Bit sunny, quite calm and a lot chilly at the Castle this morn, I have de-fluffed most of the computers in the kitchen, and spent a not very pleasant afternoon re-installing vista which I couldn’t restore on a laptop that had serious virus problems because there was no anti-virus installed.
Life is fun……
Late this morn Blogger has been down………I blame James; it was fine before he came back.
U-Turn Cam is the latest “person” to ignore poor Old Nick (kick me) Clegg by telling the country that “Only the Conservatives can be trusted with the NHS”, while Nicky was sitting to U-Turn Cam’s right-hand side.
And
David Cameron has triggered a row with military chiefs by insisting that hundreds of British troops must be withdrawn from Afghanistan within weeks.
But British commanders have warned David Cameron that an early exit could jeopardise the counter-insurgency mission, allowing the Taliban to regain territory and popular support.
As a compromise, defence chiefs have reluctantly drawn up plans to withdraw 450 of Britain's 10,000 troops from Afghanistan. Mr Cameron wants to agree their withdrawal with Barack Obama when he visits London later this month.
The British troops could leave Afghanistan as soon as July, when the American withdrawal begins.
How many feet can u-turn fit into his facial orifice?
Last week I mentioned that Rome was expecting an earthquake yesterday; apparently twenty [per cent] of Romans didn't go to work. On the other hand, hotels and agritourism facilities have had a boom in bookings," said Primo Mastrantoni, head of the Association for the Rights of Users and Consumers.
An institute set up to study the writings of Raffaele Bendandi has emphasised he never made a prediction of an earthquake in Rome on May 11, but that has done little to stop the rumour spreading by word of mouth.
Traffic was particularly light on the Italian capital's normally clogged streets and the usual crowds in the metro and outside schools were absent.
Shopkeepers in the Chinese-dominated Esquilino quarter took off, with nine out of 10 shops shuttered with signs saying "illness" or "re-stocking".
400 people joined a Facebook group whose members spent the night camped out in the wide open spaces of the Circus Maximus, an ancient Roman arena.
Others organised giant earthquake picnics in the city's many parks.
Been to Rome it didn’t shake my world…..mind you parts of it looked as if it had had a nine on the Richter scale.
A Maori tribe on New Zealand's North Island were celebrating an unexpected windfall after finding a large chunk of whale vomit while burying the corpse of a stranded sperm whale that had been mutilated by vandals.
The 40kg lump of ambergris has just been sold to a French company for an undisclosed sum after being discovered last year, The Dominion Post reported.
Dargaville broker Adrienne Beuse said tens of thousands could be paid per kilogram of ambergris, dependent on its quality. Some estimates of the value of the New Zealand find were as high as $400,000.
Sperm Whale vomit is more correctly known as ambergris, and is a rare and often valuable ingredient in fine perfumes.
Ah the old Chanel number chuck up.
Scientists plan to power cars using oil garnered from Cornish pasties, pies and other waste food, it has been announced.
Eco-friendly fuel firm Greenergy have revealed their intentions to make biodiesel using oil extracted from various forms of food waste.
As well as pasties, crisps and other notoriously oily products that would normally be send to landfill sites and disposed of will be taken to a processing plant in Immingham, Lincolnshire.
There, the cooking oil - which scientists say can make up around 30 per cent of some processed foods - will be extracted and re-filtered in order to be compatible with combustion engines.
The finished product will be made up using a fine blend of regular diesel fuel extracted from crude oil and the waste food oil.
Around £50million of investment is being channelled into the venture, Greenergy have said, and it will eventually lead to the new form of fuel being sold on petrol station forecourts.
Think I’d rather eat the pasties.
A vicar who calls himself "heaven's angel" has celebrated setting the inaugural world record for a motorcycle hearse when he clocked just over 114mph on an airfield runway.
The Rev Ray Biddiss, 57, had to reach a speed of more than 80mph at Elvington Airfield, near York, on Tuesday in his specially built "trike-hearse" to be recognised by Guinness World Records.
And the clergyman, from Halifax, West Yorkshire, managed to hit 114.1mph in The Rocket, which he says he uses for real funeral services.
The good news is that if you are in the back you won’t get the speeding ticket…..or will you?
And finally:
A British thrill-seeker set a world record with 105 bungee jumps in seven and a half hours – plus two more after lunch before the cold stopped him.
Scott Huntly, 49, made the repeated jumps at Bloukrans Bridge in South Africa, the highest commercially-run bungee spot on Earth at 708ft.
The expat dad of one, from Edinburgh, said: “I only stopped twice to go to the toilet; otherwise I was either jumping down or bouncing back up.”
Maybe they should change the sign to “Worlds highest Numptys”.
And today’s thought: Don't be stupid. We have politicians for that.
Angus
