[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Bill Greenwell

Dear deeply perplexed

[The three-week gap is] at least partly to do with the fact that this issue is another double (a centenary issue)

Now we know the rest of the answer - they got the date wrong!

[Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead]

I'll have a bash, too, but I'm struggling to be inspired. Max Clifford? Signage? MMR? Let's see....

[Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead]

Born in Bethlehem, persecuted for his right to religious freedom and often accused of incitement to acts of terror, Omar Mahmoud Othman, also known to some as Abu Qatada, has many reasons to be grateful for the UK’s exemplary policy on human rights. Granted asylum here twenty years ago, Abu Qatada has eked out an insecure living in homely Acton, West London – but thanks to the UK’s comprehensive network of social benefits neither Abu Qatada nor his family has had to endure privation. His five children have felt happy and secure here, though they confess that recent attacks on their family home are frightening. Fortunately, their rights to a British education appear unthreatened. Who knows what future benefits these bright youngsters could bring the community? Abu Qatada’s wife, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was not available for comment: we offer her our thoughts in these troubling times.

I'm not going to send this in.

[John Whitworth]

Worried about possible consequences, Caroline?

[Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead]

Originally Posted by John Whitworth

Worried about possible consequences, Caroline?

Possibly; or the fact that it's perhaps not "current" enough, having been part of our island story so long.

[George Simmers]

Carolyn, send it. It's good.

[Rob Stuart]

The death of former Government Facilitator Ms. Thatcher offers us an opportunity to reassess her enormous contribution to the feminist project. The phallocratic establishment has always enjoyed bleating about how she never promoted a single womon to her cabinet, but Ms. Thatcher was simply sparing her fellow sisters the ignominy of being part of what amounted to little more than an irrelevant forum for primitive power displays and the accumulation of personal wealth. Wimmin, as she knew only too well, had far better things to do with their time than bear witness to the pathetic boy’s games that constitute the majority of government business. Let us also remember that in closing down Britain’s coal mines, Ms. Thatcher not only empowered those wimmin associated with fossil fuel extraction technicians by ensuring that both they and their life partners achieved wage parity (£0 per annum), she also drastically reduced the nation’s carbon footprint.


This is contemptible and pathetic, even by my notoriously low standards, but there we go.

[John Whitworth]

I think the competition is a bad one and you have do0ne remarkable things with it.

[Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead]

Originally Posted by George Simmers

Carolyn, send it. It's good.

George, you're a dear fellow. I don't know what it is about names, but I have been called "Caroline" - even by dearest chums - on and off for as long as I can remember. I'm just so chuffed to be spoken to that it seems picky to worry about the small print. It was the name my father wanted for me, after his mother, but my mother was trying to be modern.

Families, eh?

[Brian Allgar]

That's nothing, Carolyn. When I was at boarding school, I received a letter from a friend "back home" that I never lived down. It was addressed to "Brain Allgar".