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The "And in other news..." thread

341o2

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What about the House of Lords, and note that the printers were "by Royal appointment", although their licence was subsequentially withdrawn.
Another Biblical blooper was the Printer's Bible, where the Psalmist (119) said that "Printers (rather than princes) have persecuted me without a cause."
 
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swt_passenger

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Do the maths, stupid:

Police chief dismissed.

”The allegations came to light when doubt was cast over the Falklands War medal that Mr Adderley had worn on his uniform since 2009, despite only being 15 at the time of the conflict.”

 

Gloster

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Slightly off at a tangent. My village is about a mile from the Isle of Wight Festival, which properly starts today, so we get a lot of festival goers wandering in to the village. Down at the bottom of the hill is a lake and there are a couple of benches so that you can sit and enjoy the sight. I don’t know if it is the county council, the roads authority or the parish council, although I suspect the last, has decided that this is the time to cover the benches with sticky wood preservative.
 

341o2

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Regarding festivals, there was the elderly couple who didn't want to go to Woodstock (Oxon) because they thought the place was overrun by hippies
 

Calthrop

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Regarding festivals, there was the elderly couple who didn't want to go to Woodstock (Oxon) because they thought the place was overrun by hippies
It has always rather tickled me that the original "Woodstock" event in the USA; was not actually at a place bearing that name. I gather that its site was about forty miles from the little town of Woodstock, New York State (not to be confused with the better-known Woodstock in Vermont) -- one may reckon that in the US, 40 miles is effectively nothing; still, feeling rather got: that on the scene concerned, as on many scenes -- "nothing can ever be simple".
 

Trackman

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Parisian's Olympic poo river Siene protest today:

Parisians have threatened to poo in the River Seine today in a protest ahead of the Olympics.

People angry at the expense of cleaning up the river have rallied under the hashtag #JeChieDansLaSeineLe23Juin, which translates as "I sh*t in the Seine on 23 June".



Today was supposed to be the date Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo would swim in the Seine to prove the water was clean enough for Olympic athletes - but she delayed the dip until after the French elections in July.

President Emmanuel Macron has also promised to swim in the Seine before the Games, but has not said when.



A website has been set up with the slogan: "They have plunged us into sh*t, it's their turn to plunge into our ****."


The anonymous programmer behind the website told news outlet Actu Paris why people are angry.

"The problem is that all the resources that have been invested have not been to resolve all the social problems we have at the moment," he said.

"We have the feeling of being abandoned. We see where their priority was."

More than €1.4bn (£1.2bn) has been spent on trying to make the water safe enough to swim in, with triathlon and open water swimming events scheduled to take place in the river.


A report published on Friday showed the water was still too dirty to swim in, just over five weeks out from the first triathlon event.

Water samples showed high rates of two kinds of faecal bacteria, including E.coli, and did not meet the standards set for the Games, Paris region prefect Marc Guillaume said.
 

Gloster

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Baxenden Bank

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najaB

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First warm spell of the year and it’s panic stations.
I don't think that the actual definition of a yellow heat-health alert quite deserves to be called panic stations:
A yellow warning indicates that weather conditions could pose a risk to those who are particularly vulnerable.

The UKHSA says minor impacts are probable across the health and social care sector.
Seems quite sensible, given that it is the first spell of properly warm weather for local authorities to check on the most vulnerable people in their areas and for hospitals to prepare for minor impacts by doing things like double-checking their rosters to make sure that they have adequate cover.

Now, had it been a red alert you could talk about panic stations.
 

YorkRailFan

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Anti-Immigration Activist is arrested in Canada for, you guessed it, immigration offences. The irony scale is on another level.
Tommy Robinson has been arrested in Canada on suspicion of an immigration offence after speaking at an event in Calgary.

The right-wing figure, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley Lennon, was held on Monday before being released, having been ordered to stay in the country and hand in his passport.


Robinson said on X: "None of this makes sense, I’m now detained in Calgary, prevented from leaving the city, these conditions stop me from continuing my tour of Canada and meeting with guests for podcasts.

“I’m not even allowed to leave to travel home.”

Footage posted online showed him being handcuffed and led to the back of a waiting car as he laughed and described the arrest as "absolutely insane".A man who appeared to be a plain-clothed police officer told him he was being arrested under an outstanding immigration warrant.

The 41-year-old had been booked to speak in three Canadian cities by far-right outlet Rebel News. He was expected for more podcast appearances in Edmonton and Toronto.

This is not Robinson's first arrest as he has often clashed with police at marches against anti-semitism.

In 2012, he also pleaded guilty to using a friend's passport to travel to the United States and was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment.

Rebel News founder Ezra Levant made appeals on X for donations to cover Robinson’s legal fees.
 

philjo

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The Japanese Government has recently phased out submissions of documents using floppy disks.

The Japanese Government has recently phased out submissions of documents using floppy disks.It's taken until 2024, but Japan has finally said goodbye to floppy disks.Up until last month, people were still asked to submit documents to the government using the outdated storage devices, with more than 1,000 regulations requiring their use.But these rules have now finally been scrapped, said Digital Minister Taro Kono.In 2021, Mr Kono had "declared war" on floppy disks. On Wednesday, almost three years later, he announced: "We have won the war on floppy disks!"Mr Kono has made it his goal to eliminate old technology since he was appointed to the job. He had earlier also said he would "get rid of the fax machine". Once seen as a tech powerhouse, Japan has in recent years lagged in the global wave of digital transformation because of a deep resistance to change.For instance, workplaces have continued to favour fax machines over emails - earlier plans to remove these machines from government offices were scrapped because of pushback. The announcement was widely-discussed on Japanese social media, with one user on X, formerly known as Twitter, calling floppy disks a "symbol of an anachronistic administration". "The government still uses floppy disks? That's so outdated... I guess they're just full of old people," read another comment on X. Others comments were more nostalgic. “I wonder if floppy disks will start appearing on auction sites,” one user wrote. Created in the 1960s, the square-shaped devices fell out of fashion in the 1990s as more efficient storage solutions were invented.
A three-and-a-half inch floppy disk could accommodate up to just 1.44MB of data. More than 22,000 such disks would be needed to replicate a memory stick storing 32GB of information.
Sony, the last manufacturer of the disks, ended its production in 2011.
As part of its belated campaign to digitise its bureaucracy, Japan launched a Digital Agency in September 2021, which Mr Kono leads.
But Japan's efforts to digitise may be easier said than done.
Many Japan businesses still require official documents to be endorsed using carved personal stamps called hanko, despite the government's efforts to phase them out.
People are moving away from those stamps at a "glacial pace", said local newspaper The Japan Times.
And it was not until 2019 that the country's last pager provider closed its service, with the final private subscriber explaining that it was the preferred method of communication for his elderly mother.



 

AndyPJG

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Cash machine appears on side of bridge

BBC News
A cash machine has appeared overnight on the side of a bridge.
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The device on Sonning Bridge in Berkshire visually bears all the hallmarks of a regular cash machine, including a screen, buttons, and slots for bank cards and the dispensing of cash.
But it is adorned with Impro Solutions logos, indicating that a real bank is not behind the bridge's new look.
Impro is an artist behind a range of confounding previous installations on the bridge, including a phone, a postbox, and a door.
Other japes have included a large Google Maps pin at Playhatch Roundabout.
Regarding his latest work, he simply said: "Banks have reacted to complaints about branch closures and accessibility by opening cashpoints on river bridges for boaters within minutes of Keir Starmer walking into No 10.
"The first is on Sonning Bridge."
As yet there have been no sightings of other bridge cash machines.
A close up of the cash machine, which has a screen, buttons, slots for bank cards and the dispensing of cash, with Impro Solutions logos at the top and bottom
Little personal information is known about Impro, other than he lives in Oxfordshire.
In a rare interview with the BBC in 2014 he said his art was inspired by his belief that people are encouraged to take life seriously "despite the fact that it's absurd and tragic".
His postbox gag drew international attention when it caught the eye of famous spoonbender Uri Geller.
Mr Geller said: "I have never seen anything like this anywhere in the world. It's a new one on me."
He even suggested a possible culprit - the "ghost of a mischievous little girl" who had apparently been seen walking on the bridge.
 

edwin_m

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You'd better cheque how deep the water is before trying to use this, otherwise your boat might be over draft. If that's OK then you can access your current account.
 

najaB

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You'd better cheque how deep the water is before trying to use this, otherwise your boat might be over draft. If that's OK then you can access your current account.
It's in your interest to cheque because if you don't then the boat may bounce off the bottom.
 

AndyPJG

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Driver criticised for Cottingham Day parking
35874d60-3d12-11ef-a12e-fbb463384a1f.jpg

The owner of a car left parked in the middle of a public event has been criticised on social media.

The annual Cottingham Day celebration on Sunday saw thousands of visitors enjoy fairground rides, live music and market stalls.
However, a white Mercedes car remained in a cordoned off car park, forcing the organisers to surround it with fencing while the event took place.
The BBC has approached Cottingham Parish Council, which organised the event, for comment.
Prior to the event, the official Cottingham Day Facebook page, external posted a warning to the car owner stating it would be "surrounded" by stalls and attractions if it was not moved.
The vehicle remained parked on the site, resulting in the organisers fencing it off to visitors.
Posting on social media, several people suggested the council should have had the car removed.
Others described the situation as "ignorant", a "nuisance" and "selfish".
The owner of the vehicle has not been identified.
 
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najaB

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Posting on social media, several people suggested the council should have had the car removed.
At a cost. As it is, assuming that there was a temporary order in place prohibiting parking during the time the event was on, the council might be quids-in on the fine. :D
 

edwin_m

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I assume closure warning notices would have been posted a few days beforehand. If there's a time limit on parking then a fine might be due for overstaying.

Anyway it has a nice smooth sloping front and back - could have been re-purposed as a set of mini-slides for those that didn't fancy the big scary bouncy one behind it.
 

AndyPJG

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Tortoise on railway tracks causes train delays
A number of trains were delayed due to a tortoise on the tracks.

Services travelling between Ascot in Berkshire and Bagshot in Surrey were disrupted at about 18:00 BST on Friday.
Four trains were delayed after the tortoise was spotted by the driver before it was removed from the tracks.
“He has been retrieved and is now on his way home,” South Western Railway (SWR) said.
“Network Rail and SWR staff moved the tortoise to a position of safety on the platform, including a short ride on the train itself.
“Its owner collected it from the station later that evening, and, as far as we are aware, was unharmed.”

Services returned to normal by about 19:00.
It is not known who the tortoise belongs to or how it got on to the tracks.
 

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