One evening at dusk I was taking my little dog for a walk round the block, when round the corner came a group of five youths, all wearing their traditional uniform of hooded jackets. They were all shouting quite loudly and I thought to myself, here comes trouble. As they got nearer to me one of them pointed and shouted, "Look at this dog." They all gathered round my dog, making a real fuss of him, then a mobile phone rang and one of them said to me, "I'm sorry we'll have to go now, we're meeting a pal." They all said goodbye and dashed off down the road still shouting and yelling. So you see, things are not always what they seem are they? illustrated by this week's story.

His request for a plane had been approved by his editor and the Sky News photographer phoned the local airport to charter a flight as soon as possible. He was told that a two seater aircraft was available and would be waiting on the runway for him when he arrived at the small airport. Arriving at the nearly deserted airfield, he quickly spotted a small plane warming up its engine outside a hanger door. He jumped in, placed his camera bag on the floor, slammed the door shut and shouted, "Well come on, let's go." The pilot requested permission to take off, taxied out, swung the plane into the wind and rather shakily took off. Once they were airborne the photographer instructed the pilot to head south and fly as low as possible over the valley and said that they would be making several low passes so he could take pictures of the hillside that was ablaze. "But why would you want to do that"? asked the pilot. "Because I'm a news photographer for Sky News and I need to get some really close up shots of the fire." The pilot was silent for a while and then stammered, "So are you telling me that you're not my flying instructor after all"?