Watford Observer columnist Brett Ellis on the need to review the Dangerous Dogs Act following an increase in deadly and life-changing attacks.
It was always a stereotype about ‘the French’ during my youth: the lazy, bone idle, moody shirker who would down tools after an hour’s graft before sourcing a motorway to block with the family tractor. Yet, despite such crude, yesteryear profiling, I now wonder how the French view us?
It was as English a scene as I have been part of for many a year. As I sat next to my wife, she looking radiant and I suited and booted, the sun shone through the windows of the cricket clubhouse as we watched our friends finally tie the knot at their Covid-postponed wedding.
It’s a bizarre concept is the ‘queue.’ As Western, supposedly superior societies, become more self-obsessed, we advocate the virtue of waiting in line, in turn for our share of the spoils: whether that be a new product, entry to a concert or waiting to see a flag draped over her Majesty's catafalque.
We should not be sad that she is gone, but glad that she lived. There is little to add regarding the Queen’s passing last week, aged 96, which will prove to be a watershed for Britain as the baton is passed to her son Charles, who has undertaken the longest apprenticeship in history.
As the decade-long mid-life crisis ensues, I yet again damaged my back a couple of weeks ago. I won’t bore you with the finer details of the ‘sacrum’ but suffice to say I was full of self-pity as I handed over copious bundles of cash to chiropractors and prayed hourly for my mobility to return.
I was, in a former life, a trader in the City, which sounds a lot more glamorous on paper than it was in reality.
As time passes, I become fixated by things I very much dislike.
A holiday should be the time to relax and dispel the stresses of daily drudgery as you cast those winter morning school run memories aside.
Quite rightly, the one issue designed to get the locals to polish up their pitchforks is littering. In ‘my’ village we have a green. It is a pleasant space with weeping willows, a river, a large green grassy area, a pub, and numerous benches designed to encourage community, and it serves those purposes splendidly.
