Confused Cameron: Stamping on the rich: Vampire slayer’s kit: The Ostrich and the Pony: Chicken mugged in Manchester: and the price of booze.

Vast amounts of skywater mixed in with even vaster amounts of atmospheric movement at the Castle this morn, his Maj has the hump but at least the Honda is red again.

and Blogger is being a pain in the arse-again...

According to U-Turn Cam

The regular summits of EU leaders are "baffling", the Prime Monster blamed the protocols behind European Councils, and that poor decisions "imposed from above" were the cause of much of the EU's problems.

Pot-Kettle-Black?

And how the rich are avoiding stamp duty-allegedly

Apparently 5,000 homes may be registered in ways to avoid property taxes. The Treasury faced demands last night to examine the extent of tax avoidance by the country's wealthiest homeowners who have transferred £25bn worth of property into corporate hands.

And about 500 of the homes, worth a total of £1.6bn, were transferred last year.

On Cornwall Terrace, an up market conversion of eight imposing period houses overlooking Regent's Park in London, the average asking price is £35m, making it the world's most expensive row of Georgian mansions. Every home sold has reportedly gone to an offshore company, meaning the buyers would have to pay only £52,500 to buy shares in the company, instead of £2.45m in stamp duty at 7 per cent. 

But in his Budget son of a B.....aronet and alien reptile in disguise “Chancellor”, George (I may have to sack one of my gardeners) Osborne, promised to come down "like a ton of bricks" on the practice of switching large properties into corporate control and immediately introduced a stamp duty levy of 15 per cent for houses bought through a company.

Oh good, that’ll help......

Norf a bit from the Castle

To the place where cricket and tea is king there is a chance to acquire a vampire slayer’s kit, complete with holy water, crucifixes, wooden stakes and a pistol with a mould for silver bullets.

The box, expected to fetch £1,200-£2,000, is on display in Harrogate until the sale is held in Leyburn, North Yorks, on June 22.

Apparently the slaying tools, dating from the late 19th century, show no sign of having been used.

No shit....

Dahn Unda

An ostrich takes a dislike to a little girl on a pony, it was going to be a video but blogger decided against it.

Still at least the pony was unhurt....

West oodles of imperial measures

To the other Manchester, Eric Didio was having a bit of a cavort in his bright yellow chicken costume, and waving a small American flag to passersby on Pleasant Valley Road.

When a guy hopped out of a car stopped at the light, ran over here, grabbed the flag and took off," restaurant general manager Nathan Atwood said.

Shortly after the theft, reported at about 12:30 p.m., Atwood stood next to Didio, providing security for his "chicken dude." Atwood said a customer who witnessed the theft called police.

Didio and Atwood could only describe the thief as "an overweight white dude." Didio was working to mark the grand reopening of the Boston Market, which Atwood said was recently renovated.

What a stupid clucker....

And finally:

Even further Norf of the Castle

 A 74-year-old bottle of whisky yesterday has sold for £46,000 at auction.

The bottle of Glenfiddich Rare Collection, distilled in 1937, fell short of the current auction record by just £850. The whisky was unusually slow to mature and ten consecutive warehouse masters watched over the cask as the amber liquor reached perfection.

In October 2001, after 64 years, malt master David Stewart declared Cask 843 ready to be bottled. One of the 61 bottles was sold yesterday to a bidder for £40,000, plus the £6,000 buyer’s premium.

The whiskies – which also include a Glenfiddich 1955 (£8,000-£10,000) and a Macallan Select Reserve 1948 (£5,000-£6,000) – are expected to be some of the top lots at the sale, which also includes cases of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s 1988 Romanée-Conti at £60,000-80,000 apiece.

Cheap at half the price...

That’s it: I’m orf to wash me hands in a Polish Bison.

And today’s thought:

Euro 2012

Angus

The benefits of the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition: Le refuge: Spanish SARTRE: FORE!-door: Big Apple burger: and the Physic Ferret

More than a smidge cooler at the Castle this morn, decent amount of cloud cover, no windy stuff and no sign of sky water yestereve, but I did manage to fettle the lawn and the borders; supervised by his Maj of course...

The garden now has the addition of some roses in bloom.

The first one is a climbing scented “dog” rose which I bought for 50p at Wilkinsons ten years ago and now resides in the shady corner.

And the second is a beautiful deep red scented rose that I gave to “M” back in the seventies-go on have a sniff....

As expected the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition’s 

Plan “A” isn’t working that well, in fact hardly anyone is working anymore, calculations from the House of Commons Library show that forecast spending on Job Seekers’ Allowance (JSA) and Housing benefit will be £9.1 billion higher during this parliament than the Coalition first expected.

Ministers insisted that the Coalition’s Work Programme was working and that the number of welfare claimants was reducing.

In autumn 2010, the Treasury was expecting to spend £21 billion on JSA in the period from 2010-11 to 2015-16. Budget figures this year suggest that total has now risen to £25.8 billion.

Chris Grayling, the welfare minister reckons that “We’re well on the way to 100,000 job starts even in a tough labour market. This is a revolution in welfare to work that we all should want to succeed.”

Officials also pointed out that the increase in benefits spending was partly explained by the Government’s decision to increase benefits in line with inflation, meaning a 5.2 per cent increase this year.

La-la land is alive and well in the Coalition cabinet...

Up in the Smoke

Apparently more French people live in London than in Bordeaux, Nantes or Strasbourg and it is now thought to be France's sixth biggest city in terms of population.

Allegedly there are French people in every corner of London and their numbers have been growing, with the result that in next week's parliamentary election in France they - along with expats in Scandinavia - will be voting for a candidate to represent them in the National Assembly.

The French consulate in London estimates between 300,000 and 400,000 French citizens live in England's capital - many in London's cutting-edge creative hub, in the East End.

The French first came en masse to the East End in the 17th Century. The Huguenots, who had endured years of persecution in France because of their Protestant faith, were offered sanctuary here by King Charles II.

They called their flight Le Refuge - coining the word refugee.

Many settled east of the City of London, where food and housing were cheaper. There are many French street names around nearby Spitalfields Market such as Fournier Street, Fleur de Lys Street and Nantes Passage.

The Huguenots were skilled craftsmen but some feared that they were depriving Londoners of work. A protectionist priest, a certain Dr Welton, called them "the offal of the earth".

 

Don’t you just love the “common market”...?

Dahn a bit to the next domino in the Euro crash

Volvo has successfully completed a public test of a self-driven convoy of cars. A human driver led the convoy of three self-driven vehicles, which mimicked the lead driver's actions through a wireless link.

The four vehicles completed a 125-mile voyage across a Spanish roadway travelling at an average speed of 52 mph.

The SARTRE test was carried out as part of a European Commission research project. If offered to the public, Volvo says, the self-driving convoys could also allow commuters to "work on their laptops, read a book or sit back and enjoy a relaxed lunch" while travelling.

Oh great, a convoy of Volvo drivers who have even less control over their cars than usual...

 West more than a putters length

A jet had just taken off from the Opa-Locka Executive Airport and was headed about 30 miles north to its home base at Pompano Beach Municipal Airport when it lost a door. The pilot diverted the plane to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where it landed safely.

The Canadair CL60's door landed Wednesday afternoon on the 16th fairway of the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa's golf course in Hallandale Beach.

 

Bet that made a hole in one-of the fairways...

Up a whimsy to the place named after a large fruit

Following the world’s most expensive omelette, we now have the world’s most expensive burger. New York's Serendipity 3 restaurant has invented said “food stuff” featuring Japanese Waygu beef infused with 10-herb white truffle butter and seasoned with Salish Alderwood smoked Pacific sea salt. It's topped with cheddar cheese, hand-made and cave-aged for 18 months, a smidge of shaved black truffles, a fried quail egg, a blini, crème fraiche, Kaluga caviar and a white truffle-buttered Campagna roll.

To complete the masterpiece is a solid gold "Fleur de Lys" toothpick, encrusted with diamonds, designed by world-renowned jeweller Euphoria New York.

And all for the miserly price of $295.

Think I’ll pass on that one...

And finally:

East loads of thingies

Euro 2012 organisers in Ukraine have introduced their answer to Germany's Paul the octopus - Fred the 'psychic' ferret.

Fred joins soothsayer hog Khryak in Kiev and Citta the elephant in Krakow, Poland - co-hosts with Ukraine of Euro 2012.

Fred will appear in Fan Zones, where he will choose from plates of food bearing the flags of competing teams - with whichever bowl he eats from being declared the favourite.

Fred the ferret will have precisely 15 minutes in the Fan Zone and will have to predict the winning team."

 

Fucking hell..........

 

That’s it: I’m orf to investigate falling stout bubbles

And today’s thought:

Now if football teams looked like this.

I might be interested...

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