Roo-ling The Roo-st

‘WITH the entire staff enthusing about Wayne Rooney, the Mirror’s sent its last reporter/tea girl out to find a story to fill the little available space in the rag not dedicated to the footballing boy wonder.

It’s open season on ex-Goodies

(There would have been even less space had the Mirror not finally got rid of its WMD counter.)

So, armed with a pen, Emma Britton, in the guise of reporting legend Phil Space, stepped out to fill some, er, space.

And that foray into the unknown has resulted in the paper’s scoop on how TV presenter Bill Oddie ‘has started a Delia Smith-style stampede for bird-boxes’.

Delia, Emma reports, once caused 90,000 of us to dash out and buy an omelette pan she had described on TV as a ‘little gem’.

And now Oddie, who appears on the BBC TV show Britain Goes Wild, has caused thousands of us to rush out and buy bird boxes.

‘Our retail outlets have been extremely busy,’ says a spokesperson for the RSPB. ‘Sales of bird boxes, bird feeders and bird baths have all shot up and we have sold out of bee boxes.’

It’s nothing less than a miracle. And for it we have to thank Emma, her story ‘THE ODDIE EFFECT’ and, of course, Oddie himself.

But where is the great twitcher? It’s not like he who resembles an overblown, downy tit to miss the chance to enthuse about the wonders of bird watching.

Oh, there he is. Quick, fetch the shotgun. We’ll have him stuffed and mounted before sundown…’

Posted: 22nd, June 2004 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink