PLASTIC POLICEMAN

I CANNOT help but do a double take outside Merseyside HomeBargains stores (pause for music from Z Cars).

They all have a policeman in their windows So to speak.

The life-size stickers of a copper in uniform are so realistic they might make shoplifters think again.

They are a clever, smiling crime deterrent.

And I want one of them for my own house. Imagine a policeman standing guard in your window - a stiff reminder not to try and enter – certainly a step up from the neighbourhood watch stickers.

We should all have pictures of bobbies in our windows.

But why stop there, why not get a burglar poster?

A life-size cut-out of a man sporting a striped sweater, mask and carrying a bag with the word “Swag” on it.

It could have the message “Do not enter. This is my patch and I’m busy pilfering.”

It would make other housebreakers think twice.

Honour among thieves and all that.

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WATERPROOF PRICEY

THE Inferno spotted Pete Price swimming - and clearly the DJ takes his work home with him.

Radio City’ s legendary name dropper - the title of his autobiography - has real stamina coping with callers on his phone-in show for four hours each night.

Yet there he was, swimming up and down the baths while sporting head phones.

Pete told this column “I decided that this is the best way to learn lines for my annual ( oh yes it is) panto.”

And in a great Sherlock Holmes moment, he revealed that the ear phones are water-proof. Really!

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GIVE IT A REST

PLEASE, please, can’t we leave Morecambe and Wise in the telly archives for a while?

Without doubt they were the greatest double act since Laurel and Hardy.

But surely it is time to restrict endless repeats of the duo?

Bring the sunshine out once a year and stop repackaging their greatest clips in tenuous, tribute-styled programmes such as the current Saturday Eric and Ernie nostalgia show.

The Andre Previn sketch was a classic, so too was Shirley Bassey’s Smoke Gets in Your Eyes number.

But TV bosses must lay the pair to rest and limit them only to an annual Christmas special look back to remind us how great they were.

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BUYING THE BEATLES

I PITY those people who buy up Beatle memorabilia In the past, Fab Four items going under the Silver Hammer at auctions have featured a piece of toast half-eaten by George or a John Lennon tooth.

Granted, some items are priceless – a Beatle guitar recently fetched £150,000.

But forking out thousands for hand-written lyrics on the back of a napkin or notepad is taking it too far.

I once asked Paul McCartney to sum up The Beatles.

He smiled and said: “Just go home and play the music.”

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WHAT'S IN A NAME?

BEING totally opposed to the scheme not allowing prisoners to be sent books, I am delighted that the chief executive for the the Penal Reform League is speaking out - one Frances Crook.

Fact not fiction.

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And finally, I saw an impressive sign in a local store: “Closing Down- 20% off everything.”

I asked the lady behind the counter when were they shutting shop?

They weren’t.

I looked more closely at the poster and squinted. In very, very small print it actually read: “We are not…Closing Down Great marketing.

You can contact Peter at globe.editorial@wirral-globe.co.uk