AS you might have read in your trusty Adver, two sets of Swindon parents were hauled into court the other day for taking their kids out of school for a holiday.

Thanks to an outbreak of common sense in the legal system, the charges were chucked out.

Some of you parents out there might have been left a bit bewildered by what went on.

You might be remembering how things were when you were a kid, and there was nothing unusual about being taken from class for a week or even a fortnight to go on the family’s annual holiday.

All that happened in those days was that you had your holiday, came back and caught up with what you’d missed by borrowing your mate’s notes on fractions, the Industrial Revolution or whatever.

The only time there was a problem was if your mate was the sort of kid whose notes were unreliable or non-existent because they spent lessons looking out of the window and drooling.

Even then, you’d just borrow somebody else’s.

You might be reflecting that in spite of your being absent in this way at least once a year throughout your education, your life hasn’t been a depressing cavalcade of under-achievement – and that the kid who drooled is now the chief executive of a major public utility somewhere.

You might be asking yourself how you’ll be able to take your own children for a week or fortnight in the sun, what with the holiday industry gleefully and cynically ramping its prices up outside term time.

How, you might be asking yourself, can I take my kids on holiday during term time without being hauled into court like a common criminal?

The good news is that by making a few simple lifestyle changes you’ll be able to ensure that no official dares to interfere in your parenting choices.

Start with your home and its external appearance.

Purchase a knackered old car from your local scrapyard, put it in your driveway and remove the wheels. Take out the seats – the more torn and stained they are, the better – and place them in the front garden as lawn furniture.

Go to the supermarket and purchase the nastiest extra strong drink you can find. Don’t worry, you’re not going to be drinking it. You’re just going to strew the bottles and cans about in your front garden. You can pour the drink away, but be sure to do so in a place inaccessible to family pets.

Speaking of family pets, obtain a sound recording of hyenas or wolves fighting and snarling among themselves as they devour some unfortunate prey animal. Play this recording at top volume at all hours of the day and night, while occasionally screaming at the animals to shut up or you'll kill them.

Adjust your personal appearance and that of your spouse. The image you should aim for must be one of bone-headed stupidity, the self-control of a toddler and an irrational anger which constantly threatens to boil over into terrifying acts of violence.

Try to look as if you’re the sort of person who can’t be bothered sending their children to school at all, never mind just taking them out of the classroom for the odd few days’ holiday. Although your kids probably have a 95 percent attendance rate, your image should say it’s about five percent.

Having put all of these measures in place, you can take your kids on holiday during term time – and rest assured that the inspectors will be too busy going after easy targets to go after you.

Read our original story about the parents' legal victory here

Drugs? Me?

A LARGE package of what might be Class A drugs has been found in a tree by a PCSO patrolling the Penhill/Pinehurst beat.

There are apparently suspicions that drug dealers were using the tree trunk as some sort of hiding place, but I’m not so sure.

Has anybody observed the squirrels in the area recently? 

Are they all scampering about doing normal squirrelly things, or are some of them lying flat on their backs with their paws in the air and their tails in disarray?

Are they squeaking nonsense about the intensity of colours? Are they running away from cats and dogs that aren’t really there? 

Has Irvine Welsh been spotted in the vicinity, furiously taking notes? 

Are they busily storing acorns in their nests for the winter, or are they nicking all the other squirrels’ acorns and trying to flog them at a certain second hand shop?

Find out about the drugs found stuffed in a tree by an alert PCSO here

  • A MAN admitted two charges of sexual assault when he appeared in a Swindon court the other day.

    He’d attacked his horrified victim in the mistaken belief she was asleep.

    The pervert was duly allowed to stroll free from the court with a suspended sentence.

    What, one might ask, is so unusual about that? This is after all Swindon, where many a sex attacker is free to go about their business with nary a care in the world.

    Well, part of the deviant’s sentence involved a three-month curfew, but this, the court heard, would have prevented him from going to the Glastonbury Festival.

    The court duly suspended the curfew so as not to force the sex offender to pass up the chance to have fun.

    Do you ever get the uneasy feeling that you’ve passed into some alternative universe?

    Read our court report here