Archive for February, 2009

Making the world safe from DIY enthusiasts

Friday, February 27th, 2009

This week it was reported that 73-year-old Brian Heale was prevented from boarding a bus in Cardiff while brandishing a tin of paint, which is classed as a "hazardous article" that could tip over or burst open and release fumes. Along with guns, swords and petrol, paint cans are now ...

McCain rethinks his Iraq policy

Friday, February 27th, 2009

John McCain, a forceful advocate of George Bush's plan for a surge of US troops in Iraq, yesterday disavowed his recent rosy assessment of security in Baghdad in an effort to regain his frontrunner status among Republican contenders for the party's nomination for the presidency. The Arizona senator's appearance last night ...

Matty died for no reason except for two American pilots cowboying in the sky

Friday, February 27th, 2009

The first thing was the screaming over the radio. The soldiers said it sounded as though someone was losing their rag. Very quickly, though, their ears picked up that the screaming was something else. Some of their boys had taken a "contact" - a direct hit from the enemy. They went ...

Catalogue of police failures let gang killing go ahead

Friday, February 27th, 2009

The meeting between an underworld source and officers from Operation Trident, the elite unit that deals with minority gun crime, was brief but informative. There were, the source said, plans to murder Target A, a well known gangland figure, during a bank holiday club event at Turnmills nightclub in Clerkenwell, ...

Who’d be a Punchbag?

Friday, February 27th, 2009

It's not the most obvious of career choices, but if you're a sucker for physical punishment you might just consider a move east. While most UK clubs employ bouncers to keep trouble to a minimum, the appropriately named Rising Sun Anger Release Bar in Nanjing, eastern China, actively encourages its ...

Now for the real Kylie

Friday, February 27th, 2009

A 'kylie' is a boomerang. If you throw it, it is guaranteed to come twirling home, even though it may have felled a kangaroo or a kookaburra along the way. Kylie Minogue is as resilient as the wooden missile she was named after. After a year in oblivion, during her ...

Pendennis

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Dog of war summons m'learned friends No sooner has the Equatorial Guinea coup mercenary Simon Mann disappeared from the news than another mercenary takes his place. Tim Spicer, CEO of Aegis Defence Services, has started legal action against a former diplomat he fears may have libelled him in a forthcoming memoir ...

The gospel on being gay

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

When Canon Gene Robinson was consecrated as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003, the world's first openly gay Anglican bishop, such was the ferocity of the opposition from right-wing evangelicals that he was forced to wear a bulletproof vest for the ceremony. Tomorrow he appears at the Southbank Centre in ...

Bulletproof Vest

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

A new bulletproof bra has been issued to women police officers in Germany to offer a second line of defence if they are shot on duty. The underwear is designed to be worn under a bulletproof vest to better absorb the impact of gunshots. More than 3,000 frontline officers are being ...

Life vests for polar bears on melting ice

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

As the climate crisis mounts and Arctic icebergs slip away, polar bears are suffering starvation, population declines, and drowning as they must swim further and further to find food. Seeking to raise awareness for the endangered species' plight, ADDI Concepts has taken wildlife preservation literally by designing a life-vest for ...