Another fine mess: Moody credit: Pickled squid: Swanning around: Real woodentops: No-no pussy: and Dogs are pants.

No deep, crisp or even at the castle this morn-the rain has washed it all away, the liquid metal in the gauge has begun its rise to the top, his Maj has decided that he would rather do his business in his litter tray than in the garden to keep his paws dry and the butler has taken a few well earned days rest.

The fallic glu is still hanging around-I have this urge to go on strike and then apply for the Presidential job...

And allegedly fraudulent insurance claims are pushing up our premiums

The economic climate is causing a rise in the number of exaggerated insurance claims, a survey suggests.

In the survey, 9% of people who said they had made a claim in the last five years said they had exaggerated it, typically adding £607 to the claim.


Earlier this year, the House of Commons Transport Select Committee said car insurance costs could be substantially reduced if claimants were made to provide more proof that they had suffered whiplash injuries.

Over the last six years, despite a 23% fall in the number of casualties caused by road accidents, there has been a 70% rise in motor insurance injury claims in the past six years, with the vast majority of them being claims of whiplash injury.

Maybe they should change the criteria for whiplash-if you are admitted to 'Orspital in such a position that you can see your own arsehole then that's a yes....

Up in the Smoke and further up to the bit above Suffolk

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) fined Croydon Council in south London £100,000 after papers containing details of a child sex abuse victim were stolen from a pub.

Norfolk County Council was also fined £80,000 for sending details about allegations against a parent and the welfare of their child to the wrong person, taking the total amount of fines handed out by the ICO to more than £1 million.

Their “bad”, but it isn’t the councils that have to pay up, it’s the council tax payers, how about making the knobs at the top personally responsible...

And apparently a credit rating agency in the big place on the left

Has put the UK on negative outlook, meaning it thinks there is more chance the economy may lose its triple A status.

Moody’s have also “graded” France and Austria, who also share a top triple A rating, and Spain and Portugal's ratings have been lowered.

The negative outlook for the UK means Moody's think there is a 30% chance of a downgrade within 18 months.

No real surprise there, but since when did a private company in another country get to decide what will happen to Blighty?

Back in the Smoke

Archie is entombed in a custom-made acrylic tank filled with a 10% solution of formol-saline; the giant squid at the centre of the London Natural History Museum Spirit Collection was caught off the coast of the Falkland Islands in March 2004.

The 8.62 meter long creature is an Architeuthis dux, or giant squid, and known at the museum as "Archie." Although enormous, the giant squid is not actually the largest of the feared semi-mythical undersea ship eaters: that position of honour is reserved for the colossal squid, or Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni.

The Spirit Collection at the London Natural History Museum holds about 22 million preserved zoological specimens, including the original collections of Sir Hans Sloane, an adventurous 18th century traveller and collector, who also is known for having introduced the drinking of chocolate milk to Europe. His collection alone numbered some 80,000 items. The new Darwin Centre opened in September 2009.

No wonder life on earth is becoming extinct.

Dahn to the bit next to West Sussex

The East Sussex Wildlife Rescue and Ambulance Service received 27 reports of a "frozen swan" sitting for hours in the icy Pells Pond in Lewes and were obliged to visit the bird each time the alarm was raised.

The charity's founder, Trevor Weeks, thanked onlookers for their concern but said that the bird is actually keeping warm, The Brighton Argus reported.

"Every time we have attended, the swan has not been stuck," he said.

Most calls reported that the swan had a leg stuck in the ice, when it was actually tucked under its feathers to keep warm.

I’ve been to Lewes-no wonder the poor thing is bored out of its mind....

From the land of Fiats

A man with a real talent:

Bruno Walpoth
Bressanone, Italy, 1959
1973 − 1978 sculptor's apprenticeship with Vincenzo Mussner - Ortisei
1978 − 1984 academy "Der Bildende Künste" in Munich, with Prof. Hans Ladner
1985 − 2008 teacher at the vocational school for sculptors in Selva Val Gardena
1996 foundation of the sculptor's group "Trisma"
with Willy Verginer and Walter Moroder
Since 2000 member of the "Südtiroler Künstlerbund"

From the company that slows dahn the interweb

Boffins at Goggle have used a complex algorithm and their computing power to discover what we already knew… a video of a cat saying 'no' is funny.

Researchers looked at the comments on videos to determine whether viewers had found them funny and identified candidates for YouTube’s Comedy Slam.

Google Researcher Sanketh Shetty, said: "We computed more text features based on words associated with amusement in comments.

"These included (a) sounds associated with laughter such as hahaha, with culture-dependent variants such as hehehe, jajaja, kekeke, (b) web acronyms such as lol, lmao, rofl, (c) funny and synonyms of funny, and (d) emoticons such as :), ;-), xP."

Members of the public were then asked to vote on the Comedy Slam where No No No No Cat received the most votes.

Thank what’s his/her name for algorithms...mind you it is funny.

And finally:

Up to the County that is famous for its intellectual TV series

A dog walker was photographed slowly edging his way across the frozen River Stour in the village of Dedham, Essex, to save his pet.

However, he ended up having to swim to safety after the ice suddenly gave way and the man fell in to the freezing water 30ft from the bank.

He managed to haul his small terrier-type dog onto the ice before clambering back to dry land.

Still at least he is reinforcing my opinion of said dwellers...

That’s it: I’m orf to turn the Honda into a structural batteryOnds

And today’s thought;

Angus