This one's been doing the rounds at work - mainly because one of my colleagues does a spot of cake decorating herself. But you may be more interested in the second extract.

No doubt pressured by the likes of the Daily Mail, six months ago the UK government launched a review into the "Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood". Oh yes. It was led by a chap called Reg Bailey, who's the Chief Executive of Mothers' Union. The organisation then criticised the report for "not going far enough" in its recommendations. Ho hum.
The recommendations include:

While trawling YouTube the other day (as you do), I found a one hour documentary (split into four parts) about a 17/18 year old trans girl called Lucy. As well as narration, it features contributions from her mum, grandparents, therapist, breast augmentation surgeon, best friend and Lucy herself (through video diaries). Needless to say, as well as the usual tensions, there's also friction between Lucy's typical teenage "I want it all and I want it now" attitude and reality.

In another number system, it's the ultimate answer. In a third, it's just over a third of a century.

What's the significance? Well, this might provide a clue...

(Photo a bit blurred as it was taken on my mobile phone at work, where I'd taken the item pictured)

Needless to say, if my comments later on this evening make even less sense than usual, you'll know I've consumed an extra glass of vino... :)

It looks as though Waterloo Road (which bills itself as a "Contemporary drama series set in a challenging comprehensive school") is including a TG storyline in the current series.

From the synopsis of tonight's episode (already available on iPlayer): "A shy and effeminate year 12 pupil is branded a 'perv' when he is caught poring over a lingerie magazine - but the truth is far more complicated than Chris imagines." (Judging by the cast list, Chris is probably Christopher Mead, Deputy Head)

As a counterpoint to the discussion over T* related labels, I thought it might be interesting to have a more light-hearted discussion of the various other labels we may apply to ourselves (i.e. not related to gender, sexuality or political affiliation) to describe certain aspects of who we are and what we do.

For example, as I'm more knowledgeable than average about computers, and actively enjoy using them, I consider myself a "Geek" (although according to some definitions, I'm actually closer to "Nerd").

Courtesy of today's Independent:

The Malaysian authorities are at the centre of an increasingly heated row after it emerged that 66 Muslim boys identified by teachers as "effeminate" had been dispatched to a special camp to discourage them from becoming gay.

In the desire to enhance their environmental credentials, many local authorities have started installing cycle facilities (e.g. cycle lanes, shared use paths). One UK cyclist has started noticing there are some excellent (*cough*) examples of cycle facility design out there, and for the past few years has compiled a "Cycle Facility of the Month" page.

So apparently Prince William is feeling pre-wedding nerves. He's also inviting everyone from the helicopter base where he's currently training to the wedding.

But evidently, that's not quite newsworthy enough for the Daily Wail (a far more appropriate name for the newspaper!). So they've done some digging and found one of his colleagues is transgendered... and yes, the tone of the article is about what you'd expect from that publication.

Apparently this week is the 100th anniversary of the Cheltenham Festival, so a betting company commissioned some designers to create some appropriate footwear to auction off for charity.

Apparently they feature an imitation hoof made from carbon fibre and up to 5,000 individual horse hairs. And have a guide price of  £1,300.

Definitely for those with more money than sense.

OK, so they're more Batman than Superman (i.e. no extraordinary abilities), but according to The Currant Bun, there are at least sixteen patrolling the streets of Britain. And they're probably not TG, but nonetheless may be of interest to fans of the Comics Retcon Universe (and similarly themed stories)...

Discovered via the BBC's 10 things we didn't know last week:

8. There are 16 amateur superheroes patrolling UK streets at night.

Completely off-topic, but it's doing the rounds and worth a giggle.

You've probably all seen people busy texting on their mobile phones while walking around the streets, probably not paying too much attention to where they're going. Well, a few days ago, in Pennsylvania, one woman got her comeuppance in a shopping centre - and it was caught on CCTV...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12226192

The presenters of the clip are Bill Turnball and Sian Williams, on BBC Breakfast (the BBC's daily 6am - 9am news magazine show)

So as the first complete calendar year of my presence here draws to an end (I signed up sometime in 2009), I thought I'd kick off the greetings. And what better way to do that than via this message which is currently going viral in Facebook statuses...

Apparently a few days ago, the Gawker network of sites was hacked and the perpetrators managed to get hold of the password database of contributors. In amongst the stuff they've republished is an anonymised list of over 188,000 entries from the password database.

Something that may be of interest to Whateley-ites and Retconners - an infographic about Marvel ®, courtesy of an outfit called "Online Schools".

They normally expect it to be embedded in pages, but since it's about 4,700 pixels tall, I thought it more prudent to link to an embedded copy elsewhere - i.e. the site where I found it.

So, if you're interested, click on this link to view.

Not just the Christmas season, but I've republished that insane Christmas tunes acronym quiz thingy from last year...

It's here

...but since 140 tunes would be a big stretch for anyone to complete on their own, I've made it world writable, so if you click on the link above, you can fill in the ones you can solve there and then... as well as seeing what others on BCTS have found.

There have been numerous ways devised over the years to control pests. The most obvious is to dig out bottles of pesticide - unfortunately, if they're over-used, they can have damaging impacts on the human population. For larger pests, capture and sterilisation has been used. But what if your pest is an insect?

How about spraying the crops with a wax powder coated with female insect pheromones? It obviously doesn't affect female insects, but for the poor males who pick up the particles and end up wafting female pheromones about the place...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11694374

The headline? "How are sexually-confused insects helping small farmers?"

The Scrabble championships don't normally attract a lot of media attention, in much the same way as chess championships don't.

But that's been blown apart by the winner of this year's contest...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11662754

(N.B. That BBC article is one of the few referring to Mikki using feminine pronouns)

From the company that once advised people asking for driving directions between Europe and the US to "Swim across the Atlantic Ocean", try entering these searches into Google Maps and watch out for some rather suspicious looking directions...

From: Japan To: China (Step 43)
From: Seattle To: Sydney (the suspicious direction appears thrice!)
From: Seattle To: Beijing (both modes of water transport)

Apparently it works for a lot of trans-Pacific routes - but sadly they haven't reimplemented the very long swim on the other side of the globe :(

Spotted on the Telegraph's website:

"The secret life of the harvest mouse - cute pictures by Jean Louis Klein and Marie Luce Hubert"

So assuming life in a certain household manages to settle down in the next year¹, those are the cute critters that the matriarch will be showcasing...
 
 

I've had my little Suzuki Alto since new (2002), and apart from a couple of incidents in late 2004 (one of which involved taking a corner too fast in icy weather, the other someone shunting the car's rear end), I'd driven without incident until last November...

I saw this pop up in my 'Recommended' list on YouTube, and couldn't resist sharing it. I know we're generally not car nuts here, but this ain't an ordinary "car" (and I use the term tentatively)...

Introducing the Ferdinand GT3 RS. It is an Austrian vehicle (currently on show in the Lentos Museum of Art, in Linz, Austria) built with an "ultra light construction", and all "unnecessary" components have been removed. As a result, it weighs less than 100kg, has zero emissions, and is completely silent.

So what's the catch? Well, one of the "unnecessary" components was the engine...

A decent sized chunk of my next AquaGirl story is going to involve her swimming around in Lake Michigan. But being a UK citizen, I know virtually nothing about it other than what I can dig up on a Wikipedia trawl. So, since I figure some of you probably live a little nearer it than I do, I thought I'd pick your brains... :)