While browsing my RSS feeds, this one caught my eye on the Bolton News site:
A giant 200th anniversary
A MAGICAL open air-show will celebrate 200 years of Moses Gate Country Park on Saturday.
but when I checked the full story on their site, instead of talking about the Red Arrows or a Lancaster fly-past, it talked about ‘giant puppets, music and lanterns‘.
Then I spotted it – The lead should have read open-air show, instead of open air-show – two very different things.
Ah well, it did seem a little odd that Bolton Council would be staging anything so spectacular.
According to the Bolton News, Officers from TV Licensing have chosen the 31st October (Halloween) to target the homes of people who have failed to pay up.
I don’t know what kind of twisted logic they have used to come up with that idea. Of all the days in the year, I would say that Halloween is the single most likely night NOT to open the front door.
The BBC is carrying a story that scientists have “discovered a new weapon against the germs which cause food poisoning – the microwave oven.”
Forgive me, but they haven’t ‘discovered’ anything. This is an old trick. Basically the water in the wet cloth or sponge gets heated to boiling point, and in doing so sterilises the cloth.
They may have done some research into how effective it is, but it is not a ‘discovery’ by a long shot.
UPDATE: The Fire Brigade is now warning against doing this, because some pillocks decided to try it without wetting the cloth! Some people should not be allowed to breed.
Heard this story on Radio 4’s PM programme last night, that a fashion designer label, Jimmy Choo, had complained to M&S that they had ripped off their £495 handbag and were selling it for a tenner.
Now excuse me, but if you have the cheek to charge 500 quid for a handbag, you won’t get much sympathy from the majority of people if you whinge about being ripped off yourself. As the title to this post says: So who’s ripping who off exactly?
I suffer from hay fever, and have done so from being a young child.
20 years ago, I decided to try a homoeopathic remedy instead of the usual antihistamines. I don’t remember the name, but it was a small white tablet which dissolved very quickly on the tongue.
Very soon after, I started to wheeze when exposed to pollen, something I had never experienced with hayfever before, so I stopped taking the tablets immediately. The wheezing however didn’t stop, and since then, whenever I get hayfever symptoms, the wheezing accompanies it.
It is with dismay, therefore that I read that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has effectively given credence to homoeopathic remedies by introducing rules to allow them to specify the ailments for which they can be used.
According to the BBC, a report commissioned by Tesco has shown UK youngsters to be amongst the most lazy in the world. Now while that doesn’t surprise me, what is annoying is the opening paragraph of the BBC’s report:
The survey found UK children spend an average of 9.4 hours a week playing computer games or watching TV, but less than one hour a day being active.
On the face of it you are hit by two figures of 9.4 hours and 1 hour. Quite a difference until you realise that one is per week and the other per day. To be fair we need to normalise these figures to either: 9.4 hours per week playing computer games as compared to less than 7 hours per week being active, or 1 hour 21 minutes (non-active) versus less than 1 hour active. Doesn’t look such a huge difference anymore does it?
The BBC is supposed to be reporting this impartially, but they have given undue emphasis to the time spent playing computer games or watching TV, no doubt in the interest of sensationalism.
“The youngsters of today have no respect for the police” is a phrase which is often heard today, yet West Midlands Police recent petty actions against a group of children playing hopscotch have done little to build that much needed respect.
According to the BBC, they have “asked parents in Spring Street in Halesowen to remove chalk markings after complaints about them.“. The police refer to these chalk markings as ‘low level crime’, and by tackling that “they could prevent more serious problems developing”. What?! I can hear the warnings now: “Don’t let your daughter play hopscotch Mrs Smith, the next thing you know, she’ll be into prostitution!”.
What they have actually done is the opposite, as this sort of action will cause the children to lose respect for the police.
So the Environment Agency has commissioned a survey and come out with the statement that up to 41% of people in the UK are unaware of the risk of flooding to their homes.
So who holds this information about who’s at risk of flooding? Guess what, it’s the Environment Agency.
The blindingly obvious question is: Why doesn’t the Environment Agency just tell these people they are at risk – problem solved without wasting time and tax payers’ money on pointless surveys?
