WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Nolic]

16th January 1933 Harold Larwood bowled the ball that caused the first serious injury to Australian batsman Bert Oldfield in the "Bodyline" series. Nolic

[Stanley]

So he did Comrade. See this LINK for an overview of his career and the reaction to what was seen as 'unsportsmanlike behaviour'

[Stanley]

News just come in of a helicopter hitting a crane in London. It's causing mayhem......

[Stanley]

News just come in of a helicopter hitting a crane in London. It's causing mayhem...... In Vauxhall, rail lines and roads closed.

[PanBiker]

Watching the news report now, terrible, no doubt there will be casualties although none have been confirmed yet. First reports are saying that it was very foggy which begs the immediate question of why was the helicopter flying in such conditions?

[PanBiker]

Sky news says that they have a report that the helicopter had pilot only, no passengers. Sky also reports that the crane is damaged, fire brigade say it is in a precarious position.

[Bruff]

That will cause commuter chaos as Vauxhall there is right by the mainline into Waterloo (not of course to suggest this is the major concern). Glad I'm not doing that trip every day anymore.

Interesting sidenote: The Russian word for train station is 'vokzal'. Some say this is because a Russian Parliamentary delegation visited to see the new wonder, train travel, and were taken from Parliament to the nearest station Vauxhall. They asked what this place was, meaning the building, but were given the answer 'Vauxall'. Hence 'vokzal'.

Richard Broughton

[Tardis]

The main 3G mast at Foulridge was out yesterday

Basically it meant that all BB traffic flowing through the satellite masts were struggling, and I've never experienced broadband in waves before.

Very frustrating

[Moh]

News says 2 killed, one being the pilot, & 13 injured, it could have been a lot worse.

Another thing that got my attention today was another picture of Pippa Middleton on the front page of the Mail - I am fed up to the back teeth of seeing her in papers and on tv. She is a nobody just riding on the publicity of her sister. In fact all the other Middleton family are the same.

[Tripps]

If Pippa is a nobody - surely so is her sister - she just happened to marry William Windsor.

Re - Vauxhall - good story, but does it stand up to scrutiny? Here's an alternative view fromthe virtual linguist blog - which equally may or may not be true......

"The word vokzal apparently existed in Russian well before the building of Vauxhall station (it appears in a line of a Pushkin poem on the Wikipedia Vauxhall page) and was adopted in honour of Vauxhall pleasure gardens. The original meaning of vokzal was 'amusement park' or 'pleasure park'. The first public railway in Russia was the line between St Petersburg and the nearby tsar's palace at Pavlovsk. The town of Pavlovsk had a pleasure gardens, which were the destination of most of the train travellers, so it looks as if the pleasure gardens became heavily associated with the railway next door."

[Thomo]

I am thankful that I do not get "fired" up by newspapers, possibly because I never buy one. Whatever Pippa Middleton is, or her more famous Sister, they are worth more to this country than the overpaid prats who manifest our TV programmes or the football fields of the super rich, but often in debt, clubs that are rammed down our throats at every opportunity. There are several major problems facing this planet at present that would make the Middletons, the Royal family, and this country as we knew it, look like a mere drop in the bucket of existence. If you need something to shout about, try China's effect on global wildlife, or islamic extremism.

[Big Kev]

It has been rumoured that traces of zebra have been found in Tesco's barcodes.

[Stanley]

The fact that it is at least as cold as yesterday..... Warm in here! Bugger the expense!

[Stanley]

This pic from Margaret of Alexander James 4 hours ago.... Bonny baby!

[Bruff]

Warnings of 'blizzards' to hit Merseyside tomorrow. If it happens I'll put t' flag out, as my mother says. However, if it does, I shall sit and watch it all day. Love snow. Takes all the rough edges off the world and a kind of peace descends.

Richard Broughton

[Cathy]

Aaww how sweet. Welcome to the world Alexander James

Congratulations to all.

[Tardis]

Rebecca Cohen now seems to write for the Colne Times

Nice tweep too

[Tardis]

Foulridge mast fixed just after 6pm last night

3G restored!

[Bruff]

The routes of the English stages of the 2014 Tour de France just announced.

Stage 1 (5 July), will come through Skipton from Ilkley heading up to Kettlewell, to Aysgarth and Reeth, finishing in Harrogate

Stage 2 (6 July), will come from York through Keighley and Haworth before heading to Holmfirth, finishing in Sheffield.

I plan to be there in Kettlewell and Sheffield

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

You've just reminded me of something Richard. In the days when I was a member of the British League of Racing Cyclists (we were the ones that had the dérailleur gears, the others were still on fixed sprockets!) we used the small shoulder bags that sat in the middle of your back to hold our emergency food and supplies. There was a French name for them but we called them 'bonk bags'. In those innocent days 'bonk' was the edge you dropped over when you were pedalling hard for long periods and your blood sugar dropped. Not these days, a completely different meaning!
The fact that the council has done a good job of salting the pavements in the town centre.

[Tardis]

Yes, I appreciate the gritting too. A pity it took so many questions at each level of meeting to actually get them all to talk to one another and work together

[Tardis]

Today, in the B&E, quite a lot of vitriole about the twinning with a Palestinian town

[Wendyf]

This Item on the BBC website about WW2 lard being washed up on a beach in Scotland....

[Marilyn]

World War 2 Lard....(ick)...don't tell Stanley...he will be making a bid for it...assuring everyone it is perfectly ok to eat.
No wonder it is so difficult to lose weight. Nearly 70 years tumbling about in the sea and it hasn't broken up.

[Stanley]

Actually Maz, it could be OK after rendering!
Charlotte Green reads her last BBC news today. Her lovely clear voice will be much missed.