TALK about Scrooge – a headmaster in Kent has barred teachers and pupils from talking about Christmas, says the Daily Mirror.
Jane Porter, head of Whitehill School in Gravesend, threatened to cut playtime privileges if children mention it before Advent began. She claimed the meaning of Christmas was lost if it was celebrated early.
One parent is quoted by the paper as commenting: “Kids have Christmas rammed down their throats yet they can be punished for mentioning it. It’s wrong.”
Fans of Elvis Presley are renowned for their devotion to the singer who died in 1977 and the BBC says a record player he gave to a German woman as a wedding present is expected to fetch up to £2,000 when it is auctioned in Cornwall.
Back in 1959, Ellen Marschhauser met the rock and roll singer when she attended a party at the Hotel Grunewald in Bad Nauheim. He gave her the record player after she had helped his father, Vernon, with some translation work. Elvis had been carrying out his National Service in Germany.
David Lay, the proprietor of the Penzance Auction House, said :“I'm nervous to suggest it's going to make some huge figure. It is an unknown quantity. Nothing like it has come on the market before. Normally, it's costumes, or something signed by him, so I am being cautious. It is early days.
“I have never come across anything that has created so much excitement. It's a unique experience for me. We are getting a lot of interest from Germany.”
Also up for auction next week are photographs of the Queen on stage in a pantomime!
The BBC says that the images, which also feature the late Princess Margaret, are in two scrap books displaying photographs taking between 1940 and 1944.
“It is the most amazing royal archive I have seen," said Chris Albury, from Dominic Winter Auctioneers in Gloucestershire.
A traffic warden who handed out a ticket to an ambulance car in Christchurch, Dorset, while paramedics tended to an elderly man who had a stroke was sworn at by high street shoppers, reports the Daily Mirror.
Apparently the team, responding to a 999 call after the man collapsed in a shopping centre, parked at the end of a lay-by with the front wheels on the pavement and while two paramedics tended to the patient, the warden issued the fine, claiming the ambulance car was blocking pedestrian access.
Dorset County Council has since revoked the ticket.
Weight warning!!! According to the Daily Mail, it can take some people up to four months to lose the weight they put on over the festive season.
A survey of 1,000 people for the diet company Forza Supplements showed that the average person will put on 4lbs between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day after consuming twice their recommended calorie intake - and it can take until Easter to repair the damage.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Christmas Day was by far the most fattening day of the festivities with
just under a third of those polled said they completely let themselves go on December 25 and had a ‘complete blow-out’ - with consumption of a 8,530 calories.
Visitors to Liverpool saw more than their fair share of Santas as around 10,000 people donned festive costumes to run through the city centre in the annual Santa Dash to raise money for charity.
Among those taking part was Olympic gymnast Beth Tweedle who told the Daily Star: “It's such an amazing way to get the family involved. It's just a sea of red and blue Santas and everyone's in really good spirits.” Red and blue are the colours of the city's two football teams, Liverpool and Everton.
Everyone has to keep up to date with new technology it would seem. A Daily Mirror story says that 49 year old Big Issue seller Simon Mott, a former London Underground driver, has become the first to invest in a card machine so people without cash can still pay.
Simon sells 80 to 100 issues of the £2.50 magazine a week, and between five and 10 of those are paid for by card.
The magazine supports people living on the streets by letting sellers like Simon keep half the takings for themselves. It has around 2,000 vendors across Britain, and the rest only accept cash.
Simon started working as a vendor three years ago after he had an accident at work which eventually left him homeless.
Reference lists:
Daily Mail (www.dailymail.co.uk)
Daily Mirror ((www.mirror.co.uk)
Daily Star (www.daily star.co.uk)
BBC (www.bbc.co.uk)