still-still buggered up

Still can't post pictures unless I edit in HMTL (which I can't be arsed to) still waiting to hear from blogger:(

Friday, January 04, 2013

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Angus

Care-less NHS: Redheads, Journalists, Mothers, Bankers and Germans: Transport tossers: The Nerd Calendar: Ex Nazi only takes cash: and Brown runny stuff.

Not quite as much lack of warm bit more atmospheric movement, nary a drop of skywater and sod all solar stuff at the Castle this morn, the butler is happily feeding fat, carbon neutral teenagers onto the furnace conveyer belt and his Maj has discovered the joy of ambush from under the cover on the garden table and chairs.

Blogger still won't let me post pictures unless I edit in HMTL, which takes ages and is a real pain in the rear exit (just like Blogger), I know because I have just spent an hour or so editing this post.

And it keeps freezing up and crashing due to some "long running script"


Anyway here is Fridays load of old bollocks...

 

Apparently U-Turn Cam

 

Has finally admitted that piss poor “treatment” in our ‘Orspitals is killing and maiming the not so well.

The Prime Monster reckons that there is still a "long way to go" to raise standards of care in the NHS in England, and that he wanted to make improving care one of his top priorities for 2012 plus one.

But he insisted progress was being made, pointing to initiatives that were being rolled out.

He highlighted a new "friends and family" test starting in April and the extra ward rounds being put in place.

The "friends and family" test, which has already been announced, involves all hospital patients being asked whether they would recommend the place they were treated in.

Mr Cameron described it as a "flashing light" to alert hospitals if fewer people started replying positively to the test.

 
Which is total bollocks of course because when you are lying there in a piss soaked bed with tubes in most orifices you are not going to tell the “medics” that are “treating” you how badly they are doing as they stand there holding an eight foot tube ready to shove it up your rear exit.

Try again Dave....

 

All across backed up Blighty
 

Every weekend in January, one of these five groups will receive 10pc off full-price bottles at Oddbins.

According to the company blog  "The 'cap' on maternity and paternity pay is just an innovative use of a three letter word beginning with 'c' which sounds different but still means 'cut'," the group writes. "With inflation almost tripling the capped figure, the net result is that mums and their families will be even worse off in 2013.

"On top of which, on Monday the government will be removing or reducing child benefit for approximately 15pc of families... Why can’t our politicians provide a childcare system that doesn’t strong-arm a hugely important part of the county’s workforce into making a choice between their career and children?"

From January 11 until January 13 it's the turn of bankers and journalists. Urging the public to focus on the "good things that banks do", Oddbins bemoans the fact that the word "banker" has "become a derogatory term used to refer to only a select group of rogue investment bankers".

The following weekend (January 18-20) Angela Merkel could grab a bargain. On top of praising the German Chancellor for steering her country through the financial crisis and striving to bring fellow eurozone countries back into line, Oddbins also says it's time the UK moved on from the Second World War.

Lastly, Oddbins is aiming to break "the final taboo" and embrace redheads. "We love your hair and think 2013 should be the year we all put this nonsense behind us," the company states.

 

No wonder it is called “Odd Bins”; just what we need- a bunch of German, red headed, journalistic, banker mothers staggering about pissed as farts...

 

Transport across the world

Has its fair share of Pillocks.

Thank him/her upstairs for the AA.

 

East a bit to the land of red headed banker mothers

A calendar for nerds who find old computers a turn on has been created by technology fans in Germany.

The Nerd Calendar features ancient technology being fondled by models dressed as gorgeous geeks.

One blonde is seen lovingly caressing the joystick of a classic Atari games computer during the photo session in Frankfurt.

Other models get to grips with 1970s and 80s computers like the original Apple Macs, Commodores, and the Sinclair ZX81.

Classic computer fan Jan Kaufmann - who dreamed up the calendar - explained: "I just wanted to make the kind of calendar I'd always dreamed about when I was a boy."

 

Get a fucking life Herr twat....

 

East a bit more to a state within a country

 

Visitors to the home of the Ex-Nazi El Papa can only pay by cash after card payments for museum tickets, souvenirs and other services were blocked by Italy's central bank over money laundering fears.

The tiny city-state can no longer use electronic payments because the Holy See has not complied with European Union safeguards against money laundering.

As a result, Deutsche Bank Italia, which has provided the Vatican with the electronic payment services for 15 years, had its authorisation halted on December 31.

Highlights of the Vatican Museums include the Sistine Chapel

The Vatican says it is working to rectify the situation affecting thousands of tourists that flock to the Vatican Museums, which include highlights like the Sistine Chapel.

The museums, and tours of the Vatican’s ancient underground paces, with their entrance fees and popular souvenir shops, are a big money-maker for the Vatican.

Tourists have complained about the inconvenience. Fluger William Hunter, an American tourist, said: "A lot of tourists don't have cash on them, so they have to get Euros and don't know where to get them."

The central bank said a routine inspection found that Deutsche Bank Italia had not sought authorisation when it first started providing services at the Vatican, according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

 

And finally:

 

Somewhere in a physiotherapy dept at a Norovirus infected NHS ‘Orspital

 

That’s it: I’m orf to purchase a “Larry” (just in case)
 

 

And today’s thought:

So how much discount did you get at Oddbins....

Angus

Still Buggered Up

Still Can't post pictures and stuff, have contacted Blogger-still waiting for reply.

Angus

Buggered up

Can't post today because Blogger won't let me insert pictures!

Angus



Perceiving old age: Non-existent complaints: 20,000-volt Tesla coil lightning-blasting Nerf gun: Dog-sheep: and a rubbish motor.

Usual lack of warm, just as much solar stuff, quite a lot of atmospheric movement and gallons of evaporated skywater at the Castle this morn, just returned from the stale bread, gruel and his Maj’s food run dahn Tesco, the place was awash with interweb robots and one actually managed to crash into me while I was stood still trying to choose which flavour Dreamies to purchase for himself. 

And I have finally finished the antibiotics for my toofache...

 

According to an “official survey”

We think that we become old farts at 59 years, two months and two weeks; government researchers interviewed 2,162 Blightyites to determine this crucial “fact”.

And allegedly the age of no longer being young starts at 40 years, eight months and two weeks.

On average, women think old age starts at 60 years, four months and two weeks. Men think it starts at 58 - potentially because they tend to live shorter lives.

Those under 50 say old age begins staggeringly early - at just 46. But for those over 50, they say it begins at 62-and-a-half.

Those living in council housing say old age begins five years earlier than those who own their homes.

 

And the unemployed say middle age begins a huge nine years earlier than those in full time work.

Men believe they stop feeling young early than women do, at 38-and-a-half rather than 42 years and nine months.

Among 16 to 24-year-olds, this marker of middle age begins at 32. The over-80s believed that for them it began at 52 - just two years after the youngest group believed old age begins.

A spokesman for the Department for Witless Pillocks said “the disparity in perceptions” of ageing showed “the potential for age stereotypes to be applied in very inconsistent ways".

 

Who pays for this bollocks in this age of austerity-oh yes; we do....

 

All over our brown and muddy land

Film classification chiefs have seen "a spike" in the number of people complaining about a controversial film portraying Jesus and his disciples as gay men - even though it does not exist.

The British Board of Film Classification's (BBFC) senior examiner Craig Lapper said there was a "constant issue" with rumours that a movie version had been made of a controversial play called Corpus Christi.

The play, by Terrence McNally, is set in modern-day America and deals with issues including gay marriage but has never been made into a film.

Mr Lapper said: "I think it was a bit of an internet hoax several years ago suggesting a film was being made of the play in which Jesus and his disciples were portrayed as homosexuals, and I can remember replying to people concerned about this blasphemous film back in the late 1990s.

"And this year again, for whatever reason, there was another spike in people writing to us to insist that we ban this terrible blasphemous film. We just had to write back and say, 'This film doesn't exist'."

The BBFC received six complaints about it in 2011 and another two queries this year, with complainants often asking them to ban the film on the grounds it is blasphemous and offensive.

 

Eight whole complaints in two years, staggering...

 

Left to the home of cheap Leccy and the land of bright sparks

 

US basement hacker Rob Flickenger has “invented” a 20,000-volt Tesla coil lightning-blasting Nerf gun.

After brushing up on his physics using online MIT courses, Flickenger, through trial and error, setup the interior circuits.

"I'd switch it on, and nothing would happen, so I'd switch it off. Then I'd switch it on again and set something on fire," he told Popsci.com. In the end he used the transformer from an old television -- the current from an 18-volt lithium-ion battery flows through a circuit series over and over again, doubling the power each time. It then flows into a Cornell Dubilier capacitor bank, which stores it until it reaches 20,000 volts -- at this point, the current can jump between two tungsten wires, creating a spark (this part is housed in porcelain and a computer fan is fixed nearby to make sure it doesn't get too hot). The current jumps from one wire to the next, then feeds through to one coil (insulated high-voltage wire), then the next (plumbing pipe wrapped in copper wire). This process induces a magnetic field, which in turn creates an electrical field at the gun's nose and finally, the bursts of electric blue lightening.

It took him nine months to build and was made using cheap everyday objects like old cans, an old TV and a lithium-ion battery from a drill. The total cost came to around $800 (£500) and, after nine long months tinkering away at it, Flickenger debuted the lightning bolt gun at his wedding reception.

 

 Bet that went with a bang.....

 

Back in up Norf-ish Blighty

Timmy the sheep thinks he’s a dog. He even sleeps in a kennel and goes for walkies.

Timmy was rescued by farmers Samantha and Eric Perry after being orphaned when he was just few days old.

He bonded instantly with the couple’s dogs while being bottle-fed at their home in Aston-on-Trent, Derbyshire.

Samantha, 42, said: “Timmy definitely thinks he’s a dog – he always has.

“His favourite food is dog biscuits. When we take the dogs for a walk, he thinks nothing of coming along with us.”

Timmy, who is 18 months old, was brought up with Yorkshire terrier Poppy, Shih tzu Daisy-May, terrier Tyson, Jack Russell Sapphire, and Jack Russell cross Barney.

Now weighing 200lb, he has a new pal, Pandora, a tiny Chihuahua.

Samantha said: “He is great with her and all the other dogs. The fact that he thinks he’s a dog just adds a little eccentricity.”

 

I’d rather add a little mint sauce....

 

And finally:

 

Back to the left quite a way

According to the owner,  this pile of bits is worth a million Dollars, Antti Rahko's scrap metal stretch limo, the Finnjet, was insured for a million for its trip to star in the recent Essen Motor Show in Germany - and will likely have a similar asking price when it goes up for sale shortly.

Rahko, a former chauffer from Finland now living in the US state of Florida, spent 10 years building the Finnjet from scrap parts grafted onto a platform from two Mercedes-Benz 300TD station wagons.

It stretches over eight metres long and weighing in at 2.78 tonnes - and just in case that size isn't enough to catch your eye - the bizarre behemoth sports 86 lights, 36 mirrors and two natty jet engine housings containing the exhausts.

 

It ain’t what you ask for it-it’s what you get for it that counts...

 

That’s it: I’m orf to find a Giant Panda (just in case the toofache comes back)

 

And today’s thought:

New SAS squad formed....

 

 

Angus

The Benefits Con: Up Your Meals: ‘Cultural’ Swiss eat Cats and Dogs: Scientology 'Alien Space Cathedral': Coney Island dippers: and The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever.

More than a touch on the lack of warm side, lots of missing skywater, even less atmospheric movement and Dawn’s crack is still a while away at the Castle his morn, spent most of the first day of twenty twelve plus one lying on the bed watching all the films and things I have recorded over the last few weeks-much more entertaining than the usual crap on the “proper” TV.

 

The Irritable Bowel Twins are stirring up the rich/poor contest again

According to the top knob at the Dept of Witless Pillocks the welfare system discourages claimants from working with newly published figures from his department about how different groups have fared under the recession.

Allegedly means-tested benefits which excludes pensions and child benefit - went up by between 1.8 per cent and 6.3 per cent each year from 2007 to 2012. The overall effect was that most benefits were 20 per cent higher in April 2012 than in April 2007.

And that over the same period, the average weekly wage in the private sector rose from £386 a week to £431, an increase of just below12 per cent.

 So let’s ignore the precept that all benefit claimants are living the life of riley with the blinds drawn all day and have a look at the truth.

 

Under the new “universal credit” rules:

Standard allowance

This is the basic allowance: per month:

A single claimant aged under 25 - £246.81
A single claimant aged 25 or over - £311.55
Joint claimants both aged under 25 - £387.42
Joint claimants where either is aged 25 or over - £489.06

Which equates to:

 £61.70 per week for a young person

£77.88 per week for an older person

£96.85 per week for a young couple

And

£122.26 per week for an older couple

So over 5 years those who do not / cannot work have had an increase of £10/£20-ish each week and those lucky/well enough and in employment got £45-ish per week on average.

Numbers can be made to do whatever you want them to but you need to look at these figures in perspective. 

It really is time to stop listening to the scrounger mongers like the Irritable Bowel Twins who are trying to divide Blightyites into have/have not’s or work/work not’s so that they can garner votes in 2015 to remain in power and keep their lifestyles. 

Because no matter who you are or what you have today, tomorrow it could you be you that has to fill in the forty page benefits claim form and stand in the queue for your weekly pittance.

 

 

And just to start orf twenty twelve plus one on a not so happy note

 

According to “experts” average annual food bills could go up by £240 as shoppers pay the price for one of the worst wheat harvests since the Eighties.

Economists warn consumers face rises of up to a further two per cent before prices steady in April or May.

An average basket of 10 basic foods – milk, bread, cheese, eggs, tea, sugar, potatoes, cereal, a chicken and a bag of carrots now costs £19.41 at Tesco. If prices rise as economists are forecasting it could go up nearly 40p by mid spring.

Vicky Redwood, of analysts Capital Economics, said wheat products have been affected worst.

The average family’s weekly food bill in September was £77.

Ms Redwood says that figure is now £80.85 but could rise to £81.62 by late spring, £4.62 more than in the autumn.

If this continues then the average annual bill will rise by £240 although experts are hopeful prices will start falling in the spring.

See above item.....

 

East a bit to the land of tall rocky things and triangular chocolate

 

Allegedly a Swiss newspaper investigation has turned up an ugly side of the beautiful Alpine land: many people like to include dogs and cats in their diet.

The Tages Anzeiger said farmers in the Appenzell and St Gallen areas in particular slaughter the creatures to eat themselves or to pass on to friends. The favoured breed is a dog that is related to the beefy Rottweiler.

 

“There’s nothing odd about it,” a farmer told the paper. “Meat is meat. Construction workers in particular like eating it.”

Another farmer told how he raised animals and then called in a butcher friend to kill them when they were ripe for slaughter. And another described how he either shot the creatures – usually adored as pets – or bludgeoned them to death.

According to the report, people ate the meat as “mostbröckli” – more usually a form of beef or ham that is marinated. One farmer said: “No-one knows what it is when you prepare it in this fashion.”

Lovers of “cat and dog” meals are not allowed to sell the flesh commercially, even though some communities have pressed in the past for it to be sold on market days alongside the usual fare of beef, pork and lamb.

The country also has a small but thriving trade in cat pelts for coats and bedspreads.

While not on a commercial scale, the practice horrifies animal rights activists in Switzerland – but the eating of such creatures is not forbidden by law. In Switzerland, a person who wants to kill a cat or dog will only be prosecuted if the killing is itself cruel.

The Swiss parliament rejected changing the law to protect dogs and cats from human consumption in 1993.

 

That’s Switzerland orf the bucket list then.....

 

West to the land that is rife with Scientologists

 

According to allegations by BBC Panorama reporter John Sweeney in a new book, "Church of Fear: Inside the Weird World of Scientology," reports the New York Daily News.

In the New Mexico desert lies an allegedly secret Scientology installation that includes a huge message for extraterrestrials -- a crop circle-type design that can only easily be seen from high above the ground.

 In his book, excerpted in The Sun, Sweeney writes that the two huge interlocking circles -- each of which has a large diamond shape inside -- were created as markers to guide special Scientologists "returning from space to find Mr. Hubbard's works after a nuclear Armageddon wipes out humanity."

The BBC reporter tried to find "the space alien cathedral that ex-Scientologists say was built deep underground by the church in the 1980s at the cost of millions of dollars.

"Its vault houses the lectures of Hubbard on gold discs locked in titanium caskets sealed with argon. The cathedral is H-bomb proof," Sweeney reports in his book.

Sweeney went to the supposed site of the alien cathedral accompanied by former Scientologist Marc Headley.

"Headley says he was 'audited' -- given spiritual counselling -- by Tom Cruise, Hollywood superstar and leading church member. Marc says he was also beaten up by the shadowy church's leader David Miscavige. The church denies both incidents," Sweeney alleged.

 Spiffing, maybe they could have a gathering at the cathedral of all the Scientologists in the world and then we could weld the doors up.....

 

Still in the home of large people and the land of the Big Apple

 

People taking part in the Coney Island Polar Bear Club's annual New Year's Day Polar Bear Swim enter the water in New York's Coney Island January 1, 2013. The Coney Island Polar Bear Club is the oldest winter bathing organization in the U.S. and every New Years Day holds the winter plunge which attracts thousands of participant’s loonies.

 

Good luck with that….

 

And finally: 

Got over New Year’s Eve yet?

 

Good; wrap what is left of your brain around this “logic puzzle”.

"Three gods A, B, and C are called, in some order, True, False, and Random. True always speaks truly, False always speaks falsely, but whether Random speaks truly or falsely is a completely random matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking three yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods understand English, but will answer all questions in their own language in which the words for 'yes' and 'no' are 'da' and 'ja', in some order. You do not know which word means which."

 

It was dreamt up—and solved—by US logician George Boolos shortly before his death in 1996.

The answer is here-sort of.

 

Did I solve it? Nah couldn’t be arsed....

 

That’s it: I’m orf to cancel my trip into space (if I can remember to).

 

And today’s thought:

Service delayed due to over running engineering work

 

 

Angus

Old farts on the Dole: Anti-Vulture Kits: Men can’t multi-task: Glowing Cachaca: and Pussy sees Barker.

As twenty twelve plus one starts orf something very odd is happening at the Castle this morn-the skywater has evaporated, the atmospheric movement has dissipated, the liquid metal in the lack of warm gauge has risen a number or two; and believe it or not but Dawn’s crack is visible for the first time in more than a couple of weeks.

The sun is out, the sky is blue, there’s not a cloud to spoil the view but........I bet it doesn’t last long.....

 And Blogger seens to be suffering from a hangover.

According to “research”

By 2020 the number of 60 to 64 year-olds on jobseekers’ allowance will rise from 19,000 to 39,000 by 2020.

And an additional 75,000 older people will move onto jobseekers’ allowance, the report said.

The number in the old fart age group receiving incapacity benefit or employment and support allowance will rise from 280,000 to 375,000.

Allegedly Jobcentres are preparing for a surge in unemployed older people who will need extra training in how to write CVs, apply for work online, and deal confidently with employers who they fear “routinely” discriminate against older workers.

A study by the Department for Work and Pensions predicted that the number of 60-64 year olds on jobseekers allowance and incapacity benefits will rise to more than 400,000 by 2020.

The research mapped the impact of the rise in the population of older people who will be expected to continue working as a result of the abolition of the default retirement age, changes to benefits, and increases to the state pension age.

It found that the biggest obstacle the over 60s will face to finding work is “a lack of modern job search skills”, especially their limited experience of looking for work online.

Many also have “unrealistic wage expectations”, “outdated qualifications” and “narrow” views about the types of job they could do.

 

Happy New Year Boomers.....

 

West to the home of the everglades and the land of Vultures

Everglades’s visitors are being offered ‘anti-vulture kits’ to defend against birds with a taste for car parts.

Over the last few years, staff members at Everglades National Park have experimented with ways to scare off flocks of vandals that lurk in parking lots every winter, sporadically defacing cars, trucks and boat trailers.

They’ve tried yelling at them, squirting them with water, even dangling dead ones upside down in trees.

So this winter, the park is shifting to purely defensive tactics against the big birds, expanding a program that provides visitors at the most trouble-prone sites loaner “anti-vulture kits” consisting of blue plastic tarps and bungee cords.

“It’s recognition on our part that they’re part of the park and we’re the intruders in their world,” said park wildlife biologist Skip Snow. “The vultures are doing what comes naturally.”
 

And there’s me thinking that cars have always been on the Vulture’s must eat list.

 

Right a bit to the land of decorators, plumbers and kitchen fitters

 

Tomasz Paczkowski was trying to prove that men can multitask by doing the ironing while watching

boxing on the box; and failed miserably.

And when the phone rang he picked up the hot iron and put it to his ear, "Trouble was, I got so involved in the boxing that I wasn't really thinking about what I was doing," he said.

"I really don't know how I could make such a silly mistake. But I guess it proves men are not able to multitask as well as many women can."



You think.......

 

West again and dahn a fairway

Researchers in Brazil claim to have found a faster way to age the national drink - zap it with gamma radiation for a few minutes rather than let it sit in barrels.

This supercharged version of cachaca, a spirit similar to rum, carries with it no radiation risk, said Valter Artur of the Nuclear Energy Centre at the University of Sao Paolo.

"Tests have shown this cachaca can be consumed right after it is irradiated," Mr Artur was quoted as saying in the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.

So far the technique has only been used in university labs.

The gamma rays ionise the cachaca and this speeds up chemical reactions that take place naturally during the ageing process, he explained.


Yeah right....

And finally:

Dahn in Welsh Wales

Eight-year-old Terfel kept bumping into things and spent most of his time stuck in his basket after being diagnosed with cataracts. 





Then owner Judy Godfrey-Brown let a stray cat into her home.

The puss, named Pwditat, walked up to Terfel and led him out of his basket and into the garden. She has been helping him find his way around ever since.

Retired civil servant Judy, 57, of Holyhead, North Wales, said: “I’ve never seen anything like it — most cats and dogs hate each other.

“But Pwditat immediately seemed to know that Terfel is blind.

“She uses her paws to help guide him. They are glued to each other and even sleep together now.”

Probably because someone has glued them together......

That’s it: I’m orf to build a Tardis

 

And today’s thought
See- we can multitask

 

Angus