Thursday, November 01, 2007
In what is really good news for the Iberian Lynx, a completely new population has been discovered. This means that there are now three known populations of the cats. The new population was discovered in a remote area of Spain with the other two population occupying areas of Andalusia in southern Spain. It is thought around 100 to 150 Iberian Lynx remain in the wild making the Iberian Lynx the rarest cat species in the world.

posted on Thursday, November 01, 2007 3:48:46 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
Further to yesterdays post about the overpriced public toilet that sold for £120,000 I read this interesting article that suggests house prices in the UK rose by 1.1% in October. This doesn’t really come as surprise to me. Whilst I have also read articles recently that predict a slowing in the housing market we are certainly still seeing high prices in our area. Not only that properties still seem to be selling extremely quickly especially the smaller one to two bedroom properties. These smaller properties only seem to be on a market a week whereas larger three to four bedroom properties can be on the market for a month or more. The question remains, however, is now a good time to sell?

posted on Thursday, November 01, 2007 3:21:11 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
Microsoft has recently paid $240m for a 1.6% stake in Facebook. This puts the current value of the website at $15bn. Facebook reportedly turned down an offer from Google before agreeing the Microsoft deal.

posted on Thursday, November 01, 2007 2:09:13 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
 Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The Post Office is due to launch a broadband service. The service is aimed mainly at first time users and will be targeted at home phone customers. The service will be launched with a £10m advertising campaign featuring Westlife. The Post Office currently has around 400,000 home phone customers and makes around 10% of its earnings from this side of the business. It will be interesting to see whether this takes off.

posted on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 11:55:56 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
A public toilet block in Newquay has recently sold for £120,000. The block is due to knocked down in a larger development which will include shops and accommodation. This seems to be another example of the over inflated housing market.

posted on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 11:12:07 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [1] Trackback
 Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Wii Sports has won several awards at the British Academy Video Games Awards. Among the categories it won awards for were gameplay, strategy and simulation and innovation and sports. The award for best game went to Bioshock for the Xbox with the Playstation 3 missing out on any awards.

posted on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 4:16:22 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
I came across this website called all-local.co.uk. Basically it’s a uk advertising network that allows you to list your business on a free listing. In addition to the free listing if you require more exposure you can pay for a text link back to your website or and animated banner. You can choose to advertise just in your local town or across the whole website. I’m not sure that I really want to go with the paid advertising option but I will certainly be taking advantage of the free listing.

posted on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 4:04:46 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback

A man on a hunting trip had the humiliation of actually getting shot by his dog. The man was shooting pheasants and had put his gun on the ground to collect a bird from over a fence. As he climbed the fence one of his hunting dogs stood on the gun, shooting him in his left leg. Officials are now investigating whether the dog was provoked.

posted on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 1:16:58 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
 Monday, October 29, 2007

We went to see our friends Dave and Anita this weekend and after having a nice meal at a restaurant in Maidenhead we spent the rest of the evening at their place. We had packed our Playstation 2 along with our Singstar games and after a few drinks we decided to give it a go. This was not our first time playing Singstar but we have always found it goes down really well at parties. We finally stopped playing at around three in morning after working our way through most of the songs on our six Singstar games. I do have videos but due to the fact I am tone deaf will not be posting them.

posted on Monday, October 29, 2007 9:41:56 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [1] Trackback

The deputy mayor of Delhi has died after being attacked by wild monkeys. SS Bajwa suffered head injuries after falling from a first floor terrace whilst trying to fight off the monkeys. The city has long been plagued by monkeys which invade government complexes and temples and often attack passers by. They have tried to combat the problem by employing monkey catchers to move them into the forest and training larger langur monkeys to scare off the much smaller Rhesus macaques. Culling is not an option because the monkeys are seen as a manifestation on the monkey god Hanuman by devout Hindus.

posted on Monday, October 29, 2007 4:15:08 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
 Sunday, October 28, 2007
I just opened a bottle of Riverina Estate Shiraz 2006. The wine is from New South Wales in Australia. This is a really smooth fruity wine although quite strong at 14.5%. It costs just over £6.00 and at this price it’s quite a good wine for the money. Three out of five stars.

posted on Sunday, October 28, 2007 6:55:36 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
 Saturday, October 27, 2007
I was reading this article that suggests around 40% of supermarket packaging cannot be recycled and ends up in landfill sights. This does not really come as any surprise to me. I recycle all of my bottles, cans, paper, cardboard and any food waste that can be composted. In addition any meat waste gets fed to four grateful cats. These measures have meant that the waste that actually goes in the bin for collection is greatly reduced. The problem is that the remaining waste consists mainly of plastic trays and shrink wrapping for which there are no recycling facilities in our area. This article suggests fining firms that use too much packaging which seems like a good idea to me. I would be happy to buy the same product in packaging that could either be recycled or composted but it’s up to the supermarkets to address the issue.

posted on Saturday, October 27, 2007 10:45:46 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
 Friday, October 26, 2007
An unfortunate squirrel with a love for nuts got into a spot of bother when he crawled into a bird feeder. Getting into the squirrel proof bird feeder was not a problem for the then thin and sleek squirrel. Getting out after consuming all the nuts proved a little more difficult. Luckily for the greedy squirrel the RSPCA were on hand to release him and the squirrel ran off unharmed but feeling a little sheepish.

posted on Friday, October 26, 2007 5:51:45 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
Its good news for British cod as fish stocks has shown a comeback for the first time. This could mean that the decline which was threatening to wipe out the fish could be reversing. Scientists have advised the Government that is now safe to catch small numbers of cod in the North Sea. The comeback is largely due to an increase in the numbers of young fish as well as an increase in survival rates.

posted on Friday, October 26, 2007 10:45:10 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
 Thursday, October 25, 2007
Barclays have penalised thousands of students with charges this week by accidentally removing their overdraft facilities. Usually at this time of year any graduates would be moved to a standard Barclays account but a processing error meant that around 20,000 people had the facilities removed by mistake. This could lead to costs of around £35 a day or £175 a week. Barclays have said that all the charges will be refunded but I doubt that any consolation for those graduates that have rent to pay.

posted on Thursday, October 25, 2007 5:39:26 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
A New Zealand brewery is offering a reward to anyone who can help them find a stolen laptop. The laptop was stolen from their Croucher Brewing Company and contains financial information, contact details and designs. They are offering a lifetime supply of free beer to anyone who can name the thief. I bet they will have no shortage of leads on this case.

posted on Thursday, October 25, 2007 5:15:17 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback
Tesco is to start transporting some of its goods by canal in order to take some of its lorries off the road and cut carbon emissions. They will use the Manchester Ship Canal to move crates of wine from the Port of Liverpool. The service will include three journeys a week and move an estimated 600,000 litres of wine. Currently the wine arrives in the UK at various ports and is driven to the bottling depot at Manchester. Tesco is now looking at transporting other goods by water.

posted on Thursday, October 25, 2007 1:00:17 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Comments [0] Trackback