Loads of atmospheric movement, not a lot of lack of cold,
even less solar stuff and much less skywater at the Castle this morn.
I think I may have to give up this blogging thing, the old
brain cell is seriously on the blink, can’t remember words, forget to do the
spell check, forget to add labels, forget what I was going to ramble about,
forget to reply to comments, forget to visit/comment on other bloggers and
sometimes I forget to blog at all...
And even more allegedly Will’s bird got her headlights out on the terrace of a guest house during a
brief holiday she enjoyed with the tall bald bloke in France last week.
The couple were staying
in Provence at a chateau owned by Lord Linley, the Queen's nephew, ahead of
their Diamond Jubilee tour of south-east Asia and the South Pacific on behalf
of the Queen.
And surprise, surprise
it seems that a naughty person with a camera snapped the royal norks-allegedly.
The magazine's
French website showed an image of its new front cover with a heavily pixilated
image of a woman with dark hair, it claims is the Duchess, in a bikini
apparently about to remove her top.
William and Kate
were told about the allegations this morning before they visited they
Assyakirin Mosque and had also looked at the images on the website.
Speaking about
the royal couple a source said: "They're saddened their privacy has been
breached - if it has been breached."
The source
stressed it could not confirm if the pictures were of Kate as they appeared to
have been taken with a long lens and were pixilated.
So what’s all the bleedin fuss about then?
Apparently the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club
Coalition has managed to splurge £500 million on private schools for the
orfspring of diplomats and military personnel in the last three years.
Ministers last year backed down on plans to scrap the
allowance, which costs the taxpayer more than £21,000 per child, as part of
public sector spending cuts. Instead they promised to cut the bill through
"efficiencies". But research by the Bureau of Investigative
Journalism has revealed that the cost of the perk has increased by nearly ten
per cent since 2009 and last year stood at £203m across three departments.
The privilege, known as the Continuity of Education
Allowance (CEA), exists to support children whose parents work for the
government overseas. It covers the costs of schooling abroad and in the UK, but
the majority, at least £99m each year, is spent on fees for expensive British
boarding schools.
Public schools where the state has subsidised places include
Marlborough College, Tony Blair's old school Fettes College and Roedean.
By far the biggest bill for private schooling comes from the
Ministry of Defence (MoD), which funded more than £189m of school fees last
year. All ranks are eligible for the perk but, because families have to make a
contribution of a least 10 per cent, it is overwhelmingly taken up by officers.
Despite promises to make savings on the scheme the total
bill has actually risen by £16m since 2008/9 – in part caused by new tax
arrangements. It comes at the same time as the Army is in the process of axing
20,000 posts because of budget cuts.
Greedy, arrogant, self centred bastards....
A council chief criticised by ministers for collecting an
"unacceptable" £420,000 pay-off has been awarded a senior new job
cutting waste in Whitehall.
Katherine Kerswell was last night accused of riding the
government "job merry-go-round"; after it emerged she is the new
director-general of civil service reform at the Cabinet Office.
Her salary will be £142,000 for the role, which ministers
have struggled to fill since April 2011.
The 49-year-old was awarded the new job almost a year after
leaving Kent County Council with a £589,000 pay package, including her salary
and the hefty pay-off. She had been in the job just 16 months before taking
redundancy.
Francis Maude, the cabinet office minister, said she would
be leading the Coalition’s plan to improve the civil service set out in June.
“I want to see a Civil Service that is flatter, faster, more
digital, more unified, with better capabilities and performance management,
focused on outcomes not process, with modern terms and conditions, and which is
more enjoyable to work for,” he said.
The Spanish slug, that can grow up to 15cm long, is thought
to have arrived in salads during the summer – and has already spread as far
west as Wales
Giant Spanish slugs that invaded Britain are mating
with native ones to create a mutant super slug capable of wreaking crop havoc.
They are also threatening to wipe out local species
with new diseases and parasites or by simply devouring them
Sylvia Locke, 72, from the Amman Valley in Wales,
has seen several in her garden. She said: “We caught them eating snails. It was
gruesome.
“Our dog caught one it was so big I thought it was
a mouse.”
Saw one meself yestermorn but I managed to deal with it by
hitting it with half a brick-cheaper than slug poison.
The Australian Reptile Park wants new recruits in the hunt for funnel web
spiders.
The
tourist attraction has sent out an SOS to residents across the coast for funnel
webs, particularly males, which are milked for their venom used to create
anti-venom.
"Usually at this time of year we have been inundated
with people bringing in funnel webs, because we have experienced that warmer
weather mixed with spring showers which is what they like, but it's been quite
dry for the last few weeks so sightings are down," Australian Reptile Park
operations manager Tim Faulkner said.
The spiders are milked once a week and it takes about 70
milkings to create a single dose of anti-venom.
If you see a funnel web and want to catch it, Mr Faulkner
said it's best to use a glass container.
"We tell people if they feel comfortable collecting
them either use a stick or a utensil to help scoop them up and into the glass
container, and don't panic ... they won't chase you," he laughed.
Sod that....
Apparently officials in Texas are sending out about 1,800 letters
marked "VERIFICATION OF VOTER STATUS."
What you're supposed to do, within 30 days is
contact county elections officials and tell them you are not dead.
According to Rich Parsons, director of communications for the Texas Secretary of State's office.
More than 13 million people are registered to vote
in Texas, and 76,990 of them were found to be on the "potentially
deceased" list. The total includes strong matches (meaning the registered voters
name, Social Security number and date of birth were exactly the same as a
potentially deceased person) and weak matches (in which some but not all of the
elements paired up, maybe a few digits of the Social Security numbers were
off).
All of the names were sent to voter registrars
across the state. Tarrant County Elections Administrator Steve Raborn says
about 4,000 of them came to his office.
Raborn says people in his office searched the list,
eliminated many of the weak matches, removed clearly identifiable strong
matches from the voter registration rolls and last week mailed letters to about
1,800 people whose life-or-death status was uncertain.
By law, those who don't respond within 30 days will
be removed from the voter rolls, although if they show up to vote in the Nov. 6
election they'll still be allowed to cast a ballot and their votes will be
counted.
My brain hurts...
And finally:
A US man is trying
to sell his damaged plane online - after landing it upside down in a storm.
The seller, named
only as Jim on the Craigslist, wants the equivalent of £10,000 for the 1968
Cessna 172 H.
In the listing, Jim explains in his own way how the plane
came to look like a turtle flipped on its back.
"It started
out as a bad hair day, ya know kinda windy, got called out to plow, course here
in DV (Death Valley) we plow gravel off the road, anyway must have had a
twister come thru so I spent the afternoon flipping my plane," he
admitted.
Jim goes on to list
the extensive list of damaged parts that potential buyers may wish to consider
before lodging a bid.
They may be
consoled that the plane, currently at Furnace Creek airport in Death Valley,
California, has at least now been turned the right way up.
Must be worth £10, 001 by now then...
That’s it: I’m orf to
decipher Climate Shuffles
And today’s thought:
Worth £21,000 of anyone’s money
Angus
