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Tuesday 24 November 2009

'World's Worst' Photo Fit Sketch Spurs Arrest

Have you seen this man? Perhaps he was running along the high street with Donald Duck? Playing volleyball with Roger Rabbit? Seen snorkelling with Bambi?



This has to rank as the funniest e-fit sketch from a police crime unit!! And the funny thing is that they actually caught the guy based on this pic!! This could only happen in somewhere like Bolivia. The picture was apparently released in the South American country following the savage murder of taxi driver called Rafael Vargas.

And get this - "Bloggers compared the e-fit's egg-shaped face, crudely-drawn features and straw-like hair to the Wizard of Oz's scarecrow, Ninemsn website said."

The murder victim's burnt body was found in March with 11 stab wounds and police believe it was a crime of passion as the man murdered was alleged to have been having an affair with another man's wife.

I can see the witness giving the description to the policeman now - "He was tall, with hair like twigs shaped into a miniature gabled roof. His eyes were like missing imprints from the six of diamonds ,his nose was like an upside down razor blade, his eyebrows were like two slugs having a conversation, and his mouth was so lopsided that he could speak around corners. Oh and one more thing - he sounded like a Cabbage Patch Doll!"

Priceless! Absolutely priceless!!

Tuesday 17 November 2009

Doctors say most Britons reject swine flu vaccine

As I've been saying for some time (see my other posts), the swine flu vaccine is even worse than getting a strain of the real thing so stay away. (Click on thee link above (in the title) to access the original article.)

Don't believe me? Read my other posts within the last year:
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The article states that the British government is on record as saying that the virus would kill 100,000 s + yet, to date around the world several months on it has killed a total of only 6,000 people! More people have died on public roads, in freak accidents, botched surgical operations so what's all the fuss about?

Your government is trying to scare you and have you ever wondered why? Perhaps it's time you should!

Thursday 12 November 2009

The smell of old books...?



Great article about how to measure the age of old books and historical documents simply by sniffing them!! Whatever next? Touching a rhino to see how temperamental it is? Tasting a rare item of food to see when it was made?

"Researchers report in the journal Analytical Chemistry that a new "sniff test" can measure degradation of old books and historical documents."

I used to love walking around large civic libraries when I was younger, mostly in Southampton in the south of England and inhaling large doses of that "old book smell". I'm sure I must have got high on it at times - that old familiar smell was music to my nose!

The article goes on to say, "These [smells] are released by paper as it ages and produce the familiar "old book smell". Will the kindle ever be able to give you the same experience? Or any of the new breed of portable, handheld reading devices? I doubt it and the sheer joy of reading from paper bound books and the portability factor will never completely eradicate the love of carrying around a small tome in your pocket! Viva la tome!!

Friday 6 November 2009

Boys from the hood?




Below is a really great paragraph from a great article on the hoodies that roam the streets of the UK bored and with little opportunity to make a good life for themselves! (Click on the link in the title to read the original article.)

Don't they just look like the grim reaper himself, with that hidden face not giving away any sign of how they're feeling or what they're thinking?

"If you go to these places, it's very grim," says Philo. "The culture of violence is real. But for the British media, it's simple – bad upbringing or just evil children. Their accounts of what happens are very partial and distorted, which pushes people towards much more rightwing positions. There's no proper social debate about what we can do about it. Obviously, not all young people in hoods are dangerous – most aren't – but the ones who are can be very dangerous, and writing about them sells papers because people are innately attracted to what's scary. That's how we survive as a species – our body and brain is attuned to focus on what is likely to kill us, because we're traditionally hunters and hunted."

Football training?


Click on the link above to read the article and see all the pics.

This story brings a whole nw meaning to telling your mum you're going out training for football. It's a train journey starting in Plymouth and ending in Montrose, Scotland taking in 20 football grounds in the process!

Monday 2 November 2009

You are where you live



This is one of the reasons why I don't live in the UK any more. It's primarily because you are your own post code. The equivalent of "you are what you eat!" in geographical terms. There is too much of an authoritarian air about it these days with more cameras than anywhere else in the world and the recent furors about forcing carers and teachers and indeed any school visitors to undergo a screening test to see if they are fit to be near minors Oh and at a cost of GBP 64 which the person tested has to pay!

The latest silliness from the UK government is that parents who know the crazy rules regarding post codes and school selection have been trying a few scams to get their kids into better schools. Can you blame them when your kid could suffer because he lives in Birkenhead instead of Brighton? That his postcode is W1 and not N12?

The UK government is now clamping down on all those parents who simply want a fairer chance that their kids will attend good schools.

"According to a report, local councils report that "deceptive applications have become more commonplace as many parents do not consider the consequences of their actions for others any longer". "

Here are some of the examples of what the parents have been doing to "play the system",

In one example, a council reported that multiple false applications were made by a number of parents with children at the same pre-school.

According to Dr Craig, the Chief Schools Adjudicator, the most common scams reported by councils in the last year were the following:

* Use of relatives’ addresses – usually grandparents with the same name – if they live nearer a sought-after school (70 examples last year)

Can you blame anybody for doing that?

* Parents who rent homes in catchment areas during the applications process (33 examples)

Smart thinking!

* Families who feign marriage break-up then report that one parent – usually the mother – has moved to another house nearer the school (28 examples)

Ok, a bid dodgy here and a bit extreme!


* Parents who genuinely separate but then pretend the child is living with the mum or dad who lives closest to the best school (25 examples)

Again, a bid dodgy here and a bit extreme!

* Use of an address owned by parents but rented to someone else (24 examples)

Smart thinking!

* Parents who use an address to get a school place but move away without telling the local council (21)

Smart thinking!

* Use of a business or company address in a catchment area (16)

Smart thinking!

* Parents who swap homes with friends during the applications process – sometimes with a short-term tenancy agreement (14 examples)

Smart thinking!

* Use of an empty address or plot of land (10 examples)

Smart thinking!

What's the problem? Seems to me that if you base a silly system on silly rules, then you get a silly response! People will always try to find the best for their kids and that will never stop!

Nude totty..exhibitionism



Cambridge students in bikinis: the most depressing story of the week?

This story is laughable and written a real dyed -in-the-wool feminist who can't bear the thought that a woman who actually looks good in a swimsuit would want to show it just simply because she's Cambridge Uni student? What's the difference please? Isn't she still a woman? "If you prick me do I not bleed", as Shylock famously said in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice"? Isn't there just a hint of double standards here, too?

You don't even have to look for a hint of upper class dissatisfaction or whining about how the suffragettes had fouhgt hard for female emancipation - it glares at you from the opening remarks!!

"These young women have not pulled this stunt for charity, nor does it have the joie de vivre of a student prank. As a gesture, it fails even to smell like teen spirit. Instead, it is a throwback to the most dreary Seventies cliché. Viewing these images, it is as if the world has regressed Life on Mars-style to a time when garages were littered with images of women posing on sports cars."

The corollary being that had it been a student prank they could have got away with it, but the fact that they want to be viewed as sexual beings (like the ordinary women that they are) seems to matter not a jot to the writer who, it seems is (contrary to her own assertions of "garages were littered with images of women posing on sports cars") like a throwback from the days when women burnt their bras as an act of not only defiance but female liberation.

Do I detect a slight hint of jealousy here? It's a bit like Germaine Greer, that most ardent of feminists and Guardian columnist calling a reporter that wrote something horrible about her, someone who "...wears "fuck me" shoes and has birds nest hair!"