Summing up painful venture

HOW far would you go to make ends meet?

Some people sell their kidneys, others offer themselves up as guinea pigs in medical trials.

But now a debt-ridden Grimsby man has come up with a novel way of generating some extra cash – turning his forehead into a mobile billboard.

Father of three David Taylor is hoping to sell advertising space on his forehead, to any company, for more than £25,000 to wipe out his debts.

He has come up with the radical idea after more orthodox methods of making money failed to generate the sums required.

Inspired by the US Presidential Republican campaign supporter who sold space on his head for $15,000 (£10,000), David was offering his bonce up to the highest bidder on Ebay.

It would see the logo of one or more companies tattooed on his forehead. It's hard to know what to make of Mr Taylor's radical proposal.

On the one-hand you have to applaud his entrepreneurial spirit.

On the other hand, the idea of a person branding themselves like cattle is a rather distasteful one.

And quite what the anti-capitalists of Keelby make of it, I dread to think.

Then again, would it be any more demeaning than Rory McIlory parading his Nike caps and shirts like an extremely wealthy clothes horse?

Personally, no amount of money in the world would persuade me to undergo the needle.

But I wish Mr Taylor the best of luck with his ambitious – and no doubt very painful – venture.

'Please, we've just had breakfast!'

PLANNING meetings may have to be moved from their early-morning slot to protect the delicate stomach of chairman Alex Wallace.

At last week's meeting, Councillor Wallace expressed his displeasure when a speaker described the "human faeces" which littered a derelict site in Immingham.

"Please, we've just had breakfast!" protested the squeamish Scot.

"I'm sorry chairman, that's how it is", replied the speaker.

Later in the meeting, another speaker was careful not to risk the chairman's wrath by avoiding a description of the passage on Wellowgate in Grimsby, which he referred to as a "refuge for all the ne'er-do-wells in Christendom."

He told the committee: "I don't want to disturb the chairman's breakfast so I will leave it to your fertile imaginations as to what they get up to."

However, one of his colleagues suggested it was not so much keeping down his food, but handling his drink that was Councillor Wallace's problem.

When the chairman confessed that he had "lost it" after forgetting one of the items on the agenda, Councillor Peter Mills told him: "Alex, you really need to take more water with it."

To which Councillor Wallace replied: "I haven't had a drink since Sunday!"

"Well maybe that's your problem", observed Councillor Mills dryly.

Officers told not to drink and tweet

POLICE have long warned about the potentially devastating consequences of drink driving.

Now it seems there is another activity that the boys in blue believe shouldn't be mixed with alcohol – tweeting.

So far the advice has been confined to police officers themselves. But how long before members of the public are being warned about the damage that a drunken tweet can wreak on a relationship?

Officers have been told to stay away from Facebook and Twitter after drinking alcohol when off-duty, and use private chat rooms instead.

The order has been issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), who say that officers risk breaching trust or discrediting the service if they fail to use the internet safely.

The guidance states that police should avoid using social media off-duty "after consuming alcohol or when their judgement may be impaired for other reasons."

But surely using Twitter at all is evidence of impaired judgement – regardless of how much alcohol has been consumed?