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An Item from the Sunday Times makes it appearance felt this week...
Which driving offence lands you with the biggest fine and the most penalty points? a) Speeding b) Driving too slowly or c) Driving through a puddle.
If you have any common sense you would say speeding, but since when common sense had anything to do with the law?
Driving too slowly is seen as more of a menace than speeding. Get caught poodling along in the inside lane and you could end up with nine points on your licence and a £2,500 fine.
On the other hand, boy racers caught speeding on your average city road could expect a fine of up to £1,000 and six penalty points. So tell your granny to put her foot down.
Driving through puddles has also been highlighted. Tempting as it is, splashing a queue of people waiting at a bus stop will invite a charge of driving without reasonable care, leaving you £2,500 poorer with nine points on your licence.
As a result of this curious sense of priorities, the AA is trying to save motorists unnecessary heartache by pointing out some of the seemingly harmless practicies that can land drivers in court.
With winter approaching, it has urged drivers to remember to turn off their fog lights once the fog has cleared. If you forget, expect a £2,500 fine for dazzling other drivers.
Have you made sure your number plates are clean? If not, you can expect a £1,000 fine. Anyone caught falsely using a disabled badge will be fined the same
One of the most unpleasant tasks on a winter morning is scraping the frost from the windscreen, but not take short cuts. If you are caught driving with just a "peephole", wave goodbye to £1,000.
The AA also warns people naff enough to use DIY stick on tint panels on their windows that they may find themselves £1,000 worse off. But then again, perhaps they deserve it.
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A classic cartoon from Punch Magazine recently. If you happen to be a Merkin, (or, in fact, any nationality other than British) please click on it for a very brief description of what is going on.
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Next, is an item I found in The Times, which made me chuckle...
Stoned staff make Cannabis TV go to pot.
From Mark Fuller, In Amsterdam
Believed to be financed by a group of wealthy cannabis aficionados and soft drug dealers, mainly from the United States, the channel was due to be beamed up from Amsterdam to 37 countries last weekend. But just a few hours before the broadcast deadline for the one-hour pilot programme, the channel's staff abandoned the project, apparantly too stoned to carry on.
"Cannabis does not cut with work. They just sat around smoking joints and were just too far gone to pull it off," said Barry Noord, whose studio, Amsterdam Television Research, recorded and edited the pilot show.
"The pilot was almost in the can. There was a fashion section on using hemp in textiles. A piece on Marijuana's medical applications and news features on people persecuted for smoking the stuff in other countries," Mr Noord explained.
The channel will now be recast as a broader European one to encompass alternative lifestyles and news, Mr Noord said.
None of Ctv's founders were available for comment yesterday. In a press release earlier, Ctv had said it had been set up as a special interest broadcaster to promote the benefits of smoking, eating, or drinking cannabis. The channel had also planned a soap opera set in an Amsterdam coffee shop.
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