Angus got a new motor: Her Maj’s award: Tanks a lot: De-Daw delay: Mines on a reef: and Hover Golf.

Masses of lack of warm, minimal solar stuff, multitudes of atmospheric movement and quite a lot of white fluffy stuff at the Castle this “summer” morn, after travelling Norf of Luton with the butler riding shotgun to ward orf the Apaches I have finally managed to update the Honda-with a Honda, I have gorn for the newer one (civic) with all the bells and whistles-but the best bit is the leather seats which are heated by leccy, pictures here and there if you are interested.

 

The elbow is getting worse, I had a nice early appointment with my general medic yestermorn to try to get it sorted out but when I arrived the electronic book in thingy refused to accept me and told me that my appointment was up at the Aldershot Centre for Elfs so with ten minutes to go I queued at the reception thingy for five minutes while the “staff” mumbled on the phones to obviously more important people so I dashed to the mentioned “Elf Centre”, arrived with a minute to spare, paid my parking ransom and managed to speak to the “receptionist” who told me that “no, your appointment is at the other surgery, but it doesn’t matter because the Doctor has gorn home sick, but another appointment has been made for you at 9.45” with a medic I have never heard of.

The second word I uttered was “orf”, so I went home and couldn’t be bovvered to post.

 

I see that her Maj has got a Bafta

 

For “supporting British film for a lifetime”, so have I, so where’s mine then?

 

East to the land of Russians

A soldier is facing a court marshal after being caught driving a tank into a lamp post while supposedly under the influence.

The incident was captured on the dashboard camera of a motorist who had stopped at a junction.

Footage shows a tank moving towards a crossroads before coming to an abrupt halt.

It sets off again before hitting a nearby lamppost with a dull thud, much to the amusement of the driver behind the camera, and the bemusement of the traffic officer who is seen watching the pissed idiot trying to park.

 

I’d like to see them clamp that.....

 

Over to foreign parks in Kent

 

Plans to build a £2billion theme park to rival Disneyland Paris have been halted – so a colony of extremely rare spiders can be re homed.

Bosses of the Paramount scheme hoped to have the resort – which will be twice the size of the Olympic Park, creating 27,000 jobs – up and running by 2019.

But environmentalists have found distinguished jumping spiders on the 872-acre brown field site at Swanscombe Peninsula, Kent.

The spiders are on a UK priority species list and are only found in one other place in the country, West Thurrock Marshes in Essex.

Unlike many other species, they like the soil, which is particularly alkaline due to previous industrial use.

 

Bet they don’t like rolled up newspapers though...

 

East or West to the Pacific

The commanding officer and three crewmembers aboard a U.S. Navy minesweeper have been relieved of their duties amid an investigation into how the $300 million ship got stuck on a reef near the Philippines and had to be scuttled.

The USS Guardian became stuck on a reef in the Tubbataha National Marine Park, a World Heritage Site in the Sulu Sea some 400 miles southeast of Manila in January.

 

The Navy said in a statement that the officer and crewmembers were relieved because the ship’s grounding did not comply with its navigation procedures and accountability standards.

 

Oh ha-fucking-ha...

 

And finally:

 

Somewhere on a golf course

Bubba Watson who won the 2012 Masters tournament, has given his backing to the latest way of getting around the green - a cross between a buggy and a hovercraft.

The prototype machine allows golfers to glide across grass and launch across lakes, and is fitted with a noise reduction rotor to avoid disturbing those who prefer more conventional modes of transport.

The hovercraft, known as the BW1, features four seats and a roof from a typical golf buggy and has room for two golf caddies.

The machine is a joint project between Watson, Sportswear Company Oakley and Neoteric Hovercraft, the company which built it.

It is not known how much the BW1 cost to build, although Neoteric hovercraft sell for between $16,700 (£11,000) and $65,860 (£43,600) through the company's website.

 

Cheap at half the price-well it would be if it was.....

 

That’s it: I’m orf to enter a new realm of physics

 

And today’s thought:

Class Bollocks

 

 

Angus

Royal read my post: Money for nothing: The door now landing in Washington: Tanks for the accident: Shotgun golf: and a really, really ugly piece of “art”.

Heaps of solar stuff, not a lot of lack of cold stuff, not even a promise of atmospheric movement and even less wet stuff at the Castle this morn.

I threw caution to the wind yestermorn and perpetrated a vast amount of vandalism on the garden, the hedges have been hedged, the borders bordered, the pots potted, the shrubs reduced in vertical distance and the moss mowed, unfortunately the wind returned the favour and now I can hardly move-ain’t gardening fun?

 

All across data protected Blighty

Allegedly if you are unfortunate enough to have to claim the pittance handed out to the not so well orf you should be prepared for your local postman Pat to open and sort your application.

According to the Independent confidential medical information from sick and disabled people applying for welfare benefits is opened and sorted by Royal Mail staff on behalf of the Government without the claimant's knowledge or consent.

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) routinely uses Royal Mail to process the thousands of benefits claims, including health data, it receives every day.

For example, people applying for sickness benefits such as employment support allowance (ESA) must first complete a detailed medical questionnaire explaining their conditions, prescribed medication and therapies, and the names and addresses of their doctors and nurses.

The form, which also includes highly sensitive questions about addictions and mental illness, is then posted in a pre-addressed envelope to the DWP or Atos Healthcare – the Paralympics sponsor paid by the Government to carry out controversial assessments of claimants' capacity to work.

However, it has emerged that these envelopes are routinely opened and the contents sorted by the Royal Mail, unless the envelope is specifically marked "private and confidential". In those cases they are sent to Atos unopened, according to the DWP.

The DWP said security measures were in place to minimise the risk of any data breaches, including CCTV in sorting rooms and procedures that mean at least two people open the mail together.

 

Which doubles the chance of your “confidential” information escaping the net....

 

And keeping the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition in the sniper sight

It seems that the reshuffle of the above’s sideboard will cost the taxpayer more than £250,000 in tax-free redundancy pay-outs.

The ministers will receive thousands of pounds each because of the decision by U-Turn Cam and what’s his name’s decision to over-haul the Cabinet two and a half years into the life of the Coalition.

Under the 1991 Ministerial and Other Pensions and Salaries Act, ministers are entitled to three months of their ministerial salary when they are forced out of office.

In the reshuffle 28 paid ministers and one unpaid minister lost their jobs – about one in four of the Government.

The payments are triggered if a minister has not found another role in Whitehall three weeks after leaving.

They range according to seniority, from £17,207 for a secretary of state to £5,924 for a Parliamentary under Secretary, the lowest paid ministerial role in Government.

The money will be paid tax-free because it is less than £30,000, the level at which at which tax starts to be paid on redundancy pay-outs.

Calculations by The Daily Telegraph suggest the pay outs to ministers will total £249,027 – excluding payments to special advisers who have lost jobs with their ministers.

 

But don’t forget-well, you know the rest...and I thought that redundancy payments could only be made on proper jobs...

 

Left quite a lot to the home of the plane and the land of a new president

The US Federal Aviation Administration has confirmed that a piece of metal that fell to the ground in a Kent, Washington, neighbourhood was part of a Boeing 767's landing gear door.

Witnesses said the refrigerator-size panel hit the ground and skipped about 30 feet before stopping in a street.
No one in the neighbourhood about 15 miles south of Seattle was hurt.

Neighbours said a cargo jet flew low over the area at about the same time the part came down.

Photos on news station KOMO's website show part of an identification plate on the object that has the word "aircraft" along with a serial number.

FAA officials are not saying if they have located the plane that the part came from.

 

Should be easy enough to find....

 

Right to the place where multi function knives are rife

A Swiss van driver had an amazing escape - when he survived a collision with an army tank.

Soldiers on military exercises in Unterrealta, Switzerland, had been controlling traffic to allow a column of tanks to pass through a junction safely.

But they failed to see the mini truck speeding through - straight into the path of a 15 tonne tank.

"He hit the tank and bounced off and rolled over three or four times before coming to a halt. It was a heck of a whack," said one eye witness.

Police say the driver and two passengers are recovering in hospital.

"Three men were injured. The military were in full control of the junction," said a police spokesman.

 

Or not.....

 

Left a fairway again to a fairway

 

Jeff Fleming, 53, of Reno is accused of opening fire with a shotgun on a golfing twosome, hitting one man who was treated at a hospital and released, police said on Friday.

Fleming was taken into custody at a local attorney's office where he fled following the shooting, Reno police said in a statement.

Fleming was booked into the Washoe County jail on suspicion of battery and assault with a deadly weapon late on Thursday and later released on bail.

Police say he opened fire at the 16th hole of Reno's Lakeridge Golf Course after one of the golfers shattered a window of his house with a ball. Fleming, whose home overlooks the course, had a verbal argument with the golfers before the shooting, police said.

 

Moral-if you don’t want golf balls through your windows; don’t buy a bleedin house next to a golf course....

 

And finally:

 

Back in conservation Blighty

 

A futuristic house which won the Royal Academy of Arts' prestigious architecture prize has been ridiculed by neighbours who claim it looks like a UFO and is still not finished after six years.

Residents living in Wood Lane in Highgate, north London, say work on the house has been going on since 2006 and that it still looks like a 'scrap yard'.

They are fed up that the house - which they say looks like a 'giant spaceship.....complete with UFO-style elevated gangway' - is making the street 'a mess' and forcing property prices down.

The house, which is in a conservation area surrounded by homes built in the late 18th century, was designed by architects Birds Portchmouth Russum (BPR) and is owned by partner in the firm Mike Russum.

Last year the design won the Architecture Prize at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition, which described the posh pad as a 'four-storey house (which) maximises the potential of a narrow infill site'.

But neighbours have this week slammed the house - saying it makes the prestigious road look a 'total and utter mess' with its fenced off entrance, scattered traffic cones and blue tarpaulin.

They are now demanding to know when the house - which is wedged between two existing homes - will be finished, six years since construction work began.

Neighbour Judith Steiner, who has lived on Wood Lane since 1970, said this week: "I originally supported the idea of having a home for the 21st century on the street.

"But work has been going on for years and now it just looks like a scrap yard surrounded by a chain link fence - it looks like something from War of the Worlds."

Another neighbour, who has lived in the street for the past 10 years but who did not want to be named, said: "It looks like a giant UFO just about to land.

Owner Mike Russum blamed planning laws, which he says delayed the completion of the house.

 

Should be finished really quickly now then...still bloody ugly though....

 

That’s it: I’m orf to prick the Heisenberg uncertainty principle

 

And today’s thought:

 

No she went to Vegas on her own....

 

Angus  

Blighty is broke: Fuelling poverty: Golf gamble: Lexicon of regionalisms: Winnebago parking: and Rhubarb, rhubarb.

Warm and wet with a whimsy of opaque air at the Castle this morn, the fallic Glu has really taken hold again-I have this urge to find a Portuguese Tart and I am up to three boxes of Lemsip’s a week.

According to

Son of a B.....aronet and alien reptile in disguise George (I can’t find my purse) Osborne has finally discovered that the Government 'has run out of money' and cannot afford debt-fuelled tax cuts or extra spending.

George (I want to go back to my own planet) reckons that there is little the Coalition can do to stimulate the economy.

So after what seems like a decade in “power” George (I may have to sack two servants) has laid the blame on “that lot who spent all the dosh”-Labour for his lack of fiscal know how. 

But George (My pension would only be £32,977) has decided that he will stand firm on his effort to balance the books by refusing to borrow money. “Any tax cut would have to be paid for, in other words there would have to be a tax rise somewhere else or a spending reduction.”

“In other words what we are not going to do in this Budget is borrow more money to either increase spending or cut taxes.”

In other words George-fuck orf and take the rest of the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition with you....

And just to add another joy to existing in Blighty

According to “campaigners” more than nine million households will be living in fuel poverty within four years unless the Government directs £4bn a year from carbon taxes to families in greatest need.

More Britons die every year from living in a cold home than on the roads, they said, with the situation expected to worsen sharply because of soaring utility bills.

A new study has revealed that there are a million more households already living in fuel poverty compared with previous estimates, taking the total to 6.4 million. The study, by energy efficiency experts Camco, suggests that the total will hit 9.1 million by 2016.

A petition is being launched today at www.energybillrevolution.org to raise support for the Energy Bill Revolution campaign. It is already backed by more than 50 charities, unions, consumer groups and businesses, including Save the Children, the National Pensioners' Convention, Consumer Focus and the Co-operative Group.

The good news is-actually there isn’t any......

East to the bit of land between the top and bottom bits of Korea

Is Camp Bonifas’ golf course in Panmunjom, featuring only one hole — a 192-yard par 3 —designed to give some of the 50 soldiers stationed there a bit of entertainment.

Instead of “members only” signs there is a nice reminder- “Danger! Do not retrieve balls from the rough; live mine fields” greets visitors before they step onto the course, which contains an Astroturf putting green and, for some reason, a gun tower.

The minefields surround the hole, and at least one mine is said to have exploded due to an errant slice.

The course was named after U.S. Army Captain Arthur Bonifas, who was one of the few American soldiers killed during the ax murder incident of 1978.

I can think of a few sideboard Ministers that should try it-after the sign has been removed...

West to the home of the accent and the land of the other English language

Language lovers are celebrating the nation's diverse and colourful lexicon with the soon-to-be-published final volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English, also known by its acronym, DARE.

Which contains such gems as- a drinking fountain is called a bubbler in Wisconsin, a dry-land fish to Kentuckians and Tennesseans is an edible mushroom. A tadpole is a pinkwink on Cape Cod. And a toad-strangler in the Gulf States is a turd-floater in Texas and Oklahoma and a fence-lifter in the Ozarks; all three describe a heavy rain.

And ask for a pickle in Nebraska and you might get a lottery ticket.

Super, as the old saying goes- Blighty and America-Two nations divided by a common language

Still in the place where parking spaces are at a premium

Fishermen participating in the annual Lake Winnebago ice fishing contest over the weekend found themselves scouting for their modes of transportation after 36 parked vehicles went through the ice, authorities said Sunday.

"We had some cars that got wet," a dispatcher with the Winnebago County Sheriff's Department said. "We had cars parked on the ice like it was a parking lot. Usually they do park out on the ice. That's not unusual. It's just that they parked too close together. It was too much for the ice conditions this year."

Tournament organizers for the Battle on Bago reportedly warned people about parking on the ice Saturday, but some had trouble finding spots elsewhere and parked on the lake anyway. Of about 50 cars parked on the ice, four were submerged more than half way, 18 were partially submerged, and 14 sunk to the top of their wheels, according to the sheriff's department.

"They all started early in the morning. Throughout the day with the sun and everything else, vehicles started to sink," the dispatcher explained.

The ice was about a foot thick.

The lake is shallow where the cars were parked, and tow trucks were called in to pull out the cars. No one was in the vehicles and no one was injured, the dispatcher said.

The tournament was Friday and Saturday. Sturgeon spearing season on Lake Winnebago ends Sunday.

Several other cars had broken through the ice earlier in the month, authorities said.

  

Probably thought the ‘no parking’ sign meant ‘car wash’ in Wisconsin...

And finally:
 

Back in burgled Blighty

The woodentops in the Smoke has published a list of 30 plants that can help homeowners protect their gardens from thieves, including giant rhubarb and gooseberry bushes.

The guidelines on "How to stop garden thieves" state that people can 'make their home more secure' by planting giant rhubarb - which has 'abrasive foliage' - and 'spiny' gooseberry bushes.

The advice - which even gives the Latin name for the plants and bushes - states: "Your garden, as well as your house, has valued possessions that thieves would love to steal.

"It also has equipment that could help them break into your house.

"Most burglars are lazy. They look for easy ways of getting into a house or garden (and) by taking a few simple precautions you can reduce the risk of being burgled and make your house and garden more secure."

It then lists all 30 plants, stating 'Here are some suggestions for plants to use', adding jokingly: "We have tried to identify the plants mentioned by their correct botanical name, but we cannot guarantee that the plant you buy will not grow into a small, fragrant flowering shrub with no more thorns than a daisy."

Here are some of the Mets suggestions:

Creeping Juniper, Blue Spruce, Common Holly, Giant Rhubarb, Golden Bamboo, Chinese Jujube, Firethorn, Shrub Rose, Pencil Christmas Tree, Juniper, Purple Berberis, Mountain Pine, Blue Pine, Oleaster, Blackthorn and the Fuschia-flowered Gooseberry.

And you could also have Aralia, Chaenomeles, Colletia, Crataegus (including hawthorn/may), Hippophae (sea buckthorn), Maclura, Mahonia, Oplopanax, Osmanthus, Poncirus, Rhamnus, Rosa (climbing & shrub roses), Rubus (bramble), Smilax Prickly ash (Zanthoxylum).

And in many years you will have a burglar proof garden-I prefer the electrified fence but I have got a twelve foot mock orange-if you can dig the bloody thing up you can have it.....

That’s it: I’m orf to get some new specs

And today’s thought:

Golfcraft carrier.

And now back to bed...

Angus

“Can do” U-turn cam: Smooth operator: Stone Numptys: Missus on yer back: China 5: and Shark infested golf.

Dull, wet and nippy at the Castle this morn, as I sit here watching the Japanese Grand Prix his Maj has jumped through the window and landed in my lap-he is soaking wet and cold so the Angus body warmer is working well. 

Apparently under the “destroyer of Blighty”

Piss Poor Policy U-turn Cam’s 'can-do' Britain has 20,000 fewer companies.

David Cameron's claim to be the champion of new business was undermined yesterday as new figures showed the number of firms in Britain fell by 20,000 during his first year as Prime Minister.

Mr Cameron used his party conference speech last week to promise a plan that would do "everything we can to help businesses start, grow, thrive, succeed". In the wake of his speech, the Federation of Small Businesses demanded "clear action to match the rhetoric"; while the manufacturer’s organisation EEF warned promoting growth is "now a matter of urgency".

This week there is expected to be a series of announcements from the Department for Business, the Treasury and No 10 on job creation, particularly in manufacturing, which lost 4,800 businesses alone. In March 2010, there were a total of 2.1 million businesses with VAT or PAYE registrations but a year later it had fallen to 2.08 million, according to the ONS.  

The only announcement I want to hear is that the Millionaires Club Coalition has resigned....

And:

Thanks to the arseholes at the GMC

A surgeon who is facing claims he botched 85 operations is still working for the NHS.

The hospital trust where Manjit Bhamra worked has already paid out £1 million to 10 patients whose surgery went badly wrong.

Now it is facing a further 85 complaints – in what could become one of Britain's biggest clinical negligence claims against a single surgeon.

Mr Bhamra has twice been referred to the General Medical Council but is now working at a different hospital which said it had "no concerns" about him.

The orthopaedic surgeon, 55, is accused of leaving hip patients in such pain that they were housebound and unable to work, with one man forced to sleep in a chair at night because he was unable to lie down.

Payments of between £1,750 and £500,000 have already been made in ten cases treated by Mr Bhamra at Rotherham Hospital, South Yorkshire – though liability was not accepted in all cases.

A spokesman for Rotherham Hospital said the trust had "a robust procedure in place in which to fully investigate any complaints that are received".

Tim Hendra, Medical Director at Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Pinderfield hospital said that delivering safe high quality care was the hospital's top priority, and that all medical staff were subject to a robust recruitment process and routine monitoring.

Bollocks...

A while back I posted about thieves who stole a driveway.

It now appears that the stone Numptys didn’t get far, as they were forced to abandon their haul on the M25 and flee after their transit van collapsed under the weight.

Sharon Gould, 52, from Spindlewoods, Tadworth, was horrified to return home on September 21 to find 120 York stones, dating back to 1910, had been taken while she was out to lunch with her mother.

After the back-breaking work of digging up the stones and loading them onto their white Ford transit van the thieves must have thought that driving them away would be a doddle.

But they had not reckoned on the impact of three tonnes of stone on a van.

As they drove down the M25 a tyre blew out and the suspension collapsed.

Forced to abandon the vehicle on the hard shoulder between the junctions 9 and 10, the two men were last seen running away into nearby fields after removing the vehicle's number plates in a bid to avoid being traced.

 Natural justice?

Over the saline pond on the left

The 2011 North American Wife Carrying Championship was held yesterday.

Wife Carrying teams are comprised of a male and female competitor, however, the female does not need to be the legal wife of the male nor does she have to let her male teammate carry her. Teams have the option to have the male carried by the female if they so choose. 

So it isn’t really a “Wife carrying” contest then, still the results are here.

Keep going West for quite a bit

And several Chinese online stores are offering die-hard Apple fans the opportunity to buy the much-anticipated next-generation iPhone 5. There's just one catch -- the US tech giant hasn't released it yet.

The fake smart phones are available for as little as 200 Yuan ($31) on hugely popular websites such as China's largest online marketplace Taobao.com, which has 370 million registered users.

Some of the smart phones offered are billed as "HiPhone 5" in a bid to avoid accusations of counterfeiting, but photos of the devices show the Apple logo on the back of the phones and "iPhone 5G" printed in the battery compartment.

Even before Tuesday's launch of the iPhone 4S at Apple headquarters in California, Chinese authorities had seized fake versions of the US firm's supposed latest offering.

Commerce department inspectors in the south eastern city of Fuzhou found 61 iPhone 5s on sale that featured new capabilities such as dual sim cards, the official Xinhua news agency reported earlier this week.

Vendors said the phones had been manufactured in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, the report said. The Fuzhou trade and commerce bureau was unavailable for comment.

Got to be a lot cheaper than Apple, and they will probably work better.....

And finally:

Dahn Unda

Members of a golf club in Australia have something more to worry about than just their swing - playing on what's thought to be the world's first shark-infested course.

The sharks got onto the Queensland golf course when it flooded some years ago after a river broke its banks.

Golfers often pause during games for a few minutes to see if they can spot the sharks before they head off to the next tee.

The sharks, which are between 8 and 10ft long, have proved quite a hit at corporate events and their fins have even been spotted during wedding ceremonies held on the course.

Half a dozen man-eating Bull sharks live in the lake in the centre of the course where their fins poking through the water have become a regular sight. 

Hope the Japanese don’t read this...

 

That’s it: I’m orf to read the green blueprint. 

And today’s thought: "Marriage is a wonderful invention: then again, so is a bicycle repair kit." - Billy Connolly

 

Angus  

The Fat lady: Tottering on to 120: Porbeagle takes a bite of Currie: Crap Cockroaches: Golf cart boat-not: and Holy Rollers.

‘Tis decent-ish at the Castle this morn, sunny, warm, calm and dry, in reply to Bernard’s comment on Friday’s post the “polo” is a bit of parrotstyrene from the bottom of the box the plants came in and the “two pound” coin in just a bit of cardboard-the snail is dead.... 

Many, many thanks for all the kind words, comments and emails re yesterday’s post, six long years, seems like six hours, but life must go on.....

The Express is mourning the loss of the “Fat lady” a 30-year-old 61lb 6oz carp that was found floating in St Ives Lakes, Cambs. It had often been caught but always put back.

Anglers across the UK came to see her. Fishery owner Gordon Howes said: “The Fat Lady was such a draw.” 

Carp and chips in Cambridgeshire tonight then.......

According to “experts”

Babies born today could eventually spend half of their lives in retirement; ministers are expected to claim this week, as they set out the need for reform of the pension system.

A quarter of girls under 20 and a fifth of boys are already expected to live to 100, according to the Department for Work and Pensions. But medical advances and improved diets could mean people living even longer, with growing numbers celebrating their 110th or even 120th birthday. Most pensions are designed to fund around 20 years out of work.

The coalition is moving the state pension age to 66 for men and women by 2020, but future changes could be linked to life expectancy. Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, previously warned that "in a country in which 11 million of us will live to be 100, we simply cannot go on paying the state pension at an age that was set early in the last century." 

I wonder how the next generation will take having to work to one hundred.

North of the border

An 8ft shark bit off more than it could chew when it came up against fisherman ­Hamish Currie.

The 52-year-old skipper ­struggled for two hours to land the 300lb monster, which his crewmates dubbed “The Beast”.

Hamish had to call on every one of his 45 years of experience as a fisherman as the dangerous Porbeagle shark rammed his 30ft rigid inflatable boat, sunk its teeth into the port side and bit into one of his ­crewmates’ boots.

Yesterday he described the ­moment he knew something out of the ordinary had taken a bite on his line.

“When she started ramming I knew she was a real bad fish, a wicked girl,” he said. “She took two bites and ­punctured the boat. I think she lost a couple of teeth when she took those chunks.

“I’ve landed loads of sharks over the years but she was by far the worst. They can be aggressive but she was really, really angry. She was unbelievable.”

“We had her on the boat for no more than five minutes before we threw her back.”

Porbeagles – which are closely related to the Great Whites ­featured in Hollywood thriller Jaws – have been known to attack ­humans, although it is rare. Three non-fatal attacks were recorded in 2009.

No Porbeagle and chips in Portnahaven tonight then....

East a lot to the “Dark Continent”

Kole Aboke, a teacher at St. Mary’s College, fell in a pit latrine in Central division on Saturday as he looked for cockroaches for a Biology practical lesson.

According to a source, the teacher was given money to buy 80 cockroaches for the lesson, but opted to look for the specimen himself. A Good Samaritan who helped pull out the teacher from the latrine said it took them one hour to rescue him.

The teacher had reportedly collected 40 cockroaches by the time he fell in the latrine.

Ochan, an eye witness of the rescue mission, said the teacher first took local brew with his colleagues before he left to collect the specimens. Ochan said the teacher sustained minor injuries and was rushed to Megwa clinic in Lira town.

That’ll teach him to be a cheapskate.

North of the border again

During yesterday's Ricoh women's British Open at Carnoustie this golf buggy ended up in Barry Burn.

No name was being given out by tight-lipped tournament officials, who confirmed only that the driver had been a support technician for the broadcaster ESPN, who leaped clear as the vehicle approached the edge. 

That’ll teach him to rely on sat nav.....

And finally: 

Wheeley fast Nuns

The Peirogi Parade in Whiting, Ind., is billed as one-of-a-kind and off the wall, and on Friday night the Holy Rollers made the parade even more memorable.

The Holy Rollers are nuns from the Carmelite Order of St. Joseph. They were on roller skates, making their first appearance in the parade.

The Peirogi Festival is a celebration of Whiting's Eastern European heritage. Among the attractions are 19 peirogi vendors serving polish dumplings stuffed with an assortment of fillings including alligator.

The festival runs through Sunday in downtown Whiting.

Wonder if there are Plumbers Pole Vaulting with copper pipe?

That’s it: I’m orf to tap into my brain

And today’s thought:  The large print giveth, but the small print taketh away.

 Angus

Ugly Brits; Millennia golf balls; Golfaxed sheep; scrutinise this: and Ryanair takes off more.

BF 0 last whatsit, I have gone all third person today.

Angus is not well, he has the whizzy round room and falling down and lying in his own vomit disease again.

He went to the four poster at 5 yesterday and woke up at six this morn, he is going to try to get an appointment with the medicine person, but doesn’t hold out much hope.

Anyway, it seems that from 2013 all nurses will have to have a degree to look after the sick.

Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), called the move "an important and historic development".

He said: "All nurses need to put quality care at the centre of what they do, and they also need extensive knowledge, analytical skills and experience to work in a range of settings.

Angus doesn’t give a rat’s arse what pieces of paper nurses have nailed to the wall, all he cares about is that he is treated with dignity, and caring by the uniformed heroes when he is in need of help.



And:











Ministry of defence civil servants earned bonuses totalling more than £47m this year, Conservatives say.

Defence minister Kevan Jones revealed the figure in a written reply to a Tory parliamentary question.

Some relatives of soldiers, who claim troops are poorly equipped, branded the performance-related bonuses "obscene".

The MoD says 50,000 staff got bonuses under previously arranged pay deals, averaging less than £1,000 each.

Angus would like to know why public servants are paid bonuses, and if that is the case why are our lads dying out in Afghanistan because of lack of equipment.


First up:

Beauty is in the eye.......

Britons are among the ugliest people in the world, according to a website that only allows 'beautiful' people to join.

Fewer than one in eight British men (12 per cent) and just three in 20 women (15 per cent) who have applied to BeautifulPeople.com have been accepted as members.

Existing members of the website rate how attractive potential members are over a 48 hour provisional period, when applicants upload a recent photograph and a short personal profile.

They are rated by members of the opposite sex, who have four options to describe how attractive they think the hopeful is - 'Yes definitely', 'Hmmm yes, OK', 'Hmmm no, not really' and 'NO definitely NOT'.

Swedish men have proved the most successful applicants, with two-thirds (65 per cent) of those putting themselves forward being accepted.

Norwegian women are considered the most beautiful with more than three-quarters (76 per cent) making the grade.

Since the website was opened to UK members 295,000 people have applied, with only 35,000 being approved.

The website was founded in 2002 in Denmark and since then it has spread to other countries - becoming available in the UK in April 2005.

Maybe it’s because the people who apply are vain, selfish and lacking in the brain cell department.

Pastime pollution

Golf balls are becoming a "major litter problem", according to scientists who have discovered that it takes between 100 and 1,000 years for one to decompose naturally.

In America alone, an estimated 300 million are lost each year and when scientists searched the bottom of Loch Ness searching for evidence of the monster they were startled to discover hundreds of thousands of the plastic balls.

Now the Danish Golf Association has conducted research into the environmental impact of the litter.

The scientists found that golf balls release a high quantity of heavy metals during decomposition, including dangerous levels of zinc found in solid core balls.

When submerged in water, the zinc attached itself to the ground sediment and poisoned the surrounding flora and fauna.

Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, said: "From the moon to the bottom of Loch Ness, golf balls are humanity's signature litter in the most inaccessible locations.

"Keep your balls on the fairway or invest in a stock of biodegradable balls."

Or better yet keep your balls where they belong, in your underpants.

Dead sheep-golf ball under arrest

A pensioner is trying to force a golf club next to her country home to alter its course after a stray ball killed one of her sheep.

Jane Blaik, 68, has been fighting Whiteleaf Golf Club for several years after her thatched cottage came under increased bombardment from golf balls.

However, the divorced grandmother is now campaigning for the nine-hole course to be rearranged after a stray shot killed her pet sheep Lucky.

She went out into the garden to find the black ewe collapsed with a golf ball lying next to it. Despite efforts to save the animal, it had to be put down by a vet the next day.

Mrs Blaik, a retired businesswoman, claims that her Grade II-listed house and three-acre garden in Princes Risborough, Bucks, are peppered by up to 50 golf balls every month.

The 100-year-old golf club has erected a 20ft fence on the edge of her garden to block stray shots. However, it is being forced to pull it down after Mrs Blaik complained it was too ugly and the council said it breached planning rules in an area of outstanding natural beauty.

Mrs Blaik, a mother-of-four, said: “I feel like my home in under constant bombardment.

“I have lived here 29 years and it used to be just the odd one or two, but in the last few years the number of balls has suddenly got much worse.

There is a hint in the text, “I have lived here 29 years” and “The 100-year-old golf club” if you don’t want golf balls in you garden don’t move next to a golf course, sorry for the sheep though.

Admin gone mad

Wealden District Council said a working party was set up in July to oversee the actions of its three existing scrutiny panels and to “scrutinise the Council’s scrutiny arrangements”.

A council spokesman said the group was established with a clear objective to "improve services" and save money, and contained members of the existing scrutiny committees. It will report to the council with its findings next May.

The spokesman said: "It is part of the council's transformation programme - which is looking at making savings of £2.7million over the next three years.

"The working party has been set up review and improve services and to achieve better value for money."

However Mark Wallace, from the Taxpayers Alliance, said: "Whilst it may be well-intentioned the council appears to have wrapped themselves up in knots and ended up in an absurd situation.

Make work or what?


And finally:

For the lads

The Irish low-cost airline has today launched its 2010 charity calendar in which it uses airline staff as the models. It hopes that the calendar will raise £100,000 for the charity “KIDS” which provides support to disabled children and their families across Britain.

Last year Labour MEP Mary Honeyball accused Ryanair of “sexualising” the airline industry.

“Ryanair has again done the dirty in a desperate bid for profits and pimped out its “sexiest” airline stewards in a “bare all” calendar,” she said. “Such derisory marketing will surely deter more serious candidates interested in a career in airline services and bring the entire airline service industry career into disrepute as a result.”

Michael O’Leary, the airline’s chief executive, confirmed that he has already bought the first 100 copies of the 2010 calendar and sent one to Ms Honeyball whom he labelled “anti-fun”.

A spokesman for Ryanair said that more than 800 of the airline’s 4,000 cabin crew applied to be in the calendar.

The calendars will be sold on-board Ryanair flights and on its website (http://www.ryanair.com/) for €10 (£9).

I don’t care, but it has made an old man very inadequate, Watch the video (link over the pic)

Sexist old Angus is now going to return to the four poster with a bucket and the cat (useful for wiping vomit from the duvet)



Angus


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