Scotland on Sir Fred
Whilst searching for Scotland’s reaction to Sir Fred’s fall from grace, I found this page in the Glasgow Herald.
There are some funny bits, including one, about how you toast a haggis if you’re teetotal.
But this bit on Sir Fred’s Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh is priceless.
After The Herald revealed that disgraced banker Sir Fred Goodwin may have his Fellowship from the august Royal Society of Edinburgh removed, reader John Duffy in Edinburgh suggests: “Could they not just downgrade him to an Associate, just for the pleasure of seeing a more appropriate set of letters after his name.”
I’m not sure if he’s actually lost his Fellowship.
Leaving Facebook
I never use the site and although I had a profile, I was getting a bit fed up with some messages the site was sending me. I should say there was nothing offensive, but I prefer to deal privately with people or through LinkedIn. So I decided to leave,logged in and looked for the Delete Profile button.
There isn’t an obvious one and I had to use Google to search for how to do it. But once I found a page on Yahoo, it was pretty much plain sailing. But one typing mistake would have meant my profile stayed.
All of these networking sites, should be obvious and easy to leave, so that those perhaps having unwanted messages can protect themselves virtually instantly.
I shall report, if I get any more communications from Facebook.
A Property Developer With A Good Sense of Humour
The Times today reports that property developer, Peter Beckwith is going to build a large data centre called MK Data Vault on a site once owned by Robert Maxwell in Milton Keynes. He has invited Mirror Group pensioners, who had their pensions stolen by Maxwell’s greed to attend the demolition.
Newt Gingrich Faces His Biggest Fight
Newt Gingrich seems to have one of the biggest requirements for a Republican Presidential Candidate; stupidity.
According to this piece in the Guardian , he has now started to use Eye of the Tiger, the theme song from Rocky III as his campaign song. But Newt didn’t ask permission from the copyright holder.
I suppose Newt could fight Sylvester Stallone for the right to use it. Now that would be a fight worth seeing, but it would be rather pointless, as I think Sly doesn’t actually own the rights.
So helpful Guardian readers have provided some suitable alternatives for Newt.
D.I.V.O.R.C.E
Space Oddity
Frontier Psychiatrist
Tragedy
When Two Fools Collide
Stupid White Men
You’re the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly
Etc. Etc.
But the two I like are Born to Lose by Ray Charles and Go Now by The Moody Blues.
What Have Fred Goodwin, Allen Stanford and Robert Mugabe Got In Common?
They all have lost their knighthoods, although Mugabe’s was honorary. But they would make a wonderfully well-matched set of dinner party companions!
But count your fingers after they’ve left.
One ruined the currency of one of the richer countries in the developing world, another stole virtually all the cash in a series of islands and the third helped to create a banking crisis that affected much of Northern Europe.
Bob Diamond Has Kept Quiet
In all the pontifications about Stephen Hester of RBS, I can’t find anything that Bob Diamond of Barclays has said.
Perhaps he’s just being sensible or he has not responded to any journalist, who’s asked what he thinks!
could it be a pointer to something? Or if he says nothing, then he won’t have to refute what he said or change his mind.
Why Don’t The Police Have Fake Tasers?
There’s a whole list of safety issues concering tasers and they are documented here.
Would it not be sensible to create a fake one, that to the untrained eye looked like real one? These could be issued to officers and would be used in a first instance, as one of the Met’s experts has just said, that when most people see a taser, they calm down and give up.
It’ll Be All Change On Buses
I was searching for something else and found this article about hybrid-buses in The Engineer.
One new concept, I’ve not come across before is what is called Flybus, which uses a flywheel as a battery.
I am convinced that hybrid buses are the future, as I have three routes that are partly hybrid near me. From a noise point of view they are so much better for customers and bystanders alike and of course they use a lot less fuel
Liverpool Comes To London
HMS Liverpool is in London this weekend and I went to have a look.
Note the red liver bird, which gives the ship it’s nickname of Crazy Red Chicken.
Is This The Sickest Lawsuit Ever?
David Belniak was drunk, had taken cocaine and Xanax, when he crashed his car at 88 mph into the back of someone else’s in a 55 mph zone and killed all four occupants. He got a twelve year sentence and you can read the whole story here in the Daily Mail.
He is now suing the relatives of those he killed for the mental anguish he went through.
The Anonymous Widower 