The BBC have reported today on a motorist being stopped by Police for driving with a parrot on his shoulder.
I don't suppose it was this chap?
Now, I don't actually see anything to wrong with what this driver was doing - it's not like it was a cat or a Border Collie up there - but apparently "animals should be in suitable carriers or restraints"
Surely a shoulder is a suitable carrier for a parrot?
The story is here. They claim it shows a parent driving along the M62 Motorway whilst reading to his children.
An un-named female passenger (passenger, yeh right!) in the car in front said,
"It was ridiculous. He hadn’t been looking at the road for a good five
minutes.
“My partner was driving, he looked out of the rear window mirrors and I
glanced over then saw him. There were three kids. There was a child seat
so they were quite young.
“I couldn’t believe it. He was right behind us, his attention was on the
book not the road. We were worried he would go into us.”
I would have put quotation marks around that lot but there are already too many in there - and not where they should be either.
The picture is credited as "MEN SYNDICATION " which is nothing to do with gay porn. Those of us in the North-West of England know that the MEN referred to here is the Manchester Evening News. Their version of the story is here. You can clearly see here where ITV News cut-and-pasted their story from - including the excess quotation marks.
The MEN highlight the word "driving" by putting it in capital letters.
I don't think they should.
I think that if the woman was genuinely concerned about the DRIVING going on there, she would be even more concerned by the TAILGATING going on there - both by the story-reading parent and by the lorry-driver behind him.
Actually, they already looked like that before the accident. They were being carried on a scrap metal truck which got caught up with another truck and a few other vehicles. Both the trucks overturned causing traffic chaos around the Rocket Interchange (named after the Rocket pub named after the steam locomotive) at the end of the M62 motorway in Liverpool.
I bet some of those cubes have now been in two serious accidents.
Fortunately it looks like no significant injuries were sustained.
I read this non-story today about people complaining about some new LED advertising signs put up near the Liverpool end of the M62 motorway:
I say "people". It is actually the ABD, the Alliance of British Drivers, an organisation I was unimpressed by three years ago. They are probably upset because one of them missed the speed camera on the motorway in that area because they were busy reading whatever it was displaying an advert for.
The Liverpool Echo covered the plans for the signs back in June although the location was a bit different and the main objection then was "due their size, elevated location and that they will be illuminated,
which we consider would have a significant detrimental impact on the
local community – both to local residents and local amenities.”:
The picture looked good though.
I'm not seeing any real dangers myself - they are not moving pictures (like I saw in November '14 when both the adverts AND the pictures were moving) and it is claimed that lighting levels are controlled.
At least no real dangers unless Wonderbra revisit a certain advertising campaign from 1994. Hello Boys.
It is from this Liverpool Echo story. It covers (or rather uncovers) an apparently naked man seen driving along the M62 motorway towards Liverpool. The photo was taken by Dawn Hindley, who helpfully reveals (wrong word again) that she is an Interior Designer. She says he was driving an "old, left hand-drive" car.
I'll give her the benefit of the doubt in terms of taking photos while driving because although she says "I was driving into Liverpool from Bolton to meet a client. I cracked up laughing when I saw him." she does also use the phrase “We were on the M62 heading into Liverpool. His car was alongside us and I thought ‘he’s totally starkers’." Note the use of the word "we" and the photo does look like it could have been taken from the passenger seat and the article does describe her as a "car passenger."
However, if I'd been sat in the passenger seat, I'd have been a bit more interested in the car - I could tell from the photo that it was something special - it looked Italian classic coupe to me - and after a bit of Internet image searching I found I was right.
It was one of these:
Not your average "old, left-hand drive car". It is a late '60s/early '70s Alfa Romeo Bertone Coupe. The driver could probably be relatively easily traced by such a rare vehicle. Job for a proper journalist there.
The driver who may be a bit of a Romeo himself if the speculation in the comments section is anything to go by.
Which brings me on to this video:
A clever video that was trending on Youtube a week or three ago.
But I found myself trying to identify the car.
I thought at first it was actually done in a couple of cars because the steering wheel changes from white to black but that was just a trick of the light caused by it being filmed at different times of the day.
In the end I decided that it's probably an Australian car - a four-door saloon or pick-up, but apart from that - I'm stumped.
