Saturday 22 October 2011

Flat battery: Aid loans: Armadillo attack: Crap alchemist: Big burger: and the Patterdale Blob.


Coldish, calmish and cloudyish at the Castle this morn, the study is devoid of all things broken and bollixed up and his Maj refuses to use the very expensive cat door installed in the rear exit so I sit here wrapped up in a blanket until the heating can go on. 

Inflicted even more vandalism on the garden yesterday, the trellis that the Virginia Creeper was growing on had rotted so it had to go, spent about an hour cutting the creeper back-a bit like unravelling spaghetti, and I made a fence out of the good bits which is just at the right height to put my feet up on while sitting on the folding chair.

The fifteen foot high Lilac “tree” was beginning to be infected with the same viral disease that killed the California Lilac and that went as well, I now can’t move my right elbow because of all the sawing-should have changed hands.......




Inmates at the first UK prison to be transferred to the private sector were locked in their cells for almost a full day after a set of keys fitting every cell door went missing.
Staff at Birmingham Prison, which houses 1,450 prisoners and was taken over by the private security firm G4S this month, noticed the keys were missing on Tuesday. It is not known if they have been found, or what action has been taken by the prison, but the firm insisted there was no risk to public safety.
A G4S spokeswoman said: "All prisons have well-established contingency plans to deal with incidents of this nature."  

Like locking all the guests up.......


Meanwhile:



A government plan to make 2011 "the year the electric car took off" appears to have stalled, with uptake of a scheme to promote sales of environmentally friendly vehicles falling dramatically.
The "plug-in car grant", conceived under Labour and launched by Philip Hammond in January when he was Transport Secretary, offered an incentive of up to £5,000 to buy an electric car.
The number of vehicles sold through the scheme has dropped significantly since its launch, with only 106 being bought in the third quarter of 2011, down from 465 in the first quarter of this year, and 215 in the second. Despite an increase in the total number of electric cars being sold in Britain – from 167 in 2010 to 940 in 2011 according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders – environmental campaigners have criticised a lack of infrastructure for its failure.


Or maybe it’s because NOBODY HAS ANY BLOODY MONEY!

 And: 


The Government is to begin phasing out aid to India and gradually replace it with loans to small businesses in some of the country's poorest areas.
Details of the pilot scheme, which is being pioneered in India by the Department for International Development, emerged on Friday amid continuing questions over why Britain gives any aid to the world's second fastest growing economy. India is currently growing at up to eight per cent while Britain's growth forecasts have fallen below one per cent.
The decision to use India as a test case for replacing donor aid with recoverable loans was taken after Andrew Mitchell, the international development minister, voiced doubts earlier this year that British aid to India would continue "for very much longer." The Indian government has been indifferent at best to Britain's aid contribution and increasingly sees itself as an aid donor – it has pledged to give more than $500 million in aid to Afghanistan and is set to launch its own international aid agency.
 


Wonder what Andrew Mitchell has got on Dave?



Dallas police are on the hunt for a man who is accused of attacking a woman with a frozen armadillo. The Sept. 29 altercation occurred in the parking lot of an apartment complex, where the 57-year-old was buying the carcass from the suspect so that she could eat it. An argument over the price led to the man allegedly throwing the dead animal at the woman—not once, but twice, MyFox Austin reports. She was reportedly bruised when it struck her in the leg and chest, and the man could face assault charges if located.


Is that the way to Armadillo?



A man from Northern Ireland has been jailed after an experiment in which he attempted to turn his own faeces into gold went wrong and started a fire in a block of flats.
Yahoo news reported that Paul Moran will now serve three months in jail and a further 12 months on license after the failed experiment caused a fire at his Housing Executive home in Derrin Park, Enniskillen.

Moran admitted arson and endangering the lives of others in the fire, which reportedly caused over £3,000 worth of damage.

It is thought that as part of the bizarre experiment Moran left his faeces, along with other waste products such as fertiliser, on a heater.

In his ruling Judge McFarland told Moran: “Rather bizarrely you were attempting to make gold from human faeces and waste products.

“It was an interesting experiment to fulfil the alchemist’s dream, but wasn’t going to succeed.”

Moran’s barrister mentioned that his client was a man of ‘considerable intellectual ability’.


And the IQ of a turd....
 
 


A Detroit-area restaurant has cooked up another giant burger.
The Detroit News reports that Mallie's Sports Grill & Bar in Southgate made a 338-pound "Absolutely Ridiculous Burger" on Thursday. A crowd of people gathered to salivate over the unveiling of the massive $2,000 menu item.
The 3-foot-high sandwich packs 540,000 calories and takes 22 hours to cook. Manager Jason Jones says it comes with fries and a drink.
Over the years, Mallie's has drawn attention for cooking up monstrous burgers. In 2008, the restaurant produced a 134-pound burger. Six months later it made one weighing 164 pounds. In 2009, it built 186-pound burger and in January it created one that topped the scales at 319 pounds.
 

Hope Eric Pickles doesn’t hear about it.



Up in the Lake District walkers have been left baffled by a quivering, translucent mass, nicknamed Star Jelly because it reputedly fell to Earth from meteors.

The latest bizarre sightings were on hills and pastures in Patterdale, Cumbria, where holiday-cottage owner Rob Shephard said: “I came across about 10 blobs floating on top of some puddles.
"They were the size of my foot. I didn’t touch the jelly, I just took some snaps.”
Village store owner Tom Driscoll, 53, has also been left perplexed, saying: “I was walking with my partner when we came across six or eight piles of the stuff.
“My initial thought was that it could be frog spawn, but when I had a closer look I realised this was not the case.
“I touched it and it had the consistency of frog spawn but some of the pieces were as big as a person’s foot and I didn’t think it was anything that a human or animal could make.”
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh algae expert Dr Hans Sluiman investigated a 2009 sighting in Scotland, which was linked to stags’ rutting season.
He said: “I did discover the jelly is made up almost entirely of water but was not able to find out exactly what it was. It may be toxic frogs that have been eaten by other animals and then spat out. But nobody knows for sure.”



Obviously Pickles didn’t have a hanky to hand......



And today’s thought: I went into McDonald's yesterday and said, "I'd like some fries." And the girl behind the counter says, "Would you like fries with that?"


Angus




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