All the latest news, business reports, education stories and local information from the Bury Times

Bulger killers should never have been released

11:43am Friday 12th March 2010

WHATEVER “extremely serious” offence Jon Venables has allegedly committed, newspaper reports range from child porn offences to assaulting a workmate, the decision to revoke his licence and return him to prison has created a media storm certain to trigger searching questions, particularly for the probation service, supervising him while he enjoyed freedom and a new identity, to which many people, including me, considered he had no right.

They want your money even when you’re dead

11:38am Friday 26th February 2010

LET’S be honest. Growing old is not the easiest or most welcome human condition.

News doesn’t get much worse than this

9:24am Friday 29th January 2010

THE job of writing this column has been terribly difficult, as I have struggled to see the keyboard through a veil of tears. I have wept uncontrollably since hearing the terrible news that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were going their separate ways. How awful is that? Admittedly, on the Richter scale of emotions, nowhere near as bad as the horrors of Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan and countless other acts of meaningless savagery we learn about daily. But to we Brangelina addicts, this is the worst news since, well, Brad split with his then wife Jennifer Aniston, the gorgeous sweetie from the TV series “Friends”, breaking her heart, and that of countless others, mine included, in the process.

Dog mess: some owners just don't care

9:55am Friday 22nd January 2010

DOGS have been getting a bad press in the letters columns of this publication.

Reality is, Big Brother is just 'puerile'

10:50am Friday 15th January 2010

REGULAR followers of this weekly rant will know that one of the many aspects of life in the 21st century, guaranteed to give me a serious fit of the vapours, is “reality TV”, a type of “entertainment” for the masses for which the adjective “puerile” was surely intended.

Hello Mr Thief, make yourself at home

7:20am Friday 1st January 2010

THOSE of you who can recall a certain news item from ten days before Christmas must still be shaking your heads in disbelief at what happened to millionaire businessman Munir Hussain and his younger brother, Tokeer, in the aftermath of an incident at Munir’s home. He, his wife, teenage daughter and sons returned from their mosque during Ramadan to find their luxury property in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, being burgled by three men.

North-South divide has not yet vanished

10:11am Friday 18th December 2009

WE used to hear a lot about the great divide when discussing the United Kingdom, indicating that up ’ere in t’north it was mostly flat caps, whippets and Woodbines, while our fellow Brits in the infinitely more salubrious south enjoyed a much better income and lifestyle.

The world mocks poor Tiger Woods

10:55am Friday 11th December 2009

OH dear, as we say in the area of Bolton graced by Old Links Golf Club. Squeaky clean Tiger has fallen from his pedestal with a crash which has reverberated around countries of the world where the private life of its richest and most famous sportsperson is considered of greater importance, and therefore interest, than the day to day mechanics of trying to survive famine, thirst, deadly disease, bullets and bombs. People who wallow in the humiliation of previously blemish-free icons, snigger and salivate over the endless stream of women linked to the golf superstar, or “love rat Tiger”, as the tabloids have predictably labelled Woods.

A mobile moan for Christmas

9:12am Friday 4th December 2009

CHRISTMAS is a comin’, and with it the fat chap with the white beard and sack, delivering gifts for lucky recipients of all ages who will have made their “wish list” known to family, friends, and everyone else within hailing distance. My guess is that the most “wishable” item on many lists will be a new mobile phone, for it has now become painfully obvious, to one particular jaundiced onlooker at least, that civilisation as we know it could not possibly function without this blight on the 21st century.

Feeling the force of Mother Nature

9:25am Friday 27th November 2009

ENVIRONMENTALISTS tell us that global warming is responsible for climate changes which, over the next few decades, will trigger cataclysmic swings in our weather. The consequences could be very serious for every species on Planet Earth, including, and most notably, the human race. To paraphrase Private Fraser from Dad’s Army, “We’re doomed. We’re all doomed”.

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