US President George W Bush was twice the man at the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner on Saturday.

Playing up to his public persona, Mr Bush sent himself up alongside impersonator, Steve Bridges, who lampoons Mr Bush on television.

He was invited by the president to mimic him at the dinner.

The real Mr Bush spoke of spreading his agenda "globally and around the world, as well as internationally"!

"We must enhance non-compliance protocols sanctioned not only at IAEA formal sessions, but through intercessional contact" said Mr Bridges imitating Mr Bush.

GWB repeated it as: "We must enhance non-compliance protocols sanctioned not only at E-I-E-I-O sessions, but through intersexual conduct," eliciting howls of laughter from the audience.

(From an article on the BBC website)

An American band have recorded a Spanish version of "The Star-Spangled Banner".

"The vocals and instruments of dozens of Latino musicians, including the hip-hop star Pitbull and the singer Carlos Ponce, have been recruited to turn the theme song of the American soul into something which everyone from south of the Rio Grande can sing - especially if their patriotic fervour isn't matched by their ability to speak English."

Apparently tens of thousands of illegal and legal migrants were seen demonstrating on the streets of LA, New York and Washington, waving the Mexican flag, when they should have been unfurling - and singing - "The Star-Spangled Banner".

However, not eveyone is pleased with "Nuestro Himno".

The poet Francis Scott Key celebrated the Yankee victory over the British when he wrote "Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light" - not "a la luz de la aurora".

Fondling a copy of the original manuscript, his great-great-grandson Charles Key vents his anger: "I think it's despicable that somebody would go into our society from another country and change our national anthem!"

The poet himself may well be spinning in his grave.

The anti-(illegal) immigration lobby have decried the Spanish version as another onslaught on the sanctity of the American soul.

Even George W. Bush has joined in. Between weightier matters like Iran's nuclear threat and prices at the pump, the beleaguered president stood in the Rose Garden of the White House on Friday, looking very earnest.

He tried to nip this part of the immigration debate in the bud by declaring flatly that the anthem should be sung in English and that anyone coming to live in this country should learn English.

He stumbled on the word English, but the point was taken.

All of this is a distraction of course from the meat of the issue, which is that Congress has still failed to come up with comprehensive immigration reform, tempers are rising and 1 May will be another day of demonstrations and walk-outs from a community that now represents the biggest minority in the United States.

"Nuestro Himno" might have been dismissed as a gimmick had it not been for the fact that this country is already bitterly divided about immigration reform and that tampering with the sacred symbols of American nationhood is never taken lightly.

(From a BBC article)

This?

This?

Or this?

A list of "English Icons" has recently been announced and here are the first 12:

Stonehenge
Punch and Judy
SS Empire Windrush
Holbein's portrait of Henry VIII
Cup of tea
FA Cup
Alice in Wonderland
Routemaster bus
King James Bible
Angel of the North
Spitfire
"Jerusalem"

The other icons to be added to the list on Friday include the flag of St George, London's famous curry road Brick Lane, the Lindisfarne Gospels, Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species and The Domesday Book.

Nelson's flagship HMS Victory, Constable's painting The Hay Wain, Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, the Globe Theatre, the Sutton Hoo helmet and the Machin (Queen's head) stamp complete the list.

Which items would you place in your list?

Do you live near one of these?

For some time it has been thought that overhead electricity lines may be a health threat, causing cancer and other illnesses.

A report published two years ago suggested that children under 15 living near high-voltage power cable could run double the risk of contracting leukaemia.

There are now likely to be changes in planning guidelines so that new homes cannot be built either within 230ft of power lines or in a location that exposes inhabitants to electromagnetic fields of a certain strength.

It is even being considered whether existing homes thought to be exposed to potentially harmful field strengths should be demolished.

The Department Of Health has published a statement saying: "There is no new evidence of a link between power lines and childhood cancers. However, we realise that there is more work to be done."

You can read more on this subject at:

http://www.gorge.org/pylons/faq.shtml

http://www.leyman.demon.co.uk/Electrostress.html

"EYES TESTED WHILE YOU WAIT"

(Radio advertisement for The 20/20 Optical Store)

"Feb, 2006. For the past five months I have been living alone in a car at the edge of the woods — jobless and homeless and totally unable to find a way out of it. I can't sing, I can't dance, I can't scream loudly enough, alI I can do is write. So here I am laying down tracks...hopefully the start of an online paper trail out of here."

"A homeless woman in London has been living in a car since last summer. But by writing a blog she has put herself in touch with an international audience.

It's a tale of our time - about being cut off from everything around you but still connected to people thousands of miles away.

A woman becomes homeless, so she gets into her car and drives. Except she has nowhere to go - so she stays in the car, with all her possessions heaped in the back, sleeping in the front seats, parking in secluded streets.

For eight months, no one notices her, because she makes sure she looks respectable, taking showers and even ironing her clothes in public places like hospitals. She has made herself invisible, out of touch from anyone she used to know - and keeping separate from other homeless people.

But this is the information age. And even though she doesn't speak to anyone, she can go into a library where she can access the internet and write an online journal - a homelessness blog - which she uses to describe all her unspoken experiences and feelings."

(BBC News Magazine)

Read her blog at:

http://wanderingscribe.blogspot.com/

Do we know just how much power we are using when we switch things off or put them into standby mode?

Energy management consultant John Field says: "Electronic devices like TV or video or stereos, anything which has a remote control, have to be live so you can switch on remotely.

"There is nothing to stop you switching it off physically, but if you are going to switch it off with the remote control, then something at the other end within the box has to be live.

Ultimately, using your remote control can use more power than getting off your backside and pressing the buttons yourself.

Standby power can range between 10 and 15 watts, and occasionally beyond. On its own, this is not much. But if you get half a dozen devices on standby, it is the equivalent of a 60 watt bulb.

All around the house we bleed power. The modern home is permanently on standby, full of equipment that sits "half on", waiting to spring immediately to life when we ask it to.

Figures from the Energy Saving Trust on standby power use in the UK home are astonishing:

Stereos on standby cost £290m annually and produce 1.6 million tonnes of CO2

VCRs and DVD cost £263m and produce 1.06 million tonnes of CO2

TVs on standby cost £88m and produce 480,000 tonnes of CO2

It means that in one year, in the UK alone, our equipment on standby produces a total of 3.1 million tonnes of CO2.

But there is a bigger culprit out there: the personal computer, as power supply manufacturer Scott Richards explains.

"If you really want to be green with your PC, when you're done using it turn it off."

"The PC is a special case because if you don't turn it off completely, in other words pull the switch on the back, it's always drawing some kind of power.

"And depending on what kind of mode you're in that power can be anywhere between five watts to 60 and beyond.

"If a million PC users switched to a more efficient power supply, it would save almost the equivalent of 250 million litres of gasoline a day."

By the end of 2004 there were 820 million PCs in use around the world, and by 2007 that will top a billion, according to the Computer Industry Almanac.

No matter how easy these devices make our lives there is little doubt that they are costing us and the planet dearly.

As Mr Richards says: "If you really want to be green with your PC, when you're done using it - turn it off."

(From a BBC article)

Eating a "Mediterranean-style" healthy diet significantly reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, a study has suggested.
US researchers looked at the diet and health of 2,200 people over four years.

The more people kept to a Mediterranean diet, the less likely they were to develop Alzheimer's, according to the Annals of Neurology study.

Alzheimer's experts said the research added to evidence that a healthy diet could have a protective effect.

The Mediterranean diet - rich in fruit, vegetables and cereals with some fish and alcohol and very little dairy and meat - has been cited as being generally good for health for some time.

Professor Clive Ballard, director of research at the UK's Alzheimer's Society, said: "This large study in a leading journal adds to the growing weight of evidence that diet and lifestyle are very important risk factors for Alzheimer's disease.

"It makes an important contribution by suggesting that a strong adherence to a healthy diet can reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease by as much as 40%, emphasising the importance of healthy eating.

"As we get older, eating a healthy diet including fresh fruit and vegetables, getting our blood pressure and cholesterol checked regularly, taking exercise and watching our weight may all turn out to be important ways of reducing our risk of developing dementia in later life."

The London Marathon takes place tomorrow and a warning has been issued that drinking too much water during the event is dangerous to health,

"A study says those who take in too much fluid risk collapse, confusion or even death from excess water on the brain.
The Journal of Royal Society of Medicine study looked at 14 patients who developed exercise-associated hyponatraemia after the 2003 race.

Not only did the runners suffer some severe symptoms, many did not remember finishing the race."

One patient in the study estimated that he drank approximately 13 litres during the five hours he took to complete the marathon, which is more than five times the recommended amount.

"Drinking excessively before during and after the event can be extremely dangerous."

London Marathon organisers advise slower runners, or those taking longer than three hours 30 minutes to complete the course to drink no more than half a litre of fluid per hour.

This advice is particularly relevant at colder temperatures.

But faster runners may need as much as a litre of fluid per hour, they say.

Dr David Martin, an exercise psychologist from Georgia State University, who studied joggers' drinking habits believes people who take up running for the first time are often advised to drink too much water.

Over recent years a fad has developed for people to carry bottled water with them throughout the day and they can be seen drinking it constantly in the street, on the bus or train and at work.

This is seldom necessary in our UK climate.

The excessive consumption only adds profit to the bottled water producers.

And, by the way, what is wrong with the cheaper London tap water?

Don't listen to her son -

Her lips drip honey

And her mouth is sweeter than candy,

But she'll lead you straight to Hell.

Best stay well away my boy

And don't go near her bed

(My paraphrase of Proverbs 5:1-5)

Many have been invented, but the following are actually attributed to Reverend Spooner (1844-1930):

"Three cheers for our queer old dean!"

"It is kisstomary to cuss the bride."

"Those girls are sin twisters."

"Is the bean dizzy?"

"The Lord is a shoving leopard."

"When the boys come back from France, we'll have the hags flung out."

"Let me sew you to your sheet."

"The enemy fled quickly from the ears and sparrows."

"She joins this club over my bed doddy."

"The old revival hymn, 'Shall We Rather At the Giver?'"

"There is no peace in a home where a dinner swells."

"You have hissed my mystery lectures; you have tasted the whole worm."

Spooner was an albino, small, with a pink face, poor eyesight, and a head too large for his body.

"Never mind," Spooner said, "Come all the same."

KINDERGARTEN TEACHER: To get to the other side.

PLATO: For the greater good.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross roads.

KARL MARX: It was a historical inevitability.

RONALD REAGAN: I forget.

CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question.

MOSES: And God came down from the Heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

RICHARD M. NIXON: The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did NOT cross the road.

DARWIN: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically disposed to cross roads.

And, finally:

FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

Rising metal prices could mean that the United States one cent coin could become worth more as metal than its face value.

The price of zinc and copper has soared and the scrap value of the coin, which is made from these two metals, may soon exceed its nominal value.

It could happen here in the UK too.

Don't forget to check out my other two active blogs:

http://poemsandprose.blog.co.uk

http://picturepost.blog.co.uk/

"DECADENT WORLD IS IN THE GRIP OF SATAN"

So said Pope Benedict in the Good Friday service, held at the Colosseum in Rome.

Mankind should open its eyes to the "filth around us".

Accumulating wealth was "robbery" when it "prevented others from living".

He deplored "the divison of our world into belts of prosperity and belts of poverty."

The Pope said society valued "immorality and selfishness as if they were new heights of sophisitication. "

"A slick campaign of propaganda is spreading an inane apologia of evil - a senseless cult of Satan".

Christ, the Lord, is risen today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth, reply, Alleluia!

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"

(My blogs will resume on Sunday)

"Two-thirds of members of a teaching union have considered leaving the profession because of pupils' bad behaviour, it has been revealed." (News report)

Blame the parents?

Well, it all depends who you are.

Big bucks if you are Muhammad Ali.

The boxer, who was born Cassius Clay, has sold the rights to his image and name for $50m (£28.6m)

That should last him out.

He follows fellow former heavyweight George Foreman who, in 1999, was paid $146.5m to put his name to a fat reducing grill.

How naive can one be. When I bought mine, I thought I was putting money into George's pocket.

Dormitory .....Dirty Room

Evangelist .....Evil's Agent

Desperation .....A Rope Ends It

The Morse Code .....Here Come Dots

Slot Machines .....Cash Lost in 'em

Animosity .....Is No Amity

Mother-in-law .....Woman Hitler

Snooze Alarms .....Alas! No More Z's

Alec Guinness .....Genuine Class

Semolina .....Is No Meal

A Decimal Point .....I'm a Dot in Place

The Earthquakes .....That Queer Shake

Eleven plus two .....Twelve plus one

Contradiction .....Accord not in it

And Shakespeare:

"To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

The Anagram:

"In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten."

And one from space:

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." -- Neil Armstrong

The Anagram:

"Thin man ran; makes a large stride, left planet, pins flag on moon! On to Mars!"

Sunday Newspaper - "The News Of The World"

The Anagram: "Tender, hot flesh -- WOW."

You can form your own anagrams at:

http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/

My full name becomes CHILE ROLL RUN, CORN LURE HILL, from a few hundred alternatives.

Try it for yourself.

No- It's not true!

But it was in 1947, when The New York Post published that on its front page.

She is now nearly 80 and Buckingham Palace has released some facts about her life:

The monarch has launched 23 ships, sat for 139 official portraits, opened 15 bridges, and owned more than 30 corgis.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said the Queen had "always been a vanguard of change, but she also maintains traditions".

(Facts taken from a BBC article)

"The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country."
"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is 'to be prepared'."
"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future."
"The future will be better tomorrow."
"We're going to have the best educated American people in the world."
"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."
"We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe."
"Public speaking is very easy."
"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."
"We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur."
"For NASA, space is still a high priority."
"Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children."
"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
"It's time for the human race to enter the solar system."

Or how to lift a donkey!

It has been suggested that if bird flu mutates into a human form, there may be more than 300,000 deaths in the UK. That is 0.5% of the population.

Mass burials could be held in Britain and there could be up to 17 weeks delay in burying or cremating victims.

The prospect of "common burial" would stir up images of the mass pits used to bury victims of the Great Plague in 1665.

It should be "Go boldly . . . ".

However, splitting infinitives is not a sin or a crime. Try to avoid doing so because so many crusty grammarians have a fit, but if you come up with 'To boldly go where no man has gone before," leave it and smile. Seriously, it's just not worth bothering about today.

"To boldly go where no man has gone before" is a saying used in the introductory sequence of episodes of the original Star Trek science fiction television series. The Star Trek character Zefram Cochrane, who was the first to fly at warp speed, supposedly originated the phrase in a speech which described what humans could do with this new warp technology. He utters the phrase in the first episode of the Trek prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise.

Here are some anagrams of the phrase:

Women eggheads fool honorable rent-boy

I like a nice cup of tea in the morning,
For the start of the day you see,
And at half past eleven,
For 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!

A.P. Herbert

But nowadays the 'cuppa' has become a 'mugga' and sales of cups and saucers have fallen by 85% since 2001.

The Tea Council said that 96 per cent of tea drunk in Britain is now brewed from tea bags.

The latest GCSE school examinations in the UK will test 16-year olds on the maths and English that they should have mastered by the age of 11.

Here is a typical multi-choice question:

"I am in the middle of my GCSEs and I am going to be taking ---- in June."

A those
B them
C this
D it

Well, I suppose they have a one in four chance of getting it right!

A recent report on educational standards said that the good news is that pupils are spelling words correctly on examination papers.

The bad news is that they are of the four-letter variety.

Statistics released by the exam boards revealed that more than 200 candidates who sat the GCSE and A-level papers last summer scrawled offensive or obscene words on their scripts.

It wasn't like that when I was at school!

Following my April Fool's joke yesterday about London Bridge, here is an article from the Daily Mail:

BLAIR PAINTS NO 10 FRONT DOOR RED
by Andrew Levy
08:56am 1st April 2006

Along with the Houses of Parliament, it is the best-known symbol of Britain's political heritage.

But now - in a move seen by critics as unhinged - the famous shiny black front door of 10 Downing Street has been seen for the last time.
In an incredible break with some 250 years of tradition, it has been painted red - a colour normally associated with the Labour Party.

Controversial: Tony Blair has broken with a 270-year tradition by painting Downing Street's front door

Political insiders said the paint job had been ordered by the Prime Minister, apparently feeling well and truly at home nine years after claiming the keys to Number 10. But one of his own MPs warned: "There are some things you can't put a good spin on and this clearly politicises one of the most powerful images in British democracy." The MP, who asked not to be identified, added: "Voters will not like it."

The move - which had not been previously announced - left onlookers open-mouthed yesterday. They watched as workmen carried the door along Downing Street before heaving it into place and attaching it. A cleaning lady then added the finishing touches by giving it a quick polish.

American tourist Earl Myers said: "I can't believe Mr Blair has changed one of England's most famous landmarks. George Bush would never paint the door of the White House a different colour, even with the Stars and Stripes."

There are actually two doors, which are swopped over every year for a touch-up. It was unclear yesterday-whether the replacement had also been changed - or if red and black will alternate.

While Number 10's role as the home of the Prime Minister has waxed and waned in the years since George II gave it to Sir Robert Walpole in the 1730s, the door's colour has always remained the same - black - apart from 1908 to 1916, when PM Herbert Asquith had it painted dark green.

April Fewell, a design consultant, said: "It's a significant declaration of personal ownership by Tony Blair. But it sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the street."