SUNDAY SECTION

The sun is still shining, the birds are coughing and wasn’t it hot last night (again), still mustn’t complain, but we will.

First up:

My other car is a thatchback.




Jim Goodland a pub landlord in Whiteparish Wiltshire has modified his Morris Minor traveller by fitting a thatched roof.

The car is roadworthy - although Mr Goodland admits the new roof may not have improved its fuel consumption.

The Morris Minor, said to typify Englishness, was first launched in London in 1948.
Hope he has told his insurance company, because the risk of fire has just quadrupled.




Chilli grenades are going to be used in India, the idea is that when the grenade explodes it will “immobilise” people who riot rather than kill them.

The chilli, known as Bhut Jolokia, is said to be 1,000 times hotter than commonly used kitchen chilli.

Scientists at India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) are quoted as saying the potent chilli will be used as a food additive for troops operating in cold conditions.

And the powder will also be spread on the fences around army barracks in the hope the strong smell will keep out animals.

And the good news is that the said rioters can make a really hot curry after work.



The European Commission is threatening to take France to court over the Alsace hamster and has warned Le France it could face a multi-million pound fine if it failed to do more to save its hamsters from extinction.

But French authorities refused all attempts by the commission to protect the diminutive mammal, also known as the European hamster, according to an official linked to the proceedings.

According to the EU's executive body, the rodent requires around 600,000 acres of protected land to thrive, but now has less than 8,500 acres in eastern France in which to roam and feed.

Once considered vermin, the Alsace hamster (Cricetus cricetus) has been all but wiped out by rat poison, traps and farmers flooding its burrows.

According to the Commission, its numbers in Alsace plummeted from 1,167 in 2001 to 161 in 2007, and have continued to decline over the past two years.

The population needs to reach 1,500 to remain stable.

Never mind the economy, or swine flu, and I wonder how many of those ball things they will have to buy.



HealthSpace on hold, the DoH has put the new online transactional hub for services, such as booking GP appointments, ordering repeat prescriptions and completing pre-registration assessments and online medical records into hibernation. It has confirmed that staff have been moved to other areas of work and said it is reviewing the future of the project, but indicated that it has not been discontinued.

Last year's Health Informatics Review highlighted itspotential, but a statement from the DoH suggests that it has been on the wrong track.

A spokesperson said: "HealthSpace has entered a phase of evaluating patient experience of its services and assessing what extra offerings should be made available in the future. Pilots of the HealthSpace Communicator function, which enables secure communication between clinicians and patients, are beginning to run at sites across England.

"These aim to establish its value for both patients and clinicians in different care settings on how best to develop the service. HealthSpace exists to help patients manage their own healthcare needs. Consequently it should be based on what patients want, rather than an expectation of what they need.

"This period of time is crucial to developing the future directions for the service and involves a redistribution of current resources, including staff, so that efforts are directed appropriately."


Yeah right.


And finally:

Don’t you love your GPS?


This guy doesn’t- GPS-guided wreckers flatten wrong house A Georgia man is none too happy that his memory-filled family home, lovingly hand built "brick by brick" by Pop, is now a scene of rubble-strewn desolation after a demolition firm used a GPS to identify its victim and moved in for the kill.

Al Byrd of Sandy Springs got a bit of a shock earlier this month when someone called to let him know the Carroll County house was no more. Byrd had lived there with his nine brothers and sisters, and the house still contained precious heirlooms including "mom’s dining room set … her hutch* with her dishes in there".

The carnage was witnessed by Byrd's cousin, who captured video images of "a bulldozer in the yard of the house with dumpsters loaded with rubble". Byrd confronted the destroyers, who said they had "paperwork".

He recounted: "I said, ‘Paperwork for what?’ and he said, ‘For the house, to demolish the house.’ I said, ‘I’m the owner of the house, I haven’t given anybody any authority to demolish this house.’

“I said, ‘What address did you have?’ and he said, ‘They sent me some GPS coordinates.’ I said, ‘Don’t you have an address?’ [and] he said, ‘Yes, my GPS coordinates led me right to this address here and this house was described.’”


And I bet it kept saying “turn left in two hundred yards”.


Oh yes and apparently Michael Jackson is dead, wonder why it’s not on the news.


Angus

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