Thursday 29 December 2011

Hello sailor: Stilton-not: No tomorrow: Brooming Bethlehem: and the Ball biter.


Cold, calm and decidedly non Crimbo at the Castle this morn, the new front toof is back in place anchored with what feels like a scaffold pole driven through the top of my skull, I am back to the un connected computers in the study and his Maj needs a new bed.




The Royal Australian Navy has sent a delegation to Britain to recruit some of the 5,000 Royal Navy personnel due to lose their jobs over the next four years.
It is understood that the Australian navy wants to speak directly to sailors facing redundancy to offer them “career transition options”.
Australia’s Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Ray Griggs, promised his British counterpart, First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, that Australia will not recruit personnel needed by the British.
Royal Navy officers are said to have told the Australians they were “very comfortable” with the plan.


Goodbye sailor....




Villagers in Stilton are a bit more than miffed after an unusual law upheld by the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs prevents them from naming their cheese after their home town.
The Stilton Cheese Makers Association has been fighting against the 1996 Protected Designation of Origin order, which has prevented Stilton cheese from being officially named so, outside of Leicester, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
Liam McGivern, the landlord of the Bell Inn pub, said he is upset by Defra's decision to let him make the cheese but not give it the Stilton name.
'Anyone can make the cheese but they won't let us call it Stilton,' Mr McGivern said.
In the 18th century, the Bell Inn's pub owner was said to be the first to market the cheese,
Now, by law, the establishment must sell the cheese as 'blue-veined cheese made in Stilton'. Mr McGivern markets the cheese as 'Bell Blue'.


Smells a bit fishy to me.....



Along with tiny Tokelau to the north the inhabitants of Samoa are going from midnight tonight straight to New Year's Eve.
After 119 years to the east of the International Date Line, Samoa is shifting to the west so they can be on the same calendar day as their main economic partners, Australia and New Zealand.

When Samoa went the other way in 1892, because most of its trade had shifted from Sydney to San Francisco, writer Robert Louis Stevenson was living there.


Wonder if we could “shift” Blighty about two thousand miles south, that’ll piss orf the “energy providers”.



The annual broom battle took place again this Crimbo: Palestinian police stormed the basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem after rival groups of Orthodox and Armenian clerics clashed in a row over the boundaries of their respective ancient jurisdictions inside the church.
Armed with brooms, around 100 priests and monks came to blows during the cleaning of the church in preparation for Orthodox Christmas celebrations.


Nice to see that JC’s mantra is working so well....


And finally: 


Jeremy Wade, 53, spent weeks hunting for the perpetrator in remote Papua New Guinea after locals reported a mysterious beast which was castrating young fishermen.
He finally unmasked the monster as the Pacu fish - known locally as ‘The Ball Cutter’ - and managed to catch one in his small wooden fishing boat.
Mr Wade wrestled the 40lb monster on to the floor of his boat and opened its snapping jaws with his naked hands - to discover a jaw-dropping array of human-style teeth.
The Ball Cutter boasts an impressive set of man-like molars, which tear off the testicles of unwitting hunters, leaving them to bleed to death.
Pacu fish are usually found in the Amazon, where they need their teeth to crack into the tough cases of nuts and seeds.
The previously vegetarian fish were introduced to Papua New Guinea 15 years ago to increase stocks.
They quickly used their special technique to chomp meat due to a lack of suitable vegetation in the waters - making short work of human testicles.


Brings tears to one’s eyes...



And today’s thought:



Angus


3 comments:

Bernard said...

".....where they need their teeth to crack into the tough cases of nuts..."
Say no more!
Ouch!
Perhaps you should get a set of 'nashers' like that, for getting into walnuts! :)

CherryPie said...

That is one ugly looking fish!!

Angus Dei said...

And they say angling is relaxing Bernard the nut cracker:)

And it's diet isn't much better CherryPie;)