I remember playing hopscotch when I was a child. Whilst most people would see this game as innocent fun, it appears playing it could mean you get a visit from the police. That’s just what happened to one little boy according to an article on The Telegraph’s website. Ryan and five of his friends had just marked out a hopscotch court and were enjoying their game, when two policemen arrived at the scene acting on a tip off from a neighbour. Apparently, the children in using chalk on the pavement were creating graffiti. Obviously this is an incident that requires a rapid response; I’m surprised the police force didn’t feel it necessary to send out a swat team and a helicopter. Later that day it rained and the “graffiti” was no more. I can’t help thinking police time could better spent catching real criminals. 

Want to see if your website is blocked in China? On the greatfirewallofChina you can check your url to see if its blocked or not. Thanks to crooked Brains for the link.

Quark has a handy function which allows you to create interesting effects with text. With the text box option there are only limited options. You can apply colours to the text but the “text to box” function enables the use of blends. To use it first create a text box and type your text in the size and font that you wish to use.  This example I have Apple Chancery. From the style menu choose the text to box option. A duplicate of your text is created.  The difference is that the created text is no longer treated as text but as a picture box and now has all the functions associated with this. You can now delete the original text and apply colours and blends to your picture box. In this example I have applied a linear blend of blue and red.

Further to my previous post about YouTube being banned in Turkey a similar ban has now been enforced in Thailand. Thailand's government have blocked access to the website because it was showing a video which insulted their King. Insulting the monarchy is currently a criminal offence in Thailand. I wonder how many people would call for a ban if YouTube showed a video which insulted Tony Blair. Not many is my guess.

I learnt today from an article on The Guardian that Tesco are going to invest in a scheme designed to help small dairy farmers. I have long been aware that the large supermarkets try to drive down prices as much as possible and whilst this is good for consumers it inevitably means that the small farmer struggles to stay in business when faced with this sort of pressure. I buy my milk direct from the dairy because they help to subsidise and support farmers. I also buy my fruit and vegetables from a local box scheme, not only to cut down on packaging but also because it offers farmers a fairer deal.

The scheme that Tesco is proposing will give direct supply contracts to 850 farmers meaning that the middle man is cut out and their profit is increased by 4p a litre, although the consumer will still pay the same for their litre of milk. In addition to this Tesco intend to launch a scheme called local choice where customers will have the choice to buy milk from smaller local farmer. On this scheme the customer will pay more for their milk, around 8p a litre extra but farmers will receive 23.5p on every litre of milk compared to the current 18p. The article states that currently farmers make a loss of around 20 a litre, so whilst these measures seem small they could go a long way towards helping smaller farmers.

It will be interesting to see firstly whether customers prefer to pay slightly more for locally produced milk and secondly whether the other large supermarkets follow suit. If successful perhaps supermarkets will start to source more goods locally. Personally I would rather eat a piece a fruit knowing it had been picked yesterday on a local farm, than one that had been shipped hundreds of miles and kept artificially fresh. One thing I have noticed since buying my vegetables from a box scheme is that they taste much better. Another thing is they don’t keep for weeks and weeks in the fridge. A lettuce from a supermarket will still be edible 3 or sometimes 4 weeks after you buy it, but this can’t be normal. If you grew it in your garden you would need to eat it within 3 or 4 days and then it would start to decay. It makes me wonder what the supermarkets add to fruit and vegetable to give them such an unnatural prolonged shelf life.

It’s that time of year again when Easter eggs fill the shelves of every supermarket. It’s very easy to be seduced to by the pretty wrapping and the seemingly cheap deals. However, perhaps we should take into account how much of the egg is actually edible. This article on The Guardian website states that some Easter eggs contain as much as 52% packaging, that’s not much chocolate for your money. They discovered this by weighing the packaging in relation to the edible content of the egg. Interestingly the Cadburys Cream Egg has only 6% packaging leaving a great 94% of edible content. The article approaches the issue from an environment perspective, trying to get manufacturers to cut down on the packaging they use. Personally for me the issue is that if I am buying an Easter egg then I want good value for money, and as much chocolate as possible…. mmm chocolate.

Staying on the subject of creatures with extra legs I came across this article about five-legged frogs. The frogs are currently being studied in Cambridgeshire where they were found, but as yet scientists are baffled as to what has caused the deformity.

As a wine lover I found this article interesting. It lists the top 10 most expensive bottles of wine ever sold and includes a slideshow with information about each of the wines. Much as I love wine I can’t imagine why someone would pay over $100,000 for a bottle.

Before reading this article I didn’t know what a kinkajou was. Apparently it is a small furry raccoon-like animal. This particular kinkajou apparently also likes bus rides.

A kinkajou.

No it’s not a joke these sheep really are red. They were spray painted using a special dye as part of a project to brighten up the M8. A flock of pink sheep are planned for the future.

Meet Stumpy the four-legged duck. Stumpy has a rare mutation which means he has an extra pair of legs.

To add a drop cap in Quark use the format box under the style menu (Apple key and F). Tick the drop cap box so the options become available. The character count option specifies how many characters you wish to drop. In this example I have chosen to set the first two characters as drop caps, so I would put a 2 in the this box. The second option specifies how many lines of text the drop cap will take up. You can set this from 2 lines to 16 lines. In my example I have set this to 3 so the drop cap will take up 3 lines of normal text. Once you have set the options click apply to make the changes.

Do you have a spare £130,000? If the answer is yes then you could spend it on one of these cool rocket packs. Called Rocket Belts they can reach speeds of up to 60mph and can launch you as high as 300ft into the air. So, the only thing about this product that is not cool is the price tag. I think I have a bit of saving to do before I can afford one.

There was a huge breakthrough in the cat eating monkey case today. A team of highly trained cat detectives acting on a tip off managed to apprehend the rouge monkey. Initially he denied all charges but after some “mild” persuasion by DI Willow and her team, the monkey finally admitted to the charges of attacking four innocent cats. Cats can once again sleep easy in their baskets now this monkey is safely behind bars. See the dramatic pictures from the crime scene below.

The suspect is captured for questioning.

Detectives Willow and Lucy begin the questioning process.

Getting nowhere they play "good cop bad cop"

Willow is the bad cop. After this "gentle" questioning the monkey confesses to four murders and is sent to jail. Crime does not pay.

Further to Rory’s article about naval defence cuts I came across this article on The Daily Referendum that Portsmouth Naval Base is under threat of closure. To help keep it open you can sign this petition.

Its April Fools Day again and looking around a few websites I found the following cool products. I Want One of Those is offering a Robo Girlfriend which has several advantages including a silent mode. Whilst Think Geek has a host of great new products including the WiiHelm for hands free game playing, Piranhaz battle fish and the inhalable caffeine stick. All great products if only they were real.