What Notts: Weird Stories

illustration: Rikki Mar

VIBRATING RING PIECE
Eighteen-year-old Bilborough College student Daria Buszta has designed a vibrating wristband for people with hearing and visual impairments to easily locate their bus stop. Recent research has shown that the visually impaired community have major issues when it comes to public transport, as you can imagine, so this little piece of technology, ViBus, could potentially make a massive difference if the product trial is successful. Yes, Daria – awesome idea.

FLEEING THE SCENE
One of the UK’s most wanted criminals is the leading member of a Nottingham drug trafficking gang. Apparently Ahmed Dervish Omer has bounced to the Netherlands to prevent himsen getting put away for ten years, but the fuzz are pretty confident that they’ll be able to track the slippery bogger down. He was caught right here in Notts with £29,000 worth of drugs. Namely, weed and speed. Omer, you silly sausage. Din’t you have a mattress or summat?

PAY GAP, YAH
A four-night stay in the world’s only seven-star hotel, two Citroen C1s, or 7,000 scratch cards. Not just prizes on a slick Saturday night gameshow, but all the things you can buy with the gender pay gap between professors at the University of Nottingham. Yep, male professors earn almost £7,000 more than their female counterparts for educating the youth of our country. The bloody pissing cheek of it.

WHERE’S ROBIN WHEN YER NEED HIM?
Back in the dizzay, owd Rob kicked up a right fuss when the mean old Sheriff of Nottingham demanded unreasonably high taxes from the poor people of Nottingham. Well, it looks like we’re in need of a tight-clad hero right about now, as the council are being forced to raise our council tax bills by 4% this year to compensate for our miserly government’s brutal budget cuts. We wouldn’t drop in on Sherwood Forest if we were you, Mr Cameron...

NOTTINGHAM IS THE ILLEST
Bleddy hell. Our region is officially sick, and we don’t mean in the youth vernacular. Scarlet fever is on the rise in the East Midlands, and in the rest of the UK, but us lot are topping the charts when it comes to rash-riddled skin. Don’t worry, it’s not proper serious, but some schools have been steam cleaning their classrooms, while the symptoms of headache, sore throat and a sandpapery, red rash are to be kept an eye on. Get some antibiotics down yer necks.

AMERICAN ADVENTURE APPEAL
Some create petitions to affect global, political movements, some do it to get Ilkeston theme parks reopened. Yep, our Declan Salmon took to change.org when he just couldn’t take it any more, and has received 5,000 supportive signatures so far. Once the amount of backers doubles, he’ll be able to take it to Derbyshire County Council, who’ve already approved plans for houses and retail outlets on the land. Come on, you boring sods. Bring back The Missile!

3D PRINTED MUNCHABLES
A new restaurant has opened up in Notts where you can get your food made by 3D printers. Amazing. We. Know. A Food Dimension, located in the city centre, has had help from BioCity in developing the new technology, and there’ve been talks with Deliveroo about potentially getting your dinner printed on your doorstep to ensure it’s as hot and fresh as humanly possible. Well, in this case, robotically possible. Oh gawd, is this the beginning of the end?

BOBBY BOSS BATES
Kemet FM host Tony Bates has thrown his hat into the ring for the role of Notts Police Commissioner. His manifesto includes opposing a merger of the city and county forces, better informing the public via social media and slashing the salary for his own post. Eh?! Taking a pay cut for yersen? That’s a turn up for the political books. He’s running as an independent candidate, so if you’re well up for it, you can give him a vote on Thursday 5 May.