TV's Seann Walsh is heading to St George's Hall

ON Wednesday, 16 November 2016, the Lie-in King, Seann Walsh, will be stopping off on his UK tour 'One for the Road' in Liverpool's St George's Hall.  Described by the Guardian as ?unquestionably the best observational comic of his generation" Seann Walsh is travelling the UK stopping at over 60 dates, that also includes Chorley, Little Theatre, on Saturday, 26 November 2016, with what is a fantastic show.

However dishevelled he may be, the 'Foster's Comedy Award' nominee is also 1 of the best comics in the country. With a keen observational mind, Seann can spot the absurdity in everything and convert it to perfectly delivered stand up comedy. You might have seen Seann on TV, but he's something else live; pacing the stage, working the room and reducing crowds to hysterics. Even if he'd probably rather be at home watching Sky Sports News.  Seann is a regular face on the small screen on ITV1's Saturday night sports panel show 'Play To The Whistle' and as team captain on E4 and Channel 4's comedy quiz show 'Virtually Famous.' Other recent TV appearances include:- BBC1's 'Live At The Apollo', ITV1's 'Jonathan Ross Show' and 'Tonight at The London Palladium', Channel 4's '8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown' and 'Alan Carr: Chatty Man', as well as Comedy Central's 'Russell Howards Stand Up Central.'

Seann is quickly becoming a well respected comedy actor, having recently starred in Sky's silent comedy, '3 Kinds of Stupid'. Seann is featured in the brand new 'Comedy Shorts' series for Sky that premiered at the 'Cat Laughs Comedy Festival' in Kilkenny, before airing on Sky On Demand and Sky Arts that aired in June 2016.  To book tickets and to see all the tour stops go to his website or the tour site website.

Football's FIFA might not like the Poppy, but OS do!

FIFA may not want to see poppies on footballers' shirts, but the Poppy has now made it onto UK maps. Thankfully the Football Associations of England and Scotland say that they will defy a ban... It's not the 1st time that there has been a misunderstanding about its significance. In 2011 for example, workers in some high profile chains had been told to remove their poppies in shops, like Poundland. Often the reason given has been that it might cause offence... Oddly, there is still currently no express right permitting an employee to wear a Poppy at work. Some employers are happy to leave it to their employees as to whether or not to wear such, but others may want to take a more "hands on approach." There may well be a genuine occupational requirement for employees not to wear poppies. For example, those handling or processing food may be prevented from doing so on health and safety grounds, like KFC did in 2015. In 2015 it stopped staff from wearing poppies in kitchens, on health and safety reasons. But unless employers have a clear dress code policy in place, preventing employees wearing charitable symbols such as poppies or wristbands for example, any disciplinary action taken for doing this could be difficult to justify.

But some good news has hit the headlines as this week. We have been contacted by Keegan Wilson, from the UK's Ordnance Survey. He commented that:- "Our surveying team are working across Britain on a daily basis, capturing all of the changes to our country. From new roads and housing estates to hospitals and shopping centres, the team map it all out. Our surveyor, Keith Lanham, was asked to survey a more unusual site recently, with particular significance on Remembrance Day. This year marked the 100th Anniversary of the Fovant Badges in Wiltshire. If you haven't come across them before, they are regimental badges that were carved into the chalk downs above the village of Fovant by the soldiers of those regiments. To mark the Anniversary, the Fovant Badges Society, the voluntary organisation which maintains the badges, commissioned the addition of a centenary badge to mark 100 years of the Fovant Badges, and securing their long term future."

He added that:- "The trustees of the Society decided that the centenary was best marked by the building of a new badge on the hillside. The new design is a Poppy with '1916' and '2016' lettering. As far as possible the new badge used construction techniques that would have been familiar to the Soldiers stationed in the area in World War 1. Each of the original badges represents a regiment that was stationed at Fovant during WW1, until the camp closed in the 1920's. On a foggy October morning, I climbed the West facing escarpment to survey the new badge. Using my GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) kit, I was able plot the fresh chalk outline of the 25 metre diameter poppy and 2 dates. The most difficult aspect of the task was not the climb to the badges' location, or the steepness of the survey site, but how to show the detail with regards to current product specification. This is possibly the 1st completely new hill figure to be surveyed for a century. With the help of the specification team, we decided to show the Poppy and 1916 to 2016 dates in full, due to the importance of this memorial to those who fell in the Great War."

What are your views on the Poppy? Should the World football governing body's rules prohibiting political, religious or commercial messages on shirts apply to the Poppy? Should the FA defy a ban on players wearing poppies when the teams meet on Armistice Day? Should the UK put into effect a law that protects those who want to wear Poppies? Please let us know your views, via emailing us to:- News24@SouthportReporter.com.