With gay abandon I doth my cap to thee!

Today it emerged that the BBC are planning to bring the cost-cutting axe down on a local community radio station in Manchester.

As of April 2006, Gay Talk will be no more than a whisper.

However, to be perfectly honest, I couldn't care less about the story, it's the name of the local Minister of Parliament who's putting his very honorable and no-doubt considerable political weight behind the cause to keep the radio station going:

"I fully support what Nathan [the station DJ] is trying to do [with reference to the petition being signed by those affected by the planned closure]..."

Said none other than councillor Marc Ramsbottom, Liberal Democrat.

Marc Ramsbottom!

As names go, that's always going to get a schoolboy-esque chortle, but c'mon!

You can't make this shit up, can you?

Drivin' the message home...

Do as I say, not as I do.

Should that be the new maxim of the British police?

Possibly.

After all, seems to work for Police Constable Mark Milton. He got caught doing ton-fifty in an unmarked police car on a motorway at night .. and got away with it.

Why? Well, this is the killer, 'coz his excuse is as laughable as the judge that let him off with his frankly insulting euphemistic defense:

"District Judge Bruce Morgan earlier cleared him after hearing he was 'familiarising' himself with a new car."

Really? What, like moving the seat back, altering the lumber support and tilting the rear-view mirror?

But it seems someone wasn't asleep at the wheel:

"On Wednesday, two High Court judges sent the case back to Ludlow Magistrates' Court to be heard again.

The judges ruled the district judge erred in law when acquitting the West Mercia officer of dangerous driving last May, after describing him as the 'creme de la creme' of police drivers."

Not sure about 'creme de la creme'. More like pile ointment, such was his bloody-minded and odious flouting of the law that he's supposed to uphold.

So the message is: if you're a road traffic copper, you're entitled to drive up & down as fast as you like, 'coz you know what you're doing and you're not as likely to kill someone while doing so.

Which brings me to a public safety slogan we've been having rammed down our throats for a few years: kill your speed, not a child.

Now, not wanting to be the one to egg people towards doin' a Milton by recklessly tear-arsin' up & down at one-hundred miles-per-hour plus, but I'd like to point out the absolute obvious: speed never killed anyone.

Piss-poor driving kills people. Speed is merely a by-product of the general idiocy of the average driver.

Think I'm wrong? Then go ask District Judge Bruce Morgan, because it seems we're thinking the same thing.

But surely I'm contradicting myself, here?

Not quite.

There's a difference between driving safely and at speed, and driving way too fast at the dead of night.

So the next time a policemen caves your head in with his truncheon, don't worry! He's just familiarising himself with his equipment.

Sleep safely...