A must-read! An excellently-written and concise article in dot.life about the falling sales of CDs being blamed on file-swappers, playing devil’s advocate. Go read it, people!
Tag: news
Now Where Did I Put My House?
Did anybody see the story about the American who had their house stolen this weekend? That’s a fantastic theft to pull off. Wish I’d thought of it first. Ah well.
Also this weekend, a man is killed in a collision between a car and a train. Not particularly noteworthy under normal circumstances, I know, but the train in question is a tourist attraction – a one-third scale steam train with a top speed of 15mph, and the car was a Ford Escort, probably about the same size as the steam engine and weighing about half as much. It takes a special kind of bad driver to get struck on a level crossing at which the trains go barely fast enough to outrun a sprinting child.
Enough newssurfing – back to work;
Science Graduates Earn More, Live Longer, Smoke Less
This report by the BBC, published yesterday, gives evidence that we science/engineering graduates live longer than our artsy opposite numbers. Made my day.
Safe Road Use Of Elephants
Aside from the main point of this article, I found it most amusing to find that state-run Indian elephants are fitted with reflectors ‘in an attempt to prevent road accidents’. What does it take to accidentally crash into an elephant?
AbNib
As this article from the BBC and this article on icWales states,Aberystwyth is getting a sex shop (you can confirm it for yourselves by checking the pink banner at the top of the official web site.
That’ll save me spending so much on mail order goods.
Silliest Thing I’ve Seen All Week
As this hilarious BBC news story tells it, an artist came home to his Liverpool house to find that:
(a) A criminal had broken in to his home.
(b) Mistaking a piece of his artwork as a human head in a jar, the criminal turned himself in to the police to tell them about it. He also confessed all of his crimes to his mother.
(c) The police broke down the door and raided the house, and found that the contents of the jar were merely formaldehyde and a mask made from rashers of bacon.
I laughed.
Now I’m going home. I’m not feeling top-form today.
Hunting For Bambi
This news article, entitled Hunting For Bambi, amused me for a few minutes.
Almost Passed This On The Way To Work
Another fantastic story from the BBC: this one took place yesterday, and so I missed it, as I didn’t come in to work. Apparently this lorry full of cheese caught fire on the A44, on my usual route to the office. The driver said: “I saw the fire starting but by the time I’d gone back to the cab to get the fire extinguisher the whole lot had started to go on fire.”
1. Cheese burns?
2. What route did he take back to the cab? Via Bow Street?
3. How does combusion occur in the hold of a moving lorry full of milk produce?
Sandplough
As this report by the BBC states, Danish soldiers in Iraq were surprised when their latest supplies shipment, instead of containing much-needed morphine and tent equipment, contained a snowplough and a supply of lawnmowers.
Now; okay – I understand that mistakes happen, and perhaps there was a mix-up between two supplies orders… but somebody must have signed-off this snowplough to Iraq… didn’t they think to question the order just once?
Defense Minister Svend Aage Jensby has told one Danish paper, Ekstra Bladet, of his displeasure over the mistakes and has promised to put them right.
That lit up my Thursday morning.
Anonymity For Beginners
Somebody obviously didn’t understand the idea of the BBC’s story on annoying work colleagues when they posted the following comment: see how they signed it off –
Why are there so many ‘Anonymous’ comments above? If people are so concerned about their colleagues, then say so with the courage of your convictions rather than snipe about them
anonymously!
Anonymous, UK
Raised a laugh among my work colleagues, anyway.
Mobile Phone Dangers
I can understand the warnings that you should not drive while talking on your mobile phone, but this extract from a report by the BBC about phone usage in Japan really says it all:
“People in Japan use their mobile phones to do much more than talk… …only this weekend, newspaper ads warned phone users to avoid walking and writing emails at the same time.”
Ice-Cream Van Hijacked
How do you hold your head high in criminal circles after you pull off a crime like this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/southern_counties/3012692.stm
U.W.A. Professor Dies At ‘Massage’ Parlour
I laughed.
[picture rem0ved]
The chap pictured above, a certain Dr. Williams, professor in economics and astronomy, was found dead this morning at a massage parlour in Cardiff (full story here). Just out of curiosity, I looked up the parlour in question. sexywales.com reports it as follows:
A Touch Of Class Massage
112 Woodville Road, Cardiff
029 2023 6880
It turns out that one has to go all the way to Cardiff to get a good prostitute. I’ve looked on PunterNet UK, and I can’t find any reviews in Aberystwyth at all! It anybody knows of any working girls in Aber, please submit them to PunterNet, as they seem to be lacking!
Anyway; that naughty issue aside, I’ll get back to work.