This poor dog was shot at point blank by yobs with a crossbow. The dog now called Beau, survived despite having two crossbow bolts embedded in her skull. After a two hour operation they were eventually removed and she is now recovering well.

There have now been two alleged sightings of a Great White Shark off the coast of Cornwall. Whilst coastguards have dismissed the claims as scaremongering scientists have admitted that it is possible the Great White Shark could move into British waters especially as they start to get warmer. There has never been a confirmed sighting of a Great White off the Cornish coast and it is possible that the shark seen was actually a smaller shark such as a mako or a porbeagle.

I found this on Crooked Brains and had to post it. It's so unusal to see so many cats in a tree at the same time. I have managed to get a picture of two of mine sitting in the tree together but this is just great.

Organisers of a Donkey Derby in Llandudno had to replace the donkeys with a blow up sheep and a toy monkey. The event had been deemed to dangerous if live donkeys were used. Safety rules meant that the event needed to be covered by public liability insurance but unfortunately no insurance company would cover it. This is despite the fact that the event has taken place every year for the last 39 years without incident.

Newcastle City Council released the credit card details of around 54,000 people on the internet. The blunder happened when thousands of credit and debit card details were placed on an insecure server and were accessed by overseas computers. The details accessed include payment details for council tax, business rates, parking fines and rent. The Council has said that residents should monitor their bank statements to check for any unusual activity. That’s not very reassuring to the people whose accounts have been compromised.

We went to a party this weekend at Shaz and Chhaya's house, despite the fact that it rained all night we were still nice and dry under the marquee. Chhaya had spent the day cooking and treated us to a great spread of samosas, kebabs, chicken wings and mini pizzas.

Chhaya and me.

Shaz and me.

I just opened a rather nice bottle of Circular Quay Shiraz 2006 Bin 30. From South Eastern Australia it is a rather smooth wine with a slight blackcurrant taste and a hint of cedar wood. For around £6.00 a bottle, I think its quite a good buy.

A pair of peregrine falcon chicks in Inverurie have died after being poisoned. It is not known who killed the birds but police are appealing for information. There are currently only around 1,285 breeding pairs of peregrine falcons in the UK. The species have long been persecuted by game keepers and pigeon fanciers because the falcons eat mainly small birds. The Scottish raptor group estimates that around a quarter of nests in Scotland are subject to interference and killing despite the fact that these birds are still greatly at risk.

I have an intense hatred of garden gnomes, so much so, that not even one is allowed to set foot in my garden. This article represents one of most nightmares, a garden full of the little critters. Jean Balcombe from Willesborough in Kent has 1,500 gnomes in her garden which she has collected over 20 years.

A businessman and 18 friends spent a record £105,805 on drink at a London nightclub. Among the drinks they consumed were £80,000 worth of champagne, 4 bottles of Cristal Rose, 6 magnums of Dom Perignon, 36 bottles of Cristal and 12 bottles of Dom Perignon Rose. I feel better now about splashing out on a bottle of wine with my meal last night.

I found this really interesting quiz. It has 10 websites and challenges you to spot which are the real sites and which are the fakes. I got six out of ten.

A hamster that was left out with the rubbish has been rescued and has now been adopted by council workers. They have named him Brian although it appears he may actually be a she.

There has been a lot of news coverage recently about banks charging their customers unfair overdraft charges on their current accounts. The competition watchdog today launched a case against eight of the UK’s largest current account provides accusing them of unfair bank charges. The banks currently apply large bank charges on customers who have gone into their unauthorised overdraft. The watchdog has challenged these fees, however, saying they should be limited to what it actually costs the account provider when the account goes overdrawn. In some cases banks charge up to £39 for going overdrawn. The eight banks involved in this test case are Abbey, Barclays, Clydesdale Bank, HBOS, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland and Nationwide. As someone who has been charges unfair fees in the past I will be watching this case with interest.

Cats and rats have been helping Colombian police sniff out land mines. The rats are trained to sniff out landmines and are taught to freeze when they detect one. The problem is that the rats have not been doing the job effectively because they are frightened of predators. Putting the rat into a cage with a cat helps the rat becomes used to the presence of possible predators so they can concentrate on their job. The cat’s claws are covered so they cannot injure the rat.

You might have cause to be worried if Oscar the cat (not my cat Oscar) curls up next to you. The cat has an uncanny knack for curling up next to patients at a nursing home just before they die. Staff at the nursing home have now started alerting the patients family if Oscar sits next to them.

A giant bustard has laid an egg in Britain for the first time since 1832. The birds are part of a program to reintroduce the great bustard to Britain using chicks from Russia. Although the eggs have not hatched it is still an encouraging sign that the species should be able to breed successfully in Britain.

I went to the hairdresser today to get my yearly hair cut. My hair is very thick so it had got to the stage where it felt like I was wearing a carpet, and the weight of it was causing me to have headaches. Now I have considerably less hair. I must try and go at least twice a year in future.

Farmers in Macedonia have found some cognac which dates back to the First World War. The batches of cognac were buried in trenches used by French soldiers and recently several cases have been found. They are expected to fetch around £3,360 each.

I have noticed over the last month or so that most of the spam I get seems to contain simply a PDF attachment. I was wondering whether this was a new tactic designed to fool people into opening up a dodgy file. I came across this article today that claim spammers have stopped sending pictures in their emails and instead started attaching PDF’s. It appears that they are doing this to try and get around corporate spam filters. So far, it appears to be getting through my spam filter quite effectively with several hundred of these spam mails with PDF attachments arriving each day. Whilst my daily amount of spam mails continues to rise, I suppose one good thing about this latest trend is I don’t have to read about Viagra or penis enlargement unless I actually open the PDF.

A cat was thrown from a car in Cornwall, the frightened cat managed to run across several lanes of traffic to the middle of a roundabout. The cat was left uninjured but very frightened. Hopefully it will soon find a new home with someone who will look after him.

A man found a crispy rodent in his bag of crisps. The mouse had apparently been deep fried but the manufacturers say it could have entered the bag after the crisps left their factory. Either way, finding a crispy mouse is not a pleasant experience.

With the long hot summers we have been seeing in the UK (not this year) English wine seems to be enjoying something of a boom. I read this interesting article which talks about several different vineyards here in England and what type of wine they produce. It’s given me a few ideas about new wines to try and I will certainly be looking for some English wine next time I visit the supermarket.

A glue has been produced that can attach equally well to both to both wet and dry surfaces. It was inspired by sticky geckos that can climb using their sticky feet. The glue is similar in structure to a gecko’s foot and also contains a polymer that mimics the glue a mussel uses. It is likely to be used for adhesive tapes and water resistant adhesives for bandages.

A German zoo has been accused of selling its animals as food. It is alleged that wild pigs, goats, deer and an anteater have been killed and then sold for their meat. The authorities fear that the Erfurt Zoo has been killing for animals for several years to fulfil people’s tastes for unusual meats.

I’m still getting used to my new iPod that my husband brought me for my wedding anniversary and have been looking at iPod software that will make things easier. iPod Audiobook is a new conversion tool for people that own iPod’s. It converts audio files into a a format supported by your iPod. It can deal with MP3 files, Wav files, OGG files, Wma files and CDA files just to name a few. It’s made to integrate seamlessly with Windows so you can convert all of your audio files without even having to launch the program. It can also convert hundreds of files in one batch and you can get a 30 day free trial.

The TV remote could soon be a thing of the past. Scientists in Australia have invented a device that allows viewers to control the TV by using simple hand gestures. The gadget includes a camera that can recognise hand gestures and could be easily incorporated into set top boxes. A clenched fist turns the TV on, a thumbs up sign controls the volume and a sideways sign can change channels.

A Chihuahua called Zoe attacked a rattlesnake that had tried to bite her owners child. The brave dog jumped in between the snake and the child taking several bites from the snake. Following treatment for her wounds Zoe is now recovering.

This article is not about big dicks. It's about an article I read recently suggesting that links such as the words big dick seem to generate more traffic to your blog. The article in question was not linking to a porn site but to a blog entitled Big Dick's Blog. Anyway that's enough big dick links, I will be interested to see if my traffic increases.

My blogging has got a little bit out of control and what started out as a personal blog, now appears to be more of a mini news feed. With this in mind I have started a couple of new blogs to try and split the content up a little bit. This blog will remain a personal blog, and contain all the usual stuff I blog about. However, I am going to post most of the shopping related content at ineedashop and most of the news related content at atheniaglobe which will both be live soon. In addition to these you can already read my design related blog and my travel related blog.

My cats have been hunting frogs for several months now with no success. So little success in fact that I had become secure in the knowledge that the frogs were too smart to be caught. Yesterday Oscar (pictured) came running into the house with a large frog firmly between his teeth. At first I assumed he had caught a bird but upon further inspection I found it was a frog and was still very much alive. After a bit of persuasion I managed to get Oscar to drop his frog and returned it to the pond. Oscar was left with a very bad taste in his mouth, but is still hunting frogs.

A man pulled over by police on suspicion of driving whilst drunk was found to be completely naked. The man was wearing only his shoes and socks and had four friends in the car with him. They were so drunk they did not appear to notice that their friend was naked.

With all the bad weather yesterday it was hard to do anything much outside. I was lucky that I didn’t have to use public transport otherwise I would have been stuck. I did, however, have to take some urgent parcels to the post office which is ten minutes away from my house. The trip there and back was interesting in that all the roads and footpaths around here were flooded with water. Not only did I get rained on, I also had to avoid the splashes from passing cars. I got back rather wet, my waterproof jacket had protected the top part of my body but as you can see from the pictures my trousers were a little wet.

It seems to me that it’s becoming much more economical to have a smaller car these days. Not only do you pay less tax and less insurance, some council’s are bringing in further measures to force people with larger vehicles to pay more. Richmond council already charges people with the most polluting cars more for a perking permit. They are now also thinking about charging higher fees for parking meters and council car parks for so called gas guzzlers. Having worked in Richmond and seen that most people have large or high performance cars I can see this is likely to prove unpopular with residents, still it might make them think about using their cars slightly less or maybe getting a smaller car.

I found a bottle of Fetzer Barrel Select Merlot 2005 in Tesco. I must admit I brought it because it was on offer at Tesco for £3.99 and I thought at that price it was worth a try. The bottle blurb boasts of a range of tastes including plums, vanilla, raspberries, cherries and chocolates. When I tried it the taste of plums was evident and it was a really fruity wine. It did however lack body, although to be honest at £3.99 I was not surprised. In all, it was a nice enough wine that went down fairly well, but about what I would expect from a £3.99 offering, ok, but not great. Not a wine I would buy again.

A new moon has been discovered orbiting Saturn. This means there are now 60 known moons orbiting the planet. It was spotted by cameras on the Cassini spacecraft. It has not yet been officially named but is currently nicknamed Frank.

A man in Ventura has been arrested for torturing a tortoise. He had tried to cut the endangered tortoise out of its shell before throwing it against a wall. The tortoise is recovering at the Turtle Dreams rehabilitation center. He is currently being fed though a tube in his neck but there are hopes he will make a full recovery.

Fishermen in Zanzibar have caught a creature called a Coelacanth. The fish has many fins and a three lobed tail and was thought to be extinct until one was caught in 1938. Since then two other Coelacanth have been caught by fishermen but its still not known how many of the fish still exist.

A Coelacanth.

A seagull in Aberdeen has developed a taste for cheese Doritos. The seagull has been nicknamed Sam. He walks into the newsagents when the door is open and steals the crisps but only seems to like the cheese flavoured Doritos. Once he is outside he rips the bag open and is joined by other birds that help him eat them.

Facebook can now claim to have created its first boy band. A group of four musicians met on Facebook after discovering they had similar interests. They later tracked down Daniel Glatman, former boss of the band Blue and asked him if he would become their manager. They have now signed a £1 million album deal with Universal. The group called Blake have already recorded their first album which includes classic tracks such as Moon River and Jerusalem.

An owl shaped maze has been created into a farmer’s field to mark the lance of the latest Harry Potter book. The maze is 600ft/ 193m long. Amazing.

Armed police called to a crime scene in Wuppertal in Germany were surprised to find a large stuffed toy. A woman had reported seeing a masked criminal through the window of a parked van. It turned out the suspect was actually a large toy beaver in the passenger seat of a car.

A man in West Sussex is celebrating after placing a £2 bet on a series of horse races and winning and amazing £427.000. He placed what is called a Scoop 6 bet with William Hill. He is now planning to move to Spain.

Firefighters taking part in a training exercise were meant to cut holes in the roof and walls of an empty house. Unfortunately they managed to cut holes in another house which was two blocks away from the empty one. The owner of the house is now claiming compensation for the damage.

Blogging dosh.com is a blog about making money by blogging. The blog is sponsored by Dosh Talk. The first article I looked at was about making money from selling invites, not really an avenue I have considered so far and to be honest I would probably just give them away rather than try selling them. Still, it’s interesting that some people are cashing on this idea.

Another article that I found interesting was regarding people who remove comments from their blogs. For me comments are always appreciated and let me know firstly that people actually read my blog rather but more importantly that they found a particular subject of interest. As this article says comments are a vital part of blogging.

Another really useful article is a review on websites where you can Make Money Blogging. It talks about the main sites including PayPerPost, ReviewMe and Blogvertise as well as some lesser know paid review sites. I have already come across most of these paid blogging sites but this is certainly a useful overview for anyone who is looking to make money from their blog.

Not only does this blog have useful articles about making money it also has interesting stuff about optimising your blog. Simple things such as including simple to use navigation might not seem like rocket science but making things easy to find for your readers is obviously important. Other tips include how to create a brand for your blog, in other words creating a professional design, using consistent colours, designing a logo and making sure that any advertising you use fits with the style of your blog. Its all really useful stuff and as I am new to blogging I have a feeling I will be visiting this blog on a regular basis for some more useful tips.

A father and son have unearthed a hoard of Viking treasure. It contained 617 silver coins and 65 other objects including a gold arm ring and a silver vessel. It’s thought to be worth around £750,000. The proceeds of the find will be split between the finders and the landowners.

I read this interesting article about how Britain became an island. The evidence shows that Britain was split from France hundreds of thousand years ago by a huge flood. The evidence is based upon high resolution sonar images of the English Channel that show a deep scar in the limestone rock caused by a huge torrent of water. Its an interesting read and makes me wonder hoe different Britain would be today if it were still joined to France

A tractor and trailer carrying blocks of cheese caught light in West Sacramento. The result was that hundreds of pounds of cheese erupted in flames causing a huge fondue effect.

I read this really interesting article about how London is slowly sinking. A combination of subsidence and rising water levels mean that every year London is around 3mm lower. This is according to the Environment Agency who has been monitoring the situation. With these findings they hope to be able to adapt London’s current flood defences to make use of a better natural floodplain as well as get a clear timeline of how much time they have to carry out existing improvements before the situation gets too critical.

Last time we moved we did it ourselves hiring a van which my Dad drove. Since then we have gained a lot more stuff and next time we move we will certainly be using a moving company.  I found this useful directory of moving companies. You can search by area and by the type of service you need. They also include services for moving internationally as well as storage rentals.

I came across these great Simpsons quotes. Among some of the good ones are “Your questions have become more redundant and annoying than the last three “Highlander movies” from Comic Book Guy and “I’m normally not a praying man, but if you’re up there, please save me, Superman” from Homer.

I have been caught out in the past when my account has gone overdrawn by a few pounds and the bank has charged a lot of fees on the top increasing the debt dramatically. This article, however, highlights what I hope is an extreme case of unfair charges. The article talks about an HSBC account that went £5.60 overdrawn. In the first month £184 of charges were added to the account. In subsequent months amounts of £152 and £176 were also added, making the total debt more than £500. The bank said it wrote to the customer informing them of the problem but no letters were received until nearly four months later when the debt had mounted up. In this instance the bank did apologize although the article does not state whether the customer still had to pay the charges. It makes me wonder how many other people have been caught out by this tactic.

Have you ever wondered what you would do if you have the luck to get a bank error in your favour. It’s usually the kind of event that we only see on a chance card when playing Monopoly. Obviously in the game you are allowed to spend it but in real life you know you should really give it back. One lady finding £135,000 in her bank account decided to take a chance (literally) and spend the cash. She managed to work her way through £33,000 of the money before being arrested for theft. She will also have to pay back the money.

Retailers are now starting to offer free laptops as incentives to customers who sign two year broadband contracts. PC World was the first to introduce the offer, giving free laptops to people who signed up for a two year contract with Orange broadband. Now the Carphone Warehouse has introduced a deal to give a Dell laptop to each customer who signs up with AOL Broadband and signs a contract for 24 months.

Australia’s worst drought in around a hundred years is forcing kangaroos into its cities. The droughts mean that food is scarce and kangaroos have to compete with sheep and cattle for food water and water. This forces them into the city to look for food.

I read this article about the alcohol content of wines. It’s interesting that most wines used to be around 12% per bottle and nowadays most bottles that you see are around 14 or 15%. More alcohol does not necessarily mean a nicer wine and I find that some wines are spoilt by the fact they are simply so strong. Like the author of this article I would much rather have a nice bottle of wine rather than have one glass and start to feel tired because it is so strong. Luckily some supermarkets are now starting to stock some wine with lower alcohol content. The article suggests some to try including a Moscato from Brown Brothers.

It always seems to be the cute cuddly creatures that get most of the press when it comes to conservation. Other animals are overlooked because they are not so attractive. When it comes to sharks they have a really bad press, everyone remembers Jaws and most people will probably admit to finding them rather frightening. Maybe that’s why there doesn’t seem to be much effort to try and save these creatures from extinction. A recent report by a conservation group suggests that sharks could well become extinct within a generation if the practice of eating shark fin soup is not stopped. The soup is popular as a luxury item in China and is often eaten at wedding, mainly because its expensive, you need a lot of sharks to make the soup and they are few and far between. The Chinese currently account for around 90% of the world’s consumption of shark fins. The current demand for shark fin soup continues to rise and as the demand cannot be sustained by the population of wild sharks, the future looks bleak for the shark.

This is another one of those stories that makes me sick. This poor kitten was set alight by two teenage girls. The cat was in a cage at the time so had no way of getting away when the two girls poured flammable liquid on him and set to light to it. The skin on his back was burnt off leaving raw tissue and he has had his tail and ear tips amputated because they were so badly damaged. How someone can be this cruel to an animal is beyond me.

A pair of Montagu’s harriers nesting in Lincolnshire has successfully hatched three chicks. There are currently only around 10 to 14 pairs of these rare birds nesting in the UK so this could be good news for the species.

A couple in Vancouver are currently living with 80 bats which have built a nest inside the walls of their condo. Despite the fact that they risk exposure to rabies a court has ruled the bats cannot be evicted for another three weeks. Under the current legislation the bats are protected during the breeding season, so until it is over they are allowed to stay. The human residents of the condo are looking forward to the day when their unwelcome guests can be re-homed.

A bomb threat in Pittsburgh turned out to be someone’s lunch. The threat was taken seriously and sniffer dogs were sent in, only to find a salad in a brown paper bag. The suspicious package had been left in a women’s bathroom under a sink. The moral of this story, be careful where you store your lunch.

Police in South Korea are hunting a rouge monkey after the creature stole a pair of glasses. The monkey apparently broke into a tourist’s hotel room and nicked his reading glasses. Police have a good description of the monkey but are not sure what they will do if they find it, as there are currently no laws under which a wild monkey can be charged. The tourist should be able to claim the cost of his glasses on hi travel insurance.

A boy who brought a Playstation 2 on Ebay was surprised when he received a parcel containing 65,400 Euros, that’s about £44,000. The boy parents contacted the police who are now trying to find out who owns the money. If no one claims it the boy’s family may be able to apply to have it returned to them. Now that I think about I remember posting a large sum of money to Norfolk last week, I wonder if they will believe me.

Police arrested a kennel on legs as they saw it leaving a pet store. The kennel was leaving a Pets at Home store when police spotted it and pulled it over thinking it was slightly odd. It turned out the kennel contained a man who was stealing a kennel. What a master of disguise!

GimmeTheScoop is a Blog on a number of subjects including health, business, finance and news. It is written by Gaurav Bhola and the idea is that it is a webblog open to the public to try and provoke intelligent debate on a number of subjects.  Among the posts in the finance section is a particularly interesting article about the rise in mortgage rates and how it is affecting the current market.

A man who went to the doctor with what he thought was shingles found out he actually had creatures living in his head. He had picked up an infection whilst in Belize and it turned out the creatures were bot fly lava. The bugs were successfully removed.

A man at a gas station in Wawa got a shock when he stopped at the pump to fill up and a snake crawled out of the engine compartment of his car. The snake was a boa constrictor which had crawled into the engine for warmth. The snake which measures 5 feet in length was later caught by police but was not charged with an offence.

Parts of China have been invaded by plagues of rats caused by heavy rainfall. The unusually high rainfall has caused around two billion rats to leave their flooded holes and move into the surrounding farmland where they have caused havoc eating crops. Villagers at first tried to poison them but eventually some people came up with a better idea. They have been catching the rats and selling them on to restaurants. The rats are the used to make rat stew which is a traditional delicacy.

I read this interesting article about a group of giant apes that been discovered in the Congolese jungle. The chimps are much larger than normal and due to their remote location are not afraid of people. They also exhibit different behaviour from most chimps building large nests on the ground rather than sleeping in the trees to avoid predators, as is more common. Local hunters claim that the large apes have also been known to kill and eat lions, although so far there is no evidence to support this claim other than the fact that one chimp was found eating a leopard. Once again it reminds me of those pub arguments, who will win chimp or lion? .... but what if its a giant lion eating chimp?

Further to my last post about the rubber duck army about to hit Britain, the first ducks have now arrived. A retired teacher claims to found the first duck in Devon as she was walking her dog on the beach. There is a $100 finder’s fee for any recovered ducks.

Cheese prices are set to rise dramatically due to a combination of freak weather and the demand for milk. The price of wholesale cheddar has increased in Britain by £350 a ton in the last three months, meaning consumers will start seeing the cost of cheese rise. The rise in prices will not also affect cheese prices; the price of pizza is also likely to rise as cheese makes up around 40% of the cost of producing a pizza. Bad news for cheese lovers everywhere.

Some people will nick anything. A bouncy castle was stolen from a Shropshire pub’s beer garden. The bouncy castle measured 12ft high and was described as green and white with pillars shaped like red and white toadstools.

A sighting of the Loch Ness monster in Wales turned out to be a float built for a festival. The “monster” was actually a raft with a head at one end and a tail at the other. Coastguards were amused by the findings.

A rugby player played for for months with another players tooth buried in his head. It was only when the wound became infected that the tooth was discovered and removed. The tooth had become stuck in his head after a clash of heads at an earlier match, in which the rightful owner broke his jaw.

This giant rubber duck is part of an exhibition of contemporary art taking place in France on the Loire River. The duck measures 26 metres high and 20 metres wide and is made of PVC.

Sainsbury’s are one of the latest large retailers to stop taking cheques. From the 1st of August you will now longer be able to pay by cheque in 800 Sainsbury’s stores. Sainsbury’s say too few people are now using cheques and that they take too long to process. I always find it's useful to have a cheque book handy as a backup, I guess I will have to carry more cash in future.

I was looking into a detox program and thought about juice fasting. Looking around for more information on it I came across this website that contains lots of useful tips. The site talks about both the good and bad points of Juice Fasting. The benefits include the fact that it can help expel toxins in your body but it can also have side effects. Looking at the website I don’t know that juice fasting is really for me, but I found the information here really useful.

A species that was thought to be extinct has now been found to be alive. The creature is called David Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna. The creature was feared to be extinct until a local tribesman said he had recently caught and eaten one. Scientists investigating the claim found recent burrows which suggested the creature is still very much alive. More trips to the area have now been planned in the hope they will be able to catch the creatures on camera.

With the recent rises in mortgage rates it’s getting harder to find the money to buy a home especially for first time buyers. I remember when we purchased our house four years ago we struggled to find the money for our deposit and the fees and had to borrow from family, just to get on the property ladder. We have always made sure we choose a fixed rate on our mortgages, mainly because we would find it difficult to cope with any rise in interest rates and would struggle with increased payments. However if you do have problems there are people that can help you with bad credit remortgages and debt consolidation. We are now trying to find the money to purchase our second home and finding it equally difficult to find the money for fees. We have worked out that to buy a new house and sell ours will cost around £10,000 just in Stamp Duty, Land Registry fees and solicitor’s fees and thats before we start paying the mortgage.

A pet macaw that flew away a week ago turned up a surprising 80 miles away from home. The macaw was spotted by a passing motorist and police later captured the bird and reunited it with its owner.

Parts of London are to get free Wi-Fi as part of a new scheme. The scheme will cover most of London from Millbank in central London to Greenwich. To use the service for free users will need to agree to view a paid advert every 15 minutes whilst they are using it. If they don't want to view the adverts then the service will charged an an hourly rate.

If you are looking for something a bit different you might want to try some Handmade Jewelry at Night Fox Jewelry. They have a wide range of necklaces, bracelets, rings and earrings. The fact that each piece is hand made means that you can be sure you will have a special custom made piece. I was looking for a necklace for a wedding I am going to soon and found an amethyst and carnelian necklace which should match my purple dress perfectly.

I just opened a bottle of L'Oc de la Bouysse, a wine that featured in The Times Top 100 Summer Wines of 2006. At only £4.99 a bottle, this blend of Grenache, Noir, Syrah, Mouvedre and Merlot grapes is a full bodied wine with a nice fruity flavour.

Shops could soon charge customers 10p for each carrier bag they use. A new scheme is likely to be tested in London before possibly being introduced throughout the rest of Britain. The proposals are aimed at reducing plastic waste produced by supermarkets. Personally I would not mind paying for bags when doing a shop. I do already reuse all of my bags, taking my own with me on most shopping trips and I wonder if more people would start to do this if they have to pay for a bag.

The world's largest telescope in the Canary Islands is to be used to scan the sky for planets. The telescope should be able to penetrate molecular clouds and see the most distant objects in the universe, so if there are other planets like Earth out there, there are high hopes of finding them.

I received an email from Nectar the other day advertising a new Nectar wine club. It's similar to the Virgin Wine Discovery Club, in that they send you a case of wine every quarter. The email advertised a special joining offer meaning you got the first case of wine for only £39.99 and also got three extra bottles free. I thought this was too good an offer to miss out on so clicked the buy now link on the email, only to find the website was down. I tried the site again today and still no luck. I wonder how many potential customers they have lost in the last few days. I will persevere and may give them a call on Monday to tell them they have a problem, but many people have probably given up already.

Three osprey chicks in Aberfoyle have been weighed and tagged and at five weeks old appear to be doing well. The tags will allow the birds to be tracked if they return to Scotland to breed. This is the first year that three chicks have hatched in a year, so is encouraging news for Scotlands Osprey population.

I have had a bottle of Chateau Clos Renon 2005 sitting in my wine rack for a couple of years now and decided to open it today. The wine is a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. I originally purchased two bottles of the wine and opened the first one whilst it was still young, however the two years of ageing have certainly improved what was already a particularly nice wine. The taste whilst young was fruity but a lacking a little body, but when aged even for a short time the wine has pleasant cherry like smell and a slight edge of oak to the flavour.  

I found this interesting quiz on technology. Apparently it's designed to see how useful you would be if you went back in time and tried to invent some of today's technology. The questions are quite hard, but I managed a fairly respectable six out of ten.

A farm in Staffordshire is offering pet wedding for people who want their pets to get married. They got the idea after performing a ceremony for two of their own dogs. Ceremonies cost £100 and include a cake and a minister. They have got seven ceremonies booked so far. How strange.

Some thieves who stole a keg of beer are likely to find they get very sick when they try to drink the loot. The keg had been put aside for the brewery to collect because the cask was faulty. It had been left open to the elements for several days before it was stolen. Drinking it is likely to cause severe vomiting, stomach cramps and diarrhoea. Perhaps these thieves might learn their lesson.

This was the moment when the world's tallest man met the world's shortest man. Bao Xishun is 7.9 feet tall as opposed to He Pingping who is only 2.4 feet tall.

Police in Iran have arrested 14 squirrels because they are suspected of spying. The squirrels were detained near the Iranian border and reportedly had foreign intelligence devices on them.

Snailwell is holding its seventh Grand Championship Snail Race today. Around 400 people are expected to attend the race. Entrants pay £5 to back a painted snail with the champion receiving a crystal snail and a bottle of wine.

If you buy your toothpaste at a discount store, you might want to check the label. Tubes of Sensodyne toothpaste have been found to contain toxic chemicals that could be harmful to young children and people with impaired liver or kidney functions. The contaminated batch are 50ml tubes and have both English and Arabic writing on them.

Nine artists have been creating sand sculptures on a beach in Somerset. The sculptures show scenes from fairy tales including Sleeping Beauty and Hansel and Gretal.

British forces in Basra have been blamed for introducing man eating badgers to Basra. The creatures have been identified as honey badgers and there are reports they have attacked people. Rumours have spread among the locals that the creatures eat people and were introduced by the British forces. The reports originated because the creatures were initially spotted near the British base at Basra airport.

PC World is going to start selling mini robots. The robots can record images and sound from their surroundings, so make effective remote-controlled spying devices. They will also be able to transmit messages back to their owners over wireless broadband.

After reading articles about Sony cutting the price of the Playstation 3 in the US, I was hoping for similar cuts in the UK. However, Sony have stated they have no plans to cuts its prices in Europe and have instead decided to offer free games and accessories to try and entice people to purchase the console. The new deals will include two games and two controllers for the same price of £425 which means you get £115 of games and accessories for the same price. I think I will wait for the price cut.

Further to my post a few days about Britain's biggest dog, it appears someone has found an even bigger one, called Tiny. Tiny as his name suggests (not) stands 7ft 3inches tall and is a Great Dane. He eats 2kg (4.4lb) of meat every day and weighs 17 stone.

A man in Herefordshire has been building a dome in his garden made out of wine bottles. He has used 3,000 empty bottles already and needs around 2,000 more to complete the structure which stands 11ft high.

Nintendo are planning to introduce more active games in its bid to make gamers fit. Wii fit comes with a Balance Board designed to measure a players movements and is a new interactive fitness game which will includes aerobic and yoga workouts, as well as virtual hoola-hoop. I might buy it for my Wii when its realeased.

A giant mushroom has been found in a forest in Mexico. The mushroom weighs more than 40lb.

It's amazing what you can buy online these days. Barry Cowan managed to buy a snake over the internet which turned out to be a man eating python. He thought he had purchased a Royal Python which only grows up to five foot in length but eventually found out when visiting an internet forum, that he had purchased a monster that can grow up to thirty foot and eat children. I wonder if it came with a money back guarantee.

A pint of milk can keep your heart healthy, thats according to this article. Research has found that dairy products can help to protect against heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.

It’s such a shame that while conservationists try so hard to protect our wildlife there are still ignorant people that are intent on wiping it out. The Peak District has recently seen two species of birds completely wiped out as a result of attacks on birds of prey. The Goshawk and the Peregrine Falcons that were breeding in the area have now been decimated. There were 17 recorded attacks on peregrine falcons in the last year in which female birds were shot dead and unfortunately this amounts to the whole breeding population of this fragile species. Birds dying of natural causes is one thing, but I can't understand why someone would want to wipe out a whole species in an area on purpose.

A rare horseshoe bat who has lived on his own for seven years has now found a mate. The bat called Dean flew from Gloucestershire to Wales in his search for a mate and found Cinders. There are now hopes that the bats might start a new breeding colony.

There are many ways to propose and every guy is nervous about getting it just right. One man decided to pop the question on a shark dive. Whilst on the dive he produced a sign saying "marry me". A slightly unusual place to propose but his girlfriend was delighted, apparently.

This suitcase full of puppies was discovered in Leeds, after someone noticed it was moving. In all eight puppies were crammed into the case. They are now looking for new homes.

Even the happiest of married couples have their arguments; however, most couples manage to get through the wedding day without any fights. One couple started their marriage with a fight in a hotel room, on their wedding day which led to the groom being hit with a stiletto heel and being treated for a head wound. The bride still in her wedding dress was detained by police. The couple who are still together had to pay £500 for the damaged they caused to the hotel room during the fight. Wedded Bliss.

I came across this useful tip on how to quickly chill a warm beer, or any other drink for that matter, really quickly. Basically you put the beer in a pot full of ice cubes, fill the pot with water and add a couple of cups of table salt. Then put it in the freezer for about three minutes and you have cold beer. Magic.

Samson is Britain's biggest dog, he stands 6ft 5in on his hind legs and has paws around the size of dinner plates. Now that's what you call a guard dog.

I have been feeling a little tired and run down recently so was considering putting myself through a detox and cleansing programme. I came across this article on the benefits of colon cleansing and how it can have positive effects such as improved digestion and less bloating after meals, which suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome is a problem that tends to really affect me. The article went onto to recommend a cleansing product called Bowltrol. I’m usually a bit sceptical as to whether these sorts of products work, but this website contains a Bowltrol Review where the product was tested on real life customers with all of them seeing successful results after using the product.

The recent flooding in the UK, along with a potato blight could mean bad new for chip lovers everywhere. The potato blight which thrives in warm wet weather is the worst for five years and the resulting shortage in potatoes will mean a rise in chip prices.

This is Lucy doing her cute kitty act. This usually happens after she has done something particularly bad.

I have noticed recently a dramatic increase in the number of spam emails I get pretending to be from banks. With most of them it’s very easy to spot they are spam as I have never heard from the bank mentioned (usually an American bank), let alone have an account with them. Recently though the spammers seemed to have moved into targeting UK banks. I have received emails recently from Lloyds TSB and Alliance and Leicester and its interesting to see the spammers have been doing their homework. The emails fit exactly with the look and feel of the current websites and even include a disclaimer on the bottom about not divulging your banking details. I know that no UK banks would ever send you an email asking you to click on a link and re-enter your details. In addition, I am not fooled when directed to a website that looks like my banks website but has a completely different URL, however, I'm sure there must be people who do get caught out by the spam emails and end up divulging all of their account details. I have got to the stage where I automatically delete any emails claiming to be from a bank. If my bank did try to contact me by email, they wouldn’t have much luck, but then they do have my address and phone number if it’s important.

I found this on Crooked Brains. Its a hotel made completely out of ice, how cool is that? No pun intended...

I watched a documentary about harriers the other day and the work going into breeding programmes. There are fewer than ten pairs of Montagu's harriers left in the UK and there are hopes that this particular pair in Lincolnshire will be successful.

Tesco has been condemned for selling live turtles at its stores in China. The turtles are sold live and then have their heads cuts off with the knife. The turtle, however, remains aware for up to an hour afterwards and is still able to move its eyes, unless the skull is crushed. Tesco say the turtles are killed humanely and that it's wrong to impose western standards on the Chinese market. It still seems a rather cruel practice.

Cats seems to love sitting on shoes. Here is a picture of Ollie guarding a pair of my shoes.

I like to cook and often experiment with new recipes with varying degrees of success. Sometimes, however, it’s the easiest things to cook that end up in disaster, mainly because you are generally doing other things whilst cooking them. I found some sausage rolls in the freezer this weekend and decided to cook them as a snack to use them up. Unfortunately in my rush I turned the oven setting to grill by mistake. After about fifteen minutes there was a strange burning smell and the kitchen was full of black smoke. This is the result (below) with me looking very red faced, needless to say they went straight in the bin.

People living in a village in China have been digging up dinosaur bones and using them as medicine. They believed that the bones were dragon bones and so had been grinding them up to make soup. The bones are thought to be from a large plant eating dinosaur.

There have been many times when my husband has been nursing a bitten hand, disinfecting a scratched arm or cleaning up cat sick, that he has uttered the phrase, either the cats goes or I do, I know he doesn't mean it, but found this amusing.

A chinese woman has been jailed for stabbing her boyfriend in the eye with a chopstick and blinding him. She stabbed him in the eye after an argument. She had already blinded him in the other eye six years earlier after another argument. Bearing that in mind I would have removed any sharp implements from the house.

I read this article which claims that pre-packed sandwiches can contain as much salt as seven bags of crisps, that's more than half the recommended daily amount. The saltiest sandwich was Asda's Special Yorkshire Ham and Wensleydale which contained 65% of the recommended daily salt intake. Personally I don't eat a great deal of pre-packed sandwiches, mainly because they usually contain things I don't like. This article has reinforced my belief that its best to make your sandwiches at home because you know exactly what goes into it and its generally fresher than the pre-packed alternative.

A firm which advises councils on green transport has sent an email to its employees advising them to drive to work or use public transport because they think cycling in London is too dangerous. The firm which has advised Transport for London has now had to distance itself from the email after a furious backlash by TFL. Personally I don't think I would cycle in London because drivers do not seem aware of pedestrians, let alone looking out for someone on a bike.

McDonalds have recently introduced new measures in its efforts to appear environmentally friendly. They will now turn all of their used cooking into bio diesel fuel which will be used to power their vans in the UK. They have also started using non-hydrogenated cooking all in its restaurants as well as organic milk. Along with these measures they are redesigning a lot of their outlets. In all the exercise is meant to make the chain appear more ethical. I'm not sure how much difference these measures will make but one thing I have noticed is the amount of discarded McDonalds food wrappings that seems to be around.

An EU offical has said that cigarettes should be made "fire safe" because of the amount of fire related deaths caused by them. We may soon see the first self extinguishing cigarettes going on sale. Bizarre.

This cool cave home is literally carved out of the limestone cliffs; it has a sitting room and a front door but no water and electricity. That didn't stop it from fetching a cool £100,000 when it was auctioned a couple of days ago.

A wildlife park in the Isle of Man is doing well with their breeding programme. They have just had their fifth squirrel monkey born in a year. The monkeys are currently classed as endangered so this project is an important boost to their numbers.

This fox swam 40 metres and back again to an island in order to steal some goose eggs from a nest. She was caught on camera by an amateur photographer. As she could only carry one egg in her mouth at a time, the fox made a total of four trips to the island to bring back an egg for each of her four cubs.

Good news for chocolate lovers, eating some dark chocolate every day can lower your blood pressure thats according to a study carried out in the US. Eating one or two chunks of chocolate every day can be enough to be beneficial.

A charity is looking for overweight pets to take part in its "fit club". Good Friday pictured below managed to lose 1kg when he took part last year, so if you have a fat cat or an overweight dog, you might want to sign them up.

If you enter a cake baking contest and are the only entrant you would expect to come first. Jenny Brown entered such a contest and was pleased when her cake won second prize. That was until she found out she was the only person to have entered a cake in the competition. Her cake was marked down on some points by the judges who deemed it was only good enough to make second prize. Now that hardly seems fair.

Apparently having a regular glass of wine can help prevent tooth decay and gum disease and can even cure a sore throat. That's according to a study carried out by some Italian scientists. It seems to me like another good excuse to drink wine.

If like me you have spent many evenings in the pub discussing such topics as "If a rabbit and a badger had a fight who would win?" or "How about if a tiger and a bear had a fight, who would win then?" then you will find this picture entertaining. Who will win the cat or the eagle? My money is on the eagle, it has sharper claws.

Picture from boredstop.com

I came across this article that shows a large spider found behind a clock. The spider is actually almost as big as the clock itself. Scary. Below is a picture before the clock was removed showing the legs poking out.

Porno Pizza is a new idea created by Corey Wildeman. Anyone who orders one must be 18 and gets pornographic material inserted under the pizza. The gimmick has been created simply to try and sell more pizzas.

I read this article which claims the Wii is currently outselling the PS3 six to one in Japan. Its amazing that even now when you look for a Wii console most places are still out of stock and any new stock seems to be snapped up straight away. We were lucky enough to buy one a month after it was launched and I can see why its so popular. Nintendo have now sold around 2.76 million Wii consoles in Japan since its launch whilst Playstation have sold 970,270 PS3s. Playstation are promising some exciting new titles for the PS3 but for me its just too expensive. I will stick with my Wii for now.

The US convenience store chain 7-Eleven is to transform 12 of its stores in Simpson’s style Kwik-E-Marts for a limited time. Special products will be on sale such as Buzz Cola and Squishee soft drinks. The transformation is part of a promotion for the release of the Simpson’s movie.

This viking ship has set sail for Dublin from the Danish post of Roskilde. A team of volunteers will travel on the ship as they attempt to recreate the voyages undertaken by the early Norsemen. The ship is a replica of a viking ship and was made with 300 oak trees and 7,000 nails and rivets.

If you want a home with a difference then this could be for you. Bran Castle in Translyvania is now up for sale. Legend has it that Prince Vlad stayed at the castle and it has been used in many movies.

Waitrose will soon be offering buffalo burgers in its supermarkets. The burgers will sold as a healthy alternative to beef. The meat is leaner and has less fat.

There are some odd people about. One man in New York attacked a peacock because he claimed it was a vampire. The unfortunate peacock had wandered into a Burger King parking lot where people were feeding him. The crazed man then started to kick the creature telling people he was killing a vampire.

A man in Wisconsin has carved a replica of Mount Rushmore out of a 700 pound block of cheddar cheese. He was commissioned to make the unusual cheese sculpture by a cracker company. That’s a lot of cheese Gromit.