Dear, old NHS: Centrica cashes in: USA UFO: Big Lobster: No pants out East: and Mirror, mirror.

Damp, dismal and a fair amount of positive numbers in the liquid metal gauge at the castle this morn, the Fallic Glu still has its hold on moi, I am “glowing” a bit more than gently and have just returned from the stale bread, gruel and his Maj’s food run dahn Tesco, still dodging the internet robots and watching as the total on the receipt climb to new heights. 

Bit late today-having all sorts of problems with the interweb thingy..

In old, decrepit Blighty

It seems that our NHS may need an emergency cash bailout before the next general election.

And apparently it is all the fault of us old farts: Alien reptile in disguise George (you are all in it, but we are still rich) Osborne reckons that despite the £20 billion cuts and “extra money” for the old girl there will not be enough to provide care for the growing number of elderly patients and meet the rising cost of advanced medical treatments.

Well, excuse me for not shuffling orf this mortal coil.....

Still in the warm wet UK

British gas has seen a 30% fall in operating profits at its residential energy division to a mere £522m.

The firm blamed lower consumption due to good weather and improvements in energy efficiency.

"2011 was a tough year, both for Centrica and our customers," said chief executive Sam Laidlaw.

 I don’t consider a £522m profit “tough”; more like a rip orf....

Left to the home of the unknown and the land of logos

Footage claiming to feature the best UFO sighting ever recorded has been released on YouTube.

Reported to have been captured from a moving car near Roswell, New Mexico – the site of one of the most controversial conspiracy theory incidents in US history − the clip has been viewed over 10,000 times.

Stephen Hannard, of Alien Disclosure Group UK, uploaded the eerie recording of the flying saucer.

He commented: “Possible leaked footage of a UFO arriving then landing at an unknown location in New Mexico.”

His speculation continued: “Could be one of ours, CGI, or could be the real deal. As Always You Decide.”

Odd thing is that this “UFO” seems to have the American “star” on it.

Up a smidge to one of the fishing bits of the States

A giant 27-pound lobster has been caught off the Maine coast, but it won't be going into a pot of boiling water.

Maine State Aquarium Director Aimee Hayden-Rodriques says Cushing shrimp fisherman Robert Malone caught the monster crustacean in his nets Friday. He gave it to the Department of Marine Resources to deliver to the aquarium, which the DMR operates in Boothbay Harbour.

The beast weighed in at 27 pounds and measured nearly 40 inches long. It was dubbed Rocky because it was caught in the Rockland area, but Hayden-Rodriquez says it could have been named for Rocky the boxer because its claws are big enough to pack quite a punch.

Hayden-Rodriquez says Rocky will soon be released into the ocean because he'll fare better in the wild.

Rocky go home....

East to the land of pants

Last week in Taiwan, a gaggle of young girls flaunted their assets on Taipei’s MRT subway line — all in the name of saving the world, of course. Mirroring the famed “No Pants Subway Ride” that has exploded in popularity in New York due to the efforts of groups like Improv Everywhere, the women (and some men) bared legs and smiles to a sea of gawkers in order to raise environmental awareness.

The group boarded the MRT at 9am to the shock of commuters and workers alike, and were surrounded by cameras in no time. When asked about their motives, they responded that they wanted to inject some excitement and liberation into their normally monotonous life, while also promoting energy conservation and reduction of carbon emissions (presumably by attracting attention to Taiwan’s MRT).

Nothing to do with getting on the telly then.....

And finally:

Left a fair way and up a bit

Every year, for 84 days in a row, the sun would disappear behind a 1,600-meter high mountain in the town of Viganella. As a result, the town with 197 inhabitants would be plunged into near-total darkness.

Thanks to the work of Midali, a large eight metres wide by five metres tall mirror has just been installed in November to bring light to this town during winter.

Workers also installed a powerful "altazimuth" computer that would move the mirror around so as to capture the sun's rays and convey them on the town's square for up to eight hours a day

That’ll bugger up the Leccy companies profits....

That’s it: I’m orf to see if I can get cheaper water.

And today’s thought:

Eggstaterrestrial

Angus

YEAH RIGHT!

Gord is backtracking so fast now that it looks like he is moon walking, his latest “cunning plan” is to change the voting system from first past the post to Alternative vote (system in which voters could list their preferences rather than simply voting for one candidate as now) and he also wants a legally binding code of conduct for MPs.

These “new” ideas of course are only that, ideas, Gord is trying to tell us things that he thinks we want to hear, the other problem is that NU Labour have a cat in hells chance of getting the legislation in place before the next election.

If El Gordo wants us to believe him and vote for No labour what he needs to do is make party manifestos legally binding, then Non Labour and the other parties will have to carry out their “promises”.

End of the gravy train for the NHS

After pouring in hundreds of millions into the NHS the money has run out- Telegraph estimates are that by 2011 there will be a £15 bn shortfall.


Is this yet another part of the cunning plan?

The NHS Confederation said in a new report. “The Confederation, which represents most NHS organisations, warned that action is needed now if the health service is to remain free at the point of need.”

Steve Barnett, chief executive of the Confederation, said: "With little or no cash increase from 2011/12 the NHS has to prepare itself for real terms reductions in what it can afford to do and needs to make the hard decisions about which programmes to fund, how to reward staff and how to reorganise services now.

"If it does not, then the mistakes of the past could be repeated and shortages in funding will translate to the kind of across the board cuts which could see waiting lists lengthen, standards fall and dissatisfaction with the service grow among patients and staff."

Simple answer: we don’t need “management consultants” we don’t need half the “managers” and we don’t need the Foundation trust system, return the power to the central Government then we know who is responsible.

Free food

From the Telegraph-Sky 'rains tadpoles' over Japan Residents, officials and scientists have been baffled by the apparent downpour of tadpoles in central Japan's Ishikawa Prefecture.

Clouds of dead tadpoles appear to have fallen from the sky in a series of episodes in a number of cities in the region since the start of the month.

In one incident, a 55-year-old man who was caught in a tadpole downpour described hearing a strange sound in the parking lot of a civic centre in the city of Nanao.

Upon further exploration, he found more than 100 dead tadpoles covering the windshields of cars in an area measuring 10 square metres.

Dead tadpole downpours were also reported by local officials 48 hours later in the city of Hakusan in the same prefecture.

The raining down of small creatures such as frogs and fish is a rare meteorological phenomenon that is reported from time to time across the world.

The good news is that it may let the dolphins off the hook for a while.

Big Bang

Florida fisherman reels in a missile a Florida fisherman has landed the catch of his life - an air-to-air guided missile that could have exploded at any moment.

Despite the danger, Rodney Salomon, a commercial fisherman, reeled in the missile, attached it to his boat and kept fishing in the Gulf of Mexico for another 10 days before returning to port.

"I had it strapped to the roof of my boat as we rode through lightning storms," Mr Salomon said, according to local Tampa Bay's 10 Connects News.

The bomb squad from a nearby military base that promptly dismantled it upon his return to shore said the heavily corroded eight-foot-long missile could have exploded at any moment.

"I wasn't scared," said Mr Salomon, 37, said. "Why should I be scared?" The fisherman, from Saint Petersburg, Florida, was 50 miles out in the Gulf from Panama City when he caught the military ordnance, said the Pinellas County sheriff's office.

Did I say “big bang” I meant to say “Big Idiot”.

Giant Lobster

Staying on the marine theme - Telegraph a predatory monster lobster that lived in the sea more than 500 million years ago has been identified from pieces of a fossil jigsaw.

Hurdia Victoria was about half a metre long and prowled the waters with a circular jaw filled with teeth and a pair of spiny claws.

The creature is related to Anomalocaris, a vicious prehistoric fish whose relatively large size and toothy mouth earned it the nickname "the T. rex of the Cambrian".

But scientists are still baffled by a strange, seemingly pointless shell structure on top of the lobster's head.

Researcher Allison Daley, from Uppsala University in Sweden, who has been studying the fossils for three years as part of her doctoral thesis, said: "This structure is unlike anything seen in other fossil or living arthropods.

It was probably for the sonar equipment.


And finally:

The Yolks on him ( I know but I couldn’t resist)

My favouite “politician” was pelted with eggs yesterday, BNP leader Nick Griffin got his breakfast on the fly, if you want to see it again and again the link is here-enjoy.


Angus

NHS Behind the headlines