Three Core Cable in the Doo-again: iPod exam: Chinese puzzle: Russian Roswell: Blown up trucker: and Love it or hate it-but ban it?

A scrumptious start to the morn at the Castle this mid week day, sunny, calm, warmish and dry, the Talk Talk fiasco continues, I am awaiting delivery of my mac code which apparently takes five “working” days, then I can change over to orange.

Bit late this morn; probably has something to do with “entertaining” the new resident to prevent him from destroying the furniture and sundry wires scattered about the Castle.

Anyway, allegedly Three Core Vince Cable has upset his Tory masters yet again, this time by telling the Greeks that they would have to delay repaying some of their debts.

Downing Street quickly made it clear that the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary was not authorised to set out government policy on the Eurozone crisis.

In comments that left the Chancellor and No 10 privately seething, Mr Cable told a newspaper that Greece would have to change its commitments to the bondholders who have lent it money.

Some sort of “rescheduling” of the debt “will happen”, he said.

Mr Cable added: “What they are going to have to do is to have a rescheduling of their debt and it can be done in a soft way or a hard way, and that’s what the current debate is about.” 

Well done three core, and to be honest as we are not in the “Eurozone” who gives a Badger’s Bollocks?

North of the border

A schoolgirl has won the right to listen to an iPod while sitting her exams - after threatening to sue her school.

The Edinburgh pupil claimed listening to music helps her concentrate during exams, reports The Sun.

At first the sixth former's demand was rejected by Mary Erskine School and the Scottish Qualifications Authority.

But they were forced to back down after being threatened with legal action under the Equalities Act.

Teachers will load her favourite tracks on to a new iPod to ensure it doesn't contain study notes.

The pupil, who hasn't been named, suffers from autism and attention deficit disorder. She'll sit in a separate area so the noise doesn't disturb other pupils.

Nick Seaton, of the Campaign for Real Education, added: "This is ridiculous. Exams lose their integrity if some children are treated differently from the others."

Linda Moule, deputy head of Mary Erskine School, said they lifted the restriction due to a "special arrangement".

An SQA spokesman added: "This decision sets no precedents. We treat all requests for special arrangements on their individual merits."

Yeah right………..

Many, many miles to the East

A cat has shocked its owner by overcoming its natural tendencies and is acting as a mother to 30 newborn chicks.

Chinese farmer Lao Yang was worried when he first saw his cat, Niu Niu, with the chicks.

"I came back home and found Niu Niu had got into the chicks' box and I thought she was going to eat them," he said.

"I shouted at her and she froze. But then I realised that the chicks were climbing all over her and she was just playing with them."

Lao, of Suibing County, Heilongjiang Province, said he now leaves Niu Niu to look after the baby chicks while he goes out to work.

"It's amazing," he said. "Niu Niu even embraces the chicks in her sleep, and they chirp as if they are under their mother's belly.

"Niu Niu seems to just love lying down with the chicks. She licks them clean and plays with them while they follow her everywhere." 

Chicken Pussy; or patient hunter?

West lots and lots

According to investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen the Roswell incident was no UFO but rather a Russian spacecraft with "grotesque, child-size aviators" developed in human experiments by Nazi doctor and war criminal Josef Mengele.

Bill Lyne who self-published a book called "Space Aliens from the Pentagon" in 1993, agrees that the Roswell incident was faked, but he thinks the hoax was perpetrated by the U.S. government — not the Russians.

"They're just saying what I've been saying all along, that it was a hoax," he told the Santa Fe New Mexican. "But that Mengele stuff is a bunch of hogwash because Mengele was recruited by the CIA (rather than the Russians), and he was actually brought to Albuquerque."

Personally I think it was a failed escape attempt by the last sensible people on Earth to get away from the lunacy…

Dahn Unda and right a bit

A New Zealand truck driver who inflated "like a balloon" when he fell buttocks-first onto a compressed air nozzle was described as lucky to be alive Wednesday.

Steven McCormack was working on his truck at Opotiki on the North Island on Saturday when he slipped between the cab and the trailer, dislodging the compressed air hose that feeds the brakes, the Whakatane Beacon reported.

It said the brass fitting that the hose had been attached to pierced McCormack's left buttock in the fall, sending compressed air rushing into his body.

The 48-year-old said he felt as if he was going to explode and began to scream as his neck, feet and hands swelled up.

"I was blowing up like a football... it felt like I had the bends, like in diving. I had no choice but just to lie there, blowing up like a balloon," he told the newspaper.

Workmates rushed to McCormack's aid, turning off the compressed air and packing ice around his swollen neck.

Ambulance officers removed the brass nozzle from his buttock and rushed him to Whakatane Hospital, where a surgeon treated the injury and drained one of his lungs, which had filled with fluid during the ordeal.

McCormack said doctors later told him that the air separated fat from muscle and they were surprised his skin did not burst.

Now recuperating in Whakatane Hospital, he told the Beacon his skin felt "like a pork roast", hard and crackly on the outside but soft underneath.

A hospital spokeswoman confirmed details of the freak accident, which she said could have killed McCormack.

"It's fair to say he's lucky to be alive, it was a potentially life-threatening situation," she told AFP on Wednesday.

I’ve had wind, but never that bad.

And finally:

Marmite has been banned in Denmark

 The strongly flavoured dark brown spread made from brewer's yeast has joined Rice Crispies, Shreddies, Horlicks and Ovaltine prohibited in Denmark under legislation forbidding the sale of food products with added vitamins as threat to public health.

Many well known breakfast cereal and drink brands have already been banned or taken off supermarket shelves after Danish legislation in 2004 restricted foods fortified with extra vitamins or minerals.

But Marmite had escaped notice as an exotic import for a small number of ex-pats until the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration telephoned Abigail's, a Copenhagen shop selling British food, to ban the famous yeast spread.

The shop has now started a "Bring back Marmite" campaign to overturn a ban that is seen as discriminating against Britons living and working Denmark.

Lyndsay Jensen, a Yorkshire born graphic designer working in Copenhagen, told the British ex-pat RedHerring.dk website, that Britons would carry on spreading Marmite on their toast, even if it meant smuggling it in to Denmark.

"They don't like it because it's foreign," she said. "But if they want to take my Marmite off me they'll have to wrench it from my cold dead hands."

Not that Bovrilled then……. 

That’s it: I’m orf to have a chat with a robot.

And today’s thought: "I become more convinced that beings from other planets are using the Earth as a lunatic asylum" - George Bernard Shaw.

Angus

Piss Poor Policies Dave C Pinches a Pussy: Save the Children-from our Government: Big Apple crack: Do not try this at home: Boca off: Space Olympics;

And ladies Sauntering 4.


‘Tis a bit on the positive side Fahrenheit wise at the Castle this morn, I won’t tell you what the time is but the hour is between three and five.

Among the comments on Hard times: On the loose: Missile mail: Automatic Numpty: Smell the Law: and 1984 Dahn Unda.” yesterday there was this-Comment: “Your essay is good except for the spelling I feel honored to e your guest.”

Sigh….E don’t know me very well do e? miy spilling is as god as the noxt mins.
Still. It’s the thought that counts.










Piss Poor Policies Dave C is allegedly being accused of cat knapping. A London man claims Dave has "taken" his aunt's cat and has launched a Facebook campaign to get him back.

Larry the cat made headlines around the world when he was adopted as Number 10, Downing Street's new rat catcher.

But Tim Sutcliffe says 'Larry' is really 'Jo', a stray taken in by his Auntie Margaret who was left devastated when he ran away last October.

Mr Sutcliffe has started a Facebook page to campaign for the cat's safe return to his aunt, who lives in Bermondsey, London, reports the Daily Mail.

He believes the cat ended up at Battersea Cats Home after running away, before it was re-homed to Downing Street.

"As she didn't technically own Jo, Battersea were well within their rights to take him, but she is really upset that he's been taken away from her and she wants him back," he said.

Do the decent thing PPP Dave; get your hands off the Lady’s Pussy.


PPP Dave C seems to be doing a spiffing job with the youth of our green and sprouting spring land.

Twenty nine local authorities in Great Britain have more than one in five children living in severe poverty, a report published by Save the Children has found.

Conducted by the New Policy Institute the research reveals that 1.6m children across the UK live in severe poverty.

Manchester (the best place to live in Blighty) and Tower Hamlets (not the best place to live in Blighty) were reported to have the highest proportion with more than a quarter (27 per cent) of children living in the poorest households.

Save the Children is now calling on government to remove the barriers to employment faced by low income parents including low wages and childcare costs and improve the financial support provided to families in need.


Dave is helping- by cutting benefits, social services, jobs and all hope.




Across the wet, wobbly, wavy thing to the Big Apple

A New York man whose wallet disappeared from his jacket pocket has gotten it back - 40 years later.

Rudolph Resta was working for The New York Times as an art director in 1970 when he left his jacket in a closet at the old Times building in Manhattan just off Times Square. When he went to fetch the jacket, the wallet was gone.

Fast-forward to last fall, when a security guard checking a gap by an unused window came across the wallet - apparently stashed there by a thief who'd pulled out the cash.

Resta was tracked down through pieces of ID linked to the Times.

Resta is now in his 70s. He's enjoying the memories the wallet contained - photos of his sons as children, his glamorous wife and his late father.

That’s the problem when you get old and a bit saggy, things disappear into cracks.

Right more than a couple of thousand imperial measures

A Chinese pensioner has invented an electric unicycle which he says can travel 40 miles on a single charge.

Retired factory worker Li Yunian, 66, of Taiyuan, northern China's Shanxi Province, took two months to design his powered unicycle which he calls 'Cool Friend'.

It has one major wheel and three smaller wheels which act as stabilisers and help control direction.

Li, who worked with a welder friend, said: "It is mainly made out of old bikes. It cost me less than £100 in total - including the three batteries!"

He has won a patent for the invention, which can travel at speeds of up to 12mph, and hopes to eventually go into partnership with a manufacturer to produce it commercially.

In the meantime, Li is giving local people the chance to try out his Cool Friend, so they can help with suggestions to perfect the design.

Very nice, slight snag-old people and unicycles are not the best combination, and it isn’t really a unicycle-“It has one major wheel and three smaller wheels” is it?

Back over to the land of the broke and the home of the homeless

As is:

A Michigan woman says the energy bracelets a Boca Raton-based company sells on late-night TV infomercials don't do a bit of good, and she's looking for a big payday.

Arjana Xexo has filed a lawsuit after she paid $19.90 plus $15.90 for shipping and handling for two iRenew bracelets that she was shocked to discover didn't improve her health, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Xexo has filed a lawsuit, and her lawyer estimates damages at $5 million.

The infomercials for the rubber bracelets with a metal insert say it helps with overall health and helps rebalance one's "Biofield."

John Merritt, president of Boca-based iRenew Bio Energy Solutions LLC, wasn't available for comment.

Late last year, Harvest Trading Group, the company that markets the bracelets, received an F rating from the Better Business Bureau.

Xexo's attorney is asking to be allowed to sue on behalf of hundreds of others who bought the bracelets and were dissatisfied.

Oh dear.

Right all that distance to Europe-ish

The Olympic flame that will travel the world before reaching the Russian resort town of Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympics may also a pay a brief visit to space, according to a top official.

An Olympic visit to the International Space Station is an "interesting" idea that requires further study, according to Vitaly Davydov, deputy head of Russia’s Federal Space Agency.

"It is not a bad idea," Mr Davydov said. "It is theoretically possible."

Yeah right, open flame in a confined space miles above the Earth, still when the space station explodes the vacuum will put the conflagration out.

And finally:

Ladies sauntering 4.

That’s it: I’m orf to “Bore” in Newcastle.

And today’s thought: Don't go to bed angry . . . stay up and plot your revenge.


Angus

BLOODY MODERN TECHNOLOGY

Yesterday my internet connection died, it was about 6.30am, and I was in the middle of a post, it would come on for about 30 seconds then go off for ten minutes, I am sure you have all had the same thing, totally frustrating and annoying, and when you try to find out what happened you either have to pay exorbitant phone charges or check it out on the website, which you can’t flaming access.

Still it is working today (obviously) so:

Ananova one is not too chuffed.

A Buckingham Palace footman caused £60,000 damage when he spilled a trolley of drinks on a carpet that had only just been laid.

It happened in the 156ft long Picture Gallery which had been recarpeted at great expense two days earlier, reports the Daily Mail.

The footman was wheeling the trolley of hot drinks across it when one of the wheels fell off and the drinks scattered.

The Mail quotes an insider as saying: "It took three days to lay the carpet and it had only been down for two days when the accident happened. No one could believe it.

"They had a spare section of carpet which officials thought would cover unforeseen accidents in the future - not in the same week it was laid. They've had to use it all up at one go."
The part-time footman had been sent to take tea and coffee to a staff meeting being held in the Picture Gallery.

Obviously not from Carpet Right then.





Ananova is your pussy pampered?

The Swarovski crystal-encrusted cat flap is billed as the latest 'must have' pet accessory that will brighten up any back door.

Encrusted with more than 1,000 Swarovski crystals, it sells for £1,000. Designers Doors4Paws claims a 'minor celebrity' has already placed the first order.

The firm sells a number of special cat flap designs, including one in the style of a stable door and another based on a Roman arch.

However, the design currently generating the most interest is the Swarovski cat flap, says a company spokesman.

Bit out of my price range!



Oddly Enough Reuters BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have detained a Nigerian who nervously left a suitcase packed with 87 kg (190 lb) of marijuana at the airport, only to get caught trying to recover it the next day, Chinese media said Wednesday.

After arriving in Beijing from Lagos, the man left the suitcase, stuffed with 72 bricks of marijuana wrapped in black plastic bags, "fearing tight security," the China Daily said.

The man was detained the next day when he returned to claim the suitcase, the paper said, the biggest drugs bust this year.

Not the sharpest knife in the draw.



Oddly Enough Reuters A Philippine plane with 80 passengers aboard was seconds away from a crash when a man teaching his girlfriend to drive sped across the runway as the aircraft landed, newspapers reported Tuesday.

The Cebu Pacific plane briefly touched down at Legazpi airport in the central Philippines Saturday but took off again as the van being driven by the couple crossed the runway, the Philippine Star newspaper said.

The man is the son of a local aviation official, who has been ordered suspended from duty.


Don’t forget-mirror, signal-DUCK!




And finally.

ABC News A town in Japan has come up with a novel way of beating the country's crippling recession: by extracting gold from its sewage.

The appropriately named town of Suwa in the Nagano Prefecture is collecting the precious metal from the waste it processes, earning the sewerage plant hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Sewerage plant official Yoshihide Nakayama is in charge of reclaiming the gold.

"When we found the gold in the sewage we immediately put it under lock and key," he said.
Mr Nakayama's line of work is not for those with a weak stomach or a delicate constitution.
His plant treats 140,000 tonnes of sewage a day.

Sludge is extracted from the effluent, and the residue is compressed and dried, producing fly ash.

It was in this ash that plant workers began discovering gold.
In the last six months this rolled-gold sewage has earned Mr Nakayama's business more than $250,000.


Where there’s muck…….

"Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards." Aldous Huxley


Angus

NHS Behind the headlines

Angus Dei politico

NHS-THE OTHER SIDE

CHRISTMAS

This is the fourth Crimbo I will spend on my own; I’m not looking for sympathy, or invites.

“We” really used to enjoy the festive season, no thought of the homeless or the poor, or the old, or the lonely.

Since “Mrs Angus” passed, my outlook has changed, I look on Christmas as something to get past, and over with, but I do think about the above more. Christmas to me now is a time of reflection and pondering, a time to look at the past year and add the good and the bad bits to either side of the “scales of life”.

The past three have come down heavily on” the Bad side, this year I think they may well be balanced, I have discovered the joy of Blogging, made quite a few “online” friends, and learned a lot.

I have tried to change a bit, to be less “abrasive” and more considerate in my writing, some of you may have noticed.

But deep down the “old” Angus is the one which will win, I don’t “think” too much when I write (and it shows), I call it my auto-pilot, and when I do think I get bogged down for words and unsure of the direction to take in my mindless wanderings.

I don’t tend to go into too much detail, because I find it boring to read pages and pages of stats, or quotes, and I like to think that others do as well.

So I like to “Tease” readers with a small amount of facts and then supply a link, so that they can find out for themselves what the hell I am rambling on about, because you learn much more from finding out for yourself.

I enjoy making comments on articles, and try to make people smile because then they will remember me and revisit the blog (shameless self-advertising), but that is what I do.

I love writing for NHS Exposed, the “team” are great and really supportive, and I enjoy letting loose the “Dogs of War” on the Powers That Be.

I will spend this year at home in my dark, cold garret, and will have Crimbo dinner with my Neighbours, who are the best you could have. After dinner I will stretch out on the couch and watch the TV, with my cat on my lap (there's nothing nicer than stroking a pussy in your lap), and probably fall asleep, not much different to anyone else really.

Next year I will carry on, I will continue to write and comment on things that I feel need to be brought to the attention, of others. And I think that the abrasive, gobby, patronising arrogant “Angus” will re-emerge, I hope so because I really like him.

I haven't quite got ot the point where I enjoy Christmas again yet, but you never know.

As to Crimbo-I hope you have a wonderful time, over eat, don't drink too much, and enjoy, because life can be far too short, and you don’t get a second chance.

This is my last post for a few days but,I shall be back on the 27th.

Thank you for reading the blog, and putting up with my ramblings. And I also hope that next year will be peaceful, prosperous and kind to you.

Angus

SOMETHING A BIT LIGHTER

Yesterday was a bad day, so today I thought, “lets try to be a bit happier”, and so I have scanned the web for some “uplifting” stories.

There is this from the Sun-Hitler HAD only got one ball, after 63 years the truth is out, Adolf Hitler DID only have one ball, the other is not “hanging in the Alert Hall” but was shot off during a battle of the Somme in 1916.

It was just a shame that whoever shot him didn’t aim one foot higher.

Russel Brands new position in life.

This is also from the Sun, Russell “no brains” Brand has dropped himself in the “doo” again, by making a joke about “groping the Queen” while he is in the USA.

What is the matter with this Pratt? As I said before “he is about as funny as shoving a Pineapple up your arse”-Angus Dei on all and sundry: Ross and Brand

Does anyone know if there is a spare cell in Guantanamo Bay?

Will someone please talk to this pillock and tell him to keep his mouth shut and find a job as a toilet cleaner.

And yet again from the Sun the latest from “I’m a celeb’”

I don’t normally watch these types of show, and true to form I haven’t watched this one either. But the thought of Kilroy Silk in the jungle gives me a sense of satisfaction; I believe that the public vote on who should stay or go.

So a plea to the public, Please, Please keep voting to keep Silk in the jungle.

A) To make him suffer for as long as possible and:
B) So that he can get a proper suntan and throw the bottles of wood stain away.


From the Express, a cat that clung onto a train for 100 miles, this little cat managed to survive a 100-mile journey across the Pennines clinging to a small ledge on the underside of a freight train wagon.

I don’t know, bloody fare evaders. (I love my pussy)

And finally also from the Express, Mouth almighty “Macca” has to get the permission of George Harrison’s widow Olivia to agree to release the so called “lost Beatles track”.

Yet another appeal, please Olivia don’t do it, a) because “Macca” has more money than he knows what to do with, and b) I heard the track when it was “played” 40 years ago and it is crap.


Angus