Something for the weekend
The three-year car fix
Time passes at a slow, steady pace in sleepy Shropshire, where their "not a care in the world" ways means it takes a bit longer to get a job done. But how about 7,000 hours to fix a car? A team of craftsmen at Classic Motor Cars in Bridgnorth decided it'd be time well spent to get a well-trashed E-Type Jaguar back on the road, and spend the equivalent of three working years restoring the mangled wreck to its proud, purring original state. Still many man hours of twisting nuts, bending metal, decoking engines, setting timings and - er – whatever else it is that petrolheads do when tinkering around under the bonnet – was well spent as it earned Classic Motor Cars the title of Restoration of the Year at the Octane International Historic Motoring Awards. Well done lads, now if you could spare a moment to look at that dodgy clutch on my Nissan…
Olympic light up
As anyone who's had anything to do with the blazers running the London 2012 Olympics will know, businesses fear the wrath of the organisers more than an athlete who’s had a quick swing of cough mixture dreads a random drugs test. The merest sniff of the games' name being used for anything but pushing sponsors' products is met with direst legal threats. So well done to a bunch of accountants for keeping the spirit of the event going by holding a "Not the Olympics" torch relay from the north of Scotland to London on a charity do for Alzheimer's. Except that their ideas on what constitutes an Olympic event seem a bit unusual as the flame – actually a battery-powered bit of plastic that looked like a toy light sabre - was conveyed by microlight, horsebox, truck, tractor and tandem. Not to be outdone in the "we can out-weird the competition" stakes on the Brum leg was carried in a 1934 Rolls Royce by bean counters at accountancy firm JW Hinks.
Struck down by Bieber fever
I hate him. You hate him. Even my nine-year-old son who's never heard any of his songs hates him. But Justin Bieber has been a hit with staff at a Midlands company who've been cheering louder than any of the moppets crowding the front of the toothsome cheesy teeny popster's stage. Bieber Fever helped Birmingham's Hollywood Monster onto a nice little earner after the graphics company was hired to make the huge stage backdrop for the 17-year-old wholesome Canadian megastar as he switched on the Christmas lights at a London shopping centre. Ah, what it is to be touched by fame.
