Layers of the white crusty stuff at the Castle this morn,
the butler is happily storing fat teenagers in the furnace, his Maj managed to
go out, do his business and return to the warm in less than a minute and the
ducks are ice skating on the moat.
Think of the barmiest thing you can imagine and then add a
bit-Old fart and still living in Politico world Tony Benn has come up with a
stonking plan.
He thinks that the Queen could be replaced by the House of
Commons' Speaker in a republican Britain which maintains a titular head of
state.
"If you're looking for a titular head of state I think
the Speaker of the House of Commons would be perfect - he's respected, he
understands the constitution," Mr Benn added.
Bollocks; dopey can’t even control his missus, let alone the
country....
Allegedly Up to 2,000 rural post offices will close from
next summer and be replaced by limited counter services in garages and shops.
Under plans that will be rolled out from June, one fifth of
the branch network will be converted into new "PO Locals", which
offer a downgraded service within other commercial premises.
Customers will not be able to apply for driving licences,
send post bulky mail overseas, pay car tax or make cash withdrawals using
passbooks.
The changes will affect one in five of the 11,500 post
offices across the country.
Last night the Department for Business, Innovation and
Skills, which is expected to take over the running of the post office network
from Royal Mail in April next year, defended the plans.
Customers would also benefit from being able to access post
office services round the clock, during the hours that the convenience store or
garage is open.
A BIS spokesman said: “The Post Office network will be
maintained at its current size and coverage of 11,500 outlets nationwide and
strict access criteria must be met to ensure reasonable access to services for
all.
“This is about making sure that people have access to the
services they want and need from their post office, at times they want them,
and making running a post office more profitable for hard working
sub-postmasters.”
As long as they don’t want to “apply for driving licences, send post bulky mail overseas, pay car tax
or make cash withdrawals using passbooks.”
Apparently a shortage of cocoa could lead to a drop in
production of chocolate all over the world.
Industry insiders predict a one-million-ton shortage of
cocoa within eight years, fuelled by growing demand in Asia, mainly from China.
It means an area the size of the Ivory Coast must become
included in cocoa cultivation to boost production to the required levels.
Farmers also need more training to help increase their cocoa
bean crops or prices will rise, warn experts.
More cocoa substitutes could be used in making chocolate.
That’ll make finding fat teenagers for the furnace a bit harder
for the butler....
Tucked away in one corner of the large city of Taichung,
Taiwan lies a modest ‘military dependents’ village’ – a community built in the
late 1940s and the 1950s to serve as provisional housing for Nationalist
soldiers, but ended up becoming permanent settlements.
Over the years, many military dependents' villages have
suffered from urban problems such as housing dereliction, abandonment, urban
decay, and urban slum. This drab place has now been transformed into a
beautiful and vibrant tourist hotspot, thanks to the colourful paintings of
Huang Yung-fu, an 86-year-old veteran from Taichung City.
Cheerful, hope he got planning permission...
National Rail
launched its new timetables yesterday.
Changes come into
effect across the whole country and will remain in place until Sunday, 20 May
2012.
The main
alterations affect service run by the following train operating companies: Arriva
Trains Wales, c2c, Chiltern Railways, East Coast, East Midlands Trains, First
Capital Connect, First Great Western, Grand Central, London Midland,
Merseyrail, National Express East Anglia, Northern Rail, ScotRail, South West
Trains , Southeastern and Stansted Express.
Among the changes
are:
Retimed early
morning trains between Bridgend and Cardiff have been retimed
An increased
peak-time service at West Ham, giving additional connections to London
Underground and Docklands Light Railway
Reduced journey
times to and from London Marylebone
More East Coast
trains calling at Berwick-upon-Tweed on Saturdays
An increased number
of trains to and from Lincoln
An increased number
of carriages on some peak-time Thameslink trains between Bedford and Brighton
A Sunday service
during the winter months on the line between Par and Newquay
Faster journey
times for several trains between London Paddington and Reading, and on Thames
Valley branches (Henley-on-Thames / Marlow)
Additional
carriages on trains to and from Walsall, Shrewsbury, Leamington Spa,
Stourbridge, Hereford and Stratford-upon-Avon
Increased number of
Chester services during the morning peak hours
A new service
between Broxbourne and London Liverpool Street, and trains between Bishops
Stortford and Stratford running every 30 minutes
Additional
evening-peak services between Manchester Piccadilly, Marple, New Mills and
Sheffield
Additional trains
on several ScotRail routes, including Inverness - Glasgow and Edinburgh, Dundee
- Glasgow, Elgin / Aberdeen - Inverness, and Ayr - Girvan
Additional train
services during the day between Bromley South and Grove Park
Police
in the western Japanese prefecture of Tottori unveiled two unusual new recruits
- a pair of toy poodles, the Nihonkai Shimbun reported.
Fuga,
two, and Karin one, passed the police canine test in July and will be put to
work finding missing hikers in the mountainous region.
The female toy poodles, one of which is gray and the other
brown, also would take part in criminal manhunts, the report said.
Poodles are an unusual choice of police dog -- normally,
larger breeds are preferred.
"Their trainers thought the dogs had keen senses and
responded exceptionally well to commands," AFP quoted a spokesman as
saying.
The remote Tottori prefecture, some 300 miles (480 kilometres)
from Tokyo, does not have a full-time police canine force and relies on about
20 domestic dogs with special training to help when needed.
What can you say.....
That’s it: I’m
orf to keep an eye on the weather.
And today’s thought:
Angus
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