Minimalist poet, minimalist lifestyle

A guy who was in the Air Force had just spent a year tour unaccompanied to Alaska.

The first night he got home, he exclaimed to his wife, "Honey, I want you to know that I haven't wasted all this time alone. Instead, I've mastered the art of mind over matter. Just watch this!"

And with that he dropped his trousers and shorts and stood before her in his altogether.

"Now watch," he said. Next he said, "Dick, ATTENTION!" And with that, his dick sprang to full erection. Then he said, "Dick, at EASE!" And his dick deflated again.

"Wow, that was amazing," said his wife. "Do you mind if I bring our next-door neighbour over to see this? It's really something else!"

The guy responded that he didn't mind at all, since he was proud of what he had accomplished.

So the wife goes next door and comes back with a delicious looking woman who got this guy's full attention! After a brief pause to take her in, he said, "Now watch this." Then he said
"Dick, ATTENTION!" and the dick sprang to life.

Then it was "Dick, at EASE!" But nothing happened. So the guy again said, "Dick, at EASE!" But still nothing happened.

So the guy now says, "For the last time, you son-of-a-bitch, I said AT EASE!!" Still nothing.

Well, the guy was embarassed and ran off to the bathroom. His wife made excuses for him and then joined her husband in the bathroom, where she found him masturbating.

"What in the world are you doing!?" she asked.

The guy says... "I'm givin' this son-of-a-bitch a dishonorable discharge!"

Focus on . . . Doncaster
HOW IT RATES

Doncaster’s origins are Roman. Transport has always played an important role here: the stagecoach trade of the 17th and 18th centuries generated wealth that built the Georgian town centre as well as a horse-breeding culture expressed in Doncaster racecourse, one of the oldest in England.

ARCHITECTURAL GEMS

St George’s Church (or Doncaster Minster) is a landmark on the town’s skyline. It was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, who was responsible for St Pancras railway station in London. Brodsworth Hall is a fine example of a Victorian country house, and the circular keep of Conisbrough Castle, dating back to 1180, is the oldest such structure in England.

WHAT’S NEW

Lazarus Properties has a development of 34 homes, including 11 houses, at Hamilton Lodge, Doncaster (Urbani, 01302 556001). As part of the redevelopment of Doncaster racecourse, Frank Whittle Partnership (01772 259824) has designed 34 luxury apartments in the new grandstand with views of the home straight.

QUALITY OF LIFE

Fair. There are good shops and the housing market is still affordable. Debenhams has a striking new flagship store in the Frenchgate Shopping Centre. Doncaster does not have the varied glimpses of countryside of neighbouring Sheffield, but at weekends the pubs and clubs come into their own. For a more relaxed pace of life, there are some old and pretty mining villages in the suburbs.

TRAVEL

Couldn’t be much better. The A1(M) and M18 come right into town, and it is only a 20-minute drive to the M1 and M62. There are direct trains to London from Doncaster railway station. The Robin Hood International Airport is only seven miles from the station, and there is a frequent shuttle service back and forth.

POPULATION

According to the 2001 census, Doncaster had a population of 286,866; nearly 80 per cent of its residents were under 50.

SMARTEST STREETS

Property prices in the town are on the low side: the average cost is £125,303, against £151,351 for Sheffield. Wander out to Bawtry or Bessacarr and there are some very attractive family homes that can still be picked up for less than £500,000.

BEST RESTAURANTS

People don’t eat out much here, but Nether Hall Road and Copley Road have some small independent restaurants. Eating Whole on Copley Road is good for veggies. If you go south to Bawtry, Dower House and Lancers are two good Indian restaurants, and Emilio’s is for eating Italian.

TOP NIGHTLIFE

Doncaster has two theatres, the Civic and the Little Theatre, and there are plans for a new performance venue. Bars and clubs offer plenty of glitz. Priory Walk is more laid-back, with cappuccino bars and jazz clubs. Clubs include Camelots for rhythm and blues, house and soul nights, and Flares, which concentrates on the 1970s.

EDUCATION

Doncaster College is the largest further education college in South Yorkshire; its £65 million Waterfront campus opened last year. Hill House St Mary’s is an independent coed day school.

WORKING LIFE

The biggest employer is the service industry, with 70 per cent in this sector. Manufacturing is next on 21 per cent. According to the 2001 Census, 5.8 per cent of local people were out of work.

UPSIDE

Doncaster is flourishing and aspires to city status. The impressive newly developed racecourse reopens in time for the St Leger Stakes in September. The airport has put the town on the map.

DOWNSIDE

It’s not the prettiest of towns, although plenty is being spent on regeneration. More worryingly, some of the town is built on a floodplain; so far this week 80 homes on the outskirts have been evacuated because of the heavy rainfall.

£129,000 The average property price in Doncaster
Source: Hometrack

2% The increase in property prices in Doncaster over the past three months
Source: Halifax

182% The increase in property prices in Doncaster over the past ten years
Source: Halifax

6 The number of recycling centres in Doncaster
Source: Doncaster Borough Council

I've always been interested in history; but always thought that there were many more contacts between civilisations and cultures than the history books acknowledge...well; here's one example.

Incan bones found in Østfold

Archeologists in Sarpsborg have found one thousand year old skeletal remains that appear to be Incan.
The skeletal remains were found during conservations work at St. Nicolas church in Sarpsborg, a city 73 kilometers (45 miles) southeast of Oslo, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) reports.

When archeologists were to move some rose bushes they made the surprising discovery of the remains of two older men and a baby.

"When we were about to take hold under the rose bush the skeletal remains slid out. It was quite surprising," Mona Beate Buckholm, archeologist at the Borgarsyssel Museum, told NRK.

One of the skulls had characteristics that indicate he was an Inca, the South American people centered in Peru.

"There is a bone in the neck that hasn't grown and this is an inherited characteristic only found among Inca Indians in Peru. This is sensational," Buckholm said.

The archeologists now plan to try and find out what the man was doing in Østfold, and how he came there.

Sexy 'woman' on dating line was man

An unemployed Dutch man pretended to be a woman on a premium sex phone live - with the blessing of social services.

Francis Capelle, 38, from Enschede, says officials were content he was earning money and no longer needed unemployment benefits.

Mr Capelle has been earning his living by pretending to be "sexy Ellen" to hundreds of men on the phone, reports De Telegraaf.

He says he could make his voice sound like that of a seductive woman to keep men on the phone for hours. He earned a modest income - about double what he would have got on benefits.

But, after ten months, he decided to call a halt because he felt he was earning money fraudulently.

"A lot of men gave me their names, address and phone number and tried to get a date. But I never went," he said.

"I'm very sorry for the men who spent so much money in talking to me. They spent a real fortune."

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysians in a northern village were alarmed by rumors that space aliens had been laid to rest in their neighborhood cemetery, but authorities learned the graves had merely been filled with banana tree trunks for a superstitious ritual, police said Tuesday.

Residents feared a local witch doctor had instructed grave diggers to bury extraterrestrials in the rural district of Pasir Mas on Sunday, causing police to detain the man for investigation, said district police chief Haliludin Rahim.

The man was freed after he explained that banana tree trunks, not aliens, had been buried in a ceremony for "medicinal purposes," Haliludin told The Associated Press.

The New Straits Times newspaper said the rumor started because of a misunderstanding after some of the grave diggers claimed to other people that they had been told they were burying aliens.

Witch doctors and spiritual healers are common in rural parts of Malaysia where traditional beliefs have long been entrenched.

Pole dancing ad ruled OK but aliens are out

Nando's ad received more than 200 complaints

Pole dancing "not incompatible with family values"

Bureau decisions "not based on complaint numbers"

POLE dancing strippers are compatible with family values, but animated aliens bearing hamburgers are deemed unfit for television, Australia's ad watchdog says.

The Advertising Standards Bureau dismissed 200 public complaints about a Nando's chicken chain ad featuring a pole dancer wearing only a G-string.

But an animated McDonald's advertisement showing a girl being abducted by aliens and rewarded with a Happy Meal has been axed for undermining "stranger danger" messages.

The ad watchdog previously banned a bank ad in which a man in a bunny suit was tripped up by a shopkeeper - because of one complaint of animal cruelty.

The dismissal of complaints about the overtly sexual nature of the Nando's TV and cinema advertisements has left critics shocked and confused.

The commercial features a topless mother working as a pole dancer thrusting her backside in a G-string at a male customer's face to receive a cash tip.

She is wearing a Nando's-fix patch designed to deal with her craving for Nando's meals.

The woman is then shown fully clothed with her husband and two children enjoying dinner at a Nando's restaurant.

The ad is classified M and can be shown after 8.30pm and on weekdays between noon and 3pm.

The Advertising Standards Bureau said the ad did not breach the advertising ethics code.

It ruled that "pole dancing was not incompatible with family values ... (and) this depiction of pole dancing was ... not overtly sexual."

But the bureau also found the woman "enjoyed being sexy" while pole dancing.

Advertising lobby group Young Media Australia said the decision was confusing.

"I thought (the ad) was a bit out there and based on the number of complaints it received, the bureau's decision not to ban it seems crazy," Young Media president Joan Roberts said.

"Two hundred complaints seems more reflective of community standards than one."

But bureau chief executive Fiona Jolly said decisions were not based on complaint numbers.

A majority of the board rejected all complaints over the ad.

There have been live reports on the TV news this morning from parts of Doncaster [Bentley and Toll Bar] which have been flooded, and the flood waters are still rising. This is because Doncaster is situated on the River Don, as is Sheffield, but is twenty five miles further downstream.

Some of the areas flooded are situated well away from the river, but because they're on the flood plain, and there are many local dykes which have burst their banks; they are now up to two foot deep in water - despite there being nothing more than the occasional shower these last two days.

Unfortunately, more heavy rain is forecast for the weekend; but the meteorologists are predicting that most of it will fall slightly further south and land in the catchment area of the River Trent.

Bad golfer starts brush fire

A US golfer who hit a bad shot inadvertently started a 20 acre brush fire.

The golfer had knocked his ball into the grass outside Wildcreek golf course, near Reno, Nevada.

When he tried to play back to the fairway, his club struck something that created a spark that started the fire.

"He was totally honest about it," Reno Battalion Chief Curtis Johnson told the Reno Journal-Gazette.

About 50 firefighters and fire engines from Reno and Sparks swarmed the area and spent hours putting out the blaze.

"We had a lot here," Johnson said. "We use a task force response now, three brush engines and three structure engines and a water tender. We've changed tactics this year because of the dangerous conditions."

A very loudmouthed, unattractive, mean-looking woman
walks into Wal-Mart, with her two unruly kids in tow,
screams obscenities at them all the way through the
entrance.
The Wal-Mart Greeter says, “Good morning, welcome to
Wal-Mart …. nice children you have there, are they twins?”
The ugly woman stops screaming long enough to say,
“Hell no, they ain’t, the oldest one, he’s 9, and the
youngest one, she’s 7. Why the hell would you think
they’re twins? Are you blind or just plain stupid? Do you
really think they look alike?”
“No,” replies the greeter. “I just couldn’t believe you got
laid twice.”

German driver swallows false teeth

A German lorry driver caused a crash on a busy autobahn after biting into an apple and swallowing his false teeth.

Peter Seiler, 57, was driving on the A3 motorway near Wurzburg when he decided to tuck into the apple.

But he chocked on a piece of the apple and as he coughed he ended up swallowing his false teeth.

As he struggled for air he lost control of the lorry and crashed into another car.

No-one was hurt in the incident.

Judge: 'What's a website?'

A judge trying an internet terror case stunned a court by admitting he did not know what a website was.

Judge Peter Openshaw brought a halt to the trial as a witness was being quizzed about an extremist web forum.

He told prosecutors at Woolwich Crown Court: "The trouble is I don't understand the language. I don't really understand what a website is."

Prosecutor Mark Ellison tried to help the judge by explaining. But Judge Openshaw, 59, admitted: "I haven't quite grasped the concepts."

Later he said he hoped a computer expert would give "simple" evidence when called to the stand.

Judge Openshaw said: "Will you ask him to keep it simple? We've got to start from basics."

I've just put out the green wheelie bin [for garden waste] for the binmen. It's the first time I've used it since it was delivered last year; it's full of my foxgloves which were flattened by the recent heavy rain.

Man set for execution wants to die laughing

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas man scheduled to be executed on Tuesday wants to die laughing.

Patrick Knight, 39, has been soliciting jokes on the Internet and plans to tell one of them before receiving a lethal injection, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said on Monday.

"He says he wants to keep his execution light," she said.

Knight was sentenced to die for the August 1991 murder of his two elderly neighbors in Amarillo, Texas.

Lyons said a friend of Knight's set up a page on the social networking Web site MySpace.com to solicit jokes, and "hundreds" of suggestions have arrived in the mail.

"I'll be enjoying my last days on Earth," Knight wrote on the Web site. "I'm not asking for pen pals, but I'm asking you to spread the word that I am holding a contest. I want people to send me their best jokes, and to keep me and others with (execution) dates laughing."

Texas leads the nation with 396 executions. None of those put to death have ever joked about it, Lyons said.

"We've certainly had some people who have recited a poem or a Bible verse, some people who have asked forgiveness or who pray," she said. "This is, to my knowledge, the first time anybody has told a joke as their last words."

While she says Knight will be allowed to tell his joke, none of his executioners in the state death chamber at the Walls prison unit in Huntsville, Texas will be laughing, Lyons said.

"Everybody who is there takes it very seriously and will not be participating in the joke," she said. "So knock-knock jokes are out."

Teen unplugged 'noisy' life support machine

A teenager in intensive care unplugged his neighbour's life support machine because the noise was keeping him awake.

Frederik Moelner, 17, said he had been trying to sleep as he recovered from a car crash but the noise of the life support machine as it helped 76-year-old Hermann Berghof breathe kept waking him up.

A police spokesman from Landshut in southern Germany said: "He told us the noise was getting on his nerves and he thought this was the best way to make sure he got peace and quiet.

"Luckily the medical staff acted promptly and reconnected the life support machine. If there had been any delay the old man could have died."

Moelner is now being questioned by police.

Tiger Woods wins farting contests on the course as well as golf trophies.

Ex-Ryder Cup star David Feherty said four-times Masters champ Woods is just as competitive in wind-breaking contests.

Feherty, 47, says he and Woods, 31, regularly hold contests to see who can let rip the most and the loudest.

Feherty, now a CBS TV host, said: "He doesn't allow himself to lose a thing, even our juvenile contest!"

That's what the TV weather forecasters are saying; more than a month's worth of rain has fallen on Doncaster in just the last twenty four hours; making June 2007 the wettest month ever...and there's still nearly a week remaining!

All this rainfall has certainly affected me.
Earlier on it was rainiing in in the kitchen and part of the garden was flooded to a depth of about four inches; and all day the digital TV signal has been pixelating due to the bad weather.

A Devon golfer got a hole-in-one - on the wrong hole.

Clive Seymour, 72, sliced his drive on the first hole at Hele Park in Newton Abbot, Devon, reports the Daily Mirror.

It swerved onto the green of the fourth hole - and dropped in the cup.

Three stunned golfers approaching the fourth green watched as his ball landed ahead of them.

Clive, who has a handicap of 24, said: "I'm afraid slicing is one of my problems.

"I really got hold of the drive but it went to the left, flew over some saplings and to the left of a big oak tree.

"I didn't see where it disappeared but three lads on the fourth said it went straight in the hole.

"You could have knocked me down with a feather."

Retired carpenter Clive, of Paignton, added: "People are saying I've scored the world's first hole-in-the-wrong-one."

Club director Duncan Arnold said: "It was unconventional, but still impressive. A hole in one - at any hole - is still a dream for many golfers."

A thief stuck a pistol in a man's ribs and said, "Give me your money."
The gentleman, shocked by the sudden attack, said "You cannot do this, I'm a United States Congressman!"
The thief said, "In that case, give me my money!"

First it was killer sharks. Then it was killer bees. Now American holidaymakers heading for the beach this summer are being warned to watch out for another lethal hazard: killer sand castles.
The US bucket and spade brigade went on full alert yesterday after research by a top physician revealed that people falling into holes dug in the sand had accounted for more fatalities in the US since 1990 than shark attacks - 16 as opposed to 12.

The article, written by Dr Bradley Maron in the New England Journal of Medicine, said sand holes and tunnels, the byproduct of building sand castles and other juvenile beach fortifications, could turn into deathtraps with horrifying speed.
Although such incidents were extremely rare, Dennis Arnold, who runs a beach patrol at Martha's Vineyard, off Cape Cod in Massachusetts, said lifeguards were under orders to stop children digging deep holes. Occasionally some parents protest, he said. "They'll say 'You're ruining my kid's day!' and I say 'I don't care!'," Mr Arnold was quoted as saying.

A lake in southern Chile has mysteriously disappeared, prompting speculation the ground has simply opened up and swallowed it whole.

The lake was situated in the Magallanes region in Patagonia and was fed by water, mostly from melting glaciers.

It had a surface area of between 4 and 5 hectares (10-12 acres) -- about the size of 10 soccer pitches.

"In March we patrolled the area and everything was normal ... we went again in May and to our surprise we found the lake had completely disappeared," said Juan Jose Romero, regional director of Chile's National Forestry Corporation CONAF.

"The only things left were chunks of ice on the dry lake-bed and an enormous fissure," he told Reuters.

CONAF is investigating the disappearance.

One theory is that the area was hit by an earth tremor that opened a crack in the ground which acted like a drain.

Southern Chile has been shaken by thousands of minor earth tremors this year.

A hen party literally brought the house down in Serbia after climbing on roof support pillars to get a better look at a male stripper.

The group that included female bank directors, lawyers, and even a local MP were among 200 women who piled into the club in Novi Sad, northern Serbia.

No one was hurt when the roof collapsed and spokesman for the club, Nenad Savic, said: "We thought they would all go home then, but they demanded the show go on to the end."

A little boy was lost at a large shopping mall. He approached a uniformed policeman and said, "I've lost my dad!"

The cop asked, "What's he like?"

The little boy replied, "Beer and women with big boobs."

By the way; I didn't write these.

FEMALE POEM
I want a man that’s handsome, smart and strong
One who loves to listen long,
One who thinks before he speaks,
One who’ll call, not wait for weeks.
I want him to be gainfully employed,
And when I spend his cash, he not be annoyed.
Pulls out my chair and opens my door,
Massages my back and begs to do more.!
Oh! For a man that makes love to my mind, and knows what to answer to “how big is my behind?”
I want this man to love me to no end, and always be my very best friend.

MALE POEM
I want a deaf-mute nymphomaniac with huge boobs who owns a liquor store, a

A New Zealand couple have been blocked by authorities in their bid to name their baby son '4real'.

Pat and Sheena Wheaton decided on the name after glimpsing him for the first time during a scan, reports Metro News.

But they have been told that '4real' can't go down on the birth certificate because numerals are not allowed.

Mrs Wheaton told TV One: "For most of us, when we try to figure out what our names mean, we have to look it up in a babies book and there's no direct link between the meaning and the name.

"With this name, everyone knows what it means."

But when the parents tried to file the name with New Zealand's Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, they were told names beginning with a number were against the rules.

The government office has opened negotiations with the parents about the name under a policy that says all unusual names must be given case-by-case consideration.

Registrar-General Brian Clarke said in a statement: "The name has not at this stage been rejected. We are currently in discussions with the parents to clarify the situation."

New Zealand law requires all children to be registered within two months of birth and the baby will be registered as 'Real' if no compromise is reached.

A Professor was giving a lecture on “Involuntary Muscular
Contractions” to his first year medical students. Realizing that
this was not the most riveting subject, the Professor decided to
lighten the mood slightly. He pointed to a young woman in the front
row and said, “Do you know what your asshole is doing while you’re
having an orgasm?”
She replied, “Probably deer hunting with his buddies.”
The professor laughed so hard he could not continue with the class.

A Berlin hotel is giving its guests a taste of communist East Germany.

Ostel takes its guests back to a pre-1989 era of ugly brown and orange wallpaper, spartan furnishings and Politburo portraits.

The hotel, which opened in Berlin in May, offers guests a choice of rooms in the style of the old eastern bloc, reports the BBC.

The hotel is a former East German Plattenbauwohnung - the kind of mass-produced concrete apartment building that came to symbolise life in the communist bloc.

In the reception four clocks show the time in Moscow, Berlin, Havana and Beijing.

The hotel was the brainchild of two former East German circus performers, Daniel Helbig and Guido Sand.

Their concept of retro chic continues a wave of 'Ostalgie' - nostalgia for some aspects of life in former East Germany, expressed in the cult status of Trabant cars and the hit film Goodbye Lenin.

The hotel founders managed to rescue communist-era furnishings from private homes and the dusty store rooms of furniture dealers.

A display case in the hotel lobby contains East German souvenirs such as plastic egg cups, chocolate GDR-Mark coins and even a rare roll of GDR toilet paper.

The inventor of the Harley Davidson Motorcycle Corporation, Arthur
Davidson, died and went to heaven. At the gates, St. Peter told
Arthur, “since you’ve been such a good man and your motorcycles have
changed the world, your reward is, you can hang out with anyone you
want in Heaven.”
Arthur thought about it for a minute and then said,”I want to hang out
with God.”
St. Peter took Arthur to the Throne Room, and introduced
him to God. God recognized Arthur and commented, “Okay, so you were
the one who invented motorcycles, eh?!”
Arthur said, “ya, that’s me…”
God commented, “well, what a big deal in inventing something that’s
pretty unstable, makes noise and pollution, and can’t run without a road!”
Arthur was apparently embarrassed, but finally spoke, “Excuse me but
aren’t you the inventor of woman???”
God said, “Ah, yes.”
“Well,” said Arthur, professional to professional, you have some major
design flaws in your invention.
1. There’s too much inconsistency in the front-end protrusion;
2. It
chatters constantly at high speeds;
3. Most of the rear ends are too
soft and wobble too much;
4. The intake is placed way too close to the
exhaust;
5. And the maintenance costs are outrageous!!
“Hmmmm, you may have some good points there,” replied God, “hold on.”
God went to his Celestial supercomputer, typed in a few words and
waited for the results. The computer printed out a slip of paper and
God read it. “Well, it may be true that my invention is flawed,” God
said to Arthur, “but according to these numbers, more men are riding
my invention than yours. !!!

Q: How many musicians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One, two, one, two, three, four!

We discussed some interesting subjects at my group therapy session this morning.

The origin of the phrase 'cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'

Was the Norman Conquest good for Britain?

What do I admire [me personally] about the Romans?

PALATINE, Ill. (AP) - A mother of two in this suburb of Chicago doesn't have to turn on the news for an update on NASA's space mission. She just flips on her baby monitor. Since Sunday, Natalie Meilinger's baby monitor has been picking up black-and-white video from inside the space shuttle Atlantis.

"Whoever has a baby monitor knows what you'll usually see," said the elementary school science teacher. "No one would ever expect this."

Live video of the mission is available on NASA's Web site, so it's possible the monitor is picking up a signal from somewhere.

"It's not coming straight from the shuttle," NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean said. "People here think this is very interesting and you don't hear of it often - if at all."

Meilinger silenced disbelieving co-workers by bringing in a video of the monitor to show her class on Tuesday, her students' last day of school. At home, 3-month-old Jack and 2-year-old Rachel don't quite understand what their parents are watching.

"I've been addicted to it and keep waiting to see what's next," Meilinger said.

Green blood shocker

Surgeons operating on a man were shocked to find he had green blood.

Tests showed he had taken too many of a headache pill called sumatriptan.

He was diagnosed a rare condition in which sulphur from the sumatriptan combined with the blood's haemoglobin to change its colour.

The 42-year-old smoker had needed an operation on his leg to relieve a circulation problem in Vancouver, Canada, reports The Sun.

Dr Alana Flexman, of St Paul's Hospital, said: "During insertion, we normally see arterial blood come out. That's how we know we're in the right place. And normally that blood is bright red, as you would expect in an artery.

"But in his case, the blood kept coming back as dark green instead of bright red. It was sort of a green-black. Like an avocado skin maybe.

"We were very concerned, obviously."

The man made a full recovery.

TOKYO (AP) - Japan will get its first nursing home for dogs with round-the-clock monitoring by doctors and a team of puppies to help aging pooches feel younger, a pet products company said Wednesday.

Owners pay 98,000 yen ($800) a month to keep their dogs at the Soladi Care Home for pets, which opens Friday, according to a joint release by Soladi Co. and the Endo Veterinary clinic in Tochigi, eastern Japan.

Veterinarians at the home will offer round-the-clock monitoring and residents will be fed specially fortified food, the release said.

The home, which can accept 20 dogs at one time, will also employ puppies to play with the aging dogs to help them keep fit and feel younger, the release said.

Analysts say that a boom in pet ownership in Japan, coupled with better health care and a more balanced diet, has led to a surge in elderly pets in Japan.

That has spurred doting owners to turn to vitamins, aromatherapy and even acupuncture to help their companions through their old age.

A Kent man had to be freed by firemen after getting his penis stuck in a padlock.

The man, in his 50s, turned up at his local fire station in Margate after a sex game went wrong.

He was sent off to hospital, but medics could do nothing. So he returned to the fire station.

The key hole had been superglued so firemen had to use hydraulic cutters to release him.

He was eventually freed after two-and-a-half eye-watering hours.

A pal told The Sun: "God knows what he was up to - but he won't be trying it again in a hurry."

I've been feeling a bit uncomfortable this morning; I'm experiencing a lot of static electricity discharges through my hair and clothing. I don't really understand why this is happening, since we had a severe storm last night with plenty of thunder and lightning - I would have thought that this would have cleared the air.

Maybe we're due another storm later today.

A 747 was starting its descent and the pilot had forgotten to turn off the P.A. system.
''As soon as I clock off'' he said, ''I'm going to have a nice cold beer and then screw the arse off that blonde flight attendant.'' The horrified flight attendant made a dash toward the cockpit, but tripped over in the aisle.
A little old lady sitting there whispered, ''There's no need to hurry love, he said he was going to have a beer first.''

A Father's Last Request

A husband and wife had four boys. The odd part of it was that the older three had red hair, light skin, and were tall, while the youngest son had black hair, dark eyes, and was short.
The father eventually took ill and was lying on his deathbed when he turned to his wife and said, "Honey, before I die, be totally honest with me - is our youngest son my child?"
The wife replied, "I swear on everything that's holy that he is your son."
With that the husband passed away. The wife then muttered, "Thank God he didn't ask about the other three."

England beating the West Indies in the fourth cricket test match.

Watching C.S.I. on the T.V. tonight.

Spending a bit of time in the garden, clearing up the mess caused by the recent heavy rain.

A farmer just got married and was going home on his wagon pulled by a team of horses. When one of the hoses stumbled, he said, "That's once."

Then it stumbled again. He said, "That's twice."
Then later it stumbled a third time. This time, he didn't say anything, just pulled out a shotgun and shot the horse dead.

His wife cried out and started to yell at him. The farmer turned to her and said, "That's once."

A squirrel went on the rampage in Germany and attacked several people before it was killed by a pensioner with his zimmer frame.

The squirrel attacked a 70-year-old woman and a 33-year-old builder in Passau, Bavaria, biting and scratching them.

But when it tried to attack 72-year-old Guenther Mittelbaum he hit it with his zimmer frame, knocking it to the ground before squashing it.

He said: "It was biting and scratching and was almost impossible to fight off. I got in a lucky blow though and then saw my chance and crushed it to death."

Tests revealed the animal did not have rabies and vets and police are investigating why the animal would have suddenly attacked people.

An Amish woman and her son are walking through a mall for the first time, totally stunned by everything they see.

They are especially fascinated by two silver walls which slide together and then apart.

They both walk up closer to the sliding silver walls. They see a fat, little old man waddle inside and watch as the doors close behind her.

The mother and son can't believe their eyes when minutes later, the silver doors open and a tall, well-built stud strides out.

The mother then turns to the son and says, "Son, go and get your father."

A guy was seated next to a 10-year-old girl on an aeroplane. Being bored, he turned to the girl and said, "Let's talk. I've heard that flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger."

The girl, who was reading a book, closed it slowly and said to the guy, "What would you like to talk about?"

Oh, I don't know," said the guy. "How about nuclear power?"

"OK," she said. "That could be an interesting topic. But let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow and a deer all eat the same stuff... grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, and a horse produces clumps of dried grass. Why do you suppose that is?"

The guy thought about it and said, "Hmmm, I have no idea."

To which the girl replied, "Do you really feel qualified to discuss nuclear power when you don't know sh*t?"

A Spanish hotel chain is running a competition for stressed executives to let off steam in a fashion usually reserved for rock stars -- by smashing hotel rooms.

NH Hoteles will allow 30 people chosen by a team of psychologists to help demolish the interior of the 11-year old NH Alcala hotel in central Madrid as part of its refurbishment, it said.

The chosen 30, armed with mallet and hard hat, can destroy any part of the 146-room building, NH said, from bringing down walls to smashing windows.

The demolition will take place on July 3.

From Yesterday's Daily Telegraph.

Bin bag 'spy camera' to enforce refuse rules

A council is to hide a camera in a bin bag to catch residents who do not follow new rules about putting out the rubbish.

A spy camera will be put in a rubbish bag left in an alleyway

Householders in a seaside town have been told to put their bins out at the front of their homes and not in an alleyway to the rear.

They must also leave their rubbish out between set times to ensure it does not attract pests or miss the dust cart.

To enforce the new rules, a camera will be placed in a rubbish bag and left in an alleyway to blend in with the surroundings to catch offenders. Those filmed breaking the rules will be given a ticking off.

Repeat offenders could be handed a fixed penalty notice or even be taken to court and fined up to £1,000.

The tiny covert camera, which has cost Weymouth and Portland Council, Dorset, up to £10,000, will also help catch householders who put their rubbish out too early or too late.

The initiative has shocked local taxpayers. The spy camera is being introduced in the Park district in Weymouth, an area that suffers from fly-tipping. Residents in the area will have to follow strict rules which come into force on June 22.

They will only be allowed to put out their rubbish between 8pm and 6am the night before collection and it will have to be at the front of their homes.

Peter Bury, the council environmental health officer, said the camera will help enforce the new rules but also catch fly-tippers, graffiti artists and drug dealers.

He said: "As well as the alleyways we will also place the camera in bushes or a brick wall to catch fly tippers, and drug dealers."

Mr Bury said the device will not be hooked up to a control room and staff will study the footage after a few hours filming.

He said refuse collectors will be alerted as to when and where it will placed in bin bags to stop them carting it off as rubbish. In March, a London borough announced plans to hide cameras in tin cans and bricks to catch out offenders.

Ealing council in west London said the hidden cameras would catch people committing "major envirocrimes".

More than 30 councils have already secretly fitted microchips to wheelie bins as the Government comes under increasing pressure to increase recycling rates.

On Friday I did the psychometric test at the group therapy sessions I've been attending.

According the results I'm a sociopath, am totally unable to empathise with any other human being, yet would make an excellent military leader on the battlefield.

Maybe this is why no-one has ever offered me employment.

I don't know.

A guide dog is reportedly helping to lead the hymns every Sunday at a Welsh chapel.

Teddy the golden retriever has become a member of the small congregation at Rehoboth in Five Roads, near Llanelli, where he is adding his bark to the singing.

The five-year-old has been attending services with his carer Nona Rees since February but in the last month he has started to play a more vocal role.

Mrs Rees told the BBC that the dog only joins with the rousing hymns and often takes a break to sleep during sermons.

She has been looking after the golden retriever while his owner recovers from illness.

"Everywhere I go he goes," she said. "He just used to put his head down and sleep but then one day started to join in - I did not know where to look."

But she said other members of the congregation seemed quite happy with the extra voice so he has continued attending on Sundays ever since.

"It's not every hymn - its the faster ones and the higher ones he joins in," added Mrs Rees

"He's a lovely working guide dog and I will be very sorry to see him go when he returns to his owner."

Chapel organist Jim Jones added: "We are only a small chapel - usually there are less than 20 of us - but they are all singing a bit louder so they can be heard over Teddy."

A trucker who has been out on the road for three weeks stops into a brothel outside Vegas. He walks straight up to the Madam, drops down $500 and says, "I want your ugliest woman and a bologna sandwich!!!" The Madam is astonished. "But sir, for that kind of money you could have one of my finest ladies and a three-course meal." The trucker replies, "Listen sweetheart, I ain't horny, I'm homesick."

According to my visitor and pageview stats on Sitemeter, for the past week and a half my blog's been about fifty percent more popular than normal.
However, during this same period it hasn't once been listed in the Top Twenty Blogs, when previously it was regularly appearing there.

I haven't a clue how the list is calculated. I've read other people's blogs making the same point...it must be one of life's unsolved mysteries.

Now that I've got a scanner, I might as well start using it.

I'm currently in the process of archiving all my published poems on another blogsite. I'm scanning in all the front covers and the relevant text. There's a twenty year backlog and so it might take a while.

Here's the link.

The blog's called 'Lost Among Equals' because if ever I got the opportunity to publish a collection of my work, this is what I'd call it because the phrase aptly sums up my life.

Now that I've fathomed out how to do it, I've also included a permanent link on the right-hand sidebar.

Three scientific questions I've been pondering lately…I don't have a clue as to what the answers are.

1…When ice ages occur, do they strike both hemispheres simultaneously?

2…How does light know it needs to refract through water to find the shortest/quickest route?

3…What propels sound and light along?

We're having the first significant rainfall here in Doncaster for about three weeks - maybe it'll encourage my garden plants to grow.

When I was in town I had to be careful that I didn't get an eye poked out though because of all the women carrying umbrellas.

You'd think that by now someone would have come up with a much safer design for an umbrella. Or maybe we should just encourage women to wear woolly hats!

POLICE officers forced entry into a home in a bid to help a women heard crying only to find it was her rabbit who had called for attention.

Operators from a telephone monitoring service connected to the house told Bromley Police they could hear a woman crying and whimpering down the line in Shurlock Drive, Orpington.

It was believed the resident was in need of immediate help.

Two officers could not find a way of getting into the flat and no neighbours or relatives could assist them.

They demolished both the door and frame and a large part of the surrounding wall and hallway.

Once inside, both officers were confronted by a large brown lop-eared Dutch rabbit hopping around the front room and whimpering.

The rabbit, named Humphrey, had pulled the cord which telephones the monitoring service while his owner was out shopping at around 1pm on May 27.

I think I've just upset someone who knocked at my door. She was a young woman who was trying to get me to make a donation to, or possibly get involved with a charity that she worked for.

When she mentioned that it was working in Third World countries I told her I wasn't interested and that in my opinion charity begins at home; after all there's plenty of poverty in England.

The name of the charity she represented was called 'Merlin'. I told her that I thought this was a rather inappropriate choice of name and quoted the lines referring to King Arthur, 'The once, and future king.' She seemed rather perplexed...I'm just a little angry myself: firstly that they are using a name that's associated with England/Britain for an oversees aid charity; secondly, that she's not aware of the levels of poverty in her own town; and thirdly, that the education system has so failed her that didn't have a clue what I was on about.

Two top sniffer dogs have been fired - for urinating on luggage and sexually harassing women.

Mok and Lai, strays retrained as police dogs, won praise for finding drugs.

But some passengers complained at their antisocial habits, reports the Daily Mirror.

Mok's former handler at Chiang Rai airport in Thailand said: "He liked to pee on luggage while searching for drugs.

"He also liked to hold on to women's legs. They were strays so their manners were worse than foreign breeds."

The dogs now work on a farm herding chickens and pigs.

The funniest thing about this report is that the German word for whorehouse/brothel is 'Puff'; in English-speaking countries this case would take on all new meanings.

German vandal, 70, nabbed spraying rude graffiti

A German pensioner has been arrested for vandalism after being caught spraying the word "Puff" (whorehouse) on houses in the Bavarian town of Hof, near the Czech border, a police spokeswoman said on Monday.

The 70-year-old had sprayed at least two houses with graffiti when a young man saw him in action with his spray can and challenged him, the spokeswoman said.

The elderly vandal dropped the can and ran, but the younger man caught up with him and held him down until police arrived. The spokeswoman said the houses he had sprayed were just people's homes and his motive was unclear.

A memorable public safety announcement from Alaska Air flight attendants
Before takeoff

Hello and welcome to Alaska Flight 438 to San Francisco. If you're going to San Francisco, you're in the right place. If you're not going to San Francisco, you're about to have a really long evening.

We'd like to tell you now about some important safety features of this aircraft.

The most important safety feature we have aboard this plane is... the flight attendants. Please look at one now.

There are five exits aboard this plane: two at the front, two over the wings, and one out the plane's rear end. If you're seated in one of the exit rows, please do not store your bags by your feet. That would be a really bad idea. Please take a moment and look around and find the nearest exit. Count the rows of seats between you and the exit. In the event that the need arises to find one, trust me, you'll be glad you did. (This is excellent advice, and something I always do.) We have pretty blinking lights on the floor that will blink in the direction of the exits. White ones along the normal rows, and pretty red ones at the exit rows.

In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, these baggy things will drop down over your head. You stick it over your nose and mouth like the flight attendant is doing now. The bag won't inflate, but there's oxygen there, promise.

If you are sitting next to a small child, or someone who is acting like a small child, please do us all a favor and put on your mask first. If you are traveling with two or more children, please take a moment now to decide which one is your favorite. Help that one first, and then work your way down.

In the seat pocket in front of you is a pamphlet about the safety features of this plane. I usually use it as a fan when I'm having my own personal summer. It makes a very good fan. It also has pretty pictures. Please take it out and play with it now.

Please take a moment now to make sure your seat belts are fastened low and tight about your waist. To fasten the belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle. To release, it's a pulley thing -- not a pushy thing like your car because you're in an airplane -- HELLO!!

There is no smoking in the cabin on this flight. There is also no smoking in the lavatories. If we see smoke coming from the lavatories, we will assume you are on fire and put you out. This is a free service we provide. There are two smoking sections on this flight, one outside each wing exit. We do have a movie in the smoking sections tonight ... hold on, let me check what it is .... Oh here it is; the movie tonight is Gone with the Wind.

In a moment we will be turning off the cabin lights, and it's going to get really dark, really fast. If you're afraid of the dark, now would be a good time to reach up and press the yellow button. The yellow button turns on your reading light. Please don't press the orange button unless you absolutely have to. The orange button is your seat ejection button.

We're glad to have you with us on board this flight. Thank you for choosing Alaska Air and giving us your business and your money. If there's anything we can do to make you more comfortable, please don't hesitate to ask.

If you all weren't strapped down, you would have given me a standing ovation, wouldn't you?

After landing:

Welcome to the San Francisco International Airport. Sorry about the bumpy landing. It's not the captain's fault. It's not the copilot's fault. It's the Asphalt.

Please remain seated until the plane is parked at the gate. At no time in history has a passenger beaten a plane to the gate. So please don't even try.

Please be careful opening the overhead bins because "shift happens."

I've never come across these before. I was just viewing random pages on Wikipedia.

Keeper of Harvests
Cat
Frederick's Honours
Rooster
Hot Air Balloon
Line of Logs
Electricity Generator
Mast
Northern Fly
Owl
Printshop
Flamingo
Guardian of the Pole
George's Psaltery
Apple-bearing Branch
Charles' Oak
Sceptre of Brandenburg
Sundial
Reindeer
Poniatowski's Bull
Herschel's Telescope
Tortoise
Tigris River
Solitary Thrush
Wasp

A beautiful, voluptuous woman went to a gynaecologist. The doctor took one look at this woman and all his professionalism went out the window. He immediately told her to undress.

After she had disrobed the doctor began to stroke her thigh. Doing so, he asked her, "Do you know what I'm doing?" "Yes," she replied, "you're checking for any abrasions or dermatological abnormalities." "That is right," said the doctor.

He then began to fondle her breasts. "Do you know what I'm doing now?" he asked. "Yes," the woman said, "you're checking for any lumps or breast cancer." "Correct," replied the shady doctor.

Finally, he mounted his patient and started having sexual intercourse with her. He asked, "Do you know what I'm doing now?" "Yes," she said. "You're getting herpes; which is why I came here in the first place."

An attorney telephoned the governor just after midnight, insisting that he talk to him regarding a matter of utmost urgency.

An aide eventually agreed to wake up the governor.

"So, what is it?" grumbled the governor.

"Judge Garber has just died" said the attorney, "and I want to take his place."

The governor replied: "Well, it's OK with me if it's OK with the undertaker."

Gran quizzed over birds' nest

Police questioned a frail gran of 81 about a sparrows' nest.

Two officers knocked on shocked Anne Mee's door to question her about allegedly blocking the birds' access, reports The Sun.

They asked to come in and look around, saying neighbours claimed builders she hired to work on her roof may have stopped the birds getting to their nest.

Widow Anne said: "I was worried sick. It beggars belief that they thought it was worth questioning me over a birds' nest. I was very shaken after they had left and upset."

The police only went after Anne assured them the birds had just been collecting twigs from the roof.

Her angry family are demanding an apology from police in Sittingbourne, Kent.

Son-in-law Steve Davenport said: "Our immediate reaction was to think it must be conmen. It's disgraceful that an elderly, vulnerable grandmother should be questioned like this."

Kent Police said: "We did what we had to do. It is a criminal offence to intentionally harm wildlife by denying access to their nests."

If you want to get rid of troublemaking youths, play them some Cliff Richard songs, a funfair has found.

According to bosses from Carter's Steam Fair, playing tracks such as "Living Doll" by the 66-year-old pop veteran on all their rides was enough to scare off some "hoodies" and other troublemakers who had descended on the fair last Saturday in north London.

"It was amazing, just like a scene from (the film) 'Mars Attacks' when the aliens were driven away by the sounds of Slim Whitman,'" said the fair's Seth Carter in a statement to Reuters.

"From now on if we do have any trouble we have found the perfect deterrent and it comes in the shape of the Peter Pan of Pop.

Just to give you a helping with some basic Welsh:

Dwr = Water
Ych-y-fi = Yuck/horrible
Crappio = I'm sure you can work this one out

A farmer was out on his Welsh hillside tending his flock one day, when he saw a man drinking with a cupped hand from the stream which ran down from one of his fields.

Realising the danger, the farmer shouted over to the man "paid a yfed yr dwr! Mae'n ych-y-fi!"

The man at the stream lifted his head and put a cupped hand to his ear, shrugged his shoulders at the farmer, and carried on drinking.

Realising the man at the stream couldn't hear him, the farmer moved closer.
"Paid fachgen! Dwr ych-y-fi! Sheep crappio yn y dwr!"

Still the walker couldn't hear the farmer. Finally the farmer walked right up to the man at the stream and once again said "Dwr yn ych-y-fi! Dim drinkio!".

"I'm dreadfully sorry my good man, I couldn't understand a word you said dear boy!" said the man at the stream in a fine English accent.

"Oh I see" said the farmer, "I was just saying, if you use both hands you can get more in..."

A man was surprised to discover his mortgage had been paid off and that his wife was getting a £25,000 payout.

But Harry Wood's delight turned to shock when he was told it was because he was dead, reports the Daily Mirror.

When he rang insurers Norwich Union to investigate the man he spoke to said: "But I'm looking at your death certificate."

Paper mill worker Harry, 45, of Heysham, Lancs, added: "If I'd have been a rogue I could have kept the money."

The company said: "A man with the same name and date of birth has died. We apologise for the mix-up."

A husband and his wife had a bitter quarrel on the day
of their 40th wedding anniversary. The husband yells,
"When you die, I'm getting you a headstone that reads:
'Here Lies My Wife - Cold As Ever'."
"Yeah," she replies, "When you die, I'm getting you a headstone
that reads: 'Here Lies My Husband - Stiff At Last.'"

A report in this morning's Sunday Times says that large-scale switching to biofuels is a scam and actually harms the environment because of the amount of trees that have to be destroyed in order to grow either the biofuel crop itself, or for growing food which has now been replaced by biofuel plantations.

Bleeding obvious I should have thought!

What happens if you don't pay the exorcist?
You get repossessed.

Q: How do you tell the clan of a Scotsman?
A: Look up his kilt. If it's not wimpy, then he's a MacDonald.

Q: How do frogs die?
A: They Kermit suicide!

On several occasions I have blogged about how I am attending a pilot group therapy session with an occupational psychologist aimed at long-term unemployed people such as myself, and how positive I feel about the project.

Last week we were set the task of writing down any issues that were currently concerning us. Since I'm 45 years old and have never had a job there are a lot of issues bouncing about in my head.

Here's the transcript from my notebook.

Why do I want a job?

Money/status/peer, or social pressure
A role/place in society
I'm lonely/bored/unfulfilled
Need to know who I am - what I'm capable of
Learn new skills?
What I would/could do with a regular income - I've never had one and so this might be difficult
Use money to join in, or opt out?
I'm not comfortable with concept of personal preference and free choice and I might get overwhelmed

Who am I?
Leader, or follower?
Work alone, or in a group?
Good team player?
Routine or challenge/excitement?
Work with regular colleagues, or contact with public?
Health issues
What inspires me?
What are my priorities in life?
Prejudices/attitudes/morals
What motivates me?
Personal appearance/behaviour/mannerisms
Personality???

Is my situation/are my circumstances unique?
Lack of social contact
Is it too late? Am I too old?
What am I prepared to accept/put up with?
Awkward body language
Poor interpretation in others
People are scared of me!

Practical help and support.
Sheltered employment. Therapeutic work.
Acceptance of my circumstances by others.
Driving lessons???
Problems with attitudes of others towards unemployment.
People think I choose to be unemployed and treat me worse than they would a criminal.
Trapped by benefits system - 'Social Wage' : benefits reform
I NEED SOMEONE TO HAVE FAITH IN ME!!!

Punctual. Obsessed with timekeeping.
Other obsessions: language, geography, picking my eyelashes, statistics
Good time management? Prioritisation of tasks?
H & S issues - I'm clumsy and got a squint…I'm tall.
I'm not PC.

What brings me joy? Beauty - countryside/buildings/art. Being with people. Recognition/praise from others. Knowing that I've done a good job/my best.
A fair day's work for a fair day's work.
TRUTH TRUTH
Physicality/intimacy
Touch/smell/taste/sound
TRUTH TRUTH
- whatever the consequences

LOST
Don't know what's expected from me.
Where do I fit in?
I'm homo sapiens, but no longer a human being. SOUL
Feel my humanity squashed out of me by unemployment; bitter/resentful/angry
A KEPT MAN

No job; therefore maybe still not passed through adolescent years. Rites of passage.
Many people are actually jealous of me - they think I've got all the answers and are some type of rebel or lifestyle guru.
I need to belong. I'm not a member of any identifiable group that receives special privileges.
BORN IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME!
Regret taking advice of parents and teachers - studying and going to college.

Earlier today I was in a shop and I overheard an old woman talking to her friend. In her hand she was holding a particular brand of gel-based air freshener saying how she had to throw it in the bin because it smelled very unpleasant. I thought she meant that the bin smelled very unpleasant and was ready to jump in, taking the opportunity to criticise the local coucil's policy of only emptying domestic bins once a fortnight...however, a few seconds late I realised that she had thrown the air freshener in the bin because the air freshener smelled unpleasant.

Landlord forced to live in own building

A US landlord has been ordered to live in one of his apartment buildings with no heating or hot water.

A judge told Richard Naumann to suffer along with the tenants of his two apartment blocks in Cleveland, Ohio.

Lakewood Municipal Judge Patrick Carroll ordered Naumann to wear an electronic tagging device to make sure he complies with the house arrest order, reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Naumann, 47, is allowed to leave the apartment only to go to work between 8am and 6pm.

The house arrest will continue until the judge is assured the buildings are in compliance, Assistant Law Director Thomas Corrigan said.

Gas was cut off more than a month ago at Naumann's apartment buildings because he owes the local gas company nearly £60,000, according to court records.

Two deaf people get married and during the first week of marriage they find that they are unable to communicate in the bedroom with the lights out since they can't see each other signing, or their lips to lip-read.
After several nights of fumbling around and many misunderstandings, the wife figures out a solution.

"Honey, why don't we agree on some simple signals?

For instance, at night, if you want to have sex with me, reach over and squeeze my left breast one time. If you don't want to have sex, reach over and squeeze my right breast two times."

The husband thinks this is a great idea.

He suggests to his wife if she wants to have sex with him, reach over and pull on his penis one time.

If she doesn't want to have sex, pull on his penis two hundred and fifty times.

I've just politely, yet firmly, put the phone down on another telemarketing call.

A couple of years ago I signed up for the Telephone Preference Scheme which supposedly removes your name from the databases available to this companies: it didn't work though; I've still been receiving as many of these unwanted phone calls - but at least they didn't seem to use my name...maybe my number was just randomly selected.

However, for the last few weeks now they've started asking for me by name again.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing's battle to standardize and correct English-language signs ahead of the 2008 Olympics has claimed another head -- "W.C.".

By the end of the year, all public conveniences in the city will be called "toilets" instead of the venerable, Victorian-era sounding abbreviation for "water closet", state media reported on Wednesday.

"In many Western countries they don't use the term W.C. at all," the Beijing Morning Post said.

"Because in English, it's equivalent to what we would call in China an outhouse, and is a rather crude slang term," it added, without explaining how it had got this impression.

Britain's longest courtship?

A couple have finally tied the knot - after 49 years, nine children, 22 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren.

Every time Ted Towle, 83, proposed to Hilda Clark, 73, she turned him down, reports the Daily Mirror.

Then six months ago, he was stunned when she proposed to him. They finally married at the weekend to cheers from their delighted family.

Hilda said: "Ours must be one of the longest courtships ever. But now I'm so happy I wonder why I waited so long to marry. I'm so proud to call Ted my husband after all this time."

Ted added: "When Hilda said, 'I do', I said 'about time'. Hilda won't be rushed into anything, but I'm thrilled that she's finally made an honest man of me."

The couple, from Nottingham, realised soon after they met in 1958 they had found their partner for life.

But feisty Hilda constantly turned down Ted's proposals.

She explained: "I had always been sceptical of marriage after getting wed when I was very young. One divorce is enough for anyone. I thought, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'."

Ted finally stopped proposing but last November everything changed for Hilda when grandson Paul fell seriously ill.

Hilda said: "That terrible ordeal with Paul put everything into perspective and I realised Ted and I had to get married. Suddenly, everything became clear and I knew exactly what to do."

The thought of winning all this money absolutely terrifies me.

Lotto winner goes back to old job

A lottery winner has spent his £2.8million fortune and gone back to the job he quit when he won the jackpot 12 years ago.

Michael Antonucci, 58, became one of Britain's first lotto winners after borrowing a tenner from his mum to buy tickets.

He spent the cash on a boat, a nightclub, luxury properties, dabbling in different businesses and a 12 week marriage to a topless model.

But now Michael's back at his old trade - buying junk furniture and exporting it to the United States from a lock-up in Plymouth, reports the Daily MIrror.

He said: "It was an experience I would never have had if I had not won the lottery.

"You don't want to die as the richest man in the graveyard, do you. You have to spend some and enjoy it."

He still owns a £300,000 waterfront apartment in Plymouth. Michael said: "I am stock rich and cash poor. But as long as I've got my health and a good bottle of wine I am all right.

"If I had kept everything I bought it would be worth £8 or 9million now but I'm OK with what I've got. It did not feel to me as if I was living a millionaire lifestyle but I did a few things when I had a bit of money like holidays and all that."

He spent £750,000 on a former convent, £300,000 opening a furniture store which failed, £40,000 on launching a pop band, and also tried running a pub and a massage parlour.

His wedding to glamour girl Kelly Arkins, 22, on a beach in the Bahamas, cost £10,000.

Man Sues Over Long-Lasting Erection

NEW YORK (AP) - A man has sued the maker of the health drink Boost Plus, claiming the vitamin-enriched beverage gave him an erection that would not subside and caused him to be hospitalized.

The lawsuit filed by Christopher Woods of New York said he bought the nutrition beverage made by the pharmaceutical company Novartis AG (NVS) at a drugstore on June 5, 2004, and drank it.

Woods' court papers say he woke up the next morning "with an erection that would not subside" and sought treatment that day for the condition, called severe priapism.

They say Woods, 29, underwent surgery for implantation of a Winter shunt, which moves blood from one area to another.

The lawsuit, filed late Monday, says Woods later had problems that required a hospital visit and penile artery embolization, a way of closing blood vessels. Closing off some blood flow prevents engorgement and lessens the likelihood of an erection.

Woods' lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, names Novartis Consumer Health Inc. as a defendant. A spokeswoman for the company, Brandi Robinson, said Tuesday the company was aware of the lawsuit but does not comment on pending litigation.

Woods' lawyer did not return telephone calls for comment Tuesday.

Novartis' Boost Plus Web site describes the drink as "a great tasting, high calorie, nutritionally complete oral supplement for people who require extra energy and protein in a limited volume," in vanilla, chocolate and strawberry.

The house next door to me has been empty now for nearly three weeks. At first the landlady put up a sign reading 'House To Let', but she must not have been successful in securing a tenant.

Last week though I could hear workmen inside the house, and now there's a sign on the window announcing 'Rooms To Let.'

A sign of the times in England, no doubt.

A Chinese farmer has made his own solar-powered water heater out of beer bottles and hosepipes.

"I invented this for my mother. I wanted her to shower comfortably," says Ma Yanjun, of Qiqiao village, Shaanxi province.

Ma's invention features 66 beer bottles attached to a board. The bottles are connected to each other so that water flows through them.

Sunlight heats the water as is passes slowly through the bottles before flowing into the bathroom as hot water, reports China Economy Network.

Ma says it provides enough hot water for all three members of his family to have a shower every day.

And more than 10 families in the village have already followed suit and installed their own versions of Ma's invention.

Bottle feeding: An opportunity for Daddy to get up at 2 am too.

Defence: What you'd better have around the yard if you're going to let the children play outside.

Drooling: How teething babies wash their chins.

Dumbwaiter: One who asks if the kids would care to order dessert.

Family planning: The art of spacing your children the proper distance apart to keep you on the edge of financial disaster

Feedback: The inevitable result when the baby doesn't appreciate the strained carrots.

Full name: What you call your child when you're mad at him.

Grandparents: The people who think your children are wonderful even though they're sure you're not raising them right.

Hearsay: What toddlers do when anyone mutters a dirty word.

Impregnable: A woman whose memory of labour is still vivid.

Independent: How we want our children to be, as long as they do everything we say.

Look out: What it's too late for your child to do by the time you scream it.

Prenatal: When your life was still somewhat your own.

Prepared childbirth: A contradiction in terms.

Puddle: A small body of water that draws other small bodies wearing dry shoes into it.

Show off: A child who is more talented than yours.

Sterilise: What you do to your first baby's pacifier/dummy by boiling it and to your last baby's pacifier/dummy by blowing on it.

Storeroom: The distance required between the supermarket aisles so that children in shopping carts can't quite reach anything.

Temper tantrums: What you should keep to a minimum so as to not upset the children.

Top bunk: Where you should never put a child wearing Superman pyjamas.

Two-minute warning: When the baby's face turns red and she begins to make those familiar grunting noises.

Verbal: Able to whine in words

Whodunnit: None of the kids who live in your house.

Escaped prisoner 'missed mates'

An escaped convict turned up at his old prison and asked to be let back in because he was missing his mates.

Bulgarian thief Vassil Ivanov, 37, had been on the run since disappearing during an Easter break at home in 2005.

He said: "I couldn't stand it any more. I had been inside for nine years and I just couldn't get used to life on the outside again. I missed my pals here and I was miserable being a free man."

Wardens at the Stara Zagora prison in Bulgaria immediately took Ivanov back into the prison where he will serve the remaining two years of his 11 year sentence, and is likely to serve extra time for escaping.

A birthday card sent from Wales to Norfolk arrived a fortnight late - after a detour via Norfolk Island in the Pacific.

John Ellis, 62, sent the greeting first class from North Wales to cousin Linda Cooke in Kings Lynn, reports The Sun.

Inside he wrote: "I sent this a day or two early so you'd get it in time."

But when Linda, 57, received the envelope it had "not Norfolk Island" scribbled on and stamps from the Australian territory - 11,00 miles away.

Retired John of Caernarfon said: "It only had to travel 245 miles. Next time I'll allow a few weeks."

Dentist mistaken for safe-breaker

German police who stormed a house expecting to find crooks drilling their way into a safe found a dentist working a night shift.

Neighbours heard the drilling noises at night at the flat used as a dental surgery in Moenchengladbach, Germany, and called police who sent five patrol cars to the address.

After hearing the drilling noises, police officers broke down the door - only to find dentist Hannes Mader working a late shift on a patient.

When I was consumed with my voluntary work in the Dearne Valley I was also very critical of the local councillors; all of whom happened to be Labour at the time. On one occasion one prominent Labour supporter challenged me to stop complaining and actually do something if I thought I could do any better…so I investigated how to become a candidate in the local elections.

Once I discovered that there is no deposit to pay and I would only require ten local signatures I decided to go ahead with it, calling my party the DearneValley People's Party. I was a candidate in Thurnscoe, where I lived, and this was the first time in many years that the people of this ward actually had a choice of candidates to vote for.

When a local journalist was interviewing me she asked me if I'd be successful. I carefully chose my words and replied, "As I consequence of my candidacy in Thurnscoe there will be one less Labour councillor in the Dearne Valley.' Of course I was proven right; I didn't get elected - I didn't have a clue what I was doing but still got ten percent of the vote. However, the Labour Party diverted so many of its resources from elsewhere to campaign against me that it neglected these other areas and a Liberal Democrat councillor was elected at Mexborough.

Yes, I'm a failed asylum seeker.

I'm not exactly sure how many years ago it is now that the anti-Poll Tax campaign was active; but I was a poll tax rebel myself. However, I was a rebel amongst rebels - I wasn't protesting against the poll tax because I thought it was unfair; I was protesting at having to pay it to Barnsley Council when I was claiming that since Thurnscoe had a Rotherham address and phone number I actually lived in Rotherham and so would pay my poll-tax to Rotherham instead - so I refused to pay any money to Barnsley and had to appear in court.

In the meantime I had written to the Norwegian Consulate in Birmingham to claim political asylum on the grounds that it's a basic human right to be free to define your own identity [i.e. in what town I lived.] After my court appearance [where I had an attachment of earnings award against my benefit payments] a journalist told me that the consulate had contacted the council's treasury department and wanted a written confirmation that under no circumstances would I be sent to jail - otherwise they would seriously consider my claim for asylum.

At the time there was a lot of controversy in the press about young thugs being sent on 'anger management' courses in the Bahamas and so I arranged to have my photograph taken standing on the pavement outside the court in Barnsley wearing striped pyjamas and carrying a suitcase with an oversized luggage label with the words 'Guilty as Charged - Two Week Anger Management Course In The Bahamas' printed on it. Ironically, this photograph ended up being published on the front page of the Doncaster Star newspaper.

Earlier today there was report on BBC News 24 about a community centre for refugees in Leominster (pronounced as Lemster), Herefordshire. Unfortunately, the newsreader pronounced the name as it's spelled and said that it was in Hertfordshire.

Why are we forced to pay for this rubbish?

I know the title of this blog is, 'Minimalist Poet, Minimalist Lifestyle' and I do indeed live a rather boring, minimalist lifestyle - however, I've had my moments.

Eleven years ago I was studying for a B-TEC qualification in performing arts at the High Melton site of Doncaster College and we were performing a promenade production of The Handmaid's Tale. The play is based on a science-fiction novel set in a far future distopian military dictatorship.

In order to make the production as genuine as possible we turned the entire campus into our own little private military dictatorship…we even managed to lay our hands on some genuine (disabled) ex-Korean War machine guns from the props department at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. For added effect we hung shop dummies from tress and set up a road-block [within the campus] to check people's tickets.

Well, as it happens; on this particular day the chief constable of South Yorkshire just happened to driving through High Melton on his way home from a meeting in Doncaster…

The next thing I knew I was walking out of one of the buildings after having been to the toilet when I'm manhandled by three burly [and armed] policemen and spreadeagled up against a wall - fortunately for me, by this time the police were aware that we weren't actually terrorists; however, the lads operating the roadblock weren't quite so fortunate.

Within the next few minutes the officers contacted the helicopter by radio to call things off and were then very keen to speak to our drama tutor. Needless to say, we all got top marks.

Since I'm on a roll now; later today, or maybe tomorrow, I'll write about the time I formed my own political party and also how it happens to be the case that , despite being born in Pontefract and thus being a British subject all my life, I am in fact a failed asylum seeker.

German impaled on plunger

A German almost died after using a sink plunger as a bath plug and impaling himself after slipping on a bar of soap.

Dieter Bayer, 79, who moved to Switzerland with his wife Frieda after he retired, decided to use the plunger because he could not find the bath plug.

But as he stood up to soap himself he slipped and fell heavily on the plunger, wedging the wooden handle up his backside.

His wife, 68, who rushed to the bathroom when she heard him screaming in pain, was unable to pull him free and called emergency services.

An ambulance spokesman said: "There was a lot of blood, the injury was very serious, he could have died."

Doctors operated for eight hours to repair the damage and it will be at least two weeks before he can leave hospital.

A 43-year-old German man was taken to hospital in critical condition after he fell off a second storey balcony during a spitting contest with his 12-year-old son, police said Friday.

A spokesman for the police in the eastern town of Cottbus said the man in Forst had apparently lost his balance after thrusting too far forward in his attempt to outspit his son.

He tumbled over the ledge and landed on a balcony of the ground floor apartment, police said. He was taken to hospital in a rescue helicopter.

Slang guide for Tesco's silver army

Older supermarket workers are being given a guide to youth slang to help them understand younger colleagues and customers.

The pamphlet is being tried out in some of Tesco's 1,500 stores with a high proportion of employees over retirement age.

Key phrases in the guide include:

Bad: Good (but this can also mean bad. When in doubt, just nod).

How’s it hanging’?: How are you today?

Laters: Cheerio, goodbye.

Minging: Ugly, unattractive.

Phat: Wicked (in the good sense), cool.

Slammin’: Pleasing to the eye.

Talk to the hand: I’m not listening.

Wack: Weak, boring.

A Tesco spokesman said: “It aims to help bridge the generation gap and offer a guide for older members of staff looking to chat with younger colleagues and customers."

Lionel Gardner, 70, who works at Tesco Extra in Eastbourne, East Sussex, said: "It's a great idea. I love working with young people but a lot of the time I have difficulty understanding what they are trying to say.”

And Ash Coley, 18, who works in the same store, said: “We youngsters learn a lot from the old timers. It is very interesting to talk to them - especially when they go on about the war.

“Hopefully, we will be able to have even better conversations with them now with the help of this guide.”

Tesco PR chief Jon Church, who recruited daughters Nicola, 15, Gemma, 14, and 11-year-old Hannah, to help write the guide, said: “We have a very diverse workforce and customer base and in today’s fast-moving world there can be a communication barrier between generations.

“If the leaflet is well received, we will roll it out to all UK stores.”

Dwarf mechanic mistaken for 'abducted' boy

German police staged a major operation to find a kidnapped child after a woman spotted a "young boy" being locked into a car boot.

The panicked woman alerted authorities as the car drove off, and police set up road blocks and dispatched patrol cars to intercept the vehicle.

But when the car was finally sighted and stopped, police found the "boy" was actually dwarf car mechanic Klaus "Shorty" Mueller, 27.

He had climbed in the boot and asked to be driven around so he could see where a strange rattling noise had been coming from.

Police in the northern city of Bremen confirmed a woman had called after she looked out her apartment window and saw a child in the boot - just before the driver slammed it shut and drove off.

The spokesman added: "A major investigation and manhunt was immediately launched and the car and its driver were apprehended. It seems the driver had been worried by inexplicable rattling noises in or near his boot. He called a mechanic, who was very small, and who climbed in the boot to get to the bottom of the problem."

Police said the mini mechanic had often used the same method to solve the problem and had found it the best way to detect the source of strange noises.

Because the person who filled in the paperwork last week at the jobcentre put the wrong date [actually a date that doesn't exist - Tuesday, June 1st] I can't be re-registered at Reed's [where I'm attending the pilot group therapy sessions with the occupational pyschologist] until the forms are corrected and re-submitted to them. So, on Monday I shall have to go and sort it all out.

Bleeding bureaucrats! They literally don't know what day it is!

Ex-soccer star Leroy Rosenior was appointed boss of a struggling club - then sacked after ten minutes.

The former West Ham and Fulham striker broke the record for English football's shortest managerial reign after being introduced with a fanfare by Torquay United, reports The Sun.

Sports journalists were summoned to a press conference which finished at 3.30pm. Then - at 3.40pm - Leroy was told by the chairman that the Devon club had been sold to a business consortium. And that meant he was out.

Leroy, 43 said: "For it to happen ten minutes after I finished the press conference was a bit of a shock. But we had a good laugh about it afterwards."

Leroy smashed the previous record for the shortest time as manager - Dave Bassett's 72 hours at Crystal Palace in 1984.

He joked: "Obviously they thought I had done a fantastic job after ten minutes and let me go."

The post was Leroy's second stint at Torquay, who will face next season in the Conference after finishing bottom of the Football League. He was boss between 2002 and 2006 when he left by mutual consent.

Since then the club has been in a managerial crisis, with four different bosses in the hot seat.

Leroy added: "I wish them the very best of luck. They are going to sort me out a bit of compensation."

Serbs barter cows for penises

Serbian men are swapping their prize cows to get a bigger penis.

The bizarre exchange was revealed by the country's top plastic surgeon Srecko Djordjevic who said dozens of farmers obsessed with the size of their penis had traded in their prize cows for larger members.

He said: "The size of a man's member seems to play a big role in our society and the price of the operation, around £400, is almost exactly what a good cow is worth - so farmers are choosing to swap a cow if it means a bigger penis."

The urologist, who is based in the central town of Kragujevac, told the news agency Sina that the only problem had been that some farmers had unrealistic ideas of what they could get for their money.

He said: "Some of them want to add 10 centimetres and that is just not possible - at least not for just one cow."

Heart op pensioner kills snake

An 80-year-old heart surgery patient leapt from his intensive care bed and used his walking stick to beat a deadly viper to death.

Miko Vukovic spotted the snake on the floor of the hospital in Ogulin in central Croatia.

The snake is believed to have been brought into the hospital in a giant bunch of flowers where a discarded snake skin was also found by staff. It then made its way into the intensive care ward as it looked for a new place to hide.

Vukovic was with three other cardiology department patients during the night when he noticed the poisonous "vipera berus" snake close to his bed.

He said: "I was fighting for 10 minutes before I managed to kill it with my walking stick. The bugger almost bit me in the leg but then I let it have it right between the eyes."

Hospital officials did not comment the case.

The headline on this week's front page of the Doncaster Free Press -

CHINA SYNDROME

Every plastic bottle put out for recycling in Doncaster is shipped 8000 miles to the Far East.

Man faints during testicle tale

A man fainted at the mention of a testicle jab during a talk by a fertility expert.

Professor Robert Winston interrupted his presentation and leapt from the stage to help the man, reports the Mirror.

Lord Winston rushed to his side and shouted for attention. He looked on as a colleague intervened before resuming his talk at the Hay Literary Festival.

Back on stage, Lord Winston - the presenter of the BBC's Human Body - said: "In all the operations I have done, no one has ever passed out."

He had been talking about a boy who had been injected in the testicle to prevent his future children developing anaemia.

The man came to and remained in the audience for the rest of the talk in Hay-on-Wye, Powys.

Germans convicted of stealing 4 km of railway line

A court in Germany has convicted three men of stealing over four km of rail track, weighing nearly 500 tonnes, to sell as scrap metal.

The court in the city of Marburg said on Tuesday the men, aged 26 to 29, pretended to be working for the national rail operator Deutsche Bahn when they began carving up a disused line between nearby Niederwalgern and Lohra with blowtorches.

"They even went around handing out leaflets to locals asking for understanding about the noise," a court spokesman said.

"The stolen tracks were worth about 170,000 euros (£116,390) altogether, but they'd collected less than 100,000 euros by the time they were caught."

The crime has become so famous that the regional education ministry has used it as a model for a maths exam, asking pupils to calculate the weight, volume and value of the stolen steel.

The three suspects, all Germans born in the former Soviet Union, had removed 476 tonnes of steel track by the time they were caught when a local man contacted Deutsche Bahn to check their story.

Two suspects confessed and received 18-month suspended sentences. The third was given two years and one month in jail.