'Shorts'

The 'owl man' has had his ban reversed by Plymouth city council after public pressure. (seems the link has been removed). Owl bet that hurt the council!

Lord Sugar has promised he'll only speak when it is a subject about which he knows something - that's him gagged then!

Those lazy, hazy, gray days of summer: Mandrake in the Daily Telegraph (no link) reports that James Gray (Tory), he of the affair whilst his wife was suffering from breast cancer, provides his constituents with some advice in theWiltshire Gazette & Herald "As I head for Madrid for a few days......leaving aside the natural inclination to want to see our MPs working as hard as possible, is Britain during August, while the House is in recess, really a worse place than during the rest of the year, or would you rather see a blizzard of laws, rules and interference coming your way? If your answer is as I suspect then perhaps in future you will encourage longer recesses rather than upbraiding us for taking them" Now that is what I call respect for your constituents! (Full quote found here)

All aboard the Frankfurt express: According to this report in the Daily Telegraph concerning German trains running on British tracks. Now that will be a new experience, to see Eurostar (British/French) fighting Deutsche Bahn (German) for supremacy. Err, hang on...............

And, finally:

"Number of second homes reaches record high" is the headline to this article - nothing to do with the intake of new MPs then............