Angling and Arson

The Bible is full of very potent sayings, and one that sprung to mind this week is: “A nagging wife is like a dripping tap”. You’d think a self-employed builder would be able to sort out his own ‘dripping tap’, especially if they’d only been married a year. But 38 year old Garry Bates decided to simply advertise his wife, Donna, for sale in Trade-it magazine, along with some of his fishing tackle.

He put her in the ‘Free to Collect’ section of the small ads as: "Nagging Wife. No Tax, No MOT. Very high maintenance -- some rust." He said "She was nagging me for doing something small, while she was watching some rubbish on TV. So I just thought I’d put an ad in to get rid of her. I didn’t think anyone would ring up, but I’ve had at least nine or 10 people calling about her. It’s gone mad. There was no one I knew, just people asking, ’Is she still available?’"

Apparently he thinks that Donna has now seen the funny side but I wouldn’t fancy his chances next time he appears with his tackle and tries to cast a line in that direction!

Even more outrageous is the Chinese Bridegroom-to-be, who set fire to a hotel in order to avoid getting married there. Rumour had it that he was already married to someone else and obviously the saying “No smoke without fire” was appropriate in his case (that saying isn’t in the Bible). Fortunately no-one was hurt, but I don’t suppose that guy is flavour of the month either.

I’d recommend a long fishing trip for both of them. Apparently the fish are biting well somewhere around the Bermudan triangle.