More hassle in London

The BBC are now reporting that plain-clothed Police officers have shot and killed a man on the tube. One eyewitness suggests that the suspect was shot after being taken into custody, or at least after being apprehended, but that is unconfirmed at the moment. This incident happened at Stockwell which is near the scene of one of yesterday's attempted bombings.

London again!

The BBC and other news agencies are reporting minor explosions in London - targetted at public transport again - with the effect that many tube and rail stations are being evacuated.

Illegal in 33 States

Now I cannot for the life of me remember how many States that the United States have but it's upwards of fifty isn't it? Well if we say it's fifty what is legal in 17 but against the law in 33? Is it driving in excess of fifty-five miles per hour? Dunno. Is it enjoying a beer before the age of 21? Erm.

It's actually legal in 17 States of America to have sex with animals. That's okay then - I'm just glad it isn't mandatory!

Sports day

Live from the field and beating the BBC - Campbell House won the Loose Juniors Sports day.

Just like the Queen does........

talk that is! Scarycheri sent me away to check my linguistic skills and here are the results. To test your own verbals visit "What slanguage do you speak?"

Important date!

If we can put a man on the moon we can do anything! A generation grew up believing that and many of us still do - despite what our political leaders get up to! Check out the moon landing links available from Google - they've changed their logo for the celebration and they've got a great moon map showing all the landing sites.

Mars again

Some of you may have missed this. Professor Colin Pillinger of the Open University has been diagnosed as suffering from Multiple Sclerosis (details here). Professor Pillinger is famously a big fan of Charles Darwin and that's why the Mars probe was called Beagle 2 - the plans for Beagle 3, another Mars explorer, have already been unveiled. Professor Pillinger was honoured recently when the International Astronomical Union named an asteroid after him. Asteroid 15614 is now named 'Pillinger' and moves between Mars and Jupiter.

Let's talk about sex baby!

Let's talk about you and me.......... is that Prince (or the artist formally known as?). Anyway! Back to the plot. The BBC are running a little quiz that is aimed at determining whether you have a woman's brain or a bloke's brain. Time hasn't allowed me to take this quiz yet but I'm sure there are any number of you who will invest some time in this serious research and pop back with the results. Enjoy Tuesday!

I wrote..........

a really long and thoughtful post about why Shanghai Automotive want to but MG Rover but the browser crashed and it all disappeared. Hit this link and select "practice". On my first round I shot an eagle, a hole in one and finshed 10 under par. Eat yer heart out Tiger!

Relaxing

Just try this for a bit of relaxation - it's wonderful.

Fascinating

There is something mesmerising and faintly disturbing about this. If there is stickage try click and drag. Let me know what you think (with thanks to Gillie!)

ID Cards

I found this via Guido's blog. Please visit this site and click on the playbill to watch and enjoy the show. If this isn't one of the best of the genre I don't know what is!

Open Day!

All done and dusted. Lovely day seeing colleagues and students (old and new) and having a chat and generally chilling (and getting paid for it!)

Nice Sancerre now, dry enough to peel the enamel off your teeth and cold enough to freeze your gums so that you don't feel the pain.

Slante!

This little piggy........

Draw a pig! Go to this site to see the pig I drew and to draw your own. There are some personality testing type thingies after you've drawn your pig.

A lobster focussed search engine

Lobster Blogster has raised some interesting issues and posed a couple of questions - check out his blog for details. Be aware that his blog is a lobster focussed search engine so try asking some questions too!

Beer miles

It's been a warm and busy week and it's not over yet - I'm working at an Open Day tomorrow but at least it's local (CCCUC). Getting home was another sticky and long-winded affair, motorways shut and the main drag from the M20 to the M2 clagged beyond useability because the county showground is on it and this weekend is the county show.

So I've just popped out and done a bit of research on beer miles. Being an environmentally aware sort of chappy I walked rather then drove and I drank the local brew. This is an old photo though as I didn't take the camera and I sat outside and I haven't smoked a cigarette for over a week now.

Food miles

The concept of "food miles" is a simple test to see what the hidden cost of food production and retailing might be. They try to take into account the cost of growing food, transporting it to the retailer, storage and then us driving it home. Food miles increased by 15% in the ten years to 2002 amd this obviously has an impact on pollution and costs. Lord Bach is the food and farming minister and he pointed out that........

"Internet buying and home delivery can reduce road congestion and vehicle kilometres. Organic and seasonally available food can reduce environmental impacts, but these can be offset by the way they are transported to the consumer's home."

Which, at first reading, looks like a statement of the obvious. It's also not as simple as saying that we should use local produce. As the report points out the energy needed to riped out of season tomatoes in the UK is probably greater than the energy needed to bring in Spanish tomatoes. "Sustain" have a good deal about food miles on their site and so do Friends of the Earth (and if plugging those two, and The Gunadrian, on the blog doesn't boost my "tree-hugging liberal" credentials I really don't know what will!).

Check out some of this stuff though - it's scary that the real price of some of our shopping is so high and getting higher.

Remember the education thing?

The government has no chance of reaching its target of 50% of young people entering higher education by 2010, a respected thinktank reveals today. From the Education Guardian.

Remember a while back before events conspired to deflect us from the discussion about Higher Education in the 21st century? Well I'm sure the latest report from the Higher Education Policy Institute will be given very little attention in the short term and in the longer term used by politicians of varying colour to support or beat each other.

The report itself points to a number of factors which impact on participation and these include the significant drop in demographic growth around 2010, i.e. there will simply not be as many uni aged students around between 2010 and 2015 - while this makes "50%" easier to achieve the drop in real numbers will have an impact on provision. The finger is also pointed at the Celtic fringes, the populations in both Scotland and Wales are declining and in order to maintain their own HE base they might start recruiting aggressively in England with the obvious effect on demand for English HE providers. There is also evidence that the growth in student numbers staying on to take "A" levels has stalled and shows no real signs of restarting. Without this primary feeder participation in HE will be reduced.

The report also suggests that the only way the government targets might be reached is if take-up of HE by older students , i.e. those over 21 years of age, increased but it would have to rise nearly three times as fast as the shortfall in younger students to compensate for this falling away of participation by younger students. It simply ain't gonna happen is it boys and girls?

I think, therefore, that it's a good job that I'm here and prepared to offer the benefit of my wide ranging experience to our lords and masters in order that we can avert this failure of a main plank of successive Labour Party manifesto pledges. Once I lay out my master plan I'm sure you will agree that it draws together a number of strands to create a coherent solution to a few societal problems.

We need to rebuild Hadrian's Wall and Offa's Dyke. Simple really. It offers work for all those people attracted to taking vocational qualifications in the building trade and it also has some "big" engineering for the newly graduated civil (and uncivil) engineers. Both projects are away from the super-heated south east and will offer work in areas of unemployment to offset the work that is flooding into London to build the Olympic infrastructure. Blair and Clark's soon to be formed Border Guards will have somewhere to keep warm and they can watch for youngsters trying to make a break for Stirling or the University of Wales in Aberystwyth. Of course the introduction of biometric ID cards will also help as students will be unable to lie about their age and claim that it's a junior school trip or a family holiday when they are actually trying to attend an interview at Cardiff or St Andrew's.

Remember - you heard it here first!

Arrgh!

It took the best part of three hours to get home last night - and it's only 70 miles! I headed cross-country as the A22 towards the motorway was already looking lumpy. The route is lovely over to Royal Tunbridge Wells and then on towards Maidstone before cutting across to the M20, A249, M2, A2 and home.

Last night it was a crawl all the way until I reached the roundabout at Paddock Wood where we were diverted as the road was shut!!!

Long story short - I got fed up with crawling so headed off down back doubles on my lonesome and spent a frustrating time on lanes barely wide enough for the car. Finally made Maidstone where I stopped for some supplies at Sainsburys (the nearest one to where I live is across Canterbury) and I invested in some of their wonderful Kalamaki Olives from the deli. Finally got home and enjoyed the olives with some French bread and pate and some German meat and mature cheddar and a bottle of Stella.

Just wondering which way to head home tonight!

BTW - The image is to give a flavour of the scenery I was driving through.

AFZ

The silly decision by USAAF commanders at Lakenheath and Mildenhall to order their personnel and dependents to stay outside the M25 has generated some interesting responses. (The ban has now been lifted).

Lobster Blogster reports that Watford has been declared an "American Free Zone" while the Cyber-pope is organising a support service for American military personnel travelling in the capital.