Interesting News Of The Week 03/09/2012

I'm back!

Yeah that's right, I'm back after my little break and ready to get blogging again, the news blogging continues.

Just a little update before I start, I have now officially moved in with my dad and step mum in Essex and I am now a student at Colchester Institute (my first day being on Monday the 10th).

Being in college means I could be in at anything between 15 and 30 hours a week (not including my two buses to travel there and two back), so at this time I am not sure as to whether this blog will continue to post of a Thursday or not, but I will keep you posted on that and let you know as soon as I know.

Anyway enough talking about me, let's get on with the news stories.

Bad sleep means Alzheimer's?

The first story, hooray.

This story is about sleep (sleep patterns) and Problems sleeping may be an early sign of Alzheimer's if a study in mice also applies to people, say researchers.
Here's the story.

For those of you who don't know what Alzheimer's is and what causes it, here's a little description.

Alzheimer's disease or AD (also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease), is the most common form of dementia. Unfortunately ts of the brain will have already been destroyed, making treatment extremely difficult or maybe even impossible.
 

One large area of research is in plaques of beta amyloid which form on the brain.
Levels of the beta amyloid protein naturally rise and fall over 24 hours in both mice and people, suggesting the link that researchers are looking for.

However, the protein forms permanent rather than temporary plaques in Alzheimer's disease making thing even harder.

Experiments at Washington University showed that nocturnal mice slept for 40 minutes during every hour of daylight.
But as soon brain plaques started to form the mice were sleeping for only 30 minutes, a considerable difference in their sleeping patterns.

One of the researchers, Prof David Holtzman, said: "If sleep abnormalities begin this early in the course of human Alzheimer's disease, those changes could provide us with an easily detectable sign of [the disease]."

He followed up by saying "If these sleep problems exist, we don't yet know exactly what form they take, reduced sleep overall or trouble staying asleep or something else entirely."

People do not really show problems with their memory (or clarity of thought) until very late on in the disease. Which means by this point parts of the brain will have already been destroyed, making treatment extremely difficult or maybe even impossible.

One large area of research is in plaques of beta amyloid which form on the brain.
Levels of the beta amyloid protein naturally rise and fall over 24 hours in both mice and people, suggesting the link that researchers are looking for.

However, the protein forms permanent rather than temporary plaques in Alzheimer's disease making thing even harder.

Experiments at Washington University showed that nocturnal mice slept for 40 minutes during every hour of daylight.
But as soon brain plaques started to form the mice were sleeping for only 30 minutes, a considerable difference in their sleeping patterns.

One of the researchers, Prof David Holtzman, said: "If sleep abnormalities begin this early in the course of human Alzheimer's disease, those changes could provide us with an easily detectable sign of [the disease]."

He followed up by saying "If these sleep problems exist, we don't yet know exactly what form they take, reduced sleep overall or trouble staying asleep or something else entirely."
However, findings in mice do not always apply to people as there are many reasons for disrupted sleep (seeing as we are not that close you'd expect that, in fact, we try to get rid of them really).

Dr Marie Janson, from the charity Alzheimer's Research UK, called for more studies in people to see if there was a link between sleeping patterns and Alzheimer's (a bold move).

She added: "There has already been research linking changes in sleep patterns to a decline in thinking skills, but these results suggest that disrupted sleep may also be a warning sign of Alzheimer's.
If research confirms specific sleep changes as a possible early marker of Alzheimer's, it could prove a useful strategy for doctors to identify patients at risk of the disease."

Well that's story one, here's an picture I thought is appropriate from the Alzheimer's association's "Walk to end Alzheimer's" last year:

Bernard Matthews' last wish "Denied"

The second story this week is about Norfolk Turkey tycoon Bernard Matthews and the denial of his last wish before he sadly passed away at the age of 80 on November the 25th 2010.

Here's the story.

Right so what was his last wish? was it something dramatic or deadly?
No not at all the last wish of Norfolk turkey tycoon (turkey as in the meat. not the country) Bernard Matthews was to leave a £12m French villa to the woman he lived with.

So what did he exactly want to do?
Well, he wanted to give Villa Bolinha in the south of France to Odile Marteyn, who had "unfailingly" supported him.

He had hoped his three adopted children and his son would give up legal rights to the villa to grant his last wish but no, the children thwarted (basically ignored) this wish and used a French law giving them a share of the villa.

In a dispute over inheritance tax, deputy High Court judge Nicholas Strauss QC heard that Mr Matthews' wishes had been "disregarded" by the adopted children and Ms Marteyn had been left with less than a half share in the villa.

Mr Matthews and his wife Joyce, who helped him found the turkey business, had lived apart for 35 years despite the fact that they had adopted Kathleen, Jason and Victoria.

He also had a son by Cornelia Elgershuizen called George who inherited much of the estate.

Judge Strauss said Mr Matthews had lived with Ms Marteyn in England and Ramatuelle for about 20 years, meaning that it was fair for her to have the villa, especially as it had Matthews consent.

It was apparent that Mr Matthews had left three wills and in which one he said that the Villa Bolinha was left to Ms Marteyn outright, this was confimed by in a written ruling published on Wednesday following a hearing in July.

The judge said: "He was aware that, by French law, his children were entitled to 75% of Villa Bolinha on his death."

Followed by "He hoped nevertheless that his children would not exercise their rights, and left a letter to that effect. While George respected his wishes, the adopted children did not, with the result that Odile could only inherit 43.75%."

In a letter to the children, Mr Matthews said: "Odile has supported me unfailingly for many years and particularly so during my recent illnesses.
Without such support I might not have been able to continue directing our family company for our mutual benefit, especially since trading conditions have become so difficult.
I wish the French villa to continue to be occupied and enjoyed, and consider Odile would be the best person to take on this responsibility."

The judge said Mr Matthews owned more than £50m worth of property when he died, meaning that the children would have had more than enough value of property to share between them, but still this has happened.

French tax authorities estimated Villa Bolinha to be worth £12m and Mr Matthews' property outside France was worth about £40m.

The adopted children's lawyers had claimed that French inheritance tax liabilities should be paid by the Matthews estate but this was rejected by Judge Strauss, thankfully.

Here's a nice picture of the man himself Mr Bernard Matthews to end with:

Summary of the week

So for my returning week we have "bad sleep" being a possible cause for Alzheimer's and the adopted children of a great food icon denying his last wishes.

What happened Lee?

Well I'm back and this post is going to be completely dedicated to what has happened over the past few weeks that has caused me to fail in posting to all of you out there.

What's going on?
Well lets start with why I have not been able to post on my blog recently shall we?

Before you say it no I am not just a typical teenager that has become too lazy during their summer holidays and has forgotten about his responsibility's, this was all down to whats known as a "Technical Error".

The basic description of what went on is our phone line was damaged, but I'll go into more detail for those who are wondering how this affected my broadband.

Now as most of you will know in order to have broadband (and therefore the Internet) you need a house phone (or at least a phone line), and to have a house phone you need a phone line, the phone lines are the wires connected to those white (generally BT) boxes you can find around your house.

So us ending up with a damaged phone line in other words started off what's known as a domino effect, the phone line was down, so that meant we had no house phone, and with no house phone that meant we had no connection to our wireless hub meaning no broadband and therefore absolutely no Internet what so ever meaning no blog posts.

Yay for no Internet.

Mind you all of this would have been fine if we had got it fixed quickly, but unfortunately because of my extremely bad luck we have been without Internet since the 27th of July, that's a whole 21 days, it took a whole 21 days to have our phone line fixed.
Great service there from O2 and BT.

What makes me laugh about this situation though is how we were affected by all of this because when you think of a damage in your phone line you think oh okay so the problem might be across the road or around the corner so there will be no problem fixing it.

Oh no, it was no where near across the road or even around the corner for that matter, the technician told me the damage was a whole 415 meters of cable away (around 0.2 to 0.3 miles away for those of you who prefer that measurement).

415 meters away and we were effected, brilliant.

To me that really shows how dependent on one another the technology in our time is.
All these fancy gadgets, iPhones, computers, tablets, magic headsets, you get what I mean and one fault in a phone line which has been there for god knows how long and it all just stops working instantly.

All these "advances" in technology and we still need to have the basics.

What's next?
Well I've decided seeing as I'm going to miss the first two weeks worth of posts on the blog I'm going to take this month off from posting.

The likely hood that I was going to be able to post anyway was quite low because next Thursday i will be moving from living with my mum and step dad to my dad and step mum in order to go to college in Colchester and will also be collecting my GCSE results, so i would miss next week anyway.

So my times going to be pretty fully booked for the next couple of weeks meaning that if I get time the post either wont be very long or very good so it wont be much of a read for all of you and I wont make you suffer that.

That's about it, this is me saying goodbye for now and I'll be back around the first week of September or maybe the second depending on how my start at college goes.

See you all soon.

Interesting News Of The Week 23/07/2012

New week, new story, you get the idea by now.
Here's the stories.

Windows 8 a 'catastrophe'

Slightly technical story for the first one this week about Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system.

Here's the story.

It has been said that the operating system Windows 8 will be a "catastrophe" for the majority if not all PC game makers.

Speaking at the Casual Connect game conference in Seattle, Gabe Newell said the next version of Windows could mean big changes to the PC market, many people took his comment as a criticism of the changed user interface in Windows 8 as well as its built-in Windows Store, but it is unsure that whether that is truly what he meant.

The Windows Store could dent the success of the Valve's (involved in software for computers and other devices) own online market, some of you will know Valve through Steam, which players buy games through.

Mr Newell, who has worked for Microsoft for 13 years on Windows and is now the boss of the company Valve, said his company had embraced the open-source software Linux as a "hedging strategy" designed to offset some of the damage Windows 8 was likely to do to the market.

He followed it up by saying: "We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space.".

Let's put this into perspective, the arrival of Windows 8 would be likely to drive some PC makers and others out of the business because it put so much pressure on them and their sales margins.

He said the success of Valve, known for its Half Life, Left4Dead and Portal titles, had been down to the open nature of the PC. "We've been a free rider, and we've been able to benefit from everything that went into PCs and the internet," he told the conference. "And we have to continue to figure out how there will be open platforms."

The openness of these things that helped Valve also helped firms such as Google and Zynga could disappear with Windows 8.

The new "Windows Store" in the Microsoft operating system is a shop through which users will be able to buy apps for their Windows 8 device and appears to only be those devices, not being open to Windows 7 and earlier versions.

On some versions of Windows 8, it will be the only way to get downloadable software such as games.

Microsoft will take a cut of up to 30% of every sale made through this store, meaning that they could be making a lot of money out of this. This could also be a significant threat to the massively successful Steam online game store.

Windows 8 links with Microsoft's Xbox Live online game service, basically taking that and updating it for their new devices.

Mr Newell left everyone with the following statement:
"This isn't about video games, it's about thinking about goods and services in a digital world.".

Here's an image of Valve and their Steam's logo's:

Flag Fallout - London To Blame?

Well I'm sure you've all heard about this story by now,

but here it is anyway.

Olympic officials in London are said to be to blame for a flag row which jeopardised a women's football game at Hampden Stadium in Glasgow.

The North Korean women's team walked off after a video produced to introduce their players showed the South Korean flag rather than their own.
Fortunately they later returned to play the match.

BBC Scotland understand that the video package was sent from London but Hampden organisers had no input.
Prime Minister David Cameron described it as "an honest mistake".

In a news conference on the eve of the opening ceremony of the Games, he told assembled journalists: "This was an honest mistake, honestly made. An apology has been made and I'm sure every step has been taken to ensure these things don't happen again. We shouldn't over-inflate this episode - it was unfortunate, it shouldn't have happened and I think we can leave it at that.".

The North Korean team could only be persuaded to return for their match against Colombia after the error was corrected, which in my opinion is rightly so, why would they want to play under the wrong flag.

As yet the London games organisers have been reported to be unable to clarify who made the video, either that or they don't want to say.

Now you might be wondering why this flag error had the impact it did, well it's because of the situation which exists between both Koreas.
Both countries are still technically at war after the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, so they were extemely right to be offended.

Speaking after the match, North Korea's coach Sin Ui Gun said: "Our team was not going to participate unless the problem was solved properly." rightly showing their flag and respecting not only the team but the country.

The incident has made headlines around the world except in communist controlled North Korea, probably because of the outrage it would cause.
State news agency KCNA reported the women's Olympic football team beating Colombia 2-0 but made no mention of the flag row, once again avoiding conflict.

Meanwhile, Hampden Stadium will host two more Olympic football games on Thursday and hopefully getting the flags right this time, more checks are expected to be made before the next games.

In the men's preliminaries, Honduras will play Morocco at 12:00, followed by Spain v Japan at 14:45.

Here's the BBC's news coverage of the situation:

Summary of the week

So this week we have Microsoft possibly making big mistakes causing upset to a lot of people and London 2012 getting of to a bad start.

Interesting News Of The Week 16/07/2012

The weeks seem to go so fast now.
Here's this weeks stories.

Spelling Screw Up

The first story this week is do with the Olympics and a torchbearer who got a new tattoo to celebrate her role in the Olympic torch relay.

Here's the story.

Jerri Peterson, from Atlanta in the US, carried the torch through Derby on 30 June after being nominated by the hotel chain she worked for.

You may be thinking, whats that got to do with spelling?

Well, that's not the main part of the story.

Before coming to England, she had decided to spend $10 (or £6.50) on a tattoo to mark the occasion.

After having the tattoo it was a while later the 54-year-old noticed it featured the mis-spelling "Oylmpic" rather than "Olympic", whoops bit of a mistake there on the artists behalf.

Mrs Peterson was one of 70 international employees selected by her firm to take part in the relay as a thank you for her years of charity work, she said: "I always wanted to have a tattoo but I never quite felt passionate about any one thing to have it put on my body permanently", but this event seemed to be significant enough for her.

She said to reporters "When I was selected for this wonderful honour, I thought 'that's it - I'm ready to have my tattoo'.".
She booked a session with a "really good" tattoo artist in her home state of Georgia, and took a friend along for moral support.

Initially she was delighted with how it looked and it was only when she sent a photo of the tattoo to a friend that the spelling mistake was pointed out.

She then said: "I looked at it and I was so disappointed. I called my husband and he giggled a little bit. Then I started laughing about it and I've laughed ever since.", obviously feeling more comfortable with the mistake after confiding in her husband, which naturally you would.

Mrs Peterson pointed out the mistake to the tattoo artist responsible but declined his offer to correct it.

She said: "He felt so bad when he found out. He wanted to fix it but I decided I want to keep it. It's fine.", she then finished the interview by saying "It's the Oy-limpics, it's as unique as I am.", what a nice way to look at the situation.

If any of you are wondering what this incorrect tattoo looks like here's a picture courtesy of the BBC news team:

£276,000 Victoria Cross

This story is one that's not got anything to do with the Olympics, I thought seeing as it's going to be in most news stories now I would include one that isn't, this story is to do with the Victoria cross which was awarded in World War I.

The first Victoria Cross awarded to a private in World War I has just sold for £276,000 at an auction, that's right £276,000.

The medal, awarded to Private Sidney Godley of East Grinstead, West Sussex, England. The medal originally was expected to fetch up to £180,000 and was valued around that price.

Godley manned a machine-gun position defending Nimy Bridge in Mons while under fire from German soldiers in the first weeks of the war.

A second VC was awarded posthumously to a Gloucestershire soldier around the same time and that was sold for £240,000 at the same auction.

Oliver Pepys of Spink auction house in London, where the medal was sold described Godley's medal as "hugely important". He said to reporters "The Godley VC is one of the most distinguished medal groups of the Great War, so it was not surprising that it attracted much interest. I am delighted that the sale drew attention to such a valiant man.".

Now what I don't understand is if the medal is "hugely important" and part of the "most distinguished medal group", then why would people even consider selling them, they are a great part of history and can be fantastic things to pass down through the generations to show families histories.

The medal was originally presented with the top military honour to Godley by King George V in 1919 after he spent four years as a prisoner of war and unfortunately for us the auctioneers are not identifying the seller, probably due to pride issues.

Well lets have a little more information on Godley.
He was 25 when he was sent to the Western Front with the 4th Royal Fusiliers and was badly wounded in the attack, on 23 August 1914.

At the time of the attack he had shrapnel in his back and a bullet in his skull, but still persisted to protect British positions in the face of a German onslaught until he was captured.

During his four years as a prisoner in Germany, he was told by his captors that he had been awarded the VC and was invited to dine with the Germans one Christmas Day in recognition of the honour, which seemed a nice gesture from the Germans, showing they can't have all been bad, even though they were made out to be.

Godley unfortunately died in 1957 aged 68 and was buried with full military honours in Loughton Cemetery in Essex.

Since his death blue plaques have been placed at East Grinstead Town Council offices and at the house in Torrington Drive, Loughton, where he lived for some time.

Here's a picture of what the cross looks like for any of you who are unsure:

Summary of the week

Time for the summary, this week we have tattoo artists getting all caught up in the "Oylmpic" games and people selling off medals from the wars just for money, so much for family values.

Interesting News Of The Week 09/07/2012

A little late tonight but lets get straight on with it,
Here's the stories.

Florence out of Music
Now before anyone panics Florence from "Florence and the Machine" is not out of the music game, shes just been temporally removed by doctors orders.
You'll understand what I mean in a minute.
Here's the story.

The singer Florence Welch from "Florence and the Machine" has had to pull out of two European festivals after losing her voice.

Florence went on Twitter to announce that doctors have told her to rest her voice after she felt something "snap", it is unclear as to whether this was during a performance or in practises.
She followed this by returning to the social networking site to thank fans for their support.

The singer recently performed at Radio 1's Hackney Weekend, which it is speculated to be where things started to go wrong for her.
She has apologised on her website for having to cancel further gigs.

She made a statement to the media saying "I'm so sorry to all the fans, I was desperate to still perform, but was told without question not to, so as not to do permanent damage."

What interests me about this story though is that Florence Welch is not the only singer to have had voice problems within her time in the music industry, never mind recently, last year singer Adele had to cancel numerous appearances due to a haemorrhage on her vocal cords, in simple terms damaging them.

Florence + The Machine are booked to appear at other festivals this summer, including a headline performance at Lollapalooza in Chicago this August, and hopefully Florence will have recovered her voice by then to return to perform the gig.

The band may also get their first number one this Sunday with their single Spectrum after performing well in this weeks midweek charts, so we will see on that one.

Sorry this story is quite short but here's a nice picture of Florence on her way to an event:

O2 Outage
As many people may know O2 the mobile phone company suffered from server problems on Wednesday and continuing on to today, effecting a lot of mobile phone users not only on O2 mobiles but on Tescos and GiffGaff as well, because they all use the same masts.

I've chosen this story because it effected both me and Gemma yesterday and mostly last night.
Here's the story.

O2 has described the recent connection problems as a "Network Fault".
There have been few details have been given about what has caused the issues to so many users.

O2 representatives said "We can confirm that the problem with our mobile service is due to a fault with one of our network systems, which has meant some mobile phone numbers are not registering correctly on our network,", the numbers affected seemed to be mostly the Tescos and GiffGaff users.

It is not clear how many of O2's 23 million customers were hit by the fault but the operator said the problem was not based on geography (a specific place) beacuse across the country some were still able to connect at the same location as others who cannot.

As with most situations both consumers and businesses have sent messages via Twitter to complain about the issue, here's a couple.

Joanne Clarkson from Newcastle said "Being the mother of a child with special needs I need my phone. Until this is fixed I will have to stay home so I can be contacted by my landline if the school needs me,".

Chris Benson, owner of Crystal IT services based in Barry, Wales said "It's a little difficult to direct our workforce, contractors or suppliers when they all have to rely on landlines." meaning it had effected his work and business.

The widespread issues began "at lunchtime" yesterday which meant many lost voice and data services.
In a statement today the firm said: "We can confirm that our 2G network service has now been restored. Customers who were affected should now be able to make and receive calls. Our 3G service is starting to restore and customers should expect to see a gradual return of data services as the day progresses.".

So at the moment services are partially restored, and the company is advising customers still affected by the outage to switch their mobile phones off and on to reset their devices so that they will hopefully connect to their 2G services for the time being.

Having the 2G network back up means that customers should now be able to make and receive calls, and for others can also send and receive texts again, if you think about it its like going back to the old networks for the old black and white display mobile phones.

Customers have been told they can keep track of developments via O2's service status page (put in a link so you can get there from here).

Here's the news coverage from the BBC talking to a representative of Gizmodo.com:

Summary of the week

So this week we have yet more singers in bad conditions resulting in stopping performances and the O2 network having server problems that have effected many customers.

Interesting News Of The Week 02/07/2012

It's Thursday, and today is even more special than any other Thursday because on this day I have been with Miss Gemma Oliver 7 months and hopefully I will continue being with her forever more, but yeah that's just me being all emotional.
Anyway, here's this weeks stories.

Lifeguard Fired For Helping Drowning Man
Yeah that's right this weeks first story is about a lifeguard in Florida that has been fired from his job for helping a drowning man who was not within his section of the beach, sounds stupid, that's why I selected this story and here it is.

Tomas Lopez a 21 year old lifeguard at Hallandale Beach north of Miami was told that a swimmer was in trouble in an unguarded area of the beach, so he rushed to the mans aid and because of that he has now been fired.
"I wasn't going to say no," the lifeguard said, which is completely right, your not going to turn around and say no to a call of help.

But his bosses still fired him and said he had broken company rules and could have put other swimmers at risk, so he was expected to stay and let a man possibly die, this was followed up by at least two colleagues resigning in protests.

"We have liability issues and can't go out of the protected area," Susan Ellis of lifeguard, provider Jeff Ellis and Associates said.

She added that the stretch of Hallandale Beach that Mr Lopez was supposed to be patrolling on Monday was being protected by other lifeguards who were on the phone to emergency operators at the time, so if there was other lifeguards on duty, then I don't see what the problem is, they could of had it covered.

Mr Lopez who was four months into the job, ran some distance to help the swimmer who had already been pulled out of the water by other beachgoers, showing dedication to his work and the life of the poor man. He and an off-duty nurse then helped the man until paramedics arrived to take him to hospital and that could of made all the difference, perhaps if they weren't there then the man could of died.
Now the unidentified swimmer is said to be in intensive care.

Mr Lopez has no regrets about losing his $8.25 an hour (£5.30; 6.60 euros) job, and neither would I, a mans life is more important than a £5.30 an hour job, besides now he's had publicity he's more than likely to be hired elsewhere.

"I think it's ridiculous, honestly, that a sign is what separates someone from being safe and not safe," Mr Lopez told CBS television, and I'm sure many other people agree with him.

Another colleague, who found out that Lopez had been fired, said he radioed his manager to cover the beach for him and promptly quit, which just shows how much the managements action can and will effect their work force.

Here's a video of the news coverage:

Armed Police Close Down M6 Toll
This news story is extremely new in fact it took place at 08:20 this morning near Litchfield in United Kingdom.
It involves a very serious event investigated as being suspicious on the M6 toll involving a single-decker coach.
Here's the story.

Police said the coach stopped on the hard shoulder "of its own accord" (With no need) at 08:20 BST.
48 passengers on the Megabus Preston to London service were led off the coach and forced to sit apart in a boxed off area on the opposite carriageway, so that police could identify the situation.

The coach left Preston at 05:10 and was due in London at 10:55, but obviously didn't reach its destination, stopping and causing panic to police and our other services.
The fire service and police involved were from the West Midlands and Staffordshire area.

At around 12:00, the passengers were moved on to another coach which remained parked under the canopy of nearby toll booths, presumably under observation.

Eyewitnesses say that the police called into deal with the situation were not standard policemen and women, they arrived in unmarked police cars, helicopters and with sniffer dogs.
A man on scene also said "It all just took off, ambulances left right and centre and armed police in black caps.", suggesting that police were bomb squads rather than standard police as that is they're usual uniform.

Diversions were put in place to send traffic away from the toll road to avoid anything effecting the polices investigations, the Ministry of Defence also confirmed military personnel were assisting police, maybe explaining the described policemen and women in dark or black clothing.

Eventually about four hours after armed officers arrived, police confirmed the scene as safe.
They had spoken to all of the passengers individually one by one from the large group, keeping one passenger separate from everyone else, a possible suspect.

A police spokesman later said "We are also not treating anyone as a suspect." despite keeping the one passenger separate.

The investigation started and was thought to be something to do with terrorists but it has now been made apparent that the sweep was prompted by the discovery of a fake cigarette, 4 hours for that one cigarette.

Here's an interview with a passenger:

Summary Of The Week

Well this week we have unrecognised heroes and fake drugs causing big problems, what is our world coming to?

Oh yeah, we need a nice picture this week, so here it is, our planet (and the moon):

BlogCatalog myLot User Profile

Interesting News Of The Week 25/06/2012

Nearly missed this week due to my internet being down, but I'm here and it's a new week so here's a new post, enjoy.

Bishop quits over Bikini Snaps

This story is about religion or at least a lead figure from it, a bishop, and some of the sins hes commited (naughty bishop).

Here's the story.

The Pope has recently accepted the resignation of an Argentine bishop named Fernando Bargallo after the publication of pictures showing him embracing a woman on a Mexican beach.

The bishop who is 57, was photographed in the sea, hugging a woman in a bikini, awkward.

He initially said she was a childhood friend, but later admitted to having had "amorous ties" with her, (in other words some form of a realationship with her).

So wait that's a lying bishop, that's not a very good, seeing as he's supposed to be a religious role model.

The so called scandal happened last week, when an Argentine television station broadcasted pictures of Monsignor Bargallo on holiday at a beach resort in Mexico in the company of the woman in the bikini.

So if she is just a childhood frriend then why in one of the pictures is he is seen half-submerged in the water, embracing the woman in her bikini? Seems suspicious to me.

Shortly after the pictures were published, Monsignor Bargallo gave a public statement saying that the woman was a childhood friend, whom he had known all of his life, likely story there.

He said the situation in which he had been photographed was "imprudent, as it could lead people to jump to the wrong conclusion", big words there bishop.

He asked his flock (flock? wait I didnt know he was a bird) to forgive him for "the ambiguity of the pictures" (yet again more big words) and urged them to view the photos "in the context of a long friendship", yeah right.

But later that same week, Monsignor Bargallo convened the priests of his diocese and told them he had had "amorous ties" with the woman and would resign, so in oter words he had lied all along.

It is said he would be replaced by Monsignor Alcides Jorge Pedro Casaretto (I have no idea who that is, sorry).

No video for this so here's a picture of the bishop provided by the BBC (kinda scary if you ask me):

 

Murder escapes from London jail

Second story, this week it's taken place in the UK, in London in fact, and an escapee from jail.

Here's the story.

Convicted murderer John Massey, has escaped from Pentonville prison in north London, you may be thinking how? Explosives like in the movies?

Nope he simply climbed the wall using a makeshift rope, shows quite how good the security must be.

Prison sources say Massey who is 64, was not spotted in time, never mind the fact he wasn't spotted, I want to know how a 64 year old can escape by climbing a wall, must of done some serious work outs.

He was or should be serving life for a 1975 pub murder and was reported missing at 18:30 BST on Wednesday, Police advice he should not be approached.

The Ministry of Justice have also launched an investigation into the escape.

Massey is one of the UK's longest-serving prisoners and was convicted of shooting a man with a sawn-off shotgun in Hackney.

Now the escape must be deeply embarrassing for the prison authorities and will inevitably raise questions about the prisons security.

It is highly unusual for inmates to escape from within the confines of a closed prison such as Pentonville, but in this case, it's happened.

There have been only three such escapes in the past three years in England and Wales, so one a year? That sounds good.

Police want anyone who spots Massey to call 999 imediately.

Bit of background information for you all.

Massey was released on parole in June 2007 after spending the previous 18 months in an open prison in Derbyshire and ordered to live in a bail hostel in Streatham, south London.

But he broke his curfew after a few months to go and live with his dying father and, after a number of days, was recalled to prison, in my opinion that's a bit bad really.

He was arrested 10 months later and taken to Pentonville. all before his escape on Wednesday.

Up to 1,250 category B and C male prisoners, not the most serious category A offenders, are housed at Pentonville.

Category B prisoners are defined as those "for whom the very highest conditions of security are not necessary but for whom escape must be made very difficult".

Category C prisoners are defined as those "who cannot be trusted in open conditions, but who do not have the resources and will to make a determined escape attempt.".

In March 2009, convicted arsonist Julien Chautard spent minutes inside Pentonville before he escaped by clinging to the underside of the security van he had arrived in.

He later handed himself in to police.

So there has been more than one atempt at escaping the prision, not looking too good for Pentonville is it.

No video again, getting disapointing now, so here's two pictures rather than one, the first of Pentonville and the second of John Massey:

Summary of the week

So this week we have bishop's showing their darker sides and murders escaping from "High Security" jails by going wall climbing.

Interesting News Of The Week 18/06/2012

I'm on time this week, so lets get straight into it.
Here's the stories.

Louise Mensch launches rival to Twitter

The first story this week is a link between politics (a politician) and social networking.

Here's a summary of the story in over 140 and 180 words.

Conservative MP Louise Mensch has launched a microblogging site to rival Twitter.

Ms Mensch is a Twitter user with almost 60,000 followers but said she has grown "frustrated" with it.

Yeah, that's right, as you can see from the title a politician has started her own site, to rival Twitter, this could be fun too see how her site goes.
She's named her new site, Menshn (Linked for you to have a look), she aims to keep conversations on topic and allows 180 character posts which is 40 more than Twitter, big difference there, that's more hashtags people.

She also shares the site, she jointly owns it with ex-Labour digital adviser Luke Bozier, the thing is though it's only available in the US but aims to launch in the UK before the London Olympics, which could be a great advantage.

Discussion on Menshn has initially been restricted to the US election, so at the moment it appears to be more of a political site, but Ms Mensch says it will expand to reflect users' interests.

When new members join they gain 100 randomly selected subscribers, equivalent to Twitter followers, so instead of waiting for people to follow you, you get 100 straight away, nice.
Mr Bozier said: "With all the great political forums out there, we noticed that there was no place to talk about politics live.", so it is for politics, I'm getting confused now, seems like a bit of a let down.

She described her site as "A permanent place to go online to talk about the things you're most interested in.", where as Twitter users can organise discussions through the use of hashtags or searching by keyword and choose whose Tweets they read by following or unfollowing other users.

The new site has had a largely hostile reaction from Twitter users so far, with some accusing Ms Mensch of vanity and predicting that the site will flop, which could be expected if she keeps the site to politics, but we will see.

The Corby MP has insisted the site's name is not a pun on her surname, as it is spelt differently, and is, rather, a play on the word "mention", if I'm honest I'm not quite sure if I believe that or not, but it's possible.
Users who type "menschn.com" into web browsers are currently being redirected to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament site, whoops, not exactly what they were looking for.

Ms Mensch, who was a "chick lit" novelist before becoming an MP in 2010, said she hopes the site would attract Twitter users who find the site "frustrating", I wonder how many people besides herself actually find Twitter frustrating.

There's no video for this story so here a picture promoting the site:

New O-level-style exams could replace GCSEs

I've selected this as my second story this week as it applies to not only me but anyone else who has or is taking their GCSE's, so in a way this could become a worldwide story.

In simple terms this story is about the reconstruction or changing of the educational system as we know it.

The Education Secretary, Michael Gove plans to scrap GCSEs for England and return to O-level style exams, so back to the good old days.

It's been said that Mr Gove believes GCSEs "have gone beyond the point of rescue", does that mean they are now pointless?

The proposed changes have been planned to be brought in for pupils from autumn 2014, so for anyone who is currently in year 8 or year 2 of secondary school (depending on the school layout), would see to the biggest change to the exams system for a generation.

Less academic pupils would sit a different "more straightforward" exam, like the old CSE's, well at least they are accounting for the less fortunate of us.
Labour says Mr Gove must explain his changes to teachers and pupils, so he'd have to have one on one meetings with all teachers and then group ones for each set of students all over the country, that could be fun.

GCSEs replaced O-levels and CSEs in the mid-1980s.
Under that system, the more academic (smarter) teenagers took O-levels while others took CSEs (Certificates of Secondary Education).
Now a similar system could return, although the names of the new exams are yet to be decided.

There was a leak to the daily mail just as tens of thousands of teenagers finish their GCSE and A-level exams, meaning that those exams may not be worth as much as the news ones.
As control of education in the UK is devolved, Mr Gove's plans are for England only (at the moment), It will be up to Wales and Northern Ireland to decide whether to follow suit.
In Scotland, pupils take Standard Grades and Highers rather than GCSEs and A-levels, so they would probably not be affected.

The plan is for students to begin studying what the leaked document says will be "tougher" O-level style exams in English, maths and the sciences (Biology, Chemistry and Physics) from September 2014 they would take their exams in 2016, two years later due to students having to stay in education till they are 18.

So, pupils starting their GCSE courses in September 2013 could be the last to take them, and also probably the last to be effected.

Already, the new academy schools (like my secondary school has just become), which are state-funded but semi-independent, do not have to follow the national curriculum.

It is also said the government plans to scrap the traditional benchmark on which secondary schools in England are measured, that being the requirement for pupils to get five good GCSEs (grades A* to C) including maths and English.

Schools would continue to be measured on the government's new benchmark, known as "The English Baccalaureate", which counts how many pupils in a school have good GCSEs in English, maths, two sciences, geography, history and a foreign language.
Well I'll tell you what, I'm glad I don't have to do all that.

Their isn't actually a video for this story but here's a video of Mr Gove's speech on ICT and the national curriculum:

Summary of the week

So this week we've got politics and politicians taking the social networking by storm (not) and the national curriculum being changed dramatically, bye bye GCSE's.


Politics blog sites

Interesting News Of The Week 11/06/2012

Did you miss me?
Yes I know, I missed another week last Thursday and I am truly sorry, but I was spending the week on holiday with my amazing girlfriend Gemma Oliver, so In a way I am sorry, but in others I'm not.

Anyway, lets get on with this weeks stories.

Stone Roses gig ends in confusion

The first story this week is on a slightly musical note and is about the band "Stone Roses" and their apparently disappointing gig in Amsterdam.

Fans were said to have been left confused after the band failed to play an encore at their gig in Amsterdam on Tuesday, this was reported to have taken place because the drummer of the band Reni had left the venue and the band.

Singer Ian Brown appeared on stage alone after the performance of their last song at the Heineken Music Hall, to tell the crowd the gig was over, standing in front of all his fans, just to disappoint them, that takes guts.

Fans had expected to hear the song I Am The Resurrection, which the band had closed their show with in Spain last Friday but were left unhappy and disappointed.
Brown reported to have said said: "I'm not joking, the drummer's gone home."

Many of the fans then booed the announcement, which was expected really, but according to journalist Peter Shuttleworth, who was at the concert:
"Ian just said something like 'Come on, get all your negative vibes out on me. I can take it'," However, Shuttleworth claims the jeers were "short-lived" and fans were "more bemused than disappointed".

It was also said that Reni (who's real name Alan Wren, weird, guess his stage name comes from his last name) had stormed off stage and that he and guitarist John Squire had hugged as they left, maybe there's been a band fall out.

The band seemed to have planned to play an encore, telling fans: "If you want us to come back, we're going up four storeys, so you have to cheer loud", what literally? See you up there then.

The Stone Roses started off their first tour in 16 years in Barcelona last weekend.
They have a summer of dates planned, including three homecoming shows in Manchester's Heaton Park at the end of June, but I guess we shall all now need to wait and see if these dates come through.

Fans have dismissed speculation that the gig in Holland signals problems for the rest of the tour, calling the show "quality" and the crowd "enthusiastic".
Several reports quote an insider who suggested there had been a problem with the drum kit, but this has not been confirmed, so it could be a cover up, or the truth, who knows.

Paul Roberts was at the gig and emailed BBC 6 Music: "At one point I saw Reni waving his arms wildly at the stage mixer, obviously not happy with something.", so maybe there was some drum kit problems after all.

Another person at the scene, Matt Morris, claimed Brown's announcement "was followed by a volley of beer thrown at the stage and booing",

Remaining dates on the Stone Roses tour are expected to go ahead as planned, with the band due on stage in Sweden on Thursday, so we shall await further news on this event.

There is no video for this story so here's a lovely black and whit picture of the band:

Westlife singer declared bankrupt

The second news story this week has kept to the musical theme of the first story.

This story is about Westlife singer Shane Filan and his declaration of bankruptcy in the UK.

Westlife (an Irish band) have sold millions of records over their time in the music industry but Filan has suffered enormous losses in his country's property crash.
In a statement, he said he had "worked long and hard" to tackle his debts and was devastated that his problems have come to this conclusion, must be really gutting.

The pop star filed for bankruptcy in the UK instead of back in Ireland, probably to avoid embarrassment really.

Filan owns a property company called Shafin Developments Limited, with his brother Finbarr.
It was established in 2004 and had been involved in developments in Counties Leitrim and Sligo in the west of Ireland, their way of helping improve their home, Ireland.
Last month, the company was placed in receivership.

The singer was declared bankrupt at Kingston-upon-Thames County Court and his name has been placed on the UK insolvency register, must be fun in that group.

Ireland has agreed to liberalise its bankruptcy regime as one of the conditions of its EU/ IMF bailout, meaning it will be easier to list bankruptcy in the country (that's partly why Filan came to the UK).
However the country's banks are concerned that the reforms could lead to a flood of mortgage defaults as ordinary homeowners use bankruptcy to escape from negative equity, an easy way out for homeowners in other words.

Anyway back to Westlife and Filan, Westlife is said to be one of the most successful boy bands of the last decade, selling more than 44m records, which is confusing to think about, because if the band is making so much money, why had Filan gone bankrupt?
I smell the "fee's" of the label company of the band.

It also looks like Filan isn't going to be able to make enough money to bring himself out of bankruptcy because last October, Westlife announced they were splitting up.
The band is currently in the middle of a farewell tour and continues to fill major concert venues, bye bye Westlife.

There's no news coverage of this news story either, but instead of leaving you without a video this week I've selected a melody video containing various songs from Westlife, I thought it may be appropriate:

Summary for this week

So this week we have band problems, upset drummers, bad sound systems, break ups and finally a showing of the harsh reality of our world from Westlife and bankruptcy (could be seen as karma too).

Bonus Info
Very soon their will be a new page added to this blog and a brand new post based around it, the only clue I will give you for now is its to do with camera's (those of you who know me will know what this means).

Interesting News Of The Week - 28/05/2012

It's post time, so here's the news.

Miami's 'growling cannibal' named
Story number one, "Miami's 'growling cannibal' named", first of all, it's a very interesting title, and no its not a trick, this story is about a real cannibal in Miami.
Anyway let's take a look at the story.

A man was shot dead in Miami at the weekend, he was found biting the face off another man who was stripped naked, the cannibal has been identified by police.

His name was Rudy Eugene, aged 31, he was reported to have growled at a police officer after he was warned to back away from the man, so when a police officer stood in front of him with a gun, threatening to shoot him, he continued to eat the man's face off, he must be one, extremely messed up guy.

A witness said he continued to eat the victim, before the officer opened fire several times, killing him, well I suppose if he was warned then it was viable.
After that there was another attack next to a busy road on Saturday afternoon that has been linked to a potent drug known as "bath salts", wait. Bath salts? as in the salts you put in your bath to soften the water up? or are the drug dealers these days just running out of names for their merchandise?

It was said that about 75% of the victim's face was reportedly missing, but seriously I can not understand why he'd want to eat someones face.

Cyclist Larry Vega said there was "blood all over the place" when he came across the horrific scene by MacArthur Causeway.
"I told him get off," Mr Vega told WSVN Fox 7. "The guy just kept eating the other guy away like ripping his skin.".

He said he alerted a police officer, who warned the attacker several times to back away from the victim.

"The guy just stood his head up like that with a piece of flesh in his mouth and growled," Mr Vega said.

The victim, identified as a 65-year-old homeless man, Ronald Poppo, remained in a critical condition in hospital on Tuesday, so he attacked some old homeless guy and said "I'm going to eat your face now", what a weird, weird guy.

A Miami police spokesman said: "We are expecting a report from our detectives to give more details to the media. We are also looking for more witnesses to this crime."
Ives Eugene, Ruby Eugene's (or the cannibals) uncle, described his nephew as a "nice and hard-working" man who washed cars at a local dealership.

Miami police said they still do not know what prompted the bizarre and savage assault, which has been compared to a "zombie" attack.
The zombie apocalypse is starting people.

Here's the news coverage of this story:

London, France's sixth biggest city

Story deux (two in French).

Here's a fact for you more French people live in London than in Bordeaux, Nantes or Strasbourg and it is now thought to be France's sixth biggest city in terms of population.

So what is attracting a new generation of young French professionals to the city? Who knows.

Imagine this (quoted from the BBC):

On a wet Friday night in Hackney, a group of young professional women walk into a pub. Laughing about the British weather, they shake their umbrellas, peel off their raincoats and make their way to the bar.
Like many Londoners at the end of a busy working week, they have come to unwind over a few drinks.
But if you move a bit closer, you realise they are all speaking French.
They are not tourists, exchange or students. They all work in creative industries, have lived in east London quite some time and consider it home.

Thought that was a nice little story for you all.

Believe it or not London has a long-standing French community, but it is no longer confined to the streets, I can't understand why though, you can find French bookshops, patisseries and cafes.
There are between 300,000 and 400,000 French citizens living in the British capital of London most of them in the East End.

The French first came the East End way, way back in the 17th Century. They were named Huguenots, they had endured years of persecution in France because of their Protestant faith, but were offered sanctuary here by our king at the time, King Charles II (the second).

So our French population is being re-noticed as more and more French men and women apply for work, schooling and other things that we as British citizens do, they are considered our equals, which in some ways the fact that we as a country are treating each other equally (as Christianity states we are created in "God's Image"), but at the same time it is also effecting the amount of jobs and school places available for us too.

That's pretty much it for this story, there's a little bit of religion, a story and a little bit of history too, a nice little bit of everything there, sorry it's a bit short as well.

Unfortunately there is no video for this story, so it's even more of a let down, but here's a picture I found appropriate:

  

Summary for this week

So this week we have people turning into cannibals in Miami and we have discovered that we actually have a lot of the French in the UK, maybe it's a secret plan over centuries to take over, who knows.

Interesting News Of The Week - 21/05/2012

Hello Thursday, looks like it's time for another post.

I was debating on whether to post this yesterday, seeing as it was my birthday or leave it until today, but I thought I'd keep the tradition of Thursday's.

Beijing sets 'two flies only' guidelines

The first story this week is a story from the Beijing and is taking place in public toilets.
Yes you did hear me right, Beijing's public toilets.

So basically the authorities in Beijing have set some new standards for their public toilets, including my favourite one, they should contain no more than two flies.
Yeah that's right they are only allowing there to be two flies in their toilets, it sounds ridiculous really, but its the truth.

The main toilets they have applied the rules for is in places such as tourist spots, but it is not clear whether failing washrooms will be punished and if so, how.
I have an idea, why don't they just build a mini security system for them, like at the airport, where they have to check in and out with there own little passports, with little bee guards in case more than two get in, I mean come on, really?

The new rules also cover cleaning, the use of equipment, training for attendants, odour and cleaning litter bins, so there's going to be little fly-ports everywhere, yay!

Funny thing is despite all these new rules there's only a sort of rule covering what the government referred to as "discarded items" (so in our terms, tampons and condoms etc.), and that's that there should be no more than two in any public convenience (two at a time please ladies and gentlemen).

The new standards also require signs in both Chinese and English to be installed in the toilets, well that's nice at least they accounted for us, what about all the other countries in the world though?

The Beijing Municipal Commission of City Administration and Environment had something to say about all the new rules and that was that the regulations aimed to standardise toilet management at places such as parks, railway stations, hospitals and shopping malls.
Oh brilliant, why don't they just rename themselves "Flies R Us", and they can have "Fly-less Parks", "Fly Rails" and other related fly names.

An unnamed (hidden) official from the commission told local media that the guidelines on flies were meant for easy monitoring, on the flies or on us?

However media reports cast doubt over whether the guidelines could be enforced properly, I really hope they are, could be funny to see how they manage it all.

A commentary published in the Beijing News said one central Beijing district implemented a similar rule in 2008 when the city hosted the Olympic Games, but sanitation and hygiene still varied from toilet to toilet.
Effort should be invested on educating the public to use public toilets in a better manner, said the commentary.
So looks like Beijing are going back to potty training.

Here's the BBC's coverage of the story (please forgive the man's voice in the video):

'Don't win Eurovision' Spain

The second story this week is to do with the Eurovision song contest, at the moment this story is taking place in Spain.
This stories a bit of a short one, sorry.

Spain's Eurovision contestant has admitted the country would struggle to host the event if it were to win the competition.
So directors from broadcasters TVE joked to Pastora Soler, who will represent them on Saturday, "Please, don't win the Eurovision!"
Surely it should be "Please, don't win the Eurovision!", but no, she has been told Not to win. 

She told ABC Punto radio (a radio station, hence radio) "If we won, I think it would be impossible to stage the next edition because it costs so much money,".
So in other words Spain is going to save money by, not winning the Eurovison, sounds like an idea, why didn't we think of it?
I mean its not like we are going to be able to afford it thanks to the Olympics this year, so yeah, lets not win.

Spain last won the competition in 1969, when it shared a four-way tie with the UK, the Netherlands and France, so who actually hosted it, Spain? France? The UK?
None of them, it was the Netherlands, what happened to a tie?

Spain also won the contest the year before (1968), 12 years after it started, with singer Massiel's song La La La (very creative song title).

Soler will sing her ballad Quedate Conmigo (Stay With Me) at the final in the Azerbaijan capital Baku on Saturday.
It is written in the contest rules that the public broadcaster of the nation that wins must host the following year, so in other words, Spain your being told to not win.

"I think it is not the moment, neither for Spain nor for Spanish public, to win Eurovision," Soler was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency, so in other words your going to fail on purpose?

The Spanish government has slashed spending in public television, resulting in the cancellation of several popular programmes, so they are not covering it as much, so there win (loss) will not be shown.

There's no video for this news story, I know it's even more of a let down, but here's the logo for this years Eurovision, Eurovision 2012:

Summary for this week

So the summary for this weeks news stories is Beijing are introducing fly security, Spain have decided not to win the Eurovision song contest this year, and Spain aren't doing too well in the current economic climate.

Interesting News of The Week - 14/05/2012

Well it's Thursday again so that means time for another post and me talking about another two news stories.

So here it is.

Rattlesnake bites customer in Wal-Mart

The first interesting news story this week is a story from the USA, and took place in a Wal-Mart store in the city of Clarkston, a north-western US state of Washington.
From looking at the title of this story to some people may think it could be quite boring, but if you look at some of the things said to do with is news story it could be quite interesting.

So here as normal is a basic summary of what has happened. in my own words. 

A Wal-Mart customer called Mica Craig is recovering after he was bitten by a rattlesnake in a garden department of the store.

He gave a description of the event in which he said the reptile pounced as he was shopping at the store.
So he was casually going around minding his own business, then all of a sudden a rattlesnake popped up to say hello, didn't like him very much, and bit him.

The 47-year-old stamped on the serpent and when he went to hospital they immediately treated him with anti-venom, just in case the snake disliked him that much that it tried to kill him, so in case it hated him really, they treated him because his hand had suffered serious swelling.

Wal-Mart later apologised, and said it was investigating how the snake had entered the store.
Maybe it came in through the door, or through the floor.
Or maybe it was through the window, or it could of dropped from the ceiling on a rope, who knows.

A woman called Kayla Whaling, who was a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart said: "At this point, it appears to be an isolated incident."
"We are working with a pest management team, which is conducting a sweep of the property to ensure there is no additional rattlesnake activity."
So they are going to run around with little nets and hunt out his snake friends just in case they go around biting people that they don't like.

Another customer called Maria Geffre, told a local news agency the snake was at least 1ft (30cm) long with four rattles.
Wow, talk about a scary snake I mean, ah, its the size of a long ruler, be careful, it might bite your toes. 

The victim said the serpent attacked as he reached down to brush away what he thought was a stick from a bag of mulch (so it wasn't a stick then, the hissing might have given it away).

But my favourite part of this whole story is not to do with the snake, its actually to do with the mans original intentions when he went to the store.

Originally he'd gone into the store to buy some marijuana plants, which he claimed he was licensed to grow for medical reasons.
Hm, something there says to me the local police have more to worry about than just the rattlesnake, they want to be looking at new drug dealers too.

Here's the video coverage from the BBC:

Children's shows to leave BBC One

The second news story I'm talking about this week is a story from here in the UK, this news story will take place all over the UK really.

Here's what the story's about in my own words.

Children's programmes are no longer going to be shown on BBC One and Two now digital switchover has taken place.

Shows that are award-winning such as Horrible Histories and Blue Peter are now going to be permanently moved by the BBC to their CBBC and CBeebies channels, which means now parents wont be able to get away with letting their kids watch a little bit of their favourite shows when they get home from school until the news comes on, because they will have to put on the children's channels where the fun never ends (well until 7PM that is).

There has been no date set yet for this change, but the final analogue (or non-digital) viewers will have to be switched over by 10-24 of October in Northern Ireland.
This all was confirmed when the report approving the BBC's cost-cutting plans came in.

Despite this "cost-cutting" plan the BBC have said the spending on children's programmes will not be affected, so whats the point of moving them?
Well the move is mostly to do with boosting viewing figures on the BBC's other channels (so its a bit like someone on YouTube who has two channels or more promoting another one).

In recent months, the number of young people watching children's programmes on BBC One and Two has been said to have occasionally dropped as low as 1,000 (so maybe its not so much to do with boosting views after all).

The figures on their digital channels have steadily increased since its introduction of CBBC and CBeebies in way, way back in 2002 (so it might still be to do with boosting views? I'm confused now).

A spokesperson from the BBC said: "Children's programmes are absolutely fundamental to the BBC and that is why we have protected investment in them in the light of cuts elsewhere."
"Only a very small percentage of children still solely watch these programmes on BBC One and BBC Two alone, so moving them to digital channels is merely following current viewing patterns and reflects the fact that CBeebies and CBBC will be universally available on digital TV from the end of this year."

Well there's surprisingly no video for this story so here's a picture of some popular children's shows characters from BBC Children In Need:

Summary for this week

So the summary for this weeks news stories is rattlesnakes have decided to start dropping in and doing their weekly shopping in Wal-Mart's whilst the BBC are becoming YouTuber's by boosting their ratings whilst not helping our economy by spending the same money as usual.