Olympic Gold: Ark of the scrap yard: There’s a HuayuNavi app for that: Sexy pie: and A Plank and a door.

Masses of mini moisture molecules, more than a lot of lack of cold, not a glimmer of solar activity and oodles of atmospheric movement at the Castle this morn.

More than a modicum of tardiness due to oversleeping, going dahn  Tesco on the stale bread, gruel and his Maj’s food run and lacking the inclination to give a toss this mournful Monday morn.

Think it may have something to do with the marathon Red Dwarf session on channel 19 yesterday.

 

And now that the two big sporty things are over-apart from the endless recapping and a larger than big “parade”, according to the Guardian each of the big round metal things acquired by ‘Team GB’ has cost just over £4.5 million-ish or less.

And that Boxing was the most cost-effective sport in terms of funding per medal, with hockey the least.

Figures obtained from UK Sport, the strategic body overseeing performance sport in the UK, detail the amount of money invested in each Olympic sport since the 2008 Beijing Olympics. We have compared this data with the amount of medals won by Team GB at London 2012.

The largest amounts of UK Sport money were spent on rowing (£27m), cycling (£26m) and athletics (£25m). The high overall costs of cycling - particularly in its the track form - lie in the need for the latest technology in bikes, helmets and clothing; such as the 'hot pants' used to keep Team GB cyclists' muscles warm before their race.

British cyclists won 12 medals in London, including 7 golds in the velodrome, with technological superiority no doubt playing an important part in their successes. This puts spending on cycling in perspective - the average spend per cycling medal was £2.2m, compared with £8.4m of spending for each Olympic swimming medal (overall spend £25m).

The rowers also provided value for money. Their nine medals, four of which were gold, meant the average expense per medal was £3m. British boxing proved the most cost effective of all, as Team GB's five medals put the average cost of a boxing medal at £1.9m.

Total UK Sport funding for the London 2012 Olympics was £264,143,753, up from £235,103,000 spent on the Beijing Games. For London 2012, money from UK Sport was supplemented by a private sponsorship scheme known as 'Team 2012'.

Since 2008, a total of around £100m per year has been invested in 1,200 athletes competing across 47 different sports in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

 

Interesting numbers; which don’t even mention the thousands of homes, hundreds of hospitals, more than that many schools and massive amounts of investment into other infrastructure which could have been used to provide jobs using the £9 billion or so sportingly spent on the two big sporty thing up in the Smoke and other parts of Double Dip Blighty...

 

I am not knocking the Olympics but in these austere times couldn’t the Piss Poor Policies Millionaire’s Club Coalition have used the dosh to improve the lives of millions rather than pander to the egos of a few thousand people who consider running, jumping and throwing things the most important thing in the world-to them...

 

And while the Olympic”heroes” cruise about the capital

Aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal is being sold for £3m for scrap metal by the Ministry of Defence to help tackle a multi-billion pound defence deficit.

The removal of the Royal Navy's former flagship from service in 2011, five years early, was a "difficult but necessary decision", the MoD has said.

Its sale follows bids to turn the ship into a London heliport, a dive site off Devon or other overseas facilities.

An announcement on its future will be made in the leaning tower of Westminster today.

 

Maybe it could be used to house the homeless from London....

 

East to the land of funny writing

 

Translating complicated-looking Chinese characters is now made convenient with Funwish’s iPhone application: the HuayuNavi.

It was released in March 2011, and ever since has been used by travellers in Chinese-speaking countries and to those who are just starting to learn the language.

Translating Chinese text into the language of your choice is now possible just by taking a picture of what is to be translated, waiting a while for the app to process, and Ta-Da!

 

Rubbery, jubbery....

 

West more linear units than I could on my digits

According to “experts” the most bewitching scent to lure a man isn't Chanel No. 5. It's the sweet, spicy aroma of a traditional Thanksgiving dessert.

"Throw away the perfume and go get some pumpkin pie," said Dr. Alan Hirsch, Director of Chicago's Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Centre, told WBPF in West Palm Beach.

The smell drives men wild with desire, the researchers say. Combine with the scent of lavender and you might have to reach for a bucket of cold water.

 

Nah...It’s a bacon butty for me....

 

And finally:

 

Still in the home of planks and the land of banks

A Pennsylvania bank's front door is being hailed a hero after it stopped a robber from leaving Thursday morning.

The unidentified, 27-year-old suspect entered a Pittsburgh Citizens Bank at about 9 a.m. and demanded money from tellers, WTAE reports. He was handed an undisclosed amount of cash.

The bank's security system -- which was prominently advertised outside -- includes a set of double doors that lock in would-be robbers. Much to the robber's illiterate surprise, the system worked. Witnesses said the suspect was flailing around, screaming and banging his arms and head on his bulletproof prison.

Apparently the suspect has a huge bump on his head and a few lacerations that he'll be dealing with in jail.

The door sustained minor injuries, but should make a full recovery.

 

What a pane....

 

That’s it: I’m orf to buy a few sick bags

 

And today’s thought:

This is the way to do it.

 

Angus

No fuel like cheap fuel: What austerity?: Das Numptys: Over the radioactive limit: Nail house: and a Magnetic iPod holder.

Back to “normal” at the Castle this morn-chucking it dahn, cold, windy and not very clement, the arm is not too bad and his Maj has discovered the joy of ambush from behind the shower curtain.

 

Allegedly German owned E.ON is going to peg prices for 2012

E.ON's pledge came after British Gas owner Centrica last week signalled that further price hikes were on the way as its costs continued to mount.

The German utility giant confirmed that wholesale energy costs are expected to climb but said it will freeze prices for the rest of 2012 as part of a commitment to be fair and transparent.

Dr Tony Cocker, chief executive of E.ON UK, said: "Let me be clear - E.ON will not raise residential prices in 2012.

"Earlier this year we cut our prices in a way that helped some 75% of our customers and I hope that the certainty we've given today will show our customers again that we are committed to helping them."

 

 But: the snag is while prices will not rise during the “warm bit-har bloody har” E.ON may raise prices at the start of 2013, potentially meaning customers could face higher costs for some of the coldest winter months.

Nice....

 

And according to Tullett Prebon.

Blighty’s austerity programme is a “myth” designed to “con” the financial markets, and that “public expenditures have hardly been reduced at all” and that claims of a “big cut in public spending is bare-faced deception”.

Figures highlighted by the firm show that public spending actually rose during 2010-11 and fell by just 1.5 percent last year.

Government spending is more than £22 billion higher than it was in 2008 when the financial crisis erupted.

The majority of extra money required by ministers to fill the black hole in the finances caused by the recession is being raised from extra taxes rather than cuts in Government spending.

Dr Tim Morgan, the global head of research at Tullett Prebon, said: “It’s high time that this mendacity was exposed for what it is. Government has done very little about its spending, has appropriated three-quarters of all gains in economic output for its own use, has carried on piling up debt – and has tried to pass all this off as 'responsible austerity’.

Well, that’s told us....

 

Right a smidge to the land where austerity seems to be working

A German police force that spent €25 million on new sporty cars found that not only was the visibility rubbish for chases - the fancy seats were so narrow the cops could not get in while wearing their guns, truncheons and other equipment.

The Hesse Interior Ministry ordered 800 of the swish new models – Opel's Insignia Sports Tourer – in a long-term deal at the end of 2010. The ministry says that 200 of the cars have been delivered so far, but it is yet to be decided whether the order will be completed.

The limited view through the back window was also a major problem for the police, said Hölzgen. "I need to see out of the back every minute, every second," he said. "That's a safety matter for us."

The ministry insisted that the car had been tested prior to the order. "The results did not point to any lack of suitability for police service," a ministry spokeswoman told regional broadcaster HR. She added that the ministry was aware of the problem.

Vorsprung Durch Bollocks-mind you even I have a problem getting my truncheon in the Honda....

Left to the home of the detector and the land of the isotope

Last Wednesday, Mike Apatow was getting on to Interstate 84 in Newtown, CT, when police stopped him for no reason he could determine. When the cop told him that his car had set off his radioactivity detectors, it started making sense: Apatow was most certainly radioactive.

Earlier in the day, Apatow had had a bit of radioactive material injected into his veins. He wasn't trying to turn himself into a superhero—just trying to keep himself alive. The off-duty fire-fighter had gone to a cardiology office to have a cardiac stress test, which tracks the function of the heart by tracking radioactivity as it moves through the circulatory system.

Apatow had come to the office after feeling ill earlier and finding that his blood pressure had gone up way above where it was usually. Whatever caused the blip went away quickly, and Apatow went back to work, as recounted at ctpost.com.

Good job they don’t have moron detectors around the palace of Westminster, the sound would be deafening.

 

East to the place where houses are cheap

One stubborn elderly couple created the ultimate road block after refusing to move out of their home to allow a new major motorway route to be built.

Developers were pulling their hair out after 75-year-old Hong Chunqin and her husband Kung refused to make way for developers in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, eastern China.

After initially accepting £8,000 in compensation to relocate, the couple then backtracked on their decision and insisted they weren't going anywhere - after construction was underway.

Dubbed the 'Road to Nowhere', Mr and Mrs Chunqin's house can now be seen blocking the completion of the newly-built road, with just a tiny dirt track linking the two separate stretches.

Similar homes have been labelled Nail Houses in China, following a series of disputes across the country. The reference comes from a stubborn nail that is difficult to remove.

Developers have been accused of using dirty tactics to evict tenants, cutting one homeowner's power and, in one famous case, excavating a 10-metre deep pit around an entire house.

However the Chunqin family, who argue they should be given the choice of where they are relocated to, have installed CCTV cameras to stop a similar scenario from happening.

Hang in there guys.....

And finally:

Back over to the home of body piercing and the land of inexorable Numptyism

A tattoo artist has invented a bizarre way to stay with his beloved iPod at all times – having surgery to implant magnets under his skin.

Instead of wearing a wristband, four small powerful magnets under the body piercing expert’s skin helps the Apple device stay in place, just like a strapless watch.

My brain hurts......

 

That’s it: I’m orf to buy a flying car.

And today’s thought:

What austerity.

 Angus