Carbon dating and the Jersey case

Jersey murder inquiry 'unlikely'

The police chief leading the Jersey abuse inquiry says attempts to carbon date remains from at least five children are unlikely to yield results.

So far, police have found 65 milk teeth and more than 100 bone fragments during their search of the former Haut de la Garenne children's home.

Radiocarbon dating can be a useful tool in police investigations when combined with other forensic information.

It's unlikely that carbon dating will be able to shed much light on the dates of these individuals Prof Gerry McCormac, Queen's University Belfast

The technique relies on a simple natural phenomenon: living organisms contain both stable forms of the element carbon and a radioactive form, called carbon-14 (C14).

Humans take this radioactive carbon into their bodies by eating plants and animals. But when an organism dies, the C14 inside it begins to disappear.

Scientists can use this fact to measure how much radioactive carbon is left and how much has disappeared.

By comparing this against modern levels, they can calculate a date for the death of the organism. This is done by testing C14 in organic matter such as bone, teeth or seeds.

Nuclear contamination

However, attempts to date organic remains from after the late 1950s are affected by one of the consequences of 20th Century politics.

"Nuclear bomb testing that started in the late 1950s significantly contaminated the whole of the atmosphere. So you have very high levels of carbon-14 through that period that didn't exist prior to that," said Professor Gerry McCormac, an expert on radiocarbon dating from Queen's University Belfast.

"When we're going back in time, you don't have that effect, it's really the natural radiocarbon you're using to get the measurements from."

This nuclear "enrichment" can be very useful in forensic cases dealing with remains from after the 1950s. If the remains from Jersey are from after this time, the signal of nuclear tests should be obvious.

But even before the "bomb carbon" period, humans were already disrupting the natural radiocarbon signal by burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas.

Fossil fuels contain no carbon-14; the organic matter is so old - millions of years old - that all the radioactive C14 has decayed away.

Misleading signal

Fossil fuel burning releases carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. This CO2 is composed only of the stable forms of carbon, but no radioactive C14.

This then mixes with existing atmospheric CO2, diluting the overall concentration of radioactive carbon.

Radiocarbon dating is used in a variety of scientific fields

Dr Gordon Cook, from the radiocarbon lab at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) in Glasgow, explained: "A plant takes up the C14, an animal eats the plant, the animal looks as though it has a lower C14 activity for a living organism than it should do.

"It dies, you measure it, it looks as though it died some time ago when, in fact, it only just died."

Deputy police chief Lenny Harper, who is leading the Jersey abuse investigation, told the BBC that one bone from the Haut de la Garenne site, which had been radiocarbon dated yielded "a probability the person had died in 1650, but also a smaller probability they had died in 1960".

In addition, the natural production of C14 fluctuated between 1670 and 1950, making it very difficult to date material from this period anyway.

All of this means that if the Haut de la Garenne remains are pre-1950s, or just on the cusp of the nuclear era, it might be difficult to distinguish them from much older remains - those, say, from the 19th or 18th Centuries.

Burial context

"It's unlikely that carbon dating will be able to shed much light on the dates of these individuals," said Professor McCormac.

"What it could do is rule out a prehistoric origin - for example, if this was an old burial site of 200 years ago or beyond that, carbon dating could tell you that. What it couldn't tell you, to within a few years, is when that individual died."

Radiocarbon dating can also be difficult if the bones are very small or fragmentary. This is because scientists rely on the bone retaining significant amounts of the protein collagen to test. Extensively burned remains are also unsuitable for dating.

Professor McCormac explained: "The context of where they found [the human material] and the buildings around them and the strata in which they were found will typically give them more information than a carbon date would."

Deputy chief officer Harper explained: "We have the evidence that the bones were placed where we found them no earlier than the late 60s/early 70s. We have the evidence that they were burned.

"We have the evidence they were deliberately concealed. And we seem to have evidence - we think - that they were moved from one part of the building to another."

He told the BBC's Today programme that it was always possible the human remains were much older.

"Then you have to ask, why would people go to all the trouble of moving the bones, of burning them at some stage, of hiding them in a different place and then of covering them up."

A quick fix for global warming

By Chris Bowlby BBC News

It's the stuff of science fiction, but could mirrors in space or sea water sprayed in the air be shortcuts to halt global warming?

"It's Dr Strangelove. But it's the kind of Dr Strangelove you could see governments really using."

That's how one expert describes geo-engineering - the idea that we can use a kind of technical quick fix to cool the planet if global warming accelerates.

Plans for geo-engineering can sound bizarre.

Smoke and mirrors to cool the planet?

They range from placing millions of tiny mirrors in space to reflect back some of the sun's rays, to using rockets to launch tons of sulphur into the stratosphere to create a kind of planetary sun shade.

That plan was inspired by watching what happened after the eruption of the Mount Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines in 1991.

Sulphur ejected into the atmosphere spread around in subsequent months to create a layer believed to have had a temporary cooling effect as it blocked some of the sun's warmth.

Other suggestions include spraying sea water into the atmosphere to make it cloudier, or pumping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere or out of the oceans.

Until recently, policymakers have dismissed this as science fiction, a complete distraction from the fight against global warming. Now, attitudes seem to be changing.

FIND OUT MORE Analysis is on Radio 4 on Thursday, 31 July at 2030 BST Or listen to it later on the BBC iPlayer

"I think we're faced with such an enormous problem that we need to do all the research we can to see if there are any geo-engineering proposals which work through to the marketplace," says Professor Sir David King, until recently the government's chief scientific adviser.

There are still many scientific doubts about geo-engineering. What might the side effects be? Are such schemes irreversible?

Plan B

But as there is now so much pessimism about whether governments will ever agree to reduce carbon emissions enough, more and more scientists say we need to know exactly what our other options are.

Wait till it's too late?

If we don't do any research, says Professor Brian Launder of Manchester University, who is editing a new study of geo-engineering for the Royal Society, "we won't have anything that we can bring into place in 2030 say, when suddenly the world is at a crisis point".

Some forms of geo-engineering are also surprisingly cheap. That leads to fears that governments facing particular climatic problems might go it alone.

China and India, which have growing scientific capabilities, could use geo-engineering as a way of challenging international climate policy if they saw it as too skewed towards the interests of Western countries.

Or, even more alarmingly, an individual might decide to play with the global climate.

Professor David Victor, of Stanford University, imagines a scenario in which someone is frustrated at the lack of international action. "[They] could buy the aircraft and buy the rockets and just start doing some geo-engineering off their own island."

James Bond films of the future, he adds, might not feature Goldfinger. It could be Greenfinger, hand hovering over the global thermostat.

Running on empty

So how can geo-engineering be policed? It's a major challenge.

While climate change treaties try to persuade everyone to do the same things and reduce emissions, agreements on geo-engineering would be about stopping something happening - something we don't yet understand.

Efforts to cut emissions falter

But Sir David King says we should at least begin to discuss it as part, and still a minor part, of the climate change policy debate.

"We need to make sure that there is control and validation over any of these procedures. But at the same time let's not take attention away from the major issue of removing our dependence on fossil fuels."

The dilemma is painful. Discuss a technical fix for future climate change, and people assume there's less need to cut carbon emissions now. Ignore it, and possibly face a kind of climate anarchy.

Others suggest geo-engineering should be embraced with enthusiasm, such as Julian Morris, of International Policy Network, a think tank sceptical about climate change and in favour of free market solutions.

"Investments in geo-engineering research are almost certainly the biggest bang for the buck that one could get in terms of addressing catastrophic climate change - a much, much bigger return than, for example, trying to control carbon emissions at the moment," he says.

"In fact diverting money into controlling carbon emissions and away from geo-engineering is probably morally irresponsible."

There is no one obvious solution

Most scientists and governments say geo-engineering remains hazardous and is only a partial fix. They hope it will never be needed. But if global warming becomes more and more threatening, some will see it as the lesser risk.

Professor Scott Barrett, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and an expert on international environmental agreements, says he ignored geo-engineering for many years.

Now, faced with the failure to reduce emissions enough, he says there are no easy options.

"[Geo-engineering] is not something we're going to want to use as a first choice. I think the chances are likely that it will eventually be used, for better or worse, in circumstances in which the risks of not using it seem to be higher than the risks of using it."

Geological mapping gets joined up

First global geological map on the web

The world's geologists have dug out their maps and are sticking them together to produce the first truly global resource of the world's rocks.

The OneGeology project pools existing data about what lies under our feet and has made it available on the web.

Led by the British Geological Survey (BGS), the project involved geologists from 80 nations.

Between 60% and 70% of the Earth's surface is now available down to the scale of 1:1,000,000.

"That's 1cm for every 10km of the Earth's surface," explained Ian Jackson from the BGS and leader of the OneGeology Project.

"With that resolution, people can focus in on a small part of their city.

The project pools existing data on the world's rocks

"Eventually, people will be able to get up close and see the rocks beneath their house."

Mr Jackson said this was because the geological maps were being constantly updated.

"Every time someone bores a hole in the ground, and hauls out some rock, we can refine our maps a little bit more."

Project organisers explained that what is novel about this project is that it takes local geological information and makes it global.

Useful rocks

The resource displays geological information with the use of a "virtual globe", in much the same way as Google Earth now presents satellite images.

Eventually, it is hoped that the geological maps will be detailed enough to help companies find the Earth's exploitable resources, such as minerals and oil.

Mr Jackson suggested that the project should encourage the mining of minerals in developing countries, by making maps available that were previously unavailable to outside investors.

The developers of the system added that it would also help scientists and engineers learn more about the Earth and its environmental changes.

"Rocks are not inert, they influence the supply of water and the formation of soil, and so impact flooding and agriculture."

How low can you go?

Researchers at the BGS hope that by making geological surveys global, they can encourage "big science" - research that no one country or geological survey could do on its own.

By crossing national borders, the "joined-up geology" should foster international initiatives that will target global problems, such as climate change.

"Geological surveys across the world are involved in trying to work out how you put CO2 underground and keep it there, and these sorts of databases are going to be required."

At present, most of the globe is available at the scale of 1:1,000,000.

"However, some nations take the view that 1:1,000,000 is too commercially sensitive to release," conceded Mr Jackson.

"Other parts of the world have not been mapped thoroughly enough to give us the resolution we would like."

The project is the first global geological map that is constantly updated, so the resolution will only get better. In France and Britain, users of the OneGeology resource can already look at the rocks that lie directly beneath their feet in 3D.

The robot that loves to be hugged

A robot love story: The University of the West of England's David McGoran takes his Heart Robot on a touchy feely tour, allowing it to come face to face with a spider-like robot built by Matt Denton of Micromagic Systems.

A robot that "enjoys" being cuddled and stroked has gone on display at London's Science Museum.

The Heart Robot could be among the first robots to signify a new era of "emotional machines" used for medical treatment and enjoyment, according to one of its inventors.

It has a beating heart which rises when the body is shaken, but slows down when treated calmly.

In addition, Heart's eyes flutter in response to touch.

David McGoran, of the University of the West of England, predicts the part-puppet, part-machine creation he helped develop is an example of how robots will increasingly adopt human characteristics.

Ethical questions

"Right now we're seeing the first implementations in toys," he told BBC News. "There are little robotic dinosaurs. There's a new robotic toy from the film Wall-E that's coming out, and that's a very expressive robot."

Nevertheless he believes there could be major implications for social care, with research already taking place into giving elderly care homes robots that express emotions.

The 'ic Hexapod' tracks human faces and takes photos.

"This raises really interesting social and ethical questions," said Mr McGoran.

He added that there could be many benefits, particularly for people taking medical treatment. "If (scientists) can put this natural interface into robots then it would be much easier for us to relate to (robots)."

The Heart Robot is on display alongside a face-tracking insect-like robot.

The "ic Hexapod" by Micromagic Systems has been programmed to recognise human facial features and follow people as they move around.

Like the Heart Robot, it is billed as an example of the increasingly sophisticated ways in which machines are able to recognise and mimic human behaviour.

Video websites 'must vet content'

YouTube said it believed it was a safe environment for children

YouTube has been criticised by MPs, who say it must do more to vet its content.

In a review of net safety, the Culture, Media and Sport select committee said a new industry body should be set up to protect children from harmful content.

It also said it should be "standard practice" for sites hosting user-generated content to review material proactively.

YouTube's owners said the site had strict rules and a system that allowed users to report inappropriate content.

The committee also wants a rethink on how best to classify video games - but there is disagreement over who should run the new ratings system.

MPs say the same body which gives age ratings to films - the British Board of Film Classification - should be in charge, but the games industry supports its own voluntary code.

Effective

In its report, the committee said that some websites it had monitored as part of its review had a "lax" approach to removing illegal content.

It said it was "shocked" that the industry standard for removing child abuse images was 24 hours.

FROM THE TODAY PROGRAMME More from Today programme

Google, the firm which owns YouTube, said it was confident the video-sharing site was safe for children.

"We have strict rules on what's allowed, and a system that enables anyone who sees inappropriate content to report it to our 24/7 review team and have it dealt with promptly," said a spokesman.

A direct link from every YouTube page makes the process easy, he added.

"Given the volume of content uploaded on our site, we think this is by far the most effective way to make sure that the tiny minority of videos that break the rules come down quickly," he said.

The committee acknowledged that the volume of content on sites such as YouTube - which has 10 hours of videos uploaded every minute - made it unrealistic to watch every video before it went online.

But, it said that the practice of removing clips only after they are flagged up by users was not working either.

Dark side

Self regulation had resulted in an "unsatisfactory piecemeal approach which lacks consistency and transparency," the committee concluded.

While it recommended the creation of an industry body responsible for policing the web, it stopped short of making regulation mandatory.

The body - likely to be known as the child internet safety council - will be set up later this year.

"The internet has transformed our lives and is overwhelmingly a force for good. However there is a dark side and many parents are rightly anxious," said committee chairman John Whittingdale.

A clip of a gang rape on YouTube was used as one example of the "dark side" of the net.

Other sites which promote extreme diets, self-harm and suicide were also cited.

Scrabulous game back on Facebook

The round tiles of all the all-new Wordscraper

Scrabulous is back on Facebook but the popular word game has a new name, new rules and circular tiles.

Developers suspended the game for users in US and Canada on Tuesday, after legal action by Hasbro, the makers of Scrabble.

But developers have resurrected it and called it Wordscraper, a change which may help them beat legal action.

Hasbro is suing the Calcutta-based founders of the game, claiming they are infringing its copyright and trademark.

Lost for words?

Scrabulous has been one of the most popular applications on Facebook, regularly racking up more than 500,000 users each day.

But its similarity to Scrabble had raised the hackles of Hasbro, the owner of Scrabble's North American rights.

It sued Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, the Indian brothers behind the game, in federal court.

The tweaks to the game - which includes allowing users to design custom boards - may give the Scrabulous developers an advantage in any legal action.

"It's going to come down to the little things like squares and circles and double, triple and so on," said Ethan Horwitz, an intellectual property lawyer at King and Spalding in New York. "What they have done is taking a big step in the right direction, but I don't think it's a big enough step."

In a statement, Hasbro said "it will evaluate every situation individually and take actions as appropriate".

Fans have mounted a vigorous defence campaign since the joint owners of Scrabble, Mattel and Hasbro, announced their intention to sue the Facebook developers back in January.

Hasbro had asked Facebook to block access following the launch of its own official online version of Scrabble.

Facebook said the developers took the decision to suspend the game.

Schumacher crash stuns car dealer

Michael Schumacher was unhurt in the collision in Lydd on Sunday

A Kent car dealer who was sent flying when a van struck a barrier was shocked to discover the driver was the German ex-Formula 1 ace, Michael Schumacher.

Martin Kingham, 39, said he was closing the security gate at his premises in Lydd on Sunday afternoon when a Fiat van struck the end of it.

The barrier hit his leg "sending him spinning" on to the bonnet of a car.

Police called to the incident said they helped both men to swap details and no further action was needed.

Mr Kingham was unhurt, while only minor damage was caused to Schumacher's van in the collision outside Millfield Motors, just before 1600 BST.

'Penny dropped'

He recalled how the police officer called to the scene said: "That chap is claiming to be Michael Schumacher, and I said, 'You know what, he doesn't half look like him'.

"Then the penny suddenly dropped. When I phoned my business partner later and told him that you'll never guess who I've been run over by, he wouldn't believe me.

Martin Kingham explains what happened

"Obviously being a car salesman we do like a wind up but the difference with this story is that it is actually true.

"Michael's entourage turned up and he left."

A spokesman for the seven-time Formula 1 world champion confirmed the incident had taken place and that Schumacher had co-operated with police.

Pub News - The Publican

Top stories:

Government to ban 'tip top-ups' to minimum wage

Move to protect low-paid staff may backfire, warns industry

BSkyB posts £127m loss

Media giant says revenues up but profits are down

Beer sales plummet in on-trade

New BBPA figures reveal like-for-like sales down 10.6 per cent

Pub garden weeds out smoking ban woes

The Walrus Social is Raising the Bar with its innovative garden

German smoke ban to be partially overturned, court rules

Small pubs to be permitted to allow smoking

Beer Hunter collection lives on

Oxford Brookes University unveils The Michael Jackson Collection

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• Portman Group finds ciders in breach of code
• Bar Sport goes into administration
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Live fish caught at record depth

A live deep-sea fish has been caught at a record depth of 2,300m on the hot vents of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Three shrimp species were also pulled to the surface, researchers report in the journal Deep-Sea Research.

Scientists have engineered a new device that allows recovery of live animals under their natural pressure at greater depths than previously achieved.

Next they hope to be able to transfer the animals into an experimental lab to study their normal biology.

"Pressurised recovery has been around for the past 30 years, but this is the deepest fish-capture under pressure - the previous record was 1,400m. This is also the first time pressurised capture has occurred at a hydrothermal vent," said Dr Bruce Shillito, marine biologist at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France.

The shrimp species were caught at 1,700m (5,600ft; Mirocaris fortunata and Chorocaris chacei) and 2,300m (7,500ft; Rimicaris exoculata) at two vent fields, Lucky Strike and Rainbow, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7525552.stm

Olympic link to early 'computer'

The device is a unique piece of ancient technology

A 2,100-year-old "computer" found in a Roman shipwreck may have acted as a calendar for the Olympic Games, scientists report in Nature journal.

The Antikythera Mechanism has puzzled experts since its discovery by Greek sponge divers in 1901.

Researchers have long suspected the ancient clockwork device was used to display astronomical cycles.

A team has now found that one of the dials records the dates of the ancient Olympiad.

This could have been to provide a benchmark for the passage of time.

The device is made up of bronze gearwheels and dials, and scientists know of nothing like it until at least 1,000 years later.

Social importance

Tony Freeth, a member of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, said he was "astonished" at the discovery.

"The Olympiad cycle was a very simple, four-year cycle and you don't need a sophisticated instrument like this to calculate it. It took us by huge surprise when we saw this.

"But the Games were of such cultural and social importance that it's not unnatural to have it in the Mechanism."

The technique of X-ray computed tomography gave the researchers a 3D view of its 29 surviving gears. High-resolution imaging provided them with a close-up of tiny letters engraved on the surface.

The device's "subsidiary dial" was once thought to be a 76-year "callippic" calendar.

However, Mr Freeth and his colleagues have now been able to establish from its inscriptions that it displays the 4-year Olympiad cycle.

Instead of one Olympics as there is today, the ancient Olympiads, called the Panhellenic Games, comprised four games spread over four years.

'Eureka' moment

The four sectors of the dial are inscribed with a year number and two Panhellenic Games: the "crown" games of Isthmia, Olympia, Nemea and Pythia; and two lesser games: Naa (held at Dodona) and a second game which has not yet been deciphered.

In addition, the team was able to identify the names of all 12 months, which belong to the Corinthian family of months.

Corinth, in central Greece, established colonies in north-western Greece, Corfu and Sicily, where Archimedes was established.

Archimedes, whose list of exploits included an explanation for the displacement of water and a screw pump that bears his name today, died there in 212 BC.

The Antikythera Mechanism was "almost certainly made many decades" after his death, according to Alexander Jones, a professor at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York, US.

If it came from Syracuse, the dial could have been made by the school of scientists and instrument-makers he inspired.

The priceless artefact was found by a sponge diver amid other treasures on a wreck near the tiny island of Antikythera between Crete and the mainland. It is on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

Your ears only

Your ears only

Test your knowledge of the Bond themes

Secret lovers. Hidden bank accounts. And still no sign of a plane wreck...

When adventurer Steve Fossett seemingly disappeared off the face of the Earth last September, his many admirers couldn’t quite believe he had perished on something as mundane as a joyride in a light aircraft above the Nevada desert in the U.S.

The round-the-world flying legend had crashed hot-air balloons and planes across the globe but had always emerged unscathed. As far as his fans were concerned, the first man to fly solo around the world in a hot-air balloon was a survivor.

No body or wreckage has ever been found since Fossett failed to return from his last flight. And now — five months after a judge officially declared the 63-year-old financier dead — investigators have made the astonishing suggestion that he faked his own death.

Steve Fossett, right, is kissed by Richard Branson after making an emergency landing in February 2006

READ THE FASCINATING STORY -

Disco Greats - Picture Round

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Kick-Off! - Picture Round

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Movie Death - Picture Round

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One Hit Wonders - Picture Round

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Bees join hunt for serial killers

The team's bees were identified with small numbers

The way bumblebees search for food could help detectives hunt down serial killers, scientists believe.

Just as bees forage some distance away from their hives, so murderers avoid killing near their homes, says the University of London team.

This "geographic profiling" works so well in bees, the scientists say future experiments on the animals could now be fed back to improve crime-solving.

The team's work is reported in the Royal Society journal Interface.

"We're really hopeful that we can improve the model for criminology," Dr Nigel Raine, from Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL), told BBC News.

Understanding how bees are recruited to flowers is much easier than understanding the complex thoughts of a serial murderer Dr Nigel Raine

The scientist is working with colleagues Steve Le Comber and Kim Rossmo, a former detective in the US, to tag bees with tiny coloured numbers and follow them from their nests to flower patches.

The researchers' analysis describes how bees create a "buffer zone" around their hive where they will not forage, to reduce the risk of predators and parasites locating the nest. It turns out that this pattern of behaviour is similar to the geographic profile of criminals stalking their victims.

"Most murders happen close to the killer's home, but not in the area directly surrounding a criminal's house, where crimes are less likely to be committed because of the fear of getting caught by someone they know," Dr Raine explained.

Food importance

Understanding the geographic profiles of animals is interesting to biologists as it helps them predict the locations of important feeding grounds, and knowing these areas will inform more effective conservation measures.

This approach works well for very different creatures, from bees and bats to great white sharks.

The team has also been attaching radio tags to find out more about bee behaviour.

But what is more unusual is that models used to describe bee foraging can be applied back to human behaviour, the researchers say.

Instead of using information about the distribution of flowers visited by bees to explain the insects' behaviour, criminologists' models will use details about crime scenes, robbery locations, abandoned cars, even dead bodies, to hone the search for a suspect.

"Bees have much simpler brains and so understanding how bees are recruited to flowers is much easier than understanding the complex thoughts of a serial murderer," Dr Raine said.

More broadly, the London-based team hopes its work will lead to a better understanding of how one of the most familiar animals in nature goes about its daily business.

"Bees are hugely important to ecosystems and also important to humans," Dr Raine told BBC News.

"Bees' pollination 'services' account for about one in three mouthfuls of food that we eat as humans. They pollinate a huge diversity of our fruit and vegetable crops.

"If we don't know how bees forage then we don't really understand pollination, and that is quite detrimental to how we feed ourselves; which is becoming an increasing problem with bigger populations."

Dr Raine's team is also using tiny Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags - the same technology used to track stock in warehouses or supermarkets - to monitor the movements of bees.

The miniature tags are glued to the backs of the insects to record their movements in and out of the hive.

Dear Diary

He was the author of Animal Farm, 1984 and some of the most memorable political writing of the 20th Century.

But, as his diaries show, George Orwell was also interested in travel, food - and even slugs.

The diaries, written from 1938, cover the descent of Europe into war, as well as Orwell's travels in Morocco, following his sojourn in Catalonia, fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

They cover the insightful and the mundane - he even includes newspaper clippings of sloe gin recipes.

Orwell divided his diaries - one for political writing, one domestic

Now those diaries will be made available online, by the Orwell Prize - a prize for political writing set up in his name.

Orwell and his wife Eileen lived in Morocco for six months. Among a collection of papers and diaries at London's UCL are their travel papers for Morocco, photographs of their time in the country and even the menus from the ship they travelled on.

Orwell wrote his political observations in a separate diary - begun on 7 September 1938.

But exactly 70 years after the date of the first diary entry, on 9 August 1938, until 70 years after the last entry in 2012, the Orwell prize website will publish diary entries online daily - in blog form.

And Orwell's son, Richard Blair, has read some of those diary extracts for the Today programme.

SOUTHWOLD 1938

August 22: Warmish day, with showers. Nights are getting colder & more like autumn. A few oaks beginning to yellow very slightly. After the rain enormous slugs crawling about, one measuring about 3" long.

Large holes, presumably ear-holes, some distance behind head. They were of two distinct colours, some light fawn & others white, but both have a band of bright orange round the edge of the belly, which makes one think they are of the same species & vary individually in colour. On the tip of their tails they had blobs of gelatinous stuff like the casing of water-snail's eggs.

A large beetle, about the size of a female stag-beetle but not the same, extruding from her hindquarters a yellow tube about the length of herself. Possibly some sort of tube through which eggs are laid?

GIBRALTAR 1938

Population of town about 20,000, largely Italian origin but nearly all bilingual English-Spanish.

Many Spaniards work here and return into Spain every night. At least 3,000 refugees from Franco territory. Authorities now trying to get rid of these on pretext of overcrowding. Impossible to discover wages and food prices.

Standard of living apparently not very low, no barefooted adults and few children. Fruit and vegetables cheap, wine and tobacco evidently untaxed or taxed very little (English cigarettes 3/- a hundred, Spanish 10d. a hundred), silk very cheap. No English sugar or matches, all Belgian. Cows' milk 6d. a pint. Some of the shopkeepers are Indians and Parsees.

Spanish destroyer Jose Luis Diez lying in harbour. A huge shell-hole, probably four or five feet across, in her side, just above water-level, on port side about fifteen to twenty feet behind bow. Flying Spanish Republican flag. The men were at first apparently prevented from going ashore, now allowed at certain hours to naval recreational ground (i.e. not to mix with local population). No attempt being made to mend the ship.

Overheard local English resident: "It's coming right enough. Hitler's going to have Czecho-Slovakia all right. If he doesn't get it now he'll go on and on till he does. Better let him have it at once. We shall be ready by 1941."

MARRAKECH 1938

Day before yesterday still unbearably hot, yesterday cooler but night very stuffy. Very hot today at midday, in the afternoon a violent dust-storm, much thunder & then fairly heavy rain for about an hour. Fearful mud in the bazaar in consequence. Air much fresher after the rain.

The diaries include cuttings and drawings

Primitive drill used by Arabs - not certain whether merely drill for wood or used for stone & earthenware - constructed as follows. The drill is attached to an upright which passes through a heavy round stone of 5-10 lb.

Above this is a cross-piece which fits round the upright but is movable. From the ends of the cross-piece strings go to the top of the upright. These are twisted round the upright & the cross-piece worked up & down, causing the upright & therefore the drill to rotate. The stone serves merely as a weight.

MARRAKECH 1938

Summer Time observed in Spanish Morocco, not in French. Franco soldiers at the stations dressed almost exactly like those of the Spanish Government.

Luggage searched on train, but very carelessly, by typical Spanish official. Another official entered and impounded all French newspapers, even those favourable to Franco. French travellers very much amused by this and ditto the official, who evidently realized the absurdity of it.

VILLA SIMONT 1939

Have just returned after spending a week at Taddert in the Atlas, about 95 km. from Marrakech.

Eric Blair - or George Orwell - was a journalist, essayist and novelist

The Chleuh seem to be rather remarkable people. The men are not greatly different in appearance from the Arabs, but the women are exceedingly striking. In general they are rather fair, sometimes fair enough to have red in their cheeks, with black hair and remarkable eyes. None are veiled, and all wear a cloth around their heads tied with blue or black cords, the dominant colours of their dress being red and blue. All the women have tattooing on their chins and sometime down each cheek.

Their manner is much less timid than that of most Arab women. Virtually the whole population is ragged and there is no evidence of any being richer than the others. The children for the most part have nothing on but a ragged blanket. Begging is almost universal, and the women have discovered that their jewellery (amber and rough silver, some of it exceedingly well worked) is liked by Europeans and will sell it for prices that cannot be much above the value of the silver.

The children beg as soon as they can walk and will follow for miles over mountain tracks in hopes of a sou. Tobacco is greatly appreciated by those who do smoke, but I notice that a great many do not, and none of the women.

Row changed opening of Dad's Army

The Dad's Army opening sequence

A row between BBC bosses prompted a complete change to the opening titles of classic comedy Dad's Army, archive letters have revealed.

BBC One's controller at the time, Paul Fox, ordered shots of refugees and Nazi troops to be removed from the sequence as he found them offensive.

They were replaced with the now famous swastika-headed arrow sequence.

The BBC's archives are marking the much-loved series' 40th anniversary by releasing documents and pictures.

Michael Mills, the corporation's head of comedy at the time, expressed his "profound disquiet" and "shock" at changes to the title sequence.

The series about the World War II Home Guard ran from 1968 to 1977

A memo in the archive revealed that Mr Mills thought it "right and essential" that viewers were shown the Nazi threat faced by the Home Guard.

"I cannot help wondering whether we, in the comedy department, are controlled by different standards, i.e. clowns must stay clowns," he added.

They reveal that Fox initially "felt uneasy" about the series but admitted he had been wrong when it became a hit.

In a letter to Dad's Army's producer David Croft in 1970 he said: "You made an enormous success of it and like millions of others I am only sorry it has come to an end. Temporarily, I hope.

"Looking back to that first programme, I am glad to say you were right 100%.

Breakthrough territory?

"Thanks to your persistence - and despite that title change - the show became a great hit."

Croft's plan had been to illustrate the dangers faced by the elderly volunteers of World War II's Home Guard, the central characters in the show.

However, at the time Fox was uneasy about whether the series was "advancing comedy's output in other areas" and asked: "Is this really breakthrough territory?"

The much-loved show ran from 1968 to 1977 and its popularity has endured to this day.

Clive Dunn, Arthur Lowe and Ian Lavender starred in the series, co-created by Croft and Jimmy Perry.

As well as the internal BBC memos, the online archive also features a behind-the-scenes photo gallery and letters from the actors.

Jonathan Ross will be hosting a one-off special to commemorate the 40th anniversary on BBC Two on Sunday, 3 August at 1900 BST (1800 GMT).

Keys and White record Bond theme

Jack White wrote and produced the track, which he has recorded with Keys

Alicia Keys and Jack White have recorded the theme tune for the next James Bond film, Quantum of Solace.

R&B singer Keys has teamed up with the star of rock bands White Stripes and The Raconteurs for Another Way to Die, the first duet in Bond theme history.

The announcement follows speculation that the job would go to British stars Amy Winehouse, Duffy or Leona Lewis.

Quantum of Solace, which will see Daniel Craig return as 007, will be released later this year.

Winehouse was working on a theme with producer Mark Ronson - but that was scrapped because Ronson said the singer was not up to recording.

The new partnership sees the slick and soulful Keys team up with raw and bluesy rocker White.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7532438.stm

Courses for horses

By Chris Summers BBC News

This summer a new racecourse, the first for 80 years, has been added to the sporting calendar and another is due to open next year. But is racing really enjoying a renaissance?

Royal Ascot, Glorious Goodwood, Epsom, Aintree, Cheltenham, Great Leighs, Ffos Las.

Come again?

The rollcall of British racecourses has been supplemented in recent months with the addition of Great Leighs, a floodlit, all-weather track near Chelmsford, Essex.

Northolt Park closed in 1940s, converted into housing estate Stockton shut in 81, now a retail park Great Leighs opened May 2008 Ffos Las due to open July 2009 List of closed courses

Next year it will be joined by Ffos Las, a turf course being built on the site of a former opencast mine in Wales.

Great Leighs and Ffos Las represent the bucking of a seemingly inexorable trend in British leisure - the closure of racecourses.

Between 1900 and 1981, 97 tracks shut, the sound of galloping hooves carried away on the wind.

The last to close was Stockton, near Middlesbrough, in the midst of a crippling recession which had badly affected attendances.

A local history journal reported: "On Tuesday 16th June 1981, as Royal Ascot opened amid the traditional blaze of pomp and glory and glory, lowly Stockton staged its final day's racing."

The course is now buried under a retail and leisure park. Where once hearts entered mouths in the final straight, now there is a Toys R Us and a TK Maxx.

Evening betting

The two new tracks will bring to 61 the number of racecourses in mainland Britain, excluding two in Northern Ireland.

In pictures: Old and new courses

What are the prospects of success for the newcomers? One factor on their side is the chance to benefit from liberalised rules on gambling.

"Prior to the Gambling Act, betting shops could only open in the evenings during the summer," says Pippa Cuckson, a spokeswoman for Great Leighs. "Since September 2007 they have been able to open in winter evenings too and this has led to an increasing demand for races to bet on.

"We are an overtly commercial track, which will host 70 to 80 meetings a year, while Ffos Las is more of a labour of love with a totally different business plan."

Martyn Williams, of Ffos Las, agrees but adds that his Carmarthenshire track is in a very horsey area. "The number of horses per head of population is higher in west Wales than anywhere else in the UK."

He says Ffos Las - which means Blue Ditch in Welsh - is the brainchild of the millionaire boss of a civil engineering firm, Dai Walters, who has invested his own money in the £20m scheme.

Recession proof

Chris Pitt, an expert on old racecourses and author of A Long Time Gone, is surprised that there have been no other closures since 1981.

Attendances are higher now than at any time since World War II Greg Wood

He says that World War II, and the austere years which followed, claimed many tracks. "Many courses were taken over during the war, either to become military camps or to grow crops for the war effort, and 18 of those never re-opened."

Those in urban or suburban areas were swallowed up by the rampant demand for housing, such as Birmingham racecourse in Erdington, sold for £1,250,000 to be replaced by the Bromford estates.

"I was 12 when it closed in 1965 but I spent many happy childhood days there and I still miss it," Mr Pitt says. "It had a straight mile and was a good galloping track.

"Birmingham Corporation needed to find a site for its slum clearance programme and the 180-acre racecourse site was perfect for the 1,900 homes they needed to build."

Echos remain of the site's former life. "There are road names such as Tulyar Close, named after the winner of the 1952 Derby, and Reynoldstown Road, which won two Grand Nationals in the 1930s."

Former jockey Lester Piggott says he still misses the two meetings which once acted as bookends for the flat season, Lincoln in March and Manchester in November. Both courses have now closed.

Lincoln's grandstand is now a community centre - called The Grandstand, while Manchester's is the University of Salford's reception building.

Pony demise

Another casualty of WWII was pony racing, which never regained its pre-war popularity and died out in the 50s, although it remains a draw in Ireland.

A housing estate stands on the former Northolt Park racecourse

Northolt Park, in north-west London, staged pony racing between 1929 and 1951, and was the first course to pioneer the photo finish and starting gates.

In 1929 Pola Negri, a movie star of the time, attended the opening and nine years later the BBC, in one of its first outside broadcasts for television, showed the Pony Derby, for which the prize was £1,050, a considerable sum in 1938.

Today the only reminders are the name of the housing estate - Racecourse - which replaced it, and streets such as Haydock and Ascot avenues.

Greg Wood, racing correspondent for the Guardian, says that running a race course is a business like any other.

"Any course which has survived this long is doing something right. They have different revenue streams - the betting shop levy, gate money, sponsorship and money from using the course on non-race days.

Ffos Las is the dream of Welsh businessman Dai Walters

"Now we have got two opening and it shows how successful racing has become. Attendances are higher now than at any time since the war.

"Racing attracts six million spectators a year, which is second only to football, and British racing employs directly or indirectly 50,000 people."

Stephen Atkin, chief executive of the Racecourse Association, says racing, and betting in particular, are quite resistant to recession. He's confident all remaining tracks can survive.

"Racecourses are run much better now than they were in the early 1980s."

'Fastest sax player' Griffin dies

Johnny Griffin was still performing right up to his death

Jazz saxophonist Johnny Griffin, who played with stars such as Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane, has died aged 80 at his home in western France.

Griffin was found dead on Friday by his wife Miriam, just hours before he was due to give a concert, his agent said.

Once billed as "the world's fastest saxophonist", he had played regular concerts across Europe until his death.

He performed in the Riviera town of Hyeres on the Monday before his death, agent Helene Mandfredi said.

Born in Chicago in 1928, Griffin attended the same school as Nat King Cole and Dinah Washington.

After graduating, he toured with Lionel Hampton's big band before spending two years in the US army.

He built up his reputation with shows in Chicago and New York, and played with Monk and drummer Art Blakey in the late 1950s. His album with Coltrane and Blakey - A Blowing Session - remains one of his best-known works.

He moved to France in 1962 and lived in the Netherlands for a spell in the 1970s before returning to France and settling in the town of Mauprevoir, where he died, his agent said.

Griffin played shows at Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London in May to mark his 80th birthday.

New job please, Carol?

Carol Vorderman was honoured with an MBE in 2000

Carol Vorderman, who is quitting Channel 4 quiz show Countdown, may just have become the first TV presenter to fall victim to the credit crunch.

Her agent said she felt forced to step down when she was told to take a 90% pay cut from a salary reportedly in the region of £1m.

While advertising revenues continue to fall and viewers migrate to digital channels, presenters could face some tough times as television companies tighten their budgets.

The media landscape was very different when Vorderman began her career on Countdown in 1982, aged 21, after her mother spotted a newspaper advert looking for a woman with good mathematical skills to appear as co-host on a quiz show.

The Bedford-born Cambridge graduate soon earned a reputation as a brainbox, coming up with speedy solutions to the show's number puzzles, which frequently stumped the contestants.

Carol Vorderman was booted off Strictly Come Dancing's second episode

The modest programme became a breakout hit - running with almost no changes to its format for the last 26 years.

Speaking of the show's success, Vorderman said: "A lot of television today is quite derivative, but Countdown is a pure idea.

"It's simply based on puzzles and crosswords that never go out of fashion."

For the first 23 years, Vorderman shared the screen with affable Yorkshireman Richard Whiteley and his vivid jackets.

When he died unexpectedly after having heart surgery in 2005, Vordeman said she was "absolutely devastated".

"He was one of life's big, open, funny characters. He was colourful in all ways," she added.

By this time, Vorderman's career had blossomed beyond her role in "numbers corner".

She took a high-profile role on the BBC science show Tomorrow's World in 1995 - but was dropped after taking part in a commercial for Ariel washing powder.

The role was, in the opinion of BBC management, a conflict of interest.

Carol Vorderman is one of the highest paid women on television

'Anorexic transvestite'

Undeterred, Vorderman moved to ITV and presented several shows - among them The Pride of Britain Awards, What Will They Think of Next, Tested to Destruction, How 2 on CITV and the popular Better Homes.

The 47-year-old also hosted Stars And Their Lives, on which Sir Paul McCartney first declared his love for Heather Mills.

In 1999 the presenter embarked on a rigorous diet and exercise regime, swapping her conservative look for a sexier, sophisticated image in the process.

She shrank from a size 14 to a size eight and binned her trouser suits for more glamorous dresses.

At the time she told the Daily Mail newspaper: "I've never felt better. I have bucket loads of energy and I love the effect it has had on my skin and my face."

But in 2003, she entered into a war of words with fashion gurus Trinny and Susannah, branding the former an "anorexic transvestite" and her colleague a "cart-horse in a bin liner".

Vorderman's comments followed the duo's criticism of the strapless mini dress she chose for the Baftas in 2000.

They said: "The problem with Carol Vorderman is that she went from kind of a librarian on Countdown to this sex goddess."

Cashing in

Aside from her television career, Vorderman has penned a number of children's maths books and diet books including the number one best-seller Detox for Life.

Carol Vorderman at the Baftas in 2000

Over the last few years, she has launched several Sudoku products, among them a brain training game called Carol Vorderman's Mind Aerobics, and a video game for the PlayStation 2

Her advertising career landed her in trouble again earlier this year, when debt charities called for her to stop promoting First Plus, a lender that offered debt consolidation loans.

After her contract came to an end, the star decided not to renew her association with the company.

Vorderman has also appeared on Strictly Come Dancing and ITV's Gameshow Marathon, which she won.

Anthea Turner, Ulrika Johnson and Mylene Klass are odds-on favourites to replace her on Countdown according to the betting agent William Hill.

Life sentence

Long Grove was closed in 1992 and the three remaining carriers relocated

For most people, the idea of being judged insane and held in a 1950s asylum is the stuff of nightmares. But to be locked up when you are sane would be regarded as an appalling injustice.

And yet a BBC investigation has revealed that nearly 50 women were locked in an isolation ward in a mental asylum in Surrey - not because they had a mental illness - but because they carried typhoid and were deemed a public health risk.

They were held at Long Grove Hospital - a mental asylum in Surrey - which started admitting carriers of typhoid as early as 1907 and continued through the 1940s and 1950s. Once admitted, those women never left.

READ MORE - http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7523000/7523680.stm

Russia claims world-record dive

The probes were specially adapted to cope with fresh water pressure

Russian scientists say they have broken the world record for the deepest dive in a body of fresh water, plumbing the depths of Lake Baikal in Siberia.

Russian news reports said two manned mini-submarines successfully plunged 1,680m (5,512ft) to the lake's bed.

The mission is part of a two-year plan aimed at conserving the ecosystem of Lake Baikal, which contains about one-fifth of the world's fresh water.

The area was declared a Unesco World Heritage site in 1996.

Russia's Interfax and Itar-Tass news agencies cited expedition organisers as saying that the Mir I and Mir II mini-submarines had touched the bottom of the lake.

"This is a world record for a submarine diving in fresh water," Interfax quoted an expedition organiser as saying.

Before the expedition set off, leader Artur Chilingarov described it as a complex one.

"There are technological problems, fickle weather conditions. Fresh water dictates its own special conditions," he said.

The two 18-tonne mini-submarines were designed to operate in seawater - but have shed hundreds of kilos to make them buoyant enough in less dense fresh water.

Mr Chilingarov said his team would work to overcome those difficulties and put together "a package of practical measures and recommendations" to promote conservation of the lake.

Mr Chilingarov also led a team of scientists to the North Pole in August last year - where they controversially staked Russia's claim by planting a flag on the seabed.

The BBC's James Rogers, at Lake Baikal, says the Baikal expedition is another sign of the Kremlin's desire to show the world the kind of feat a newly confident Russia is capable of.

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Beer sales plummet in on-trade

New BBPA figures reveal like-for-like sales down 10.6 per cent

Beer sales in the on-trade are down 10.6 per cent since last year, according to new figures.

Pubs, bars and restaurants sold 144 million less pints between April and June this year compared to the same quarter last year – 1.6 million pints fewer a day.

Total beer sales in all sectors were down 4.5 per cent in the same quarter.

The figures are included in the UK Quarterly Beer Barometer, a new initiative launched by the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA).

The group also estimated the Treasury has collected £88m less in beer duty and VAT than in the same period last year.

But it said that off-trade sales had continued to rise with a 3.8 per cent increase on April to June 2007, confirming a long-term trend towards home drinking.

The figures add yet more weight to growing concerns over pub closures, the impact of rising prices and shrinking consumer confidence, the BBPA said.

Rob Hayward, the BBPA’s chief executive said: “Beer sales are on the slide and the tax increase in the Budget has made it worse.

“This is hitting Britain’s brewers and pubs hard. It’s also creating a large hole in the Chancellor’s pocket with the Treasury’s tax take also down.

“This must call into question the Government’s planned beer tax escalator. Where’s the logic in taxing more when you’re taking less?”

Beer sales are now at their lowest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s, Hayward added, and down seven million pints a day from the height of the market in 1979.

Over the first half of 2008, on-trade sales are down 9.6 per cent, while off-trade sales are up 7.4 per cent.

Where are the new movie themes?

Batman: The Dark Knight is the latest song-free blockbuster

In the not-so-distant past, every summer blockbuster had to have its own chartbusting theme song.

Bryan Adams did everything he did for Robin Hood; Whitney Houston would always love her Bodyguard; Celine Dion's heart, she assured us, would go on, despite the sinking of the Titanic.

But, musicals like Mamma Mia! aside, recent blockbusters have been bereft of big-name ballads. From X-Men to Pirates of the Caribbean, there isn't a power chord in sight.

Most striking of all is the complete absence of rock music in the rebooted Batman franchise.

Hans Zimmer, who co-wrote the soundtrack for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, says his vision of Gotham City has no room for the likes of U2, Prince and R Kelly.

"There was never any doubt that we were going to be songless," says the Oscar-winning composer.

"And, trust me, we were flooded with requests from every band in the world. I actually had to say no to some really interesting people."

UK'S BEST-SELLING MOVIE THEMES John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John - You're the One that I Want (1.98m sales) Wet Wet Wet - Love is All Around (1.79m) Stevie Wonder - I Just Called To Say I Love You (1.78m) Bryan Adams - Everything I Do (I Do It For You) (1.55m) John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John - Summer Nights (1.52m) Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You (1.36m) Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On (1.35m) pictured Coolio - Gangsta's Paradise (1.25m) Art Garfunkel - Bright Eyes (1.16m) Source: Everyhit.com Talking Shop: Music Supervisor Alex Patsavas

Zimmer's decision, taken in collaboration with director Chris Nolan and co-composer James Newton-Howard, reflects a sea-change in the way film-makers approach soundtracks.

Even when a top 40 artist gets involved, they work in conjunction with the composer to create a song that is part of the fabric of the movie.

Take, for example, Annie Lennox's Oscar-winning Into the West, which runs over the closing credits to Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

Co-written with the trilogy's orchestral composer, Howard Shore, it was conceived as an Elvish lament for those who have sailed across the Sundering Sea.

Hardly top 40 material, then, but it complemented the film perfectly.

Narnia composer Harry Gregson-Williams says he prefers to work in this way - and recently collaborated with quirky New Yorker Regina Spektor for the theme song to Prince Caspian.

"We always wanted a song for the end credits but there was no question of there ever being a song in the body of the film," he says.

"Regina came and spent two and a half weeks with me to make sure that the song felt like it belonged to this film.

"I think it's a very pleasurable way to go."

Gregson-Williams credits include Shrek, Bridget Jones and Armageddon

Gregson-Williams has experience of films being gatecrashed by towering rock songs, having worked on apocalyptic asteroid adventure Armageddon, which was dominated by Aerosmith's I Don't Want To Miss a Thing.

He says those sorts of bombastic anthems "have been left in the '90s" but notes that the last couple of years have seen the emergence of a new type of song-driven soundtrack.

A prime example is 2004 indie comedy Garden State, which was underscored by a collection of achingly hip indie tracks from the likes of Remy Zero, Coldplay and The Shins.

'Ton of money'

The album was compiled as a labour of love by director and star Zach Braff - better known as Scrubs' goofy Dr John Dorian.

It shifted an eye-opening 1.2 million copies in the US, and set a new trend in soundtracks, particularly on offbeat comedies such as Juno and Little Miss Sunshine.

Alexandra Patsavas, music supervisor on TV shows including The OC and Grey's Anatomy plus several Hollywood films, says the pick-and-mix approach serves directors better than shoehorning in a famous name.

"The song has to support the drama," she says. "So I'm less focused on the big blockbuster than making sure every song fits."

Spider-Man 3 bucked the trend with an original soundtrack album

Another advantage of using off-the-peg material by lesser-known bands is that it's cost efficient.

"Artists want a ton of money now," Kathy Nelson, president of film music for Universal Pictures, told Billboard magazine.

"I remember the days when I would spend $300,000 (£151,000) for a soundtrack like Pulp Fiction and I thought the cost would put the label under. Now artists want $300,000 just to show up."

The producers of Spider-man 3 came up against this very problem when they decided to create an old-school blockbuster soundtrack last year.

"It cost a lot of money," admits Jordin Tappis, president of Record Collection Music, who compiled the album, and enlisted the help of Irish rockers Snow Patrol to record the film's big hit, Signal Fire.

"Snow Patrol are signed to Polydor in the UK and Interscope in America," he explains. "Our label at the time went through Warner Bros records, and Sony Pictures has its own music division.

"So there were three giant, major media conglomerates fighting for a percentage of a pie.

"We had to split the profits of each sale. Nobody made a tonne of money, but everyone did well enough to make it a successful endeavour."

It was a mistake shoving all those Prince songs into the first Batman film Hans Zimmer Talking Shop: Hans Zimmer

Tappis believes the financial woes of the music business are largely responsible for the fall-off in big movie themes.

"When album sales were at their peak you had a pretty good chance that, if the film did well and the song connected, you could sell a lot of copies," he says.

"Nowadays, you're not selling as many records and the album becomes a souvenir. People aren't willing to take the upfront risk as much as they used to."

But maybe there's a more pragmatic reason for shutting pop out of the cinema.

"However big a genius Prince is, I do think it was a mistake shoving all those Prince songs into the first Batman film," says Zimmer.

"I remember thinking at the time, 'Oooh, this is going to bite them' and, yes, those songs really date the movie."

Snookered!

Blue, the snooker playing dog that became a star after appearing on
Britain's Got Talent, has come to an untimely end. The dog's owner
accidentally ran over the multi-talented hound after he fell asleep
under his tractor. 'We buried him in the garden and put a cue in with
him,' said heart-broken owner Geoff Davies. Times P17

More than just a Carry On?

Good for laughs, but also for social comment?

Caricatured as low-brow and smutty, Carry On films were never much rated by movie critics. But do they tell us something more profound about the huge social changes in post-war Britain? The BBC's Carolyn Quinn (right) thinks so.

READ MORE - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7525258.stm

10 things we didn't know last week

Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. Having fat friends increases your risk of obesity.
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2. The temperature of outer space is -270C (-454F).
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3. There are about 50 species of ants in the UK.
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4. Drumming is as energetic as playing professional football.
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5. The average Brit's savings would last 52 days if they found themselves out of work.
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6. Scrabble is huge in Senegal.
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7. The actress who played Brian's girlfriend in Life of Brian is now the mayor of Aberystwyth (and could end a local ban on showing her own film).
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8. Faking one's death is known as pseudocide.
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9. Mothers can change the "flavour" of their breast milk by what they eat.
More details (the Times)

10. The next named number up from a trillion is a quadrillion.
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Why are there so many flying ants?

Flying ants engage in their airborne mating ritual once a year

Enlarge Image

Swarms of flying ants have descended upon some parts of the UK over the past few days, only to disappear just as suddenly. Why?

Over the past few days, the phrase "ants in your pants" could be taken literally as the air filled with ants flying en masse, landing on laundry, dropping onto heads and basking on pavements.

Entomologists say the sudden emergence of the black garden ants - known as Lasius Niger - is the insects' annual mating ritual.

Dave Clarke, head keeper at London Zoo's bugs department, describes the annual flight as "the biggest one night stand in the UK".

THE ANSWER Black garden ants engage in annual mating ritual Usually occurs in July or August Timing depends on weather conditions

This airborne ant nuptial has none of the spontaneity of a bug's version of the mile-high club. The males will have been waiting for some weeks for the queens to emerge as days lengthen and weather conditions are just right.

"There has been a rise in temperature and humidity over the past few days. It has been balmy and muggy - like it is pre-thunder - which is perfect," says Stuart Hine, manager of the Insect Information Service at the Natural History Museum.

As ants from thousands of colonies take to the skies at once, the number could be millions of millions.

But why all swarm at the same time? Tom Fayle, who is completing a PHD on ants at Cambridge, says it helps maximise the chances of reproducing. But it is also a self-defence mechanism.

"A swarm keeps predators away - birds tend to eat about one in 10 of the ants."

Discarded wings

After mating, the females lose their wings and go in search of somewhere to hibernate until they lay eggs and set up a new colony.

ANT FACTS 900,000 ant species in the world Workers live for about a year Queen ants can live 10-15 years Biggest colony straddles Italian Riviera and north-west Spain and is 3,600 miles long Source: London Zoo

"Only a few queens are successful," says Mr Fayle, "The majority won't find anywhere available and if they try to join an existing colony, they will be killed."

Once a queen has mated, she will be fertile for the rest of her life, never needing to engage in this ritual again. For the male ants, the picture is less rosy. Having fulfilled their function, they waste away and die.

While the bugs - one of about 50 species of ants in the UK - might annoy, they are harmless and pose no threat to humans, other than the odd nip.

In fact Mr Clarke says the ants pollinate flowers and feed on other insects that plague gardens. Even dead ants and discarded wings quickly disappear, eaten by swifts and swallows.

WHO, WHAT, WHY? A regular feature in the BBC News Magazine - aiming to answer some of the questions behind the headlines

So when can we next expect the next swarm of flying ants?

The annual explosion tends to takes place in the UK in mid or late summer, usually towards the end of July. But although the idea of putting a fixed Flying Ant Day in the calendar has gained some notoriety, Mr Hine says the timing is not that predictable.

Red Arrows at Suffolk Air Show

SEE - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7526517.stm

Carol Vorderman quits Countdown

Vorderman is leaving Countdown after 26 years on the show

Presenter Carol Vorderman has announced she is to step down from presenting the Channel 4 game show Countdown.

The 47-year-old has worked on the word and maths show since it began in 1982, initially alongside Richard Whiteley.

When Whiteley died in 2005, she continued to co-present with Des Lynam and latterly Des O'Connor. He announced on Wednesday he was quitting the show.

Vorderman's manager said she did not think she could go through the process of bonding with another co-presenter.

Countdown was the first programme seen on Channel 4.

The network's director of television Kevin Lygo said he was "extremely sorry to see Carol leave".

Carol wants to thank all of the crew, the thousands of contestants who have played the game and the millions of Countdown viewers, for whom she has the greatest respect John Miles, Vorderman's manager

"She was the first woman on Channel 4 and has made an enormous contribution to the success of Countdown over the last 25 years," he said.

"We hope to work with her again on other projects."

Nearly 5,000 episodes of the quiz show - a mixture of word games and mathematical problems - have been filmed.

'End of an era'

With a high IQ as well as degrees in engineering, Vorderman was seen as a natural to calculate complicated mathematical problems on the programme.

In a statement, Vorderman's manager John Miles said she considered quitting the show when Whiteley died but eventually agreed to continue.

However, he added that she did not think she could go through the process of bonding with another new co-presenter and "just feels that it is time to leave".

He said: "Countdown has been such a huge part of her life for so long.

"Carol wants to thank all of the crew, the thousands of contestants who have played the game and the millions of Countdown viewers, for whom she has the greatest respect.

"She is extremely sad."

Another Countdown regular, lexicographer Susie Dent, said the news was "devastating" for the show.

"It's the end of an era for Countdown, and it's the end of an era for me - Carol has been my colleague, my mentor, and my friend for over 15 years," she added.

"She and Richard together made one of the strongest and enduring shows television has ever seen, and also built one of the closest teams."

SEE ALSO - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1038696/Countdown-meltdown-Carol-Vorderman-quits-row-pay.html

Download Junkie

If you have to use a laptop on the road, you'll have to switch between a fast ethernet and a slower 3G card, depending on your location. Avanquest Connection Manager will help you quickly switch between different network profiles. PC Tools have released a number of new and updated products this week, including Registry Mechanic 8, Internet Security Suite 2009 and Disk Suite 2009, which is a beta preview. Other highlights include a major update to Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.8 and Webroot Desktop Firewall 5.8, as well as Process QuickLink 2.

Highlights This Week Include:
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	PC Tools Registry Mechanic 8 Trial Software Major update to the popular Registry optimisation tool 24 July 2008
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	Adobe Media Player 1.1 Freeware Brand new AIR-based media player 24 July 2008
	TOWeb 2.0 Trial Software Create and manage your own website 23 July 2008
	Process QuickLink 2 Freeware Quickly find info about an open system process 22 July 2008
	Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.8 Trial Software Protect your PC with this anti-spyware tool 22 July 2008
	Webroot Desktop Firewall 5.8 Freeware Commercial personal firewall, for free 22 July 2008
	PinNotes 1.3 Freeware Sticky notes for your desktop 21 July 2008

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Wise-FTP 3 Ashampoo WinOptimizer 4 Mozilla Firefox 3 Spyware Doctor 5.5 Starter Edition Lotus Symphony v1 Acronis True Image Home 11.0.8053 Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 5.5 Starter Edition Ashampoo Burning Studio 6.61 VCOM Fix-It Utilities 7 Express BurnAware BurnAware Home v2.01 Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5.7.124 Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite 2008 See more recommended downloads..

Becks vs Ronaldo

For years, he was unrivaled as the reigning queen of preen, but David Beckham now has a challenger.

Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo has emerged as football's latest metrosexual pin-up, unashamed of his carefully waxed chest and near obsessive attention to tanning.

The body: David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo both wax their carefully toned and tanned chests

Read More - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1038532/Ronaldo-vs-Becks-Who-biggest-metrosexual-all.html

Enlarge

The pose: Beckham styles it out in his latest Armani ad, while Ronaldo proves he can do it with his eyes closed

'Neglect' of Bletchley condemned

Many parts of Bletchley Park are showing their age

A call to save Bletchley Park has gone out from the UK's computer scientists.

More than 100 academics have signed a letter to The Times saying the code-cracking centre and crucible of the UK computer industry deserves better.

They say Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, should be put on a secure financial basis like other "great museums".

"We cannot allow this crucial and unique piece of both British and World heritage to be neglected in this way," the letter to The Times said.

Inside Bletchley Park

The academics were brought together by Dr Sue Black, head of the computer science department at the University of Westminster, who was moved to act after visiting Bletchley Park in early July.

"I went up there and felt quite upset by what I saw," she said.

Many of the buildings on the Bletchley estate were in a state of serious disrepair, she said. One building, where code-breakers worked during World War II, was falling apart, said Dr Black, and was protected by a blue tarpaulin that was nailed down over it.

Describing Bletchley as a "gem", Dr Black said it was a "national disgrace" that such a historic site was being allowed to fall into ruin.

Celebrating the UK's computer pioneers

"I do not know why they do not have funding as a national museum," she said.

The visit led her to contact other heads of computer science departments at universities up and down the country. Within hours, she had hundreds of responses - all of them backing her call.

Dr Black said she had been "overwhelmed" by the response which showed the depth of feeling about Bletchley and the position it occupies in the history of the computer age.

Bletchley Park is well known as the place where the Enigma codes were broken but it is also the place where Colossus was created - a machine that was the forerunner of many modern computers.

The engineers that worked on Colossus at Bletchley helped define and develop the UK computer industry after WWII ended, said Dr Black.

What was needed, she said, was for Bletchley Park to get secure funding from the government. Until recently the site was deemed ineligible for Lottery funding that would help preserve it.

A change to the rules on who can get funds has led to negotiations with the Lottery Fund. However, said Dr Black, it could still take up to a year for funds to materialise.

In the meantime, said Dr Black, the site was falling into an ever worse state of disrepair.

Net firms in music pirates deal

Customers who illegally share music will get warning letters

Six of the UK's biggest net providers have agreed a plan with the music industry to tackle piracy online.

The deal, negotiated by the government, will see hundreds of thousands of letters sent to net users suspected of illegally sharing music.

Hard core file-sharers could see their broadband connections slowed, under measures proposed by the UK government.

BT, Virgin, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse have all signed up.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI, which represents the music industry, said: "All of the major ISPs in the UK now recognise they have a responsibility to deal with illegal file-sharers on their networks."

Mr Taylor said it had taken years to persuade ISPs to adopt this view.

So far, the ISPs seem to be grabbing the carrot - while avoiding the stick BBC Technology Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones Read more on Dot.Life

The plan commits the firms to working towards a "significant reduction" in the illegal sharing of music.

It also commits the net firms to develop legal music services. "Conversations are ongoing between record labels and ISPs," said Mr Taylor.

Letters to pirates

The BPI has focused on educational efforts and limited legal action in recent years, in contrast to the US, which has embarked on tens of thousands of lawsuits against alleged file sharers.

The six internet service providers have signed a Memorandum of Understanding drawn up by the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR).

HAVE YOUR SAY

Why should I yet again pay for, say, the Beatles' White Album at full whack? I already bought it on LP, eight-track, cassette, and CD! This is those customers getting their own back

Mark, Hampshire

Send us your comments

The Motion Picture Association of America has also signed up.

The BPI said the memoranum covered consumers who were both uploading and downloading music.

Mr Taylor said: "The focus is on people sharing files illegally; there is not an acceptable level of file-sharing. Musicians need to be paid like everyone else."

He added: "File-sharing is not anonymous, it is not secret, it is against the law."

At the same time the government has started a consultation exercise that could result in laws that force net firms to tackle music piracy. A working group will be set up under the auspices of regulator Ofcom to look at effective measures to tackle persistant file-sharers.

Mr Taylor said newspaper reports stating that online users could be subject to an annual levy to cover losses from file-sharing were incorrect.

"A levy is not an issue under discussion. It has not been discussed between us and government and as far as we are aware it is not on the table."

He said: "There should be effective mechanisms in place (to deter file-sharing) and as long as they are effective, we don't mind what they are."

The consultation document proposed that hard core file-sharers could have technical measures imposed, such as "traffic management or filtering and marking of legitimate content to facilitate identification".

In the past few weeks net firms Virgin and BT have sent letters to some customers identified by the BPI, which represents the UK record industry, as persistent music pirates.

'Long process'

Before now the BPI has called for a "three-strikes" system which would see net connections of persistent pirates terminated if three warnings went ignored.

Many net firms have resisted the call from the BPI and have said it is not their job to act as policemen.

FROM THE TODAY PROGRAMME More from Today programme

Feargal Sharkey, chief executive of British Music Rights, said the plan was "a first step, and a very big step, in what we all acknowledge is going to be quite a long process".

Mr Sharkey, formerly lead singer with The Undertones added: "Government, particularly in the UK, has now realised there is an issue, there is a problem there."

One BBC News website user Mark, from Hampshire, said he downloaded and shared files illegally and argued customers were "getting their own back".

In an e-mail, he said: "I used to run half a dozen record shops in the 80s and saw how far the fat cats of the record industry would go, in milking customers and retailers dry with more hyped rubbish."

"Why should I yet again pay for, say, the Beatles' White Album at full whack? I already bought it on LP, eight-track, cassette, and CD! This is those customers getting their own back."

"So will this make me sharing a CD with my next-door neighbour over the fence illegal?" he added.

Preston fans wins 'World Cup'

Preston fans wins 'World Cup'

This time it is not the Preston players but the fans who beat off 64 teams to lift the 'World Cup'.

What was Monkey Magic all about?

By Tom Geoghegan BBC News Magazine

The 1970s cult TV series is now an opera and its characters front the BBC Olympics coverage. But it's a mystery to those who never watched it. What on earth was Monkey about?

Say the two words "Monkey Magic" to a man in his late 30s and he'll turn into a child, putting on a funny voice and then moving his lips in exaggerated fashion.

A Japanese television series based on a 16th Century Chinese novel, badly dubbed in English, does not sound like a sure-fire children's hit. But Monkey - or Monkey Magic as it became known in the UK - was an unlikely success.

Fed a late-70s television diet of Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, The Six Million Dollar Man and the Red Hand Gang, youngsters watching Monkey on BBC Two one evening a week saw something completely different. And in the coming months, the characters that gripped a generation could find a new legion of fans.

Meet the BBC's new Monkey

An opera based on the famous Chinese novel that inspired the series, Journey to the West, opens in London a year after its Manchester premiere. Monkey: Journey to the West is another collaboration between Gorillaz creators Damon Albarn, who pens the music, and graphic artist Jamie Hewlett.

Hewlett has also designed the characters fronting the BBC's coverage of the Olympics in Beijing. "This is going to be the summer of Monkey," he declared last week.

For die-hard fans, the fascination has never dimmed. Although people aged under 33 could be discovering the characters for the first time, the popularity of the story has endured and the BBC series still enjoys cult status. There are several websites dedicated to it and a fan club on Facebook has 65,000 members.

But the collective memory of grown-up Monkey-watchers is a bit vague. They pick out certain motifs - Monkey riding a cloud, big sideburns, a headband, egg struck by lightning - but are a bit hazy on what was actually going on.

'Kung fu for kids'

Monkey was king of a monkey tribe and, as the memorable opening sequence explains, was hatched from an egg in a storm on a mountain top. He is later imprisoned under a mountain for disobeying the gods.

He is released by the young Buddhist monk Tripitaka, on the condition that he escorts him on a long journey to retrieve sacred scripts from India. They are joined by two other miscreant monsters in human form, Sandy and Pigsy.

It's joyous, partly because of its predictability but also because it was so fantastically realised TV critic Ali Catterall

So begins a series of encounters with demons and baddies, including some spectacular fight scenes, usually with Monkey using his magic staff that can grow in size. He can also fly on a cloud.

Tripitaka represents the moral force of the story, although he is probably best remembered for being played by a woman, in the finest panto tradition. He puts a headband on Monkey which he can tighten through prayer when Monkey steps out of line.

Guardian television critic Ali Catterall recalls rushing back from Cubs every week to watch it.

"It was kung fu for kids. Your older brother watched Bruce Lee and you would be into Monkey. It had dazzling storylines and it looked amazing. The day after at school, one of you would be Monkey and one would be Pigsy."

The fight scenes were legendary

The one-dimensional characters play on children's recognition of archetypes from a young age, he says, and unlike the Water Margin, which was another Japanese adaptation of a Chinese novel, viewers could dip in and out of Monkey.

The stories in Monkey followed a formula, usually with the hero resolving in-fighting at the palace.

"Pigsy fails to get off with pretty princess, Monkey plays up and Tripitaka admonishes him with ever-narrowing headband. It's joyous, partly because of its predictability but also because it was so fantastically realised."

For children's television, this was ground-breaking, says Lee Atkinson, 36, who runs a fans' website.

"No-one had done this at the time. We hadn't seen this on British television. As a kid it was easy to impersonate. The sound effects were easy to do with your mouth and we all like to swing broomsticks around and pretend we're kung-fu masters."

JOURNEY TO THE WEST One of the four Great Classical novels of Chinese literature Published anonymously in the 1590s Author believed to be Wu Chengen It comprises a series of stories about a real-life journey of a 7th Century monk

The appeal as a child was the larger-than-life characters, he says.

"Pigsy was over-lustful, Sandy was over-philosophical and Monkey over-arrogant: Exact opposites of what Buddhism strives for and Tripitaka guides them on the way to enlightenment."

The television series never gets to the end of the story, but the novel reaches a resolution when Monkey learns to use his ego selflessly.

Playwright Colin Teevan, who adapted the story of Monkey for the Old Vic in 2001, says the journey becomes the sacred scripture the travellers are seeking.

Tripitaka is Monkey's moral guide

"It's the story of the genius and the self-destructivity of mankind. Monkey is ingenious and witty and violent and impatient.

"He wants enlightenment and he wants it now but he does not know that one must journey and suffer to attain it. It's about what it is to be human - and it's about a monkey!"

How much the Buddhist themes resonated with the fan base in the UK is debatable.

And with a new generation used to sophisticated special effects, the magic of the original Monkey series may never be rekindled.

Celebrating the UK's computer pioneers

In their infancy computers used to fill entire rooms

The computer seems the very essence of the modern world, especially as the gadgets we sit before and carry around shrink as fast as they become more powerful.

But if truth be told the computer has had a long and honourable history that stretches back to the closing years of the World War II.

And, say conservations and computer history enthusiasts, Britain played a big part in the development of the modern computer.

"The layman when asked about the introduction of steam power will usually reel off Newcomen, Watt and Trevithick," said Chris Burton, of the Computer Conservation Society.

"But when it comes to computer pioneers they are absolutely baffled," he said. "They have no idea."

Foundational work

When pushed, he said, they might be able to remember the name of Alan Turing but few know of any others beyond that.

Turing established the conceptual and philosophical basis for the rise of computers in a seminal 1936 paper called "On Computable Numbers". But it took a large cast of engineers and scientists to solve the real world problems that arise when those ideas are turned into whirring, clicking reality.

At Bletchley Park forerunners of modern computers were built to help the Allies crack German codes.

Colossus was crucial for D-Day operations

Although Turing worked at Bletchley and helped create the Bombe that cracked messages enciphered with Enigma machines he had little to do with Colossus - a programmable machine that tackled the encrypted messages sent by the German High Command.

Conceived, designed and built by Tommy Flowers, Allen Coombs and Max Newman, the first Colossus was working in 1943 - three years ahead of the rival pioneering American machine known as Eniac.

For a long time the Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (Eniac) was better known than Colossus because the Official Secrets Act prevented those that worked on it talking publicly about their achievements.

Kevin Murrell, a trustee for the National Museum of Computing where a rebuilt Colossus is housed, said Bletchley was just one of the locations where the UK's computer pioneers did their influential work.

Colossus, he said, amounted to about one-third of all effort being put into those early machines. Similar pioneering efforts were underway at Manchester and Cambridge.

Cakes and computers

At Cambridge, Maurice Wilkes and his colleagues were working on the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (Edsac) - another recognisably modern machine that used tubes of mercury five feet in length as a data storage medium.

Edsac ran its first programs in 1949 and was developed to act as the heart of a number crunching service for Cambridge scientists.

Some principles of computing date from Victorian times.

The creation of Edsac was backed by baking and catering giant J Lyons which bought a copy of the finished machine and turned it into the world's first business computer - the Lyons Electronic Office (Leo).

"It was the first programmable computer that went into routine operation," said science writer Georgina Ferry, author of a book about the genesis of Leo.

"What was innovative about Leo was not the hardware," she said, "but the systems and the way they used it."

John Pinkerton, David Caminer, Ernest Lenaerts, Derek Hemy and others at Lyons pioneered the use of computers in the dull repetitive tasks formerly carried out by legions of clerks. One of its first roles was to calculate how much each worker at the hundreds of Lyons tearooms was to be paid.

Steadily more and more of those basic tasks were studied by Caminer and his team and broken down into steps Leo could replicate. In the process Caminer and his colleagues created systems engineering.

"Leo led the world in business computing," she said.

Big baby

At the University of Manchester engineers such as Tom Kilburn, Freddie Williams, Geoff Tootill, Alec Robinson, Dai Edwards and others worked to create what became the Small Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM) or Baby.

The Baby was recognisably modern electronic computer because it could easily be re-programmed to carry out different tasks. By contrast older machines either just carried out one function or had to be re-wired to change what they did.

A replica of the original Baby now resides at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester.

"When we wrote the proposal to build the replica machine an explicit goal which was to re-run the first program as a tangible tribute to the pioneers that brought this about," said Chris Burton who led the effort to re-build the SSEM.

Mr Burton said none of them had any idea about the influence their work would have.

"They did it to help engineers, forecasters and scientists to do their calculations," he said. "They had no idea of the fantastic proliferation that we have had since."

Manned spaceship design unveiled

Russian firm RKK Energia has spent two years designing the vehicle

Enlarge Image

The first official image of a Russian-European manned spacecraft has been unveiled.

It is designed to replace the Soyuz vehicle currently in use by Russia and will allow Europe to participate directly in crew transportation.

The reusable ship was conceived to carry four people towards the Moon, rivalling the US Ares/Orion system.

Unlike previous crewed vehicles, it will use thrusters to make a soft landing when it returns to Earth.

Russian aerospace writer and graphic designer Anatoly Zak has produced artist's renderings of the new craft based on a design released by Russian manufacturer RKK Energia at the Farnborough Air Show in the UK last week.

I think the main roadmap is the agreement between the European and Russian space agencies. That is their Plan A Anatoly Zak

In some respects, the capsule resembles America's next-generation spacecraft Orion. The 18-to-20-tonne Russian-European vehicle is designed to carry six crew into low-Earth orbit and four on missions to lunar orbit.

One of the most unusual features about the capsule appear to be the thrusters and landing gear on its underside. Mr Zak said it would use these engines to soften its landing on Earth after the fiery re-entry through our atmosphere.

The European Space Agency (Esa) has been talking to its Russian counterpart Roscosmos about collaborating on the Crew Space Transportation System (CSTS) since 2006.

Launcher decision

"If Esa and the Russian Space Agency reach agreement, Europe will supply the service module of that co-operative spacecraft," Mr Zak told BBC News.

This service module will use technology - such as the propulsion systems - developed for Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), an unmanned freighter recently sent to re-supply the International Space Station (ISS).

Russia may provide the launcher for the new manned spacecraft. This might be an entirely new vehicle, or a modification of an existing rocket.

Thrusters would cushion the spacecraft's landing Enlarge Image

Mr Zak said Russia was insisting in its negotiations with Europe that all future manned projects be based in Vostochny, the new cosmodrome being developed in Russia's eastern Amur region. The Russian government wants to host its first manned launch from that site in 2018.

At the moment, all manned Soyuz launches take place from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Alternatively, the space agencies could opt to "man-rate" Europe's Ariane 5 launcher, which lifts off from Kourou in French Guiana. This would allow the rocket to carry humans into space.

This would involve making major modifications to Kourou spaceport, including the development of infrastructure to support a crew escape system in the event of an emergency.

It is quite possible that both launch sites would play a role in any collaborative programme, which would necessitate the lofting of cargo as well as human crew.

However, if this collaboration falls apart, Europe has another option for direct manned access to space.

Other option

In May this year, European aerospace company EADS Astrium unveiled its own model of a crewed space vehicle, described as an "evolution" of the ATV, which was built by a consortium of European companies led by Astrium.

It would combine what is essentially the avionics and propulsion end of the ATV with a crew compartment taking the place of the current cargo section.

EADS Astrium has proposed a manned version of the ATV Berlin unveils 'crewed spaceship'

Mr Zak commented: "I think the main roadmap is the agreement between the European and Russian space agencies. That is their Plan A. Their Plan B is the initiative made by EADS Astrium in Bremen."

But if the agencies want a manned craft capable of reaching the Moon, they will need to develop new, more powerful rockets than those on the drawing board today.

"This is an open question, there are no decisions on how to proceed," said Mr Zak.

The CSTS is also sometimes referred to as the Advanced Crew Transportation System (ACTS). Esa and Roscosmos started talks on the project after some Esa member states rejected further involvement in the development of another manned spacecraft called Kliper.

The proposals will go before a crucial meeting of space ministers from European member states in November this year.

BBC One unveils new Merlin drama

Merlin's creators are hoping to attract a family audience

A host of stars including John Hurt, Michelle Ryan and Richard Wilson are set to appear in BBC One's latest Saturday night drama, Merlin.

The 13-part series follows the fabled friendship between the young wizard Merlin and Prince Arthur.

Bafta-winner Hurt will provide the voice of Merlin's mentor, the Great Dragon, while Bionic Woman star Ryan will play wicked sorceress Nimueh.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7519877.stm

'Spying' requests exceed 500,000

More than 500,000 official "spying" requests for private communications data such as telephone records were made last year, a report says.

Police, security services and other public bodies made requests for billing details and other information.

Interception of Communications Commissioner Sir Paul Kennedy said 1,707 of these had been from councils.

A separate report criticises local authorities for using powers to target minor offences such as fly-tipping.

Itemised bills

Figures show public bodies made 519,260 requests to "communications providers" such as phone and internet firms for information in 2007.

Under available powers, they can see details such as itemised phone bills and website records. But they are not allowed to monitor conversations.

The total number of requests for last year - amounting to more than 1,400 a day - compared with an average of fewer than 350,000 a year in the previous two years.

In his report, Sir Paul said he believed "local authorities could make much more use of communications data as a powerful tool to investigate crime".

'Proportionality'

But a separate report, by Chief Surveillance Commissioner Sir Christopher Rose, criticises the techniques employed by local authorities to deal with minor offences such as fly-tipping or avoiding council tax.

He said some councils had a "tendency to expose lack of understanding of the legislation" and displayed a "serious misunderstanding of the concept of proportionality".

Some authorising officers were inexperienced and suffered "poor oversight", he added.

He called on town halls to invest in properly trained intelligence officers who could operate covertly.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: "The commissioners' reports offer valuable oversight and provide reassurance that these powers are being used appropriately.

"These powers can make a real difference in delivering safer communities and protecting the public - whether enabling us to gain that vital intelligence that will prevent a terrorist attack, working to tackle antisocial behaviour or ensuring that rogue traders do not defraud the public."

Quiztime Picture Board

Attachment: Picture Board 220708.pdf

Net TV technology seeks testers

StreamPlayer shares data among viewers to serve large audiences

Testers are being sought for technology that may help TV migrate to the net.

The P2P Next project has created a trial, or beta, version of software that can stream video across a file-sharing network.

The EU has put 19m euros into the project hoping the software the team creates will become a Europe-wide standard for broadcasters.

The P2P Next team are looking for thousands to sign up to give the technology a good workout.

Stream and serve

Many broadcasters, such as the BBC with its iPlayer, are already using the net to let viewers catch up with programmes they missed. Most of these systems use a central server to stream programmes to those that want to watch them.

However, most believe that TV via the net delivered this way will be unsustainable when huge audiences venture online for shows.

In a bid to create a system that can support huge audiences, the SwarmPlayer draws on the widely used BitTorrent peer-to-peer technology.

In such a system those watching a video share the data they are downloading with others, peers, who want to watch the same show.

The SwarmPlayer lets people download TV shows to watch later, lets them watch video as it is being downloaded and can even cope with live broadcasts.

The P2P Next project now wants thousands of people to install the software to see how it handles large audiences and whether picture quality suffers as the numbers of users rises.

Windows and Linux versions of the software are available with a Mac version due soon.

Those wanting to take part must have a broadband net connection speed of at least 600kbps or higher. Those downloading and installing the software will be able to see how it handles a live stream and a pre-recorded broadcast.

The P2P Next project is scheduled to run for four years and the SwarmPlayer is likely to be the first of many prototypes it produces.

Spain-Africa link decision 'near'

Until now, crossings between Spain and Africa have always been by sea

Spain says a feasibility study for an undersea tunnel to connect Spain and Morocco is in the final stages.

If the project goes ahead and construction begins, trains carrying both passengers and goods are expected to start using the tunnel in 2025.

The tunnel would be 40km long and pass 300m under the Mediterranean Sea.

The undersea link would unite North Africa and Europe for the first time since the continents separated more than 200 million years ago.

Swiss engineers are finalising a feasibility study that will determine whether this underwater connection is technically possible.

However, Angel Aparicio, president of the Spanish government agency co-ordinating the project says building the tunnel presents difficulties that may not be possible to overcome.

"The material here is not compact enough to allow an initial excavation.

"It is clay with rock and so it is not as compact as it is in the rest. As we have a lot of water we have a very high pressure and we are not sure whether we could go through with the tunnelling," he said.

"Those are the difficult questions."

Years of talk

If construction goes ahead the tunnel will take 15 years to build and cost at least $8bn (£4bn).

The Spanish and Moroccan governments see the tunnel as part of a new Mediterranean transport hub for passengers and goods.

Others are not so sure. The prospect of a physical connection between their country and the poorest continent in the world is alarming to some Spaniards.

Others are sceptical about this ambitious scheme ever being completed.

Spain and Morocco have discussed bridge and tunnel plans for more than 20 years.

However, this time the project has support from the European Union and the possibility of funding from the World Bank.

If the feasibility study is positive, work on the tunnel could start in 2009.

Batman film takes a record $66.4m

Some supporters say Ledger should get a posthumous Oscar nomination

Batman film The Dark Knight has set a single-day box office record by taking $66.4m (£33.2m) on its opening night, distributor Warner Bros has said.

The movie, which debuted in the US on Friday, has surpassed the previous record of $59.8m (£29.9m) set last year by Spider-Man, the studio said.

Directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale as Batman, it cost $185m (£92.5m) to make.

Critics have praised the film, which also stars the late actor Heath Ledger.

'Proud'

"We have been thrilled by the response to The Dark Knight, first from the critics and now from audiences," said Dan Fellman, Warner's head of distribution.

Ledger, who died following a drug overdose in January aged 28, played the Joker.

Some supporters have suggested that he should get a posthumous Oscar nomination.

Last week Ledger's co-stars paid tribute to him at the world premiere of the film in New York.

"We're very proud of the film," said Fellman.

"It's the magic of the movie business, how one film just stands out above the others."

The Dark Knight will be premiered in the UK on 21 July.

The last Batman movie, Batman Begins, in 2005, grossed nearly $49 million (£24.5m) in its first weekend in North America.

It went on to collect about $372 million (£186m) worldwide.

10 things we didn't know last week

Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. Misuse of the Red Cross emblem is a breach of the Geneva Convention.
More details

2. Boys cost £7,000 more to rear than girls during school years.
Times

3. A baobab fruit has six times as much vitamin C, per gram, as an orange.
More details

4. White Americans are 14% more likely than other ethnic groups to survive cancer.
More details

5. The switch from coal gas to non-toxic North Sea gas has contributed to a fall in the number of suicides.
More details

6. There are estimated to be more than 2,000 Esperanto speakers in the UK.
More details

7. Chocolate poisons dogs.
Daily Mail

8. Twelve countries, including the US, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Russia, ban travel and immigration for HIV-positive people.
More details

9. Young teenagers are drinking less and consuming fewer drugs.
More details

10. House prices are up.
More details

Website Of The Week

Visit - http://www.bbdo.co.uk/blog/

Lost tapes of the Dr Who composer

Derbyshire studied maths and music at Cambridge before joining the BBC

A hidden hoard of recordings made by the electronic music pioneer behind the Doctor Who theme has been revealed - including a dance track 20 years ahead of its time.

Delia Derbyshire was working in the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop in 1963 when she was given the score for a theme tune to a new science fiction series.

She turned those dots on a page into the swirling, shimmering Doctor Who title music - although it is the score's author, Ron Grainer, who is credited as the composer.

Now David Butler, of Manchester University's School of Arts, Histories and Cultures has revealed for the first time the existence of 267 tapes found in Ms Derbyshire's attic when she died in 2001.

They were, until last March, in the safekeeping of Mark Ayres, archivist for the Radiophonic Workshop - and have lain unheard for more than 30 years.

Amongst the recordings is some ethereal whooshing from a 1969 production of Hamlet at the Roundhouse in London; an extraordinary kit of parts for one of her most-admired pieces; and the theme for a documentary set in the Sahara which shows how she used her voice as an instrument.

'Timeless'

Most unexpected of all, however, is a piece of music that sounds like a contemporary dance track which was recorded, it is believed, in the late sixties.

Paul Hartnoll, formerly of the dance group Orbital and a great admirer of Ms Derbyshire's work, said the track was, "quite amazing".

"That could be coming out next week on [left-field dance label] Warp Records," he noted.

"It's incredible when you think when it comes from. Timeless, really. It could be now as much as then."

Delia Derbyshire's voice can be heard introducing it. "Forget about this," she says, "it's for interest only."

David Butler says: "She was a sculptor of sound, often recording found sounds."

The next extract from the archives is a recording of her own voice, played forwards and backwards.

It is the raw material for Blue Veils and Golden Sands - the documentary about the Tuareg people in the Sahara.

The final version (right) contains cut up elements of her voice (which she jokingly referred to as a "castrated oboe"), and the sound of several electronic oscillators.

The third recording from the archives features actor Nicol Williamson's legendary portrayal of Hamlet.

Performed at London's Roundhouse, this excerpt captures a soliloquy set to Derbyshire's backdrop of eerie science fiction swooshes.

"I find it spell-binding," says Hartnoll.

"I've got a shedload of synthesizers and equipment, whereas Delia Derbyshire got out of the Radiophonic Workshop when synthesizers came along.

"I think she got a bit disheartened and a bit bored with it all when the synthesizer came along and it all became a little too easy."

David Butler used an old reel-to-reel tape recorder to digitise the collection

Ms Derbyshire was well-known for favouring the use of a green metal lampshade as a musical instrument and said she took some of her inspiration from the sound of air raid sirens, which she heard growing up in Coventry in the Second World War.

So what next for the 267 tapes she left behind?

"The next thing that we want to do is make the archive available to everyone who wants to hear it," says David Butler.

"But also this has to be a living, breathing archive so we are going to commission new works as well.

"We hope to be able to commission works from contemporary electronic musicians and also those who worked with her - surviving members of the Radiophonic Workshop."

Download Junkie

Highlights This Week Include:
	Wise-FTP 3 Full commercial software Full commercial download, worth £40 16 July 2008
	Norton Internet Security 2009 Freeware Beta test the public preview of NIS 2009 17 July 2008
	MacDrive 7.2 Trial Software Read & write to Mac-formatted drives 18 July 2008
	SpiderOak 1.4650 Freeware Backup content online & share with others 17 July 2008
	Mozilla Firefox 3.0.1 Freeware Minor release of the popular web browser 16 July 2008
	Webroot Secure Backup Trial Software Backup & store your most important files 16 July 2008
	TeamDrive 1.4 Freeware Share files with this collaboration tool 15 July 2008
	FinalBurner Free 2.1 Freeware Disc burning suite 15 July 2008
	Flock 1.2.4 Freeware Browser with social networking features 16 July 2008
	Treepad Lite Freeware Organise notes, text, emails and thoughts in one place 16 July 2008

Recommended Downloads

Wise-FTP 3 Ashampoo WinOptimizer 4 Mozilla Firefox 3 Spyware Doctor 5.5 Starter Edition Lotus Symphony v1 Acronis True Image Home 11.0.8053 Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 5.5 Starter Edition Ashampoo Burning Studio 6.61 VCOM Fix-It Utilities 7 Express BurnAware BurnAware Home v2.01 Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5.7.124 Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite 2008 See more recommended downloads..

First taste of a magical fruit

The nut is hard with a powdery fruit and the pulp can make jam

It's being billed as king of the superfruits - the baobab fruit has just been given EU approval to be used in smoothies and cereal bars. But what does it taste like? The Magazine's Tom Geoghegan got hold of one.

With its velvet skin, the baobab feels like a coconut in the flush of youth - minus the long hairs.

And inside its flesh is crammed full of vitamin C, calcium and antioxidants - it packs a nutrition punch that makes so-called "super-fruits" like pomegranates and cranberries green with envy.

The taste is something of a disappointment after the tactile pleasure of the skin that encases it. The white, powdery fruit looks like sherbet and in parts of Africa is mixed with water and made into a drink, has an alien texture that seems rather tasteless.

But baobab - pronounced bay-oh-bab - jam, which is made from the pulp, is more appetising. It looks like dark honey. The taste is tart - akin to lemon curd - and the texture gritty like a tangy pear.

BAOBAB NUTRITION More than 10 times the antioxidant level of oranges And six times more vitamin C More than twice the calcium level of milk Soluble fibre in fruit pulp has pre-biotic qualities and stimulates good bacteria in gut High in potassium, important for brain, nerve and muscle function And phosphorus, which helps bones

Approval this week by the EU means that within months the baobab will be available in the UK for the first time.

It won't be seen on supermarket shelves as a furry nut, because it cannot be easily taken home and eaten. Not only is the skin very hard - it feels as if it could withstand a whack from a meat cleaver - but the fruit inside is a dry and sticky powder.

So baobab is better suited as an ingredient. It is most likely to be added to smoothies and cereal bars as food manufacturers target the health-conscious shoppers.

Super food

"The main market that we see it for in the immediate future is the healthy snacks and drinks market," says Cyril Lombard of Phytotrade Africa, which has campaigned for EU approval.

Demand for baobab in Europe can help poor African communities

"Cereal bars and smoothies are a particular target because they are the big products among healthy foods.

"And because of the nutritional properties of baobab, we think they are ideal markets for it. In time though, you could find baobab on the shelves in a wide range of different products such as baked goods and jams."

It's rare for calcium to be found in large quantities in fruit and vegetables, he says, and even kale does not have this amount. Hence its popularity in parts of Africa among pregnant and breastfeeding women.

"Super-food is a term that many people frown upon so we would hesitate to use it. But it's a fruit with extraordinarily high levels of the key nutrients."

If demand in Europe takes off, it will benefit some of the poorest people in Africa, says Mr Lombard. People without land or money to plant seeds can pick baobab in the wild and sell to producers.

Mythical tree

The adansonia digitata, which is the only baobab species in Africa, provides many forms of nourishment, says Paul Smith, head of the millennium seed bank at Kew Gardens, where one baobab tree has been grown under glass.

WHERE IT GROWS Southern, central, western and north-eastern Africa, on savannah National tree of Madagascar, where there are seven species Western Australia, where one tree was used to imprison Aborigines

The fruit is mixed with water and drunk as lemonade, the seeds are roasted and made into coffee, the leaves can be made into spinach and the children suck the seeds.

The baobab tree is iconic and wrapped in mythology, he says, but the tree is not as old as previously thought.

"Livingstone, who famously carved his name on a number of trees, said it was likely that these trees were grown at the time of the Great Flood, 4,000 years ago.

"But science suggests that they are not as old as that. One with a diameter of 14.4m was carbon-dated to about 1,000 years old. That is still old, about the age of some oaks in Great Windsor Park."

The fruit is not easily edible

The tree bark is very unusual in that it regenerates itself. In Zambia, some baobab trees continue to grow with spears through their trunks. The Ngoni people believed the enemy Bisa tribe could turn themselves into baobabs, so speared some of the trees.

The bark is stewed to wash newborn babies to give them strength, but some people in Zambia believe eating baobab attracts crocodiles and therefore fisherman may avoid it.

The trunk is hollow and stores water, and is often home to bats and snakes, and even humans. A district commissioner in Zambia once set up his office inside, and a tree still standing in Western Australia was used to imprison Aboriginal convicts in the 1890s.

Grunting fish yield vocal clues

The midshipman fish hums to lure a female into its rocky nest (Footage: A Bass/M Marchaterre)

Grunting fish have helped scientists to date the origins of vocal sounds to about 400 million years ago.

Toadfish and midshipman fish use a variety of different sounds to attract mates and scare off rivals.

Now US researchers have found that the area of a fish's brain that drives vocalisation is extremely primitive.

Writing in the journal Science, they say it suggests that the ability to communicate through sound emerged very early in the evolution of vertebrates.

Andrew Bass from Cornell University, who is the lead author of the paper, said: "You'll hear frogs calling, birds singing and we hear this all the time - we are familiar with this.

"But I think it's fair to say that most people are unaware of the fact that many fish use sound for social communication."

A series of grunts scares off a male intruder (Footage: A Bass/M Marchaterre)

The closely related toadfish and midshipman fish are nocturnal, living along the north-west coast of the US and Canada.

Professor Bass said: "They make different kinds of sounds in different social contexts. Just as birds will use one call to attract a mate and another call to scare a rival off, the fish do exactly the same thing."

A deep hum lures females to a male's nest; a sharp grunt is used to defend territory.

The researchers looked at the noisy creatures' brains

To investigate the origins of vocalisation, the team looked at the area of the fish's brain that was responsible for controlling the pitch and duration of the calls, which is known as vocal patterning.

Professor Bass told BBC News: "We identified where this pattern generator developed in the brains of these fishes, and then we looked at where it was in frogs, birds and primates."

The team discovered that the neural networks for vocalization were all situated in the same region.

"We stood back and said: 'Oh my god, this is all in the same place'.

"It was astonishing how similar it was."

You could see that was a very ancient part of the nervous system shared by all vertebrates Andrew Bass, Cornell University

The team compared this information with the evolutionary "family tree" for vertebrates. Because the evolution of the fish can be traced back further than that of amphibians, birds and primates, the team was able to deduce when the ability to vocalise came about.

Professor Bass said: "You could see that was a very ancient part of the nervous system shared by all vertebrates.

"We came to the conclusion that it must have evolved early in time before these different groups emerged from the evolutionary family tree - around the time when bony fishes evolved about 400 million years ago."

The team is now looking at genes involved in sound production.

Professor Bass said: "Maybe then we will find even more evidence for commonality. That's an exciting prospect."

State Funerals?

The Daily Mail picks up on comments by Guardian readers reacting to
news that Baroness Thatcher is to receive a state funeral. One wrote
to the Guardian to say he wishes Thatcher were dead now, while
another suggested a group trip to a bar called Morte Subite (Sudden
Death) to toast her passing. 'Unattractive blighters, aren't they?',
dribbles Ephraim Hardcastle. He clearly hasn't spent much time on
Facebook: there's a group called 'We'll only pay for a state funeral
for Thatcher - if she's buried alive' that now has 1,104 members.
Daily Mail P19

Quiztime Open Golf Picture Quiz

20 Golfers To Identify

Attachment: Quiztime Open Golf PicQuiz.pdf

A Round Of Golf - Quiz

Jul 18, '07 1:30 AM for everyone

Red Bud and Azalea are holes at which golf course ?
Augusta
Who won five US PGA Championships in the 1920's ?
Walter Hagen
Name the famous burn that passes through the Old Course, St Andrews ?
The Swilcan Burn
What is the old name once used for a 3-wood ?
Spoon
What colour are the posts that mark lateral water hazards ?
Red
Who captained Britain to Ryder Cup victory in 1957 ?
Dai Rees
Who has had the most tournament wins on the US PGA tour ?
Sam Snead, with 81
Which Scotish golf course has the Ailsa Craig as a backdrop ?
Turnbury
Who won the 1997 US Open ?
Ernie Els
How many major championships has Jack Nicklaus won ?
Twenty
Who, in the 1996 US Masters, led by 6 strokes before the final day but failed to win ?
Greg Norman
Is a putter with an adjustable length shaft legal ?
No
How many times has Jack Nicklaus finished second in the British Open ?
Seven
Early golf balls were made of leather filled with what ?
Feathers
In a four-ball match, a player putts and his ball strikes his partner's ball and moves it. What is the ruling ?
No penalty, the partner must replace his ball
Entry for which major championship is by invitation only ?
The Masters
What do Americans sometimes call an Abatross ?
A double eagle
Nick Price comes from which country?
Zimbabwe
Who is the only golfer to win the British Open, British Amateur, American Open and American Amateur titles in the same year, achieved in 1930 ?
Bobby Jones
In stroke play, when a competitor returns his scorecard the hole-by-hole scores are correct; however, the total for one 9 is entered incorrectly. What is the penalty, if any ?
No penalty, but the error is corrected
Which is England's oldest golf club ?
Royal Blackheath
Who was the first player to compete against his son in a US Open golf tournament ?
Gary Player
At which course is the World Matchplay Championship played ?
Wentworth
A ball lies just outside a bunker. A loose impediment in the bunker interferes with the player's stroke. Is the player is entitled to remove the loose impediment ?
Yes
Before Tiger Woods, who was the last golf pro to win at least five tournaments in a row?
Ben Hogan
Who was the first European to win the US Masters golf title?
Seve Ballesteros
Which former Spurs and Scotland inside forward was killed by lightening on a golf course in the early 1960's?
John White
Which one of golf's Majors was 'accidentally' won by American Bob Goalby after Roberto de Vicenzo inadvertently signed for the incorrect total on a scorecard?
US Masters
How many golfers make up a team in the Walker Cup tournaments?
Ten
What kind of wood was traditionally used to make golf club shafts?
Hickory
Who became the first woman to play on the men's PGA tour in 58 years, when she played in the Bank of America Colonial?
Annika Sorenstam
How many times did golfer Bobby Jones win the US Open?
Four
What is the term for the distance from where a golf ball is hit to where it lands?
Carry

Quiztime Vaults - The Rain Quiz

Scientists claim that every minute, about 900 million tons of rain hits the earth.....

1. Who had a hit in 1984 with the song 'Here Comes the Rain Again'?
Eurythmics
2. Raymond and Charlie Babbitt were the names of the two principal characters in the film 'Rain Man', Which actor played Charlie Babbitt?
Tom Cruise
3. The first record played by Tony Blackburn on radio one in 1967 eventually got to number 2. It had the lyrics “Woke up one morning half asleep, with all blankets in a heep.” What was its title?
Flowers in the rain
4. "The Rain in Spain" comes from which musical?
My Fair Lady
5. With extensive horizontal development; what type of cloud formation is most likely to deliver persistent rain?
Stratiform
6. What is the driest US state, averaging about 4" of rain per year?
Nevada
7. Acid rain is composed mainly of the oxides of which two elements?
Sulphur & Nitrogen
8. Which singer songwriter's autobiography was entitled 'Laughter in The Rain'?
Neil Sedaka
9. What is the name of the method of calculating runs required in a rain interrupted one day cricket match?
Duckworth-Lewis method
10. For how many days is it supposed to rain, if it rains on Saint Swithin’s Day?
Forty
11. Who made the classic Purple Rain in 1984?
Prince
12. Who won an Oscar for his appearance in Rain Man?
Dustin Hoffman
13. When did Carole King decide it might as well rain until?
September (No 3 – 1962)
14. Which family went "Walking In The Rain" in 1973?
The Partridge Family
15. The King of Thailand was given a patent for which invention, A, a new method of gold plating crowns B, a new way of seeding clouds for rain or C, an improved system for yoking horses to a carriage?
B - a new way of seeding clouds for rain
16. What musical was produced on London stage 30 years after the film?
Singing in the Rain - Tommy Steel - 1983
17. Barring rain - in which athletics event would you get wet?
Steeplechase
18. Who had a hit with November Rain?
Guns n Roses
19. The Golden Rain is the common name of what tree?
Laburnum
20. Who are Misty Rain, Sunshine Blue and Honey Rose?
Porn Stars

21. Which type of cloud usually brings rain? Nimbostratus, Cirrus, Cumulus, or Stratocumulus?
Nimbostratus
22. Lyric: "the barber shaves another customer we see the banker sitting waiting for a trim and then the fireman rushes in from the pouring rain, very strange"?
Penny Lane – Beatles – 1967
23. In which English county is Styhead Tarn? With an average of 170 inches of rain per year, it is officially the wettest place in Britain?
Cumbria
24. Which dancer was famous for “Singing in the Rain”?
Gene Kelly
25. What P Is The Collective Name For Rain, Snow, Hail And Sleet?
Precipitation
26. Who had a 1960's hit with Rhythm Of The Rain?
Cascades
27. In which planet of the solar system does it constantly rain acid?
Venus
28. What did it “rain” on the Australian town of Ipswich in 1989: (a) frogs (b) sardines or (c) snails?
Sardines (a violent storm probably caused updraughts which took the fish from the shallow Brisbane waters into the atmosphere)
29. Which song begins with the lyrics "Hey where did we go, days when the rain came"?
Brown Eyed Girl
30. True or False - When the first weather forecast was broadcast on BBC radio in 1923 it predicted a spell of fine weather?
False - Rain!
31. What type of bird did Noah first release from the ark after the rain stopped?
Raven
32. Which song contains the lyric: “Looking out on the morning rain, I used to feel uninspired”?
(You make me feel like) a natural woman
33. Which two actors star as American police officers in pursuit of an escaped Yakuza criminal in the Japanese port of Osaka in the Ridley Scott-directed film 'Black Rain'?
Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia
34. Who began his solo career with a Bob Dylan song "a hard rain's gonna fall" reaching no 10 in the UK in 1973?
Brian Ferry
35. If you were using a pine cone to forecast weather, how would you know it was going to rain?
it closes
36. Which classic film sees a character called Don Lockwood getting extremely wet in one scene?
Singing In The Rain
37. Which 1970’s song contains the following lyrics “Well, The Rain Exploded With A Mighty Crash As We Fell Into The Sun, And The First One Said To The Second One There I Hope You're Having Fun”?
“Band on the Run” (by Wings)
38. Who had a hit with 'Kiss The Rain'?
Billie Myers
39. What N is the name given to low-level clouds sometimes called 'rain clouds'?
Nimbus
40. In the song 'I Believe', what happens for every drop of rain that falls?
A flower grows

- Which horse won the Melbourne cup in both 1968 and 1969?
Rain Lover
- Which politician sued the Move over a promotional postcard for Flowers in the Rain, which had a caricature of him in the nude?
Harold Wilson
- Lyrics - I'm lying in the rain, but I never wave bye bye, but I try?
"Modern Love," David Bowie

Open Golf Quiz Handout Rounds

Attachment: 2008OPENGOLF - H1.pdf
Attachment: 2008OPENGOLF - H2.pdf
Attachment: 2008OPENGOLF - H3.pdf

Should the British pub get a government sub?

Beer sales threatened?

With pubs across Britain shutting down at an alarming rate, the great British pub in danger of losing its place in the hub of village life, says Gillian Hargreaves.

According to the British Beer and Pub Association, there were 1400 pub closures last year, compared to 200 the year before. That works out at about 27 a week.

Community pubs - essentially "the local" - are being particularly badly hit. In Scotland the situation is less acute, but in England and Wales more and more pubs are facing last orders.

The cost of supermarket alcohol - making it cheaper to drink at home - and the smoking ban and rising costs of food are cited as some of the reasons for staying away or staying in.

'Parish asset'

Reach, a village in Cambridgeshire, used to have a shop, a primary school and a post office.

We provide a reason for people to be in the village rather than going to work elsewhere Frank Feehan, pub landlord

But when the pub was under threat of closure back in 1999, 49 villagers clubbed together to buy it, some contributing as little as £250.

It is now a parish asset, and cannot be sold or turned into a private house.

Bryan Pearson, the chairman of the consortium which bought the pub, says: "If we hadn't got a pub this place would become a dormitory. We have a village hall but that is very much for set piece events at certain times, but a community needs somewhere where it can just bounce ideas off itself and be at peace with itself."

Frank Feehan, the landlord, points out that as a successful pub, Dykes End is rapidly becoming a big employer in the village.

"The main thing we provide in this village is employment - I employ three full-time staff and probably half a dozen part-time staff, training men to work in our micro brewery. We provide a reason for people to be in the village rather than going to work elsewhere."

Subsidies could reward pubs which contribute to village life

And he points out that while the government is trying to reduce the amount we drink, pubs are a part of the British way of life.

"This government and other governments say they want to introduce a cafe culture into this country. We already have a kind of cafe culture, but it's a pub culture. It doesn't mean binge drinking and it doesn't mean over drinking, it means coming to a place like this and enjoying yourself, having a locally-brewed pint and having a good time."

Community life

We want the government to recognise the value of pubs and the work they do in the community Janet Dean, Labour MP

A group of politicians, the magnificently named All Party Parliamentary Beer Group, have just finished a two-year inquiry into the state of the pub.

They plan to make recommendations about what the government could - or should - do to help.

The MP for the Midlands' brewing town of Burton-on-Trent - and author of the group's report - might well turn out to be the pub trade's Good Samaritan.

Janet Dean has spent two years trying to find out why pubs are going under, and if the government could - or should - help. She wants some form of state intervention for pubs that can show they contribute to the life of a village or town.

"We want the government to recognise the value of pubs and the work they do in the community.

"In some instances we have heard of post offices being established in pubs, toilets being used as public toilets and community involvement with football teams. The government could recognise this and other aspects with some form of rating relief."

Government pressure

FIND OUT MORE... The Politics Show is on BBC One on Sundays at 1200 BST Or catch up at BBC iplayer

Subsidies may not go down well with the government. Chancellor Alistair Darling put four pence on a pint in the last budget, with the expectation that duty would rise year on year. Something Ms Dean, a Labour MP, wants scrapped.

"Some of us are concerned about the alcohol escalator in the budget. I can understand why he put duty up - as he was looking at supermarket prices and it's supermarket prices that have been maintained, if not reduced, over the last 10 years - whereas cheap supermarket prices has put pressure on pubs," she says.

The pub industry itself is also urging the government to give the industry tax breaks.

The British Brewing and Pub Association has conducted a survey, asking voters about tax on beer. Eighty-two percent said the inflation increase was unfair on sensible drinkers, and 77% said it will threaten pubs.

"The indications from the polling are quite clear, the public believe pubs are under threat. They think higher taxes will increase that threat - and not tackle the problems of binge drinking, which we all want to try and resolve," says Rob Haywood of the BBPA.

He claims that by 2012 a pint of beer in London will cost £6.50 a pint, if the alcohol escalator is retained.

But the government told BBC One's Politics Show where pubs provide evidence of their importance to community life, they may get help to stay open. And Parliament plans to investigate the role of the pub companies.

The future of the great British pub, it seems, is now on politicians' minds.

TV Reality?

The US has hit the bottom of the reality TV show barrel with a new
show called Hurl! Contestants eat massive amounts of food and the
'lightest' eaters are eliminated. The 'winners' are then put in a
giant metal ball until they throw up. The last person to vomit gets
500 pounds. Daily Mirror

Sea die-out blamed on volcanoes

Different colour sediments represent oxygenated versus anoxic conditions

Undersea volcanic activity has been blamed for a mass extinction in the seas 93 million years ago.

In the so-called "anoxic event" of the late Cretaceous Period, the ocean depths became starved of oxygen, wiping out swathes of marine organisms.

Researchers from the University of Alberta, Canada, found a tell-tale signature of underwater volcanism in rocks dating to the period.

Their findings have been published in the journal Nature.

At the time of the anoxic event, the average temperature was nearly twice that of today, researchers say.

Palm trees grew in what would later become Alaska and large reptiles roamed northern Canada. The Arctic Ocean was ice-free and scientists think it would have had a temperature we might describe today as lukewarm.

However, the oceans were also hit by a mass extinction which wiped out a type of large clam common at the time as well as tiny ocean creatures known as foraminifera, which live on the sea floor.

Ocean chemistry

Helped by a sudden sluggish shift in ocean circulation, the remains of these minuscule organisms littered the sea bed in thick layers, and over geological time became transformed into oil.

After the extinction, levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere dropped and Earth lurched into a sudden, but short-lived, period of cooling.

Geologists have pondered for years as to the cause of this extraordinary event.

Giant clams were among the organisms killed off

According to Steve Turgeon and Robert Creaser from Alberta's department of Earth and atmospheric sciences, the answer to the cataclysm lies in volcanic eruptions which took place on the ocean floor.

These appear to have altered the chemistry of the sea and possibly of the atmosphere also.

The clue can be found in levels of two forms, or isotopes, of osmium found in black shale rocks.

The sedimentary rocks they analysed came from cores drilled from the sea bed off the coast of South America, and from mountains in Italy.

Future warming

The bed of the present-day Caribbean was formed by the huge lava flows thought to have been involved. However, the researchers say the flows would have preceded the extinction by up to 23,000 years.

Two theories, which are not mutually exclusive, have emerged to explain the chemistry of what happened next, says Tim Bralower, a geologist at Pennsylvania State University, US, who reviewed the paper.

One possibility is that the volcanoes spewed out metal-rich fluids that seeded the upper level of the ocean with micronutrients, he says.

Tiny life forms on the sea surface, called phytoplankton, gorged on the food, and storing up carbon as they grew. They then sank to the sea floor and decayed, stripping the ocean of oxygen.

The other is that the volcanoes disgorged clouds of CO2 to the atmosphere, warming the climate to the extent that Earth's ocean circulation system ground to a near-halt.

Beyond the surface layers, water was no longer turned over and anoxia (lack of oxygen) was the result.

Dr Bralower says that figuring out the post-volcanism scenario could help scientists wrestling with some of the unknowns of climate change today.

These include the impact of higher temperatures on marine circulation and whether controversial schemes to sow the ocean with iron filings, to spur phytoplankton growth and thus soak up CO2 from the atmosphere, would ease warming or cause oxygen starvation in the ocean depths.

Say goodbye to the computer mouse

The world's first computer mouse didn't make any money for its inventor

It's nearly 40 years old but one leading research company says the days of the computer mouse are numbered.

A Gartner analyst predicts the demise of the computer mouse in the next three to five years.

Taking over will be so called gestural computer mechanisms like touch screens and facial recognition devices.

"The mouse works fine in the desktop environment but for home entertainment or working on a notebook it's over," declared analyst Steve Prentice.

He told BBC News that his prediction is driven by the efforts of consumer electronics firm which are making products with new interactive interfaces inspired by the world of gaming .

Guitar Hero has been praised for its innovative interfaces

"You've got Panasonic showing forward facing video in the home entertainment environment. Instead of using a conventional remote control you hold up your hand and it recognises you have done that," he said.

"It also recognises your face and that you are you and it will display on your TV screen your menu. You can move your hand to move around and select what you want," he added.

"Sony and Canon and other video and photographic manufacturers are using face recognition that recognises your face in real time," he said. "And it recognises even when you smile."

"You even have emotive systems where you can wear a headset and control a computer by simply thinking and that's a device set to hit the market in September."

"This" Mr Prentice said, "is all about using computer power to do things smarter."

Greatly exaggerated

Naturally enough those in the business of making mice are not wholly in agreement that the end is nigh.

"The death of the mouse is greatly exaggerated," said Rory Dooley senior vice president and general manager of Logitech's control devices unit.

Microsoft has said touch screens will be all pervasive

Logitech is the world's biggest manufacturer of mice and keyboards and has sold more than 500 million mice over the last 20 years.

"This just proves how important a device the mouse is," said Mr Dooley.

But he also agreed that the number of ways people can interact with a computers were rising and that his own company was manufacturing many of them.

"People have been talking about convergence for years," he said. "Today's TV works as a computer and today's computer works as a TV.

"The devices we use have been modified for our changing lifestyles but it doesn't negate the value of the mouse," Mr Dooley explained.

Popularity

The mouse was invented by Dr Douglas Engelbart while working for the Stanford Research Institute. He never received any royalties for the invention partly because his patent ran out in 1987 before the PC revolution made the mouse indispensible.

With a 40 year anniversary planned for later in the year, Mr Dooley said Gartner's prediction for the mouse was too gloomy given that the developing world has still to get online.

The Wii has changed ideas about how we interact with computers

"The mouse will be even more popular than it is today as a result," he suggested.

"Bringing technology, education and information to these parts of the world will be done by accessing web browsers and doing that in the ways that we are familiar with today and that is using a mouse.

"There are around one billion people online but the world's population is over five billion," he said.

Gesturing

So just how ready are people to wave their hands in the air or make faces at devices with embedded video readers?

Gartner's Mr Prentice says millions are already doing it thanks to machines like Nintendo's Wii and smartphones like the iPhone.

"With the Wii you point and shake and it vibrates back at you so you have a two-way relationship there.

"The new generation of smart phones like the iPhone all now have tilting mechanisms or you can shake the device to do one or more things.

"Even the multi-touch interface is so much more powerful and flexible than in the past allowing you to zoom in, scroll quickly or contract images."

For those who lament the demise of such tried and tested pieces of hardware, Mr Prentice did concede that the keyboard was here to stay for the foreseeable future.

"For all its faults, the keyboard will remain the primary text input device," he said. "Nothing is easily going to replace it. But the idea of a keyboard with a mouse as a control interface is the paradigm that I am talking about breaking down."

BT to pump £1.5bn into broadband

BT plans to plug some homes straight into the fibre-optic network

BT is to invest £1.5bn in fibre optic cables, giving up to 10 million UK households access to faster broadband.

The plans would bring 40% of homes in reach of an ultra-fast service by 2012.

BT is also planning to put fibre-optic cable into about 1 million homes, making the service even faster for those customers.

However, the communications group has made clear it will only make the move if regulator Ofcom allows it to get a decent return on that investment.

Remaining customers would be offered broadband speeds of between 40 and 60 megabits a second (mbps), it said.

In order to pay for the project BT has said it will suspend its £2.5bn share buy-back programme in July - by which time it will have returned more than £1.8bn.

Read More - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7506742.stm

Worm-eating slug found in garden

A new all white worm-eating slug has been discovered in back gardens in south Wales. Gardeners in south Wales should not be surprised if they find an all-white, worm-munching slimy creature in their flowerbeds this summer. A "ghost" slug found in a garden in Cardiff has been declared a new species by specialists at the National Museum of Wales and Cardiff University. They have given the creature a partially Welsh name, Selenochlamys ysbryda, or ghost (ysbryd) slug. Creatures of this type are more usually found in Turkey and Georgia. The origin of the ghost slug, and its route into Britain, is completely unknown, and specimens have not been seen in Europe before this was discovered in Cardiff last year. Another was was spotted in nearby Caerphilly. Unlike most slugs, the ghost slug is carnivorous and kills earthworms at night with powerful, blade-like teeth, sucking them in like spaghetti. It has no eyes or bodily colouring and lives underground. "The Ghost Slug belongs to an obscure and almost unpronounceable group of slugs - the Trigonochlamydidae," said Ben Rowson, a biologist at National Museum Cardiff. The slug's teeth are about half a mm long and blade-like "We had to thumb through lots of old publications in Russian and German to find anything like them - but then discovered they were something entirely new." After studying the slug's anatomy, the scientists realised it was an undescribed species and christened the creature with the name adapted from the Welsh word for ghost, ysbryd. Mr Rowson said: "Selenochlamys ysbryda seemed appropriate for this spooky, nocturnal hunter and indicates where it was first found. We think this is the first time a Welsh word has been used in an animal's scientific name." Bill Symondson, an ecologist at Cardiff University, also studied the slug. He said: "The lack of eyes and body colour could indicate the species evolved in a cave system. "It was probably introduced to Britain in plant pots, making it an 'alien' species, although we can't be certain. "We're concerned that it might become a pest, but we need to find out more about it first." The museum has produced a simple identification guide available from its website to help monitor the slug's spread.

10 things we didn't know last week

Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. A monsoon is a wind, rather than rain.
More details

2. More than 12,000 laptops a week go missing at US airports.
More details (the Guardian)

3. Synod is pronounced SIN-uhd, and Sentamu (as in John) is pronounced with a stress on the first syllable - SENT-uh-moo.
More details

4. Women with large breasts pay more for their bras at Marks & Spencer than their smaller chested counterparts.
More details

5. Some slugs are carnivores, and have razor-sharp teeth.
More details

6. The average UK household bins £8-worth of leftovers a week.
More details

7. Pears sink while apples float.
More details

8. One in 20 of Britain's population will attend a summer festival.
More details

9. One in three tickets sold at London theatres are for musicals.
More details

10. Whipping someone until they bleed - even if they encourage it - is a criminal offence.
More details

Apples beat pears on crunch issue

Inside a pear: Tiny interconnected channels do not carry oxygen to the fruit's core as efficiently as apples

Just why pears rot faster than apples can now be explained by science.

It is all to do with how oxygen is able to find its way to the centre of the fruit after it has been picked.

Belgian researchers used one of the world's most powerful X-ray machines to image the tiny pores and channels that carry air through the two foods.

Pieter Verboven's team was able to show how the structures in pears meant they got "out of breath" quicker than apples - key information for growers.

The results of the study will improve the models used to determine optimal storage conditions.

The study will help reduce waste in the fruit industry

"If we know how the pears get into storage, we can better predict how they will behave," the Catholic University of Leuven scientist told BBC News.

"From season to season, from batch to batch, even from orchard to orchard - we can give advice to the grower, saying 'well, for these pears, you may have to elevate the oxygen concentration in your storage room because there is the potential for problems'."

There is a clear economic driver to minimise wastage in the fruit industry; and supermarket shoppers certainly do not want to cut into the flesh to find a brown, mushy mess.

Year on year, very practical experiments are run to see how different crop varieties cope under a range of shelf conditions; but science is also trying to improve its understanding of the biochemical and physical mechanisms that underpin decay.

After picking, the cells in the fruit need oxygen for respiration - to produce the sugars and energy required to maintain good health. If air cannot pass through the fruit, cells close to the core will eventually start to brown and rot.

Pieter Verboven's group put apples and pears inside the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, which produces an intense, high-energy light that can pierce just about any material, revealing its inner structure.

Inside an apple: Cavities inside the apple carry oxygen to the core very efficiently

The giant X-ray machine is able to resolve features down to and below a thousandth of a millimetre; and by turning the target in front of the light beam, it is possible to build up extremely high-definition, three-dimensional views of the subject under study.

The latest research illuminated the microscopically small structures for oxygen supply that exist in fruit. In apples, the pathways appear as irregular cavities between cells, whilst in pears they have the shape of tiny interconnected channels.

"We already knew that different apple varieties have a different density which means they have a different fraction of air spaces; but we didn't know the structures," Dr Verboven told BBC News.

"We also knew that pears have a much lower amount of void spaces inside because pears sink to the bottom if you drop them in water whereas apples float, which indicates that one has more air than the other one.

EUROPEAN LIGHT SOURCE

Electrons are fired into a linac, or straight accelerator. They're boosted in a small ring before entering the storage ring. The superfast particles are corralled by a train of magnets. Energy lost by turning electrons emerges as intense light (X-rays).

The 850m-circumference ring has 32 magnet clusters, or cells. Electrons turned by plain magnets produce 'standard' X-rays. Particles 'wiggled' at undulator magnets emit stronger X-rays. X-rays can't turn with electrons and head straight down beamlines.

Experiment 'hutches' receive the most intense X-rays in Europe. The light probes materials on the atomic and molecular scale. Robots can place many samples in the beam for rapid science. ESRF data leads to new materials, drugs, electronics, etc.

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"But also in pears, no-one knew what the structure of those air voids was."

Now, the scientists understand not only what the cavities and micro-channels look like but also how they perform. The Verboven team was able to describe the complex mechanisms of gas exchange, respiration and fermentation that take place in the different fruits.

There is much less water in apples to slow the penetration of the gas, and although the channels in pears are connected they just do not work as efficiently as the big pores in apples in allowing oxygen to pass through to the core.

"It is still unclear how airways in the fruit develop, and why apples have cavity structures and pears micro-channel networks", explained Dr Verboven.

"The micro-channels are so small that oxygen supply to the fruit core is very limited and cells are quickly 'out of breath' when oxygen levels fall below the safety threshold," he said.

The research is published in the journal Plant Physiology.

WWII bunker found on golf course

The bunker was found near the 5th green on the Old Course

A secret bunker used by army officers during World War II has been unearthed at one of Wales' top golf courses.

Workers renovating the course at the Marriot St Pierre Hotel and Country Club near Chepstow, Monmouthshire discovered the bunker.

It is thought it was used by an undercover army unit based in the area during the war years called Abraham Patrol.

It was found near the 5th green on the Old Course.

The golf resort has hosted events like the Solheim Cup and other European Tour events.

The bunker came to light after an appeal by the local newspaper in the area, The Free Press, was made on behalf of Chepstow gallery owner, Josephine Jones.

She had discovered her father was a member of a secretive army unit in the area called Abraham patrol and readers contacted the paper with information about a possible bunker at the course.

Workers first thought the bunker was just a hole

Workers at the golf course then located the bunker and Ms Jones, whose father Brian Kerruish would have used the bunker to launch guerrilla attacks on enemy forces had an invasion occurred, went to visit the site.

She said: "It certainly was emotional coming here and imagining my father crawling around in this bunker.

"It looks like just a hole in the ground but if you look inside you can see the brick work that was done to build the bunker."

Golf Course Manager, Stewart Wood, added: "We discovered a hole in the ground a few months ago as we started to refurbish the course and did not know where it came from."

"It's fascinating to find out that it was a war bunker, I had a look inside, but all you can see are old golf balls."

MEANWHILE - OTHER GOLF NEWS!!!

Heavy-duty weedkiller was used on the fairways instead of water

A golf course in West Sussex has been left severely damaged after the fairways were watered with weedkiller instead of water.

Eleven of the 18 holes at Haywards Heath Golf Club were mistakenly treated with heavy-duty weedkiller, which has scorched the grass.

The club has apologised to its members and said the turf may not return to good order until spring 2009.

It said weedkiller was usually used to kill grass growing through concrete.

The cost of repairing the scorched fairways will mostly be covered by the club's insurance.

The club, based in High Beech Lane, declined to comment further.

Download Junkie

Includes some big releases, including Apple iTunes 7.7 which will enable you to access the new AppStore. Spybor Search and Destroy 1.6 is now available, Paint.NET 3.35 was released, as well as Notepad++ 5 and PC Tools Firewall 4. Other highlights include Ashampoo Burning Studio 8, as well as Opera 9.51 and Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro 2009.

Highlights This Week Include:
	Apple iTunes 7.7 Freeware Minor upgrade to the media player 10 July 2008
	Spybot Search and Destroy 1.6 Freeware Protect your PC from the latest spyware 9 July 2008
	Foxmarks 2.1.0.12 Freeware Synchronise your Firefox bookmarks 10 July 2008
	Paint.NET 3.35 Freeware Powerful & modern paint program 8 July 2008
	Notepad++ 5 Freeware Replace Notepad with a more capable version 7 July 2008
	PC Tools Firewall Plus 4 Freeware Comprehensive free personal firewall 5 July 2008
	Ashampoo Burning Studio 8 Trial Software Comprehensive disc burning suite 4 July 2008
	Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool 2 Freeware Protect from malicious software 9 July 2008
	Opera 9.51 Freeware Minor update to the popular web browser 26 June 2008
	Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro 2009 Trial Software Powerful protection for home users 5 July 2008

Recommended Downloads

Ashampoo WinOptimizer 4 Mozilla Firefox 3 Spyware Doctor 5.5 Starter Edition Lotus Symphony v1 Acronis True Image Home 11.0.8053 Spyware Doctor with AntiVirus 5.5 Starter Edition Ashampoo Burning Studio 6.61 VCOM Fix-It Utilities 7 Express BurnAware BurnAware Home v2 Webroot Spy Sweeper 5.5.7.124 Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate 2 Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite 2008 See more recommended downloads..

A record-breaking by-election?

It is just the sort of occasion Record Breakers host Roy Castle would have loved. The Haltemprice and Howden by-election had already made British electoral history due to the sheer number of candidates. But how many other electoral records were smashed on Thursday night?

NEW RECORD: LONGEST BALLOT PAPER

Fitting the names of all 26 candidates and their parties on to the ballot paper proved a real headache for the returning officer - not to mention the voters of Haltemprice and Howden. The previous record was held by the Newbury by-election in 1993 which had 19 candidates.

NEW RECORD: BIGGEST NUMBER OF INDEPENDENTS

Labour, the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and the BNP all gave Haltemprice and Howden a miss - but there were a record 14 independents, in addition to tiny outfits such as Church of the Militant Elvis Party and Make Politicians History.

NO RECORD: TURNOUT

With two of the big three parties sitting the contest out, pundits were predicting Haltemprice and Howden could produce the lowest turnout in by-election history. In the end, it was a respectable 35%, easily beating the lowest turnout in a post-war election of 19.9% in Leeds Central in 1999.

NEW RECORD: NUMBER OF LOST DEPOSITS

Twenty three out of the 26 candidates gained less than 5% of the vote, meaning they lost their £500 deposits. This easily beats the previous record set at Newbury in 1993, when 17 out of the 19 candidates lost their deposits.

NO RECORD: MOST UNPOPULAR CANDIDATE

A closely fought category this one, with 14 candidates polling fewer than 100 votes each. Independents Tony Farnon and Norman Scarth came joint bottom with eight votes each - but they did not beat the existing record of five votes set by road safety campaigner Bill Boaks at a by-election in 1982. Former Eurovision singer Ronnie Carroll, of the Make Politicians History Party, failed spectacularly in his mission to get no votes, gaining an almost respectable 29.

NO RECORD: MOST CANDIDATES ON A BY-ELECTION STAGE

Sadly health and safety chiefs ruled this one out - there were concerns that a temporary stage might collapse under the weight of 26 would-be MPs. Candidates stood in a semi-circle on the floor of Haltemprice Leisure Centre. The returning officer had a raised platform in the middle to read out the results.

NO RECORD: MOST CANDIDATES MAKING A SPEECH

All 26 could have made a speech if they had wanted to, but in the end only a handful chose to address the nation.

NEW (PARTY) RECORD: LOONIES LOSE THEIR DEPOSIT

Mad-Cow Girl extended the 25-year tradition of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party by failing to hold on to her £500 deposit after polling just 412 votes or 1.7%. The party's late founder Screaming Lord Sutch - who once came within 1% of retaining his deposit at a by-election - would surely have been proud.

NEW RECORD: BEST RESULT FOR SMALLER PARTIES

By coming second, The Green Party achieved its best ever result in a Parliamentary election. Its candidate Shan Oakes also beat the party's previous best performance at a by-election with 1,758 votes or 7.3% of the vote. Its previous best was 6.1%. But it was also a good night for the English Democrats, who came third by the slenderest margin after a recount - their best result in a Parliamentary election. English Democrat candidate Joanne Robinson gained 1,714 votes.

NO RECORD: BIGGEST SHARE OF THE VOTE

David Davis missed out on this one by a whisker. He gained 72% of all ballots cast - just 3% shy of the highest share ever recorded in a British by-election, when the Labour candidate Michael Carr won in Bootle in 1990, in a contest which saw the Tory candidate James Clappison poll just 9%.

NEW RECORD: LARGEST INCREASE IN SHARE OF THE VOTE

David Davis increased his share of the vote by 24% - helped by the absence of a Labour or Liberal Democrat rival. The previous biggest increase came in 1951 when the Conservatives held Bristol West on an increase of 22.5%.

Here are the results in full:

• David Michael Davis - Conservative Party 17,113 votes
• Shan Oakes - Green Party 1,758
• Joanne Robinson - English Democrats 1,714
• Tess Culnane - National Front Britain for the British 544
• Gemma Dawn Garrett - Miss Great Britain Party 521
• Jill Saward - Independent 492
• Mad Cow-Girl - The Official Monster Raving Loony Party 412
• Walter Edward Sweeney - Independent 238
• John Nicholson - Independent 162
• David Craig - Independent 135
• David Pinder - The New Party 135
• David Icke - No party listed 110
• Hamish Howitt - Freedom 4 Choice 91
• Christopher John Talbot - Socialist Equality Party 84
• Grace Christine Astley - Independent 77
• George Hargreaves - Christian Party 76
• David Laurence Bishop - Church of the Militant Elvis Party 44
• John Randle Upex - Independent 38
• Greg Wood - Independent 32
• Eamonn Fitzpatrick - Independent 31
• Ronnie Carroll - Make Politicians History 29
• Thomas Faithful Darwood - Independent 25
• Christopher Mark Foren - Independent 23
• Herbert Winford Crossman - Independent 11
• Tony Farnon - Independent 8
• Norman Scarth - Independent 8

Turnout 23,911 (34.03%)

Runners and riders

Sound of 2008: The Top 10

Some of the hottest new music talent has been highlighted in the BBC's Sound of 2008 poll, compiled using tips from critics and broadcasters.

Find out about the Sound of 2008's top 10 artists and listen to full streamed tracks below.

1. Adele 3. The Ting Tings 5. Foals 7. Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong 9. MGMT

2. Duffy 4. Glasvegas 6. Vampire Weekend 8. Black Kids 10. Santogold

READ MORE - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7163404.stm

REMEMBER THE 2007 LIST?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6169551.stm

Online risk due to browser flaws

Firefox users tended to use the latest version of their browser

Almost half the online population is at risk because users have not installed security updates to their browsers, says a study.

The Swiss Institute of Technology, Google and IBM conducted the study and found 600 million users had not updated their browsers.

"Failure to apply patches promptly or missing them entirely is a recipe for disaster," the report said.

Cyber criminals are frequently using websites to attack users, it added.

The report authors recommended that a "best before" date, similar to the food industry, should be introduced to browsers, helping to educate users about the need to "refresh" their browser.

Browsers are often "patched" by software providers to tackle recently discovered flaws and security holes.

Criminals exploit these holes with malicious code hidden in websites to hijack machines.

BROWSER MARKET SHARE* Internet Explorer 78% Firefox 16% Safari 3% Opera 1% *Source: Swiss Institute of Technology

The study said Firefox users tended to use the most up-to-date versions, while Internet Explorer users were the slowest to update their browsers.

More than 83% of Firefox users were using the latest, most secure browser version, compared to 65% of Safari users, 56% of Opera users and 47% of Internet Explorer users.

The study said that not using the latest version of a browser was only one part of the security issues faced by net users.

'Insecurity iceberg'

Dubbed the "insecurity iceberg", the study said many users were at risk due to vulnerable plug-ins.

Plug-ins are small programs which extend the features and functionality of some browsers.

"Vulnerable plug-ins that are accessible (and exploitable) through the web browser extend the insecurity iceberg and form the part hidden below the water surface," the report authors noted.

The study said users were not updating to the latest version of a browser or plug-in fast enough.

"Our measurement confirmed that web browsers which implement an internal auto-update patching mechanism do better in terms of faster update adoption rates than those without," it said.

The study commended the "single-click" update feature of Firefox's browser as the "most efficient" patching mechanism.

Battlefields, wrecks and abbeys 'at risk'

Lowther Castle in Cumbria is one of the sites listed

Tour this and five other sites

A fifth of monuments threatened

Decaying ruins may be atmospheric, but often decay is a sign of neglect... or worse.

England has almost 20,000 scheduled ancient monuments - everything from archaeological sites to old mines and ruined abbeys - but according to English Heritage more than one-fifth, 21%, are at risk in some way.

The threats include natural processes like erosion and the growth of trees and shrubs, as well as human activities like agriculture, vandalism or the pressures of development.

Arson attack

Bowes Railway Museum, near Gateshead, is Britain's only remaining rope-hauled railway.

The line was built in the 1820s to take coal from local pits to the River Tyne, but in those days locomotives were not powerful enough to haul coal wagons up steep hills.

So the pioneering railway engineer George Stephenson installed stationary engines which pulled wagons up on ropes.

Bowes Railway Incline was one of the world's first railways

And on one section of the line, the Springwell Incline, he dispensed with engines altogether - gravity alone did the work, with full wagons travelling down the hill pulling empty ones back up.

Today Bowes is a scheduled ancient monument, but it is fighting a losing battle with vandals. Six wooden coal wagons were destroyed in a recent arson attack; one of two surviving engine houses has been completely wrecked by scrap metal hunters.

John Young, the operations manager, and sole employee, says it is impossible to protect such a large site with so few staff.

Battlefields

Further south, in Newbury, one of the town's two Civil War battlefields is threatened by development - the local council is looking for somewhere to build 4,000 houses. One corner of the battlefield has already disappeared beneath the A34 Newbury by-pass.

Off Salcombe, in Devon, an historic wreck has been damaged by an unauthorised fishing vessel. Carefully placed marker buoys have been removed, and anchored survey lines have been torn up and cut.

And hundreds of archaeological sites around the country are at risk from burrowing badgers and rabbits.

London's Keeling House, built in 1959, is under threat, says English Heritage

For the past 10 years English Heritage has published an annual register of buildings at risk, highlighting listed buildings badly in need of cash and a little loving care. In that time, it says, almost half have been saved from terminal decay.

Now it has added battlefields, wrecks, historic parks and scheduled ancient monuments to the survey and retitled it Heritage at Risk.

The register is meant to concentrate minds: the minds of English Heritage's own experts, when they draw up priorities; the minds of the public, who may be alerted to threatened monuments in their neighbourhood; and the minds of local authorities, one potential source of funds.

Money is a problem. Listed buildings usually have a roof and a commercial value. They can be adapted to new uses and the costs of restoration recovered from future revenue.

Money-makers

Scheduled ancient monuments for the most part are not money-makers and never will be - cash has to be spent with no prospect of return.

Bowes Railway Museum has had lottery grants and support from private industry in the past, but Mr Young says neither of the two local authorities whose border the site straddles are keen to spend large sums.

He needs money to refurbish his one remaining undamaged engine house; he needs £1 million to repair an asbestos-roofed wagon shed which dates from 1826; he used to have a second member of staff but there is no longer the money.

Meanwhile the legal protection which a site's status as a scheduled ancient monument is supposed to provide seems largely illusory.

It is a criminal offence to damage one, but when Mr Young caught three vandals red-handed, he says the prosecution collapsed on a technicality after three days in court.

And another vandal, he claims, successfully sued the museum for breaking his leg while on the site.

British Grand Prix

This would definitely go down as the best race I've ever won

Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton answered his critics and got his title campaign back on track with a superb British Grand Prix win.

The McLaren driver mastered tricky conditions, and his team made the right tactical calls, as all his main title rivals had a day to forget.

Hamilton is now tied on points at the top of the championship with Ferrari drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa, who finished fourth and 13th.

Nick Heidfeld took second for BMW ahead of Rubens Barrichello's Honda.

Hamilton's victory was possibly the best race of his short career, and it was a much-needed fillip after he had failed to score points in the previous two races.

The Englishman had been under pressure heading to Silverstone, and looked to be feeling it when he made mistakes on his qualifying laps to end up only fourth on the grid.

But the rain gave him a chance to showcase his superlative natural talent, and he grabbed it with both hands making him the first Englishman to win the British Grand Prix since Jonny Herbert in 1995.

Hamilton made a superb start from the second row almost passing team-mate Heikki Kovalainen on the first corner but he bid his time in second place to take the lead on lap five.

He quickly pulled out an advantage, but was soon back under pressure from Raikkonen, who passed Kovalainen when the McLaren spun on lap 10 and began to eat into Hamilton's lead.

The decisive moment of the race came on lap 21, when Hamilton and Raikkonen came in for their first fuel and tyre stops.

606: DEBATE Lewis - perfect race - perfect answer letshuntsomeorc

McLaren changed Hamilton's intermediate wet-weather tyres for fresh ones, while Ferrari - gambling it would stay dry - left Raikkonen's used set on.

Within a lap, though, it had started to rain again, and Raikkonen suddenly started struggling with a catastrophic lack of grip.

Hamilton, knowing he could effectively win the race there and then, piled on the pressure, and by lap 26 was 21.8 seconds ahead of Raikkonen, who then lost his second place to Kovalainen.

Already, it was clear that Hamilton pretty much had the race under control.

The weather remained difficult to predict, though, and McLaren had another tough call to make when Hamilton came in for his second pit stop on lap 38, with the rain beginning to come down much harder.

They fitted Hamilton with a new set of intermediates - even though conditions were bad enough for Honda to call both its drivers in and fit them with "extreme" wets in what would turn out to be a successful attempt to conjure an unexpected good result.

The conditions were treacherous - a number of drivers spun off at this stage of the race, including Jenson Button's Honda - but Hamilton continued on his serene way, by now almost a minute ahead of Heidfeld.

"It was so extreme out there, probably as extreme in some cases as Fuji last year," Hamilton said.

Hamilton was out on his own for much of the race

"Obviously there wasn't as much rain. I was having big problems with my visor, I couldn't see a thing, especially the right side. I was having to lift my visor up and clean it every lap, especially when it was starting to rain."

The German came under pressure from Barrichello's Honda, which was the fastest car on the soaking track thanks to its tyres.

The Brazilian passed Heidfeld for second place on lap 43, but he was forced to pit again on lap 46 because a refuelling problem at his second stop meant that the team had not been able to fill his car up with enough fuel.

Heidfeld, driving a smooth and error-free race, was now out of touch in second, but Barrichello rejoined in third, a position he held to the end of the race, and tribute to his renowned wet-weather skills.

Barrichello said it was his decision to fit the extreme tyres.

"There was a moment when I almost hit the wall at Club that I decided on the extreme," he said, "because I thought it might be only five laps but in those five laps you can make 10 seconds on people and that's what happened, isn't it?

Raikkonen, who spun twice during the race, recovered in the closing laps to take fourth place, winning a thrilling wheel-to-wheel battle with Alonso.

The Spaniard also lost out in an equally robust battle with Kovalainen, who grabbed fifth place from the Renault with two laps to go.

Toyota's Jarno Trulli took seventh place from Williams driver Kazuki Nakajima by passing him on the last lap.

Massa had his worst race of the season, spinning five times on his way to a position as last of the finishers.

---

Results from the British Grand Prix, Silverstone

1. Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren one hour 39 minutes 09.440 seconds
2. Nick Heidfeld (Germany) BMW Sauber +01:08.577
3. Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Honda 01:22.273
4. Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 1 lap
5. Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren 1 lap
6. Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault 1 lap
7. Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota 1 lap
8. Kazuki Nakajima (Jap) Williams - Toyota 1 lap
9. Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams - Toyota 1 lap
10. Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull - Renault 1 lap
11. Sebastien Bourdais (France) Toro Rosso - Ferrari 1 lap
12. Timo Glock (Germany) Toyota 1 lap
13. Felipe Massa (Brazil) Ferrari 2 laps

R Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber 21 laps
R Jenson Button (GB) Honda 21 laps
R Nelson Piquet (Bra) Renault 24 laps
R Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Force India - Ferrari 33 laps
R Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India - Ferrari 50 laps
R Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Toro Rosso - Ferrari Spin
R David Coulthard (GB) RedBull - Renault Spin

Fastest Lap: Kimi Raikkonen, 1:32.150, lap 18.

Key: R = retire

Wimbledon 2008

Nadal won his fifth Grand Slam title and first away from Roland Garros

Rafael Nadal held off an incredible fightback from Roger Federer to win his first Wimbledon title and end the Swiss star's reign at the All England Club.

The Spaniard missed two championship points in the fourth set but recovered to win a dramatic rain-interrupted match 6-4 6-4 6-7 (3-7) 6-7 (8-10) 9-7.

The final shot was struck in near darkness on Centre Court at 2115 BST.

Nadal, 22, is the the first man since Bjorn Borg in 1980 to win the French Open and Wimbledon back to back.

Federer, 26, had been trying to become only the second man to win six consecutive Wimbledon titles, and so surpass Borg to match Willie Renshaw, who played in the 1880s.

The defeat brought to an end his unbeaten run of 65 matches on grass, and arguably his reign as the undisputed king of tennis.

On sealing victory, a tearful Nadal climbed through the stands to celebrate with his family and supporters before heading to the royal box to speak to members of the Spanish royal family.

Federer, meanwhile, suffered the unpleasant experience of watching, dejected, from his chair as he came to terms with finishing runner-up for the first time.

Doctor Who finale watched by 9.4m

There was speculation about whether Tennant (right) would still be Doctor

Your questions to Russell T Davies

Keeping Doctor Who's secrets

The finale to the latest series of Doctor Who was seen by an average audience of 9.4m people on BBC One.

The final 15 minutes of the drama pulled in 9.8m viewers, capturing close to 50% of the entire TV audience.

After the Time Lord was wounded by a Dalek at the end of last week's episode, speculation had mounted that the Doctor would regenerate.

In a closely-guarded storyline, this failed to happen, leaving the way clear for actor David Tennant's return.

Unexpected twists

A fifth series of the show is scheduled for 2010.

In Saturday's episode the Doctor was helped by a small army of his companions to once again defeat the Daleks and their evil creator Davros to save the universe.

In an episode packed with unexpected twists, the Doctor was cloned and current companion Catherine Tate's character Donna Noble absorbed some of his mind to become half-Time Lord.

At the end of the episode the Doctor left his cloned self - who was half-human and as such will age and die - to live with his former companion Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper, in another reality.

The producer of Doctor Who Confidential explains the 'regeneration' in the finale

The Doctor also separated from Donna, who had to have her mind wiped of all memories of their time together, before departing on his own in the Tardis.

Tennant has been confirmed to star in the lead role for a number of BBC One specials next year.

The fifth series, with Bafta-winning writer Steven Moffat at the helm, is scheduled to be broadcast on BBC One early the following year.

Moffat is to take over from current writer and executive producer, Russell T Davies, from 2010.

Stormy weather forms funnel cloud

The funnel cloud could have caused serious damage had it touched down

Stormy weather across Lancashire and Merseyside has resulted in a funnel cloud forming in the sky.

The cloud, which is effectively a tornado which does not touch the ground, was spotted at about 1430 BST.

If the funnel had touched down it would have caused severe damage, a Met Office spokesman said.

Such clouds are formed when strong storms, often together with thunderstorms, amass where the wind blows in different directions.

'Excellent examples'

Nigel Bolton, a weather forecaster with the Met Office added: "We have about 30 to 40 touchdown tornadoes a year in the UK and if this funnel cloud had touched down it could have badly damaged a tree or a shed roof.

"However, because the cloud base was either too high or too weak it couldn't make the ground so it just hung there in suspension.

In the UK they tend to be rain-wrapped so you don't see them but this one was forming under a cloud that wasn't yet raining Nigel Bolton, Met Office forecaster

"In the UK they are quite common but they are not generally as good as this - these photos are excellent examples of a funnel cloud as they do not usually tend to be so well formed.

"In the UK they tend to be rain-wrapped so you don't see them but this one was forming under a cloud that wasn't yet raining.

"As soon as it started to rain, the funnel would collapse."

According to Mr Bolton, who is also a member of the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation, funnel clouds are similar to a vortex of water seen when a plug is removed from a bath.

Police and Fire Services in Merseyside and Lancashire said there had been no reports of any damage caused by the funnel cloud.

Denmark 'world's happiest nation'

Personal freedom is more important than money, the authors say

Denmark is the happiest country in the world, according to the latest World Values Survey published by the United States National Science Foundation.

The annual study surveyed people in 97 countries to discover who is happiest.

The survey asked people two simple questions about their happiness and their level of satisfaction with life.

Puerto Rico and Colombia completed the top three happiest nations. Zimbabwe was found to be the least happy, with Russia and Iraq also in the bottom 10.

The study was directed by University of Michigan professor Ronald Inglehart. He says that unlike other studies, which have focused on economic factors, his research has found that financial prosperity is not the only reason for happiness.

"Our research indicates prosperity is linked with happiness. It does contribute," he says, "but it is not the most important factor.

"Personal freedom is even more important, and it's freedom in all kinds of ways. Political freedom, like with democracy and freedom of choice."

A happier world

The world is becoming a happier place overall, according to the survey, which has been conducted since 1981.

Zimbabwe has suffered hyperinflation and political violence.

Dr Inglehart says that gender equality is also an indicator of happiness, as is rising social tolerance. He says that both of these things have risen dramatically in recent years.

The world's wealthiest nation, the United States, was found to be the world's 16th happiest country, behind Switzerland, Canada and Sweden.

The study also found that the countries at the bottom of the list all struggle with widespread poverty or authoritarian governments.

Zimbabwe, which is gripped by hyperinflation, and has recently seen a controversial presidential election marred by violence, was found to be the least happy nation amongst the countries covered by the survey.

Vulcan bomber to go on show

View Video - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7491129.stm

10 things we didn't know last week

Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. In Zimbabwe, millions of dollars are called mollars.
More details (Times)

2. .The 9/11 conspiracy theorists in the US include the LIHOPs (the government Let It Happen On Purpose) and MIHOPs (the government Made It Happen On Purpose).
More details

3. Sir Clive Sinclair doesn't use the internet.
More details

4. Everton, Aston Villa and Fulham are among the football clubs that were created from Sunday schools.
More details

5. The City of Glasgow Police is the oldest force in the world, 29 years older than the Metropolitan Police formed under Sir Robert Peel.
More details (Times)

6. Nelson Mandela was still on the US terror watch list until this week.
More details

7. An income of £13,400 is required to enjoy a minimum standard of living in the UK.
More details

8. Gordon Brown's favourite Beatle song is All My Loving.
More details (Press Association)

9. Malaria is increasing in the UK.
More details

10. Quarter-finalists at Wimbledon get free tea at the tournament for life.
More details (Daily Telegraph)

Emmerdale actor Hornby dies at 63

Clive Hornby was Emmerdale's longest-serving cast member

Actor Clive Hornby, who played Jack Sugden in ITV1 soap Emmerdale, has died at the age of 63.

It was announced in January that Hornby would be taking a break from the soap because of ill health.

The star had been in Emmerdale for 28 years after signing up on a three-month contract and was the soap's longest-serving cast member.

Hornby, the third actor to play Jack Sugden, enjoyed success as drummer with 1960s Liverpool band The Dennisons.

Emmerdale series producer Anita Turner said she was "deeply saddened" by "a devastating loss".

"Clive will be greatly missed by everyone who has worked with him on Emmerdale during the past 28 years," she said.

"He was a hugely popular and well-respected member of cast and a terrific actor."

After The Dennisons split up, Hornby became an actor, attending the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before working in repertory theatre.

He went on to appear in a number of TV shows including Gerry Anderson's Space 1999 and army sitcom Get Some In, which also starred My Family actor Robert Lindsay.

He also featured in comedy series Minder alongside George Cole.

Hornby's Emmerdale character married three times and had five children.

Museum of brewing closes its doors

The Coors Visitor Centre in Burton, which houses the museum of brewing, has shut its doors to the public following an announcement earlier in the year that it had suffered a drop in visitor numbers.

The ceremonial wreath was laid by May Arthur, chairwoman of the Burton & South Derbyshire branch of Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), while other members flocked to the museum’s bar, the Brewery Tap, to enjoy one last pint.

Coors had pledged an initial £200,000 donation to anyone who would take over the centre – which costs £1million a year to run - plus a yearly £100,000 contribution towards maintenance.

But, despite the efforts of Burton MP Janet Dean and culture minister Margaret Hodge, no one has as yet taken up the offer.

A CAMRA spokesman said: “We’re very optimistic of the doors opening again, mainly down to the backing that Margaret Hodge has given, writing to other breweries to support a national museum in Burton. And, the Coors funding is very encouraging.“

It is hoped that the centre will eventually become an independent trust and then a national museum.

Article - The Publican - http://www.thepublican.com/

Round and round

Round and round

Our regular column covering the passing of significant - but lesser-reported - people of the past month.

Thousands of British motorists found themselves going round in circles after Frank Blackmore invented the mini roundabout. A professional traffic engineer, he became frustrated with hold ups at conventional junctions, and campaigned for a system of priority from the right. When this failed to be accepted, he came up with the idea of a small roundabout with no centre. The first was installed in Peterborough 1969 with Blackmore, in attendance, shouting instructions at motorists through a loud hailer.

Trevor Wilkinson fuelled boy racer fantasies

Trevor Wilkinson, far from being a frustrated motorist, founded the iconic British sports car company TVR. A professional engineer, Wilkinson was quick to take advantage of the use of a glass-reinforced plastic body over a metal frame. This became the basis for all his future cars, which featured powerful engines in a light body, giving very high performance. Early models were sold in kit form which allowed customers to avoid the tax payable on ready assembled vehicles. Wilkinson left TVR in 1962, but his legacy lives on its name, a shortening of Trevor.

The Spinners, with Cliff Hall, top right

The Spinners carved out a successful career as one of Britain's top folk bands thanks, in part, to their lead singer Cliff Hall. The Liverpool-based group became one of the biggest acoustic acts in Britain playing not only traditional folk songs but also music from Hall's Jamaican heritage. A black singer in an otherwise white band was a rarity in the 1960s but reflected Liverpool's multi-racial mix. The band released more than 30 albums and became regular TV performers.

Psychedelia, rather than folk music, was Alton Kelley's stock in trade. Based in San Francisco in the 1960s, he designed album covers and posters reflecting the acid-drenched culture of the time. His work included the skull and roses poster, adopted as their image by The Grateful Dead, as well as publicity material for bands such as Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother & The Holding Company. Many of his posters quickly became collectors' items. Disillusioned with what he saw as the commercialisation of the hippy dream, he went back to his previous work painting custom cars and hot rods.

The wonderfully-named Kermit Love was the Big Bird creator

While Kermit Love's name was not the inspiration for the Muppets' green front frog, he did create Big Bird, the 8ft-tall yellow star of Sesame Street. Love began his career as a costume designer on Broadway before meeting Muppets creator Jim Henson in the 1960s. He designed Big Bird so that the creature would shed feathers while it moved, believing this made it look more natural to younger viewers. He created other Sesame Street favourites such as Mr Snuffleupagus and became a consultant on The Muppet Show.

Neculai Ivascu became one of the few politicians to be elected to office after his death. The long serving mayor of the small Romanian village of Voinesti died just days before local elections were due to be held on 17 June. Despite his demise, he managed to poll more votes than his nearest rival, although the election commission later declared his win invalid. "I know he died, but I don't want change," one villager told Romanian TV.

Among others who died in June were French fashion designer Yves St Laurent; Mel Ferrer, actor and director and one time husband of Audrey Hepburn; rock music pioneer Bo Diddley; Jonathan Routh, star of Candid Camera; and leggy American actress Cyd Charisse.

£3.2bn giant carrier deals signed

Aircraft carriers are a vital part of the Royal Navy's fleet

The Ministry of Defence has signed contracts worth £3.2bn to build the UK's biggest ever aircraft carriers.

The 280-metre-long HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will be capable of carrying up to 40 planes.

The contracts will create or secure 3,000 jobs at Govan, in Glasgow, 1,600 at Rosyth, in Fife, 1,200 in Portsmouth and 400 in Barrow in Furness.

The defence secretary said the vessels were needed to launch military strikes and humanitarian operations.

HMS Queen Elizabeth will come into service in 2014 and HMS Prince of Wales in 2016.

Each ship will be a similar size to the ocean liner, the QE2, with a flight deck the size of three football pitches.

This will make them more than three times the size of the existing Invincible-class carriers.

The two aircraft carriers will provide our forces with the world-class capabilities they will need over the coming decades Defence Secretary Des Browne New contract 'will secure Rosyth'

Each 65,000-tonne vessel will be crewed by 1,450 sailors and airmen.

Read More -http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7486683.stm

Warning letters to 'file-sharers'

The music industry says new laws could be introduced

Virgin Media has sent about 800 letters to customers warning them that they should not be downloading illegal music files via file-sharing sites.

It is part of a 10-week campaign it is running in conjunction with the BPI to "educate" users about downloads.

The BPI, the body which represents the UK record industry, told the BBC that "thousands more letters" would be sent.

Its stricter stance on illegal downloaders might result in some ISPs being taken to court, it told BBC News.

Read More - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7486743.stm

The bulb hoarders

By Steve Tomkins

The government wants your old-fashioned energy-hungry incandescent tungsten light bulb gone, and gone soon. But some people are willing to go to great lengths to hang onto the lights they love.

Incandescent bulbs - that's the traditional kind to you or me - waste 95% of the energy they use, according to Greenpeace. They calculate that phasing them out in the UK will save more than five million tonnes in CO2 emissions a year.

And yet some households are so attached to them that they not only keep buying them - they're stockpiling them ahead of the day when they're no longer available.

The green ones might save you money and everything, but I just can't stand them Bradley Bulb hoarder

In September last year, the UK government made a deal with major shops for the supply of traditional bulbs to be turned off. Some higher energy bulbs will be gone by January 2009, and all incandescent lights will be off by 2011.

The agreement is voluntary, but other countries have announced legal bans, including Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and the US.

The brighter bulbs are already fading from view, according to Glen Gotten of the light merchant Ryness. "100w and 150w are difficult to get hold of," he says. "The larger manufacturers have stopped making them. We still manage to get enough to supply our customers for now, but they will start drying up."

The 150w, in particular, is seriously rare. They're gone from Tesco. Morrisons have already chosen to ditch them, with 100w to follow in the autumn and 60w next year.

Read more - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7480958.stm

Doubt over date for Brit invasion

Caesar came with two legions, comprising about 10,000 men

Julius Caesar's invasion of Britain in 55BC could not have occurred on the dates stated in most history books, a team of astronomers have claimed.

The traditional view is that Caesar landed in Britain on 26-27 August, but researchers from Texas State University say this cannot be right.

Dr Donald Olson, an expert on tides, says that the English Channel was flowing the wrong way on this date.

They instead favour an invasion of the south coast at Deal on August 22-23.

The claims appear in the latest issue of Sky & Telescope magazine.

Caesar came to Britain with 100 warships and two legions comprising 10,000 men. But as he approached Dover's white cliffs, spear-wielding Celtic warriors lined up along the ridge, prompting the Roman leader to look for a better landing spot.

He ordered his fleet to move along the coast, and after travelling about seven miles they came to "an open and flat shore".

What has been a matter of some debate is whether Caesar sailed left or right and when exactly his armada landed.

Astronomical solution

Caesar mentioned strong tides, a full Moon and an ocean current. The astronomers Edmund Halley and George Airy previously used this information to try to solve the problem. But they disagreed with each other's conclusions.

Dr Olson identified August 2007 as a rare opportunity to investigate the question of when Caesar landed.

Caesar was greeted by lines of armed Celts on the white cliffs

During this month, complex tidal factors involving the Moon and Sun would unfold in a near-perfect replay of those in August of 55 BC. So the researchers conducted an expedition to the south coast of England in order to investigate their idea.

On the day which corresponded closely to the traditional date for the invasion, Dr Olson carried out a basic experiment - dropping an apple into the sea off Deal pier at roughly the time of afternoon when Caesar described the fleet moving.

The apple floated south-west towards Dover, suggesting that the Roman fleet could not have travelled up to Deal from Dover on that day.

"The English Channel was flowing the wrong way," said Dr Olson.

Caesar's account led the researchers to focus on a possible invasion date a few days earlier.

On the day corresponding to the revised date of 22-23 August, the team chartered a sightseeing boat and took GPS readings to determine how the boat was drifting.

They found the boat was floating north-east towards Deal.

The Texas team's revised date gives Caesar the ocean current he needed to manoeuvre right, proceed seven miles, and land with a falling tide near present-day Deal.

This is the beach preferred by most historians but rejected by tide experts in the past. A modified reading of Caesar's reference to the "night of a full Moon" also leads to the August 22-23 date, Dr Olson claimed.

"The scientists were right about the tidal streams and so were the historians about the landing site," he explained.

Eurofighter 'fully combat ready'

The aircraft were originally conceived during the 1970s

The RAF is to declare the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft capable of carrying out ground attacks, as well as its original air defence role.

The hi-tech fighter jets costing £67m each have been upgraded and training exercises have been taking place.

Critics say the Typhoon is an outdated Cold War weapon, unsuitable for modern wars against terrorists and insurgents.

But the RAF says the upgrade means the fighter will be able to operate more effectively in Iraq and Afghanistan.

BBC defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt says the need for a operationally flexible aircraft has been highlighted by current operations where battles are fought against a mobile enemy without an air force.

The new equipment fitted to the Typhoon includes a laser designator pod which enables data to be downloaded to laptop style devices held by forward air controllers on the ground.

This is not yet Afghanistan - it's the Nevada desert and an excercise called Green Flag West Last test for the Typhoon

By seeing exactly what is coming through the Typhoon's pod the controllers can guide a pilot onto the target, which can then be destroyed with pinpoint accuracy.

The RAF describes the improved Typhoon as "a new generation of aircraft" with technology that increases the amount of information available to the pilot.

Commander-in-Chief of the RAF, Air Chief Marshal Sir Clive Loader said: "The declaration of Typhoon being multi-role capable is a truly significant step in the development of this remarkable aircraft.

Wing Commander Gav Parker shows off the 'jet for the Nintendo generation'

"This latest capability upgrade gives the Royal Air Force the most operationally flexible aircraft it has ever had."

Training exercises have been taking place in the US from the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

Speaking from Nellis, Group Captain Stuart Atha, Station Commander of RAF Coningsby, where the planes are based, said: "What we have in Typhoon is a world-beating aircraft.

"The mantra in the RAF is, 'agile, adaptable and capable' and that is precisely what this aircraft is."

The RAF has ordered 144 Typhoons, which can accelerate from standing to take-off in under seven seconds.

So far, nearly 140 have been built by a consortium of European firms - EADS, Alenia Aeronautica and BAE Systems - although there have been international rows over the project, with France pulling out to develop its own aircraft.

The aircraft were originally conceived during the 1970s to combat fast and sophisticated Soviet fighter jets.

Since then the enemy has changed - and with Britain's armed forces increasingly engaged in a ground-based counter-insurgency role, some critics have questioned the Typhoon's relevance to modern warfare.

Independent defence expert Paul Beaver believes that that aircraft is "much maligned".

He said: "The new equipment, such as laser-guided bombs used with satellite technology, makes the Typhoon an effective ground-attack aircraft, particularly when used in conjunction with helicopters.

"And anyone who believes that we will only ever fight insurgents is wrong - there is always the risk that one day we will face a sophisticated enemy again."

Stars go Greek for Mamma Mia! gala

Stars Pierce Brosnan and Meryl Streep enjoyed the Leicester Square view

London's Leicester Square was transformed into a star-studded Greek paradise for the world premiere of Mamma Mia! the movie.

Hollywood superstars Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks and Pierce Brosnan were joined by home-grown talent Colin Firth and Julie Walters on a blue carpet meant to capture the film's Greek island setting.

The landmark was also decorated with lemon trees - adorned with fake fruits - and a Greek church which were fittingly bathed by the summer sun.

As the stars arrived, Abba's legendary hits from the stage musical filled the square to the delight of hundreds of fans who had gathered to catch a glimpse of the impressive guest list.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7481848.stm