Fuck Off Gets You Marks And Other Mad Stories

Sometimes I have to check that it's not April 1st when I read various stories in the UK press. As far as I can tell, the following are all correct.

Pupil gets marks for writing "Fuck off" in GCSE exam. Apparently, if he had correctly added punctuation, in the form of an exclamation mark, he would have earned extra points. Punctuation, however, is not high on the agenda of contemporary schooling.

Community copper forbidden to ride his bike until he has taken official course. A spokeswoman for Kent Police said: "If you have a civilian driving licence you can't drive a police car. The same applies to a bike. Poodling up and down the road on your bike is very different from riding a bike on duty." Somehow I don't see riding a police bicycle is so different from riding a civilian one, do you? And I think she meant "pootling", not "poodling".

Gateshead Council decided that the salt-shakers in their local chippies had too many holes in them. In the interests of health and safety, of course, this could not be allowed. Read on...and in case, you don't trust the Daily Mail (and why should any sane person?) here's the proof.