Minimalist poet, minimalist lifestyle

Man sinks pint, fiancee sinks van

One last pint cost a Cumbrian man his fiancee and all of his worldly possessions.

Jason Wilson, 24, wanted to stay out for a final pint but fiancee, Emma Thomason, wanted to go home.

Enraged, she put everything he owned, from clothes to CDs, in his £10,000 van and drove it into the harbour near their home in Whitehaven.

The couple, who have two children together, have now called off their August wedding, reports Metro News.

They had bought the wedding rings, Miss Thomason's dress and just 24 hours before the row had booked a £2,000 honeymoon to the Caribbean.

Mr Wilson, now living with friends, said: "'I can't go back to her if she has a temper like that. I can't live with that for the rest of my life - I don't think nobody could."

The first Mr Wilson knew of his company van's plight came was when his boss, Graham Wilson, no relation, called him.

The van was left in 12ft of water. Finally, it was hauled back up the slipway using winches, which had to be attached by a professional diver.

Boss Mr Wilson added: "I haven't had the bill yet. I just hope that the insurance company are prepared to pay out."

Police confirmed that a woman had been questioned and bailed.

A man whose wife was pregnant couldn't bear to be in the delivery room at the time of the birth.
So he thought he'd ring up later to see if the baby was born yet.
He rang up and the nurse said, "It's a girl but there's another one on the way."
He rang again later and the nurse said, "It's another girl but there's another coming."
He rang once more and the nurse said, "It's a boy but there's still another coming."
He couldn't stand it any more so he went to the pub and got drunk.
An hour later he was really nervous. He was dialling the hospital, hands shaking, and accidently dialled the sports line by mistake. He asked, "How many did we get mate?" the person said "198 all out.... and the last one was a duck"

The questions below about Australia are from potential visitors.

They were posted on an Australian Tourism Website and the answers are the actual responses by the website officials, who obviously have a sense of humour.

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Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia? I have never seen it rain on TV, how do the plants grow? (UK).

A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.

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Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? (USA)

A: Depends how much you've been drinking.

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Q: I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the railroad tracks(Sweden)?

A: Sure, it's only three thousand miles, take lots of water.

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Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in Australia? Can you send me a list of them in Brisbane, Cairns,Townsville and Hervey Bay?

(UK)

A: What did your last slave die of?

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Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in

Australia?

(USA)

A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe.

Aus-tra-lia is that big island in themiddle of the Pacific which does not

... oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Kings Cross. Come naked.

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Q: Which direction is North in Australia? (USA)

A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get

here and we'll send the rest of the directions.

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Q: Can I bring cutlery into Australia? (UK)

A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

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Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule?

(USA)

A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is ... oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Kings Cross, straight after the hippo races. Come naked.

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Q: Can I wear high heels in Australia? ( UK)

A: You are a British politician, right?

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Q: Are there supermarkets in Sydney and is milk available all year round? (Germany)

A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of vegan hunter/gatherers.

Milk is illegal.

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Q: Please send a list of all doctors in Australia who can

Dispense rattlesnake serum. (USA)

A: Rattlesnakes live in A-meri-ca which is where YOU come from.

All Australian snakes are perfectly harmless, can be safely handled and

make good pets.

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Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Australia, but I forget its name. It's a kind of bear and lives in trees. (USA)

A: It's called a Drop Bear. They are so called because they drop out of Gum trees and eat the brains ofanyone walking underneath them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.

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Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth.

Can you tell me where I can sell it inAustralia? (USA)

A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather.

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Q: Can you tell me the regions in Tasmania where the female

population is smaller than the male population? (Italy)

A: Yes, gay night clubs.

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Q: Do you celebrate Christmas in Australia? (France)

A: Only at Christmas.

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Q: I was in Australia in 1969 on R+R, and I want to contact the

Girl I dated while I was staying in Kings Cross*. Can you help?

(USA)

A: Yes, and you will still have to pay her by the hour.

__________________________________________________

Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? (USA)

A: Yes, but you'll have to learn it first.

I was in a shop earlier and observed a young woman returning a henna tattoo kit and ask for a refund because she didn't like the tattoo templates. There's no way I would even consider doing this [especially when the designs were printed on the box] although I've regularly blogged about occasions when I've demanded a refund or compensation for products that didn't work or were broken, or inappropriately described on the box or packaging, or were incorrectly or confusingly priced.

If I buy something and it's the wrong size or I don't like the colour or style or flavour, it's been my choice and it would be a bad choice and so I wouldn't make that choice again...but under no circumstances would I have the cheek to ask for a refund.

We all have our differing morals and priorities though I suppose.

Last Tuesday was my forty fifth birthday and the occasion got me around to thinking about my state of health. Fortunately I'm in pretty good shape; but there are some signs of aging I've noticed during the last few years - I've started sprouting hairs all over the place; my nostrils, inside my ears, the back of my hands and at the top of my back. More recently I've started to get skin tags appearing on my neck and shoulders: I find these really annoying and am always picking and pulling them, squeezing them and twisting them off...I quite often end up bleeding; but at least I'm rid of them.

More promisingly; there's no sign of my going bald, and my few grey hairs are limited to my temples...my eyesight is still quite good also.

Barely twenty minutes after teeing off a woman walks into the clubhouse and she's grimacing in pain.
"What's the matter?” The club pro asked
"I got stung by a bee" the woman replied
"Where" The club pro said
"Between the first and second holes"
"Hmmmmm" The pro said " Sounds like your stance is a little too wide"

A guy is reading his paper when his wife walks up behind him and smacks him on the back of the head with a frying pan.
He asks, "What was that for?"
She says, "I found a piece of paper in your pocket with 'Betty Sue' written on it."
He says, "Jeez, honey, remember last week when I went to the track? 'Betty Sue' was the name of the horse I went there to bet on." She shrugs and walks away. Three days later he's reading his paper when she walks up behind him and smacks him on the back of the head again with the frying pan.
He asks, "What was that for?"
She answers, "Your horse called."

A council has been blasted over plans to send male staff on compulsory breast feeding courses.

Dozens of workers, including caretakers, will have to spend two days on the awareness course.

It will teach the benefits of breast feeding and how to make sure mums have privacy. There are also tips on bottle feeding and weaning, reports The Sun.

Bosses at Blackburn with Darwen Council in Lancashire say they want to improve care for mums who use the 13 nurseries and family support centres they run.

But the Campaign For Real Education branded it "crazy political correctness".

Chairman Nick Seaton said: "It is ridiculous and embarrassing."

Course teacher Michelle Atkin said: "They will learn to avoid a situation of embarrassment, like telling a mother 'you shouldn't be doing that'."

I've been travelling on the buses nearly every day for the past week. One of the local operators, Stagecoach in Yorkshire, has been running a special offer to promote its reorganisation of services in the Dearne Valley and has been selling its Dearne Valley Weekly Mega-Rider pass for only £7.50 [I think they normally cost £11.50]. It's valid on all their services in Doncaster and most of the Dearne Valley, and also into parts of Rotherham and Sheffield. I've used my pass to travel to Cusworth Hall, the Don Gorge at Sprotbrough, Tickhill, visiting my friend at Balby, and visiting my parents at Thurnscoe - I reckon I've had my money's worth.

Footballer Graham Capstick's teammates went nuts when he headed a goal - from 57 yards.

Defender Graham, who is 6ft 3ins, was inside his half when he leapt up to meet a clearance ball from the rival goalkeeper, reports The Sun.

He watched open-mouthed as it shot over opposing defenders, bounced over the goalie and into the goal.

Stunned players mobbed team captain Graham, 19, to celebrate his first goal of the season for Holker Old Boys, from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.

Now experts at Guinness World Records have been approached to see if the bizarre goal is a record.

Sports student Graham, a Manchester United fan, said: "Everyone remembers David Beckham's goal from over the halfway line but mine was probably even more amazing because it was headed.

"I hit it perfectly. It just flew over all the other players and then bounced about 16 yards out from the goal-line as their keeper came out.

"Then it just bounced over his head. I don't think he could believe it - and neither could anyone else.

"Even I was shocked. I certainly wasn't aiming for goal - I hadn't scored all season."

Villagers are calling for a preservation order to be issued to protect a tree that has enveloped pieces of metal, including a bicycle, a ship's anchor and chain, and a bridle bit.

The sycamore tree, dating from the 1800s, stands in the yard of an old smithy in Brig o'Turk, in the Trossachs, now part of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs national park. As it grew, the expanding trunk engulfed the blacksmith's scrap heap around it.

When a local boy, who had left his bicycle against the tree, failed to return from the First World War the tree grew around it. Parts remain visible, sticking out of the trunk. But hundreds of other pieces of metal are hidden inside.

John Barrington, 62, who has written a book on the area, said the tree was "one of Scotland's greatest arboricultural curiosities" and should be protected by law.

"The iron-eating tree, or the Bicycle Tree as many locals know it, is one of Scotland's great wonders. The seedling grew up through this pile of scrap metal, on which the local blacksmith had thrown all kinds of things. As it grew it swallowed up hundreds of bits and pieces of metal."

He added: "The people of Brig o'Turk are very proud of it. I was surprised to discover there was no Tree Preservation Order protecting it."

Donald Rodger, an arboriculturalist who has studied the tree, said he had seen nothing to rival it. "The Brig o'Turk iron-eating tree is a unique novelty and a great part of our natural heritage. I feel it must be protected."

But David Evans, principal tree consultant at the Arbor Centre in Bath, said it was not unusual for trees to engulf metal objects. "This is very common," he said.

A spokesman for the national park said the tree did not warrant a preservation order. She said: "The only reason would be if there was a clear threat to it. It is special because of the bike and other pieces of metal. It is a freak of nature."

Free repairs to flammable toilets

Japan's leading toilet manufacturer is offering free repairs to 180,000 toilets after some of them caught fire.

There have been three incidents of the electric bidet accessory in Toto's Z series catching fire, reports the BBC.

"Fortunately nobody was using the toilets when the fire broke out and there were no injuries," a company spokesman said.

"The fire would have been just under your buttocks," she added.

Toto is a pioneer of high-tech toilets with built-in bidets, which are popular in Japan.

The Z series features a pulsating massage spray, a power dryer, a "tornado wash" flush, and a lid that opens and closes automatically.

It is not sold outside Japan.

The offending loos were all manufactured between May 1996 and December 2001.

Well, it looks like the weather forecast is accurate for today; cold and wet. In fact, it's so cold I've had to put on the electric fire - that's very unusual this late in the month.

Of course, April was magnificent: hot and sunny for days on end.

Girl calls for police help over messy room

BERLIN (Reuters) - A nine-year-old German girl was so upset about having to tidy her room she put up a sign in her window urging passers-by to call police for help.

Pedestrians in the central city of Braunschweig saw the girl crying in the window, holding up a sign up saying "Help! Please call the police!" Next to her sat a small boy.

Quickly alerted, officers rushed to the scene to discover the girl had rowed with her mother about tidying her room and enlisted her two-year-old brother's aid to attract attention.

"The room looked like a battlefield," said a spokesman for local police on Monday. "Officers told the girl to tidy her room. When they came back two hours later to check, it was all cleaned up. And the mother and daughter had made

Curry explodes at 35,000 feet

A stewardess caused £20,000 of damage on a jumbo jet when her curry exploded in a microwave at 35,000ft.

The transatlantic flight from Heathrow carried on to Miami after cabin crew grabbed a fire extinguisher to douse the blazing oven, reports The Sun.

British Airways insisted there was no threat to passengers' safety - although the Boeing 747 needed days of repairs.

The air hostess was heating up a ready meal she bought from a supermarket when the curry exploded.

BA has now banned staff from using new high-powered microwaves in club class kitchens for non-airline food on its fleet of jumbos.

A secret memo emailed to all BA long-haul crews - entitled "Microwave incident" - warns that grub needs special packaging because the ovens are twice as strong as domestic ones.

It says the incident with the curry had "disastrous consequences". One BA employee said: "Many cabin crew like to bring their own meals to eat.

"At first we thought the microwaves were a godsend. But this unfortunate incident has left us with egg on our faces."

BA stressed: "At no time was there any danger to passengers or the aircraft."

There was a news report yesterday that the Soil Association is considering removing its approval of out-of-season produce which is flown into the country because of its detrimental effect on the environment. Some members of the association [and consumers as well I presume] aren't happy about this because they think that the two issues shouldn't be linked - so long as fruit and vegetables are grown without using chemical fertilsers or insecticide, they're not concerned about the wider environmental impacts.

I was discussing this subject with a friend last night and we did start thinking about the wider issues; what about the packaging used and its environmental impact, and what about the effect on the Third World farmers who are growing this produce rather than growing food for their own communities?

A pilot project in which poor families are given goats instead of benefits is creating controversy in Romania.

The new project is expected to start next month in the village of Independenta, in Constanta county, and will be available for 20 families.

Each of them will be given 10 goats which they will use as a source of food and income.

The goats cannot be sold or eaten and the owners will be 'taxed' by returning three kids per year to the local council.

The project is being harshly criticised by Romanians living abroad who claim it damages the country's image.

Romanians living in the US say the country 'is presented in a humiliating way and depicted as a Romanistan'.

But in the village of Independentsa, the scheme seems to be successful.

Cristea Giscan, the mayor of Independenta, said many families, from newly-weds to pensioners, who wanted to join the project.

He said: "By giving poor families money we were only encouraging them to live from others' work which is very unethical. Those who oppose the programme are simply not willing to work."

The mayor said the scheme will be extended and made available for all the citizens of the village who would like to take part in it.

Well it certainly is a good morning here in Doncaster. It's sunny and warm, with a bit of high cloud; but nothing threatening at the moment. However, the BBC and the Met Office are both forecasting rain for today, and on the strength of these forecasts I've decided not to spend a day walking with my brother.

I'm not saying that I'll be disappointed if the weather stays fine all day - after all, I'll be able to sit in the garden and listen to the cricket commentary: but I'll not be impressed with the meteorologists.

Bondage couple lose key

A German couple had to call out the fire brigade after tying each other up in chains - and then losing the key to the padlock.

Jochen Ranstett, 56 and his wife Maria, from the town of Weiden, dressed up in leathers and chained each other to their beds, but lost the key during the romp.

After hours of trying to free themselves they finally gave up and called for help on Jochen's mobile phone.

He said: "It was so embarrassing. We just wanted to try something a bit different and we ended up with this.

"I even had to be taken to hospital because my wrists had swollen so much from trying to get out of the handcuffs."

I remember this band from about fifteen years ago. I was surprised to find an entire YouTube channel devoted to their videoa and documentaries because I thought all their work had been deleted and the master copies destroyed.

The KLF
Also known as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, The KLF were a central band of the British acid house movement of the 1980s & 1990s. Their legacy included hit singles and controversial publicity stunts.

IN ONE MINUTE
Formed in 1987 by Bill Drummond (a.k.a. King Boy D) and Jimmy Cauty (a.k.a. Rockman Rock) out of the initial desire to make a hip-hop record.
During an early incarnation of The KLF, they landed in hot water by heavily sampling The Beatles and ABBA on their singles 'All You Need Is Love' and 'The Queen and I'.
Musically, KLF were best known for their hit singles "Doctorin' The Tardis", "Last Train to Trancentral", "Justified and Ancient" (featuring Tammy Wynette), "3 a.m. Eternal" and "What Time Is Love?"
Their 1990-1992 hit singles were mixed by Mike "Spike" Stent, who went on to work with Björk, Keane, Depeche Mode, Erasure, Massive Attack, Madonna, No Doubt, Oasis, the Spice Girls, U2, and Britney Spears.
They brought their career to a controversial end during an infamous performance at the Brit Awards in 1992, where they fired blank bullets into the audience & delivered a dead sheep to the after party.
The controversy continued when they made a film of themselves burning one million quid in 1994 - a decision they now regret!

I've returned quite early from the pub because I'm feeling really hungry - I've just put a cottage pie in the microwave.

I witnessed a cat fight in the pub between two of the female regulars: it doesn't happen every time I visit, but I have seen these two at it before and I'm told it's a fairly common occurence.

Cat grows wings

A Chinese woman claims her cat has grown wings.

Granny Feng's tom cat has sprouted two hairy 4ins long wings, reports the Huashang News.

"At first, they were just two bumps, but they started to grow quickly, and after a month there were two wings," she said.

Feng, of Xianyang city, Shaanxi province, says the wings, which contain bones, make her pet look like a 'cat angel'.

Her explanation is that the cat sprouted the wings after being sexually harassed.

"A month ago, many female cats in heat came to harass him, and then the wings started to grow," she said.

However, experts say the phenomenon is more likely down to a gene mutation, and say it shouldn't prevent the cat living a normal life.

Free computer virus finds willing victims

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Computer specialist Didier Stevens put up a simple text advertisement on the Internet offering downloads of a computer virus for people who did not have any.

Surprisingly, he found as many as 409 people clicking on the ad saying "Is your PC virus-free? Get it infected here!" during a 6-month advertising campaign on Google's Adword, said the IT security expert.

"Some of them must have clicked on it by mistake. Some must have been curious or stupid," said Mikko Hypponen, head of research at data security firm F-Secure.

There was no virus involved, it was an experiment aiming to show these kind of advertising systems can be used for malicious intent, Stevens told Reuters.

Viagra 'could help jetlag'

Viagra could be used to help people flying eastwards recover from jetlag, according to new research.

A team of Argentine scientists found the drug helped hamsters recover up to 50% faster from forward shifts in their daily time cycles.

However, the drug only worked in conjunction with light therapy, and only in one time direction - the equivalent to flying eastbound.

The study features in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers from the National University of Quilmes shifted the light-dark cycle of hamsters six hours forwards, by switching on lights six hours earlier than usual.

Injection of Viagra before the time shift meant the hamsters adjusted to the new time cycle faster, even when low doses of the drug, which did not cause penile erections, were used.

Professor Robert Lucas said the new research raised the possibility of using Viagra in conjunction with this light treatment.

But he added: "We will have to wait for more research to know whether this will work in humans."

Pfizer, the makers of Viagra, said the drug should only be used in accordance with the approved labelling.

A man goes into a restaurant and is seated. All the waitresses are gorgeous. A particularly voluptuous waitress wearing a very short skirt comes to his table and asks, “What would you like, sir?”
He looks at the menu and then scans her beautiful frame top to bottom, then answers, “A quickie.”

The waitress turns and walks away in disgust. After she regains her composure she returns and asks again, “What would you like, sir?” Again the man thoroughly checks her out and again answers, “A quickie, please.”

This time her anger takes over, she reaches over and slaps him across the face with a resounding “SMACK!” and storms away.

A man sitting at the next table leans over and whispers, “Um, Pal, I think it’s pronounced ‘quiche’.”

This is an interesting example of game theory that I've found. The answer it comes up with is just amazing; it seems so illogical - of course, it's mathematically the desired outcome, but it just isn't how human beings behave though.

Lucy and Pete, returning from a remote Pacific island, find that the airline has damaged the identical antiques that each had purchased. An airline manager says that he is happy to compensate them but is handicapped by being clueless about the value of these strange objects. Simply asking the travellers for the price is hopeless, he figures, for they will inflate it.

Instead he devises a more complicated scheme. He asks each of them to write down the price of the antique as any dollar integer between 2 and 100 without conferring together. If both write the same number, he will take that to be the true price, and he will pay each of them that amount. But if they write different numbers, he will assume that the lower one is the actual price and that the person writing the higher number is cheating. In that case, he will pay both of them the lower number along with a bonus and a penalty--the person who wrote the lower number will get $2 more as a reward for honesty and the one who wrote the higher number will get $2 less as a punishment. For instance, if Lucy writes 46 and Pete writes 100, Lucy will get $48 and Pete will get $44.
What numbers will Lucy and Pete write? What number would you write?

Traveller's Dilemma achieves those goals because the game's logic dictates that 2 is the best option, yet most people pick 100 or a number close to 100--both those who have not thought through the logic and those who fully understand that they are deviating markedly from the 'rational choice'. Furthermore, players reap a greater reward by not adhering to reason in this way. Thus, there is something rational about choosing not to be rational when playing Traveller's Dilemma.

Soon, however, it strikes her that if she wrote 99 instead, she would make a little more money, because in that case she would get $101. But surely this insight will also occur to Pete, and if both wrote 99, Lucy would get $99. If Pete wrote 99, then she could do better by writing 98, in which case she would get $100. Yet the same logic would lead Pete to choose 98 as well. In that case, she could deviate to 97 and earn $99. And so on. Continuing with this line of reasoning would take the travellers spiralling down to the smallest permissible number, namely, 2. It may seem highly implausible that Lucy would really go all the way down to 2 in this fashion. That does not matter (and is, in fact, the whole point)--this is where the logic leads us.

Game theorists commonly use this style of analysis, called backward induction. Backward induction predicts that each player will write 2 and that they will end up getting $2 each (a result that might explain why the airline manager has done so well in his corporate career). Virtually all models used by game theorists predict this outcome for Traveller's Dilemma--the two players earn $98 less than they would if they each naively chose 100 without thinking through the advantages of picking a smaller number.

This afternoon I've visited a local stately home with my brother; Cusworth Hall, the Museum of South Yorkshire Life. It was a cheap day out because it's free admission and we took sandwiches to eat. Actually I took a pork pie and some sausage rolls, but my brother only had two buttered baguettes and some tap water from home that he'd taken in a plastic bottle...not very appetising.

Interesting locations where some of my recent blog visitors live.

Tomsk, Siberia, Russia - the home town of Rasputin, the 'Mad Monk.'

Dakar, Senegal

Kigali, Rwanda

Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

Honolulu, Hawaii

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

San Juan, Puerto Pico

Anchorage, Alaska, USA

Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada

Uralsk, Kazakhstan

Teheran, Iran

Damascus, Syria

Baghdad, Iraq

Tel-Aviv, Israel

Peking (Beijing), China

Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia

Of course this list isn't representative of where people actually access my blog from. About forty percent of my visitors live in Britain, twenty percent in the US, fifteen percent in Canada, ten percent in Europe and the remaining fifteen percent in the rest of the world.

- When you go fishing and you catch something, that’s good. If you’re making love and you catch something, that’s bad.

- Fish don’t compare you to other fishermen neither and don’t want to know how many other fish you caught.

- In fishing you lie about the one that got away. In loving you lie about the one you caught.

- You can catch and release a fish, you don’t have to lie and promise to still be friends after you let it go.

- You don’t have to necessarily change your line to keep catching fish.

- You can catch a fish on a 20-cent nightcrawler. If you want to catch a woman you’re talking dinner and a movie minimum.

- Fish don’t mind if you fall asleep in the middle of fishing.

My foxgloves are looking quite impressive at the moment. There are about thirty of them, all self-sets where the seed blew over from next door's garden. They're all purple apart from one, which is a pale yellow colour. I wonder why; I can see all of next door's garden and last year there weren't any foxgloves of another colour other than purple.

A US mother-of-three has invented a sex toy that connects to a vacuum cleaner to give an orgasm in just ten seconds.

The gadget, called Vortex Vibrations, works by concentrating the air flow to create a rapid and gentle vibration, reports the Sun.

Inventor Joanne Drysdale claims it can give multiple, back-to-back orgasms lasting up to a minute a time - and it does not even touch the skin.

The 49-year-old former toolmaker was cleaning her carpets when she came up with the idea for Vortex, which sells for £35 through lovehoney.co.uk.

She saw how a piece of rubber that had got caught in the nozzle was gently resonating in the air flow. She also felt a soft stimulation to her fingertips as she tried to remove the rubber.

At the time Joanne, from Utah, had not had sex for 15 years following her divorce.

She said: "In my attempts to alleviate frustration, I began to think what I could do. I noticed how the rubber moved in the top of the vacuum.

"After several hours, I came up with the prototype. The first time I tried it I reached an orgasm within 10 seconds.

"That was when I knew I was on to something that could potentially bring pleasure to all women."

Playground for pensioners

A playground where kids are banned and only pensioners can enter has opened in Germany.

The £15,000 outdoor playground in Berlin's Preussen Park has special exercise machines for the elderly plus traditional climbing frames and slides.

Renate Zeumer who runs Playfit, the company that designed the playground, said she got the idea for the park from seeing how much respect was given to the elderly in China.

She said: "I noticed how people exercised in parks and on the streets and thought something similar would be good here."

But some visitors have complained they found it hard to get around the playground at their age and one couple of elderly ladies reportedly got stuck after their walking frames wedged in the bark which has been used to cover the playground.

I've just been to sign on this morning and have managed to persuade the DSS to let me fully participate in the pilot scheme I've been attending at Reed in Partnership. So, I'll be able to take advantage of the work placements/therapeutic work, the training programmes and the personal counselling sessions and psychometric profiling.

I'm due to start on June 1st.

I recently found this posting on a news forum that I regularly visit.

From July 1, you can't have a smoke inside the pub that you've been going to for the last 35 years.

You can't throw a battery, or any electrical device, in a wheelie bin. There's a symbol on the back, see.

You can't fly without being made to feel guilty.

You can't drive without being made to feel guilty.

You can't drive past a school at 4 a.m. at 30mph, because it might be dangerous.

You can't stand up and cheer when your team scores a goal. Health & Safety, that one.

You can't be 6 feet tall, fit as a butcher's dog, able to run 100 yards in less than 12 seconds and 15 stone. Actually, you're clinically obese, and need medical attention.

You can't expect anyone at all to talk any sense if the topic under discussion is Global Warming.

You can't drink more than four glasses of red wine (three if you're a woman) without being accused of binge-drinking.

You can't use a hose on your garden. Wasting water is the water companies' job, and they're very good at it. They don't need any help from you.

You can't remove the chip from your wheelie-bin. The council put their bin on your property, demand that you use it as they command and fit it with spyware to record your habits, but they'll prosecute if you object.

You can't buy more than 16 paracetamol tablets at a time. Before you can kill yourself you have to spend the entire day flitting from one chemist to another. Such a nuisance.

If you're old, you can't expect the State to take care of you in a nursing home without them first forcing you to sell your house.

You can't expect an ambulance to turn up within 45 minutes of you being stabbed in the street. Not in London, anyway.

Hundreds of passengers on a train in India were asked by the driver to get out and push.

The train, in the state of Bihar in eastern India, came to a halt when a passenger pulled the emergency cord, reports Metro.

But it stopped in a 'neutral zone' - a small section of the track in which there's no electrical current in the overhead wires.

The passengers were forced to get off the train and it took them half-an-hour to push it the remaining 12 feet into the powered stretch of the line.

A spokesman for Indian Railways commented: "In so many years of service in the railways, I have never come across such a bizarre incident."

Now here’s a research project that wouldn’t have any trouble finding volunteers! Jennifer Chowdhury’s investigation into controlling computer games via intimately positioned touch sensors appeals on many levels… even works as a spectator sport!

Inspired by research into new interfaces for video games and by the Widows of World of Warcraft support group, Intimate Controllers is endorphin inducing goodness which takes half of the game off the screen.
The project consists of two people (male and female in this instance), where the man stands behind the woman. They both position themselves so that they can reach each other and see the screen.
The game (programmed in Flash) shows a sequence of blue and pink symbols that scroll up the screen with the objective being to hit the sensor with the corresponding symbol before it vanishes. Another cheeky aspect to the research is that the game is divided into themed levels. The first stage “At the Movies” involves a nice polite love-tap here and there… but as the levels progress to “First Date” and beyond, the action gets decidedly more frisky.

The girl wears a bra which has six sensors sown in various erogenous locations… similarly the guy has a pair of shorts with six throbbing “hot-spots”.
The result is a cyber-twister-esque experience that ensures that the ice is well and truly broken in about 20 seconds.

It is illegal to leave your house if you are not wearing underwear.

You must wear a shirt while driving a car.

You must pay a fine of $600 in Thailand if you're caught throwing away chewed bubblegum on the sidewalk. If you do not pay the fine, you are jailed.

No one may step on any of the nation's currency.

World's most embarrassing shark attack

A Folkestone fisherman has told how the world's most embarrassing shark attack left him with a nasty bite on his nose.

Tackle-shop owner Phil Tanner was attacked by a lesser-spotted dogfish after he reeled it in off the local pier.

He fought for five minutes to wrench the thrashing creature, a member of the shark family, off his nose, reports the Sun

Phil, 38, was left with a bloody gash and rows of tiny teethmarks round his nostrils after trying to show off his catch to pal Scott Allen.

He said: "I called out, 'Hey mate, look at this whopper'. But somehow Scott nudged my arm and the fish catapulted itself up to my nose with its jaws wide open.

"It clamped around my nostrils and wouldn't let go. It was agony and I was screaming. The fish didn't just hang on, either. I could feel it chomping its teeth as if it wanted me for its last meal.

"Everyone on the pier was watching me jumping up and down with a shark hanging off my nose. People were singing the Jaws theme tune - I've never felt so embarrassed."

Phil finally pulled the fish away and tended to his wound.

He added: "I probably did need stitches but I couldn't go to the hospital because I didn't want the doctors to laugh at me too. My mates take the mickey, but I am a shark attack victim. I could have lost my nose."

I might as well take advantage of the nice weather this morning and the fact that my noisy neighbours have moved out and do a bit of gardening.

I needd to spray the paved area with weedkiller again, go round pulling up all the acorns that have germinated and thin out some of the giant poppies so that they're able to grow to their full height.

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - A group of Venezuelan prisoners sewed their lips together in a grisly protest to demand a transfer to another jail, officials say.

The protest at El Rodeo jail west of Caracas took place amid a spate of prison shootings this week that killed four inmates in the South American country, national prisons director Col. Carlos Alberto Sutrun told Reuters.

"A group of prisoners sewed their lips together. They made a stitch with needle and thread," he said Thursday.

Eleven El Rodeo inmates had sewed their mouths up Monday and eight had not removed the stitches as of Thursday. They were demanding to be returned to a jail from which they had been moved this year following a riot. Sutrun said that authorities had agreed to the move.

Sutrun also said the protesters could still eat and drink "through the corners of their mouths."

I've just got back from the pub and am feeling a bit peckish and so have put an admiral's pie in the microwave...and it's smelling delicious at the moment: only five minutes until it will be ready.

If I decided not to buy the admiral's pie I could have purchased a mariner's pie instead, or just a plain old fish pir; or a fish crumble, or a salmon crumble, or a seafood crumble.

Bloody hell; life can be complicated at times.

Pub Told to Change Tricky Bathroom Signs

DESTIN, Fla. (AP) - Confusing signs on the bathroom doors at McGuire's Irish Pub have played jokes on customers for years, sending women to the men's room and vice versa.

But the father of a girl who was interrupted by a man in the women's room and Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation don't find the signs funny.

The agency recently threatened the Panhandle tourist landmark with closure for "Lack of signage properly designating bathrooms."

The state took action after the father filed a complaint, which said his 15-year-old daughter was embarrassed and left the restaurant crying after the bathroom incident.

General Manager Billy Martin has removed the signs at his Destin pub, but left them at his original pub in Pensacola.

"We're not trying to be malicious," Martin told the Northwest Florida Daily News. "It's an Irish joke kind of thing."

More than 3,000 pub patrons have signed a petition to bring the signs back.

The men's room sign has large print that reads "Ladies" and smaller text clarifying women shouldn't go in there because it's the men's room. The women's room has a similar sign.

The signs have been up for 10 years in Destin and 30 years in Pensacola.

I've just been out to lunch with V... It's our regular date after the group therapy session. The reason I couldn't get in touch with her was because she'd given me the wrong number for her new mobile phone - she'd somehow copied down this wrong number which was printed on the box somewhere.

On the medical front, she needed to stay in hospital overnight after her tests and so didn't feel up to contacting anyone. She'll need to wait three weeks for the test results and then might need minor surgery: she's had the procedure done before and so isn't particularly concerned...I think I would be though.

Teachers fly to US for happiness lessons

Manchester city council is spending £25,000 to send teachers to America to train them in giving happiness lessons.

The move has triggered criticism in a city that has the worst truancy rates in the country, reports the Daily Telegraph.

The 25 teachers will fly to Philadelphia this summer to learn about the scheme, which has been adopted by hundreds of US schools.

The lessons, aimed at 11-year-olds, will start at nine Manchester schools in September. If successful, they will spread to all 22 secondary schools in the city.

Nick Seaton, from the Campaign for Real Education, said: "There is considerable doubt that you can teach happiness. Schools already teach citizenship and drugs education but this is a step too far."

But Jenny Andrews, the council's assistant chief education officer who is running the scheme, said: "Research shows that resilience to setbacks can actually be learned and it can be a huge benefit for children in later life."

Schools in South Tyneside and Hertfordshire are also taking part.

The project is being jointly paid for by the Department for Education and Skills, the three councils involved and The Young Foundation, a London-based think-tank.

When Malta adopts the euro next year, the tiny Mediterranean island will get an unexpected boost to its international stature.

New euro coins and notes show Malta to be much bigger than it actually is, The Times newspaper reported Monday, because the island is too small for the minting machines to show it on the same scale as other euro zone countries.

As a result Malta, which is only 27 km (17 miles) long, is shown to be as large as Corsica, which is 183 km (114 miles) long.

Malta adopts the euro on January 1, 2008.

The field that once was Crush, Texas is now occupied by cows, but a recently replaced historical marker south of West, Texas tells the story of one of the most bizarre publicity stunts of all time.

It was a slow day at the office and George Crush, a passenger agent for the Katy Railroad was thinking about train wrecks and how they never failed to draw a crowd. George knew that even the slightest collision would have people coming from far and near to see derailments, explosions and steam-scalded victims.

If accidents drew crowds of hundreds, how many would come to a deliberate, heavily publicised crash? Agent Crush bet the numbers would be in the thousands, but no one in Texas in the 1890s was stupid enough to take the bet. They knew better.

George ran the idea up the MKT flagpole and his superiors saluted it. The railroad laid a spur off their main tracks north of Waco in September of 1896. A four mile spur with a grandstand, press offices, a bandstand and a "depot" marked Crush, Texas.

The "Monster Crash" was advertised for months in advance and newspapers kept readers updated on preparations. Two obsolete engines were given a reprieve from the scrap furnaces and reconditioned to the point where they could build up a good head of steam. Painted in contrasting red and green, and pulling boxcars covered in advertising, the locomotives were like aged gladiators painted with cosmetics for one final battle where both would lose. They were displayed in various towns before the event and people all across Texas were hoping they would live long enough to witness the event.

The half-town, half-carnival that became Crush, Texas was set up with restaurants, game booths and "lemonade" stands. Some of the latter even sold real lemonade!

The railroad had offered two dollar round-trip tickets from anywhere in the state and the first of thirty-three excursion trains began arriving at dawn on September 15, 1896. Some of the trains arrived with passengers riding al fresco - on top of the cars. Approximately 40,000 men, women and children were given until late afternoon to spend their money and be subjected to the speeches of politicians, the warnings of prophets and the light fingers of pickpockets.

The few trees on the site had boys hanging in them like noisy fruit. Children sat on their father's shoulders and ladies were politely asked to remove their hats. At 5:00 p.m. the engines nosed toward each other and "shook hands" like prizefighters before backing into position.

Agent Crush, riding a borrowed white horse, threw down a white hat as a signal and got out of the way. The engines headed toward one another while the crowd roared their approval over the locomotive's death-whistles.

Railroad officials had taken the precaution of asking their best mechanics about the chances of the two boilers exploding. The officials were reassured that it would never happen. But, the mechanics were wrong and the boilers exploded on impact, sending shrapnel into the crowd and killing several spectators. A hot bolt was sent through the eye of a Waco photographer (who miraculously survived).

Those not carried away by ambulance or hearse went home to brag to their friends and relatives that couldn't scrape together the two-dollar fare. Railroad cranes removed the big iron and souvenir hunters took away the smaller pieces. By nightfall, all that was left was mud, red and green chunks of iron and pools of used lemonade.

The Katy did have some claims by irate relatives of the victims, but refunds, cash payments and lifetime passes took care of them. A lifetime railroad pass in the 1890s was like winning the lottery. George Crush was fired (with a wink) and was rehired as soon as the press moved on to other disasters. Some accounts say that he was given a bonus.

Something I came across whilst online yesterday:

What is the English disease?

In the English language the phrase 'the English disease' refers to football hooliganism, syphillis, depression, hypochondria, rickets and 'sudor anglicus' - the 'sweating disease', an unknown disease which killed tens of thousands of people in England during the middle ages.

In Dutch, the phrase is used to describe what some people claim to be is an annoying trend in the language to separate compound nouns into their individual components [as we do in English.]

In French the 'English Disease' is militant trade unionism.

A Norfolk woman is still using a fridge her mother bought in 1957.

Geraldine Rowarth's British-made Prestcold fridge cost 65 guineas - a month's wages for husband Ian, a teacher.

But it was money well spent. For half a century later, it's still going strong in her daughter's farmhouse kitchen, reports the Daily Mail.

Sally Garrod was born a few weeks after her mother bought the fridge which has never broken down.

Mrs Garrod, who lives with husband David, 56, on a farm in Rocklands, said she was thrilled to be given the fridge 20 years ago.

"The door of the freezer compartment has broken off, the interior light has given up and of course it has to be defrosted regularly.

"But as an 'extra' fridge kept in our utility room, I would be lost without it."

Mrs Rowarth still remembers how exciting it was to have a refrigerator when they were only just taking off in the UK.

"I remember thinking I don't have to dash to the shops every day," said Mrs Rowarth. "It was such a new concept to keep things so cool. Neither of our parents had fridges."

The only signal in the village

Locals have been queuing to use a bench on their village green because it is the only place they can make a mobile phone call.

Residents discovered that by standing on the seat they can get a signal, reports The Sun.

Now the parish council in East Prawle, Devon, is building a 2ft podium for them to use.

The nearest phone mast is two miles away.

A councillor said: "We're against masts, now we don't need one."

A British made radio-controlled vibrator has been banned in Cyprus after it was branded a threat to national security.

The Cypriot military are concerned the sex toy's electronic waves will disrupt the army's radio frequencies on the island.

A spokesman for makers Ann Summers confirmed its Love Bug 2, a small, egg shaped device operated by a remote control, was on sale for use everywhere in Europe - except Cyprus.

The Ann Summers spokesman said: "The remote control only has a range of six metres. We have still been selling them in Cyprus, but with a warning urging Cypriots not to use it unless they travel abroad."

In its promotional literature the company describes the device as a "deceptively powerful matt silver love egg", later adding: "Not for use in Cyprus".

Military officials refused to comment on the reasons for the ban, but the government's Communications and Works Ministry said it had been a purely military decision.

A spokesman said: "We never even saw them, they were banned before we even had a chance to check them, but if issues of national security are at stake then that is not surprising.

"The military does operate on a different frequency to the general frequency, but they do not share that information for obvious reasons, only they would have been able to decide what SRD's (Small Range Devices) might be a threat and what to do about it."

Lizzie Eddleston from the Ann Summers press office in the UK said: "It is a shame but we have to honour the request and have made it clear that the Love Bug is not for sale in Cyprus.

"We have been told the electronic waves given off by the 'Love Bug' would affect military frequencies, but we have told locals that we have a lot of other devices that are not banned which will satisfy their needs. After all, it's better to make love, not war."

Dominatrix ad causes stir

A Jobcentre is carrying adverts for a "trampling dominatrix" in a kinky torture dungeon.

Job seekers can earn £100 a day for "wearing leather and stomping on S&M fetishists who enjoy being trodden on".

Previous trampling experience is not needed as training is given, says the ad at Norwich Jobcentre.

The advert is also on the Government's Jobcentre Plus website, run by the Department for Work and Pensions, reports The Sun.

Applicants must be 18 and are told it is a "fun job for reliable and open-minded people". Duties include "one-to-one sessions utilising the skills of domination and trampling".

It warns the work "may cause embarrassment to some people" but does not involve nudity. The job is open to both sexes.

Dungeon boss Gerry James, 32, charges £100 an hour at his Girl Power club in Newton Flotman near Norwich.

He said: "My clients are nice, professional guys with a fetish who want to be walked over and verbally abused. No sexual services are offered."

But Mr James is struggling to find suitable candidates. He said: "You'd have thought people would want easy money for a bit of walking. One girl thought I wanted a trampolinist."

But the DWP said the ad was legal and it could not discriminate.

At this very moment I should be sitting inside the Odeon Cinema watching 'Twenty Eight Weeks Later' with V... - but she didn't show up. Since I don't have a mobile phone I used a nearby callbox to try and ring her but then realised that I hadn't written down her new mobile number anywhere and so would have to return home.

When I tried to telephone from home I just got a pre-recorded message informing me that the new number wasn't recognised...so all I'm able to do is leave a message on her old number and hope that she picks it up.

I know she had my number programmed into her old phone; but what about the new one?

I'm totally out of contact with her at the moment because I don't even know exactly where she lives; so I'm stuck - there's nothing I can do at the moment though so it's pointless worrying about it.

Carp killed in toad sex frenzy

Randy toads killed prime carp worth £20,000 at a fishing lake by dragging them underwater.

The prized fish, weighing up to 8lbs, suffocated when amorous toads in a mating frenzy jumped on them as they basked in the shallows, reports The Sun.

Each carp was attacked by up to a dozen amphibians mistaking them for lady toads.

And more fish including roach, rudd and bream were killed by pollution from the rotting carcasses lying on the bottom of the lake.

Mike Heelis, 49, who manages Wykeham Lakes, near Pickering, North Yorks, said: "It was a horrendous sight.

"From a distance it looked like the fish had some sort of fungus on their heads. Then I realised they had these toads clamped to their heads.

"Toads have always come to our lakes to do what they do naturally - but this year there were thousands of them, jumping on anything that moved.

"The creatures were covering their gills and mouths. They just sank to the bottom and died.

"We used to have catches of 100lb in competitions but weights will be a lot lower now."

The Environment Agency said toad mating was a "natural phenomenon" and Mr Heelis could be prosecuted if he attempted to move them.

This is a much expanded version of a joke that I've found and first posted several months ago.

I am currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and I've been
having some problems lately. I've been running the same version of
DrinkingBuddies 1.0 forever as my primary application, and all the
GirlFriend releases I've tried have always conflicted with it. I hear
that DrinkingBuddies won't crash if GirlFriend is run in background mode
and the sound is turned off. But I'm embarrassed to say I can't find
the switch to turn the sound off. I just run them separately, and it
works okay.

Girlfriend also seems to have a problem co-existing with my Fishing 97
program, often trying to abort Fishing 97 with some sort of timing
incompatibility. I probably should have stayed with GirlFriend 1.0, but
I thought I might see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0. After
months of conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who has had
experience with GirlFriend 2.0. He said I probably didn't have enough
cache to run GirlFriend 2.0, and eventually it would require a Token
Ring to run properly. He was right - as soon as I purged my cache, it
uninstalled itself.

Shortly after that, I installed GirlFriend 3.0 beta. All the bugs were
supposed to be gone, but the first time I used it, it gave me a virus
anyway. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for a while. I
very cautiously upgraded to GirlFriend 4.0. This time I used a SCSI
probe first and also installed a virus protection program. It worked
okay for a while until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in my
system. I tried running GirlFriend 1.0 again with GirlFriend 4.0 still
installed, but GirlFriend 4.0 has a feature I didn't know about that
automatically senses the presence of any other version of GirlFriend and
communicates with it in some way, which results in the immediate removal
of both versions.

The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still some
problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some obscure
language I can't understand, much less reprogram. Frankly I think there
is too much attention paid to the look and feel rather than the desired
functionality. Also, to get the best connections with your hardware,
you usually have to use gold-plated contacts. And I've never liked how
GirlFriend is totally "object-oriented."

A year ago, a friend of mine upgraded his version of GirlFriend to
GirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version of
GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.0 expires within a year
if you don't upgrade to Fiancee 1.0. So he did, but soon after that, he
had to upgrade to Wife 1.0 which he describes as a huge resource hog.
It has taken up all his space, so he can't load anything else. One of
the primary reasons he decided to go with Wife 1.0 was because it came
bundled with FreeSexPlus. Well, it turns out the resource allocation
module of Wife 1.0 sometimes prohibits access to FreeSexPlus,
particularly the new Plug-Ins he wanted to try. On top of that, Wife
1.0 must be running on a well warmed-up system before he can do
anything. Although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with
MotherInLaw which has an automatic pop-up feature he can't turn off. I
told him to try installing Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if you try
to run it without first uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete
MSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.0
won't install anyway because of insufficient resources.

Any Ideas???

It seems that my noisy neighbours with all the children have moved out so I should be able to spend more time in the garden without being disturbed or annoyed; it's sunny at the moment but a bit to cold to sit out.

Of course, I'm enjoying the peace and quiet at the moment, but I might end up with even worse neighbours when the new tenants move in.

Army blows up bat box

Homes were evacuated and a main road closed when the Army blew up a suspicious package which turned out to be a bat box.

The A23 and the B2110 at Pease Pottage, West Sussex were closed for several hours after an Army bomb disposal team was called in, reports the BBC.

The Highways Agency said the package was a bat box being used as part of a wildlife survey.

It was placed on a bridge over the road in advance of an A23 expansion scheme.

"We are working on ways to improve identification of our property to avoid a repeat of the incident," said a spokesman.

The alert was raised amid fears the bat box contained explosives.

Several homes were evacuated and motorists experienced long delays.

A Sussex Police spokesman said: "As a result of a well-intentioned call by a member of the public the package was investigated but found to be harmless."

For the last twenty odd years, by the middle of May I would have used up all my thirty prescribed neoclarityn tablets for treating my hay fever - I'm allergic to tree pollen and so tend to suffer early in the season. However, this year has been different; after waking up to a runny nose and a violent sneezing spasm I've taken what is only my second tablet so far this year…despite the fact that it's raining quite heavily and has been for the last couple of days.

During April we had the hottest and driest month on record and I hardly suffered any symptoms at all.

While his mother was having a consultation with the doctor, Little Johnny could be heard terrorizing the people in the waiting room, yet she made no attempt to restrain him.

A few minutes later, they heard some clattering in an adjoining room, but still she did nothing. Finally, after an extra-loud crash, she casually said to the doctor, "I hope you don't mind Little Johnny playing in there."

"No, not at all," the doctor replied calmly. "I'm sure he'll calm down as soon as he finds the poison."

I'm a fan of the TV series C.S.I. and so this story naturally appealed to me.

A TEXAS university's plans for a site to study decomposing human remains have been put on hold due to fears that vultures drawn to the "body farm" may pose a danger to nearby aircraft.

Texas State University in San Marcos, 280km west of Houston, has been looking for sites for a forensic research facility for months, but has run into opposition from residents, and now, the local airport.

Vultures, known locally as buzzards, are large birds native to the state that eat carrion. They circle around in the sky, often in groups, when dead meat is spotted.

"There's a lot of people who don't want it their backyard, and that's certainly understandable," Mark Hendricks, a university spokesman, said today.

"It's a controversial project, there's no doubt about it."

He said the body farm would have six to nine bodies at any given time, in various states of decomposition.

Some would be partially buried, and others might be left on the ground under cages to protect them from vultures, Mr Hendricks said.

Texas State University decided not to use the site near the municipal airport after officials expressed concern that buzzards attracted to decomposing bodies might strike incoming or outgoing airplanes, Mr Hendricks said.

University officials said they would look for other possible sites for the project.

Researchers at body farms gather information used to train law enforcement officers to determine the time of death and to identify victims.

There are only two other body farms in the United States. One is in North Carolina and the other in Tennessee.

Mr Hendricks said there was widespread support for a facility in Texas because the climate was so different from the states that already have body farms.

I've just been to the newsagent's and it's a lovely, sunny morning. It's a bit too early in the year to sit outside and read the newspaper though; all of the garden is still in shade at this time in the morning and so it's still a bit nippy. The recent rain we've had should encourage my seeds to germinate though.

Salesman Richard Carter fears he's facing the sack after struggling with a seven-year erection.

Richard, 34, developed the rare condition priapism after taking panic attack medication.

It left his manhood almost constantly stiff and he needed eight hospital operations to reduce it, reports The Sun.

Richard's bulge also left him in agony as he drove vans selling fire extinguishers for Chubbs.

He was forced to take so much time off that bosses have told him they may need to "reassess" whether he can still work for them as an on-the-road salesman.

Richard, from Holbrooks, Coventry, claims he's been threatened with redundancy and offered a pay-off of just ten weeks' wages - despite ten years service.

He said: "Some may think it's good to have an erection for that long, but I was often in terrible pain. I had to wear knee-length coats in summer to hide it, yet people at work thought it was a joke."

The condition has now improved and Richard won a 2003 bravery award for using his extinguishers on a blazing car.

He said: "I was told the op may make me impotent, but I had to risk it to avoid any more pain."

Chubbs last night said they might find Richard an alternative job. A spokesman said: "We sympathise with him. His position is under review."

TEMPORARY

Period.
He really didn't give a fuck.

Bedlam here is for all mankind,
Only leaps of faith -
Embers, falling short of the breeze.

A littered cough,
Raining cats and dogs;
Tomorrow's forecast
On an old radio
-An out-of-breath
Experience.

A large fly's been annoying me and I've just sprayed it with air freshener. It's the first time this year I've needed to use the wasp and fly killer and I've picked up the wrong aerosol can.

I'm waiting for it to appear again though...and this time it'll be the right can.

96 years in same house

A Portsmouth pensioner is claiming a new record after living in the same house for 96 years.

Alex Baker has stayed in the two-up, two-down terrace since he was born there in 1911.

When he spent his first hours there, the Titanic had yet to sail and the First World War was still three years away.

The house bought for £130 is now worth £130,000 - but Alex laughed off the idea of ever cashing in.

He told the Mirror: "This house has always been my home, so why would I ever want to leave?"

Alex and his wife of 68 years, Edith, 89, raised three children at the house.

Son Brian, a 66-year-old retired cabinetmaker, said: "The bathroom was a tin bath in the yard and we had gas lamps until I was seven or eight."

Alex's uncle, Tom Searle, bought the house at the turn of the century, passing it on to Alex's mother, Alice. She and his father, Owen, had married in 1889.

Owen died in 1929 and when Alice passed away in 1957, the house went to Alex and Edith.

A woman walked into the kitchen to find her husband stalking around with a fly swatter.
"What are you doing?" She asked.
"Hunting Flies" He responded.
"Oh. Killing any?" She asked.
"Yep, three males, two Females," he replied.
Intrigued, she asked. "How can you tell them apart?"
He responded, "three were on a beer can, two were on the phone."

Rescue Units Called in to Save a Dummy

CASPER, Wyo. (AP) - The response was quick and complete: When a passer-by called Tuesday to report a worker dangling from a Western Area Power Administration tower 150 feet in the air, authorities responded by sending Casper Fire-EMS rescue and command units, two Natrona County sheriff's vehicles, a fire protection district rescue unit and a Life Flight helicopter.

All to rescue a dummy.

Dave Neumayer, district manager for the power company, said the rescue dummy had been suspended from the tower last week as part of a training exercise. Lightning slowed plans to remove the dummy from the tower.

The passer-by couldn't have known that. But Neumayer said the Casper Fire-EMS Department should have known - they participated in the training exercise.

Following on from my earlier review of Spiderman 3....a true story!

What began as a faint popping in a 9-year-old boy's ear - "like Rice Krispies" - ended up as an earache, and the doctor's diagnosis was that a pair of spiders made a home in the ear.

"They were walking on my eardrums," Jesse Courtney said.

One of the spiders was still alive after the doctor flushed the fourth-grader's left ear canal. His mother, Diane Courtney, said her son insisted he kept hearing a faint popping in his ear - "like Rice Krispies."

Dr. David Irvine said it looked like the boy had something in his ear when he examined him.

When he irrigated the ear, the first spider came out, dead. The other spider took a second dousing before it emerged, still alive. Both were about the size of a pencil eraser.

Jesse was given the spiders - now both dead - as a souvenir. He has taken them to school and his mother has taken them to work.

"It was real interesting, 'cause, two spiders in my ear - what next?" Jesse said.

Woman Charged $8,000 For Burger King Meal
Restaurant Corrects Mistake

FOUNTAIN INN, S.C. -- A Burger King restaurant made a king-size mistake that has caused a royal headache for a South Carolina woman.

A restaurant worker accidentally charged her more than $8,000 for a meal, reported WYFF-TV in Greenville, S.C.

Now the restaurant is trying to correct the error.

The mistake happened at a Burger King location in Fountain Inn, S.C., on Thursday of last week.

Guadalupe Pequino bought $8.64 worth of food at the drive-in window and paid with her Visa check card, issued by Bank of America.

Because the total was entered twice, Pequino's receipt showed she was charged $8,648.64.

The restaurant general manager, Jimmy Gadagno, said workers immediately took steps to credit the account.

"It was an honest mistake, and the store has done everything it can to credit the account," Gadagno said.

Gadagno said the store got a reference number indicating the money was returned to the account on Sunday, but Pequino said it took until Tuesday morning for her to get her money back, the television station reported.

"It's caused her a lot of problems in paying her rent, paying her car payment, buying food," Pequino's friend, Richard White, said. White spoke for Pequino, who does not speak English well. "It's caused a lot of problems. I don't know too many people that can have $8,648 withdrawn from their account and carry on normally."

I watched the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest last night; which I think is much more entertaining than the actual final because you get to see some really weird and absolutely appalling acts representing their countries.

Here's a list of last night's highlights:-

a song sung in Serbian with a title [and part of the main chorus line] that sounded like 'itchy crotch'

a cross between Michael Jackson and Huggy Bear (from Starsky & Hutch)

an anthem for vampires

a lesbian troup

a transvestite covered in feathers

a song about nuclear war

a singer who growled like a bear

a male Princess Diana look-alike

a Jarvis Cocker impersonator singing in Catalan

Children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, "Take only one, God is watching."

At the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies. Moving through the line a boy wrote another note to leave by the cookies, "Take all you want, God is watching the apples."

I've just put the bin out; this is a day later than usual because of the Bank Holiday. The binmen normally arrive at 08:00-08:30, so I can get the bin back inside the garden before I set off for the shops.

With it being Thursday, after posting this blog I'll have a look on my regualr sites for a download of the latest episode of Lost, which would have been broadcast last night in the US (Eastern Time.)

Warning - this play contains meat!

A playwright has been told to warn audiences his show features a roast chicken - to avoid offending vegetarians.

Doug Devaney, 41, is starring in one-man play Mein Gutt, a black comedy about one man's losing battle with obesity.

But Brighton Fringe Festival organisers say the roast chicken in the play could cause offence, reports the Sun.

Mr Devaney, of Brighton, said: "I've heard of strobe lighting or nudity being cause for audience concern but never roasted chicken.

"I'm happy to do it - I just find it weird. Will Shakespeareans have to warn theatre-goers about eye-gouging in King Lear from now on?

"It takes some of the surprise of theatre away. How sensitive are we?"

But event organiser Sandra McDonagh said: "We don't want to cause offence. There will always be one person who is sensitive enough to complain.

"I have come across staunch vegans who will kick off about most things. It's always better to cover yourself."

Just a quick comment about the BBC again, something that's taken me ages to remember to blog though.

I've got a digibox and can receive both BBC London local news bulletins and BBC Look North broadcast from Leeds.

Why is it called 'Look North' though? In my opinion this implies that the broadcasters are based down south and looking towards the North - thus we are receiving our news from a southern [London] perspective and bias.

This is just another reason why I really resent being forced to pay the compulsory BBC licence fee.

Several nurses on break in the Boston General cafeteria were
discussing boyfriends, past and present. Suddenly, a nurse from
New York City said, "Well, I have discovered men are all
alike!"
Whereupon, a pert little nurse from Dallas laughed and slapped
the table. "Gal," she said, "men are all Ah like, too!"

I've just done an interesting telephone survey about Leeds city centre and how I think it compares to other local towns and cities. It took me about fifteen minutes and I should receive a £5 shopping voucher for my trouble - I forgot to ask if it will only be valid in Leeds though. Even if it is, it won't be a problem though, my parents will be able to make use of it - they can travel for free on the train.

Train drivers' wee perk

Bulgarian train drivers have been issued with rotating chairs so they can pee out of the window without having to stop.

The drivers' union KNSB complained that, on some older trains, there were no toilets and they were having to pee out of the windows.

In response the management agreed to fit the special chairs so the driver can turn and pee out the window without having to get up from the controls.

I've just been to see it with V... and actually really enjoyed it. The film received some quite poor reviews and so I wasn't that keen to go myself.

My two criticisms are that it's a bit too long and some of the shots where characters are coming in and out of focus are quite annoying.

We're planning to see 'Twenty Eight Weeks Later' next week; I'm just going to check when it's on.

In September 1955, James Dean was killed in a horrific car accident whilst he was driving his Porsche sports car. After the crash the car was seen as very unlucky.
a) When the car was towed away from the accident scene and taken to a garage, the engine slipped out and fell onto a mechanic, shattering both of his legs.
b) Eventually the engine was bought by a doctor, who put it into his racing car and was killed shortly afterwards, during a race. Another racing driver, in the same race, was killed in his car, which had James Dean's driveshaft fitted to it.
c) When James Dean's Porsche was later repaired, the garage it was in was destroyed by fire.
d) Later the car was displayed in Sacramento, but it fell off its mount and broke a teenager's hip.
e) In Oregon, the trailer that the car was mounted on slipped from its towbar and smashed through the front of a shop.
f) Finally, in 1959, the car mysteriously broke into 11 pieces while it was sitting on steel supports.

A group of researchers led by the University of Tokyo has broken Internet speed records twice in two days. Operators of the high-speed Internet2 network announced Tuesday that the researchers on Dec. 30 sent data at 7.67 gigabits per second, using standard communications protocols. The next day, using modified protocols, the team broke the record again by sending data over the same 20,000-mile path at 9.08 Gbps."
Rumor has it that the first items spent at this speed were an ad to get Viagra at reduced prices and a request to help release a Nigerian inheritance.

Although I mentioned in one of yesterday's blog entries that it was threatening rain, in fact no more than a few drops fell. At the moment the weather is just as it was at this time yesterday though; so maybe today it might rain.

So, the garden is still very dry; obviously good growing conditions for my Californian poppies. Additionally, my Welsh poppies, both yellow and orange, are now flowering, and so is the star of Bethlehem plant.

The foxgloves are in bud and growing quite tall, and the hollyhocks which have survived the winter and are now three years old are showing the first signs of flower buds - I think they'll be a little disappointing though. However, the hydrangea should be very showy in a few weeks' time; it's covered in bud clusters.

I decided to pull up the aquilegia plants because they were such a dark purple that they might as well have been black: I've seen better weeds, to be honest.

Finally, the fuchsia bush has a few flowers, unusual this early in the summer.

Little Hannah Kept Alive By Wonder Drug – Viagra

VIAGRA MAY have earned a reputation as the sexual wonder drug to cure male impotency, but the medication is doing more than enlivening the recreational activities of a maturing population.
Sixteen-month-old Hannah MacDonald, who lives in Sunderland, suffers from heart problems and Chromosome Deletion Syndrome. Regular doses of Viagra have kept her blood flowing and her veins open. The sexual wonder drug is in fact keeping the baby alive. “Its so effective in helping the blood flow,” said 22-year-old mum, Rebecca.
Earlier at a hospital in Newcastle, doctors used Viagra to save the life of a prematurely born baby whose lung had collapsed. Doses of Viagra kept the blood moving, and little Lewis Goodfellow is on his way to a full recovery.

I've just been to the newsagent's at the end of the street and probably won't be leaving the house now for the rest of the day. I'll just take my time in reading the Sunday Times [and all the supplememts], watch a bit of TV and spend time on the computer.

It looks as though it might rain later, so I probably won't be spending any time pottering about in the garden. The garden does need the rain though - the soil is very dry and dusty.

Voteless politician to win nine seats

An estate manager will this week win a place on nine different councils without receiving a single vote.

Chris Byrne, 40, will be automatically elected because he is the only candidate.

It means he will win seats on Axbridge town council, Cheddar, Rooksbridge, Compton Bishop, Weare, Banwell and Draycott parish councils and two on Sedgemoor district council, reports the Daily Mirror.

But Chris, who nursed comic legend Frankie Howerd in his last years and still lives in Frankie's old home in Axbridge, Somerset, faces a contest for two more on North Somerset council.

An Independent, Chris insisted he will not be overstretched: "I'm very organised and even if I can't make all the meetings I'll always be available to do my duties. It's scandalous that more people don't care about politics."

Man slept through multiple stabbing

A US man who was stabbed nine times told police he couldn't identify his assailants because he slept through the whole thing.

Deputy police chief Tom Williams said Winona Police are investigating the incident which occurred at about 1.30am but was not reported until 8am.

Williams said the 23-year-old victim told officers he slept through the attack and only became aware of his injuries when his girlfriend saw he was covered in blood and brought them to his attention.

He is still being treated in hospital, reports the Winona Daily News.

Here's a list of all the services and facilities that no longer exist in Thurnscoe (pop 10,000), the pit village I grew up in:

Cinema
Snooker hall
Supermarket
Secondary school
Police station
Garage/service station
Half of the pubs & clubs
Regular market
Running track and athletics facilities

Now a list of the services and facilities that remain:

Railway station
Doctors' surgery
Dentist
Gun club
Greyhound racing track
Regional autistic school
Infant and junior schools
Regional veterinarian testing centre
Park
Country park
Cricket club
Theatre owned by local amateur dramatics group
'Thurnscoe Harmonic Male Voice Choir'
Allotments
Family Centre
Library
Recycling centre

What about your home town?

WOLFEBORO, N.H. -- A shoplifter would have to run pretty far to get away from this liquor store clerk.

Judy Brenner, 70, ran the Boston Marathon this month.

On Thursday, she was working at a state liquor store in Wolfeboro when she thought a young customer was trying to lift some liquor.

Brenner followed the teen out of the store. She said she wasn't going to let him get away with something he didn't pay for. He was walking fast -- so she picked up the pace. Finally, she sprinted about 100 feet to catch up with him.

She said she grabbed the half-gallon of whiskey he had under his jacket, while others who joined the chase grabbed the suspect and held him until police arrived.

Brenner finished the Boston Marathon in just over five hours, placing sixth among the women in her age bracket.

NEW YORK (AP) - You've heard of e-mail spam - now a New York City councilman wants to do something about menu spam, the unwanted menus and circulars that have a way of appearing on city doorsteps and under doors.

Simcha Felder has introduced legislation that would make it illegal to distribute menus, circulars and fliers to homes and apartment buildings that display a sign indicating promotional materials are unwanted.

Felder's bill calls for a fine of at least $50 for distributors that leave them anyway.

"This drives people out of their minds," said Felder, a Democrat who represents sections of Brooklyn. "You have no control over it. People are livid. If I'm responsible for the cleanliness of my property I should also have the authority to decide whether I receive the junk or not. You shouldn't have to be responsible for cleaning up someone else's garbage."

Felder said the accumulation forces property owners to clean it up or risk getting a summons from the Department of Sanitation, such as the $100 ticket his mother received this year.

'Couple' lives in glass house for a month

A man and a woman in China are living in a glass house for a month in a work of performance art.

Ye Fu, a well-known performance artist in Beijing, recruited fellow occupant Hairong Tiantian over the internet.

"She and I are to live like a couple in this glass house for one month without going out," he said.

"I'm trying to express my views on the relations of couples in modern society, which seem transparent, but are blocked or separated by an unseen wall."

The house, at Beijing's 798 Factory modern art gallery, is an all glass 12-square-metre two-room cell which allows visitors to see everything the 'couple' do.

It is divided into two cells by a glass wall, the "husband" and "wife" each occupying a room without communicating.

Organiser Mr Huang added: "The doors have been sealed. At the corner of each cell, there is a small hole, which allows them to receive supplies, like water and food, from the outside."

The toilet in each room is a corner surrounded by a pink curtain, and all the waste is to be collected in plastic bags and sent out through the holes.

"If they need to have a shower, we'll put a hose through the hole," says Mr Huang.

According to China News Network, the "couple" are keeping diaries and hope to publish a book on their experience.

I've just found out that the bus service out to Thurnscoe [where my parents live] is going to be increased to a thirty minute frequency; so there'll be twice as many buses on the route. This will certainly make life a little more convenient for me.

There is an old story about a mother who walks in on her six-year-old son and finds him sobbing. "What's the matter?" she asks.
"I've just figured out how to tie my shoes."
"Well, honey, that's wonderful. You're growing up, but why are you crying?"
"Because," he says, "now I'll have to do it every day for the rest of my life."

Well, I've been and voted.

Is it my duty to vote, or is it my democratic right or privilege?

PATNA, India (Reuters) - Villagers at a wedding in eastern India decided the groom had arrived too drunk to get married, and so the bride married the groom's more sober brother instead, police said Monday.

The groom was drunk and had reportedly misbehaved with guests when the bride's family and local villagers chased him away," Madho Singh, a senior police officer told Reuters after Sunday's marriage in a village in Bihar state's Arwal district.
The younger brother readily agreed to take the groom's place beside the teenage bride at her family's invitation, witnesses said.
"The groom apologized for his behavior, but has been crying that word will spread and he will never get a bride again," Singh said by phone.

A man walked into the ladies department of a Macy's, and walked up to the woman behind the counter and said, "I'd like to buy a bra for my wife"

What type of bra?" asked the clerk.

"Type?" inquires the man. "There is more than one type?"

"Look around," said the saleslady, as she showed a sea of bras in every shape, size, color and material. "Actually, even with all of this variety, there are really only three types of bras," replied the salesclerk.

Confused, the man asked what the types were.

The saleslady replied "The Catholic type, the, Salvation Army type, and the Baptist type. Which one do you need?"

Still confused the man asked, "What is the difference between them?"

The lady responded, "It is all really quite simple. The Catholic type supports the masses, the Salvation Army type lifts up the fallen, and the Baptist type makes mountains out of mole hills."

Men Are Like...

...placemats
they only show up when there's food on the table.

...mascara
they usually run at the first sign of emotion.

...bike helmets
they're good in emergencies but usually just look silly.

...government bonds
they take so long to mature.

...copiers
you need them in reproduction but that's about it.

...lava lamps
fun to look at it but not all that bright.

...bank accounts
without a lot of money they don't generate a lot of interest.

...high heels
they're easy to walk on once you get the hang of it.

...curling irons
they're always hot and always in your hair.

...mini skirts
if you're not careful they'll creep up your legs.

...handguns
keep one around long enough and you're gonna want to shoot it.

MP's graffiti crusade backfires

An Australian MP's anti-graffiti crusade backfired when he spent five hours scrubbing off a specially commissioned piece of street art.

Steve Pratt invited the media to witness his removal of an "obnoxious piece of vivid graffiti vandalism" on the side of a concrete bridge in Canberra, reports the Daily Telegraph.

It was only after he had reduced it to a discoloured smear with the aid of stiff brushes and industrial-strength detergent that it emerged it had been commissioned by a local sports club.

John Stanhope, the chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory, said the opposition MP's artistic vigilantism had been referred to police for investigation and possible prosecution.

"In his eagerness to thump the law and order tub, it seems that Mr Pratt may have joined the ranks of those he so consistently reviles - the vandals of our community," he said.

Jeff walks into a bar and sees his friend Paul slumped over the bar. He walks over and asks Paul what`s wrong.
"Well," replies Paul, "you know that beautiful girl at work that I wanted to ask out, but I got an erection every time I saw her?"
"Yes," replies Jeff with a laugh.
"Well," says Paul, straightening up, "I finally plucked up the courage to ask her out, and she agreed."
"That`s great!" says Jeff, "When are you going out?"
"I went to meet her this evening," continues Paul, "but I was worried I`d get an erection again. So I got some duct tape and taped my penis to my leg, so if I did, it wouldn`t show."
"Sensible" says Jeff.
"So I get to her door," says Paul, "and I rang her doorbell. She answered it in the sheerest, tiniest dress you ever saw."
"And what happened then?"
(Paul slumps back over the bar again.)
"I kicked her in the face."

It's now May and it's been another lovely sunny day in Doncaster. I've only needed to take one neoclarityn tablet for my hayfever so far this year; and this is after the warmest and driest April on record.

It looks like that some of us are going to benefit from the effects of global warming!

A Yorkshireman walks into a building and gets into the lift. He presses the button for the fifth floor. At the second floor the most stunning woman he has ever seen gets into the lift and leans seductively against the wall.

The Yorkshireman doesn't know where to look and starts to get very nervous. The woman begins to unbutton her blouse and throws it on the floor. She then takes off her bra and throws it on the floor. At this stage the guy is getting very nervous.

Then she says: "Make a woman out of me".

He unbuttons his shirt, throws it on the floor and replies, "Here, iron that."

1. You can talk about money without every having to make any.
2. Mick Jagger and Arnold Schwarzenegger both studied economics and look how they turned out.
3. When you are in the unemployment line, at least you will know why you are there.
4. If you rearrange the letters in "ECONOMICS", you get "COMIC NOSE".
5. Although ethics teaches that virtue is its own reward, in economics we get taught that reward is its own virtue.
6. When you get drunk, you can tell everyone that you are just researching the law of diminishing marginal utility.