Sepp Blatter is in Favour of Women Wearing Stockings
The following paragragh is from this page on Sky News.
One of his stranger roles was as president of the World Society of Friends of Suspenders – a male group that wanted women to give up tights and return to wearing stockings and suspenders.
Doesn’t that say a lot about the Great Administrator. Rumour has it, that Fred, Max, Peter and Dominique are also members of the same society.
A New Stratford Emerges
I went to Stratford station today as it has now been announced that the station upgrade is complete.
There are still a few things to do, but as the pictures show, it’s a lot better than a few years ago.
The Mittal Orbit is Rising
I was down the Olympic site this morning and the Mittal Orbit is getting higher.
The Mittal Orbit is Rising
It can’t be getting that much higher! I like it!
An Alternative Approach To Stopping Spam
This article based on research done by three eminent Universities; University of California-San Diego, the University of California-Berkeley, and the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, shows that the best way to stop spam might be to go for the banks who process the money for the spammers.
It would appear that just a few banks are involved. Here’s what the article says.
However, when it comes to banking, the bottlenecks are far more severe, and switching is far more difficult. One bank alone was used to settle more than 60 percent of all transactions, and the top three banks—Azerigazbank in Azerbaijan, St Kitts & Nevis Anguilla National Bank in St Kitts &Nevis, and Danish-owned DnB Nord in Latvia—together accounted for more than 95 percent of all money paid to spam vendors. The implication is that many banks simply won’t deal with spam outfits. Even when switching does occur, it’s disruptive, with payment processors typically introducing delays of days or weeks for due diligence to be performed.
Surely, no honest person would trust these banks with their money.
So we shouldn’t give up on our spam filters, but constantly chase the routes that the money takes to get to the criminals. After all the researchers used just 100 purchases to obtain their findings. So shouldn’t Western and other governments pool some researchers and money to find more rogue banks and then eliminate them from payments systems worldwide.
The Pollen Count is Going to Get Worse
I’ve just looked at the pollen count forecast on the Met Office web site. Their new system is here.
It would appear that by the weekend the levels will be high.
Yesterday, I asked a friend, who is a racehorse trainer, whether he had been affected. He personally hadn’t, but some of his horses had had hay fever like symptoms, with runny eyes.
He thought the high levels were because we had a warm April, and that has brought everything forward, so all of the pollen has come along at the same time.
I’ve Got Some Olympic Tickets
I originally applied for £3234 worth of Olympic tickets, but in the end I only got £785.
This is just over twenty-four percent of what I tried to get.
No-one seems to know how the ballot has been organised. In many cases I applied for two tickets, as I’m not keen on going by myself.
I hope I haven’t got loads of single tickets!
As an engineer with a stromg statistics training, I think there might be more to this than we think. I just sent this e-mail to BBC Radio 5.
But the figures on what people have got, don’t add up.
It will be interesting to look again, after people know the events they’ve got.
I do wonder though, if the method of the ballot process has leaked out and speculators and ticket touts have made a killing.
After all, I’ve not heard of anyone, who’s got all they asked for. On the law of averages, that should have happened quite a few times, and some would be crowing with delight.
I do suspect though, that some will make a killing. Touts and criminals always find a way to make money.
Cucumber Humour
Cucumbers have always been a source of humour for British comedians.
A satire web-site called The Spoof has two pages of note.
Cucumber World Domination To Be Arrested By Cull
101 Reasons Why Women Prefer Cucumbers
This one will run and run.
Tha Andalusian Food Minister Does a John Gummer
Clara Aquilera, the Minister for agriculture in the Spanish region of Andalusia has taken a leaf out of John Gummer’s book and been seen publicly eating a cucumber to prove that they are safe. Admittedly, John got his daughter, Cordelia to eat one with him. But as I write both John and Cordelia, seem to have suffered no ill effects ten years or so later.
Let’s hope Clara is as lucky. Although judging from the pictures, she does seem to have a love for food.
The Anonymous Widower 