h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't think capital needs to be a determining factor. Take this bloke for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Green I couldn't count how many times I saw him on Oxford Street and I wish now that I stumped up the pennies to buy his leaflet, but I never did.

Thanks for the link! I'd never heard of him before.

The Secret Policeman's Ball people paid him a nice homage while he was still walking the streets of London with his message http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hJQ18S6aag#t=4m05s

There's something really funny about that little "...and sitting" tagged on at the end. It's as if he just had a gap left and couldn't think of any more sources of protein to list.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-22887138
"Man calls Solihull police to complain about prostitute's looks"

Well, apart from being tempted to make a joke along the lines of "It's Solihull, what do you expect" (which is a joke you can make about pretty much anywhere really)...

How do people get to be so divorced and distanced from the real world and lose all vestiges of common sense?

Cow slurry fetish man to undergo new psychiatric tests
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23439727

Ummmm...

All weirdness aside, what we have here is another example of the BBC going down the Swannee with sloppy reporting and terminology, and a lack of editing Slurry is not the same thing as cow shit. There's cow shit in slurry, as well as things like water and other kinds of organic matter. It's a liquid fertiliser that is (sort of) composted in the slurry pit. But the two are not the same thing. Sigh.

"Emergency callouts included incidents where men had their genitals stuck in a toaster and a vacuum cleaner."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23490859

A vacuum cleaner... I can see where that might be going (think women and washing machine spin cycle). But a toaster?

"Some 18 incidents involved children with their heads stuck in potties"

In these days of change and of computer games, teh interwebz and suchlike, it's nice to know that kids are still doing that

I swear I just heard Jonathan Agnew say "A large fluffy chicken has just taken its seat to our left" on the TMS commentary

If I were you Aggers, I'd be wondering what was in those brownies you were offered at teatime

No wonder the chocolate cake made Johnners laugh so much...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23575249
Luxury toilet users warned of hardware flaw

You couldn't write that stuff There was a time when the only hardware flaw you were likely to get with a toilet was a leaky valve or a punctured ballcock

It's not actually a hardware flaw. It's a "hard coded" software flaw.

Who would have ever thought you might have to worry about bugs in your toilet's embedded OS?

Ah, good old BBC not doing their research again

"A luxury toilet controlled by a smartphone app is vulnerable to attack" is a sentence I couldn't have ever dreamed up, and multiple uses of the word "attacker" in the context of a khazi is parsecs outside my realm of reality

Why anyone would want a luxury toilet is beyond me, but why anyone would want their toilet controlled by a smartphone app is so far beyond me that it's not visible from here.

TRiG.

Because Japan.

That's pretty much the length and breadth of it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23815563
Steve Balmer to retire, Microsoft shares jump 9%

I'm not surprised really. Those are not the actions of a sane and reasonable adult. Do that in any other setting and you'll be wrestled to the ground, the men in white coats called and you're hauled away in wearing a Norman Bates overcoat. And he's been allowed to run one of the biggest companies on the planet Is it any wonder I despise corporations so much?

Amazing. The same people who last month were embroiled in an argument with Richard Dawkins and expressing their support of secularism, atheism and anti-theism are now expressing rage that a judge has said a woman has to remove her niqab while giving evidence in court.

Leaving aside the way that some people will jump on any passing bandwagon, and that forcing women to cover their hair/face/entire body is an archaic and nasty form of male control, there's nothing about belonging to a religion that should confer extra rights and privileges on anyone. Faith is nowhere near enough for that. Nothing is.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/im-experiencing-austerity-as-well-says-princess-michael-of-kent-8993437.html
"She also told the interviewer of her love for budget carrier easyJet saying: "it’s the only direct route to Biarritz.""

Oh, well, yes, I can see how that would be a hardship. I mean, Biarritz.

Not exactly Clacton, is it.

Oh good grief

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-26441941
Teen sues parents for college money

Someone is about to be cut of a will I think

And a friend's father is funding the lawsuit?