Beer baths; I dream of......; Spoon fed; No net; and Trick or Treat Etiquette

Bribble factor 7 last night, in the end I got up at 4am and fell asleep on the sofa watching the news, now I can’t get going.

And I am still having to use the touchpad because there hasn’t been any post for days, thanks Royal Mail and the CWU.







The Gov it seems is going to get tough on illegal file sharers; this is one of the unelected dark “lord Mandleson’s” ideas.

Initially pirates could have download caps imposed or have their bandwidth restricted.

If that did not prove effective in reducing illegal file-sharing, the government will consider disconnecting them from the network.

The Department for Business, Skills and Innovation said the legislation will come into force in April 2010, with the tougher disconnection policy introduced in the spring of 2011 if necessary.

ISP TalkTalk said the plans were "ill-conceived" and said it was prepared to challenge measures "in the courts".

"What is being proposed is wrong in principle and won't work in practice," the firm said.

Won’t matter Mandy will be looking for a job come spring next year.



And:






Peers are to face an expenses clampdown, the amount that peers can claim for overnight accommodation will be reduced and, for the first time, they will have to provide receipts in order to claim.

Peers can claim a flat rate of £174 for overnight accommodation if their main home is outside greater London.

But it is understood that that amount will drop to around a maximum of £140 - although the precise figure has yet to be agreed.

That really is going to force the poor old peers to downgrade hotels.


Now for the ‘normal’ roundup:



First up:

Don’t drink the bath ‘water’

Spa bosses in Starkenberg, Austria, claim that beer can treat skin conditions, blood circulation and can even help cure wounds.

The spa - part of a local brewery - contains seven 13ft long pools filled with beer which you can even ask to be served chilled or heated.

Bathers can try drinking the bathwater but head barman Markus Amann, 23, said: "I'd rather swim than swallow, as we have enough cold beer on tap at the bars next to the pools.

"These pools really can help some health problems - but if they don't work for you, you'll probably have drunk enough not to care about it any more," he added.

Beer bath bosses at nearby Schrammel reckon warm beer is the best for health cures and bathers sit in cut down lager barrels.

Meanwhile, even monks are getting in on the craze for health on tap.

Brewers of the distinctive dark Klosterbrauerei in rural eastern Germany have produced a spa supplement for customers to put in the tub at home.

"It opens up the pores. The yeast penetrates the skin and after 15 minutes your skin feels softer everywhere," said spokesman Dirk Vock.

Hope there are lifeguards about.

Nightmare dreams

A website about a mysterious man that thousands of people around the world claim to have seen in their dreams has become an online sensation.

The thisman.org site claims the picture was drawn by a woman, who says she repeatedly saw his face as she slept, for her psychiatrist in 2006.

She said she had never met him before in real life, but was able to picture him vividly, reports The Sun.


Her psychiatrist kept the pencilled picture on his desk and when another patient saw it, he too claimed the man had often appeared in his dreams.

The baffled doctor, it says, then sent off the picture to some colleagues who showed it to their patients - many of whom also recognised the strange face.

The picture was posted on the web - and within just two weeks has become one of the most visited sites online.

Thousands have now claimed to have seen the stranger in the night - however, critics claim it is all an elaborate hoax.




Here is the answer:

I know where DD’s spoons have gone

Some time ago DD over at Noclue was lamenting the fact that her spoons were being snaffled, after weeks of investigation I have found the answer:

Surgeons in Rotterdam, Holland, removed 78 different items of cutlery from Margaret Daalmans's stomach after she came to hospital complaining of stomach pains.

An astonishing X-ray taken before the operation showed dozens of forks and spoons trapped inside the 52-year-old patient.

"She seems to have been suffering from some sort of obsession and every time she sat down for a meal she would ignore the food and eat the cutlery," said one medic.

Daalmans works as a secretary in a local estate agents and told doctors: "I don't know why but I felt an urge to eat the silverware – I could not help myself."

Medics also revealed it was not the first time that she had been treated for eating the cutlery.

They said she has been diagnosed as suffering from a borderline personality disorder that left her with an urge to eat cutlery and she was now getting therapy.

The woman made a full recovery and is said to be responding well to her treatment for the obsession.

Any Dutch visitors lately DD?

America offline

The American government is being encouraged to prepare to block websites and Internet traffic in the event of a worsening swine flu pandemic that results in network congestion, a move that represents a potential end run around the agenda to regulate the World Wide Web.

A report by the General Accountability Office warns that a severe pandemic, or a worsening of the H1N1 outbreak, could result in 40 percent absentee rates at work and school, meaning that the Internet would be overloaded with people working from home as well as bored children sucking up bandwidth via online gaming.

Securities exchanges already have back-up systems to cope with such a scenario but the same cannot be said for general commerce, warns the report, adding that the federal government, specifically Homeland Security, should be given the power to block certain websites and regulate Internet traffic.

“Private Internet providers might need government authorization to block popular websites, the report states, or to reduce residential transmission speeds to make way for commerce,” according to a Reuter’s article.

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009, introduced by Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) And Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) in April gives the president the ability to “declare a cyber security emergency” and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any “critical” information network “in the interest of national security.” The bill does not define a critical information network or a cyber security emergency. That definition would be left to the president, according to a Mother Jones report.

Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, dismissed the entire premise of the Cybersecurity Act when she pointed out the fact that granting centralized power to the government to control networks would in fact make the stability of the Internet less safe, because allowing one person to access all information on a network “makes it more vulnerable to intruders,” she said. “You’ve basically established a path for the bad guys to skip down.”

During a hearing on the bill, Senator John Rockefeller betrayed the true intent behind the legislation when he stated, “Would it have been better if we’d have never invented the Internet,” while fear mongering about cyber attacks on the U.S. government and how the country could be shut down.


Big brother bollocks.

And finally:

Debrette’s guide to Halloween

With that wonderful night approaching at the speed of light Britain's authority on etiquette, Debrett’s issued its first guidance Wednesday on how to behave during the uber-American holiday.

Although the holiday originated with Europe's Celtic pagans to mark the end of summer - typically celebrated by bonfires to ward off evil spirits and children disguised as spirits of the underworld - it has only been recently that British stores have swelled with Halloween stock and trick-or-treaters have canvassed streets for candy.

"Good manners are very important," said Jo Bryant, etiquette adviser for Debrett's. "There has been a growing presence of Halloween over the past five years and we're receiving many more queries on how to behave."

Common questions are: Is it acceptable not to open one's doors to trick-or-treaters? How many times should children be allowed to ring a door bell before moving on? And can one forego a Halloween costume at a party?

Debrett's has posted its advice to the etiquette-challenged on its Web site.

"Trick-or-treat should be used as an ice-breaking formula, not a real threat. Halloween fun should never feel menacing," it says. "Children should not be too greedy - if they are offered treats, make sure that they don't take too many and that they do say thank you."

Other advice includes respecting people's privacy - don't repeatedly ring door bells for candy - and if you really don't want to be bothered by trick-or-treaters, it is perfectly acceptable to leave a bowl of treats at your doorsteps so children can help themselves.

"In this day and age, people have safety concerns and there is also a feeling that trick-or-treating can be intrusive," Bryant said.

Firkin right it is, I do not want snotty little gits banging on my door begging for SWEETS not “CANDY”, it is intrusive, it is annoying and if the little buggers want to get fat on SWEETS let their firkin parents buy them.

Angus

AnglishLit

Angus Dei-NHS-THE OTHER SIDE

Angus Dei politico