Summer bummer: Bishops taking the piss: Extras at Poundland: Spiritual strippers: and Old Fart hangs about.

Chucking it dahn at the Castle this morn, still summer was nice yesterday; I managed to fettle the garden-lawn, hedges, borders and the hanging baskets and pots.

A few pics of:

What is.

What will be

And

What was.

along with some fluffy stuff

And his Maj deciding whether he wants to ambush someone or take up tightrope walking.

Up in the unelected part of the leaning tower of Westminster (no not the commons, the other bit)

Apparently some Bishops are claiming up to £27,000 a year in fixed-rate allowances to attend sessions of the House of Lords on top of their travel costs.

Under current regulations peers are given the choice of three daily rates to cover their hotel and living expenses in London – £300, £150 or nothing. However they do not have to provide receipts and can also claim travel expenses.

From October 2010 to November 2011:

The Bishop of Chester attended the House on 97 days, claiming £27,600 in attendance allowances and £7,309 in travel expenses.

The Bishop of Liverpool attended on 60 days, claiming £15,600 for attendance and £4,220 in expenses.

Other significant claimers included the Bishop of Exeter (£11,550), the Bishop of Leicester (£8,850) and the Bishop of Wakefield (£10,650).

But a number of bishops regularly attended the House but did not claim any attendance allowances at all. The Bishop of Birmingham attended the House of Lords on 22 occasions but claimed no money. The Archbishop of York attended on 16 occasions and claimed nothing. The Archbishop of Canterbury also made no charge. However, the Archbishop of London claimed £3,750 for attending the Lords on 24 occasions.

Bishops live rent-free in their diocese, and to cover additional costs of running their historic homes they can draw upon allowances covered by the Church Commissioners, who manage the Church's £5 billion property and shares portfolio.

They are provided with official cars for travelling around their diocese, and can claim for entertaining guests, minor repairs to their homes, heating and lighting, gardeners and cleaners.

Nice to see that the Lords help those who help themselves-to our money....

Over to the place that spawned Edward Woodward

Staff at a Poundland shop in Croydon resealed packets of biscuits with Sellotape and put them back on sale after they were gnawed by mice.

Food inspectors found mouse urine and droppings inside boxes of chocolates on shop shelves, with the contents showing the rodents' teeth marks.

Inside the shop, packets of food had been chewed open and the contents spilled on to shelves littered with mouse droppings.

Prosecutor David McNeill told Croydon magistrates: 'Food that had been gnawed, instead of being disposed of, was resealed with Sellotape and put on sale.

'A dead mouse was also found under one of the shelves and it was obvious the shelves had not been cleaned for some time.’

The bargain shop was fined £24,000 after it admitted a string of food hygiene offences.

The store manager was not disciplined by Poundland but is now assisted by a second manager. The shop is now selling food again.


Without the extras I hope...

Left a whimsy to Welsh Wales

Allegedly “Psychic” Karl Lang told women to strip naked to increase their spiritual powers and send him naked pictures of themselves as it would boost their psychic powers.

He managed to persuade two women to strip naked at séances to enhance their spiritual powers, a court heard yesterday.

The women in their 20s wanted to contact dead relatives and it was alleged Lang, 49, told them they “had to be naked as the spirits are naked”.

It was also claimed that Lang told them to send him naked pictures of themselves and to carry out sexual acts as it would boost their psychic powers.

His first alleged victim, 27, told the jury she wanted to contact her father, who died 10 years ago.

But at their sessions she claimed Lang told her he was the “reincarnation of Jesus Christ”

Prosecutor Matthew Roberts told the jury: “It was a cruel trick. He was a sexual fraudster and he conned them.”

Lang, of Newport denies 12 charges of causing women to engage in sexual activity without consent.

The trial continues

If he was really psychic he would have seen the prosecution coming.....

And finally:

Left more than a fairway and up a bit

Rescue crews found a 53-year-old man hanging upside-down by one leg about 25 to 30 feet up in a tree next to the old Ice Park site on Phillips Field Road. The man, who the news release did not name, was conscious, alert and uninjured.

The department used its 100-foot platform/ladder truck to bring him down, according to the news release.

Assistant Fire Chief Ernie Misewicz said in an email to the News-Miner that the man was probably upside down for 10 to 15 minutes before rescue crews arrived and an additional 10 minutes during the rescue.

Misewicz said the man said he climbed the tree because “it was something he wanted to do” and that it was for exercise.

The man told rescue workers that he climbed the tree wearing foot spikes and a belly belt, like those used by linemen climbing power poles. He said he had climbed the tree and decided to lean back to rest.


Daft old twat...

That’s it: I’m orf to update me swipe keyboard

And today’s thought:

And they said sport was good for you Olympics

By the way-don’t get ill today...

Angus

Some MPs are not happy: Her Maj’s jubbly tower: Cunning cat: Ban English in the EU: Mitt Romney’s Amercia: Dutch get their own back: Pussy up a pipe: and the Cleaning fairy.

The liquid metal gauge reads 70 degrees in old language at the Castle this morn, a whimsy of mist, a smidge of moving atmosphere and still not a drop of skywater.

Very late this Saturday, overslept because I couldn’t sleep in the heat, the Honda is turning yellow again and his Maj has discovered the joy of digging up the newly planted vegetation to have a pee....

Up in the Palace of Westminster

It seems that one in three MPs are not happy with the cleanliness of toilets inside the House of Commons, and one in five also said they were dissatisfied with Parliament's dining rooms, restaurants and cafes.

A total of 177 MPs and 961 of their staff completed the annual questionnaire asking for their feedback on the quality of services and facilities in the Palace of Westminster.

Many complained their offices were only cleaned superficially and that the lavatories in the Commons were too dirty.

Apparently Toilets in the Norman Shaw North building are in particular need of regular deep cleaning and modernisation, and Around 20% of MPs were unhappy with the dining rooms, restaurants and cafeterias in Parliament and expressed dissatisfaction with the Commons Tea Room and Smoking Room.

Oh dear what a shame, I wonder what the result would be if there was a survey of the population on our satisfaction of MPs?

Still in the leaning part of the Smoke

Allegedly the tower housing Big Ben is almost certainly to be renamed in honour of the Queen for her Diamond Jubilee after a majority of MPs backed a campaign.

Parliamentary authorities are now expected to support the calls to rename the Clock Tower as “The Elizabeth Tower” when they meet in a few weeks.

David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband are among senior figures from all three major parties that backed the proposal for Parliament to bestow the tribute to the Monarch.

They are among 331 MPs, from a total of 650, who now support the campaign, which is also understood to have backing from the Cabinet Office and Buckingham Palace.

A further 40 MPs have signed a Commons early day motion calling for the east tower at the Palace of Westminster to be formally named "The Elizabeth Tower".

Other MPs backing the idea include the William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, and Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary.

Bye, bye St Stephen, nice to see that just over half of unhappy MPs have their priorities right...

Somewhere in the rain

How to cross a river if you are feline...

Right a bit to what is left of the EU

The Brussels-based French-language press is a bit miffed because of the release in English of the EU's annual report cards on the bloc's 27 economies.

In an angry open e-mail to the European Commission, the correspondent for the daily Liberation newspaper Jean Quatremer said -- in French: "Once again, all the documents published today are available only in English. This is unacceptable."

A spokesperson for the Commission told AFP that "the translations are coming."

Happy now Jean....?

West to the home of Microsoft and the land of the spellchecker

White House hopeful Mitt Romney has launched his “With Mitt" application for the iPhone allowing users to express support for the recently anointed Republican flag bearer by personalizing a photo with an overlaid Romney slogan.

Unfortunately it says “A Better Amercia”.

Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said on MSNBC "Mistakes happen, I don't think any voter cares about a typo at the end of the day,"

Time will tell.....

 

East more imperial measures than you could shake a dustbin at

More than 700 tons of smuggled solid waste has been sent back to the Netherlands, its country of origin, Chinese authorities said on Friday.

The illegal shipment consisted of 30 containers holding 763 tons of household garbage, which had been smuggled into China from the Netherlands. They were loaded onto ships at Zhangjiagang, in Jiangsu province, on Friday morning and will reach the Port of Rotterdam at the beginning of July, according to a statement released by customs authorities in Nanjing, capital of the province.

Smuggled in with the aid of fake shipping documents, the batch of waste was bought by Hepu, a trading company in East China's Anhui province, through a firm in Taiwan, the statement said.

The garbage, which included musty paper, plastic bottles and rotten diapers, was scattered everywhere. Among it was trash that environmental experts would not allow to be imported, said the officer, who did not want to be identified.

Following an investigation, the customs workers found the case involved a trading company in Anhui province that had purchased the trash from a fibre company in the Netherlands, using a Taiwan company as an intermediary, the statement said.

Chen Liwen, a researcher at Green Beagle, a Beijing environmental protection group, say many businessmen have benefited from the trade in low-quality solid waste from foreign countries.

"If customs authorities can't check for these abuses in a stricter way, domestic garbage from developed countries will pollute our country and damage Chinese people's health," she said.

Har fucking har.....

West again and dahn to the land of Purrgeots

A driver who felt his car was losing power checked under the bonnet – and found a kitten stuck in the engine.

The motorist found the two-month-old creature wedged inside the exhaust system, with just its head and a paw sticking out.

It was only when he took the vehicle to a garage to have the animal removed that mechanics noticed it was still alive.

The part was taken out and rushed to a fire station where a crew cut the feline free.

The kitten had intestinal surgery and is now recovering at a sanctuary in Rio Verde, western Brazil.

Not funny I know....but.....that picture...

And finally:

Up from the land of furry exhausts

US police are investigating after a real life cleaning fairy broke into a home to do some housework.

The woman broke into a house in Westlake, Ohio, did some light cleaning, then left a bill for $75.

She broke into the house while the owners were out but their teenage daughter was asleep upstairs.

The woman took out the rubbish, vacuumed the carpet and cleaned up the living room.

Homeowner Sherry Bush said: "I think our jaws just dropped to the ground. There were some coffee mugs that my husband had out. She had washed them all.

"She wrote a note on a napkin and left it on the table, saying, '$75 I was here to clean,' and left her name and number."

Assuming she had got the wrong house, Mrs Bush gave the woman a call.

"I said, what happened, did you get the wrong house? She said, 'No, I do this all the time'.

I do like an optimist...

That’s it: I’m orf to hunt for Zebra mussels in the moat

And today’s thought:

Poor piss MP’s

Angus

Educating retirement: “Transparent” Warsi: How to lick the heat: Handy stunt: $500 dollar: and tinned Hedgehog.

Sunny, calm, dry and hot, even hotter than hot, more heat than you could shake an ice cream at, at the Castle this hot morn.

Managed to bang the right elbow on a door frame yestermorn and spent ten minutes jumping up and down shouting “oh bother that really hurt”, still humping the bleedin watering can around the grounds, and talking of “Hump” I see that the geriatric crooner managed to make second to last place at the Eurobollocks song contest, no surprise there then....

Allegedly ‘Sir’ and ‘Miss‘are leaving classrooms in droves

The number of teachers quitting before reaching retirement age has reached a record high, as thousands of staff are driven out by plummeting morale and stiffer pension rules.

Apparently the number of "early retirements" due to ill-health and teachers opting to leave before their official retirement date soared to 9,370 last year, accounting for almost half the numbers retiring from schools in England. The total was 1,500 up on the figure for 2009/10, and double the number recorded in 1998/99.

According to teaching unions the hard evidence of teachers voting with their feet underlined complaints they had made about deteriorating pay and pension arrangements, and government measures, including tougher targets and the possibility of regional and performance-related pay.

But officials suggested the rise in people quitting was partly explained by a "bulge" in teachers who joined the profession in the 1970s coming to retirement at the same time.

Ah-the old bulging teachers excuse...

Up in the smoke

The Baroness who likes to tell us the Tory party is the most transparent ever born and that we should be grateful for its Piss Poor Policies is in a bit of bovver.

Warsi apologised last night for the breach of parliamentary guidelines by not declaring thousands of pounds in rent on a flat she owns in London NW from which oodles of dosh was pocketed, “blaming “an oversight, for which I take full responsibility”. However, she claimed she had paid tax on the rent.

Oh well that’s alright then-isn’t it?

Norf of the border

Libby the lioness was seen happily licking a giant ice cube at Blair Drummond Safari Park in Scotland.

Her mate-Dudley however didn’t quite get the idea and decided to attack it, while little Libby gave up and went for a nice cool shower instead.

Bless...

East to the land of noisy films and tea

Back in 2009 students at a school in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu allegedly pressured school officials to let a martial artist run over their outstretched hands with a motorcycle.

The event which took place on July 15, 2009, led to a ban of these types of “risky stunts and packages” across all 50,000 of the state’s schools.

Apparently, a lot of the parents consented to the event, stating that their children were trained in the martial arts.

The relative of a government minister eventually got wind and, after complaining, got the event shut down. 

Now that’s what I call education, a whole classroom of Cupid Stunts

West to the home of the panhandler and the land of the litter lout

A Cleveland man was busted for littering after he dropped a $1 bill on the ground.

John Davis said he stretched his arm out his car window to hand some money to a wheelchair-bound beggar at a highway exit ramp. Davis said he felt for the man, who was holding a sign that read, "Jesus loves you. Please help."

He rolled up some bills lengthwise and held them out. One of the bills fell to the ground, and the indigent man picked it up.

A short time later, a cop pulled Davis over and ticketed him for the offence of "Throw paper out window," and in parenthesis, "money to panhandler," the report said.

The combined fine and court costs could tally $500, and the would-be Good Samaritan told Fox 8 he plans to challenge the ticket in court.

Nice to see that American cops are just as Piss Poor as ours...

And finally:

Back in Blighty where Folks are still Nor

A hedgehog was found with his head firmly wedged inside an empty tin of carrots.

The hapless hog was discovered by a couple with his head wedged in the can on the side of a road in King's Lynn, Norfolk.

At first they thought the hedgehog might be dead but then he suddenly moved.

The couple could not remove the hedgehog themselves but cut off the other end of the tin can to allow the hedgehog to breathe and then contacted the RSPCA.

Alison Charles, manager of the RSPCA East Winch centre, said: "Had this hedgehog not been found he would have died a slow and painful death

The hedgehog had minor injuries including a wound to his left axilla (armpit), a grazed foot from scratching at the tin and a slight swelling under his chin.

Ms Charles added the hedgehog is doing well despite his ordeal.

And has decided that vegetarianism is dangerous....

That’s it: I’m orf to do a bit of joyless shopping

And today’s thought:

making friends at the Olympics

Angus

Frack orf: Drought?-Nah-environmental stress due to rainfall deficit: Obama is a mug: Porsche v Porch: The Moray Moggie: and Badpuss.

Turned out nice at the Castle this morn, sunny, warm, dry and calmish, looks like I may be forced to get the sun-lounger out later, orf to what is left of the town when it opens to purchase a telephone socket after I destroyed one with the Hoover-I must wear my glasses when doing ‘ousework.

 

Apparently the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition

Has done yet another U-Turn, this time over fracking, because it will do little to cut bills or keep the lights on.

Allegedly industry experts made clear at a meeting attended by senior ministers, including U-Turn Cam and Ed Davey, the Lib Dem energy secretary that the UK's reserves were smaller than first thought and could be uneconomical to extract.

Today Mr Davey will publish the Government's long-awaited Energy Bill, promising that it will bring down energy bills and secure future supplies.

Well frack me...

 

And the Environment Agency

Has decided that we don’t have a drought anymore dahn ‘ere in ‘Ampshire, instead we are suffering from environmental stress due to rainfall deficit.

Which would distinguish small environmental impacts from emergencies that require drought orders, according to the stressed Environment Agency.

Ten days ago drought status was lifted in 19 areas of south-west England, the Midlands and parts of Yorkshire following persistent rainfall last month - the wettest April on record. These areas are now considered to be in "environmental stress due to rainfall deficit".

Areas across the south-east and east of England remain in drought environmental stress, with hosepipe bans in place.

 

Fuck orf.....

Dahn Unda

Barrack Obama has been smashed and buried in concrete, well 198 misspelled mugs have.

The government made 200 of the mugs to commemorate the president's planned visit to Australia in 2010, which was later cancelled. No mugs were created when the American president finally made it to Australia last year.

Only two of the mugs were ever sold from the Parliament House gift shop, including one to the journalist who reported that Obama's name had been misspelled.

"Due to the sensitivity associated with the mistake that was made with the president's name, the last thing we wanted was for the fragments to be found on a garbage tip somewhere," said Bronwyn Graham, the Parliament House official.

Now there’s an idea......

 

From the land that is conquering Europe for the third time

The Porsche 918 Spyder can accelerate from 0-62mph in less than three seconds, leaving most road supercars in its environmental dust.

But it is more economical than a Toyota Prius and its emissions are so low it will be exempt from the London congestion charge.

The ‘plug-in hybrid’ will be capable of 94miles per gallon making it twice as economical as a 1.6-litre Ford Focus. In comparison, a Toyota Prius will do 72.4mpg while the greenest version of Britain’s biggest selling car, the Ford Fiesta, manages 78.5mpg.

Its secret lies in its hybrid system where two electric motors generate power alongside a 4.6-litre engine.

Snags-It won’t be available until September 2013. Just 918 will be made and it will cost £670,000.

Think I’ll stick to the dusty Honda.

North of the border

A dog walker has stumbled upon the corpse of an animal experts believe may have been a puma near a Scottish beauty spot.

John Robertson, 50, was walking his two dogs along a rural path in Cullen, Moray, with his wife Pauline, on Monday when he found the remains of what appeared to be a cat the size of a large dog.

Just metres from the rotting corpse were the remains of what may have been its last meal – half a dozen mauled seagulls.

Mr Robertson, from Drybridge, Moray, said yesterday: “I was walking my two dogs on Monday morning when we came across all these dead birds scattered about everywhere.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes. I have never seen so many dead birds in one area. They were completely mauled; they had their guts totally ripped out of them lying on the ground.

“Then a little further on we came across a horrible rotting smell which was this big cat.

“It looks like it has feasted on the seagulls and maybe it has fallen down the cliff nearby, injured itself and just lay there till it died.”

But despite its 18-inch-long tail and its sharp teeth, Mr Robertson claimed the animal was a cub.

He said: “If you see its skin, its jet black and I actually think it’s a juvenile.

“I didn’t have a tape measure on me to measure the tail, but I’m a builder so I have a pretty good idea that it’s about 18 inches long, which is huge.

“I reckon it’s a cub – its teeth are too clean and there isn’t enough damage to them, which means they must be pretty new. If that’s a cub though, you can imagine how big its mother would be.

“I’m sure we’ll find out from the DNA tests what type of cat it is, but it certainly seems like one of the big cats.”

Bob Wallace, an expert with the Big Cats In Britain research group, is now studying the remains to determine what Mr Robertson found.

While the cat is not big enough to be an adult leopard or jaguar, Mr Wallace believes it is the right size to be a cub.

He said: “If it is a juvenile, it would have to be last year’s cub, as both leopards and jaguars mate between January and March.

No wonder it is dead-have you seen what seagulls eat.....

And finally:

Still in the land of the fried Mars bar

A photo of a loveable kitten taken by Roy McPeak at the Highland Wildlife Centre near Inverness.

Badpuss is a Pallas cat, usually found in China and Tibet.

Bless....

 

That’s it: I’m orf to fish for Robo-cod in the moat

And today’s thought for today:

Energy saving pussy:

Angus

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

Victory Mk1: No Swiss go juice: Calamita Cosmica: Onion committees: Aurora Blightyalis: and the Kuching cat museum.

Damp, drear and dodgy at the Castle this morn, I vandalised the mock orange with my new axe to try and separate it into smaller pieces so that I could move it-total failure-over to plan C.

Washed the Honda yestermorn-hence the weather today

And his Maj has discovered the joy of...........the magic red dot.

Orf the islands in the channel

There is a cunning plan in progress to raise the remains of the first HMS Victory nearly 300 years after it sank.

The vessel, predecessor of Nelson's famous flagship, went down in a storm off the Channel Islands in 1744, taking more than 1,000 soldiers to their deaths.

Along with a bronze cannon collection, some believe the ship was carrying a large quantity of gold coins from Lisbon to Britain, which would now be worth a reported £500 million.

And that’s the “cunning” part of it.

Dahn ‘ere in the sarf

One of the main oil refineries to London and the South East has been closed by its Swiss owner, raising the prospect of fuel shortages on the capital's forecourts.

Fuel sales from the Coryton refinery in Essex were stopped on Monday with "immediate effect" by Petroplus as the company's shares were suspended from trading on the Swiss market because of a dispute with creditors.

Coryton is a leading supplier of fuel to London and the South East, processing 220,000 barrels of crude a day and the indefinite closure of the refinery threatens major disruption to the region's petrol stations.

It matters not; most of us in the “prosperous” part of bollixed up Blighty can’t afford go juice anymore...

Over to the place where the demented El Papa resides

There lies Calamita Cosmica’ (Cosmic Magnet in English) a 28 meter long sculpture of a human skeleton created by Italian artist Gino De Dominicis and is on display at the Museo Nazionale della Arti del XXI Secolo – MAXXI museum of contemporary art in Rome, Italy. Except for the strange long nose, is a perfect scaled model of the human skeleton.

It toured Europe for a number of years visiting places such as Versailles, Naples, and Milan. The Giant was first unveiled in 1990 at Centre National d’Art Contemporain in Grenoble, France.

In 1996 it moved to the courtyard of the Palace of Capodimonte, Naples. In 2005 it was at display at Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona, Italy - the home town of the artist. In early 2007 it moved to Palazzo Reale at Milan and after few months it landed in Versailles at 'Parterre d'Eau', in front of the facade of the Versailles Chateau.

In 2008 it was at display at Musée des Arts Contemporains, Hornu, Belgium. After the display in Belgium it was moved to Rome, where it currently resides.

Dem bones.....

According to the Flailing Sail

Interacting within a group – such as taking part in jury deliberations or mingling at a cocktail party - can lower your intelligence, with women being particularly susceptible, according to researchers.

Scientists at Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate how the brain processes information about social status in small groups and how perceptions of that status affect expressions of cognitive capacity.

In other words, whether ‘feeling’ less intelligent than others can affect your decision-making.

When volunteers in a group were told how the others performed, it lowered their problem-solving abilities.

When placed in small groups and ranking their performance on cognitive tasks against their peers, and broadcasting those rankings to them, there were dramatic drops in the ability of some study subjects to solve problems. The social feedback had a significant effect.’

So committee meetings do make you dim-which explains the Piss Poor Policies coming out of the sinking palace of Westminster.

North of the border

Much of Scotland got a view of the Northern Lights on Sunday night, with green and purple colours visible across the sky.

The Northern Lights, known properly as the Aurora Borealis, are caused by charged particles colliding with the earth's upper atmosphere. These particles cause a change in atoms of the upper atmosphere which release light as they return to their normal state.

The aurora can take a variety of colours, depending on which atoms are involved, although green is the colour most commonly seen as this is associated with oxygen atoms.

The northern lights are normally only visible further north as the particles are attracted to the magnetic pole.

However, on Sunday the phenomenon was visible across much of Scotland on account of a solar flare which resulted in a far greater amount of the particles hitting the earth.

What a load of Borealis...

And finally:

A snatch of Pussy

East lots and lots of leagues there lay the Kuching Cat Museum which houses 2,000 different artefacts, ranging from a mummified Egyptian cat to strange cat headstones.

For centuries, Southeast Asia has had a history with cats, documented in great detail at the Cat Museum. Interestingly enough, Kuching actually means cat, making the location of the museum all the more apt. Besides stuffed cats, porcelain cats and gigantic fang doorways, the museum also recounts bizarre superstitions around the animal, like nearly drowning a cat in order to bring rain.

They also have the only stuffed specimen of Felis Badia, the rarest cat in the world.

Which has made it even rarer...

That’s it: I’m orf to freeze some Neutrons

And today’s thought:

Angus