Putin may have been fooled, but leading candidate to take over from Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the IMF Madame Lagarde demonstrates why she didn't get-into-bed with the troubled financier.
Monday, 23 May 2011
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Hey, no, listen, I've got this groovy idea...
Give way to the right even if you're travelling anti-clockwise around a roundabout, I think that's right.
This beauty in Hemel Hempstead is sure to confuse even the most talented learner, let's hope it isn't on the DVLA test route. The rumours that the town planning highways department grow marijuana on the island are totally unfounded.
Monday, 16 May 2011
Sunday, 15 May 2011
No Diplomatic French Letter for IMF Chief
IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, now on enforced sabbatical, may want to plead that his physical actions can sometimes be misconstrued as having something of a sexual nature. His arrest, on a plane about to leave JFK to Paris, came after accusations of imprisonment and sexual assault from a chamber maid in the exclusive Sofitel off Times Square. Don't expect any kiss-and-tell stories from his stand in John Lipsky, although Dominique's French Presidential aspirations look to be in trouble.
Friday, 13 May 2011
Trivial TV Trivia Tests
University Challenge, Mastermind and even Eggheads don't give away fortunes to lure in clever contestants. So if you promise to hand over hundreds of thousands of pounds in a TV game show you best make sure your contestants aren't clever enough to win.
So, see if you can guess what Andrew & Vanessa thought was the answer in the show the Million Pound Drop:
'What did Roger Bannister become the first man to do on this day (6th May) in 1954?'
'What did Roger Bannister become the first man to do on this day (6th May) in 1954?'
Go to outer space?
First man to put the toilet seat down?
Run the first sub-four minute mile?
Yep, you guessed it. They went for the cliché male/female bathroom conundrum.
Even they confess to being stooopid.
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
Protesters in Poof Pink?
In a strange turn of events, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has sprayed economic and political protesters with pink gunge.
An odd choice of colour for the would be homosexual exterminator, you'd think. With six months no bail arrests on offer for any protester, the president's reinstated regime rule this week, already at 25 years long, doesn't bode well for anyone in opposition to Mr. Museveni's diktats.
QE2 in Naked Film Revelation
The Queen is a little unsure as Helen Mirren announces her return to her once obligatory nude scene film policy for the prequel to 'The Queen', 'Liz, the Uncensored Princess Diaries'.
Monday, 9 May 2011
You don't have to be Gay ...
... to think it is wrong to die because you are.
I just signed a petition demanding that Ugandan President Musevini veto the "Kill The Gays" bill should it be passed in Parliament. The website makes the case clear.
"We just learned the “kill the gays” bill - a death sentence for LGBT people in Uganda - could come up for a vote in the next 72 hours if we don’t act now. Conservative leaders are trying hard to push the bill forward before the millions like us who oppose it have a chance to speak out. If we can create a massive international outcry, theres a chance to stop this bill from becoming law. This hateful bill appears to be a political diversion, a way to distract from the legitimate grievances of pro-democracy activists, who have been beaten, teargassed, jailed, and even killed in recent weeks. There are only days left to make sure your voice is heard. Will you join me in demanding the Ugandan President Musevini veto the "Kill The Gays" bill should it be passed in Parliament?"
To sign and share this urgent petition go to:
http://www.allout.org/uganda
Sunday, 8 May 2011
The right not to vote?
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." Mark Twain attributed Benjamin Disraeli as saying, or did he as Dizzy never wrote it down. So, two thirds of the population say NO to the Alternative Vote - well no, not really. A miserable 42% bothered to vote after the lack lustre campaigning failed to light up the country still hung over from an unseasonably warm Easter break and fervent flag waving for Wills and Kate. So under 29% of the population, eligible to vote, bothered to do so and said 'No' to reform, just over 13% wanted change.
'Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve', George Bernard Shaw.
... or do we get the democracy we deserve or deserve the democracy we get? Well if you don't vote you've disenfranchised yourself. Maybe if we had a more proportional system in the UK, my local council elections may have offered up a Labour and Lib Dem candidate and not just a limited list of one Conservative, Independent (who was the incumbent Conservative councillor) and Green candidate. I felt a little circumscribed walking into the voting booth, a cross went next to the least worst candidate.
Thursday, 5 May 2011
Av or not to AV, pt 2. Clegg votes labour
Clegg has a Homer Simpson moment and momentarily forgets which flip-flop of coalition policy he has to vote for and, in a panic, votes for the Labour candidate. Doh! That was at least one vote the Judas of student's votes was guaranteed to get. The problem is, Cameron got his posh mates to scupper the AV referendum by chucking a royal wedding straight after the Easter break so really no one has had any interest in anything as dry to the mind as electoral reform.
Trials of a sheep dog
To continue the theme, Jack the three legged sheep dog has won a National Farmers Union competition.
Still working at the Rees' farm in Powys, Wales, despite losing his right back leg, Jack beat of competition from Kim the Collie from Essex and a twenty two year old from Exeter called Reg. If you see a three legged sheep in a field, that's just an impatient butcher on the loose.
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Cat Snap
Known for napping and not snapping, cats are usually too aloof to be bothered about artistic adoration.
CAT CAM
Nancy Bean took pictures with an automatic camera attached to her collar. The cat's owner Christian Allen said that the quality of some of the images varied with some being a bit blurry perhaps due to the moggy only having three legs. Renowned photographer Martin Parr then saw the pictures and asked to use them in an exhibition, Rencontres d'Arles, which he is helping to curate. Well, the cat's images can't be any less interesting than Parr's royal wedding street party efforts.
Liberal England...
... unless you look like a Muslim terrorist taking holiday photographs.
The five men were arrested after taking pictures from a public place of the nuclear site and generally 'looking foreign'. Cumbrian police hearing their foreign London accents knew they must be up to no good and quite rightly 'reasonably suspected' they were sent by Osama bin Laden in one of his final edicts.
The slightly more cosmopolitan Manchester Constabulary realised that being foreign looking and taking snaps in a public space isn't breaking the law and released them 48 hours after their arrest.
The slightly more cosmopolitan Manchester Constabulary realised that being foreign looking and taking snaps in a public space isn't breaking the law and released them 48 hours after their arrest.
I know what you did last night...
After sniffing some bath salts... Mark Thompson told the home owner's nephew, 'Don't come in, I'm naked,' 'But they opened the door and he was standing there with his pants down. He had on women's clothing and the goat was dead and there was blood everywhere' the nephew commented. The goat was his Aunt's pet.
The Charleston Gazzette continues 'Inside the bedroom police found the small gray and white goat wearing a pink collar lying dead on the floor, blood coming from its neck, according to the complaint. There was a pornographic magazine photo laying a few feet from the goat, the complaint states.'. Willy Goatees Buff and the Gobbling Lusty Troll perhaps.
Cameron's Onanistic Words
'Not my fault, Gov (sic)' seems to be Cameron's defence of the forced retirement of experienced policemen, saying it up to divisional commanders to decide how to balance their budgets.
But it seems Cameron's Big Society idea of people volunteering extends to the boys in blue with the sacked West Midland's policemen invited to take their old jobs back, under the title of Special Constables, on an expenses basis only. Perhaps we could do the same for the role of Prime Minister.
Yandex floats with the rigidity of spandex
News that Russia's preferred search engine has given financial information to the FSB, modern day KGB for the old schoolites, suggests that our online communiqués need special injunctions. Will the Western investers go for it? Putinlikely.
When the levee breaks...
... was just a cool Led Zep song to me as a child.
But now it seems a recurring nightmare for seemingly less regarded southern states of America.
But now it seems a recurring nightmare for seemingly less regarded southern states of America.
How many Frogs speak French?
More than speak German, according to the BBC quiz 'Pointless'. Apparently 18 out of the 100 polled general public didn't know that the Germans speak German. The same people, presumably, think Obama spin-laden won't propogandaise self interest as world bettering.
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Freelance assassin loses job but remains happy
The Indiana Jones of the mercenary world, with Osama bin Laden as his Ark of the Covenant, is reportedly happy to have the professionals finish off the job he failed to complete last June. Gary Faulkner was detained in Pakistan before tracking down his famous foe. Well that is one public service job loss I can't blame on Cameron's egalitarian cuts programme.
When 7 becomes F1
Team Lotus welcomes home the 'Seven' after selling the rights to Caterham in 1973. Now that they'll be available in Lotus colours, the same as the ancestral home football team The Canaries in Norwich, us lads can have a more authentic mid-life-crisis toy car.
Yes to AV drunkards
Excellent campaign TV broadcast for the Yes to the Alternative Vote explains that the system out votes the boring 'European Types' who want to drink coffee to the true Britishers who want to get pissed up on beer. Booze and half eaten chocolate bars, I see a theme here. Cheers.
Don't lose face over bin Laden video
Fake Osama bin Laden virral vacation video Facebook scam, forces you to share the link and do a survey. Stop the spread, details here.
Anyone seen Mogli?
The Sun reports that a trio of great animal friends, a rescued bear, lion and tiger, have piled on the pounds since being rescued as cubs.
Too many Mogli burgers and deep fried Kaa-lamari, perhaps.
Tweeter Beware
Quotes can put into words what our own literary skills seem to fail to convey. Many well known examples have paraphrased over time and now these versions are thought of as fact. But, in the world of endless communication it can be hard to sort the wheat from the chaff and maybe the only way to get noticed is to attribute your thoughts to a sage of peace and tolerance.
So it seems with these words of wisdom which Martin Luther King may well have said but no where recorded that I could find. But since Fry was retweeted it to over 2.5 million Twits it will surely be regurgitated ad infinitum until it becomes fact. Now that is Quite Interesting.
Monday, 2 May 2011
AV or not to AV
Along with a few local politicians to decide on, it's time to decide whether to AV or not to AV. Now, the first-past-the-post system is simple - the one with the most votes wins. This has been seen to be unfair because you only need 1 vote more than the nearest opposition to win, leaving nearly as many voters as the winner attracted represented by someone they didn't want. In my mind, though, worse than this is that an MP can win with 40% of 40% of those able to vote - a representative can decide what is best for you with 16% of the population voting for them. AV doesn't solve either of these. Anyone getting 50% of votes cast will win automatically even before all the second less worst candidate votes are considered. We'd be better off with compulsion of the present voting system, where 40% of votes cast means 40% of the electorate voted for them. AV gives us the likelihood of hung-parliaments and associated coalitions, look how well that has worked for Nick Clegg.
Not since Gary Glitter went from housewife's favourite to convicted paedophile has someone's popularity dropped so quickly. Confused about AV? The ever so happy, never grumpy, Lord Reid tried to explain his opposition to the Alternative Vote with the aid of branded chocolate bars on Radio 4's 'Today' programme. AV, he suggested, was like going to the corner store and buying a Mars Bar, taking a bite out of it and then asking the shop keeper to exchange it for a Twix and then taking a chunk out of that, he didn't say whether you chew on one or two fingers, and then return that confection; that's cleared it up in my mind. Now, introduce Marianne Faithfull into the equation and people might get interested in a Mars munching audio visual on AV.
Newly wed honeymoon wait revealed
I've just worked out the truth behind William's return back to work on Tuesday after his nuptials. The Duke of Cambridge, heir to Receding, worked out that if he got married on Friday, asking Cameron to make it a special one off compassionate day for the nation, he'd get 4 straight days away from saving drowning sailors. This means he could save his three weeks annual leave to lay that new lino his new Missus has her eye on. That is when Kate, heir to the stainless steal throne she was conceived on during a meeting of the Mile High Club, finally decides which mansion to reside in. Still, good of his relations to model, at his wedding, the two floor coverings their are undecided on.
Osama & Obama
Osama bin Laden buried at sea, not the headline I would have bet money on being in today's newspaper. Seems he wasn't wanted back in his homeland of Saudi Arabia dead or alive, assuming you believe he is dead at all. But it appears that Fox News believes it can still covertly undermine Obama by association, after previously not believing his claims of his US citizenship to be as watertight as Osama's grave.
Not convinced with the produced birth certificate there are doubts over whether he was born at all and not just the spawn of an alien invader. Twits demanded irrefutable evidence, but Obama had no reply.
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