Excuses, excuses...

There were times in my school days where I was asked to provide my less creative school "chums" with innovative and plausible "excuses" that they could give their teachers, to explain why for the "...23rd time this term" they hadn't completed their homework.

People often need excuses, and my previously mentioned cousin "Joe", in a previous job as a professional lie detector (or traffic cop as it is known in the US), used to have to question motorists who appeared to be driving erratically on Britain's motorways.

One motorist who appeared to be weaving from lane to lane, and cutting corners in the process, claimed to be "...driving in as straight a line as possible in order to save fuel".

(Obviously many years later this type of action actually became government policy and is now one of the cornerstone recommendations of the Kyoto agreement to reduce the devastating effects of climate change - being close to the top of the list and only just below "Turn the tap off whilst brushing your teeth").

Another time when approaching a car stopped in the fast lane of a busy motorway he saw an elderly gentleman attempting to change a burst tyre whilst vehicles sped past. On reaching the car Joe also saw that the gentleman's wife was quite happily "knitting" in the front of the car.

When asked what he thought he was doing changing a tyre there, the elderly gentlemen replied that "...there had been no point changing it before then as it had only just burst!".

What Joe would have made of the following I don't know, but hearing the excuse would have been entertaining....

A woman crashed her car while giving her dog a driving lesson in Hohhot, the capital of China's Inner Mongolia region. She later said her dog "was fond of crouching on the steering wheel and often watched her drive", according to the official Xinhua news agency. "She thought she would let the dog 'have a try' while she operated the accelerator and brake. They did not make it far before crashing into an oncoming car.

What the report didn't say was that when the driver of the other vehicle was asked what make of car had hit him, he had been unsure, but thought that it "...might have been a Rover!!".