Borderline

The Westmorland Gazette hits the news stands on Thursday morning. And as I haven’t been out to buy my copy yet, that means some of you may have a better idea of what is on the front page than I do. Which may sound unusual, given that I draw the front page cartoon.

Truth is, when I go into the newsroom on Wednesday at 2pm, the main stories are still slugging it out to see which of them is going to be the lead story. It’s not a pretty sight. There are vowels and apostrophes everywhere.

I take a peek, then sometimes duck behind the news desk and see what’s occurring in the calmer, more rarified environs of pages 3 and 5.

So this week, I had a choice of three stories to consider. The wackiest was a move by the Get A Life, sorry, County Watch, which has gone around putting up Welcome to Lancashire and Welcome to Westmorland signs. In Cumbria. Which took over from those counties (in South Lakes) in 1974. (We have no hope of ever going metric.)

In other news, Cumbria County Council has had its budget cut by more than was feared, thanks to the LibCon settlement. And a group of nine illegal immigrants were caught, heading for Cumbria. (I should point out that these were illegal immigrants from outside the UK, not from Yorkshire or somewhere.)

The four cartoon sketches are below. One of them manages to combine two of the stories (smug mode). If you’ve already bought the Gazette, you’ll know which one the editor chose. The rest of you, mosey on over to my website.