Water-water everywhere: Thunderstorm asthma: Upside dahn in Austria: Bye Bye breakfast: Himalayan bungee swing: and Bridging the recession.

Dark, dank, dingy and dismal at the Castle this non bank holiday morn, the arm is still OKish, my front toof fell out (again) to be replaced with a “partial” false thingy which I can’t use because it is painful and makes me vomit, and the Castle now has a water meter.

And staying on the subject of H2o

It seems that despite oodles of sky water and huge increases in the cost of the wet stuff more than half of water companies will not be required to reduce leakages before 2015, despite the worst drought in 25 years.

Data obtained by the Guardian from the regulator Ofwat also shows the entire water industry will cut leaks by only 1.5% in that time.

Every day 3.4bn litres of water leaks from the system, almost a quarter of the entire supply.

After two years of low rainfall, drought has been declared across southern and central England, with no end in sight for the hosepipe ban imposed in many places. The wettest April on record has revived rivers, but groundwater reserves remain low as the water runs off hardened ground.

The worst-performing company, Southern Water, which supplies Sussex, Kent, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, missed its latest leak target by 16% and had to pay £5m back to customers, but will be allowed to increase its leakage by 6% by 2015.

The average annual customer bill for water has risen by £64 since 2001 and is now £376, while the companies collectively made £2bn in pre-tax profits and paid £1.5bn in dividends to shareholders in 2010-11.

Germany's RWE sold Thames Water, Britain's largest water company, to Macquarie, the Australian bank, for £8bn in 2006. At the time, Macquarie also owned South East Water, but it was sold on to Australia's Hastings Funds Management when Macquarie bought Thames. South East then merged with Mid Kent Water in 2007, and the new group is owned by Hastings Diversified Utilities Fund and the Utilities Trust of Australia.

This is of course revenge by them Dahn Unda for sending all our ne’re do wells there back in the dark ages....

 

According to ‘experts’

The recent record rainfall has triggered a spike in the number of "thunderstorm asthma" admissions to hospitals, visits to doctors’ surgeries and emergency out-of-hours calls.

Medics say the heavy rain stirs fungal spores, especially one identified as alternaria which can cause a life-threatening asthma attack.

Dr Prasanna Sankaran, a specialist registrar in respiratory medicine at the Norfolk and Norwich hospital, said:"The new cases are often after heavy rain and thunderstorms which can trigger an attack.

"The fungal spores are released by the heavy rain and come up from the soil anywhere that it is damp. It is sometimes difficult to pinpoint the exact cause but this is a very under-recognised cause of asthma.

"The advice to sufferers is to stay indoors during thunder storms and keep doors and windows closed.

That’ll keep the little shits orf the streets.

Right a bit to non Germany

Two Polish architects have spent eight months building a “house upside down” in Austria.

What’s his/her name upstairs knows why but the Poles probably had the plans the wrong way up.

  

Right even more

A small treat for those of you who enjoy watching others being terrified.

Right a lot more

Another small treat.

And finally:

 

Left a fair way

Thieves in the Czech Republic have made away with a ten-tonne steel pedestrian bridge in the latest case of scrap metal heists plaguing the country, police said.

"The police know the identity of thieves, an investigation is underway," local police spokeswoman Katerina Bohmova told AFP.

Using a crane, a crafty group of thieves dismantled the bridge and about 200 metres (218 yards) of railway track using a crane, SZDC, a company managing Czech railway infrastructure confirmed.

The thieves even managed to dupe police officers during a routine check as they were dismantling the booty, showing officers forged documents saying they were working on a new bicycle path.

The stolen metal is valued at around 4,800 Euros ($6,300), according to the SZDC.

Ah, the old bicycle path ploy....

That’s it: I’m orf to build a PC with magnetic bacteria

And today’s thought:

British politics.

Angus

Focus, delivery and hard work: Up your salary: Bad idea Dahn Unda: Spanish Hiriko: Kawatta Bukken: and Electric bollocks.

There is a large, hot shiny thing in the sky at the Castle this morn, not sure what it is but I am sure it will go away before long, orf to Tesco on the stale bread, gruel and his Maj’s food run later, the arm is OKish, and the worst things about only being able to use one upper limb were-having a wash, shaving, washing up and sorting out the rear exit... 

After finding out that the electorate isn’t too keen on the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition.

U-Turn Cam has decided that he will not move to the right or left and is sceptical of those who think the answers to the problems can be found in what he calls "loud ideologies", and that focus, delivery and hard work is the cure for all of Blighty’s ills.

On Wednesday, what is laughingly known as “the Government” will outline its agenda for the next year in the Queen's Speech, as it tries to regain the initiative after both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats suffered heavy losses in local elections

The Tories lost 405 council seats in Thursday's poll, while their coalition partners lost 336.

In his Telegraph article, Mr Cameron writes: "The message people are sending is this: focus on what matters, deliver what you promise - and prove yourself in the process. I get it."

So that’s nil for three then....

Still in Coalition buggered Blighty

Whist we are struggling with the lack of money and services it seems that according to research average salaries rose by more than £1,000 for thousands of directors and executives at local authorities and NHS trusts in 2010-11.

The highest paid NHS trust chief executive was Jan Filochowski, at West Hertfordshire Hospitals trust, who received £282,500 including a bonus for the previous year.

Among local authorities, Joanna Killian was paid the most, with £239,000 to run Essex County Council and Brentwood Borough Councils.

IDS examined the salaries of thousands of executives classed as "tier 1" because they are on the boards of councils, and those of the assistants and deputies working for them, classed as "tier 2".

The analysis found that those in tier 1, earning up to £200,000, saw pay rise on average by 1.3 per cent – an increase of £1,400 on their typical salary.

Thousands more assistants and deputies were paid up to £180,000 after salaries rose by an average of 1.8 per cent, a rise of £1,341 on the average salary for the group.

The highest paid was Peter Lewis, who received £200,000 as director of children and young people's services at Haringey Council, in north London, in 2010-11 after being hired the previous year, in the wake of the scandal over Baby P.

Next was Stuart Smith, director of children and young people's services at Liverpool City Council, paid £198,568 in 2010-11, as well as a payment of £147,000 when he was made redundant. Mr Smith saw his basic pay rise by 23 per cent in 2010-11, after the council axed bonuses for most of its executive team.

The findings show that while the highest earnings were for those running children's services, directors of environmental services were paid up to £187,000, while heads of corporate services received up to £178,000.

Eric Pickles, Local Government and Communities Secretary, said that despite the Coalition's efforts, too many executives remained on "unacceptable bumper pay packets" and should be taking cuts to their salary.

Nice to know that “we are all still in this together”, so get orf your big fat arse Pickles and do something about it......

Dahn Unda

There is a plan afoot by mining billionaire Clive Palmer, one of Australia's richest men   to build a 21st Century version of the Titanic.

The plan, he added, was for the vessel to be as similar as possible to the original Titanic in design and specifications, but with modern technology.

The new vessel is scheduled to sail from London to New York in late 2016, if all goes as planned.

Bet that gets an icy reception....

Back in the remnants of the Eurozone

Spain welcomes the Hiriko electric two-seater which is just 100 inches long (about the size of a Smart).

It can fold itself up into itself so that when parked, it is only 60 inches long. Since that is the width of a typical car, three of these tiny urban EVs could conceivably fit into a parking spot.

The Hiriko will be available to hire and also be sold for around $16,350, according to reports.

And the car’s robotic wheels have the ability to tilt, such that the car can spin around its own centre.

And disappear up its own battery with a bit of luck...

East to the land of no nuclear power

Some dopy sod with a radiation laden brain cell has come up with a range of odd-shaped homes for adventurous individuals.

Apparently these odd properties — known as “kawatta bukken” in Japanese — were designed to meet the demands of people who want to live in modern abodes, or just something different.

The different properties available include an egg-shaped house, which is located in Tokyo. An advertisement states that it is “from another dimension.”

If you want to get an experience that is really out of this world, try renting a narrow rocket-shaped house in Tokyo.

Or you can rent this house, located in Nagano Prefecture, which is advertised as the house of a James Bond villain. 

Sadly the reception from the market is cold. 

Can’t think why…

And finally:

Back in the land of annoying cars

A 53-year-old man has survived being struck by lightning in the scrotum while walking down a street in Madrid.

According to Spain's El Mondo newspaper, the unnamed man lost consciousness after being struck by lightning in the groin on Thursday night, with the bolt travelling down his leg and striking the ground.

His son called paramedics who later treated him for burns to the scrotum and feet at the scene in Madrid's suburb Tres Cantos.

He was then taken to Madrid’s Hospital de la Paz where tests showed his heart and brain functions were not affected by the lightning strike.

The man is said to be in a stable condition in hospital.

His balls are cooling dahn in the fridge....

That’s it: I’m orf to the playground

And today’s thought:

French politics.

Angus

Tory regret: Welfare to fraud: Another daft old fart: Exploding cows: Big Crab: and Playing Possum Dahn Unda.

I think we have now reached the fortieth day (and night) of falling skywater at the Castle this morn, his Maj doesn’t seem to mind and comes in every half hour or so to curl up on my lap for ten minutes to dry out and despite generous amounts of H2o we still have a hosepipe ban.

There was the expected drubbing for the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition at the “local” elections, I don’t think it was ‘midterm blues’ but the very few members of the populace that could actually be bothered to make their mark telling all politicians that we don’t trust them and no matter who is in power they are all the same.

And talking of one of the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition

Son of a B.....aronet and alien reptile in disguise George (the quail I have just had for lunch has a bigger IQ than me) Osborne reckons that mistakes in handling the Budget may have added to the Government’s problems.

And that the so-called ‘granny tax’, ‘pasty tax’, and ‘charity tax’ and cutting the 50p top tax rate overshadowed his moves to take less tax from the low-paid.

Writing in today’s flailing sail on Sunday, he says: ‘The way the Budget was presented meant this message wasn’t heard. I take responsibility for that.’

But despite this and the big Conservative losses on Thursday, he would not abandon the Coalition’s tough austerity programme.

However he does “understand the voters' pain”....

Oh no he fucking doesn’t, he doesn’t have to worry about paying the heating, Leccy, water, go juice and food bills or the rip orf mortgage rates because WE pay them all for him and if he needs anything else he can claim it on expenses or as a last resort dip into one of his bank accounts for some of his millions-arrogant bastard.....

And while unemployment creeps toward the ten percent mark

Allegedly Welfare-to-work providers are facing fraud checks after investigations into wrongdoing.

One in five investigations into alleged fraud at welfare-to-work providers over the past six years had "evidence of false representation" – such as forging client signatures to claim fees – with 10 cases referred to the police, the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition has revealed for the first time.

The figures help to uncover the full extent of misconduct in the industry and suggest wrongdoing could go beyond crisis-hit A4e, which is in the middle of a police investigation into alleged fraud.

A further 17% of 126 cases investigated by authorities since 2006 had "evidence of procedural non-compliance", the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) disclosed in an answer to a written parliamentary question.

In total, 24 cases were found to have involved false representation and 22 had procedural non-compliance meaning almost 40pc of the 126 cases investigated had evidence of wrongdoing.  

The Dept of Witless Pillocks couldn’t organise a lazy lob in a brothel....

North of the border and North a bit more

It seems that Angus isn’t the only daft old fart about, John Macdonald, from Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides, celebrated his 80th birthday at the weekend by throwing himself 40 metres off Garry Bridge in Perthshire.

Mr Macdonald said: “I wasn’t afraid at all. I just wished I could have had a swim in the River Garry as well.

I have had diabetes for 48 years and, when I was lying in hospital in Rio in 1964, I reckoned I would be very lucky to live past the age of 60.

“To do this then was special and I hope this gives younger ones who have diabetes something to encourage them a bit: an old guy like me managing to do a bungee jump.

 

Nice one, I hope he had plenty of Fixodent in place.....

Left a lot to one of the high bits

The US Forest Service is considering explosives to move a bunch of frozen cows that died after getting stuck inside a cabin at 11,000 feet in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.

The Aspen Daily News reported that agency officials are worried about the high fire danger and are looking at other solutions such as using helicopters or trucks.

The carcasses were discovered by two Air Force Academy cadets when they snow-shoed up to the cabin in late March. Officials believe the animals sought shelter during a snowstorm and got stuck.

The cabin is located near the Conundrum Hot Springs, a hiking area near Aspen in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness area.

Or...they could use chainsaws and get the barby out.....

Dahn Unda and dahn a bit more

Claude the Tasmanian giant crab was saved from death when the fisherman who caught him sold him to a British aquarium for £3,000.

Now, after a 29-hour plane journey from Australia – where giant crab meat is a delicacy – and two weeks in quarantine, Claude is ready to meet his public.

He is the biggest crab on display in the UK and weighs a mighty 15lb with a 15-inch shell – enough to make 160 crab cakes.

Claude is 100 times bigger than a standard UK shore crab. Yet he is still a juvenile and will grow to double his weight.

Claude was caught off the coast of Tasmania last month, but was sold to the Sea Life group along with two other Tasmanian giant crabs.

He will go on display at the Sea Life centre in Weymouth, Dorset, on Thursday, and his two companions will be moved to other centres in Birmingham and Berlin if Claude responds well to his new home.

Currently he is being kept on his own in a specially made cylindrical tank, ten feet tall and six feet wide, but the aquarium will introduce some coldwater fish once he is settled.

Despite being saved from the pot he doesn’t look very happy-a bit “crabby”?

 

And finally:

Up a whimsy to “proper” Dahn Unda

Staff at a Dunedin park has voiced concerns about a drinking game called "possum," where players sit in trees and drink alcohol until they fall down from drunkenness, the Otago Daily Times reported.

Dunedin City Council spokesman Alan Matchett told the newspaper that local students started playing "possum" at the city's botanic gardens roughly four years ago, but the game has since gained popularity and it was not uncommon for garden staff to have to chase people away.

The gardens are located close to the University of Otago, a school with more than 20,000 students.

A university spokesman confirmed that university security staff had assisted the local council in keeping an eye on drunken students.

"There have been two occasions earlier this year where students have been located by Campus Watch [staff] in trees, drinking and causing a public nuisance in the Botanic Garden," the spokesman told the Daily Times.

"Because Campus Watch was involved in both cases, the students were required to clean up their litter and to meet with the proctor for disciplinary action."

For a proctology exam to see what happened to their brains....

 

That’s it: I’m orf to see if there are any Chicken Frogs in the moat.

And today’s thought:

The latest Coalition giveaway.

Angus

Once upon a time

In a land known as "dahn 'ere in 'Ampshire" lived a daft old fart who thought it would be a jolly jape to play chase with his young pussy.

Whilst chasing said young pussy up the garden he slipped on some wet grass and went arse over tip crash landing on his right elbow on what was part of the patio and is now crazy paving.

As the elbow swelled the daft old fart being of the male gender decided that if he ignored it, it would go away, three days later the elbow was the size and colour of a small pumpkin and the wiggley things on the end of his handie went numb he reluctantly went to see his general medic bloke who wrote a note saying how silly the daft old fart was and sent him (with note) to the most feared place in the area just over the border in Surrey-Grimley Dark.

The daft old fart managed to drive his carriage to the most feared place called Grimley Dark 'orspital and after many. many, many hours whilst watching the ransom on his carriage reach vast proportions was taken to have a magic picture taken and was relieved to find that the hard bits inside his elbow were still intact which meant that the organic mechanics didn't get their chance to slice and dice the damaged portion of his anatomy.

So after many, many many more hours (whilst the ransom on his carriage almost matched the deficit) the daft old fart was sent back to his Castle with a large paper bag full of pills and things and his arm encased in what seemed to be a drainpipe just to make it even more difficult to do "things".

What followed over the next four weeks were several more trips to his general medic bloke, more than three times several trips to the physiotherapy do-dah a couple of injections to the damaged elbow and the inability to blog.

Finally the drain pipe was removed, the pills ran out and his general medic bloke told him to sod orf the daft old fart was able to once again put fuctioning fingers to keyboard and produce his normal load of old bollocks.

So the rumours of my demise are greatly exagerated, and unfortunately for you I am still here...



And the moral of this sad tale-if you are a daft old fart and want to chase young pussy-wear spiked running shoes.


Angus

Aunties high cost rail: Most money-least tax: Bubble houses: Mac flashback: and an Elephant on mars.

A slight lack of warm stuff at the Castle this morn, but Dawn’s crack was quite impressive and the big yellow thing is climbing into the sky.

The garden is looking much better with more than a whimsy of wet stuff and I have been ‘spring cleaning’ the large cupboards-yet another trip to the “recycling centre” in due course, but I did find a sundial which has lain in repose for about thirty years (since the 1980s) and will go into the ‘new corner’ of the Castle grounds-pics to follow.

In “austerity” Blighty

According to the Torygraph the BBC has spent more than £2 million ferrying and flying staff and guests between London, Manchester and Salford in two years, despite promising to employ more people locally.

New figures show the public service broadcaster paid for more than 24,000 train journeys and at least 500 flights between the capital and the North West, where its new media centre is based.

The train travel bill totalled more than £1.84 million while air mileage cost licence fee-payers nearly £77,000.

The corporation’s bill for rail journeys increased by nearly 30 per cent in 12 months, the figures released under Freedom of Information laws show.

The statistics cover journeys made through the public broadcasters “central booking agents” for the financial years 2009/10 and 2010/11.

It covers journeys made by staff from all BBC departments and also includes travel undertaken by guests.

I can’t afford to use the chuff-chuffs anymore; still it is nice to know that Auntie is so generous...

Parallel universe time

Apparently alien reptile in disguise George (I have so much money that I need several bank accounts) Osborne is "shocked" that some of the UK's richest people have organised their finances so that they pay virtually no income tax.

George (oh god we have been rumbled) said he had seen "anonymised copies" of tax returns which showed him that some of the highest earners paid an income tax rate averaging at just 10%.

He said he would take "further action" but did not outline any new proposals.

At least not until he has managed to have a word with his accountants....

West to the warm bit of the ex-colonies (and back more than half a century)

The Bubble Houses are two historic bubble or airform houses located next to each other in Florida.

Completed in 1954 by Air-form, the Bubble Houses were designed by Eliot Noyes using the airform monolithic dome system developed by Wallace Neff, which consists of reinforced concrete cast in place over an inflated balloon to establish the house’s shape.

The original interiors of the houses consisted of a bathroom and open concept living, dining, and kitchen area on the 569 square feet (52.9 m2) main floor, with a loft-style, raised sleeping space above.

They were built to sell for $6,500. Shortly after their completion, it was stated that more than 3,000 people had toured the newly constructed bubble houses.

The two bubble houses were featured in Life magazine in its February 22, 1954, issue, which described them as “both hurricane-proof and bugproof”.

Not “inflation” proof though.....

A message to all those smug Mac users

Last Thursday the computer security industry buzzed with warnings that more than a half-million Macintosh computers may have been infected with a virus targeting Apple machines.

Flashback Trojan malware tailored to slip past "Mac" defences is a variation on viruses typically aimed at personal computers (PCs) powered by Microsoft's Windows operating systems.

The infections, spotted "in the wild" by Finland-based computer security firm F-Secure and then quantified by Russian anti-virus program vendor Dr. Web, come as hackers increasingly take aim at Apple computers.

"All the stuff the bad guys have learned for doing attacks in the PC world is now starting to transition to the Mac world," McAfee Labs director of threat intelligence Dave Marcus told AFP.

"Mac has said for a long time that they are not vulnerable to PC malware, which is true; they are vulnerable to Mac malware."

Dr. Web determined that more than 600,000 Mac computers may be infected with Flashback, which is designed to let hackers steal potentially valuable information such as passwords or financial account numbers.

Hackers trick Mac users into downloading the virus by disguising it as an update to Adobe Flash video viewing software.

  

You have been warned....

And finally:

There is an Elephant in the cosmos

The image above is actually of the dried flood of lava over the Elysium Planitia volcanic region of Mars, as captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Wouldn’t want to have to clear up after that...

That’s it: I’m orf to look for goldfish in the moat

And today’s thought:

I hope u-turn Cam has the right clothes with him.

Angus

Smoke ‘n’ mirrors: 00Семь: Less for more: Hotel Broadmoor: Watch this: and Quantum tunnelling.

More than a whimsy of wet stuff at the Castle this morn; dark and dingy too, in fact if it continues I may need a dinghy...

Finally finished the garden-spread the 8 bags of free compost around the beds and managed to go arse over tip while playing chase with his Maj on the moss-twisted an ankle and did even more damage to the right elbow.

The moral is-old farts shouldn’t forget that although the mind operates at the age of 12 years the body doesn’t...

I see that Knobhead Lansley is still living in a parallel universe

And has had yet another pop at smokers, this time he reckons that putting nicotine stuff behind doors will: a; help more addicts give up, b; ensure “we no longer see smoking as a part of life”, and c; stop encouraging young people to start smoking, and has put totally imaginary adverts on the box pretending that we will kill all our babies.

Couple of points:

Smokers contribute Billions more in taxes than they take out from the NHS, they die younger and therefore reduce the pension bill and if everyone gave up tomorrow the money lost will have to be recouped from those miserable sods of non smokers and the even more miserable ex-smokers.

Serves em right...

According to MI 4+1 and 2

Russia has as many spies operating in Britain today as it did during the Cold War, security services believe.

Up to half the staff at the Russian embassy in London could be involved in intelligence gathering, a senior source told The Daily Telegraph.

Around 40 Moscow spies are believed to be operating in this country at any one time. Some are involved in traditional state espionage, while others monitor London-based oligarchs or engage in industrial spying for the commercial benefit of Russian firms.

There are fears Russia will ramp up its efforts over the coming months while the UK security services focus on the Olympic Games and the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations.

Har, bleedin har-they are expecting to gather “intelligence” about the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition; I hope they copy all they have done-that will fuck up Russia even more...

And talking of the shirt lifting Eton dorm gang

Thanks to the Piss Poor Policies perpetrated by the self elected Millionaires Club Coalition spending on welfare payments, schools and hospitals will have to be slashed by billions of pounds more than the Government has planned for as a result of economic downturn, Treasury estimates revealed yesterday.

The cuts – more than £10bn a year by 2016 – are likely to result in further swingeing reductions to benefits and public sector services well beyond the next election.

A cut of £10bn in the welfare budget roughly equates to an average of £500 a year for each of the 18 million people on benefits – a £10-a-week prospective drop in income for the poorest families. The current spending round has already has seen £18bn in welfare cuts.

On top of this, further departmental spending cuts are expected to be necessary – at a rate similar to the current reductions.

Alien reptile in disguise George (Bullingdon club bore) Osborne said “at current rates the welfare budget was set to rise and consume a third of all public sector spending”.

"If nothing is done to curb welfare bills further, then the full weight of the spending restraint will fall on departmental budgets," he said.

He added that even if the rate of cuts imposed on departmental budgets were to continue beyond the current spending review period they would need to find further savings in welfare payments of £10 bn by 2016.

"The next spending review will have to confront this," the Chancellor said.

Still, it won’t be their problem by 2016...

Mental NHS trust

Parts of Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital could be turned into hotel and housing under plans announced by its NHS owners.

West London Mental Health NHS Trust hopes to interest a developer to convert the old Grade II Victorian buildings at Crowthorne, Berks.

Officials said the plans would help fund a £254million redevelopment of the remaining facilities at the hospital.

The homes and hotel rooms would be just a few hundred metres away from the new psychiatric unit but would be shielded by trees outside the high security perimeter.

Last month Bracknell Forest Council approved plans for an upgrade of the hospital, which will have 10 new wards, providing accommodation for 210 patients.

Construction of the new building in the high security facility is expected to start in the autumn of 2013. It is expected to open to patients in late 2016.

Wonder if there be will a rush of bookings....

Right to one of the places that isn’t back in the USSR

40-year-old Ukrainian artist Dmitriy Khristenkho creates intricate miniature models of motorcycles using component originating from watches. Khristenkho carefully breaks up the watches, shaping each part using a grindstone to ensure they are all the perfect size and shape before spending hours painstakingly gluing each component by hand. Each motorcycle can take anything up to 50 hours to complete. The complex creations sell for more than £300 each, with demand for personalized bespoke models rising.

That works out about six squids an hour...cheap at half the price.

And finally:

Back in Blighty to the place that isn’t Oxford

Scientists at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge have used light to help push electrons through a classically impenetrable barrier. While quantum tunnelling is at the heart of the peculiar wave nature of particles, this is the first time that it has been controlled by light. Their research is published today, 05 April, in the journal Science.

Particles cannot normally pass through walls, but if they are small enough quantum mechanics says that it can happen. This occurs during the production of radioactive decay and in many chemical reactions as well as in scanning tunnelling microscopes.

According to team leader, Professor Jeremy Baumberg, “the trick to telling electrons how to pass through walls, is to now marry them with light”. 

This marriage is fated because the light is in the form of cavity photons, packets of light trapped to bounce back and forth between mirrors which sandwich the electrons oscillating through their wall.

Research scientist Peter Cristofolini added: “The offspring of this marriage are actually new indivisible particles, made of both light and matter, which disappear through the slab-like walls of semiconductor at will.”

One of the features of these new particles, which the team christened ‘dipolaritons’, is that they are stretched out in a specific direction rather like a bar magnet. And just like magnets, they feel extremely strong forces between each other.

Such strongly interacting particles are behind a whole slew of recent interest from semiconductor physicists who are trying to make condensates, the equivalent of superconductors and superfluids that travel without loss, in semiconductors.

Being in two places at once, these new electronic particles hold the promise of transferring ideas from atomic physics into practical devices, using quantum mechanics visible to the eye.

Yeah right...I think...beam me up Scotty...

That’s it: I’m orf to get some smart clothing

And today’s thought: 

Natural physics

Angus

Do as I say-three core: Snowball’s chance: Law flaws: Towns for sale: and I don’t have a wooden car.

Damp, dingy and dismal at the Castle this morn, no post yesterday, the interweb thingy went tits up-not sure why, it could have been my “internet provider” or it could have been the sky water getting into the underground cables.

And by the time it came back on at around 9 of the pm I couldn’t be arsed to put digit to keyboard.

Three Core Cable has bored us all with his whingeing about the lack of apprenticeships

But it seems that the old fart has been accused of failing to “practise what he preaches” after it emerged his own department has stopped offering apprenticeships.

After claiming to be “very proud” of the Government’s commitment to funding apprenticeships at a time when budgets are tight, it turns out that his own Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is no longer taking on new candidates on its own apprentice programme because of the spending cuts.

Figures show the department had 30 apprentices just before the Coalition came to power.

However, this more than halved to 14 over the course of last year and there will be between six and 10 remaining from this year.

Useless tosspot...

Up Norf a bit

Frightened postal workers have been banned from delivering letters to one notoriously hazardous address after being repeatedly 'attacked' by a three-year-old cat called Snowball.

Following a thorough investigation the Royal Mail has stopped its workers from delivering mail to the address after labelling the black and white moggy a 'health and safety risk'.

Despite being described as 'absolutely harmless' by owner Ian Wilkinson, the UK's postal service said Snowball posed an 'unacceptably high level of risk'.

Royal Mail said three employees suffered 'quite deep cuts' after all being attacked by the 10inch tall feline.

Mr Wilkinson, 46, said he was shocked when he received a letter from Royal Mail saying its workers would no longer be delivering mail to his home in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.

Royal Mail has insisted Mr Wilkinson will not receive any mail until an 'alternative safe delivery point' has been put in place.

A spokesman added: 'There are around 4,000 animal attacks a year on Royal Mail people.

'These attacks cause great distress and in too many cases serious injuries.'

Pussy Post persons....

All over backward Blighty

Hundreds of obscure laws which date back as far as the 14th century should be swept away in a bid to clear up the statute book, it has been claimed.

A joint report by the Law Commission for England and Wales and Scottish Law Commission said there are as many as 817 entire acts and sections of a further 50 that need repealed.

The oldest, dating from around 1322, regulated how animals should be taken to pay the king’s debts, including details on how they should be fed, cared for and sold, and what livestock should be exempt.

The most recent provision recommended for the scrapheap in the 19th Statute Law (Repeals) Bill is a tax provision from 2010.

Examples of redundant laws applied to Scotland include 16 acts passed between 1798 and 1828 to tax pints of ale, beer or bitter to raise funds for public works.

Or you could have-The abolition of imprisonment for debt brought about by the Debtors Act 1869, further 16 old enactments which were passed between 1798 and 1828 to tax pints of ale, beer or bitter brewed or sold in certain parts of Scotland in order to raise funds for building roads should also be scrapped, the report said.

* An 1800 Act to hold a lottery to win the £30,000 Pigot Diamond after its owners failed to sell it because its value, "the equal of any known diamond in Europe", was too great;

* Some 40 Acts relating to the City of Dublin and passed by Parliament before Ireland was partitioned in 1921;

* A 1696 Act to fund the rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral after the Great Fire of 1666;

* A 1710 Act to raise coal duty to pay for 50 new churches in London;

* A total of 38 obsolete Acts relating to railway companies operating in British India and the wider East Indies.

Or even:

Wearing armour in Parliament.

Keeping a whale from the King

Beating a carpet in London

Hanging your washing across the street

Minding a cow while drunk

Firing a cannon near a house

Starting but not finishing a railway

Running a farm on your doorstep

Eating the Queen’s Swans

One they should keep is: Knocking and running (knock dahn Ginger) 

And one they should lose is the 1799 income tax rip orf introduced as a means of paying for the war against the French forces under Napoleon.

Because I think that conflict is just about over now...

Over to the land of the Zip code and the home of empty towns

Buford, Wyoming, the nation's smallest town, will lose its long-time - and only - resident on Thursday when the outpost along Interstate 80 is auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The minimum bid for Buford, 10-plus acres with a convenience store-cum-gas station situated between the capital city of Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming, is $100,000 for a sale to take place in town at noon local time.

Buford is one of two tiny Western towns to be sold by owners whose spouses have died and whose adult children have moved on.

Pray, Montana, population 8, is on the market for $1.4 million, a price realtors say is a steal for property just north of Yellowstone National Park in the scenic Paradise Valley.

Both communities sprang to life amid Western settlement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when railroads brought people, supplies and prosperity to frontier towns, some of which failed to flourish despite hype by land speculators.

At least there won’t be any problems with neighbours....

And finally:

Right to the land of BMW boxes

A wooden 1955 Mercedes Benz 300SL Gullwing classic car has sold for £5,000 on eBay, Hand-carved from wood and listed as being on sale in the German city of Duisberg, the 1:1 scale replica comes with front wheels that actually steer, The seats also look to be authentic and in keeping with the original car’s style.

The dashboard and interior also appear to be very detailed

No MOT needed, but a woodworm check every couple of years would be advisable...

That’s it: I’m orf to print a couple of robots

And today’s thought:

Magic...

Angus