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Darandio

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Wasn't sure whether this deserved it's own thread as it could merit an enormous discussion all of it's own. I decided to put it here though.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40679075

Girl, 5, fined £150 for lemonade stand

A five-year-old girl was fined £150 by a council for selling 50p cups of lemonade to festival goers.

The girl's father Andre Spicer said his daughter had set up the stall in Mile End, east London, while thousands of music fans were on their way to the Lovebox Festival at the weekend.

Professor Spicer said his daughter burst into tears and told him "I've done a bad thing."

Tower Hamlets Council has since cancelled the fine and apologised.

Professor Spicer said his daughter loved the idea of setting up a stall near their home.

"She just wanted to put a smile on people's faces. She was really proud of herself," he said.

"But after a small time trading, four enforcement officers walked over from the other side of the road.

"I was quite shocked. I thought that they would just tell us to pack up and go home.

"But they turned on their mobile camera and began reading from a big script explaining that she did not have a trading licence.

"My daughter clung to me screaming 'daddy, daddy, I've done a bad thing.' She's five.

"We were then issued a fine of £150. We packed up and walked home."

A council spokesman said: "We are very sorry that this has happened. We expect our enforcement officers to show common sense and to use their powers sensibly.

"This clearly did not happen.

"The fine will be cancelled immediately and we have contacted Professor Spicer and his daughter to apologise."
 

DaleCooper

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Amidst all the gloom and doom this cheered me up.

Dali's moustache 'intact at 10 past 10', exhumation finds

Salvador Dalí's moustache is intact in the "10 past 10" position, the surrealist painter's foundation has said, a day after his body was exhumed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40685361

Phew! What a relief, I had feared it might have drooped like his watches,
 

Cowley

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The moustache thing is great but I do find the thought of him being exhumed to get his DNA somewhat uncomfortable.
 

341o2

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The Bournemouth Echo is worth a read because proofreading seems to be done in the comments section of a particular article, one originally read

"Police called to crash involving cyclist and a cyclist" (should have read, which it now does..."and a car").

Maintaining a tradition as in 1946 following the introduction of the MN class

"This new engine now in use on the Bournemouth to London line is one which was brought from the Belgium Government and it carries that country's flag painted on its sides. It is in "The Merchant Navy class"."

And update article currently reads
“I asked what sort of dog it was and they said it was a Mastiff-cross. Marley walked around the back of the dog and it just swung road and grabbed him by the head.

http://http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/15427880.___Help_find_killer_dog_____Owner_left_heartbroken_after_her_pet_is_killed_instantly_during_attack_in_park/?ref=mrb&lp=1
 
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A Challenge

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Wasn't sure whether this deserved it's own thread as it could merit an enormous discussion all of it's own. I decided to put it here though.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40679075
As she's so young, does it count as a business, people have gardening businesses so should some enterprising young child who mows his elderly neighbours lawn for a bit more pocket money be fined? I think it should be at worst a fine of the total profit, as without deducting expenses £150 ÷ 50p = 300 cups, and that's without expenses!

I think you're right as well it will be discussed a lot!
 

Peter Mugridge

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Dali's moustache 'intact at 10 past 10', exhumation finds

Salvador Dalí's moustache is intact in the "10 past 10" position, the surrealist painter's foundation has said, a day after his body was exhumed.

Phew! What a relief, I had feared it might have drooped like his watches,

Never mind his moustache - what the whole world is waiting for is to learn whether or not he is the father...
 

DasLunatic

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http://en.rocketnews24.com/2017/07/...nnouncements-without-being-a-public-nuisance/

Apparently this is a thing in Japan...

Japanese train-themed karaoke lets you belt out announcements without being a public nuisance - soranews24

Here’s a chance to fulfill your dreams of becoming a Japanese train driver.


Japan is always breaking new ground with karaoke, from one-person booths to a karaoke Ferris wheel. Just when you think they can’t possibly surprise us anymore, one company proves to us that they aren’t finished yet.

Joysound, one of Japan’s largest karaoke companies, has started a service in collaboration with Tokyu Corporation that lets customers pretend to be train drivers in specialized rooms. Dubbed “Railroad Karaoke Rooms”, the cubicles come equipped with train seats, moving images of scenery, and cockpit controls. And the mic? Of course it’s a push-to-talk announcement microphone.

▼ Even the doors to the rooms are specially designed.


Aspiring train drivers can fulfill their childhood dreams of announcing, “The doors are closing, beep beep beep beep beep,” without being the subject of ridicule from friends. A wealth of content is available for customers to broadcast, which includes train lines in all 26 wards of Tokyo. These are all in Japanese, making it a great opportunity for language learners to put their words into practical use.

The rooms come in two flavors: operator/conductor room and Keikyu passenger car room.

For the operator/conductor-themed room, moving images of landscapes are projected onto the walls, giving customers a sense of sitting in a moving train. Long seats line the sides with cockpit controls, conductor microphones, and speakers.

▼ The operator room accommodates 12 people.


The Keikyu karaoke room also comes with microphones and speakers but has a first class feel to it. It’s equipped with cross seats and straps dangling from a luggage rack.

▼ The Keikyu room fits four people.


With train conductor cosplay attires available for rent, this is no doubt a train otaku’s heaven. The rooms are so detailed that they also come with a communication buzzer and an emergency switch. As responsible adults we have to resist the urge to push that button on real trains, but here we can live out our wildest fantasy without any repercussions.

The fun doesn’t stop there though, as Joysound is handing out their very own original train tickets to customers as souvenirs. Parched train drivers can indulge in some Keikyu Train drinks too, which come in three different flavors (680 yen, US$6).

▼ Red train, blue train, and yellow train drinks.


▼ The drinks come with original coasters too.


Whether you’re looking to have a change of pace in your karaoke routine or embrace your inner train otaku, these rooms will have you fully covered. Follow our six tips for Japanese karaoke and you’ll be the Pavarotti of train drivers.
 

341o2

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"Hello, RSPCA, come quick, there's a tarantula in my cupboard"

http://http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/25/rspca-inspector-called-house-giant-spider-makes-embarrassing/

An RSPCA inspector rushed to the scene when she received a report that a giant and possibly dangerous spider was on the loose in a family home.

She steeled herself to tackle the tarantula as she made her way to Alresford in Hampshire on Thursday July 20.

However, it appeared a child was to blame for the "spider" scare, which caused his mother quite a fright.

RSPCA inspector Nikki Denham said: "“The caller had stated there was a tarantula the size of her hand in the understairs cupboard.

“She had left it in there not touching it and called us for assistance.

"I turned up with gloves and nets to confine the creature and the woman left me to it, shutting doors around me to prevent its escape.

“It was dark under the stairs but I could see legs behind a vacuum cleaner that certainly were tarantula size, however as I shone light in I could see that it was in fact a toy plastic tarantula.

“After telling the woman this it was presented to her young son who confirmed with an angelic innocent face that it was his.

“The poor caller was obviously embarrassed but it won't be the first or last call we’ll have like that I'm sure.”
 

Domh245

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-40725918

An on-the run piglet making a bid for freedom was halted in his tracks by police and taken back to its owner in a traffic cone.

The animal was spotted by officers on the loose running amok on a road in Hunstanton, Norfolk, on Monday night.

Once rounded up they had to find a way to transport the piglet, so chose to put it in a handy traffic cone, which proved to be a perfect fit.

Norfolk Police said the piglet was safely reunited with its owner.
 

Cowley

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I'm glad they went for snout up and not down.
 

341o2

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You couldn't make this up....


monkey see, monkey sue

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/13/photographer-centre-bizarre-court-battle-reveals-sued-monkey/

Mr Slater travelled to Sulawesi, Indonesia, and spent a week taking pictures of macaques in 2011. He said he mounted the camera on his tripod, and then gradually persuaded the monkeys to press the shutter while looking into the lens.

In 2014 he asked Wikipedia to take down his picture after they published it without his permission, but the web giant refused and said that the copyright belonged to the monkey.

The US Copyright Office ruled that animals cannot own copyright but People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sued Mr Slater in 2015.
 

A Challenge

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Seen in yesterday's West Sussex County Times:
Maisie to the rescue ... Hero pooch runs mile to raise alarm for injured owner
West Sussex County Times (Horsham Edition) said:
Three-year-old Jack Russell Maisie darted through streets and across fields as she went to raise the alarm after her owner, Judy Cable, was left with severe injuries following a collision with a cyclist.

The pair were out for a walk in Crawley Road when the crash took place. Judy smashed her head on the pavement and was left with a fractured skull. She let go of the lead as she fell and that’s when Maisie sprung into action. The courageous pooch ran down Bostock Avenue, across the Roffey cricket pitches and through a couple of back roads to get to Judy’s daughter’s house in Farhalls Crescent. Her daughter, Madeline Maddison, panicked when she spotted Maisie with her lead on alone outside her front door. She said: “We had just finished our dinner and we saw something run past the window. We thought it was a cat. “We went outside and found it was Maisie. Obviously we started to panic a bit because she had her lead on and we knew something had happened.” Her son Ryan tried to get hold of his grandmother but she didn’t pick up her phone. He took Maisie to try and find her on foot while Madeline jumped in the car and searched the neighbourhood. “I think it was one of the hottest days in June,” she said. “I drove up Bostock Avenue and saw there were loads of people crowded there.” She said there were lots of people helping her mother and some had even brought out umbrellas and water to protect her in the heat.
 

fowler9

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So today we have had Lord Sugar saying that Jeremy Corbyn should resign or even be arrested for not delivering on election promises made in an election he didn't win, also, Gordon Ramsey filming a documentary of him fighting Colombian drug cartels in Wimbledon.
 

Darandio

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Today on the BBC.........

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-40802887

Cardiff billboard offensive images display after hack

_97164155_billboard2-2.jpg


Offensive images have been displayed on a Cardiff city centre billboard, prompting a police investigation.

Swastikas and far-right images were displayed on the Queen Street screen on Tuesday night after a hacker gained control and selected what was shown.

Writing in an anonymous online post, the hacker claimed there was a security vulnerability with the screens.

BlowUP media, who controls the billboard, has been contacted for comment.

South Wales Police said it had received a number of calls relating to the incident.

A spokesman added: "We alerted the city council and will investigate any crimes which may have been committed."

_97164476_billboard3.jpg


_97164158_billboard4-2.jpg


_97164153_billboard1-2.jpg
 

GusB

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This made me chuckle tonight

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/02/bus-seats-mistaken-burqas-anti-immigrant-group-norwegian

A Norwegian anti-immigrant group has been roundly ridiculed after members apparently mistook a photograph of six empty bus seats posted on its Facebook page for a group of women wearing burqas.

“Tragic”, “terrifying” and “disgusting” were among the comments posted by members of the closed Fedrelandet viktigst, or “Fatherland first”, group beneath the photograph, according to screenshots on the Norwegian news website Nettavisen.

Other members of the 13,000-strong group, for people “who love Norway and appreciate what our ancestors fought for”, wondered whether the non-existent passengers might be carrying bombs or weapons beneath their clothes. “This looks really scary,” wrote one. “Should be banned. You can’t tell who’s underneath. Could be terrorists.”

Further comments read: “Ghastly. This should never happen,” “Islam is and always will be a curse,” “Get them out of our country – frightening times we are living in,” and: “I thought it would be like this in the year 2050, but it is happening NOW,” according to thelocal.no and other media.

The photograph, found on the internet, was posted “for a joke” last week by Johan Slåttavik, who has since described himself as “Norway’s worst web troll and proud of it”, beneath a question asking the group: “What do people think of this?”

Slåttavik told Nettavisen and Norway’s TV2 he wanted to “highlight the difference between legitimate criticism of immigration and blind racism”, and was “interested to see how people’s perceptions of an image are influenced by how others around them react. I ended up having a good laugh.”

It went viral in Norway after Sindre Beyer, a former Labour party MP who said he has been following Fatherland first for some time, published 23 pages of screenshots of the group’s outraged comments.

“What happens when a photo of some empty bus seats is posted to a disgusting Facebook group, and nearly everyone thinks they see a bunch of burqas?” he asked in a post shared more than 1,800 times.


The comments suggested the vast majority of the anti-immigrant group’s members saw the photo as evidence of the ongoing “Islamification” of Norway, although a small number pointed out it was in fact a picture of bus seats. One warned the group was making itself look ridiculous.

Beyer told Nettavisen: “I’m shocked at how much hate and fake news is spread [on the Fedrelandet viktigst page]. So much hatred against empty bus seats certainly shows that prejudice wins out over wisdom.”

The head of Norway’s Antiracist Centre, Rune Berglund Steen, told the site that people plainly “see what they want to see – and what these people want to see are dangerous Muslims”.

Norway recently became the latest European country to propose restrictions on the wearing of burqas and niqabs, tabling a law that will bar them from kindergartens, schools and universities. France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Bulgaria and the German state of Bavaria all restrict full-face veils in some public places.

The country’s minority government, a coalition of the centre-right Conservatives and the populist Progress party that faces elections next month, said in June it was confident it would find opposition support for the move.

Per Sandberg, then acting immigration and integration minister, told a press conference that face-covering garments such as the niqab or burqa “do not belong in Norwegian schools. The ability to communicate is a basic value.”
 

341o2

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and locally there is the saga of Poole, where you can't spend a penny....

http://http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/15461936.Anger_as_council_provides_portable_toilet_for_travellers_in_Baiter_Park_after_closing_public_loos/

TEMPORARY toilets have been placed in Baiter Park - but not because of the closure of the permanent facilities in the area.

Travellers arrived at the coastal location in the last few days and they have been provided with a portable toilet by Borough of Poole.

This has angered residents who’ve campaigned for months to get the public toilets at Baiter reopened. Mike Randall, who has been leading the campaign, said: “We’ve fought long and hard to get these toilets reopened. I have seen people using the bushes around the toilet block because they are desperate and do not realise they are closed.

“Then lo and behold we have had travellers in the park for four or five days and they are provided with a portable toilet.

ps I thought the above bus seat a good 'un. You do have to see the photo to get the point

pps No jokes about Master Baiters pls
 
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DaleCooper

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A bit of light relief from all he talk of a US/North Korea conflict.

The Italian highlanders who may have Scottish roots

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40865981

Thousands of Italians emigrated to Scotland in the 20th Century, but it seems that 400 years earlier a group of Scots may have settled in a village in the Italian Alps. So local legend has it… And there are plenty of signs to suggest that maybe, just maybe, it's true.
High up in the mountains of northern Italy, just a few kilometres from the Swiss border, the people of the tiny village of Gurro speak a strange dialect, incomprehensible even to the other villages in the same valley.
They have peculiar surnames, and the women's traditional costume features a patterned underskirt that looks suspiciously like tartan.
One possible explanation is that their forefathers include a unit of Scottish soldiers - the Garde Ecossaise - who served the French King, Francis I, and were defeated with him at the Battle of Pavia, near Milan, in February 1525.
The story goes that while trying to make their way home the Scots stopped in Gurro, where they got snowed in for the winter. Many locals believe they never left.
 

fowler9

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In the Guardian today there were some excellent stories. "No whey! Cheesemaker offers £500 reward after theft of prizewinning cheddars" and "Outrage in Tunbridge Wells over sex festival in the woods". Sounds like something off The Smell Of Reeves and Mortimer.
 

Steveoh

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Woman trapped in window trying to retrieve poo after Tinder date

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-41167296

A woman who threw her poo out of her date's toilet window because it "would not flush" had to be rescued after she got stuck trying to retrieve it.

The amateur gymnast was on a first date with Bristol student Liam Smith when she "panicked" and threw the faeces out of the window.

It did not land in the garden, but became wedged between two non-opening windows.

After climbing in head first after it, she became wedged.

Mr Smith had to call the fire service for help.

The story appeared on a crowdfunding page, set up by the University of Bristol student.

Mr Smith, who is raising funds to fix his broken window, wrote that he was on a Tinder date with the woman and they went back to the shared house he lives in.

"We'd had a really nice evening," he said. "We'd had a meal at a well-known chicken restaurant, had a few beers and then gone back to mine for a bottle of wine and a film."

He said the woman went to the toilet and when she came back she had a "panicked look in her eye" and told him what she had done.

He said the toilet window opened into a narrow gap separated by another double glazed window.

"It was into this twilight zone that my date had thrown her poo," he said.

He went to find a hammer to smash the window, but she decided to "climb in head first" after the "offending package" and became jammed.

"I was starting to grow concerned, so I called the fire brigade and once they had composed themselves, they set to work removing her from the window."

Although the woman was rescued unharmed, Mr Smith said his bathroom window was destroyed.

"I'm not complaining, they did what they had to do," he said.

"Problem is, I've been quoted north of £300 to replace the window and as a postgraduate student, that is a significant chunk of my monthly budget."

Mr Smith originally set a crowdfunding target of £200, but has already raised more than £1,200.

He said he and his date had decided to split the extra cash between two charities, one supporting firefighters and another that builds and maintains flushing toilets in developing countries.

Unsurprisingly, the woman does not want to be named but Mr Smith said he had seen her since and "who knows what the future holds".

"We had a lovely night on the second date but it's too early to say if she's the one. But we got on very very well and she's a lovely girl," he said.

"And we've already got the most difficult stuff out of the way first."

Avon Fire and Rescue service confirmed it had received a call and freed a woman trapped between external and double glazing.

It also confirmed that a "window was broken in the process".
 

DaleCooper

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I read that but I couldn't understand the description of the window.

He said the toilet window opened into a narrow gap separated by another double glazed window.
That doesn't make any sense to me. Can anyone shed any light on it for me?
 

Peter Mugridge

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Probably bad reporting of secondary glazing; I would hazard a guess that she opened the secondary but not the primary and so... splat!!!
 

Cowley

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Probably bad reporting of secondary glazing; I would hazard a guess that she opened the secondary but not the primary and so... splat!!!

Oh man, I mean we've all had the odd embarrassing date but really? Throwing your own turd out of a window?
I think you'd need to stop and think hard before doing that one.
 
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Telford Residents had a rather large surprise... https://www.shropshirestar.com/news...water-information-boards/#xdAIYevbKFWtHr9D.99

Police have launched an investigation after pornographic images were screened on a shopping centre information board.

An obscene website was displayed on a digital podium near Telford Shopping Centre.

It triggered a police investigation as well as an inquiry by Telford & Wrekin Council, which runs and controls boards in the town.

The council said internet connectivity was cut to all digital podiums in Southwater as soon as the problem was reported.

But a photograph of the offending board was shared to thousands of people on social media.

The council have launched an internal investigation into how the website was displayed on the public sign amid concerns that it could have been hacked.
 

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