He may have slain a dragon, but we still hardly notice St George

Extensions of this kind are permitted for what are known as "special occasions", but in this instance the magistrates turned down the application. They said that St George's Day was not special enough, although the application could be approved if it involved some kind of charitable work.

This seems an odd decision when similar premises in this country have been granted extensions of hours to celebrate St Patrick's Day, St Patrick being the patron saint of Ireland, but this case does emphasise the English practice of virtually ignoring the feast day of the country's patron saint.

I quote this tale because today is St George's Day, as I am sure most readers will know. It is also Shakespeare's birthday - and the date of his death - so there is quite a lot which might be commemorated or celebrated.

So why do we ignore St George and his famous flag, with its red cross on a white background? Is it because he was not an Englishman or is it because the familiar story of his gallant deeds sounds too much like legend or fiction?

After all, not many real Englishmen went around rescuing beautiful damsels from fire-breathing dragons and that is about the only thing most of us know about St George. Indeed, most illustrations depict him in that familiar, but fictitious, role.

The snag is that there is very little evidence that George actually existed, even if there are several stories of good men called George being martyred a long way from England.

One of them was a brave soldier who lived in Palestine and it is possible he was martyred in the town which became known as Lydda.

The date may have been about AD 285, when there was a persecution of Christians, but there is no hard evidence to support this story.

Whatever his fate, it seems that George was renowned as a good and holy man, with the result that churches were later dedicated to him, particularly some in Palestine, Syria and Constantinople.

The tale about the dragon should not be associated with this soldier/saint. The legend about a gallant man killing dragons and rescuing damsels in distress probably comes from the ancient Greek legend of Perseus and Andromeda.

The beautiful Andromeda was chained to a rock and left to the mercy of a sea monster, but the brave Perseus came along and rescued her, following which she became his wife.

It appears that stories about the bravery of George eventually merged with this Greek legend and thus the familiar yarn of St George and the dragon was created.

In fact, England did not associate St George with the dragon until medieval times, more than 1,000 years after the death of our probable George.

Indeed, St George was known in this country long before the dragon tales began to emerge.

It is not absolutely certain when or why he became patron saint of England in addition to his many other patronages, both here and overseas.

One suggestion is that King Edward III may have named him patron saint of England when he founded the Order of the Garter in 1348.

Another is that George, because he was not English although a very brave soldier, was acceptable to this country's military overlords following the Norman Conquest in 1066.

It took a long time for the conquering Normans to be accepted by the English, so this saint, neither Norman nor English, was ideal as a good and saintly bridge between the two factions.

It was not until 1415 that his feast day was made a festival of the highest rank in England, even if it is now largely ignored.

Now that the tourist season is getting under way, the good burghers of Kelderdale, that fanciful village in the dales, have been preparing for the annual influx of summer visitors.

It is the policy of the village parish council that day-trippers, visitors, tourists and others of that ilk from both town and country are made welcome in Kelderdale, so long as they don't become a nuisance by hindering the daily routine of the village and taking up all the best parking places.

"Their money is as good as anybody else's and, if they want to spend it here, we'll gladly take it off 'em," said Coun Muckraker at a recent parish council meeting.

"Tourism is good for the economy of Kelderdale and we can all benefit. I say we should encourage 'em."

"Yes, we know that," agreed the chairman, Adolf Unthank. "But since last year's influx, we've had several complaints from tourists and that's not good for our image as a tourist-friendly place."

"Complaints?" boomed Coun Strokelady. "What sort of complaints?"

"Well," said Unthank. "There was that woman from Surbiton - that's down south - she complained about the uncontrolled toilet habits of herds of cows.

"She said they make a mess near public footpaths and, on top of that, she followed a herd along Dale Lane, going to be milked, and they made deposits on the road which splattered her car.

"She is thinking of suing Farmer Fielder unless he promises to train them. She reckons if dogs can be house-trained, so can cows, and says she won't come to Kelderdale again unless the cows are taught good toilet manners."

"I think we should invite her back to see how well trained his cows are now," beamed Muckraker.

"She could follow them in her best frock and shoes. Mind you, we had that other woman from Coventry who complained about the sheep staring at her.

"It made her feel very embarrassed, she said, especially as they all had horns."

"Mebbe we should fit all local sheep with dark glasses, then folks wouldn't know what they were looking at, or thinking," said Unthank.

"And then there was that pompous chap who thought our hens should be trained not to run across the road in front of cars, or his car especially, and the couple who complained about the smell of Aud Harold's pigs, then that woman who wrote to the press about cockerels crowing and church bells ringing...sadly, there's not a lot we can do to cater for folks like that here in the countryside."

"There's a lot of tales like that," said Strokelady. "I think we should get all the villagers to send one into us, then we could have 'em printed in a little book, with illustrations. We could sell 'em to tourists to raise cash for village hall funds."

"Great idea, it would make them all pay for being so daft, so consider it done," said the chairman. "We'll call it Cackles from Kelderdale."

Continuing with a light-hearted theme, some years ago, to celebrate April Fool's Day in a year when we had a Labour government in power, I wrote a joke piece in which I suggested that football matches of the future would not be decided by the number of goals scored.

I forecast that the left-wing lunatics of the time would install a committee to determine the winner of each game, and this would be based on the idea that no-one should lose.

Every game would be declared a draw, but it would have to be determined in a democratic way, hence the need for a committee.

And now, years later, we have another Labour government in power and guess what? Under new rules in Scotland, if one team in a children's football match is five goals behind at half-time, the score will be re-set at 0-0 and the losing side will be permitted two extra players for the second half.

It means that seven-a-side matches could now have nine players on one side, at least for half the match.

In another strongly Socialist area (Sheffield), local papers this year have been forbidden to report any children's football games which show a defeat of more than 14-0. Thus, when a team recently lost 32-0, it went unreported.

It appears that the supposed logic behind this is that children should not feel either defeated or triumphant.

It reminds me of the Italian "political six", when all children taking exams were given six marks out of ten to make them feel equal. Can this sort of warped political correctness be beneficial to anyone?