TRY as we may to keep ourselves isolated from the outside world, now that the winter hibernation has set in, it keeps intruding into our peace and quiet. And rarely, I might say, in a pleasant sort of way.

For instance, Teachers Tess and Tim have staged one of their occasional walkouts from the Beggars' Arms and haven't been seen for weeks.

And Mean Mike at the post office has finally abandoned his dreams of having a National Lunacy terminal.

It was that or divorce. And both these events have come about as a result of an incident in, of all places, Surrey, which geographically, culturally and socially is about as far away in England as you can get from Beggarsdale.

At the beginning of October, a reader might remember, a row broke out in quite a posh comprehensive school because two of their so-nice Home Counties boys had a bit of a go at one of their teachers.

In fact, they threatened - several times - to kill him.

So the school "excluded" the boys - you can't expel 'em in this politically correct world - until they appealed and the school was ordered to take them back. Now that's what brought about the exclusion of Tim and Tess.

You see, they came into the Beggars' at a very unfortunate juncture when most of us were agreeing that we should bring back approved schools - where such yobbos were sent when I was nobbut a lad. That sorted out all but the worst of them - and those it didn't tended to end up Borstal, which was truly frightening.

However, what had upset most of us was the attitude of these lads' parents, who thought that threatening to stab a teacher in the back of his head was just a jolly jape.

Instead of giving the both lads a good hiding, these doting dolts launched a fierce attack on the school and the poor teacher victim.

This was the point under debate when Tim and Tess walked in.

"In my day," Cousin Kate the postmistress was saying, "you daren't tell your dad you'd got the cane because he'd give you another clip round the ear for upsetting the teacher."

"Oh dear me," sighed Tess, Local Commandant, Politically Correct Thought Police. "I don't we'll be welcome here tonight."

And so they left - never to be seen again (so far, at least).

But worse was to come. A week or so later, it emerged that these two louts had been represented at their appeal by a professional at the job, a Welshman who has helped get more than 4,000 excluded children back into their schools, where they are no doubt to this day still threatening teachers with violence and destroying the education of fellow pupils by disruptive behaviour.

You see, there is an organisation that specialises is such cases, calling itself the Communities Empowerment Network. And guess where it gets it funds?

Mean Mike's already fading dream of becoming a National Lunacy mogul finally bit the dust when it emerged that this network had received £200,000 from, yes, the National Lunacy.

And this news broke just a month after it was revealed that our lottery pounds were also being shovelled into another loony left charity which helps illegal immigrants to stay in Britain.

"Don't ever mention it again," said Cousin Kate to husband Mike. "Any lottery machine that comes in here goes straight out through the window - closely followed by you."

So we still have to go to Mar'ton to throw our money down the lottery drain - and the Innkeeper has lost two of his best customers. All because of two louts in Surrey. It's as strange world, this global village!

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.