Be careful what you wish for...: A quarter of a Devine sentence: Planking Squirrel: Wiping away a Sparrow: The Bells!: and the wrong weather.

Still warm and humid at the Castle this morn, but a bit more cloud, the liquid metal hot meter got up to 87f yesterday pm but is back to a cool 78f this early light thing.

I spent most of yester am/pm being mucked about by a Numpty who wouldn’t bring his broken laptop to the Castle and insisted that I visit, spent a couple of hours sorting out his cheap and nasty Acer then was told that he wouldn’t pay the price.

So I returned his heap of crap to the state it was in before (he had seen the “press f2 to enter bios, so he did and bollixsed up the settings) and left.

The toothache didn’t help.

His Maj has been out in the garden since 5.30 of the am and is expanding in size at an alarming rate. I could almost swear that I can hear him growing.

Dahn ‘ere in Aldershot

The area has been inundated with Gurkhas, there are gangs of old Nepalese people wandering around at all hours of the day and night.

According to the British Gurkha Welfare Society, Joanna Lumley's campaign has resulted in thousands of elderly and infirm Gurkha pensioners living in poor accommodation on paltry incomes.

"They are thoroughly miserable," says Chhatra Rai, the general secretary of the Gurkha charity. It would have been far better, he believes, if retired Gurkhas had been paid better pensions and encouraged to stay at home in Nepal.

Ab Fab Joanna...

 And one law for the ex MPs?

Former Labour MP Jim Devine has been released from prison after serving a quarter of his 16-month sentence for expenses fraud.

The ex-MP for Livingston was jailed in March after he was found guilty of claiming £8,385 using false invoices for cleaning and printing work.

He was released from Standford Hill Prison in Kent on Monday morning.

David Chaytor and Eric Illsley have both already been released under the home detention curfew scheme after serving a third and a quarter of their sentences respectively.

The fourth ex-MP, Elliot Morley, remains in prison, along with Conservative peers Lord Taylor and Lord Hanningfield.

 But for how long?

Somewhere in Blighty

Squirrels are taking over....

Over in the land of long metal things.

Whilst sitting in a car park with the weather looking gloomy, the driver filmed a soggy little bird perched upon his windscreen wiper.

As an initial wipe begins to move across the windscreen any normal bird would take the hint and fly away... but not this one.

He just clings on for dear life - riding out the wipe until it comes back down to rest.

To prove he's no one hit wonder, our birdie friend toughs it out for a second wipe and then a third.

What's even more disturbing is that when the driver zooms in to get a closer look at the sparrow, it stares blankly back at the camera.

Hitchcock would be proud.

Up a bit from Gurkha land

A troupe of Morris Dancers got their marching orders from a pub – because the bells on their clogs were too noisy.

The 15-strong Slubbing Billy’s were ordered to leave the Swan and Three Cygnets in Durham shortly after performing in the city’s market place.

Duggs Carre, 45, a member of the Huddersfield-based outfit, said: “There was no room for argument – we were just kicked out.

“One of our group in his Morris Dance gear, had just ordered a pint without any problems.

“But two female members came in with the bells on their shoes and a woman member of staff shouted, ‘No bells!’ – and that was it.

“We were told in the strongest possible terms to leave. There were 15 of us all wanting a drink so they lost a fair bit of business. I wouldn’t mind but when you sit down, the bells don’t make any noise.”

The Swan is owned by the Samuel Smith brewery, which has a strict no music policy. A spokesman declined to comment yesterday.

Bit of a clanger?

 And finally: 

Apparently we have been looking at the weather all wrong all along.

Researchers found that our basic understanding of "low pressure systems" has been flawed for more than 90 years.

Scientists from the University of Manchester contradicted traditional understanding of how low pressure systems evolve.

The Norwegian model in use since the 1920s is that when a storm occludes, it will automatically weaken.

Writing in the journal Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, they found that the Great Storm of October 1987 and the Burns’ Day storm of January 1990 did not fit the model.

Dr David Schultz, from the university’s School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, who led the study, said that while both were occluded (evolving), but still deadly.

Dr Schultz said: “The Norwegian model of low pressure systems served us well for many years, but it’s time to move on.

"What we teach students in school needs to be changed. And forecasters need to be retrained to have this latest information.

“I hope that this model will help people understand the particular weather conditions associated with these potentially hazardous storms. Yet, this research shows how much more remains for us to learn about the weather around us."

Odd that, I just look out of the window and there it is-the weather...

That’s it: I’m orf to sort out the Honda for the solar challenge 

And today’s thought: "If you've never seen an elephant ski, you've never been on acid."-Eddie Izzard.

Angus

Huhne wants nuking: Solar power-not: Who wants to live forever: Cough drop: Fried Numpty: Squirrel Numpty: Welsh Lamb: and Monkey see-Monkey demolish.

Cold and frosty at the Castle this Saturday morn, the Unexpected Flaming Object is crawling its way into the blue sky and is shining through the portcullis, the kitchen is empty of any kind of electronic machinery, the birds are coughing and you can hear the garden growing, is it finally spring?

Libya is still in turmoil, Gadaffi has pulled a fast one and the UN mob has fallen for it, Japan is still melting and Car sharing is on the increase.

Meanwhile in the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster

and the likelihood that Blighty will be destroyed by an 8.9 earthquake followed by a massive tsunami, Energy secretary Chris Huhne has asked the chief nuclear inspector to report on Britain's nuclear safety by mid-May.

The request comes as Japanese authorities increased the alert level at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis to level five, signifying an "accident with wider consequences".

Following a meeting of the Nuclear Development Council, Mr Huhne announced a final report would be published within six months but that an interim assessment would be released in just two months' time.

Why?

And:

How green is the Piss Poor Policies Coalition?

Communities will be prevented from generating their own solar energy following a government review, campaigners have said.

A clampdown on the growth of solar farms taking advantage of subsidies set up to help small-scale renewable energy has weakened the feed-in tariffs (FITs) system, according to Friends of the Earth (FoE).

Ministers said they needed to take action against large-scale solar farms generating over 250KW, but there are fears that sharply-cut payments for all solar energy projects over 50KW will have a sweeping impact.

Many existing and planned renewable electricity installations by community groups, schools, businesses, councils and housing associations will be hit, FoE said.

"I want to make sure that we capture the benefits of fast falling costs in solar technology to allow even more homes to benefit from feed in tariffs, rather than see that money go in bumper profits to a small number of big investors," climate change minister Greg Barker said.

"These proposals aim to rebalance the scheme and put a stop to the threat of larger-scale solar soaking up the cash. The FITs scheme was never designed to be a profit generator for big business and financiers."

Not really a Piss Poor Tory Policy....

Move over Methuselah.

Future generations could be living well into their second century and still doing sudoku to boot, if life expectancy predictions are anything to go by.

Increasing by two years every decade, they show no signs of flattening out. Average lifespan around the world is already double what it was 200 years ago.

Since the 1980s, experts thought the increase in life expectancy would grind to a halt but forecasters have repeatedly been proved wrong.

The reason behind the steady rise in life expectancy is "the decline in the death rate of the elderly", says Professor Tom Kirkwood from the Institute of Ageing and Health at Newcastle University.

He has a theory that our bodies are evolving to maintain and repair themselves better and our genes are investing in this process to put off the damage which will eventually lead to death.

As a result, there is no ceiling imposed by the realities of the ageing process.

"There is no use-by-date when we age, ageing is not a fixed biological process," Professor Kirkwood says.

Life expectancy at birth has continued to increase in the UK - from 73.4 years for men for the period 1991 to 1993 to 77.85 years for 2007 to 2009.

Life expectancy for females at birth has also increased - from 78.9 years (91-93) to 82 years (2007-2009).

Not even close to 969 years old though is it?

Up in Derbyshire

Thieves have stolen 40,000 bottles of cough medicine from the back of a lorry in Derbyshire.

The vehicle, which was parked on High View Road, South Normanton, was broken into some time overnight on Wednesday, police said.

The offenders made off with 17 pallets of the syrup-style product while the driver was asleep in his cab.

Officers have appealed for any witnesses, or anyone who is offered the medicine, to get in touch.

Reckon the driver had been sampling the cargo.

Across the glowing Atlantis ocean to the Big Apple

Police answering cries for help Friday found a screaming burglar dangling from a ceiling air vent over a hot fat fryer at an upstate New York restaurant.

“He said he thought he was going to die,” said Lt. Michael Brown, spokesman for the police in Rotterdam, New York.

A grease-covered Timothy Cipriani, 46, of nearby Schenectady was pleading for help when he was discovered wedged into the ventilation duct at Paesan’s Pizza in the early hours of the morning.

He had climbed a tree to the roof, where he broke into an air duct to enter the restaurant after it closed, police said.

He was trapped where the vent opened over the fryer, and he became extremely distraught, Brown said.

“The fryer had been used all day, so it may have been generating some heat,” Brown said.

Cipriani was arraigned on charges of burglary, criminal mischief and possession of burglary tools and was held in lieu of $20,000 bail at the Schenectady County Jail, police said.

New topping for a Pizza-sliced fried burglar.

Across to the windy city

A south suburban Chicago man says he accidentally set his home on fire while he was trying to smoke out the squirrels who'd taken up residence inside the walls.

Robert Hughes says the sound of the squirrels running around inside the walls of his Richton Park town home had been driving him nuts. Hughes says he set off a smoke bomb to drive the squirrels out and that led to the fire.

Now, fire damage has forced Hughes and one of his neighbours from their homes. Hughes says he believes the squirrels are also gone.

No injuries were reported, but the (Tinley Park) SouthtownStar reports that the homes were badly damaged.

Nutty Numpty.

Back in Blighty, to the land of singing and rain

A girl of 16 has been “branded like a piece of meat” by having “100% Welsh lamb” tattooed on her bottom, her furious mother claims.

Police are investigating after schoolgirl Levi Brady was inked. The legal age to get a tattoo is 18.

Mum Renee, 38, of Fairwater, Cardiff, said: “The tattooist has branded my child as a piece of meat.”

Levi had the £30 design as a dare at Tattooland, Cardiff, but now admits: “I hate it.”

Tattoo artist Graham Durham, 67, said: “She said she was 18.”

Yeah…..right.

And finally:

Up to Longleat Safari park

A troop of monkeys at Longleat Safari Park was given a battered old Mercedes to play with and they quickly set about dismantling it…

Click Here to watch

That’s it: I’m orf to cancel my subscription to the New York Times

And today’s thought: Get the facts first . . . you can distort them later.

Angus