Free Republic

A Norwegian town has reminded denizens that a normal gait is preferable to a strange one after Swedish revolutionaries installed a pair of silly walk signs.An art group put two street signs inspired by Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks on either side of a zebra crossing.>"It's just for fun. There's no deep thought behind it," Reidar Johannes Søby from the Kreativiteket art group said. "People live in their ordinary lives and when they see this sign, maybe they can have a little smile on their face. That's all."Apparatchiks at the Norwegian Public Roads Administration were not best pleased about...

Black tape has been put on the desks of civil servants to show them where to put their pens as part of a £7m Government 'efficiency' drive. It is the latest idea from consultants being paid to come up with so-called innovative ideas to improve the working environment of public sector staff. The tape is also used to mark out exactly where the computer keyboard should be placed, as well telephones. Previous novel thinking by the consultants included a desk ban on family photographs - along with any 'inactive fruit'. Staff representatives described the idea, which is being piloted by...

Student escapes prosecution over 'gay horse' remarks 12/01/2006 - 15:09:47 An final-year Oxford University student from Belfast who called a mounted policeman’s horse gay will not be prosecuted, it was announced today. Police stood by their decision to take Sam Brown (aged 21) to court for making “homophobic comments” after the Crown Prosecution Service today dropped the case. Mr Brown approached the officer during a night out with friends in Oxford after his final exams, and said: “Excuse me, do you realise your horse is gay?” Moments later, two Thames Valley Police squad cars appeared in the High Street and...

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