Don't make us go drinking in the Midlands, say Northerners

NORTHERNERS have pleaded with the government not to force them to go out on the lash in the Midlands.

With new restrictions on pubs set to be imposed across the North of England and Scotland, pub-goers fear they may have no option but to visit places like Loughborough in order to get drunk.

Jim Bates of Manchester said: “Look, I’ll do a pub crawl in Stoke-on-Trent if I have to. But God knows I don’t want to.

“Northern pubs are friendly and fun, everyone mixing, having a laugh and a self-deprecating quip from a stranger never far away. Actually that’s probably why they’re closing them.

“But the grey-skinned fish-people of Lincoln drink in guarded silence afraid of anyone who isn’t a family member. The pubs of Chester contain worrying numbers of hidden Welshmen, and Derby’s too rough even for us.

“Also those Midlands towns are identical, every high street a Home Bargains and a Cancer Research and a New Look. Stagger out hammered and you’ll never find your way home.

“Come on. There’s a reason no-one in Britain ever talks about the Midlands. Don’t pretend you can enjoy yourself there.”

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The five emotional phases of teaching a grandparent to send a text

IF you want to go from being patiently helpful to a murderous rage in a matter of minutes, try teaching an elderly person to send a text message. Here are the phases you’ll go through.

Patient kindness

It’s important for old people to stay connected, so you sit down with nan to help her learn what to you is an incredibly basic task, but to her appears to be a cross between programming the Enigma machine and defusing a bomb. You feel like Mother Theresa.

Vague irritation

As the minutes tick interminably by and she still hasn’t opened the right app, you start to want to grab the phone off her and do it yourself. This is a woman who used to understand the mysteries of a manual telephone exchange, how hard can a sodding iPhone be?

Full blown annoyance

You have an increasing desire to aggressively snatch the phone from her as she holds it two centimetres from her spectacles to see the tiny letters. Entire species have evolved and died out in the amount of time it takes her to type the word ‘Hi’. You are deeply regretting starting this.

Vicious anger with violent impulses

Having watched your nan type out a message and delete it 14 times because she couldn’t make her mind up between putting ‘Hi’ and ‘Hello’ at the beginning, you have bitten your lip so hard out of sheer frustration that it’s bleeding. You realise you want to shake her very hard so sit on your hands until they go numb.

Blind murderous rage

Having finally sent a message it emerges that she has instantly forgotten how she did it and asks you to help her all over again, beginning from switching the phone on. You leave the room before doing something you really regret.

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