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Welcome to Belper

With its busy shopping streets packed with unique independent businesses, its history and heritage, its parks, reserves and beautiful spaces, Belper in Derbyshire is a great place to visit.

Find out more about this thriving, historic market town here: belper.madhm.uk.

Welcome to Belper

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Retroactive Sackings

A new precedent has this week been set in the field of employment law as a UK-based firm won the right to retroactively sack a quarter of its workforce.

The company, which presently cannot be named for hygiene reasons, is a manufacturer and retailer of cheap leisurewear and has a reputation for harsh and questionable employment practices which frequently test the limits of legality. For instance, the firm has been able to pay considerably less than the living wage by claiming variously that it is a religion, a commune and an offshore windfarm. More recently it successfully defended an HMRC prosecution by offering expert testimony that the company as a physical entity did not exist and was merely a mental construct brought into being by the collective consciousness of its workforce.

This latest action came about after the firm posted considerable pre-tax profits which were, in their own words, not nearly enough. To rectify this shameful situation, directors decided to slash the wage bill by terminating the contracts of 25% of its employees, backdating their dismissal to 1997 and beginning immediate action to recover overpayments of salary.

Following a controversial ruling that the company had not acted outside the law, a spokesman for the government, who cannot be named for operational reasons, praised the firm's entrepreneurial spirit. "This is just the sort of innovative thinking that British industry needs," he said. "I think that we, as a nation, should be grateful that we can produce companies which are bold enough to think outside the box, and I for one am proud to be a shareholder."

Rare Bird Visits Derbyshire Town

Birdwatchers from all over the country have been flocking to a small town in Derbyshire to watch a rare European bee-eater called Tony, and frankly he's sick of it. The bird, currently holidaying in the country over the summer, has been pestered by twitchers since he arrived and he feels that it's all gone a bit too far.

"It was very pleasant at first," he told us. "I mean, who wouldn't be just a little bit flattered by all that attention? But pretty soon it becomes way too much. I mean, I can't do anything without some be-anoraked nerd sticking his long lens in. I'm just going about my business, trying to have a few relaxing weeks to myself before I have to get back to the daily grind of catching insects and fighting for survival. But can I get a moment's peace? Can I hell! I tell you, I was thinking of bringing the wife and kids here next year, but if this is how you treat your visitors then forget it - we'll go to Disneyland instead."

Responding to Tony's comments, a spokesman from the RSPB said, "Fuck me, a talking bird!"

Silly Names for Cars

In a worrying development for the automotive business, the marketing director for the new Ford Twat has admitted that they are running out of stupid names for cars. Saddling models with labels that are ridiculously inappropriate, unwieldy or just plain daft is a tradition which dates back to the very earliest days of the industry. Appellations like the Daihatsu Scat, the Ford Probe and the Renault Wind follow the glorious pattern set by those early pioneers who brought us the Daimler Flange, the Renault Kevin and the Mercedes Benz Trumpet Endurance.

Whilst it is tempting to wonder what kind of infantile brain fart resulted in the moniker applied to the Ford Ka, there was surely a perverse form of surrealism at work when they came up with the Honda That's, and the thinking behind the Volkswagen Thing portrays a bleak and utilitarian mastery of the art which verges on the postmodern. Probably.

The success of the Dacia Duster might seem to indicate that there are no real concerns as yet, but coming so soon after the Chamois, the Clothes Brush and the 2.0-litre Turbocharged Super-Mop, it displays a worrying lack of originality.

And Ford, which has traditionally been at the forefront of silly names, seems to be struggling more than most. Rumours have emerged concerning its proposed new 3-door hatchback: it has variously been referred to as the Concrete Bicep, the Vol-au-vant and the Belch, but we hear that serious consideration is being given to just calling it a Fiesta and having done with the whole thing.