Mental MPs: Photocopy Pillock: Whistling Otus jolandae: Chocwoccy heels: and Droning on.

Vanishing skywater, verbose atmospheric movement, Volumous lack of warm and not a lot of solar stuff at the Castle this morn, just returned from the stale bread, gruel and his Maj’s food run dahn the stables (Tesco), so far this week his food has gorn from £3 to £3.68 per box but if I buy two boxes I can pay £3 each, likewise his Dreamies have gorn from £1 to £1.34 but if I but three packs I can pay for two and get the third one “free”, no bloody wonder Blighty is so ballsed up, you are going to need a PhD in maths just to get your shopping before long-if they haven’t removed everything from the shelves in case ‘Orse bits are involved.

 

Up in the bit next to the leaning tower of Westminster

It seems that some of those who “rule Britannia” are going more than a bit gaga, MPs will be able to access a mental health clinic within Parliament which is being set up to deal with the rising number of politicians approaching doctors about depression and anxiety.

And to prevent Mental MPs from losing their seat on the gravy train on Monday Parliament gave final approval to the Mental Health (Discrimination) Bill, which scraps a law that says MPs automatically lose their seats if they have been sectioned for more than six months, as well as a rule allowing company directors to be removed because of mental illness.

And just to jump the queues for the poor, struggling knobheads “officials” have approved £25,000-a-year funding for the specialist treatment centre which will run alongside conventional GP services.

The body which oversees MPs’ working conditions has agreed to fund treatment such as cognitive behavioural therapy from specialists at St Thomas’s hospital.

A consultant psychiatrist is available at Westminster to diagnose mental health problems and referral for in-patient treatment will also be available, the Commons Members’ Estimate Committee decided.

 

Which may explain why we are so deep in the brown runny stuff.....

 

West to the big bit above the home of bare arms and the land of technology

 

Cops are circulating an image they believe a break-in suspect took of himself with a photocopier -- during the break-in.

It happened very early Sunday at Dan Murphy Ford on Bankfield Rd. in Manotick Ottawa.

The man got in to the dealership by prying open a door -- which triggered the alarm system.

He made off with some items, but police have not said what was stolen.

Investigators believe he photocopied his face and left it behind.

He's described as white with facial hair and was wearing a toque with a football logo on it.

Anyone with information is asked to call Ottawa Police robbery detectives at 613-236-1222 or make an anonymous tip to Crime stoppers at 613-233-TIPS (8477).

Tips leading to an arrest or a charge, qualify for a cash reward of up to $2,000 -- enough to buy a photocopier.

 

Or a ski mask......

 

East many, many miles to the isle of Lombok in Indonesia

“Experts” have apparently discovered a “new” species of Owl that whistles instead of the usual terwit-too-woo, although the owl has been known for at least a century, it has only now been recognised as a new species.

Previously experts had confused the bird, with brown and white feathers and big golden eyes, with a similar looking owl.

Its official name is Otus jolandae but scientists are giving it the common name Rinjani Scops Owl.

Two members of an international team independently recorded the signature whistle in 2003.

Ornithologist George Sangster, from the Swedish Museum of Natural History, said: "It was quite a coincidence that two of us identified this new bird species on different parts of the same island, within a few days of being on the island

 

Yeah-after a century....

 

And west again to the lone star state

Texas chocolatier Andrea Pedrazza has created what can only be considered the perfect (allegedly) Valentine’s Day gift for the ladies – chocolate high-heels.

Master chocolatier Andrea Pedrazza pours the brown goodness into plastic high-heel moulds and decorates them with gourmet ingredients to make them look as realistic as possible.

Her most popular creations are chocolate Christian Louboutin shoes which sell for $35. To recreate the designer’s signature red soles, the food artist uses red ganache. Available styles include simple colours, zebra or cheetah print and polka dots, so men wanting to gift their wives with their favourite shoes for cheap are bound to find something they like.

 

Glad I am foot loose and fancy free...

 

And finally: 

East to the lands where Afghans and Iraqis live

Allegedly nearly 450 British military drones have been lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Ministry of Defence has disclosed for the first time the five Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems used in the conflicts and the number that have perished due to pilot error, technical faults or the undesirability of retrieving them from hostile areas.

The MoD released details of the UAV incidents under the Freedom of Information Act, conceding that their operations were “viewed by some as contentious and there is therefore strong public interest in being as open and transparent as possible” about their use.

The figures show the military has lost one Reaper drone since 2007 – it is the only UAV that carries Hellfire missiles as well as surveillance and intelligence-gathering equipment. The drone, which has not been replaced, cost £10m.

There have been nine losses of another large UAV; the Hermes 450 Eight of the £1m aircraft were lost in Afghanistan and another in Iraq. The surveillance fleet has halved in size because of the incidents.

The UAV to suffer most is the Desert Hawk 3, a small hand-held UAV used by the army: 412 have crashed or been lost in the last five years. British forces have been using other mini-UAVs, the Black Hornet, and the Tarantula Hawk, in Afghanistan; 25 of them have perished during operations. The Black Hornet is the latest piece of UAV equipment to be deployed in the conflict. A mini-helicopter, it is equipped with a camera which gives troops video and still images.

Soldiers use it to peer around corners or over walls and the images are displayed on a handheld terminal.

A periscope would be much cheaper and you can’t hear it coming...

  

That’s it: I’m orf to demand some TV programmes and a film or two from Tesco

 

Today’s thought:

The anti-depressants are working then.

 

And the last mellow melody for a while

 

 

Angus

Eastern promise: No satellite for crims (maybe): Airbag with a “car” inside it: Choccywoccy choo-choo: Facing the cameras: and The International Banana Club Museum.

More than a drizzle of skywater, less than 60 watts of solar stuff, much less than a Sandy of atmospheric movement and a definite lack of lack of cold at the Castle this morn, the saga of the study has finally ended, all I have to do now is sort out the three bin bags of “useful stuff” I have put to one side.

 

From the land of copies to the land of Cons and Dems

 

Allegedly the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have taken more than £18,000 in donations from Huawei, a controversial Chinese company accused of posing a threat to US national security.

Apparently Huawei's UK arm paid more than £8,600 to send executives to a networking event at the Conservative Party conference, in the same week US politicians said its technology should be blacklisted from American government systems.

The company also paid £10,000 to the Liberal Democrats to sponsor a reception at its conference in Brighton.

Fuckwit U-Turn Cam has it seems secured more than £850,000 from donors who attended private lunches, dinners and parties at Number 10 and Chequers between April and June 2012. The Prime Minister has also hosted a dinner at Highclere Castle, the setting of television drama Downton Abbey.

Huawei, which denies any link to the Chinese state or posing any security threat, says it attended all three party conferences, including the Conservative business dinner in Birmingham.

A Conservative spokesman said the donation had been “fully and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission”.

“Huawei attended a dinner for which, under Electoral Commission rules, a proportion of the price paid was required to be declared,” he added.

A spokesman for the Liberal Democrats said: "The Company has donated to all three political parties, in our case sponsoring a reception at party conference. The donation was declared and approved by the Electoral Commission meaning it met all the criteria set down for political donations."

 

Oh well, that’s alright then...

 

From “pay up” Auntie

All prisoners in England and Wales ‘could’ be banned from watching channels such as Sky Sports in their cells, a government minister has indicated.

Offenders in private prisons are able to access pay-TV channels for a small weekly fee, but inmates in publicly run jails can only watch free-to-air ones.

The latest figures available, for December 2009, show that 4,070 prisoners in contracted-out jails had access to such channels in their cells - about 40% of inmates who were then held in private jails.

Since then the number of private prisons in England and Wales has risen to 14, while the prison population has also increased.

The security firm G4S - which runs six prisons - said prisoners did not enjoy an automatic right to TV in their cells.

"The provision of in-cell TVs... is a privilege which has to be earned," a spokesman said. "Poor behaviour will result in its removal."

 

Oh well, that’s alright as well then-I can’t afford Sky stuff....

 

East a lot to the radiation free land

 

Hiroshima University-affiliated startup business Humanix has recently revealed a three-wheel electric vehicle, called iSAVE YOU, which is covered with an airbag-like cushion material that springs back to its original form after absorbing impacts.

And you could own one for a mere 790,000 yen ($9,740 USD).

Professor Tsutomu, president of Humanix, told Japanese magazine Sponichi Annex that “the car will be perfect for our rapidly aging society and that there are already many requests for it from the elderly and disabled.” The cushions covering the vehicle are made of a tent fabric and sponge, and will absorb shock waves in case of an impact, protecting both the passengers and pedestrians. The iSAVE YOU can run up to 30 km on a single charge and can be recharged from any regular household electrical outlet.

The iSAVE YOU vehicle can be registered as a Trike (a bicycle with a light side-car) and it only requires a single, simple (almost free) inspection and registration procedures at the Light Motor Vehicle Inspection Centre rather that the regular, instead of the regular “Shaken” registration which costs over 100,000 yen ($,1000+).

Spiffing, can’t wait, sooo excited….

 

Back over to the left and visiting the land of……..something

Created by master chocolatier Andrew Farrugia, from Malta, this edible train model has set a new Guinness World Record the longest chocolate structure in the world. It measures a whopping 34 meters in length and features every detail of a classic steam-powered chuff-chuff.

Unveiled at the “Brussels Chocolate Week”, in Belgium’s capital city, this tasty masterpiece had everyone drooling. Made of 2,755 pounds (1250 kilos) of the finest Belgian chocolate, donated by chocolate brand Belcolade, this 34-meter-long steam train replica took Maltese chocolate artist Andrew Farrugia a painstaking 784 hours to complete.

 

Wonder how long it would take to eat it?

 

Left even more to the home of security and the land of insecurity

At least one law enforcement agency in San Diego is currently using software developed by FaceFirst, a division of nearby Camarillo, California’s Airborne Biometrics Group. It can positively identify anyone, as long as physical data about a person’s facial features is stored somewhere the police can access. Though that pool of potential matches could include millions, the company says that by using the “best available facial recognition algorithms” they can scour that data set in a fraction of a second in order to send authorities all known intelligence about anyone who enters a camera’s field of vision.

“Up to 4 million comparisons per second, per clustered server” — that’s how many matches a single computer wired to the FaceFirst system can consider in a single breath as images captured by cameras, cell phones and surveillance devices from as far as 100 feet away are fed into algorithms designed to pick out terrorists and persons of interest. In a single setting, an unlimited amount of cameras can record the movements of a crowd at 30-frames-per-second, pick out each and every face and then feed it into an equation.

Speaking to reporters with Find Biometrics in August, Rosenkrantz president and CEO of FaceFirst said that the system is already in place in Panama, where computers there process nearly 20 million comparisons per second “using a FaceFirst matching cluster with a large number of live surveillance cameras on a scale beyond any other system ever implemented.”

“Within just a couple of seconds whoever needs to know receives an email containing all the evidence and stats about the person identified along with the video clip of them passing the camera so they may be approached then and there,” he says. …

 

That’s us fucked in a couple of years then….

 

And finally:

 

Still in the place where fruit comes in yellow packages

It all started at a photography convention in 1972, when Ken Bannister, VP of a manufacturing company, passed out Chiquita banana stickers to people he encountered. The goal, he said, was simply to get people's attention and to make them smile. After all, what better way to garner a grin than by using the fruit that's "shaped like a smile."

Soon after, Bannister started receiving banana-related paraphernalia -- or "banana-phernalia" -- in the mail. Inspired by his banana publicity, and eager to keep people smiling, Bannister then began referring to himself as "Bananaster" and "T.B.," short for "Top Banana." The nicknames stuck and "Bananaster" eventually became the founder of the first ever International Banana Club.

Bannister received so much banana-phernalia that he decided to open the club's first and only museum, the International Banana Club Museum, in 1976. Today, the museum is home to 17,000 banana collectibles, all of which have been donated by members of the club. Objects range from a gold-sequined Michael Jackson banana to the world's only petrified banana. With so many objects, the museum holds the Guinness Book of World Record's title of "World's Largest Collection" devoted to one fruit.

Membership to the club is a flat rate of $15 and, just like Bananaster; members can come up with their own nickname. Additionally, members can climb up in social ranks; the more banana-phernalia one donates, the higher the "B.M." (Banana merit) they are rewarded, such as PHB, Doctorate of Bananistry Degree. Banana Club members are said to get extra discounts when presenting their Banana Card Clubs in public, though a simple smile is what the club strives for. And if the smile isn't enough, members can also brag about their fellow famous Banana Club-ers: Jay Leno and former US President, Ronald Reagan.

 

And their theme song:

 

 

 

That’s it: I’m orf to find some rainbows on the Nanoscale

 

And today’s thought:

Now that’s what I call airbags

 

 

 

 

Angus

Taking: Giving and taking: Whaffing calorie free choccy: Far-arri from the real thing: Photo-origami: and Monking around in Sarf Korea.

Sunny, cold and calm at the Castle this morn, I may try to mow the lawn later-if it has dried out enough and in preparation I have moved the bench to the ‘shady corner’, it looks so good I think I will leave it there.

And his Maj has managed to destroy his cat flap (in the back door not his rear exit), so I had to go dahn the town to purchase a new one, and while there popped into the “sorting office”, paid the ransom on my fence staples and came home more than a few squids lighter.

Allegedly the HMRC has done it again

Because of errors about 1.6 million people will start receiving demands within the next two weeks for an average £537 shortfall in the tax they paid last year, HM Revenue and Customs warned yesterday.

Meanwhile a further 3.5 million will be sent a rebate for the 2011-12 tax year, averaging £379.

If the figures are correct for the tax year which ended on 5 April, then Britons overpaid more than £1.3bn in tax for the year. Meanwhile, HMRC's miscalculations means it will be forced to claw back more than £849m from unsuspecting taxpayers.

Think they need a new abacus....

And according to the Irritable Bowel twins

Apparently Millions of mothers who have chosen to take time out of work will no longer be penalised once they are pensioners, Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has announced.

However, the overhaul is expected to hit wealthier workers, as the state second pension will be scrapped.

At the moment, people who do not work for 30 years do not qualify for the full basic state pension. Under the reforms, mothers and carers will be treated as if they had worked throughout their lives, benefiting them by £2,000 a year.

Mr Duncan Smith said women would be the "major winners" in the reformed system, which will mean that everyone who works or looks after others will receive a flat-rate payment worth at least £140 a week.

The measure will be applied to women who retire from 2015, giving an average of £40 extra a week to mothers who took time out of work. Currently, they receive a reduced entitlement for each year out of employment.

Chuffin wonderful-but it won’t save the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition in a couple of years...

Left to the land of the large and the home of the candy

Biomechanical engineer David Edwards has launched AeroShot Chocolate, an inhaler which provides the taste of chocolate in breathable form.

Using a small lipstick-sized tube, consumers draw fine particles of chocolate into their mouth to experience the taste of pure chocolate "re-imagined".

Aeroshot Chocolate follows the release of caffeine product AeroShot Energy earlier this year which used the same patented delivery system to administer a dose of breathable caffeine.

The product taps into the new-age food trend of "whaffing" or inhalable eating.

Edwards says the product works because the particles are small enough to enter the mouth and too large to go beyond it.

"The chocolate melts immediately upon landing in your mouth," the Harvard University biomedical engineering professor said. "Since the particles are so small and uniformly dispersed by the air, the taste is immediate, too.

The product is available in three dark chocolate flavours: pure chocolate, mint chocolate, and cherry chocolate and is designed to accompany a coffee, curb an afternoon craving or be consumed as a guilt-free dessert after a meal.

It is being launched this week at the Sweets and Snacks Expo in Chicago, Illinois and will be
available for consumers to purchase online from June 15 for US$2.99 ($2.97) per unit.



Cheaper to buy the real thing-sod the calories...

Dahn ere in ‘Ampshire

Chris Smart, 32 couldn't afford the classic Ferrari he'd always wanted - so he spent two weeks sketching and painting one on his garage door instead.

Married Chris, who studied art at college, said: "I hated the garage door before because it was really dull.

"I saw garage covers on the internet and wanted one unique to me. I have always loved this particular car and wanted to make it a bit of fun.

"People do have to do a double-take and they smile when they realise what it is. Lots of kids have been taking photographs."

The realistic three-dimensional scene also includes Harry Potter's broom, a KFC bargain bucket and a paint pot with Chris' name on it.

But the creative garage door hides a boring, standard garage, which contains tools, a push bike and boxes of junk.

Wife Kerry, 32, added: "Painting the car on the garage door is as close as he's ever likely to get to it unless we win the lottery."

Bless....

Left again to the big rock State

Researchers have demonstrated how to make origami using light of a specific wavelength.

They call the new folding technique photo-origami, and it could potentially be used as a way to manufacture 3D structures.

The team of mechanical engineers led by Professor Martin Dunn of the University of Colorado at Boulder has published a paper on their simulations and experiments of photo-origami in a recent issue of Applied Physics Letters.

Because photo-origami only uses light and a mechanical straining force to fold materials, it could potentially serve as a simple, automated sequential folding process. In their study, the researchers experimentally demonstrate how photo-origami works using a flat, two-dimensional polymer that contains photoinitiators. First, the polymer is stretched to create a mechanical strain. Then light is applied to a specific area of the polymer, such as along a line to be folded, which causes the photoinitiators to disassociate into free radicals. The highly reactive radicals then fragment and reform polymer chains, resulting in stress relaxation in the chosen area. This redistribution of stress through the material causes a change of shape as the material strives to achieve mechanical equilibrium, folding along the chosen line.

That process results in a single fold. For each additional fold, the irradiation, and potentially straining, steps are repeated. When the steps are performed in a specific sequence, the technique can produce complex shapes. To demonstrate, the researchers fabricated a heart and a six-sided closed box.

“In principle, this could make many complex structures consisting of bends and folds in arbitrary directions and sequences,” Dunn said. “The computational simulations can be used to design myriad structures, many that we could not conceive without simulations.”

As a form of technical origami, photo-origami could enable applications far beyond origami’s original purpose as a creative art. Technical origami can be used in situations in which an object must be stored and transported and later deployed for use. This need arises, for example, for space-based solar arrays, automobile airbags, tissue engineering, shopping cartons, and photovoltaic cells that optimally capture sunlight throughout the day. Origami could also be used to fold molecules into specific shapes for the purpose of tailoring their molecular properties.

Clever; but doesn’t it take all the fun out?

And finally:

Right a lot to the bit Sarf of Kim Jong (more than) Ill’s former domain

Six leaders from South Korea's biggest Buddhist order have quit after secret video footage showed some supposedly serene monks raising hell, playing high-stakes poker, drinking and smoking.

The scandal erupted just days before Koreans observe a national holiday to celebrate the birth of Buddha, the holiest day of the religion's calendar.

The head of the Jogye order, which has some 10 million followers, or about a fifth of the population, made a public apology on Friday, vowing "self-repentance".

South Korean TV networks aired shots of monks playing poker, some smoking and drinking, after gathering at a luxury lakeside hotel in late April for a fellow monk's memorial service.

"The stakes for 13 hours of gambling were more than 1 billion won ($875,300)," Seongho, a senior monk who uses one name, told Reuters on Friday.

He said he had reported the incident to prosecutors.

But at least they didn't kill anything....

That’s it: I’m orf to search the sandpit

And today’s thought:

Just relaxing.

Angus

Nudge-nudge: Full English chocolate: Chevy Fatwa: Icelandic Lagarfljótsormurinn fishing net: Hanging about in Utah: and the Wootton pheasant.

As cold as the coldest thing you can think of at the Castle this morn, the deep, crisp and even has turned into a bumpy ice skating rink and I have to go dahn to Tesco for some stale bread, gruel and his Maj’s food.

The Gallic flu has flared up and I have this urge to install a bidet... 

Despite the imminent ice-age, people dropping dead form lack of heat, austerity and patients popping orf in ’orspital the “Top story” on the Beeb news is that some Italian bloke who earns £6 million a year has resigned from his job as manager of something called The English football team over another bloke that allegedly made racial remarks about yet another overpaid diva.

So?

Meanwhile; according to the arse of Lords

Plans to get people to adopt healthier lifestyles will not work unless the government is more prepared to use legislation, peers believe.

The House of Lords science and technology committee said ministers seemed to be mistaken in their use of what is known as the nudge theory.

Nudging people is about getting them to change their behaviour without necessarily banning activities.

But the group said that did not mean legislation should not be used at all.

Committee chairman Baroness Neuberger said: "There are all manner of things that the government want us to do - lose weight, give up smoking, use the car less, give blood - but how can they get us to do them?

"It won't be easy and this inquiry has shown that it certainly won't be achieved through using nudges, or any other sort of intervention, in isolation."

 

Methinks big brother is about to stamp his feet...

“Scientist” have discovered that

Eating chocolate cake as part of a full breakfast can help you lose weight, new research says having dessert - along with the traditional fry up - burns off the pounds.

Morning is the best time to consume sweets because that's when the body's metabolism is most active - and we have the rest of the day to work off the calories, a new study shows.

Eating cookies or chocolate as part of breakfast that includes proteins and carbs also helps stem the craving for sweets later.

Amen to that...

  

East-ish to the land of big stone pointy things

Allegedly one of the spiritual leaders of Egypt issued a fatwa (law, regulations) which banned Muslims from driving Chevrolet vehicles. According to the new law, Muslims must not drive Chevrolet cars because the logo of the company is a Christian cross.

There are several theories about the origin of the Chevrolet "cross." One of them says that the designer of the logo was inspired with the pattern on the wallpaper of one of Paris hotels. Another one says that the author of the logo borrowed the idea from an American coal company. Some people say that the designer tried to make a logo that would look like a bow-tie.

Wouldn’t drive a Chevy anyway...

Left a lot to the dusty land

A cameraman has shot footage of what appears to be a giant serpentine creature weaving its way through the icy waters of Lake Lagarfljót in east Iceland.

While there have been several sightings of the Lagarfljótsormurinn or “Icelandic worm monster” in modern times, sceptics have suggested this latest iteration is probably just fishing net caught in the tide.

Legend has it that the Lagarfljótsormurinn started life as a tiny worm placed under a gold ring.

As a fully grown monster, it roamed the countryside, spitting poison and terrorising the local villagers.

While it was eventually thrown into the lake, it was never destroyed, and continues to bring bad luck to everyone it encounters.



Sounds a lot like the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition...

Left even more and down a fair way

British climbers Tom Randall, 32, and Pete Whittaker, 20, put themselves through two years training in a cellar to become the first to complete one of the toughest rock climbing challenges in the world.

The duo travelled to the Canyonlands National Park in Utah to take on a geological feature known as Century Crack – a 49m (160ft)-long gap between two huge rock formations to hang upside down.

The pair had already completed an arduous training programme using a replica of Century Crack built in Tom’s basement.

They completed 5,300m (17,500ft) of horizontal, upside-down climbing, 42,300 pull-ups and bicep curls, and almost 16 hours of static abdominal holds during their six-days-a-week regime.





Sounds a bit batty to me....

And finally:

Back in pheasant filled Blighty

A village postman has resorted to arming himself with stick to deter an aggressive pheasant who lives at the bottom of a resident's garden.

Villagers in Wootton, Staffordshire, are being terrorised by the bird, which regularly attempts to peck anyone who comes near.

Locals have now discovered the only way of pacifying the bird is to feed him raisins soaked in rum.

Not a pheasant plucker, but a.....

That’s it: I’m orf to wait for America and Eurasia to join up (I may be some time).

And today’s thought:

Angus