The British are coming!

Generally regarded as strait-laced and without humor, there is a side to the British you might not have expected - revealed in this collection of news items from the UK.
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A rolling cheese race, part of an ancient custom, was halted near Cheltenham after 18 people were injured by a runaway cheese.
  
- Western Morning News
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Mrs Susan Day has named her new son Henry George Zippedy Doo Dah Day. She said, "I was going to call him Sonny, but Sonny Day just sounded silly.!
   
- BBC Radio
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A Yorkshire man, whose wife had recently died, commissioned a headstone with the biblical text "She Was Thine" to grace the grave.  On returning a couple of weeks later the man was somewhat dismayed to see that the mason had got the inscription wrong, and it read "She Was Thin".
   
"You've forgotten the E.", he informed the mason, who was horrified and apologized profusely and promised that it would be rectified immediately and would be ready in two days.
   
When the man returned to review the correction the inscription now read, "Ee, She Was Thin."

- Radio 4
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 Having miraculously escaped a six-story fall in the Belgian town of Namur with only a broken nose, labourer Gerd Berghman got himself to his feet and instantly fainted at the sight of his own blood.  In falling to the ground once again, M Berghman broke his ankle.
   
- The Guardian
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William Howarth (82) was banned from driving for a year after traveling north for 20 miles on the southbound carriageway of the A34.  Police succeeded in stopping him once, but after apologising, he drove off again, still heading the wrong way.
   
He was finally halted by a roadblock.  After the hearing at Abingdon Magistrates Court he thanked the police for their courteous treatment and vowed to take the train in future.
   
- The Guardian
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 Two members of the Lothian and Borders traffic police were out on the Berwickshire moors with a radar gun recently, happily engaged in apprehending speeding motorists, when their equipment suddenly locked up
completely with an unexpected reading of over 300mph.  The mystery was explained seconds later as a low-flying RAF Harrier hurtled over their heads.
   
The boys in blue, upset over the damage to their radar gun, put in a complaint to the RAF, but were somewhat chastened by the reply which pointed out that damage to police resources could have been considerably greater. The Harrier's target-seeker had locked onto the 'enemy' radar and triggered
an automatic retaliatory air-to-surface attack, but luckily for the two guys on the ground, the weapons systems were not armed.

- Pilot Magazine
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A flasher limped off in agony after dropping his track suit pants in front of a woman in Kew.  Her dog jumped up and bit him in the privates.
   
- Independant
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 A Norman castle in Cornwall is being treated with cow dung and yoghurt to restore it's original colouring.
   
- Western Morning News
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A method for treating donkeys for alcoholism, based on Guinness and crisps has been devised by a Devon donkey sanctuary.
  
- Oldham Chronicle   
   
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A Buckinghamshire bank manager and his young female assistant got accidentally locked inside the bank's cash machine while 'loading it with notes.  They were freed when a customer heard their cries of
distress while trying to extract cash from the machine. The luckless pair were finally released when the key was pushed through the slot which accepts the plastic card, but only after the woman customer
renegotiated the charges on her overdraft.
   
- Yorkshire Evening Post.
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 According to police in Odell, Ill., in August, William Wykes burst into the home of his bedridden father, Otis Wykes, 85, and pointed a handgun at him, but before he could get off a shot, the father pulled his own
gun and fired four times, wounding his son.  Said the prosecutor, "It appears there was a history between the two."

- Oxford Mail  
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Failing standards in science education appear to be the possible cause of a fairly fundamental error made by burglars in Sittingbourne, Kent last night, who attempted to gain entry to a store-room in a fireworks
factory - using oxyacetylene cutting equipment.
   
The blast at Skyhigh Pyrotechnics was heard five miles away as the former WWII ammunition dump made of foot-thick concrete was reduced to rubble.
   
Police, who were checking for bodies believe the raiders first set fire to their getaway van, which probably in turn set fire to the fireworks, although they probably had time to get away.
   
Rod McGregor, one of the firm's owners, estimated the blast cost them 150,000 pounds.  He added:
"You can plan for every eventuality but the last thing you expect is anyone to attack an explosives factory with an oxyacetylene torch."
     
- The Guardian
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 I was listening to the BBC news at 1:00pm today and heard of the first death by mobile phone.  Apparently the unfortunate man was walking along the street, concentrating on his telephone conversation, when he walked into a lamppost, fractured his skull and subsequently died.
   
We have the technology ... it's the common sense that's seems to be the problem!  
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 Coventry City Council has had to rebuild its brand new 5 Million Pound bus station after it was found to contravene local regulations banning the use of buses...
   
- Coventry Telegraph    
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A Herefordshire woman has been given 27 Pounds in compensation after her bank found it had inadvertently debited her account with the account number, taking her a cool 40 million Pounds overdrawn.
   
- Hereford Times
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 Sun Alliance Insurance has offered a Gwent householder free insurance after he received 447 identical circulars from them in the space of two days.
   
- Daily Telegraph   
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 London-bound travelers at Oxford missed their train the other day because staff mislaid the key to the station's main entrance.
   
- Oxford Mail  
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 A firm making treatments for athlete's foot is offering a L500 prize to the owner of the smelliest socks in Britain.
   
- Coventry Telegraph
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 From the classified ads in the Wolverhampton Express and Star ...
   
"A1 Strippergrams.  All areas covered."     
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A burglar in Burnley, Lancashire, who robbed his next door neighbour's house was caught when he hung the curtains he had stolen in his own windows.
   
- Burnley Express
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"Will the person who took a slice of cake from the commissioner’s office return it immediately," reads a sign seen this week in a police canteen in Christchurch, New Zealand.  "It is needed as evidence in a
poisoning case."
   
- Guardian
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A 19 year old man who lay on the tracks in front of a train at Nuneaton station attacked the driver when he refused to run him over.
   
- Coventry Telegraph
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 A Sutton Coalfield car thief failed to spot the owner's mother in law on the back seat.  He dropped her at traffic lights after she screamed at him.
   
- Yorkshire Evening Press
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A 62 year old Gloucestershire grandmother has been warned by doctors not to skateboard again after her first attempt landed her in hospital with a dislocated shoulder.
   
- Yorkshire Evening Press
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