KENDRIVE

I am off to Paris for a few days and cosequently the next post to this blog will be on Wednesday 1st April.

Please come back then.

"I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friends' three-bedroom apartment and ours was significantly smaller."

You get what you pay for!

"It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England it only took the Americans three hours to get home."

"We bought 'Ray-Ban' sunglasses for five euros (£3.50) from a street trader, only to find out they were fake.

"My fiancé and I booked a twin-bedded room but we were placed in a double-bedded room. We now hold you responsible for the fact that I find myself pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked."

"The beach was too sandy"

"No-one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled."

"Topless sunbathing on the beach should be banned. The holiday was ruined as my husband spent all day looking at other women."

A tourist at a top African game lodge overlooking a waterhole, who spotted a visibly aroused elephant, complained that the sight of this rampant beast ruined his honeymoon by making him feel "inadequate".

(Telegraph)

SNAKE SWALLOWS WOMAN'S DOG

An Australian woman got an unpleasant shock when her pet dog was swallowed whole by a passing snake.

Patty Buntine from the town of Katherine in the Northern Territories said she was worried when Bindi, her three year old Maltese terrier cross, didn't show up at breakfast time.

'She was always there so I got worried and went to look for her,' Buntine said. 'I went around the side of the house and that's when I found the snake. It couldn't move and had its head up in a striking position.'

'Its belly was bulging - it looked like a great big coconut was inside it. I knew straight away that it had ate Bindi. I felt terrible - it's not very nice at all to think my little dog went that way.'

Buntine added that she was surprised that the snake had managed to sneak up on Bindi, who had always been a 'lively' dog.

A local snake expert was called in to catch the serpent. David Reed said that he'd never seen an incident like it, as the dog was approximately 60% of the bodyweight of the reptile.

He likened it to a fully-grown man managing to eat a 16-year-old boy.

(Metro)

NOBODY LISTENS TO THE REAL EXPERTS

The minds of world leaders are firmly shut to anything but the fantasies of the scaremongers, says Christopher Booker.

Considering how the fear of global warming is inspiring the world's politicians to put forward the most costly and economically damaging package of measures ever imposed on mankind, it is obviously important that we can trust the basis on which all this is being proposed. Last week two international conferences addressed this issue and the contrast between them could not have been starker.

The first in Copenhagen, billed as "an emergency summit on climate change" and attracting acres of worldwide media coverage, was explicitly designed to stoke up the fear of global warming to an unprecedented pitch. As one of the organisers put it, "this is not a regular scientific conference: this is a deliberate attempt to influence policy".

What worries them are all the signs that when the world's politicians converge on Copenhagen in December to discuss a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, under the guidance of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there will be so much disagreement that they may not get the much more drastic measures to cut carbon emissions that the alarmists are calling for.

Thus the name of the game last week, as we see from a sample of quotations, was to win headlines by claiming that everything is far worse than previously supposed.

Sea level rises by 2100 could be "much greater than the 59cm predicted by the last IPCC report". Global warming could kill off 85 per cent of the Amazon rainforest, "much more than previously predicted". The ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica are melting "much faster than predicted". The number of people dying from heat could be "twice as many as previously predicted".

None of the government-funded scientists making these claims were particularly distinguished, but they succeeded in their object, as the media cheerfully recycled all this wild scaremongering without bothering to check the scientific facts.

What a striking contrast this was to the second conference, which I attended with 700 others in New York, organised by the Heartland Institute under the title Global Warming: Was It Ever Really A Crisis?.

In Britain this received no coverage at all, apart from a sneering mention by The Guardian, although it was addressed by dozens of expert scientists, not a few of world rank, who for professional standing put those in Copenhagen in the shade.

Led off with stirring speeches from the Czech President Vaclav Klaus, the acting head of the European Union, and Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, perhaps the most
distinguished climatologist in the world, the message of this gathering was that the scare over global warming has been deliberately stoked up for political reasons and has long since parted company with proper scientific evidence.

Nothing has more acutely demonstrated this than the reliance of the IPCC on computer models to predict what is going to happen to global temperatures over the next 100 years. On these predictions, that temperatures are likely to rise by up to 5.3C, all their other predictions and recommendations depend, yet nearly 10 years into the 21st century it is already painfully clear that the computer forecasts are going hopelessly astray. Far from rising with CO2, as the models are programmed to predict they should, the satellite-measured temperature curve has flattened out and then dropped. If the present trend were to continue, the world in 2100 would not in fact be hotter but 1.1C cooler than the 1979-1998 average.

Yet it is on this fundamental inability of the computer models to predict what has already happened that all else hangs. For two days in New York we heard distinguished experts, such as Professor Syun-Ichi Akasofu, former director of the International Arctic Research Center, Dr Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Professor Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute, authoritatively (and often wittily) tear apart one piece of the scare orthodoxy after another.

Sea levels are not shooting up but only continuing their modest 3mm a year rise over the past 200 years. The vast Antarctic ice-sheet is not melting, except in one tiny corner, the Antarctic Peninsula. Tropical hurricane activity, far from increasing, is at its lowest level for 30 years. The best correlation for temperature fluctuations is not CO2 but the magnetic activity of the sun. (For an admirable summary of proceedings by the Australian paleoclimatologist Professor Bob Carter, Google "Heartland" and "Quadrant").

Yet the terrifying thing, as President Klaus observed in his magisterial opening address, is that there is no dialogue on these issues. When recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he found the minds of his fellow world leaders firmly shut to anything but the fantasies of the scaremongers.

As I said in my own modest contribution to the conference, there seems little doubt that global warming is leading the world towards an unprecedented catastrophe. But it is not the Technicolor apocalypse promised by the likes of Al Gore. The real disaster hanging over us lies in all those astronomically costly measures proposed by politicians, to meet a crisis which in reality never existed.

(Daily Telegraph)

So who is right? Has the speed and cause of climate change been exaggerated for political and commercial reasons?

All I know is that it is costing us all a lot of money.

This is from a patent application, registered in April 1882

Device for Waking Persons from Sleep

Patent No. 256,265

. . . The object of my invention is to construct a simple and effective device for waking persons from sleep at any time which may have previously been determined upon, the device being also adapted for use in connection with an electric or other burglar-alarm apparatus, in place of the usual gong-alarms. . . .

Ordinary bell or rattle alarms are not at all times effective for their intended purpose, as a person in time becomes so accustomed to the noise that sleep is not disturbed when the alarm is sounded. The main aim of my invention is to provide a device which will not be liable to this objection.

In carrying out my invention I suspend a light frame in such a position that it will hang directly over the head of the sleeper, the suspending-cord being combined with automatic releasing devices, whereby the frame is at the proper time permitted to fall into the sleeper's face . . . the only necessity to be observed in constructing the frame being that when it falls it will strike a light blow, sufficient to awaken the sleeper, but not heavy enough to cause pain. . . .

A panel of 20 experts has drawn up the following list of innovations to mark National Science and Engineering Week.

1. GPS Technology

Originally developed as a navigation system by the United States military, the Global Positioning System uses a network of satellites around the Earth to pinpoint the exact position of a receiver anywhere on the planet.
Since its development in 1978, it is now used in cars, aircraft and boats. Geologists use it to track the movements of continental plate tectonics and glaciers while conservation scientists have tagged turtles with GPS receivers to follow their epic migrations.

2. The Sony Walkman
In 1979 Sony spawned the era of wearable technology with its iconic personal stereo. It enabled music fans to listen to their music while on the move without inflicting their choices on those around them. It provided the soundtrack to millions of morning commutes.
The Walkman quickly changed listening habits and became hugely popular as jogging culture took the 1980s by storm – here was something that allowed you to listen to your music while you worked out.
This wearable technology has now evolved, thanks to Apple, into the iPod and has changed music for ever.

3. The Bar code
These boring sets of black and white lines can now be found on almost every single item bought from a shop. At first glance, it seems hard to see how they possibly made any impact on the world, but they have fundamentally changed the way we shop.
Norman Woodland first developed an early form of the bar code in 1949 by combining ideas from movie soundtracks and Morse code to help him speed up store checkouts. They now stores to instantly access product details, prices and stock levels with a sweep of a laser.

4. TV Dinners
Food on the go has been around since the time of Ancient Greece, but convenience food really took off in the 1970s and transformed the way families ate meals, the high-street, the countryside and national health.
Traditional family dinners around the table disappeared and pre-packaged "ready meals" eaten on the sofa became the norm. Due to hectic lifestyles, the products, which were often frozen, were designed to make life easier for time-pressed consumers.
The popularity of processed food, however, is also blamed for driving the obesity crisis. With high fat, salt and sugar content to make the meals last longer on the shelves, the diet of the Western world has deteriorated.

5. PlayStation
Although games consoles had been around for some time, Sony's PlayStation took gaming out of spotty teenager's bedrooms and into adult living rooms when it was released in 1994.
Here was a computer with more power than the average family PC. As of July 2008 more than 102 million PlayStation units have been sold, while the next generations, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, have also been turned into best sellers.
The gaming industry is now worth almost as much as the film industry, taking in more than £15 billion in 2008.

6. Social Networking
Around the world, every day, more than three billion minutes are spent by computer users on Facebook. Along with other social networking sites such as MySpace and Twitter, it has completely changed the way we interact and who we interact with.
Millions of people now communicate tiny details of their professional and personal lives by poking, twittering and posting. Online social networking has allowed people to rekindle friendships with friends they lost touch with years ago.
Others chat online with complete strangers on the other side of the world.
In 1967 American psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted the small world experiment to prove the strength of old fashioned social networks. In the digital age, his six degrees of separation have almost become redundant.

7. Text messages
Text messaging has created a new vocabulary and new grammar that is almost incomprehensible to those who do not use it. LOL and FYI have now passed into everyday English.
It has also changed the way people use their thumbs – the old QWERTY keyboard layout suddenly became redundant. Among 13-17 year olds, text messaging now outweighs old fashioned phone calls by seven to one.

8. Electronic Money
In the UK there were 7.4 billion purchases made during 2008 with plastic cards. Combined with internet banking, cards have made the cheque almost redundant.
Credit cards gave us greater convenience for spending, greater security and the ability to spend money anywhere in the world. They also brought us internet fraud and record levels of debt that have contributed to the global credit crunch.

9. Microwaves
Not the ovens, but the electromagnetic waves. Microwaves – electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging between 1 millimetre and one metre – are used by mobile phones, wireless broadband internet and satellite television.
Radar, which helped Britain win the Battle of Britain, also uses microwave radiation. They also gave us a new way of cooking food while the US military has developed a "less-than-lethal" weapon that can blast victims with a heatwave.

10. Trainers
Nightclub bouncers might not like them, but trainers changed fashion and the feet of generations. The Goodyear Metallic Rubber Shoe Company was the first to use a new manufacturing process that melded rubber to cloth in 1892, but it was not until the 1970s they took off.
With the help of celebrity endorsements by sporting superstars such as basketball legend Michael Jordan, trainers turned from being purely practical clothing for sport into a fashion item.
The Army now reports that young people are increasingly growing up without ever wearing leather shoes and their feet are now too soft to wear traditional miliary boots.

(Telegraph)

Many of you will disagree with that list. Here is another from http://uk.askmen.com/top_10/entertainment/1b_top_10_list.html

1. The Computer

2. The Pill

3. The Steam Engine

4. DNA

5. The Aeroplane

6. The Internet

7. The Motor Car

8. The Laser

9. The Printing Press

10 Television

You still disagree? What are your suggestions?

Or perhaps just the Number One.

THE PRINCE OF WALES IN RIO

The last time Prince Charles was confronted with a group of shimmering, semi-naked samba dancers in Rio he famously threw himself into the party atmosphere.

But that was in 1978, when the Prince last visited the city's favelas.

This week, more than 30 years on, he is back and he showed a little more reserve, even though he could not resist joining the samba band for an impromptu dance.

Charles's dancing exploits were reminiscent of his first visit to Brazil in 1978 when he took to the dance floor with a Samba dancer during a party staged by the city's mayor at the town hall.

During a speech the Prince referred to his night with the carnival dancer and told the audience: 'On that first visit I can remember dancing a somewhat rudimentary version of the samba with a rather dramatically semi-naked lady here in Rio.

'Thirty years later and prior to this visit the lady concerned has been in touch to suggest a slightly more staid re-run of the Samba. Do I accept the challenge?'

The former Samba dancer who gyrated with the Prince is Pina de Beija-Flora who hung up her sparkling head-dresses and minuscule costumes a number of years ago

She is said to be hoping to attend one of the Prince's engagements in Brazil to give him another lesson.

When the royal couple first arrived at the Complexo da Mare, a collection of favelas in Rio, they were mobbed by dozens of the area's residents who were lining the narrow cobbled streets and standing in front of their makeshift dilapidated homes.

At one point Charles picked up a musical instrument and began shaking it in time to the music before heading inside a sports complex run by the Briton who has spent more than eight years helping youngsters who live in the slum area out of a life of crime.

The Prince of Wales shows his skill with a maracas as he joins the samba band

Charles does the samba in Rio in 1978

(Excerpt from an aricle in the Daily Mail)

Perhaps he should have left the wife at home on this trip!

I like a nice cup of tea in the morning
For to start the day you see
And at half-past eleven
Well my idea of Heaven
Is a nice cup of tea
I like a nice cup of tea with my dinner
And a nice cup of tea with my tea
And when it's time for bed
There's a lot to be said
For a nice cup of tea

(Herbert / Sullivan)

The following article is from today's Daily Telegraph:

TEA REALLY DOES TASTE BETTER FROM YOUR FAVOURITE CUP

Dr Tom Stafford, psychologist from Sheffield University, says a person's brain is trained to believe the daily ritual of making coffee or tea should be done in a certain way in order to derive maximum enjoyment.

He said: "Drinking tea and coffee is very ritualistic and people become very addictive to the way they want their brew made.

"Caffeine is very much a drug of reward and like any addict, people develop passions on how the drug is delivered.

"Wherever there is drug use then rituals will always develop.

"The long association with the delivery of a morning cup of coffee or tea people genuinely think it tastes better out of a particular cup.

"It might be irrational or arbitrary but it's absolutely true. Your daily brew tastes better from your favourite mug.

According to research, 65 percent of Brits have a favourite cup or mug they use for their morning cuppa.

MONKEYS TEACH OFFSPRING TO FLOSS THEIR TEETH

Monkeys are able to teach their offspring how to floss their teeth, according to a new Japanese study.

Female monkeys living in a 250-strong colony were observed by scientists teaching their young how to use strands of hair to clean between their teeth.

The theory that primates are able to teach offspring how to use tools was confirmed by the discovery, according to Professor Nobuo Masataka of Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute, who conducted the study.

"I was surprised because teaching techniques on using tools properly to a third party are said to be an activity carried out only by humans," he said.

The study focused on the observation of seven female long-tailed macaques and interaction with their off spring at a colony of monkeys near Bangkok in Thailand.

The practice of teeth flossing doubled and became significantly more elaborate when they were in the presence of infant monkeys, suggesting that they were attempting to teach the technique to the young.

"The study is still at the hypothesis stage," said Professor Masataka.

"We would like to shift our focus to the baby monkeys to check whether the mothers' actions are effectively helping them learn how to clean their teeth."

(Daily Telegraph)

Raising her trunk, three-legged Mosha salutes her new prosthetic limb, which means she can get back on the jungle trail.

The young Asian elephant lost her right front leg after stepping on a landmine aged only seven months old.

Close to death, she was rescued and brought to the Friends of the Asian Elephant hospital in Lampang, Thailand, where she became the first elephant in the world to be fitted with a prosthetic leg in 2007.

Now aged three, Mosha is growing at such a rate she has now been fitted with a second prosthetic leg.

Her home in the tropical jungle of northern Thailand, near the Cambodian border, is an orphanage for elephants.

The gentle giants are the new symbol of the fight against the banned weapons.

Thousands of Thais have been injured and killed due to landmines, with a recent survey estimating there are about 100 new mine casualties each year.

Mosha is a resident of the Friends of the Asian Elephant hospital in Lampang, Thailand.

Mosha has her prosthetic leg fitted at the FAE Elephant Hospital in Thailand

(Daily Mail)

BLUE DUCKS LIKELY TO DIE OUT IN UK AS MALE BIRDS GET TOGETHER

Attempts to breed a rare species of duck to avoid extinction in the UK have backfired after the only two remaining males fell for each other.

Keepers at a bird sanctuary in West Sussex hoped that the last remaining female Blue Duck in the country - called Cherry - might mate with either of the drakes, Ben or Jerry.

But neither male duck appeared interested and are now inseparable at the Arundel Wetland Centre, leaving Cherry to her own devices.

Centre warden Paul Stevens said he was disappointed that efforts to produce new Blue Duck offspring had failed but said the two male birds made "a lovely couple".

"They stay together all the time, parading up and down their enclosure and whistling to each other as a male might do with a female he wants to mate with," he said.

"People who visit the centre think they're a fantastic couple, without really coming around to the idea that they are two males.

"They both have very big personalities and people come from all over the country to come and see them.

Cherry doesn't seem bothered by it, she's just happy to keep herself to herself."

Keepers initially introduced Ben to Cherry, but neither seemed keen. They then brought Jerry down from a sanctuary in London.

Mr Stevens said: "Cherry showed some interest in him. She displayed typical mating behaviour - she approached him and called to him, she even looked like she was nesting.

"We thought it was great and it was all going to happen but nothing ever did."

Mr Stevens said the male ducks were then placed in the same enclosure: "To our surprise the two males really took to each other and it was obvious that they really liked each other.

"It would have been nice to get a last clutch of eggs from Cherry but Ben and Jerry do make a lovely couple."

(Daily Telegraph)

IT'S FINAL!

BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO COME IN

OUR TOILETS ARE OVERSIZE (Must be Texas)

IT'S GOING TO BE A BUMPY RIDE

DECISIONS! DECISIONS!

WELL - I'LL GO HOME THEN

(From the Daily Telegraph)

My captions. Can you do better?

TEENAGE PUPILS DESERVE 11am LIE-IN, SAYS HEAD - "WE ARE MAKING TEENAGERS RATTY BY MAKING THEM GET UP EARLY"

Adolescents benefit from a later start to the day, claims Oxford professor after tests on memory

A pioneering headteacher is calling for all secondary schools to follow his lead and start classes at 11am, allowing teenagers two hours extra in bed.

Dr Paul Kelley, head of Monkseaton Community High School in North Tyneside, said it would mean the end of "teenage zombies" dozing off in lessons before lunch, after experiments showed teenagers could have different body clocks from adults and younger children.

Russell Foster, an Oxford professor of neuroscience, tested the memory of 200 Monkseaton pupils at 9am and 2pm using pairs of words, and discovered a 9% improvement in the afternoon. Students correctly identified 51% of word pairs in the later session, compared with 42% in the morning. Tayler McCullough, 15, one of the test subjects, said the majority of students would welcome the extra hours in bed. "I'm extremely hard to get up in the morning. One or two people like to get to school early, but most of us would be up for going in later. I'm sure it would make a big difference to our learning ability."

Kelley is adamant a change of school timetable will have a significant impact on exam performance. He said: "Teenagers aren't lazy. We're depriving them of the sleep they need through purely biological factors beyond their control. This has a negative impact on their learning, and possibly on their mental and physical health. We've just learnt of this, but it is vital that we act on it.

"The research carried out by Professor Foster showed that, from the age of 10, our internal body clocks shift, so it's good for young people to stay in bed. They peak at 20 then gradually go back again, but body clocks do not reach the pre-teenage level until around 55 years old. The 'time shift' is two hours on average, so teenagers should get up two hours later. We are making teenagers ratty by making them get up early."

(The Observer)

Perhaps some discipline is needed at home to get youngsters off their computers before 1a.m.! "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." (Benjamin Franklin)

Not a lot of people know it, but Sir John Major is something of a poet.

While in Downing Street, the former Prime Minister coped with the stresses of office by writing verse.

Until now, the Bard of Whitehall's efforts have been kept under wraps.

But today the Daily Mail revealed one of his proudest achievements - a work in rhyming couplets entitled "Lord Colin Cowdrey - A Cricketing Gentleman."

The poem, 307 signed copies of which are to be auctioned for charity, also celebrates an era when what mattered most was the spirit in which the game was played rather than the result.

Sir John, 64, said: 'Throughout my time in Downing Street and office l had always jotted down poems.

'They were about cricket subjects and about politics and about characters. With some of my political poems it is probably best they are never seen in public!

'But in the case of Colin l am pleased to share it. We were very close friends and used to get together for whiskies almost on a weekly basis.

'l first had the idea of writing about him while l was still PM. My poem was completed after Colin died in December 2000.'

Sir John showed flashes of poetic language during his time in Downing Street, famously describing Britain as a country of 'long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and, as George Orwell said, old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist'.

The reason that 307 are to be sold is that this was Colin Cowdrey's highest first-class score.

(Abridged from an article in the Daily Mail)

* http://www.btinternet.com/~brentours/ENGP76.htm

ROYAL RESCUE PLAN FOR RURAL PUBS

A rescue plan for rural pubs which could see them providing community services such as post offices and shops has been launched in Wales.

The 'Pub is the Hub' scheme, which is the brainchild of Prince Charles, has helped
save pubs in England since it was launched in 2001.

It will now run in Denbighshire as part of a three-year £175,000 project.

It is estimated five pubs are closing every day in the UK and almost 2,000 closed last year, many in rural areas.

In England, there are over 350 pubs taking part in the scheme and the services they offer range from a post office and shop to a school meals service.

Some even have church services and crèches.

The scheme, which is open to pubs in rural towns and villages in Denbighshire, will provide expert help and financial assistance for pubs to diversify.

Malcolm Harrison, a former director of Thwaites brewery and is the Pub is the Hub project leader for Denbighshire, said the scheme could help revitalise local communities while helping save pubs.

"We want to encourage pubs and licensees to work together with their local communities and play a bigger part in helping to address community needs," he said.

"This can mean opening up a post office and shop where one has closed but it can mean much more as well.

"Pubs that have opened shops often provide an outlet for produce from local farms - there is a lot of synergy here, which can also help to broaden the pub's business base.

"Through the 'Pub is the Hub' model, services that have been falling away in rural areas can be restored."

The Prince of Wales, who is patron of 'Pub is the Hub', has said he believes rural communities "are facing unprecedented challenges" and the country pub which, he says "has been at the heart of village life for centuries, is disappearing in many areas".

(BBC)

Meanwhile - In London:

MPs DEMAND PUB RESCUE PLAN AS 284 SHUT IN CAPITAL

More than 280 pubs have closed in London since the smoking ban was introduced and many others are struggling to survive the recession, MPs warned today.

Thirty have shut in Westminster and the City since June 2007, 19 in Islington South and Finsbury, the same number in Camberwell and Peckham, 17 in Poplar and Canning Town, 12 in North Southwark and Bermondsey, and 11 in Greenwich and Woolwich.

The constituency-by-constituency figures were published by the Parliamentary Beer Group ahead of a meeting today with ministers who will be urged to intervene.

Group chairman John Grogan said: "The UK's brewing and pub industry is suffering its worst period in a century or more, with many communities losing their pubs and dozens of businesses collapsing.

"It is now a race against time to get the Government to take notice and to act. Our task is to make the future of the community pub every bit as sensitive an issue in 2009 as the future of the community post office was in 2008."

In June 2007, before the smoking ban, there were 6,538 pubs in the capital, said analysts CGA Strategy. Last month there were 284 fewer in London and more than 3,000 fewer across Britain.

The constituency in the capital with the most pubs is Cities of London and Westminster with 933, followed by Holborn and St Pancras with 304. North Southwark and Bermondsey has 213, Bethnal Green and Bow 193, and 182 in Vauxhall and Hackney South and Shoreditch.

This contrasts with Dagenham and Upminster, which each have only about 20 pubs.

(Evening Standard)

AGE CAMPAIGN AWAITS EU VERDICT

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is to rule later today on whether it is legal for employers in the UK to force workers to retire at the age of 65.

The case is being brought by Age Concern, which says one in eight MPs would be out of a job immediately if the rule applied to them.

A British employer can dismiss a member of staff without redundancy payments on that person's 65th birthday.

Age Concern says this breaches the EU's Equal Treatment at Work Directive.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are supporting the case, which is also backed by Help the Aged.

The government points out that existing employment equality regulations do give employees the right to formally request to carry on working beyond 65.

It says the existing law will be re-examined, and could be relaxed further, in 2011.

But the charities point out that Margaret Beckett, the housing minister, and shadow business secretary Kenneth Clarke would both have been forced to leave the House of Commons by now if the default retirement age applied to them.

They accuse the government of double standards and are awaiting a judgement from the ECJ due to take place at 0830 GMT today.

Andrew Lockley, a solicitor at Irwin Mitchell, said: "The law needs urgent clarification. The ECJ's decision will guide the High Court when it comes to consider whether the government can justify default retirement at 65.

"There are also claims of age discrimination by workers who have been retired against their will, which are on hold until the ECJ has given judgement."

Help the Aged's Paul Cann said: "Ageism in any aspect of society is abhorrent. It is high time the government delivered on its promise of equality for older people."

(BBC)

ITALIANS TOLD TO GIVE UP TEXTING FOR LENT

The Catholic Church has told Italians that they should give up SMS texting during Lent.

In an updating of its message of self-denial and moderation for the 21st century, the Church called on the faithful to avoid modern modes of communication on every Friday before Easter.

Renouncing SMS texting would enable young people to "detox from the virtual world and get back in touch with themselves," said Monsignor Benito Cocchi, the bishop of Modena in northern Italy, who launched the campaign.

He also called for computer games, iPhones and social networking sites such as Facebook to be avoided.

His appeal has been adopted across Italy, with several other bishops urging young people in their dioceses to give up texting.

Italians are the second most prolific text messagers in Europe after the British, with each person sending 50 a month on average.

Pope Benedict XVI warned in January that people who spend too much time in front of their computers risk isolation and depression.

But the text proposal has divided Italy's Catholics. "It will be a complete flop," Bruno Dallapiccola, a professor of genetics and the head of a Catholic scientific organisation, told La Stampa newspaper.

"Very few kids listen to the guidance of the Church and even fewer will renounce SMS messaging. Do we really think that they'll stop contacting their friends just because a bishop tells them to?"

Giani Gennari, a theologian who writes for the Catholic newspaper Avvenire, said: "Good Friday marks the pain of Christ and to suggest a ban on texting as a way of commemorating it is a ridiculous idea. It's like suggesting that we should turn off all electric lights and sit in the darkness."

(From an article in the Daily Telegraph)

GORDON BROWN RENEWS THE "SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP" WITH AMERICA

The Prime Minister flew to Washington yesterday to have talks with Barack Obama at the White House.

He is the first European leader to meet the new President since his election.

Today he will address a joint session of Congress - the Senate and the House of Representatives.

His wife Sarah will hold a separate meeting with Michelle Obama, the First Lady.

That's one in the eye for Nicolas Sarkozy!

P.S. This is from today's New York Times:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is looking for a boost to his political fortunes by meeting President Barack Obama to discuss the global economic crisis.

In hard political times at home, Brown scrambled to be the first European leader to visit Obama and hopes to benefit from Britons' high regard for the American president and to demonstrate British leadership at a time of economic uncertainty.

LATEST - FROM THE BBC:

Gordon Brown's hopes of hitching his political fortunes to Barack Obama's star were dented today after an apparent snub from the White House.

Mr Brown arrived in the U.S. today for his first meeting with Barack Obama since he was elected president.

But there was dismay in Downing Street when it was revealed the anticipated schedule had been altered and Mr Obama will not hold a full press conference with Mr Brown.

The joint press conference with the two leaders standing side by side at podiums is usually normal procedure on such trips. Its cancellation on this one is seen as an embarrassment for Mr Brown.

The new arrangements will allow Mr Brown to be filmed speaking with the U.S. president in the Oval Office before they have a private lunch together, however.

And although Mr Brown is the first of the EU leaders to meet with Mr Obama, the White House has made it plain that the 'businesslike' visit will be devoid of any personal touch.

He has been brought back from the political wilderness to revive Labour’s flagging fortunes.

But Lord Mandelson found himself dealing with a very different kind of mess on his day off yesterday.

In a tracksuit and comfy boots, the Business Secretary was spotted walking his dog Jack outside his north London home.

In his left hand he clutched a plastic bag containing that which all dogs, when given fresh air and a clean patch of pavement, inevitably do.

Green campaigners will be pleased to note that even though the 55-year-old now boasts the title Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham, he was not too proud to make sure his pet’s little presentwas properly disposed of.

(Daily Mail)

Solveig, a girl graffiti artist, aged 10, is the female Banksy

She says: "I really really wanted to do a snowy Christmas piece with a snowman so I asked my dad to get me some paints for Christmas"

She painted on a section of the Berlin Wall: "I really wanted to paint the Berlin Wall as it is one of the most famous walls in the world. We bought some cans and hoped the rain would stop"

Solveig has even tattooed someone. She says: "Norm had seen my graffiti and he liked it, so he asked me if I would do a character for him and tattoo it on his leg. So I did"

She says: "When I was doing the tattoo my eyes kept going all blurry because the gun was shaking my hand so much"

(From an article in the Daily Telegraph)

It's not a patch on Banksy - there is no satire.