Even colder than the coldest bit earlier in the week at the
castle this morn, oodles of white crusty stuff covering all and sundry, the
liquid metal in the gauge is still in hiding, the study is still inhabited by ex
parrots, the butler has filled the furnace with fat teenagers before he buggers
orf for his Crimbo hols and his Maj is clinging to the radiator in the kitchen.
I went for a bit of a drive and a walk out to Little
Frensham, which is smaller than Big Frensham but bigger than Teeny Weeny
Frensham, god it was cold; but I managed to take a few very bad snaps.
French leaders have launched outspoken public attacks on
Britain, calling for the UK to lose its AAA credit rating and comparing its
economy with that of Greece.
François Baroin, the finance minister, said Britain was
“marginalised” and faced “a very difficult economic situation” because of
Coalition policies.
He added: “Great Britain is in a very difficult economic
situation, a deficit close to the level of Greece, debt equivalent to our own,
much higher inflation prospects and growth forecasts well under the eurozone
average. It’s an audacious choice the British government has made,” he said.
Time to brick up the Chunnel...
France was told by Nick Clegg today to end "simply
unacceptable" attacks on the UK economy amid mounting cross-Channel
tensions over the eurozone crisis.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon telephoned the Deputy
Prime Monster to insist he had not intended to call into question the UK's
credit rating.
My dad’s bigger than your dad...
To the land where things are still glowing in the dark, a toilet made entirely of Swarovski Crystals
has been put on display in Japan.
A Japanese toilet
maker's new glittering design is sure to please the 'god of toilet', a deity
known in Japan for his love for sparkling toilets.
The toilet was on display at the Lixil Ginza showroom on
Friday (December 16), attracting streams of visitors.
Kazuo Sumimiya,
director of Lixil's Ginza showroom, said the sparkling toilet was designed to
please the 'god of toilet', a Japanese tradition that dates back hundreds of
years ago.
'In Japan, we
believe that there is a deity existing in the toilet, that's why keeping our
toilet clean and taking good care of it have been a Japanese custom since long
ago,' Sumimiya said.
Japanese wives'
tales promise young women that they'll have a beautiful form and enjoy an easy
early birth if they keep their house's toilets clean, an old-fashioned ruse to
trick children into taking their daily chores seriously.
Not sure what is in the Castles loo, but I am pretty sure it
isn’t a Deity, just part of a “Dei”.
Dozens of
fraternity men held their annual naked run around the University of the
Philippines in Manila on Friday (December 16), a campus tradition to promote
social issues and academic freedom.
According to
Reuters, members from the Alpha Phi Omega brotherhood wore nothing but masks
hiding their faces as they ran along the halls while holding placards
advocating this year's theme of protecting the environment.
Hundreds of
onlookers, who were mostly women and students, packed the school building to get
a glimpse of the fraternity men.
The tradition
started in the late 70s when members of the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity ran
naked on the campus grounds to protest against former President Ferdinand
Marcos' censorship of a film criticizing his administration.
The run is held
every December around different universities in the Philippines to coincide
with the fraternity's founding anniversary.
I can feel the world cooling down already...
The cut price
airline produces a charity calendar each year, featuring scantily-clad flight
attendants.
But the latest
version has attracted the wrath of the Provincial Association of Housewives and
Consumers of Valencia.
The association has
formally complained that the calendar exploits female workers, and reported it
to the Non-Sexist Advertising Observatory of Valencia for using the female body
in the form of advertising.
The association
wants the calendar - intended to raise money to send 50 British families with
children who suffer from a fragile skin condition on holiday to Spain - taken
off sale.
The housewives say
that the airline is profiting by using the publicity whipped up by the calendar
to sell its low-cost flights.
However, Ryanair
says it has already sold 90% of its 10,000 print run of 2012 calendars, raising
nearly £100,000 for the charity, Debra.
Green Spanish onions?
Traffic police in
China have come up with a cost effective way of slowing down speeding motorists
- with a cardboard cut-out of a squad car.
The cut-outs, which
look like police vehicles from behind, are being used as a traffic calming technique
in eastern China's Jiangsu Province.
One motorist, Liu
Yuan, said: "I spotted what I thought was a police vehicle parked on the
hard shoulder so I hit the brakes.
"It when I
went past it, I was stunned to see that it was just a thin piece of board
painted to look like a cop car.
"It was so
realistic. It even had a solar panel to power a flashing light to make it look
even more realistic at night."
A spokesman for the
local police, in Wuxi City, confirmed that cardboard cut-outs of police
vehicles were being used to slow traffic.
That wouldn’t work
in Blighty-too windy....
And finally:
Up where old York
is, toddlers have been told to stop making a “diamond” star sign while
singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in case the gesture is misinterpreted as
sign language representing a female body part.
Staff at the Sure Start centre in Acomb, York were accused
of an “overreaction” for stopping the children making the symbol for fear of
offending people.
A disgruntled mother said: “It seems a little politically
correct. These are innocent little children just making a sign to show a star.
“No one would give it a second thought. Now every parent may
worry their child may be making an offensive gesture when they’re singing this
song.”
Staff members had been on a course to learn Makaton sign
language – a system used by about 100,000 people in Britain that assists people
with communication difficulties and shares many signs with British Sign
Language, which is used by deaf people.
In both, the sign for female genitalia is an inverted
diamond made with a thumb and forefinger, held in front of the crotch.
During the singing of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, children
will usually hold their hands high in an upright diamond as they sing the lines
“like a diamond in the sky”.
A spokeswoman for City of York council, which runs the Sure
Start mother and toddler group, said it was “a sensible decision taken to
prevent deaf children or deaf parents being offended by the use of the
gesture”.
She said that having been on the course staff members felt
the use of the sign was a sensitive matter and decided instead to use the
Makaton sign for a star.
Ah the old “I’ve been on a course” excuse, miserable load of
inverted diamonds....
That’s it: I’m orf to explore the
Solar System.
And today’s thought:
Angus
