Lewis Hamilton ‘not happy’ with Mercedes car

Lewis Hamilton says he is not enjoying driving his Mercedes after finishing fifth fastest in second practice for the British Grand Prix.

The Briton, 28, was seven-tenths of a second behind team-mate Nico Rosberg, who went quickest at Silverstone.

“I'm not happy with the balance of the car,” said the 2008 world champion.

“I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt so uncomfortable. I don’t really know what it is but we’ll work on it and we'll fix it.”

When Hamilton moved to Mercedes many, including me, were perplexed, but actually given what has happened at McLaren this season his choice to leave doesn’t seem all that bad now.

But he’s not exactly developed, in the sense that last year he finished fourth in the championship and won four races, this year so far he’s won no races and is fourth in the championship, so while he hasn’t dropped back he hasn’t moved forward.

And now he’s revealed that he doesn’t like his new car much, always good to say that on the eve of your home race to boost your team’s confidence.......

This is a strange announcement when you consider all of the work that goes into developing an F1 car, and particularly when you consider how much the drivers are involved in the process and they even decide on the set up of the car, so I’m not sure who Hamilton is unhappy with, his mechanics? Himself?  

When he first moved Hamilton was very upbeat and positive about the driving for his new team, but it’s only been about nine months and he’s already unhappy, bodes well for the rest of the season and next year.

   

Eric Pickles’ department fined for £217m overdraft

Eric Pickles’ department has been fined for having an unauthorised bank overdraft, it has emerged.

Just two days ago, he was praised by Chancellor George Osborne as “a model of lean government”.

The Department for Communities and Local Government ended the financial year £217m overdrawn and was fined £20,000 by the Treasury.

Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said it was "a shocking example of incompetence".

Hodge is right this is incredibly incompetent, but I would also question the decision of the treasury to issue a fine, if a department is this majorly overdrawn, particularly during a week where the chancellor announced £11.5bn of cuts, how is a fine the way to go.

Surely the thing to do would be to remove the minister responsible and have him replaced by someone who can manage the department finances properly.

I bet this will anger many, but none more than the local council leaders who have been continually lectured by Pickles to get their finances in order, if he keeps his job, which he probably will, when he next opens his mouth to preach about money managing I suspect very few will bother to listen. 

Spending review leaves little left to cut

Yesterday the chancellor George Osborne unveiled his plans for a further £11.5bn of cuts covering the financial year 2015-16.

While there was the expected massive reductions in some government departments, Justice 10%, Environment 10%, Local Government 10%, Work and Pensions 9.5%, Energy 8%, basically meaning that there really isn’t that much more that can be cut.  

There was also an announcement for a potential cap on total welfare spending, limiting welfare spending to £100bn, which as it now stands around £112bn means that the £12bn difference could be an emergency in case this latest round of cuts don’t have the desired effect.   

We shouldn’t forget that Osborne predicted that his intial spending cuts would solve the country’s economic problems before the next election, now he predicts around 2018.

There was also the puzzling plan to spend an extra £10bn on the HS2 high speed rail links, which given that £30+bn has already been allocated for it and nobody seems to want it, and that it will take 20 years before it’s up and running, makes the decision even more bizarre, because government projects never finish on time so this rail link will probably be finished in 2042 not 2032 and will have cost £60bn rather than £40bn.

Another announcement that was made, today, is that between 2015 and 2020 the government will spend £100bn on various infrastructure projects, great but why then why not start these projects now, if these projects are so vital why delay them?

If the government wanted an investment in infrastructure that would boost the economy and create jobs and could be built relatively quickly, might I suggest building another runaway at Heathrow.  

As usually I managed to find something amusing from this incredibly serious set of circumstances and it concerns the plan to axe the winter fuel payments for expats in hot countries.

That’s not that funny, but what it is that there will be a test to see if the country has a warmer climate than the UK, right these are hot countries, I’ll say it again hot countries, by definition they will have a warmer climate than the UK so scrap the test and just take the money. 

Star names tumble at Wimbledon

What is going on at Wimbledon, usually the first week of a grand slam is a warm-up for the top players as they ease their way through the first three rounds and prepare themselves for the second week.

But this year they’re dropping like flies, usually you get a couple of surprises in the first week so when Nadal, who was clearly not 100%, lost on the first day I thought that’s the surprise out of the way, oh how wrong I was.

Yesterday must have been a record for the most number of top players departing a grand slam all at the same time, Federer gone, Tsonga gone, Cilic gone, Azarenka gone, Sharapova gone, I can’t remember a day like it.

All this means Murray has got a much easier route to the final, as anyone who might have caused him some problems have now gone.

So don’t be surprised to see another installment of Murray vs. Djokovic next Sunday, it’s been interesting to watch the evolution of the different rivalries between the top four, first it was just Federer, then it was Federer-Nadal, then it was Nadal-Djokovic, now it’s Djokovic-Murray.

And unless one of them falls over and seriously injures themselves, as they are more likely to go out this way than actually getting beaten by their opponents, it will be the third time in the last four slams that Murray and Djokovic will be in the final.

Having made several predictions for Wimbledon and other tennis tournaments in the last year or so and having got most of them wrong, i.e. saying Federer wouldn’t win another grand slam during Wimbledon last year, saying ironically after Murray won gold in the Olympics that he might have won that but I bet now he won’t win a slam, I’ve vowed to make no more predictions and keep my mouth shut, after I make this last one, I do hope Murray doesn’t win Wimbledon. 

Coat made from male chest hair put on sale

Wing co. has unveiled the first fur coat made from 100% male chest hair.

The coat was commissioned as a protest against the widespread 'manning-down' of British men, typified by clean-shaven chests and emasculating fashion. 

The coat, which features over one million strands of male chest hair, took a team of fashion designers over 200 hours to create and carries a hefty price tag of £2,499.

Ok it seems those in the fashion world have finally reached the point where they are completely out of ideas and will just throw anything together in a bid for a smidgen of attention.

I wonder if they spotted their own contradiction, to protest against clean-shaven chests they got some men to shave their chests, and not only did they do that they then clumped the hair together into a coat and put a £2,499 price tag on it!

Judging but what has gone before you worry about what will come next, because to buy this coat you’d need more money than sense, although that statement does apply to a troublingly large number of people so this coat might actually do rather well. 

Obesity is now a disease in the US

Last week, the American Medical Association voted to classify obesity as a disease. But is being fat the same thing as being sick?

The decision came at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA).

Though a committee of experts recommended against classifying obesity as a disease, the association's delegates voted to approve the change.

And at a stroke, a third of the US population became diseased.

To answer the question being fat is not even close to the same thing as being sick and obesity certainly shouldn’t be classified as a disease, but I can see the why the AMA chose this option.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last 10 years, you’ll all be aware that there is an obesity crisis with doctors, nutritionists etc. expressing their concerns, numerous times, at people’s ever increasing waistbands.

However, no matter what they seem to say and no matter what evidence they present of the dangers that being obese poses to your health, the number of people classified as obese has continued to rise.

So maybe this announcement is just a change of tactic, making someone diseased brings with it a certain stigma and maybe the AMA are hoping that this will have an effect and finally convince people to drop a few pounds.

Or like all the other things they’ve tried maybe it won’t work and things will continue as they are until America buckles under the weight of its citizens and sinks.   

That would make for a great apocalyptic disaster movie starring Tom Cruise or Will Smith travelling across America rounding up the diseased fat people, transporting them to some shady government facility where the excess gloop from the fat people is used to power the world and at the same time stopping America sinking obviously. 

  

Barclays to sell customer data

Barclays is to start selling information about 13 million customer’ spending habits to other companies, and has admitted it could share the data with government departments and MPs.

In letters being sent to customers, it is also outlining what details about them it holds and uses which, it said, "may include images of you or recordings of your voice", as well as comments made in interactions with the bank on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. 

However, the bank assured customers that any data it passed on to third-party companies would be aggregated to show trends, and that individuals would not be identifiable from it.

Given the reports of the spying activities of GCHQ and the NSA about what data they can access and what intelligence they share with each other, the outcry and debate that has followed has left everybody weary about their information being shared or their privacy invaded. 

But fear not because good old Barclays bank has stepped in and announced that it will be giving its customers details away, all in the name of a profit of course.

You’d think that given the row over GCHQ and the NSA Barclays might have shelved this plan or pushed it back, but  being a bank and seeing a profit of course they were never going to do that, what was I thinking.

I wonder if anyone at Barclays actually double checked this because they blatantly contradict themselves by saying that some of the data that will be sold may include images of you and your voice recordings, yet go on to say individuals won’t be able to be identified from it, that’s bulls**t.

This news comes on the same day that a glitch in Facebook’s data archive meant that the email addresses and telephone numbers of six million people where shared with people who shouldn’t have had access to that kind of information.

When will these companies realise that customers give you their details in good faith and don’t want you to sell to their information on to third parties, because all it does is p**s them off and puts off any potential new customers, so it’s actually quite self-defeating and they should all stop it.

Cricket Australia sack coach Mickey Arthur

Australia coach Mickey Arthur has been sacked just 16 days before the start of the Ashes series against England.

The South African faced criticism following poor performances and disciplinary issues within the camp.

Cricket Australia say they will "discuss the coaching structure of the team" at a news conference in Bristol, scheduled for midday.

Arthur, who was Australia's first overseas coach, succeeding Tim Nielsen in 2011, told BBC Sport he was shocked.

Are we seeing the complete capitulation of the Australian cricket team?

Their talisman, Michael Clarke, is injured and could miss most of the Ashes, discipline in the team has nose-dived now they are without a coach.

I know England blew the chance to win the Champions Trophy yesterday, but surely with the state the Australians are in they can’t blow the Ashes, can they?

I was brought up on a staple diet of watching the Australian bowling attack of Warne, McGrath and Lee skittle England out for a meagre total of about 250, then I’d watch Hayden, Langer, Ponting, the Waugh brothers and Gilchrist smack the ball all over the place as Australia would declare on about 600-5, and then watch England struggle all over again and lose the test by inning and a hundred odd runs.

Well not only are those days over it looks like the roles have now been well and truly reversed, and hopefully all those Australian who have enjoyed years of watching their team dominate, will now feel just what every England fan felt during those times between 1989 and 2005 when we had to put up with eight consecutive defeats in the Ashes.    

As this series is quickly followed by another, I still don’t understand how it’s worked out that way but...., England could win four in a row for the first time since the Victorian age!  

Jim Carrey won’t promote ‘too violent’ Kick-Ass 2

Jim Carrey has announced that he will not be promoting Kick-Ass 2, a film which in light of the Sandy Hook shootings he has deemed ‘too violent’.

The actor plays Colonel Stars and Stripes in the film and filmed his scenes last year, but will not be doing a promotional tour ahead of its worldwide August release.

He told his 10 million Twitter followers that his opinion of the film and its violent content had changed.

‘I did Kickass a month b4 Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence’.

This is interesting, an actor refusing to promote his own movie because it’s too violent.

I understand the stance that Carrey is trying to take but it doesn’t really make much sense, he says that due to the Sandy Hook shootings he’s changed his opinion of the film, but there were several shootings similar to Sandy Hook before filming for Kick-Ass 2 would have taken place so why the change all of a sudden.

If he was that concerned about the levels of violence in the film then why sign up for it at all?

I don’t mean to be facetious, but if you don’t like strong levels of violence don’t star in a movie called Kick-Ass, particularly if there’s an incredibly violent Kick-Ass film that is already out there and readily available.

Ironically Carrey’s stance could actually cause the number of people who go and see this movie to rise, as it could kick off another round of are films too violent and are they a factor in the rising levels of violence in society debate. 

Man turns down job because he doesn’t want to wear a hat

A man receiving jobseeker’s allowance and housing benefit turned down a job because he didn’t want to wear a hat.

The man, who was only referred to as Paul, from Clerkenwell, spoke to the London radio station LBC and revealed that he turned down the job in a high-street bakery because the hat would ‘kill his long hair’. He was also unwilling to call customers sir or madam.

There are several bits of this story that are surprising, culminating in how this guy nonchalantly said, on the radio, that’s right I turned down a job at a bakery because they wanted me to wear something that would stop my hair falling on the  food, and they wanted me to be polite to customers.

Paul, as he is referred to, has been unemployed for seven and a half years and had the audacity to claim that he wasn’t lazy, actually to be fair he’s right he’s not just lazy he’s an incredibly lazy scrounger who clearly doens’t want to work and so should forgo any benefits he is receiving.

But it sounds like he won’t be doing that as ‘Paul’ is going on holiday to Greece this year, alright for some, and maintains that he will continue job hunting, I’m sure he will but without ever actually trying to get one. 

Chickens ‘cleverer than toddlers’

Chickens may be brighter than young children in numeracy and basic skills, according to a new study.

Hens are capable of mathematical reasoning and logic, including numeracy, self-control and even basic structural engineering, following research.

Traits such as these are normally only shown in children above the age of four, but the domesticated birds have an ability to empathise, a sophisticated theory of mind and plan ahead.

“The domesticated chicken is something of a phenomenon,” Christine Nicol, professor of animal welfare at Bristol University, and the head of a study sponsored by the Happy Egg Company.

Ok, when results from studies are produced there are always signs to tell the level of its validity, if for example you have a study about chickens sponsored by an egg company you can tell straight away that the results are a load of biased shite.

How did they conduct this experiment put a chicken in a classroom and leave an equation on the blackboard giving it 10 minutes to see if it could solve it?

The best bit of this story has to be that the study states that chickens can only distinguish numbers up to five, and yet they have an understanding of physics, now if you can only count to five I think a grasp of physics is a bit beyond your skills set.

What we have here then is another entry into the annals of pointless, irrelevant, unnecessary and frankly stupid research.   

Although if the chickens don’t fancy laying eggs or being Sunday lunch anymore, they can always apply for a job at Bristol University, they’ll feel right at home. 

Jail reckless bankers, standards commission urges

Senior bankers guilty of reckless misconduct should be jailed, a long-awaited report on banking commissioned by the government has recommended.

The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards was set up by Chancellor George Osborne last year after a number of scandals involving the industry.

The cross-party group's fifth report attacked the lack of accountability of bankers and also said some bonuses should be withheld for up to 10 years.

The Treasury has welcomed the report.

This proposal of jailing reckless bankers in future is a little overdue I would say, given that since 2008 no banker has been jailed for recklessness despite the chaos they caused, the collapse of the financial markets, plunging the world into a recession, Libor, PPI etc.

The proposal to withhold bonuses is also a little late, as bankers continue to be paid millions in bonuses, regardless of how they perform, and politicians from all parties continually say we’ll be tough on the banks, bankers and bonuses, yet it’s been five years now and what has actually been done?

Hopefully this will be the time when action is finally taken, although based on previous evidence I’m not that confident, but something needs to be done otherwise bankers will get even more reckless because they will be safe in the knowledge that no matter what they do, nobody will do anything to stop them. 

Labour politician ‘fathered a child with an alien’

A Labour councillor has claimed he fathered a child with an alien - and he has sexual relations with the extra-terrestrial about four times a year.

Simon Parkes, a 53-year-old driving instructor and married father-of-three who sits on Whitby Town Council, said his wife was ‘very unhappy’ with the revelation.

He added: ‘But it is not on a human level, so I don’t see it as wrong.'

He made the comments speaking on Channel 4’s documentary, Confessions of an Alien Abductee.

Where to begin with this one, I found it funny that his wife was ‘unhappy’, yes I’m sure she was, because when she saw it I can imagine she thought to herself oh s**t I’m married to a bona-fide nutcase.

I also feel sorry for the poor teenagers of Whitby who have to take driving lessons with him; although I’m guessing after this announcement demand for him will drop, imagine driving along a country lane and he turns to you and says this weekend I’m meeting up with my alien lover for our quarterly shag.

I bet the Tory and Lib Dem councillors in Whitby can’t believe their luck, and I bet the Labour ones are banging their heads in disbelief, because how would you take anything they proposed at a meeting seriously after this.

Although there will always be a place for him in the Monster Raving Loony Party, and the Whitby mental health facility.  

New alarm clock shreds your money if you don’t wake up in time

If you struggle to get up in the morning when your alarm clock goes off then a new device that shreds your money if you don’t stop the ringing may just be what you need.

The altered clock was crafted by Rich Olson, who said he combined a Sparkfun Clockit and a USB Paper Shredder to create the machine.

The novice US inventor then programmed the device to tear up a one dollar bill if you didn’t hit a button within a few seconds.

This sounds like a good idea initially but the more you think about it the worse it gets, the first big problem is that you need to hit the button within a few seconds, I don’t know if you can adjust it to give you more time but that doesn’t give you much of a chance.

Also if you were to buy one of these clocks you would need to put the money into it yourself, which is hardly practical.

If you’re someone who really struggles to get up in the morning you’re much better off with one of those alarm clocks that runs away and hides, that way you actually have to get out of bed and walk across the room rather than just rolling over and hitting a button, and you won’t lose any money in the process.

Mind you could end up being outsmarted by an alarm clock, so it’s not a totally fool-proof solution.  

Gareth Bale trying to trademark goal celebration

Tottenham and Wales winger Gareth Bale wants to trademark his heart-shaped hand gesture goal celebration, the trademark was filed on March 26 at the Intellectual Property Office which has listed the trademark’s owner as “Gareth Bale” courtesy of sports management company The Stellar Group Limited.

If successful Bale could pocket up to £3 million a year, and it could end up appearing on a list of items that include..... Jewellery, precious stones, leather and imitations of leather, animal skins, hides, trunks and travelling bags, umbrellas, parasols and walking sticks, whips, harness, saddler, clothing, footwear and headgear.

This is the most ridiculous story in football right now, how can you trademark a hand gesture that is so commonly used, this is just stupidity combined with greed.

Adding to this is the fact that Justin Bieber apparently also uses a similar gesture so there could be more to come from this.

But hopefully the Intellectual Property Office do the right thing and inform Bale and The Stellar Group where to stick their nonsensical application. 

Justin Rose wins U.S. Open

Justin Rose clinched his maiden major title to become the first Englishman for 43 years to win the US Open.

The 32-year-old won by two shots from now six-time runner-up Phil Mickelson and Jason Day on a gripping final day.

Rose, also the first Englishman to win a major since Nick Faldo in 1996, fired a level-par 70 to end one over as overnight leader Mickelson carded 74.

As usual I stayed up and watched the drama un-fold, and what a great feeling it was to finally see an Englishman hold his nerve down the stretch and win a major, rather than doing the usual of being there or thereabouts and then collapsing and finishing well out of it.

The two shots Rose hit into the 18^th were Hogan-esque, thought it was fitting that he hit his iron shot standing over the Hogan plaque, his game has slowly been building to this over the last four or five years winning Jack and Tiger’s tournaments, then the play-off event, then a WGC, and now a major.

Must say I felt for Mickelson that’s now six-times a bridesmaid, and that could be his last realistic chance to win it.

Hopefully seeing Rose win will give Donald, Poulter, Westwood etc. that extra bit of belief that they too can do it.

Thought the course was great and held the players to the usual U.S. Open score of around par, although I think the thick rough that sat an inch from the fairway was a little unfair, but it proved that a course doesn’t need to be 7,500+ yards to be challenging, just look at the world’s top three: Woods, McIlroy and Scott who finished a combined 42 over for the week. 

Men ‘to blame for the menopause’

Hot flushes, night sweats, mood swings - menopause and its side effects can all be blamed on men, experts suggest.

Evolutionary geneticists from Canada's McMaster University say men's tendency to choose younger mates meant fertility became pointless for older women. They say this eventually led to menopause.

It’s ironic that this study uses the phrase pointless, as that’s exactly what it is.

Of all the things there are to research about genes and yet those at McMaster chose this, what a waste of time.

A simple biology lesson would have saved them the time and told them that the older women get the more risks there are involved in reproducing, and also the fact that the advancements in medicine in the last hundred years means that life expectancy has shot up and exceeded the age of onset menopause.

Yet despite all this existing evidence they decided to press on anyway and have come up with a nonsense theory that nobody should pay any attention to. 

EDF Energy calls for ‘petrol station forecourt’ pricing

One of the UK's biggest energy suppliers has called for single-unit pricing for gas and electricity to help consumers compare tariffs as easily as they currently shop around for petrol.

EDF Energy said it would introduce the system if all other suppliers did too.

This sounds like a great idea, but unfortunately the idea of simplifying the market for the benefit of the consumer hasn’t gone down that well with those in the industry.

Ofgem, the energy regulator, said the scheme wouldn’t be as easy to implement as it might appear, British Gas, the UK’s largest energy supplier, rejected the proposal, and Co-operative energy said this system would produce winners and losers.

But under the current system there are already winners, the energy companies, and losers, the consumers, and introducing the system proposed by EDF would, hopefully, break the status-quo.

While this is an idea that would be popular with a large majority of people, unless everybody involved in the energy industry signed up, and given that British Gas have rejected the idea, it will be resigned as a great idea that could have made a difference, but nobody wanted to act on it.

However, there is one way that this idea could yet be introduced, the government. Yes the much maligned coalition, who have already publicly called on energy companies to simplify their tariffs, could ramp up the pressure and push this through, whether they will or not is another matter.  

But I hope they do because it would be a shame to see an idea consigned to the history books under the heading ‘chance wasted’.

Man calls Solihull police to complain about prostitute’s looks

A man has been warned after he dialled 999 to complain about a prostitute's looks after meeting her.

West Midlands Police said they were contacted by the caller who said he “wished to report her for breaching the Sale of Goods Act”.

The force said the call was received at about 19:30 BST on Tuesday complaining that the woman was not as attractive as she had claimed.

Officers have now sent the man a letter warning him about wasting police time.

Where does one begin with a story like this, this man arranged to meet a prostitute and when she showed up he was so angry that she wasn’t as good looking as he’d hoped, he called the police and reported her, unbelievable.

Clearly this guy is not a law student or someone with an ounce of common sense, because everybody knows people who sell things, even if it is their own body, are never completely honest, there’s always some exaggeration.   

I bet the person who took that 999 call must have thought they were hearing things, sorry can you repeat that sir you want me to send a car out to arrest a prostitute for lying about her looks!

If only the conversation between the guy and the prostitute was recorded that would have been something, when he saw her and said oh no this wasn’t what I was expecting I’m calling the police, I wonder if he contemplated asking for a discount?

This guy has got himself into a complicated situation he can’t get it for free, and yet he’s picky about paying for it, tricky one that.   

Nine-year-old gets past airport customs using toy passport

A couple were left stunned after their nine-year-old daughter, who looks nothing like fluffy fictional creature, managed to pass through Turkish customs officers - with a passport identifying her as a unicorn.

Emily Harris had taken the toy passport she had made for her pink toy unicorn, Lily, on holiday with her.

When the family passed through customs at Antalya airport to start their one-week holiday, flustered mum Nicky accidentally handed over the toy's passport instead of Emily's.

But they were stunned when they later realised their mistake - and discovered passport officials had even stamped the unicorn's passport, granting it access to the country.

You can’t make this stuff up you really couldn’t, if I made this story up and told it to someone they would rightly say that can’t be true you’re bu*******ing me, but amazingly this actually happened.

A customs official in Turkey looked at a fake passport with the photo of a unicorn on it and said yep you’re fine welcome to Turkey.

So if you’re thinking of taking a holiday and don’t want the usual hassle of diligent checks, then Turkey is the place for you. 

Football manager addict land national team job

Ricardo Manetti has been hired as head coach of Namibia based on his experiences on Football Manager, following a student earning a job in the Azerbaijan Premier League following success on the same PC game last year.

Lots of people think that by leading a non-league team to the Champions League on computer game Football Manager means they could cut it in the real world and Namibia seem to agree!

This is hilarious I have never heard something so stupid, how can you hire someone based on what they did on a computer game?

Are the army going to launch a big new recruitment drive saying if you’ve achieved the rank of major or higher on Call of Duty we want you!

I’m pretty handy at the FIFA games and quickly end up with five-star teams so by this logic I should be expecting to be hired by team and put in charge of transfer policy.

If I was interviewing someone for a job, any job, and they sat across the table from me and said I think I can do the job because I play a computer game that allows to fulfil a role similar to the one available, I would not be saying you’re hired I would respond with a barrage of expletives, after I’d stopped laughing in their face obviously.

I have no idea how many other people were in contention for this job, judging by who got it I’m guessing not many, but I can’t imagine how galling it must be for a real coach with real experience to find out that some guy who plays football manager got the job over them.

Who knows maybe this is the way teams will hire their coaches in future, never mind Mourinho and Guardiola with their two real-life champions league titles we want Dave who has won seven on football manager. 

£11 each to pay for 250,000 water bill dodgers

A quarter of a million Thames Water customers are refusing to pay their water bills, meaning bills look set to rise. 

Simon Evans, a spokesman for Thames Water said: “More and more of our customers are failing to pay their bills due to the effects of the ongoing economic downturn. The current situation is unfair on paying customers, who each pay £11 a year on their bills to cover the shortfall left by non-paying customers.”

Thames Water certainly has an interesting operating procedure in this area, instead of going after the customers who don’t pay tax they leave them and instead charge the ones who are paying tax extra to make up the difference.

Under UK law it is illegal to cut-off someone’s water supply, but do you know what else is illegal under UK law not paying tax, and I get the point that it would be inhumane to cut-off someone’s water supply, but companies can already cut-off your electricity and gas, so it’s ok in the eyes of the law for you to freeze to death in the dark!

Interestingly this story comes just days after Thames Water, Britain’s biggest water company, claimed that it was ‘delaying’ its tax contributions after it was found to have paid no corporation tax in the last year despite making a turnover of £1.8 billion and profits believed to be around £550 million, so maybe that’s what the 250,000 customers are doing following the companies example and ‘delaying’ paying their tax.

Women washed unexploded bomb in kitchen sink

A woman who discovered an unexploded World War II bomb in her garden terrified her husband by washing it in the kitchen sink.

Carole Longhorn, 65, took a number of unusual safety stops after discovering the explosive, including hitting it with a spade, before bomb disposal took it away and destroyed it.

I was left speechless when I read this how can someone be so freaking stupid, if you were gardening and dug up a shell-shaped metal object obviously the first thing you would do is smack it with a spade and bring it in the house, that’s bomb disposal 101.

I would love to hear Mrs Longhorn explain her thought process, because after bringing the bomb in the house she washed it up, how did that go, let’s see plates check, bowls check, cups check, cutlery check, unexploded bomb check.

When the bomb disposal team arrived what did she say, the bomb is back outside the grandkids are playing with it.

After it was taken away it was discovered that the bomb was infact still active, so Mrs Longhorn can count herself extremely lucky.

What will she do next find some Yellowcake uranium and serve it to her friends with a pot of tea! On the basis of this story I wouldn’t put it past her.   

Skirts for Sweden’s male train drivers

A dozen male train drivers in Sweden have circumvented a ban on shorts by wearing skirts to work in hot weather.

The workers, who operate the Roslagsbanan line north of the capital Stockholm, have been wearing skirts to work for the past two weeks.

Employer Arriva banned the drivers from wearing shorts after taking over the running of the line in January.

But the company has given the men its blessing to wear skirts, according to local newspaper Mitti.

I must start by doffing my hat to the 12 train drivers who ingeniously found a way around their employer’s new rules, but I have to ask if the company, Arriva, allow them to wear skirts then how can they not let them wear shorts?

What are they worried about, that shorts are too informal? I mean they’re train drivers they spend most of the day sitting down and the passengers will only see the top-half of them anyway, they could be naked from the waist down and nobody would notice.

Hopefully Arriva will realise the ridiculousness of the situation and let them wear shorts.