Have you heard the one about the Doctor?: The cost of U-Turns: Ridley road rats: Squealing squaddies: Trillion carat crater: Bedroom car park: and The Salt of the Earth.

The first inkling of solar activity has emerged from Dawn’s crack at the Castle this morn, quite a lot of lack of warm, even less atmospheric movement and a definite dearth of wet stuff.

The garden is in need of a minor fettle, the Honda is in need of a dust and his Maj is in need of a hobby.

 

I see that complaints about Doctors

To the Piss Poor GMC are on the up, according to the Piss Poor GMC report there were 8,781 in 2011 compared to 7,153 in 2010.

The rise is similar to the one the year before and continues a trend which has seen complaints jump by 69% in three years.

But the regulator said there was no evidence to suggest care was getting worse.

Instead, it claimed the rise was down to greater expectations and willingness to complain.

Allegedly nearly 5,000 were closed after an initial assessment, while another 1,537 were deemed not to impair a doctor's ability to practise medicine.

In total, 2,330 were investigated fully - a rise of 13% since 2010.

Only 158 of these have led to doctors being suspended or struck from the medical register with many more ending in warnings or advice being issued.

GPs, psychiatrists and surgeons attracted the highest rates of complaints, while men, and in particular older male doctors, were far more likely to be the subject of complaints than women.

The most complained about topic was the care and treatment given, followed by communication and respect for patients, which both saw large rises in the past year.

 

But the Piss Poor GMC said there was no evidence care was getting worse, pointing out other professions were seeing a rise in complaints too.

 

Oh well that’s alright then, I wonder how many accountants have killed or maimed their “clients”.

 

And U-Turn Cam is costing us more than a smidge of money

According to the National Audit Office the Prime Monster’s plans to halve the sentences of criminals who plead guilty has cost an extra £130million.

The Coalition came into power in 2010 pledging to take measures to tackle “the unsustainable rise in the prison population”.

Part of these plans was to release offenders after half their jail terms were served if they pleaded guilty at their trial. The move would have meant that 6,000 fewer offenders were in jail by 2015.

However in June 2011 the Prime Minister axed the plans to let off early offenders who pleaded guilty, and introduced instead watered down proposals that would see only 2,000 few criminals jailed.

In a report the National Audit Office said that this change of policy will cost the National Offender Management Service an extra £130million by 2015 - essentially the cost of housing an extra 4,000 offenders a day.

 

U-Turn Wanker...

 

Over to the East end of the Smoke

Rats are being sold to the public alongside other forms of illegal and possibly contaminated forms of meat by a popular food market.

Grasscutter rats imported from Ghana were sold to undercover reporters by six butchers and shops on Ridley Road market in the Dalston area of Hackney, east London, together with blow-torched goat and sheep meat known as "smokies".

After seeing footage of the meat, filmed by the BBC, environmental health expert Paul Povey said: "It's all illegal and hasn't undergone health control, hasn't been inspected and may well be contaminated.

Cane rats are regarded as such a delicacy in Ghana that some farmers now rear them in cages. Smokies, which involve an un skinned sheep carcass being flame-cooked without the spine being removed, are banned in the EU on the grounds of public health and animal welfare, have also been linked to gang crime.

 

Num. num, num, yet another step towards the third world...

 

Right a bit to the land that couldn’t take over Europe even if it wanted to

Terrified German squaddies are refusing to go out on night manoeuvres after being driven wild by a pack of young wolves.

The wolves, believed to be brothers, have been using the trainee soldiers in Munster for stalking practice as the troopers carry out black out exercises.

"They sneak up on you and leap on you without a sound. They try to bite our boots off and then run away," explained one victim.

Soldiers have been reprimanded by trainers for squealing in fright as they're ambushed by the three overgrown cubs, giving away their positions.

An army spokesman said the squaddies had received "words of advice" about how to deal with the wolves.

 

How times have changed...

 

Right a bit more to a very large hole in Siberia

 

According to the Kremlin huge stocks of diamonds in a 62-mile wide asteroid crater in Siberia will last for 3,000 years.

Scientist Nikolai Pokhilenko said: "We are talking about trillions of carats, bigger than all known world reserves."

The Popigai crater above the Arctic Circle has lain untapped because the old Soviet Union put all its efforts into making synthetic gems.

Diamond expert Gennady Nikitin said: "The diamonds can overturn everything and it is not clear what will happen to prices in the market."

 

So diamonds aren’t a girl’s best friend anymore then.....there must be enough carats there to feed the world.

 

Back in bollard Blighty

A sleeping couple escaped injury after an out-of-control car crashed into their upstairs bedroom.

The couple were in bed at their home in Epsom, Surrey, when the Lexus rounded a bend, mounted a parked Audi, and smashed into the building.

The silver car punched a gaping hole in the first floor of the house, blasting debris across the bedroom and en-suite bathroom.

A number of other cars were also damaged in the incident, and a post-box, road sign and fence were destroyed.

A structural engineer was called to check the property as police investigated the cause of the accident, which happened at around 3am on Sunday.

One neighbour has described how she heard the early-hours crash.

She said: "It sounded like a plane coming out the sky. I think the car flew about 80ft before it came to rest in the side of the house."

 

Bloody Lexus drivers, really, really expensive alarm call...

 

And finally:

 

East a lot to the sea below sea level

The Dead Sea is located in the Jordan valley bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west, and about 55 km southeast of Amman. Aside from the being the saltiest lake in the world, it is also Earth's lowest elevation on land. You have to descend 423 meters below sea level to reach its surface and shores. At 377 meters deep, it is also the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. Dead Sea has a salinity level of 33.7%, which is 8.6 times saltier than the ocean. As much as 340 grams of salt is dissolved per litre of water. The extreme salt concentration prevents any kind of macroscopic aquatic life such as fish and plants to flourish here, though minuscule quantities of bacteria and microbial fungi are present. The water of the lake is so dense that it is impossible to sink in the Dead Sea. In fact, a popular fad among visitors is to have their picture taken while reading a newspaper and floating on the surface of the water.

The Dead Sea is fed by the Jordan River but there is no outlet. Salts have accumulated in the basin, sometimes by percolation through the surrounding earth, gradually building up over the centuries. The water contains more than 35 different types of minerals including magnesium, calcium, potassium, bromine, sulphur, and iodine. The odd chemistry results in the appearance of some striking, but transient, salt crystal formations. In shallow lagoons at periodic intervals, these formations are natural works of art: billions of charged atoms in intricate geometrical formations shaped by nature into unique works of crystalline art.

 

Such as:

And the salt mushroom.

 

 

Is it me or is that a bit rude?

 

That’s it: I’m orf to get the butler to dig a pond.

 

And today’s thought:

This is nice, glad we are in private...

 

 

Angus