Quite a lot it would seem, as illustrated by the three fire engines that gathered in Hertfordshire this week to rescue one squirrel from a river.

Now I love animals as much as the next person*, but seriously, is this really the best use of public funds? We are in a massive recession, cutting essential services left, right and centre, and yet we can afford to worry about one measly squirrel?

The squirrel was trapped on a small island in the middle of a river, and the firemen placed a ladder from the bank to the island and encouraged the squirrel to scurry back across. The idiotic animal managed to fall in even then, but eventually made it to safety.

"Squirrel"

Help! There’s a nut stuck in my mouth!

Here’s the best bit though – squirrels can swim! It’s hard work for them though, so they don’t do it unless they really have to. So what we’re basically seeing here is three fire engines going out to rescue a lazy squirrel.

Over the least three years, fire brigades have spent over £3.5million resucing animals, including seven dolphins, a lost duckling and a snail. Yes you heard me. A snail. A ridiculous waste of money given that Belle actually operates her very own snail rescue service for only one pound per snail.**

I don’t want to sound heartless, but please can we stop bothering the emergency services with lazy squirrels? Unless of course it is one of my mind squirrels, in which case please send help immediately.

*who hates animals

**Fact

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I have been reading this week about David Cameron’s plans for a national happiness audit.

You have to wonder how this came about. Was Cameron sat at his Very Important Desk one day, fiddling with his iPad, thinking to himself “You know what, I’m just not sure how people are feeling about the slashing of NHS budgets, mass redundancy across the public sector and brutal welfare reform – I know! I’ll spend millions commissioning a survey to ask them!”

Seems a bit weird doesn’t it?

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I was coming home from visiting a friend in Cambridge over the summer holidays, and as I drove down the slip road onto the motorway I was faced with a giant billboard, offering me the chance to meet the man of my dreams through the website sugardaddie.com.

As the name almost suggests, the site offers the opportunity for both men and women to meet people who are “classy, attractive and affluent” at the same time as “eradicating the issues of financial stress that modern living can bring”.

Sounds good doesn’t it?

I’ve never had Money. As a child we never had money, which is why at 16 I became pregnant in a bid to get my own council house and sponge off the state for life. (Joke.) The pregnancy part isn’t a joke of course, but I have never lived in a council house…

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Do you ever have days where you can’t sit still? You find yourself flitting from one thought to the next, unable to focus on anything for more than a few minutes at a time? Maybe it’s a bad ADHD day, or maybe it’s just that end of the week Friday feeling, but today I just can’t get in the zone.

My head feels full. I want to write, but I can’t get anything out, I can’t form my thoughts into a sensible order. I’ve been wandering around, waiting for the jumble of Things I Really Must Do to form themselves into something witty and intelligent, but they just aren’t.

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