Crap Weather in Britain

Tornadoes have caused widespread damage to homes and businesses across the UK as the country experiences a spate of freak weather.

They struck Hampshire, Bedfordshire, East Riding of Yorkshire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.

A tree came down near the Bucksford pub in Bucks Hill while in Trafford Drive, around 20 homes were damaged, a Warwickshire Police spokeswoman said.

Beryl Warburton, 79, a lollipop lady who lives on Trafford Drive, said the storm was "frightening" when it struck at about 6.15am.

She said: "Some of the houses have had their roofs taken off completely, some have lost parts of their roofs. One of them has got holes up there and water in their bedroom.

"One of my neighbours, their trampoline was blown over the garden fence and in to the council garages opposite."

I know its the job of news reporters to hype things up a little....

But frankly, it can;t have been all that bad if the best they could drag up was a 79 year old lollipop lady who was prepared to go on record as saying that it was "frightening".....?

Prevalence of Transsexuals in Society

According to research, as many as one in 100,000 women and one in 30,000 men believe themselves to have been born in a body with the wrong gender.

One in 30,000 strikes me as an astoundingly high number for men.

Just to give you an idea of what this ratio means, at every home game for Manchester United, statistically there are 2 men in the capacity crowd of 67,000 at Old Trafford who believe that they actually should have been born as a woman. At the next England home game, there will be 3 blokes who, deep down, think they really should be birds cheering on Wayne Rooney and the rest of the team.

Two or three isn't that many in absolute terms, but (I think you will agree) it's still more than you might expect.

However the upside is that as a Fulham fan I can be totally secure in my own gender. The capacity at Craven Cottage is only 23,000.

Growing Strawberries

Growing strawberries in your back garden is great.

Not only do you get a nice green-leaved ground cover plant with occasional white flowers throughout the summer, it also keeps all the snails in your garden in one handy place, protected from birds by netting.

The little "house-on-my" back bast-rds have eaten every single strawberry to grow this year. For something that is by definition "slow" they seem to be bloody quick at spotting when strawberries are about 2-3 hours before the point of being just ripe enough that you might think about picking them.

Given the absolute dearth of snails in the rest of our - admittedly not that big - garden, these snails must also communicate well across vast distances to . Perhaps they have mobile phones - well, if my eight year old niece seems to need one, maybe snails now have them too?

Watching "Life on Earth" I seemed to remember David Attenborough telling me that snails communicated by passing pheremone based information to each other in their saliva - a sort of phlegm-based GPS system. Imagine if humans could also transfer information the same way. Take a long car journey and you'd end up soaked -

"turn left at next junction, HHHaaaakkkkk!"

"merge right onto B3316 in 100 yards, GGGGuurrghaH!"

You would be able to buy GPS systems with the phlegm of your favourite football star - imagine Frank Lampard hacking up a greenie in your face every time "you have now reached your destination..". People would rely a lot more on maps ....

Squirrels in England

For folks living in the countryside, there are 2 types of squirrel.

The red squirrel (Sciurus Vulgaris) is the only squirrel native to Britain, it can easily be recognised by its size, colouring, which can vary from bright ginger, red through dark brown. From nose to tail, their length is around 350 - 400mm, adults can weigh up to 350g.

The American grey squirrel (Sciurus Carolinensis) was first introduced to Britain at Henbury Park, Cheshire, in 1876, and introduced to other areas around the UK in the 1920s. From these sites the squirrel population grew, and as it did, the red squirrel population began its decline. There are no definite facts as to why the two species cannot live together, but it appears that the greys have a greater ability to compete for food. The only advantage that the reds have is their supremacy in conifer forests.

In England, greys outnumber reds by 66:1.

For urban dwellers and town and city based squirrel watchers, a similar story is unfolding abeit with two different breeds.

The "oh how cute is that" squirrel is common in urban gardens across the UK, and can easily be recognised by its you-tube-friendly scampering motion, its lovely tail and rather cute habit of staring back winningly at you as you look out of the window. The "oh how cute" squirrel will often be seen on fences and lawns in winter and early spring delighting children and adults alike.

The "Those Bastard" Squirrels are found mostly in gardens with expensive plants, carefully tended organic vegetables, young fruit trees bearing limited amounts of fruit, and plastic bin bags - all of which Those Bastard Squirrels feast upon in preference to digging up stored nuts like they damn well should be doing (the bastards). Those Bastard Squirrels are easily recognised by their sly, evil faces, rat-like bodies and irritatingly insolent disregard for any amount of screaming, window banging and general gesticulating by the residents of the property they have chosen to blight.

In London, Those Bastard Squirrels outnumber Oh how Cute Squirrels by over 2,000,000:1

Not So Liberal Sweden?

Despite their countrymens reputation for open-mindedness and healthy outdoor living, the not-so-subtle subtext to the signpost at the beach showed the moral majority still held sway on the parish council of this particular Swedish coastal village.

The US Army's latest toys

The US Army is developing a truck-mounted laser to destroy rockets, artillery shells and mortars.

But lasers are now toys

What's next ?

Maybe a tank-borne lava lamp to make enemy soldiers think the world is too groovy a place to waste time fighting?

Or a ship carring a van der graph generator to make enemy sailors hair stand on end?

Slim Vegetarians

Vegetarians are apparently slimmer than non-vegetarians.

My theory is this is not down to nutritional differences between meat and non-meat diets, but instead is due solely to the way we interact with take-away food.

After all, if you only order vegetarian options from a take-away, you will have none of those "eat me, eat me, you know you want me...." lumps of meat left in the plastic carton that you simply HAVE to pick at and eat them all rather than actually start to clear away after you have already over-stuffed yourself with the contents of a "that was probably one dish too many for the (insert number here) of us" delivery from your local Chinese/Indian/Thai restaurant.

Smoking Ban

The new smoking ban in the UK prevents smokers lighting up inside any permanent structure.



In the office where I work this means smokers now have to go downstairs, walk round the back of the building and stand in the open air to have a crafty fag.



This encouraging combination of exercise and fresh air means they may well end up more healthy than us non-smokers.



Thats just somehow wrong, isn't it?

Severe Weather & Flooding in England & Wales

Flooding & severe weather has been lashing the UK this week.

All the news channels and papers have been giving it blanket coverage.

There are no shortage of images of people staying in sports centers and local schools.

You can access more pictures and more video of people returning to their sodden houses and pointing at their soaked posessions than you could need in a lifetime.



But one thing is missing.

These floods only seem to affect people who aren't famous.

There are no minor TV celebrities, Page 3 Stunnas, 2nd division footballers, mildly famous chefs or reality TV contestants wading through dead fish in their hallways.

There aren't even any not-particularly-close relatives of reality show contestants talking to The Sun about how their new Ps3 & 32 inch widescreen Plasma was ruined as "a torrent of water swept through their terraced house with a noise like thunder"

Is being flooded so embarassing that Max Clifford has some sort of bulk-deal going on with all the famous people in the UK to keep their sodden carpets off the front page of the Daily Star?

Or do all famous people live at the top of mountains?

Undercover Research

I just received an email that told me:

"Research has shown that your penis has the potential to grow to beyond its current size when fully erect"

Frankly I would have hoped that being the subject of this sort of research was the kind of thing I should have noticed...

Either they haven't actually carried out this research, or maybe instead I need to investigate some of the other products I am offered via email as well...?