Oodles of solar stuff, not a jot of skywater, even less lack of warm and slight atmospheric movement at the Castle this morn, I tried to enact the old 'Ampshire ritual of snatching Dawn's crack but unfortunately in my enfeebled state I fell orf twice and poked myself in the eye with a stick at the third attempt.
But the old bod is on the mend, I am finally able to stand upright and sit dahn for even longer without having to resort to the four poster, instead of the ring of agony I just feel as if I have been kicked in the side by an 'Orse which I know can't be true because all the 'Orses in the world are Dahn Tesco hiding in the freezers disguised as cows.
And as to the cause of the ring of agony-it wasn't the man-boob bra because I use one of those new super duper all encompassing uplifting invisible under your clothes do-dahs.
All I did was to take an empty milk container out to the "recycling" bin, as I lowered the drawbridge and stepped out there was a massive blast of more than cold wind which made me sneeze as I lifted up the lid and "presto"-bad back and the ring of agony.
Now: I blame the Government entirely for my mishap because if they had introduced global warming as promised in their manifesto none of this would have happened, I would have been able to walk to the bin in my shirt sleeves without having to spend five bloody days in bed.
And I would like a rebate from the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition for all the filthy lucre I have given them to make Blighty on a par with the Med which they have failed to do miserably-as usual.
White flaky stuff in abundance, even more atmospheric movement full of lack of warm at the Castle this morn.
Shan't be posting for a few more days-I managed to pull "something" between the old shoulder blades and have a nice "ring of agony" right round my chest, spent the weekend flat on my back zonked out on painkillers and am now returning to the four poster.
Usual lack of warm, quite a lot of ex skywater, no
atmospheric movement and endless amounts of misty stuff at the Castle this
morn, after it chucked it dahn Wednesday dark thing and Thursday light thing
the interweb thingy went tits up-again which gave me the time to back up the
computers and uninstall some no longer used programmes.
And Blogger is doing some really strange things with the formatting.
The word is that “they” are thinking of even more ways to
make us poorer, this time it seems that we old farts may be the next target for
the Piss Poor Policies of the Millionaires Club Coalition.
Allegedly the ex Eton Wall Game gang may be thunking about
freezing not up rating by 1%, all benefits for two years, including disability
living allowance and pensions to raise around £9bn, and another idea that has
been worked on is taxing benefits. Official Treasury numbers seen by Newsnight
show that taxing child benefit would raise £1.5bn, taxing DLA £800m and if you
taxed the Winter Fuel Payment (which Vince Cable advocated on Thursday), you
would raise £200m.
The Government I
lead will make sure that older and retired people are treated with dignity and
given the quality of life they deserve. This is my pledge to support
pensioners.
My Government will:
Increase the value of the basic state pension for
all pensioners and help to stop the spread of the means test by linking
pensions to earnings. You won’t get a repeat of Labour’s mean 75p rise with us.
Freeze council tax for the next two years, in
partnership with your council.
Make it worthwhile to save for a personal pension and
get rid of the rules that force people to get a compulsory annuity.
Help people protect their home rather than have to
sell it to pay for care.
Take all family homes worth less than £1 million
out of inheritance tax.
Increase spending on the NHS every year, which is
our number one priority.
Cut paperwork so we get more police out on the beat
fighting crime.
Our opponents are
trying to scare older people by telling deliberate lies about our plans. So
here is a personal promise, from me, about the things we will protect.
I will protect your Winter Fuel Payment.
I will protect your free bus pass and your free TV
licence.
I will protect the pension credit.
These vital
benefits will not be cut under the Conservatives. You have my word on it.
If he wins the
election, Gordon Brown wants to introduce a number of measures which will hit
pensioners. A Conservative Government will not penalise pensioners, as Labour
are planning to do:
We will NOT introduce a ‘death tax’ of up to
£50,000.
We will NOT cut attendance allowance and disability
allowance for the over 65s.
Apparently Kim Jong-Un is following in his father’s
footsteps, and has vowed to scrap all peace pacts with the South after the
United Nations imposed tough new sanctions on the country.
The news
agency KCNA said he talked of "all-out war" during the visit - and
quoted him as telling troops to "make the first gunfire" in response
to any attack.
He said
the slightest provocation would result in his immediate order for a "great
advance" along the frontline, the agency reported.
China,
North Korea's only major ally, said it wanted the sanctions to be implemented
in full. It agreed to the restrictions after three weeks of negotiations.
The ronery
little madman went on to say:
The Democratic
People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) will make a strike of justice at any
target, anytime as it pleases without limit.
"(We) have
everything - including lighter and smaller nukes.
"The US
imperialists and their allies should not forget even for a moment that they are
standing at the crossroads of their life and death.
"(We) will
exercise our right to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds
of the aggressor.
The latest thing to make your irradiated skin glow is fermented
sawdust baths, “As your body is engulfed in sawdust at a temperature of around
40 degrees Celsius, the body is warmed from the core. This activates your
internal organs, apparently optimizing metabolism, increasing your immune
strength, and improving circulation. It’s also great for easing constipation
and even insomnia. The dry sawdust also promotes the release of sweat without
clogging your pores where excess dirt and sebum from your skin is also washed
away.”
Lovely-wouldn’t want to be the second, or third, or fourth sucker
to get in...
Ukrainian feminist group Femen are taking their topless
protests around the world, "This year we hope to cover North Africa and
South America," said one of Femen's leaders, Anna Gutsol.
The group, which was founded in 2008, came up with the idea
of its topless protests almost by accident.
During a demonstration in 2009, Femen activists
decorated their backs with slogans and bared them at photographers.
The pictures were a hit, leading the women to come up with
an even more outrageous way to get their views across.
Since they turned to face the cameras, the international
media - always keen on eye-catching stunts - has given them lavish coverage.
Femen's first moment of glory came in 2010 on the day of
Ukraine's tense presidential elections.
Four young women boldly undressed in a polling station just
before the arrival of presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych.
Recently the group has shifted its activism to Western European countries.
Wonder when they are coming to Blighty...I could do with a day out...
Beaches along the
south Florida coast have been shut after thousands of migrating sharks were
spotted close to the shore.
Swimmers were
ordered out of the water after the sharks - mostly blacktips and spinners -
moved into the area as they head north during their annual migration.
Craig Pollock, a
lifeguard supervisor in Palm Beach, said: "We don't have a sandbar. A lot
of times when we have a sandbar the sharks stay off of the shore a little
further.
"Every year we
expect annual shark migration to come through this area."
Researchers at
Florida Atlantic University said they have counted 15,000 sharks - many as
close as
Ocean Ramsey, a shark conservationist based out of Honolulu, swam up to a great white shark to caress the creature and even grab hold of its fin to take a ride through the water.
An advocate for shark preservation, she released the footage on Valentine's Day as her expression of love for the creatures she fears is misunderstood and at risk of extinction.
She described her dance with the massive animal, saying how in the beginning she watched 'the shark acknowledge and observe me, while I peacefully and calmly allowed it to swim towards me, and then experiencing it accepting my touch, allowing me to dorsal and tail ride,' in her description of the experience.
'The connection felt as I repeatedly pet and hitched a ride on several of these sharks reminded me of my experience with horses.
Spring sprung and then buggered orf at the Castle this morn,
immense lack of warm, sod all solar stuff, a whimsy of atmospheric movement and
not a drop of skywater, still it was nice while it lasted.
Corporal Jones has nothing on the top dick at the Dept of
Witless Pillocks (DWP) when it comes to running around like a headless ‘Orse
bemoaning the fact that he ignored the up and coming influx of EU foreign
nationals coming to the UK to claim benefits for the last couple of years.
But of course it isn’t the IBS twins fault apparently "he has
been fighting a rearguard action over what was left to me by the last
government."
And "The reality is that it is all right for [Labour]
to moan but let's put the facts as they are - I inherited a habitual residency
test which simply isn't fit for purpose. We are trying to tighten that up
dramatically and I am being infracted at the moment by the European Union for
doing that.
And you should be infracted you tosser,
mind you being a LibDem you are probably used to it.
Nearly a million households are spending more than a quarter of their income
running a car; the RAC Foundation has used data from ONS, the Government’s
statistical service, to expose the extent of "motoring poverty".
It estimates there are 800,000 families trying to run a car with a disposable
weekly income of no more than £167.
According to the Foundation’s calculations £44 – equivalent to 27 per cent
of the total – is being spent on motoring costs.
This includes £16 to buy fuel and £8.30 a week for insurance.
Road tax accounts for £2.50 a week; and maintenance £4.80, with motorists
having to allow £10 for the cost of buying the car and depreciation.
Thanks to, Dave, What’s his name, George, and the rest of
the Piss Poor Policies Millionaires Club Coalition...
Lamborghini is showing what it calls a street-legal
supercar, the Veneno – of which only three will be sold, each costing £2.6
million plus tax – at the 2013 Geneva motor show.
According to Lamborghini, its design is focused on maximum
aerodynamic efficiency. The Veneno is based on the Aventador supercar, and
shares its 6.5-litre V12 engine although in the Veneno it develops 50bhp more,
at 750bhp. That, combined with a wind-cheating shape, should mean a top speed
of 221mph.
The Veneno shown at Geneva is Lamborghini's development car,
featuring red, white and green accents on the flanks to symbolise the Italian
flag. The three customer cars will only have highlights in one of these
colours.
Tourism Australia
has launched a search to find six lucky applicants to fill what it says are the
best jobs in the world.
The six month
positions each offer the chance to be paid good money to live in some of the
most beautiful parts of Australia.
Jobs on offer
include Chief Funster (New South Wales), Outback Adventurer (Northern
Territory), Park Ranger (Queensland), Wildlife Caretaker (South Australia),
Lifestyle Photographer (Melbourne), and Taste Master (Western Australia).
It is part of a
campaign to promote tourism opportunities provided by Australia's Working
Holiday Maker programme.
It targets
travellers between 18 and 30 years
of age, especially those from countries eligible for Australian working holiday
visas, including the UK and Ireland.
They have now withdrawn almond cakes from its restaurants in
23 countries after bacteria normally found in faecal matter was discovered.
The group confirmed it was investigating claims that Chinese
authorities had found "an excessive level" of coliform bacteria in
two batches of the cake made by a Swedish supplier. The product remains on sale
in its 19 branches in UK and Ireland, which are not supplied by the company
under investigation.
Ikea said 1,800 Tarta
Chokladkrokant cakes – described as an almond cake layered with chocolate,
butter cream and butterscotch – were destroyed in December after being
intercepted by Chinese customs officials. It said it was carrying out a full
investigation with the supplier to ensure it would not happen again.
And of course Ikea said in a statement: "There is no
health risk associated with consuming this product. The production batches
have, as per safety and quality routines, been tested for bacteria that can
cause health issues, such as E coli, and none of these pathogen bacteria have
been found. However, since the product does not comply with our strict food
quality standards we have decided to withdraw the concerned production batches
from sale in the 23 affected countries. The UK and Ireland are not affected."
So as well as making cheap nasty furniture they sell balls
made of ‘Orse and cakes made of shit.
More than the minimum of scrapey-scrapey stuff, multitudes
of lack of warm, maximum lack of atmospheric movement and Dawn’s crack is a
welcome sight at the Castle this morn.
According to “experts” the UK is lagging behind progress by
similar countries on many indicators for ill-health, and that although average
life expectancy has risen by four years since 1990, the UK needs to increase
its strategies for tackling preventable problems such as heart disease and
stroke.
‘Elf secretary Jezza CHunt has a cunning plan though; he is
going to announce things which aim to cut deaths from major diseases by, for
example, increasing screening for people with possible heart problems.
It is of course our fault because some of us still smoke,
even more of us are drinking too much and many, many people are eating the
wrong type of foodstuffs.
So if we give up the fags, take the pledge and spend a
fortune on “approved” grub we could live a long, healthy and thoroughly
miserable life until we are put on the Liverpool Pathway and die of starvation
and thirst.
About 4.7million people are now in food poverty, a
report claims today.
The poorest people are forced to spend significantly more
than ten per cent of their income on food and non-alcoholic drinks, researchers
found.
The very poorest households spend even more of their gross
income, almost a quarter, on food.
Many people on low incomes may even be at risk of
malnutrition with the poorest households cutting back on fruit by 20 per cent
and vegetables by 12 per cent.
The study, carried out for Kellogg’s by the Centre for Economics
and Business Research, comes as the food giant pledges to provide Trussell
Trust food banks with 15million portions of cereals and snacks over the next
three years.
Since the financial crisis began, the number of people fed by Trussell Trust
food banks has risen from 26,000 in 2008 to 280,000 last year.
And alien reptile in disguise George (I wish I was WBanker)
Osborne is orf to the place where sprouts come from in an effort to reverse the
European Parliament's proposals to curb bankers' bonuses.
He will of course fail miserably as is his way, and as he
has failed more than miserably to “manage” the economy.
But at least he is sticking up for those that have much and
still ignoring we who have fuck all as is his wont...
The man and woman aboard the Inspiration Mars mission set to
fly-by the Red Planet in 2018Movie Camera will face cramped conditions, muscle
atrophy and potential boredom. But their greatest health risk comes from
exposure to the radiation from cosmic rays.
The solution-line the spacecraft’s walls with water, food
and their own faeces.
Allegedly solid and liquid human waste products would get
put into bags and used as a radiation shield – as well as being dehydrated so
that any water can be recycled for drinking. “Dehydrate them as much as
possible, because we need to get the water back,” Taber MacCallum, a member of
the team funded by multimillionaire Dennis Tito said. “Those solid waste
products get put into a bag, put right back against the wall.”
Food too, could be used as a shield, he said. “Food is going
to be stored all around the walls of the spacecraft, because food is good
radiation shielding,” he said. This wouldn’t be dangerous as the food would
merely be blocking the radiation, it wouldn’t become a radioactive source.
The details of Inspiration Mars’s plans have yet to be
clarified, but the team has said it will be using “state-of-the-art
technologies derived from NASA and the International Space Station”. One idea
that is already under consideration by the agency’s Innovative Advanced
Concepts programme which funds research into futuristic space technology, is a
project called Water Walls, which combines life-support and waste-processing
systems with radiation shielding.
A Finnish toilet
paper maker has removed quotes from the Bible, including the words of Jesus
that it inadvertently placed on its rolls after protests from some Norwegian
church leaders.
Metsa Tissue was
trying to convey messages about love but accidentally included lines from the
Gospel of Matthew and First Corinthians on toilet paper sold in Norway, Denmark
and Sweden.
The firm selected
the quotes from Facebook submissions, including one from Jesus: "For where
your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
It only realized
its mistake when it received feedback.
"People like
to read small, happy messages while sitting on the toilet," Christina von
Trampe, a spokeswoman for Metsa Tissue, which produces the Lambi brand, told
Reuters.
"The vast
majority of the feedback has been positive. Our intention was to spread love
and joy, not religious messages."
Laila Riksaan Dahl
the Bishop of Tunsberg in protestant Norway was apparently not amused.
No bleedin sense of
humour these religious types...
Middling lack of warm, moderate atmospheric movement,
missing skywater, massive scrapey, scrapey stuff and believe it or not but the
Sun has got his hat on, hip, hip, hip hooray, the Sun has got his hat on and he’s
visiting for the day.
Just returned from a very nice weekend with friends up in
Cheltenham, at least I think it was ham could have been ‘Orse for all I know,
spent the time walking, lunching at public houses and getting my arse kicked by
their pair of sadly un-fat teenagers on something called an X-Box.
And two minutes after I staggered in the portcullis the God-Botherers
arrived this time in the guise of “people” who witnessed Jehovah.
The pair of old farts tried to convince me that we don’t have
a soul, when we die that is it, there is no heaven or hell, and when Jehovah returns
all the dead people who have been buried will rise up and take over the world.
Which is a bit of luck for those who have been cremated
because they won’t have to put up with all the rotting undead lurching about
mumbling “bollocks” I was quite happy in my grave.
According to the Torygraph an “alarming” threat to patient
safety is being posed by the “unmanageable workload” that hospital doctors have
to deal with, according to a worrying report published today.
The situation needs to be “urgently addressed” if frail
elderly patients are not to be put at further risk, according to the report by
the Royal College of Physicians.
Matters are worst in England’s provincial hospitals,
according to the College, because they struggle to recruit and retain hospital
doctors. It found a “worrying correlation” between low consultant staffing
levels and high death rates.
The report comes shortly after Jeremy Hunt, the Health
Secretary, announced a review to examine high death rates in 14 hospital
trusts. None are in London. Ten of the 14 are in the midlands or north- west
England. Experts are due to meet next week to agree a plan on how to tackle the
problem.
The Royal College found medical registrars - the grade below
consultant level - were being excessively overworked.
No change there then, bet her Maj doesn’t have knackered
medic....
A new “horse hotel”
scheme has been launched by the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) offering
“quality assured bed & breakfast” accommodation near the Queen’s Balmoral
estate for horses, accompanied by their owners.
On arrival at Mar
Lodge Estate, near Braemar, the equine guests are shown to their holiday
paddocks to settle in and meet new friends before enjoying days of off-road
riding on the estate and on hill tracks including Glens Quoich and Lui.
The idea was the
brainwave of horse lover Fiona McCulloch, estate secretary on the trust’s
property in the Cairngorms National Park, who realised the acres of land
offered opportunities for riders to bring their horses with them.
Did you know that being a “cynic” originally meant you
thought the purpose of life was to live virtuously in agreement with Nature,
rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, sex, and fame; living a
simple life free from all possessions.
In a research
vessel stationed off the coast of Jacksonville, Fla., members from OCEARCH
captured and tagged another Great White shark Sunday.
She's 14.5 feet
long and weighs nearly 2,000 pounds. Her name is Lydia, after Lydia Moss
Bradley, the founder of Bradley University and long-time friend of Caterpillar,
who is sponsoring OCEARCH for three years. Lydia is the first great white
captured, satellite tagged and released in an area south of Cape Cod, Mass.
Researchers found
the 2,000-pound shark at the mouth of St. Johns River, which is near the
popular surfing spot of Mayport Poles near Jacksonville.
Lydia makes the
third great white shark tagged off the East Coast of the United States by
OCEARCH. The research group also tagged and is tracking Genie, a 14-foot,
nearly 2,300-pound shark, and Mary Lee, a 16-foot, nearly 3,500-pound shark.
Both were tagged with a satellite tracking device in September.
Couple of things; sod that a lot and I don’t think I will go
surfing at Mayport....
Still cold, still damp, still not a lot of atmospheric
movement and still bugger all solar stuff at the Castle this first day of “spring”.
Back on the antibiotics due to yet another abscess on one of
my remaining toofs, but they still refuse to yank them all out and give me
something that doesn’t hurt.
And joy of joys my old fart’s bus pass arrived by snail mail
yestermorn complete with a picture of someone I don’t recognise and an expiry
date of 2018-I should be so lucky...
Gas boilers for home heating will have to be virtually
eliminated by 2050 if the UK is to meet its carbon reduction targets and the use
of petrol and diesel engines to power cars will also need to be "much less
dominant" and replaced with electric power and biofuels, a policy meeting
in the House of Commons heard.
The conclusions are based on modelling the likely shape of
the energy sector in 2050 when greenhouse emissions will need to have fallen by
80% on 1990's level.
Professor Paul Ekins, one of the report’s authors, told MPs
and peers home heating would "have to change radically" to meet
carbon targets. Efficiency will have to be significantly improved for new and
existing buildings with heat provided by electrically driven heat pumps and
bioenergy.
District heating is another alternative, already in use in
Denmark, where household boilers are replaced by centralised neighbourhood heating
systems.
The internal combustion engine will be "much less
dominant" by 2050, Ekins said, and replaced with battery powered and fuel
cell vehicles.
Or they could use fat, carbon free teenagers like the Castle’s
heating system....
Son of a B.......aronet and alien reptile in disguise George
(I could use that rope now to hang myself) Osborne showed his non prowess at coordinated
physical activity-otherwise known as skipping, and failed miserably, just as he
is doing with the economy.
Westbound traffic
on Interstate 80 is back to normal after Nevada Department of Transportation
crews used snowploughs to remove thousands of bottles of ketchup that were
strewn onto the freeway.
Sgt. Janay Sherven
with the Nevada Highway Patrol said crews put sand on the ketchup and then
cleaned up the debris.
Health officials
also will declare the spilled ketchup a loss so it can be taken to the dump.
A tractor trailer
carrying thousands of bottles of Heinz ketchup crashed on Interstate 80 near
the Robb Drive overpass this afternoon, spilling its red contents onto the
freeway and snarling traffic in the process.
That looks worse
than the bloodbath in Eastleigh-click on the link over the pic to watch the
video.
Students at the
University of Maryland in the US are a step closer to claiming a sought-after
prize for a human-powered helicopter flight.
The American
Helicopter Society Sikorsky Prize was introduced in 1980 but has never been
claimed.
The students'
helicopter, the Gamera II, achieved a world record flight of 65.1 seconds in
August 2012, but failed to qualify for the lucrative prize as their craft
strayed outside the required area.
The students have
now designed a control system to overcome this hurdle, and have their sights
firmly set on the claiming the cash reward.
Gamera II weighs
32kg (71 pounds) and is powered by a combination of hand and food pedalling.
To claim the
Sikorsky prize, a helicopter must fly under human power for at least 60
seconds. The craft must also reach an altitude of three metres and remain
within a 10m square.
Named after
Russian-American aviator Igor Sikorsky, the prize offers a $250,000 (£164,000)
reward.
Qualifying flights
must be certified by a representative of the world governing body for air
sports and aeronautics world records, the FAI.
Spiffing, bet it would be much better with an engine.....
