Universal Rodney’s: “Art” Dahn Unda: Dream Machine: Shotgun engagements: and the Battersea bless...

Rainy rain, windy wind, warmy warm and invisible solar stuff at the Castle this morn, finally finished the painty coloured stuff on anything that doesn’t move, that is the smallest room, bathroom, landing, stairs, lobby and the kitchen sorted, all I have to do now is put all the bits back that had to be removed and have a cleanup.

 

Up in the place next to the leaning tower of Westminster

 

Apparently the irritable bowel twins plan to introduce “universal benefits” (new benefits system set to replace a number of key current benefits, including some Income Support; Income based Job Seekers Allowance, Housing Benefit and Tax Credits) is causing a bit of a problem, according to an inquiry led by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson up to half a million disabled people and their families will be worse off.

Cuts to child disability payments and to support for the most severely disabled are likely to result in people struggling to pay for essentials such as food and heating, says the report which is backed by The Children's Society, Citizens Advice and Disability Rights UK.

Many disabled people who are already finding it difficult to make ends meet face further hardship under the new benefit system, it adds.

The report warns that up to 230,000 severely disabled people who do not have another adult to assist them will get between £28 and £58 less in support every week. It also reveals that 100,000 disabled children stand to lose up to £28 a week, while 116,000 disabled people who work risk losing up to £40 per week from payments towards additional costs of being disabled.

 

Universal Rodney 1

 

And U-Turn Cam’s alien reptile in disguise

Is under fire from the other bit of the non elected Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition because son of a B........aronet George (I am looking forward to my massive pay rise) Osborne wants to freeze state benefits for the unemployed and poor from next April to compensate for what he regards as a generous 5.2 per cent increase in benefits in April this year.

What’s his name who is allegedly the deputy Prime Monster is going to “negotiate” with the Chancellor ahead of the statement on 5th December and is expected to argue for most benefits to rise in line with the CPI. 

Universal Rodney 2

 

Which brings me to old farts

The basic state pension will rise by a minimum of just under £2.69 a week or 2.5 per cent next year despite todays lower inflation figures.

The rate of consumer prices index (CPI) inflation in September is traditionally used as a measure to determine next year's benefit increases, and today's figures showed that CPI fell to 2.2% in this month, the lowest level since November 2009.

But under a Government guarantee put in place when it changed the way it calculates state pension increases, pensions must rise by at least 2.5 per cent.

This still works out, however, at around £5.20 less a year for pensioners than if the Government had used the often faster-rising retail price index (RPI) inflation measure, which was previously used to calculate pension rises.

This means an increase of £2.69 a week next year on the current basic state pension for a man or a woman of £107.45 a week.

Or 38p a day...

 

Which won’t even cover the cost of a second class stamp... 

 

Dahn Unda

 

There is an elephant in the room because of the cost of a new bit of “artwork” in Queensland, A statue of an elephant tipped on its head and eyeballing a water rat is the latest artwork to be condemned as an "appalling waste" of money by the Newman Government.

The five-metre high bronzed statue was commissioned for Queensland's Gallery of Modern Art by the ousted Bligh government at a cost of just over $1 million.

Former gallery director Tony Ellwood, who left the state this year, had previously praised the work as "simultaneously contemplative and humorous" and predicted it would become an "enormously popular emblem" for GOMA.

 

No wonder he pissed orf...

 

Left to the big bit of fruit

A couple of scientists have built a sleeping mask designed to allow people to have lucid dreams that they can control.

The Remee has been billed as a special REM (Rapid Eye Movement) enhancing device that is supposed to help steer the sleeper into lucid dreaming by making the brain aware that it is dreaming.

The goal of the product is to allow people to have the dreams of their choice, from driving a race car to flying to having lunch with Abraham Lincoln.

The ‘futuristic’ invention is the brainchild of Duncan Frazier and Steve McGuigan, both aged 30, who have started a company named Bitbanger Labs.

The two friends put up their project on the crowd funding website Kickstarter with the goal of raising $35,000. By this week, more than 6,550 people pledged $572,891 to fund Remee.

The inside of the sleeping mask features a series of six red LED lights that are too faint to wake the sleeper up, but visible enough for the brain to register them.

The lights can be programmed to produce a sequence designed by the user.

McGuigan said that he uses his Remee several times a week, but he admitted that reaching a state of lucidity can be 'hard' and does not happen every time.

Think I’ll wait for the Remee 2, or 3 or maybe 4...

 

Still in the land of the right to bear arms

A jewellery store in Iowa is offering an engaging deal — a free hunting rifle to customers who purchase a wedding engagement ring.

The official promotion rules require a customer to spend at least $1,999 on an engagement ring purchased before October 31, 2012. They will then receive a voucher for a Remington 870 hunting rifle that can be redeemed at local retailer Fin and Feather. A standard Remington 870 can typically be purchased for under $500, those there are more expensive options available, including those with accessories such as scopes. The Remington 870 is typically used for hunting and sport shooting but is also kept by some as a means of home defence. The 870 is also popular with military and police organizations around the world. In the U.S. it is employed by the Military, Secret Service, Coast Guard, Border Patrol, IRS and even the Department of Education.

 

Now, shotguns in the classroom I can understand....

 

And finally:

 

Back in Blighty and up to the place that used to have a power station

An abandoned kitten and puppy at Battersea Dogs & Cats Home have dispelled the age old saying ‘fighting like dogs and cats’ by becoming best friends.

At just weeks old, Buttons the dog and Kitty the cat were both abandoned. Now they are now being hand-reared together at the animal home and have become very close.

In fact the inseparable pair are so close they sleep together, play together and even feed together.

Battersea Veterinary Nurse Sascha Taylor. She says: "Normally we’d hand rear puppies and kittens separately but we thought we could try putting them together as they are both so young.

 

Kitty looks like his Maj.

 

That’s it: I’m orf to get some pirated fish

 

And today’s thought:

I know I put my glasses somewhere.

 

 

Angus

 

The EU rules: Housey-housey: U-F-O BBC: Human show jumping: Munich motor: and Lego my Batcave.

The butler is stuffing fat, carbon neutral teenagers into the furnace as fast as he can to compensate for the lack of warm at the Castle this morn.

Too dark to report on the rest of the wevver conditions, but his Maj has returned from doing his business with not a jot of wet stuff on his coat.

Finally finished the loo, bathroom, landing and master bedroom, just the stairs and lobby left to do, more knackered than the most knackered thing you could think of.

 

The Irritable Bowel Twins are not very happy

Because the EU is insisting that European immigrants should be able to claim handouts and pensions without first having to pass a test proving that they have settled in multicultural Blighty.

The demand is the latest response in a continuing row after Iain Duncan Smith said that such a system would mean immigrants could get benefits on the first day of entering Britain.

The knob at the top of the Dept of Witless Pillocks said last month that it would cost taxpayers £155 million a year if the UK was forced to get rid of the “habitual resident test”.

The test makes sure that foreigners have genuinely lived and paid taxes in the country before they can claim welfare payments.

His department has been holding talks with the European Commission for months in an effort to find a solution, but sources said on Thursday that Brussels was preparing to sue Britain by the end of this year unless the test is scrapped.

 

On Thursday night, a spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions said: “The EU has no right to interfere in this way and we will continue fighting it.”

 

That’ll teach em.....

 

And all over building-less Blighty

Allegedly efforts to reduce people’s dependency on benefits could be undermined by the Government’s own flagship housing scheme, an influential committee of MPs has warned.

The £1.8 billion Affordable Homes Programme risks sucking poorer people further into a “benefit trap” and threaten the Government’s plans to “make work pay”, according to the cross-party Public Accounts Committee.

The initiative, launched two years ago, aims to build 80,000 new homes by 2015 to tackle a national shortage.

Affordable housing providers are given Government grants averaging £20,000 per home to build new housing to let out to social tenants.

But, because the grants are only about a third of the value of those provided under a previous scheme, the providers are being allowed to charge higher rents to the new tenants.

Meanwhile those who do are likely to end up simply claiming more on housing benefits, the committee found.

But Mark Prisk, the housing minister, said: "Today's report fails to recognise the flexibility that the new system of Affordable Rent offers landlords, giving them the option to set rents to ensure a fit with local circumstances.

"And anyone eligible for full housing benefit will have their Affordable Rent paid in full.”

"This new Affordable Homes Programme will lever in £10 billion of new private investment, ensuring we deliver 53,000 more affordable homes than we could have done under the previous funding models."

 

Still all this building will give the Polish economy a big boost....

 

West to the home of aliens and the land of “security”

 

A BBC film crew was held at gunpoint after trying to sneak into Nevada's Area 51 military base with UFO conspiracy theorists.

Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell and UFO expert Darren Perks sneaked past the border at the site - and were forced to lie on the ground at gunpoint for three hours while the FBI checked their credentials.

It is the same 'documentary' team that caused outrage in Britain last week when they suggested that the 7/7 London bombings were part of a government conspiracy to boost support for the Iraq war.

The crew 12 people in total were investigating Area 51 in Nevada - where the U.S. military allegedly hold the bodies of aliens and the remnants of ships which crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.

As they crossed the border, military officers arrested them, confiscating their phones, wallets and identification.

Darren told the Mail Online: 'Basically the concept of the trip was to tour across California, Arizona and Nevada with comedian presenter Andrew Maxwell and four people who had an interest in the UFO phenomena.

'We went to Area 51 in Nevada firstly because it’s related to the UFO phenomena and secondly so we could do a night time sky watch to see if we could spot anything unusual.

 

Nice to see that our license fee is being used to bring us such “interesting” programmes and that the twonks Auntie employs are illiterate.

 

All across the World

There is a new “sport”; you don't have to wear a saddle or have steel shoes nailed onto your feet, in fact you don’t even need an ‘Orse, oh yes we now have Horseless show jumping.

According to Phil Rozon, a Canadian jumper judge who officiated at both the horseless horse show and the American Gold Cup Grand Prix that followed. "We judge them just like horses."

Indeed, the young competitors are judged just as horse and rider combos would be in standard show jumping classes—placing according to speed or the time taken to complete a given course. The fastest time wins, but penalties are incurred for faults such as knocking down a rail.

 

My brain hurts...

 

Over to the place where beer festivals abound

A man in southern Germany has been reunited with his car two years after forgetting where he parked, Bavarian police said on Thursday.

After a night of drinking in December 2010 and an unsuccessful search the next day, the vehicle's owner reported his car as missing to the Munich police.

Authorities discovered it by chance last month after a traffic warden noticed that its inspection stickers had expired - 4 km from the spot where the now 33-year-old craftsman originally thought he had parked.

"The weird thing is that it turned up so far away, although the owner was pretty sure of where he had left it," said police spokesman Alexander Lorenz.

In the trunk were 40,000 Euros ($51,600) worth of tools including power drills and electric screwdrivers, Lorenz said.

 

I don’t need to be drunk to forget where I parked...

 

And finally:

 

Somewhere in an alternative universe

 

Carlyle Livingston II and Wayne Hussey stand behind their massive Lego creation. (Flickr)When it comes to expansive Batman and Lego creations, most of us are content to stick to the video game offerings.

But Carlyle Livingston II and Wayne Hussey have taken things a giant leap forward, creating a spectacular replica of the Batcave using more than 20,000 individual Lego pieces.

The pair debuted the creation at the 2012 Emerald City Comicon. They uploaded several dozen photos and three videos to Flickr detailing the construction of the cave, home to the comic-book character Batman. In the photos you can also see some of their other creations, including several "Star Wars"-themed spaceships.

The Brothers Brick site notes that it took Livingston and Hussey more than 800 hours to assemble the 20,000 pieces, with the final model weighing more than 100 pounds.

Their Batcave even comes with its own lighting and a rotating turntable at the centre of the cave. The Laughing Squid site notes that a single battery powers the entire Lego Batcave, wired to several different lighting sources, including Christmas and flash lights.

 

Think they have Lego of reality...

 

That’s it: I’m orf to cash in on a “Super Earth”

 

And today’s thought:

Auntie’s new headquarters.

 

 

Angus

No Nurse NHS: Magna Plonker U-Turn Cam: Mona 1: The Frozen Dead Guy Festival: Autonomous motors: and Sparkle.

Still chucking it dahn, still a ludicrous lack of warm stuff, still less than that atmospheric movement and not a light of solar activity at the Castle this morn.

 

Bit late, had to go dahn to Tesco on the stale bread, gruel and his Maj's food run and spent more than a while hunting for an illegal tungsten lightbulb or two.

 

And just to cheer up we old farts here are a few old “jokes”.

 

 

 

‘OLD’ IS WHEN….
Your sweetie says, ‘Let’s go upstairs and make love,’ and you answer, ‘Pick one; I can’t do both!’

‘OLD’ IS WHEN…
Your friends compliment you on your new alligator shoes and you’re barefoot…

‘OLD’ IS WHEN…
A sexy babe or hunk catches your fancy and your pacemaker opens the garage door.

‘OLD’ IS WHEN…
Going braless pulls all the wrinkles out of your face.

 

All across our dear old NHS

 

Since the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition wasn’t elected to power they have managed to vanish almost 6,000 nurses, midwifery and health visiting staff.

Health Minister Lord Howe said: "There are always fluctuations in the workforce, and the reality is that there is almost a thousand more clinical staff working in the NHS than there was in May 2010, including nearly 3,500 more doctors, and over 900 extra midwives.

 

Someone is telling porkies-wonder who? And note that the Minister for Elf Howe didn’t mention “Nurses”.

 

Over to the left in both senses

 

 

It seems that our beloved Prime Monster has displayed the result of his very expensive Eton education on the Letterman show.

U-Turn Cam managed to:

Get the answer to who composed Rule Britannia wrong, quoting Elgar instead of Thomas Arne.

Leave the answer to what Magna Carta means in “proper” English unanswered (great charter).

But he did manage to get the place and date correct (1215 as the date the Magna Carta was drawn up and Runnymede as the place of signing).

And he admitted he is "not very popular at the moment", pointing to austerity measures and cuts as a possible explanation for his low ratings.

 

At least he got that right...

 

Right to the place where pointy chocolate comes from

Allegedly a younger vision of the 'Mona Lisa' is due to be unveiled in Geneva, the Swiss-based Mona Lisa Foundation organising the event says detailed research over three decades strongly indicates it is an earlier portrayal by the Italian genius of the world's most famous painting.

Foundation member and art historian Stanley Feldman said: "We have investigated this painting from every relevant angle and the accumulated information all points to it being an earlier version of the Giaconda in the Louvre.

But Martin Kemp, Oxford University professor and world-recognised authority on Da Vinci, argued the Geneva portrait is probably a copy of the Paris version by an unknown painter who simply chose to make the subject younger.

"So much is wrong," he said, pointing to the fact - among others - that the foundation's portrait is painted on canvas and not on wood, the artist's preferred medium. 

 

Woodn’t you know it....

 

Back over to the home of odd things and the land of festivals

 

 

The frozen corpse that has inspired a Colorado town's whimsical "Frozen Dead Guy Days" celebration may soon be put on ice somewhere else, but festival organizers said the body's removal will not have a chilling effect on the annual event.

"We will continue on whether or not Bredo Morstoel is here," festival owner Amanda MacDonald said Wednesday of the man whose body has been packed in dry ice outside Nederland, Colorado, since 1993.

A financial dispute between Morstoel's grandson, Tryve Bauge, and the man hired to replenish the dry ice on a monthly basis, Bo Shaffer, has led to Bauge threatening to move his grandfather's body out of Colorado.

Each month for 18 years, Shaffer has hauled 1,700 pounds (770 kg) of dry ice - carbon dioxide in solid form - to a remote shed above Nederland to keep the corpse of Morstoel at minus-24 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-31 degrees Celsius) and in a state of cryonic suspension.

But Shaffer said he quit after Bauge refused to pay for the rising costs of fuel and ice, which has made the endeavour unprofitable.

 

So the ice man doesn’t cometh then...

 

Still in the place where driving was a pleasure

California Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed a bill clearing the way for self-driving cars to jockey with human-operated vehicles to test the technology on the state's roads.

"Autonomous vehicles are another example of how California's technological leadership is turning today's science fiction into tomorrow's reality," Brown said during a signing ceremony at the Google campus in Mountain View.

"This law will allow California's pioneering engineers to safely test and implement this amazing new technology."

The legislation backed by state senator Alex Padilla lets driverless cars be operated on public roads for testing purposes as long as licensed drivers are behind the wheels to take over if needed. 

Bit bleedin pointless then...

 

And finally:

 

The latest internet hit

 

A cross-eyed cat named Spangles is making a name for himself after his proud owner posted pictures of him wearing costumes online.

Three-year-old feline Spangles has won thousands of followers on his Facebook page after owner Mary Buchanan began posting daily pictures of him posing in costumes.

Buchanan, 25, a college student from Spartanburg, South Carolina, adopted the tabby cat from a neighbour when he was five months old.

"Spangles was born on July 4th, so with the Star-Spangled Banner that's how I got his name", said owner Mary Buchanan.

“He was born with one cross eye, but he’s never had problems walking or anything."

“He’s never run into things, or wobbled. He can see perfectly fine. He has been checked out by a vet, and no surgery is needed to correct his sight.”

Bless.....

 

That’s it: I’m orf to check out the reef in the moat

 

And today’s thought:

The porky pie man.

 

 

Angus

Taking: Giving and taking: Whaffing calorie free choccy: Far-arri from the real thing: Photo-origami: and Monking around in Sarf Korea.

Sunny, cold and calm at the Castle this morn, I may try to mow the lawn later-if it has dried out enough and in preparation I have moved the bench to the ‘shady corner’, it looks so good I think I will leave it there.

And his Maj has managed to destroy his cat flap (in the back door not his rear exit), so I had to go dahn the town to purchase a new one, and while there popped into the “sorting office”, paid the ransom on my fence staples and came home more than a few squids lighter.

Allegedly the HMRC has done it again

Because of errors about 1.6 million people will start receiving demands within the next two weeks for an average £537 shortfall in the tax they paid last year, HM Revenue and Customs warned yesterday.

Meanwhile a further 3.5 million will be sent a rebate for the 2011-12 tax year, averaging £379.

If the figures are correct for the tax year which ended on 5 April, then Britons overpaid more than £1.3bn in tax for the year. Meanwhile, HMRC's miscalculations means it will be forced to claw back more than £849m from unsuspecting taxpayers.

Think they need a new abacus....

And according to the Irritable Bowel twins

Apparently Millions of mothers who have chosen to take time out of work will no longer be penalised once they are pensioners, Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has announced.

However, the overhaul is expected to hit wealthier workers, as the state second pension will be scrapped.

At the moment, people who do not work for 30 years do not qualify for the full basic state pension. Under the reforms, mothers and carers will be treated as if they had worked throughout their lives, benefiting them by £2,000 a year.

Mr Duncan Smith said women would be the "major winners" in the reformed system, which will mean that everyone who works or looks after others will receive a flat-rate payment worth at least £140 a week.

The measure will be applied to women who retire from 2015, giving an average of £40 extra a week to mothers who took time out of work. Currently, they receive a reduced entitlement for each year out of employment.

Chuffin wonderful-but it won’t save the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition in a couple of years...

Left to the land of the large and the home of the candy

Biomechanical engineer David Edwards has launched AeroShot Chocolate, an inhaler which provides the taste of chocolate in breathable form.

Using a small lipstick-sized tube, consumers draw fine particles of chocolate into their mouth to experience the taste of pure chocolate "re-imagined".

Aeroshot Chocolate follows the release of caffeine product AeroShot Energy earlier this year which used the same patented delivery system to administer a dose of breathable caffeine.

The product taps into the new-age food trend of "whaffing" or inhalable eating.

Edwards says the product works because the particles are small enough to enter the mouth and too large to go beyond it.

"The chocolate melts immediately upon landing in your mouth," the Harvard University biomedical engineering professor said. "Since the particles are so small and uniformly dispersed by the air, the taste is immediate, too.

The product is available in three dark chocolate flavours: pure chocolate, mint chocolate, and cherry chocolate and is designed to accompany a coffee, curb an afternoon craving or be consumed as a guilt-free dessert after a meal.

It is being launched this week at the Sweets and Snacks Expo in Chicago, Illinois and will be
available for consumers to purchase online from June 15 for US$2.99 ($2.97) per unit.



Cheaper to buy the real thing-sod the calories...

Dahn ere in ‘Ampshire

Chris Smart, 32 couldn't afford the classic Ferrari he'd always wanted - so he spent two weeks sketching and painting one on his garage door instead.

Married Chris, who studied art at college, said: "I hated the garage door before because it was really dull.

"I saw garage covers on the internet and wanted one unique to me. I have always loved this particular car and wanted to make it a bit of fun.

"People do have to do a double-take and they smile when they realise what it is. Lots of kids have been taking photographs."

The realistic three-dimensional scene also includes Harry Potter's broom, a KFC bargain bucket and a paint pot with Chris' name on it.

But the creative garage door hides a boring, standard garage, which contains tools, a push bike and boxes of junk.

Wife Kerry, 32, added: "Painting the car on the garage door is as close as he's ever likely to get to it unless we win the lottery."

Bless....

Left again to the big rock State

Researchers have demonstrated how to make origami using light of a specific wavelength.

They call the new folding technique photo-origami, and it could potentially be used as a way to manufacture 3D structures.

The team of mechanical engineers led by Professor Martin Dunn of the University of Colorado at Boulder has published a paper on their simulations and experiments of photo-origami in a recent issue of Applied Physics Letters.

Because photo-origami only uses light and a mechanical straining force to fold materials, it could potentially serve as a simple, automated sequential folding process. In their study, the researchers experimentally demonstrate how photo-origami works using a flat, two-dimensional polymer that contains photoinitiators. First, the polymer is stretched to create a mechanical strain. Then light is applied to a specific area of the polymer, such as along a line to be folded, which causes the photoinitiators to disassociate into free radicals. The highly reactive radicals then fragment and reform polymer chains, resulting in stress relaxation in the chosen area. This redistribution of stress through the material causes a change of shape as the material strives to achieve mechanical equilibrium, folding along the chosen line.

That process results in a single fold. For each additional fold, the irradiation, and potentially straining, steps are repeated. When the steps are performed in a specific sequence, the technique can produce complex shapes. To demonstrate, the researchers fabricated a heart and a six-sided closed box.

“In principle, this could make many complex structures consisting of bends and folds in arbitrary directions and sequences,” Dunn said. “The computational simulations can be used to design myriad structures, many that we could not conceive without simulations.”

As a form of technical origami, photo-origami could enable applications far beyond origami’s original purpose as a creative art. Technical origami can be used in situations in which an object must be stored and transported and later deployed for use. This need arises, for example, for space-based solar arrays, automobile airbags, tissue engineering, shopping cartons, and photovoltaic cells that optimally capture sunlight throughout the day. Origami could also be used to fold molecules into specific shapes for the purpose of tailoring their molecular properties.

Clever; but doesn’t it take all the fun out?

And finally:

Right a lot to the bit Sarf of Kim Jong (more than) Ill’s former domain

Six leaders from South Korea's biggest Buddhist order have quit after secret video footage showed some supposedly serene monks raising hell, playing high-stakes poker, drinking and smoking.

The scandal erupted just days before Koreans observe a national holiday to celebrate the birth of Buddha, the holiest day of the religion's calendar.

The head of the Jogye order, which has some 10 million followers, or about a fifth of the population, made a public apology on Friday, vowing "self-repentance".

South Korean TV networks aired shots of monks playing poker, some smoking and drinking, after gathering at a luxury lakeside hotel in late April for a fellow monk's memorial service.

"The stakes for 13 hours of gambling were more than 1 billion won ($875,300)," Seongho, a senior monk who uses one name, told Reuters on Friday.

He said he had reported the incident to prosecutors.

But at least they didn't kill anything....

That’s it: I’m orf to search the sandpit

And today’s thought:

Just relaxing.

Angus

Royal Mail fail: Job costs: Orbiting the Olympics: Bangers and Mash point (without the mash): Costa club: Fish bites cat: and want a Sea Shadow?

The big yellow thing has finally appeared at the Castle this morn, bit chilly with a whimsy of wind but it is DRY!-so far.

Yestermorn (just) a postcard dropped onto the mat inside the portcullis from the Royal Fail to inform me that apparently they couldn’t deliver something because the sender failed to pay the ransom by a whole 9p, and they want to charge me £1 for the privilege:

If I want to retrieve my goods I can -

Go to www.royalmail.com/fee2pay and pay

Put £1.09 worth of stamps on said ransom demand and stagger dahn to the post-box, and then wait another week.

Drive dahn to the ‘sorting office’, pay £1 to park and then hand over £1.09 in cash to the kidnappers.

 

Allegedly they will keep my goods which I own (a small pack of 20mm fence staples for the bamboo screen) for eighteen days and then post it back to the sender.

Is it me or has Blighty gone completely barmy? Click on the pic to read this load of old bollocks.

According to the National Audit Office

Each new job created by a flagship government scheme could cost taxpayers as much as £200,000.

The Regional Jobs Fund was designed to help businesses create private sector jobs in parts of the country with high levels of public sector employment.

But the National Audit Office (NAO) said value for money had not been "optimised".

The government has already made changes to improve the scheme, Business Secretary Vince Cable claimed.

The NAO examined the first £1.4bn awarded from the fund and found it could lead to an extra 41,000 jobs over the next seven years.

The average cost per job created was £33,000, but they said the cost could vary "from under £4,000 to over £200,000".

 

Another Piss Poor Policy from “our” coulda, woulda, shoulda Millionaires Club Coalition...

Up in the Smoke

The big red helter skelter has been opened, the completed steel sculpture - known as ArcelorMittal Orbit - stands at the heart of the Olympic Park.

It was designed by Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor and structural designer Cecil Balmond.

From the end of July, visitors will be able to climb on the £22.7m structure to take in panoramic views across London's skyline.

With a height of 114.5 metres (376ft), it is the tallest sculpture in the UK.

Visitors will be able to go up the 35-storey structure in a lift, and will have the option of walking down its spiralling staircase.

Steel company ArcelorMittal provided £19.2m towards the cost of building the Orbit, with the remaining £3.1m being funded by London Development Agency.

Oh joy-I hope there is plenty of rust proofing on it....

Still in the Olympic orifice

A butcher has invented a device to be stocked with gourmet goodies such as cheese stuffed bangers and rare white varieties.

 And to access the meaty treats, all customers have to do is use their credit card and pin number.

Steffen Schutze, 31, also sells marinated steak and chicken wings from the machine, but admits that sausages are his main seller.

"It's a great idea for busy people who can't get to the shops. Now all he needs is another machine to dispense potatoes," said one customer.

Yeah right...

And talking of food Paris, the City of lots of people in France, is also the city with the most expensive club sandwich in the world, according to a global survey released Wednesday by an online travel service. Hotels.com said it price-checked club sandwiches at more than 750 hotels in 26 cities in Asia, Europe, North America and South America to help travellers size up the affordability of different national capitals. The result? Paris topped the list with an average price of $33.10 for the iconic chicken, bacon, egg, lettuce and mayonnaise sandwich that's a fixture on virtually every hotel restaurant and room-service menu. Geneva placed second at $32.56, followed by Oslo at $30.50. New Delhi was cheapest at $9.57. Berlin and Brasilia were bang in the middle at $17.77 each -- slightly more expensive than New York's $16.93.

Tokyo came in at $27.65, Hong Kong at $18.35, London at $18.71 and Toronto at $16.05.





I’m orf to New Delhi then-with a bucket...and a toilet roll...and a butt plug...

Somewhere on the Ethernet

A pussy turns into a chicken.

And finally:

On one of the big wet salty things

The US military has put its $195 million stealth ship built back in 1984 (but the world didn't see the Sea Shadow for nine years because it was loaded with the type of stealth technology that made the US Air Force's F-35 Lightning II so famous)  up for sale, starting price is $50,000 .

The snag is that once you own it you have to scrap it.

"The ex-Sea Shadow shall be disposed of by completely dismantling and scrapping within the USA," the description on the sale item reads.

"Dismantling is defined as reducing the property such as it has no value except for its basic material content."

Not much of a bargain then...but if you want a pile of metal you can bid on it Here

That’s it: I’m orf to buy her Maj’s knickers at W.H smith

And today’s thought:

21^st century delivery system

Angus