The EU rules: Housey-housey: U-F-O BBC: Human show jumping: Munich motor: and Lego my Batcave.

The butler is stuffing fat, carbon neutral teenagers into the furnace as fast as he can to compensate for the lack of warm at the Castle this morn.

Too dark to report on the rest of the wevver conditions, but his Maj has returned from doing his business with not a jot of wet stuff on his coat.

Finally finished the loo, bathroom, landing and master bedroom, just the stairs and lobby left to do, more knackered than the most knackered thing you could think of.

 

The Irritable Bowel Twins are not very happy

Because the EU is insisting that European immigrants should be able to claim handouts and pensions without first having to pass a test proving that they have settled in multicultural Blighty.

The demand is the latest response in a continuing row after Iain Duncan Smith said that such a system would mean immigrants could get benefits on the first day of entering Britain.

The knob at the top of the Dept of Witless Pillocks said last month that it would cost taxpayers £155 million a year if the UK was forced to get rid of the “habitual resident test”.

The test makes sure that foreigners have genuinely lived and paid taxes in the country before they can claim welfare payments.

His department has been holding talks with the European Commission for months in an effort to find a solution, but sources said on Thursday that Brussels was preparing to sue Britain by the end of this year unless the test is scrapped.

 

On Thursday night, a spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions said: “The EU has no right to interfere in this way and we will continue fighting it.”

 

That’ll teach em.....

 

And all over building-less Blighty

Allegedly efforts to reduce people’s dependency on benefits could be undermined by the Government’s own flagship housing scheme, an influential committee of MPs has warned.

The £1.8 billion Affordable Homes Programme risks sucking poorer people further into a “benefit trap” and threaten the Government’s plans to “make work pay”, according to the cross-party Public Accounts Committee.

The initiative, launched two years ago, aims to build 80,000 new homes by 2015 to tackle a national shortage.

Affordable housing providers are given Government grants averaging £20,000 per home to build new housing to let out to social tenants.

But, because the grants are only about a third of the value of those provided under a previous scheme, the providers are being allowed to charge higher rents to the new tenants.

Meanwhile those who do are likely to end up simply claiming more on housing benefits, the committee found.

But Mark Prisk, the housing minister, said: "Today's report fails to recognise the flexibility that the new system of Affordable Rent offers landlords, giving them the option to set rents to ensure a fit with local circumstances.

"And anyone eligible for full housing benefit will have their Affordable Rent paid in full.”

"This new Affordable Homes Programme will lever in £10 billion of new private investment, ensuring we deliver 53,000 more affordable homes than we could have done under the previous funding models."

 

Still all this building will give the Polish economy a big boost....

 

West to the home of aliens and the land of “security”

 

A BBC film crew was held at gunpoint after trying to sneak into Nevada's Area 51 military base with UFO conspiracy theorists.

Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell and UFO expert Darren Perks sneaked past the border at the site - and were forced to lie on the ground at gunpoint for three hours while the FBI checked their credentials.

It is the same 'documentary' team that caused outrage in Britain last week when they suggested that the 7/7 London bombings were part of a government conspiracy to boost support for the Iraq war.

The crew 12 people in total were investigating Area 51 in Nevada - where the U.S. military allegedly hold the bodies of aliens and the remnants of ships which crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.

As they crossed the border, military officers arrested them, confiscating their phones, wallets and identification.

Darren told the Mail Online: 'Basically the concept of the trip was to tour across California, Arizona and Nevada with comedian presenter Andrew Maxwell and four people who had an interest in the UFO phenomena.

'We went to Area 51 in Nevada firstly because it’s related to the UFO phenomena and secondly so we could do a night time sky watch to see if we could spot anything unusual.

 

Nice to see that our license fee is being used to bring us such “interesting” programmes and that the twonks Auntie employs are illiterate.

 

All across the World

There is a new “sport”; you don't have to wear a saddle or have steel shoes nailed onto your feet, in fact you don’t even need an ‘Orse, oh yes we now have Horseless show jumping.

According to Phil Rozon, a Canadian jumper judge who officiated at both the horseless horse show and the American Gold Cup Grand Prix that followed. "We judge them just like horses."

Indeed, the young competitors are judged just as horse and rider combos would be in standard show jumping classes—placing according to speed or the time taken to complete a given course. The fastest time wins, but penalties are incurred for faults such as knocking down a rail.

 

My brain hurts...

 

Over to the place where beer festivals abound

A man in southern Germany has been reunited with his car two years after forgetting where he parked, Bavarian police said on Thursday.

After a night of drinking in December 2010 and an unsuccessful search the next day, the vehicle's owner reported his car as missing to the Munich police.

Authorities discovered it by chance last month after a traffic warden noticed that its inspection stickers had expired - 4 km from the spot where the now 33-year-old craftsman originally thought he had parked.

"The weird thing is that it turned up so far away, although the owner was pretty sure of where he had left it," said police spokesman Alexander Lorenz.

In the trunk were 40,000 Euros ($51,600) worth of tools including power drills and electric screwdrivers, Lorenz said.

 

I don’t need to be drunk to forget where I parked...

 

And finally:

 

Somewhere in an alternative universe

 

Carlyle Livingston II and Wayne Hussey stand behind their massive Lego creation. (Flickr)When it comes to expansive Batman and Lego creations, most of us are content to stick to the video game offerings.

But Carlyle Livingston II and Wayne Hussey have taken things a giant leap forward, creating a spectacular replica of the Batcave using more than 20,000 individual Lego pieces.

The pair debuted the creation at the 2012 Emerald City Comicon. They uploaded several dozen photos and three videos to Flickr detailing the construction of the cave, home to the comic-book character Batman. In the photos you can also see some of their other creations, including several "Star Wars"-themed spaceships.

The Brothers Brick site notes that it took Livingston and Hussey more than 800 hours to assemble the 20,000 pieces, with the final model weighing more than 100 pounds.

Their Batcave even comes with its own lighting and a rotating turntable at the centre of the cave. The Laughing Squid site notes that a single battery powers the entire Lego Batcave, wired to several different lighting sources, including Christmas and flash lights.

 

Think they have Lego of reality...

 

That’s it: I’m orf to cash in on a “Super Earth”

 

And today’s thought:

Auntie’s new headquarters.

 

 

Angus