We imagine there will be a flood of EU driving instructors heading for Holland in the New Year. The Dutch Government has just introduced a new law called ‘Ride for a Ride’. The law allows driving instructors to accept sex as payment for lessons. The learners must be over eighteen and there is no indication if payment has to be made immediately after the lesson. We can imagine traffic jams all over the place if instructors demand payment as the lesson ends.  It will make ‘dogging’ (ask a friend to explain the term if you don’t know it) - into a major spectator sport. The alternative will be to bank the payments, saving up for a rainy day perhaps. We expect the death rate among Dutch driving instructors to trend upwards during the next few years as they spend their savings too quickly and overstretch themselves, so to speak!  

    We were looking at some notes left on car windscreens by third parties and one caught our eye.

‘My name is Jack and by accident touched your car when parking. Someone saw me do it so I’m pretending to leave my details. Sorry.’

This one rang a bell with a couple of the Old Gits but they didn’t leave a note – just moved their car to a distant parking bay. Come on, admit it, we’ve all done it or would do so if we thought we could get away with it!

    Katie Hopkins, our female version of Donald Trump, has had her television chat show binned after one episode.  It drew an audience of just 69,000 viewers. Clearly, giving offence doesn’t always generate followers! She can consider herself Trumped.

    Another note on a car windscreen in Liverpool caught our eye. The car had been left overnight and seemed certain to be booked the following morning when parking restrictions came into force again. But at least the driver tried.

  Dear Mr/s Traffic Warden,

I will be at my car by 10.30 AM – promise!

Please do not book me, I had a Christmas pint with the lads and didn’t want to drink and drive, here is a packet of crisps on me!!

Happy Christmas.

He left two other comments under arrows to make certain whom they applied to. One pointed to the crisps under his windscreen wiper with the words Traffic Warden. A second arrow pointed to another message.

 If you are not the traffic warden please don’t rob the crisps..… don’t be that guy ….nobody likes that guy.

Sadly we’ll never know the result of his efforts, but free crisps in Liverpool – we are not hopeful!

    Listeners to Austria’s Antennae Carinthia radio station got an earful of Wham’s Last Christmas. Host, Joe Kohlhofer, was determined to get Christmas off with a bang and played the song 24 times on repeat during his 8 a.m drive time show, after first locking the door to the studio, to make sure nobody could stop him. Calls from listeners begging him to stop were ignored. Joe lacks taste. If he’d played Noddy Holder’s Merry Christmas for his entire show he would have received plaudits!

    There’s a website of which book lovers need to be aware. BookBub delivers a daily email alert about free and deeply discounted ebooks that are available for a limited time. It’s well worth looking at. The Iron Duke Share Club, a parable of our times, will be available free on Kindle on the run up to Christmas. Well worth a read for anybody who thinks the ‘bankers’ make too much bonus.

     President Obama has accused Donald Trump of exploiting working class fears with his outspoken campaign for nomination. He may have a point but Trump’s rhetoric is registering loud and clear with voters. Right now, the voters believe Trump rather than Obama. As The President defends his administrations efforts against ISIS, voters look on from a distance and what do they perceive? Probably that Putin is taking the battle to the terrorists while NATO plays a supporting role at best. We’re not sure words will convince the masses Mr President.

    Only a couple of days to go so all that remains is to wish a Happy Christmas and a Healthy New Year to all our readers.  Back in 2016.