Shoppers are clearing the shelves of a Boots anti-ageing cream after scientists claimed it does actually reduce wrinkles.

Sales of No7 Protect & Perfect Beauty Serum, which costs £16.75, have soared by almost 2,000 per cent since it was praised on the BBC2 science programme Horizon earlier this week, with 13 bottles being sold every minute.

Many of Boots' high street stores have sold out of the cream, as has its online shop.

Some desperate consumers are paying as much as £25 for a bottle on eBay.

The director of beauty products at Boots, said: "We have been overwhelmed with the response following BBC's Horizon, with women literally racing each other to get hold of the last product in stores.

"We are getting more stock out to our stores on an hourly basis to manage demand."

Get out there Ladies!

I recently received my telephone bill and noticed a charge of £8.33 ($16.35) for a 17 minute call to an unrecognised mobile (cellphone) number.

I dialled the number and found that it was to the "Patientline" service of a local hospital.

Yes, now I remember - it was to a friend in hospital.

Now charges at that level are scandalous, aren't they? There is plenty to worry about when someone is sick, without having that as well.

I have read that one pensioner incurred telephone charges of several hundred pounds in one month whilst his wife was terminally ill in hospital.

An investigation was launched by Ofcom (the telephone services regulator) in 2005, but nothing has changed and incoming calls to hospital patients are still being charged at 49p per minute.

And, of course, personal mobile phones are not allowed to be used in many hospital wards, so there is no alternative to "Patientline".

Is it a "rip off"?

Australia's official tourism body has been ordered to take down posters in the UK because they include swearing. (Not the one above, which is a comment on the campaign.)

The posters promoting Australia with the slogan "So where the bloody hell are you?" prompted 32 complaints here. (How many? LOL)

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority ruled the posters were in breach of the industry code and should not be seen by children.

It has told Tourism Australia to take down the posters and not to use swear words in any future advertising.

Are we being too sensitive?

We expect Ausralians to speak like that, don't we?

Here is the dictionary definition of the expression "Bloody Hell" :

"An interjection of either amazed awe or sudden anger/despondency; from the terms, "Christ's wounds," and/or "Christ's blood," which were deemed sacreligious and so were shortened to "bloody;" "hell was added later to express the full extent of the emotion; (originated in Great Britain).

Should we respect religious sensitivity and not use it?

Or have times changed, now making it perfectly acceptable?

'First they had their own keys - now their own burglar alarms!'

In our prisons thousands of inmates have been given the keys to their own "rooms" (cells) to give them more "respect and decency".

They can roam in and out virtually at will under a scheme designed to protect belongings from thieves and ensure privacy.

In some prisons, to protect their dignity, inmates are called "residents" or "trainees".

Critics have said that the Government seemed to be "turning prisons into hotels".

"All it will do is reinforce people's views that the regime in prisons is far too lax and cushy."

With a few simple precautions, thousands manage it every day. Yet BBC staff have been stopped from replacing lightbulbs because of concerns for their health and safety.

Instead, the corporation is paying up to £10 for each replacement bulb to be fitted.

The situation came to light when Louise Wordsworth, a learning project manager with the BBC, complained.

"I called up to ask for a new lightbulb for my desk lamp and was told that this would cost £10" she said.

"On telling them I'd buy and replace the bulb myself (bought for the bargain price of £1 for two bulbs) I was told that it was against health and safety regulations."

A BBC spokesman confirmed that there had been a number of complaints, but said that each request was judged on its merits to save staff time.

Three years ago it was calculated how many people it takes to change a BBC lightbulb.

The member of staff left in the dark would need to find a clerk to get a reference number so that the repair could be paid for, then report the fault to a helpline. An electrician would ask the store manager for the part and install the bulb, making a total of five people.

Standards of reading and writing among schoolchildren have been causing concerns at the heart of Government for some time. But now civil servants are being forced to deal with literacy problems much closer to home.

Bureaucrats at the Department for Education and Skills are being given crash courses in punctuation and the use of basic words amid fears that official letters and emails are riddled with errors.

A series of primary school-style guides have been sent to staff, reminding them how to use the apostrophe and tell the difference between "easily confused words" such as "two", "to" and "too".

Each week officials are given a different lesson as part of the internal campaign, 'Getting the Basics Right', to stop them slipping up on such potential banana skins as how to employ "here" and "hear".

In another lesson, civil servants are reminded of the proper use of the apostrophe.

The guide continues - "Even the best writers sometimes use the wrong form of "their", "there" or "they're" when they are in a hurry."

According to the memo, other homophones causing some headaches within the Department include "wear and where", "your and you're" and "hear and here".

It all seems pretty basic stuff to me - something they should have learnt at junior school, or even before that, from their parents.

But there (showing my age), things are not what they were like when I was a boy!

Following my recent comments on the superfluity of CCTV cameras in the United Kingdom, I note that a parliamentary inquiry into the growth of "Big Brother" Britain is to be carried out by MPs.

The cross-party Home Affairs Select Committee is to look at the impact on civil liberties and crime prevention of CCTV cameras, the DNA database and the forthcoming ID card.

Jack Straw, the Leader of the House of Commons, said the details of the inquiry would be announced shortly and it would be "into the issues of surveillance".

I wonder, shall we have more cameras - or fewer?

An eco-friendly electric cycle, which can sense when a rider's legs are tiring, may be taken up by police in remote areas of Devon and Cornwall.

The Power Cruiser, which costs about the same as a conventional bike, was put through its paces by Pc Chambers on Wednesday.

The electric motor kicks in when it senses he is struggling on the pedals.

Alternatively, when the need arises, the officer can just override the pedals with a throttle to use the motor on its own.

The Power Cruiser can travel about 30 miles using its 36-volt, 250-watt motor.

After being plugged into the mains for a couple of hours to recharge it, it is ready to go all over again.

Pc Chambers, who normally uses a police bicycle, said:

"The powered cycle will make it a lot easier to get around my patch and will be especially helpful up the steep hills."

The United Kingdom already has more CCTV cameras than any other country in the world; it is said one for every 20 inhabitants.

Now there is a new addition - the pilotless helicopter, fitted with cameras.

They are being tested by police on Merseyside in the fight against anti-social behaviour.

The drone aircraft will keep watch over football matches and trouble hotspots.

Fitted with CCTV cameras - they are controlled by officers on the ground.

The force is considering using them to monitor large crowds and to gather evidence from major incidents or areas blighted by anti-social behaviour.

A spokesman said "We already have the force helicopter but the drone is smaller. We will have the resources to put several out at any one time."

Is this a good thing? Or does it worry you?

I understand that in the USA, following public protests, cameras at traffic lights were removed as they were said to infringe civil liberties under the Constitution.

A nice day out?

An inquiry has been launched into how staff at a school in Gloucestershire enjoyed a day at the Cheltenham Gold Cup race meeting last Friday at public expense.

Teachers and staff were sent on an "in-service" training day involving breakfast, followed by a trip to the race-course.

Parents were told to keep their children at home because staff would be absent.

It has now been revealed that after meeting for a £6a-head breakfast - paid for from the training budget - the teachers and staff went racing.

Their £50-per-person admission to the Tattersall's enclosure was also paid from the school's budget, financed by Gloucestershire council tax payers.

However a spokesman said staff had to pay for their own bets.

That's all right then?

Taken from a Photoshop contest.

For more, go to:

http://www.worth1000.com/cache/contest/contestcache.asp?contest_id=385&display=photoshop#entries

Do you take statins to lower your cholesterol?

I did for some years, then found that they were causing daily calf-muscle cramp, which was particularly painful in bed first thing in the morning.

Then I ran out of the pills and didn't take them for a few days. Do you know what? The muscle cramps stopped - only to come back when I started using a new supply.

I saw my doctor and, over the next few months I tried several different brands of statins. Some seemed fine at first, but all produced side-effects after a few weeks.

Now I don't take statins at all. There are other ways of lowering your cholesterol - or you can live with it.

Yesterday's "Sunday Telegraph' published an interesting article on the subject, which I reproduce below in full:

IF YOU WANT TO FEEL YOUNGER, FORGET YOUR STATINS

By Dr James LeFanu

A doctor accused of wittingly prescribing useless or possibly lethal drugs would vehemently - and understandably - deny it. This makes it rather difficult to oppose the prevailing medical consensus on statins - the cholesterol-lowering drugs prescribed to four million people in Britain at a cost of £1 billion a year.

That's quite a sum. It could pay the salaries of 700,000 nurses or build two spanking new teaching hospitals.

An even bigger sum is £15 billion. That is the profit the pharmaceutical industry made last year from this, the most profitable class of drugs ever invented. They are so profitable that the latest statins to reach the market came with a £600 million promotion budget, to "promote" the notion to family doctors and policymakers that the lower the cholesterol the better, and that at least half the population would benefit from the drugs.

But it is not so. Statins are useless for 95 per cent of those taking them, while exposing all to the hazard of serious side-effects. Hence my ever-growing file of letters from those who regrettably have had to find this out for themselves, illustrated by this all-too-typical tale from Roger Andrews of Hertfordshire, first prescribed statins after an operation for an aortic aneurism (that he had cleverly diagnosed himself).

Over the past few years Mr Andrews had become increasingly decrepit -what can one expect at 74? - with pain and stiffness in the legs and burning sensations in the hands so bad that when flying to his son's wedding in Hawaii he needed walking sticks and a wheelchair at the transfer stops. However, he forgot to pack his statins, and felt so much better after his three-week holiday that when he got home he decided to continue the inadvertent "experiment" of not taking them. Since October most if not all of his crippling side-effects have gone. Several friends can tell a similar story, and they have friends too\u2026

The take-home message is that statins are only of value in those with a strong family history of heart disease or men with a history of heart attacks. For everyone else they are best avoided as they seriously interfere with the functioning of the nerve cells, affecting mental function, and muscles.

This is all wittily explained in a recent book by a Cheshire family doctor, Malcolm Kendrick, The Great Cholesterol Con (John Blake Publishing, £9.99). There are, I suspect, many out there, like Mr Andrews, wrongly attributing their decrepitude to Anno Domini, when the real culprits are statins. I would be more than interested to hear from anyone who finds that "giving them a rest" effects a similarly miraculous transformation.

A British Airways passenger travelling first class has described how he woke up on a long-haul flight to find that cabin crew had placed a corpse in his row.

The body of a woman in her seventies, who died after the plane left Delhi for Heathrow, was carried by cabin staff from economy to first class, where there was more space. Her body was propped up in a seat, using pillows.

The woman’s daughter accompanied the corpse, and spent the rest of the journey wailing in grief.

Paul Trinder, who awoke to see the body at the end of his row, last week described the journey as “deeply disturbing”, and complained that the airline dismissed his concerns by telling him to “get over it”.

The woman died during a nine-hour flight on a Boeing 747. Trinder was catching up on sleep when he was woken by a commotion and opened his eyes to see staff manoeuvring the body into a seat.

“I didn’t have a clue what was going on. The stewards just plonked the body down without saying a thing. I remember looking at this frail, sparrow-like woman and thinking she was very ill,” said Trinder.

“She kept slipping under the seatbelt and moving about with the motion of the plane. When I asked what was going on I was shocked to hear she was dead.”

The woman’s daughter and son-in-law arrived soon after and began grieving.

Trinder said: “It was terrifying. I put my earplugs in but couldn’t get away from the fact that there was a woman wailing at the top of her voice just yards away. It was a really intense, primal sound.

“I felt helpless. Grief is a very personal thing; it’s not as if there was anything I could do or say.”

He became particularly concerned about the state of the body. “When you have a decaying body on a plane at room temperature for more than five hours there are significant health and safety risks,” he said.

After the plane landed, those in first class remained on board for an hour before police and a coroner gave the all-clear.

When contacted by BA about the complaint, Trinder says he was told he would not be compensated and should “get over” the incident.

BA said the dead woman was taken into first class because the rest of the plane was full.

A spokesman said: “When a customer passes away on board it is always difficult and we apologise for any distress caused.”

Other carriers use different procedures. Singapore Airlines has introduced “corpse cupboards” on its Airbus 340-500 aircraft. Cabin crews use the locker if there is no empty row of seats to place a corpse.

(Abridged from a Sunday Times article)

I believe some airlines have been known to use one of the toilets to stow corpses.

Spring has really arrived in the UK this week - although a cold snap, with the possibility of snow, is forecast to arrive tomorrow.

But at least for us Spring comes around every year.

Imagine though what it must be like on Uranus. The planet is now experiencing Springtime after many years in shadow.

Uranus - long considered to be the dullest planet in the Solar System - has an orbit that takes 84 years, so it's probably overdue for a good spell!

Prison: Selfridges in Oxford Street

A jail could be set up in Selfridges under Home Office plans to create a network of high street detention centres for yobs and shoplifters.

Under the proposals, police would be able to hold suspects for up to four hours in short term prisons in supermarkets and shopping centres before taking them to police stations or releasing them.

Dozens could set up across London. Discussions about building one in Selfridges' flagship Oxford Street store have already taken place.

"Persons detained would be subject to detention to a maximum period of four hours to enable fingerprinting, photographing and DNA sampling," said the Home Office paper.

Police say the short term detention centres are necessary because of the closure of large numbers of local stations, including in London. This measure would allow officers to resume operational duties quicker as suspects would be processed faster.

The consultation paper also proposes extending police powers to allow them to take fingerprints, DNA and other samples from all suspects, rather than just those arrested for imprisonable offences as at present.

This would include people caught speeding, allowing their dog to foul the footpath or dropping litter.

("Evening Standard")

Who is this visiting dignitary?

SCROLL DOWN

Reginald Kenneth Dwight

"20% of MEN sleep with a teddy bear when away from their spouse"

(Report from a UK hotel group)

I just don't believe it!

Utter tosh!

Me and my teddy bear
have no trouble have no care
Me and my teddy bear
just play and play all day.

Oh, me and my teddy bear
have no trouble have no care
Me and my teddy bear
we play and play all day.

Not grown men!

Are you a chocoholic? How much do you consume each week? Will you be eating chocolate Easter Eggs?

Perhaps you should spare some thought for the 'chocolate slaves' who help produce them.

On the African Ivory Coast, where nearly half the world's cocoa is produced, young children are being trafficked into slavery on the plantations.

In 2001 this appeared in an American magazine:

"Children ages 7-18 are purchased for $1.50 each and sold for up to $350 dollars each into West Africa's agricultural, domestic, and sexual industries, where they remain slaves all their lives.

They work 14 to 18 hour days. "They do not receive wages, adequate medical care, clothing, and food, and are often the recipients of corporeal punishment".

Escape attempts often end in death for the escapee. And even if children make it back to their families, they are simply sold again".

Despite legislation drafted to improve conditions, very little seems to have changed.

One way forward is "Fair Trade" agreements, where producers are guaranteed the income they need to pay their workers fair wages and send their children to school. In return, they guarantee that no forced or abusive child labour was used in the making of their products.

So, when you buy chocolate, look for this logo:

I love these little snippets from the weekend newspapers:

"The Fourth Duke of Queensberry liked to bathe in almond-scented asses' milk - while eating hot-buttered crumpets."

"Gregory the Great, who was the first monk to become Pope, allowed Sunday bathing, and recommended baths, 'as long as they did not become a time wasting luxury."

"According to the stern Roman statesman Cato the Elder (234BC-149BC}, boys who have bathed in the urine of a person who has lived on a cabbage diet will never become weak and will be able to see better."

It has been disclosed that foreign languages are now extinct in dozens of schools in England.

To halt this decline the Government is proposing that children should be given business-style "immersion" courses, where they spend all day talking and listening in a foreign tongue.

Since compulsory languages were axed in 2004, the proportion of pupils taking a foreign language GCSE has fallen from 80 per cent to 50 per cent.

Wake up at the back there!

No trains today.

A group of women shelter at a makeshift camp in Solok, Sumatra after an earthquake rocked the Indonesian island, leaving at least 70 dead.

A rapid assessment in the town, near the epicenter of the earthquake, found that 432 houses, 14 schools and 37 businesses were either severely damaged or completely destroyed.

In Solok alone, there have been 15 fatalities and 1,728 people are currently displaced from their homes.

Local water systems have also been disrupted, leaving vulnerable displaced residents without reliable access to clean water.

Rumblings were felt as far away as Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, prompting the evacuation of several office towers in those cities.

A young boy stands beside the ruins of his home.

Here is some more "graffiti" from Banksy:

It was painted about four years go on the wall of a pub in Brighton, Sussex and provoked a mixture of amusement and anger.

But in October last year this "work of art" was painted over with cans of black spray paint.

The two men resopnsible were charged with criminal damage, found guilty, and sentenced to 6 months conditional discharge.

(If you click on the picture above and then go to "all sizes"/"original" you will be able to read more clearly the report in the Brighton "Argus")

Further to the post on my "kendrive" blog last Saturday, after I had visited a gallery exhibition in London, I read yesterday that the owners of a Banksy mural have put it up for sale and have included their house in Bristol as part of the deal.

The sellers of 21 Milvart Street were horrified when they learnt that all prospective buyers would remove the mural after contracts were exchanged.

They have now enlisted the help of an art gallery to help sell the mural and the house, which will be sold as a package.

Sarah Anslow of the Red Propeller art gallery in Devon, said: "We've been absolutely overwhelmed by the interest in this piece.

"It is an early Banksy, we think it's about four years old, so that in itself makes it unusual and it was free-painted.

"The people who own the house have decided to sell it but they've become frustrated as they've come close to exchanging contracts on several occasions only to find the prospective owners want to get rid of the mural.

"The owners consider it a work of art and want it kept as it is. They came to us to help sell it as a mural with a house attached."

Here is a close-up of part of the mural:

Banksy's work has has always caused controversy, like this painted on the wall of a Bristol sexual health clinic:

The mural features a naked man dangling from a window ledge in which an underwear-clad wife sheepishly watches her cuckolded husband scanning the horizon in search of the culprit.

As with most of Banksy's outside work, it spawned debate over where the line between public art and vandalism is to be drawn.

Many citizens regarded it positively, heralding it as an exciting new tourist attraction.

Bristol City Council asked the public to decide whether the mural should stay or go and 97% voted to retain it.

Would you like to look out at it every day?

Those of you who live in the UK will know of the recent scare over contaminated petrol sold by supermarkets.

Thousands of vehicles broke down and were brought to a halt, or limped home.

Tesco, one of the suppliers of the faulty fuel, have issued the following statement:

"Tesco petrol is now back to normal. So you'll be pleased to know you can buy our petrol with total confidence.

But if petrol bought at Tesco has damaged your car, we'd like to say how sorry we are. More to the point, we'd like to promise to pay for the repairs. If you believe that your car may have been affected, please click here."

You may be interested to read the following newspaper article about a claim against Tesco in 2003.

VAN MAN SENDS BAILIFFS IN TO TESCO
£60,000 OF BOOZE SEIZED OVER FAULTY FUEL ROW

A DRIVER whose van was damaged by dodgy fuel at Tesco got bailiffs to seize £60,000 worth of booze from the store after it failed to compensate him.

Shopfitter David Bond, 59, had to pay a £3,400 repair bill in November 2003 after filling up with 61 litres of petrol contaminated with water. Tesco made an initial payment to Mr Bond two years ago but he had to sue for the remaining £2,690.

As thousands of customers prepare to claim compensation from the supermarket over last week's faulty fuel fiasco, Mr Bond won his case and the bailiffs moved in.

His lawyer Barry Bennington said: "This is a modern-day story of David and Goliath. "Despite admitting liability, despite the court judgment and despite the fact High Court enforcement officers have now seized £60,000 of goods, Tesco has yet to pay David Bond a penny of the £2,690 owed to him."

Last night, Tesco caved in and promised to hand over the rest of the money. A spokesman for the supermarket giant said: "A cheque for the full amount is now on its way to Mr Bond. We sincerely apologise to him for the delay, which was the result of an administrative oversight."

But Mr Bond, from Swindon, Wilts, said: "I'll believe it when I see it."

Mr Bennington said it was ironic that Tesco had promised to pay repair bills for customers affected by the latest contaminated fuel crisis. He added: "This case clearly shows the issue of contaminated fuel is not just a recent one, and a significant number of other drivers may also have been affected.

"There may be other motorists out there who have bought contaminated fuel and simply accepted an apology or reimbursement for the cost of their fuel, without realising they are entitled to compensation for any damage caused to their vehicles."

The engine of Mr Bond's Mercedes Sprinter van was badly damaged after he filled it up at his local Tesco Extra store.

Although Tesco later admitted liability, it said it was only prepared to pay 25 per cent of the cost of the repairs.

After getting a court judgment in December, Mr Bond's bailiffs seized £60,000 worth of wine, spirits and beer from a Tesco store in Gloucester.

HOT BATHS MAY CUT MALE FERTILITY

Heat can affect sperm production and soaking in the bath tub may reduce men's fertility, say US researchers.

Findings from a three-year study support current advice that men should avoid 'overheating' their sperm.

Sperm counts in five of 11 men with fertility problems soared by 491% after they stopped having baths or using the hot tub for a few months.

Other research has shown heat from laptop use and wearing tight underwear can reduce fertility.

So shower instead of soak, keep that laptop off your lap and wear loose boxer shorts (or go "commando"!)

Would you wear this?

(Or your wife, or girlfriend)

It is rather strange, isn't it?

Or perhaps she has someone walking behind her!!

It is the latest creation from the Parisian couturier Comme Des Garcons

It probably sells for thousands of pounds.

I hope it is a "one off".

How about two women at a party wearing this same dress?

School places are now being allocated by lottery and the receipt of infertilty treatment depends on where you live.