BMW box bangers: Care from a Virgin: Barmy burglars: Eat me: Neutrino Numpty: and Smokin Dahn Unda.

A definite lack of vertical distance in the liquid metal gauge at the Castle this morn, the big warm yellow thing has been replaced with lots of opaque sky stuff, the butler is back to shoving fat, carbon neutral teenagers into the furnace and his Maj has discovered the joy of waiting for me to “cultivate” the borders and then leaving me a present.

To all those plonkers who didn’t panic but rushed to their nearest go-juice station to “top up” their tanks-you have been had by the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition who has raked in quite a lot of loot from human nature...

Still in battery powered Blighty

BMW is recalling more than 100,000 cars in the UK due to a battery problem which could in extreme cases cause a fire.

A BMW spokesman said it was recalling 109,000 5 Series and 6 Series models in the UK because of "an issue with a battery cable cover which, in a small number of cases, has been incorrectly fitted. In rare cases this could result in owners not being able to start their vehicle. In extremely rare cases the electrical system could malfunction, leading to a scorching of the boot floor and a fire may result. This issue has come to light through the continuous testing and development of BMW vehicles and some customer feedback.”

No accidents or injuries to a person have been reported. The number of cars affected by this recall during the seven-year time frame in the UK is 109,000. Owners of affected cars will be contacted in the coming weeks and asked to arrange a visit to their dealer.

Any concerned BMW 5 Series and 6 Series owners should contact the BMW customer service number on 0800 325600.

Should have gone to Honda...

Despite “promises” that the NHS would not be privatised

Thousands of patients are to be cared for by staff working for a private company after Virgin Care finalised the biggest outsourcing deal yet for running day-to-day NHS services.

The company, part-owned by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group, has signed a £500 million, five-year contract to run a wide variety of community health services in Surrey.

Virgin Care will take over the running of Surrey Care Services, part of NHS Surrey, the local primary care trust.

Responsibilities include running eight community hospitals, where elderly people often recover after an operation, before being sent home.

Virgin Care will also provide community nursing - helping people stay at home, or providing end-of-life care - and health visitors for parents with young babies.

Other services being outsourced include breast cancer screening, sexual health clinics, specialist dental work, physiotherapy and rehabilitation.

About 2,500 NHS staff will be transferred to Virgin Care, although an NHS Surrey spokesman said there would be "no change" to their pay and conditions.

A joint statement from NHS Surrey and Virgin Care claimed: "This is essentially a transfer of management and follows national guidance that allows the trust to focus on developing, buying and managing the performance of services, leaving the provider to concentrate on delivering services."

Anne Walker, chief executive of NHS Surrey, described it as "excellent news for patients, carers and staff".

Yeah right...tell us that in a year or so when the “truth” comes out...

Up a smidge to Essex

Plod has come up with a cunning plan to prevent burglaries-by breaking into people’s homes.

Police in Shoebury, Essex, have been going round testing doors and windows of houses to check if they have been left unlocked - and if they find an easy way in they will wake up the household to warn them their house is insecure.

The new police campaign is aimed at warning people of the dangers of late-night break-ins.

 

That should make some poo come out....

Right to the land of Fallic Glu

At the 'Salon du Chocolat' in Bordeaux, France chocolate dresses are on show.

Num. Num, num and don’t forget that according to “experts” eating choccy will make you slim...

Up a bit to where faster than light is the norm

Antonio Ereditato CERN’s project's coordinator has disappeared at less than the speed of light after they discovered that neutrinos don’t blow Einstein’s theory into the past.

Probably some biscuit crumbs in the works-again...

And finally:

Dahn Unda and right a bit

New Zealand's first cannabis club has installed a vending machine to dispense the drug.

The club, the Daktory in the West Auckland suburb of New Lynn, has been using the machine to avoid any members being charged for dealing in the drug.

The hired vending machine, usually filled with toys or confectionery, sells one gram bags of cannabis for $NZ20 ($15.70), the AucklandNow website reports.

The Daktory opened in November 2008, but after its founder Dakta Green was jailed in June 2011 for possessing, selling and allowing the warehouse to be used for drug taking, its doors closed.

It has since been used as the headquarters for the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (Norml).

However, Norml president Julian Crawford confirmed the Daktory club was again open for business.

Mr Crawford said the vending machine has been a “hit” with guests.

Sounds a bit potty to me....

That’s it: I’m orf to tot up Super Earths

And today’s thought:

Private health care

Angus

The final frontier; Mississippi Emu; Daily Numpty; Aussie Nessie and Greek Grass

The weather is “good” the cat’s asleep and my new wireless thingamabob seems to be working, and I see that Barak Obama doesn’t want to speak to our Gord when he visits America for the UN talks and the G20 in Pittsburgh.

It seems that Barak is a bit miffed about the Lockerbie bomber release thing, and that other “dying” criminal, Ronnie Biggs was seen tearing about on a mobility scooter, taking the piss or what?


Any way: First up:

See space for £90

American students Oliver Yeh and Justin Lee have taken images of the earth's surface using a camera bought on eBay, a weather balloon, a mobile phone, hand warmers and a drink cooler at a total cost of £90.

The idea was 20-year-old Oliver Yeh's, a student studying computer science and electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in America.

To create the budget space camera, the students bought a normal camera on eBay and fastened it inside a Styrofoam cooler. They then poked a hole in the side of the cooler for the camera lens.

To keep track of the space camera's whereabouts they attached a mobile phone and a wireless router to send GPS coordinates back down to Earth.

They set the camera to take a photo every five seconds.

The hand warmer - the type skiers put in their gloves - was taped to the phone's battery to prevent it freezing. The whole package was strapped to a spherical weather balloon filled with helium and sent to the edge of space to take the extraordinary images.

The students launched the balloon on the morning of September 2 after travelling 60 miles inland to a warehouse in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. The balloon was in the air for five hours before the air pressure forced it down.

The duo were amazed when they found the camera unharmed at a construction zone outside Worcester, Massachusetts, 25 miles away from the launch site.

NASA Take note.

Catch that Emu

Officers had to use a stun gun and handcuffs to capture an emu running loose on Interstate 20 in central Mississippi on Sunday. Police Officer Kiley Culpepper told WLBT-TV in Jackson that motorists had been calling 911 since Friday to report sightings of two emus on I-20 and nearby U.S. Highway 80.

Authorities had been unable to find the animals until Sunday, when one was spotted near an I-20 entrance ramp.

The big bird was dodging traffic. Culpepper and deputies were able to surround the animal but has to use the Taser and handcuffs to finally get it off the road.

After being captured, the animal was taken to the Scott County Forest Coliseum.

Big barbeque in Mississippi tonight then.

Don't do this at home

An Imperial man is dead after accidentally shooting himself in the head while teaching his girlfriend firearms safety.

Sheriff Glenn Boyer said that on Friday, deputies responded to 4307 Rock Valley Court in Imperial for a shooting. Investigators found 40-year-old James Looney with a gunshot wound to the head.

According to witnesses, Looney was demonstrating how to use the different safety mechanisms on several guns to his girlfriend. The witnesses said Looney would put the guns to his head, and before pulling the trigger, would ask her if she thought the gun would go off.

With the first two guns, the safety mechanisms worked. The third gun fired.

Looney was transported to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead the next morning.
According to witnesses, Looney was going to take his girlfriend to the shooting range the next day, but insisted on the lesson on firearm safety the day before.

Deputies believe alcohol was involved.


This guy is/was a Numpty of the first order, still his name is apt.

Has Nessie moved?

Brigette Horvath knew she saw something strange in Cameron Lake on Vancouver Island two years ago and a team of researchers say she might be right.

Researchers who specialize in looking for so-called crypto zoological creatures - in other words, monsters - spent Saturday on the lake probing the depths with a sonar-like fish finder.

At first, they picked up a couple of large contacts at the bottom of the lake, about 45 metres deep, then something more pronounced on a second pass.

"Something just went 'ping' on the alarm on the fish finder and we saw this absolutely massive object in the midst of various fish," said John Kirk, president of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club.

Because the weather will deteriorate in the fall and winter, another search will have to wait until next year, Kirk said.

But the team has narrowed the possibilities.

"Maybe it's a sturgeon, maybe it's a giant sterile eel....it could be a massive type of salamander," Kirk said. "Or it could be something that we're completely unaware of at this point."

Nice to be so positive.

And finally:

The green green grass of Greece

Police in northern Greece have arrested a 35-year-old man who allegedly grew cannabis in the middle of the country's busiest motorway, a police officer said.

"The suspect had planted 42 plants up to 1.8 metres high, probably in April or May," Pieria prefecture police director Thanassis Fotopoulos told state television NET.

The illegal patch on the median strip of the Athens-Thessaloniki motorway had ample access to water after the man tapped into piping installed for the strip's original greenery, Mr Fotopoulos said.

The arrest last week was made following an anonymous tip-off, the police said.

How many times have the police driven past the plants?

Angus

AnglishLit

Angus Dei-NHS-THE OTHER SIDE

Angus Dei politico

SATURDAY SNIPPETS 2

The power of advertising

From The Telegraph Liverpool Street Station was brought to a standstill by 12,000 people copying the T-Mobile advert.

The event was organised on Facebook. The crowd, who were all listening to music through headphones, broke into dance at 7pm on Friday night in a scene which aped the advert which was filmed at the station last month.
The flash mob caused police to close the station for around 90 minutes due to fears of overcrowding.
Participants, some of whom had travelled hundreds of miles to take part, said the station was so packed that there was no room to dance.

Wonder if there were any sheepdogs present?

Two pints of milk and a joint please

A milkman delivered cannabis to pensioners on his rounds to help ease their "aches and pains", a court has heard.

His customers left him notes on the doorstep asking for the drug to be left with their daily pint. When his Ford Transit van was searched, officers found 15 wraps of cannabis, weighing 178 grams, stashed in egg crates. The Class B drug was divided into various different weights and had a street value of £450.

He was sentenced to 36 weeks in prison suspended for a year, the decision to spare Holding jail was an "act of mercy" because his wife had Alzheimer's and depended on his care.

Click on the link and take a look at the photograph and all will be revealed.

Oh S**T

A student has lost seven years of research after a bag containing 77 Kilos of rare butaan lizard excrement he had collected rom the rainforest in the Phillipines was thrown out.

"But to me it represented seven years of painstaking work searching the rainforest with a team of reformed poachers to find the faeces of one of the world's largest, rarest and most mysterious lizards.

"Its loss left me reeling and altered the course of my life forever." He said. The University has offered him 500 pounds in compensation and an apology, after the student lodged an official complaint about the loss.
But Bennett says this is not enough, and has vowed to "see them in court".
"Whether it was the largest collection of lizard sh** in the world is uncertain," he said.


It all sounds like a load of crap to me.

Try and try again, and again, and again, and again……

A South Korean grandmother has failed her driving test 771 times, police said Thursday, but a local newspaper reported she will keep trying.

The 68-year-old, identified only by her last name Cha, has taken the test almost every working day since 2005 in the south-western city of Jeonju. She failed again Monday for the 771st time.

Police estimate she has spent almost five million won (3,600 dollars) to take the written test, with each test costing 6,000 won in addition to other expenses.


I have absolutely no comment.

Here are some strange newspaper articles.

And finally.

Our beloved leader the one ey…perhaps not, has managed to do it again, the national flag was displayed upside-down at a ceremony with visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

Even worse, observers note teasingly that the gaffe reflects his current political woes, since traditionally flying the flag upside-down on a ship signifies that it is in distress.
The red white and blue flag, commonly known as the Union Jack, was proudly in place at a ceremony to sign a business deal in Brown's Downing Street office on Monday.

But eagle-eyed observers noted that the flag was mistakenly attached upside-down on the wooden stick, placed on the table in front of Business Secretary Peter Mandelson.

Mike Kearsley, director general of the Flag Institute said "I'm surprised that people of the calibre of Mandelson and the prime minister could allow such as mistake.”


I’m not!

Vir sapit qui pauca loquitur. (It is a wise man who speaks little.)



Angus
NHS

Angus Dei politico