More than a touch on the lack of warm side, lots of missing
skywater, even less atmospheric movement and Dawn’s crack is still a while away
at the Castle his morn, spent most of the first day of twenty twelve plus one lying
on the bed watching all the films and things I have recorded over the last few
weeks-much more entertaining than the usual crap on the “proper” TV.
According to the top knob at the Dept of Witless Pillocks the
welfare system discourages claimants from working with newly published figures
from his department about how different groups have fared under the recession.
Allegedly means-tested benefits which excludes pensions and
child benefit - went up by between 1.8 per cent and 6.3 per cent each year from
2007 to 2012. The overall effect was that most benefits were 20 per cent higher
in April 2012 than in April 2007.
And that over the same period, the average weekly wage in
the private sector rose from £386 a week to £431, an increase of just below12
per cent.
Under the new “universal credit” rules:
Standard allowance
This is the basic
allowance: per month:
A single claimant
aged under 25 - £246.81
A single claimant aged 25 or over - £311.55
Joint claimants both aged under 25 - £387.42
Joint claimants where either is aged 25 or over - £489.06
A single claimant aged 25 or over - £311.55
Joint claimants both aged under 25 - £387.42
Joint claimants where either is aged 25 or over - £489.06
Which equates to:
£61.70 per week for a young person
£77.88 per week for
an older person
£96.85 per week for
a young couple
And
£122.26 per week
for an older couple
So over 5 years
those who do not / cannot work have had an increase of £10/£20-ish each week
and those lucky/well enough and in employment got £45-ish per week on average.
Numbers can be made
to do whatever you want them to but you need to look at these figures in
perspective.
It really is time
to stop listening to the scrounger mongers like the Irritable Bowel Twins who
are trying to divide Blightyites into have/have not’s or work/work not’s so
that they can garner votes in 2015 to remain in power and keep their
lifestyles.
Because no matter who you are or what you have today, tomorrow it could you be you that has to fill in the forty
page benefits claim form and stand in the queue for your weekly pittance.
According to “experts”
average annual food bills could go up by £240 as shoppers pay the price
for one of the worst wheat harvests since the Eighties.
Economists warn consumers face rises of up to a further two
per cent before prices steady in April or May.
An average basket of 10 basic foods – milk, bread, cheese, eggs, tea, sugar, potatoes, cereal, a chicken and a bag of carrots now costs £19.41 at Tesco. If prices rise as economists are forecasting it could go up nearly 40p by mid spring.
Vicky Redwood, of analysts Capital Economics, said wheat products have been affected worst.
The average family’s weekly food bill in September was £77.
Ms Redwood says that figure is now £80.85 but could rise to £81.62 by late spring, £4.62 more than in the autumn.
If this continues then the average annual bill will rise by £240 although experts are hopeful prices will start falling in the spring.
Ms Redwood says that figure is now £80.85 but could rise to £81.62 by late spring, £4.62 more than in the autumn.
If this continues then the average annual bill will rise by £240 although experts are hopeful prices will start falling in the spring.
See above item.....
Allegedly a Swiss newspaper
investigation has turned up an ugly side of the beautiful Alpine land: many
people like to include dogs and cats in their diet.
The Tages Anzeiger
said farmers in the Appenzell and St Gallen areas in particular slaughter the
creatures to eat themselves or to pass on to friends. The favoured breed is a
dog that is related to the beefy Rottweiler.
“There’s nothing
odd about it,” a farmer told the paper. “Meat is meat. Construction workers in
particular like eating it.”
Another farmer told
how he raised animals and then called in a butcher friend to kill them when
they were ripe for slaughter. And another described how he either shot the
creatures – usually adored as pets – or bludgeoned them to death.
According to the
report, people ate the meat as “mostbröckli” – more usually a form of beef or
ham that is marinated. One farmer said: “No-one knows what it is when you
prepare it in this fashion.”
Lovers of “cat and
dog” meals are not allowed to sell the flesh commercially, even though some
communities have pressed in the past for it to be sold on market days alongside
the usual fare of beef, pork and lamb.
The country also
has a small but thriving trade in cat pelts for coats and bedspreads.
While not on a
commercial scale, the practice horrifies animal rights activists in Switzerland
– but the eating of such creatures is not forbidden by law. In Switzerland, a
person who wants to kill a cat or dog will only be prosecuted if the killing is
itself cruel.
The Swiss
parliament rejected changing the law to protect dogs and cats from human
consumption in 1993.
That’s Switzerland
orf the bucket list then.....
According to allegations
by BBC Panorama reporter John Sweeney in a new book, "Church of Fear:
Inside the Weird World of Scientology," reports the New York Daily News.
In the New Mexico desert lies an allegedly secret
Scientology installation that includes a huge message for extraterrestrials --
a crop circle-type design that can only easily be seen from high above the
ground.
In his book, excerpted in The Sun, Sweeney writes that the two huge interlocking
circles -- each of which has a large diamond shape inside -- were created as
markers to guide special Scientologists "returning from space to find Mr.
Hubbard's works after a nuclear Armageddon wipes out humanity."
The BBC reporter tried to find "the space alien
cathedral that ex-Scientologists say was built deep underground by the church
in the 1980s at the cost of millions of dollars.
"Its vault houses the lectures of Hubbard on gold discs
locked in titanium caskets sealed with argon. The cathedral is H-bomb
proof," Sweeney reports in his book.
Sweeney went to the supposed site of the alien cathedral
accompanied by former Scientologist Marc Headley.
"Headley says he was 'audited' -- given spiritual counselling
-- by Tom Cruise, Hollywood superstar and leading church member. Marc says he
was also beaten up by the shadowy church's leader David Miscavige. The church
denies both incidents," Sweeney alleged.
People taking part in the Coney Island Polar Bear Club's
annual New Year's Day Polar Bear Swim enter the water in New York's Coney
Island January 1, 2013. The Coney Island Polar Bear Club is the oldest winter
bathing organization in the U.S. and every New Years Day holds the winter
plunge which attracts thousands of participant’s loonies.
Good luck with that….
And finally:
Good; wrap what is left of your brain around this “logic
puzzle”.
"Three gods A, B, and C are called, in some
order, True, False, and Random. True always speaks truly, False always speaks
falsely, but whether Random speaks truly or falsely is a completely random
matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking three
yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods
understand English, but will answer all questions in their own language in
which the words for 'yes' and 'no' are 'da' and 'ja', in some order. You do not
know which word means which."
It was dreamt up—and solved—by US logician George Boolos
shortly before his death in 1996.
The answer is here-sort of.
Did I solve it? Nah couldn’t be arsed....
And today’s thought:
Service delayed due to over running engineering work
Angus
