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17 August 2022

This England: What the butler showed

This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain – has run in the NS since 1934.

By New Statesman

When a great-grandmother was served up a glass of bubbly on her 106th birthday by a naked butler, her eyes rested not on his bare buttocks but on his “impressive” hairless chest.

Toasting staff at the East Midlands care home where she has been a resident since last year, Nora Shaw admitted it was the first time she had ever seen a butler in the buff: “He had no hair on his chest at all, which impressed me. I had never seen anything like it.”
The Independent (Steve Morley)

[See also: This England: If he could speak to the animals]

Post haste

An entire Cornish village had to be evacuated by police after what turned out to be an old fence post triggered a bomb alert. Hundreds of residents in Godolphin Cross were told to get out of their homes after a suspected unexploded bomb was discovered in a garden near the primary school.
Cornwall Live (Daragh Brady)

Just before you draw your terminal breath…

A terminally ill university lecturer who flashed his buttocks at a police van as part of his bucket list has been cleared of obstructing an officer after singing a Monty Python song at him.
The Times (Amanda Welles)

What’s in a name?

Strict officials at the Commonwealth Games are threatening legal action to force a harmless series of bar games held in Birmingham pubs to change its name. What was known as the Commonman Games is now having to consider altering its name to the (un)Commonman Games.
Wolverhampton Express & Star (Steve Dyson)

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[See also: We’re told not to have too many friends – but for me, there’s no such thing]

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This article appears in the 17 Aug 2022 issue of the New Statesman, Six Months that Changed the World