Thursday 28 February 2013

Make your mind up Clegg: U-Turn Cam costs too much: Shrinking hotel: The “good” old days: Asbo Martin pram: and Mutant tadpoles.


Maximum lack of warm, minimum skywater, moderate atmospheric movement and less solar stuff than you could shake a bottle of suntan lotion at, at the Castle this morn, even later than usual I had to see my General Medic-blood pressure test and a nice blood test form, which meant going up to the Aldershot ‘Elf Centre, paying to park the Honda and sitting in the dungeon until my lucky ticket number came up.
 

And I am going to have to ban anonymous comments because I just don’t have the time sort them out, I have enough spam to take on Tesco in the meat dept.
 

 

According to the Independent the deputy Prime Monster admitted that allegations of sexual harassment were a factor in the peer's decision to quit as the party's chief executive.
Which means that numb nuts Nick dramatically altered his explanation for Lord Rennard's surprise resignation in 2009 which had previously been blamed on ill health. His comments were rejected by the peer's friends, who said he had been warned by his doctors that he could be dead within a year unless he led a less stressful lifestyle.

 
Which seems to be a lucky break for his “Lordship”-or maybe not...

 

U-Turn Cam is set to be dropped for this year's festivities in Witney after the bill for the 2012 event – which attracted 8,000 people – hit £45,000 pounds, including £2,300 for the Prime Monster’s security, Town councillors in the Prime Minister's constituency of Witney in Oxfordshire have drawn up plans to spread out the festivities, blaming rising costs and "dangerous" crowd levels.
The PM (T), who last year joined Father Christmas to switch on the seasonal lights, is now set to be dropped from the programme, with council officers looking for cheaper alternatives.
Witney mayor Councillor Eaglestone said: "My plan is to try to spread it over three days at different venues, but not have an official switch-on, no road closure and no David Cameron because it costs us a lot of money and we had criticism from the district council because of the number of people there.

 
Not even your own constituency wants you Dave....

  

Passers-by in the Japanese capital’s Akasaka district have witnessed the Grand Prince Hotel being demolished by construction company Taisei Corporation with a rather unique method.
Engineers reinforced the top floor with steel beams and then effectively lopped it off, keeping it in place to be used as an adjustable lid that can be lowered down the building on an external support frame.
Slowly but surely, and with none of the explosions or dust normally associated with the demolition of skyscrapers, the hotel is being torn down.

 

Shame that, they could have turned it into a prison....

 


In the USA that is, apparently growth was high, taxes were lower, there was less crime, better education, more spending power, more home ownership, lots of social mobility, oodles of optimism, falling debt and popularity was at a peak.
 

Great: that is if you ignore the racism and homophobia, organised crime and even more racism.

  


The "most exclusive pram in the world" is made with the same materials as Aston Martin's luxury car interiors.
Born from collaboration between Aston Martin and pram-makers Silver Cross, the limited edition pram is "designed to perfection with every detail considered".
The high-specification product boasts a leather-trimmed handle, air-ride suspension and is emblazoned with Aston Martin's iconic wings logo.
The pram's wheels are made from aluminium alloy and based on the wheels of Aston Martin One-77 car, though the automobile equivalent will set you back a cool £1.2m.
Described by Silver Cross as a "must-have for the most fast-paced lifestyle", and with just 800 being made, there is sure to be stiff competition among people who have money to burn.
 

And at £2,000 they can keep it...

 
And finally:
 


Eyes hooked up to the tail can help blinded tadpoles see, to learn more about the relationship between the body and the brain, researchers wanted to see how capable the brain was of interpreting sensory data from abnormal "ectopic" locations from which it normally does not receive signals.
Scientists experimented with 134 tadpoles of the African clawed frog Xenopus laevis, a common lab animal. They painstakingly grafted new eyes onto places such as their torsos and tails and then surgically removed their original eyes.
These experimental tadpoles then received a vision test the researchers first refined on normal tadpoles. The tadpoles were placed in a circular arena half illuminated with red light and half with blue light, with software regularly switching what colour light the areas received. When tadpoles entered places lit by red light, they received a tiny electric zap. A motion-tracking camera kept tabs on where the tadpoles were.
Remarkably, the scientists found that six tadpoles that had eyes implanted in their tails could apparently see, choosing to remain in the safer blue-light areas.
 

Time to test on “humans” then-preferably the researchers...

 

And today’s thought:
Punched or bored-preferably punched

 

Angus

Wednesday 27 February 2013

Abuse of Bliar: Sexy arm pits: Japanese love gap tax: Cow/Horse/Cow?: and the Het Arresthuis Hotel.


Oodles of lack of warm, bucket loads of skywater, more than a cough of atmospheric movement and still bugger all solar stuff at the Castle this morn, just returned from the Honda’s MOT-a nice pass with no “to do” thingies so just the insurance in July and the road tax in September to look forward to.
 

Is apparently still being abused about the Iraq war,  ten years on from the start of the Iraq War, walnut tan was asked in a candid interview on BBC2’s Newsnight whether he minded if “people call you a liar, some people call you a war criminal, protesters follow you.
"It’s difficult to walk down the street in a country”, he replied: “It really doesn’t matter whether it’s taken its toll on me.
“The fact is yes there are people who will be very abusive, by the way I do walk down the street and by the way I won an election in 2005 after Iraq. However, yes it remains extremely divisive and very difficult.”
Mr Bliar conceded that he had “long since given up trying to persuade people it was the right decision”.
 

Good; because it wasn’t you warmonger....

 

The Ladies found the odour of sweat from men's shaved armpits more attractive than the sharp smell of hairy armpits. The women, who participated in the study, did not know what kind of samples they were given to smell during the study.
The women could not tolerate the smell from unshaved armpits. The researchers believe that the study showed the process of evolution in action.
Under the pressure of society, women start to prefer weakened odours of the male body or, rather, artificial smells (perfumes, deodorants), while nature provided for a positive reaction to natural sweat odours. Evolution left hair in armpits to attract opposite sexes to each other.
 

Bet the French are excited.....

 

It seems that Japan has faced an economic crisis tied with a seriously declining birth rate and an increased aging population.
Economic analyst Morinaga Takuro suggested a novel and rather unique solution to addressing the country’s problem: taxing handsome men.
This proposition of taxing handsome men will supposedly create a way for “homely” guys to find women, get married, and have babies.
Other than the “wealth gap,” Morinaga sees the “love gap” as a fundamental factor of Japan’s declining birth-rate. Therefore, he concludes that if Japan were to tax the ikemen (handsome men) and reduce the taxes of not-so-handsome men, then maybe the country’s economy would be better in a year’s time.
The proposed handsome-men tax would include doubling the taxes of those unlikely chaps who qualify and reducing the taxes by 10-20% for those who are not so handsome. As for the judging of whether someone is handsome or not, there will be a panel of randomly selected women to decide.
 

Glad I don’t live in Japan, I can’t afford any more taxes…

 


Belted Galloway cow Hettie Moo was orphaned after her mother died while giving birth and she was hand-reared at the Cairngorms Reindeer Centre in Aviemore.
After being spared from the dinner table, she now wows thousands of admiring spectators every year as she struts her stuff for Chariots of Fire.
Having only grown up next to humans and horses, Hettie feels right at home being ridden and attached to a carriage - conquering jumps as high as two foot.
 

Funny that because apparently there are loads of ‘Orses that think they are Cows especially dahn  Tesco's.

 
And finally:
 


People are paying good money to stay in one of Holland's most feared prisons - after it was transformed into a luxury hotel.
The 105 cells at Het Arresthuis have been converted into 40 spacious rooms, featuring modern furnishings and chic interior design, reports the Daily Mail.
All of the rooms are equipped with air conditioning, a flat screen TV, free WiFi, and a personal coffee and tea machine.
The hotel also features a sauna, fitness centre, central patio with olive trees, and an organic herb garden.
It is voted the best hotel in the Dutch town of Roermond and one of the best in all of Holland by users of the Trip Advisor website.
Het Arresthuis - which means The Judgement House - opened its doors in 1862 and quickly established a reputation as an intimidating jail.
After being abandoned for a number of years, the jail reopened in 2002. But in mid 2007 it closed permanently after which construction of the hotel began.
 

Sounds just like one our normal nicks....


 

And today’s thought:
 

 

Angus

 

Tuesday 26 February 2013

‘Orse balls: Sea ‘Orse Tuna: Russian terminator: Topless tobogganing: U.S UFO: and Really, really bad parking.


Usual lack of warm, unusual amounts of skywater, unnoticeable atmospheric movement and bugger all solar stuff (as usual) at the Castle this morn, the butler is fuelling the furnace with oodles of fat, carbon neutral teenagers and his Maj has left a nice trail of muddy paw prints right across my nice steam cleaned kitchen floor.

The Honda is in for its MOT early tomorrow and depending on the outcome there may be a post-or not.

 
 
I didn’t know that, I thought they only did cheap and nasty “furniture” with funny names, but it seems that that they have begun withdrawing all meatballs from sale in stores in the UK and more than 20 other European countries after tests by authorities in the Czech Republic found traces of horsemeat in its Kottbullar line.

The company operates in 26 European countries and 44 in all, with annual sales of £23.6bn.
 

Not for much longer-probably...is it me or do they actually look like ‘Orseballs?

 

It appears that across the States that are United most Tuna isn’t; a new study confirms that so-called “white tuna” is one of the most frequently substituted seafood products across the country.
It found consumers usually end up with a species of mackerel; one that researchers said can cause severe digestive problems.
The latest national study by the non-profit Oceana Foundation found just how bad the problem is in Miami and across the country. The foundation concluded that, with 38% of the seafood tested around South Florida, consumers are being served something other than what they ordered.
Southern California tested at 52%, while Seattle came out the best at about 18%. In Boston, the number was 48% while New York was 39%.

 
Nah nah nah nah nah....

 
 

Alexei Volkov is a bus driver from Zelenograd. And he's not a happy man, especially when drivers cut him off on the roads.
So, he's taken the law into his own hands. And, as a result, he's become a folk hero in Russia.
He is known as "the Punisher" after the ruthless comic vigilante who dispenses brutal justice.
Volkov has been in more than 100 traffic “accidents” he's caused most of them with his in your rear-end - driving style.
If someone cuts him off, Volkov just smashes into them.
To ram home his point, he then posts the dash cam video of his exploits online.
 

Wonder what job he has now....

 


Thousands of spectators turned out to cheer on hardy competitors in a topless sledging contest in Germany.
Both men and women took part in the topless toboggan races down a 100 metre course in Altenberg.
They braved sub-zero temperatures wearing next to nothing in the hope of winning the £1,000 first prize.
Former male model Nico Schwanz came first in the men's section while Annett Schnadelbach, 30, sloped off with the women's trophy.
"It was freezing out there and you feel like you're going very, very fast because of the wind whistling through every bit of your body," said Ms Schnadelbach. 

"But it was certainly fun warming up again afterwards."
 

My problem would be the wind whistling out of every bit of my body, and the walnut effect....

 
 
A Canadian aviation firm began developing a disc-shaped aircraft for the U.S. military in the mid-1950s, and, though the details were secret, the project itself was not unknown. Popular mechanics mentioned the Air Force’s “vertical-rising, high-speed” craft in 1956 and published a photo in 1960. In the decades since the program was cancelled in 1961, aviation buffs and UFO researchers have unearthed technical papers written near the end of America’s flying saucer experiment, but the document that originally convinced the government to invest in a military flying disc has languished in the NDC under the SECRET designation. This recently discovered report describes in previously unknown detail how aviation engineers tried to harness what were then cutting-edge aerodynamic concepts to make their improbable creation fly. Although Avro’s saucer never completed a successful flight, some of the most sophisticated aircraft flying today adopted many of the same technologies.

In 2001, U.S. Air Force personnel cleared the document cache for public release, according to Neil Carmichael, director of the declassification review division at the NDC, which is run by the National Archives and Records Administration. But it took 11 years to crack open the boxes in College Park and glimpse the saucer secrets within—the stuff is buried in a backlog of nearly 2 billion pages of declassified material, some of it dating to World War II. “These records probably have been classified since their creation,” Carmichael says. “It’s like somebody emptied out a filing cabinet, stuck it in a box, sealed it, and sent it off to the federal records centre.”

 
You think....

 And finally:
 

 

A speeding car launched into the air and landed upside down on the roof of a house.
Police say the early morning crash in Houston, Texas, happened when the driver was speeding and failed to take a bend in the road.
The crash triggered Susan Mistini's house alarm system and she thought someone was breaking into her home until a neighbour told her what happened.
Ms Mistini said: "He said, 'hurry up there's a car on your roof'. A car on my roof? And he said, 'yes a car on your roof'."
Harris County Sheriff's Assistant Chief John Laine said: "(The car) inverted and somersaulted and landed on the roof upside down."
The driver was taken to hospital and is in stable condition.
Investigators have not determined whether or not alcohol was a factor in the accident.
 

Anyone taking bets....

 

That’s it: I’m orf to see if there are any Robo-sparrows in the garden, just in case

 

And today’s thought:
Cook those IKEA...


 

Angus

Monday 25 February 2013

Luvvies love it: Cat Cafe: Tight arse: and How to go to Specsavers-not.


More than enough lack of warm, middling amounts of atmospheric movement, missing amounts of skywater and not even a glimmer of solar stuff at the Castle this morn, just returned from the stale bread, gruel and his Maj’s food run dahn Tesco, his Whiskas meat selection in jelly is still six squids for two boxes (or £3.68 each) but his Dreamies are now £1.34 per pack-no more multi buys..

And I spent yestermorn doing the once in a decade defrost of the freezer and managed to remove enough ice to stave orf global warming for at least a year or sink a Chinese Titanic.

 


It seems that many-many Luvvies gathered to give each other little metal statuettes for doing things such as pretending to be someone else, directing Luvvies to be someone else, making “music” for the Luvvies to pretend to be someone else and apparently some Brit bird won one for singing an “original” song about Luvvies pretending to be someone else.
 

But I have checked the Angus Dei library of old “music” and have discovered that the “Theme song” to “Skyfall” is in fact a rip orf of William Connolly’s “singing at parties’ song.

 

About 1min 25secs in.
 
about 20 secs in.

What do you think?
 


The UK’s first-ever cat café is coming to London in the next couple of months after members of the public donated over £100,000 to make one cat lover’s dreams a reality.
Entrepreneur Lauren Pears has already started looking at prospective sites in the Old Street area of London and is aiming to have the café up and running by May.
The 30-year-old claims she has already found the 10 to 15 cats which will staff the café, with the animals coming from the Mayhew Animal Home in Kensal Green, north-west London.
The café will provide a place where cat lovers can stroke the roaming felines while drinking their coffee.
She added: ‘We’re going to have a volunteer programme so people who can’t afford the cover charge can actually come in overnight and look after the cats.’

 
I can do that at home in the Castle for sod all....

 
Up Norf a bit
 

Keeley Newstead is saving pots of money in the slump by recycling tea bags three times.
The penny-pinching mum dries the used bags in her kitchen before brewing up twice more.
Keeley, 37, also re-uses tin foil, gets a week’s use out of a single sandwich bag and even rations toilet paper.
With gas and electricity prices soaring she hardly ever lights the living room fire – preferring to huddle on the sofa with kids Kyle, 15, Declan, six, and ­hubby Darren, 36.
They wear extra jumpers and even put on gloves on to watch telly in the dark.
Part-time cleaner Keeley and printer Darren send their kids to school with free pens and pencils from bookies and catalogue shops.
And if they want sauce on their pizza and chips – bought on special offer at the supermarket, of course – they use sachets grabbed from fast food joints.
While they are at it, they whip napkins so they never need to buy kitchen roll. And if they spy an un-tethered loo roll in a public toilet they grab that too.
Keeley said: “There is so much free stuff out there we might as well help ourselves. It saves us a fortune.
 

Oh dear.... 

And finally:

 

The driver of a car managed to smash into Specsavers front window.
The accident happened shortly before noon today (Sunday February 24) in Sevenoaks, Kent.
Police and fire crews attended but no-one was seriously hurt.
It was not known how the car ended up in the shop front after it mounted the kerb.
Red fluid - understood to be brake fluid - was spilled over the pavement and substantial damage was caused to the front end of the car and window.
Amused bystanders were quick to tweet pictures of the crash scene.
 

Although a visit to the opticians was obviously needed, the bad news is that it was closed.

 
 

And today’s thought:
Would the LibDems lie to you?

 

Angus

 

Saturday 23 February 2013

EU blackmail: “Lord” Lipsey has lost it: The Polytron Phone: You only live once in China (unless you have permission): Low-energy nuclear reactor water heater: and Bombing with poison mice.


The merest hint of white fluffy stuff, much more lack of warm, minimal atmospheric movement and not even a glimpse of Dawn’s crack at the Castle this morn, late again, I seem to be going into hibernation mode-going to bed earlier-getting up later, I blame the Government.
 


Dahn at Eastleigh in ‘Ampshire he told an audience of by-election voters at the event: "To get an EU referendum you need to vote for a Tory-only government."
Which is of course yet another 180 from the Prime Monster after he pledged at the end of last month's Bloomberg event that a referendum would take place  "if I am prime minister" – whether in coalition or not.
 

And so the lying, gutless, inept, inbred, arrogant, brain dead, shirt lifting tosser multi millionaire once again takes the piss out of us.

 


Who is allegedly a member of the House of Lords economic affairs committee Britain's lack of growth is more bearable while unemployment is low in comparison with other recessions.
Writing in The Times, he said the relatively high level of people with jobs is the reason why people are not rising up and rioting.
"The employment figures mean that, whether or not the recession is working, it is not really hurting — at least not really hurting the people who still have jobs and don’t claim benefits," he said. "An unemployment-lite recession has nothing like the social impact of a job-crushing one."
He said it is much better to be poor with a job than without one.

 
Fuck orf...

If you can be arsed you can read about the not very poor “Lord” who doesn’t have a clue about real life HERE.

 
 
 

A firm based in Taiwan is hoping to crack the mobile market by launching a transparent phone with functions “similar to a Smartphone”.
• Handset will be able to display images on front and back.
• Touch screen device will be cheaper than iPhone 5.

The lightweight device, which is completely see-through, is made of a toughened glass and can display images on both sides.
The company, which is the Taiwanese division of US-based Polytron Technologies, will put the handset into production this year after six years at the development stage.
The prototype currently shows some items, such as the battery and sim card, as being visible through the glass, though it is thought that part of the handset will be covered up to hide these elements.
Polytron has yet to reveal the price tag for the device but it is reportedly cheaper than the iPhone 5, while the screen is 0.3 inches bigger.
The company are even reportedly looking at ways to make the batteries transparent in the future, and it is hoped the phone will be available later this year.

 
Oh great; an invisible phone that’ll be a plus.....
 


Allegedly China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation."
By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.
At 72, the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since 1959, is beginning to plan his succession, saying that he refuses to be reborn in Tibet so long as it's under Chinese control.
 
 I’d like to see them enforce that.....

 


NASA scientist Joseph Zawodny has come up with a device used to test low-energy nuclear reactors .
This reactor does not use fission, the process of splitting atoms into smaller elements employed by every commercial power reactor currently operating on earth.
And it does not use hot fusion, the union of hydrogen atoms into larger elements that powers the sun and stars.
Instead, a low-energy nuclear reactor (LENR) uses common, stable elements like nickel, carbon, and hydrogen to produce stable products like copper or nitrogen, along with heat and electricity.
“It has the demonstrated ability to produce excess amounts of energy, cleanly, without hazardous ionizing radiation, without producing nasty waste,” said Joseph Zawodny, a senior research scientist with NASA’s Langley Research Centre.
“The easiest implementation of this would be for the home,” he said. “You would have a unit that would replace your water heater. And you would have some sort of cycle to derive electrical energy from that.”
The LENR offers a slow-moving neutron to an element – NASA researchers are working with nickel. The nickel absorbs the extra neutron, rendering the nickel unstable. To regain stability, the acquired neutron splits into an electron and a proton.
“So where it once had an extra neutron, making it an unstable isotope of whatever element it was, it now has an extra proton instead, which makes it a more stable isotope of a different element,” Bob Silberg of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory wrote last week on the agency’s Global Climate Change blog.
“This process releases energy which, hypothetically, can be used to generate electricity.”

With its new proton, the nickel has gained stability as another element: copper.

LENR reactors use common, stable elements like nickel, carbon, and hydrogen and produce stable elements like copper or nitrogen. NASA researchers are leaning on the Widom-Larsen Theory published in 2006 by Boston physicist Allan Widom and Chicago physicist Lewis Larson, who speculates that low energy nuclear reactions are already happening on earth – in lightning, for example. And according to Larson, LENR reactions may be responsible for occasional fires in lithium-ion batteries.
Which underscores that even low-energy nuclear reactors can produce dangerous amounts of energy.

According to Bushnell “Several labs have blown up studying LENR and windows have melted,” “indicating when the conditions are right prodigious amounts of energy can be produced and released.”

 
Think I’ll wait for the mark 2, or 3 or maybe 4...

 
And finally:
 


The US is to bomb the tiny territory of Guam with dead mice laced with painkiller in an attempt to kill off the brown tree snakes that have taken over the island.
The reptiles, which can grow to be more than 10ft (3m), have caused misery on the territory for 60 years, since they were unwittingly introduced by US military ships after World War Two.
Now there are serious fears they could slither on to planes at the US military base and hitch a lift to Hawaii, where they would decimate the island's wildlife.
As a result, US government scientists are to drop the poison mice near Guam's sprawling Andersen Air Force Base, which is surrounded by heavy foliage and could offer the snakes a potential ticket off the island.
Scientists calculate there may be two million of the reptiles on Guam, killing wildlife, biting residents and even knocking out electricity by slithering on to power lines.
The mice carcasses are being laced with acetaminophen, the active ingredient in painkillers such as Tylenol.
Unlike most snakes, brown tree snakes are happy to eat prey they did not kill themselves, and they are highly vulnerable to acetaminophen, which is harmless to humans.
To keep the mice bait from dropping all the way to the ground, where it could be eaten by other animals or attract insects as they rot, researchers have developed a flotation device with streamers designed to catch in the branches of the forest foliage, where the snakes live and feed.

Mr Vice said the goal was not to eradicate the snakes, but to control and contain them.
 

Spiffing-must cross Guam orf the bucket list....

 
 

And today’s thought:
Managed to get out of that one for a while...

 

Angus

Friday 22 February 2013

Another ConDem balls up: GP surgery dragons: Niagara Numpty: Banned brats: Coober Pedy: and how to catch a rainbow.


Colder than the Coalition’s core, not even a whisper of atmospheric movement, even less skywater and bugger all solar stuff at the Castle this morn, it’s been an “interesting” week, the interweb router thingy went tits up on Monday and I spent a fair portion of the day talking to several different inhabitants of the Sub continent in order to obtain a new one.

So I chilled out on Monday, did a bit more chilling on Tuesday and Wednesday, did a bit of shopping and went to see the toof doctor Thursday and then some cleaning of the Castle, played chase with his Maj and when the new interweb router thingy arrived spent a while setting it up.

I really can’t stand the excitement.

 

Apparently the three to five billion squids welfare-to-work “scheme” isn’t doing too well, according to Auntie and the Public Accounts Committee only 3.6% of people on the scheme managed to get orf benefits and into secure employment in its first 14 months.
And according to Labour MP Margaret Hodge of the 9,500 former incapacity benefit claimants referred to providers, only 20 people have been placed in a job that has lasted three months, while the poorest-performing provider did not manage to place a single person in the under-25 category into a job lasting six months."
Allegedly not one of the 18 providers has met its contractual targets and their performance ''varies wildly'', the committee said.
"The best-performing provider only moved 5% of people off benefit and into work, while the worst managed just 2%," said Ms Hodge.
A spokesman for the Dept of Witless Pillocks said: "This report paints a skewed picture. More than 200,000 people have moved off benefits and into a job thanks to the Work Programme.
"It is making a real difference to tens of thousands of the hardest-to-help jobseekers. Long-term unemployment fell by 15,000 in the latest quarter.
"The Work Programme gives support to claimants for two years and it hasn't even been running that long yet, so it's still early days. We know the performance of our providers is improving."
 

So who is telling porkies then?

 
 
It seems that the sick are to blame for the dragons behind the reception desk.
Scientists observed 45 receptionists at work for 200 hours and found they are often trying to protect the most vulnerable patients while acting as gatekeepers for doctors.
In a research paper, entitled 'Slaying the dragon myth, the team from Manchester University, argue that receptionists were faced with the difficult task of prioritising patients, despite having little time, information, and training.
They felt responsible for protecting those patients who were most vulnerable, however this was sometimes made difficult by people trying to ‘play’ the system, they said.
Receptionists often had to negotiate with patients over the urgency of their condition to establish if they needed an emergency appointment or could wait for a routine one, despite having little information or training to do so, it was found.

 
Interesting that, at my General Medics surgery there is a touch screen log in system (when it works) which negates the need to talk to the dragons, but if you need to make a follow up appointment I have discovered that “they” would rather talk to someone on the phone than interact with half dead people.

 Wonder why? well it's not as if they are being paid to do their jobs is it....

 

 
A British inventor has made a “tsunami survival” capsule — and plans to test it by hurtling over Niagara Falls in it.
Aerospace engineer Julian Sharpe, 50, believes his lifesaving pod will protect people from tidal waves, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, super-storms and many other natural disasters.
He says he has no qualms about riding the aluminium ball over the world-famous 167ft falls.
The impact will be like being rear-ended by a car at around 20mph, he claims.
He said: “We can tell people how strong it is but until we have proved that it has saved a life they might not believe what we say.”
Julian, born in Carmarthen, south west Wales and now lives in Seattle.
He hopes the capsules, holding up to six people, will sell for between £650 and £3,250.
A prototype shown at the Yokohama Expo is to go into production soon.
 

Good luck with that-I do like an optimist, on the bright side if it fails at least there won’t be a mess to clear up...

 
 
 
The Dee Why Grand shopping complex north of Sydney has told customers screaming children "will not be tolerated".
After complaints about children becoming too loud near the centre’s play area, a notice has been put up saying, "Stop. Parents please be considerate of other customers using the food court. Screaming children will not be tolerated in the centre".
Centre manager Brenda Mulcahy said staff and customers complained about children "running amok" in the food court and said children were sometimes so loud she could hear their screams in her office, which was "miles away".
"People deserve the quiet enjoyment of their cup of tea," Ms Mulcahy told The Manly Daily newspaper.
"Mothers have to be more responsible. We have had so many complaints."
She said some staff avoided the food court because they found the noise "unbearable".
Child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said: "I do think we are becoming increasingly selfish and intolerant ... this shopping centre needs to watch itself because I’m not sure legally it has much of a leg to stand on. This could be a violation of the United Nations rights of the child.
 

Bollocks-here’s an idea, why not build a sound proof dome which you can shove the spoilt little gits in?

 
 
 
Located in South Australia, known for being the driest state on the driest continent on Earth, the town of Coober Pedy was established in 1915, when opal was first discovered in the region and miners started settling in. The temperature and weather conditions were so harsh that the miners began digging their homes into the hillsides. All they wanted was to find some respite from the scorching sun, but in the process they ended up creating a small town for themselves. To this day, the people of Coober Pedy prefer to build their houses under the ground. Summers are harsh around here, with temperatures easily rising over 40 degrees Celsius. Air conditioning is a necessity, not a luxury, if you choose to live above ground. But the scenario is completely different in the underground homes of Coober Pedy. The temperature remains at a cool, constant 24 degrees and the humidity doesn’t go beyond 20%. Winters can be rather cold, but people are willing to make that kind of compromise.

To the outside world, all that’s visible of Coober Pedy is a vast expanse of land, interrupted by chimneys and shafts that seem to be sticking up out of nowhere. The town’s entire population of about 3,000 people lives underground, in a series of intricate tunnels. The name Coober Pedy is said to have originated from the Aboriginal phrase ‘kupa piti’, meaning ‘white man’s hole in the ground’.
 

Don’t tell the LibDems, there will be a stampede to enter the white man’s hole in the ground....

 
And finally:
 


A University of Buffalo engineering team, led by Qiaoqiang Gan, PhD, has come up with an efficient way to absorb different frequencies of light, an improvement that could lead to advances in solar energy, stealth technology, and other fields.
The “hyperbolic metamaterial waveguide” developed by Gan and his team functions like a microchip made of alternate ultra-thin films of metal, semiconductors, and insulators. The waveguide stops and absorbs each frequency of light at slightly different places in a vertical direction, allowing it to catch a “rainbow” of wavelengths.
“Electromagnetic absorbers have been studied for many years, especially for military radar systems,” Gan said. “However, it is still challenging to realize the perfect absorber in ultra-thin films with tuneable absorption band.
We are developing ultra-thin films that will slow the light and therefore allow much more efficient absorption, which will address the long existing challenge.”
Because light photons move so quickly, they’re very difficult to tame without the use of freezing materials, like cryogenic gases, that can only be used inside a laboratory. But this new metamaterial waveguide provides a more practical way for engineers to slow down light, one that can be put to use in the real world.
And the material’s ability to absorb many different wavelengths, including some commonly used for location and detection, also means it might be used as a coating material on objects like the stealth bomber or may be useful in developing new military technology.


Oh good, can’t wait for that...
 

 

And today’s thought:
My heart bleeds
 

 Angus