Strangers' Britain
Restaurant for the family fish
Mr Pilchard, Mr Herring, Mr and Mrs Bream, the Fish family from Derby, Ms Crab, and the Whitings will gather in London later this month to eat their namesakes.Mr Whale will have a tougher time. But he will, at least, be a big name among the small fry: the Pikes, the Cods, a Mr Bass, members of the Roe family, the Pollocks and the Mullets.
The guest list includes the odd Gill, several Finns and a solitary Mr Rod, who may find it hard to spin a line to Miss Trout over the champagne and canapes.
More than 100 people who have all qualified from birth for membership of Piscatorials Anonymous are being invited to a celebration on February 24. A London restaurant is trawling for people with fish, or fish-related names to join its first birthday party.
"A lot of them love the idea that there are so many others with the same name or fish-connected names. Obviously they have had to put up with jokes all their lives.
"They are finding it marvellous that they can all get together and no one is going to make any bad puns," Emma Macleod-Johnstone, promotions manager for the Cafe Fish Des Amis du Vin, said.
"We haven't found a Jaws yet. We would really, really like a Jaws - or a Miss Mermaid, or a Neptune." The centerpiece of the party will be a large birthday cake, in the shape of a fish. Guests will then be able to stay and pay for dinner. Later there will be cheer- ful farewells and, just possibly, a big goodbye for Mr Chips.
Scared Brent, 15, must stay at home
Teenager Brent Bowler has gone down with an illness every youngster must dream of catching - he's allergic to school. But the 15-year-old revealed how his strange problem has turned life into a nightmare.He trembles with fear at the thought of school, feels sick every time he sees a classroom and fights like a madman if he is forced to attend lessons. "I just feel something terrible will happen to me if I go to school," said Brent at the home he shares with his gran in Stapleford, Notts.
"I get a headache and start trembling. Sometimes I stay awake all night afraid of going to school the next morning. "Other times I feel OK but just can't force myself through the gates."
Brent is studying for five O-levels but has not been able to go to Stapleford's George Spencer School for several weeks.
Now his grandmother, Kathleen Bower, is even prepared to sell her home to pay for private tuition for Brent.
She said: "Doctors recognise this as an illness, but no one knows much about it." Notts' School Psychological Services said: "We are aware of the phobia. But we cannot discuss individuals."
£5,000 for a man who can't have sex
A man who has been put off sex because . he suffers "explosive headaches" after making love, has been awarded £5,216 damages.Until a car accident five years ago, David Leigh and his wife enjoyed sex several times a week.
But after the crash, Mr Leigh, 37, suffered "a rare phenomenon", said Mr Justice Leggatt in the High Court.
He gets a sharp pain in the back of his head lasting twelve seconds immediately after having sex. The headaches had led Mr Leigh to totally ignoring his partner's needs.
Mr Leigh, a father of three, left his wife last July and now lives with another woman.
The judge said: "He has had intercourse with her no more than twice."
Shotgun getaway car went home
A shotgun raid on a village post office was foiled when a get-away driver went home. Jittery Peter Turnbull, 20, lost his nerve and left a hilltop rendezvous point in the car that was to have sent the gang to safety. And when his three partners arrived they were forced to run for it across open country, Gloucester Crown Court heard. Police gave chase and soon tracked the robbers down using a helicopter and a plane.The raiders struck at the post office in Prestbury, near Cheltenham, Glous. Two 20-year-old men burst in wearing balaclavas and brandishing a shotgun and a stick. They scooped up £2,100 and made off in a stolen car driven by a third man, aged 19. Near the point where the men were to meet Turnbull and swap vehicles they skidded to a halt so abruptly the car turned on its side.Turnbull from Marsh Road, Chelten- ham, was sentenced to four years youth custody.
The others were all sentenced to seven years.
The final analysis
LIMA: A Peruvian police psychologist apparently revolted by the confessions he heard from an alleged mass murderer, has admitted strangling the suspect in his gaol cell.Mario Poggi told a news conference at a police headquarters that he used his belt to choke Angel Diaz Balbin last Sunday to save humanity from his monstrous crimes.
Diaz Balbin was suspected of hacking to death up to eight people and burying the remains in different parts of the Peruvian capital since December, a police spokesman said.
Poggi, who was analysing Diaz Balbin for the police, said he decided to kill the suspect when he could no longer bear listening to the "barbarities".
The psychologist broke down in tears at the end of the news conference saying: "I only wanted to save society from a murderer."
Quick as a flash
JOHANNESBURGH: Not only was it sex, but he was black and she was white, together on South Africa's government controlled television network instead of the scheduled Afrikaans language evening news. Tuesday night's newscast was proceeding normally when it was enlivened by the surprise 10-second dose of explicit lovemaking. The screens went blank and viewers were advised: "We have a problem. Please do not adjust your set".An undetermined number of the network's employees were immediately fired and the offending cassette confiscated. Police were called in to investigate the incident. Even "soft" pornography is banned in South Africa, while films showing nudity are heavily cut.
A South African Broadcasting Corp- oration spokesman said many people phoned and asked for more.
