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Friday 29 December 2017

No Turkeys Here, Just Us Chickens

This year I am going to make no apologies for ending this Blog year talking about myself.

The Borderland Between Life And Death
The Borderland Between Life And Death Is Visited At Least Once.

I have been on something of a year of unwanted self discovery, where I have had to look death in the face, and examined the very fibre of my inner being.

Carnivore Cows

Cannibal cows (well meat eating, but cannibal scans better), were reported in Nakura County Kenya by the Daily Nation newspaper, when a farmer said that two of his sheep had been killed by horn goring, and then partially eaten by one of his cows.

Cannibal Cow Eats Farner
Cannibal Cows

A local agricultural officer said that a recent hard drought may have left some animals lacking essential minerals, and that the cows may have been trying to replace these nutrients from their diets - see also the deadly ducks in Romania ...

Nude Cheese

Translations can often go horribly wrong. South Korea for example exports a lot of products to the West, so we have all seen the odd confusion in their user instructions .....

Nude Cheese
Nude Cheese ....

.... but perhaps none have reached the level, of the packaging on some cheese sticks.

Backpfeifengesicht .....

Alcohol mixed with heavy food intakes, usually results in issues such as falling asleep, or worse, and therefore has always been a rich source of humour across most of the globe (with of course, one notable exception ...) ..... especially at the Xmas season.

Drunk As A Lord .... Or Santa
Drunk As A Lord .... Christmas Going Wrong.

There have therefore been a number of terms to describe the states humans get into while getting inebriated and after over indulging.

Friday 22 December 2017

Annual Christmas Best Wishes

As is something of a tradition on this blog, we at PC Towers wish the whole world a  

Very Happy Christmas !!!

1964 - FIRST VICTOR ANNUAL BOOK FOR BOYS

...... with a comic annual cover from my childhood.

First Blood (On The Carpet) and Other Shorts

Half the UK population would dump their relatives at some point on Christmas day. 21 per cent can only handle relatives for 3 hours before making excuses (needing sleep or pretending to feel ill, doing the dishes or walking the dog were all popular excuses).

The Argument About The Brussels Sprouts Erupted Every Year!
The Argument About The Brussels Sprouts Erupted Every Year!

Those with kids, expect the first stress around 11:25am when a child's tantrum can be expected, while the first major family row occurs around 12:50pm .... when food preparation is under way.

Silly Sausages

Greggs sausage roll were in the news, after their own advertising company issued an image of a sausage roll lying in a manger, surrounded by what looked like the three wise men bearing gold, frankincense and myrrh ... this was publicity for an advent calendar offering vouchers for Greggs baked treats.

Sausage Roll Abuse .... Or Offensive Advertising?

Criticism from some Christians including a vicar, who rightly pointed out that “I think if they tried that with any other faith you can imagine the outcry there would be" .... we all know which 'other faith' he was referring to, and he's right, there would be violence and fatwas against Greggs, so this is actually a cheap shot against Christianity by the company. Greggs said: “We’re really sorry to have caused any offence this was never our intention.” .... 

Costly Christmas and Other Shorts

My True Love Is A Wealthy Chap

Buying all the items mentioned in the carol, The Twelve days of Christmas would cost the true love $34,588.65 according to financial services firm PNC Wealth Management. Or maybe you could do it more cheaply as another firm said that its 78 gifts in the song (which is what it adds up to) and therefore a bargain at £25,765 .....

The Twelve Days Of Christmas Are Not Cheap

But one newspaper reported it as totalling £117,461.51 which seems to have been a bit high by any standards and is not what is on the PNC website ......

Mister Bonds Toys

The gadgets from James Bond movies are always a popular subject at Christmas ....

James Bond - Thunderball Rocket Belt - In The Posters
Thunderball Rocket Belt - In The Posters

Here's a few of the older ones to jog your memories

Friday 15 December 2017

Perfidious Porkers

Acorns poison ponies ... who apparently are too stupid to realise this fact, and persist in eating them every year .... I didn't know that! Anyway this means that the season when they drop and haven't rotted is called the pannage season. The answer to this problem (apart from simply not taking ponies into forests when acorns have fallen ... Doh!), is to let pigs forage for them.

Acorn Pannage Is An Old Custom
Acorn Pannage Is An Old Custom

The pigs have no problem eating them, and enjoy the bounty. However this can cause problems for walkers in the forests. For instance around 600 farm pigs are allowed to roam the New forest near Burley, Hants in the UK, to eat all the acorns, but they also get a little feral like their wild boar cousins.

Parting From The Myth

The parting of the Red Sea described in the Torah/Bible, may actually just be a mistranslation by early bible writers. Scientist Carl Drews reckons it should have been 'Reed Sea' because then the story is far more plausible.

Parting The Red Sea - Chuck Heston Style.
Parting The Red Sea - Chuck Heston Style.

Apparently in shallow water areas strong winds for several hours or days can part the waters in these shallow reedy areas and expose mud flats. For instance on an old branch of the Eastern Nile Delta there was once a comparatively shallow area of sea/water that would have created land bridge 4km long and 5 km wide if the winds had blown at 100km/h (62pmh) for 12 hours solid.

Fortean Thug ....

Wolverhampton man Shaun Watson, was enraged when his mother laughed at his heartfelt theory that former US President Barack Obama was an alien (shape changing?). So he launched into a violent attack upon her, punching her in the face, biting her nose, choking her.

Obama The Alien  .... Ain't Worth Fighting Over

During the assault Shaun Watson shouted at his mother: “I have hit bigger men than you, and they have gone down.” ....

Lowest Of Thieves

There are some criminals who are basically just scum. Take this man, who was living on Beach Road, Cleveleys, Lancashire. He had moved there from his native Hartlepool, where he also a junkie thief, in order to escape revenge attacks, and be near his child.

As Low As It Gets For Stealing ....

He went into The Dickens pub somewhere near his home, and was caught on CCTV loitering around the bar, before, he very clearly stuffs the Royal British Legion collection tin, containing around £70 down the front of his pants. He was actually only in the pub because he was on early release licence, for robbing an 84-year-old disabled man in his native Hartlepool last year.

Friday 8 December 2017

Godzilla Is Back

Godzilla has finally been spotted in his spiritual home of Tokyo, a town he's laid waste to many a time, since 1954.

Godzilla Is back In Town
Godzilla Is back In Town

.... Of course there was a catch.

Mr Ebola

During the Ebola crisis a couple of years ago, pedestrian crossings in Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham sported new additions. These northern and centrally located cities across England, had posters in the style of the 'Mr Men' children's characters, and christened 'Mr Ebola' by locals, displayed. 

Mr Ebola?
Mr Ebola?

The perpetrator of this art installation, and indeed the real reason for their appearance, has never come to light (as far as I know).

Treasures Returned

The oldest known Bible written in Latin, is The Codex Amiatinus, which was written by monks at Wearmouth-Jarrow monastery in the north-east of England, in 716AD. It is a treasure of the Anglo-Saxon world. Unfortunately it is the only complete copy left, and survived because it was carried to Rome as a gift for Pope Gregory II.

The Codex Amiatinus - Maiestas Domini  (Christ in Majesty) with the Four Evangelists.
The Codex Amiatinus - Maiestas Domini
(Christ in Majesty) with the Four Evangelists.

The Pope had once been in charge of the Papal Library, so he no doubt appreciated the gift. Its current owners, the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence have lent it back to the British Library, for its first return to Britain in 1,302 years. At half a metre in height, and more than 34kg (75lb) in weight, it took more than a thousand animal skins to make its parchment.

No Smoke Without Fire

Mrs May and President Trump have had a spat via Twitter, over his reposting of videos purporting to show Muslim criminals in the UK ... some apparently smashing Christian symbols (no irony in respect to their views on Koran burning).

A Video: A Muslim Man Allegedly Smashing
A Statute Of The Virgin Mary

This has raised the question of Islam in the UK to the forefront of the news .... again.

Friday 1 December 2017

Not Billy No Mates

After all the fuss created by the sale of the tin plate image of William H Bonney for $2.3m (then £1.4m) at a Denver auction ....

Billy The Kidd And Friends (Black And White)
Billy With Mates

.... the hunt was on for more such pictures. The attribution of an image of the said Mr Bonney, playing crotchet, was confirmed by many experts earlier this year .... its valued at $5m!

Holy Cow Its A Devil Goat

The birth of sports always get the crowds ..... Barnum knew that and made a fortune

Devil Goat or Farm Sport?
Devil Goat or Farm Sport?

So the still birth of a baby goat with demonic features in in San Luis province, central Argentina got the locals agitated. As in all religious societies there is a lot more superstition than is healthy for any society.

Divining The Truth?

As a kid I remember TV shows such as Blue Peter having men (it was never women as I recall), walking about with two bent wires - usually coat hangers on bits of wood, and known as Divining Rods - one in each hand, walking around fields searching for water/oil/gold whatever.

Dowsing Common Sense?

Its called Dowsing or Water Divining and has been practised for centuries, and the modern version as described above was first recorded in 15th Century Germany (where it was used to attempt to detect metals), with either metal rods or the Y shaped bit of wood.

Ghost Ships

It appears that in recent years an increasing number of real Ghost Ships have appeared in the Sea of Japan.

Ghost Ships in Sea Of Japan ....
Now as this subject has popped up in the past, when we discussed the subject more generally ...

Friday 24 November 2017

Operation Vader

Things must be tough in the Empire, or rather for the unemployed Storm Troopers ....

Storm Trooper Robbery
Storm Trooper Robbery

..... because one of them was captured on cameras, making up for those lost imperial wages.

A Naked Protest Or Two

Six women prisoners who are serving time for manslaughter, actual bodily harm and drug offences, staged a nude protest in a jail exercise yard at New Hall prison, West Yorkshire.

These Are The Sort Of Naked Protestors We Are Used To

The six barricaded themselves in and threatened officers with table legs in the five-hour stand-off.

Rebuilding The Past

Another example of how modern technology can rebuild that which has been lost in the past …. We have given examples before but they are becoming ever more frequent, as laser scanning technology, computing power and 3D printing get ever more sophisticated.

Visions Of Zeus At Olympia ...  the 3D Printed Version On Right
Visions Of Zeus At Olympia ...
the 3D Printed Version On Right

An ancient Greek statue of Zeus at Olympia, that was once one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, has been recreated using 3D printing. The original was made of precious woods, ivory and gold, but was lost in the 5th Century AD in a fire at the Palace of Lausus in Constantinople.

The Perennial Singletons

Britain has recently become a land where 'singles' made up a large element of the society. This started when divorce rates rocketed, after divorce became much easier and cheaper.

The UK's Singletons Are A Growing Phenomenon
The UK's Singletons Are A Growing Phenomenon

So its perhaps its not a surprise that this year set the usual new records for the figures.

Friday 17 November 2017

More Pin Interest Fodder

There are times when words fail even me ....

More Pin Interest Fodder ...

Its hard to think how, but someone actually thinks that this might catch on ..... well in certain clubs maybe, but not in my office!

Deaf To Complaints

Sometimes you have to laugh .....

In this case as much as you want to, because its a story from within the deaf community which grabbed my attention.

Deaf Activists Are Quite .... Well Active.

Who would have thought that 'promoting a hearing activity' aka 'promoting oralism', is considered such a NO NO with certain deaf disability activists, that anyone practising such a heinous crime, and who happens to be deaf, can be sent death threats?

Tragic Comic Consequences

Comic Con began in the USA in 1970 and has since spread worldwide as a largely nerdy youth based experience ....

Comic Cons Are Innocent Fun In Free And Liberal Societies.

Up until now it has been considered largely an innocent pastime.

The American Illiterates

The US reportedly has more citizens who are illiterate than most all of its developed economy counterparts.

OECD Adult Literacy Rates .....

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report on Adult Literacy Rates shows that 8.1% of US adults or 16 million people are functionally illiterate. This is amongst the highest rates of the 35 countries in the OECD.

Friday 10 November 2017

Neighbourhood Watch

A Swiss man who flew a Jack Daniels flag outside his home ran into trouble ....


..... when his Zurich neighbours mistook it for an ISIS flag.

The Way We Were

On Friday last week I was forced to work from home in order to deal with a domestic crisis that would otherwise have meant using a days holiday (all booked up for the year so a non runner), or pulling a sickie (again, I have used a few real sick days this year!).

Working From Home Can Be Stressful ......

So I was forced to take a day working from home. Now I say forced because I don't find it the easy option. There are several reasons for this.
  1. I am honest and actually want to do a good days work if they are paying me for this.
  2. I find it hard to concentrate without the bustle of an office around me.

Last Of The Dinosaurs

Rail drivers can now earn £80,000 pa in the UK. This thanks to their latest blackmail antics aka as disruptive striking. They have won simply by making millions of lives miserable for over a year ... with a weak government unable or unwilling to sort them out for good.

The User Of One Of These Control Cabins Earns £80k pa ..... The Other Not So Much.
The User Of One Of These Control Cabins Earns £80k pa ..... The Other Not So Much.

The fact that this latest largesse is paid for by a hostage population of commuters is not lost on them. Most of those commuters can't dream to earn those sorts of wages, nor to have a final salary pension scheme based on that level of income.

Pampered Peacocks

Those naughty Saudi Royals have had a bit of a rude awakening.

How The Mighty Are Humbled - For Now ....
How The Mighty Are Humbled - For Now ....

One of their own, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has had dozens of people - including 11 of those errant Princes arrested.

Friday 3 November 2017

Creatures From The Depths

Ah how we love Forteana stories on this blog ..... Hurricane Irma didn't just disturb the citizens of the US coast, but also it seems the denizens of the deep.

Texas City Beach Creature
Texas City Beach Creature ....

This creature was washed up on the beach and caused a minor twitter storm as its readers 're-tweeted' (is that a word?) the pictures taken by a Texan beach comber near Texas City. Of course immediately the words 'sea monster' appeared and it went viral.

Stuck In An ATM and Other Shorts

The world's longest recorded human tooth was owned by Urvil Patel of Vadodara in India. It was measured at 1.4 inches (3.6cm) when it was removed from his mouth.

Feral Wildman Or Naked Rambler?
Feral Wildman Or Naked Rambler?

The wild man of Pembrokeshire has been spotted by a hill walker in the Presell Mountains. He reported the sighting at the summit of Cam Goedog were he said he saw a "naked feral man hunched over and looking at the ground. I couldn't hear if he was talking to me or just making sounds". The walker did what any sensible person would do when faced with a hairy naked man on a hill top .... he made himself scarce, but only after taking some photographs.

One Sex Studies

Once you go down the road of PC politics you are trapped by your own warped logic .....

Transgender Politics Are Byzantine ....

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone with a normal view of the world. But when you are educational establishment that professes that it has ‘sympathy with the idea that gender is not binary' then the politics of sexual identity become Byzantine.

Ice Age Wahhabism

The ice may slowly be breaking in the land of intolerance ...

Family Stands The Future In The 'Reformed' Saudi Arabia
Family Stands The Future In The 'Reformed' Saudi Arabia .....

.... under pressure from a population, 70% of whom are under 30 yrs of age, and who have had access to the outside world, Saudi Arabia will finally allow women to attend sports events in stadiums for the first time from next year, despite following a strict form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism.

Friday 27 October 2017

Natural Justice

Some times there seems to be no justice in the world ...... the bad get away literally with murder. As for those cruel to animals, well it never seems that their cruelty is properly punished.

Mongolian Fat Boy - Animal Cruelty?
Mongolian Phat Boy - Animal Cruelty?

Take the large Mongolian above .... surely his riding this horse constitutes animal cruelty?

Life On The Streets

China is a land of endless mystery and subtly but it's also a land, in which like the literary city of Ankh-Morpork, and little Italy in 1950's New York, private life is often led on the streets.

Life In The Streets In Turn Of The Century Mulberry Street, New York City (Little Italy)

Events in Yulin City lived up to this when a man, his wife and his lover enacted an eternal scene in front of dozens of bystanders. However there was a twist as it was the wife and the lover who were partnered against the man. The fight which apparently started indoors, spilled on to street as the two vengeful vixens punched and kicked the errant husband. He was naked apart from his underpants and his face and back were bloodied as the assaults continued.

Dirty Politics

There has always been a part of the left, which harbours very little interest in democracy or fairness but has a visceral hatred of all those who oppose their views ......,

Fair Comment or Borderline Democracy?

This often manifests itself in the violent disruption of non socialist political events, which apparently is totally acceptable to Messrs Corbyn and Abbott and the rest ....

Self Inflicted Wounds

Following the latest bombings in Mogadishu, which has left at least 281 dead, and many hundreds injured, Somalis in the diaspora i.e. those who have got some western government to accept them, are up in arms at protest.

Somali Bombings Are All Too Common ....
Somali Bombings Are All Too Common ....

.... not at the bombers, oh no, but at westerners for not hash tagging 'Je Suis Mogadishu', or some such sentiment, for not making it a trending hash tag.

Friday 20 October 2017

Frozen Food

This whale died on Wrangel island in the Russian Arctic, where hundreds of polar bears over summer while waiting for the ice sheets to form.

Frozen Food .... Bears Feast On A Whale
Frozen Food .... But Not Iceland Style
 
So when this unexpected bounty turned up, well over 200 polar bears were drawn by the smell and a free-for-all took place .... Polar bears, birds, sharks and even killer whales attack. So whales that die on the seashore, they don't last all that long as the large predators move in.

Wives, Lives and Automobiles

Talking about selling your husband on eBay as a joke raised the possibility that people had tried to sell others on the Internet in perhaps a more serious manner.

Selling Your Life on eBay Has Hazards .....

Perhaps unsurprisingly given our modern morality it was evident quite quickly that they had. This blog had previously picked up on the apparent sale of a black male as a slave (which may of course simply have been a spoof), and usually it's simply disguised as "workers", as is the case with the 'maids' sold in Asia and the Middle East.

In A Land Of The Pure

Now when you consider how much child abuse by Muslim men of South Asian origin has occurred in England in the past decade, it should perhaps come as no surprise that it also occurs in the rest of the Islamic world. Perhaps the only surprise is that it is ever reported .... actually now I think about what happens in that part of the world to girls who are raped and report it, perhaps its actually no surprise at all that so little child abuse is reported.

Of course this actually makes it easier for abusers to get away with it, than in more open and tolerant societies, a fact which seems to be highlighted by the reported abuse of children in the town of Karaman in Anatolia Turkey. Its described as a 'conservative' town by the BBC, meaning its a socially hard-line Islamic town, where Islamic organisations hold great influence over civil society.

Ensar Foundation Closely Linked To Turkish Government ....

However, even in such places, there are occasionally cracks in the rigid surface of conformity which these sorts of town usually display to the world, and so a 54-year-old teacher has been accused of sexually abusing 10 children, in what are alleged to be guest-houses run illegally by two Islamic foundations - one of which, the 'Ensar Foundation', has close links to the Turkish government.

Pot Calling Kettle

In a strange and somewhat ironic intervention Donald Trump junior entered into the debate about the sexual misconduct allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

Woody Harvey and the two Donalds .... Who Has Anything In Common?

He has criticised actor director Woody Allen for not exactly giving a ringing criticism over the rape and molestation charges.

Friday 13 October 2017

A Brian For Sale

When I opened eBay's new antiques email on Monday morning this week .....

Brian For Sale ......

I was offered a 'Brian' ....

Cultural Discrimination

We in the west are constantly having to listen to pressure groups of various sorts, from black peoples, women, homosexuals, trans-genders, Muslims, the disabled, and probably more others than you can point a pointy stick at, complaining about 'discrimination'.

Discrimination in this context invariably means that they want more money and rights than the rest of us, from all female lists for political jobs, to a quota of black males for all football managers jobs ....

Sticks And Stones Are .... Discriminates Against Me.

So it should be no big surprise, when yet another group tags itself to the role call of claimants for more of the pie .... however its a surprise when you find out who it is who is accused of doing the discriminating.

Lest We Forget

Strangely after last weeks posting, there has been another example of history being forgotten in the news this week ....

Battle Of Britain - Newspaper Headlines
Battle Of Britain - Never Happened For Some,
Grandad's War To Others

..... Only this time it was much closer to home than India or the Orient.

Catalans Crisis Is Warning To Scots

The Spanish reaction to the 'Catalan Crisis' is one that should give all Scots pause for thought.

Catalan Crisis .... Rocking Not Just Spain
Catalan Crisis .... Rocking Not Just Spain.

Not because the UK government would resort to violence and direct rule in the Spanish style. No, but because it indicates that Spain will not countenance any EU rule changes that encourages separatists in Spain, or indeed elsewhere.

Friday 6 October 2017

Do Bears Crap In The Woods?

Stevenage council has taken steps to stop pigeons roosting in trees around areas of the town centre.

I Think The Pigeon Poop Would Improve It ...... Soulless Socialist Architecture 

Hard to imagine a more futile waste of time and money, but there you are. Of course there are reasons - aren't there always? - it's supposedly because they have just tarted up some of the towns piazzas or squares, and don't want bird droppings ruining their handiwork. Oh and health and safety concerns of course.

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