U-Turn Cam’s land: License to make money: Canned Tuna: Cafe millionaire: Bog standard pilot: and a Cat flap.

Still misty, murky, moist and miserable at the Castle this morn, the study is still overflowing with terminal thingies and the elbow is finally starting to feel better.

I see that despite all the austerity that abounds in broken Blighty

Our beloved Prime Monster has managed to scrape together £140,000 for a bit of land next to his Oxfordshire home.

It was disclosed on Tuesday that the Prime Minister paid almost £140,000 for the land, which was owned by Lord Chadlington, the brother of John Gummer, the former Conservative cabinet minister who is now a peer.

Lord Chadlington has long-standing links to Mr Cameron and donated £10,000 to him personally to fund his 2005 run for the Conservative leadership. He has donated more than £60,000 to the party since then. His company has donated a further £30,000 in the past three years.

Downing Street officials said the land had been independently valued at the price paid by Mr Cameron and that there was no conflict of interest. The deal was cleared at the highest level by Whitehall officials, they said.

He and his wife, Samantha, are recorded by the Land Registry as having paid £137,500 for the land. They are not recorded as having taken out a mortgage to cover the cost of the purchase.

But remember-“we are all in this together”.

And Dahn in Welsh Wales

The Dept of Very Lengthy Administration (DVLA) is looking to cash in on motorists by selling their names and addresses to wheel clampers and private parking companies at a profit.

The agency wants to plug a £100m gap in its finances by charging more than the current £2.50 administrative fee.

Last year the agency sold details of 1m motorists to more than 150 parking enforcement companies, angering driving groups.

The most expensive private parking ticket costs £150 – £30 more than the maximum fine for illegal parking in the heart of London.

Even the £150 figure, which was set down in the British Parking Association’s code of practice, is only voluntary.

While a motorist receiving a council parking ticket has a right of appeal to an independent adjudicator, no such safeguards exists for anyone “fined” for parking on private land.

Motorists have received private tickets – known as parking charge notices – for spending more than 20 minutes at a fast food outlet or even catching a few hours sleep for safety reasons at a motorway service station.

Private tickets are often enforced by debt collection agencies and occasionally even bailiffs have been involved.

Nice...

 

Over to the salty thing near loads of teeth

Local fishing boat owner Carlos Rafael was elated when one of his trawlers snared an 881-pound blue fin tuna orf New Bedford Massachusetts earlier this month.

But the joy was short-lived. Federal fishery enforcement agents seized the fish when the crew returned to port Nov. 12.

Rafael had tuna permits but was told catching tuna with a net is illegal.

Instead, it's got to be caught by hand gear, such as rod and reel, harpoon or handline.

A fish that big is hugely valuable, prized by sushi-lovers for its tender red meat, a 754pound tuna recently sold for nearly $396,000.

Rafael's fish will be sold overseas, and he'll get no share of the proceeds if regulators find a violation, The Standard-Times reported (http://bit.ly/uczYap ). The money would instead go into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fund that also holds money collected for fishery fines.

Bet Rafael is feeling a bit out of Tuna.

Dahn Unda

Police say a man wearing shorts and a tank top left a suitcase at Cafe Marco on Tuesday morning. Staff at first thought it might contain a bomb but it turned out to be stuffed with 50-dollar notes.

Officers arrested a man in connection with the incident Tuesday afternoon, said Senior Constable Chris Nash, a New South Wales police spokesman. Nash said the man then suffered an unknown medical problem and was taken to a local hospital where he remained under police guard Wednesday.

Nash said detectives probably will have to wait until the man recovers before asking him more questions about the cash. Police wouldn't say whether they think the arrested man is the one who left the case in the cafe.

A worker at the cafe said Wednesday that the man who left the case was "a bit nervous. He was really nervous."

"It's crazy, it's scary. Now we can laugh about it, but yesterday I was scared. I called the police," she said. She ended a telephone call to serve a customer before a reporter could ask her name, and a subsequent phone message left at the cafe was not immediately returned.

Nash said that if the money legitimately belongs to the man it would be returned to him. If the cash is proceeds from a crime it will likely be forfeited to the government. If the owner of the cash is not found, whoever discovered it could make a claim on it after three months.

Small change to U-Turn Cam.....

 

Still in the colonies but 30,000 feet up

A pilot created a hijacking scare when he got stuck in the lavatory during a flight in the US.

The captain of the Delta flight accidentally locked himself in the bathroom during the flight from Asheville, North Carolina, to New York.

The co-pilot became alarmed and notified air-traffic control after a passenger, with a "thick foreign accent", tried to alert the cockpit of the problem.

The conversation between the co-pilot and the control tower was recorded and posted on air traffic control website LiveATC.net.

"He [the pilot] is stuck in the lav and someone with a thick foreign accent is giving me a password to access the cockpit - and I'm not about to let him in," the co-pilot said.

Indianapolis-based Chautauqua Airlines said the pilot had decided to answer the call of nature about 30 minutes from landing but had become trapped.

 

Vicious things those airplane toilets, they have been known to suck ones rear exit orf....

 

And finally: 

Somewhere in our foggy, dodgy land

Kishwar Khan was surprised when an officer knocked at his door to tick him off about the behaviour of his ginger and white cat, Tinkerbell.

Mr Khan, 30, was told that a neighbour had phoned to report the cat for regularly going into his property, and asked by the policeman to keep her under control.

Mr Khan, from Pitsmoor, Sheffield said “Tinkerbell belongs to my three year old son Yaqoob and we love her. The policeman said Tinkerbell had been going on a neighbour's property and they had received an official complaint. He asked me to stop the cat from going into the neighbour's garden but how can I do that? It's perfectly normal for cats to wander around the neighbourhood when they are let out. Every cat does it.”

Inspector Jayne Forrest said: "Police were called following an allegation of harassment. When we receive any reports of this nature it's vital officers follow up all lines of inquiry.

"Harassment comes in many different forms and the incident described by Mr Khan formed part of an inquiry on that day."

Pussy see garden, Pussy do doo-doo, maybe they should have a word with Peter Pan.....

That’s it: I’m orf to purchase some Nano tubes so that I can park on private land.

And today’s thought:

 

Angus