mostly david ephgrave

Pray silence, for possibly the finest headline of all time. How's that for a story? It has everything : a man behind the wheel of a high-speed vehicle, a glamorous female lead   - and a van full of dead badgers. How could it fail? Brook’s boyfriend was even an ex-Gladiator (not in the Colosseum; on ITV). It just gets better by the second. To be honest, the actual article was a bit of an anti-climax. It couldn’t live up to dizzying intrigue of its headline. The journalist should have just typed those fourteen words and be done with it. It's nice to see The Independent running stories of national importance.

I’ve got a cracking scam going with my newsagent, where he keeps misreading the price of my paper as 60p. I should probably feel guilty about it, but I don’t. I’ve not done anything to deliberately mislead him. The responsibility falls squarely on the head of the graphic designer. I’m merely an accessory after the fact. I’m currently getting my news at 57% less than the going rate and it feels amazing . Every time I join the queue I wonder if today’s the day when my number will finally be up. "Surely he’ll spot it this time", I think to myself. It’s been going on for weeks; months, even. You'd think he’d pick up on my guilt instinctively, like a dog smelling fear on a human. Sometimes I put the paper on the counter so it rests dangerously close to the price-scanner. It’s like playing chicken with myself; purposely edging closer to the moment when I am eventually found out. He never takes the bait; as far as he’s conce...