No amnesty: Physios and podiatrists prescriptions: Amateur bomb defuser: A bit more Argy bargy: Up yours Tamworth: and how to wash a car-twice...

Oodles of solar stuff at the Castle this morn the garden has been fettled to the nth degree, and I have had to wash the sheet, duvet and cover because it is a bit damp from my melting bod over the hot dark thing.

As I put a nice clean sheet on the four-poster his Maj came in from exploring the grounds and ran right across it leaving a nice set of dirty paw prints-make that I have had to wash the duvet, cover and two sheets....

Up in the Olympic Smoke

Someone in the on holiday number 10 yesterday ruled out offering an amnesty for illegal immigrants and failed asylum-seekers still in Britain.

The move has previously been supported by Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. But Prime Monster U-Turn Cam’s spokesman said: "That is not something we are considering."

His comments came after it emerged that the UK Border Agency is working its way through a backlog of more than 275,000 cases – equivalent to the population of Newcastle.

Wonder how many it will be after the underwater Olympics?

Still in baking Blighty

Physiotherapists and podiatrists (feet and ankle stuff) in England are to get the right to prescribe medicines by themselves.

Ministers agreed to the change in the law after carrying out a consultation, but it will be 2014 before it is fully rolled out.

When physios and podiatrists do start prescribing they will become the first in the world to be given such powers.

And it will mean patients do not have to go back to GPs to get drugs such as anti-inflammatories and painkillers.

Health minister Lord Howe said: "By introducing these changes, we aim to make the best use of their skills and allow patients to benefit from a faster and more effective service."

That should help our medal count....

East many, many miles

After working for eight years, Ji Xingang's bomb-defusing device is now used by many public security bureaus, fire stations, as well as oil and gas companies throughout China. Wang Ru reports.

For eight years, Ji Xingang worked relentlessly on his bomb defusing invention, modifying and improving the device. It was originally a hobby and he never thought it would be put to use. But the timing was perfect. He completed his project in March 2010 and in June 2010, someone from the public security bureau of Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei province, found use for it.

The conventional way to defuse unexploded bombs was to transport them to remote localities and detonate them. But nobody could predict whether the bomb would explode during transportation.

So they moved it to nearby open ground.

According to Ji, there is a huge market for such machines. In 2008, the Olympic Games imported an anti-bomb water jet cutting machine from a German company, which cost $200,000.

Since 2010, Ji has been selling his water jet cutter to public security bureaus, fire stations, as well as oil and gas companies all over China. In 2011, his cutter was bought for the World University Games in Shenzhen.

 

Spiffing, but shouldn’t he be standing a bit further away?

West just as far and dahn more than a smidge

A raffle will determine which civil servants in a small Argentine town will receive their pay first, due to insufficient funds, its mayor announced Monday.

"We will draw lots to decide the (order) of payment," said mayor of Bialet Masse, Gustavo Pueyo, in a broadcast from Buenos Aires private radio station Radio Mitre.

Pueyo said the raffle was approved by national mayoral authorities and the first draw took place Friday, with 23 of the town's 92 employees receiving their pay. A second raffle is slated for Monday.

Home to 5,000 inhabitants, Bialet Masse is a tourist destination in Cordoba Province, 750 kilometres (466 miles) northwest of Buenos Aires.

Pueyo attributed the city's insufficient funds to a drop in the funding usually received from the provincial government.

 

No wonder they want the oily Falklands-wonder if it would work in the leaning tower of

Westminster....

Back in up yours Blighty

A hedge clipped to look like an extended middle finger has landed one gardener in trouble after police ordered the offensive bush to be altered following a complaint.

Warwickshire Police have told creator Richard Jackson his cheeky garden humour must be altered as it is considered a public offence.

In response, neighbours in Tamworth, Staffordshire, have started a Save the Bush campaign.

'I carved the bush into a middle finger eight years ago and there has only ever been one complaint about it, made recently,' explained Mr Jackson.

'I was contacted by the police and they said the council had been in touch because somebody had complained to them about it.

'Apparently, one person was offended by it and the police said it was a public order offence.'

Warwickshire Police said if they receive a direct complaint about the hedge they would deal with it proportionately.

Fuck orf......

And finally:

West to the home of not a lot of water and the land of old farts

After driving out of the Spotless Auto Laundry carwash on East Anderson Street Hackensack an ‘elderly’ woman decided that her motor wasn’t “spotless” and drove it into the river to finish it orf.

The woman, who was not immediately identified, apparently hit the wrong pedal and she and her car ended up in the river, police said. She was rescued by a carwash employee and a customer and treated at Hackensack University Medical Centre.

The incident occurred around 3:30 p.m. Police called city fire-fighters about a car in the water at East Anderson and River streets, said Lt. Justin Derevyanik of the Hackensack Fire Department.

Fire-fighters launched a boat to check the vehicle for other occupants, found none and then secured the car by tying it to the shore line so it could be towed from the river, Derevyanik said. They then helped a tow truck crew retrieve the car.

The good news is that no fire-fighters were injured.

 Oh well that’s alright then.....but at least she had a fifty/fifty chance of hitting the right pedal...

 

That’s it: I’m orf to slow dahn a Dumpling Squid

And today’s thought:

Now where is U-Turn Cam sitting Olympics....

Angus

What’s his name hedges his bets: Up your Leccy bill: Over populated-over here: Hornsea hoo-ha: Incredible Bulk: Big Apple water cafe: and IKEA beer.

At the Castle this morn-the sun is out, the sky is blue, there’s not a cloud to spoil the view but it’s.....not going to last.

Allegedly as the golden cheese grater makes its seemingly endless journey to the temporary big round thing next to the big red helter skelter the ‘wevver’ is going to go tits up-again. 

Just got back from the stale bread, gruel and his Maj’s food run dahn Tesco, prices are still rising and the cost of cheese seems to be soaring in inverse proportion to the pittance paid to dairy farmers and are allegedly set to rise even more due to the piss poor atmospheric conditions over the last month or two.

 And the interweb thingy is bollixed up-again...

U-Turn cam’s fag

Otherwise known as what’s his name reckons that his party would do its “duty” if Labour won the most seats but fell short of a Commons majority in 2015.

There have been rumours that Mr Clegg could stand down before the next election to take a job as an EU commissioner.

But he insisted that he could work with Labour’s leader, Ed Miliband, and that “personal likes and dislikes” were irrelevant.

However, he boasted of a series of policy successes in government, including raising the income tax threshold for the lowest paid workers and providing more money for disadvantaged schoolchildren.

And if you believe that you should go and see your GP immediately.....

According to some members of the leaning tower of Westminster

Households will pay too much for their electricity bills because of the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition’s botched energy reforms.

The Commons energy and climate change committee found that plans to encourage companies to build wind farms and nuclear plants were too expensive and executed poorly. Under the reforms, households would subsidise the construction of low-carbon power plants through their energy bills.

The Government would fix the price of electricity in an attempt to make it affordable.

It will raise the cost of bills by about £100 over the next decade, according to Government estimates.

However, the Treasury has backed out of providing an official state guarantee for the reforms, meaning it will cost more for companies to borrow money to fund the projects.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change has defended the reforms.

Edward Davey, the Energy Secretary, insisted that his Bill would give households “secure, low-carbon, affordable energy”.

And if you believe that..........

Still in salty Blighty

Apparently there are more than 275,000 failed migrants who need to be removed from the country according to the home affairs committee.

Allegedly the backlog of UK Border Agency (UKBA) cases awaiting resolution was "now equivalent to the entire population of Newcastle upon Tyne".

The committee said the backlog included:

At least 150,000 migrants who had been refused permission to stay in the UK

21,000 asylum cases

3,900 foreign offenders living in the community

57 foreign criminals released in 2006 without being considered for deportation and who had not yet been traced

80,000 asylum applications and 21,500 immigration cases in the "controlled archive" of cases where the UKBA had lost track of the applicant

Responding to the report's recommendations, the Home Office spokesman said: "Talented students are welcome in the UK, but we have introduced new powers to toughen up the system, keeping out the fraudulent and unqualified while ensuring genuine students continue to benefit from our excellent educational facilities."

Yeah right.

Up to the Norf-ish bit of our sunny land

A holiday beach was cordoned off after a landslip sent more than 1,000 deadly bombs and rockets embedded in the cliffs for more 60 years tumbling onto the sands.

The East Riding beach of Mappleton, near Hornsea, was used as a practice bombing range during the Second World War - but the bad weather has led to ground movement which exposed one of the biggest arsenals ever uncovered yesterday.

The fins of many of the bombs have been left sticking out of the mud and rock which has fallen onto the beach.

A 24-hour guard has been placed on the beach by Humberside Police amid fears that children may be tempted to pick up a "trophy" during the school holidays.

An Army Bomb Disposal team from North Yorkshire's Catterick Army Base has also been called in to clear the beach over the next few days.

The Army experts are hoping to remove some of the smaller items but some will have to be blown up on site in controlled explosions, Humber Coastguard said.

They include rockets, mortar bombs and 25-pounder bombs which were all fired into the cliffs by RAF aircraft during the war years and have been there ever since.

Maybe they should send the on holiday again MPs to pick them up.....

From the Dark Continent comes-the incredible Bulk

Obviously not from east Africa....

Over the even saltier thing than food

In the big apple New York City opens its first water-only café, selling only tap water for a $1 a cup.

The café's co-owner Adam Ruhf told Reuters that their water is cleaner and healthier than regular tap water, with no trace of any chemical or mineral compounds.

Apparently there is a very complicated purifying system situated behind the bar. The purifying system strips the cities tap water down to its molecular level - hence the Cafe's name Molecule,

"It's a seven stage filtration process going through KDF (Kinetic Degradation Fluxion), magnetic and catalytic, active-carbon-five-micron reverse osmosis, UV and ozone treatments," Ruhf explained.

And for the extra healthy customers, the café offers a wide range of supplements that customers can add to their drinks for a dollar each.

The mind boggles.

And finally:

Right more than a few imperial miles

IKEA has started selling beer.

The Swedish furniture store has launched two beers, a dark lager and a regular brew which are currently only available in the UK but is set to be rolled out world-wide in August.

Brewed by IKEA themselves, the dark lager 'ÖL MÖRK LAGER' and the lighter alternative 'ÖL LJUS LAGER' both retail for £1.75 and have a 4.7% ABV. Both bottle feature the famous blue and yellow logo.

Which will give those male “partners” a spiffing excuse when the flat pack shelves turn out looking like a bonfire.

That’s it: I’m orf to kick a dwarf------star

And today’s thought:

Duckess of Cornwall Olympics

Angus

Windows Vista and 7 gadgets threat fix: Park and taken for a ride: Chinese day at the beach: Nice pair of melons: and the Goat Man.

Yet another wet/dry, cold/cold, windy/calm start to the day at the Castle this morn, but it looks as if I may be able to do a bit of vandalism in the garden later.

Orf out early tomorrow so no post, and the interweb thingy is still behaving like a spoilt child and his Maj keeps bringing me frogs...

Some useful information:

Microsoft has issued an urgent security warning to all Windows 7 & Vista users: apparently you must disable the Desktop Gadgets feature immediately.

It turns out that hackers have discovered a security flaw in the Desktop Gadgets subsystem, which can allow them to take over your PC, if you install an infected Gadget.

Gadgets, in case you aren't sure, are the small desktop tools which display the weather forecast, large clock and so on  your desktop. In Windows Vista, these Gadgets sit in the desktop sidebar on the right-hand side of the screen. Windows 7 has no sidebar, so the Gadgets 'float' on the desktop.


You can add and remove Gadgets via the Control Panel

The attack allows a malicious Gadget to run with the same privileges as your logged in user account, so if you are an administrator they can take over the whole machine. According to Microsoft, "Gadgets installed from untrusted sources can harm your computer and can access your computer’s files, show you objectionable content, or change their behaviour at any time".

Microsoft originally intended the system to be expanded by third-party developers, so that, for example, Facebook could provide a gadget that allowed you to keep an eye on your status. But, because of the threat posed by this attack, Microsoft has now closed down their site that allows you to find and install third-party gadgets.


To prevent this type of attack, you need to disable the feature in the registry. Before applying a registry fix, first create a backup of your registry by following the steps here:

Press [Windows Key] + [R], type REGEDIT and click OK.

Go to file on the top of the registry, click on export and save somewhere you can find it again.

Next, apply the fix as follows:

Press [Windows Key] + [R], type REGEDIT and click OK.

Expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, expand SOFTWARE, expand Microsoft, expand Windows, expand CurrentVersion, and then expand Policies.

Right click on Policies, select New, select Key, and then type Windows as the key name.

Right click on Windows, select New, select Key, and then type Sidebar as the key name.

Right click on Sidebar, select New, select DWORD (32-bit) Value, and the type TurnOffSidebar as the name.

Right click on TurnOffSidebar, select Modify and then change Value data: to 1 and click OK.

Reboot your system to apply the fix.

With the fix in place, you will of course no longer be able to use the Desktop Gadgets you have installed, but this is a small price to pay for the security the fix will bring you.

Microsoft has removed the Gadgets feature completely from Windows 8, so if you are using a test version of that operating system you don't need to worry about the problem.

Simples-ish, sort of.......I did the “fix” above and the interweb thingy seems to have sorted itself out?

.

All over pay for everything Blighty

It seems that Councils made more than half a billion pounds profit from parking last year, despite warnings that they should not treat motorists as “cash cows”.

Authorities in England and Wales saw their surplus from parking rise to £511.6 million in 2010-11 from £489.4 million a year earlier, according to an analysis of local authority accounts by the RAC Foundation.

Town halls are supposed to use their powers to control parking to improve traffic flow and prevent gridlock on their streets.

They are prohibited from using these powers to bolster their income. However, many councils seek to get round this by earmarking the cash raised for other transport projects.

Currently motorists can be fined up £130 in London and £70 outside the capital for parking offences. Ministers are considering a plea from councils to increase the fines. The RAC Foundation figures show that the Tory-run Westminster council in central London made a £38 million profit from parking. Drivers now have to pay £4.80 an hour to park on the street in prime spots, such as near Oxford Street.

Outside London, Brighton, where motorists can wait more than a year for a residential parking permit, racked up a £12.7 million surplus, with drivers in the centre of the city now paying £3.50 an hour. Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “Local authorities need to be transparent about how they spend these 'profits’ and demonstrate to drivers that the money raised is being used to make their lives easier, not more difficult.”

Peter Box, chairman of the Local Government Association’s economy and transport board, defended councils.

“Parking charges and fines are an essential part of keeping traffic flowing, pedestrians and motorists safe and deterring irresponsible drivers,” he said.

 

Yeah right....robbing bastards.

 

East to the place where space is at a premium

Although we on our more than slightly damp island have only managed about one day this year to meander to the seaside over in China it seems that the pastime is quite popular.

Dahn a bit to the land that doesn’t have a problem with nuclear stuff

Fruit has always been one of the higher-priced commodities in Japan. A single apple, for example, can cost 1,000 yen (£8). A package of 20 cherries will run you 8,000 yen (£64).

However, it seems that the value of melons has gone down this season.

Yubari, a city in the north famous for its enticing, wonderful melons, has started a bit of a craze.

In the most recent harvest, two particular melons caught the attention of everyone, for their perfectly circular form and an evenly patterned rind. The set of melons, weighing 4 kg, were auctioned at a relatively lower price than the highest paid melons ever, reflecting the still unstable economic climate.

In 2008, the most expensive pair of melons was sold at a whopping price of 2.5 million yen (£19,000).

 

That’s nearly as dear as my favourite retailer...

And finally:
 

Left oodles of distance

Allegedly A man spotted dressed in a goat suit among a herd of wild goats in the mountains of northern Utah has wildlife officials worried he could be in danger as hunting season approaches.

Douglass said a man hiking Sunday along Ben Lomond peak in the mountains above Ogden, about 40 miles north of Salt Lake City, spotted the person dressed like a goat among a herd of real goats. The person provided some blurry photographs to Douglass, who said they did not appear to have been altered.

Coty Creighton spotted the goat man Sunday during his hike. He said he came across the herd, but noticed something odd about one goat that was trailing behind the rest.

"I thought it was a deformed goat," Creighton told the Standard-Examiner of Ogden. "It was clumsy, not nimble."

He said he pulled out binoculars to get a closer look at the herd about 200 yards away and was shocked. The man appeared to be acting like a goat while wearing the crudely made costume, which had fake horns and a cloth mask with cut-out eye holes, Creighton said.

"He was on his hands and knees, crawling along the mountainside," he said. "Something was definitely off with that guy."

No shit....

That’s it: I’m orf to do a bit of Iron Fertilisation in the moat

And today’s thought:

Solo Tantric sex Olympics#3

Angus

Pie in the sky: Sideboard on the tube: ‘Proportionate Justice’: Polish Pilchard: The ‘Master Bait Shop’: Pilfered Pig: and Charlie’s toast.

Dull, damp, dingy and a definite lack of height in the liquid metal gauge at the Castle this morn, apparently the brats are about to start the endless “summer” holidays-oh joy, but it will give the butler oodles of new fat, carbon neutral teenagers for the furnace as non-summer approaches.

The interweb thingy is behaving-just.

Left to the Lone Star State

As “work”  on the £3.5 bn £7bn ‘Queen Elizabeth” class harrier-less aircraft carriers staggers on Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond flew out in person to Fort Worth, Texas, for the official handover ceremony of the first ‘F35 stealth fighter’ from its US manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

According to Phil it’s "the best warplane money can buy" and at £100 million per pop is “is money well spent".

A few facts:

It is the heaviest and most expensive of the three versions of the plane, carrying a lift fan propulsion system for its "jump jet" capability, which it needs to land on the Royal Navy's new carriers.

The Harrier had a range of 300 nautical miles, for the F-35 it is 450 miles. While the Harrier could reach a speed of 650mph, the F-35 can fly much faster - more than 1,200mph.

The Harrier had no radar transparency or stealth capabilities, but the F-35 has both. Its acute angles and special coating make it difficult to detect on any enemy radar.

The US is spending around $400bn (£254bn) to buy 2,500 F-35s for the navy, air force and marine corps.

It is estimated that the total cost of buying, operating and maintaining the planes over the next 30 years will be $1tn. 

The F35 - which will be called the "Lightning II" by the RAF and Royal Navy - is still a long way off from being battle ready.

Though British pilots have already been involved in the test flying programme, they will not be flying the plane off UK bases or the two new aircraft carriers until 2018.

And it is still not clear how many planes the UK will buy.

Mr Hammond has so far committed to purchasing only 48.

The good news:

The tail section of every plane is being made by BAE Systems. Overall the UK has a 15% share of the work, enough to sustain more than 20,000 jobs.

The hope at the Ministry of Defence is that, with time, the cost of the plane will come down and the technical problems will be resolved - and that, in the end, this will not go down in history as another expensive MoD mistake.

I do like an optimist...

  

Back in the Smoke

The Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition sideboard is apparently up in arms after being ordered to use public transport rather than official Government cars to get to events at the London Games, The Independent has learnt.

Downing Street has banned ministers from taking cars altogether, fearing bad publicity if ministers are caught using special Olympic "ZiL" lanes (named after the limousine lanes used by Soviet leaders) while everyone else crams on to the Tube.

The Government has spent nearly £750,000 buying 8,815 Olympic tickets, including 213 for the opening ceremony, 143 for the closing ceremony and 257 athletics tickets.

Nearly £30,000 has been spent on diving tickets and a further £26,600 went on 411 beach volleyball tickets.

One Cabinet minister told The Independent: "This has caused a lot of ill-feeling and frankly some of us would rather not be going to anything at all.

"The rules are unbelievably draconian. We've basically been told we're on our own and have to look after our guests with no official support and we'll have to go by Tube as well.

Oh dear, what a shame....

Still in topsy-turvy Blighty

Allegedly criminals arrested for offences such as minor assaults, theft and fraud could escape prosecution in the biggest shake-up of charging guidelines for 20 years.

It seems that prosecutors would take no further action on suspects if they do not believe it is “proportionate” to take them to court, under proposals published yesterday.

It would mean factors such as cost and the length of a likely trial being taken into consideration when deciding whether to charge an offender.

Prosecutors would even be asked to weigh such issues against the likely punishment a criminal would get if convicted.

Prosecutors would also need to consider “effective case management” to avoid “excessively, long and complex proceedings”. That could mean individuals on the edge of a complicated fraud case not being charged so prosecutors could concentrate on the key participants in a shorter trial.

So justice is to become “proportional” to the cost of prosecution-allegedly....

Right a bit to the land with no plumbers or builders

A dopey truck driver caused caused an enormous traffic jam after he spilled 24 tons of sardines onto the road because he forget to close the back door.

Motorists along the highway near Kolobrzeg, Poland, were held up for hours while workers cleared up the huge trail of fish which had been scattered for several hundred metres along both sides of the road.

Police say the fish came from a transporter driven by trucker Jakub Carowski, 26, who had failed to shut the back doors properly.

As well as a £50 fine, the driver has to fork out a further £5,000 to pay for clearing up the road. 

An act of Cod, the scales of justice or just a pilchard?

Left to the home of the angler and the land of hook-ers

In the town of Orange a new business is not welcome, and it's not because of what they're selling, it's because of their name.

"The name is Orange County Master Bait Shop," shop owner Michael DeClue said. DeClue says he chose it to be memorable. He says whatever innuendo people want to make out of it is their business.

The topic came up at Monday night's town council meeting. The town's mayor says there isn't much they can do, and they're happy to have him. "You're not in violation of any ordinance. God bless you for being in business in the town of Orange," Mayor Chuck Mason said.

That means the self-proclaimed "home of the fattest worm in town," will stay open.

"We're the only bait shop that makes its own chicken livers. We produce our own worms. We package our own worms, and that's what we do," DeClue said. "That's why we're a master bait shop."

Time to change hands methinks....

Still in the hot, dry collection of States

Police are on the lookout for a plump pig sculpture that was pilfered from a Detroit suburb are getting closer to finding the missing swine.

The Garden City Downtown Development Authority said Thursday that those possibly responsible for taking the shiny, red sculpture known as "Willy" or "Willie" last month led them to near Mallard Lake. It's in Livingston County's Green Oak Township, about 35 miles northwest of Detroit.

The base of the sculpture was found in a field along with other fragments. Police say they believe the pig also was ditched in the area, but someone else took it away.

The $6,000-plus sculpture titled "Cochon Rouge" by artist Sophie Marie had been leased to the Downtown Development Authority for two years.

A $500 reward is being offered in the case.

Piggin tealeaves....

And finally:

Back in not so toasty Blighty

Two bidders fought it out over the telephone for the slice of white toast which is believed to have been served to Prince Charles on the morning of his wedding to Diana Spencer. It went under the hammer at Charles Hanson Auctioneers overnight.

The winning bidder paid $350 for the 30-year-old memento.

A spokeswoman for the auction house said: "The slice of toast went to a UK buyer. There were two telephone bidders fighting it out for the slice. It was exciting.

The slice of toast was sold on behalf of Rosemarie Smith, from Derby.

She took it from a tray after visiting her daughter at Buckingham Palace just hours before the royal wedding.

The 83-year-old said: "At the time my daughter was a maid at the Palace and one of her duties was to collect Prince Charles's breakfast tray from outside his room.

"I was with her in the corridor and saw that Prince Charles had left some toast on the tray. I had been thinking about a keepsake from the wedding and saw the toast and thought to myself 'Why not?"'

She kept the toast in a cup on a shelf at home until the last year wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton made her curious about its value.

Now she knows; you could almost buy a whole loaf for £222.83 ($350) dahn Tesco’s....

That’s it: I’m orf to wake up a few NEETS

And today’s thought:
 F35 test flight

Angus

A decade of Cupid Stunts: Liar, liar: Spider, spider: Numpty storage: Pay up Berlin: and a cow bell ban.

More of the same at the Castle this morn-wet/dry, calm/windy, cold/cold and sunny/cloudy, no progress on fettling the garden but I did manage to remove several weeks of grime from the Honda with some “no water” cleaner/polish stuff and....an hour later it rained.....

According to the Eton dorm boy

We will have the pleasure of living with ‘austerity’ until 2020, the Prime Monster reckons that the programme of spending cuts, initially planned to take five years, is now likely to last for the entire decade.

But, in a typical Tory tosspot way he said “that he still wants to cut tax but that any reductions would have to be funded by even greater public spending reductions.”

And added; “Now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t cut people’s taxes...You can do exciting and radical and Conservative things at the same time as having difficult overall spending choices.”

As well as “He does not believe that Britain should leave the EU and says he will never campaign for an “out” vote in any referendum.”

And finally; “I think the sense I get from people is, look, 'I know you’ve got to cut public spending, I know you’ve got to get the deficit down, I know you’ve got to make sure our businesses are competitive, I know you’ve got to do all these things, but I want to know that as we get out of this mess, it won’t be the same group of people that benefited in the past. There won’t be a splurge of public spending, mass immigration, wasted money on welfare, bankers paying themselves enormous salaries when they’re not delivering safe and effective banks. I want to know that in future a hard day’s work means a hard day’s pay.’”

 

Har bleedin har.....

And staying with the lying git

In a speech in March U-Turn Cam said: “We need to look at innovative approaches to the funding of our national roads – to increase investment to reduce congestion. Road tolling is one option – but we are only considering this for new, not existing. For example, we’re looking at how improvements to the A14 could be part-funded through tolling”

And one of today’s headlines-Motorists face paying tolls on an existing stretch of road in Britain for the first time under new plans.

Ministers have proposed to impose tolls for using an “enhanced” 20-mile section of the A14 in Cambridgeshire, the increasingly congested key road linking the East Anglian ports to the Midlands by freight traffic. Along with the new privately run road, two new sections will be built on either side for local traffic.

 

Make your own minds up.

Over the briny to the left

 A Brentwood, Tennessee woman says she wants out of her apartment lease because her home is infested with brown recluse spiders.

In the past couple of weeks alone spider traps around her apartment have collected about ten of the poisonous pests. The spiders have been showing up since April.

"I was leaning over my sink, and I grabbed my towel. And there was just this ginormous spider in my towel that I was about to put on my face," Artrip said.

When more kept coming, Artrip notified the management at her apartment complex, Mission Brentwood.

"I asked as soon as I found out they were poisonous spiders if I could switch apartments, and they told me, 'no, let us try to take care of it,'" Artrip says.

A pest control company told Artrip she would have to leave so they could dust the area, but that still didn't do the trick.

Nasty....

 

Still in the home of the Numpty and the land of lots of teeth

 A burglar has been arrested in the US after he got his head stuck under a garage door - for nine hours.

The man, 53, tried to hold open the roll-up door with a piece of metal during his midnight raid on a store in Brockton, Massachusetts.

But the metal slipped and the heavy door rolled down, trapping the would-be thief's head against the concrete floor, reports the local Enterprise newspaper.

He was discovered the next morning by store manager John Rodriguez who says the man told him he was trying to fix the door.

"I happened to walk in and he was there," he said. "I saw that little head sticking out."

Mr Rodriguez called the police who charged the man, after taking him to hospital to be checked for a large bruise on the back of his head.

 Plonker...

Back in what is left of Europe

The sleepy hamlet of Mittenwalde in eastern Germany could become one of the richest towns in the world if Berlin were to repay it an outstanding debt that dates back to 1562.

A certificate of debt, found in a regional archive, attests that Mittenwalde lent Berlin 400 guilders on May 28 1562, to be repaid with six percent interest per year.

According to Radio Berlin Brandenburg (RBB), the debt would amount to 11,200 guilders today, which is roughly equivalent to 112 million Euros ($136.79 million).

Adjusting for compound interest and inflation, the total debt now lies in the trillions, by RBB's estimates.

Schmidt and Mittenwalde's Mayor Uwe Pfeiffer have tried to ask Berlin for their money back. Such requests have been made every 50 years or so since 1820 but always to no avail.

 

I do hate a welcher

And finally: 

Across a smidge

Judge Erich Kundergraber ordered a farmer in the state of Styria to remove the bells after locals complained that they couldn't get any sleep because of endless clanging.

Initially the owner refused to remove the bells from his herd, arguing instead that they were an Austrian tradition and helped to calm the animals.

However, Judge Kundergraber visited the field near Stallhofen, in the foothills of the Alps and ruled in favour of the farmer's neighbours.

The cows were left free to roam the field at night but could be heard clearly throughout the village, especially as the cowbells banged and scraped against their metal feeding trough.

Despite the farmer appealing against the ruling it was decided that there was no need for the bovines to have cowbells if they were kept within an easily visible, fenced field, with the judge adding that these collars were not a traditional feature of rural Austrian residential areas and did not need protecting.

HA! I laugh at cow bells; try living next to Farnborough since it became an “airport”.

That’s it: I’m orf to bake some Graphene

And today’s thought:

UK toll road

Angus

Half a pension: Begging Olympics: A Lady parking: Free lunch: Knob shoots knob-gets arrested: and the Latte Fiat.

Bassetts allsorts at the Castle this morn, but at least his Maj can venture out to chase the frogs on what used to be the lawn but is now a shallow pond.

Fitted the new keyboard to the laptop yestermorn and to be honest it is better than the original-the letters are bigger and whiter and it has a nice “clicky” action compared to the “soft touch” of the Compaq one.

Late again this Wednesday has stuff to do very early-5am at a place a few miles away and even more to do later which is just as well because after the latest vast amounts of sky water last eve the garden fettle will have to wait yet another few days.

And the interweb thingy is still playing silly buggers.

And belive it or not but I have been trying to put this post together and publish it since 07.30 of the am.....

Apparently pension fund managers are not quite telling the whole truth

It seems that nine out of 10 of the country’s biggest pension fund managers fail to warn people about the levies, which typically wipe more than £100,000 from the value of a middle-class worker’s pension.

The report by the RSA, a think tank, found that workers were routinely denied simple, low-cost pensions that are readily available elsewhere in Europe. Ministers said they were prepared to intervene unless pension funds reduced their fees and became more transparent.

The RSA report found that 21 of the 23 pension funds surveyed failed to inform people about the charges.

David Pitt Watson, one of the biggest company pension fund managers and the author of the report, said the scale of the hidden levies was “extraordinary”.

Otto Thoresen, the director-general of the Association of British Insurers, said: “We agree it is desirable that pension costs become more transparent overall, and are keen to look at ideas which make it easier for employees to understand their pensions.”

Which is a bit difficult if they don’t actually tell us isn’t it....

And the Ministers of the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition

Have been sent out with their begging bowls to lobby cash-rich emerging nations such as Brazil and China during the Olympics to win multi-billion-pound contracts and help the stuttering UK economy.

The Independent has obtained a list of 50 investment projects around the world that British ministers and civil servants have been told to win during the next month.

The wish-list includes Chinese healthcare deals, the construction of Brazilian shipyards and Russian railways, deepwater-drilling off the coast of Mexico and controversial oil exploration in Kazakhstan.

And this will provide jobs in Blighty-how?

Right a smidge to the land of Teutons

A German driver was pleasantly surprised to have a squad of German soccer fans cheering her on as she squeezed her little red car into a particularly tight spot.

Bless....

Whale Sharks suck....

Conservationists have observed a male whale shark sucking fish out of a fishing net in Indonesia's Cendrawasih Bay National Marine Park.

The video has become an internet sensation, attracting almost two million views since it was posted two weeks ago.

That’s two million and a couple now then....

Over the big, salty, swaying thing on the left

A felon was arrested in Oklahoma City for possession of a firearm after he told police he shot himself in the genitals, officials said.

Tavares Donnell Colbert, 36, shot himself in the genitals Saturday near Interstate 35 while testing a gun he bought on the street in Kansas to see if it functioned properly before selling it, The Oklahoman reported.

Colbert drove himself to the hospital and police were alerted soon after, the newspaper said. He was arrested on a complaint of possession of a firearm when he was medically cleared.

Dick......

And finally:

East quite a few what-knots

Fiat has announced that the new version of the Fiat 500 will be available with a built-in coffee machine.

Designed in cooperation with famous Italian coffee-machine producer Lavazza and using the company's convenient "A Modo Mio" pod system, the espresso maker integrates into the passenger compartment.

There are no power cables and a dedicated set of accessories to keep the interior neat and tidy included, such as a spoon holder, pod dispenser and sugar container.

Caffeinated Fiat...

That’s it: I’m orf to La-La land.

And today’s thought:

Should have gorn to Specsavers Olympics

Angus