Blackpool is the Smoking and Pregnancy Capital of England
Apparently according to this report from GPs, 30.3 % of pregnant women in the NHS Blackpool area continue to smoke, as against 20% for the north as a whole. By contrast in NHS Brent in London, the figure is just 2.8 %.
I would suspect that Blackpool doesn’t need a mayor, but a real Norland Nanny, to sort them all out. Preferably with an AK-47!
Olympic Tickets
What has happened here is that the organisers got their sums wrong.
They based the number of tickets on what had been sold for previous games in places like Athens, Sydney and Barcelona.
But they forgot some things in their calculations. How about these?
London has lots of residents, who have families who live abroad. So what better time to have a family reunion?
Lots of those who work in the City are highly paid EU citizens. So what better time to buy a lot of tickets so all your friends and family from Ireland, Germany or Spain can see the Olympics?
London has lots of attractions, so many ordinary people in nearby EU countries, who probably won’t get another chance to see an Olympics, are making the London their big holiday this year. Rio will be a bit expensive next time round. The Irish certainly will be coming in droves, as we all know they love a party.
So if anything, the shortage of Olympic tickets is more of a success thing than anything else. Although you could blame London’s unique place in the world and being a member of the EU as important too.
A Swiss Proposal To Clean Up Space
The Swiss has put forward a proposal for a satellite to clean up space junk. Read about it here.
I can remember reading a similar proposal in the Meccano Magazine over fifty years ago.
A lot of ideas are not new, but just recycled using better technology. Perhaps the designer was clearing out his loft or wherever the Swiss put their junk and found the magazine.
Early Repayment Rules for Student Loans
Traditionally, there has generally been a penalty for early repayment of loans, but some of the new ethical online loan companies, like Zopa use no penalty as a selling point. So do Wonka, who I wouldn’t normally describe as ethical. Even Nationwide charges an extra 30 days interest if you settle your loan early.
So for the student loan companies to charge would be going against what is now accepted as normal and back to the bad old past, where early repayment was a major part of a loan company’s profits.
As this seems to have been a Liberal Democrat idea, who are supposed to be forward thinking or at least not backward, you can read what you like into the proposal.
I don’t need to borrow money, but if I did, I would always do it from a reputable company, that had no penalty for early repayment.
The Anonymous Widower 