Mayor steals undies?

A mayor has been charged with stealing underwear in Lancashire. This bizarre tale came to light after several female residents contacted the police about the missing underwear. The man, Ian Stafford, has been charged on three counts of burglary and has, reportedly, resigned his position as Mayor. Which makes sense.

Why he didn't just go to shops to buy the underwear isn't mentioned, but it seems an extreme length to go to in order to avoid having to buy underwear in public.

The Ashes

We won! We won! Oh isn't it good to have won the Ashes back!

Did you hear Lily Allen on the Test Match Special (TMS) lunch time show being interviewed by Johnathan Agnew? It was quite an interesting interview, underlying the sports wide appeal to people of all generations, and it was intriguing to hear the thoughts of Ms Allen on the game, and its appeal. One of these she noted was the simplicity of the kits, the colour of the "whites on the green", and her dismissal (ha!) of Twenty20 and its kits.

It's true indeed that the sight of cricket whites against lush green grass, standing in the field, and the sound of leather on willow, is an classic piece of English heritage. It's nice to see that even a live-fast rock-hard youngster like Lily Allen can appreciate this, and the simple white clothing of the game still retains its charm, even as day-glo kits are fast becoming the norm.

Dr Doolittle

We've often seen how ingenious humans can be when it comes to helping animals out with clothing. Here's another story we can fill away in under the same category - a penguin being given wet suit.

Clearly this isn't to help him swim. No, bizarrely, the poor chaps feathers all fell out and this put him at risk of sunburn. So the staff at Penguin World (where else?) put together a wetsuit for him from the legs of a man size wetsuit.

Now he can swim about to his hearts content, keeping safe from the sun, and nice and warm too. Warms the cockles of your heart doesn't it?

The right look?

A woman with a prosthetic arm has been awarded £8,000 after winning an employment tribunal against clothing giant Abercrombie and Fitch. She claimed she was "diminished" for not fitting the "look policy" at the Savile Row store in central London.

We've often looked at the importance of having the right look for customer facing staff in high-street stores, after all they're representing a brand and need to convey a certain look. However, as this case shows, sometimes it can go too far. It would be hard to imagine that any shopper would really be so turned away from a shop by a worker with a fake arm. The thing any clothing company should be worrying about, from the smallest one-off shop to worldwide multi-nationals, is the quality of the clothing. Wouldn't you agree?

All aboard the wedding train

A bride in China went slightly over board on her wedding dress last week, making the train of the garment a mere 1.4 miles long. Yes you read that right. 1.4 miles. The groom's mother said, a touch harshly, 'It is a waste of money in my opinion," She's got a point.

The guests had to helped unroll the dress too. It took 200 of them almost three hours to do so. Three hours?! Unrolling a wedding address? Still, not a day you'd forget in a hurry. How does this compare to other clothing excesses? Got any funny, interesting examples? Did you go a touch overboard on your big day in the dress department? Let us know below.

Barred?

A story on the front page of the Metro, and in the Daily Mail, reports that a group of soldiers were turned away from a pub because they were wearing their military uniforms.

This is not actually a new thing and in some instances you can understand why a bar or pub might ban a large group of drunk, uniformed soldiers. However, in this case it was just four people and they were having a drink after a funeral for a fellow soldier. Therefore, perhaps a little discretion was needed?

What do you think? A little too far or fair enough?

Whiter than white

When you've got a tan the best thing you can possibly do, to annoy those who remain white as a sheet at least, is wear a white shirt. Showing off your healthy, glowing skin (you've sun creamed and after-sunned correctly, etc) is augmented with a nice crisp white shirt.

And, perhaps that's why one shirt seller has reported a massive 50% increase in the sales of white shirts in 2009. Others though, suggest it's a way to appear professional (or go unnoticed) during these tough economic conditions. But other shops have reported no sharp increase. So why has this happened? Any ideas fair readers?

Summer breeze

So another washed out weekend comes and goes in the damp squib that is the British Summer. From Cornwall To Carlisle the rain comes pouring, ruining BBQs, crickets matches and picnics.

And for the organisers of a world record attempt, it somewhat hampered their efforts too - well, the 'most amount of women in bikini's photographed' was going to require good weather wasn't it? Why this qualifies as a world record we don't know - seems pointlessly random. However, it was for charity, so that's good and overrules concerns on the nature of 'what is a world record'.

How about you; any great summer plans washed out by the rain and wind?