Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Anhui, children dead, china, enterovirus 71, EV-71, fuyang, hand-foot-mouth disease, rld health organisation, who, wohand-foot-mouth disease
8,500 Chinese children have contracted hand-foot-mouth disease, and 24 have died.
The epidemic is deemed so serious that even the state run media have acknowledged the extent of the problem.
According to Chinese health authorities the most affected province has been Anhui, a rural region in eastern China, where 22 children died from enterovirus 71, or EV-71.
The number of infected children has steadily increased since hospitals in Fuyang began admitting patients with fever, ulcers in the mouth, or a rash on their hands and feet, according to the Anhui Health Bureau’s website.
The provincial government has quarantined patients and controlled movement in and out of Fuyang, the town in Anhui province where the outbreak started in mid-March, and where the 22 children died.
The World Health Organization said it was concerned about the number of deaths in the current outbreak, although EV71 has been reported in China before.
Attempts to cover up the scale of that outbreak led to the sacking of China’s health minister and promises of reform.
Hand-foot-mouth has no relation to the foot-and-mouth disease that affects farm animals.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Crystal Skull, Indiana Jones, may 22, new release
The new trailer for the upcoming Indiana Jones film was released yesterday. The new film can not come soon enough for fans of the intrepid explorer this will now see him on his forth death defying adventure.
Jones is ofcourse being played by Harrison Ford and will see him look for the famed Crystal Skull. The skull is being haunted as per usual by some unspeakable baddies, but alas they are not natzi’s but soviets.
The film is being directed by George Lucas and fans have high hopes that it will love up to the previus three.
The Crystal Skull is rated PG-13 for adventure violence and scary images, and will be released world wide on May the 22.
I myself intend to buy an Indiana Jones hat to celebrate the occasion, but there are also a wide range of toys being produced including a Lego play set.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: album, download, for free, music, NIN, Nine inch nails, The Slip
The Nine Inch Nails have took the heroic decision to shun consumerism and let their album be down loaded for free from their website.
The new album called ‘The Slip’, consists of ten tracks. The band said on their website that it is a;
“Thank you to our fans for their continued support”
This comes in the wake of radio heads choice to let people pay what they like for their latest album In Rainbows.
The album is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE.
The album will released on vinyl as well as CD some time in mid July,
The band are best known for their signature song “The Hand That Feeds”
Classic grunge hero’s Candlebox are set to release their new album on July 22.
The first single of their new album is called stand, and is going to be released to radio on the 12th this month. This july’s release will be the first new album that the band has released in ten years.
This year promises to be busy for the band as they our touring this year showcasing some of their upcoming tunes.
“Best Friend by Candlebox”
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: brambels, bristol, google earth, weeds, woman 29, yate
A 29-year-old woman who let her garden weeds grow to a massive hight of 10ft has been evicted from her council house.
The local council in Yate near Bristol repeatedly warned her of the consequences if she continued to let the weeds growing, put she paid no attention even though the upkeep of the garden was written in to her tenancy agreement.
Roy Didcott the womans next door neighbour claimed that he could pick blackberries from his window.
The brambels were left to grow wild for six years, and it was only when Roy, 63 sent photos to the local counci that wheels were set in motion.
The house can be cleary seen by google earth.
he un-trimmed brambles went unattended for six years taking over the yard, a small shed, and even reaching up to the windows of the apartment above hers
Filed under: Uncategorized
The Wombats played a sell out gig in Amsterdam last week leaving the crowd in what can only be descrbed as extacy.
The gig played at the Melkweg seen the indie trio churn out hit after hit, and even the language barrier couldn’t stop the crowd exploding to the rendition of Postman Pat.
(Yes the handsome devil on stage at 2.15, to 2.28, is me)
Filed under: Uncategorized
A motorist narrowly avoided demolishing the front wall of a family house yesterday as a tree branch was hurled through his windscreen.
The driver, a Mr Stewart Baker was driving down Bridgenorth road in Stourbridge, when a large branch from a tree was thrown from the embankment overlooking the road into his car windscreen.
This then caused him to loose control of the car, and skid wildly over to the other side of the road, in the process mounting the pavement.
Baker then narrowly avoided the front wall of a house, and managed miraculously to come to a safe stop.
He then immediately dialled 999 to report the incident to the police, but was left waiting on the phone for nearly 10 minutes.
When the police did eventually answer they said that there was nothing they could do as the offenders had almost certainly fled the scene, but they would “send a car round later on”.
Tim Goodall a local resident had this to say;
“I am not surprised at all by this, I mean you see gangs of kids aged around 15 to 17, that are there all the time, and they have chucked stuff at buses from the same place, the police always get there too late”
A PCSO officer which did not whish to be named said, “I seen a couple of kids up there, but they said they were going to their tree house, there is not a lot I can do when there is no evidence”
Baker said, “I’m just glad that the road was clear and I didn’t crash into anything or anyone, but what makes me angry is that nothing has happened about this, and I had to ring the police back twice just to get an incident number”.
The car suffered a deep scratch to the bonnet and needed a new windscreen. But what most enraged Baker was that if the branch had entered the windscreen just 30cm more to the right then it would have almost certainly blinded him in his left eye, possibly causing him even to loose his life.
He then went on to say that “The kids that did this need to think about what could have happened, I could be dead and any one walking on the road at the time could be as well”.
The matter of the incident number is of particular interest as it would seem that the police were unwilling to give one out to Baker. This is not unusual with petty crime cases because when a incident number is given out, it causes the recorded crime rate to go up.
The west midlands coincidently are 3% on average ahead in the national crime statistics then anywhere else in the UK. The police were unable to comment on the matter.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Information boards detailing the various ‘attractions’ of Pontypridd have been set up in three different locations around the town.
One of the boards can be found at the entrance of the Train Station, while the other two are situated at the north end of Taff Street.
The boards themselves contain a colour map of Ponty and list various landmarks such as the William Edwards Bridge, the Municipal Arts Centre, St Catherine’s Church and Ynysangharad War Memorial Park.
The other claims to fame it notes are the various past inhabitants of the town. These include Tom Jones, Stuart Burrows, Geraint Evans and Dr William Price.
Rhondda Cynon Taf Council’s Cabinet Member for Better Public Services and Transport, Eudine Hanagan said:
“The gradual regeneration of Pontypridd is becoming visible to all who visit, live in and work in the town centre.”
“The new boards are hugely informative and I’m sure will provide an invaluable resource for visitors to Pontypridd – again our commitment to the regeneration of Pontypridd has taken another step forward and I look to the future of the town centre with confidence and reassurance.
The local authority is determined to do all in its power to ensure that Pontypridd is restored as a major shopping destination, not only with Rhondda Cynon Taf, but within the South Wales Valleys.”
Local residents however are not quite as optimistic, Tom Cann had this to say: “If people want to do their shopping then they have a much better selection of places to go in Cardiff, If you want to buy clothes in Ponty then you have a choice of about five shops, and it only costs a couple of quid to get into Cardiff and that’s with a return ticket.”
Shannon Smyth another resident said that: “I never use the town for shopping, well sometimes I use the Iceland, but it’s only because it is the closest super market. When I have a choice I always go into Cardiff I just don’t think Pontypridd can compete”
Filed under: Uncategorized
Plaid Cymru’s election promise of creating a National Welsh Medium Education Strategy has been scheduled to come into effect by the end of March 2009.
The One Wales Government has confirmed that a plan to ensure the provision of Welsh medium education from nursery right through to further and higher education.
The spokesman for Plaid Cymru, Alun Ffred Jones AM said;
“All parties in Wales claim to be committed to the Welsh Language, but only through Plaid’s decision to become a party of government has this become a reality. What’s needed on this issue is leadership on a national level and some fresh thinking from the Assembly Government’s Education Department.”
“Plaid Cymru has always wanted to establish the right for parents to choose Welsh-medium education for their children. I hope that the One Wales Government will now use the next 12 months to engage with parents, teachers, learners and anyone else who wants to see this strategy implemented. This has to be a thorough plan which will lead to a truly bilingual Wales.”
“I hope that the One Wales Government will now use the next 12 months to engage with parents, teachers, learners and anyone else who wants to see this strategy implemented.”
Helen Richards a mother of three from Bridgend had this to say;
“I thinks it’s a great idea, but I wish that they would have brought this in sooner, my two oldest boys have missed there chance now, they should have brought this in years ago. I wish that I had an opportunity like this when I was back at school. If I want to learn now I have to go to night classes”
At the moment 23% of Welsh children attend Welsh medium schools, and this level is set to rise in the coming years with more parents wanting to give their children the opportunity of attending a bilingual school.
The use of Welsh in the past ten years has boomed since after the introduction of the Welsh Language Act 1993 and the Government of Wales Act 1998. These acts ensure that both Welsh and English languages are given equal status with welsh being mandatory taught up until the age of 16.
But it has not all been good news for the Welsh language, the proposed daily newspaper Y Byd (“The World”) that was scheduled to be launched on 3 March 2008 has been abandoned.
The owners, Dyddiol claimed that the paper had been scupperd due to ‘insufficient’ funding from the Welsh Assembly.
This calling into question whether the assembly was truly serious when it stated;
“We will expand the funding and support for Welsh-medium magazines and newspapers, including the establishment of a Welsh-language daily newspaper.”
Filed under: Uncategorized
Based on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel “Oil!”, There Will Be Blood is quite possibly a modern master piece. Paul Thomas Anderson directs in his best film to date, building on the success of Magnolia, and Boogie Nights.
The film is complex yet immensely satisfying at the same time, and will undoubtedly leave all the other cinematic offerings of 2008 in its oil slick of a shadow.
Daniel Day-Lewis brilliantly plays the lead as oil man Daniel Plainview, a character as complex as the film. Greedy and violent in one instance then kind and generous in the other. Day-Lewis skilfully does a wondrous job in bringing this juxtapose character to life.
The film its self begins with an intriguing 10 minute scene in near silence showing Plainview attempting to mine silver, and in the process badly breaking his leg. If nothing else, this foreshadowing how the film will eventually end.
Fast forward 15 years and Daniel is now a well off oil prospector complete with a son H.W. (Dillon Freasier), and a Magnum P.I. style moustache.
After a tip off from a mysterious ‘Paul’, Plainview learns that there is a fortune of oil for the taking in the small town of Little Boston.
Travelling there he proceeds to buy up all the land he can, before the main competitors (Standard Oil) have the chance.
In doing so however he meets the ultimate source of his undoing Eli Sunday (The younger brother of Paul).
Eli (played by Little Miss Sunshine‘s Paul Dano) also delivers an incredible performance as the narcissistic prophet from the ‘Church of the Third Revelation’.
Both Daniel and Eli predictably have engaging confrontations as both of their personalities inevitably clash together, with fantastically watchable results for the audience.
Plainview then realises that to maximise his profits he must build a pipe line from
Little Boston, to the coast where the oil can then cheaply shipped. In doing so however he comes into to contact with his competitors, which if this were a conventional film the plot would have shifted.
However it instead concentrates on the mindset of Plainview showing us as much as is possible of his character.
What we see from this in depth look at Plainview’s state of mind is just how cruel and callous he really is, from the way he coldly deals with his ‘brother’ to the way he finally betrays his son.
If this film has a moral message then clearly it is that greed is truly evil and that it ultimately corrupts. As Plainview grows richer and more powerful the more degraded and isolated he becomes.
The film also however has obvious connections to the current war we find our selves facing, but in my opinion There Will Be Blood is simply a great film.
