Gassing up#2: Chase me plod: 3p demo: Fly away in Bryansk: Happy Bull testicle day: Frozen sauerkraut: Too good to be true: and Win Sein Taw Ya.

Bloody freezing at the Castle this morn, his Maj has got so close to the radiator in the kitchen that he has become surgically attached and the butler is spending so long in the dungeon shoving fat drunk teenagers into the furnace that he is turning into a troglodyte.

Apparently wholesale gas prices touched a six-year high of £1 a therm yesterday.

Supply shortages and a huge surge in demand have pushed up prices while Brent crude hit a six-month high of $116.70 as Italy turned to burning oil to produce electricity.

Tensions with Iran also pushed up oil prices as the United States tightened sanctions by giving the banks new powers to freeze assets which are linked to the Persian Gulf state.

Problem is that there is too much information available too quickly nowadays.

Dahn in Sussex

An undercover police officer "chased himself round the streets" for 20 minutes after a CCTV operator mistook him for suspect.

The junior officer, who has not been named, was monitoring an area hit by a series of burglaries in an unnamed market town in the country’s south.

As the probationary officer from Sussex Police searched for suspects, the camera operator radioed that he had seen someone “acting suspiciously” in the area.

But he failed to realise that it was actually the plain-clothed officer he was watching on the screen, according to details leaked to an industry magazine.

The operator directed the officer, who was on foot patrol, as he followed the "suspect" on camera last month, telling his colleague on the ground that he was "hot on his heels".

They don’t call them woodentops for nothing...

East to the land of dodgy motors

Cheapskate motorists paid the price for a cheap parking spot in China - when they discovered it was next to a demolition site.

More than a dozen cars were badly damaged when bungling builders on the site used a demolition ball on the wall, sending it crashing down onto a row of cars in the 3p a day car park in Xianyang, Shaanxi province.

"I chose the parking spot because it was very cheap - and now I know why," said taxi driver Yu Lin, 48.

"I knew they were building something new next door but I didn't think they would be using such a massive crane to smash down such a tiny wall.

"I don't think my insurance will cover this," he added.

The building firm meanwhile defended its actions - saying the wall was unsafe and needed to be knocked down before it killed someone.

Ah-the old Elfandsafety excuse....

Left more than a whimsy

A military official in central Russia has sold an airfield for a bribe.

Andrei Usok, a procurement officer with the Defence Ministry, sold to an unspecified company some 4,000 slabs of concrete making up the landing strip of a military airfield in Bryansk region, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Usok made 1 million roubles ($33,000) on the deal, but the damages, which rendered the airfield unusable, stood at 48 million roubles, the Prosecutor General’s Office reported on its website.

The officer is facing up to 12 years behind bars or a fine of between 70 million and 90 million roubles over the case. The investigation is ongoing.

Psst, wanna buy a cheap airfield....

Back in Bullsed up Blighty

Yet another “treat” for Valentine’s Day crawls out of the primeval ooze, the aptly named 'Cock and Bull Pie' from artisan ready meal firm Charlie Bigham’s contains only ingredients selected for their aphrodisiac and arousing qualities.

As such the £7.99 pie -- available exclusively from Ocado -- features ‘Mama Juana’ liquor and Ginseng alongside the bulls’ testicles.

The pie’s succulent steak pieces have been marinated in the ‘saucy’ ‘Mama Juana’ liquor, originally prepared by the native Taino Indians to get them in the mood for love.

The brand’s founder, Charlie Bigham, comments: "Having specialised in ‘twosome’ cuisine for over 15 years, we understand what it takes to bring partners closer together.

"After a busy day at work couples are often too tired to cook, which is why we have developed the romantic Valentine’s version of our popular pies, taking the stress out of cooking this Valentine’s.

"The Cock and Bull pie will give partners the opportunity to ditch the asparagus and oysters this year and create that perfect ‘twosomes’ moment with our one-off passion inducing pie."

Num, num...

Across to the land of the Frankfurter

Piles of sauerkraut tumbled out of a truck on a busy German motorway and quickly froze to the autobahn surface, causing a massive traffic jam near Frankfurt during Tuesday's morning rush hour, police said.

A truck carrying hundreds of packages of the famous German pickled cabbage delicacy crashed into another vehicle before dawn near the western town of Friedberg near Frankfurt and scattered its contents across the motorway.

With temperatures far below zero for the last week, the sauerkraut froze almost instantly and created impassable obstacles, causing traffic to back up for 10 km. The motorway was completely shut down for four hours while authorities struggled to scrape the frozen sauerkraut away.

Frankfurter and sauerkraut; num, num, num, num, num....

Back in cynical Blighty

Cash was offered by five women to commuters at busy bus stations up and down the UK but an average of only eight people at each station, out of thousands of bus travellers, took up the offer.

Women wearing a sandwich board that read "Ask me to pay your bus fare and I will" were positioned at bus stations in Newcastle, Medway, Manchester, Perth and Leicester, but were mostly just ignored.

The experiment ran during morning rush hour each day for a week and just 38 people in total across the country accepted the offer.

When questioned, the minority who did eventually accept the free cash admitted they were reluctant at first because they thought the offer was too good to be true.

Those who did accept were generally teenagers, suggesting that the older we get the more cynical of goodwill gestures we become.

Bollocks-if someone offered me free cash I’d snatch their arm orf...

And finally:

East again

Win Sein Taw Ya is the largest reclining Buddha in the world and at 30 meters high and 180 meters in length can be seen for miles.

Located opposite of the Buddhist shrine of Kyauktalon Taung, the reclining Buddha is filled with rooms that showcase dioramas of the teachings of Buddha and a shrine. When visiting the giant Buddha it should be remembered that despite the odd novelty of walking into a giant head, it is still a place of worship, and shoes should be removed before entering the shrine.

Wouldn’t work in Blighty everyone wears the same trainers....

That’s it: I’m orf to sort out the Zebra mussels in the moat.

And today’s thought:

Finally got it in Bernard

Angus