Mark Andrews on Saturday: Lizards, grafters, and giant doughnuts
If you're out and about over the weekend, Mark Purcell would be grateful if you keep an eye out for a 5ft lizard.
Nothing to do with any David Icke conspiracy theory. It's just that Mark's pet monitor lizard went missing from his house in Dudley while he was on holiday.
It is unclear how he escaped given that his enclosure was secure, and the other lizards are all safe.
Call me old-fashioned, but I think on balance I would rather have a labrador.
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On the other hand, a house full of human-sized lizards has got to be a pretty good deterrent to anybody thinking of breaking in.
I'd still want CCTV, mind. To capture the faces of the burglars when they see what's inside.
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Liz Truss, favourite to be our next prime minister, was in hot water this week after suggesting British workers needed "more graft" and lacked the "skill and application" of foreign rivals.
The patriot in me would love to denounce this appalling slur. The problem is, we keep being told we need migrant workers to pick fruit, because people in this country don't want to bother. That we need lorry drivers from Eastern Europe, because folk here don't like the conditions. And we keep coming across public officials who will only communicate via email "due to the pandemic".
And put it like that, she has a point, doesn't she?
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Meanwhile her rival Rishi Sunak has been caught out on daytime television saying his favourite McDonald's meal was one that had actually been discontinued more than two years ago.
Not exactly a Frost-Nixon moment, is it?
I would have respected him more had he just said he doesn't waste money on over-priced junk food served out of cardboard cartons.
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Talking of which, a bakery in Nottingham has produced a 14in doughnut, weighing 4.5 lbs, and is so packed with calories you would need to run more than 100 miles to burn them off. The price is £42, although the shop will give you a refund if you eat it within 40 minutes.
Not hard to see who this is aimed at. All the self-styled "influencers" who think they are starring in their own personal reality show, filming vulgar excess on their mobile phones, and then posting it on social media to see who can get the most likes.
Still, at a time of economic gloom, it is good to know some people still have forty quid to spend on a doughnut. Not sure it will be so good for tackling obesity, mind.
