Archive for January 24th, 2011
BBC News – Magician Paul Daniels sells wig on eBay for £1,100
Paul Daniels has made one of his old wigs disappear by selling it on auction website eBay for charity for £1,100.The magician said he decided to sell his toupee after posting a picture of it on Twitter.People on the social networking site offered to buy it, inspiring him to auction the wig for charity.Mr Daniels, from Wargrave, Berkshire, said it was a chance to own a hairpiece that had “decorated the head of one of the greatest sex symbols of all time”.The eBay advert featured a photo of the 72-year-old in the wig, which he says has an auburn tinge.His wife, Debbie McGee, said that he often sold items on the auction website.She said: “He’s been having a January de-clutter and put quite a few tricks on eBay, and came across one of his old toupees, which he wore years and years and years ago.”
via BBC News – Magician Paul Daniels sells wig on eBay for £1,100.
Payout to family of Cumbrian gunman Derrick Bird’s victim cut 50% | Mail Online
The family of a man killed by Cumbrian gunman Derrick Bird say they have been denied compensation because he had a criminal record – for dropping litter.Taxi driver Darren Rewcastle was one of 12 victims shot by Bird. He was gunned down at point-blank range at a taxi rank in Whitehaven, in June.Bird, 52, who had already killed his twin brother, David, and family solicitor, Kevin Commons, 60, went on to murder a further nine and wounded others, before turning the gun on himself.
via Payout to family of Cumbrian gunman Derrick Bird’s victim cut 50% | Mail Online.
This is Britain
Philippine bomb squad training gets too realistic – Yahoo! Asia News
MANILA, Jan 22, 2011 (AFP) – Bomb squad training for Philippine police became a little too realistic when a grenade went off during a lecture, injuring six officers, an official said Saturday.
An instructor was teaching other officers how to handle explosive devices such as land mines and home-made bombs when the accident occurred Thursday on the southern island of Mindanao, said police spokesman Christian Carlitos.
“The instructor was demonstrating how to defuse a grenade when he accidentally pulled the safety pin,” said Carlitos.
The grenade exploded, injuring the instructor and five of his students. They were sent to hospital but had escaped severe injury, police said.
via Philippine bomb squad training gets too realistic – Yahoo! Asia News.
Yellowstone Has Bulged as Magma Pocket Swells
Yellowstone National Park’s supervolcano just took a deep “breath,” causing miles of ground to rise dramatically, scientists report.The simmering volcano has produced major eruptions—each a thousand times more powerful than Mount St. Helens’s 1980 eruption—three times in the past 2.1 million years. Yellowstone’s caldera, which covers a 25- by 37-mile 40- by 60-kilometer swath of Wyoming, is an ancient crater formed after the last big blast, some 640,000 years ago.See “When Yellowstone Explodes” in National Geographic magazine.Since then, about 30 smaller eruptions—including one as recent as 70,000 years ago—have filled the caldera with lava and ash, producing the relatively flat landscape we see today.But beginning in 2004, scientists saw the ground above the caldera rise upward at rates as high as 2.8 inches 7 centimeters a year. Related: “Yellowstone Is Rising on Swollen ‘Supervolcano.’”
