Surprised to see Havant at the centre of world news

That’s not something that tends to happen very often.

I’m talking about 20-year-old Michael Sandford, who was arrested after allegedly trying to grab a policeman’s gun at a Republican Party rally in Las Vegas for presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Bit of a surprise, that one.

He’s since been charged with an act of violence in a restricted area.

Michael had reportedly tried to seize the gun and said he wanted to shoot Trump.

The local link is Michael’s father, Paul Davey, who lives in Havant and, like the rest of us, can hardly believe what has happened.

I’m struggling to imagine what it must be like to be a parent whose child is suddenly on news bulletins around the planet – for the wrong reasons.

It must be horrendous.

From living a quiet life, suddenly Paul’s in demand from the media as he tries to support his son and get to the bottom of what on earth’s been going on.

He’s since flown out to America to speak to his son in a detention centre on the outskirts of Las Vegas and says he’s still shocked by what Michael told him.

According to the Mail on Sunday, he said: ‘I asked him what happened and he would only say that if Trump was elected, it would change the world and that somebody had to stand up for America.’

It’s no surprise that Paul is devastated by such a turn of events.

In his mind, he’s convinced that Michael, who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, has been got at, brainwashed and politicised by somebody.

Maybe some of that is a parent’s natural inclination to want to protect their child and think the best of them.

But whatever the truth, there’s a chance that Michael might not be seeing the outside world for a while.

In America, they don’t mess about with their sentencing. And cases don’t come much more high profile than this one.

It’s not like over here where, if found guilty, he’d probably be given a hi-vis and have to paint a few railings around a community centre.

EVEN SNAILS WOULD BE ABLE TO BOOK THE RIGHT HOLIDAY FLIGHTS

Scientists have discovered that snails solve complex decisions using just two brain cells. Apparently this is helping engineers develop energy-efficient robots.

Leave the snails to their lettuce! They could have just used Richella Heekin and Ben Marlow, who only seem to have a few brain cells between them.

They booked holiday flights costing £1,200 from Birmingham and arrived at the airport to discover they’d booked from Birmingham, America!

They said ‘it’s embarrassing’. No, what’s embarrassing is that they’re in the media talking about it.

But that’s the modern world. In 1996 you made a mistake, learned from it and moved on. In 2016, you make a mistake, share it with the world and we all laugh!

LET’S JUST HOPE THESE KILLJOYS NEVER NEED THE BLOOD BIKES

I stumbled across an article about police descending on a Cotswold village.

At first I thought maybe tempers had flared at a local polling booth and imagined a couple of men rolling around in the dirt and chickens flapping about the place trying to avoid the melee.

But no, the police had been dispatched to stop a charity rubber duck race in Bourton-on-the-Water, held in aid of Blood Bikes.

Apparently, locals were up in arms about the disruption.

What a miserable bunch of people. This is only once a year and it’s for charity.

I could understand if it was every weekend and people were flying up the river on jetskis. But they weren’t.

Let’s just hope these killjoys are never in need of the Blood Bikes service themselves,