Prophet Iain Dale: A plague on all your houses, O Oxfordshire !

From the desk of admin ·December 31, 2007 at 2:24 pm · Filed under Humourous, News - Current Affairs, Relaxation

Iain Dale includes a locust swarm for Oxfordshire in his predictions for 2008:

David Cameron forced to cancel trip to Rwanda after his Witney constituency is affected by a plague of locusts.

As it happens I have a solution for them, since Oxfordshire is probably the heartland on earth for Ducks (apart from the “Eeyup Ducks” of Yorkshire and the Midlands).

When I was pulling together my article about the 29,000 ocean current monitoring yellow plastic bath ducks last week, I came across the elite force of 700,000 anti-locust ducks trained up by the Chinese Government. I kid you not - here’s the story on the BBC (and a version for Gallomites - the followers of The Great Profit George Galloway “of the Bungle”):

An elite force of more than 700,000 ducks and chickens has been deployed as China’s latest weapon to take on an invasion of locusts.

The poultry army has been sent to the western front in Xinjiang province where swarms of locusts have devoured more than 3.8 million hectares of crops and grassland.

The birds are trained to seek out and consume the pests at the sound of a whistle which they have been trained to associate with feeding.

“We release them on the grassland, blow whistles and they eat the locusts”, an official with the Xinjiang Locust and Rat Control Office is quoted as saying.

(Pictures: BBC).

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments

Have I Got News For You Webisode 5: Wardman Wire

From the desk of admin ·December 31, 2007 at 10:00 am · Filed under Humourous, News - Current Affairs, Relaxation, Video

A few weeks ago the BBC started publishing “out takes” of the Have I Got News for You quiz as a “Webisode”. Over the New Year I will be posting one of these each day. I have uploaded version in Windows Media format. The video will take a few seconds to start.

Team captains Paul Merton and Ian Hislop, guest host Michael Aspel and guest panellists Sara Cox and Reginald D. Hunter.

If you have any problems then you can look on Youtube here (at least that was where I looked, but it has not been totally reliable). Please comment below if you have problems.

Comments

Who stole Christmas? Cartoon by Indexed

From the desk of admin ·December 31, 2007 at 9:30 am · Filed under Cartoon, Humourous

The last Christmas Cartoon for 2007…

A cartoon from Indexed.

Comments

Starting a Political Blog IV: Under the Hood (Technical Notes)

From the desk of admin ·December 30, 2007 at 6:57 pm · Filed under Defogging Blogging, Hints and Tips, Political Blogging

This is the fourth in my series of articles about starting a Political Blog.

My first article, Starting a Political Blog I: Blogging is like Traditional Campaigning , introduced a parallel between political blogging and traditional political campaigning.

The second article, “Starting a Political Blog II: How to Get the Basics Right “, highlighted the extreme transparency that exists when you write a blog, and the need to engage with your potential audience in a long-term strategy.

The third article, “Starting a Political Blog III: Principles to Apply to be Credible“, looked at some principles to follow in order to remain credible in the blogosphere.

This article outlines some technicalities involved in maintaining a blog. The technical bits of creating a blog are the boring bits, but also cause the most problems in the future if you get them wrong.

These are my views, and some others will not agree.

Put your blog in the right place

Blogs suffer very badly when they move around the internet, because links and authority in search engines are based on specific web page addresses (called “permalinks” in blog-speak).

A blog that moves to a new location has to start from scratch again. It can be done, but it is an intricate process that takes up your valuable time - and is not necessary when you plan properly.

Read the full article over at Poliblog Perspective.

Comments

Mr Gordon promises “Serious Changes”

From the desk of admin ·December 30, 2007 at 3:54 pm · Filed under News - Current Affairs, Politics

According to the BBC, Gordon Brown has declared that 2008 will be:

“A year for stepping up major long-term reform to meet challenges ranging from globalisation and global warming to the great unfinished business of social reform in our country.”

Let, me help, Mr Brown. Here are a few paragraphs you could use when setting out your agenda in Parliament:

All Members of this House and all the people of this country have a shared interest in building trust in our democracy. And it is my hope that, by working together for change in a spirit that takes us beyond parties and beyond partisanship, we can agree a new British constitutional settlement that entrusts more power to Parliament and the British people.

You have spent most of the last 6 months since you became leader attacking other parties - notably the Tory record in the years up to 1997.

Should you not be defending the 10 year record of the administration where you were the second biggest player - with an effective veto on policy - for the last decade?

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments

Another Famous Belgian … Jef Denyn

From the desk of admin ·December 30, 2007 at 1:48 pm · Filed under Humourous, Relaxation

Perhaps you haven’t heard the name of Jef Denyn, another fabulously famous Belgian to go alongside Hercule Poirot and Jean Rey.

I hear you say:

Who he?

Only the most famous Carillon player in history.

Carillons are musically tuned bells which are usually installed in continental belltowers attached to churches or town halls.

You can find more information about the school at their website here.

Personally I prefer Change Ringing.

Comments

Have I Got News For You Webisode 4: Wardman Wire

From the desk of admin ·December 30, 2007 at 10:00 am · Filed under Humourous, News - Current Affairs, Relaxation, Video

A few weeks ago the BBC started publishing “out takes” of the Have I Got News for You quiz as a “Webisode”. Over the New Year I will be posting one of these each day. I have uploaded version in Windows Media format. The video will take a few seconds to start.

Team captains Paul Merton and Ian Hislop, guest host Jo Brand and guest panellists Julia Hartley-Brewer and Andy Hamilton.

If you have any problems then you can look on Youtube here (at least that was where I looked, but it has not been totally reliable). Please comment below if you have problems.

Comments