The "And in other news..." thread

[Jon_jpwh]

Saucepan or bomb? Navy called after beach discovery​

Suspected ordnance on Charmouth beach turns out to be saucepan

Bomb experts discover potential ordnance on Charmouth beach was not what it seemed.

www.bbc.co.uk

There was a similar incident last month on Worthing beach where the bomb was found to be a gas cannister.

 

[AndyPJG]

Man fined for pet alligator called Cliff in garden
BBC News, Yorkshire

A man who kept a 4ft (1.2m) pet alligator called Cliff in a tank in his back garden for a year has been fined.
Ashley Betts claimed he did not know a special licence was needed to keep exotic creatures after police discovered the large reptile at his Rotherham home.
The 32-year-old pleaded guilty to breaching the Dangerous Wild Animals Act at Sheffield Magistrates' Court on Wednesday and was told to pay nearly £1,000 in fines.
Betts, of Carlyle Court, Maltby, now hopes to get Cliff, who has been moved to a temporary home 70 miles away, back by gaining the appropriate licence, the court heard.
He was not prosecuted for any cruelty to the American alligator and the court said there was "no suggestion" the animal was being kept poorly or in a way that was unsafe to other people.
When asked where he got the creature, Betts said he received it from a friend but declined to elaborate, according to the Sheffield Star.
Male American alligators can grow to measure up to 15ft (4.6m) in length and weigh up to 1,100lb (500kg).
They are considered apex predators and typically live in marshes and swamps in south-eastern United States and north-eastern Mexico and feed on fish, other reptiles, birds and mammals.
Betts reportedly kept Cliff in a special outhouse and tank but the confiscated creature is currently being housed at a park in Liverpool.
Police discovered the beast in July 2024 after visiting Betts' house for a different matter, the court heard.
Betts was fined £333, ordered to pay a £133 surcharge and £468 in costs.

[my bold ]

 

[Ashley Hill]

Bet he was a bit snappy after that.

 

[D6130]

Was the alligator a bit long in the tooth?

 

[edwin_m]

Did someone croco-dial the police to report it?

 

[generalnerd]

‘see you later, alligator’ is what he reportedly said to police when they asked him where he had gotten it from

 

[edwin_m]

‘see you later, alligator’ is what he reportedly said to police when they asked him where he had gotten it from

That's just an alligation.

 

[AndyPJG]

Blenheim Palace £4.8m gold toilet stolen in minutes, court hears

Three men are standing trial over the theft of the gold toilet which had been part of an exhibition.

www.bbc.co.uk

Two things made me chuckle:

This brought to me an image of wheeling it into some Cash 4 Good merchant in bits so it can be melted down, with the thieves spending the money on stolen power tools and some guitars from the pawnbrokers.


I know this is how art works, but the idea that moulding the gold into the shape of a toilet has added £2m to its valuation is wild.

If I had £3m cash on the hip I would buy £2.8m of gold, spend £200k turning it into some other inanimate home item like a TV, and go round art galleries offering it up for a cool £4m. Sounds like easy money!

Gang guilty over £4.8m gold toilet heist
BBC England Investigations

A gang has been convicted over the theft of a £4.8m gold toilet from an art exhibition at Blenheim Palace.
Thieves smashed their way in and ripped out the functional toilet, hours after a glamorous launch party at the Oxfordshire stately home in September 2019.
Michael Jones was found guilty of planning the burglary. Fred Doe was convicted of conspiring to sell the gold, while Bora Guccuk was cleared of the same charge.
The BBC can now reveal the full criminal history of the heist gang's kingpin James Sheen. He has been jailed at least six times since 2005 and has led organised crime groups that made more than £5m from fraud and theft - money authorities have largely failed to recover.
Five men were seen on CCTV carrying out the heist, but only two - Sheen and Jones - have ever been caught.
Within days the artwork, called America, had been broken up and sold on, the court heard. None of the gold has been recovered.
Sheen, from Oxford, pleaded guilty last year after police found his DNA at the scene and gold fragments in his clothing. He was described in court as the "common denominator" - having been charged with planning and transferring criminal property, as well as burglary.
The 40-year-old, who has previous convictions for fraud, theft and a firearms offence, was arrested four weeks after the heist, on suspicion of planning it, but he was released on bail.
He continued his crime spree, including a similar raid eight months later at the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket, Suffolk, where he stole gold and silver trophies worth £400,000, none of which have ever been recovered.

 

[dangie]

From the BBC:

First individual Horizon victim to sue Post Office and Fujitsu

Lee Castleton has started a legal claim against his former employer over the Horizon scandal.

www.bbc.co.uk

Former sub-postmaster Lee Castleton is launching legal action against the Post Office and Fujitsu, becoming the first individual Horizon IT scandal victim to sue the two organisations.

I wish him well in this, although I’m guessing he has more chance of success in knitting fog.

 

[Smidster]

And we wonder why the UK doesn't have Growth anymore - The "Online Safety Act" which started to come into force this week has put into place a whole swathe of regulations for any content publishes online including things like community forums.

As a result of these regulations quite a lot of sites and groups have closed given the regulatory burden - Some examples of these places that are apparently dangerous are a forum for tips on taking care of Hamsters and lower league football forums.

Another example of mindless regulation that does absolutely nothing to resolve a problem and just causes misery for everyone else.

 

[dangie]

Not Comedic or an Irritation, but to save starting another thread, I’ll put this here:

Rocket crashes back to Earth just moments after launch in Norway

The Spectrum rocket's first test flight lasted 30 seconds but researchers say it will still provide useful data.

www.bbc.co.uk

From the BBC:
A test rocket aimed at kickstarting European satellite launches has crashed back to Earth moments after taking flight.….

…."Our first test flight met all our expectations, achieving a great success," the firm's co-founder Daniel Metzler said.

Well, I might not be very scientifically rocket minded, but it didn’t look very successful to me.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Not Comedic or an Irritation, but to save starting another thread, I’ll put this here:

Rocket crashes back to Earth just moments after launch in Norway

The Spectrum rocket's first test flight lasted 30 seconds but researchers say it will still provide useful data.

www.bbc.co.uk

Well, I might not be very scientifically rocket minded, but it didn’t look very successful to me.

Perhaps they have very low expectations. A good strategy to avoid ever being disappointed.

Aim low, achieve a bit more than that, result happiness. Aim for perfection, achieve a little below that, result unhappiness.

 

[styles]

Not Comedic or an Irritation, but to save starting another thread, I’ll put this here:

Rocket crashes back to Earth just moments after launch in Norway

The Spectrum rocket's first test flight lasted 30 seconds but researchers say it will still provide useful data.

www.bbc.co.uk

Well, I might not be very scientifically rocket minded, but it didn’t look very successful to me.

In fairness, it's hard to successfully launch and land a rocket first time.

It's one of the few things I can defend Musk on - his claiming success when SpaceX launches partly work.

First get it off the ground, collect some flight data. If it crashes, oh well, that's for the second flight. Maybe second time it lands roughly where it should but breaks on impact, oh well, that's for the third flight. Etc.

 

[dangie]

In fairness, it's hard to successfully launch and land a rocket first time.

Yes I know, I was just being a bit facetious with my comment.
However, when the rocket began to flip over there were probably a few cry’s of ‘oh sh*t t*ts b*llocks….’

 

[brad465]

Job Centre can't find staff:

Half of job centres reducing support over shortages, watchdog says

A report says there are 2,100 fewer work coaches than needed while the number of people requiring support has risen.

www.bbc.co.uk

More than half of job centres are reducing support for people claiming universal credit due to a shortage of work coaches, according to a report from the public spending watchdog.
The National Audit Office said reasons for cutbacks included a lack of funding and challenges in recruiting and retaining staff.
It comes as the number of claimants being categorised as requiring support has risen from 2.6 million to 3 million in the space of a year.
The government said it was redeploying 1,000 work coaches to help, but a charity campaigning to end poverty said the shortage undermined plans announced in the chancellor's Spring Statement to get more disabled people into work.
Iain Porter, senior policy adviser at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said the government's promise to boost employment had been used to "justify the biggest cuts to disability benefits in recent memory".
"The government must urgently explain how it plans to support disabled people into work while these work coach shortages remain," he said.
Published on Monday, the report said there were 2,100 fewer work coaches - who can offer advice and refer claimants for jobs - employed by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in England, Wales and Scotland than it estimated were needed.
It said that some 57% of job centres had used flexibilities allowed by the DWP to reduce support for claimants when caseloads are too high between September 2023 and November 2024.
Changes to income rules meant an extra 400,000 people qualified for such support in the year to October.
The number of claimants moving into work each month has also fallen over the past two years.
In the Spring Statement, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said reforms to the "broken" benefits system would save around £4.8bn by the end of the decade, and £1bn would be invested "to provide guaranteed, personalised employment support to help people back into work".
The DWP said it was redeploying staff to help sick and disabled people into work, and was modernising job centres with new digital tools.
A spokesperson said: "Our job centres are full of brilliant work coaches - but they are held back by a system that is too focused on ticking boxes and monitoring benefits instead of genuinely supporting people back into work.
"That is why we are redeploying 1,000 work coaches to help deliver intensive employment support to sick and disabled people, modernising job centres with new digital tools, and improving access to free up work coaches' time as we bring the network together with the National Careers Service."

 

[styles]

Job Centre can't find staff:

Half of job centres reducing support over shortages, watchdog says

A report says there are 2,100 fewer work coaches than needed while the number of people requiring support has risen.

www.bbc.co.uk

Can't be a particularly inviting career - for every genuine job seeker you try your best to help find work, you'll have someone who wants to abuse you because they didn't want to play the game. Perhaps not 1:1 but I can imagine JCP staff face their fair share of abuse. All for 20% above minimum wage.

If my passion was getting people into work, I think I'd take up a charity advisor role.

 

[Ediswan]

However, when the rocket began to flip over there were probably a few cry’s of ‘oh sh*t t*ts b*llocks….’

I note it fell into the water intact, then exploded, rather than being remotely destroyed.

 

[brad465]

With today being April Fools (or was as it's now gone 12), it's reminded me how social media has hugely influenced it. Obviously this is where most of the jokes are now, but in particular it's now possible to see a joke several hours after 12 noon, but was genuinely made before 12, so one has to be vigilant a lot longer. This is further enhanced by the time zone difference with places like the US, where someone posts a joke story before 12 in their time zone, but on a UK feed it's mid-afternoon/evening. Last year there was a related gaming fool video from a prominent gamer in the US that I did fall for at first, simply because it was well past 12 when I saw it.

 

[edwin_m]

RAF withdraws historic ban on Tunnocks Teacakes on board aircraft, having tested some to confirm that they do not in fact explode on depressurisation: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20x5x0g3kqo

Sixty years ago, Tunnock's teacakes were banned from RAF flights after they exploded in a cockpit.

They left a sticky mess over the airmen, their instruments and the cockpit's canopy.

The chocolate-covered marshmallow treats had apparently been all the rage prior to this - being eaten by crewmen as they flew nuclear bombers on long training sorties at the height of the Cold War.

But the ban has now been lifted after the RAF Centre of Aerospace Medicine carried out tests in an altitude chamber and the teacakes did not explode.

Shame, perhaps they could have been used to resolve Britain's shortage of munitions.

 

[43096]

Unsecured penguin caused helicopter crash in South Africa

Pilot lost control after bird in cardboard box slid off a passenger's knee and knocked controls, aviation authority finds.

www.bbc.co.uk

Unsecured penguin caused helicopter crash in South Africa​

An "unsecured" penguin in a cardboard box was the cause of a helicopter crash in South Africa, a report into the incident has found.
The penguin, which had been placed in the box and on the lap of a passenger, slid off and knocked the pilot's controls just after take-off from Bird Island off the Eastern Cape on 19 January.
The South African Civil Aviation Authority said the impact sent the helicopter crashing to the ground. No-one on board, including the penguin, was hurt.
The authority said that "the lack of secure containment for the penguin" was responsible for creating the "dangerous situation".
According to the report, released this week, the flight had been conducting an aerial survey of the island in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape province.
After completing the survey, the helicopter landed, where a specialist then requested the transport of one penguin back to Port Elizabeth.
The report did not say why they had picked up the penguin.
The aviation authority said the pilot conducted a "risk assessment" but omitted to include the transport of the penguin on board which "was not in accordance with the Civil Aviation Regulations (CAR) 2011".
When the helicopter was about 15m (50 feet) above ground, the cardboard box slid off the lap of the specialist to the right and caused the cyclic pitch control lever to move to the far-right position causing the aircraft roll, the report determined.
Unable to recover, the main rotor blades then struck the ground and the helicopter ultimately crashed on its starboard side approximately 20m from the point of lift-off.
While the helicopter sustained substantial damage, both the pilot and passengers were uninjured and the penguin was unharmed.
The report said all situations should be subject to "established safety protocols" and compliance with aviation safety procedures.
It also said that a proper evaluation of the situation and potential hazards (such as cargo shifting) should have been conducted.
"The absence of a proper, secured crate meant that the penguin's containment was not suitable for the flight conditions," it said.

 

[Calthrop]

If I were ever to open a pub, I might call it the Unsecured Penguin ...

 

[Sun Chariot]

"The penguin, which had been placed in the box and on the lap of a passenger, slid off and knocked the pilot's controls just after take-off"

Moral of this story?
If a penguin slides off - P P Pick up a Penguin.

 

[edwin_m]

"The penguin, which had been placed in the box and on the lap of a passenger, slid off and knocked the pilot's controls just after take-off"

Moral of this story?
If a penguin slides off - P P Pick up a Penguin.

They did.

The report did not say why they had picked up the penguin.

 

[pokemonsuper9]

Solihull man discovers he has bought his own stolen car - BBC News

Ewan Valentine bought a replacement Honda Civic after his original car was stolen in February.

www.bbc.co.uk

A man who bought a £20,000 car to replace the one he had stolen has discovered he has accidentally bought back his own stolen car.

"The police and the Honda garage all said this was one of the best clone jobs they'd ever seen, so if it wasn't for these little artefacts, no one would have ever known."

 

[edwin_m]

You'd think if they went to all that trouble to clone the vehicle well enough to convince a dealer to buy it, that they would have spent ten minutes clearing out the rubbish from the boot.

 

[brad465]

This will have caused some passengers to throw a "hissy fit":

Snake halts Japanese bullet trains after wrapping around power line

The famously punctual train service was suspended for almost two hours.

www.bbc.co.uk

One of Japan's busiest bullet train lines came to a halt after a snake tangled itself in a power line, causing a power outage.
Tokaido Shinkansen trains running between Tokyo and Osaka were suspended from around 17:25 local time on Wednesday.
Services resumed at around 19:00 local time, operator Central Japan Railway Company said, according to local media.
Japan is currently in one of its busiest holiday seasons, Golden Week, which consists of four national holidays in seven days, and will see trains, airports and holiday hotspots hit their peak.
Osaka is also hosting the World Expo this year, which will see millions of foreign and domestic visitors flock to the city until it ends in October.
The snake entanglement occurred between Gifu-Hashima and Maibara stations, which suspended Tokyo-bound trains between Shin-Osaka and Nagoya, and the Osaka-bound trains between Shin-Osaka and Tokyo, according to Japanese news agency Kyodo News.
While authorities worked to get power restored, passengers reportedly gathered around staff at one station while large queues formed at ticket machines.
One frequent shinkansen traveller, who was returning to Tokyo, said it was the first time he had experienced this.
"I use the shinkansen several times a month, but this is the first time I have experienced suspensions due to a power outage," Satoshi Tagawa, 46, told Kyodo News.
But 26-year-old Kazutoshi Tachi, said he was "fed up with the troubles" to services.
"I want them to run on time," he added.
This is not the first time a snake has brought the shinkansen service to a halt.
In April 2024, there was a 17-minute hold-up while authorities removed a 16 inch (40.6cm) snake from the train between Nagoya and Tokyo, according to CBS News, BBC News's US partner.

 

[PG]

This will have caused some passengers to throw a "hissy fit":

Snake halts Japanese bullet trains after wrapping around power line

The famously punctual train service was suspended for almost two hours.

www.bbc.co.uk

Did all services  slither to a halt?