Not even a plan A (part trois): Bercow-no oil painting: Mar-M1-te: We fight back: Political cow piss: Exploding tofu: and a smart-phone motor.

A smidge warmer at the Castle this morn, no white crusty stuff but ample amounts of the wet stuff, the study is empty of any sort of defunct digitizers and his Maj is still bringing me worms.

And the interweb thingy is exceeding slow this Tuesday.

Today is of course “Autumn Statement” day

Son of a B.....aronet (and alien reptile in disguise) George (I'm glad I am a rich man) Osborne will try to convince us that “we are still all in this together” and that plan A is well on target.

He is expected to confirm that growth will be lower and borrowing much higher than planned.

And allegedly unveil further savings in the welfare budget - by not increasing all benefits in line with September's 5.2% inflation figures - or by a squeeze on working tax credits.

 

When plan A fails and plunges us back into the second bit of a double dip recession he will blame:

The Eurozone.

The snow.

The heat.

China.

America.

Public sector workers.

The price of sausages.

And us...

  

Still in La-la land

Dopey Bercow has had his picture taken; the painting will hang alongside those of his predecessors Baroness Boothroyd and Lord Martin in Speaker's House.

A £22,000 commission was paid for the portrait, while £15,000 was spent on "framing and heraldic painting", the Commons says.

British artist Brendan Kelly said he wanted to catch the Speaker "mid-action" in the Commons chamber.

Should have used a digital camera then-but don’t forget---you know the rest....

  

Up a bit to non Lancashire

A large-scale clean-up operation was under way after a tanker carrying more than 20 tonnes of yeast extract - believed to be Marmite - overturned on a busy motorway.

Police shut a section of the M1 in South Yorkshire at around 10.15pm last night following the incident, which saw the vehicle crash and spill its contents onto the carriageway.

Love it, wonder how they knew it was Marmite....

 

Over to the long warm bit of the non Marmite world

A group of men who were forced to pay for entry to a Playboy party in Los Angeles while women were admitted for free is suing the company, claiming sex discrimination.

According to the suit, men were charged $1,000 for admission to the "Leather Meets Lace" party at the Playboy mansion, while women were ushered in free of charge, TMZ reported.

The entry policy "promotes harmful, negative stereotypes," the suit alleges.

Damn, I missed that one....

 

East a lot to the sub continent

The Cow Protection Department of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is working on a soft drink made out of cow urine.

According to the RSS, cow urine can be used to treat a variety of ailments, such as liver disease and cancer. In fact, Prakash feels that despite the enormous advertising budgets of popular soft drinks Coca-Cola and Pepsi, his cow urine concoction will be able to hold its own due to being “good for mankind.”

Known in Sanskrit as “gau jal,” which means “cow water,” the soft drink should be available for human consumption by the end of the year. According to Om Prakash, the head of the department in charge of political cow piss, the drink will actually be “tasty.”

Bull shit....

 

Back over to the land of the chef and the home of cooking on gas

Just after 8:15 p.m. fire crews were called to an apartment building in the 300 block of Northwest Fifth Avenue in the heart of Old Town Portland Oregon.

A woman was cooking tofu and had rinsed out the pan with water when there was explosion. The blast was so powerful that it blew a 4 by 6 window out of the building and onto the street.

"When they arrived they found a woman sitting outside crying," Corah said. "She said there'd been an explosion and she was upset. She had a slight burn on her left hand, but was otherwise not hurt."

Another reason not to wash up....

And finally:

East to the place where the Japanese live

Toyota has unveiled the 'Fun-Vii', a futuristic interactive concept car that features a touch-screen door.

The experimental Fun-Vii - which stands for Fun - vehicle, interactive, internet - was being shown to the public for the first time ahead of the Tokyo Motor Show which opens this weekend.

Designed to show off how the strides being made in technology, the concept car works like a personal computer device, recognising and greeting its driver and allowing them to connect on the move, either with a tap of a touch-panel door, or through an in-car interface.

Bloody great; how the hell will I get that in the study when it goes tits up?

 

That’s it: I’m orf to Stonehenge to search for pits.

And today’s thought:

Angus

Pipped at the post: You pays your money: Washington water feature: Cut to build: Mobile rabbit: Bad advice: Adventurous Aussies’: and Time to tell.

More than cold at the Castle this morn, white crusty stuff all over the Honda as well as on the inside, the study is rapidly filling up with extinct enumerators and the butler is out gathering fat teenagers for the furnace.

I watched the final Grand Prix of the season on BBC1 yesterday, because of the cuts next year Auntie will only be showing ten of the twenty races live-the other ten will be “highlights”, but they have managed to “save” enough dosh to continue to pay ‘celebs’ to dance around at our expense.

For certain readers-Pippa Middleton has signed a six-figure publishing deal worth £400,000 to write a guide to party planning, which will be released in time for Christmas next year.

The book will be a guide to being the perfect party hostess. It will include recipes, anecdotes and details of how to throw a range of different types of event.

 Can’t wait....

Dying to get into hospital?

Click on the link above to find out if you will be dying to get out again....

Over in the Eastern states

Apparently “our” man in Washington “Sir” Nigel Sheinwald has splashed out £2,644 on a fire place and water feature to spruce up his office.

As a man who was brought in to preside over a new period of austerity, Sir Nigel raised eyebrows within the diplomatic world with his sumptuous office. “It looks like a James Bond villain’s lair,” whispers one. “It had to be refurbished in the final days of his predecessor, Sir David Manning, causing him great inconvenience.”

It remains to be seen whether Sir Nigel’s successor will retain the chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, with its white leather seats and built-in passenger television sets, as his official car.

All together now....”we are all in this together”...

Back in bollixed up Blighty

Son of a B....aronet (and alien reptile in disguise) George (I can count the number of cock ups on all three hands) Osborne is expected to announce another £5bn in spending cuts to pay for new building projects.

Badfart Snufflebum as he known among the rest of the extraterrestrial sideboard is to set out plans for a £30bn national infrastructure programme as he tries to breathe new life into the stalled economy.

A deal struck with pension funds will see £20bn invested in the decade-long programme, with the remaining cash coming from further spending cuts.

The first £5bn will come from spending cuts during the current spending period - up until the financial year 2014-2015.

A further £5bn will then come from spending cuts in the following spending period.

Schools, roads, power stations and high speed broadband will be some of the areas to receive a boost.

 There go even more of our pension funds....

Back over to the mild West

Lakeysha Beard, talked for more than half a day while on an Amtrak train going from Oakland, California, to Salem, Oregon. The loud mobile conversation lasted sixteen hours last Monday, after which police stopped the train for twenty minutes to arrest the woman.

In the train's car, a few passengers asked the woman to put the phone away or to stop a few times during the conversation prior to notifying the train staff. Staff members were unable to convince the woman to end the conversation and stopped the train to arrest the woman and halt the disruption.

 I just want to know which mobile has sixteen hours talk time....

And the newest member of the Royal Family

Is allegedly taking beauty tips from her stepmother-in-law, Duckess Kate has been receiving treatments from Deborah Mitchell after Duckess Camilla, the old nag wife of Prince Charles, recommended the beautician's bee sting facial.

Apparently Deborah has been treating Camilla for six years now. Like any customer who finds something good, Camilla has told her friends and in-laws, including Kate. Now she visits the Royal Family wherever they are in residence.

Which explains quite a lot....

Dahn Unda

Traditional beer sales are dropping as Australians are tempted not only by wine but by an increasingly varied range of other alcoholic drinks like trendy ciders and locally brewed ales.

Beer consumption per head has now slumped to a 60 year low according to recent figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

It was the Foster's TV ads of the 1980's featuring actor Paul Hogan as the stereotypical Aussie bloke, which helped plant the image of Australian men being huge fans of the "amber nectar".

However even that iconic Australian brewer has hit on tough times and Foster's now looks set to be sold to a London based company, SABMiller.

Do I give a XXXX...

And finally: 

As time moves on

Did you know?

As far as we know, time began with the formation of the universe in the instant of the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

 Our Sun is about five billion years old. The Earth is estimated to be 4,540,000,000 years old.

Earth was created on the evening of Saturday, October 22, 4004BC, according to James Usher the 17th Century Archbishop of Armagh who came to this conclusion by adding up the family histories mentioned in the Bible - such as Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel.

The oldest rocks yet discovered on Earth are crystals of zircon from Western Australia, which are more than 4.4 billion years old.

Between 1929 and 1940 the Soviet Union changed the length of the week t h re e times. In 1930 Stalin abolished weekends to fulfil work quotas. In 1931 it went to a six-day week and back to a seven-day week in 1940.

In the International Fixed Calendar, invented by Englishman Moses Bruine Cotworth in 1859, there are 13 months - with the extra month called Sol.

In 1836 John Belville began to sell time. He set his pocket watch at the Greenwich Observatory where he worked every morning and would sell the precise time to clients in the City. The family business went on until 1940.

Mice normally live to a maximum of three years of age, chickens to 10, cats to 21, horses to 40, goldfish to 49, elephants to 70, giant tortoises to 150 and whales to 200.

 A nanosecond is one billionth of a second... a long time compared to the femtosecond, the attosecond and the shortest possible unit of time - known as Planck time.

 The Julian calendar assumed a year is exactly 365.25 days - about 10 and three quarter minutes too long. By 1582, it was 10 days out of sync, so Pope Gregory XIII decreed that 10 days should be lost to put things right.

 Rock beneath Niagara Falls is worn away at a rate of about a metre a year by the flow of water from Lake Erie 165ft above.

 When the railways first reached Bristol trains seemed to leave 11 minutes early. The problem was the drivers had come from London, 200 miles west, where sunrise is 11 minutes earlier. The only sensible solution, applied in 1940, was for all UK trains to use London time or "railway time".

Beans, peas and tomatoes are said to grow best if planted in the second week after the new moon.

Count the seconds between seeing a flash and hearing thunder. Three seconds' delay means the lightning strike is 0.6 miles away.

Hummingbirds beat their wings 90 times a second when they are hovering. Flies can beat theirs more than 1,000 times a second.

Legend says the first Roman calendar came from Romulus, who was raised by wolves with twin brother Remus and founded Rome in 735BC. He was keen on the number 10, so his years had only 10 months.

At Julius Caesar's command in 46BC two new months were introduced - July named after him and August after his successor Augustus. This Julian calendar also had leap years.

Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.

If Earths history were compressed into 24 hours then the first humans would appear just 40 seconds before midnight.

Bristlecone pines are the oldest single organisms on Earth. Some have lived more than 5,000 years.

Info from The Book of Time, published by Mitchell Beazley, £20, www.octopusbooks.co.uk

That’s it: I’m orf to the Robot Olympiad.

And today’s thought:

Angus

Not even a plan A (part Deux): Oftwat: Dopey’s missus aims at Brighton: Frosty parade: Septic loo paper: Yeti isn’t: and a Folding pussy.

Cold and clammy with vast amounts of high velocity atmospheric movement at the castle this morn, the study has a couple of Macs awaiting a blow through and his Maj has discovered how to open doors by hanging on the handles.

I see that son of a B...aronet (and alien reptile in disguise) George (I failed my O level maths) Osborne is thinking about using £10 billion of our money to underwrite loans to small businesses.

Under the "credit easing" scheme, aimed at boosting growth, the government would underwrite banks' borrowing so they could borrow more cheaply.

I may not be very bright but isn’t “growth” so piss poor because the electorate doesn’t have any money to spend, thus we are buying less which leads to manufacturing decreases, which leads to more unemployment which leads to even more of us having less money to spend, which leads to....

Solution: we need more money-reduce VAT and go juice tax, ban above inflation rises by “energy” suppliers and transport movers then we could begin to spend again and maybe despite the Piss Poor policies Millionaires Club Coalition’s efforts to totally balls up Blighty the economy might begin to recover.

But then again, I may not be very bright.

 And talking of rip orf “providers”

Household water bills will rise by up to 10 per cent next spring, heaping further misery on consumers and adding as much as £60 to annual bills.

The price rises will further dent families’ disposable incomes, which are already depleted by rising petrol, heating and food prices.

Household water and sewage prices are fixed every April by the UK’s 22 water companies. The utility firms base their prices each spring on the previous November’s RPI inflation figure, meaning that next year’s bills will increase by the current rate of inflation, which is running at a near-record high of over 5 per cent. This alone will add £20 to the average household water bill of £356.

However on top of the inflation-based increase, industry regulator Oftwat allows water companies to raise prices by an additional amount each year.

These above-inflation allowances, which are pre-arranged by Oftwat every five years, will push many bills up significantly further.

For example Thames Water, which provides water to 9 million people in London and the Thames Valley, is allowed by the regulator to raise next year’s prices by 4.6 per cent above inflation. This means that a typical water and sewage bill in London could rise by £30 to £350 in total.

Of the UK’s 22 water companies, just six have been set targets by Oftwat to reduce their prices after inflation next year.

 Point made.... 

Meanwhile: 

House of Commons speaker Bercow’s bride

Wants to be an MP; Dopey’s better half marked her birthday last week by declaring she is ready to throw her "hat into the ring" to become a Labour MP. But, after confiding she didn't fancy all the "slogging around" looking for a seat, she has hopes of winning back a marginal for Labour.

Apparently "Brighton could be one, because I don't think they are into identikit politicians," she told The Argus newspaper in the city. "I know Brighton very well. I was brought up in West Sussex, and I love Brighton to bits."

Nice to see that bed sheet Sally is fully committed....

More than a smidge over to the left

A man in a "Frosty the Snowman" costume was arrested Saturday during the annual Christmas parade in Chestertown, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. He’s accused of scuffling with police and kicking at a police dog.

Sgt. John A. Dolgos tells The Star Democrat of Easton that 52-year-old Kevin Michael Walsh became agitated when a dog-handling officer tried to escort him away from the crowd.

Bit of a frosty reception then...

And further down the Americas

Federal prosecutors in Florida say at least three people working for a septic tank company duped customers into buying about $1 million in unnecessary products -- in some cases enough toilet paper to last more than 70 years.

More than a dozen customers were told they needed special toilet paper to avoid ruining their septic tanks because the federal government changed regulations on toilet paper. The federal government does not regulate septic tank products.

The trio pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiring to commit wire fraud.

The Miami Herald reported that they worked for FBK Products. A phone number for the Riviera Beach-based company was not working Saturday.

The trio faces up to two decades in prison when they are sentenced in February.

Hope the toilet paper in jail is soft.....

Right a lot to the other side of the non-existent iron curtain

Last month a group of international scientists made headlines last month after suggesting they were "95 percent" certain they'd found evidence that the elusive Yeti -- or fabled Siberian Snowman -- really exists.

But one scientist who was part of the big snowman hunt tells The Huffington Post that local Siberian officials staged the entire snowman scenario -- all for publicity.

 Oh Yeti is....

And finally:

Back over to the land of the pet and the home of the vet

A rare breed of feline descended from a Perthshire barn cat has become the hottest new pet in Hollywood.

The Scottish Fold – distinctive because its folded down ears give it an appealing “owl-like” appearance – has become one of the most desired cat breeds in America, with celebrities including Kirsten Dunst, Mia Farrow and country music megastar Taylor Swift – who tweeted pictures of her new Scottish Fold kitten last week – shelling out thousands of dollars to get hold of one.

The exotic breed is descended from a white barn cat that lived on a farm near Coupar Angus in 1961, when its unusual folded-ear appearance, believed to be the result of a spontaneous genetic mutation, caught the eye of local shepherd William Ross. He asked for a kitten from the litter for breeding purposes and every Scottish Fold is believed to be descended from that one animal.

Scottish Folds cannot be bred with each other without causing severe genetic mutation, meaning it is common for a litter to contain only one cat with the true folded ear appearance. As a result they regularly change hands for up to £1,000. Prospective owners are often placed on waiting lists or even entered into lotteries for available kittens.

Nowt to do with me.....bless....

That’s it: I’m orf to check for fakes.

And today’s thought: 

Angus

Not even a plan A: Driving up the costs: Suicidal turkey: Naked brain power: Dick ring and other Numptys: and Unsafe sex.

No mist at the Castle this morn, instead we have sky water-lots of it, the study is empty of damaged do-hickys, the garden is in need of a good hoovering to remove all the leaves, the elbow is almost fixed and his Maj is still bringing me worms.

After what seems like a decade since its inception

Next week on the same day that the “Chancellor”, son of a B....aronet  George (alien reptile in disguise) Osborne, delivers his Autumn Statement on the economy the independent Office for Budget Responsibility is expected to downgrade its previous prediction that public sector job cuts will be outweighed by a significant expansion in the private sector.

Treasury analysis of forecasts by City experts shows that the number claiming jobseeker's allowance is set to rise from 1.6 million to 1.76 million by 2013 – an increase of 160,000.

So far our beloved “chancellor” has managed to increase borrowing, increase inflation and increase the number of unemployed.

The members of the unelected Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition are a bunch of useless, arrogant, inept, Wankers who couldn’t organise an erection in a pole dancing club....

And:

According to “a study”

The cost of owning a car has risen by more than £800 a year over the past 12 months. Drivers have been hit by soaring fuel prices, a rapid rise in the cost of insurance, higher garage fees and the fall in cars’ resale value.

As a result motorists are now paying 14 per cent more than they did a year ago to run their cars; the increase is nearly three times the rate of inflation.

The figures, produced by the RAC and based on 17 different new cars, show that the average driver is paying £6,689 a year in motoring costs, compared with £5,870 in 2010.

According to the RAC pump prices rose by 12.4 per cent last year, adding £160 to the average driver’s fuel bill.

Insurance has gone up by 14.38 per cent with the average premium reaching £551. Drivers have found themselves footing the bill for rising personal injury class, insurance fraud and accidents caused by uninsured drivers.

Oh dear.....

Over in Pennsylvania on Thanksgiving Day

A wild turkey smashed through a plate glass window at an empty western Pennsylvania restaurant and ended up where millions of its fellow gobblers did-on a table.

Penn Hills police Officer Bernard Sestili told the WTAE-TV the feathered fowl didn't survive impact when it barrelled into the dining room of the Eat'n Park in Penn Hills on Thursday afternoon. The restaurant was closed at the time.

Sestili says he responded when the building's alarm went off.

He suspects the turkey may have been roosting in a nearby tree when it "got up this morning and went for his morning flight and flew into the window."

Stuffed Turkey...

Back over to the cold bit of ex-Europe

According to “scientists” looking at naked bodies boosts brain power.

Scientists in Finland said gazing at nudes activates response regions of the brain and gives it a tune-up.

They said someone looking at a picture of a naked or scantily-clad person processed the image in less than 0.2 seconds, much quicker than the time the brain takes to process a fully-clothed person and kick-starts the mind.

Participants were shown pictures of men and women either wearing everyday clothes or nude. Males’ brain responses were stronger to nude female than nude male bodies, whereas the female participants’ brain responses were not affected by the sex of the bodies.

No shit.....mind you it does depend on the nude.....

Left a bit to the Smoke

A man who turned up at hospital with a ring stuck on his penis had to be cut free by 10 fire-fighters, according to data released today.

It took fire-fighters 20 minutes to remove the ring after staff at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich, were unable to prise it from the man's genitals.

Two fire engines were dispatched to perform the delicate procedure, which took place on the evening of May 1.

There were three incidents in one year in which fire-fighters were called to remove a ring stuck on a penis, it was revealed in London Fire Brigade statistics covering April 2010 to May 2011.

The disclosure is one of 417 incidents attended by London's fire-fighters over the last year involving people stuck in objects, machinery and furniture not including road traffic accidents.

The calamities included a man who became stuck in a child's toy car in Kingston-upon-Thames; a youth wedged in an ironing board in Bromley; a person with their fingers stuck in a DVD player in Barking; several children with toilet seats and potties stuck on their heads; and 36 people trapped in handcuffs.

The removal of rings from fingers accounted for 160 incidents, while 74 people had "other" objects removed. 133 people had become trapped in or under machinery or other objects, and 14 people were impaled.

Ah-the good old British eccentric....

 And finally: 

Over to the warm bit of ex-Europe

A naked woman was left dangling over the edge of a banister after she tumbled over the handrail while having sex with her husband.

The 49-year-old, who has not been named, was on holiday in Tenerife at the time of the incident and tumbled while having sex with her partner in a hotel stairwell.

She dropped several feet and was only saved from hitting the marble floor below as her ankle was trapped between two bars.

Her husband contacted the emergency services and firemen freed the red-faced holidaymaker.

She was taken to hospital where she was diagnosed with a broken ankle, and to add to the embarrassment, the sirens on the ambulance weren't working so she had to be given a police escort.

A police spokesman told the Daily Mail: 'Her good luck was that getting her leg caught stopped her from falling. Her bad luck was that she broke her ankle, was naked and couldn't get free.'

He added that while the couple do not face any police charges, they have been warned to think about safe sex in the future.

Daft mare-should know better at her age....

That’s it: I’m orf to investigate composites. 

And today’s thought:

Angus

Excessive wind: Who owes what: Nippy nutter: Hairy wear: Stiff pants: and Compo Copper.

Cold, wet, dark, foggy and dismal at the Castle this morn, no post yesterday the elbow had escalated from extremely painful to excruciating so I spent the day curled up in a ball whimpering while stoned out on industrial strength painkillers.

But the swelling has reduced to the size of a tennis ball and the pain has subsided to merely agonising.

The Piss Poor Policies Millionaire Club Coalition’s “Green Energy” attempts seem to have hit a snag.

Following complaints about the noise of rotating blades from nearby residents, operators have agreed to switch off the machines or reduce their speed when the wind is blowing too strongly.

The agreements, which mean the turbines generate less electricity, have been revealed in dossiers from local authorities about their investigations into noise pollution complaints.

They show that at Askam wind farm, near Barrow-in Furness, in Cumbria, which comprises seven turbines, a control system was installed to turn off the machines when wind speeds get too high.

After complaints about noise from a 12-turbine wind farm on a former RAF base at Lissett, near Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, environmental health officers found that high winds caused the machines to exceed the noise limits laid down in the scheme's planning conditions.

So an arrangement was reached whereby some of the turbines were slowed down when the wind was blowing at certain speeds and from certain directions.

I posted the answer to energy problems over on Nourishing Obscurity a while a go-water wheels...

For some time I have been a bit confused by the amount of dosh owed by whom to who in this broken Europe.

But now Auntie has come up with a spiffing foreign debt “interactive pie chart” to help out dim gits such as myself. 

It seems that:

Dear old Blighty is in debt to the tune of about 7.3 Trillion Euros.

Germany owes 4.2 Trillion Euros

Le France doesn’t have 4.2 Trillion Euros.

Espana lacks 1.9 Trillion Euros.

Italia needs 2 trillion Euros.

The heart of democracy wants 0.4 Trillion Euros.

Portugal is devoid of 0.4 trillion Euros.

And Ireland lacks 1.7 trillion Euros.

Not as bad as I thought-7,300,000,000 Euros; that works out at about £500 at today’s exchange rate, anyway click on either of the links above and spend a while getting even more confused...

Over in the land above the States

Provincial police are looking for a naked jogger with a beer belly after he was spotted by a female runner Tuesday at about 5 a.m. in Innerkip.

The runner is described as a balding white man in his fifties, six-feet tall, with a moustache.

This isn't the first time the nude jogger has been seen in the area, said police.

Innerkip is about 130 km southwest of Toronto.

No fool like a wrinkled old fool.

Back in the city of “calm down”

A Liverpool dressmaker who shot to fame through TV's My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding has created a gown made entirely from human hair.

Thelma Madine's bizarre creation was made from 250 metres of hair extensions and now has a price tag of more than £50,000.

She worked with Voodou hair salon in Liverpool to create the dress, which took eight dress designers more than 300 hours to complete.

The brain child behind the hairy dress was Voodou stylist Ryan Edwards.

Mr Edwards said: "It's something that we've been thinking about designing for a while as it's just so different.

"I approached Thelma and her team to see if they would be up for doing it and they loved the idea. It took a team of about eight people just over 12 days to make and as you can see, we used a lot of hair!"

Not only does the dress contain 250 metres of hair but tens of thousands of individual hair wefts and different pieces of hair, as well as 1500 crystals and 12 underskirts. It weighs approximately 15 stone.

Hairy couture.

East to place where things glow in the dark

Enter the MXP Calorie Shaper Pants.

For a whopping $32, these shiny boxer briefs purport to aid in the burning of additional calories.

The secret (apparently) lies in their resin coating, which makes them stiff. This added stiffness provides resistance, leading to an increased number of calories burned.

For example, a 140-pound man walking 90 minutes per day can burn upwards of the equivalent of a half litre of beer a week.

 

My underpants are stiff-nothing to do with losing weight though....

And finally:

Back in Blighty and up a fair amount

A former police officer is suing the Lothian and Borders force, claiming a training exercise left her scared of sirens.

Louise McGarva is seeking £500,000, alleging she suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after taking part in a simulated riot that spiralled out of control. She said she had been left with a fear of police cars and sirens after being crushed during the riot training in a former hospital building in West Lothian.

Lawyers for the 35-year-old allege that eight officers were left injured during the exercise after their instructors attacked them with “baseball bats, long batons and martial arts”, using “excessive” force.

Ms McGarva said she repeatedly passed out after being crushed in the melee while an officer giving her medical assistance allegedly told her she had “had it” and was going to die.

The former officer, who retired on grounds of ill-health, said the incident left her suffering from nightmares and flashbacks, as well as depression and panic attacks, and she needed psychological treatment at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital.

 

She should be cured then......

That’s it: I’m orf to have what’s left of my brain chipped. 

And today’s thought on this Sunday: Lord save me from your followers.  

Angus

Northern cock-up: Carriage on the line: Advanced Hypersonic Weapon: Chastity and Cuckolding: Axing snowploughs: and some 3d art.

Warmish, dryish, calmish and sunnyish at the Castle this morn, the study is still a vacuum for ex computing thingies and I had the injection in the right elbow yestermorn-bloody painful, it has swollen up to a size larger than U-Turn Cam’s ego, so I am writing this with left hand only.

I don’t usually do football but;

Apparently there is a bit of hoo-ha over some bloke called Step Ladder who runs the football thingy.

Allegedly Step Ladder is facing calls for his resignation after claiming that racism on the pitch is not a problem and that racist abuse between players should be settled by a handshake.

Fine; whatever; now stop putting it on every “news” channel on the box....

 And: 

Son of a B....aronet (and alien reptile in disguise) George (I don’t have a GCSE in maths) Osborne has managed to sell orf our Northern Rock bank for £400 million less than “we” paid for it.

The lucky recipient of this knock down gift is old beardy Branson who must be rubbing his hands together in glee over 75 branches, 2,100 staff, one million customers, a £14bn mortgage book and retail deposits of £16bn. The combined business will operate in the high street under the Virgin Money brand.

The Chancellor insisted the deal – under which Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Money takes Northern Rock over for £747m, possibly rising to £1bn – represented good value.

Meanwhile “we” are keeping the £20bn of toxic assets such as bad debts and closed mortgages.

Who “voted” for this unelected bunch of Wankers?

Meanwhile up in the Chilterns

Chiltern Railways is scrapping a service because the train is too big.

For years around 30 or so commuters in Saunderton, Bucks could rely on the 7.19am to Marylebone Station which would get them into London just after 8am.

But from next month the service is going to disappear because the train will be too long for the platform.

This follows the decision of the company to add a seventh carriage to the service to ease overcrowding, but alas it is one too many for Saunderton station.

As Chiltern does not employ guards, it is not possible to only open some of the doors on the train.

 

Makes a change from leaves, wrong type of snow/rain/heat and Lions I suppose....

Over the sea to the big bit on the left

Allegedly the Pentagon held a successful test flight on Thursday of a flying bomb that travels faster than the speed of sound and will give military planners the ability to strike targets anywhere in the world in less than a hour.

Launched by rocket from Hawaii at 1130 GMT, the "Advanced Hypersonic Weapon," or AHW, glided through the upper atmosphere over the Pacific "at hypersonic speed" before hitting its target on the Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands, a Pentagon statement said.

Kwajalein is about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometres) southwest of Hawaii. The Pentagon did not say what top speeds were reached by the vehicle, which unlike a ballistic missile is manoeuvrable.

Scientists classify hypersonic speeds as those that exceed Mach 5 -- or five times the speed of sound -- 3,728 miles (6,000 kilometres) an hour.

The test aimed to gather data on "aerodynamics, navigation, guidance and control, and thermal protection technologies," said Lieutenant Colonel Melinda Morgan, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

The US Army's AHW project is part of "Prompt Global Strike" program which seeks to give the US military the means to deliver conventional weapons anywhere in the world within an hour.

Back in the bunker...

Back in the Smoke

A London dominatrix has mastered the world of academia - and is well on her way to a doctorate in sexual fetishism.

Hannah Platt, aka Mistress Absolute, is studying at Birbeck College at the University of London in an effort to become a leading authority on 'Chastity and Cuckolding'.

The professional dominatrix has more than 10 years experience and has made full disclosure of her profession to university authorities.

"I have made no secret of my professional life," she said. "They were cool about the whole thing and understood that my day job gives me a unique insight in to the subject matter.

"I am studying all aspects of chastity and cuckolding from a historical and psychoanalytical perspective. It is truly fascinating - and extremely relevant in these troubled times."

Mistress Absolute will be sharing some of her experience this weekend by running a special Fetish Club Zone at the Erotica adult lifestyle event at the Olympia in London.

 

Wonder if there are any tickets left...

Back over to the left

An axe-wielding man attacked a snow plough truck in Big Lake earlier this month, apparently because he was angered by a snow berm (A ridge of snow pushed up by a plough) blocking in his car, according to charging documents.

The truck's driver, James Ross, told Alaska State Troopers a man with a "maul-style axe" ran in front of his truck on Saquonee Street in Big Lake the afternoon of Nov. 6, forcing Ross to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting the man, according to a trooper affidavit filed in court.

Then Logan hit the driver's side door of the truck with the axe, causing about $200 in damage, according to the affidavit. Ross drove away, fearing that Logan would attack him next, the court papers say. The plough driver then gave troopers Logan's description and told them where the attack occurred.

The man, later identified as 44-year-old Vernon Logan, swore at Ross while asking what Ross was doing, the court papers say.

Err, snow plough-what did he think he was doing...

And finally: 

Back to the Smoke

3D Street artists Joe & Max turned part of London's Canary Wharf quayside into the longest and largest 3D artwork as part of the Guinness World Records Day today.

The waterfall image measures 1,160.4 metres square and is 106.5m long, beating the previous 892.15metre square record set by China's Qi Xinghua, and will remain on display until tomorrow.

Or until it rains...

That’s it: I’m orf to plumb the depths of the moat. 

And today’s thought: I went to the bank and went over my savings. I found out I have all the money that I'll ever need. .. . If I die tomorrow." -- Henny Youngman

Angus