Enormous amounts of lack of warm, not a cough of atmospheric
movement, even less skywater and some invisible solar activity at the Castle
this morn, still coming to grips with the new laptop, still smelling the
decorating, and still trying to decipher the meaning of life.
Vince Cable told MPs that a new committee set up to promote
economic growth had not held any meetings saying: "I can't tell you why
that committee has not been convened yet "despite the fact that he
attended two of them.
He later corrected his “evidence” to the Business,
Innovation and Skills select committee- "I readied my
memory very quickly and I couldn't recall meetings of the committee. There were
in fact two, on 18 September and 22 October, so that committee is operating and
has met," he said.
So it seems that the old fart fails on “Business, Innovation
and Skills”, think his earth wire has come loose.
Conservative councils are planning to build hundreds of
“middle-class” affordable homes for nurses and teachers in Britain's most
expensive neighbourhoods.
The three boroughs of Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea,
and Hammersmith and Fulham are proposing to borrow against their “extremely
valuable” housing assets to build the homes.
Today they will submit their plan for a pilot scheme of 300
homes on a new “middle-class” estate to the Communities Secretary, Eric
Pickles.
The councils say many working families on average incomes
struggle to afford homes in central London, where a typical family home costs
£1 million.
Officials from Mr Pickles’ department are believed to have
worked with the councils on their plans.
The councils’ business case states: “Home-ownership is
increasingly unaffordable except to households on very high incomes, and
families on middle and lower incomes are being driven away from the area.”
Jonathan Glanz, Westminster city council’s cabinet member
for housing and property, said the plan aimed to give hard-working people on
average salaries “at least some chance” of living in central London. “At
present they are simply priced out,” he said. “We need to continue ensuring
that we provide for a wide range of people and maintain mixed communities,
including middle-class people on middle-range salaries.”
And who will pay orf the loans-the council tax payers...
Plans for a new multimillion-pound visitor attraction
celebrating the legend of Robin Hood have been announced.
Nottinghamshire County Council is seeking to build a £13
million visitor attraction called Discover Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest,
complete with medieval castle and fortified ramparts. If the plans are
approved, the 40-acre attraction would open in spring 2015.
There will be a host of indoor and outdoor displays, street
performers and an open-air theatre to bring the legend, life and times of Robin
Hood and his band of merry men to life.
Visitors will be able to have a go at activities including
firing arrows, wild food cookery demonstrations, and dressing up in armour.
A tournament field will be used for events such as jousting
shows, falconry exhibits, archery contests and costumed medieval theatre, while
visitors daring to enter the maze will encounter talking trees.
Prince Charlie will be well chuffed....
A weird pastime called Bokdrol
Spoek. Roughly translated as “spitting buck droppings is an African sport
popular enough to have its own official competition, in which contestants have
to put a kudu dung pellet in their mouth and spit it as far as possible.
The origins of kudu dung spitting
can be traced back to tribal hunters who had difficulties catching the fast
antelope. Most times the only sign of the animal was a trail of dung, which
meant it had been there but it was long gone. Apart from swearing at the elusive
kudus, hunters would engage in a contest of pellet spitting, to pass the time.
In countries like South Africa, the custom is so popular that there’s even a
championship held every year to find out who can spit a piece of antelope poop
the farthest.
Sounds like a crap hobby to me....
Well now you can, proposed legislation listed on parliament's website would grant permanent residency and ultimately Hungarian citizenship to outsiders who buy at least 250,000 Euros ($322,600) worth of special government bonds.
The proposed
legislation calls for the debt management office to issue special
"residency bonds" to foreigners. Holders of at least a quarter of a
million Euros' worth of the paper would get preferential immigration treatment.
"The goal of
the modification is to create the institution of 'investor residency' in
Hungary," the lawmakers who put forth the legislation wrote in their
proposal.
We do that here in Blighty-it’s called tax....
And finally:
A group of pastry chefs may have baked their way to a new
world title after creating a giant two-and-a-half tonne sponge cake.
The bakers spent three days whipping up the colossal sugary
treat celebrating the coat of arms of the Austrian town of Seiersberg.
More than 3,000 eggs were mixed with thousands of kilos of
flour and gallons of milk before chefs added in sugar and fruit for extra
flavour.
Head chef Werner Russ said he was 'proud' of the team's
'very light and tasty' creation.
'It is a normal cake mixture, with a biscuit base, normal
cream filling, and is topped with around 500 kilos of fruit,' he said.
Num, num, num....
That’s it: I’m orf to plant
a banana tree-or ten...
How to solve the energy crisis.
Angus
