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.
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”.
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...
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...
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...
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.
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:
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?
And today’s thought:
This is nice, glad we are in private...
Angus
