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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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Chisel of the Gods

We are all familiar with Thor, the hammer-wielding god of Norse mythology, but how many of us are aware that many other members of that mythical pantheon are similarly tooled up? For example, Loki was pretty handy with a chisel and Bragi had a magic hacksaw that could cut through rainbows. Magni was presented with a mighty bradawl, which he famously used to pluck out the eye of Fenrir. Ullr, the Norse god of winter, used his spanner to tighten up the nuts at the North and South poles, and brought about the last great ice age. And even Odin himself had a Black and Decker Workmate.

It is testament to the declining importance of these mythical beings amongst Scandinavian peoples that in later retellings of the myths, the tools are either missing or greatly diminished. For example, in texts dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, Loki's chisel has become a centre punch, Magni has a small Phillips screwdriver and even Thor himself has traded in his hammer for a thing for getting stones out of horse's hooves.

Gas

After falling into arrears on his energy bill, Mr Vince Mantle has recently been informed by his supplier that the company intends to repossess all the gas that he has used over the last two years. Bailiffs have already attended Mr Mantle's house and have given him seven days to make a full payment, else they will return to collect the thirty-two thousand cubic metres of natural gas that he has so far failed to pay for.

Mr Mantle, who was made redundant some time ago and has been unable to keep up with the spiralling cost of his energy bills, argues that he is no longer in possession of the gas, but his protests have fallen on deaf ears. "If necessary, we will remove gas of an equivalent value from the property," said a spokesman from Mr Mantle's energy company, Northern Bastards PLC. "We have equipment that can suck all the air out of a house in ten seconds flat, although it can cause some respiratory problems and make your ears pop."

The spokesman went on to say that this course of action is only ever pursued as a last resort, and that he did not think it would be required in this case. "We are doubtful of Mr Mantle's claims and suspect that he has our gas hidden somewhere," he told us. "There are plenty of places it could be salted away - for instance, a spare bedroom, a garden shed or even in a series of old lemonade bottles stashed under the kitchen sink. Speaking for myself, I'd put money on that dirty great gasometer round the back of his house having more than a little to do with it."

M. Parsnip's Dinner

At his restaurant in Stratford, celebrated chef Monsieur Hywell Parsnip has developed what he calls 'the ultimate in high concept food'. "The anticipation is always better than the meal, no?" he rants. "The portrait always better than the sitter. The bread is always better than the butter. So pah! I say. The food, she is the weak link in this chain. Let it be gone! So I empty my larder, my fridges. I turn out my stores into the garbage. Ha! Now my kitchen is incorruptible, yes? Now I sell only the concept of food. Come to my restaurant and I will serve you the idea of pasta, the notion of sun-ripened tomatoes, the brief insubstantial momentary thought of steak tartare. In this way, we cannot disappoint, no?"

Surprisingly, since announcing this new approach to cuisine, M. Parsnip's restaurant has enjoyed a surge of popularity. It seems that his customers have also bought into the theory of a dining experience which transcends simple sustenance.

"Yes, yes, this is good," M. Parsnip enthuses. "At last, we have broken free of the bonds of mere flavour, no? Also, there are zero calories and it saves on the washing up."