The "And in other news..." thread

[birchesgreen]

I have no intention of adding to the Express’ earnings by clicking on the link, but the London Economic describes him as a prominent MP, which may just be a way of building up the story. (Much better than ‘backbencher so obscure that even his constituents don’t know who he is’.) It also said that he was ‘unaware of how he ended up there’; well, that is his story and he is sticking to it.

Maybe he had been caught in heavy rain, took shelter in a nearby building and took his clothes off to dry them. Then he got distracted and a mysterious crow stole his clobber. See, all very innocent.

 

[najaB]

Maybe he had been caught in heavy rain, took shelter in a nearby building and took his clothes off to dry them. Then he got distracted and a mysterious crow stole his clobber. See, all very innocent.

And then he tripped and a part of his anatomy accidentally slipped inside another person who was also drying their clothes...

 

[D6130]

Maybe he had been caught in heavy rain, took shelter in a nearby building and took his clothes off to dry them. Then he got distracted and a mysterious crow stole his clobber. See, all very innocent.

More likely he was dragged there by 'friends' after a heavy session in one of the - taxpayer subsidised - House of Commons bars. Reminds me of the David Mellor toe-sucking incident back in the day. Didn't a former Tory MP for Eastleigh accidently kill himself when a complicated sex game involving ropes and an orange went horribly wrong?

 

[AlterEgo]

I have no intention of adding to the Express’ earnings by clicking on the link, but the London Economic describes him as a prominent MP, which may just be a way of building up the story. (Much better than ‘backbencher so obscure that even his constituents don’t know who he is’.) It also said that he was ‘unaware of how he ended up there’; well, that is his story and he is sticking to it.

The Express says the brothel visitor was just "a Tory MP" and that this unnamed, nobody MP called a "senior Conservative MP" for help.

 

[D6130]

and that this unnamed, nobody MP called a "senior Conservative MP" for help.

....who had presumably been in the next room?

 

[birchesgreen]

And then he tripped and a part of his anatomy accidentally slipped inside another person who was also drying their clothes...

Yes complete accident

 

[AlterEgo]

....who had presumably been in the next room?

Ha! There's the punchline. Now someone make a satirical sketch out of it.

 

[43096]

I’ve almost got a bit of early 1990s Tory nostalgia for this story (almost).

I’m getting a Little Britain flashback…

(Video of the Sir Norman Fry MP sketches from Little Britain where he gives ludicrous explanations for being caught in compromising circumstances)

 

[Cowley]

I’m getting a Little Britain flashback…

(Video of the Sir Norman Fry MP sketches from Little Britain where he gives ludicrous explanations for being caught in compromising circumstances)

That’s exactly what I was thinking of!

 

[najaB]

That’s exactly what I was thinking of!

Same here!

 

[brad465]

I’m getting a Little Britain flashback…

(Video of the Sir Norman Fry MP sketches from Little Britain where he gives ludicrous explanations for being caught in compromising circumstances)

That’s exactly what I was thinking of!

Same here!

This clip has been recalled very regularly in recent years, including for Barnard Castle, Hancock's affair, Parygate, Neil Parish and tractors, and now this as well.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I’m getting a Little Britain flashback…

(Video of the Sir Norman Fry MP sketches from Little Britain where he gives ludicrous explanations for being caught in compromising circumstances)

Viz did it much better (Baxter Basics MP)

 

[High Dyke]

BBC News - Caerphilly: Man charged after police chase their own patrol car

Caerphilly: Man charged after police chase their own patrol car

Dashcam footage captures the moment a police car crashes into a hedge after a chase.

www.bbc.co.uk

Gwent Police officers were originally pursuing another car in Caerphilly county when they pulled over and chased the driver on foot on Saturday evening.

But the force said one of the suspects then hopped into the vacant police car and sped off

 

[najaB]

Interesting science story from the BBC:

Northern elephant seals sleep while drifting hundreds of metres below the sea surface - at depths where their predators do not usually lurk.

US researchers tracked the animals, recording their brain activity as the seals swam for thousands of kilometres.

The mammals, which reach depths of up to 2,500ft (760m), sleep for only two hours per day in what the researchers describe as "nap-like sleeping dives".

The findings are published in the journal Science.

Northern elephant seals sleep in the deep to avoid predators

Northern elephant seals sleep underwater for just two hours per day on their months-long foraging journeys.

www.bbc.co.uk

Who would have thought an air breathing mammal would sleep underwater - brings a whole new meaning to "sleeping with the fishes"!

 

[High Dyke]

Need a job? Could you wing it?

BBC News - Blackpool Zoo recruiting human 'seagull deterrents'

Blackpool Zoo recruiting human 'seagull deterrents'

The successful candidates would join Blackpool Zoo's "visitor services" team as "seagull deterrents".

www.bbc.co.uk

Those taking on the roles would need to be "outgoing" and "comfortable wearing a bird costume", it adds.

 

[Gloster]

Need a job? Could you wing it?

BBC News - Blackpool Zoo recruiting human 'seagull deterrents'

Blackpool Zoo recruiting human 'seagull deterrents'

The successful candidates would join Blackpool Zoo's "visitor services" team as "seagull deterrents".

www.bbc.co.uk

I saw this and thought, “Is this advert twenty-two days late?”

 

[najaB]

Need a job? Could you wing it?

BBC News - Blackpool Zoo recruiting human 'seagull deterrents'

Blackpool Zoo recruiting human 'seagull deterrents'

The successful candidates would join Blackpool Zoo's "visitor services" team as "seagull deterrents".

www.bbc.co.uk

I guess they're hoping that seagulls are no smarter than Dougal and don't understand the relationship between size and distance.

 

[brad465]

Hehehe:

Swansea gas workers misspell school when repainting road

They misspelled the word while repainting road markings after carrying out work on the gas network.

www.bbc.co.uk

Contractors have been put to the bottom of the class after misspelling the word school when they repainted a road.
Workers managed to paint the word "shcool" outside Llangyfelach Primary School in Swansea.
Underneath, the Welsh word for school also appeared to be incorrect - instead of reading ysgol it said ysool.
Wales and West utilities accepted the blame for getting the English word wrong but insisted its workers did not paint the Welsh word.
Wales and West Utilities' Phil Whittier said: "Unfortunately, have misspelt the word 'school'.
"The team are returning tomorrow morning to replace the markings with the correct letters and we are confident the teachers will give them full marks this time."

• Welsh road sign translation error branded an insult
• Sign mistake in Worcester by Severn Trent Water contractors

It said the mistake was made during works to the gas network.
Swansea council leader Rob Stewart was glad it was not the authority's mistake.
"Apparently Wales and West Utilities have been working there recently and will return to rectify it. Red faces all round at WWU I expect," he said.
Swansea council has been contacted about the incorrect spelling of ysgol.

 

[birchesgreen]

Well i'm glad they honoured the bilingual nature of Welsh signs and got it wrong in both languages.

 

[D6130]

I'm wondering whether somebody else deliberately painted the Welsh version incorrectly to draw attention to the contractors' mis-spelling of the English version!

 

[Gloster]

I'm wondering whether somebody else deliberately painted the Welsh version incorrectly to draw attention to the contractors' mis-spelling of the English version!

The Welsh version looks as though it has been there much longer, but did anybody notice before this happened?

 

[Ediswan]

The Welsh version looks as though it has been there much longer, but did anybody notice before this happened?

The Welsh spelling is fine on Google, dated May 2022. I am suspecting creative mischief.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

This reminds me of the time twenty years ago when I was surprised to see the word "ARAF" painted on a recently resurfaced road near a dangerous bend... What's so surprising about that, you ask? Well, the road was in Flockton, West Yorkshire!

 

[Strat-tastic]

We had double yellow lines painted around a roundabout a few years ago

 

[MotCO]

We had double yellow lines painted around a roundabout a few years ago

Did that stop you parking at your usual spot?

 

[341o2]

And then he tripped and a part of his anatomy accidentally slipped inside another person who was also drying their clothes...

We were only playng leapfrog

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Grub's up!

Is the issue the maggots as such or the fact that the dinners had more protein in them than the Government guidelines allow for...?

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/ukne...ar&cvid=a8c558ef96eb4b9bc598ea623cf7a7a7&ei=7

Maggots have been found in a school canteen and "had fallen from the ceiling" onto food, according to a letter sent to parents by a headteacher this week. Pupils at The Winston Churchill School, on Hermitage Road, in Woking were warned on Tuesday (April 25) that the school’s canteen would be closed and they would need to bring food from home.

 

[341o2]

So, casu marzu wasn''t on the menu.

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/casu-marzu-worlds-most-dangerous-cheese/index.html

The Italian island of Sardinia sits in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea, gazing at Italy from a distance. Surrounded by a 1,849-kilometer coastline of white sandy beaches and emerald waters, the island’s inland landscape rapidly rises to form hills and impervious mountains.

And it is within these edgy curves that shepherds produce casu marzu, a maggot-infested cheese that, in 2009, the Guinness World Record proclaimed the world’s most dangerous cheese.


Cheese skipper flies, Piophila casei, lay their eggs in cracks that form in cheese, usually fiore sardo, the island’s salty pecorino.

Maggots hatch, making their way through the paste, digesting proteins in the process, and transforming the product into a soft creamy cheese.

Then the cheesemonger cracks open the top – which is almost untouched by maggots – to scoop out a spoonful of the creamy delicacy.

 

[Strat-tastic]

Did that stop you parking at your usual spot?

Shhhh

 

[brad465]

Didn't see this one coming:

Sperm donor who fathered 550 children ordered to stop

The Dutch man, 41, could be fined more than $100,000 by a court if he tries to donate again.

www.bbc.co.uk

A Dutch man suspected of fathering more than 550 children worldwide through sperm donations has been ordered to stop.
The man named Jonathan, aged 41, could be fined more than €100,000 (£88,000) if he tries to donate again.
He was banned from donating to fertility clinics in the Netherlands in 2017 after it emerged he had fathered more than 100 children.
But instead of stopping he carried on donating sperm abroad and online.
A court in The Hague has told him to provide a list of all the clinics he had used and to order them to destroy his sperm.
The man was said to have misled hundreds of women.
Dutch clinical guidelines state that a donor should not father more than 25 children in 12 families.
But judges said the man had helped produce between 550 and 600 children since he began donating sperm in 2007.
He was taken to court by a foundation protecting donor children's rights, and by the mother of one of the children allegedly fathered from his sperm.
"The point is that this kinship network with hundreds of half-brothers and half-sisters is much too large," a spokesman for the court, Gert-Mark Smelt, said.
Over 100 of the children fathered by the man were born in Dutch clinics and others privately, but he also donated to a Danish clinic which dispatched his semen to addresses in various countries.

Judge Thera Hesselink said the court "prohibits the defendant from donating his semen to new prospective parents after the issuing of this judgment".
The man is also not permitted to contact any prospective parents "with the wish that he was willing to donate semen… advertise his services to prospective parents or join any organisation that establishes contact between prospective parents", the judge said.
The donor "deliberately misinformed" prospective parents about the number of children he had already fathered in the past, the district court in The Hague said.
"All these parents are now confronted with the fact that the children in their family are part of a huge kinship network, with hundreds of half-siblings, which they did not choose," it said.
The court said it was "sufficiently plausible" that this has or could have negative psychosocial consequences for the children.
Sperm donors are told to limit the number of times they offer their services, to reduce the chance that siblings might unknowingly form a couple and have children together.
The Netherlands has been hit by fertility scandals in the past.
In 2019, a Dutch fertility doctor accused of using his own sperm to inseminate patients without their consent was confirmed as the father of 49 children.