This England: Happy New Year: Take two

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

Happy New Year: Take two

Staff and customers at a West Yorkshire pub are marking reopening by celebrating Christmas five months late.

The Green Dragon in Pontefract put up decorations in December, but tier-three rules forced the venue to remain closed, with tinsel left on the walls. The pub did not reopen at the first easing of restrictions in April. The weekend will include both a Christmas party and a repeat of New Year’s Eve.

BBC Yorkshire (Christopher Rossi)

Say cheese!

A block of Stilton cheese became a drug dealer’s downfall after he posted a photo of it online and was identified by police.

Carl Stewart couldn’t resist the M&S mature blue dairy product. He shared an image of it on an encrypted mobile network used to trade illicit substances. Officers were able to analyse his fingerprints from the photo and identify him. It was unclear why he posted the picture of the cheese.

Metro (Janet Mansfield)

Spaghetti Junction

A section of major road turned bright red after a lorry crash caused a spillage of tomato puree and olive oil. The crash happened not at Spaghetti Junction but on the A14 in Cambridgeshire. Social media users could not resist weighing in with puns, with one calling it “a disaster, puree simple”. One BBC Radio 2 listener asked if it “was suitable for traffic to passata safe distance”, while another tweet read: “Some of our drivers had to go pasta this earlier today. They are starting to ketchup after the delay though.” BBC Cambridgeshire (Daragh Brady)