Animal welfare volunteers are trying to trace the owners of a lost cat found in West Yorkshire. The cat has a microchip and was registered in Kent eight years ago. She was found in Baildon near Bradford and it is thought that the owners have moved house and not updated their details. If her owners are not found, a new home will be found for her. The moral of this story, is always make sure you update your details when you move house.

An RSPCA centre in Shropshire has launched an appeal to try and find new homes for some of their cats. They currently have 67 cats and kittens that need homes. Some of the cats that need homes are shown below.

Max


Earl



Muffin

In another chocolate related story I read this article about an artist who has created a Christmas grotto out of chocolate, icing sugar and biscuits. It uses £1,000 worth of chocolate and features a Christmas tree, fireplace, furniture, chandelier and a Christmas dinner. Yum.

I read this interesting article about two British men who are going to drive across West Africa in a lorry powered by chocolate. The fuel is made from cocoa butter which has been extracted from the waste chocolate. The trip should take around 3 weeks and help promote the benefits of bio-diesel.

I am always very careful when shopping online and tend to use Paypal rather than my debit card when visiting any unfamiliar websites. I was quite surprised then to find that my debit card has been compromised. On looking at my statements the other day I noticed a number of Paypal transactions which I had not made. The odd thing was that they didn’t show up in my Paypal account. Naturally the first thing I did was call Paypal who confirmed that I had not made the payments from my Paypal account. On doing a check against my debit card, however, they did find the transactions. It appears that someone has managed to obtain my debit card number and set up a Paypal account with it under a different name. Of course the payments they make come straight out of my bank account. Paypal are unable to give me any details regarding this other Paypal account and their best advice is that I should cancel my debit card. They say that the payments will eventually be refunded back to my account, (watch this space to see how I get on with this).

In the meantime I have called my bank and cancelled my debit card. This leaves me in  a bit of a fix, as it is my only account. To withdraw any money I would have to go into the branch (there isn’t one in my town) and produce a passport or driving licence. I am also unable to carry out any transactions until my new debit card arrives which is most inconvenient, especially in the run up to Christmas. During my phone call to my bank they also had the cheek to try and sell me some sort of fraud protection cover for £6.99 a month. Personally I think it is the banks responsibility to protect your account details, I find it laughable they want to charge people for something that in my opinion they should be doing already. Anyway needless to say I didn’t take out this additional cover. I am still no wiser as to how my account has been compromised, whether it is the fault of Paypal, the bank or the result of me purchasing something from another website that has disclosed my details. One good thing that has come out of the whole mess is it has forced me to save money because I can’t get to it. On a trip to Tesco today I went into the store with £30, added the items up as I went round and spent £28. Usually I would go to the store needing just a few items, end up purchasing a lot more and finding I didn’t have enough cash, put the balance on my debit card.

From Friday bank account holders will earn more interest on cheques paid into their account. UK banks and building society will have to pay interest on money paid in by cheque after two working days. Customers will also be able to withdraw money after four days if they are paying into a current account. The cheque will also be guaranteed even if it bounces after six days. Some banks like Lloyds TSB already pay interest on cheques once they have been deposited but the new rules will make the practice common place.

I read this article that suggests some parents are so desperate to get a Wii console before Christmas that they are paying up to £500 for the console on ebay. The console is priced at £179 but is currently unavailable in most UK stores. When stock does become available it has been selling out as soon as it hits the store. The Wii is a great console but I don’t think I would pay £500 for one.

I was reading this article where Johannes Hjorth decided to try and grow cress in a keyboard. This is the result, how cool is that?

Northern Irelands only salmon has been completely wiped out by an invasion of jellyfish. Around 100,000 fish have been killed after billions of small mauve stingers were washed in the cages where the fish were kept. The company is now likely to face closure.

Regular readers might have noticed a lack of recipes recently. This is mainly because my oven is broken. It currently either cooks everything on a super hot setting or takes the whole day to heat up. The main problem is you never know which setting it has decided to use, so you either end up with cremated food or raw food. The good news is I ordered a new oven at the weekend. I got it from Currys who had a good deal on a built-in oven and hobs for only £349. We also paid an extra £50 for them to install it. The oven is due to arrive next Monday, so I should soon be able to post lots of new recipes.

I read this article that suggests that groceries ordered online have a shorter shelf life than those brought in store. A survey conducted by Which? found that on average the best before date was a day earlier for good brought online. They tested four different supermarkets buying the same 10 items in store as they did online. The researchers brought goods from Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda and Waitrose. They found little difference between the four supermarkets.  The supermarkets have questioned the accuracy of the research. Personally I purchase my shopping online every month and have noticed that some items have a short shelf life.

The RSPCA have warned about the dangers of discarding litter after a cat was found with its head stuck in a tin can. The cat was released unhurt but RSPCA officers said people should make sure cans are either recycled of stored safely in a dustbin.

I buy and sell items on ebay on a regular basis and so far have not had any major problems, other than a few items being lost in the post, which have always been promptly replaced. I do however; tend to assume that most ebay users are honest. This article made me rethink that. Sheryl Johnson sold items on ebay that she did not actually own and managed to make £800 from the exercise. Police traced her because she had given her victims her name and address so they could send her cheques. She admitted to two counts of fraud and has been given a twelve month supervision order.

I read this interesting article about a US solider who had been serving in Iraq for a year. He returned home to hear rumours that his wife had been cheating on him. His wife said she had kissed the suspect, a professional bowler once. Not believing her the man investigated further and came across a suspicious Mii on his Wii console. After looking at the calendar options he realised he had a complete record of all the times his wife had seen the other man. It appeared they had spent many nights bowling, so he filed for divorce. A very interesting story but at least they were only bowling, it could have been worse, they could have been sleeping together.

The Wii zapper has just been released in the US. It costs $20 and comes with a free game, Link’s Crossbow Training. The gun basically houses the Wii remote and nunchuk as shown in the picture. It looks quite interesting, although without trying it, I can’t quite figure out how the controls would work. This review however, gives it quite a favourable write up. I may get one when its released in the UK, watch this space.

The WWF have warned that Atlantic bluefin tuna could soon disappear than the Mediterranean. The bluefin tuna is facing a dramatic decline caused by over fishing. The WWF have asked for the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) to introduce a moratorium on commercial bluefin tuna fishing in the region following scientific evidence that shows a collapse is probable. ICCAT has so far failed to adopt any compulsory measures to protect the bluefin tuna and the WWF says it may be late to stop the decline.

England might have played very badly against Croatia the other day but many Croatian’s found the national anthem more entertaining than the game. British opera singer Tony Henry sung the Croatian national anthem but managed to mispronounce a word giving it a very different meaning. Instead of singing You know my dear how we love your mountains Henry instead sang "My dear, my penis is a mountain" which greatly amused the Croatian crowd.

Further to my post yesterday Staines managed a win against Stockport. They won 4-3 on penalties to go through to the second round. They will now face Peterborough in the second round at home in Staines on Saturday 1 December.

A man sized sea scorpion claw has been found in a German quarry. The fossilised claw measures 46cm long and it is estimated the creature would have been bigger than the average human. The size of the claw suggests that spiders, crabs and other insects were much larger in the past. How scary, I think today’s spiders are big enough.

I have been looking around at digital SLR cameras in the hope I can persuade my husband to buy me one for Christmas. This article is quite useful and offers an overview of five of the top selling cameras. Now, I wonder whether my husband might read this blog post.

Its not very often I find anything of interest in the local news, I guess nothing much really happens in Egham. I was interested, however, to see that Staines is playing Stockport tonight in the FA cup first round replay. In the first game Staines managed to hold Stockport to a 1-1 draw. If they win the game tonight they would go through to play Peterborough at home. I won’t be going to the game but will definitely follow it on the radio. Come on Staines.

A cat that got trapped behind the front grill of a car survived 70 miles on a trip from Surrey to Sussex. Tilly the cat ran out in front of the car as Paul Younger drove his BMW through Godalming but when he stopped he couldn’t find the cat anywhere. He continued to travel on to Eastbourne where he stopped when he heard meowing noises. Tilly emerged unhurt and was later reunited with her owner.

If you can’t remember where you parked your car, this new parking idea could help. Due to be introduced at Heathrow it allows customers to see where their car is located when they insert their parking ticket into a machine. The machine then displays a 3D map showing you where to find your vehicle in the car park. The system will be installed at Terminal 5 when it opens in March and looks like it could be really useful. Personally I can never remember where I have parked when I do the shopping, let alone trying to find the car, when I come back from holiday.

Recently I have started getting a little irritated by the amount of Facebook applications that seem to be around. It seems every time I log into Facebook there are another 5 to 10 new requests for applications that are just not very useful. It seems I am not the only person to be annoyed by this. I read this article today called Facebook Applications, The New Spam Part 2 written by Kevin Palmer. It is as the title suggests the second instalment looking at Facebook applications and highlighting just how pointless some of them are. It is well worth a read. What Facebook application do you find most irritating or pointless and why?

This is an interesting concept but so simple it make me wonder why all pizza places don’t already do it. Papa John’s restaurants in the US have started taking pizza orders by text. You first have to register online to create an account; you can then set up several favourite orders that you can text in, anytime you are feeling a bit peckish. I wonder whether this will take off in the UK.

A police officer got a surprise when he heard a noise in the engine of his police car and it turned out be a kitten. The kitten was discovered last Tuesday inside the vehicle at Crymych police station in Pembrokeshire. It is thought it may have climbed inside some time on Monday when the police car was in Fishguard town. Police are now looking for the kittens owner.

I read this article that reports Santas in Sydney have been warned not to say Ho Ho Ho and instead say Ha Ha Ha. Apparently the traditional Santa greeting might be offensive to women because the greeting is too close to the slang term ho, used to describe prostitutes and so could be seen to be offensive. I find this completely ridiculous.

I read this interesting article about a man who has been dubbed the tree man because of the tree like growths that cover his body. The man who is now 35 has had these strange growths since they first started appearing after he cut his knee in an accident as a teenager. They have now grown to such an extent that he is unable to use his hands or carry out simple household tasks.

An American dermatology expert now claims to have identified his condition and there are hopes of a cure. He thinks it is down to something called the Human Papilloma Virus which causes small warts to develop on sufferers. In this mans case however, the problem is a rare fault in his immune system meaning his body is unable to contain the warts. Dr Gaspari believes the condition can be managed with a daily dose of a synthetic form of Vitamin A which should reduce the warts in size and allow him to use his hands.

I have just received my second case of wine from the Virgin Wine Discovery Club so readers can expect some new wine reviews soon. So far I have liked every wine I have been sent by Virgin Wines so I am yet to test their returns policy. Apparently if you don’t like a wine you can call them and they won’t charge you for it.

A Dutch teenager has been arrested for stealing virtual furniture in Habbo Hotel, a social networking website. He is accused of stealing around 4,000 Euros worth of virtual furniture. The furniture although virtual was brought with real money. It was stolen when the accused teenager managed to access a user’s password by creating a fake Habbo website to obtain their log on details. The teenager then moved the furniture into his own hotel, effectively stealing it. A spokesman said "It is a theft because the furniture is paid for with real money. But the only way to be a thief in Habbo is to get people's usernames and passwords and then log in and take the furniture."

It appears the ability to strike is not just limited to humans, in a study conducted by scientists, monkeys refused to perform tasks when they felt unfairly treated. A group of monkeys were given a task and presented with a reward for completing it. Some of the monkeys were given a better reward than others. For example one monkey would receive a piece of cucumber whilst the other might receive a grape. When the other monkeys noticed that their partners received better rewards for the same task, they refused to perform the task again and often became upset refusing to eat the cucumber and instead throwing it at the human researchers.

I read this article about this cat that leaves the house every night and then waits at the same place every morning to be picked up. The cat called Sgt Podge disappears every night from his home and is always found the next morning in the same place around 2.4km away. He does this so often that his owners have a regular daily routine where they take their son to school and then go to pick up the cat. I think I would start locking him at night.

With the latest round of page rank updates it appears this blog has suffered quite badly. A few weeks ago it had a page rank of 3 before dropping to a 2 and yesterday it dropped from a 2 to a 0. I don’t pretend to understand how Google work out page rank but the change in rank is certainly nothing to do with the amount the traffic the website generates. If anything this blog generates more traffic now, than when it was PR3.

If you still haven’t managed to get your hands on a Wii and were hoping for one for Christmas you may be disappointed. Nintendo has warned that there is a chronic shortage of consoles. High street retailers have been struggling to keep up with demand of the ever popular console which has been in short supply since it was released. Websites such as wii-consoles.co.uk have even been set up to let people know when stock does become available. Without sounding too smug, I am very happy with my Wii.

A new fleet of hydrogen powered buses has recently been purchased for the London transport network. The fleet will include 10 buses in a deal worth around £10m. They will come into service in 2010. The buses produce no pollution or carbon dioxide and are clean and efficient. The mayor hopes that by 2015 around 5% of all public sector fleet vehicles will be hydrogen powered.

I was reading this article about some flea treatments that can be fatal to cats. The treatments are meant for dogs and contain Permethrin which can cause fatalities in felines. 97% of cats treated with the chemical showed signs of poisoning, with 88% suffering convulsions and 10.5% which died or had to put down. The chemical is found in flea treatments, fly sprays and other pesticides. It is harmless to most mammals including dogs. It is so dangerous for cats that they should not even be allowed near a dog that has been treated.

With four cats in the house I always seem to be cleaning up cat fur. It gets everywhere especially over the sofas and many vacuum cleaners just don’t seem to make a difference. I recently picked up a cheap Dyson vacuum because I had heard such good things about the Animal model. It is meant to be designed specifically for pet fur and although I was sceptical at first it does actually pick up a lot more fur than my old vacuum cleaner. I do still need to vacuum the house every couple of days but its nice to be fur free.

Further to my post about a possible shortage this Christmas it appears there could be further problems as bird flu has been discovered in Norfolk. It has been confirmed as the H5N1 virus and so far thousands of turkeys, geese and ducks have been slaughtered with a protection zone set up around the farm.

Scientists have discovered that prawns do feel pain. They discovered this by rubbing acetic acid onto the antennae of 144 of them. The prawns reacted by rubbing and grooming the affected area which is consistent to how other creatures react when they feel pain. I just feel a bit sorry for the poor prawns in the experiment; it seems a very mean way for the scientists to test the theory.

There could be a shortage of turkeys this Christmas. The shortage has been caused by threatened strike action at turkey produces by Bernard Matthews which is due to start on the 24th of November. Turkeys are also likely to be more expensive this year with rising food costs pushing up prices meaning turkeys are now 20% more expensive to rear. This is likely to add around £5 to the cost of the average Christmas lunch. It looks like we might be having duck for Christmas dinner this year.

A man in Texas who calls himself the Texas Snake Man has broken a world record by spending 45 minutes in a bathtub with 87 rattlesnakes. The snakes had not been defanged and still contained their venom. He also set another world record last year by holding 10 rattlesnakes by their tails in his mouth at the same time. He hopes to break this world record with an attempt to try it with 11. Crazy.

BT has claimed its place as the UK broadband market leader. It has added double the amount of new customers that its nearest rival the Carphone Warehouse has in the last three months. BT now has over 4 million broadband customers compared to the Carphone Warhouse which now has around 2.5 million.

I brought some Pollack today for the first time and was surprised at how tasty it was. I made a light batter and put it in the deep fat fryer for around 10 minutes. It turned out really well with a light crispy batter and perfectly cooked fish. The taste is similar to cod but I noticed the fish had less bones. I will definitely be buying this on a regular basis.

Marks and Spencer are going to introduce a 5p charge for plastic carrier bags. The move follows a trial in Northern Ireland which led to a 66% reduction in the number of plastic bags used. It will begin with a trial in the South West of England starting from February and will include the company giving a free bag for life with each transaction for three weeks before the trial starts.

Sony is going to launch a third generation model of its PS2. The new model will be a lighter version of the current design. It will be the same size but will weigh only 720g compared to the current model which weighs 850g. The new version will also include the AC power brick. The launch appears to be part of Sony’s plan to sell 12 million PS2 consoles by March 2008. The new version will come in a choice of white, silver or black and will cost the same as the current model.

A chocolate sundae served by a New York restaurant has been declared the world’s most expensive dessert with a price tag of £12,500. The dessert is infused with edible 23 carat gold and served in a gold lined goblet with a box of Knipschildt chocolate which retail at £1,300. It also includes an 18 carat gold and diamond bracelet on the goblets base which you can take home. I would think so at that price.

We were watching a nature programme the other day about song birds which the cats really seemed to enjoy. Within minutes of the programme starting Ollie was sitting in front of the TV making what we call hunting noises at the birds. People who have cats will know what I mean by hunting noises but for those who don’t it’s a sort of high pitched clicking noise they make when they see a bird that they want to eat but that they can’t catch.

I read this article about a new Stilton milkshake. The milk shake is made of blue cheese mixed with other flavours including peanut butter or ginger cake. It is made by milk shake specialist Moo Juce who experimented with several flavours before deciding on Stilton. I’m not sure I will be trying it.

I read this interesting article on the National Geographic website about these fish that can actually live outside of the water for months at the time. The fish is a mangrove rivulus or mangrove killifish and as its name suggests it lives in the swampy mangrove forests. When the mangrove swamps dry up during dry periods the fish simply lives in logs under piles of damp leaves. It can do this for around 66 days breathing air through its skin whilst still retaining its gills. Amazing.