Shops And Chocolate

What came first?

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:02:28 +0200

Well a long weekend of research at home, fuelled by goodies from the local CO-OP have resulted in an answer to one of those real problems: What came first, the chicken or the egg? The answer is clear , it's always beer!

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Witchy Things

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:10:51 +0100

There is an (heroic) assumption that they are not in the picture, since there's only Mrs.
Sharples to take in Grufolyn and Cat. But I wonder if perhaps the Nosey brothers
cast a spell or two to ensure that the Chanters children stayed in their magical
clutches and remained on Covenant St.

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My shoulder hurts

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 16:12:04 +0100

Got this pain in my arm.

It sort of aches a bit.

Reminds me of the time the school nurse gave me a really painful shot.

My mother told me it was my fault.

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Monarch of the Drunken

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 18:13:10 +0100

I see a plane decided to drop a drunken passenger off 200 miles north of its destination.

The funny thing is that it made the plane 4 hours late to its final destination in the Canary islands.

According to my cat, these planes typically fly at 550 knots, or roughly 10 miles a minute -- i.e. the drop off was made 20 minutes flying time away from its final destination...

Moreso, the tiny island of Porto Santo is only 10miles by 3 miles...I would question whether or not the pilot had ever landed there before, and exactly what sort of facilities they have to handle a large passenger aircraft.

So why not fly on for a further 20 minutes and land normally at Tenerife? Maybe I'm missing something but I really don't understand why a highly trained pilot would elect to land somewhere strange when another 20 minutes would put him on track to his destination?

The chappie was released without charge, and will be finding his own way back.

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Friends Reunited

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 10:24:38 +0100

Oh dear, this one's a little weak, but it would work...

Has anyone out there suddenly recieved a message from an friend/lover from long ago? Wanting to meet up , wanting to know what you've been doing, where you've been, and all sorts of things?

Imagine if they were acting for an intelligence agency.

What an easy way to get information from folk. They would never suspect (unless they have a cat like mine).

That might explain why Friends Reunited is suddenly valued at $100M.

BTW: We have a new code-word for the male (sorry gals) beer drinkers among us...

Instead of asking for a pint of Stella Artois (or 'Wife Beater'), just ask the barmaid for some 'MI5 with a head on it' - the ex-head of MI5 being the charming Stella Rimmington, made famous in the in the Bond Films by Judy Dench.

------ SNIP -- BOOKPAGE.COM

Rimington held that post until 1996, opening opportunities for women in actual intelligence gathering as opposed to the traditional administrative and clerical roles as characterized by Miss Moneypenny in the Ian Fleming novels.

Speaking of Bond, James Bond, Rimington was the model for the first female M, played in the movies by Judi Dench. In reality, MI5 counters domestic threats, similar to our FBI without the police powers; Bond and M would have worked with the more swaggering MI6 foreign service, the equivalent of our CIA.

Rimington followed her distinguished 30-year intelligence career with a tell-some memoir, Open Secrets, that raised plenty of eyebrows at Thames House. Her first novel, At Risk, launches a planned series featuring MI5 intelligence officer Liz Carlyle, a thoroughly modern version of Dame Rimington in her salad days.

-- END SNIP.

In the next 'Shops and Choclate', we might examine the structure of the British Intelligence Services, why 'M' is 'M', why 'Q' is 'Q' etc.

Actually it's nothing more than the first letters of the department head's (the first) surname.

But there's more. Much more.

So much more, that even the 'roots and leaves' of the wonderful Masonic MI5 building might shake a little (in laughter).

Watch this space.

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Police - Action - TV ...

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 03:31:39 +0100

My cat was up late last night (Master Whittington was sleeping off a hangover purchased from his recent findings), and watching some of the 'live action' tv shows.

Mainly from America, and some from the UK. But in between laps of milk and pawfuls of flaked tuna, he managed to scratch out some simple questions for me. I'll do my best to explain his feline reasoning.

It all started with a UK show, showing an actor impersonating a policeman, pulling over a motorist and generally creating mayhem.

You see, impersonating a policeman in public (it's ok in private) is a criminal offence. You can (and should) be charged, and maybe spend some time relaxing at Her Majesty's Pleasure in one of Her Majesty's Prisons. (They probably have branches of HMV in HMPs these days, but I digress...)

And therein lies my cat's problem. If the drivers they were pulling over were genuine candid members of the public (as the show implies), then they could be prosecuted by simply showing the video to a real police officer.

I asked one of my local peelers (Policeman) under what circumstances I could dress up in public as a policeman and do this, and he was adamant that I would have to be a real policeman, or face prosecution. As my parents were married, only the latter is an option for me.

So my cat concluded that the show is most likely filmed privately, and certainly not in public UK. This also means that the other people are all actors.

I watched a few more examples, and started marvelling at the fantastic camera angles (from hidden cameras) beautifully focussed, and panning really smoothly.

Some of the scenes may have been genuine, but a lot of them are either illegal, or completely scripted and acted. In the police-ones, you can spot the real ones, they are the shaky, hazy bits of video, often with a timer-clock in a corner of the screen.

Under UK law, police video that is produced in court must have a time-stamp on it to prove when it was shot. High quality video without a timestamp is not usable as evidence in a UK court.

Time for me to watch my TV a little closer.

Anyone else found some cracks in reality?

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Lunatic Russians

Wed, 16 Nov 2005 13:12:05 +0100

My cat was wondering about what actually happened in 1969 when the Americans visited the moon.

Pussy (for it is he) thinks that although it is not possible for telescopes to see the landing sites (with associated landers / rovers etc), it ought to be possible to see the Lunar Rover tracks -- they are over 2km long -- and that is certainly resolvable by even Earth based amateur scopes.

The trouble with Pussy though is that he questions exactly what did happen? Certainly not as-seen-on-tv.

You see the Russians were way ahead in the space-race, they had all the technology, and the Yanks had all the money.

Suddenly, in a remarkable blaze of progress, our blessed American friends suddenly put it all together, and then sent a man to the moon.

They didn't bring back the cameras, because weight was a major consideration.

But the next time they went, they took a car with them!

Methinks they went, something came back, and the Russians were paid handsomely for their involvement.

Watch this Space!

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Titanic Spoof

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 13:16:41 +0100

I was wondering about the Titanic sinking the other night.

It took over three hours to go down. That's a long time. That's long enough to cross the Atlantic on a 747.

The Titanic's sister ship was only about 30 miles away, they recieved an SOS by radio, and observed the distress flares.

But did not attend the scene.

To command a ship of that size, you must hold a Master Mariner's ticket. That takes at least 3 years training, and most folk take over 5 years to get there.

No sane Master Mariner would (or could) ignore another ship in distress, and would certainly not ignore such messages thinking it was in the name of a party.

So why did the sister ship not attend the scene?

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911 Conspiracy

Tue, 08 Nov 2005 13:58:06 +0100

Everyone has a conspiracy theory about 911. Even my cat.

So I thought I would share my cat's theory with the world.

That way, if the authorities get upset about it, they'll have to arrest the cat.

Firstly, we are told that Osama Bin Laden is a very intelligent, highly influential, charismatic guy. Let's call this assumption 'A'.

Secondly we are told that he was directly involved in the 911 tower-ramming. Let's call this assumption 'B'.

Thirdly we are told that we are told that the attacks were against the USA. Let's call this assumption 'C'.

I will now show that A,B and C cannot be simultaneously true. You will have to draw your own inferences about the truth of A,B and C, but you will not be able to escape the fact that not all can be true.

Proof:
If A is true then there was a much more devasting attack that is easily obvious to Bin Laden:

Simply fly one plane into one-tower, and with the other BEND THE STATUE OF LIBERTY. It's actually an easier target.

The American dream would die if Ms Liberty wasn't able to strut her stuff and light the world of freedom of liberty.

Better still, after the one tower falls, the other one would have to be dismantled, and that would take about 10 years.

Thus creating massive, unavoidable, and incredibly long-lived humiliation for the USA. This is powerful stuff.

So my guess is that either Osama is not that bright (not likely), he wasn't involved (rather grey area -- we don't know who was paying), or the attack wasn't necesarily *against* the USA.

Don't forget, the stock markets had been in terminal decline for weeks before the strike, and shortly afterwards, rose to almost record levels, way, way above anywhere they had been in the weeks and months before.

Looks like some healthy bloodletting to me.

Pretty cool cat hey?

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