Bank Holiday Sunday

Are you having a good time today folks?

What have you all been getting up to?

I’ve been watching the constant change from sun to drizzling rain, whilst editing a short story. Not the most inspiring way to spend a Bank Holiday you might think, and you would be right.
This however looks like fun.
If you like getting dirty then why not consider bog-snorkeling. The town of Llanwrtyd Wells is hosting the annual bog-snorkeling championships today. The art of bog-snorkeling seems to be to glide through the mud in fancy dress without inhaling too much of the putrid bog-water. A good dose of spirits is probably needed, especially as it is a bit chilly today.

Enjoy yourselves, whatever you are doing!

http://www.thecircumference.org/experiences/bog-snorkeling/

TV

Is it just me or does anybody else think that a lot of programmes on the television are total rubbish?
It worries me that things might get worse if the Murdoch Empire becomes so powerful that it has a stranglehold over what is available - Probably bland, mind-numbing rubbish to rake in even more money for Mr. Murdoch.
In my opinion having lots of channels and choice has resulted in poorer programme quality and content.
I personally would not like to see the BBC wither and die. The BBC has produced some fantastic programmes over the years, especially the costume dramas. I thought that the recent Sherlock series was brilliant.

What programmes do you like?
Would you be happy to for the Murdoch Empire to provide all your TV programmes?

Scary Dinners

Do you eat out a lot, or live in an institution where all your meals are cooked by others?
Has it ever crossed your mind that you could be very vulnerable if someone with a grudge or some other sinister motive tried to poison you?
Thankfully this kind of thing is very rare.
The pupils at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire had a lucky escape. Their carrot and coriander soup was laced with a poisonous cleaning chemical. Luckily someone spotted that there was a problem and the children were not harmed. Kitchen porter, Maxwell Cook, 57, was arrested and is pending a court hearing.

Seems a lot safer to do your own cooking!!!!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/porter-denies-public-school-poison-bid-2057950.html

Fancy a bit of excitement?

If you have nothing better to do tonight, then why not stay up late and sit in the garden. You will need a comfortable deck chair - a nice alcoholic beverage or mug of cocoa would be an added bonus.
After midnight you may be rewarded with a celestial show.

No Ewar, not Anna the tennis player getting her kit off in the bedroom across the road.

No Vole, it is not Paul Uppal venturing into Wolverhampton.
No Fou, it is not Mr. Hanky,

The celestial spectacular is the Perseid meteor shower. It is supposed to be a good night to watch as the sky should be darker than usual.
Have fun!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/cambridgeshire/hi/people_and_places/newsid_8906000/8906287.stm

Carbon monoxide poisoning

Are you off to university this year, or leaving home and escaping from your parents?
Are you planning to move into rented accommodation?
Well, it might be a good idea to invest in a carbon monoxide detector, especially if you think you have a dodgy landlord.
I had a fascinating discussion with a British Gas engineer who told me all about unscrupulous landlords who fit shiny new gas appliances in a property in order to pass the safety inspection. Then they take out the ‘new’ appliances after the inspection has been successfully passed and install old, nasty appliances in their place. The ‘new’ appliances are then re- used in the next property that is due for inspection and so the process of substituting old for new is repeated.

There are about fifty deaths a year in the UK from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Carbon monoxide is a silent killer. All you may notice is general ill health to start with, such as headache, nausea, dizziness - vague flu-like symptoms, but without the temperature.
Left undetected it can lead to death.

A brilliant invention

I was very impressed with this story.
Timothy Whitehead, a graduate from Loughborough University, has invented a bottle that can sterilize dirty water and make it safe to drink. The water bottle contains two chambers. Dirty water is put in an outer chamber and the inner chamber is plunged through it, filtering water particles as small as four microns. Once filtered, the water is sterilised by a wind-up ultraviolet bulb in a process lasting 90 seconds. A prototype was effective in killing 99.9% of bacteria and viruses. Timothy has won the UK James Dyson award for his invention, and will be one of the finalists in the global awards in October.
It is a great pity that the bottle has not been mass produced. It would be of enormous help in natural disasters such as the current floods in Pakistan.

Tim deserves to win the global prize as his invention could literally be a life-saver.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10858815

Raymond Scott - part two

On Monday I was musing about people who live a lifestyle which is not commensurate with their apparent income, and Mr. Scott provided a fine example of this, with a life of fraud, crime and debt financing his extravagant tastes.

Anonymous has posted some fascinating information about Scott on my blog, saying how Scott was a ‘character’ at school.
This set off a further train of musing that odd, eccentric or deviant people often exhibit these traits in childhood and early adulthood.

Did you have any weirdos, psychopaths, colourful or creatively eccentric characters at your school that have become notorious in later life?

Anonymous has supplied a link to Scott’s school picture. Scott is the second one from the right on the second row from the front.

Raymond Scott

Do you get a bit suspicious when someone supposedly living on benefits seems to live a jet-set lifestyle and keeps a Ferrari?
Scott, 53, has never worked and he lives with his mum in her terraced house in Sunderland .Scott drank expensive champagne, bought designer clothes and regularly flew to Cuba to see his girlfriend.

So how did he do it?

Scott has just been given an eight year jail sentence for ‘handling stolen goods’. He is guilty of cultural vandalism to one of Shakespeare’s first folios. The folio in question was stolen from Durham University library in 1998. Scott had it in his possession for ten years then tried to sell it to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC for £1m. The folio had been badly damaged, in an effort to remove evidence of its provenance. Luckily the staff at the Folger were astute and called in the FBI.

Scott turned up for his month long trial at Newcastle Crown Court in a limousine with four bodyguards. One day he attended court dressed as Che Guevara, spraying the photographers with champagne. It was revealed that Scott had a string of offences for fraud and theft stretching back 32 years.

So, that is how he managed to live like an international playboy, together with his £90k debts.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/09/raymond-scott-stolen-shakespeare-first-folio
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