Edu-nepotism: Diamond weekend: No pot for tourists: Raising the dead: Rats eat pig: and Bullet proof dentures.

Same again at the Castle this bank holiday morn-dark, damp and dismal, the Talk Talk internet is on its last legs, the kitchen is empty and the new resident is eating me out of house and home.

Roll on tomorrow. 

I see that Schools will be able to prioritise places for the children of teachers, cooks, cleaners and caretakers under a Government reform of admissions rules.

They will be given new powers to prioritise sons or daughters of staff members for the first time as part of a plan to give more power to individual schools.

Ministers insisted the change would allow heads to attract the best candidates and ease the burden on parent teachers.

But the move is likely to raise fears it could lead to a further reduction in the number of places available for other families in local catchment areas.

 

You think? 

Feel good Summer

Britons can look forward to a four-day weekend in 12 months' time to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

Ministers and Buckingham Palace will announce the official timetable of events marking the monarch's 60 years on the throne this week - with highlights including a nationwide Sunday lunch and a river pageant.

The government will "put back" tomorrow's annual May Bank Holiday to Monday 4 June next year, and will add a special Jubilee Bank Holiday on Tuesday 5 June. An announcement confirming the plans is expected on Thursday.  

Oh Joy…. 

Across to the land of tall, stoned people

Foreigners will be banned from Holland's infamous cannabis-selling coffee shops under new anti-drug laws.

Under the new rules only Dutch residents will be allowed to enter the shops, which lawfully sell small amounts of cannabis to customers, the Daily Mail reported.

By the end of the year customers will have to sign up for a one-year membership, or "dope pass", to the shops.

The legislation, branded "tourism suicide", has been spearheaded by far-right politicians convinced that the move will discourage the "wrong" type of visitors.

"This law will put an end to the nuisance and criminality associated with coffee shops and drugs trafficking," a statement from the Dutch health and justice ministries said.

Drug tourists have been causing all types of trouble in the country, Joep Delsing, spokesman for the mayor of Maastricht, said.

"They block streets in the city centre, they don't respect parking rules, they are noisy and, when they go from one coffee shop to another, they urinate and vomit in the street," Mr Delsing said.

Sounds like any town centre in Blighty on a Friday/Saturday/Sunday night-There goes my weekend away…..

Dahn Unda

A wave of "supernatural" schools that claim to teach people how to heal the sick and even raise the dead are netting tens of thousands of dollars for fundamentalist Christian church coffers.

Hundreds of people across southeast Queensland flock to the courses every week, paying up to $720 to learn "faith healing" practices that allegedly trigger miraculous recoveries from broken bones, infertility and even cancer.

The Holyfire Ministry Training School at Park Ridge, which offers a subject called Healing the Sick & Raising the Dead, recommends taking children on "treasure hunts" public outings to practise healing on strangers. "Children are great to have on Treasure Hunts. They are less threatening," its material states.
The courses are linked to Bethel Church, a Californian evangelical group that is targeting Australia with its "School of Supernatural Ministry" brand.


Sounds a bit “sick” to me.

Still Dahn Unda

When South Australian farmer John Gregory entered his piggery he could not believe what he saw - mice attacking his pigs.

Since he first saw them dining out on his prized stock he has been at his wit's end about how to get rid of them.

Now, as a desperate last resort, he is covering his pigs at a farm property in Wynarka, 130km east of Adelaide, in engine oil to protect them from the mice, with the rodents apparently turned off by the taste.

"The mouse problem got really bad in April," Mr Gregory said.

"We went away in the school holidays and when we came back we drove up the driveway and it looked like the ground was moving - there were hundreds of thousands of them."

Mr Gregory, 50, said he put engine oil on his 15 pigs to protect them from the sun about once a month.

"But now I oil them every week, because the mice have run out of food and they're just eating anything, so they were climbing up on the pigs and chewing them," he said.

"The oil stops them eating the pigs because they don't like the taste."

And with mouse bait so expensive, he said farmers were resorting to home recipes to kill the vermin, which had multiplied to plague proportions because of summer rain producing great crops - ideal mouse food.

"Being farmers we're always trying to do things cheap," Gregory said. "I mix icing sugar and cement. The icing sugar attracts the mice, they eat it and then the cement clogs them up."

He could always buy a cat-or a thousand…piggin mice.

 And finally:

Right a fair bit to the land of odd crinkly hair.

An elderly Brazilian man shot in the face escaped death when his dentures deflected a bullet headed for his brain.

A hospital official says that 81-year-old Zacarias Pacheco de Moraes was shot on Thursday while working in a bar he owns in the small western city of Alta Floresta.

Jose Marcos da Silva was quoted by Globo TV's G1 website on Saturday as saying that the bullet probably would have pierced Moraes' brain if it hadn't first hit his dentures before lodging in his throat. The official said the bullet will not be removed immediately because surgery right now would be too risky.

Silva said the patient was in stable condition but in danger of losing part of his eyesight because of the bullet's trajectory. He did not elaborate.  

Good job they weren’t NHS dentures….

 That’s it: I’m orf to close my Twitter account.

 And today’s thought: The road to success is always under construction.

,

 Angus

TOLERANCE-OR NOT

Before the usual just a personal comment, I watched “Britain’s got talent” for the very first time last night: and no it hasn’t.

I usually avoid this type of program like the porky flu because I find them cringingly embarrassing, and last night did not change my mind at all, and I must admit that I only caught the last fifteen minutes of it, and that was by accident as the cat stood on the remote and changed the channel.

The sight that assaulted my eyes and ears was that of a “fat lady singing” loud enough to shatter the crystal, while next to her on the stage was a strange man making bouquets of flowers, I was so shocked that I continued to watch.

The next and last “act” up was somebody who called himself “Stavros Flattley” or maybe “fatly” who proceeded to astound me with the sight of a “Greek Dance” accompanied by a young lad who apparently was his son.

The routine was mildly amusing, the lad made me titter a bit, but there seemed to be “not a lot” of choreography or indeed cohesion as the two shook it about, Simon Cowell sat there like a Cheshire cat and I thought his face was going to explode, sadly it didn’t.

The general public was then invited to phone in and vote for the “best act” to progress to the final which I hear is on Saturday.

Sorry to all you BGT fans out there but I think I would rather stick chopsticks in my eyes rather than watch another episode of so called talent.

Still Cowell is probably making millions from this, and the “competitors” are having their fifteen minutes of fame, each to his own as the saying goes but definitely not my cup of tea (as the other saying goes).



Rant over now back to it:

How to save the planet unless your neighbours object to the noise, a homeowner has been ordered to switch off his £20,000 wind turbine following complaints from neighbours that it is too loud.

Father-of-three Stephen Munday, 55, erected the 40ft device with planning permission in a paddock behind his home two years ago.

It generates five kilowatts of electricity a day - the equivalent of boiling 300 kettles - and provides two thirds of his energy needs.

The turbine stands in a paddock behind the four-bedroom detached house in Stanford in the

Vale, near Abingdon, West Oxfordshire, which Stephen shares with wife Sandra, a veterinary nurse.

They bought the turbine from renewable energy giant Segen and successfully got planning permission from the Vale of White Horse District Council to erect it after it was initially refused.
After agreeing to erect the turbine 300ft away from the nearest house the Government Planning Inspector allowed it to go ahead on the condition that it did not make more than five decibels of noise above the "prevailing background".

But after it was erected in February 2007 five neighbours complained about the noise and council inspectors carried out 12 noise level tests at the site.

The council admitted the noise fell short of the government limits but still deemed it to constitute a nuisance.

Patrick Legge, team leader of the council's Environmental Protection team, said: "We accept that the noise did not breach the conditions in the planning application but it was decided that the character of the noise was a nuisance.

"There are no strict noise limits but each case is examined by their independent circumstances."
But Michael Stigwood, an independent noise and nuisance advisor to the council, said the noise affected people's ability to "rest and relax".

He told the court: "The noise was continual and I found it to be a nuisance as it is a noise we don't get used to."

So it didn’t breach the noise laws but it was the “character” of the noise that was a nusisance.

You can’t win can you?

The Cheltenham fruit and veg police have ordered John Weston, who has tended his two council owned allotments for twenty years has been evicted because he doen’t grow enough fruit and veg.

The vegetables at Cheltenham Coucil have decreed that 75% of the allotments must be used for the production of potatoes, spinach, onions, lettuces and soft fruits and other relatives.

Mr Weston, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, admits that his land is not as well-stocked as some other plots, but argues that he uses it as a “rural retreat” where he can relax and enjoy the outdoors.

But the plea fell on deaf ears and Cheltenham Borough Council rejected his explanation, serving him with a notice “to remedy the condition of the plots” at the beginning of April, which complained the the allotment had not been kept “fully cultivated or maintained”.

Six weeks later council officers visited his land and found there had been no improvement, so they issued him with a notice to quit. He must vacate the site by Wednesday May 27.
According to the contract he signed 20 years ago, Mr Weston must keep the land in good condition and allow no more that 25 per cent of it to lie fallow.

But he admits he now only uses around 50 per cent of each plot to grow vegetables and fruits like rhubarb, raspberries and gooseberries.

Mr Weston, who works part-time at a garden centre, said he had received no complaints, but the council disputes this.

They claim to have been in touch with him since November after neighbouring plot-holders contacted them about weeds and debris.

“I go down there regularly and while the land is not covered in rows and rows of vegetables, it is designed as a rural retreat,” said Mr Weston, who is married with no children.

“It might look wild, but it’s got character and it produces enough crops to suit me.”
“I just enjoy pottering about. I sow patches of vegetables and fruits but it’s mostly where I go to relax and be outside.”

Fiona Warin, the council’s allotment officer, said: “We have tried to identify plots that are not being used so that they can be handed on to keen 'gardeners-in-waiting’.

“In the past, when demand for allotments was low, people who did not maintain or use their allotments as intended perhaps avoided attention or enforcement action."

All I can say isBorage

Pig farmers must muff it the Health and Safety Executive has warned that the noise made by pigs during mealtimes can reach more than 100 decibels, louder than a chainsaw or powerdrill.

It has produced a leaflet advising farmers to either wear ear protection, or go nowhere near them while they are eating.

"Large numbers of pigs in a building can create noise levels of 100 decibels or above, especially at feeding time," according to the leaflet, entitled Farmwise – An Essential Guide to Health and Safety in Farming.

Even short-term exposure can be harmful, particularly if workers are exposed to other sources of noise during the day.

"Use mechanical or automated feeding systems to reduce the need to enter the building when it is noisiest, e.g. at feeding time.”

"Make sure any work requiring entry is done during quieter periods."

Employers are legally obliged to ensure their workers are protected from noise levels once they reach 80 decibels, equivalent to the noise inside a tractor cab.

More than one in five farm workers are being exposed to deafening levels, according to the HSE.

And it seems that one hundred in one hundred people are exposed to the anal rules by the HSE.

Mooning "nuns" walk away Seventeen British men stood trial dressed in nun's habits on the Greek island of Crete for flashing their bottoms in public, but walked free after no one showed up to testify their behaviour was offensive.

Police said they had arrested the 17 men, aged between 18 and 65, early on Sunday at the popular resort of Malia and a prosecutor charged them with exposing themselves in public and offending religious symbols.

"They were dressed like nuns, carrying crosses, but wearing thongs under their skirts and showing people their bottoms and the rest," said a police official.

Apprehended in the early hours of Sunday, the men were taken into custody and appeared in court on Monday in the same clothes they were wearing at the time of their arrest.

But the court in the town of Iraklio ruled them innocent after no witness appeared to testify against them, the police official said.


Makes you proud doesn’t it?

And finally:

Weary locals scratch Butt Hole Road • The Register Residents of Butt Hole Road in Conisbrough, South Yorks, are hoping that 300 quid will put an end to the pilgrimage which has seen sniggering crowds flock to the internationally-famous road sign, including Yanks in search of a Beavis and Butt-Head moment:

According to the Sun, the four families living on the road stumped up the cash to change the name to Archer Way, having grown weary of years of Butt Hole quips, "pranksters baring their backsides for cheeky photographs" and coachloads of tourists dropping by for a photo opportunity.

Taxi driver Peter Sutton, who has enjoyed six years on Butt Hole Road, admitted he initially thought the address "would be fun", but the novelty soon wore off. As well as the inevitable smart-arsed comments, residents had to endure Butt Hole fans swiping the signage and delivery firms refusing to believe the place existed.

The original name is apparently in honour of a communal water butt which once occupied the site. The new moniker was selected "as the road is just half a mile from a 930-year-old castle".

Personally I don’t see a problem, I have lived in crap house lane for tweny years and no body takes the piss.


“A thick skin is a gift from God.”-Konrad Adenauer

Angus

NHS Behind the headlines

Angus Dei politico

Angus Dei-NHS The Other Side

THAT WILL TEACH ME

After yesterdays “non” post it happened, this morning at 6 am my alarm went off as usual and I thought “just another ten minutes” I had just closed my eyes and there was an enormous clap of thunder followed by the heavens opening and the rain came down as if someone had poured a giant bucket over the house, and then another clap of thunder.

OK I take the hint, so here are some “news” stories.

A Welsh grandmother came up with the perfect solution after her garden became infested with snails - she's eating them. Ananova

Oriole Parker-Rhodes was unwilling to trample on or poison the creatures, reports the Daily Mail.

So she regularly feasts on their meat, claiming they are higher in protein and lower in fat than beef.

Miss Parker-Rhodes, 59, of Anglesey, said: "Last summer it was really wet and warm - ideal for snails. I had hundreds in my garden. I was treading on them, and they were also eating our home-grown potatoes.

"I'm quite an organic, perma-culture sort of person and didn't want to trample or poison them. That would be against my principles. So I thought eating them made sense."

Miss Parker-Rhodes has now set up an internet blog with recipes at eatinggardensnails.blogspot.com.


Couple of things:-yeuch! And what is a “perma culture sort of person”?




Again, from Ananova Astonished surgeons have removed a two-inch long fir tree growing inside a patient's lungs.

Doctors thought Artyom Sidorkin, 28, had cancer when he began coughing up blood and complaining of agonising chest pains.

But as they operated to remove a tumour, the medics were amazed to discover the perfectly formed spruce thriving inside the lung.

"I blinked three times and thought I was seeing things," said surgeon Vladimir Kamashev at Izhevsk Hospital in Russia.

Doctors believe that Artyom breathed in a tiny seed which then began growing in his lung and that the sharp pains were the plant's needle-like leaves digging into his lung.




My mum always told me not to eat the apple pips.



We think our health service is “iffy” Say What? A Wisconsin nurse was called out of surgery so a health care manager could tell her she was being laid off.

The manager at Dean Health System’s West Clinic in Madison violated medical protocol, according to the Sheboygan Press, when the employee pulled the nurse out of the operating room last week.

A spokesman for Dean Health said the procedure was minor, and the patient wasn’t affected. He declined to name the employees involved or say what type of surgery the nurse was attending when she was told of her layoff.

Err, anyone know how to stitch someone up (think about it)



A DAD was hauled out of bed and arrested for having an ornamental PIG in his garden — after his policeman neighbour claimed it was put there to poke fun at him.

The Sun Shocked Robin Demczak, 57, was dragged off to cells and held for more than 6½ hours as the constable’s colleagues grilled him about the porcelain porker.

He was finally freed without charge after explaining the black pig with white spots had been there for eight years — while the officer had only lived next door for FOUR.


Fuming window fitter Robin — who used to have a PIGGERY in his back garden — slammed the swoop yesterday.

He said: “I was in bed and I could hear police cars outside.

“I was thinking, ‘What’s going on?’ Then I was dragged out by police, arrested and chucked in the back of a police car.

“I was held by them for almost seven hours because having the stone pig apparently counted as harassment.” Neighbour PC John Ablett called in his colleagues

Following a simmering 18-month feud over a footpath that splits his back garden from Robin’s in Witney, Oxfordshire.

The traffic cop insists the former pig farmer has no right to use it.

Robin said: “PC Ablett had me arrested because he didn’t like me keeping my 12-inch porcelain model pig in the back garden.

Although he was freed without charge, Robin was ordered to REMOVE the ornamental pig from the garden of his £200,000 home.

He was also told to STOP calling his outbuilding a sty.

Yesterday Thames Valley police confirmed officers were still looking into the complaint made against him.

A force spokesman said: “We can confirm that a man was arrested on suspicion of harassment in relation to the incident.

“He has been released without charge. But the investigation is still ongoing.

“There was an ornament in the garden and also some writing on a wall.” PC Ablett was last night unavailable for comment.

So who is telling “Porkies” then?


Scotsman.com News A VENGEFUL wife has struck fear into Venice's gondoliers by telling tax inspectors her husband has been taking them for a ride – financially.


A tax investigation was launched after the woman – who was involved in a messy divorce with her gondolier husband – decided to take revenge.

She told them that her husband and the city's other gondoliers were giving false returns and substantially under-declaring their earnings. As a result, Italy's version of the Fraud Squad has launched an investigation into the city's 400 gondoliers.

They are a symbol of Venice, which attracts more than 20 million tourists a year.

Official fees start at 100 (£93) for 50 minutes, with each additional 20 minutes 50, but visitors are often unaware of this and are charged double or even more.

The gondoliers have long been suspected of tax evasion. Many of them declare earnings of between 10,000 and 15,000 a year, but the true figure is said to be double that. As a result of the investigation gondoliers are said to be "getting very nervous.”


A Woman scorned!



And finally:

Scotsman.com News

The hand of…………..?

A SPINNING star resembling a giant cosmic hand has been captured in images taken by a Nasa observatory orbiting miles above the Earth's surface.

The Chandra X-ray Observatory pictured the star, which measures 12 miles across, about 17,000 light years from Earth.The star, unromantically known as PSR B1509-58, spews energy out into the space around it, forming complicated patterns including one resembling a large hand complete with finger-like structures.

As I said “That will teach me.”


"I hope I never get so old I get religious." Ingmar Bergman

Angus

NHS Behind the headlines

Angus Dei politico

NHS-THE OTHER SIDE