The Dark Side takes Worcester Park by storm

Times are apparently hard for the Empire and because of their costly fixation with ever larger and more powerful, yet fatally flawed, space stations it seems that the lower ranks have had to resort to public transport as part of a cost cutting exercise. Austerity sucks....

A friend of mine was walking up Brinkley Road the other day only to find that she was following an Imperial Stormtrooper up towards Central Road. I feel that I should point out that this isn't a normal occurrence in Brinkley Road, at least not for me anyway, and with her curiosity suitably piqued she saw him cross the road and head to the bus stop outside Brabham Court to wait for a bus.

He obligingly posed for some photos and was apparently on his way to Richmond where I can only presume that a rebellion needed suppressing or a new weapon of mass destruction needed constructing. As you can see in the photos he did manage to catch his bus but those who know Stormtroopers well will suspect, as I do, that he was going for an earlier one.... but missed it ;)

Presumably he was a member of the 501st who cosplay as assorted Star Wars characters at various events and do lots of work to raise money for charity and other good causes, and to find out more go here - http://www.501st.com

Photos provided and used with permission. Copyright retained by original owner.

Panic at the deli #firstworldproblems

Taking in my early morning helping of news from the Evening Standard (spot the irony) a piece with the title "Shopper injured in deli counter scrum at south London Tesco" caught my eye. "Where" I asked myself "Is this going to be? Peckham? Lambeth? Perhaps Croydon?"

Nope. New Malden.

Our northerly neighbours don't come out as badly from the article as they could have done if the Daily Mail had got hold of it but then I can just about imagine what it would have looked like if Ricky Gervais had written the script for it.Here's an extract:

A supermarket shopper has called on Tesco to take action after he injured himself while scrambling for heavily discounted items in a south London store.
Oliver Sanders, 31, said doctors told him he had torn a knee ligament when he was hurt in what he described as a manic “free-for-all” at Tesco Extra in New Malden.
On Sunday, he said he was among more than a dozen customers jostling for discounted deli meat at the hot food counter after staff brought out reduced stock shortly before closing.

Really? REALLY??

He told the Standard: “I had my hands in a box when I was pushed up against the fridge cabinet. When they put the items in the fridges that’s when everyone goes nuts.
“It happened so quickly I probably had about three or four items in my hands but I wasn’t going for anything in particular.

I'd hoped we'd seen the last of this kind of stuff with the underwhelming Black Friday at Christmas but apparently not. I've never been near the deli counter in Tesco when they've been doing this so who am I to judge but I do inwardly despair for the future of the human race when people will shove others around for the sake of some discount deli items. Whatever next? Dawn duels at Waitrose?

News round up - 11th Jan

If you've been reading the local news of late you'd be forgiven for thinking that Worcester Park is a hotbed of criminal excess.

First off was Harry Sullivan's court appearance in relation to his pre-Christmas BMW disassembly effort when he crashed in into a lamppost in Weybridge whilst nearly three times over the limit. His punishment was a two year driving ban with a 100 hours community service and £145 costs, though I doubt that the latter will genuinely cover the expense.

Alan Banks will be spending a heftier 18 months inside after admitting a post-halloween attack on a man outside a KFC in Surbiton in 2014

The attack by Banks, who was wearing a pink tutu, black tights and ballet pumps at the time, was initially said to be a homophobic attack, but this was heavily disputed by Banks and led to the homophobic element of the charge being dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Lastly there was a "crash and dash" last week in Worcester Park when a car crashed through a garden wall but the occupants scarpered before anyone could do anything about it. If you have any more information on that I'm sure the Police would be keen to hear it.