Transgender NHS: Into Syria: The Uni-Cub Personal Mobility Device: Knife edged eagle: Hello Kitty: and the RP FLIP.

Dull, dingy but not damp at the Castle this morn, been having a clear out; oodles of stuff to take to the “recycling” centre, I don’t where it all comes from, I reckon someone is breaking in and leaving it....

 

Apparently our dear old NHS has gorn all equal and diverse

The NHS has funded a "human rights week" with dozens of events including a photographic exhibition to celebrate transgender staff.

Hundreds of managers and front line workers are due to attend conferences and workshops on equality and diversity this week.

The events include two all-day conferences involving at least 170 health care managers.

At least 170 NHS managers working in human resources and leading programmes in equality and diversity are due to attend full-day conferences in London and Manchester. The fee of £199 per place – more than £30,000 in total – is expected to be paid by the NHS trusts which employ them.

In addition, NHS Rotherham will host a week-long exhibition of "inspiring images" which promises to "celebrate the lives of transgender staff and patients".

And NHS North West is promoting an "awareness raising timeline" to commemorate homosexual and transgender doctors and nurses.

That’ll improve patient care.....

And despite the lack of Khaki clad personnel

U-Turn cam is thinking about deploying British military personnel to Syria to “pressure on the Assad regime over human rights abuses”

According to shit for brains Dave “Britain is prepared to contribute officers to an enlarged international monitoring mission in Syria”

UK assistance to Assad’s opponents includes providing communications equipment which the Government says will allow human rights workers to document and communicate abuses taking place in Syria.

 

Protecting the human rights of oil....that’s a new one....

East to the land where my motor comes from

The Honda Uni-Cub is a battery-powered, two-wheeled mobility device that is able to ferry people at a top speed of 6 kilometres per hour.

Using gyroscopic balance control technology and an Omni-directional driving wheel system – similar to that of a Segway? Riders can control speed, turn, stop and move in any direction by the nimble shift of a bum cheek.

Powered by a Lithium-ion battery, the machine can manage a distance of 6km before needing a recharge.

And a just 74cm high, perching passengers will nearly be at eye-level for those who can’t be arsed to walk.

 

Oh joy....

West to the place that still has Golden Eagles

This one stole a knife from a nature photographer, and nearly made off with its newfound weapon.

Dutch photographer Han Bouwmeester was in Västerbotten, Sweden, hoping to grab some unique photos of the local birds of prey, and cut up some meat to attract the predators.

And he got his wish, a golden eagle swooped down and picked up the knife Bouwmeester and his colleagues had just used and flew orf with it.

 All it needs now is a fork and spoon to complete the set....

Somewhere over the smog layer

EVA Air airline has designed two of its planes with a Hello Kitty motif. And it will soon add another plane to its Hello Kitty fleet.

Those who take the Hello Kitty-themed airplanes will be “delighted” to see that everything inside the plane has Hello Kitty on it, from the flight attendants’ uniforms to the food they serve. Even the tickets and boarding passes are printed with Hello Kitty designs.

The partnership between EVA and Sanrio started in 2005, when EVA Air acquired the license from Sanrio to use Hello Kitty in its planes.

 

Not quite the pussy I had in mind...

And finally:

West to the home of flipping and the land of the buoy

The U.S. Office of Naval Research owns a very strange piece of oceanographic equipment. It’s called the Floating Instrument Platform (FLIP), conceived and developed by the Marine Physical Laboratory (MPL) at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California. FLIP isn't a ship, even though researchers live and work on it for weeks at a time while they conduct scientific studies in the open ocean. It is actually a huge specialized buoy. The most unusual thing about this ship is it really flips.

FLIP is 355 feet (108 meters) long with small quarters at the front with a long hollow ballast do da at the end. When the tanks are filled with air, FLIP floats in its horizontal position. But when they are filled with seawater the lower 300 feet of FLIP sinks under the water and the lighter end rises. When flipped, most of the buoyancy for the platform is provided by water at depths below the influence of surface waves; hence FLIP is a stable platform mostly immune to wave action. At the end of a mission, compressed air is pumped into the ballast tanks in the flooded section and the vessel returns to its horizontal position so it can be towed to a new location.

During the flip, everyone stands on the outside decks. As FLIP flips, the decks slowly become bulkheads and the bulkhead becomes the deck. Most rooms on FLIP have two doors; one to use when horizontal, the other when FLIP is vertical. Some of FLIP's furnishings are built so they can rotate to a new position as FLIP flips. Other equipment must be unbolted and moved. Some things, like tables in the galley (kitchen) and sinks in the washroom, are built twice so one is always in the correct position. The entire flip operation takes twenty-eight minutes. When FLIP stands vertically, it rises more than five stories into the air. 

Flipping amazing...

That’s it: I’m orf to have butchers at Centaurus

And today’s thought:

U.S bob a job

Angus

Cupid Stunt day-How not to catch a gator: Oil be buggered: A Papple: Dog poo squad: Invisible art: and Magnum morons.

Cold, damp, drear and decidedly dodgy at the Castle this morn, the router seems to be routing again, his Maj has discovered the joy of ambush from under the side table and the Honda is covered in yellow stuff.

And great news from my God Daughter who successfully produced a healthy female child on Thursday-I do feel old....

Over the salty thing on the left to the State above sarf Carolina

An American zoologist has been attacked by a 10ft-long alligator as he tried to capture it from beside a highway.

Fred Boyce, a specialist in amphibians and reptiles at Pine Knoll Shores Aquarium in North Carolina, was lucky not to lose his arm in the attack - which was caught on camera.

The 300lb beast was spotted by a passing motorist in Stacy, a small township located on the state's eastern coast.

US reports said a call was made to the aquarium asking for advice on how to handle it and on hearing about it Mr Boyce decided to head to the scene.

Once there, he has been quoted as saying he feared the alligator would be killed, so he decided to try moving it himself.

His strategy involved placing a towel over the animal's eyes, then approaching it from the rear - seemingly in a bid to grab its giant mouth before local fire-fighters pounced.

What a Cupid Stunt...

And talking of reptilian wildlife

Allegedly U-Turn Cam will hold talks with Barack Obama and other world leaders about tapping into emergency oil reserves in an effort to drive down petrol prices.

The Prime Monster will arrive today at a G8 summit in the US promising to help families "struggling with the impact of oil prices."

The summit, at the Camp David presidential retreat, will tomorrow discuss a US call for developed economies to release oil from their strategic reserves to try to bring down world oil prices.

According to shit for brains Dave "We must work together to give the world economy the one big stimulus that would really make a difference: an expansion of trade freedoms - breaking down the barriers to world trade and getting global trade moving again,"

Oh my; an even bigger cupid stunt....or two...or eight...

Dahn Unda and right a bit

There is a new delight for those who shop at M&S, someone has crossed a pear with a pear and the result is of course-the Papple, which tastes like an apple but looks like a......apple, but is in fact a pear...

The Papple is grown in New Zealand and is a cross between European and Asian pear varieties.

 

Third Cupid Stunt of the day...

And remaining on the cupid stunt theme

Up in smoke there is something to be very afraid of-A 22-man crack team unit employed to clean up the streets of London by targeting dog walkers who fall foul of pooper scoop laws.

The anti-poo wardens have been introduced by Islington Council in north London in an attempt to catch repeated dog foul offenders.

Members of the public are also being encouraged to 'shop a dropper' through a newly set-up hotline.

Islington Council's zero tolerance approach will see the Dog Squad patrol dog foul hot spots, issuing £80 fines to irresponsible dog owners.

The undercover poo patrol, thought to be the largest dog enforcement team of its kind in Britain, started its work earlier this month.

Islington Councillor Paul Smith said: 'Residents are sick of dog mess, and we're taking strong action against irresponsible owners.

Poo crimes and updates on penalties and patrols will be also be reported by the team on Twitter with the hash tag #thedogsquad.

Two football teams worth of Cupid Stunts...

 

Still in the Smoke

London's Hayward Gallery will gather together 50 ''invisible'' works by leading figures such as Andy Warhol, Yves Klein and Yoko Ono for its display of works you cannot actually see.

Gallery bosses say the £8 a head exhibition demonstrates how art is about ''firing the imagination'', rather than simply viewing objects. 

Invisible: Art about the Unseen 1957 - 2012 opens on June 12 and includes an empty plinth, a canvas of invisible ink and an unseen labyrinth.

Also in the exhibition will be Warhol's work Invisible Sculpture - dating from 1985 - which consists of an empty plinth, and 1000 Hours of Staring which is a blank piece of paper at which artist Tom Friedman has stared at repeatedly over the space of five years, and another by the same artist Untitled (A Curse) is an empty space which has been cursed by a witch.

Also featured among the exhibits will be a series of typed instructions by Ono, encouraging viewers to conjure up an artwork in their minds.

A trio of artistic Cupid stunts...

But here is some Angus invisible art;

A landscape which I thought about painting

And

A sculpture of a naked woman which I might have sculpted if I had the inclination...and the marble...

And finally:

Up a few imperial measures to the place where Folk are Nor

An RAF rescue helicopter made an unexpected beach landing - so the crew can buy ice cream.

The crew members were spotted emerging from their aircraft on the sand at Winterton-on-Sea, Norfolk.

Worried beachgoers watched as they headed towards the shoreline and then pop into Winterton Dunes Beach Cafe.

Owner of five years Carmel Shiggins said she had never seen the helicopter land there before.

She said when people asked why they'd landed they didn't believe her.

She said: "People had been coming in asking what they were doing, was there an emergency? And I said no, they come in for an ice cream."

Owner of five years Carmel Shiggins said she had never seen the helicopter land there before.

She said when people asked why they'd landed they didn't believe her.

She said: "People had been coming in asking what they were doing, was there an emergency? And I said no, they come in for an ice cream."

Cafe assistant, Francis Ford, 18 said he asked what was up and one crew member said "We're all entitled to a tea break".

Cupid stunt award of the day....

That’s it: I’m orf to stuff some Memristors into the laptop.

And today’s thought:

A conundrum of Cupid Stunts

Angus

Bum MP: Democracy on Facebook: Camel Jumping: Bangers and Cupcakes: and a half ton Sturgeon.

Sunnyish, clearish, calmish and coldish at the Castle this morn, bit late (again) because the interweb thingy went tits up (again), I think it is the router which isn’t....routing...

But the delay did give me time to potter round the grounds and snap the things that are blooming.

Some blue stuff (with a touch of pink stuff)

Some white stuff

More blue stuff

More white stuff

Some strawberry stuff

And his blurry Maj waiting to play with one of his sticks

Up to the sinking Palace of Westminster

Energy Minister Charles Hendry has it seems reverted to his days as a fag at Rugby school by sitting on his senior colleague Ed Davey's lap.

Old habits die hard...

And North more than a smidge to the land of snow and volcanoes

Iceland is using Facebook to rewrite its constitution: citizens can use the social network to make their own suggestions, engage in online debates, or follow the proceedings in real-time.

Two thirds of Iceland’s population (approximately 320,000) is on Facebook, so the constitutional council’s weekly meetings are broadcast live not only on the council’s website, but on the social network as well. “It is possible to register through other means, but most of the discussion takes place via Facebook,” Berghildur Bernhardsdottir, spokeswoman for the constitutional review project, told the Associated Press. “The sort of argumentative and negative discussion that has been common on Icelandic blogs and news sites, especially since the economic collapse, has been almost entirely absent.”

The comprehensive review of the constitution is being carried out with the direct participation of the Icelandic people. The Internet component is the most direct route for most Icelanders to have their say: members of the public must provide their names and addresses, and can then submit online recommendations, which are approved by local staff to avoid Internet heckling. The ideas are then passed on to the council, and are open for discussion online.

Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club coalition take note....

East oodles of thingies

The men of the Zaraniq tribe, on the west coast of Yemen, have a truly unique tradition – they jump over a row of camels just like modern daredevils jump over cars.

Famous throughout Yemen for their speed, strength and courage, the members of the Zaraniq tribe are the world’s only professional camel jumpers. Taking running starts, jumpers try to sail over as many camels as possible, before tumbling to the ground. During camel jumping events, the one who leaps over the highest number of camels is considered the winner. “This is what we do,” says Bhayder Mohammed Yusef Qubaisi, one of the champions of the Tihama-al-Yemen, a desert plain, on the coast of the Red Sea.

When I read “Camel jumping” I thought-well they don’t have any sheep....

Somewhere on the post Jurassic Fart world

Culinary ‘genius’ Stef of The Cupcake Project saw that two of the great joys of the human experience, sausage and cupcakes, need not be separate. Her cupcakewurst consists of cupcake batter poured into hog sausage casings (pig intestines), then baked.

Num, num......not....

And finally:

East again to the land that likes eggs boiled in piss

A sturgeon weighing more than half a ton has been caught fishermen in northeast China.

The 617kg Kaluga fish was caught on Tuesday in Heilongjiang River, at Tongjiang, a city that borders Russia in northeast China.

The Kaluga is a large predatory sturgeon only found in the Heilongjiang River basin. Chen Lin, the fisherman who caught the fish said it was the biggest he had ever seen. Chen, along with fellow fishermen, sent the fish to a local sturgeon breeding station.

According to breeders, the sturgeon is a female and is currently carrying about 1.2 million eggs. Staff at the station will collect the roe and implement artificial insemination. The fish fry will be released into the Heilongjiang River.

Kaluga fish are believed to have existed for 130 million years and are claimed to be the largest freshwater fish in the world. The fish is listed as critically endangered, having been fished to near extinction for its valuable roe.

Which thankfully are not boiled in piss...

 That’s it: I’m orf to add lobster vision to my binoculars

And today’s thought:

Sheep jumping

Angus

PFI in the NHS: T-ray WI-Fi: Dull and Boring: Getting the finger: Stop, go, stop, go, stop, go-wait: and “bob” the water horse.

Cloudy, cold and calm at the Castle this morn, I went berserk yestermorn and cleaned the windows and all the wooden floors and rugs with my new super duper all singing all dancing steam cleaner.

I must admit that I was a whimsy sceptical of the claims made by the manufacturer and the “user manual” is in Chinglish, but I am in love with the 4bar humidifier, it has all sorts of gadgets-floor cleaning, carpet cleaning, window cleaning, oven cleaning, tile cleaning, bath cleaning, sink and tap cleaning and hob cleaning, the only thing it lacks is a widget to get stones out of horses hooves.

And no I am not being paid to write this, I just thought I would let you know, how good it is, and it costs about 20p per hour to run.

And while I was in the grounds doing the outside of the windows I spotted this Azalea which has burst into life in the last day or so.

While his Maj looked on in bemusement.

Meanwhile all over privatised Blighty

Back in the 90’s the no nuts Tory Government decided that Private Finance Initiatives were the way to go and that leasing ‘Orspitals and other NHS stuff from Private contractors would save us oodles of loot, and then shit for brains Labour reckoned it would be a jolly jape to expand PFI to all and sundry including schools and roads thinking that even more dosh would accumulate in the treasury coffers.

So here are some amounts that PFI has “saved” us. 

Taxpayers are committed to pay £229billion for new hospitals, schools and other projects with a capital value of just £56billion, between 1996 and 2010 deals done in the first five years were the worst value for money, costing the Government £7.45 for every pound of private investment raised.

The ratio then fell to £4.03 for every pound raised between 2001 and 2005 and then rose again to £5.43 in the last five years to 2010, possibly because the financial crisis increased the cost of capital for private firms.

In our dear old NHS: charges of £242 to put a padlock on a garden gate at a trust in North Staffordshire, £466 to replace a light fitting and £75 for an air freshener in Cumbria and £15,000 to “install a laundry door following feasibility study” at a trust in Salisbury have been made.

Other charges include £8,450 to install an “additional dishwasher” for a NHS trust in Hull, £962 to “supply and fix notice-board” at a trust in Leeds and £26,614 for the “replacement of shower room doors” at the Sussex Partnership Trust.

The Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition has agreed 71 new PFI deals since coming to power. Alien reptile in disguise George ( if ignorance was brains I would be a genius) Osborne, the ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer’, is currently working on an overhaul of PFI by finding for a cheaper way of harnessing private sector money to fund public projects.

Allegedly The NHS will pay back more than £70bn on current projections and the annual bill is due to keep rising year-on-year for the next 18 years.

After that contracts start coming to an end although the final payment will not be made until 2049.

And apparently the total cost of about 800 agreements according to the latest select committee is that the estimated cost for the government to get these projects up and running is £64bn, and then £267bn in repayments to private companies over the next 50 years. These figures can be calculated from the list of all public private agreements published by HM Treasury.

That works well then.....

East to the land that still glows in the dark

Researchers in Japan have smashed the record for wireless data transmission in the terahertz band, an uncharted part of the electro-magnetic spectrum.

The data rate is 20 times higher than the best commonly used Wi-Fi standard.

As consumers become ever hungrier for high data rates, standard lower-frequency bands have become crowded.

The research, published in Electronics Letters, adds to the idea that this "T-ray" band could offer huge swathes of bandwidth for data transmission.

The band lies between the microwave and far-infrared regions of the spectrum, and is currently completely unregulated by telecommunications agencies.

Despite the name, the band informally makes use of frequencies from about 300 gigahertz (300GHz or about 60 times higher than the current highest Wi-Fi standard) to about 3THz, 10 times higher again.

It is used principally for imaging in research contexts, as terahertz waves penetrate many materials as effectively as X-rays but deposit far less energy and therefore cause less damage.

Until recently, the technology required both to generate and detect these "T-rays" has been too bulky, costly or power-hungry to offer a plausible alternative to existing devices tucked within Smartphone’s or Wi-Fi routers.

At the heart of the team's 1mm-square device is what is known as a resonant tunnelling diode, or RTD.

Tunnelling diodes have the unusual characteristic that the voltage across them can sometimes go down as current is increased.

RTDs are designed such that this process makes the diode "resonate", which in the current work's design means it sprays out waves in the terahertz band.

 

So now you know...

North of the border

The arrival of the fish van from Aberfeldy qualifies as excitement in Dull. But yesterday the tiny hamlet in Highland Perthshire was abuzz with anticipation, as details emerged of a proposed international alliance with the American town of … Boring.

The plan to forge formal links between the two communities saddled with the world’s least inspiring names was suggested by Perthshire resident Elizabeth Leighton after she stumbled upon the Oregon town of Boring during a cycling holiday.

Her proposal was put before Dull and Weem community council, which represents the 40-strong population, and an approach to establish formal cultural and friendship links between the two communities is now being pursued.

Thomas Pringle, the secretary of the community council, said yesterday that it was fantastic news. “It’s certainly the talk of Dull. I think most of the folk who know about it are more amused about the idea than anything else,” he said.

“And I’m not quite sure what the reaction will be from drivers if we put up a sign saying ‘Dull twinned with Boring’ when they drive through the village. Most of the cars stop already when they just see the Dull sign.”

Mr Pringle, who works in the oil and gas industry, insisted that, despite its name, Dull has its moments. “We have been known in the past to have some quite nice parties,” he said. “I belong to Aberfeldy and my wife and I moved out here about 18 years ago and we love staying here.

“Dull may be small, but it has a lot of history. The village was supposedly set up by one of the abbots of Iona. There is a suggestion that the monks who established St Andrews originally started here before going on to Dunkeld and then St Andrews.”

He continued: “There’s maybe only a population of about 40 at the moment, but there are two houses being built across the road from me, so it’s expanding. But we don’t have a pub or a shop, although the farmhouse, one of the oldest buildings, used to be an inn at one time.

“We have a fish van that comes on Thursday … and that’s it.”

 ...........sorry, I dozed orf.

And according to “experts”

A scientific hypothesis about men, linking ring finger length to exposure to masculine hormones in the womb, lacks genetic evidence, says a new study.

In 1998, British researcher John Manning suggested that foetal exposure to testosterone (and other masculine hormones, or androgens) might explain why some men have notably longer ring fingers than index fingers. The suggestion -- the Manning hypothesis -- has since been used to link index-to-ring finger size-ratios to aggression, autism and other male-dominated ailments or behaviours in more than 500 studies since.

The 2003 study only included 50 people and found a link between a mutation in the androgen receptor gene and a low index-to-ring finger ratio, suggesting a genetic explanation for the uptake of masculine hormones that, in turn, led to longer ring fingers in some men.

But a pair of recent studies has questioned this link -- one finding no link to aggression and one finding no link to the mutation and finger length ratios. So, the new study sets out to repeat the 2003 finding, this time with 152 men.

Overall, the men averaged index fingers that were 95% the size of ring fingers, on both hands. The researchers sampled the study volunteer's androgen receptor genes, finger lengths and their current testosterone levels, looking to repeat the 2003 results.

In other words, size may not matter when it comes to ring fingers.

Well....go finger....

 

East again to the land of lots of old people

Motorists in China have been left bemused by this traffic signalling system, where officials installed over 20 sets of lights on a single pole at a crossroad.

The baffling traffic light junction was spotted at a set of crossroads in Chongqing City in China, and looks too confusing for even the most experienced driver.

The system appears to employ well over a dozen sets of conventional traffic lights pointing in all direction with no additional signs to explain anything to frustrated drivers.

Authorities have explained, however, that the lights should be ignored - because they were only installed for decorative purposes and do not direct drivers.

Wonder how many members of the “authorities” went to Eton?

And finally on this very informative blog:

Left over the big wet salty thing and then left even more over the dry bit

An Arabian horse named William got spooked during a California beachside photo shoot Tuesday and swam a mile out to sea before rescuers got to him and helped him back to shore.

Carpinteria-Summerland Fire Capt. Jay Irwin tells the Santa Barbara News-Press (http://bit.ly/LSknaq ) that the horse's white head looked like a seagull bobbing in the water.

Owner Mindy Peters says the 6-year-old Arabian, whose official name is Heir of Temptation, was part of a photo clinic on the beach when it was spooked by waves and ran off.

Rescue swimmers assisted by the Santa Barbara Harbour Patrol and state parks employees found the horse a mile offshore as darkness fell.

Should have named him Bob....

 That’s it: I’m orf to magnetise the sharks in the moat.

 

And today’s thought:

The gender gap.

Angus

Oh Dear!: Pussy security: Wight wants TT: Chenango Chobani Yogurt: Windy motor: and a Lambo lunatic.

Sunny, dry, calm and more than a whimsy cold at the Castle this morn, the butler is not happy because he is back stuffing fat carbon neutral teenagers into the furnace, his Maj has got the hump because the sun hasn’t reached his favourite bit of the grounds where he rolls in the dust, and I am a bit miffed because the windows need cleaning and today has the perfect weather to do it.

According to the Torygraph

The “leader” of the Piss Poor policies Millionaires Club Coalition is considering ordering billions of pounds in extra welfare cuts proposed in a confidential Downing Street policy paper.

The savings will be made from cutting back benefits for people of working age.

The plans include a new crackdown on housing benefit and a “mark two” system of universal credit to help push people off benefits back into full-time, rather than part-time, work. There are also understood to be a range of measures to encourage more women, particularly single mothers, to return to work.

 The author of this future roll of toilet paper Steve Hilton who has buggered orf to California for a while reckons that that another £25 billion can be cut from the welfare budget.

A Downing Street source said: “There is some really radical thinking going on around welfare, which is the most successful area of government policy so far. Why should people only work part time? Why are young people who are out of work not living at home? Why are we incentivising people to have more children?

California dreaming Hilton is regarded as a “blue sky thinker” whose radical and ambitious ideas have infuriated civil servants. Although some of his proposals have been dismissed as too radical and unrealistic, his plans for welfare reform are understood to be highly respected by the Prime Minister.

 

Oh dear.....

Right a lot and dahn a fair way

A South African businessman has got himself some extra protection - a Bengal tiger called Enzo.

The 330lb big cat lives with owner Michael Jamison and his girlfriend Jackie at their home in Brakpan.

They had always wanted a pet tiger - but decided to get one after twice being targeted by armed robbers.

"I feel much safer with Enzo in the house than without him," said Mr Jamison. "I wanted a tiger and then I got one."

One-year-old Enzo is actually a big baby who sleeps with Mr Jamison in his bed, has a cat box and enjoys eating on the kitchen counter.

He gets bottle-fed twice a day as well as consuming around 4kg of meat. He eats rice with chicken or mince alongside the couple's three dogs, with which he is apparently good friends.

My-that is a lot of pussy to have in your bed.....

Back in plan A Blighty-sort of

Motorcycle enthusiasts have started a campaign to bring TT-style road races to the Isle of Wight.

The proposal is to create an event similar to the TT "tourist trophy" races run on the Isle of Man.

The annual Manx festival attracted 37,000 visitors and generated £20m of income this year.

Campaigner Kara Rann said: "When you see the passion and enthusiasm, it's something the Isle of Wight is missing out on and it would certainly benefit".

A Facebook page set up by the campaign attracted 425 supporters in 36 hours.

The group has identified possible race routes which "avoid any villages" and plans to approach the council for backing for the idea.

Bit dodgy-have you seen the state of the roads on the Needles isle?

Left to the home of the Semi and the land of no corners

Along Interstate 88 westbound Monday night, just after 10:30 p.m., Broome County Sheriff's Deputies say a tractor trailer hauling Chobani Yogurt got on the ramp to Interstate 81 too fast. When it rounded a curve, the trailer slid over the embankment and spilled 36,000 pounds of yogurt on the shoulder and down the hillside.

The driver--Oleksandr Brychka, 24, of Lincoln, Nebraska--was able to get out of the cab on his own.

Although it was raining, deputies believe weather was not a factor.

The driver was ticketed with failure to reduce speed and improper lane use.

And for thinking he was Jensen Button...still that will help out the Greek problem a bit.

East more than many, many imperial units

In a small tractor workshop, 55-year-old farmer Tang Zhenping has invented the prototype of a car that he believes could revolutionise China's auto industry.

Mr Tang's model - built in just three months for around £1,000 - is electric.

Its engine uses scrap parts from a motorcycle and an electric scooter, while its steering wheel, upholstery and headlights all come from a Chinese-made Xiali hatchback.

And on the front is a turbine which springs into action at 40mph and produces pollution-free power.

The model has a top speed of 70mph.

The farmer says he dreamed of building an electric car for three decades, but was unable to interest government officials or private investors.

He now hopes car manufacturers will take an interest in his prototype.

"I'm not doing this just for the money," he told Sky News.

"I dream of seeing my car being driven on highways. I want to serve the people."

Ever tried to get to forty in a built up area?

And finally:

Back over to the home of the auto and the land of the rear exit

In the suburbs of Chicago a Lamborghini driver speeds away from the lights before losing control of his vehicle and ending up wedged between two cars.

The accident was filmed by people in the car behind who had started recording when the supercar pulled in front of them at a set of traffic lights.

The driver of the bright yellow Lamborghini Gallardo attempts to turn left at speed before losing control and shooting across the highway into oncoming traffic.

Luckily cars had slowed for the lights and instead of a head on collision the Lamborghini ended up wedged between two oncoming vehicles.

 

Oh dear what a shame.....

That’s it: I’m orf to sniff a robot.

And today’s thought:

Rear exit TT.

Angus

No fuel like cheap fuel: What austerity?: Das Numptys: Over the radioactive limit: Nail house: and a Magnetic iPod holder.

Back to “normal” at the Castle this morn-chucking it dahn, cold, windy and not very clement, the arm is not too bad and his Maj has discovered the joy of ambush from behind the shower curtain.

 

Allegedly German owned E.ON is going to peg prices for 2012

E.ON's pledge came after British Gas owner Centrica last week signalled that further price hikes were on the way as its costs continued to mount.

The German utility giant confirmed that wholesale energy costs are expected to climb but said it will freeze prices for the rest of 2012 as part of a commitment to be fair and transparent.

Dr Tony Cocker, chief executive of E.ON UK, said: "Let me be clear - E.ON will not raise residential prices in 2012.

"Earlier this year we cut our prices in a way that helped some 75% of our customers and I hope that the certainty we've given today will show our customers again that we are committed to helping them."

 

 But: the snag is while prices will not rise during the “warm bit-har bloody har” E.ON may raise prices at the start of 2013, potentially meaning customers could face higher costs for some of the coldest winter months.

Nice....

 

And according to Tullett Prebon.

Blighty’s austerity programme is a “myth” designed to “con” the financial markets, and that “public expenditures have hardly been reduced at all” and that claims of a “big cut in public spending is bare-faced deception”.

Figures highlighted by the firm show that public spending actually rose during 2010-11 and fell by just 1.5 percent last year.

Government spending is more than £22 billion higher than it was in 2008 when the financial crisis erupted.

The majority of extra money required by ministers to fill the black hole in the finances caused by the recession is being raised from extra taxes rather than cuts in Government spending.

Dr Tim Morgan, the global head of research at Tullett Prebon, said: “It’s high time that this mendacity was exposed for what it is. Government has done very little about its spending, has appropriated three-quarters of all gains in economic output for its own use, has carried on piling up debt – and has tried to pass all this off as 'responsible austerity’.

Well, that’s told us....

 

Right a smidge to the land where austerity seems to be working

A German police force that spent €25 million on new sporty cars found that not only was the visibility rubbish for chases - the fancy seats were so narrow the cops could not get in while wearing their guns, truncheons and other equipment.

The Hesse Interior Ministry ordered 800 of the swish new models – Opel's Insignia Sports Tourer – in a long-term deal at the end of 2010. The ministry says that 200 of the cars have been delivered so far, but it is yet to be decided whether the order will be completed.

The limited view through the back window was also a major problem for the police, said Hölzgen. "I need to see out of the back every minute, every second," he said. "That's a safety matter for us."

The ministry insisted that the car had been tested prior to the order. "The results did not point to any lack of suitability for police service," a ministry spokeswoman told regional broadcaster HR. She added that the ministry was aware of the problem.

Vorsprung Durch Bollocks-mind you even I have a problem getting my truncheon in the Honda....

Left to the home of the detector and the land of the isotope

Last Wednesday, Mike Apatow was getting on to Interstate 84 in Newtown, CT, when police stopped him for no reason he could determine. When the cop told him that his car had set off his radioactivity detectors, it started making sense: Apatow was most certainly radioactive.

Earlier in the day, Apatow had had a bit of radioactive material injected into his veins. He wasn't trying to turn himself into a superhero—just trying to keep himself alive. The off-duty fire-fighter had gone to a cardiology office to have a cardiac stress test, which tracks the function of the heart by tracking radioactivity as it moves through the circulatory system.

Apatow had come to the office after feeling ill earlier and finding that his blood pressure had gone up way above where it was usually. Whatever caused the blip went away quickly, and Apatow went back to work, as recounted at ctpost.com.

Good job they don’t have moron detectors around the palace of Westminster, the sound would be deafening.

 

East to the place where houses are cheap

One stubborn elderly couple created the ultimate road block after refusing to move out of their home to allow a new major motorway route to be built.

Developers were pulling their hair out after 75-year-old Hong Chunqin and her husband Kung refused to make way for developers in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, eastern China.

After initially accepting £8,000 in compensation to relocate, the couple then backtracked on their decision and insisted they weren't going anywhere - after construction was underway.

Dubbed the 'Road to Nowhere', Mr and Mrs Chunqin's house can now be seen blocking the completion of the newly-built road, with just a tiny dirt track linking the two separate stretches.

Similar homes have been labelled Nail Houses in China, following a series of disputes across the country. The reference comes from a stubborn nail that is difficult to remove.

Developers have been accused of using dirty tactics to evict tenants, cutting one homeowner's power and, in one famous case, excavating a 10-metre deep pit around an entire house.

However the Chunqin family, who argue they should be given the choice of where they are relocated to, have installed CCTV cameras to stop a similar scenario from happening.

Hang in there guys.....

And finally:

Back over to the home of body piercing and the land of inexorable Numptyism

A tattoo artist has invented a bizarre way to stay with his beloved iPod at all times – having surgery to implant magnets under his skin.

Instead of wearing a wristband, four small powerful magnets under the body piercing expert’s skin helps the Apple device stay in place, just like a strapless watch.

My brain hurts......

 

That’s it: I’m orf to buy a flying car.

And today’s thought:

What austerity.

 Angus