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Media watch
Page 14
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IN THE NEWS
Stuart Thomas gives us his regular round-up of the way the newspapers have covered the transport industry this week.
Comedians have a difficult job. Constantly pushing humour in ever-inventive directions just to make people laugh, while not offending them, can be a thankless task. So spare a thought for trucker Tony Reed, who spied a car sticker with a slogan so Wildian in its humour he felt honour bound to buy it. And it promptly got him the sack.
The Daily Mirror reported that Reeds bosses at furniture manufacturers Metalliform in Barnsley failed to see the funny side when he parked in the company car park with the legend 'Kiss My Arse' on his car.
Reed told the paper "I bought the sticker because I thought it was really funny — it wasn't directed at the management. If I want to drive around with 'Kiss My Arse on the boot lid that's my business."
Quite. Except that's not the way his employers saw it. Reed is now planning to take the firm to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal. ''My 70-year-old gran had a laugh when she saw it," he complained, praying, as Reed would surely agree, there's no accounting for taste.
Transport and arses featured heavily in the press this week, and not just in the redtops. The Scotsman reported on bus driver Stephen Wilkie, who took passengers on a 20-mile "journey from hell" between Cumbernauld and Stirling, because he was running late. Wilkie careered over two mini roundabouts, swerved in front of a lorry and pulled up at stops so fast passengers were thrown to the ground. When an elderly chap had the audacity to beg him to slow down, Wilkie showed him short thrift, shouting: "Sit on your arse."
He was banned from driving for six months, though his employers were keen for him not to be thrown out on his own arse; Wilkie still has his job.