An End To "The Big O.E."?

For many New Zealanders, "the Big OE" was their young adult initiation into the big wide world. Their "Overseas Experience" consisted of a few years in the land of their ancestors, gaining working visa entry to Britain through parental or grand-parental links...
But, in the post-Brexit anti-immigrant panic, Britain is slamming the door on international students and foreign workers. A harsh new policy will stop overseas workers from "taking jobs British people could do", in moves that could affect kiwis and aussies wanting to live, work and study there.
Students and skilled workers from countries including NZ and OZ, foreign cab-drivers and Europeans convicted of minor crimes will all be targeted, as part of a tough stance aimed at reducing migrants to just "tens of thousands" (down from 300,000 this year).
UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd: "There's no question that recent immigration levels motivated a large part of the Brexit vote." Net migration from EU countries is 184,000, just short of the 188,000 from non-EU countries combined. Rudd says it will not be possible to reach the much lower target by curbing EU migration alone: "We have to look at all sources of immigration if we mean business."
Rudd describes as "generous" the current rules allowing working rights to the families of international students, and bemoans that foreign students studying English language degrees "don't even have to be proficient in speaking English." NZ and OZ skilled workers and uni students are in the firing line too, with the UK

considering tightening rules for companies recruiting from abroad.
Well, so much for historical ties between the Home Country and its Colonies! Obviously our loyal support in so many areas counts for naught.
But two can play. Hasn't the old battler Winston Peters – NZ First politican - constantly advocated jobs for kiwis ahead of migrants? So let's consider tightening our rules too. Maybe NZ should no longer accept Englanders as a matter of course simply because they're English, or because they cross a financial threshold. Let's face it: so many of them come here, and then moan about it being too hot, or the beer being too cold, or "Eh, by goom, it weren't like this Back Home, like…!" Ok, then maybe consider staying back home.
Britain's for the British? Have it your way - you voted for it. But forget emigrating to our beautiful land then…

Sea Shepherd's New Weapon

A custom-made warship with bigger engines and a long-distance fuel tank...(as blogged here 02 Feb.2015)!
Anti-whaling activists Sea Shepherd have a brand-new $12m ship they say will match the speed and endurance of Japan's whaling fleet.
And with Japan's defiance of an international court ruling about to be in the spotlight at a global summit this month, the activists plan to sail the new vessel to Australia, before heading south to disrupt the summer whale hunt near Antarctica.
SS's Peter Hammarstedt: "The biggest challenge in our past campaigns has been that the Japanese whaling vessels've rammed us with their superior size, and they've outrun us with their superior speed. So this is a vessel they cannot catch."

Christened Ocean Warrior, it is the first brand-new ship SS has built, allowing the group to specify engine size and other features for its high-seas protests. Cargo space has been converted to fuel tanks to give the ship longer range.
SS won't disclose it's top speed but said it comfortably topped 30 knots in recent Mediterranean Sea trials - this'll allow it to catch the nasty Nippon harpooners and it can land a helicopter aboard, thus extending its tracking options.
All SS's other ships have been refitted older vessels, Bob Barker once a Norwegian whaling ship (c.1950), Steve Urwin a former Scottish fisheries vessel (c.1975).
Japan killed 333 minke whales last summer - the first hunt after a 2014 ruling in the International Court of Justice that declared the so-called "scientific whaling" to be illegal. But Japan has since exempted itself from the court's jurisdiction and drawn up new guidelines for whaling, effectively doubling the size of the hunting grounds in the Southern Ocean.
In Sept., 95 countries condemned Japan's resumption of whaling, and the issue is expected to dominate a meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Slovenia this month.

Ice, Ice, Baby...

Confirmation that more than 1,500 metric tons of endangered Icelandic fin whale meat were shipped to Japan in July 2016!

death-carrier Winter Bay

The discovery comes just prior to the 17th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP17) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which starts in South Africa today.
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), OceanCare, Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Pro Wildlife, and Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) tracked the transport vessel Winter Bay from Iceland, through Russia's Northern Sea Route and on to Japan, suspecting it was carrying whale products from the Hvalur whaling company. The shipment arrived in Osaka on 09 Sept.
As blogged here, Winter Bay shipped over 1,800 metric tons of fin whale products from Iceland to Japan via the same route in 2015.

Whaling vessel Hvalur 9

Hvalur and its director, Kristján Loftsson, are emptying their warehouse of fin whale products, presumably to resume their killing in 2017.
Clare Perry, head of EIA's Oceans Campaign: "There‘s no excuse for Iceland to continue to slaughter whales in violation of the 30-yr. old International Whaling Commission (IWC) commercial whaling moratorium. The international community must tell Loftsson that enough is enough: fin whaling must stop."
Iceland and Norway trade commercially in whale products, under their respective reservations to the listing of great whale species on CITES Appendix I. Since 2008, more than 9,000 metric tons of whale products have been exported by the two countries to Japan and the Faroe Islands.
On 14 Sept., a Norwegian company received an export permit from the Norwegian govt to ship up to 195 metric tons of minke whale meat to Japan. If the shipment goes ahead, it will be the largest single shipment of whale meat from Norway since the IWC moratorium took effect. And Lofothval, a Norwegian whale meat company tied to Iceland's Loftsson, also received an export permit on 15 Sept., to ship up to 4 metric tons of whale meat to Japan. Combined, these shipments equal the meat of 137 minke whales.
These export permits are deeply disturbing, as it appears the companies are whaling almost exclusively for the Japanese market.

The Eagle Has Landed

Dutch police are adopting the centuries-old pursuit of falconry to deal with the modern-day danger of drones.

They're the world's first force to employ eagles to take down illegal drones.
Dutch police spokesman Dennis Janus: "The eagles see the drones as prey and intercept them as they are flying. Then they land with the drone still in their claws."
These feathered enforcement tools will now be deployed whenever drones are believed to be posing a threat to the public or flying close to airports or sensitive areas. They will be active in time for next summer in the Netherlands.
Oh, and by the way, none of the birds was hurt during testing... however not one of the drones survived!

Attack on the Nino Bixio

Today in history, 17 Aug.1942, 118 NZ prisoners of war died, when the Italian cargo ship MV Nino Bixio was torpedoed by a British submarine in the Mediterranean.

Their deaths, combined with 44 New Zealanders lost earlier aboard Jantzen in Dec.1941, amounted to nearly a third of NZ's POW fatalities during WWII...
Nino Bixio had left Benghazi in Libya for Brindisi, Italy, escorted by two destroyers and two torpedo boats. Crammed aboard were almost 3000 POWs captured in North Africa, including more than 160 Kiwis.
Two days out of Libya, the convoy was attacked by British submarine HMS Turbulent (N98). [This was one of the most successful Royal Navy submarines during its short career 1942-43. It sank a cruiser, a destroyer, a U-boat, 28 supply ships - some 100,000 tons in all - and destroyed three trains by gunfire. It was depth-charged on over 250 occasions by hunting forces.]

Nino Bixio was hit by two torpedoes from Turbulent: one exploded in the tightly-packed forward hold, killing 237 men and wounding another 60. In the ensuing panic and confusion, many men jumped overboard. Some drowned immediately; others reached makeshift rafts and drifted around the Mediterranean for weeks without food or water.
But, despite extensive damage, Nino Bixio did not sink. Survivors were pulled aboard, and the ship was towed by an escorting destroyer to Navarino in southern Greece, where 34 of the dead were buried (203 others are remembered on the memorial at El Alamein).
Nino Bixio was towed to the port of Pylos in Italian-occupied Greece, where it was beached. Later it was towed to Venice and sunk as a 'block ship' to protect the port.
In 1952 Nino Bixio was raised, re-fitted and returned to civilian service. In its peacetime career, it visited a number of NZ ports including Wellington where, on 25 Jan.1955, a wreath-laying ceremony was held aboard the foredeck. It continued in merchant service until 1970, and was scrapped at La Spezia in 1971.
Ironically its attacker did not fare so well. HMS Turbulent was lost with all hands off the coast of Sardinia in March 1943, after probably striking a mine...

Into The Black Heart

Late last month (29 July), Sea Shepherd Captain Jessie Treverton from the UK re-entered the Faroe Islands' capital Tórshavn for the first time since her arrest in 2014.

She returned to demand a court trial and the return of a seized SS vessel.
The procrastinating Faroese prosecutor had yet to set a court date, almost two years after Treverton's Sept.2014 arrest for guiding a large pod of white-sided dolphins away from the killing bays of the Faroe Islands as part of SS's campaign Operation Grindstop. After MV Spitfire steered a large pod of dolphins to safety, the Danish Navy seized the UK-registered vessel and arrested its three crew, charging them with 'failure to report sightings of dolphins to the authorities' under the newly-introduced Grind Law and 'harassing dolphins' in an unprecedented interpretation of Faroese animal welfare legislation.
It seems in the Faroes it's legal to drive and kill an EU-protected cetacean species, but it's illegal to push them back out to sea in order to save them from harm...because that's considered harassment!
Treverton's court case has been postponed numerous times, but she now finally has a court summons for 24 Nov.2016. She believes the lengthy postponement is intentional, because any such trial will have a landmark impact on the traditional drive hunt and slaughter of pilot whales and other dolphins: "I'm looking forward to my court case, to highlight the ridiculous hypocrisy of the grind laws. If I'm found guilty of 'stressing' dolphins, the dolphin hunters can also be charged with that same offence. If I am found innocent, any person will be free to direct dolphins away from the islands to safety. Either way, it's a win for the oceans."
I'll bet when the FI legal beagles twisted the Grind Law around, they hadn't thought of that implication! Opps!

NZ Herald Horror (and I mean it's standards!)

Yesterday (03 Aug.2016) an Emirates Boeing 777-300 crash-landed at Dubai: amazingly all 300 passengers and crew were saved.

I found out about the story when I opened the NZ Herald website today. Note: NOT a newsworthy headline like "All safe after Emirates crash in Dubai" or "Dubai Airport closed by crash" or even "300 saved by Boeing technology" ...no, I was offered a chance to "WATCH terrified passengers inside smoke-filled cabin"!!!
Yeup, in these days when everyone's cellphones make them 'photo-journos', someone FILMED what was nearly their moment of DEATH!
As if that particular action was not 'braindead personified', we were shown confusion, panic, screaming, yelling, every-man-for-himself ...and OMG! In the most crucial 60 seconds of their lives, passengers were opening overhead lockers and getting their cabin bags!
But the 'curdled-cream-on-the-rotting-cake' must surely be NZ Herald's decision to actually run this 'citizen footage' in the first place!
Posting pix of the crash site to support the story is one thing. To stream footage of terrified passengers clawing their way out of a smoke-filled cabin - and call it news - is completely different...and quite frankly piss-poor journalism.
Oh, but then, it's NOT real journalism, is it? It's yet another example of CNN-type sensationalism in the interests of reaping a few more dollars, more of the pathetic NZ Herald non-thoughts such as we've seen over the past few years.
One can only assume the editorial staff were born in the late '90s and bought their journalism qualifications on-line...

2016 Grindadráp Begins

In the Northern Hemisphere, it's summer.
A time for family fun in the sun, frolicking at the seaside, running helter-skelter into the waves...and for some Faroe Islanders, hacking trapped pilot whales to death. Their local media confirms up to 50 whales were killed on 06 July.

The pod of pilot whales was initially spotted near Svinoy (an island in the NE of the Faroes), before boats forced them south about 11km onto the killing beach of Hvannasund...Sea Shepherd activists were not present at the grindadráp, as the group has been barred from entering the FI.
The 2015 summer saw 501 whales butchered, 14 SS volunteers from across the globe arrested, and SS's vessel Bob Barker barred "in the interests of maintaining law and order." A new law was brought in, forcing all visitors - not just SS activists - to report sightings of whales to authorities, or face a possible 2yrs.jail.
There were also claims that the navy was involved in preventing protests. As actor Martin Sheen wrote to the Danish PM: "I was appalled to see the Danish Navy being used to defend the killing of hundreds of defenceless pilot whales. Does it really take a frigate, a patrol boat, commando units and a helicopter along with Danish police officers and a Faroese patrol boat to stop a group of compassionate, non-violent people?"
The Faroe Islands govt claims there's no special legislation regarding entry visas for members of Sea Shepherd. But from April 2016, a new executive order allows a Faroese minister to ban foreign vessels if they're expected to "disrupt lawful activities".
As a result, SS has modified its tactics. It's 2016 pilot whale defence campaign Operation Bloody Fjords will take its battle to the heart of the Faroese and Danish institutions that support this bloody dated practice. It plans to pursue a legal complaint in the European Union Parliament, and to promote the boycott of Faroese farm-raised salmon and other fish products.

US Army Sharpshooter Ain't Too Sharp!

Jas the hero?

OMG! This could only happen
(a) in America, and
(b) on their beloved 4th of July Weekend!
In Minnesota, US Army veteran Jason Galvin saw a bald eagle dangling upside down from a tree, its leg caught in a piece of rope around a tree branch 70ft.off the ground.
Police, Fire and Dept.of Environmental Conservation all said they couldn't do anything about it because of how high the bird was.

TV sensationalism, at its American best!

Galvin, who did two tours in Afghanistan (note this!), was asked by his wife to use his marksman skills (note this also!) to shoot the rope and branch the bird was hanging from...
So, after 1½ hours and 150 shots (take note!), the bird fell safely onto the branches below. The eagle, which Galvin named "Freedom", was taken away for treatment, and is expected to make a full recovery.
Wife Jackie (absolutely overawed by Jason's manliness) tweeted:
Best story of a lifetime! I knew with his sharpshooter skills that if anyone could save this eagle it was him! A neighbor (sic) borrowed (sic) Jason his .22 as it had a better scope than Jason's...an hour and a half later and 150 bullets, the eagle broke free from the branch and fell into the trees...
I can't even tell you how amazing this experience was and I knew of all people, my husband wouldn't let me down! What an amazing hero, my Army Veteran, saving an eagle on 4th of July

Weekend! I love you Jason and all that you are!
Well, there's nothing like some down-home adulation - but lady! PUH-LEEEZZZ!!!
Your Jas ain't The Ace!
A two-tour sharpshooter..with a 'scoped rifle, who could pick any firing position, was under no pressure of incoming bullets, and still had to expend 150 rounds to sever a rope no more than 100ft/30m away...needs to go back to Rifleman 101!
God bless America!
You surely need all the help you can get.

Has Cook's Endeavour Been Found?

That plucky little collier Endeavour, sailed by Captain James Cook during his great voyage of exploration of 1768- 1771, may have been located.
Researchers in the US believe they may be a step closer to locating the ship. The Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project (RIMAP) has known for some time the ship was scuttled in Newport Harbour, off the US coast, in 1778. But they now believe they have narrowed down the search to a cluster of five shipwrecks on the seafloor.

The researchers plan to investigate the ships and their artefacts further. They are also appealing for funds to build the right facilities for handling and storing items retrieved from the sea.
RIMAP: "All of the 13 ships lost in Newport during the (American) Revolution are important to US history, but it will be a national celebration in both NZ and Australia when RIMAP identifies Endeavour."
Capt Cook set sail on Endeavour - a British-built coal ship originally called Earl of Pembroke - in 1768 on a scientific voyage to map the Pacific Ocean. In 1769, he spent six months charting the NZ coastline,

and making the first European contacts with natives. (His visit is commemorated on the NZ 50c coin.) He reached Australia in 1770, claiming that for England too.
After returning to Britain, Endeavour was renamed Lord Sandwich and made a troop carrier. During the American War of Independence, it was scuttled by the British Navy in a blockade.
The wreckage has never been found, but RIMAP has been checking out 13 sunken ships, with the help of remote sensing equipment and historical documents. It says an analysis of data suggests there is "an 80-100% chance" that the Lord Sandwich wreckage is still in Newport Harbour, "and because the Lord Sandwich was Capt Cook's Endeavour, that means RIMAP has found her too."
The announcement coincides with the 240th anniversary of Rhode Island declaring independence from the UK. RIMAP says identifying "one of the most important shipwrecks in world history would be "an intriguing birthday gift for all of Rhode Island"...and an important historical link to NZ and Oz too.

"HMS Endeavour": John Charles Allcot (1888-1973)

The Butchers Are Back

The blatant flauting of international law by the nasty Nippons concluded last week.

Daddy-san's home!

Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) announced its whaling fleet had killed 333 minke whales since the end of last year in the name of "research". That proudly-announced figure tragically included 200 pregnant whales.
ICR also revealed where its hunts had been carried out: many of the whales were slaughtered in the Australian Whale Sanctuary and the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
It is ironic that neither Australia nor New Zealand would provide any intelligence support, to help eco-warriors Sea Shepherd locate the Japanese whaling fleet. Neither would they mobilise any vessel to watch the whalers. Yet the illegal butchering of these sentient creatures mostly happened within striking distance of their coasts, and within each country's jurisdiction!

Oh, for sure, as soon as the bloody tally hit the headlines, each country's Foreign Ministers denounced the ICR's efforts... but of what use is that?
It is obvious to all that Japan's new "scientific" research scheme is yet another thinly-disguised hunting trip. Like those before, it too was rejected by the International Whaling Commission's scientific committee. Yet the arrogant Japanese went ahead anyway, knowing that the very countries spearheading the anti-whaling campaign valued the Nippon trading dollars more, than to follow through with what the majority of their voters wanted.
Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson: "Japan simply ignores international law and international opinion, and continues to slaughter whales with impunity, selling their flesh for a profit. Nearly two years have passed since the International Court of Justice ruled Japan's commercial whaling program illegal, and yet the whalers are still announcing hundreds of fresh kills, including of pregnant mothers."
SS's reason for not sending a full fleet into the Sthrn Ocean this season to block whaling efforts, was because it had a big legal campaign underway against the whalers. And it was the Japanese who actually made this possible - by suing SS in US federal court in 2011. That gave SS a unique opportunity to hold the whalers accountable under US law. So SS has counterclaimed, to prevent the whalers from continuing their violent attacks on SS vessels, and to force them to pay damages for past attacks.
In the meantime, this year's whaling season was a profound success for the ICR, and a pause in the fight for SS. It should also be an embarrassment for Australia and New Zealand. But do their governments really care? I think not...

Viking's Fiery End

An illegal toothfish fishing vessel, pursued by several countries, has been blown-up by the Indonesian Navy.
Viking was one of six illegal and unregulated fishing vessels plundering toothfish in the Southern Ocean, and was the last to be apprehended. Sea Shepherd, which helped track these vessels, called them the 'Bandit 6'.

Fishing in the Southern Ocean is banned by an international convention to conserve Antarctic marine life.
Viking was apprehended in Indonesian waters and blown up by the Indonesian Navy and the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries on Monday 18th. The crew was being detained in Indonesia.
New Zealand's pacific fisheries ambassador, Shane Jones, says the dramatic way in which the vessels had been driven out of business would "certainly put a dent in the business of illegal fishing."
Viking was a stateless vessel, falsely claiming to be flagged under Nigeria. The nationalities of the Viking's crew are not known.
In December, NZ authorities patrolling the Southern Ocean captured video and still footage of illegal vessels, and provided crew lists to other countries involved in the crackdown.
Jones said the most worrying prospect for the fishing industry was now a largely-unregulated fleet of more than 3000 longline fishing vessels operating just north of the Kermadec Islands.
NZ authorities had been working with a range of countries for the past year to capture the six vessels and their crews. Vast amounts of time and resources had been spent on pursuing them, but it is unknown how much it had cost NZ taxpayers.

Hide and Seek

Environmental group Sea Shepherd can't find the nasty Nippon whaling fleet in the vast Southern Ocean, and is urging the Ozzie govt to help.

Its ship Steve Irwin left Western Australia on 18 Jan., to disrupt the annual hunt. SS says the whalers have greatly expanded their area of operations in the Southern Ocean, and this makes finding them very difficult.
Japan maintains it's trying to prove the whale population is big enough to sustain a return to commercial hunting, and says it has to kill the mammals to carry out its 'scientific research' properly.
Australia - leading global efforts to persuade Japan to halt whaling - has previously floated the idea of sending a customs vessel to monitor the hunt, but there's been no follow-through.
SS's Paul Watson: "SS was expecting that Oz or NZ would uphold their obligations as responsible members of the International Whaling Commission, to send a ship to intercept the Japanese whaling fleet. This does not seem to be something Australia or New Zealand are willing to do." He's calling for them to provide SS with the exact

"What? You expect me to be actually do my job???"

coordinates of the fleet.
Oz Environment Minister Greg Hunt is non-committal on the suggestion: "We do not accept...the concept of killing whales for so-called 'scientific research'. We will continue to urge Japan to pursue non-lethal methods of research and end its unnecessary whaling programme. Australia is committed to the protection of whales and we will continue to work with the international community to promote whale conservation and uphold the global moratorium on commercial whaling."
As you can see, he's saying nothing at all. And if you're expecting anything better from NZ Foreign Affairs Munster "Womble" McCully...think again. He can't even say ANYTHING on the subject... let alone anything of substance!
It appears as if, once again, the people's elected representatives sit comfortably in their ivory towers doing nothing, while the people's eco-warriors struggle on their own...

Valentines Day 2016

So...how did YOU spend your Valentines Day?
With someone special? And did the earth move for you?
Hell, it sure did for me! THIS just happened...a "severe" 5.7 earthquake just off the coast and only 15km deep! It sure stirred things up, rollin' for about a minute!
And reports indicate it was felt up and down the whole country!

Give Him What He Wants

A teenage thrill-seeker has risked his life, jail AND an historic icon - by scaling the Great Pyramid of Cheops, at Giza!
It's illegal to climb the 4,500yr.old landmark, but 18yr.old German tourist Andrej Ciesielski decided he knew better, so flew to Cairo with the express intention of doing just that.
Ciesielski reached the top of the 146m structure in eight minutes in broad daylight: "I'd asked locals what they thought of my plan and they warned me it was illegal, but I thought it would be fine, what with Egypt's dependence on tourists. I was told I risked prison, but on balance I thought the photos would be worth it."
The rules against climbing the pyramids are in place to protect them from human damage, and it is an act punishable by up to 3yrs in Egyptian prison: "After a few minutes' climbing, I started to attract a bit of attention, and security guards shouted to me in Arabic to come down..." Oh, really? What a surprise!
The prize prat does this sort of thing for thrills. He accesses high-rise rooftops around the world, clambering into precarious positions just for the buzz, with no concept of the illegality or risk!

So if this inconsiderate fool was prepared to knowingly risk jail for those pix, then LET HIM HAVE IT! Delete all his photographs, take away his freedom for the maximum sentence...and make an example of him for other idiots!
The world has lost far too much heritage over the last few decades, through terrorism, earthquakes and other natural disasters. We do not need selfish fuckwits like Ciesielski damaging what's left: "I wanted to experience Egyptian culture and I definitely managed that."
Now his next experience of Egypt should be 3yrs in a Cairo cell!

Even The Experts Say No

More than 30 of the world's top whale scientists have called on Japan to stop its "scientific" whaling programme.
In the international journal Nature, the experts wrote a letter under the headline "Japan's whaling is unscientific": "The IWC urgently needs to develop a process of scientific review that results in clear decisions that can be respected by all." The experts are mostly members of the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) Scientific Committee, whose evidence contributed to the 2014 International Court of Justice ruling against Japan's previous whaling.
Prof.Liz Slooten (Uni.Otago) says "scientific whaling" is a loophole in the international regulations, allowing whaling to continue despite the moratorium on commercial whaling which began in 1986: "When I first joined the IWC Scientific Committee in 1992, I was surprised to discover that Japan is under no obligation to respond to criticism on the scientific whaling proposals it submits to the IWC. Japan decides whether to go whaling and how many whales it will kill. The IWC can neither reject a scientific whaling proposal, nor set a quota for the

number of whales that can be taken."
Hence why four Japanese ships, incl.harpoon boats, are en route to Antarctic waters to hunt whales again, despite that 2014 international court ruling that such missions are unlawful. They plan to kill 333 minke whales in the Southern Ocean, adding to the 10,712 already taken since 1987.
The Steve Irwin, flagship of conservation group Sea Shepherd, last week left Fremantle in Western Australia to try and stop them...

How Do You Say "Opps!" In Italian?

An Italian woman has had to seek help, after losing the keys to her chastity belt!
The unnamed woman arrived at a fire station in Padua, Italy and asked firefighters to help her with a lock she couldn't open.
Thinking she'd locked herself out of her house, the officers began asking for details about where she lived.

It was only then that she revealed the specific nature of the problem, pulling up her jumper to reveal an iron chastity belt...
The firefighters quickly managed to break the offending lock. They then investigated whether the woman had been forced to wear the belt by someone else or whether she had been a victim of some kind of domestic violence, but ascertained this was not the case.

She explained she had chosen to wear the belt, to prevent herself from embarking on a sexual relationship. However, she quickly lost the keys and despite several desperate searches, was unable to find them. Clearly she needed some assistance in the willpower department, as well as the lost-and-found!
Both the woman and the firefighters are said to be extremely embarrassed by the situation.
Better work stories, huh?

The 24 Clock Keeps Ticking

Great news for fans of the awesome TV series 24!!!
FOX is making a pilot, called 24: Legacy, which'll be a potential new season of the groundbreaking award-winning thriller.

The story will involve a military hero Eric Carter's return to the US and the trouble that follows him back – compelling him to ask CTU for help in saving his life, and stopping what could be one of the largest-scale terror attacks on US soil.
It'll have an all-new cast with the same real-time, pulse-pounding pace with split screens and interweaving storylines, and back to the original one-ep-per-hour concept.
Not so great news: no sign of Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland). The producers have hinted the series may continue without Jack! They're not talking about continuing the whole show without him - just whether there's one installment (season) that he's not in. Hmmmmmm...

So, who've they got with enough cred to carry another season of 24 without Kiefer? There've been whispers of Kate Morgan (Yvonne Strahovski) from 24: Live Another Day. Was she strong enough? She certainly clocked up an impressive kill-count.
Freddie Prinze Jnr turned in a commendable performance as Cole Ortiz in 24: Season 8. But Cole was damned for associating with Dana Walsh (Katee Sackhoff), so that won't fly.

Still, not all is lost, not by a long shot! Stand by for the return of Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard)!
This spoiler, 24: Legacy, is set two years after Jack's capture by the Russians. Tony's been in maximum security for eight years, and wants out...how and why? [ click ]
No-one's gonna cast and film this sorta clip for no reason, so it's safe money that - if 24: Legacy actually does screen - then Tony. Will. Be. Back!!!

UPDATE: The 20-something main character, Eric Carter, was conceived by the producers as an African American, and the actors approached so far have all been black. Depending on how the casting goes, I hear the character's ethnicity may change but he will remain "diverse".
And get this: the female lead is a woman with a long history at the agency, a former head of CTU. Will we recognise her? Or will she just have a nice back-history written into the script? So much for "an all-new cast"...

The Italian Job

Ahhhhh, such are the joys of the internet.
People THINK they know something, post wrong info...and within a short space of time, it becomes solid fact!
Thus an old video clip of a very skillful motorcyle display gets cited with dates ranging all over the known universe! Yet just a tiny bit of

research would have clarified things...
Pathé News was a producer of newsreels and documentaries from 1910-1970 in the UK (older readers will recall its newsreels playing in movie theatres, ahead of the feature flick). The Pathé News archive is known today as British Pathé. Its fully-digitised collection is available online...and is the source of this particular clip.
The short footage (below) is of a motorcycle display in Rome, to mark the 107th anniversary of the Italian police. The force formed in 1848, so that means the film can be no earlier than 1955. And among the officials seated in the grandstand, you'll see Italian President Giovanni Gronchi - who held office from 1955-1962.
Thus - unlike many YouTube posters - I'm confident that the footage can be dated at/soon after 1955. And Pathé News has dated it at 1959 (a few years later than the anniversary year...but a damn sight more accurate than those who said the 1930s!!).
So...now that's cleared up, enjoy some pretty fancy motorcycling!

Ozzies: Send In Some Muscle!

Australians are overwhelmingly in favour of their govt monitoring Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean.
A Morgan poll finds 76.9% of 1,002 people want a Customs ship to monitor Japanese whaling.

The Coalition had previously been accused of backing off a pre-election commitment to tackle whaling in the Southern Ocean, after refusing to send the specialist Customs patrol vessel Ocean Protector, and instead sending aircraft to monitor the hunt.
Greens senator Nick McKim said the Coalition was backing away from the monitoring commitment made in opposition, and PM Malcolm Turnbull had refused to express anything stronger than "disappointment" about whaling on his recent visit to Japan.
The poll comes at the end of a fraught year on the whaling issue, in which Japanese whaling company Kyodo Senpaku was fined $1m for wilful contempt of the Australian federal court, after breaching an order to stop killing whales.
The decision to resume whaling also flies in the face of a 2014 international court of justice (ICJ) ruling saying the programme had no basis in science and should be halted.
A spokesman for environment minister, Greg Hunt, said: "The govt has made representations at the highest level to urge Japan not to resume whaling and we will continue to do so. We will also continue our efforts in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to strongly oppose commercial whaling, and to promote whale conservation."
However in 2013 when in opposition, Hunt strongly supported having a Customs vessel in the Southern Ocean...