ALWAYS look on the bright side, said Monty Python famously (as did plenty more before them).

Easier said than done, particularly when a massive hole has appeared in your driveway and swallowed your car deep into the ground.

Yet Phil and Liz Conran had just that attitude when they found themselves in the bizarre position of posing for pictures in front of their already legendary sinkhole this week. Try to make sure you don’t use one of those obviously posed shots of us looking miserable, they asked, as there are much worse things that can happen to you than this.

Factually true, perhaps, but that is still an attitude that demands a very healthy degree of perspective, given the dealings the family must now be having with insurance companies and building contractors.

Still, a very commendable outlook given the freakish circumstances and, dare we say it, a textbook example of that once-prized, famously British trait of stoicism.

THERE are always quibbles to be had over budgets – is the council spending enough on this public service; do we really need so much spent on that one?

Year after year, everyone quite rightly has a view and, at the same time, we all want to keep our council taxes as low as possible.

The BFP was told this week at a Buckinghamshire County Council briefing that the authority receives a staggering 1,000 – 1,500 referrals requesting help in putting children into care every month – an increase of 30 per cent on last year.

Forming a sickening part of this figure are children who fall victim to sexual exploitation.

BCC has agreed, as part of its budget plan, to spend more money on striving to protect children and young people from this sort of abuse.

Perhaps we can argue over whether we need more spent on roads or certain other public services, and less on others, but an extra £200,000 to help keep our children safe is surely money well spent.