Shit for brains Shapps: Still U-Turning: Lock, stock and pussy: Big Nugget: Streaker teacher: and the Invisible man returns.

 

Less than a lot of warm stuff, not a puff of atmospheric movement, and dawn’s crack is still missing, as I sit here watching the onset of the white fluffy stuff the butler is using both conveyor belts to feed fat, carbon neutral teenagers into the furnace.

Apparently we are going to get quite a lot of snowman building blocks dahn ‘ere in ‘Ampshire which will of course bring the ’Ome counties to a standstill, buses will be cancelled, trains will not run, schools will close, deliveries will not be delivered and All and Sundry will be sat in front of their computers at home instead of going to work. 

It really is no wonder that Blighty is going dahn hill so fast, “when I were a lad” back in 1963 I remember walking two miles to school in two feet of snow, my mum and dad walked 3/5 miles respectively to get to work, teachers managed to report for duty, shops had plenty of “essentials” because they used a bit of common sense and stocked up, even postman Pat struggled through the wevver to deliver the mail.

But today it seems that the younger man/woman in the street can’t travel more than two hundred yards without the internal combustion engine, the slightest hint of white fluffy stuff is enough for them to abandon work, school and normal life and to have a day or four orf because of inclement wevver.

 

Come on Blighty, get up orf your arses and get out there, if you can walk to work, walk to school show a bit of spheroid strength and get on with life despite the scaremongering of “them” that think we are all gutless losers.

After all we could always use the uneaten ‘Orses to get about...

 

And talking of things that are not normally in our food chain, allegedly Tesco have abandoned meat altogether and are stocking a new type of vegetable that sums up the “management”. 

From my old mate Bernard cometh the Brazilian Chuchu.

 

 

 

 

 

Allegedly the ginger rodent, what’s his name, the alien reptile in disguise and U-Turn Cam 

  

Are thinking of doing yet another 180, this time over the plan to give tax breaks and "free" state-funded hours of childcare to millions of working families, the proposals were due to be announced as part of the Government's mid-term review and help off-set criticism of the decision to withdraw child benefit from taxpayers earning over £60,000 a year. At the same time Elizabeth Truss, the minister responsible for childcare, was due to announce new rules to allow nurseries to look after up to eight children for each member of staff. Currently the limit is four.

But the Treasury is understood to be concerned at the cost of the proposals – which could be worth around £2,000 a child – could lead to thousands of stay-at-home mums going back into the workplace.

This, officials fear, could create a funding black-hole at a time when budgets across all Government departments are under intense pressure.

At the same time the Liberal Democrats are worried that the plans to relax child/staff ratios could damage the standard of care provided. Nick Clegg has made it clear that he will refuse to sign off on any policy "which jeopardises standards."

So far the Coalition's ruling 'quad' of David Cameron, George Osborne, Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander has met twice in an attempt to iron out the differences between the Treasury and the Department of Education.

 

No change there then....

 

Yet another member of the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition

 

Has proven why we are so bollixed up in Blighty, discussing whether we should consider eating horse meat as a cheaper alternative to beef in times of austerity, shit for brains Grant Shapps thought he had come up with a neat explanation for why we do not: namely that we only eat herbivores.

Speaking on BBC One’s Question Time programme, he said this week’s revelations about the presence of horse DNA in some beef burgers had set him wondering “why we think some animals are socially acceptable to eat and others are not.”

The reason, he suggested, boiled down to a simple formula.

“I think the answer is we basically eat animals that don’t eat animals,” he said. “So we eat animals that eat grass and what have you.”

 

Ye fucking Gods.....

 

Some of the members of the square mile up in the Smoke 

 

Have been outdone by a ginger cat named Orlando which won the investment challenge in the The Observer portfolio challenge.

Each team invested a notional 5000 pounds ($7600) in five FTSE All-Share companies at the start of 2012, allowing them to exchange stocks every three months with others from the index.

Although Orlando was trailing in September, an unexpected turnaround in the last quarter saw the feline’s portfolio increasing by an average 4.2 per cent to end the year at 5542.60 pounds, compared with the professionals’ 5176.60 pounds.

While the professionals stuck to traditional methods, Orlando selected stocks by throwing a toy mouse on a grid of numbers allocated to various companies.

To celebrate Orlando's success, owner Jill Insley, bought him a red collar in the style of Urquhart-Stewart's red braces.

 

And the other tossers celebrated by going dahn the job centre.

 

Dahn Unda

Michael Cooper unearthed a 5.5kg Y shaped gold nugget with a metal detector near the town of Ballarat in Victoria.

 

I’m orf to send the butler to check out the garden-just in case

 

Up in the snowy Norf of Blighty 

A teacher could be struck off for running around naked in front of his stunned pupils.

David Bradley, 55, who was awarded an MBE for services to young people, streaked across a field in full view of students aged 12 and 13 during a school camping trip.

The Teaching Agency has found Bradley guilty of unacceptable professional conduct.

Panel chairman John Pemberton told him he had “failed to maintain the appropriate boundaries... between pupils and teachers”.

Bradley was in charge of 11 youngsters when he ran naked from the barn where the group were camping.

He told the hearing in Coventry: “The lads streaked for a joke and said ‘come on, sir, have a go’.

"At the time I realised it was inappropriate.”

 So why do it then you Plonker....

 

And finally: 

Somewhere in disguise

Photos: Eli Klein Fine Art

Liu Bolin, the man who took the international art world by ‘storm’, in 2009, with his incredible ability to merge with the environment, has returned with a new series that makes him even harder to spot.

Nicknamed the “Invisible Man”, Liu Bolin is a master of camouflage art who spends up to 10 hours blending into various backdrops, with the help of paint. He puts on a suit and waits patiently as his helpers cover him in paint matching the colours of the background, until he becomes almost impossible to spot. Passionate about his art, this human chameleon he tries to get every little detail, every crack and crevice just right for that one perfect snapshot. His latest exhibition, “Hiding in the City”, at New York’s Eli Klein Art Gallery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spiffing; now get a life….

 

That’s it: I’m orf to de-stress my cheese plant

 

And today’s thought:

Snow Joke 

Angus
 

Regulated fags: Old Farts heart checks: Pull up the drawbridge: Rhino Numpty: Echidna-hat-crap: and the Ex-Nazi’s number one.

Loads of lack of warm, layers of scrapey-scrapey stuff, light amounts of atmospheric movement and sod all solar stuff at the Castle this morn, just returned from the stale bread (£1.45) gruel and his Maj’s food run dahn Tesco and I took some carrots for the horses, waved them in front of the neddy burger coolers and nearly got trampled in the stampede.

And fucking Blogger still hasn’t sorted out the IE pic thingy...

 

All across dog end Blighty

 

Allegedly “academics” reckon that the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition could raise at least £500m a year by capping the amount of profit tobacco companies can make from cigarettes.

They are calling for state regulation similar to that used to limit the price of water.

Writing in the journal Tobacco Control, they say reducing profits would allow for higher taxes without changing the price in shops.

Dr Robert Branston, from the University of Bath, said the tobacco industry was "incredibly profitable", with some companies making 67p in profit out of every £1 received after tobacco duties. He described that as an "incredible sum".

Some industries in the UK are already regulated to prevent companies taking advantage of a lack of competition in the market place. The regulator Ofwat reviews the price water companies can set and Dr Branston wants a similar organisation "Ofsmoke" to limit the profits made by tobacco manufacturers.

The report calculated the effect of limiting profits to levels achieved by food and drinks manufactures in Europe - between 12% and 20%.

The Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association said the industry was already high taxed and paid more than £12bn to the Exchequer in 2011-12.

It said: "Some popular cigarette brands are already taxed at nearly 90%, yet this report chooses to ignore this fact and instead concentrate on the profit of a legitimate industry which supports over 70,000 UK jobs.

 

And look how well OfWat do, no wonder we are so deep in the faeces....

 

And allegedly

 

A new blood pressure measuring device which can also detect a dangerous heart condition has been backed by the NHS watchdog.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence says GPs could use it routinely to spot more patients with atrial fibrillation (AF).

AF is an erratic and often fast heartbeat affecting 800,000 people in the UK and is a major cause of stroke.

The device NICE is recommending in England is called WatchBP Home A.

It looks like a normal blood pressure monitor, with an inflatable cuff that goes around the patient's arm.

At the same time as measuring blood pressure, it can check a patient's pulse.

If people over 65 were to be checked with the WatchBP Home A device, it could save the NHS about £26m and benefit about 400,000 people, says NICE.

 

I’m so excited my heart is racing.....

According to “campaigners”

 

Around 250,000 migrants from Bulgaria and Romania could head to the UK for work when restrictions are lifted at the end of the year.

The Government has refused to issue an estimate of the number of foreign workers who are expected move to the UK from the two countries after getting the right to work in Britain. 

But an analysis of the numbers who flooded into the country from Poland and other Eastern European countries in 2004 showed around 50,000 migrants a year for the next five years could head to the UK, the campaign group Migration Watch UK said. 

The influx of foreign workers is expected to be lower than nine years ago as temporary restrictions on workers from Bulgaria and Romania have been in place and other European countries will be lifting their controls at the same time. 

But Britain remains one of the most attractive destinations for migrants, “partly because of its flexible labour market and partly because of the ease of access to its benefits system”, Migration Watch said. 

A previous estimate from Tory MP Philip Hollobone that the number of Romanians and Bulgarians in Britain could jump from 155,000 to 425,000 within two years also “seems exaggerated”, the group added.



Oh shit.....but if Pickles fucked orf abroad that would make room for ten thousand or so....

 

Right quite a way and dahn just as much 

 

A “suggestion” from a South African game park owner for Chantal Beyer to “stand closer” to the Rhino to get a better picture resulted in the inevitable

The Beeld newspaper said that just after the photo was snapped, the rhino attacked, and its horn penetrated Beyers' chest from behind, resulting in a collapsed lung and broken ribs

The Aloe Ridge Hotel and Nature Reserve, where the incident took place, declined to comment Tuesday.

 

Good job it wasn’t an elephant....

 

Dahn Unda 

25-year-old Munro Hardy happened upon an echidna wandering in a gold mine in Australia, he grabbed the rare egg-laying mammal to save it from being run over by machines.

Hardy pulled on a pair of leather gloves to pick up the echidna, which rolled into a ball to protect itself. So, he used a hard hat to move the spiky critter out of harm's way.

And what did the spiky monotreme did to thank the man? "The little bastard crapped in my hat and then crawled under the dash in the truck and into the wiring," Hardy said.

But Hardy persevered and got the animal out of his truck and into the scrubland away from the mine. Alison Bevege of Australia's NT News has the story of the crappy end to Hardy's spiky rescue, but alas, no mention of what he did with the souvenir the echidna left in his hat

 

No good deed goes unpunished....

And finally:

 

The Ex-Nazi El papa has a “star” in his entourage 

Archbishop Georg Ganswein, 56, who has been dubbed "Gorgeous George" by the Italian media has been the Pope's right hand man for more than six years and is always at his side is on the front page of Vanity Fair.

The softly spoken clergyman, who is also a pilot, likes to keep fit by playing tennis, is often pictured in glossy magazines because of his rugged good looks and some have even compared him to actor George Clooney.

He was pictured on the cover of the latest issue of Vanity Fair alongside the headline ''Being beautiful is not a sin'' adding that he was a ''particular'' clergyman, describing him as the ''George Clooney of the Vatican.''

Archbishop Ganswein's main role is to organise Pope Benedict's day to day diary and he was recently in the spotlight over the Vatileaks scandal when it emerged he had angered senior Catholic Church figures because of the media's interest in him.

However he has insisted his mind is fully on the job and recently said: ''Personally I see my role or service with the Pope as similar to that of glass.

"The cleaner it is then it will achieve its task. I need let the sunlight and the less you see of the glass then the better it is. If you don't see it at all that means I'm doing my job well.''

 

So how clean is an ex-Nazi’s glass then....

 

That’s it: I’m orf to text some money-to myself

 

And today’s thought:

What do you mean Blighty is a third world country....

 

 

Angus

CHunt is at it again: Up your infrastructure: Tesco are horsing around: Crap commuter: Blue Hole bay: Boeing-Boeing gone: Scarcely fit for her job: and Half a Milky Way.

Cold enough to freeze the nuts orf a frozen squirrel at the Castle this morn, more than touch of scrapey-scrapey stuff, not a glimmer of solar stuff and nary a whimsy of atmospheric movement, the butler has had to install a second conveyor belt for the furnace and fat, carbon neutral teenagers are becoming hard to come by because of the lack of warm.

I spent an hour or three yestermorn trying to sort out fucking Bloggers’ lack of progress on the IE/ blogger lack of picture insertion, downgraded IE from 9 to 8 ‘repaired’ IE, did a diagnostic on Office, threw some chicken bones on the altar, danced around the laptop anticlockwise all to no avail, so I will have to continue to waste what is left of my life using HMTL editing.

 

The ‘Elf Secretary Jeremy CHunt 

Has decided that Millions of confidential medical histories will be shared between hospitals and GPs despite fears that patients’ privacy could be breached.

Allegedly thousands of staff working in council social services departments, private health firms, and nursing homes are also expected to have access to the health records of patients on their books.

Apparently knob head CHunt is going to set a 12-month deadline for all hospitals to computerise their patients’ records, ready for details to be shared with clinics and GPs across England.

By 2018, all records and communications inside the NHS will be “paperless” in a reform that Mr CHunt said could save more than £4 billion and “thousands of lives”.  

Oh Har-Fucking-Har, “they” can’t even mange to deliver water to patients let alone get the right set of details on a piss poor computer system.

 

All across botched up Blighty

 

Consumers will have to pay for new plans for new roads, rail lines and power stations through higher bills, as well as the taxes, the public spending watchdog says.

A report from the National Audit Office said that ministers had not thought through the possibility that the huge investment would have to be paid for by consumers.

It said that “there is the possibility of a failure to take into account the cumulative impact on consumers of funding those infrastructure projects where the costs are recovered by charging users.

The NAO criticised the Government for failing to carry out an “overall assessment” on the “full impact of spending on economic infrastructure in the years ahead”.

Alien reptile in disguise George (I can afford it-you can’t) Osborne unveiled plans at the autumn statement last month to spend £310billion over the next two years and beyond on new infrastructure projects such as energy, rail, road, water and flood defence schemes.

Two thirds of this investment likely to be funded by private companies “the burden of funding [is] likely to shift towards the public as consumers rather than taxpayers”.

It warned that train users could have to cover the cost through higher fares, while vehicle and road tax could go up to pay for new roads. Of the £310billion, more than half - £176billion is being spent on energy projects, with £123billion due to go on electricity schemes.

Apparently the Treasury’s proposal to issue guarantees to encourage new finance will need careful monitoring to ensure the taxpayer does not get hit with extra expense.”

 

No shit; here’s an idea why don’t we live within our means and only build what we can afford to keep all this “infrastructure” in the public domain...

 

At my favourite retailer 

 

It seems that we should say “neigh” to their dobbin burgers, investigations are under way to try to find out how beef burgers on sale in UK and Irish Republic supermarkets became contaminated with horsemeat.

Irish food safety officials, who carried out tests two months ago, said the products had been stocked by a number of chains, including Tesco and Iceland stores in the UK.

They said there was no human health risk and the burgers had been removed.

Tesco said it was "working... to ensure it does not happen again".

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) said the meat had come from two processing plants in the Irish Republic - Liffey Meats and Silvercrest Foods - and the Dalepak Hambleton plant in Yorkshire.

The burgers had been on sale in Tesco and Iceland in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, where they were also on sale in Dunnes Stores, Lidl and Aldi.

A total of 27 burger products were analysed, with 10 of them containing traces of horse DNA and 23 containing pig DNA.

Horsemeat accounted for approximately 29% of the meat content in one sample from Tesco, which had two frozen beef burger products sold in both the UK and Ireland contaminated with horse DNA.

In addition, 31 beef meal products, including cottage pie, beef curry pie and lasagne, were analysed, of which 21 tested positive for pig DNA.

 

Now I know why I have had this urge to eat grass and piss in the garden...

 

Left to the Big Apple

 

A 31-year old Bronx man fell to his death while having a crap between subway cars on a moving number 6 train, cops said. 

The man fell onto the tracks and was run over by the northbound train as it was leaving 125th Street station shortly after 4 pm, police said. 

Around the same time on the opposite platform, a bloody and extremely battered man crawled up from the tracks — just as the northbound 5 train was pulling in — with a broken pelvis, severe buttocks injuries and cuts.

The man — who sources said was Manuce Dulcio, 50 — might have been hit by the train, cops said.

It’s unclear why he was on the tracks.

Dulcio was “very intoxicated,” a police source said.

Officials had initially said that the men had been involved in a fight. But they now believe the bizarre incidents were totally unrelated.

Riders were stuck on the 5 train for 45 minutes after the incident.

“They told us the brakes weren’t working, but we all knew it was something else,” said Angel Torres, 17.


Maybe the brakes weren’t working because they were covered in shit....

Dahn a fairway to the Bahamas 

 

Fancy a nice weekend getaway? Blue Hole Bay, a 180-acre Bahamanian property is up for sale listed for $24 million, apparently in this "remotest part of the Bahamas," as Bob Simon of "60 Minutes" described it in a segment Sunday night, "you'll have trouble finding it on any tourist map today."

He continued: "The jet set doesn't come here, because jet planes don't fly here from America or Europe. There are hardly any hotels, no golf courses and no frozen margaritas."

But what you do get is 663-foot-deep Dean's Blue Hole, the deepest saltwater hole in the world and therefore the world's "Mecca of free diving," to test out their ambitious, body-contorting breathing exercises: a diver on last night's show descended to a record-breaking 410 feet using only one fin.

 

And less than one brain cell……

 

East to the land where nothing ever happened to nuclear stuff

 

A Boeing 787 Dreamliner headed for Tokyo made an emergency landing Wednesday morning in Takamatsu, Japan after error messages indicated there was a problem with the plane's batteries and smoke in the plane.

An "unusual smell" was detected inside the cockpit and the passenger cabin, according to a news conference held by All Nippon Airlines, whose plane was grounded. Fire trucks were deployed after the plane landed, but there was no fire to put out.

This adds to a slew of recent problems with Boeing's new Dreamliner aircraft. Another 787 -- the world's first mainly carbon-composite airliner -- had two fuel leaks, a battery fire, a wiring problem, brake computer glitch and cracked cockpit window last week.

The two Japanese airlines -- ANA and Japan Airlines -- said they would ground the 21 Boeing 787 jets currently being flown for further safety checks.

Both Japan and the United States have opened broad and open-ended investigations into the plane after a series of incidents that have raised safety concerns.

ANA said instruments on the early Wednesday domestic flight indicated a battery error. All passengers and crew evacuated safely by using the plane's inflatable slides, ANA said.

 

Still at least the emergency chutes work....

 

Back to the home of lawyers and the land of compo 

Photo: Community Press, Heidi Fallon

A former high school teacher has sued the school district where she used to work, saying administrators discriminated against her because she has a fear of young children.

Maria Waltherr-Willard, 61, had been teaching Spanish and French at Mariemont High School in Cincinnati since 1976.

The retired educator, who does not have children of her own, said that when she was transferred to the district's middle school in 2009, the seventh and eighth-graders triggered her phobia.

The fear caused her blood pressure to soar, forcing her to retire in the middle of the 2010 school year, she claims.

In her lawsuit, Ms Waltherr-Willard said that her fear of young children falls under the federal American with Disabilities Act and that the district violated it by transferring her in the first place and then refusing to allow her to return to the high school.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

Gary Winters, the school district's attorney, said that Ms Waltherr-Willard was transferred because the French programme at the high school was being turned into an online one and that the middle school needed a Spanish teacher.

"She wants money," Mr Winters said of Ms Walter-Willard's motivation to sue. "Let's keep in mind that our goal here is to provide the best teachers for students and the best academic experience for students, which certainly wasn't accomplished by her walking out on them in the middle of the year."

 

You think?
 

 And finally: 

In a galaxy where we live 

A meeting of the American Astronomical Society was held in California to expose the unexpected results of the work to determine the mass of the Milky Way Galaxy. According to scientists, the mass of our galaxy is twice as less as was previously assumed.

Determining the weight of an entire galaxy is apparently quite difficult. It consists not only of the weight of all stars in the galaxy, but also of the weight of the invisible dark matter, which provides most of the mass.

As a rule, in the calculations, researchers proceed from the speed of rotation of galaxies at a distance of about 45,000 light years from the centre. Afterwards, they compare the results with theoretical concepts about the location of the dark matter.

The scientists, having made the public statement on the new weight of our galaxy, added that the new data did not claim to be definitive. The reason is simple. To date, all calculations are approximate, containing a number of assumptions.

 

Still, they do say that a milky way is light and fluffy...

 

That’s it: I’m orf to sweep the chimney-just in case

 

And today’s thought:

NHS computer system

 

 

Angus

Wanker Bankers deferred bonuses: Mind your manners: Hog nosed skunk: Chuffin bonkers: and Cruising to save the world.

Oodles of lack of warm, nary a sprinkle of white fluffy stuff, absence of atmospheric movement and less sunny stuff than you could shake a solar panel at, at the Castle this morn, the butler is loading up the furnace conveyer belt with gangs of fat, carbon neutral teenagers and his Maj has discovered the joy of ambush from the top of the wardrobes.

And it seems that up Norf the wevver has not been as clement, which will please the school kiddlies no end.

And after a week and three days Blogger still hasn’t sorted out the IE/photos problem.

 

And as our standard of living quickly sinks into the mire of piss poor policies 

 

Pressure is building on Son of a.......Baronet and alien reptile in disguise George (let the plebs starve to death) Osborne tonight to introduce emergency measures to prevent big city banks from deferring multi-million pound bonus payments to their UK staff until after the 50p top rate of tax is abolished in April.

Allegedly Goldman Sachs was one of a number of city institutions looking at pushing back the pay-out date for deferred bonuses awarded in 2010, 2011 and 2012 until after April 6 when the top rate of income tax drops to 45p.

A number of foreign banks are also understood to be considering a similar move to (allegedly) Goldman. Bankers at state backed Royal Bank of Scotland will also benefit because it regularly pays bonuses in June.

 While the Treasury; run by the ginger headed rodent said matters of tax compliance was “for HMRC” and that they did not comment on the tax affairs of individual companies.

 

But do not forget-WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.....

 

Apparently the female of our species are a suspicious lot 

 

According to Mark Hall, Gentleman Creation Officer for Socked.co.uk "Men's standards have slipped so far over recent years that any offer of chivalry from a gentleman knocks a woman off their guard and is viewed with outright suspicion.

The survey carried out by the online service, which helps men to dress well and offers free tips on etiquette, revealed just how much women rejected chivalrous behaviour.

The survey said:

82% of women said they would prefer to pay for their dinner on a first date

52% said they would happily pay for the entire bill on a first date

89% of women said they would not take up the offer from a man to carrying their bag

78% would not accept a coat from a man on a cold day

Only 34% of women said they expect men to open doors for them

8% said they would take up the offer of a seat if a man offered. In London, this figure was only 2 per cent.

 

The survey also came up with some surprising answers:

98% said they would like to be bought flowers, but only 32% had actually received flowers in the past twelve months

41% of women agreed men should be able to wear dresses

 

Oh dear, but at least we can wear a frock....

 

West to the home of the Big Country and the land of smelly animals 

 

A group of rafters camping along the river in August was headed for bed when they noticed a black-and-white animal in the bushes near one of their tents. Jen Hiebert grabbed her camera, zoomed in and took some pictures.

When the rafters didn't see the skunk listed as one of the animals found at the Grand Canyon, Hiebert sent photos and a note to the National Park Service.

"It was just walking through the canyon, totally ignored us and was just digging away in the sand," said Hiebert, of Moscow, Idaho. "I'm not sure what it was after."

Grand Canyon biologists later confirmed the group's suspicion that it was a hog-nosed skunk.

At first, officials weren't sure whether the skunk was merely visiting the area, or if they should to add it to the list of about 90 mammals that live in the national park. They decided that by listing it - even as extremely rare - people might be on the lookout for more of the skunks, and that could help biologists determine how prevalent they are in the park.

 

U-Turn Cam isn’t in the ex-colonies by any chance is he?

 

Up a bit to what is one of our colonies

 

Canadian Jason Schron loves VIA trains so much that he actually spent four and a half years and $10,000 building his own genuine replica of a 1980s VIA train cart, accurate down to the tiniest details, right in the basement of his home, in Vaughan, Ontario. 

Not bad for $10,000 Canadian Dollars or £9.50 in proper money.

 

In a galaxy far, far away

 

Astronomers have discovered the largest known structure in the universe – a group of quasars so large it would take 4 billion years to cross it while travelling at speed of light.

The immense scale also challenges Albert Einstein’s Cosmological Principle, the assumption that the universe looks the same from every point of view, researchers said.

Quasars are believed to be the brightest objects in the universe, with light emanating from the nuclei of galaxies from the early days of the universe and visible billions of light-years away.

“Since 1982 it has been known that quasars tend to group together in clumps or ‘structures’ of surprisingly large sizes, forming large quasar groups or LQGs,” the society said.

This newly discovered large quasar group has a dimension of 500 megaparsecs, each megaparsec measuring 3.3 million light-years.

Because the LQG is elongated, its longest dimension is 1,200 megaparsecs, or 4 billion light-years, the society said.

That size is 1,600 times larger than the distance from Earth’s Milky Way to the nearest galaxy, the Andromeda.

 

Old Albert will be spinning in his cryogenic chamber.

 

And finally:

 

Back to the home of barmy and the land of Scientology 

According to a ‘bombshell’ new book, “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood & The Prison of Belief” Tom Cruise who is number 3 in the Hubbard hierarchy will save the world from aliens, he has signed a billion-year contract of service with the Church of Scientology, the book details Cruise’s demigod status within the church, as well as the group’s ultimate purpose — protect humanity from aliens living in our bodies, who are bent on destroying us and ultimately the planet.

 

Billion year contract-I do like an optimist....

 

That’s it: I’m orf to keep an eye on Java 

And today’s thought:

RBS car park. 

 

Angus

Up your pension: Ambo bonus: German Numptys: Pizza cones: and the Runit Dome.

 

Major lack of warm, minor solar stuff, minimum atmospheric movement and sod all skywater at the Castle this morn, just returned from the stale bread (£1.45 per loaf) gruel and his Maj’s food run dahn Tesco, I managed to struggle through the non-blizzard on the non-icy road without freezing to death and return to the non-snowed in Castle safely.

And Blogger still haven’t got their mouse/s out of their arses and sorted out the photo insertion do-dah, I have been fucking about with this post since before 8 of the am.

And it keeps freezing up.

When I got back his Maj showed me what he thought of the news.

 

 

 

Old farts will be hopping with joy 

 

Allegedly there will be a new flat rate pension of £144 plus inflation rises between now and 2017. The current full state pension is £107.45 a week, but can be topped up to £142.70 with pension credit.

At the weekend, the Daily Telegraph reported that more than six million workers would pay higher NI contributions under the shake-up.

Those affected are expected to include around 1.4 million private sector staff enrolled in final salary schemes and contracted out, said the Telegraph. 

The flat-rate pension will be paid only to new pensioners reaching state pension age from a date expected to be 6 April 2017, the government is expected to announce. Millions of existing pensioners, and those who qualify before then, will get their entitlement under the current system.

 

And when does this daft old fart “retire”-17 September 2016.....

 

All across the Smoke

 

 

Apparently emergency service staff is being offered bonuses to avoid sending out 999 ambulances, control room staff have been told they will each receive £250 if they can reduce the number of ambulances sent to 999 calls, by getting callers to rely on another health service like a GP or NHS Direct.

London Ambulance Service, Britain’s largest, is giving out the cash in an attempt to save its ambulances for the most pressing emergencies - and hit national targets for responding on time.

Managers say they are struggling to cope with rising demand, with the number of calls from people seriously ill or injured rising by 14 per cent in the last year.

A spokesman said control room staff would receive the bonus if, on average, they referred 30 per cent of callers deemed to have minor health problems to other health providers, such as out-of-hours GPs, NHS Direct or pharmacists.

Paul Woodrow, director of service delivery for London Ambulance Service, defended the incentive system, saying it was designed to ensure that ambulances were saved for those who needed them most.

He said: “We are incredibly busy and need to make sure we have enough ambulances available for our most seriously ill and injured patients.

 Nice....

 

Orf the Italian island of Giglio 

Coastguards have criticised five German cruise ship passengers who hired an inflatable boat to get a close-up look at the wrecked Costa Concordia liner.

The group, including two children, had to be rescued after their tiny boat was swamped by waves, whipped up by storm force winds. All were suffering from the effects of the cold.

Officials said the party were holidaymakers from the Costa Magica, a cruise liner from the same Costa Cruises fleet as the ill-fated Concordia, which struck rocks last year leaving 32 people dead off the Italian island of Giglio.

The Germans had arrived at Civitavecchia and made their way to Porto Santo Stefano where they hired the boat so they could take a look at the stricken Concordia which is still lying on rocks just outside the entrance to Giglio harbour.

Although they managed to sail the 10 miles from Porto Santo Stefano without any problem, on the return leg the weather suddenly changed and the boat got into difficulties.

But it managed to stay afloat and they were picked up by a coastguard vessel which took them back to the mainland.

Once on dry land, they were given hot drinks and wrapped in thermal blankets and after being given the all-clear by paramedics they were taken back to Civitavecchia where they resumed their cruise ship holiday.

A coastguard spokesman in Porto Santo Stefano said: ''It was a pretty stupid thing to do. They were lucky that it ended as it did - they could have quite easily sunk.

 Shit for brains tossers.....

 

All across blizzard Blighty 

Dags Hofrats, 23, has come up with the Pizza Cone, which costs £2.70 and comes in nine flavours including pepperoni, mushroom and spicy chicken.

Dags said: “It’s very easy to eat, doesn’t make a mess. I love them, and have one every day.”

The cone is made from pizza dough and Dags imports the ingredients from Italy.

He started a trial at Glasgow Caledonian University campus and sold 1,000 in just six weeks. Now he plans to sell them nationwide.

 

Num, num, num.

 

And finally: 

West a fair way and dahn even more 

Photo credit

Enewetak Atoll is a large coral atoll of 40 islands in the Pacific Ocean, located 305 kilometres west from Bikini Atoll, and was a major test bed for nuclear weapons, post World War II. Before Enewetak came under the control of the United States as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, it was under the Japanese control that used the atoll as refuelling stop for planes flying between Chuuk Lagoon and the islands to the east. After the capture of Enewetak, it became a major forward naval base for the U.S. Navy. Then the island was evacuated and the nuclear tests began.

Between 1948 and 1958, Enewetak Atoll witnessed 43 such as tests including the first hydrogen bomb test in late 1952 as part of Operation Ivy, which vaporized the islet of Elugelab.

In 1977, an effort to decontaminate the islands of Enewetak began. During the three years that followed, the military mixed more than 111,000 cubic yards (85,000 m3) of contaminated soil and debris from the various islands with Portland cement and buried it in a 30-foot deep, 350-foot wide blast crater on the northern end of the atoll's Runit Island. The crater was created by an 18 kiloton test bomb nicknamed “Cactus” on May 5, 1958. A dome composed of 358 concrete panels, each 18 inches thick, was constructed over the material. The final cost of the cleanup project was $239 million.

After the completion of the dome, the United States government declared the southern and western islands in the atoll safe for habitation in 1980, and residents of Enewetak returned that same year. Today, you can visit the dome and stomp across the surface.

 Or maybe not.......

 That’s it: I’m orf to x-ray my black hole

 

And today’s thought:

Revenge of the snowmen. 

 

 

Angus