Stalking kids and chasing women is just not funny

Let’s face it, getting a gig as a clown act at the moment must be a bit of a nightmare.

People copying the ‘killer clown’ craze in America have been popping up across the Portsmouth area.

Regardless of whether or not you have a genuine fear of clowns (it actually has a name – coulrophobia), it can be pretty scary.

Stalking children or chasing women is just not funny.

You might think it’s a bit of a laugh standing on a street corner dressed in your £5 mask from the Halloween aisle in Asda, but it could quite easily all end in tears.

How can someone tell the difference between a harmless prank and someone who might actually attack them?

Many people will be presuming the latter and then acting accordingly, ending in trouble for everyone.

And all because yet again a mindless fad has been copied from America, with the brainless jumping on the bandwagon over here.

It’s not as if any effort has gone into what they’re doing.

They’re generally standing about in scruffy tracksuits and a cheap plastic mask.

But if you’re going to risk a hiding from disgruntled vigilantes, you may as well go the whole hog with a full clown costume, make-up and some helium balloons.

I’m not a fan of clowns myself, ever since Halloween night of 1992 when I watched Stephen King’s It and then Ghostwatch.

Now my kids, who never had a problem with clowns before, have been caught up in the hysteria and are coming home with lurid tales of clown encounters.

On the upside though, children’s parties must have got a whole lot cheaper.

I’m going to book Bozo the Clown for the next seven years.

I’m not expecting any kids to come, but at least I’ll get to learn how to make those little balloon sausage dogs.

FISH WITH REGIONAL ACCENTS? IT’S A LOAD OF COD CODSWALLOP

According to marine biologist Dr Steve Simpson, cod have regional accents.

Apparently this causes a problem with breeding because cod travelling to different areas can’t understand each other!

They’ve never had a problem before.

Has an influx of non-indigenous fish changed everything?

Well I’m just not having it, not one bit.

Fish don’t speak to each other, they don’t have chat-up lines. It’s cod codswallop.

Are you really expecting me to believe that a young cod heads down south from up north, casually swims up to a potential mate, likes what he sees and says the cod equivalent of ‘here’s 10p, call your dad and tell him you won’t be home tonight’?

JUST A WARNING? THE COACH DRIVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIRED

Whenever the kids go away on a school trip, especially to somewhere like London, as a parent you always have concerns.

Every now and then you see a horror story in the media and it fuels that worry.

But we could quite easily have had a tragic incident in our own city after a Vision Travel driver stopped his coach full of children, parents and teachers in the middle of the Eastern Road – to pray.

You couldn’t make it up. How nothing happened must have been sheer luck or divine intervention.

A spokeswoman for Vision Travel said: ‘The driver was given a warning and we are looking into the matter.’

A warning? Ridiculous. The driver should have been fired straight away.