He loved to jump and play,
I ask God in my bedtime prayers,
To bless him every day.

GLAMOROUS GRAN GETS HER KIT OFF

A local woman who is set to appear in a glamour magazine says she is “thrilled to bits at the prospect”.

Emily Fanshawe, widow of industrialist Simon Fanshawe, is to be centrefold model for the July edition of Playgran. The magazine, which has featured such mature beauties as Arsula Undress, Gloria Honeyfart and Barbara Windors, has worldwide sales of over 170.

“I really don’t know how they came to choose me,” Ms Fanshawe told the Observer, “but it’s gratifying to be recognised, isn’t it? And I’ve always rather liked being in front of the camera.”

The photoshoot, which took place at Twycross Zoo earlier this month, involved the spirited senior citizen posing semi-naked with various wild animals.

“The photographer was really nice and put me completely at my ease," the 92-year-old said, "I didn’t feel at all embarrassed about taking my clothes off and posing for him.”

The magazine, which goes on sale on June 28th, includes a photo of Ms Fanshawe wrapped in a zebra skin as well as one of her seated on the back of a tapir, wearing a flame red bodice and carrying a whip.

SHROUD OF TURIN ‘OBVIOUSLY A TEA TOWEL’

The ‘poster’ purchased at a Froghill charity shop three weeks ago is “categorically not the Shroud of Turin”, the Observer can reveal.

The item was spotted in the window of Save the Tapirs by housewife Millie Buckland, who bought it as a present for her husband. However, subsequent inspection gave rise to hopes that the winding cloth some believe to have contained the body of Jesus might miraculously have found its way to Froghill.

Speaking on behalf of the British Museum, Dr. Digby Morpeth told the Observer : “After subjecting it to analysis, I can confirm that the artefact in question is categorically not the Shroud of Turin. First of all, no-one has actually reported the original missing from its home in the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist.

“Secondly, a quick check would have revealed the words ‘100% Irish Linen’ stencilled on the reverse side border, along with a tag that says 'Machine Wash, Hot Iron'.

“The item is quite obviously a tea towel, as it has stains on it which, once analysed, proved to be traces of boil-in-the-bag fish sauce.

“It is with regret that I must inform you that this could only have been Our Lord’s winding cloth if He been around eight inches tall and eating Findus Haddock Mornay at the time of his death.”

SQUID GUTTED BY CHEF'S SCHOOL VISIT

A local school continued its drive to get its children eating more healthily by inviting a professional chef in to do a cookery class last Friday.

Cheetingham CE Primary hit the headlines back in January with its controversial initiative to promote good eating habits by force-feeding its pupils with junk food.

"Our junk food campaign was a resounding success,” said headteacher Arnold Plumm, “with over 50 children becoming so sick that they vowed never to touch another burger again.

“This time we decided to change the focus and demonstrate how healthy recipes can be created at home using only the most basic ingredients.”

Children from Class 6b looked on entranced as Marco Giordano, head chef at the Trattoria Primavera in Legover Street, showed them how to kill and clean a squid using only a teaspoon and a cotton bud. Stripping the creature of its tentacles, the chef then mixed them together with limpet shells, rosemary, belladonna and live yogurt to create his celebrated ‘Frutti di Mare Curd Surprise’.

"Mr Giordano is an excellent showman as well as a top-flight chef,” said Mr Plumm, “and he made it all look so easy.

“The children had a great time and many of them said that they were eager to get home and practice his slaughtering techniques on their family pets.”

LOCAL ROBOT GETS NOSEY

A remote-controlled automaton, built by a Froghill man in his spare time, looks set to revolutionise the practice of nasal barbering.

Resembling something from TV’s Robot Wars, the invention, the brainchild of Hieronymus Bush of Withering Road, is designed to safely trim and remove excess nostril hair. The ingenious device even has an onboard camera, allowing its user to target everything from stubborn clumps to individual follicles.

“The act of manually trimming nasal hair has remained essentially unchanged for the past 400 years,” said 52-year-old Mr Bush, who has applied for a patent for his machine, “but not for much longer.

"My creation, the Nasal Interior Trimmer With Integral Tweezers - or NITWIT for short - will put an end to the misery of conventional plucking. No more watering eyes, no more screaming and no more ugly grimacing in the bathroom mirror,” he added.

The invention, which cost Mr Bush £37.12 to develop, is a combination of a battery-operated toy car with two stick blenders and a digital camera gaffer-taped onto it. The whole thing is operated with a remote control handset.

“I’ll admit that NITWIT is not yet perfect,” said Mr Bush, speaking to the Observer from the Lacerations unit of Froghill General, “but none of the greats got it right first time.

“One of John Logie Baird’s early television sets exploded and severely injured his pet cat Hamish, for example.

“And it is a little-known fact that a prototype rotary washing line revolved so quickly that it bored two miles into the Earth’s crust before it could be stopped.”

CLUBBERS AND PUBBERS TO BE TESTED FOR DRUG USE

People out and about in the Froghill area are to be subjected to controversial new on-the-spot drugs testing, the Observer can reveal.

Starting next month, Froghill Constabulary is introducing a machine that can detect illegal substances by inducing the symptoms of nervous breakdown in the user.

The machine, called the Psychometron, is about the size of a coffin and will be taken around local nightspots in a police van. Its interior is equipped with head and body clamps, variable strobe lighting and high-quality Bose speakers.

Anyone suspected of having ingested illegal substances will be secured inside the machine for a period of 25 minutes. They will then be strobed at a flash frequency which induces epilepsy and subjected to the sound of screaming at a volume of 120 decibels.

“Basically, anyone under the influence of mind-altering substances goes gibbering mad after about 10 minutes in there,” said DS Geoff Bunton, who is spearheading Operation Mental Hygiene, a new initiative designed to clean up Froghill’s drug scene.

“If they can still talk when they come out, it’s safe to assume they’re straight,” he added.

The machine has undergone extensive trialling in the United States, where it has been credited with achieving a 99% detection rate.

Bill Blocker, landlord of The Nut Tree in Bancroft Street, said he was in favour of any measures which would help reduce drug use in his pub.

“I think it’s a great way of tackling the drugs problem and I’m all for it,” he said.

“We did get a couple of sniffer dogs in earlier this year, but after one evening on the job they found their way round the back of the bar and started drinking from the slops tray.

“Bloody animals ended up so pissed they couldn’t even sniff their own groins, let alone find a roach in a urinal,” he added.

HOME RIPPED APART BY HOSIERY EXPLOSION

An elderly woman is today recovering in Froghill General after an explosion flattened her home and blew her legs apart yesterday afternoon.

Grandmother Ellie Ramsbotham was on her way to make a cup of tea when the explosion tore through her house in Swindler's Lane, Traubert's Heath.

People living nearby told how they were startled by the massive blast which occurred just after 1pm.

“One minute I’m making myself a spot of toad in the hole for lunch,” said neighbour Wilfred ‘Cherry’ Bakewell, “the next thing I know there’s this terrific bang and I’m flat on my back with sausages raining down on me.”

Emergency services arrived on the scene and pulled the 91-year-old pensioner from the wreckage before rushing her to the hospital's Blast Aid, Support and Treatment for Anally Retentive Dotards (BASTARD) unit.

“It seems that she’d forgotten to turn off the gas after breakfast and then fallen asleep in a chair,” said firefighter Ted Denbigh.

“When she woke up and went into the kitchen, the rubbing together of her surgical stockings generated enough static to create a spark.

The spark leapt between her knees and it was this that ignited the gas.”

"We strongly recommend that old people have their stockings earthed, particularly during extended spells of dry weather" he added.

WE’RE JUST WILD ABOUT HAIRY

It may be months before the next one hits the shops, but no matter, because here in Froghill, we’re just wild about Hairy!

People have already started queuing outside Otterpaws in Bancroft Street in advance of the release of J.K. Toweling’s new novel Hairy Porter and the Deaf Marshmallows on July 31.

The queue started forming a week ago and is now more than three people long. First in line, 12-year-old Withering schoolboy Duncan Disordalie, said: “I’m a real Hairy Porter fan and I just can’t wait to find out whether Hairy is going to get killed or not!”

Rumours are rife that Hairy will finally meet his end in this book, which is the seventy seventh of the series.

Bets are being taken on the identity of the assassin, with bookmakers William Hillock giving odds of 4-5 on Lord Mouldy-Wart as Hairy’s killer. Fellow Hogfarts pupil Neville Shortarse is running a close second at 5-2.

Other contenders to kill the precocious little wizard include the ghost of Professor Bumblebore at 6-2, Rubiks Shagrid at 8-1 and Ron Measels at 9-2.

The bookmaker is also accepting bets on Ron and Hairy entering into an openly gay relationship (8-1), Hairy’s Numballs 2000 broomstick blowing a gasket during a round of Glenfiddich (7-5), 'Wacko' Jacko Millefeuille experimenting with crack cocaine (16-4) and Hermione Strangler getting a job as a receptionist at the Chelmsford branch of the Citizen’s Advice Bureau (12,000-1).

LOCAL LADS TO KICK OFF MUSIC FESTIVAL

Local band The Jimi Saville Experience have been chosen to open the annual Mudbath music festival in August after recording a session for the Steve Macaque show.

The band have announced that they will be performing on the Paul Daniels Stage from 8.50am until 9am on Friday, August 24.

Brothers Benji and Leo Bongwater, (pictured), of Swansdike, along with Dick Upright of Cheetingham and Bram Toker of Froghill make up the group which rock newspaper The Enemy described as sounding like "the bastard love child of Napalm Death and Sheena Easton".

Speaking to the Observer yesterday, Benji said that they were all really excited about being chosen but it still seemed a bit unreal.

"We are all really excited about being chosen but it still seems a bit unreal,” he said.

The lads will be playing in front of tens of music lovers at the festival, which will also feature the Ork Dick Monkeys, Babystumbles, Kaiser Chimps and Amy Winerack.

COUNCIL EXONERATED OVER 'CONFUSING' SIGNS

A bizarre traffic accident has justified Froghill Council’s decision to position two entirely different warning signs on the same stretch of road.

The signs, which stand on opposite sides of Three Mile Lane, Cheetingham, both face in the same direction. One warns drivers of to be on the lookout for low flying aircraft, the other features the silhouetted image of a piece of string.

The seeming contradiction was first spotted on May 5 by a motorist who then publicly accused Froghill Council’s Highways Department of frivolity.

In a statement made yesterday, Highways Department spokesman Ken Wallaby said: "It is not, nor ever has been, the Council's policy to mislead the public. My department takes its signage responsibilities very seriously and recent insinuations of bureaucratic mischief are entirely without foundation.

”The stretch of road in question is a notorious accident blackspot and this is why we made the decision to sign it as we did.

"Let me reiterate," he added, "that Froghill Council Highways Department would never deliberately string people along.”

In yesterday’s incident, a motorist was lifted bodily from his open top sports car after a piece of twine became wrapped around his neck. The twine was trailing from the cockpit of a light aircraft passing overhead.

The man was carried for some three miles in the direction of Froghill before the twine worked loose, depositing him in an open dung silo at the Mungo Park Road methane processing plant.

The car meanwhile veered through a hedge and careened into a field of sheep, killing one and injuring eight. Six more are being treated for shock.

Police enquiries are ongoing but the Observer can reveal that the other end of the twine was attached to the aircraft's pilot, whose belt had snapped upon take off. The pilot, who is a member of the Froghill Area Cessna Enthusiasts Society (FACES), will be grounded pending investigation.