Apparently this week is "Bike Week" - no, nothing to do with Portsmouth's very own soap opera, but (the organisers claim) "a national celebration of cycling!"

Apparently it's "an annual opportunity to promote cycling and show how cycling can easily be part of everyday life. Demonstrating the social, health and environmental benefits of cycling, the week aims to get people to give cycling a go all over the UK. This year they aim to make 'everyday cycling for everyone'!"

-oOo-

Oh dear...

The Labour Party's Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transsexual Society were in the Greencoat Boy pub in Westminster, central London, when a row broke out. The duty manager is alleged to have refused them service and said that had he known they were a gay group he would not have accepted their booking. Punch Taverns, which owns the pub, has launched an investigation.

More details: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/10249335.stm

Well, it's good for dogs at least!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3266819.stm

The Wisconsin team tested the health-giving properties of stout against lager by giving it to dogs who had narrowed arteries similar to those in heart disease.

They found that those given the Guinness had reduced clotting activity in their blood, but not those given lager.

So next time you go to the pub, order a pint of the black stuff for your pooch! :)

(Never mind the strange things some scientists choose to research - and the creatures they use in their research...)

Just in case you're not a mathematical genius (or have easy access to a spreadsheet), 12,053 days (or, if you prefer, 289,263 hours) translates as 18th May 1977. On that rather dubious day in history, at about 5:31pm, one new life amongst many entered the world...

Anyway, Mum and Katie (my sister) popped over on Sunday, including this very attention-seeking ten year old...

I wonder if these guys are "Skin Horse" fans?

Apparently there are people standing in four constituencies for the forthcoming UK General Election for the Cure (Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality) Party.

That sounds awfully Unity-ish...

Today's the annual celebration of the most famous dragon-slayer in history, if you believe the myths!

(Me) I thought it was about time to give you lot a progress update on the Bike episode summaries. Remember the last time I posted, I'd done episodes one to 103, plus 900 to wherever we'd got to by then. A lot can happen in a few weeks, and the number of episodes covered has grown to over 600. There's also a cast list and a title page.

There is a school of thought which states that the Daily Mail is engaged in an ongoing project to classify every inanimate object into those which cause cancer, and those that prevent cancer.

Perhaps not quite as daft as Facebook increasing your risk of cancer (!), apparently turning on a light when you wake up to relieve yourself in the night can cause it...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1265277/Cancer-dan...

"Translate for Animals is an application for Android phones that recognises and transcribes words and phrases that are common to a species, like cats for example. To develop Translate for Animals, we worked closely with many of the world's top language synthesis teams, and with leaders in the field of animal cognitive linguistics, including senior fellows at the Bodleian Library in Oxford."

http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/landing/translateforanimals/

Now what makes me think this service will only be available for 24hrs, and will be withdrawn on Friday? :)

Hospitals feature quite heavily on this site - both in fictional stories and in real life blogs. So you may be interested in this story from Tuesday...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8582161.stm

Hospital gowns, bed bays, chairs and washrooms have been given a makeover to prevent patients being exposed and embarrassed.

The initiative, led by the Department of Health and the Design Council, aims to transform a stay in hospital, making it a more modest experience.

TV bosses in the US have apologised after preview clips of the Playboy channel were accidentally played out on two children's channels (Kids On Demand and Kids Preschool On Demand)

A Time Warner Cable (TWC) spokesman said a "technical glitch" was to blame for the mistake, which lasted two hours in parts of North Carolina on Tuesday.

The company was made aware of the error after parents called in to report it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8571798.stm

(Well, I suppose that's one way to teach them the basics of sex education...)

Spotted on the shelves of my local Tesco...

(Apologies it didn't show up earlier - evidently Twitpic [where it was originally uploaded] doesn't like direct linking!)

Was someone in the factory having a bad day?

Caption suggestions welcome - either from Troy's POV or Gabriella's.

Or of course we knock a couple of letters off one character's name and do the obligatory TG twist - Troy's POV or Gabriel's...

Completely off-topic, but it may be of interest to Anglophiles...

Google have released a giant update to the UK street view coverage (the panoramic photos taken from Opal Astras with funky camera gear on top), taking it from a few major cities and patchy coverage elsewhere, to (they claim) 96% of UK roads.

Here's a few highlights, (inevitably) from Land's End to John O'Groats, plus a few extra locations thrown in for good measure.

OK, here's the latest example of "World gone mad"...

Police in the US state of New Jersey have ordered a family to cover up their snow sculpture of the famous nude Venus de Milo after a neighbour complained.

Eliza Gonzalez sculpted the snow-woman with her son and daughter on her front lawn in Rahway following a snowstorm.

Many people praised their creation, but a police officer told them a neighbour had found it too risque, she said.

When given the option of covering the sculpture up or knocking it down, she dressed it in a bikini top and sarong.

You may recall a few weeks ago, I mentioned a daft weekend project of mine, to slowly produce chapter summaries for a certain story featuring characters with the unlikely names of Cathy Watts, Stella Cameron and Simon Cameron. Not forgetting Tom Agnew, Mima, Trish, Livvie, Danny, Billy, and Julie - together with appearances by Leon and his mum, Pippa and her sons, the lab technicians Neal and Gloria, Simon's father Henry and his other half Monica, several dozen other humans, and a dormouse by the name of Spike.