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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Cal Byrne

London Larks: Your weekly humour fill, from nosy mannequins to lorry mishaps

Mind the gap

A lorry driver found himself the unfortunate victim of rising water levels on the Thames this week, when he seemingly misjudged where the river ended and began and ended up himself semi-submerged in the rising tides.

Borough Commander John Snelgrove, who was at the scene, said: “The tide was at its highest point and the water was up to the driver’s side window and prevented him from leaving the vehicle.

He added: “Thankfully the local RNLI crews arrived and using a hammer from the fire engine broke the passenger’s side window and helped the man into the boat.”

The man was uninjured by the incident, but did have to spend 30 mins stuck inside the vehicle in what was presumably pretty chilly conditions.

Look behind you

A TV costume designer and her husband lost a High Court battle over privacy when they complained that their neighbour had infringed on their rights by installing a mannequin looking out a velux window and towards their bedroom.

Rosie and Christopher Taylor-Davies insist they have been forced to live in "darkness" with the curtains drawn after neighbour, Simon Cook, installed said window, and would apparently periodically place the mannequin there “adding insult to injury”.

Christopher Taylor-Davies (Champion News)

The judge dismissed their case as he found there was nothing to stop Mr Cook installing the window as it faced towards the sky, but accepted that he “is not taking (his neighbours’) concerns seriously".

In the realm of petty neighbourhood squabbles, this one gets 10 velux windows out of 10.

Mystery of Stonehenge solved (once again)

If I had a penny every time the mystery of Stonehenge had been solved, I would at least have enough to get myself a reasonably priced ice cream. Be that as it may, scientists think they’ve cracked the code once more – with researchers believing it acted as a sort of primitive calendar.

Professor Timothy Darvill said: “The proposed calendar works in a very straightforward way. Each of the 30 stones in the sarsen circle represents a day within a month, itself divided into three weeks each of 10 days.” Yes, very straightforward indeed.

Stonehenge (Ben Birchall/PA) (PA Wire)
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