A belated welcome to UK

THE FRIDAY THING - by JIM WILLIAMS
I HAVE long argued, on behalf of the millions of us who have every right to live here, that Britain does not have an open-door or even a revolving-door policy to control immigration but no door at all.

Well, it now seems we have taken down the windows and walls as well and put out a mile-wide mat with Welcome written on it in every known language.

More than 100,000 people have signed a petition calling the Government (the collision lot) to curb the tsunami of folk who have no right to be here, some of whom probably wish us harm and will do us harm with antics that would get them beheaded or stoned to death in their own countries.

Here we find that they roam the streets, make bombs, rob and maim, traffic young women and children, deal in drugs, shoot at us and at one another and on their day off claim allowances and get free medical treatment on request.

Oh, and a lot of those who are more than likely here illegally, have been lost to the system so that nobody knows where they are, who they are or what they are up to.

There are 92,000 of the illegal and lost walking our streets — and this before we take into account the lord knows how many were waved through the airports, apparently to save holidaymakers returning from two weeks or so in Benidorm, to have to queue for too long to return to their homeland.

Who is to blame? Is it the Home Secretary, some down-table Home Office pen pusher or staff at the airports who got fed up of holidaymakers — who actually live here and have a right to be here — complaining about how long it was taking to get through passport checks and Customs so they could get home, get the kettle on and catch up on “Downton Abbey”

The row about who was ultimately to blame could go to the courts but will that help to identify the doubtless thousands who slipped into the country unchecked? Will the Home Secretary buy a new pair of high heels, mount her high horse and ride off unscathed or will she take a tumble, either from the heels or the horse?

SUFFERING from the winter blues already? Feeling low and falling a victim to the Seasonal Affective Disorder (or SAD to its friends)?

Well fear not. Put away the red wine, the Red Bull, the generously-packed joint and the fancy range of vodka cocktails. Get someone to shine a torch in your ear (I know you have two of them but maybe shining a light into each one would only expose how much they were in need of a good wash).

We are indebted to the boffins of Finland for this brilliant piece of advice that could save us all the wearisome flight to the Seychelles for some winter sunshine to cheer us up.

And probably if we lived in Finland where it is cold and dark more than it is warm and light and beer is about £30 a glass, we would need a quick pick-me-up to offset the depression. But what tempted the Finish boffins to start shining torches in one another’s earholes is anyone’s guess. Maybe it’s the Finish equivalent of sex; don’t knock it until you’ve tried it (the torch-shining thing, I mean).

Researchers found that 74 to 79 per cent of SAD sufferers were cured of depressive symptoms when the light was shone in their ears for between eight and 12 minutes. But there is a catch. The boffins claim that you need an iPod-like device to deliver a daily dose of artificial sunshine through tiny torches hidden in ear bud headphones (maybe it’s the boffins who sell them). They cost £185 a time, which is likely to make anyone sad.

Still, don’t despair. We should all go out and treat ourselves to a torch to see if eight minutes in its light can make us happy. And no, I am not setting up in business as a torch salesman. Although . . .

FINAL WORD: Do our blind and bloated football bosses not realise that had it not been for those men and women, in whose memory poppies are worn, all of our teams might have been wearing striped prisoner suits and playing football in the Bundesliga. The British dead in conflicts all over the world are the true heroes, putting not their insane salaries and Cheshire mansions on the line but their lives. Every player and every fan should buy and wear a poppy with pride.