Cold and clear with a thick layer of white crusty stuff at
the Castle this morn, fat teenagers are sliding into the furnace faster than
the “new” thingy at CERN and his Maj has discovered the joy of ambush from
under the four poster.
Allegedly Ministry of Defence civil servants have been
awarded £40 million in bonuses despite fierce criticism of the department.
One senior civil servant was awarded an £85,831 bonus on top
of their six-figure salary - at the same time as members of the armed forces
have been subject to a two-year pay freeze and 20,000 are to be made redundant.
The bonuses have been paid since April last year and have
seen more than 55,000 officials awarded extra payments for their performance -
out of a payroll of 83,000.
In other departments-
Department of Work and Pensions employees scooped £51
million. The Department of Transport paid out £9.2million, the Foreign Office
£6.4 million and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
£2.3 million. The Department for Education spent £1.9 million on bonuses, the
Department for Health £1.7 million, the Cabinet Office £1.3million and the
Department for Innovation and Skills £1.1million.
Whatever happened to just working for a salary?
My favourite retailer is looking for a permanent night shift
worker in exchange for no wages, the job was offered under the Government's
"workfare scheme", which is linked to payment of benefits. The advert
said the wages would simply be "jobseeker's allowance and expenses".
A statement from the supermarket chain said: "The
advert is a mistake caused by an IT error by Jobcentre Plus and is being
rectified.
"It is an advert for work experience with a guaranteed
job interview at the end of it as part of a Government-led work experience
scheme. We take our responsibility as Britain's biggest private sector employer
seriously."
Employment Minister Chris Grayling told the Commons last
month that the scheme was working well and was much better value for money for
the taxpayer than the last Labour government's Future Jobs Fund.
Jobseekers' allowance is currently paid at £53.45 per week
for under-25s, or £67.50 for older staff.
If that is the way Tesco are going it’s about time they
reduced their prices...
Has come up with yet another gem, Details of every phone
call and text message, email traffic and websites visited online are to be
stored in a series of vast databases under new Government anti-terror plans.
Landline and mobile phone companies and broadband providers
will be ordered to store the data for a year and make it available to the
security services under the scheme.
The databases would not record the contents of calls, texts
or emails but the numbers or email addresses of who they are sent and received
by.
For the first time, the security services will have
widespread access to information about who has been communicating with each
other on social networking sites such as Facebook.
Direct messages between subscribers to websites such as
Twitter would also be stored, as well as communications between players in
online video games.
A Home Office spokesman said: “It is vital that police and
security services are able to obtain communications data in certain
circumstances to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the
public.
No warrant no crime....
A Valentine's Day
gift is being blamed for a power outage in Southern California.
Southern California
Edison spokesman David Song says a helium-filled balloon scored a direct hit on
the company's Fontana substation Tuesday night, knocking out power to 15,099
customers.
Song says a utility
crew rushed to the station and had the power restored by 9:51 p.m.
The substation was
the second to encounter problems in Southern California on Tuesday night. A
Huntington Beach substation went out at 7:42 p.m., affecting 21,285 customers.
Song says power was restored there at 10:38 p.m.
There must be a moral in there somewhere.
Shoalin monks “practise”
the Iron Egg Skill
Warning-if you are
of a sensitive nature DO NOT watch this video.
Bet that stings....
Comes the simple
pleasure of gripping a fistful of bacon strips in one hand, and an ice cold
beer in the other.
The joy of
biting into a giant bacon-infused doughnut ball topped with chocolate and even more
bacon.
“Everything about
bacon is like Hometown Iowa,” said Becca Swalla, 24, of Urbandale, who attended
Saturday’s Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival. “I mean, really, you wouldn’t see this
baconfest happening in California. Only in Iowa will people come together to
eat a bunch of bacon-covered bacon.”
But even some of
the 4,000 attendees acknowledged protesters outside the 165,000-square-foot
bacon pleasure palace on the Iowa State Fairgrounds had valid concerns. Too
many bacon tacos and cupcakes can’t be good for your health.
Num, num, num I’m
orf to the kitchen....
Key elements of Britain’s disability and discrimination laws
do not apply, a court ruling could pave the way for the introduction of a “fat
tax” for obese fliers, a leading barrister has claimed.
And it could also prevent passengers with a disability from
seeking compensation from their airline if they receive unsatisfactory or
inconsistent treatment during a flight.
“Judges” decided after considering two cases involving
wheelchair users who sued their airlines after they were unable to sit next to
their carers on board a flight. Both subsequently suffered “embarrassing”
incidents.
But both cases were dismissed after the court ruled that the
Montreal Convention, a framework of international rules and regulations on air
travel, should take precedence over British law.
The introduction of a “fat tax” has been mooted by Ryanair
in the past, following a survey conducted by the airline which suggested around
a third of passengers supported it. A number of carriers already insist that
obese customers buy an extra seat if they are unable to comfortably fit into
one.
Nice to see that even Canada’s law supersedes Blighty’s....
That’s it: I’m orf to muzzle
a scientist
And today’s thought:
The new RAF.
Angus
