The car now passing platform two: Atheist temple: C.U. panda: Bacon tampon: and Irish bricks.

Cold, damp, drear and really ‘orrid at the Castle this morn, the mock orange shrub is still in place despite plans a, b and c, the shed is full of bags vandalised bits for the “recycling centre” and after my first full week of ‘retirement’ I am bored.

But even more crocus/s have pushed their heads up to meet the “arctic” weather we have been promised.

Dahn ‘ere in ‘Ampshire

An 85-year-old drove down a high-speed railway line for 80 yards after taking a wrong turn at a level crossing.

The woman had a 20-year-old man in her car as she drove towards Brockenhurst station in Hampshire's New Forest.

She turned on to the main line between Bournemouth and London Waterloo and drove for 80 yards on the tracks before her car came to a halt.

A British Transport Police spokesman said: "BTP and Hampshire Police officers attended the line near to Brockenhurst rail station after a report that a car had been driven on to the line from the level crossing.

Rail services in the area were disrupted as a result of the incident, with buses brought in to replace trains.

 

But they couldn’t get past the car on the tracks...

Up in the Smoke

There is a bit of bovver over an atheist temple, Alain de Botton, the philosopher and writer, has proposed constructing a 150ft tower in the heart of the capital’s financial district to celebrate atheism as a positive force.

However, the idea has been condemned by Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and author, as a waste of money and a contradiction of terms.

De Botton’s proposed temple is designed to celebrate more than 300m years of life on earth. Each centimetre of the tower's interior has been designed to represent a million years and a narrow band of gold will illustrate the relatively tiny amount of time humans have walked the planet. The exterior would be inscribed with a binary code denoting the human genome sequence.

Construction could start by the end of 2013 if permission is granted by the Corporation of London.

Almost half the funds for the project have already been raised from an anonymous group of property developers, de Botton said. He hopes to find the rest of the money with a public appeal.

He can appeal all he likes I don’t believe in atheism....

North of the border

Edinburgh Zoo on Tuesday unveiled a new panda tartan, commissioned to commemorate the pandas Tian Tian and Yang Guang. It is black and white.

The tartan, approved by the Scottish Register of Tartans, was created by the Edinburgh Company Kinloch Anderson.

Senior director Deirdre Kinloch Anderson explained other elements of the design: "The green line is for the pandas' favourite food of bamboo. There are three fine red lines to represent China. Number 3 is China's lucky number, and also the red lines are in the heart of the design to indicate that the pandas are in the hearts and minds of the Scottish and Chinese people."

The two 8-year-old pandas arrived at the zoo last month from China: the female Tian Tian (aka Sweetie) and the male Yang Guang (aka Sunshine).

Other animals honoured by a registered tartan include springboks, Australian donkeys and the racehorse Red Rum.

Nice, but I would like to know how they are going to get the Pandas to wear it...

 

Over to the land of the snack and the home of the fry up

A new medical study recommends a method called "nasal packing with strips of cured pork" as an effective way to treat uncontrollable nosebleeds.

According to Ian Humphreys, Sonal Saraiya, Walter Belenky and James Dworkin who “work” at Detroit Medical Centre in Michigan they treated a girl who had a rare hereditary disorder that brings prolonged bleeding. 

Apparently “Cured salted pork crafted as a nasal tampon and packed within the nasal vaults successfully stopped nasal haemorrhage promptly, effectively, and without sequelae … To our knowledge, this represents the first description of nasal packing with strips of cured pork for treatment of life-threatening haemorrhage in a patient with Glanzmann thrombasthenia."

 

Fascinating, but will it work Dahn Unda?

And finally:

Right more than a snippet

Unemployed Irish artist, Frank Buckley, has built an entire apartment from the shredded remains of 1.4 billion Euros he borrowed from the national mint. He says the Billion Euro Home is a monument to the madness the single currency brought to Ireland.

In 2002, when Ireland adopted the euro, a wave of cheap credit flooded the country, fuelling a huge property bubble that eventually led to the country’s economic downfall. People were spending billions of Euros on buildings, but when the bubble burst in 2007, the country plunged into the deepest recession of the industrialized world, and those buildings quickly lost their value. Frank Buckley was one of the many Irish who was given a 100% mortgage by the bank, to buy a home with an estimated cost of €365,000, despite the fact he had no steady income. Now his house on the far reaches of Dublin’s commuter belt has lost a third of its value, and the artist is stuck with the credit.

The artist borrowed shredded euro bills from the national mint, made them into bricks and built himself an apartment in the lobby of a vacant Dublin office building. ”I wanted to create something from nothing,” Buckley says, “a reflection of the whole madness that gripped us.” He has separated from his wife, and has been living in his worthless Billion Euro Home, since December.

 

Hope he is paying rent.....

That’s it: I’m orf to check the moat out for ‘microplastic’ thingies. 

And today’s thought:

Angus

My Old Dutch: No chance Nick: 10 days to Armageddon: Scotch bonnet: Mucky truck: Clarkson should be hung, drawn and quartered: and the dog and duck.

Wettish, calmish and coolish at the Castle this morn, the study is still devoid of devastated do dahs, his Maj is still bringing me worms and the elbow has finally stopped hurting. 

It being the 1^st of December and our 40^th wedding anniversary I wasn’t going to post today but life goes on and below is a tribute to my lovely “M”.

Sorry about the sound quality.

It seems that optimist and brown nose Nick Clegg

Is in a bit of a quandary after endorsing another two years of public spending cuts following the next general election.

Muppet Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat Chief Treasury Secretary, could not say where cuts required after 2015 would fall. "In good time, well before the election, we will set out where those savings will be made," he said. Asked if the Liberal Democrats would go into the next election promising nearly £30bn more austerity, he replied: "I'm afraid so."

 The Lib Dems have about as much chance of winning the next election as..........the Tories.

Allegedly over in the Eurozone

Banks have been told to brace themselves for financial Armageddon after being told there were just ten days left to save the euro.

They were advised to make contingency plans for the inevitable collapse of the single currency unless European leaders can come up with a last-minute rescue package.

Can’t wait....

Back in British Blighty and up a bit

Scotch Bonnet Cheddar - the hottest cheese ever to be sold in the UK - is about to land on supermarket shelves across the country.

It has been made using the fearsome Scotch Bonnet chilli pepper, which is known to pack a flaming punch.

The Scotch Bonnet emits a heat intensity that blows away the more commonly used Jalapeno. The intensity of a chilli is measured in Scoville units and the Scotch Bonnet has a rating of 100,000-350,000, while the Jalapeno only has a 2500-8000 score.

The cheese has been developed for Tesco and will be available in over 700 stores, priced at £2 for a 250g pack.

Tesco cheese buyer Ashleigh MacFarlane said: 'Britain has a huge growing chilli culture which is increasingly creeping into all kinds of everyday foods from chocolate, jams, crisps, nuts and now cheese.

Save having to buy mouse traps-just put the cheese down and you end up with a ready cooked snack....

Right oodles of lengths

To the land of bamboo and noodles a trucker tried to shoot the lights at a junction in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, southern China managed to tip his motor over and dumped more than a smidge of dirt on a taxi.

Cabbie Lui Ming, 45, suddenly found himself in more than half a tonne of soil when the lorry driver had to brake suddenly and ended up overturning his truck.

"I was waiting at a traffic light and the squeals of his brake behind me - and then it went complete dark," he explained.

Passersby helped dig him out but the crushed car was a write off, say police.

Dirty trick....

And not surprisingly

The BBC has been forced to apologise after Jeremy Clarkson said he would like to see striking public sector workers "shot" in front of their families.

The Top Gear presenter made his comments on BBC's The One Show on the evening of Britain's biggest public sector strikes in 30 years.

He said of the strikers: "I'd have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families.

"I mean, how dare they go on strike when they've got these gilt-edged pensions that are going to be guaranteed while the rest of us have to work for a living."

Work for a living? Travelling the world at our expense driving Asbo Martins, Lambos, Bugatti Veyrons, Koenigseggs and Ferraris is “work” is it?

Fuck orf Clarkson.

And finally:

Left to the land of the gun and the home of the Numpty

An American man was rushed to hospital after being shot in the buttocks by his dog during an ill-fated duck hunting accident in Utah.

The 46 year-old, who has not been named, was hit just a few feet away from his "excited" pet canine, which had stepped on a shotgun in his boat.

He escaped serious injury – only receiving an injury to his buttocks and, almost certainly to his pride. Police confirmed the incident was not a hoax.

Officers said the man, and an unidentified friend had been duck hunting on the Great Salt Lake, in the country's west, at the weekend.

The hunter, from Brigham City, about 60 miles north of the state capital Salt Lake City, was shot as he climbed out of the boat to move decoys in the shallow marsh area.

Kevin Potter, the Box Elder County Sheriff’s deputy chief, said the man left his 12-gauge shotgun in the boat before the dog stepped on it, causing it to discharge.

The right to bare arse?
 

That’s it: I’m orf to apply for a job

And today’s thought:

Angus

Euro prop: Bat crossings: Peanut inflation: Bank bonuses: Don’t shoot Obama: and adopt an onion.

More than a whimsy of “mists and mellow fruitfulness” at the Castle this morn, the butler is desperately shoving fat teenagers into the furnace, the study is finally devoid of all things broke and bollixed up and his Maj is bored because he has nothing to play with-and this is why.

I see that son of a B...aronet (and alien reptilian in disguise) George Osborne

Said he was willing to consider a plan to increase the International Monetary Fund's firepower, provided a rescue deal had been agreed that would bring the two-year sovereign debt crisis to an end.

Osborne's qualified support for the creation of a larger global safety net could see the UK commit further loans to the IMF, though officials said a comprehensive rescue deal would make extra demands unlikely. His remarks were designed to support moves by G20 finance ministers to arrive at a definitive solution to the crisis while appeasing rightwing Tory MPs who have voiced concerns about extending further loans to the eurozone.

 Along with 64 million Brits...

Apparently

Civil servants have come under fire for spending half a million pounds of taxpayers' money - on building bridges for bats.

The Highways Agency has spent almost £500,000 on the five bridges across Norfolk in the past three years.

Now it wants to build six more bridges - which direct them over busy roads to avoid being hit by cars - as part of plans to widen the A11 near Thetford, Norfolk.  

Cheaper to put in pelican crossings....

 And: 

Allegedly

Peanut butter prices are set to shoot up in the coming weeks following one of the poorest peanut harvest seasons growers have seen in years.

Prices for a ton of runner peanuts, commonly used to make peanut butter, hit nearly $1,200 this week, according to estimates by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's up from just $450 per ton at this time last year.

Shoppers should expect these price increases to spread their way.

Kraft will raise prices for its Planters brand peanut butter by 40% starting Oct. 31, while ConAgra's Peter Pan brand will see prices jump between 22% and 24% this month, according to company spokesmen. A spokesperson for Unilever, which produces Skippy, would say only that the company "is watching the commodities market very closely and will take pricing adjustments as needed".

Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York University said "For the average person in America," she said, "it would be a good idea to eat less of almost everything."

Back in the bunker Marion.

Dahn Unda

Bank staff are being offered Christmas party bonuses, free meals and other prizes to push more credit cards, loans, insurance policies and other products to customers.

Australia's biggest lender - the CBA - has launched a "double up" campaign to push personal bankers and tellers into selling twice as many products, such as increasing credit limits, each week.

The other three major banks - the NAB, ANZ and Westpac - are also forcing branch staff to meet stringent weekly sales targets as the "big four" battle for market share.

An internal CBA document obtained by The Sunday Telegraph reveals the pre-Christmas push to supersize customers - increase their credit limits, convince them to take out home and contents policies and open up new accounts.

"We are under increasing pressure from competitors who are looking for a greater share of our retail banking business," CBA retail banking boss Ross McEwan says in the document.

The briefing reads: "The campaign encourages sales teams to double their sales productivity during October and November to earn double the fun (and funds) at their end of year team celebrations."

As long as the W Bankers are going to have a good Crimbo.....

Over the Pacific

US secret agents feared a Royal Navy warship was about to blast Michelle Obama after it left its guns trained on her hotel room.

Spooked minders ordered the captain of HMS Edinburgh to stop pointing the Sea Dart missiles in the direction of the First Lady’s five-star suite.

But the guns contained only blanks loaded by sailors during a ceremony to mark the death of a colleague on board.

A source said the agents told them: “You can’t point those guns at the First Lady.”

But the minders were last night accused of over-reacting and they should have had known the Navy would not put anyone at risk, particularly the wife of the US president.

Mrs Obama was on an ­official visit to Cape Town, South Africa, when the ship came into port with her ceremonial Sea Dart missiles on show.

As she was moored the guns could be seen pointing at the five-star Table Bay Hotel where Mrs Obama was staying.

If only...

And finally:

Dahn in Kent

Diane Connor and three friends have set up a website appealing for veggie lovers to ‘save’ bulbs that have been forcibly pickled in jars.

The mother of four said: ‘I got the idea in the pub. There was a group of us talking about the different things you can adopt for charities.

‘One of the blokes with us said something like, “You may as well adopt a bleeding pickled onion”. When I got home I started thinking about it and thought it might actually work. I hope to make millions.’

The £6.99 adoption gift package includes a greetings card, certificate and a postcard from your chosen onion – each of which has a name and back-story.

Mrs Connor, 46, from Hextable in Kent, has written to Dragon’s Den investor Peter Jones and is desperate for a return on her £3,500 investment after husband Patrick’s building company went under.

 

IQ of an onion.....

That’s it: I’m orf to add an extension to the shed

And today’s thought:Get the facts first . . . you can distort them later       

Angus