Brit Newspaper items

[Arvon]

The delightfully mad Edie McClurg sent this batch of excerpts from various British rags.
First, the Daily Telegraph wrote of a Mr. Arthur Purdey who complained about a rather large gas bill, leading a spokesperson for the company to observe, "It's possible Mr. Purdey has been charged for the gas used up during the explosion that destroyed his house."
In The Manchester Evening News, police revealed that a woman arrested for shoplifting had a whole salami in her knickers. When asked why, she said it was because "she was missing her Italian boyfriend." The Guardian noted that Irish police were being handicapped in their search for a stolen van. Since it's actually one of their undercover "special branch" vehicles, they don't want the public to know what it looks like.
Also from The Guardian, news of a certain Michael Howard of Leeds who, outraged at being charged £20 for a £10 overdraft, legally changed his name to "Yorkshire Bank PLC Are Fascist Bastards." When the bank asked him to close his account, Mr. Bastards demanded that they pay out the 69-pence balance by a cheque made out in his new name.
At the height of a serious gale, according to the Aberdeen Evening Express, a harbormaster radioed the coast guard for an estimate of the wind speed, but the chap contacted near the center of the storm didn't have a gauge. "However, if it's any help," he purportedly added, "the wind just blew my Land Rover off the cliff."
And finally from The Times, a story I reprinted once before but which bears repeating, tells of a young girl blown out to sea on a set of inflatable teeth who was rescued by a man on an inflatable lobster. A coast guard spokesman commented, "This sort of thing happens all too often."